"vertebra" poems
I am sitting at a desk,
back straight, head forward, eyes open. Blink.
Economics melts into white noise as
supply curves become demand curves become supply curves, elasticity.
Water weeps through the crevasses of the windows and ceiling,
mocking my ever fragile existence.
Ankle deep in yesterday's cold forgotten words unsaid,
the lesson advances.
Demand curves become supply curves become demand curves, consumer surplus.
A single drop christens my desk and terror fills my long hollow eyes
as the ceiling mutates into a congregation of puddles.
Rain that felt of hydrochloric acid
dissolved the very flesh I tried to escape.
God is not so sweet when it comes to sinners,
confining me to the barriers of an insignificant wooden desk.
The class remains like mannequins,
indifference radiating from their plastic cores.
Supply curves become demand curves become supply curves, externalities.
The only witness to this nightmare,
my last breathe finally deserts me.
I tense as the numbing waves climb up my spine,
injecting lethargy in each individual vertebra.
Malicious tentacles wrap around my throat and water floods my collapsing black lungs.
White noise consumes the entire classroom as I float in and out of paralysis,
only to open my eyes. Blink.
Apr 10, 2014
Apr 10, 2014 at 2:56 PM UTC
there is a spider crawling up my back
sending bite-sized shivers as he climbs up ascending vertebra
i think of you and he makes his way to my thighs
spilling rose hips perfume
medecine of angels
the drowning ache
the tingling between my toes
delirious drool language not meant for you to hear but meant for me to answer
Trembling
beneath this tiny mess of appendages and swoony eyes
i can see your mass traveling through each season
your soft tufts donning golden shimmers then glimmering at the dusk of white
but i knew you when the bees knew warmth
spitfire busy buzzing sweet melodies to the open flower fields
but i knew you when your bones kissed your skin too tight
before falling renewal and peachy light
spiders making their homes in unfamiliar hiding places
crawling hyperbolic
a silly old mess
May 30, 2014
May 30, 2014 at 10:46 AM UTC
I tip-toe up your spine,
a ladder for gentle fingers.
I count each tickled vertebra.
(You flinch at only three.)
Your small body is like a feather in my lap,
yet your spindly legs reach past my knees.
When did you grow so tall?
Nine years I have over you,
and though your child warmth is still heat against my body,
I wonder at the gap
between your world and mine.
Dec 9, 2012
Dec 9, 2012 at 11:03 AM UTC
it was a quarter past 11 when the silhouette of the
steam locomotive changed in its inertia, and i
was left standing in dense smoke attempting to connect
neurons to nerve impulses. my train was leaving and i
was not aboard.
the sprinting algorithm of my prior steps had come
to allude me and I am left pondering as to where
these moments had gone. As overextension of one's
arm defies the boiler pumping steam, it's thermal
radiation forcing me to become The Contortionist.
with chills stepping up my spine, taking residue in each
vertebra before ascending, crashing and descending, as
contact with hand and train is made, and relaxation comes
with it. i sense the gentle acceleration, as this safety net of relaxation
fades. my weakening muscles struggle to become satanists of physics
and momentum gained
is lost in equilibrium
Oct 14, 2012
Oct 14, 2012 at 11:33 PM UTC
There is a work of art in the proportions of your body; a song in the rhythms of your movements. You can't see it, I know you don't believe me, but you are the most extraordinary creature I have ever had the pleasure of being acquainted with. If I were able, I would show you the beauty in your shoulder length auburn hair, and how it flows over your shoulders like a waterfall of silk. I would show you the steely grace in the strong chords of your neck as they slope downwards into your perfect breast, and laugh when you protest that it might be compared to that of a twelve-year-old boy. I would show you the delicate loveliness of the lines creased deep in your palms, like a map of all that you have touched or felt in the years leading up to this moment; lines that I would follow to the ends of eternity, if only you would allow it. If I were able, I would study you. I would take notes with my fingertips on the tender skin of your spine and pay a kiss to each vertebra, like a tariff to a toll booth on the road of your body. If you would let me learn you, I would be the most studious attentive student there ever was; keen and detailed when practicing my new-found knowledge. Yet somehow, you are blind to this. But oh how I long to show it to you. Oh how I long to show you all the ways in which I want you. All the ways in which I wish you were mine. You cannot see your own perfection, listening more to the voices of doubt and insecurity more than to those of love and self-confidence, but oh how I wish you could see yourself in all the ways I do. And someday, I will make you see it. This, I promise.
May 22, 2013
May 22, 2013 at 2:50 PM UTC
Hold my head under a beautiful ocean
Watch me struggle with the glorious view
Sorrow brings tremendous emotion
With pure devotion, I think of you
Ignite self, ingest opposition,
listen to the sounds as I decay
Drowning keys, withered strings,
nestled in the spine of each vertebra
With all my might, I take this cup and drink
I take this flesh and partake in the final feast
We die from life to finally see the wrong blinded by the light
Each drop I give in the pool I create must linger forever online;
Without this, I am nothing
Jun 25, 2021
Jun 25, 2021 at 6:25 AM UTC
*I just wanted to say
that I'll always
love you infinitely more
than you could ever hate yourself.
So if you ever need a reminder
of all the reasons you could be loved,
come into my arms and
let my hands dance down your back,
I'll tell you different ways I love you
with every vertebra I touch*
Oct 21, 2015
Oct 21, 2015 at 4:25 AM UTC
From all around
They come crawling like crease on the bed sheet
Deeply plunged in me, I
Have held a corner a bit higher with my teeth
I should lift my self too
But my abdomen is heavy
And navel is tied
---
After shower
It is ecstatic to burst into flames
Long hairs falling on the ear
Feels like roots in the head
You can fall out if you shake it off
You are constantly transforming
**** rug, beats etc. etc.
---
Now you are expert
In how to walk on water with your nose closed
It is dangerous to keep your foot in the ring
Hoping for walls made out of flammable dust
There is spark in the snap of fingers
Dark cold in the chest
Speed is like snail
Slowly slowly
*********** is natural
---
After the morning yawn
Everywhere falls very delicate leaves
I want to treasure them
I'll put them under my pillow
Tiring courting of night is sitting beside
At the end i counted total spinal vertebra,
Total was 22
Still i needed help to wrap my leg around
'Limitless' saying waves you up on high oscillation
Loneliness is blissful
Silence is for you to fill
You are allowed to catch your breath if you can
---
You have to loose width of your chest
In attempts to be singular
There is ally full of black color
Red at twilight
Glowing silver at midnight
They come to see, from far countries
And some princess dips her legs in
You start dripping from her heel
Just like a sweat
You have to leave your blackness on her body
Cause only white sweat is allowed here
She gives you a mesmerizing kiss
You keep unfolding it
With both your hands between legs
Both legs are in north and south
And navel
Navel is already tied.
May 12, 2012
May 12, 2012 at 12:34 AM UTC
Crooked bones, coal, steel,
clanking and deafened with laboured breath,
that heaves up and hacks out as we crawl
and ache and sort and hunch and collect our
black diamonds, as we mine down,
down the rocks and the darkness until we can erupt into the sun
like worms haggard with dust and rot and breathe. Again.
As each vertebra recoils from being wound tight.
We are the pit.
The ancient shapes in the Davey lamp
chiselled from the coal itself.
And the song in our voice
is hammers and dynamite.
We will be here,
always,
under your feet.
Jan 21, 2013
Jan 21, 2013 at 9:15 AM UTC
What have I done to you?
My lambs ear child grown thorns
Along the backbone of our narrative
Each vertebra a catastrophe
And I can’t make skeletons fall in love with me
No matter how much flesh I force on them
And in the interludes of the symphony they wrote for us
I taught you dark by darkness
I watered you with gasoline
And snatched each word from off your tongue
I sprayed fresh poison into your lungs
And I can still recall
The twelve tears
Blurring that birthday
That suffocating epiphany
Of this-has-gone-too-far
And these aren’t scars
They’re time bombs
Landmines in the marrow of your bones
And this is not a ********* throne
It’s an electric chair
Look at me I dyed my hair
And I mourn us with the black around my eyes
Here we are we walk this line
I ask you how you are
And you say “fine”
And I am shocked at how much those thorns sting me
Every ******* time.
Jan 29, 2015
Jan 29, 2015 at 9:58 PM UTC
I watch your
Form twist
Serpentine
As the flame
Her bare feet leaving
Scorched prints
On the earth
Come closer
Come closer
Her hands as vines
Fingers sprouting
Warm blossoms on my
Cheek
I will whisper to you
The secret of life
Before
Steel Hands
Wrapped around her throat
Swan white
Snapped
Severed vertebra
Spasms Through and Through
Cold skin
White silk
To my lips
To my lips
As the twig weighted
Down by a single
Hibiscus bloom
Her neck
Hangs at awkward
Angles eyes rolled
Back Eternal
Her dead weight
In my arms
Still pressing against me
Arms spread
Eagle begging
For flight
Lips and nose pressed
To her nape
Scent memories gouge me
Playing over and over
Until tears fall from my eyes
Fallen face-first the
Black earth she cannot smell
Cold dew she cannot feel
Her white limbs splayed
On the grass as a morning lily
Instead the thorn
Cut and discarded
Mar 29, 2013
Mar 29, 2013 at 8:48 PM UTC
Esperas ansioso, desesperado
por tan solo un pedazo de nada.
onirico recuerdo
de la noche ajena,
Como si pasara un siglo
en la camara donde los huesos
crujen,
donde la mandibula se aprieta.
Sufres como un mártir, tu cara pide la tortura.
Una viviseccion en la pierna
Juegan con tus nervios
como estambre entrelazado
Mientras esperas el siguiente castigo...
piensas en todas las mentiras.
se van apilando
como una vertebra.
Pero esa infame medula
no me deja olvidar
los momentos que ya deberia haber olvidado.
los repaso con tragico fervor.
Prefiero que me mientas
a que no me digas nada.
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 3:15 PM UTC
I will rip open
the scared flesh
on my back
and show you
every
single
one
of my vertebra
I
am not
Spineless.
Apr 1, 2014
Apr 1, 2014 at 7:19 AM UTC
When I first kissed you, I saw stars
It was like something I’ve never felt before
I wanted more…
So I kept climbing deeper into your universe
I let your brain waves intercept mine
I became intertwined with your neurons and synapses
The way you snapped into my pelvis like a puzzle piece
Made me want to know why I was ever sad before you
You fingers delicately bounce off each vertebra in my spine
Making me crave the wisdom in your eyes and the words in your mouth
You are my world
Aug 23, 2019
Aug 23, 2019 at 1:58 PM UTC
The heel of my hand can yin and yang
your cheekbone's hollow, thumb and finger tease
that ear lobe's cushion plush; can probe so lang-
uidly along this niche beneath your knees.
The luscious clutch of flesh holding your hips
to ribcage-harp strums slowly with each sigh;
those shoulders twitch how doves shrug, as my lips
trip jawline, neck and collar, waist then thigh.
I swear your skin tastes sweet between my teeth.
I dare you, close those eyes and let me brush
against each giddy iris underneath -
their flickers quicken, blossoming through blush -
I must touch every vertebra in turn
before your sternum curves the arc I yearn.
Nov 25, 2012
Nov 25, 2012 at 2:09 PM UTC
Dread crawls up my spine,
originating at
the small of my back
and leaving
penetrating
residue
on each
vertebra
as it climbs.
It sneaks
into my heart
when I'm
not looking
and POUNCES-
its incisors
clamp down
and its
venom
ejects
into my chest;
paralysis begins there and races outwards right into my limbs and brain until I can't think or move as the hallucinogens take over my mind's eye and play me a reel that boils my stomach.
Loss and
loneliness and
heartbreak
flash before my
eyes in a
sickening torrent.
I feel a
W A L L
of irresistible
time behind my
back,
pushing me,
heels digging in
and pleading "no, no"
the whole way,
slowly, but inevitably
towards the end of everything I've ever known,
and everyone that
I've so
recently
grown to truly,
dearly love
as my friends.
So many around me
are counting down
to that day,
bound to the
same force as I,
but feeling it
instead
as a leash
that will only let
them go
inch
by
inch,
day
by
day.
For them, a prison break;
for me, a life sentence
of aching for
the people
I've only just
claimed as mine;
among them,
the boy I've held on to,
just starting to become a man,
whom I love
with all my
bruised
and scarred heart.
I don't want to leave.
.
.
.
May 23, 2017
May 23, 2017 at 12:05 AM UTC
A CORPORAL'S DEFINITION OF POETRY
The perfect summer's day.
The sky a postcard blue.
Hate distorted voices...faces
chanting: "STICK IT IN HIS GUTS!"
A lark ascending
throws itself against the vault of Heaven.
Only to be
rejected.
"...MAKE IT HURT...TWIST IT ABOUT
**** THE FUC**ING *******
God has a sick sense
of humour to have
bayonet practice
on such a perfect day.
The world whirlpools
down the plug hole
of Corporal 'Orrible's
almighty mouth.
He hates me because I
(Pt. Dempsey D. No. 835572)
am not showing enough
hate to **** a sandbag.
Sweat trickles down my spine
vertebra by vertebra.
The sandbag ***** the blade in
and won't give it back again.
I pull it out and fall
upon my derrière.
The sandbag bleeds sand.
Mocks my efforts
which displaces the book
I have about my person.
"What's this...what's this!"
Corporal 'Orrible hisses.
"A book, Corporal!"
"I can ****** well see it's a book!"
"A poetry book, Corporal!
IN PARENTHESIS by David Jones."
"In...in...wotsis do you think I'm
thick or wot!"
"Wot, Corporal?"
"Don't you wot me sunny Jim!"
His spit
peppers my face.
"There isn't enough white space
around the words for it to be a poem!"
"That's not an accurate definition
of a poem, Corporal!"
He froths at the mouth
tears it in half...throws it over his shoulder.
"Why you impudent little pup!
*** that rifle up...up....up!"
He runs me around the training ground
three times and then three times.
Later I go back and find
only half of it.
The half I have already read.
A sheep is nibbling it.
But like the Corporal it isn't
to his taste.
Over 40 years go by and
here I am an ex-army man.
Finishing the second half of
Jones' IN PARENTHESIS.
Remembering all too well the hell of
running 'round the training ground
three times and then three times
with my rifle up above my head.
Oh the agony of bearing arms.
Remembering too never to argue
with a corporal's definition of
poetry during bayonet practice.
Oct 12, 2018
Oct 12, 2018 at 4:41 PM UTC
whoosh
duck
squat down low
there goes
another arrow
that one almost jagged
between the vertebra
almost placed the target
into a state of inertia
whoosh
there is another
flying at close range
that one was too close
of range
the armor plate
must be worn
as the arrows
are from
the bows
of those who
falsely state
that they are mates
whoosh
it passes by
that arrow
duck
for it
punctures
through
to the spinal
marrow
Apr 20, 2013
Apr 20, 2013 at 7:59 PM UTC
spring morning steps,
barn stairs topped with boxes
--spacious vertebra
t'ai chi warmth on sand,
overwintered brick and moss--
bird sounds, heartbeat
Oct 4, 2015
Oct 4, 2015 at 5:19 PM UTC
I died 100 times
By your side
35 ribcage wounds
My hearts not easily found.
5 stomach slashes,
I never ate your fear.
2 severed wrists,
I bled you stars.
8 ****** punctures,
I'm pretty now.
25 knives in the back,
25 shattered vertebra,
Spineless reflections, dear,
You've sculpted me,
I have become you.
Jan 21, 2013
Jan 21, 2013 at 10:51 AM UTC
coaxed by
billow blowing
my back toward
double doors
bloomy blush palms
grace cold chromium
transfixed yet still
slightly froze
by their magnitude
stellar statuesque
ornate etchings
on the outside
engravings tonging
somethings subtly
warbling up vertebra
no longer numb
and I
remember
this hand
this voice
this vibration
this harmony
a fifth or a third
resonant progression
of ordered chords
this same old song
never heard, yet
- known -
buried, now begging
eternal womb
to be born
the want
wavers fingers
in front of the bell
until the know grows
too large to hold
behind stately doors
craving light, space, time
to stretch and unfold
dew-spun carbon
beyond the threshold
Jun 13, 2017
Jun 13, 2017 at 11:33 AM UTC
I dreamt someone spooned me while I slept
My body lay on its side
an entity I no longer understood
as it leapt inside me
Ticking in time with the pulse of my inner chaos
flecks of nothingness soaring in my mind
and then his arm curling around me
his fingers found mine in the crepuscular dark
legs bloomed behind my knees
warm breath misting the back of my neck
and a feeling of something
something something
something else entirely
descending down my spine
lovingly soothing each vertebra that
poked its head from my skin to catch a glimpse
of this new stranger ready to wake me
for the first time
The distance between us a frightening gesture
Did I dare turn to see
find in his my own eyes
Perhaps it was only
the mystery that sputtered my blood and
lent my spine a new edge
When I awoke I found that it
was only you.
Nov 30, 2011
Nov 30, 2011 at 2:13 AM UTC
Those elastic hands
having but coupled a river of tears
and wisps of yielding smoke
to begin with
a life
unknown and unblinking
like a pair of dead eyes
and play pretend
or pretend to play
for watery dreams
and smokey must-bes
and ought nots
somewhere in line with a broken smile
and a misty sense of senselessness
a spinal cord snapped
so did million daggers shoot out
from each vertebra
tears flooded out of her ears
and smoke forced the air
out of her lungs.
She turned away from the dread
so she could rest her head
on soft shoulders
and yet
none could bear ever the weight
of her sorrow.
Now both lungs dead
eyes closed
lying on her bed
she carries her weight with a finger
and carves out eyes on her forehead
she swallows light to linger
forever in her chest
as a heart
nobody would give her.
Jul 17, 2018
Jul 17, 2018 at 5:54 PM UTC