"visceral" poems
Just how does one define friendship?
Oh, I already know what the Dictionary says.
It's far more than merely one word, or two.
You could apply many verbs to describe it.
Few, on their own will justice due.
It is more about one's emotional perception,
than a mere sentence of words, though descriptive.
For sure it's a feeling, a strong visceral response
evoked by respect, even love of a thing above all other's.
Friends come in many shapes, sizes and colors.
They can be inanimate or living breathing.
All inspire in us a near electrical resonance of reassurance,
a sense of peace, surely comfort. Maybe it starts with
the rhythmic beating of our own mothers heart,
the sound and vibration of our first true friendship.
A little later her breast and the nourishment it gave,
became our first outer world dearest best companion.
Mother's milk, served warm, sweet and tenderly,
Love's personification.
Yes of course Friendship can be an extension of a
strong lasting bond with other people, yet even more.
Our family's are our closest best friends, if we are lucky.
But what of the others?
I have been befriended by books, movies, dogs and
many other non human living friends, I even have
a old film camera I packed completely around the world,
that I count among my closest companions.
A soft warm favorite wool blanket acquired down in
New Zealand, also fits nicely that same description.
An old bamboo fly rod that belonged to my Father,
Is a friend I would not part with for any amount of dollars.
And less I forget (No pun intended) our memories too are
right there, with the best and oldest of our dearest, lasting friends,
Conjured up at a minutes notice.
And perhaps last of all, (you may have more on your list),
I can not leave out the most important friendship of all,
It's the friendship we have with our selves, to which I'm referring.
For if that very personal friendship is not strong and on going,
It's truly doubtful that we will have, or sustain for long, any others.
Sep 13, 2013
Sep 13, 2013 at 2:20 PM UTC
There are no right answers.
The sky rejects the birds, turns them
over to gravity,
embedding them in the concrete and dirt.
The grit refuses to become a pearl,
just as the wound refuses to heal
and the flesh eats itself.
The market sees a sudden spike in
sales of Champagne and cyanide.
Coordinated efforts seek and fail
to curtail the rising tide of violence
in the nation's dreaming.
You realise that this crude, barbaric language
that you can't understand
is your own.
Beauty glitches and pixelates.
Frightened, furtive confessions of love
are unheard over proud, visceral
proclamations of hate.
Tongues divorce mouths.
Every now and then, a voice
inside your head says,
'Thud.'
The measures of sanity become
more quantifiable and
totally arbitrary.
The horizon
tightens
like
a noose.
It doesn't matter if this is wrong.
There are no right answers.
Jan 19, 2017
Jan 19, 2017 at 4:40 AM UTC
A Close friend said "The Perfect Woman"
is much like a shark.
if I am greeted in this ocean,
by a woman
I will allow her to look at me with all primal intent.
splay my wrist open and watch her
as she smells the little turn of blood
floating now in spirals between us
I'll have done it not for the pain, or shock
but for the honesty.
to watch a creature struggling to hold onto their facade
and the tears that start to bloom in the pink
above their sharp teeth.
Look, I know sharks don't cry.
it's not about the crying,
I crave the visceral emotion.
want to give my body to the indulgence
the electric moment where
I feel them feel conflicted
with my whole body
feel their suffering and internal struggle
in my entire manic smile
tight cheeked
all eyes on them like a paid performer
or Alternatively,
I would give them all this passion,
my body in anticipation of their opening
clenching to their masks,
They Devour me.
Jan 8, 2017
Jan 8, 2017 at 12:27 AM UTC
What do you see
When the flower meets your eye,
What beauty must hide
In visceral Versailles,
In cherry tree reality...
Does it mystify?
The variegated countryside
Does the chorus nullify
The diversified into harmony
What melodic elegance underlies
That subjective divide
Wistful of waves you fly
What do you see in the cherry tree sky
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 9:57 AM UTC
The mirror mocks my every move
Every lump I try to smooth
The mirror cons me of my happiness
Knot in my throat, stuck like this
Dysmorphia
I feel the corners of my mouth
Like they're tied to the ground
I try to fix it, try to heal
I try to replace it, the shame I feel
Dysmorphia
Feeling visceral
Indescribable
If only I could find
Something comparable
Dysmorphia
Jul 17, 2022
Jul 17, 2022 at 3:13 AM UTC
I am at this place where sound is energy-
where color has mass and taste.
Every moment is a glorious adventure,
balanced on the fine line between joy and madness.
I may be insane.
I might have finally lost my mind.
I don't care.
I am bliss and freedom in this moment,
encapsulated by the rushing wind
of my own thoughts as they sail by
visceral, anthropomorphic.
As layer by layer all I know is taken
not by force, but gently,
I discover truth hidden beneath.
Obfuscated no longer,
I am god of this moment-
I am the All-Seeing Eye.
-for just a moment.
A moment that seems to stretch across
the history of the universe,
as I am blinded by the birth of a billion suns...
As waves of cigarette smoke waft
lazily into the form of tigers,
the fever pitch waves adieu-
like the distant memory of an ******
it leaves me tired but fulfilled.
Time to reflect.
Time to absorb what I've found.
There are no adventures greater than those in your own mind.
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 1:49 PM UTC
Slide into me
Tight rigid flesh
Aching breaths hitting
Pulsing lips riding
Crimson cheeks
Lingering wet fingertips
Flayed and primitive
Grazing the surface
Ritual essence denied
Deeper base of purity
Carnal frames clutching
Erupting into form and shape
Becoming essential and visceral
Instinctive undulating
Reaching the orogeny
Cresting over solid embrace
Luscious tumbles
Twisting skin
I slip in you
May 10, 2021
May 10, 2021 at 6:31 PM UTC
Girls are pretty.
Cigarettes are pretty.
Guts are pretty too.
I don’t think they are pretty in the same way.
Girls are beautiful.
Cigarettes are soothing.
Guts are visceral.
All of them are pretty,
Just like me.
Sep 11, 2025
Sep 11, 2025 at 10:12 AM UTC
They enter the café just as some sappy pop song is playing
They order then immediately hug
Embrace
Swaying to one side, together, like the wind
Encircling the leaning tower of Pisa
Then teetering to the other solstice
Foot to foot, smile to smile, hand round skirted waist
Forearm resting on his tall blazered shoulders
This is forgivable in the young
Those teeny-boppers with defiant hair-cuts and posters
However, he has peppered hair
She, though voluptuous and tanned,
Must be in her 30s.
“Affair.”
My cynical devil snickers, between sips
But I sit mesmerized, and for the first time ever
Envious.
The chairs and the tables somehow seem more distant
The song now sounds as if it’s funneled through some crackling phonograph
The very light disentangles itself from stones
It’s as if a sky has opened up in my chest
Flying high overhead, one lone raven,
Its slow shadow
Gliding across my heart
Oh, how I miss you
5 states away
I see your smile on magazine covers
I vaguely sniff your scent on passing women
Yet you remain elusive - immaterial, haunting,
While this visceral assault
Leaves me bewildered - empty
An echo in a chiaroscuro cavern
Fading for thee
Jul 28, 2016
Jul 28, 2016 at 5:31 PM UTC
A million bitten off breaths
Hang quietly.
I’m close enough to hear
her thudding -
A jarring noise that parts
a cloud of frothy swans.
We’ve all seen photographs
in Wildlife Books –
I’m sure you can conjure up
the moment a water bird
lances a sunlit river
with the very tip of its beak
to gobble a fish.
It’s a difficult photo to take,
It’s all over so quickly -
The fish caught,
The river moving, moving,
Still.
But here she is in front of me,
That bird,
Suspended with one
Foot in this world,
And the other
In another.
Her toes grind up the
Spotlight,
Trampling into
the moon and balancing there,
(I'm surprised the stage
is not full of chalk.)
It's not beautiful,
Not ghostly,
But all visceral meat glistening,
Fitness, strength, survival,
Like nature…
No need to take a photo,
She is a picture that my mind has
Tricked me into taking.
So perhaps that’s talent, darling..?
Or
Perhaps it’s something else, with a name I never knew.
Sep 22, 2013
Sep 22, 2013 at 4:29 PM UTC
Lucid, abusive
Tongue in cheek divine
Stupid, elusive
Lost soul of mine
A snap of orchestral fingers to summon the suave illustrator
Mohawk punks and minions to smash the limp masturbator
Loveless, acquiesce
Arpeggio flutter ripples
Convalesce, Fancy dress
******* with perky *******
One or two drinks, make it three then five
Keeping the blood warm and love alive
Visceral, peripheral
Dark raven hair
Liberal, scriptural
I couldn’t even care.
I adored her all, her everything, her gleaming demeanor
The subtle wink of her eyes, the glow; even greener
Exotica, ex machina
Street amazon of desert glass sand
No drama, rural karma
Flesh sweating like the heat of Sudan
Dead singers like Cole and Morrison sing of paper moons and Crystal Ships
The mixed CD segues to U2, Pulp, and then a full disk of The Flaming Lips.
"Nightingale", minor scale
The saxophonist played under the street lamp outside
Folktale female
“Another drink?” she abides, two glasses and wine supplied
On her balcony we watched and listened, to the call of urban passion
The wordless music we adored, a testament to our mutual attraction.
Apr 16, 2013
Apr 16, 2013 at 5:07 AM UTC
Poetry is a mask in reverse
created from just a mere spark
bringing to light
who we really are
out of the depths of the dark
Despite ourselves
we try to hide
in the realms of our daily lives
and then poetry's
visceral therapy
weaves magic spells
from our fingers
right out
of our minds
Suddenly, there is no choice
but to allow those masks
to be dropped
like a sudden change of fancy
at a medieval ball:
Naked eyes for coverings
are swapped
Yes…the command is given
ornate masks slip
with a splat upon
the floor
Suddenly, all dancers look
upon each other's faces
discovering treasures
they knew not before
Pregnant silence reigns
and only then
does the true dance begin
in bransles' or corantos' countered moves,
a new quiet
drowns out the din
Let it commence!
in festive air,
all attempts to hide
are in vain
Subtextual glances
and heady music
create sensual tension
profane
The wine is flowing
smiles glowing
and soon release will
bear fruit
as the dance is danced
without inhibition
and all pretenses
start to uproot
And so it is
in poetry…
All those masks
are thrown down
the words just
trip
from beyond our lips
making magic
from adjectives and nouns
Now, our words drip upon the paper
revealing the secrets divine
our souls are coaxed out from the layers
melting your
sparkling poets' hearts
into mine
Apr 1, 2016
Apr 1, 2016 at 4:52 PM UTC
Intelligence is
the new authority
resistance is
the new sanctity
velvety memoir
of the patchy ride
in a rainbow rollercoaster,
left everything prime
on the outside
sink into the wagon with
wild, visceral insides
embark on an odyssey
observing the past,
questioning the future.
The future is a distant memory
of all the anachronistic glory.
Jan 19, 2019
Jan 19, 2019 at 8:46 PM UTC
Tentacles grasping for nutrition
Soaking in everything around you.
Filled with visceral emotion overload
Angered by the world's injustices
You must then express yourself in ink
To empty.
Jul 23, 2018
Jul 23, 2018 at 7:32 AM UTC
I know I promised
I'd never write about you again
but it's five am and I am left
with this visceral feeling of
loss and anger
I use to think you stripped
Me of everything
Now I realize you didn't.
See, I forgot about the cross
The burden of love
You sentenced me to
Your name is Judas
and I will accept
the crown of thorns
and become a martyr
for ever believing that
true love existed
in your eyes
May 6, 2015
May 6, 2015 at 4:09 PM UTC
Recall when you feel
of course you don't
don't mean to interrupt
it sometimes makes me forget
when the nights have been so numb
you don't even remember routine
a vicious cycle of not remembering
when even vicious is not visceral.
Person per person
Have told me their ruts
It takes time to get out
For me, fruitless yells of 'get out.'
Instead of ruminating, you stew
Instead of contemplation, you fester
Instead of crescendo, you ******
Through hoops of negative feedback loops.
You sink until beyond your point of bearing
Every cell in your body becomes saturated
with pale thoughts that make the water dry
so dry, you become breathless of a different kind.
Except it is known well, and only you know
you hide it, because these thoughts crave isolation
don't show among people so they won't be affected
but its because these thoughts know you're far worse
You can't function during nights
yet it still knows how to engineer
the perfect circumstance to keep descending
to that nadir which has no bottom.
People make you sick
Things once enjoyed, tire and bore you
Ideologies are far away on a plane
You could never catch
Because the fever you caught
Makes you see the ends
Don't justify the means
It all seems so pointless.
bombardment, attrition, unrelenting.
And for once, you are granted a small reprieve.
The morning hungover from intense thoughts
Happy that for once
I don't despair to just be.
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 6:43 PM UTC
to know your skin
is to know the turmoil of creation
you are the visceral
the primal roar
urging its way out
i will shape you
mold you out of sand
draw your pleasure out
and ruin your salvation
you've given me a taste
so now i'll sniff out your blood
and crawl my way over
and snarl and scratch at you
and feast on your flesh
Jun 20, 2012
Jun 20, 2012 at 3:05 AM UTC
An amorphous cave hides behind a cascading flow of crystalline blue, sparkling and shining like radiant glass.
Inside the incandescent cave, an effervescent and ephemeral scent of dulcet cinnamon coalesces into the air of the inside of this seemingly halcyon cave.
The feelings, the emotions, the sights, all too inexorable in it's ineffable reality. It calls out, with it's mellifluous and beautiful, languid and sirenic voice, incandescent with epiphany,
"Come child of man, meet me, greet me, welcome me, me as the idyllic felicity some dare to even dream of, and then let me embrace you and enrapture you and encompass you in my incorporeal and frozen, evanescent tranquility."
This ephemeral and serene cave now even murmurs and sings a tranquil symphony suffused with rhapsodic zeniths.
It... It truly was ephemeral...
A horrible shriek, a shrill and a repulsive and repugnant and rancid smell. A decrepit cacophony of hollow, anguished wailing and screaming. Pain at my soul, and a harsh, hoarse and coarse voice filled with slaughter and cataclysm. A grotesque, hirsute maladroit leech, visceral and shunned from everything and everyone, even the Earth itself...
Sep 11, 2015
Sep 11, 2015 at 12:55 PM UTC
My feelings on the world are a complex dichotomy. If I could control the world, my rule would be to control nothing. To give freedom and agency to everyone and let every culture and kind shine as they do and **** superiority and focus on growth, not **********
But, not all people aren't as communally minded as that. And though in theory I could change the rules, I can't change people.
In its own way, that's beautiful. The visceral strength and resiliency of humanity fascinates me, with the chaotic undertones that lie beneath every eye. I love the spectrum of pain and brilliance it brings. But it also makes a utopian world of understanding and lack of control impossible to keep people safe; because never will there be a human race that doesn't at least have some people craving absolute control.
I think this dichotomy within myself parallels my standing with humanity very well. There is something on most every end I can find fascinating: free will, selflessness, unpredictability, tenacity. But also I can never seem to be pleased with how humanity could be but never amount to.
Not that it gives me much trouble. I've always kept humanity at an arm's length, choosing books and stories over the flesh-bags in front of my face. The only thing I ever struggled with was not being normal with my human relationships, and trying to make my methods match.
My methods won't match because I might as well be an alien for all I care about directly interacting with humanity.
Yet, I love humanity, in a way. I could write about human transcendence and growth until I die. I am madly in love with human potential. But I don't love humans. I don't love a species that muscle arms its way into dominance and can be arrogant and small-minded. After all we've managed to accomplish, and we're still start wars over skin color and scapegoating? Its laughable, in a way.
I suppose I look at humanity as if I was an alien scientist. I have no way of measuring things or conducting research because I'm foreign, but I can see the greatness in their eyes and am floored by it. Yet I also see the violence in their eyes and am repelled by it. The most tragic, push and pull love of my life has been for this species.
I've learned lately I'm okay with being alien. But its strange to find a foothold in a world where I feel constantly at odds and different.
But I like strange, so I think its what works best.
Between humanity and me, things are complicated. Things are wonderful and painful and all worth the while in its own, ****** way. I suppose all I have is my words and I'll share them, and humanity can listen if it will. I hope it will. I hope it can help people who feel like aliens too, and maybe then being an alien and a human can be easier.
But for those things, we'll just have to see.
Apr 5, 2017
Apr 5, 2017 at 8:32 AM UTC
There’s a wildness within his eyes that sparks a fire inside my soul.
Passion, desire and the bitter taste of lust float through the air as pheromones,
Creating a bridge between us and linking us together.
This visceral feeling acts almost like a drug, pulling me under and clouding my senses.
It’s a primal game we play. We test ATTRACTion by creating friction with our bodies.
And are frightened by the REACTion we feel, finding out that love, as a catalyst, knows no bounds of race, gender, religion, philosophy or age.
That, in the end, we’re all just human and to love is what makes us so.
And there’s no error in that.
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017 at 8:26 PM UTC
Lushly lustful exotically ******
Vibrant virile fertile vicissitude
Puissant terminus loquacity photic
Pique piquant poignant pulchritude
Lecherous visceral longevous cohort
Wanton licentious erogenous frolic
Lurid lascivious ****** cavort
***** lewd apomixes anabolic
Jan 27, 2013
Jan 27, 2013 at 5:54 AM UTC
I would offer you the best sensations, shivers down your spine
Ecstasy thrown, mind blown, you begging to be mine
Stroke my ego and I might just stroke your skin
Your body a new world, where should I begin
Your face on mine, my hand now held just below your wrist
Now Ill start with your lips because I simply can not resist
The scrumptious shade of strawberry and the tastes even better
In my mouth your tongue had sung and left me even wetter
A calm that makes me no longer wanting to give up and give in
A kiss that I want to build a house on and with you live in
My hands hold your cheek
As I stare up at you rather meek
Then trace the lines on your face and run my fingers through your hair
Nihilistic
Pessimistic
Altruistic
We would make quite the pair
Around your lovely locks tightens my grip as I pull back slightly
biting on your lip, your hands gripping my hips so tightly
I would smile with a silent confidence
As you recount how long you've imagined this
Your imagination may not have prepared you, albeit wondrous and vast
To feel better than you've ever felt, just know that it cant last
I would offer you the best sensations, shivers down your spine
Ecstasy thrown, mind blown, you begging to be mine
you chuckled and told me a body like mine should come with a warning label
Your eyes hungry devouring me from across the dinner table
The long lost longing, the build up, the intense temptation
Your mind reeling from a new glorious sensation
Nothing could have gotten you ready for what you'd feel with me
Better than you've ever felt, so visceral and free
I'm as persuasive as I am perverse
A mind I'm sure you'd love to traverse
I would offer you the best sensations, shivers down your spine
Ecstasy thrown, mind blown, you begging to be mine.
Nov 19, 2015
Nov 19, 2015 at 12:09 PM UTC
*Perched upon the peasant’s altar
Anomalous, conglomerate, anorexic, and onyx
The concubine’s cake with the Oxford comma,
Communal and picked and eaten at by little birds
Nominal trauma oozes visceral
****** and break
Sever and break
Steep walls of amorphous clay
Congeal to the walls of the willow
Exquisite and infinite, infidel
Flight
****** Lo, light of my life,
Long hair dripping with whiskey*
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 12:11 AM UTC