"waterboarding" poems
black-eyed child of the morning
sings blue-eyed hymns in the afternoon,
chokes on black water at night
pouring from the ceiling
depression waterboarding her small cheeks.
black-eyed child of the morning
paints red smiles on her thighs
running down her knees
heaven on her mind
looking for the tormentor in the ceiling.
blue-eyed child in the afternoon
lets sunshine soak up her irises
turning the light rose-colored
laughs drunkenly just under the
feedback
lies in bed and finds worlds in her mind
stroking their edges
closing her eyes
black-armed child of the night
resurfacing at last
shaking on the mattress
talking
screaming
to her thoughts
telling them to stop
trembling under the black water ceiling
crying because she's suffocating
begging because there is no choice
black-eyed child,
blue-eyed sometimes...
beggars can't be choosers
Jun 28, 2015
Jun 28, 2015 at 10:05 PM UTC
Torture wreaked havoc with his mind’s sanity
The anguish just chilled me to the core
As the beatings continue to reduce him
He is scared he’ll not take too much more.
Again the water washed over and woke him
The bucket clanging as they threw it back down
Once again he was taken to the table
‘Waterboarding‘ I thought with a frown.
He was laid on his back and then tied down
They put towels over his mouth and his nose
They poured and they poured water on him
Once again in his chest panic rose.
A reporter who’d been caught in the crossfire
There was no information he could tell
No amount of hard beatings and torture
Could make him give secrets he’d not held.
Beaten and bloodied he is taken
Back as before to his cell
He’s told them all that he ever could tell them
But he still can’t escape from this hell.
He languishes in his cell I am certain
He cries out for mercy from each pore
I know that they still give him more beatings
I see him as he hobbles past my cell door.
©JRW2014
Apr 7, 2014
Apr 7, 2014 at 10:18 AM UTC
Blood dripping onto my pillows
As I try to escape this reality
The colorful pill diet
Waterboarding me between sleep
And an existential crisis.
I think a demon will come in tomorrow
He’ll probably be wearing a suit and tie
Maybe he’ll sit down for some coffee
And we’ll make pleasantries as the day goes by.
Oh there I’m wandering again.
My mind is slipping.
Hysteria has got me in her cage.
I hope I can hang on enough
To cull my life before I lose
More of myself in the rubble of this brick and mortar.
Aug 29, 2023
Aug 29, 2023 at 11:27 PM UTC
They tortured me at the university.
They poured gallons of whiskey down my throat,
made me study boring subjects long into the night,
surrounded me with beautiful doll babies,
and lectured me until I was blue in the face.
The only trace that I ever existed there
are some records on microfiche
& a few faded pictures on fraternty composites
packed away,
taped shut,
in an attic box.
I still wonder if waterboarding
would have made me a genius
because the other methods
certainly didn't work.
May 4, 2015
May 4, 2015 at 6:35 AM UTC
If you should call yourself a student,
a truth-seeker or breadwinner,
live this life to learn--be prudent,
and absorb the evils of the litter.
Falter you mustn't
for this path you've chosen,
among others christen'd,
to be whipped and woven.
For when even life is beat, it is
sweetened with enough strife
as to never yawn or sleep, that is
but to see a cause to strike.
On the road like the beats;
Do light the fire of Yeats:
For what's a student got to eat
but a diet of dry pasta and black beans?
For who's a student got to be
but a-filling the mold and breaking the seams?
For how much a student's got to have
but a-cashing the last eight dollars in coin?
For what's a student go to know
but abashing knowledge for generations to join?
For where's a student got to go
but when a-coming home given the snare?
For what's a student got for hope
but a waterboarding victim gasping for air?
For how's a student got to live
but in living separate selves into one?
For how's a student got to cope
but to drown the fear with instant 'fun'?
For how's a student got to set an example
but being stigmatized for education?
For what's a student got to show
but to hide existential distention?
For what's a student going to do then
but to turn a-back from all with clout?
For who's a student now?
but, now, I considered dropping out.
And for what's a student got to Bear
but to no fault overhear:
"The Universities are a day care"?
So, hear this, I bring thee to light
It would mean our honest delight
For all to know our dire plight
But as we sing our "Fight, fight, fight!"
Sep 7, 2015
Sep 7, 2015 at 4:01 PM UTC
Why won't you leave my ******* brain?
I know that you're a piece of ****
that you're not worth a minute of my time,
although really I know that that's not true
but that's what I keep telling myself,
in order to get out of bed in the morning.
I thought I was finally angry,
that I'd reached the long awaited
'Stage 2'
of the break up,
but here I am again,
sobbing in the street,
six beers in.
Do you still think of me?
Or if somebody mentioned me now
would you simply answer
"Molly who?"
Molly,
the girl that loved you.
Still loves you.
Molly,
the girl you ******
last thing at night and first thing in the morning.
Molly,
the girl that didn't turn out to be
the girl you prayed she was.
Molly,
the girl that's been alone so long
that she stays that way,
even when somebody else is rammed deep inside her.
You're with me more now
than when we were together.
How is it fair
that you get to snap your fingers,
say "that's that"
and be okay;
what happened to
"I'll never finish this"?
You lied.
Do you understand that?
You're a ******* liar.
You took me by the hand,
called me all the things I'd always dreamt of hearing
and pulled me down,
deep down,
to a place I didn't know I was capable of inhabiting.
I resisted at first,
the place you put me in strange and all too familiar,
and I wanted to keep one arm out of the water.
But you wouldn't stop asking,
wouldn't let go of my hand,
a merperson,
floating hypnotic in the water,
bewitching the love sick sailor with her head over the side of the boat,
cursing the moon.
And so I fell right in,
felt the foam crash right over my face,
the waves swell in my lungs,
the salt in my mouth
and the sting in my eyes like nettles,
and I laughed until I choked
and begged for more.
But that's when you swam away
and I was lost and lifeless inside the rib cage of a shipwreck,
right at the bottom of the sea bed,
amongst the whale bones,
and I suddenly remembered that I couldn't breathe.
I was stupid;
you were stupid.
I was clueless;
you were cruel.
There's shells in my hands
whenever I cough
and sand in my bed.
You used your tongue to open me up,
a clam,
and I swallowed down the ocean.
Fish flap on the shore
and search for sea,
puddles of air,
the kiss of life.
I wait for the rain
to turn into a river.
May 31, 2016
May 31, 2016 at 11:26 AM UTC
II.
Waterboarding
He's bleeding out now
sickly sweet syrup
pouring it straight down my throat
(or trying to)
telling me to drink
and the more I struggle
and choke
the more he pours out
smothering both feathers and flight
ever apologetic for the the mess - but so sure
that if he keeps bleeding, keeps pouring
I will eventually see
how much he really loves me.
but when drowning one only loves air
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 5:10 PM UTC
I can't remember midnight,
When the morning sun rose.
And I cant remember the moonlight,
As you shed your modest clothes.
Perhaps I stared too long,
At the symmetry of your hips,
Or perhaps you thought,
I became addicted too fast to your lips.
Maybe You'll stay forever,
But tonight you're gone for good.
You're the darkness in my heart,
The part of me I never understood.
Now I remember midnight,
As the sun goes down again.
And when the night comes,
I find myself wrapped in sin.
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 8:59 AM UTC
I keep a cruel collection
of wicked torture devices.
Gathered together
in a faux manila folder,
labelled with a crudely crafted symbol
of birth to death
oppression.
I occasionaly use them
to flay my gray matter.
And as I stare
at the visual razorblades
and white, hot, pokers,
I can't help but think:
is anyone else using my image
for similar, sinister purposes?
And if so, I wonder,
should I be appalled, or flattered?
Apr 9, 2017
Apr 9, 2017 at 9:22 AM UTC
I miss shaving his neck in the shower.
It was my favorite thing to do because
a shaved neck
smoothed my canvas
of kisses and
bruises.
It was my favorite thing to do because
he was vulnerable.
He naked stripped
shamelessley
bare for me only,
until the day he made me realize something.
I was vulnerable in the shower too.
That morning his hand just wasn't enough.
Fresh wetted face from shower droplets
tears
and him
shoved me to the shower floor
subjected waterboarding, I thought
love was me shaving his neck in the
shower.
But love,
is me,
cowering,
on the bathroom floor,
casually offering my
inner chest's key
to his griping hand,
and his moaning throat.
Jan 10, 2018
Jan 10, 2018 at 8:50 PM UTC
I was just looking at some old comic art
About that time that some see as a start
And the artists all believed that we'd come together
To rebuild and outlast this terrorist weather
But looking around fifteen years later
It seems that our paranoia turned out to be greater
These artists believed that the change in the world
Would result in courage and unity untold
Well, guys, I'm so sorry that we let you all down
If you time traveled, you'd be dissapointed at what's around
Instead of becoming a United planet
Built on peace and courage unlike that before it
We've become this frightened, always fighting thing
I'm sorry for all of the things that we bring
I'm so sorry about the middle east
And about the NSA, and that's just the least
I'm sorry that techniques like waterboarding
We're used and that we don't find it abhorring
I'm sorry we couldn't look past race
To solve the hatred that we face
I'm sorry that one's orientation
Still affects how they're treated in a nation
I'm sorry we didn't learn respect
Because we hurt who we said we'd protect
So to those past artists who've come here to visit
This isn't the world you wanted, isn't it?
I'm so sorry the world turned out this way
I'm not really sure what else I can say
Oct 6, 2016
Oct 6, 2016 at 12:32 PM UTC
Justin just told me about his weekend.
He went waterboarding with his family,
the waves hitting against the sides and the water splashing on his face.
Water.
The first time Kelly went swimming she was 7 years old.
She was in a little pink bathing suit that had flowers on it.
Her father pushed her in the water and taught her how to swim.
Water.
I feel like I'm drowning in water everyday.
Water.
Is the one true purifier of this world,
It helps wash away dirt and sin.
Water.
The reason my little brother died,
Drowned in the swimming pool because the grownups weren't watching and I couldn't yet swim to save him.
I watched him try to keep up and i screamed for help but.. My voice was gone.
I was frozen.
Water freezes.
Water is the reason my brother died.
Water is the reason i cry at night,
The water slipping from my eyes while i lay in my bed.
Water.
How can it be so clean and purifying when it ripped my world apart!?
How can water be holy but yet so sinful?
I have imaginary friends that i talk to because I'm afraid to make real ones.
Afraid the water can't wash away the sins of yesterday, feeling like I don't deserve to have my sins removed.
I watched my brother die when i was 9,
His breath taken away by water.
Water,
Is just an excuse for my sins.
Because nothing can wash them away, except bourbon whiskey and a bottle of pills
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 1:09 AM UTC
Oh no way, no way in hell, that can't be true or real
a just ringing of Freedom's bell, breaking all the locks and seals
Unleash the hounds, set loose the dogs, given scent of blood
prepare the maiden and the noose, a waterboarding flood
Tyrants to the stake and burn them to the bone, no offerings or deals
give them back their lessons learned, and to know just how it feels
One life lost a tragedy, we've all heard that before
to bad it's not reality, for that, and many more
Apr 7, 2017
Apr 7, 2017 at 2:59 PM UTC