"waterlogged" poems
a little boy sits on
the top of a staircase
his laden, waterlogged
eyelashes droop
his vision fogs
with salt
his heart pulses hot/cool
snowmelt
throughout the body
there are missing
people
no mother
no father
no brother
only boy
locked in house
too scared to sleep
while snowflakes
fall in unfettered
air
*there is joy in storm
if one can see it
through the tears
there is comfort
to be had once
the emotion cools
and tree branches are
unburdened from the
weight of ice*
movement happens
up the stairs
dear sister
who the boy forgot
was there
places her hand
upon the boy’s
quivering back
*"We call it snow
when the parts of God,
too small to bear, contest our bodies"*
and angels tell us
to taste the tears
before they freeze
on our red-rubbed
noses
here, taste your tears
says sister.
they’re salty, aren’t they?
Sep 4, 2017
Sep 4, 2017 at 12:13 PM UTC
I had a collar once
Of black leather and sky blue fur
And it fit me snugly
It was all I could ask for.
When my thoughts rampaged
As they do very second of everyday
I'd wrap it round my neck
And the noise would fade.
They called me a freak.
They looked at me in disgust, I was shamed
Because they don't understand
The need to be tamed.
Whether round my neck
Or around my wrists and ankles
Without a tether, I fret
Thus, for that collar, I am thankful.
I once felt guilt
Worse than any other pain
It weighed me down
As though it waterlogged my brain.
And all I wished
Was to atone
For a whip
To sing to my bones.
*"Why invite pain?
God, she's disgusting?
She's ******* insane!"*
The words said to me.
But how could they know
How much I wanted to cry?
How much I wanted discipline
To ease the guilt in my mind?
I once heard a scream
And it scampered down my spine
Like it was a living, sentient being
Infiltrating my mind.
And I'm sure I'd be a pariah
If I ever told anyone
I wanted to cause that scream
To make it sound like painful salvation.
I once cried
I hurt myself as comfort
And the feeling of that pain
Was so very sweet and so very short
And they'd call me a fool
Yet I still crave pain
And they'd think of me badly
For what I can't contain.
See, I'm far from vanilla
I'm far from innocence
Because all life gave me
Was cold and cimmerian.
There's a word for what I do
A lovely acronym
And it's so far from vanilla
Most describe it as a sin.
Jan 7, 2014
Jan 7, 2014 at 8:41 PM UTC
I gave the hero of this story trust
issues. So that when his castle fell he
wouldn't worry about the damsel still
calling from the ramparts, where I hold court
in the dust. For this is my battlefield
where the headstones will read like love letters
and the weeds will serve as the royal seal.
I gave the hero of this story hope
a magic bean and two old china cups.
But the china, brittle, the bean rotten
as these once fertile lands lie waterlogged.
You can't grow your crops here, boy, go home.
I'll drown this hero before he can stand
the sight of the muddy bank. A hero's death.
I gave the hero of this story bread
water, and melody. To help him sleep
soundly and noiselessly, still. Arms, pillows
sway to the metronome of the city
beating such a heroic retreat. Stand
with fingers touching, childlike and brave.
Until the next wave comes and holds. It breaks.
Jan 4, 2010
Jan 4, 2010 at 10:34 AM UTC
We have no prairies
To slice a big sun at evening--
Everywhere the eye concedes to
Encrouching horizon,
Is wooed into the cyclops' eye
Of a tarn. Our unfenced country
Is bog that keeps crusting
Between the sights of the sun.
They've taken the skeleton
Of the Great Irish Elk
Out of the peat, set it up
An astounding crate full of air.
Butter sunk under
More than a hundred years
Was recovered salty and white.
The ground itself is kind, black butter
Melting and opening underfoot,
Missing its last definition
By millions of years.
They'll never dig coal here,
Only the waterlogged trunks
Of great firs, soft as pulp.
Our pioneers keep striking
Inwards and downwards,
Every layer they strip
Seems camped on before.
The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.
The wet centre is bottomless.
4.2k
I remember it well
As if it were yesterday
We geared up and set sail
And embarked upon unfamiliar waves
It was I captaining the vessel
With One-eyed Sven my quarter master
He could cut throats and roll pretzels
His weapon of choice was his bow caster
This wasn't a mission of plundering
That alone left the crew in a state of wondering
No, we weren't looking for buried treasure
But for sheep skin seat covers and Scandinavian leather
My first mate Mr. Obanion said to me
"Captain are we off course?"
Then my boatswain , Wiley asked sheepishly
"Aren't we going for *** and ******
I looked them in the eye at the same time
"Gentlemen, this ship is headed to Dublin"
"We're going to see a good friend of mine"
"Now get back to your swabbing and scrubbing"
This was an order of business not some sort of cruise
I'm sailing with a ship of one track minded fools
We didn't set out on a vacation of leisure
Were on the hunt for sheep skin seat covers and Scandinavian leather
I did not mean to keep them in the dark
But they would think less of me
I needed these things
For the women I married
You see we'd been on the rocks
And I know she wanted these items
So I went over the sea with a fine tooth comb
Until I had finally found them
My men had sailed endlessly for months
They were worn down and ragged
Waterlogged and exhausted
While I always came up empty handed
But I had to save my marriage
Salvage my relationship
I knew it would work
If I gave my love these gifts
We reached the golden, calling shore
Of the beautiful Dublin
From the River Liffey and headed north
My friend Seamus let me come in
I came out shaking his hand
I was satisfied with my purchase
Until I was questioned by my men
What it was we came for in our searches
I had to show them, I was under scrutiny
I pulled out two stagecoach seat covers and a pair of pants
They were enraged and called mutiny
They blindfolded me and bound my hands
Now I'm marooned on some unmapped island
And I see my ship riding that horizon
This will sadden my wife, oh how it will upset her
She will never receive her sheep skin seat covers or her Scandinavian leather
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 12:14 PM UTC
We crash through
Class V relationships
with no life jacket
emerge waterlogged
and disintegrating
only to blunder through
thorny undergrowth
while searching empty
pockets for some
kind of map
to this always
foreign territory.
Jan 7, 2016
Jan 7, 2016 at 1:40 PM UTC
Tonight, she taught me the nature of healing summer rains
Whimsical descriptions of dancing in puddles, but
Metaphors only serve to drown her pain
Dry on the surface, swearing inside the drought sustains
But dew droplets in her eyes betray her restraint
The morning after, the storm remains
Little flower, bent at the stem
Oversaturated by the self-absorbed
Her waterlogged roots weighing her down, but
In fields of bloom they still look to you
See, the weak reach for the easily used green and blue tulip hues
But her yellow petals require strength to be pulled from the meadow
Aug 11, 2021
Aug 11, 2021 at 11:41 PM UTC
There was a time where I believed that friendship didn't flicker like a waterlogged outlet. Where standing up came before standing out. I never understood what growing up was for a long time. I remember when I was 15 and I saw a man at starbucks spill coffee on his white dress shirt and thinking **** that I'm never growing up" and then when I was 18 I draped a plain white polo over my heart and watched everyone I thought cared about me redefine caffeine from waking me up to putting me to sleep. I insisted that success and money didn't go hand in hand and positivity is easy when the only thing you're paying for is young cigarettes and blindfold mints. When we grow on the outside, we shrink on the inside to a certain extent. We watch death like a ****** sequel. We fear the inevitable and watch the hands on the clock until they clap and your lights starts to flicker. We live in a sea of inconsistencies that drown our livelihood and when times become consistent, monotony sits in our throat like drying cement that cracks until we can't even breathe for ourselves anymore. Can anyone define happiness? And can you tell your kids that growing up is a breeze? Cause that gust of wind can blow the half empty cup of coffee on to your clothes and really **** your day.
Jul 13, 2017
Jul 13, 2017 at 10:55 AM UTC
Strange times. When I speak of caressing your mantic lungs
I don’t know what I mean, but I know
I would hurl you under proper circumstances.
Darling, one whisper falls from a tree silently
so as not to wake the ghosts from their siestas.
Your robe has holes I can’t write of. I can fathom
getting there, what that might entail, wrapping,
as I am prone to, my fingers around your furry pincers
while I wait for you to read my rights to the ceiling fan
who whirls above our renovated combustions like the glowering
eye of our Lord upon the teary-eyed wicked.
I am not looking to escape through the window, darling.
I am diving for your diamond-in-the-rough, peeling off barnacles,
making moustaches of seaweed. You threw it into that ocean-
sized trough in which you drown lizards as way of
stress-release. I don’t know what I’ll do next.
The poor man. You give me your hand,
darling, and your robe, your robe is shiny like a pubescent star,
and it shimmies like a wagon piecing itself apart, as you
piece yourself apart, starting with your smile, which was always more
like a photograph of a dune in a textbook.
You give me your hand. It is a blue egg
dusted with microorganisms. I sprinkle it with our fragrance,
what’s left of it. I wish happiness upon your sleep-life, doldrums
upon your late-night haunting. I am tired and these
machines are so convenient, bringing me on all-expenses-
paid visits to the site of your burial. Or is it your sister’s?
I quote, my heart is like a walled onion.
The poor man is tired. It is not 1904 anymore.
You are not smiling anymore, darling, but you give me your hand.
You give it in a basket with parsley and cheese
and cut-outs from The Waterlogged God.
You give it almost grudgingly but I will keep it.
You tell me you’ve been dreaming again of train stations.
I wonder what that means.
I wonder about your eyes.
There are many spiders inside the wall, and along it,
and on the chandelier’s fingers, and inside the spiders.
I quote, a dream is worth a thousand dustpans, but you,
darling, are worth so much more than dustpans.
But I grow weepy, as stated. What do those dark blue lines mean?
Your fingers, darling, smell of a dark cloud in an electrical storm.
Your palm is a circus. Your nails ticket stubs.
That one’s from the alligator show. You dislocated your
throat. I had a plan. If you stare into someone’s eyes for
more than six seconds, you’ll want to lick them.
May 25, 2010
May 25, 2010 at 8:20 PM UTC
the most dangerous person I know was a beautiful girl,
with a singing voice like white chalk:
when you came into contact with that voice, even momentarily
you found your fingertips lightly dusted
and the taste of chalk in your lungs
She settled on you.
This girl left pieces of herself everywhere--
anchors.
to things she knew should be
important to her, but instead she couldn't find the commitment
enough to make them important.
she could only find
fragments of a conversation
about anything
that affirmed her
self-importance
or made her feel
important.
even if only for a second.
she disregarded the pain that lumbered just beneath those
glimmering retinas,
only to step closer and see the light
was just a reflection of whatever stood before her.
so she anchored herself to humans.
she chose to connect with people
based on the "mutual" stars in
their eyes.
and how they felt important.
she anchored herself to
the expectations held aloof in
the eyes of her unattached lover.
Eyes that swam with the imaginary meetings and hopefulness
to obtain girls not her.
and so she swam.
at first, she treaded water like it the thing to do in the eyes of your
"lover"
then, the ropes she tied to herself
to make anchors began to drag her down.
the people she anchored herself to reached out as far as the cold depths would allow
but she refused to tread the last few feet and take hold
of a shoreline filled with
finite praise for not drowning herself.
The most dangerous girl I knew
made drowning the important thing.
and now she waits, sunken and waterlogged
with the weight of eyes that are not hers.
The eyes of her lover, who sparkle artificially
as the light is just a reflection of whatever stands in front of him.
Oct 25, 2017
Oct 25, 2017 at 3:18 AM UTC
I hate how naive I am
how twisted I grew
always struggling for breath
strangled & contorted
wrong air in the greenhouse
that outside seemed a dream house.
grew painfully pressed
soft & depressed in those places
shield of armor & tree trunk legs
strong & sturdy
waterlogged soul
I carry the ghost of every snowflake
every storm struck passenger's spirit
lost love & one glove.
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 7:22 PM UTC
so i took liberty's with my lockpick and freud's diary
and went in search of the reasons for dry thunder
and for pictures of the rain locked away in some peoples eyes
some hearts are waterlogged silent forests
grey clinging to the wet pine needles
some are deserts of the twilight
like dust gathering at the least disturbed path
their hearts are heavy with dry weight
i found her in the cold light of candles
mapping the unknown with her thin hand
her perfections chiseled softly into all of my senses
like a michelangelo paint by number sweet summer dream
her immediate and urgent presence on the night air
makes me breath in deep and feel to the bottom of my feet
that she is tenderness personified
she is light perfected
she is fresh off the pages of some steinbeck novella
she just has a grace that gives
she is in love with its concept and rumor
with lockpick in hand and the image of
old man freud smoking something funny in his pipe
traveled through this place with an eye to the depths
a girl out there provides a sultry version of hopes in a song
from within her place of televisions flickers
as i sit by the window shade as it stirs to life
approaching rain
the lockpick also comes to life
as the complexity's of a strangers smile
fluctuate in the eye
a grain of sand lodged in the crawlspaces of the mind
grinding in the gears of thought
the song drifts to an end
with her smile
May 17, 2014
May 17, 2014 at 11:28 AM UTC
And the rain is falling
Making music off the roofs of the cars
And we stand there
In the steam rising from the
Parking lot pavement
Shadows made from
Alarmed headlights
First, still
Then, quickly moving
From two separate shapes
To one jumble of limbs
The two of us becoming indistinguishable
As I can’t hold you close enough to me
And after so long waiting
I don't mind
My tears mixing
With the rain
Making our first open-mouthed kiss
Wet and messy
And you tangle your fingers
Into my waterlogged curls
Oct 13, 2014
Oct 13, 2014 at 2:27 AM UTC
glued to crushed velvet
i think in hues of blue
tonight and wonder
what you see when
you stare at your
ceiling in the bronx
is it waterlogged and
cracking? or smooth
and perfectly painted
in eggshell white? or
maybe it's stuccoed,
or patterned, or hand
painted with naked
angels floating about?
turn on your transformers
and fire up the transporter
i'm coming to lay
side by side to see
what it is you see
when you tell me
you're thinking of me
Jun 12, 2013
Jun 12, 2013 at 9:23 PM UTC
I hate how naive I am
how twisted I grew
always struggling for breath
strangled & contorted
wrong air in the greenhouse
that outside seemed a dream house.
grew painfully pressed
soft & depressed in those places
shield of armor & tree trunk legs
strong & sturdy
waterlogged soul
I carry the ghost of every snowflake
every storm struck passenger's spirit
love lost & one lost glove.
Sep 8, 2013
Sep 8, 2013 at 2:46 PM UTC
I am two:thirty heat lightning.
Inconquerable flashes of my elemental fury
leap from grumbling cloud to dewy earth,
dancing naked under a smoky moon. I am a burning
offering to the sodium lamp sentinels looming golden
over black tar; there is tobacco sown
into my every pore. I am the underestimated
weight of fog rolling off the meadow's swollen calf
river, the heavy lowing of labor pains, the thick
croak of the year's last bullfrog. I am the first
crunch of dying light, the gray tinge of wood smoke
on chlorophyll burned red. The sting of my icy breath
creeps into sleeping eyelids, through every crack
in waterlogged armor. My frosty four o'clock
is no place for strangers. The frozen silence
does not know my strength. I will bend the world
with feet of glass. In time, the weight will break
my own limbs, expose their green, soft meat.
I am the green shoots of daffodils sharp,
triumphantly cleaving the rested dirt. There is yellow
warpaint across my forehead, a crown of blistering elegance
glazed by wings of stubborn three:thirty ice. I am resilient
and eternal—perennial—blooming to a cold, white moon.
May 12, 2016
May 12, 2016 at 12:13 PM UTC
~
Collective eyes on the shoreline
Ripples meander unaware of who they touch
Glimmering surface reflects a doubtless moon
and fireflies abandon all hope of neon goals
Stone and sand meet in driftwood destinies
Autumn grips the night with postcard tendrils
Feet beneath water paddle slowly,
hiding in plain sight in the center of this liquid target
Alone on the wrinkles of waterlogged bed sheets
Silence finds no home here
while voices cackle and point slanderous fingers
and buoyancy is in question
Words fly like arrows in cultivated sentences on thin air
When what was once sacred sinks
into the stagnant reaches of heartless ink
and I wait…a sitting duck
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 12:37 PM UTC
England is waterlogged
becoming submerged
nascent Atlantis
surrendering to the tide
Sink holes in Hemel
sunk homes in Surrey
hanging railways in Devon
****** cafes by the sea
A damp apocalypse beckons
it may get wetter yet
now that rain reigns
Britain is ruled by waves
Cynthia Pauline Jones 15/2/14
Mar 16, 2014
Mar 16, 2014 at 9:06 AM UTC
A torrent gushes from the serpent’s mouth
wave upon breaking wave; it’s ALL fake news
swiftly eroding what is left to lose.
Democracy’s waterlogged corpse drifts south,
a bloated mess; all waters to infuse
with putrefaction, thus to breed disease
uncivil war invades our fantasies;
the polarized extremes now pay their dues.
Propping things up: it’s what they do the best—
business as usual, pawns all occupied
in scaffolding facades upon the West
and sculpting the friezes of fratricide…
but underground, the currents cave away.
Media will fail; God brings a brighter day.
Sep 9, 2017
Sep 9, 2017 at 3:03 PM UTC
I have seen, somewhere, a beautiful green beetle.
It would not be so bad to be breathtaking
People would open the window, smiling
And let me flutter through.
But though I sometimes think I shine,
Fact is, I’m just a worm,
A segmented soldier of the dank, damp earth
Fated to be trampled, waterlogged
Poked with a stick, eaten by a bird
Or simply, unable to find the path
Lost, panicking, grazed by gravel
Trying to find my way home.
Feb 20, 2014
Feb 20, 2014 at 10:56 AM UTC
Loving you is synonymous with setting yourself on fire
It seems the only way to stop the fire is to drench yourself in tears
And as it burns; the passion spreads wildly, untameable
Racing amongst gasoline veins during restless nights
The fireworks have exploded in my head this time
Flamboyant paint splashes the blank canvas of my mind
I'm feeling dizzy from the taste of electric lips and metallic tongue
Skin touching; your fingers dance a brief ballet across my skin
Unrequited love can only blossom so long without water
But will my showers of affection cause our withered love to grow
Or become waterlogged while we drown?
I stamp out my words and bury them in the dirt with a harsh finality
They rest in peace but my mind won’t settle
There is a raging inferno eating at my heart
And I'm not sure I want to put it out.
Sep 5, 2014
Sep 5, 2014 at 5:05 PM UTC
Lying flat in a river bed and covered in sheets of water:
this is where you will live.
Pure, ice-cold springwater flows
around and through, picking clean our bones like a vulture,
taking out the filth that collects like soot in chimneys.
From here only two roads:
To let go or hold on.
The instinct is to deny! hold tight, forever and ever, keep safe,
but you are here to learn the river’s lesson, to follow the flow, to be
carried away and let go.
Die happily, knowing.
Spread like sand
across the hills and gullies
peacefully dispersing
along centuries to form and reform,
learning that there are no endings.
And to know by cycles,
building familiarity, some core knowledge
which undoes the instinct that says “hold on”
and “not yet”
and “fight.”
Instead, become waterlogged.
Give up your boundaries.
This is the only way.
Sep 24, 2018
Sep 24, 2018 at 12:10 AM UTC
There's a hole in my wall which the wind whistles through
And the wallpaper's mouldy and calamine blue
The carpet besmirched with a decade of grime
And the pattern is lost to a happier time
The journals and books where my memories stay
Have mixed and submerged in a fearful array
The curtains hang tattered in woeful neglect
Where the mildew and fungus and beetles collect
There's a hole in the floor where the mice have a nest
Where the walls creak and groan like a cancerous chest
And a puddle emerges from under the door
Like a serpent, it winds on the laminate floor
Underfoot, fragments of crockery crunch
Still stained with the leavings of long ago lunch
There's a rattle and scratching of verminous claws
The spoon never stirs so the *** never pours
There's a crack in the window that lets in the rain
Where it runs in a rivulet right down the pane
The mattress is rotten and rusted inside
Bacteria thrive and amoeba divide
The ceiling is sagging from waterlogged beams
And catches the sunlight with putrefied gleams
Like powder, the plaster is fast in retreat
With it's choking secretions, the air is replete
There's a trace of a life that was never fulfilled
Like a drink only sipped and then carelessly spilled
There's hope of a future and trinkets amassed
But frittered away and consigned to the past
The wires are old but the bulbs are still new
And pictures of vigor are hanging askew
As if from existence, vitality blinked
A carcass remaining though life is extinct
Feb 12, 2013
Feb 12, 2013 at 11:10 AM UTC
The potency froths the glass in ghostly embers.
Rectifying a suppressed kiss.
Liquid's juicy lubrication sweats
as the icy voice asks,
refill my void.
Fingernails cling
like thorns to skin.
Waterlogged and fogged,
my footsteps fall,
sloppy little domino.
Mindful thoughts yank at drunk appendages.
One too many benders, far too many hands.
Awake, the memory kaleidoscopes.
Pieces unmatched.
Strange images fade,
meshed in sheets.
evidence stains.
Jan 10, 2019
Jan 10, 2019 at 5:09 PM UTC