"wheezy" poems
The days have blended into a poetic haze
of mismatched syllables, hanging participles
accented with a hint of discourage.
My purpose use to be therapeutic.
Each rhyme I wrote was a comma in my run-on sentences.
And for awhile, I could breathe. Each breath became less wheezy, uneven and strained.
After I gathered enough air, I dared to speak.
Me? How could I even have the audacity to think!?
To my disbelief, my words didn't fall on deaf ears.
The anxiety, shame, depression and fear woven
into every poem made me familiar in the minds of strangers.
These strangers made me feel human.
With quickness that's comparable to the slickness of a parable
I was ****** from a catapult into the essence of prose.
However, the latency between the beginning of my literary journey
and the discovery of my gift for poetry was afflicting my sensibility.
I succumbed to the bullying from hyperboles
and the taunting of iambic pentameter.
At times I was afraid to talk to neighbors
for fear of narrative structure overhearing.
Now, I am wandering in a fog
though the hills of unpublished work,
echoed only by the crunch of "not good enough" beneath my feet.
This was therapeutic. Now I use it to influence my movements.
Dec 18, 2013
Dec 18, 2013 at 6:52 PM UTC
The love between them was so very deep.
He held them with care even in his sleep
The laughters they shared were so very dear
In times of sadness he poured out every tear.
Never has anyone seen such love between a boy and his toys.
He spent much more time with them than other little girls and boys
Those toys loved the companion of their dear friend
They enjoyed each waking hours that they spent.
But an end must come to even the best of things
Those toys never again heard the little boy's cheerful greetings
Instead dreadful wheezy coughs took that place
And no more of his soft rosy face.
The toys could not understand why they played no more
They wanted to be loved again, instead they lay on the floor
Days, weeks, months went by but he only got worse
Then one day those lonely toys saw everyone weep, even the nurse
"He was such a beautiful boy!" they heard people say
Those toys did not understand, they just wanted to play
They sat waiting, waiting for that child
They wanted to see his sparkling eyes and precious little smile
That boy's unconditional love for them is what they lack
And so they kept waiting for him to come back.
Mar 9, 2013
Mar 9, 2013 at 1:20 AM UTC
As the stores close, a winter light
opens air to iris blue,
glint of frost through the smoke
grains of mica, salt of the sidewalk.
As the buildings close, released autonomous
feet pattern the streets
in hurry and stroll; balloon heads
drift and dive above them; the bodies
aren't really there.
As the lights brighten, as the sky darkens,
a woman with crooked heels says to another woman
while they step along at a fair pace,
'You know, I'm telling you, what I love best
is life. I love life! Even if I ever get
to be old and wheezy—or limp! You know?
Limping along?—I'd still ... ' Out of hearing.
To the multiple disordered tones
of gears changing, a dance
to the compass points, out, four-way river.
Prospect of sky
wedged into avenues, left at the ends of streets,
west sky, east sky: more life tonight! A range
of open time at winter's outskirts.
2.2k
ashley is dimples and bangs
she is freckles scattered from cheek to cheek,
the sun never failing to show her love.
ashley is shy smiles paired with fiddling hands one moment,
a wheezy laugh with an arm clutching her aching stomach the next.
ashley is a fixer.
she’s like an addict looking for their
next head rush,
instead of tracking down drugs,
she tracks down projects.
people who are hurting,
drains that aren’t draining,
hearts that are breaking.
doing anything
and
everything
in her power to mend what she can.
she will put the hurting minds at ease with words of affirmation,
she will fearlessly rid the drain of the ball of hair the size of a small animal,
and she will piece together the breaking hearts
with the tape that is holding her own broken heart intact.
ashley is strong.
unaware of her own strength,
and often forgetting that she’s been to the darkest places and back.
she is patient.
knowing that sometimes you have to endure the bad
to later revel in the good.
she is compassionate.
giving out more love than she receives and willingly doing it again the next day.
ashley is
unmatched.
She will sit with you in the dark when you are unable to find the bright side of things
She will validate the feelings that you thought no one would care or dare to comprehend.
She will walk into your life and leave a footprint on your heart,
making it absolutely impossible to remember what life was like without her.
She will change your life without even trying, without even realizing.
and yes, change can be scary,
but things are never as scary as they seem
when you’ve got a best friend
like ashley.
Feb 8, 2021
Feb 8, 2021 at 2:45 AM UTC
Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand climacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy’d? How many *** bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and *****
Those velvet ears - but pr’ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me - and upraise
Thy gentle mew - and tell me all thy frays,
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists -
For all thy wheezy asthma - and for all
Thy tail’s tip is nick’d off - and though the fists
Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft, as when the lists
In youth thou enter’dest on glass bottled wall.
1.5k
Simon Timothy, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways!
You look like the sun, like daises smiling up at the moon. You make me swoon with your bad punch lines and imperfect rhymes.
You look like bees swarmed around honey pots soaking in the greatness of what they’ve created and you sound like serenades and smokers cough. And I want to be coddled by you. You smell like musky post rain September. You are so special and so patient, like you have been waiting for me to love you since we met and I bet when you look up faithful in the dictionary Simon Timothy will be smiling back at you. I want your name entwined into every line so all of our friends know I need you like a barricade needs people to hide behind it.
Like a breath needs a word to follow, like a bird needs a tree hollow, swallows need the breeze like birds need the bees like Simon Timothy how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
You bring out the best in me (more like the breast in me?) you bring out my worst jokes and my best one liners, you dress like an old timer and it makes my heart go wheezy like it’s a diamond miner. And your vest is fresh air. I’ve been drowning.
You, who showed me survivor and wrestling, you with your adorable obsessing. You, with your brilliant mind and the most charming laugh you, my rude dude with attitude.
Sarah Kay says: “you are the worst thing, that has ever happened to my poetry.” And it must be a twisted form of prophecy because I’m full of lovey dovey feelings I’m still reeling from the last time you told me you loved me, because I am broken at best. My body has cracks and crevices like an old rusty car and you still want to see how far I can drive. I want to thrive with you, I want to express every emotion I have ever felt, you make me feel secure like a seat belt but I am the buick beyond repair.
No matter how much mold is in there you still hold me while I’m crying and trying to tell you you deserve so much better but you don’t listen.
You, with the brilliant blonde hair I love running my fingers through, the one who kisses me like he already misses me even though I’m not going anywhere, you. Who lets me love whoever I need to because you know I need to and that I will always come back to you, you.
You, Simon Timothy. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways!
Sep 20, 2016
Sep 20, 2016 at 7:15 PM UTC
A scribble to mimic what I feel thus far
the cold is alone; too struggle to stay warm
the vital strength to pulse further
my beating heart keeps me company
To signify strength, this murmur is faint
but to draw the line from the foreground
run rampant, simplicity is too quaint
for the lines of greatness are vitality to paint
In honor of each breath, quick and wheezy
admiring the gleam of the winter steam
relaxed, exhaled, not a dullness lay in me
but a carriage awaits beyond the frozen walls
Feb 12, 2011
Feb 12, 2011 at 9:43 AM UTC
The chickens watch us
with their tiny T-Rex eyes,
their funny feather hats shaking
and pulsing
with Heaven only knows.
Collecting warm brown eggs
from haughty hens
is an honor.
That’s what Papa says, at least.
Papa built these coops himself,
I tell all the chickens.
He made them because he loves you
or maybe just because he wants your eggs.
I’m not sure which,
I say,
but it’s one of those two
or both.
The silkies are doubtful
and pacing
and ready to peck me into a bare corn cob,
but I’ve got an egg carton to fill
and this is the first time I can help
because Grandma isn’t home.
Papa humors my toe-turns
and my untamed joy
the way that only Papa can,
with squinty jokes
and whistle-wheezy laughs.
An almost dropped egg here,
a yellow yolked yelp there,
and my egg carton is full.
Papa wears a sunny-side up smile
and the chickens don’t mind if we sing.
Jan 12, 2017
Jan 12, 2017 at 11:04 AM UTC
I am from inky cities,
From steaming street pancakes and cold noodles.
I am from lonely alleys beyond that dark turn.
(shadowy, quiet,
filled with whispers of cats wild and shabby)
I am from square, paint-dried courtyards,
A secret hideout to breathe in the murmurs of ancient trees,
Only shared with shadow thieves,
Whose yellow eyes glow and ***** tails curl.
I am from the mountain beyond the choking greyness,
From the spot atop the hills where city lights could be seen
In stealthy nights through rain and frost.
I am from candied haws and stinky bean curds,
From chalky evenings
Spent high inside a climbing gym
Wearied, exhausted, inside-out.
I am from the toxic city,
Swarming with masked humans and silenced voices.
I’m from albuterol and Ipratropium bromide,
Sick from the cupboard of budesonide;
Saved again by the sky-blue machine feeding marshmallow clouds
Into my heavy, wheezy lungs.
Upon winter, I travelled far, said farewell to the city
Where ten years of memories lie dusted, submerged.
Thus I am from the serene seal cove and clear turquoise waters,
Where maple drips sweetly and pine needles rain,
From matted red-forest trails like a padded trampoline.
From the realm of black bears, red berries, and duck-duck-goose.
I said goodbye to the Chinese cats and Canadian bears,
And seized my pen to write the rest of my poem–
Because life, as they say,
“Is the art of drawing without an eraser”
Sep 15, 2020
Sep 15, 2020 at 2:23 PM UTC
I was
on the edge
sprouting tubes, IVs
bloated and heavy with fluid,
monitors tracing
the scampering of my heart,
my wheezy breath.
They wanted to strap the torso
of a corpse to my back,
the mouth hung open,
slack-jawed. I was
so terrified, wild,
and afterwards sat
on the patchy front lawn,
watching onion skins
shrivel and crisp.
Sep 26, 2012
Sep 26, 2012 at 9:43 PM UTC
The car horns toll the knell of parting day,
The toxic fumes creep slowly o’er the park,
The traffic homeward plods its weary way,
And leaves the world to joggers and the dark.
Now fades the shimmering lakescape on the sight,
And to the air the dusk its stillness brings,
Save where mosquitoes wheel in droning flight,
Ross River virus loaded in their stings;
Save that from yonder television tower
The besieged magnate to his “mates” complains
The A.B.T. has exercised its power,
Sent him packing without ill-gotten gains.
Beneath those tiled roofs, that mortgaged shade,
Where heaves the serf in many an exhausted heap,
Each of the dole queue mortally afraid,
Whose forefathers once rode upon the sheep.
The wheezy cough of beery-breathing morn,
They swallow Berocca for their straw-filled heads,
The clock’s shrill clarion, or their arguing spawn,
Once more shall rouse them from beloved beds.
For they no more have savings in their banks,
Both busy partners toil to meet their ends;
No children run to lisp their heartfelt thanks,
They clamour for Air Jordans like their friends.
Oft did their annual jaunt to Bali yield,
Their furrows smoothed by oily massage strokes;
How jocund were their Customs trolleys wheeled!
Their cases bowed by extra grog and smokes!
Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,
Their media-fed dreams have learned to stray;
The Holy Grail of the Lotto life
Has taken free out of the word Freeway.
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 2:59 AM UTC
When the wolf was around people would stare,
he would take a breath in a huff and a puff ,
and in the distance people would run scared.
not knowing if blown to the four corners they
didn't want it to be there turn to be blown away.
He gave a grin with his teeth showing bare, people
did stare imagination ran wild that if opened
swallowed whole with only there toes sticking
out, as a final gulp of air and then no more eaten
with out a care.
But as he approached they were with fright and a
scare, not knowing what he would do or where.
Then he spoke and looks turned to stares.
He explained to all around he was a vegan,
and meat did he frown, the reason he had to
huff and puff was the asthma medicne made
him less wheezy and could breath out with
out a care.
Not to judge a book by its cover till you have
talked and got to know the person, so people
appoched even three pigs who were the reason
that everyone whispered and apoligised for
what they had spread around and they did care.
Mar 15, 2014
Mar 15, 2014 at 12:02 PM UTC
The sun didn't look quite right.
Once echo with bright and
burning
we trudged our way to nightfall
seeing life only dim.
Sore smoking we wade and
wheezy
hoping to see our sun soon
in a different location.
We're hurting to find new light!
I invade and address such conditions
understanding the light
as it's new like the day.
Away!
Shores shining. I see it,
I breath it.
Captured with imagination
and soaked in through my
water walls.
I, crystal
now glimmer
absorbing,
light so.
He said to me, baby
just please
let it go!
Lie here!
Stay dim.
We can find our colors
elsewhere.
Sep 14, 2013
Sep 14, 2013 at 12:32 AM UTC
We battled for our freedom
What a shame to lose it now.
We need to fight again.
Make some swords out of our ploughs.
The enemy is within us
Look around, you’ll see them now.
Don’t let the crazies win!
Glory doesn’t come so easy.
Politicians can be ******
***** Grumpy Doc and Sneezy
Are brighter than our Congress.
Equal rights and freedom
Were the watchwords at the time
The founding fathers met
And made the opposite a crime.
Then rich men came along
And showed us how to act like slime.
Don’t let those criminals win!
Glory doesn’t come so easy.
Politicians like things ******
Washington is getting wheezy
When corporations cheat!
They take away your rights
And make sure your vote will never count.
And say they are agreeing
With a bunch of no-accounts.
They’ll wait ‘til you’re not looking
And then legally they’ll pounce.
We’re **** near on the brink!
Glory be to God almighty.
There’s no time for being flighty.
They’ll leave us nothing but our nighties!
It’s closer than you think!
Feb 12, 2016
Feb 12, 2016 at 2:43 PM UTC
Let's walk across this slippery floor holding hands
And see which of us falls first
Maybe in a moment of playful competition
You'll nudge me
Or I'll nudge you
But I'll grab you before you fall
Or you'll grab me
If we make it to the other side
Let's head back on our hands and knees
(Except then we can't hold hands
You say with your wheezy staccato laugh)
Aug 17, 2015
Aug 17, 2015 at 7:25 PM UTC
I was never one for silence,
Those times I hear nothing but the earth
moving along with a wheezy breath
pushed wholeheartedly from my chest
I was never one for quiet,
the heaviness of unmoving lips
the weight of every moment held
on a tight, tense string
I was never one for stillness
I revel in the way chaos moves
with steadiness and deliberation,
she makes no mistake.
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 4:27 PM UTC
Pearls keep descending from the sky
Rocks so taken over by the constant tedious attack of waves
with their greyish hue
and fierce fists
The abrupt slap of time
The thunder's wheezy cry
and the pending of a rusty boat say
the boatman's approach was due
but three hours have passed.
The bank is retired
and the moon burnt sands retreat
into the heart of ocean .
sharks feed on fresh flesh.
in awe of a blue tang's suicide note
My lover and I are sailing to the moon
to hunt down stars.
Oct 23, 2018
Oct 23, 2018 at 5:09 AM UTC
cough and sneezing at day
headache and wheezy at the night
teatime cure needed now
Dec 3, 2018
Dec 3, 2018 at 4:27 PM UTC
I smoked,
I tricked.
I drank,
I tricked.
My mind !
Misused and abused,
substances i used.
Believing i tricked,
My mind for pleasure.
Wheezy and Winded,
Distorted and Dazed.
Unaware, i was.
A fool, i was.
Believing i tricked,
My mind for pleasure
May 23, 2018
May 23, 2018 at 12:25 AM UTC
What Can We Do...?
They may break our bodies…
but they need not dominate our minds.
-C. S. Lewis
Every book we read to a little child
Every kindness we work for another soul
Every bowl we fill while serving the poor
Every prayer whispered, spoken, or dreamed
Every cup of coffee shared with a pal
Every wheezy old joke about Pat and Mike
(Or, to be fair, about Trevor and Neville)
Every small joy sung to the universe
Is a beginning
Aug 10, 2019
Aug 10, 2019 at 10:48 AM UTC
The dark can see
Wooden door squeaks,
To wheezy breeze
On creaking antiques...
Eerie silence echoes,
Spilling nebulous images
As haunted psychos
From all entrapped cages.
Voices of invisibles
Heard from hidden hosts;
Illusory intangibles
Manifesting to be ghosts...
Goosebumps ripple
Into waves of gooseflesh;
Fear evokes a *******
Entangled in scary mesh.
"The ghosts're real"
Apparitions of restless spirits
"We could **** or heal"
Our actual and factual secrets.
May 19, 2016
May 19, 2016 at 5:58 AM UTC
sounds less threatening that *** and drugs, doesn't it?
but they're the same thing, oh long drag, oh long sigh, oh long winding wheezy world moving by, possess me with your marvelous fun little hauntings, sounds threatening but it is really just a little roller coaster ride, tied to the tops of mountains, bungee jumping, something as ridiculous as that can make a lifetime, and we, just sitting here, seem to be doing, just that
prescriptions are for the educated, for the ones who want to get high at the right times, like the water droplets, again, not cold showers all the time, but at the right times, the precise, times
Mar 16, 2015
Mar 16, 2015 at 3:56 PM UTC
The ash falls, flake by flake,
into the lake, I am as stiff as a rake-
the oven of my mind can no longer bake,
Whatever I write, it just feels so fake!
This is not me, as I know myself
I'd have been scribbling away, lost in self
but my inspiration is sitting on a shelf,
the kitchen is ***** there is no chef!
I suffer chronically from writer's block,
I sit, I stare and I watch the clock-
The ship of Imagination is in the dock
stuck hard and fast like an old rock!
Verses used to flow so quick and easy
the thought of writing now makes me queasy-
I try and try, but its no longer breezy
I struggle, I fall, I feel rather wheezy!
I wonder when all this will ever go away
I wait, in vain, hoping for that one day
when writing shall be again, child 's play
and my inspiration will be here to stay!
The ash falls, flake by flake,
into the lake, I'm as stiff as a rake
the oven of my mind can no longer bake
and whenever I write, it feels fake!
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 8:01 AM UTC