"winched" poems
Our trajectory is unknowable, you tell me: the planet
corkscrews around the Sun, sure,
but the Sun corkscrews around a black hole at
the heart of the Milky Way,
and our whole galaxy travels on some mysterious,
incalculable vector. But sister, I saw a photograph
in which two whale sharks were brought to
heel by men in simple reed boats just
off the coast of the Philippines. All that they had
to do was often feed
the sharks many gallons of grocery-store frozen
shrimp, poured from plastic garbage bags into
their yawning six-foot maws to portside.
Gargantuan, sure, but still
as obedient and eager for food as backyard
squirrels. I remembered a grainy
internet video—I saw it probably seven or
eight years back—in which
a captured whale shark was winched
ashore in Madagascar, or
maybe it was the Philippines again—no matter—
the thing still had life left
in it and struggled to breathe while a crowd of
people gathered around—there were
women carrying babies, girls holding baskets atop
their heads—and then the
men came with a long slender blade and sliced clean
through the whale’s spine, vivisected it
right there on the dock, and the onlookers stood there quite
unfazed—I remember
being shocked at the effortlessness of the cut,
the pinkness of the whale’s blood,
and the boredom in the onlookers’ eyes. Our father
took us down to San Antonio
on one of his business trips there when we were five
or six—I think
you were probably too young to
remember it—
it was when you and I saw the ocean for the first
time. We drove down to the Gulf
of Mexico, and we saw waves breaking
out near the horizon in pale
sunlight. I kept scanning for a dorsal
fin off beyond
the breakers, thinking that I might spot one—
sandy brown, mottled with
cream spots and glistening—so that I might be able to
say to you, pointing, “look,
sister, there is a whale shark!” Years
later we would learn
that he traveled down to San Antonio so
frequently because he was a philanderer. As
a child I believed that whale sharks
crisscrossed the ocean following
paths that we couldn’t fathom, that
their concerns were somehow
beyond our comprehension, but then
Keppler pinned down
the shape of the Earth’s orbit over four
hundred years ago,
and the lives of ancient sea
titans are sundered
effortlessly
by men with indifferent faces.
Sep 22, 2023
Sep 22, 2023 at 2:27 AM UTC
So sour, yet delicious.
Your lips pucker, your eyes squint.
The tangy juices drip from your mouth.
Citrus smells arose.
Lemons are sweet, their winched.
So sour, yet delicious.
Feb 21, 2014
Feb 21, 2014 at 8:56 AM UTC
It's hard to see the point in it!
(Perhaps it's me)
A dismal afternoon of rain,
A flask of tea.
Beside this murky river now
They sit and wait,
So statuesque and silent
Clutching tins of bait.
All week in offices they sweat
With just one wish -
For Saturday come along
So they can fish.
And now beneath the willows' fringe
They bait their hooks,
Comparing rods and reels and lines
With envious looks.
The lines that fly from whizzing reels
Fall with a plip
And drift upon the surface
Where they bob and dip.
Till, with a **** a wriggling jewel
Is winched ashore
To have its ****** brains bashed out
Upon the floor.
Jan 3, 2010
Jan 3, 2010 at 10:46 AM UTC
Whole hours slipped away. and later those days
when time became nothing but the tide
rising and falling like a clarinet echoing a concerto.
Night after night, I listened for silver keys clapping
its melody sewing a soft shroud around my ears.
Its sound bellowed into the twilight with
stars stinging my neck with their glare.
My very existence hurled into a dark shipping lane
with ferries and barges scaring my view, but
sometimes the ladder from the moon’ reflection
beckoned me climb to that astral galaxy. For there
I was blinking, weeping tears, I was alive .
Then in a moment, my legs would groan.
Suddenly, as splintered arrows they splashed
into the angry waves and then sank into a scrim of water
steering me into a safe harbor, where anchoring
I could bob with the tide and then one day
I winched in my billowed sail
drying my eyes from a night of loneliness
dawn flickered light on my lashes! wind
laughing like a beacon! On the rim of the horizon.
Apr 17, 2012
Apr 17, 2012 at 6:45 PM UTC
I reach out . . . sadlessly
I preach out . . . incessantly
when time comes asking who ? . . .
what are you ?
it will catch you grasping
I took the answer book
Maybe eleven years of age
Put it in my desk
Forgot it in all it's page
Then the squirrel I shot
with my B-B gun through it's ears
It fell dead and in my regret
flooded into a sea of tears
Life and death swirls around me
My eyes leaving me with no surprise
Tomorrow is heaped upon me
All yesterdays materialized
The answer book was found
I pleaded guilty without a sound
Tried , convicted , sentenced
To no crime was I winched
I buried the squirrel
Said a prayer asking forgiveness
For all my wicked sins
That life is so sacred
That without some kind of repentance
I would never be allowed to win .
Jesus came to me saying , " It's all right , I forgive you of your sins."
Even under forgiveness
I felt little of a relief
God said to me ," My son has spoken , it is
one of belief ."
I see the squirrel
Sitting in that tree
One moment alive , breathing , free
My choice to make
My grace to be
I pulled the trigger forever changing me
I reach out . . . endlessly
I preach out . . . repentively
When time comes asking who ?
Then I know what I am
Nov 25, 2014
Nov 25, 2014 at 8:57 PM UTC
She said to me I tasted like a overripe cherry,
I told her she tasted like dust.
I told her she tasted like a storm, an electrical one,
I told her it wasn't good weather for setting off,
But she still smiled and unfurled a sail.
She told me I didn't listen and I sounded like the ocean,
I told her, her words were like a black hole
And I didn't have an airlock,
I told her she was the tears after a hurricane,
And her words were like dead leaves on the ground,
But still she talked like she was the universe.
She told me I loved like i like always letting go,
I told her I'm not a lifeboat,
I told her I'm an anchor that hasn't be winched up,
And I dragged along the murky bottom of her love,
And I was too strong to keep going,
And still she said she loved me when I'm weak.
She said I ****** like it was going out of style,
I told her that this wasn't the trend,
That I was old-fashioned and sonnets cried in bed,
Are worthless as the air they're written on,
I told her that ******* wasn't the problem,
And still she laid there bare and pen in mouth.
I said I am not a conditional type of person,
And she said I'm not a red pen waiting to mark your wrongs,
She said I wasn't good enough to waste the time on,
Trying to put together in her mind,
Because love should be easy.
So I said no, but it shouldn't be this hard.
Nov 11, 2015
Nov 11, 2015 at 6:04 PM UTC
Tongue daps vinegar,
and your face winched,
as if offended,
as if death was a butterfly
fetching nectar from you,
but your soul has never resided
any body other than yours.
Yogurt is enough
to make you scoff,
sandwiches the same,
you shudder at the sight
of my teeth flensing fat
off a rind and the cream
of hardened tallow on steamed
rice.
Your lunch box comes with
this world’s gravy,
mine comes with
I-am-lucky-that-I-am-here
kind of deal.
Mine comes with bricks
my scrawny frame has to bear,
mine comes with my mama’s
expectations that I need to
build a better road for my siblings
and I to walk on.
Mine is more edible than
what papa keeps in his belly.
You have a lunch box,
I have lunch, now go eat.
Oct 7, 2024
Oct 7, 2024 at 12:23 AM UTC
Afore colliery doth the world be so suggestive of sublimity,
Upon me lay no residence that I may well take leave,
Barring, encompassed beneath the celestial witching hour,
Amassed unruffled, myself and thee.
A moment at time doth chattels be made the scene unmarred,
And thy look as if existed hence silver-tongued,
A haste of blustery weather hail from over me,
As I winched up from my pier and meandered absent.
Unknown to me could some unique facet be more veracious,
Nowhere be present at hand, a berth I be further elicit to,
O' be at disposal with me that we may saunter self-possessed, my unrivaled ecstasy,
Amassed unruffled, myself and thee.
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 9:10 AM UTC
You know when you see someone you miss
someone lovely there is no hope with
Some heart with strings and such
that always keeps you held tight
winched with what not and such
maybe id be happier with
Some lovely hand scrounging her way
betwixt my cotton strung nethers
Never mind an old spot in realistic fiction
I remember the cigarette smoke.
And i was happy to oblige
with the repentance
a hand and a sentence
two fingers read with a mouth to trace
while your own words form
like honey from your lips.
Jun 26, 2015
Jun 26, 2015 at 12:32 AM UTC
If life is like a grand piano,
Make me up a melody
With keys both white and black;
Strike notes that play on heart strings,
With joyful rifts that send me souring,
And broken chords that pull me back.
And if life is like a grand piano,
I'll stand below and watch it sway;
Winched out a tenth story window;
The wire begins to thin and fray.
I want that grand piano of life
To answer gravity's beckoning call,
In all it's cartoon-dramatics;
Let it tip, then let it fall.
I want every high and every low;
I want moonlit passions
And morning coffees;
I want screaming matches
And baby scans;
I want passport stamps
And phone calls home;
I want celebrations
And hospital visits.
I want blood;
I want cuddles in the kitchen;
I want sweat;
I want kisses in the rain;
I want tears;
I want lighting strikes and sunrises;
I want scars, stories and tax returns;
I want lies, love and mortgages;
I want to be scared.
I want broken promises met with ''I'm sorry''s;
I want drunken phone-call serenades at 3am,
And slurred ''I love you''s I only half believe;
I want forehead kisses before driving to work;
I want heartbreak.
I want to say ''I love you'' and mean it.
I want to say ''I hate you'' and mean it.
I want to speak at my bestfriend's wedding and ***** it up;
I want to hold my sister's hand when she gives birth;
I want to watch my brother strum guitar on stage;
And then file for a messy divorce as my children finish school.
I want to grow old and wrinkle in whichever way this path has planned.
When I'm ready for it all,
I want life to be boringly brilliant,
And beautifully broken,
And painfully unplanned.
I want to live this life until I'm full and my bones crack.
So when that straining wire does snap -
Just let that grand piano fall;
I'll stand below and won't move a step,
Because in this life I want it all.
Jul 13, 2019
Jul 13, 2019 at 11:24 AM UTC
...
Yourn purty flirt
enveloped mine cerebral's
chapter
yourn expose instigated
mine weak
mine dither
affecting this spew
From your bottom limb's attach
unto your haunch's camber's
entice
mine eyne found entertain as
morning's Spring wind winched
thine
glabrous humid tumid's
raiment
Ahhhh
vernal ardor
Mar 15, 2017
Mar 15, 2017 at 11:14 AM UTC