"yawp" poems
Hesitations grips me
Sometimes with a soft gentle squeeze and sometimes with an iron fist
That split second where you see that girl with whimsical hair and a playful smile and your body is screaming at the top of its lungs “GO AFTER HER YOU FOOL!!!” while your brain mulls over the endless stream of stressful situations
I can hear Robin Williams calling out to me “Let me hear your YAWP!” and I’m shaking, quivering, rattling, generating the vocal ferocity of a lion! And all that comes out is a whimpering “yawp…”
Hesitation grips me
A harmless compliment to brighten someone’s day, no harm done, just a quick simple “I like your pants” a smile and I’m on my way
Simple! Wrong!
That flickering candle of pleasantries is cut short by a swiftly shutting window of opportunity
The breeze not hesitating to extinguish its light
Hesitation grips me
How many moments must I suffer paralyzed lips before my can of complimentary worms is opened?
How many lovely strangers will continue to mill about their days in unblissful ignorance of my enjoyment of their simple, subtle or overt characteristics?
This hesitation grips me!
It shackles me and holds the key in front of my face and all it requires is one real Yawp! The mustering has begun! That key is my freedom of hesitant chains! Just! One! Yawp! I think I can I think I can I think I can! Just! One! Yawp! “yawp…”
Hesitation grips me
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 11:35 AM UTC
We stomp and we romp
with our filthy, bare feet
we jump and we bump
in the high summer heat.
Just skin, nails, and teeth
stop when we see blood
we are the ***** girls
rolling around in the mud.
We're queer, we drink beer
in the park in the dark
we yawp, twist, and shout
and we jeer and we bark.
We **** for the thrill
in the sweet with sweat season;
we say it's revenge,
but we don't need a reason.
Saturated plum flesh
bursting between jaws,
we are boundless, we are seeping,
we are love without laws.
Jan 20, 2019
Jan 20, 2019 at 12:19 AM UTC
fury, winds raged the treetops
threshing branches, approaching brush.
but from a distance, natural destruction,
looked like beauty in the forest.
and this was just a piece.
this is not the whole.
inhale, exhale,
increasing repetitions
repeat, repeat.
decrease and deepen.
pause in awe of the machine you're given
watch the forest faint, beatific ruin.
feel the fibers tear in effort
feel the area inside you swell
this is just a piece
this is not the whole.
process unto another day
with brighter light and seasoned winds
as repeated swells exhale an ending breath
gawk, inhale, hold, process, yawp; repeat.
understand this thing, know it truly
die through effort, repeat, repeat.
beaks with feathered wings swarmed in silence
Persephone cheers with distance, "defy their gravity"
here; pause; absorb the leaded revolution
weigh inside this mockery of death
"this is just a piece,
this is not the whole."
abandon seated distance, chase with fire
the unknown of the unfolding.
ravenously consume the untouchable time
feed, inhale, pause, process, exhale, deepen
repeat, repeat;
endlessly repeat.
this is just a piece,
this is not the whole.
May 7, 2017
May 7, 2017 at 2:29 PM UTC
I don't know you, but I feel you right from the get-go. You go about your routine that lassoed my heart into you, you who prance around the vastness of my dreamscape. I come to recognize your presence only in my sleep, at the very least that's what I know.
In that hazy, twisted world of subconscious shuffling, we find ourselves sitting cozily, face to face, at a table outside that rustic coffee shop. Honeyed words and laughters sprightly echo from that very spot where only a vase of freshly cut chrysanthemum sets two bodies and heat apart, longing.
Sometimes, we glorify sunsets at the shoreline. Sometimes, we sound our inane daredevil yawp at a cliff. Sometimes, we simply stargaze and draw across the skies Cassiopeia and Ursa Major.
We embrace the beauty of chaos we often find ourselves walking aimlessly along that busy thoroughfare before we head back home; normally we exchange random thoughts about school, my fascination with Rand's objectivist framework, your addiction to Cobain's craft and story, my weakness over falling in love too fast, your resilience and hope in times of defeat.
We are wired to each other in a special way, so special that it all has to be in lucid dreams. Feelings are intense. Kisses euthanize the butterflies. Midnight cuddles are soulful calisthenics. Holding each other's hand is infinite.
You present to me a self that is nurtured by its soul. I think I love you in my sleep. I feel happy with everything that goes with closing my eyes and letting dreams of the world I created creep into my consciousness. In such a realm I don't know you, but I feel you right from the get-go.
Do you see me in your sleep, too?
Dec 23, 2013
Dec 23, 2013 at 10:04 PM UTC
They swoon on behalf of the exalted one
Brandishing the sword of the spirit
Deliberately making a racket
Tremolo picking
******* on the man’s marrow
Sitting on a pick nick blanket
Kicking up new ground
You sure have a knack
This is the taste of terror
Remember what you have learned
For now, for when? Forever
Leave no stone unturned
Just wait your turn
A blind recommended private eye
Take into deep consideration
Deliver me from the life of a lemming
Diving off a cliff into a cesspool
Daunted, left helpless in the courtyard
Belated birthday gifts given so thoughtlessly
Nonchalant sarcasm afterward
They shall not speak henceforth
These are the days of madness
The sanity you’ll lose
The colorblind in glasses
Receiving Rubix Cubes
Tell me what’s the use?
Running across the T-ball field
Frightening a legion of geese
A teenage thrill only to realize
My shoes were covered in stool
The banshee so aerodynamic
Its yawp makes my head split
Calling collect just to say
Your virility is too impressionable
We were the living theater
From which your inspiration derived
The kettles of fish and cans of worms we opened
That we cannot deny
We will not lie
We are dead
From the neck up
From the neck up
From the neck up
Mar 20, 2014
Mar 20, 2014 at 12:24 PM UTC
52 Weeks: Whitman
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
52 Weeks: Mullein
The Red-Tailed hawk swoops by and catches just a glimpse, he tilts his head Dionysian style mouth slightly agape.
I too am a wild thing, I too am untethered,
And I sound animalistic in the dining halls of the tamed.
The final missile thud holds me in a sweet caress,
My likeness rockets earthward … tried and true and tired and truer,
I am coaxed into existence once again.
I maintain my aetheric ties as I know this is the roadmap back to you,
It’s nice to be enmeshed in the living once again even though they drain,
To drain is to live, one gives eternity to be mortal - it’s the only thing that ever made sense.
I won’t depart, I dig in my heels,
And I turn my back on the organized.
I am of the earth because I understand my antecedents … my mother’s mother’s mother …
And because of this knowledge of ante’s I can set prece’s, hopefully precisely.
I hardly know who I am or what I mean (on a good day),
But I am good for you none the less,
As our tastes and sounds and smells and touches intermingle.
And always I wait patiently,
for me for you,
for us.
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 10:52 PM UTC
Do I have to be selfish
And hide the truth
To achieve everything
Do I have to be a thief
And steal one's right of knowing things
To manipulate everything
Do I have to be egocentric
And forget about others
To be happy alone
To yawp is to scream
To scream is to feel relieved
Am I relieved
Or do I look relieved
To be or not to be
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 1:21 PM UTC
she is a little more than a little tired of
lists. And litanies that go no
where, and
hail no one. it would be nice to be the
list, instead, being penned, being spun into be
ing, to be the logical result of a strong clear
desire. (all she can really remember
from that pirate
movie is that the compass only worked if
you could let yourself
wild yawp want it).
More. more (the word quivers at the nub
like something might be actually
happening).
More
magic beans.
Less stirring soup.
More of to fly into
a rage at the intrusion
more intrusion! less
steady golden eggs that bore her
into a whipless
stupor. More unknown. More parapets of cloud. More
lovers the size of small mountains. More rumbling
and coming apart at the fault lines.
More lava beneath me, she writes and grows
warm. Oh! How
that would burn...
Jan 16, 2012
Jan 16, 2012 at 1:32 AM UTC
I wanted to cry
but couldn't—22 year old American male—
so I laced up running shoes
no jacket
just shorts
12 degree punishment.
I needed to get away
from a silent phone,
an empty inbox
so I could scream out my coward
sprinting over hills
in the full moon's
telling light.
I try to curdle blood
but choke
on vocal cords
bolted in place
by modern modesty
too scared
to sound my barbaric yawp
I yelp
like a coyote
the size of a wolf pup
that only has breath enough
for half a call.
I stop to catch the wind
and with it
howl over and over
again and again
until I scream,
freezing every heartbeat
within earshot.
A single tear
drops on the fire.
Breathing heavier now
in the moon's empty landscape
I begin dragging my feet
slowly toward the agony of a silent phone
and an empty inbox, trying to calm myself
because one tear is not enough.
Mar 17, 2011
Mar 17, 2011 at 10:43 AM UTC
His earnings were no use now,
A bottle of antiquated Romanée Conti would undoubtedly do,
A premium Gieves & Hawkes ensemble donned,
Jeff Buckely trills of lilac wine as he puts on his GJ Cleverley shoes.
He turns up the dial on his harmony producer,
Fading out the shrilling yawp of the telephone upon the table,
He sits up in his silk sheet bed,
The lights dim to a squint and the Psychotropic tab make him unable.
A pill for each mood now a-swirl in his gut,
He deliberated if that earlier he should have elected the lamb over the pork,
Then peers to the room’s edge to the dark of a crook,
As slippers pulsate and instigate to a mellow sway and begin to curiously talk.
“What you do there?” They spoke with pry.
He enlightened the foot snugs that he wished to die,
That he hated a life as obtuse of this,
Now once able and mind half disabled he would take a knife,
To his wrists.
A razor flavours blood of the open arm,
As authoritative calls bellow and boom behind the door of his sweet,
They would never find the cash in the Caymans,
As there was none; just good wine, fast cars, his suits, and the fine shoes on his feet.
The slippers float and thus speak on:
“You are a fool to yourself you have done it all wrong, they have notably found the note”.
“There is little time left you should hurry now,”
“Take one last sip of the wine and let the razor meet your throat.”
The door bucks with each thump,
Through the yells and demands it begins to give as it creaks,
He lays a gasp in his ruby and blood,
He is now a fade and almost absent and the slippers are asleep.
They will salvage him from his discharge,
This man of hate for life, life of lies, thief of the poor and unto his soul,
A man who obstinately wanted more,
Until more was a bore and nothing no longer more fed the avid hole
Oct 18, 2013
Oct 18, 2013 at 12:49 AM UTC
she is a little more than a little tired of
lists. And litanies that go no
where, and
hail no one. it would be nice to be the
list, instead, being penned, being spun into be
ing, to be the logical result of a strong clear
desire. (all she can really remember
from that pirate
movie is that the compass only worked if
you could let yourself
wild yawp want it).
More. more (the word quivers at the nub
like something might be actually
happening).
More
magic beans.
Less stirring soup.
More of to fly into
a rage at the intrusion
more intrusion! less
steady golden eggs that bore her
into a whipless
stupor. More unknown. More parapets of cloud. More
lovers the size of small mountains. More rumbling
and coming apart at the fault lines.
More lava beneath me, she writes and grows
warm. Oh! How
that would burn...
Jan 14, 2012
Jan 14, 2012 at 1:55 PM UTC
I don't know what word other
mothers secretly wait
for their children to utter
but when my son first said mommy
I felt like an ice cream cone
sliding off its hinges toward the grinning dog's
waiting tongue. When shoe came,
he stopped looking at faces for a few days
to more fully watch the world
where his new word lived.
Daddy comes and I change the subject. Last night,
I built a good enough campfire while my dad held
the boy and pointed heavenward, beginning his
celestial litany, *Andromedae, Cassiopeiae,
Draconis, Moon, Star, but the Sun is
asleep*, and I suddenly felt too
close to the fire. I knew I was nearing
that glen around my secret word
In the growing proximity, the world narrows
into the paper-thin bridge where only poetry will fit.
Later that night, the baby wrangled with
his own yawp and could not lay his head
and so we walked the isle
and stopped to be wooed by frogs with banjos in their hearts
and we remembered together all the secret
trails to lagoons and we pointed and garbled
at all things known and unknown
and at last, he pointed to the sky and said new.
I peered up to see what was new, but that was
not quite it - he tried again, moo
and the last gear gave
and the great machinery of my waking
rolled onto the highway of my own life
as the son put the two words together and spoke my secret moon.
Jan 14, 2012
Jan 14, 2012 at 6:47 AM UTC
i like the chill that races up my spine
when my voice projects too loudly
it reminds me that my voice is mine
and so i'll shout from the rooftops proudly
my voice is most often soft
people rarely hear me speak
they look around, did someone squawk?
nope, it was more like a tinny squeak
i'm not the bravest person
yet my opinions urge me to speak my mind
every blue moon i'll gather the courage
and my definition of brave is redefined
my voice may be small but when it rains it pours
my mouth grew wings and away it will soar
bringing me to heights i never knew
speaking is only worth it if the words are true
today my barbaric yawp will be heard
both in written and spoken word
i will not hide behind the veil of silence
silence may be golden but being loud is preferred
Dec 21, 2014
Dec 21, 2014 at 11:28 PM UTC
I have found a new companion to take my morning coffee with.
He’s sharp and very observant – and he’s honest.
So honest, in fact, that I’m often stunned into reflection and reverie.
Mr. Whitman’s words coax from me a surprising intensity of feeling and joy,
and at the same time, cause me to have to pause and write unknown words
in my notebook, to be discovered later.
Walt is a most engaging fellow.
I picture his halo of white unruly hair and beard,
and understand more what he means as he
‘… Sounds his barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world!’
My coffee grows cold as I am swept away by his snap-shot catalogues of life around him.
I sit breathless at the end of these lists – feeling as though I’ve only just arrived
after a long journey abroad!
And then his wisdom and gentle heart speak to my soul and takes away my protective wall.
He speaks of ‘god-like’ man,
‘… Whose human mind is but a gem in black decay enshrined.’
I weep to find such a companion of my heart.
A friend who keeps me company in the dark morning hours as my coffee slowly cools.
© 2012 Michael Hunter
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 9:48 PM UTC
My trembling,
pimpled little
yawp
on its way over
the rooftops,
Was blown by a whim,
bounced off
a gable
and fell into
the backyard
of a preacher
It was spitted,
and brushed
and cooked to a turn
Then served up
with coleslaw
to a chortling
crowd of
the brethren
after a sermon,
of course,
and hymns
and grace
and a chorus
of heartfelt
amens
Nov 14, 2014
Nov 14, 2014 at 8:27 PM UTC
foreign tongue fast babbling phone call
to half a world away genetic kin
easy as dirt
like the dirt that owns the blood
half a century away
land of snows and lapis sky
hungry maroon monks incanting
barbaric yawp pujas in
decadent political system
controlling the yellow spirit and red blood
of happy ignorant sad intelligent humanity
of the there then
it's always been like this world
when mighty mao and red army liberates
with bullets prisons mortars torture
barrel of the gun communist truth
rippin tongues out with meat hooks
father of such misery you can not see
they treat everyone like this
not just you yaa that dirt
Jun 16, 2016
Jun 16, 2016 at 6:04 PM UTC
A weary face stareth back at us all,
Giants grow tall where thy small minded are casted!!!
All concept to be trapped in our man made prism's!
Such derision is unanswered,
The gardenmen and planters make grow all thou conceiveth today!!!!
Love seekers to slaves,
What's the difference in its core?
Some cry out for extras,
While Heartbreakers taketh more!!!!
More of nothing left!!!
A thief to their theft,
A liar for every aching tounge!!!
Unappeasable audiences,
Bookies seek out bondmaids for their own descretion!!!!
Non completion soo cunning to these lusted cumulaters!!!!
Damsel,
Where art thou?
Elyptic in thy writings?
I proceed!!!
Laughing to bleed,
Or bleeding to die?
Electrode pulses bypass what's become of us,
Eristic flumes travel fluctuating rooms,
Where thy keyhole has no fit!!!!!
Acidic spit lines the dried out apertures,
They yawp ,
They count,
But add nothing to their foulard writings!!!!!
May 20, 2015
May 20, 2015 at 9:38 PM UTC
I'm the silhouette that flies with the sun,
with wings outstretched, hear my mighty cry
and fear my shadow as it falls upon you.
Shoot me if you must, if you can not help it,
your arrows will not find me
as I circle you slowly.
Be frightened of my beak, drenched in night's blood,
watch as it rips golden columns in two,
but you will never see it bathe in the moon's tears.
You'll never see me, never know my name,
let imagination be your greatest enemy
for I am nothing but a small black bird.
Yes, I am the silhouette that flies with the sun,
so slowly we rise, but
so quickly we dive into darkness.
I am a creature whose battle yawp is "m'aidez"
A thing so small, no bull's eye could do it justice,
whose beak is soaked in its own tears.
A bird so small and so frightened
it is easily swallowed by the shadows
that lick her feathers like the fires of Hell.
You'll never see the silhouette fly at night,
for she is lost within her own darkness,
fearing the shadows that hide under black feathers.
Just as she's about to fall,
listening to her brittle bones break,
the sun picks her up, mends her, and begins the cycle again.
I'm the silhouette that flies with the sun,
with wings outstretched, hear my mighty cry
and fear my shadow as it falls upon you.
Dec 5, 2013
Dec 5, 2013 at 8:04 PM UTC
Come nigh my friends
And sound your barbaric yawp!
This world is ripe for the taking.
Speak light and gay.
There's no time for mourning
Or depressed poems in the making.
Heavy hearts find comfort in verse;
Relying on strife for the feel to fit.
But I see too much beauty in the world
And my poems dare to reflect it.
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 6:07 PM UTC
I am not sloth
I am body bodied forth
Beating the day at its game
Dear depression
Take my outstretched hand
-And you may have my ear too-
But your haunts have no place
In the seat of my being
I am lean
I am not a copy
I am variation
Because you are before me
Changing me
Growing me
When I hold my lover
She will know me
And I her
When my lover speaks
I am wiser and all is well
When she needs space
I will steal myself away
Alone but not lonely
I am not fabricated
I am not walled in
My room is balance
My room is not fear
Come envelop me
Surround me
Throw off the those shadows
That flail in my deepest corners
Inhabit me
And I will be host
To you
I am not tame
My yawp awakens
Dotard gods preying
An exhale of mine
-Deep and full of lust-
Is enough to humiliate
Billions of absentee deities
I am not just your version of me
I am not just me
I am us
For a time..
Peel back your crush
Open up
Let me in
Eyes rolling back
To look for the words
That cannot be had
With five pens
Write your sweet everything's
Into my flexed back
Oct 9, 2014
Oct 9, 2014 at 12:35 AM UTC
Snow is not supposed to be blue.
But it is. Tangled
in her locks so blue that the seas become envious.
The hair of the girl I thought I loved when I
thought I knew what love is.
But I don’t think that anyone knows what love is. We
hope and pray that the phrases that we string together with
flowers and promises can represent this idea that we
dream
about grasping in our trembling fingers since the day we came into this world
kicking and screaming.
We’ve been trying to figure out how to feel love and tackling the freezing fear of,
“What if I never find it?”
As if love is inside the treasure chest buried beneath the world,
Accessible to those who can find the map and find the spot marked with an X.
X is such an ugly sound.
It’s the sound of listening to her argue with her ex-boyfriend about their ex-relationship
And about the ex-problems that they had in their past ex-together and
it’s listening to her slamming the door to her bedroom in a tantrum because
sometimes love is not enough.
But if love is not enough, what is?
And what about love is not enough and can it be fixed and
mended like your mother kissing your knee after you fell outside
playing tag
with the neighbor girl with hair so blue
you swear that the gods made it from a summer sky itself?
If we are too young to understand love at thirteen when
your crush kisses you in the darkened gymnasium at the middle school dance then
how can we know that love is what we feel at six years old for the
fathers when they play hide-and-seek in the yard with us and
know that there is an absence of love for the
mothers that turn us aside and build fences between us
are those fences there to keep me out or to keep her and her anger in?
So, logically, if we don’t know love at six or thirteen then
when do we learn what love can be and how do we learn what love is?
Is it trial and error where we have to wait for “the one”
or is it just a guessing game, a gamble, and
hope that the person that you have so many
similar interests and hobbies and passions and beliefs and feelings with is
a person that you are in love with?
So do I love the girl beside me
sprawled out in the morning snow?
With hair so blue that the seas become envious?
No.
After all, how can I?
I don’t even know what love is.
Jun 28, 2017
Jun 28, 2017 at 7:14 PM UTC
we take one step forward three steps back
and all the while we are looking for ourselves
not wanting to walk as the living dead
like hearts chained to a desk
like those we **** or want to ****
and we wonder why we are the way we are
wanting more than sometimes seems possible
our desperate yawp that we will not settle
for this living death
you will make your way out of the morass soon enough
and all of this will be a distant memory
a mostly pleasant diversion
from the prison of living
Sep 15, 2015
Sep 15, 2015 at 11:21 AM UTC
And now I Yawp--
Across the hills, over the stormiest seas and why?
I am no longer afraid!
I loafe myself, yes, and more--
I am Alive, and also
_living_.
What a great and tragic thing to be!
I relish my versatility--
I have power! The power to choose!
And in every moment we make ourselves---
And I choose the colors carefully
But yet they come together in a wild way
Because I am Alive!
And tomorrow, I may not be.
Oh, to be living!
And I am dying, too!
Never once before has my Pride been less of a vice
For in it
There is humility.
As I recognize the vast expanse of my own Power
I take responsibility
And lower my hands to the dirt
And my self to the ground
And examine my tread-marks.
And I will walk with a Purpose!
No more shall I pretend myself a helpless aside,
Lost in the current of my own life!
No!
I, I am responsible for my every action,
And as I move, I move us all.
(If the movement may be small.)
So small as to be unnoticeable, yes,
But what significance I have is still Significance.
And thus I walk alongside my kin and carry my morals upon my shoulders.
I. Must. Not. Back. Down!
Am I afraid of my own success?
Of course!
But I mustn't let that stop me;
For there is something at work that is
Much larger than I shall ever be--
And I am a part of it.
I do not separate myself from the system, but instead recognize my movements in it
And its movement in me.
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 7:57 PM UTC
Sanmati, my messenger, is no more a milksop.
Ardent though is she never will yawp.
Nagging sometimes though in some shop.
Merrily walks in crowd alone till atop.
Amends her needs; tackles one with strop-
Till he agrees with her, else does lop.
In always high spirits, ready to swop
Joy or sorrow equally treats like gumdrop.
Angry if treats us like a bellhop
In our home or out, but never plop
Nor cry in public to show us flop.
Aug 13, 2017
Aug 13, 2017 at 10:34 PM UTC
as we parted ways
in the early snow
that evening now
so far afield yet
i recall
your casual
hello mistaken for
circumscribed absurdity
that i adore
my fingers
became interlaced
between yours
despite the
years and so many
painfully memories
the lot of which
ferried away
into the broken
oblivion
the innocence
of youth
that had i
from that day to this
known
resilience
that i again
would stand
near you
upon that precipice
that overlooks the
deep summer chasm
where quiet
meetings between
old friends
dissolve in the
soundless yawp
of real and boundless
possibility...
May 26, 2018
May 26, 2018 at 7:43 PM UTC