Nominate your favourite ANGER / UPBEAT / OBSERVATIONAL Poems

written for brenda's mental illness comp http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/forum/competitions/read/8839/#344019

     years congealed
     on white tiles
     beneath torn nails
     & shredded skin,

             the world wouldn't stop
             smelling of
             freshly struck matches
             & scorched persimmon fruit,

                         tobacco
                         still fresh on my tongue
                         clinging
                         like a stale kiss
                  
      ~ couldn't claw my way
                         back to reality ~

          ... digging
              through my flesh
              just like he did

                       wondering if stains
                       could be washed from blood ...
                              ***
                          with unseeing eyes
                          i watched it all
                          liquesce
                        
          even the clots
         broke down to atoms
         around the drain

            ~ a hypnotic pantomime
                    for catatonic ~
                        
                         little spoilt lumps
                         rinsed from my chin
                        {you wouldn't understand
                         the compulsion}    
                                  //

To crawl into the rabbit hole, and wither away with wonder.
Pulling me under and in, internal inquisition.
Like curling up without a blanket.
Breathing isn't the same.
What should be common sense, I now question.

I find myself sucking all the air I allow myself.
Hypothesized, ionic, blue, electrical current.
Hypnotic engagement, layers.
Down, swirling, spinning, perception, imagination, all flowing.
I try to stop the gravity of flooding awe, but the unraveling mystery alternates my senses.

It seems as though synesthesia, the trickery, has an appeal.
What was once a given, now a fascinated astonishment.
My pupils dilate.
Losing track of time, I fall.
An intense, vibrant aura clouds my judgment, like seeing naked humans in stars.

I've always known carnality.
If only my wishes were different.
Snakes coil back from the corners of my mind, ready to strike.
Blood lust is drawn for the kill.
Poison enters my veins and intoxicates me.

Control, I've finally found out.
Reasonable, rational acceptance of voided, chaotic thoughts, words, and actions.
Everyone around me knew all along.
Reading the mind of a mage is like an open book of assumption.
All delusional theory, and no solidarity, no foundation, no basis.

Left with no cure, but the itch of the bite.
Scratching away to shed.
All a gullible, convenient emotion.
Never healing, I choose to dismiss my shame and embarrassment.
It was always apparent, where and when serpents strike.

I hide in what I choose to believe with my innate brain.
Glossing glazes over my eyes, like scales on a fish, seen through a fishbowl.
What is the Lizard King anyway?
I remain tempted, as absolution shifts and changes, like finding eternal disposition in season.
Covering the harvest of autumn, drunken revelry, alluring.

Watching the bright, burning embers glow and exit up into the atmosphere is familiar.
As if immortal, I play with fire again.
It's like flaming arrows from the shadows.
My fortress, raided by an unknown enemy.
In the night, stealth.

I was dancing and drinking.
Barren and cold, I've let myself become plundered.
If only it was a dream or a trip.
The hand of God dismissed, for a secret, seductive pleasure.
It was always obvious, except to me, of whom is willingly foolish.

Signs point me in direction, as denial of hope brings doubt, in my paradoxical quest.
Acceptance, under the surface, and in recognition, metaphorical disposition, alone.
To cast the spell of a lie on oneself.
Peering into the crystal ball once again, and stirring the pot, sin is still evil.
Disassociation, death, life.

I was born wanting
yearning
i was born wanting yearning AND!!  FUUUUUCK!
come on there is more to this right?
the basement
that smelly musty rot
spurts of sunlight  of sunlight of sunlight
then dark
dark and a.m. radio
out there
where people lived
Dan Fogelberg making a song fall like rain
a fantasy world made up of a zenith black and white
dirt and filth
black eyes and parasites
the smell of piss
as i climb
climb


climb
rising to heaven to find
scorn

I'll Hang From Your Cross No More

Scratching at an open wound to get at my marrow
While dark red from damaged veins pours out slow.
Reaching for femurs fully cracked and narrow
You drain my life, my zeal, my glow.
 
A love offering of gauze and tape
And sex to suture, mend and heal.
But fractured promises felt like rape
Leaking bright crimson's sticky feel.
 
Adipose tissued compromises failed
Torn ligamented hopes of two strained.
Rotting flesh of forgiveness jailed
As decomposing divorce is on its way.
 
Marrow gone and drained of red
No more joy or playful glow.
Narrow escape and barely not dead
Aorta Yes, Symbiotic, No.

I used to draw from you
Drank your spirit
But you lost yourself in your own lies
And then you wanted the truth
But only if it was your truth

How many times could I want you
How many times was it not enough
You were once always by my side
But you challenged me by never exposing the real darkness

What do I do with you now
I’m walking away
You are stale beer
Bad wine
Cheap vodka
Not worth my scorn
Or even my lies

I didn't want to believe in our love
Because I knew it would go down in flames
You fought really hard for my commitment
Until I gave it to you, then you discarded me
Translation: You threw me out
But kept my heart, my bones on the roadside
Fresh kill
Bleed out in the love ghetto

The joke's on you though babe
I always come back
With scars but smarter
Next time just prostitutes
Transactions consummated
No fault love loss
Everyone wins, no tumors, no malignancy

The sloth and the billy-goat took to the sky
in ninety-nine red balloons
They took some toffee and plenty of coffee
and floated off t'wards the moon
 
They stopped in the land where the music grows
and they each picked a singing flower
Sloth grabbed an electric mandolin
and shredded some chords of power
 
Goat was delighted, she skipped and she hopped
through a mosh-pit of imagination
She waved at the theremin, making cool sounds
of woo-woo reverberation
 
They played and they sang and they goofed off all night
with kalimba and digeridoo
They laughed at the sound of the scratchy fish
and played grandpa on the bassoon
 
The sloth kept on crooning and goat harmonized
when at dawn they climbed into their airship
With high fives and hugs, they sailed home all aglow
from their silly-fun musical kinship.

 

I finally did it.
Took all the napalm stored up in my heart --

the apologies, the fears
the pleas, the tears
the sleepless nights
the silent fights
confessions, concessions
questions and obsessions
childhood trauma
relationship drama
petty suspicions
demands and conditions
intrusive thoughts
oughts and naughts
accusations
intimidations
myth and mystery
ancient history
wounds and scars
snuffed out stars
bad excuses
old abuses
daddy issues
bloody tissues --

All the shit
that I could fit.

Wrapped it up in searing rage
tossed it over my shoulder --

and turned the page.



.

Its days are truly numbered now
and for a moment I flare angry
that it’s been left flayed, denuded
Guts exposed as if for an autopsy or anatomy class
And I reflexively breathe “poor thing”

But then I see children
delighting in its erratic off-key plinks
Fingering its inner workings
and I suppose it could be worse…
It could have been left
rotting in a derelict house
unseen, unheard, unvalued

Surely once it filled a home
with its laughter and thunder
With hands that caressed it,
whether skilled or merely curious --
It had a family one day

**

It appeared on the street a few months ago
Still singing then, we became acquainted
It submitted to the indignity of paint
but still vocalized at my bidding

Then, bloating like a beached whale
in the humidity of a Maritime summer
through decision or dereliction of duty
it was left exposed
until dampers warped and hammers stuck
and its voice was all but silenced by rain and sun.

Quietly now, it awaits its fate
A mere decoration --
Giving only occasional plunks of joy
to the musically oblivious
with the discordance
of its dying breaths