Submissions by hgnichols (Harry Nichols)
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
I have casually written poems for years and have felt the need lately to share them with others. #Dadlife and gigs often prevent me from reading them in person, so here I am.
Supplication
I share your orgy blood, king Dionysus,
and from your ashes raise a thousand revelries.
Oh let me taste the honey-cakes of sin;
let me subsist on surfeit long enough.
I cannot long contain my burgeoning,
my holy light that would drink and eat and love
embracing fullness
praising pleasure
breaking bread
dying young but free.
and from your ashes raise a thousand revelries.
Oh let me taste the honey-cakes of sin;
let me subsist on surfeit long enough.
I cannot long contain my burgeoning,
my holy light that would drink and eat and love
embracing fullness
praising pleasure
breaking bread
dying young but free.
#love
#identity
#alcohol
#food
#passion
145 reads
2 Comments
Embrace the Sun
Embrace the Sun's bitter sweet morning;
soaking in at pores,
conferring upon you, in darkening shades,
its wholesale consent.
Rise to the pain in back, in legs, in thighs,
and feel them fully.
Understand the dancing dust celebrate
their bygone lives, the sweetness of forgetting
in her golden kiss.
Savor the muscles' strain,
the pangs before breakfast,
the cold of silent, storied rooms:
these are her arms outstretched,
inviting you to infinite vitality.
soaking in at pores,
conferring upon you, in darkening shades,
its wholesale consent.
Rise to the pain in back, in legs, in thighs,
and feel them fully.
Understand the dancing dust celebrate
their bygone lives, the sweetness of forgetting
in her golden kiss.
Savor the muscles' strain,
the pangs before breakfast,
the cold of silent, storied rooms:
these are her arms outstretched,
inviting you to infinite vitality.
#morning
#dawn
142 reads
4 Comments
Mortal Kombat, Hungover
Can't you see my swivel head spin,
orbiting a concussion sun?
Breathless, beaten blue
thoughtless, head metal-racket
feet disconnected from heart, mind
disjointed thinking
how can I be so helpless?
It's Mortal Kombat,
so I should have known the possibility;
seen the eventuality--
Even the best sometimes succumb
to pissants spamming "punch."
Cheap shots, cheap shots,
the idiot luck of the game
hastily constructed, ad hoc pixels slapped together
accidental death trap.
Here I am,
queezy, broken...
orbiting a concussion sun?
Breathless, beaten blue
thoughtless, head metal-racket
feet disconnected from heart, mind
disjointed thinking
how can I be so helpless?
It's Mortal Kombat,
so I should have known the possibility;
seen the eventuality--
Even the best sometimes succumb
to pissants spamming "punch."
Cheap shots, cheap shots,
the idiot luck of the game
hastily constructed, ad hoc pixels slapped together
accidental death trap.
Here I am,
queezy, broken...
#alcohol
#despair
207 reads
3 Comments
For Yiannis
I sat beneath your crow heavy limbs
And contemplated the incomprehensible,
Trying, there, to swallow the sun,
To understand dark like your prison,
Your bark shackles.
You did not groan a reply.
The wind left no stick-scratch whisper.
It’s funny; despite your changed form,
You remain the mystery you always have been.
And contemplated the incomprehensible,
Trying, there, to swallow the sun,
To understand dark like your prison,
Your bark shackles.
You did not groan a reply.
The wind left no stick-scratch whisper.
It’s funny; despite your changed form,
You remain the mystery you always have been.
#grief
#suicide
415 reads
2 Comments
Listen to Brother
Listen because I am the only grown up left.
Listen because this house’s bones are bending,
load-bearing wall,
sagging, groaning, hungry.
Listen because the rust-water comes,
leaky piped, bile pools,
streaking nursery walls,
baby waking wet.
Listen because Mother and Father will not wake,
try as we have to rouse them
From opulent slumber.
Listen because daylight has dwindled and night is long.
Because the boil-man is calling at the front door.
Because the kitchen is barren,
bereft over bygone revelry
and nostalgia...
Listen because this house’s bones are bending,
load-bearing wall,
sagging, groaning, hungry.
Listen because the rust-water comes,
leaky piped, bile pools,
streaking nursery walls,
baby waking wet.
Listen because Mother and Father will not wake,
try as we have to rouse them
From opulent slumber.
Listen because daylight has dwindled and night is long.
Because the boil-man is calling at the front door.
Because the kitchen is barren,
bereft over bygone revelry
and nostalgia...
#anger
#grief
#GunControl
328 reads
6 Comments
Ephemera I
This is somebody's wasted light
its record in mindless unthought scrawl.
How many exposures are burned this way?
Little scraps lining workplace floors,
How high a pile can be made with sweeping?
What desolate dunes? What funeral fires?
Countless lives in service of nothing,
counting down to death.
its record in mindless unthought scrawl.
How many exposures are burned this way?
Little scraps lining workplace floors,
How high a pile can be made with sweeping?
What desolate dunes? What funeral fires?
Countless lives in service of nothing,
counting down to death.
#death
348 reads
3 Comments
774 reads
3 Comments
Morning Walk
When I was a voyeur,
I stole out into unpeopled calm.
There was innocent dawn and her choir,
sounding her half dreaming tongue,
stretching cool fingers to touch guiltless earth;
trusting, naked.
I do not know how long I marveled in beauty’s wake,
Or what ticks I laid hidden in the grass on my return.
I stole out into unpeopled calm.
There was innocent dawn and her choir,
sounding her half dreaming tongue,
stretching cool fingers to touch guiltless earth;
trusting, naked.
I do not know how long I marveled in beauty’s wake,
Or what ticks I laid hidden in the grass on my return.
#lust
#evil
#nature #mythology
#nature #mythology
470 reads
7 Comments
564 reads
4 Comments
654 reads
17 Comments
Washington, 6/1/20
What numbness will I be
when angry swelling subsides?
I cannot grieve for the sting;
I cannot raise my tongue in hopeful song—
My sweat is a parted sea parody:
Moses crossing, unpursued
in great self-symbolism.
Such is the sorrow of nature, beaten out;
a god-hand, lobbed to break the pooling instinct—
leaving us with little left to call ourselves.
We watch him bear the bible
like a cross along the path—
as if to pave chaos
and usher freedom to slaves.
Arriving alone at derelict sanctuary
Looking...
when angry swelling subsides?
I cannot grieve for the sting;
I cannot raise my tongue in hopeful song—
My sweat is a parted sea parody:
Moses crossing, unpursued
in great self-symbolism.
Such is the sorrow of nature, beaten out;
a god-hand, lobbed to break the pooling instinct—
leaving us with little left to call ourselves.
We watch him bear the bible
like a cross along the path—
as if to pave chaos
and usher freedom to slaves.
Arriving alone at derelict sanctuary
Looking...
#corruption
#oppression
#politics
#evil
#religion
433 reads
4 Comments
Canto I: Appeal
Said the poet in his desperate hour:
A supplication to the gods who feast
upon the pain-varietals of man;
An entertaining tease to pass the time
as ages wilt and rot eternally.
I sing a song that you may slake the thirst,
or rather, give you cause to let it slip
your mind, a willed omission. In repense,
confer upon you something to be told
when you, your greatest cravings cannot sate.
Thus is what I offer greater still
than any fleeting bliss you may derive
from all my fleeting mortal agony.
Though well you know the...
A supplication to the gods who feast
upon the pain-varietals of man;
An entertaining tease to pass the time
as ages wilt and rot eternally.
I sing a song that you may slake the thirst,
or rather, give you cause to let it slip
your mind, a willed omission. In repense,
confer upon you something to be told
when you, your greatest cravings cannot sate.
Thus is what I offer greater still
than any fleeting bliss you may derive
from all my fleeting mortal agony.
Though well you know the...
#love
#regret
#death #epic
#death #epic
421 reads
6 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by hgnichols (Harry Nichols)