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.
SONG LYRICS
Published
25th Jun 2020 2:30am
25th Jun 2020 2:30am
My Buddy Tom
#books
654 reads
4 Comments
SONG LYRICS
Published
16th Jun 2020 3:05am
16th Jun 2020 3:05am
I Don't Need to Know
#alcohol
#aging
#nostalgia #Romanticism
#nostalgia #Romanticism
762 reads
17 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
3rd Jun 2020 3:33pm
3rd Jun 2020 3:33pm
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
535 reads
4 Comments
STORY POEM
Published
14th May 2020 1:36pm
14th May 2020 1:36pm
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
491 reads
6 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
2nd Mar 2020 4:43pm
2nd Mar 2020 4:43pm
February 28th, 2020
I put an apple-core into thawing earth today--
pushed it into her fertility with my boot--
and stood back, surprised.
I hadn’t planned a tree for the yard,
but found its desire humming in my stomach,
vibrating the bones,
resonating my hollow cave
with its springtime cravings.
What a thing it is to desire:
The muzzled animal in your cage
speaking strange volumes more eloquent than language can will from tongue,
leaving us in sudden silent mystery.
pushed it into her fertility with my boot--
and stood back, surprised.
I hadn’t planned a tree for the yard,
but found its desire humming in my stomach,
vibrating the bones,
resonating my hollow cave
with its springtime cravings.
What a thing it is to desire:
The muzzled animal in your cage
speaking strange volumes more eloquent than language can will from tongue,
leaving us in sudden silent mystery.
#lust
#spring
#food
431 reads
8 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
13th Jan 2020 7:11pm
13th Jan 2020 7:11pm
Funeral Song
Flowers mingle with mortal dust,
meet on stale bones--
lonely crooning;
an evening's intoxicated courtship;
sweet hollow hymns headed for morning.
meet on stale bones--
lonely crooning;
an evening's intoxicated courtship;
sweet hollow hymns headed for morning.
#beauty
#death
471 reads
8 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
18th Dec 2019 7:50pm
18th Dec 2019 7:50pm
How to Be A Star Wars Fan (and Still Be Happy)
Remember that no ending can satisfy
The hunger of a gold tinted memory.
Remember how celluloid hides mess,
a splotch of gel on a lens masking ugly mechanism,
making it float.
Remember that perfection-lust leads to disappointment;
disappointment leads to resentment;
resentment to heaviness;
antithesis to the purpose,
a dark side force-pulling you back from the light
where you long to return.
Remember the shadow-living Sith forever sits,
badly written in the shadows,
blemishing the beauty, ...
The hunger of a gold tinted memory.
Remember how celluloid hides mess,
a splotch of gel on a lens masking ugly mechanism,
making it float.
Remember that perfection-lust leads to disappointment;
disappointment leads to resentment;
resentment to heaviness;
antithesis to the purpose,
a dark side force-pulling you back from the light
where you long to return.
Remember the shadow-living Sith forever sits,
badly written in the shadows,
blemishing the beauty, ...
#PopCulture
465 reads
4 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
4th Dec 2019 5:13pm
4th Dec 2019 5:13pm
Reminder
Just the reminder that I never did kill it,
that it still breathes and broods beneath my new clean skin.
That the shackles have been let out, not broken,
that at times, I will come back like the animal I used to be.
The reminder that I will, liberated, listen in the shadows of my room
for its heavy breathing, come to reclaim its crown,
to sit on my shoulders, weighing down weak bones.
Remembering that it is god, and I can only hear its call,
try as I might to mishear its bellowed commandments,.
It is the ever thirsty drain,...
that it still breathes and broods beneath my new clean skin.
That the shackles have been let out, not broken,
that at times, I will come back like the animal I used to be.
The reminder that I will, liberated, listen in the shadows of my room
for its heavy breathing, come to reclaim its crown,
to sit on my shoulders, weighing down weak bones.
Remembering that it is god, and I can only hear its call,
try as I might to mishear its bellowed commandments,.
It is the ever thirsty drain,...
#depression
#alcohol
#food #addiction
#food #addiction
487 reads
7 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
8th Nov 2019 6:52pm
8th Nov 2019 6:52pm
How to Kill a Nest in the Walls
Put the children to bed.
Crawl out from the sanctum, sleep-heavy.
Dawn thick fabrics head to toe and
put aside the rest of your preservation.
Silence the contradiction of the deed,
its gibberish irony,
a mad ringleader’s bellow.
Enter the ring, overweening.
Do not be too cautious with your precious body—
a sting or two is no consequence
for their gagged sleep.
Pause to marvel at life’s insolent flame,
laughing in the face of a universe
constantly trying to stomp it out.
Hose in hand,...
Crawl out from the sanctum, sleep-heavy.
Dawn thick fabrics head to toe and
put aside the rest of your preservation.
Silence the contradiction of the deed,
its gibberish irony,
a mad ringleader’s bellow.
Enter the ring, overweening.
Do not be too cautious with your precious body—
a sting or two is no consequence
for their gagged sleep.
Pause to marvel at life’s insolent flame,
laughing in the face of a universe
constantly trying to stomp it out.
Hose in hand,...
#love
#family
#murder
#death
#hypocrisy
586 reads
7 Comments
DRUGS POEM
Published
6th Nov 2019 9:49pm
6th Nov 2019 9:49pm
You Look So Pretty When You're High
#love
#relationships
#alcohol
986 reads
10 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
4th Nov 2019 6:34pm
4th Nov 2019 6:34pm
Falling in Love at Forty
#love
#depression
#loneliness #alcohol
#loneliness #alcohol
788 reads
6 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
20th Oct 2019 6:02pm
20th Oct 2019 6:02pm
The Cemetery Groundskeeper
I think maybe they don’t understand
the hard love of tending frozen grounds.
Keeping watch in mornings where your stomach folds in on itself, cringing against the cold,
barely blinking to defy whatever it is that sees beauty
and wants to stomp it out.
Sometimes it’s kids with their indiscriminate anger.
Sometimes it’s wealthy men growing nearer to the grave than their money can prevent.
With cold faith, I tend to the soil’s sleeping womb,
trusting its secret fertility,
that springtime waits to awaken her wild sex
on the roar of...
the hard love of tending frozen grounds.
Keeping watch in mornings where your stomach folds in on itself, cringing against the cold,
barely blinking to defy whatever it is that sees beauty
and wants to stomp it out.
Sometimes it’s kids with their indiscriminate anger.
Sometimes it’s wealthy men growing nearer to the grave than their money can prevent.
With cold faith, I tend to the soil’s sleeping womb,
trusting its secret fertility,
that springtime waits to awaken her wild sex
on the roar of...
#death
#rebirth
#LifeCycle
477 reads
5 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by hgnichols (Harry Nichols)
