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.
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
16th Oct 2019 2:08pm
16th Oct 2019 2:08pm
My Response to my Two-Year-Old Daughter’s Question at the Funeral
My life is a parody of a tragedy.”
— Hamlet 2
My mouth spat dust
Because the absolute strangeness of dying
Defied the singsong of my daddy timbre.
Shadow can be recast,
But absurdity sits in the stomach,
An overturned rock groaning and rheumatic,
And all the solid black of the catholic funeral mass
cannot keep the waters of parody from
Seeping in through the mortar of the skin.
I eyed a box labeled for the dead
Tucked behind a garbage can,
Smelled the disdain of a long winter
On lingering knees,
Heard the...
— Hamlet 2
My mouth spat dust
Because the absolute strangeness of dying
Defied the singsong of my daddy timbre.
Shadow can be recast,
But absurdity sits in the stomach,
An overturned rock groaning and rheumatic,
And all the solid black of the catholic funeral mass
cannot keep the waters of parody from
Seeping in through the mortar of the skin.
I eyed a box labeled for the dead
Tucked behind a garbage can,
Smelled the disdain of a long winter
On lingering knees,
Heard the...
#death
#fatherhood
528 reads
9 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
2nd Sep 2019 5:09pm
2nd Sep 2019 5:09pm
Titanic
I woke up to a 2AM clamor and thought it was the end’s beginning.
Seized in a hazy, undefined panic,
I remembered how I used to think
that if I were aboard the Titanic
and understood all that was to come,
I’d find some way to survive.
Fashion a raft out of a door,
Or build a pyre on the upper to deck to summon
ships otherwise inclined to pass in silence.
In that moment, as the water leaked in through little slits,
began to show itself at the ankles,
swelling my bedframe,
I understood why clever invention saved no one, ...
Seized in a hazy, undefined panic,
I remembered how I used to think
that if I were aboard the Titanic
and understood all that was to come,
I’d find some way to survive.
Fashion a raft out of a door,
Or build a pyre on the upper to deck to summon
ships otherwise inclined to pass in silence.
In that moment, as the water leaked in through little slits,
began to show itself at the ankles,
swelling my bedframe,
I understood why clever invention saved no one, ...
#anxiety
#dreams
#environment
#pollution
#apocalypse
498 reads
3 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
27th Aug 2019 12:18pm
27th Aug 2019 12:18pm
Illusion
I think I loved the illusion of you,
a ghost of light refracting off your skin,
striking my eyes, confusing the brain,
hard and twisted and burning
I'm better now,
and understand the mechanics behind that trick of yours.
Ironed out that old glitch
and now I run smooth and clean and straight.
Now when you come around,
I laugh at my old self,
blinking and rubbing eyes and thinking
a ghost of light refracting off your skin,
striking my eyes, confusing the brain,
hard and twisted and burning
I'm better now,
and understand the mechanics behind that trick of yours.
Ironed out that old glitch
and now I run smooth and clean and straight.
Now when you come around,
I laugh at my old self,
blinking and rubbing eyes and thinking
#love
567 reads
3 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
26th Aug 2019 11:46pm
26th Aug 2019 11:46pm
Tenente in Confidence
Now that my liver is open and bleeding,
I suppose I’ve been trying to speak my discontent.
That awful word I would not spit out,
Stuck in my teeth,
Telling itself in the moaning of my muscles,
The curvature of my back slumping downward as if begging for a bed or grave.
I’ve been numbing myself at the cafe and in the kitchen,
In the mornings and evenings to ease the transition between bouts of sleep,
Pores telling tales in the stink.
Every binge an unsayable frustration,
A dwindling summer spent bedridden
Catherine Barkley at bedside...
I suppose I’ve been trying to speak my discontent.
That awful word I would not spit out,
Stuck in my teeth,
Telling itself in the moaning of my muscles,
The curvature of my back slumping downward as if begging for a bed or grave.
I’ve been numbing myself at the cafe and in the kitchen,
In the mornings and evenings to ease the transition between bouts of sleep,
Pores telling tales in the stink.
Every binge an unsayable frustration,
A dwindling summer spent bedridden
Catherine Barkley at bedside...
#love
#alcohol
#books #ErnestHemingway
#books #ErnestHemingway
564 reads
5 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
25th Aug 2019 6:34pm
25th Aug 2019 6:34pm
Bender
You are the first bourbon on my spirit
The drop diluting hard water
Subtle sweetness felt rather than tasted.
Your influence is my singing blood
And the semi-sleep warmth
And the seduction only registered in retrospect.
I do not know how I have begun to follow you,
Second shot warming the stomach
Limbs alight and blissfull
Or, as the third goes down,
When my mind will lose its language,
Or my tongue the will to speak it,
To bellow instead your inebriate hymns.
You are the never ending glass in my hand,
The...
The drop diluting hard water
Subtle sweetness felt rather than tasted.
Your influence is my singing blood
And the semi-sleep warmth
And the seduction only registered in retrospect.
I do not know how I have begun to follow you,
Second shot warming the stomach
Limbs alight and blissfull
Or, as the third goes down,
When my mind will lose its language,
Or my tongue the will to speak it,
To bellow instead your inebriate hymns.
You are the never ending glass in my hand,
The...
#love
#sex
#alcohol
599 reads
0 Comments
DRUGS POEM
Published
13th Jun 2019 6:07pm
13th Jun 2019 6:07pm
All 8 Bits Glued Together
I lust after that pixel annihilation,
To separate myself into color blocks,
Constituent parts related but not whole,
Incapable of meaning.
When I was younger, I would drink myself stupid
And reverse the world’s laws,
Hit pause on entire days
And live impossible lives, disassembled.
Realities bled together,
Essence and format confused,
And now, I chase those days like a Mushroom Kingdom bride,
Always in another castle,
All 8 bits glued together.
To separate myself into color blocks,
Constituent parts related but not whole,
Incapable of meaning.
When I was younger, I would drink myself stupid
And reverse the world’s laws,
Hit pause on entire days
And live impossible lives, disassembled.
Realities bled together,
Essence and format confused,
And now, I chase those days like a Mushroom Kingdom bride,
Always in another castle,
All 8 bits glued together.
#depression
#alcohol
549 reads
0 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
1st May 2019 8:02pm
1st May 2019 8:02pm
Jalopy
I do not trust this bucket of bones body,
Ramshackle, jury-rigged, clanging as it rumbles,
puttering farts pumping air bubbles through awkward piping
angles that don't quite close,
lines not quite straight,
all put together half-assed,
one mistake covering another.
I do not like driving it through my day-to-day
or on long trips far out of help's reach
relying on it like a child on a driving drunk
probably being fine.
A friend of mine said, "A man will drive himself mad
listening to the sounds a car makes,"
And so for years I...
Ramshackle, jury-rigged, clanging as it rumbles,
puttering farts pumping air bubbles through awkward piping
angles that don't quite close,
lines not quite straight,
all put together half-assed,
one mistake covering another.
I do not like driving it through my day-to-day
or on long trips far out of help's reach
relying on it like a child on a driving drunk
probably being fine.
A friend of mine said, "A man will drive himself mad
listening to the sounds a car makes,"
And so for years I...
#cars
#illness
#MentalHealth #fatherhood
#MentalHealth #fatherhood
605 reads
3 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
28th Apr 2019 7:32pm
28th Apr 2019 7:32pm
Return
Deep down at the bottom of the pit, a voice issues, resonating forward, shaking the stalagmites in its thundering command: Return.
I, hearing it, am called wildly, leaving thicket bodies who waft always the same way,
My lungs pulling air with every ounce of their will, detaching from bronchiole in the strain,
A response which ends only in one outcome: Return.
I do not stop to wonder what it means,
or rather, I do, but silence an echoing voice which says: no
I allow the din of the crowds to drown it out
allow the ache of the muscles straining as they pop ...
I, hearing it, am called wildly, leaving thicket bodies who waft always the same way,
My lungs pulling air with every ounce of their will, detaching from bronchiole in the strain,
A response which ends only in one outcome: Return.
I do not stop to wonder what it means,
or rather, I do, but silence an echoing voice which says: no
I allow the din of the crowds to drown it out
allow the ache of the muscles straining as they pop ...
#identity
#death
#separation
449 reads
2 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
25th Apr 2019 12:36pm
25th Apr 2019 12:36pm
Waiting for an Appendectomy
You have swollen, appendix,
And now I will have you cut out,
Your absence patched,
My body’s holes becoming seaworthy scars,
Sailor’s tattoos.
I have lost my time to you
Wading against sweet slow waters
Taking them on,
Weighing down the dingy,
More drowning.
Again, I remember I can no longer afford
useless weight.
I cannot let my pockets collect droplets
The vulgar display of indulgence,
Does not look good on me anymore.
The waterlogged chic of the young
Will not help me wade this gulf,
So I have informed...
And now I will have you cut out,
Your absence patched,
My body’s holes becoming seaworthy scars,
Sailor’s tattoos.
I have lost my time to you
Wading against sweet slow waters
Taking them on,
Weighing down the dingy,
More drowning.
Again, I remember I can no longer afford
useless weight.
I cannot let my pockets collect droplets
The vulgar display of indulgence,
Does not look good on me anymore.
The waterlogged chic of the young
Will not help me wade this gulf,
So I have informed...
#sea
#illness
#MovingOn #boredom
#MovingOn #boredom
460 reads
1 Comment
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
19th Apr 2019 8:12pm
19th Apr 2019 8:12pm
Open, Blossom
Open, surly blossom
Stir in me the sweet pain of skin crackling,
Writhing once again with submerged life,
Threatening to burst forth,
Overturning my tombstone skin in reckless play,
Tearing the earth asunder.
I do not wish to be thickened,
Tanned and coarse,
But tender and raw,
My new skin against cruel air,
Red, all nerve endings alight
Sloughing off futile death.
Stir in me the sweet pain of skin crackling,
Writhing once again with submerged life,
Threatening to burst forth,
Overturning my tombstone skin in reckless play,
Tearing the earth asunder.
I do not wish to be thickened,
Tanned and coarse,
But tender and raw,
My new skin against cruel air,
Red, all nerve endings alight
Sloughing off futile death.
#birth
#flowers
#spring
#nature
#hurt
468 reads
1 Comment
SELF POEM
Published
14th Nov 2018 5:24pm
14th Nov 2018 5:24pm
Shovel Prayer
I sing a sacrament to winter,
That canine, clamping its cold upon
Earth’s innocent flesh.
Seal my offering with blood squeezed
From cracking skin of my hands
Which, for all of their complaining
Have built nothing.
These movers of snow
Will be forgotten in spring
My prayer on the wind dissipating,
Consecrating a ground haunted by no gods or ghosts.
This is an elegy to that ice cream emperor, ozymandius
An ode to impotence himself,
To my cooling labored muscles which have spitted themselves
Over the cold flame of your fang ...
That canine, clamping its cold upon
Earth’s innocent flesh.
Seal my offering with blood squeezed
From cracking skin of my hands
Which, for all of their complaining
Have built nothing.
These movers of snow
Will be forgotten in spring
My prayer on the wind dissipating,
Consecrating a ground haunted by no gods or ghosts.
This is an elegy to that ice cream emperor, ozymandius
An ode to impotence himself,
To my cooling labored muscles which have spitted themselves
Over the cold flame of your fang ...
#sadness
#winter
#snow #God
#snow #God
541 reads
2 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
20th Oct 2018 4:12pm
20th Oct 2018 4:12pm
Some Scars You Got in Middle School
Some scars you get in middle school will never fade.
They will hurt at odd hours.
They will come calling in the middle of the night like your bachelor friends,
begging to be taken out.
They will visit upon you when your guard is down and lights are off and resting.
Memories like headstones,
Granite and epigraph for you to overlook except in peculiar lighting,
The flinch you
feel taking off your shirt for the doctor,
a small drum in the rhythm of your morning headache.
There--
The squeak under the great hum of adulthood, barely audible,...
They will hurt at odd hours.
They will come calling in the middle of the night like your bachelor friends,
begging to be taken out.
They will visit upon you when your guard is down and lights are off and resting.
Memories like headstones,
Granite and epigraph for you to overlook except in peculiar lighting,
The flinch you
feel taking off your shirt for the doctor,
a small drum in the rhythm of your morning headache.
There--
The squeak under the great hum of adulthood, barely audible,...
#childhood
#SelfReflection
654 reads
3 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by hgnichols (Harry Nichols)
