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.
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
495 reads
0 Comments
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
470 reads
0 Comments
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
514 reads
3 Comments
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
374 reads
2 Comments
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
385 reads
1 Comment
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
398 reads
1 Comment
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
446 reads
2 Comments
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
568 reads
3 Comments
Fever-Dream
I wanted something profound to say
about the wilderness we walked
crooked as snakes.
something in your vicious fang
and the orchards’ fruit;
some deep truth feeding the garden
like subterranean creeks
nourishing the thicket hiding
our joint fever-dream.
Like all carnage, ours was empty.
Dreams forgotten on waking,
all pumping earth awaiting collapse,
hollow fruit.
We were animals basking in
idiot nature, drunken meanings,
howling at nothing.
about the wilderness we walked
crooked as snakes.
something in your vicious fang
and the orchards’ fruit;
some deep truth feeding the garden
like subterranean creeks
nourishing the thicket hiding
our joint fever-dream.
Like all carnage, ours was empty.
Dreams forgotten on waking,
all pumping earth awaiting collapse,
hollow fruit.
We were animals basking in
idiot nature, drunken meanings,
howling at nothing.
#love
#dark
#sex
#nostalgia
#FirstLove
654 reads
2 Comments
Dreams of a Feast
To the person that leaves me hungry,
whose voice I hear softly speaking in my heightened hearing,
who fills my stomach with emptiness, hidden in the shadow of my room,
The one that speaks to me through my phone
with her digital tongue to say I’m sorry we missed each other
To whom I address emails strung together like paperless chains to say
I’m sorry, I’ll be home late again and again and again
To the person I find evidence of in dinners left on the stove
whose trails I follow around the kitchen
Whose daily activities I surmise, but am never sure...
whose voice I hear softly speaking in my heightened hearing,
who fills my stomach with emptiness, hidden in the shadow of my room,
The one that speaks to me through my phone
with her digital tongue to say I’m sorry we missed each other
To whom I address emails strung together like paperless chains to say
I’m sorry, I’ll be home late again and again and again
To the person I find evidence of in dinners left on the stove
whose trails I follow around the kitchen
Whose daily activities I surmise, but am never sure...
#love
#relationships
#frustration #separation
#frustration #separation
438 reads
0 Comments
Death of a Cell
I’ll bet you didn’t know that the bars of your cage ache as well,
Too fixed, as you are, on your own solitude and greif.
It aches down to the marrow with the weight of the cornice
Pulling itself ever downward until it lands,
A mound in earth,
Reverse birth into its mother.
Perhaps this is the real lesson, you do not think,
That watching the sinking motion of our vessel teaches as much if not more
Than scratching our small existence into the metal cot frame for lack of better artifacts.
The bars will soon sag, the cell itself collapse,
A lung...
Too fixed, as you are, on your own solitude and greif.
It aches down to the marrow with the weight of the cornice
Pulling itself ever downward until it lands,
A mound in earth,
Reverse birth into its mother.
Perhaps this is the real lesson, you do not think,
That watching the sinking motion of our vessel teaches as much if not more
Than scratching our small existence into the metal cot frame for lack of better artifacts.
The bars will soon sag, the cell itself collapse,
A lung...
#dark
#FeelingTrapped
#emotional
482 reads
0 Comments
Waiting to be Smitten
I don’t want you to shrink,
to wither away, dust and skin
a ghost carried on drafts
weakness overpowering,
my brittle vessel,
my deflating birthday balloon,
my broken home
mold covered cracking
falling in, sagging at the seams
barely load bearing
collapsing in a rottenwood pile
light debris spreading the memory itself,
discordant, out-of-focus,
details deleting themselves,
not wanting to cause me any trouble.
I want you to impose.
I want you to fill my sight and conquer me.
I want you break me and I...
to wither away, dust and skin
a ghost carried on drafts
weakness overpowering,
my brittle vessel,
my deflating birthday balloon,
my broken home
mold covered cracking
falling in, sagging at the seams
barely load bearing
collapsing in a rottenwood pile
light debris spreading the memory itself,
discordant, out-of-focus,
details deleting themselves,
not wanting to cause me any trouble.
I want you to impose.
I want you to fill my sight and conquer me.
I want you break me and I...
#love
#relationships
#power
464 reads
2 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by hgnichols (Harry Nichols)