Best Flinches Poems
The beauty of a flower is born in the winter.
It is there in that suffering
Amidst the bones of bareness
And the cold of snow
Stark and stretched
White as a perpetual desert
It is there
Where the flower finds its seed
Where red is drawn as deep as lava
And the scent as sweet as cidered apple.
It is there
Not dug from the frozen root
Of Earth
But bloomed from the blood
Of the our imagination
Beyond from where the bleak hovers
And sorrow
Sinks
It is there
Where the soul flinches and leaps
To the distant
Faint
But familiar light of being re-born.
I love how your long chestnut hair flows over your gentle shoulders,
And when the sun searches you out for a moment, your hair sparkles…
Because I lit a match and threw it into that rat infested hair ball that you
Waste all your time on. Next up is your head which I’m going to rip…
Don’t listen to him. I’m mesmerized by your deep blue eyes, when they lovingly
Gaze In my direction. I will never make you shed a tear, my dear…
But I’m going to kick you about this filthy house. It looks like all you’ve
Done all day is piss in the wind. And stop your crying; your baggy eyes are…
Ignore him, my love. Your soft, gentle touch upon my face arouses my senses to new Heights. All my cares wash away as your aquiline hand slowly glides along my arm…
What the hell does he know? If you don’t get your boney hand off me, I’m going to break it In half. And the next time I catch you trying to be nice I’m going to throw you out with…
Stop that, Hyde. Sorry, my love, but as I was saying, your body is a masterpiece sculpted out of the finest treasures. I’m in awe of its supple curves, how it flinches to the touch…
Oh, shut up Doc, you’re killing me. And speaking of killing, I feel like pummeling
The living daylights out of your emaciated, piece of good for nothing…
Please be mine baby, before I’m lost forever to…
I’m in charge, so get over here and take it like…
I’m fading, my love. Hurry, say you’ll be mine. Save us.
I’m going to tear you apart. You’re no baby, you’re a…
Save me, before the monster wins…
Too late, Dr., she will be all mine soon…
Just a kiss, my dear. Just a…
‘Slap’, take that b****...
One kiss. Now! -The Dr. and his lover kiss- Thank you, my love. Let that vile
Monster rest in peace, so that we will be left in peace from it for evermore.
I wouldn't bother
alchemizing language
into golden press releases
of your own making.
It never works long anyway,
grapevines get better reception.
A dog knows who flinches.
Moss grows where one lingers,
even silence
leaves thumbprints.
Say nothing. Say too much.
Either way—
they’ll know you.
they peel back my skin
like old wallpaper,
the stink rising
as the organs, bruised and bloated,
spill out like forgotten secrets.
the saw hums,
cutting through bone like butter,
the ribs cracking open
to a cold, fluorescent light
that never flinches.
the heart, heavy, useless now,
is weighed and tossed aside,
just another lump of meat
in a world that’s always hungry
for the next hollow thing.
looking down on what's left of me,
I turn in dicust
having to do this sll over again.
they say
children can’t be psychopaths—
as if innocence were a law
instead of a rumor.
as if the soul comes standard
with warning labels
and a conscience
pre-installed.
but some of them speak
like accountants of pain,
measuring tone,
studying delay,
watching faces collapse
for data.
they don’t rage.
they don’t cry.
they note.
they ask questions
that sound harmless
until later
when you realize
they already knew the answer
and wanted to see
how you’d lie.
no voice saying stop.
or maybe the voice is there
and they’ve learned
to mute it
like a bad radio station.
they hurt things
not for pleasure,
not even for curiosity,
but to see
if the world flinches
or stays quiet.
sometimes it stays quiet.
sometimes that teaches them
everything.
are they born this way?
or did something leave early—
a hand that didn’t reach,
a word that never came,
a look that should have said
you matter
and didn’t?
we love clean answers.
they don’t exist here.
hope?
maybe hope is just
intervention with good timing.
maybe it’s medication.
maybe it’s distance.
maybe it’s supervision
that never sleeps.
or maybe hope is a story
we tell ourselves
so we can keep eating dinner
while the future sharpens itself
down the hall.
some kids grow out of it.
some grow into it.
some never choose—
they just continue
like weather.
you want a verdict.
I don’t have one.
I’ve seen monsters
with birth certificates.
I’ve seen saints
raised in hell.
and I’ve seen silence
do most of the damage
while everyone waited
for proof.
It happened all of a sudden
My own village outgrowing its own space
With its sun bathing golden paddy spikes gone for good
Usurped as they are by the murky canopies of rubber trees
A second hand substitute with a sky high profit line
Through which a speckled sun peeps down
On fields which were once free of fleas and ticks
Whose air grew a thousand butterfly fingers
To caress you to a new life
And which is now home for midges and mosquitoes
Sinking fast hostile barbs into your same-same flesh
That but flinches though immune to pin pricks
Uncured as they are of avarice.
His Rain Songs
(inspired by Stephen Kilmer's poem, Rain Songs)
Was glad you came back, my
childhood friend from Nam.
Look at the friends of the dead;
they cry when it rains.
My friend flinches, cries, or shouts.
Forever nightmares.
The dead are resting now.
She flinches, shudders as chains tug at her flesh
The ruthless slave trader and rapist whispers to the auctioneer
And instinctively she knows that it is her turn to be sold.
The noise heightens, her eyes focus on a kind face in the crowd.
A well dressed man with a curly mustache wearing a black a top hat
His expensive suit quite obvious as he moves deliberately through the crowd
He approaches the platform and takes the slave trader aside
As the bidders become raucous, jostling and argument ensue
Her eyes trail the well dressed man with the curly mustache
As he haggles with the ruthless slave trader
Again, looking up towards the sky once more, she day dreams
Her Mama had been sold some time ago, never to be seen again.
And as she recalls the soft murmuring words of comfort
Tears fall easily from ebony eyes rolling down her face.
Then she heard a voice whisper, “Don’t cry.” “Don’t cry, Heddie”.
I am here. I am with you. And wherever you go, I will go with you.
The road will be treacherous and mighty long. This road will be hard, the
Journey, long. Yet you will be resilient. You will endure and you will be strong!
Today, I bring you a gift for all your days and beyond. The gift of song!
May your soul find rest when you sing. In joy or sorrow, trials and trouble, worship
And praise, you will sing and your spirit will ascend to God’s throne of grace.”
In that moment the chains that shackled hands and feet fell loudly onto the block
(That was the beginning of a new life for Heddie. The well dressed man with
The kind eyes rescued Heddie and the others that day. As the story about her great
Grand mother is told to her grandchildren sitting at her feet, they all realize that the blessing
which was given eons ago as Heddie stood on the auction block at twelve had been passed
forward to the present generation. They are the descendants of Heddie and the well dressed
gentleman who had moved to upstate New York where he married Heddie and gave the
slaves their freedom.)
This is written in celebration of "Black History" Month and in collaboration with Jimmy
Matthew Anderson
There she was in plain view, clean, brightly colored, and not undercover.
As nice as she was, I don’t know why she was still there and not discovered.
She sat there quietly in a sales lot of an auto dealership. The only conclusion
I could draw was that she was waiting there, just for me.
I wasn’t sure that I could afford her, but I could not resist her beauty. I was happy to be fortunate enough to make her mine. So I started her wheels to rolling in the winter of 1974. That was when I bought my first car, a 1973 Maverick on that cold winter’s day.
Years later I would consider the matter, but at the time, little did I or the Maverick realize that her model in many respects represented the very essence of me. Not given to conformity or dependency, we had something in common.
She was a six cylinder and gold colored with a black vinyl top.
From Chicago to Wisconsin, she never despaired.
Through the icy and snowy trenches, I saw no flinches.
From Northern Mississippi to Central Florida,
not once did she complain, frown, or sigh.
Through the sun bleached moisture ascending through
The Gulf of Mexico, she never resisted or said no.
Nonconforming and unconventional, she shouldered a free spirit.
Unshackled by tradition, she cruised through the winds of freedom.
In the fall of 1978 with a cross on her antenna and a sticker on her bumper,
she took our young family 2000 miles to San Francisco without a hitch.
By then, my gold Maverick had served us well.
Her many miles were beginning to show and tell.
An inflated economy and high gas prices forced her to be benched.
We sold her to a dear friend in 1979, and I have missed her since.
12122016PSContest, Late August Standard, Brian Strand
Keep digging trenches,
Enemy bodies piled in ditches,
No intuition for this is no heaven vision,
Where is God in wars religion,
Indecision, nervous flinches, Napalm bombs on all divisions,
Stoic mission, missiles hissing,
Men in anguish hate to listen,
Crosshairs within and cowards prisoned,
Reapers laughing no repentance,
Superstition is omission,
No surrender in fears secretion,
Wage extension that hallow pension,
Shell shock stock all ammunition,
Peaceful fission the last redemption,
Death so vital in attrition,
Nuclear assistance,
End of existence,
Vision intention of nations decision,
Sanction schism, bomb in rhythm,
Open up lets make a difference,
Now the world is a burning pit,
Legions of generals worship it,
Reason the guilty of dying unequipped,
Bleeding lesions in war never for the innocent only belligerents
I held the leash like it was sacred,
I warned that she spooked easy.
He knelt down slowly, extended his hand
like a priest offering sacrament
to a god built from nerves and ribs.
He said good girl too fast.
She bit down to the bone,
drained the smugness from his face—
he earned it, the wound. The scar
would preach a gospel he'd finally believe in.
Now, when he reaches for warmth,
it's with permission. His hand flinches
even when it's safe. The nerves
didn’t come back right, fireworks
in reverse: a cold bloom,
then nothing good.
Still—
there’s a kind of comfort
in knowing how easily a creature
can taste the air and understand
they're not safe,
sense they're being lied to.
And now, I should say,
Beware—
I'm a lot like that.
Sitting in a reserved preoccupation,
Counting down the hours until the bus pulls into the station.
Consumed with an agonizing anticipation,
To once again be flooded with green fields of consumption.
The smell of a scent that is intoxicating,
The taste of sweet cream that is exhilarating.
The sight of flesh that is an art of perfection,
The sound of a voice that has lustful articulation.
Getting harder to think of nothing more,
Than seeing you come through the door.
To see you in your lingerie,
The way you move; the way you sway.
All the senses are restrained no more as my body flinches,
Gripped in your soft caressing clinches.
To have waited for that which was temporarily postponed,
Exhaustively releasing a moan.
@ Tunisia Torres
4/17/2009
Do rabbits bite?
I sure hope not
‘Cause their fur’s so fluffy
Like my cat’s
And they are well rounded
Fat even,
They look cuddly
Like a hairy teddy
And I just have to touch them!
Slowly I reach my palm
Pause it above its skin
It doesn’t move away
So I lower my hand
And touch its nose
Gentle
It flinches a little
But stays on
I touch it again
But this time
It shies away.
And I smile in relief
rabbits don’t bite after all
"Men die by the hundred thousand"
Just like that, with one command
As if we're discussing grains of rice, or sand
As though there's no need to expand
When in truth every one felled
Can mean more than
The cause and the effect
And the circumstance and the consequence
And the situation and the solution
Of war itself
But that's not War...
For there is no nobility
Or elegance or beauty
Of any kind
That any mind
Can fathom
Or any conscience
Can stem
But that's not War...
They die for honor.
They sacrifice for valor.
They die for country
Fall like sentry
Which makes it alright
Because apparently
Heaven knows their plight
And therefore justifies their fight
But that's not true,
And that's not War...
Because there's no decency
And there's no excellency
In this kind of death.
For even Death himself has found
That he flinches at the sound
Of the blood splattered ground
Shaking around him
But that's not War...
It's gotta be money then
That's gotta be the reason
It's gotta be the definition
Of what war's all about.
Maybe it's the dying children
Maybe that's what they call treason
Nope.
THEY FIGHT FOR PASSION! FOR LOVE! FOR PRESERVATION OF RIGHTS! FOR ANTI-
TERRORISM! FOR WORLD PEACE! FOR SOMETHING RIGHT?
Nope.
For you can't label
This grotesque industry
Because it's impossible
To apply it with morality
Because war
Isn't deep
With massive gore
It's shallow and steep
Because war in itself is the greatest example
of human extravagance put to the test and pushed
to the outer limits of vanity where it can ironically
pretend that it stands for anything more than what it is.
And like all of the greatest and most celestial human epiphanies,
it comes without justice and reason. Because once we've stooped down
to the point where we can tear each other apart... nothing really exists
Politics fades
Justice waves
At your facade
And criminals
And lunatics
And judges
And presidents
And doctors
And lawyers
And corporations
And reporters
And heaven
And hell...
They laugh at this charade.
Tricked you again. Because
That's not War.
No.
War is when a homeless man
Dies of hunger without a plan
Because justice has put a ban
On letting him simply take what he can
To live.
This is War.
We are a mercurial Gemini women.
Yes, you read this correctly.
We are so many personalities.
It might seem nutty to a Capricorn or Aries woman.
But we are at least six, maybe seven women
in one body that used to be tiny.
My husband of fifty years flinches when we walk toward him
in the morning.
He never knows if he is getting an upper cut to his chin
or a sexy kiss.
Our hazel eyes flash with happiness as we read his scared little mind.
We love this!