Best Fracture Poems
I tried to reach out, blink in silence and say my words, but there is a lost syllable and a forgiven diction. I buried my art, my passion.
I tried to tear my skin apart, carve in silence and swim in the blood, but there is a broken knife and a tired hand. I buried my sorrow, my passion.
i tried to hold your hand, glimpse in your heart and kiss it close, but there is a fragile door and the locks made of dead petals. i buried my love, my passion.
"I went back to the grave, holding your favourite lilies. I dig slowly beside you and reach the metal clank. I loved you passionately and obsessively.
The box handle creaks and opens, a canvas with dried blood stains, a half fractured knife and the unsent letters.
a lady walks up to me, handcuffs me back and requests that i slowly move away from the evidence and let go".
I buried your body, my passion.
Fracture
The night has broken herself,
thinking of you.
Even now,
no solace
for the fiery pocket of hate
that I hold in my fists
still burning.
I played the piano
side-by-side with her,
Easter Sunday
where no sun broke
through
the ossuary
you called our home.
She slumped upon my lap
suddenly,
like a grief poisoned,
and
her eyes rolled back
into themselves,
looking for reasons
beyond you.
The music stopped
with the snap-back
click of the neck.
And I try to find the tune
in memory,
but the sharp gasp
of disbelief
resonates instead.
And then, recalling
the blank
paste
of your face,
slapped
hap-hazard
on the stair,
downward spiral,
as she lay
still:
contused and dying.
There are many
things I've forgiven
about
that day
those days
those years
of tragedy,
But
my own silent
cowardice
slaughters
more of my
sunrises
than you do.
Callous now,
the shadow
of you
eclipsing
the moon of my mouth
forever
silent-screaming frozen.
The tomb rock
rolls back
and I emerge,
as if from
crucifixion:
the images
resurrected
as the nightmare
rift
between
then and now
splits itself
in two:
her still-life portrait body,
the bloody ghost
of you.
Notes: I wrote this poem on Eater Sunday, exactly thirty years after my father beat my mother to a pulp. She was hospitalised for three weeks, and no one thought to notify my sister and I, who were at boarding school at the time. The imagery pertains to Easter, to my rebirth from trauma. Although cathartic, it served as a reminder to the horrors of a violent youth.
Damn these days of separation,
we both react out of desperation.
Where simple logic is thrown aside,
and dog eat dog reeks of self pride.
Trying to survive with no obligations,
loosing my mind knowing my past fixations.
My life had purpose my life had definition,
both of you my responsibility despite my minds condition.
I gave it my all almost always,
despite our differences lingering in the hallways.
Guilt-ridden I am, and don't know how else to feel,
wishing you'd disarm your anger at me so we can heal.
Can you understand that we're both hurting?
Both subjecting our hearts to perverting.
Are you going to hate me? Or let me back in?
The fracture of our hearts, proof of original sin.
I've seen beautiful before.
I've seen you on the inside a time or two,
a nice place to live that I guess no one can afford.
Today I see this little world from a different light..
(Cliche, I know)
maybe it is just an angle that differs?
Or maybe it is a concussion.
A fracture to the infrastructure of my existence,
my head or my heart?
I don't know which one.
Colors and objects standing still only mock me,
like they have more of a right to be here than I do.
And the particles and knots of wood and stone that stretch around my head
tell me that they know more than I do.
Am I really nothing like they say?
Tip-toeing around,
my movement only complicates things...
I'm fractured.
Please tell your demons to stop mocking me?
Liken to a rift that rips the landscape from under our feet.
Similar to isms or schisms separating the collective,
literally destroying the bond and togetherness that keeps the family as one.
The same unity which should bounds us by blood,
which should give us a sense of being; something so far, so elusive.
All sense of togetherness is all but non-existent leaving a
desolate and barren landscape,
rich once as land surrounding river Babylon.
Only if our hearts and our minds were thus…
You feel the whispers slither down the long corridor,
each murmur coiling around your thoughts like hungry vines.
They scratch at your calm, sharp as claws unseen,
and fracture your resolve until your heart cannot stay silent.
You sense the walls themselves lean, curious and burdened,
their cracks breathing echoes of every stolen word.
Even the chairs groan beneath an invisible weight,
worn by secrets that slide across the floor like restless ghosts.
You watch as daylight winnows through frosty windows,
afraid to face the truth those whispers carry.
Driven by iron tongues that drip with accusation,
you remain—a flicker of light defying their hush.
You are planted in this room, roots deep in purpose,
a silent sentinel despite the whispers’ might.
And though whispers may rise, their reign will fall to dust—
when your truth, at last, breaks free and echoes with light.
I
with
trib ute,
con trib ute-
never con tri bute
or dis tri bute con trov ersy
.
frolic'n in the
temperate grasslandz
'hind my inviolable haunt
thuh eager nymph
whilst mine digits 'pon slip
explicate such wander
hern learnz me
diaphanous white frocks
fresh out uv thuh
chilly creek
cauze think
mine think
thinks
'bout
hern
naked 'neath
peachy
blush'n bloom'n
rosette sheath
az we speak'd
At one with life
we watched ourselves unfold.
Seeds of thought
that grew a time between us.
Creating space in which
to watch our children grow
Floating on the sea
that is our soul.
Stirred into
a separation of life
We have become
lost hinterland voices,
A fracture from the whole.
Our poet eyes touched
by winds that carried us
like leaves,
Lost to our senses,
Joined forever
to changing seasons.
We are loosened
by each thought
Until we surrender
The last leaf’s breaking hold
Giving our ears back
to the sounding bark
Of beech trees calling,
falling into purpose
And the easy comfort
of our manufactured lives.
I feared for The Soon Traveling Fire,
When I saw who was going to drive:
Jack, who did thrice of men's lives deprive,
He himself lucky to be alive;
Now, with a left leg fracture does strive
And Lord God knows that's no way to thrive
Kept I trembling for the moving five;
If I were among them, bound to dive
When his Porsche wished not one to
Jack himself Electric wire live...
You enter his car, enters a beehive,
Minutes on end continue to jive:
"Fire you Thunder Ferdinand Jack
Knowledge of safest driving you lack...
you & i are animals
spawned from the
mud & flailing at
one another with
blades made of
flint & with fists
hard bloody
knuckles all
calloused from
fight after fight
after fight---for
food, for water, for
shelter, for women,
for men, for money,
for kin, for future,
for present, for
places not yet dreamed
of we swing with our
eyes closed and keep
crashing down upon
faces that we will never
see unbloodied---at
the bottom of this
monstrosity of a
mountain, a wall, a
divide that we cannot
climb over, that we
cannot yet kick down
or blow up, we see the
rock sliding down our
way & just like the
sniveling slaves that we
are to our own devices
we catch the spinning
neon ball and hoist its
immense weight back
towards the top of this
ever increasing slope
that is coated with the
slickest oil ever
discovered---we do this
in spit of all that we are
really & truly capable of
because for some reason
we still find it
necessary to destroy
each other in the name
of illusionary creations
such as “gods” &
“nations,” neither of
which anyone can
pinpoint on a map or
cross over in the night
without a president &
a preacher marching
hand in hand with their
thumbs both poised on
our naïve pulse &
THE BUTTON.
the stress is but a hairline
fracture
developing
rapidly
into true death
for us all.
Life is but a fracture in time
A shiver of a grain of sand
Yet we look at it, as gods
Even though we are not gods
Imbecilic, that is what we are
And truly lost
There is no more grace in our existence
Merely an unknown
Was there ever true meaning, it is forever gone
And pain, yes pain is our god
We breed such to our own kind
To cause grief, to control
Life by the hand of power
And we fight to control this shiver
For the blink of power is absolute
Within ourselves, meaning evades
We become, an illusion to ourselves
We become, gods
Even though we are not gods
And what we have is unknown
Simply because it is no longer remembered
Life is but a second wasted
For all
If you so choose to follow this path
And the fracture dissimilates
Then we become the sand
And without meaning, without peace
There is no love
And without love there can be no life
We become gods
Because we have forgotten how to live.
~
By: Darren J McMurray
November 20, 2011
TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY WITH A HAIRLINE FRACTURE CRUSHED NASAL ARCH BASILAR SKULL FRACTURED CRUSHED EYE SOCKET BEING A TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY PATIENT RECOVERY IS BASICALLY LIFELONG WHILE COPING WITH SEVERE TRAUMATIC HEADACHES MONITORED BY PAIN MEDICATIONS PAIN MANAGEMENT 12 INJECTIONS NERVE BLOCK EVERY 25 DAYS OPTIC NERVE DAMAGE LIKE TINY WIRES BLOOD VESSELS THAT CARRIED SIGNALS FROM MY BRAIN TO MY EYE COPING I AM SO BLESSED TO HAVE MY WONDERFUL HUSBAND CARING FOR ME TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY LEADING TO MY TWO STROKES ON BLOOD THINNERS TO CONTROL BLOOD CLOTS FROM SMALL ANYURESM 3MM BASILAR TIP LEARNING TO WALK TALK HOLD A FORK TIE MY SHOE TYPING WITH ONE FINGER KEEPING MY TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY JOURNAL MY ILLNESS VERTIGO PARTIAL BLINDNESS EVEN EARLY ONSET OF DEMENTIA FUNCTIONING HEALING COPING WITH PTSD ANXIETY DISORDER PANIC DISORDER DEPRESSION SURVIVING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE I FEEL TRULY BLESSED HEART RACING WITH ATRIAL FIBRILLATION I STILL HAVE HOPE SUFFERING WITH THE REALITY TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY DOESN'T GET BETTER IT ACTUALLY GETS WORSE OVER TIME MY HAIRLINE FRACTURE IS SUNKEN IN THE FRACTURE ACTUALLY GREW SKULL FRACTURE IS THE WORSE THE FORCE FROM THE CAR BOMB EXPLODING MY FACE WAS SO POWERFUL THAT IT CRACKED MY SKULL FROM EAR TO EAR UNDESIRABLE PAIN IT ACTUALLY FEELS LIKE ALL THE BONES IN MY FACE IS STILL BITING MY BRAIN TINY BONE FRAGMENTS FLOATING AROUND MY BRAIN ORBITS CAUSE MORE DAMAGE AND YET THERE IS NO WAY TO REMOVE THEM UNLESS I WAS DECEASED THATS WHEN THEY COULD REMOVE ALL MY SKIN FROM MY SKULL SO MY PAIN IS BEING MANAGED TO MAKE ME AS COMFORTABLE AS POSSIBLE MY HEAD FEELS HEAVY NOW HARD TO HOLD IT UP MY FACE ACHES MY EARS ARE RINGING BALANCE IS OFF BUT I AM NOT ALONE I AWAIT MY BRAIN TO SHUT DOWN ONSET OF DEMENTIA I WRITE I WRITE I WRITE UNCONTROLLABLY I KNOW THAT ALL PART OF TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY WITH A HAIRLINE FRACTURE TRYING TO WRAP MY MIND AROUND UNDERNEATH MY HEAD OF HAIR IS A GIANT CRACK IN MY SKULL FROM EAR TO EAR I LAUGH AT MYSELF A BOMB CRUSHED MY FACE CRACKED MY SKULL AND BRUISED MY BRAIN MY NEUROLOGY SAINT SAYS I SHOULD HAVE DIED HARD TO BELIEVE I SURVIVED SUCH A HORRID TRAUMATIC EVENT
Circler and sharp
Around and jagged
Disjoined in thought
Unfocused in point
Spinning out of control
Broken filaments of twine
Laced locked in gears
It is near the end of time
Nails of glass in iron stone
Refracts the light
Broken; flying fragments of night.
Cycles down into a spin
Over and over again
Out of control
A creation of gears in glass
An old broken compass
Nails nine inches long
Nine in all
Wire and springs
Metallic things
A fractured rage
Ice sickled sharp
Cuts neat and clean
Around and jagged
Disjointed thought
Unfocused image
Out of control
Over and over again
Raged the fragments of time
You’re taking a stroll (more like speed walking) down the street,
And if you’re anything like me,
You’ll most likely trip on thin air
And bam, you’ve fractured your leg
(No, I’n not an anorexic with osteoporosis)
As it is with accidents, so it is with love.
Just as you may fall and hurt yourself on a run,
Getting hurt is part of the deal when you sign up for intimacy.
You’ll hurt people you love, and they’ll hurt you too.
And before you know it,
They become a language you are no longer fluent in, but still remember how to read.
(I’m talking about you Sanskrit)
It doesn’t take being a doctor to know, that wounds take time to heal.
Broken bones and broken hearts are akin.
In the meantime, how do you hold on to the hope that you’ll run again after a fractured leg?
What if you’re left with a permanent limp instead?
A haunting reminder of only what was, every time you take a step.
Some call it courage, and others a fool’s venture,
The cycle of rupture and repair ensues,
Time begins to work its magic,
Limp as you may,
You’ll muster strength to take a stroll once again.