Best Rictus Poems
I
I am disinfected, sanitised from touch and eyes
Do not hold me. I am Bakelite and you smolder
Sat solid, the wall cold against my spine. A back-rest
To concrete electrocution.
I am distilled from Suburbia and Bohemian at Brandenberg
Rigid and saturnine. Heavy lidded Lichtenstein moons
And ruby lip and cheek.
Dumb-flustered and silent rictus
Nothing changes.
II
She edges closer with ostentatious mute steps. Like a bride
And thrice as white with crimson orb flowing underneath
Her caped wings and paper hat. Tiny dragging movements
As though her legs could snap
This marionette matchstick girl unfurls her bouquet of fingers intertwined
And ruffles from her drapes fragments of paper and a tiny plastic cup
I do not notice her. The bleach sticks heavy to the throat and
She envenoms me to the core stomach
She speaks. It is static heavy and foriegn, black-lipped vowels and dull
Continuations of barely literate sounds.
My words are daggered brutes, any poetry the less of my expectations
Is instantly meaningless, crass, common, nauseous and disgusting
Her flowing prose was illegible on those lips. Sounding almost spat
I could have silenced nine decades to my two and circled her in criticism
She would never understand with her barely-English cold translations of her
Own English mother-tongue.
III
People are fascinating
Occassionally
I find I look at them and linger, I study them and calculate their complex algebras
Undoubtedly we are products of our parents and the less of us by-products
We are strings and apples and figs
The woman with her ghost-white face and dress. Her parents were too strict
You can see it in her face, how if you even turn away her eyes circle with bags
And she feels lost, she could cry a thousand summers and undoubtedly should trade my place.
As of my own parents they probably loved me too much. Sheltered me and then
Stopped abrupt as death and cyanide fizzing
Suddenly trading my lineage into friendship and smiles and no, do silence yourselves
I am a maypole and the strings circle about me
Life and ambition they feed upon me, draining me in complex nervous disorder
I am a living question mark
I can feel it
Eating below my skin.
Stair carefully dear into the unknown abyssal void.
Pier was once past and now rotted and rictus, petrified.
Hue manatee threaded ten den and garnet.
Ruby teardrops and crimson Damascus drips droplets,
like a leak key faucet in the dead of night.
Scarlet necklace four by one who did sow much,
kismet of my bloodlust and neck crow man sea.
Fools are all burning with me now, how kris pea.
Cerberus let me pass for free or dye dog,
he growls but I remain steadfast and waltz threw.
Welcome to my finally fore Hades is dead,
only pan door ah re mains.
cheerless, wretched life
failure cycling
gaping rictus of
disheartened gloom
preying on
my soul’s regret
faith chagrined
headlong plummet
into darkness’
gaping maw
I depart
oblivion
A PART OF HISTORY
Our failures in cities burn-forget-
Our failures haunt us-biting heels
We choked rictus stun their neon
We are awaiting instructions-but-
His masked beings see us but do not touch us
They can not protect us day by day our failures
Frenzied adjusting the struggles to not overdoing
I see no valid interlocutors in our failures
unsustainable and necrotic inside
dolls and stumps but only weak
Crawling and scratching kevlar window separating us from living
it follows that
sharp slivers of time
warp like wild geese reflected
across still water winging
faces sway'd as wheat seas
pitied not by thresher's flail
rictus hidden in a camera's eye
fetus, elders left to die
teach and learn as life grows short
moments gulped in forgotten days
sun rays down
casting men without shadows
tragedies in bildungsroman
of children innocent but heartless
folded parchment in dustbins hidden
blossoms thrive in ancient midden
justice, honor, paean to the gods
distill down to cold control
foreign tongues with open hands
empire's wall breached wide within
and so, with prosody quicksilver fled
small words swallowed by larger mien
I, deep sigh, with agon's leap
fall back defeated in dreamless sleep...
repugnant racist republican reviled - rickettsia re:itch ruler.
rapaciously ravaged revered reverential rubric.
radical ruthless renegade rapidly riotously rips rigged ramparts.
refrains retaining remnant redolent regal, resplendent rafters.
riches rudely rupture rooted rectified rights.
ruckus ricochets revenant reign.
ratified rattlebrained rules roil reductionism.
rumbustious rapscallions rollick; render ruinous ramifications.
rusty razor razing revenge rents reprisal.
rabid rectal rictus rotten rebrands re-calibrate.
rambunctious revolutionaries rejoice.
ruffians ride roughshod routing reigning royalty.
reiterate revetting robust recidivist rationality.
ride Rolls Royce relentlessly rendering rock ribbing.
riffraff raconteur raise reactionary response.
revisit rancorous restrictive redlined realigned rightward rivets.
robocop ridiculously rubber-stamped reorganization.
recalcitrant reactors release rapture.
rash Russian roulette reconnaissance raconteurs rack rubles.
red room reflects republican RNA.
rap risible rheumy ratiocinated rug-rats revoke righteous refulgent repertory.
rapier robed robbers ransack reliquary resounding retaliation.
retaliatory redcoat regnum reformation remembered.
Rudy robotically recoiling rapprochement
raison d'être rosily revered rifled relics raffled.
rookie raves ripe rackful rubenesque reliably ranked.
refulgent rotundity requisite requirement re: reappointment.
road-tested, roadworthy redeem reapportion routed role.
reprehensible reassignment rapidly recognizes response.
rife rampage removes respectability - respect.
responsible roused restitution refuted.
risky resultant reconnoitering runaway railroad reverberates rivalry.
reflexive ramrod reaction reconfirms redoubling ridding revitalization.
reconfiguration realpolitik reinstates repudiation
rebooting Roosevelt regime reconsidered.
requisition requires resilient reseeding republic.
regrettable riley roars remorseless ribbing.
rare recount restoring recondite renown reprobate Rapunzel.
Republican representatives rejoice reclaiming reins
registering retarded romantic remains
re: Rastafarian revered reliquary rests!
I think of you being a universe away—
it cuts like broken glass, being apart from you
and all alone and without a bright ray
that's you to keep me from growing so blue.
If I could fly like a bird and appear
at your front door like a long-lost, old letter
I'd move both heaven and Earth to be near
you,—nothing under heaven could be better!
Tho' I am poor my words are filled with riches
and emeralds for a beautiful, high princess
like you—a sweet, highborn girl who bewitches
all with her charming brilliance and great rictus.
To please you I would scale tall mountains
and plumb the depths of under-sea valleys;
and like de León I'd search the lost fountains
of youth for you 'til I grow feeble in both knees.
Together, we are the Shepherd and Lamb;
I'd lead you to graze in the tall, green grasses
where the fields are watered by the brick dam
ahead of the dry and dusty, dirt passes.
I am the river and you are the sea;
my love flows into you like the Ganges;
like seed, I'd flower in your open lea
and sprout in your heart’s crannies.
I am the soil and you are the Rose,
rouge-tinted with life and fertile beauty;
you'd reek of great wisdom to every nose
and be sage beyond the ripe age of ninety.
Like a bottomless sea my love runs deep
for you and will never run dry or run cold:
thus, with these words of mine you can keep
them near you and treasure them like gold.
The ragged precipice surmounted,
he stands, leaning forward, looking down
into nature's yawning rictus—
pondering flight without wings.
Restlessness in being,
he’s come unhinged in time
whose moments intertwine,
leaving him indifferent to his age.
Neither older than yesterday
nor younger than tomorrow,
life's review passes. Reaching out his arms,
he jumps...and simply floats away.
Corny: I haven't used real butter
In years
Only eat this fake crap now the
Colorful plastic tub
Slather it on the baked potatoes
All you like
Won't hurt you none as a left eye
Twitched some
His gleaming mouth stretched,
greasy rictus
His wife Jo either laughed
Or sneezed
The family mutt stared
Up at me
A faint growl hissing through
Bared incisors
I was really only concerned for
My Alma and
The kids, this being Thanksgiving
And all
Me only caring to deliver
Them to
A dementedly safe family feast
Late in
The afternoon we'd hit some
awful, icy
Weather on the way upstate to
Uncle Skippy's
And spun the Jeep into
A ditch.
Corny was nice enough to invite us
To his place
Wife's got turkey on the table you're
Welcome, join us
It seemed our host was the lone tow
Truck driver
In Paradox Lake, he'd explained,
There wouldn't
Be anybody around to fix
The vehicle
Till near Saturday and I a
Little hesitant
To accept his hospitality until
He argued
Hell,
Where else you gonna go?
© 2017 Michael Jones
Spume and snow on a cold green sea
wherein phantom fish and spectres creep;
she lies in fathoms forty three,
as still as death within the deep.
She slumbers there beneath the waves,
serene beneath the ocean vast;
languished in the sailors' graves,
a memory of a life long past.
Preserved by chill down far below,
her hair with seaweed is entwined;
she smiles in ebb, she smiles in flow
with ghostly rictus ill defined.
Dark shadows flicker on her face
and coral forms a clammy shroud;
sea breezes whisper of this place,
inside my head she speaks aloud.
I mourn each day, I grieve each night,
she calls my name from out the deep;
so animated, green and bright
when the witching hour disturbs her sleep...
The Scuba Diver
we look down
signal frantically
‘come up’,
though it is already
too late
he dances wide eyed
with ecstasy
as the nitrogen
tickles his cells
anemones
cling to the steep
rock walls
fish feed and dawdle
incuriously
we peer through
our tiny windows
into the ink black sea
as he goes
free wheeling
down,
down,
a rictus of laughter
on his face
A gorgeously dressed “tears” in unknown fears.
How dare you abseil my cheek-beards
in horror of cheers my rictus is smothered to share?
It is clear to glare how bitter your wares are.
You declare your flair through my inability to bear
the office rent-fee arrears to slay my business career.
Thus emerged the first bitter tears as my ego disappears
through the snare of the unknown fears.
Heavy are the steps I bear to climb an up-linked stairs
in company of a stare that is bleary to focus my glare.
You spare not to care about my welfare
as you pierce the spear through to my heart’s rear.
As if that is not enough to care for a beer,
you wear me out as my younger brother questions my plan-to-succeed affair.
There came the second bitter tears but not for what he stirred.
Instead, the tears were meant for the scare
of the inventions I stirred but yet materialized to fare
my transportation to the next-level stair in care
of celebration galore secured by beers in company of my peers.
New life to appear while the old disappears.
One of my rare inventions is “Noveldram” which cheers, through research, will modernize genre of literature for reading care.
The second is “The Billionaire Decoder” in its dearest care to stir your inner worth through “PEIM” as Poem and Econs, Inspiration and Math. Econs pairs.
Don’t you know I shed bitter tears to have a clear vision to share in the chair of my glorious cheers?
My failure is to stir success-wares for its true worth to be stared across the places the failed story was shared.
Dr rictus smile hilary jones been on gmb a while; well a long old time anyway'
Had the craic with Rod Humphris writer of the Simon Ellis genre, series
Also landlord of raven pub; in Bath the city; couldn't really understand Jones clear
Derided Rod with a line about dirty beer? as his science weren't up to much as such
First he was giving it out, like he owned each if and but , then said look we doc's are
Still just learning here, only when the cameras turned away from Rod thats clear'
A gang of three of gmb made noise, but no great case that any would see'
Well done Rod, take it in large thanks from so many!
Eyeless it manifested from the depths of the abyssal darkness of the woods.
Hide reflective more muscle almost fleshless ribbon peeled back skull necklace.
Limbs contort and pop grotesque as it moves closer permeated hiss from its lips.
I drew closer hand out drawn to pet this wonderful creature rictus.
Pause my palm out thrust allowing its senses to sense my presence.
It sniffs snorts tendrils perspire bull mist and licks my wrist I return a forehead kiss.
Gunshot echoes here between the cliffs as a man appears shield this creature of magnificence.
Not budge resist growls as real monster closes in next was swift.
Fists purchase fails to crumble prick stock met thy velvet I descend.
Muzzle flash ebbs plea both our crimsons drop dirge epoch of dolorous.
Rancor face sky I howl incantation so foul us to be one husk here and now.
Clouds hound bound terrestrial surround zenith my face and frame profound.
Scarlet rains down a plasma bolt fuses resounding sound theistic us into a caricature of decimation.
Tumult as this siren lamented a chimera melody of desire and amity affliction.
Nearby village that same man drew out his manifesto of machinations.
Shotgun blasts surrounded the mountains until he turned bite down cheeks flash.
A bouquet of brain matter explosive roses froze a sculpture fingers snap a click.
Slither thy self sylphlike tendrils into his skin he can only move eyelids throat bends.
Cracks snaps flesh peels back the human bones leave his flesh stay with me.
Hellhound inhabit him forevermore reborn.
The frenzy of neon kisses, pinkly afterburns
on imagination's smouldering cigarette,
searing tongue savoured lips.
A diamond white smile, ghostly rictus upon
snowing TV screen's grey deadlock,
feverish hands clenched on thrusted hips.
The feather-light touch, delicate summer breeze,
balmy sexual calypso fingers
stroking urgent and hypertense veins.
A telephoto stare, terminal gateway soul
of aquamarine laser beam stabbed desire,
inflicting razor thin pain.
The hypnotic facial structure, porcelain portrait
of love's short fuse radiator
burnt in ecstasy's furnace room.
Nitro-glycerine flesh, the fragmentation grenade
in this torrid house of love,
my consciousness just went boom!...man.