The Panic Tide
The pulse begins its frantic drum,
A breathless rising of the tide,
As all the silent terrors come
To strip the peace away inside.
The palms grow wet, the cold sweat breaks,
The color floods a flushing face,
And every tethered muscle aches
Locked deep within this sudden space.
A jaw is clenched, a lip is torn,
The desperate teeth bite down on nails,
As from the throat a gasp is born,
Where every steady sentence fails.
The fingers curl to tight-bound fists,
The hands fling upward from the fright,
While trembling through the limbs persists,
And knees will jerk against the night.
The breath comes shallow, hard, and fast,
A heavy gagging stalls the air,
The body tenses to the last,
And screams aloud in its despair.
In reaching through the blinding storm,
The frantic fingers stretch to find
The safety of another form,
To anchor what is left behind.
i'm gagging
cursing the traffic lights
catastrophic sweat
i need that sensation when i pull into a decadent parking space
and walk from the car to the ticket machine
three hours early and stuffing my face back in the car park with watery meat juices
stationing the confectionary in the right cavity
memories of hot dogs and dr. robert greenberg
superb breakfasts and sparkling water
the lack of legroom in the upper circle
ushers and their laser beams into the back of heads like Predator
as they take their bows and the curtain falls and the applause ends
i yell to my son, "get to the chopper!"
Pungent scent plays on the breeze ~ what a stink!
One I think, makes me sneeze
Gagging with each breath, I wheeze
Because of that moldy cheese!
"When yesterdays became devoid of compassion",
you became the reflection in my mirror—
the darkness that cast its shadows upon my walls,
the screams that woke me in the dead of night.
Reaching out, silhouettes dissipated into thin air.
When the clock approached the witching hour.
Nothing but my demons were there to keep me company.
Forked tongues whispered insecurities,
poison-dipped lies into bleeding ears,
twisting and contorting what remained
of a false saviour's psyche.
You see, I could not save you from the depths of pain you swam through.
It was pulling us both down, drowning us in murky waters,
choking and gagging on your sins—we kept sinking faster.
The blackness became heavier
until light could not pierce the veil.
Begging me, you pleaded, "Hold on to me just a little longer."
But the weight became unbearable.
I had to untie the rope around our fragile souls.
I had to let you go.
And now I drown in my own guilt
every time I take a tainted breath
in this distorted world.
I sense here some things sinister—a scent
of sulphur, sulking in a sultry pit;
a serpent’s hiss, expressed from space unlit;
a warm spell spilling from some seething vent;
I find now some things filthy—foul ferment
foaming, frothing; a gaseous, gurgling slit
discharging fetid, festering, sour spit;
malignant mold in cold, cracking cement;
So languid, loath, obtuse I trepidate
on into the black bowels of my home.
Gagging back a nausea’s tepid bubble,
shivering a shudder that won’t abate,
discover I a gory catacomb.—
Woah… I see well now how bad my trouble!
In this woke world I’d soon be hung
If I had had your spiteful tongue
How ironic that its wagging
Only stopped when you were gagging
And as I tried to grab the shard
Of chicken bone that was stuck hard
I grappled with what I could grip
And when you flinched… I heard a rip
You spasmed like you’d just been stung
And left me with your severed tongue
My sense of humour must be black:
Your tongue is mounted on a plaque
I’ve kept it from my wife and kids
To keep my marriage off the skids
So they don’t know that though you’re dead
A bit of of you is in my shed
So there I sat; my hide of choice
And thought about your nagging voice
And when your tongue began to jiggle
I won’t pretend it made me giggle
It made a move like licking lips
And flicked a few saliva drips
It looked ’round with its probing tip
Then sensed me… and it gave me gyp
The Higgins Boat
gray-green heaving seas
men retching and gagging
oh Lord don’t let me die
Jesus let me live to go home
rancid smell of sweat and urine
putrid scent of soiled pants
could I make it
could I survive
will I do my duty
salt spray crashing into the boat
sobs for mother
muffled explosions like thunder
coxsun counting down
destination Omaha
the steel ramp opens
german wienerwurst
heavily lavished ketchup
a hot pretzel too
possibly a beer
dark bubbly gagging brew
welcome to berlin
dentist has a plethora of sedation devices and techniques
Or so she thinks, not realizing I am a dental PTSD survivor.
I am in a twilight state, until I hear and smell the DD – dreaded drill.
I refuse to go lightly, because I have been hurt by many dentists.
This dentist spends two or three days in my cake cave.
I begin choking, spitting and gagging the second I hear him say,
“I am putting this bone from a cadaver into your mouth.”
A dead person’s bone? What? I am trying to wake up but can’t.
Then he adds this gem “Probably the bone from a pig.”
Also not a great choice of words.
I noticed whilst walking up and down the thing
What's going on here I thought
I had been given a middle seat
In what I consider to be the worst flight I have ever experienced
The two passengers either side of me were trolling
Ghosting me
Two Count Drunkulas in the dark
I got up and sat in one of the flight attendant's seats
I needed leg room and the final frontier
I needed me, myself and rock star parking
Like a suicidal cop
The window seat bloke started shaving
A nudge war after landing to hurry it up
As he was gagging for a cigarette
I was so mentally fatigued
Cream crackered and shagged
That I forgot to make this poem a calligram
As was originally intended
You know, in the shape of the fuselage
Oh what genius
I told friends
They asked what other films were available on the flight
Lethal Weapon 2 I replied
Academicians …
masticating and
grinding their ‘truth’
Spewing out
what they would have us swallow
in gagging choking egotism
Regurgitating it back
in the toxic chunder
of a narcissistic reality
Papering the walls
of modern thought
with the bibs of their retching
As they hide within
their ivory towers
—festering in mass
(St. David’s Pennsylvania: September, 2023)
"The End of America"
remember
when
we danced
our fingers
mapping
velvet secrets
across scorched
skin whispering
smiles encouraging
a little lovely
wanton sin
like we were
playing keys
turning our
worlds over
for words
unlocking
hearts
you could
taste the
salt pools
satin tongues
like book marks
parked in life
tidal pulsing
swelling over
into musky curves
bittersweet
like toffee
we melted
into double helix
spoons
shuffling sides
bending
over like
music sybaritic
needle piercing
into groove
deep stirred
we thought
we could
write
the whole thing
like a never-ending
sticky noir romance
tasting honey
in each other
we burned
like a forest fire
fathoms deep
into what
was encased
in our bodies
our truth
torched
like Liberty
falling
then our world
changed
war soft shoed
it’s blood dripping
lips around the
throbbing dreams
of our forgotten youth
we swallowed
gagging
on the truth
over all too soon
pass the tissues
wiped clean
and senseless
we left the room
before what slept
opened its eyes
rudely waking
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
Hook, reel in, gaff and bludgeon;
no need to hurry it’s only a fish,
but I wonder
does that little brain
in that big head, think?
Does it know this gagging sky
as its gills
franticly suck in an invisible death,
does it acknowledge
the burning rays of the sun
as it scorches its glittering scales?
Does this still wriggling fish
discern or calculate
the amount of drowning air
it can withstand
as it is hauled into a choking death?
Can I afford
to think upon it, empathize.
Consider that we once
came out of the water,
should I measure my own pain
the way this fish might
while I fish for an excuse
and indefinitely, and with much pleasure
cast another line?
Are we not our graves digging,
With the keenest interest in rigging,
The first to be buried our image;
“To Electoral Franchise: Savage?
Are we not behind greatly lagging,
When the Neutral Press we keep gagging,
The next to be silenced Plain Truth;
A despot imaged as today’s Ruth…
Often, the time to befriend hell’s thugs,
Remember they don’t need your hugs,
Lover of carpets you take to rugs;
Very few things could say ‘No’ to Drugs…
Election rigged is a virgin raped,
Never count it that you have escaped;
In the robes of Molester draped;
Don’t expect a future well-shaped.
vertiginous in a virulent cityscape
gagging on gritty gray gloom
luckless in a loveless race
at the bottom of a solipsistic sinkhole
(\\\\?!?!----!?!?\\\\)
exhausted by lucent losses
lying low & flying blindly behind
sliding back into Whateverland
where dust confronts the futile frontier
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