Long Asphyxiated Poems

(based on Aldous Huxley's book "Brave New World")

Human hatchery

Clink clink clink clink...
Test tubes prattling past
along the chrome plated production line.
Glistening under fake fluorescence
humming in harmony
with the magnetic motors
of conveyors, centrifuges and camshafts.
Biological blobs of gamete...

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So now you’re feeling sorry
for yourself? Your pain and
anguish gnawing at you?
Just because to start you
ended up the object of
another’s twisted fantasy
and there were four of you
but then Gloria asphyxiated
you have no claim to sorrow
you...

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It was a long journey and Martha’ flood gates had been closed for far too long

Altona Station and the 1.01 expected from Hannover was nowhere near in time

In her mind the intricate roof of the...

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crushed at rock bottom he gathered the fragments of descent

slow motion agony that started at a plateau of deluded deceit

free falling sadness spiraling out of control beyond fast repair


the black dog on his shoulder had...

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The Petty Posh-Wahzee - Liberation & Ostentation


The Not-So Distant Past:

The fallen fighters for freedom, are unable to turn in their graves,
their battered, fragmented bones, mixed with a handful of torn rags,
are all that remain, a...

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"This Naked Dance"



This naked dance
before the tenuous 
judgement of sentences
the company of words 
from all the silent voices 
seated in the front rows 
of this our dark audience 

the jury of lost lovers
wanting their heroes...

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**Content warning: depicts abuse (please skip to one of my more lightheaded poems if one needs to).


To you, your abuse began as a game or joke, 
so insidious, so quietly inhumane, 
a spontaneous, cautionary tale,...

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It's a guy who grew up with good morals
People with the purest of souls
Raised to excel and exceed
Born to treat
Attentive and sensitive

They spent minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years
Time without boundaries
Listening to the problems and...

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Ironclad choke hold tightened
around pencil necked geek
stranglehold noose asphyxiated
courtesy mailer daemon freak

specifically America Online
server gremlin sought out meek
resplendently attired as Doctor sheikh
wordsmith scouted out as weak

cussed link within human league
surprisingly springing thru Lenovo
external screen, simulating...

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I was reading in a Southern Living magazine yesterday that one thing that all great 
southern writers have in their books is a dead mule.  The article cited several 
examples and said that their...

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Anesthetized, day one, I become her bug caught in the web
Asphyxiated, entangled and cursed, numbed to feel no pain
It was a Wednesday if I remember when we wed
She grew a beard and punished me for...

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No one is watching on but you,
Arrested in the familiar and unfamiliar images,
Getting to know the stranger you have been avoiding…
The one that no one understands but yourself…
Who knows how they appear to you?
But they...

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I wandered the desert alone, oh, what a dream to remember! 
    'Twas a place of extremes. Gorgeous yet frightening. A swelteringly hot 
        ...

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Day by day cant get you off my mind,
        once screamed for you now left behind,
        eyes sodden stolen joy from...

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It's a matter of time, until I win.
You read this rhyme, as you see my grin.
Nothing more, than a whore.
What are you laughing for, because my heart is sore?
I'm sorry hunny, but watch my dreams...

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Lets go, it is time to leave.
It goes to show, you cannot believe.
There's always something, something going on.
The sorrow you bring, you wonder why I'm gone.
Our moment dies, I no longer hear your voice.
Your the...

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You seduced and teased my yearning, with your succulent lure
A floral fragrance sumptuous and bizarrely pure,
You impaled and intoxicated my mind, with your corporeal charms
My impassioned heart, raced to your ominously parted arms!
You clasped me...

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Our wonderful planet, for millions of years,
was never this inspiring and beautiful...
until God with His skilful, perfect hands
beautified it for the first human couple.


I dispise the whipping wind, somewhat michevious and insolent,
brushing my short and...

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© Charles H Keys, 2011.  All Rights Reserved

Talking anxiously to myself,
Thoughts fresh of the new,
Some deliberate, others not,
Thoughts old and forgotten,
Mostly familiar or so it appears.

Still wondering why 
Am I here? Or maybe not.
Is...

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Don’t switch off the lights
 Because I’m afraid of the boogieman
 I said please don’t switch off the lights
 I fear a dark monster with long tentacles
 With fiery big eyes
 I see him in...

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Fire and ice
Paradoxes combine.
A battle. Fought tooth for tooth.
A truce held. 
But still holds no truth.

A prisoner. Of pain and gore.
Of royal birth. But imprisoned by woe.
Satisfaction.a dire necessity,
Of the cruel and crude 
Mundane mockery.

The...

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                                  ...

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Ghetto me be a bleating poor refugee,
albeit I’m Goshen rich in faith
Got a manger stall in the USA,
Pilate shepherd of the Cesarian peace

Time stamped stillborn delivery
tis iron Roman numeral four C
Furnace cast existence: bane ...

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This love affair of ours
has reached the freshness limit
Love stamped with an expiration date
Manufactured intimacy rejects,
congealed feelings been sitting too long on the shelf
Not attended,
no adjustment to the minutiae of change
Promises rescinded ...
what flows out...

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I'm saying goodbye, to our same old story.
When I see you cry, can't help but to say I'm sorry.
This last time, I'll kiss you away.
This last rhyme, written for you today.
You broke me down, time...

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