Long Gnaw at Poems
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Take away my pain, my relentless thoughts,
That gnaw at the edges of my peace,
The whisper of anxiety that lingers,
Even in the quiet moments of rest.
In dreams, I find no refuge,
Just shadows of worry that stir the night,
Confusion blurring the line
Between what is real and what is imagined.
Surround me not with this ceaseless ache,
This burden I carry, heavy on my shoulders.
While some wear their pain openly,
Others hide it well behind a brave facade.
They tell me I’m strong, that I always find light
In the midst of darkness, that I rise above.
Yet, they cannot see the tears I shed alone,
The endless struggle with thoughts that invade.
I’ve sought reasons for my suffering,
Hoping to find solace in the struggle.
But in the depths of pain, I crave only relief,
A chance to heal, to escape this relentless weight.
Sometimes, in the hurt, I glimpse a fragile beauty,
Like a tattoo a fleeting mark of endurance, etched in pain.
I yearn for tomorrow’s promise of peace,
For healing, oh healing, to take away this pain.
Monsters?
What are monsters?
Are they the things that lurk in the darkest places where you can barely see them?
Or monsters?
The ones that walk among us taking form as people we may or may not be familiar with?
Do you wanna know who the true monsters are?
Our very own thoughts that gnaw at us like a predator to its prey.
Heightening our darkest fears and biggest insecurities.
Making us feel less than what we're actually worth,
The thoughts that strip away our identity as we strive for what's considered "normal".
The same thoughts that heighten our fear and paranoia of what the world considers "monsters",
So much that we don't even realize that our mind is the deadliest monster of them all.
And by the time we've realized it's far too late, for the monster has consumed us
Plaguing our every thought and action.
Now we're no longer scared of the monsters around us but instead of the monster within.
Underneath the overpass as I was passing by,?
Something in the shadows, a shape had caught my eye.?
I couldn’t tell just what it was—intrusive thoughts owned me,?
For once I didn’t understand the shape my mind did see.
I drove on down the interstate, the rain began to pour,?
Wipers rapping,
?Thunder clapping, ?
Storming at my door.?
Lightning struck around me—waking sights I can’t ignore.
Each flash of light revealed the truth I'd buried long ago,?
A cardboard wall, a tattered coat, a figure slumped below.?
The past came flooding in, a child behind the glass,?
Watching faces in the dark as nameless cars would pass.
I’d asked my mother then, “Why do they sleep outside?”
?She didn’t answer fully, just wiped a tear and sighed.?
“Some people lose more than they should. Some never had a chance.”?
And quietly, I mourned them, through my innocence-glance.
Now grown, I grip the wheel, my coat pulled to my chin,?
Warm coffee in the holder, dry and safe within.?
I carry bags of burdens, yes, but also food and flame—
?A roof, a bed, a blanket, a mailbox with my name.
And still it humbles me, this ache that never mends,?
To know some call the silence home, and cardboard walls their friends.?
That rainy night reminded me how fragile ‘having’ is—
?And how a heart can still break twice for someone else’s kids.
I wonder what became of them—that shape lost in the gray,?
The soul beneath the overpass I passed again today.?
Did someone see their shadow too, and offer them a hand??
Or did they fade into the storm, like footprints in the sand?
Did they find a place to rest where rain no longer seeps,
?Where hunger doesn’t gnaw at ribs and silence gently sleeps??
Or did the cold outlast them, as it does so many nights,
?Where sorrow tucks the nameless in and turns off all the lights?
I’ll never know the answer, though it lingers in my chest,?
This fragile, fleeting moment I cannot lay to rest.?
But every time I see that space, now etched beneath the sky,?
I whisper hope into the wind—that someone helped them try.
For years he had thought
that God belonged to a secret society
one he could never be part of.
Notwithstanding, he imagined himself a mystic,
carried his soul around as the child of Rumi.
In the prime of life, as sometimes happens,
rats began to gnaw at anchor ropes,
he began to drift away from his true self.
At last, at his wits end, he made a promise,
he vowed to be a maker of words,
words that if weaved into poetry would be proof
of God’s life in him.
Words came. Words not wise nor holy,
but ordinary and every day.
His work was to be this enactment
upon a Scrabble board
a stage where symbols are wrought
from letters and words.
If he were speaking now
he would tell you
that though he picks the letters,
though he arranges those words,
he is certain sure that God will always be
the supplier of all meanings.
We are winded and on the ropes. Backwater banjo boys
strum against us. Clouds feed upon a shoaling light.
A bad day for going out or staying in.
A time to be sleepless. We must live timidly,
or push deeper into a glaring daylight
toward the drugged dreams of the wide-eyed,
go shopping in the poorer parts of town
seek thrifty ways to survive among the striving,
give all our prayers to the birds; then eat them.
Some say they have heard the sky flap away
but many stuff fingers in their ringing ears
and gainsay both the seen and unseen.
There is no sanctuary in night's lean pantry,
the ransacked are laid bare.
Many pick the pockets of the anxious
rattle catch-penny cans on shoe-strings.
Misgivings trespass, tumble ever inward until
reason becomes the reason to flee.
Paltry inklings gnaw at ever longer nights,
and we wonder what ‘tipping point’ tipped
what lid flipped; what line was crossed
as an ever louder twanging strums on?
A homeless man shivers as the sun sinks,
while trying to avoid dreams of freezing.
Steam from a sewer grate grants forty winks
as he lies on it, coughing and wheezing.
In his head, drums the beat of passing feet,
till it's almost impossible to sleep.
For that ubiquitous sound haunts the street,
where those relentless footsteps echo deep.
Ignored and forgotten, he awaits Day,
as the rats of hunger gnaw at his guts.
And little by little, he wilts away;
while a stranger's taunts add salt to his cuts.
The morning finds his bedroll soaked in pee:
Had he gotten up, he might well have died.
For the air was forty below, you see:
So he held it in, or at least, he tried.
Some shelters provide a warm place to go,
but treat him like an annoying splinter.
And that insensitivity is so
pervasive; many don't survive winter.
The walls close in,
peeling paint whispering stories
I’ve worn too long.
The air clings heavy,
stale as forgotten dreams,
suffocating, soaked in dust.
The clock ticks louder
than the fractures in my chest,
its hands dragging me
through an endless loop of nowhere.
Even the shadows feel stifling,
their jagged edges curling inward,
hungry to swallow me whole.
I’ve dreamt of escape -
to where the sky consumes the horizon whole,
where the wind is a reckless lover
who never lingers long.
To forests that hum with emerald light,
to cities alive with neon veins,
where my name dissolves
in the endless roar of strangers.
Anywhere but here,
where the air tightens like a noose,
where memories gnaw at my brittle bones,
where silence is a jagged scream
I cannot outrun.
I see myself on distant shores,
waves tugging at my aching ankles,
but the ocean only reflects my shadow,
unforgiving, unyielding,
dragging through every fractured sunrise.
Anywhere but here,
I whisper to the relentless night,
but even as I dream,
I feel the crushing weight of this place -
a gravity I cannot escape,
a tether carved deep into my skin,
one I’ll carry until I learn to make peace
with the prison I built.
Nowhere for you to sleep, but on the street.
Go old man, go sleep on that cold steel grate.
Beware! Beware! rats may gnaw at your feet.
Don't give up the fight, don't die in defeat,
don't let your soul be consumed by your hate.
Nowhere for you to sleep, but on the street.
Sleep lightly old veteran of the street.
The vermin of the night could seal your fate.
Beware! Beware! rats may gnaw at your feet
Fight back, the street is no place for the meek.
Regain your pride and your place in the state.
Nowhere for you to sleep, but on the street.
Don't walk in circles with sores on your feet.
Go back through life's gate before it's too late.
Beware! Beware! rats may gnaw at your feet.
This abyss will leave you hollow and beat.
You must abdicate your place by the grate.
Nowhere for you to sleep, but on the street.
Beware! Beware! rats may gnaw at your feet.
There are days when the water exhales softly,
its glass surface holding the light like a promise,
and my boat -
once battered and splintered -
glides steady,
sails catching the wind
at just the moment I need them to.
The storms don’t forget me.
They linger at the edges of the horizon,
a dark smudge
where sky and sea bleed into each other.
I’ve stopped cursing their coming.
The waves still have teeth -
they gnaw at my bow,
leave me clinging to salt-soaked wood,
the tremor of survival
shaking through my hands.
But the wind -
I trust it now.
The calm was never meant to stay.
The storm will rise again,
roaring through me,
dragging me beneath its weight.
But I’ve learned to sail through it,
tilting my sails just so,
carrying the strain, not fighting it -
cutting through the water’s fury,
and moving forward,
even when it’s just an inch at a time.
The sea is vast, endless,
its horizon unwritten.
But for now,
the calm is enough.
And when the storm returns,
I will sail through that, too.
Enigmatic entropy endeavours the devouring of my depressive tendencies
In the form of an effaced anonymity
Pledging a tender hand to thwart the destruction of my anatomy
Distraught estrangement of in-autonomous tailing tellings
Shall cast this faceless stranger astray
Beyond the smooth syllables of an identifying name
For these hounds that thrash in the thick of sleep
And so do weep of singularity in accompanying company
Shall chase, shall gnaw at the face, the hand that feeds the freer frailty of freedom
And chaff this chance of a chance to escape
These samsaras of silence for the requiem of a dallied day
Dancing and dashing and prancing and thrashing
In the estranged fixation of this strange savior
That wilt know not of my inner ills, beyond the disfigurement of mine own outer mutilation
K.M.P
18//9//26