Rasped Poems | Examples

Breathe spilled like bone

Ariana shrugged facing Josh’s mocking clap
the stringy harmonica rang acrobatically on the streetlights. 
He handed her a firebomb, 
eyes sharp as vinegar. 
They ran across the hot asphalt, 
watching the brass kite rise. 
Both caught in the whirlpool of the maze,
 they guided the trumpet, 
mandolin filling the air, sinking into the smokehouse.

Her jacket flared, body pitching like a haystack, cracked like an explosion. 
Cigar smoke swindled 
trembling hands at the phone’s text crime. Tightened waist, ribs vacant 
Her throat rasped open, 
gasping. Stomps flew, trumpets lit, 
feathers popped, and breath spilled like bone in the dusk.

Breathe Spilled Like Bone

Ariana shrugged facing Josh’s mocking clap
the stringy harmonica rang acrobatically on the streetlights. 
He handed her a firebomb, 
eyes sharp as vinegar. 
They ran across the hot asphalt, 
watching the brass kite rise. 
Both caught in the whirlpool of the maze,
 they guided the trumpet, 
mandolin filling the air, sinking into the smokehouse.

Her jacket flared, body pitching like a haystack, cracked like an explosion. 
Cigar smoke swindled 
trembling hands at the phone’s text crime. Tightened waist, ribs vacant 
Her throat rasped open, 
gasping. Stomps flew, trumpets lit, 
feathers popped, and breath spilled like bone in the dusk.

Purgatory

When will my judgment come? He asked
of him, who stood, face shadow-masked
in moonlit dark, beside his right.
Don't let it be this mournful night.
Perhaps so, or not; has, or ne'er,
they rasped, exhaling rancid air
so brackish foul to cause a soul
to wish for Golden Oriole.
Who asked, who heard for judgments call
within, without, or none at all?
And yet, the shadow questions so;
and answers as a cawing crow
of dreams for which they dare not ask
the truth, but hide behind a mask;
as he, or they, for we are many.
They lay upon their eyes a penny;
I still have tales to tell, they plea!
They spoke; what is you ask of me?
What's done cannot yet be not so
you held that power long ago
and sold it, for this coin we give.
You think that they can now forgive?
He smells them near, their sulfurous breath;
is this a dream, the truth, a death?
Death is for those who felt some pain;
who smelled the flowers in the rain,
shed a tear at sunset's dying glow;
it is not yours to now foreknow.
They softly say with whispered threat.
It may well come, but not just yet;
there's time for you and I to play,
for you to waste another day.

Blood and Kin, Part II

...His hand flashed fast, the Colt spoke loudly,
Dalton was struck, flew back wildly.
Silas shifted right, cut down that man,
still fumbling with the gun in his hand.

The other man threw his hands up high,
said Silas, “Run, or you too will die.”
The bandit scrambled, leaving the bar,
Dalton still breathed, but wouldn’t get far.

“In what wourld could we ever be kin?”
snarled Silas, standing over him.
“When you get there, find Satan and tell
him how a Hamlin sent you to Hell.”

Dalton’s breath rasped, the fear present now,
wanting mercy he’d never allowed,
but Silas cared not, slowly took aim,
then sent a bullet straight through his brain.

The saloon was still, people hiding,
Silas straight up, gun still smoking,
said to the bartender, “Sorry for the floor.”
flipped him some gold, then strode out the door.

Putting It Together

I step out into the evening,
into a cloud of whispered conversations,
insect talk, birds uttering 
their “goodnights” high in the trees,
the days last gossip settling
back into a more respectable 
muttering of leaves. 

Then other sounds, 
a child’s cry sobbed out
of an open window and then,
two houses along, raised voices
from down a dark passageway 
spilling into the street
in angry throbs,

and way off,
clanging railway crossing bells 
bridging the distance,
the growl of a truck
changing through its gears
and a siren rasped across 
raw nerves, all this

finding a willing instrument
to work the evening
with all of its discordant notes
and sounds, into a single score 
for an old busker to belt out
the tune on the steps 
of his own front door.

Ma's Soup

'Dinner won't be long, Dear.'

Burt puffed up his pillows and squeezed one out.

'Better wash your hands, now'.

The armchair smothered his glee.

Wallaby faggots, 

Brown rice juices,

Lentils,

Barley and rye.



Jumbo  morels,

Whatever she sells,

Liquid fish stock,

Brussels and hock,

Tranches of offal from Thebes!



Chilly jam and

Fruity brown sauce.



Round and round

The rotten rump,

The rancid ratchet rasped.

'It must've been that onion jus',

Was all that I could gasp.



Round and round

The rotten rump,

The rancid ratchet rasped.

'It must've been that onion jus',

Was all that I could gasp.

Alone In the Pond

Sitting beside the pond
Enjoying the peace and quiet,
Listening to the sound of trees 
Swaying gently in the warm wind,
And the trickle of water tickling the lily pads, 
As it fell from above.
The shade from the trees was welcome 
And sheltered me from the scorching sun.
I closed my eyes and nodded off once or twice
As I rested my weary legs,
Happily tired by hiking in the heat of the day.

The croak of a frog roused me from my slumber,
I looked around but it wasn’t to be seen,
And I dozed again relishing the serenity. 
A moment or two later I woke with a start
As the frog rasped loudly.
Just a metre or two away, I could see the frog 
Sitting on a lily pad, looking directly at me.
I stared at him as he gazed at me.
He rasped once more, still gazing at me, so I thought.
He was telling all the lady frogs just where he was.
He thought that at the bark of his calling
All the ladies would come leaping.
But not a single one came near.
He was left alone
To contemplate his solitude,
While I was enjoying mine.

North of the Line

Strewn across a wide plain,
sheep bones dazzle
in the bright sun.
On the horizon,
phantoms coalesce then melt
away into watery lies.
The only sound
is the dry, papery whispers
of saltbush rasped
by a hot wind.

The stone walls of a derelict 
farmhouse make a last stand
against the encroaching desert.
A big sky has claimed its roof.
Out of the shadows
of a paralysed windmill,
a shiny black beetle 
leaves little footprints
as it wanders across the face
of this abandoned world.

Once Upon a Scummy Pond

A skinny black girl, her torso submerged,
long neck holding her head up like a swimming Anhinga.

I should not know what a ‘snakebird’ is --- I am eleven years old
and have lived in the same dirty part of London all my life.

Florida is a missing piece in a school jigsaw,
while the British Empire is a scummy quarry basin pond
behind a brick factory.

My body feels rasped by cosmic sluice gates.
I could tell the girl wonderful things, 
but my skull is an open hatch
jettisoning the rest of my life.

Small boys call to me in a trilling tongue,
a pictorial language made from sticks and stones. 
Their faces familiar but their names
long drowned by decades.

I am recalling, falling through a time circle
in a rippling pond. 
Anhinga-girl circles around,
eyes wide, waiting for me to say something.

I don't know how to speak to children from other places.
I gulp water and splutter from a faraway memory.
She grins and frog-legs away.

Trailblazer

I am trapped in this sterile place. 

My voice is forced to pace. 

The love I once rasped about. 

Is lost in the horror of doubt. 

My trail is burned like trash. 

As if my mark is a field of ash.

Let One Loose

I accidentally let one loose
Sipping the communion juice 

The priest looked down
With a disapproving frown

Some parishioners gasped
Mothers, their babies clasped
The sexton's voice rasped:

Via the air displaced
We are all disgraced
The Lord's name debased ...
 
That would've been the end
But then I did it again ...
A little louder this time  
  ~ To highlight the rhyme

At 91

Lost your tongue, 
as you fumble to recall the right words to use.
I think of all the words that once flowed so freely,
and where there were no words to fit, 
you simply made them up.  Daft, silly, and fun.

Vast vocabulary resonating at every opportunity.
The scrabble board could even learn from you!

At times jibes rasped from your tongue
as sharp as a razor
On the flip side and more reflective of you,
Jolliness.
Words danced from your mouth
like Ginger Rogers or Rita Hayworth, swift and effortless.

Your songbird melody
as you sang songs of old
or chimed sweet childhood rhymes.
 
Now,
a blank page staring back awaiting its full stop.

Guttural

Growl
Grasp at life
Flushed out in full flight
Wind's wild moaning warmth
Frisks it, whisked
Up
From fist clench
Fingers curled tense- tight
Unfurl hurts
Gasps
Of air rasped
Hoarse sounds break from husk
Gutted heart
Thumps

Posted 2017.

Bluesy Woman

Bluesy woman carry my tune
rasped in relegation
of a crying crimson moon

Forge forth steps of beaten breath
left alone in trepidation
destined to outdistance death

Blast out those baby blues
seep past storms of surrender
climbing barriers broken out by you

Bat your eyes and croon your cries
let your soul come play for me
build me up in a knock down world
in every simple note you bleed

Fear

It was a dark, starless night
                                    I saw a shape I was in fright
                                    It gasped oddly, I shuddered
                                  It moved and my bed stuttered.

                                   A soft thud it struck my head
                                 Blood stopped in my vein, dead
                              It padded insolent through my spine
                            Bobbed with the smell of fish and brine.

                              It swished ,sound rasped my nerves
                            In the vagueness dim I saw her curves
                              Her eyes afire uttered a low scream
                            Pulled the trigger of a sleepless dream.

                                     They never get caught
                                     When I drink they trot.

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