Retching Poems

No Peace, No Solace

I wish I could’ve whispered 
To my young and clueless self 
That this boy lives on a timer 
This boy really needs help 

It was already written down
By nature’s cruel hand 
It was craved into the stars 
He’ll try, but won’t withstand    

One day I was in English class
I got a breaking message 
I cried and screamed and cried aghast
And felt myself start retching 

I clearly see, hung by the neck 
Can clearly see his eye
Where before, a-light a-spec
Now gloss reflects the sky  

The memories I try to keep 
Are jumbled out of order 
It’s been eight years, yet I still weep
From words he said, so morbid 

It’s not our fault, it couldn’t be
We’re not psychics, not prophets
But I was part of that same guilt
Gave him no peace, no solace

Kvetching

If all your basic needs are met,
Your bills are paid, no cause to fret,
Whatever food you want, you’ll get – 
It’s then you can be kvetching.

For if you have no place to sleep
And hunger makes you want to weep,
The only thoughts your mind can keep
Might deal with budget stretching.

It takes some chutzpah to complain
When others’ lives are filled with pain,
Yet human nature can’t refrain
From some entitled retching.

Hands Off

Enraged raw and spitting
Love warped beyond identity
Ten fingers ready to in-dulge
Sick offerings real men can't abide
Scarring rosette flesh once, always
Memories etched eternal 
Blasphemers amuck, still free
Where is the Newberry blade
Cast upon ogres smiling with glee
Revulsion retching tears without salt
Anguish of hopeless helpless men
Protection eludes soul aching ire
Never settle for less than hellfire

The Higgins Boat

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

manna from heaven

like retching up food poison
until there's nothing left to 
take or give
you want rid of the destruction
that never should have been
and thirst for what was 
meant to be
but it's all poison now
you have no immunity to anything
not even a memory
emptiness is not tenable 
but it is necessary for a time
and maybe the memory of
what should have been
isn't exactly what should be
not this far down the road 
follow it out of the wilderness
but stop listening like you already know
(that's presumptuous)
let it guide you
you really really need to be
careful
especially about where you are
and what you hunger for
it's not all manna from heaven

Towers of Shame

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)

Delightful

pie
delightful, delectable
appealing, appetizing, appeasing
sweetness, sugariness, acidity, acerbity
retching, regorging, regurgitating
brackish, brinish
fly

NB: This is purely my own reaction to eating flies. I understand it’s quite the delicacy to some. To each his own ... :)

14 January 2023
Delightful Diamante Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Caren Krutsinger

Blowout

The image could not be more clear:
the blowout from a diaper,
recoiling from my precious child
as though she were a viper.
Olfactory assault enough
to bring you to your knees,
the onesie soiled, arms raised, she cries
for you to help her, please.
Shaking, sweating, retching and forlorn,
gagging in the sink, “Who gave our daughter corn?”

—————


For the “Form I - Imagism - New Poem” Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Constance La France
Written on 03/07/2022

Unbroken

he sits in his wheelchair
                       waiting
her visit
             to ease his world of rubble
             to snap shut a sense of aimless
in a nursing home of minimized living
            its weariness that closes in like shutters

she bends to greet him
her touch a force that shapes his joy
        shedding his decline like shaking off soot

two decades together till a swirling tempest rained sorrow
an accident, gut retching moment
                      swept aside the bliss of living

one couple, hands held
        to unfasten latches of closure
        to comfort them, re-imagining what's familiar 
        a vibrant rootedness

unbroken, he knows the glow from her kiss
                   crumbling gloom
when he hears her approach
           the clack of her heels
                                 like chimes in wind





Poem composed November 14,  2021

Radiation Sickness

Having failed yet another repair, on the leaking rods
I spit my liquified bowels all over the walls
Retching up toxic filth within 
an expectoration of black lumpy phlegm
forms a pebbledash of grotesque sin
Some I recognize, some I can’t figure out 
but it’s me, spewing cancer is my distinctive subtlety 
carries my mark, the mark of a closet misanthropist 
the splattered mucus develops into a mural 
speckled with irradiated lies
Etching deep into the walls
a perfect reflection of my gangrenous soul 
Instinctively eating the flesh off my hands
takes away the gnawing pain of paranoia 
absolving my torments once and for all, 
unencumbered at last, I now feel the truth, agony is real. 
look at me, look inward at my outward humiliation 
Bleeding out, upon his own sick soul 
innards burning like hell
The walls turn molten
meltdown complete

By
David Kavanagh

That Pretty Young Stranger

It seems bloody retching but fatefully true
When somebody fetching is fatal for you
You flee from the danger but fractured you find
That pretty young stranger has captured your mind

Submitted to the Rithimus Divisa 7 Poetry Contest
From "Thru Maritime Miles"
Sponsored by Gregory R. Barden
September 29, 2020

Bliss With a Kiss

Bliss with a kiss
A moment in time with a prick
in the arm and a rush
of confusion and infusion.
Opiate racing through my
circulation. It’s horrific 
bliss with heroin’s kiss
My nose is itchy, and my tongue
is dry. Stomach retching.

Is this the high they spoke about
when sharing the wonders of poison 
in brown wrapped in paper looking for
citric mixed with dihydrogen oxide?

I’m zoned out now from the moment and 
life. It takes eleven years
to wake up from that prick.
A show of red in the beginning and the end.

Dismay-

Dismay
I heard a splendid, discontent grumbling

And the cries never scaring
The tittering trepidation taunting

I channel not my displeasure my hurts and pain yet I remain DISMAY

Suddenly, I heard some retching
The flaunting and the fetching

My mind always strays to yells
Of the confusion's that is stretching my blood spills

I channel not my displeasure my hurts and pain yet I remain DISMAY

I crave the cree, complainant cry
I oft, guess I died

So do warn me about the fury
Life's is in no hurry...

I channel not my displeasure my hurts and pain yet I remain DISMAY

And its eyes have all the booing
Death shall bring howls demons chewing

The crouches came cooing
And the retch was wooing
Roaches in their aftermath yet still alive
After the atomic blast

I am shore of my doing, in doing
Death shall bring howls demons reaching and booing

I channel not my displeasure my hurts and pain yet I remain DISMAY

11/25/19
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2019©

What the Bleeping Bleepers

What The Bleeping Bleepers?

What the bleeping bleepers
what the blankety blanks
what the freaking freaks
what the hellish hells
what the palish pales
what the fracking fracks
what the ducking ducks
what the bucking bucks
what the tucking tucks
what the plucking plucks
what the glucking glucks
what the mucking mucks
what the Kanting Kants
what the geezing geezers
what the retching retches 
what the wanting wants
what the tarnating tarnations
what the condemning condemnations
what the murdering murders
what the hating haters
what the loving lovers
what the juxtaposing juxtapositions
what the perceptionalizing perceptions
what the darnating darnations
what the reaping reapers
what the creeping creepers
what the streaking streaks
what the leaking leaks
what the what is happening in today's society
what the what are our solutions in order to fix this world

The Biting Word

The words wakes up
Snapping bits and bits
Of the created world
Consiously using the darkness
As a sure guide
Slowly stretching 
this retching darkness 
Loaded with pure worded bile
Stealthily flowing outwards 
to the seemingly awaiting world
All Crests up in fading expectation 
As each words carves his niche 
Taking crunchy bites 
From every unconscious soul

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