From unconsciousness
I rise, sputtering
Warm liquid erupting
Belched from the lungs
Choked out, retching
Airways blazing
Rasping, gasping
Writhing for oxygen
That time I fell asleep
In front of the telly
With a mouthful of tea :)
On the ceiling (or under the ceiling) the fly went for a walk.
Thousands of his eye-lenses flashed at the scene below:
Secret handshakes, paper-bags, signalled deals, muffled talk.
On the table, over the platter, with his six thin feet for taste,
Puking and sucking jewelled berries, and ten gold apples of youth,
He observed the ice-bucket’s potential to collect the retching waste.
A fly on the wall, approaching the window, he planned to slip and tell;
But, the heat, the glare, the greed, the airless room
Sent him in circles, a swoon, a spiral. He fell.
A dead spy on the window sill.
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
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.
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
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
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
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)
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
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
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
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
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
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
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©
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