Thorax Poems | Examples

The Lingering

follow the poolside shadows
Venus of Delphi
daughter of bitter waves
peek through the peephole
of my glaucous thorax
open your byzantine eyes and
spurn your locomotor ataxia

one glance at our vitreous hands
– a sight for blind sore eyes 
one brush of our riveted lips
– gone astray in malformations
one ponderous confession later
– immaterial as a shadow of the lash

let the weeping corpuscles lie
swarm and jostle in the grotto
rattle and blather away our days
I’ll wait for your recriminations
fall asunder under your touch
fastidious in my entomology

let the bouquet glide downstream
the scytheman is still in his kingdom
then we rejoice in endless daze
the lingering beaten with bravura

Whispers

The chitinous mechanics
of head, thorax, and abdomen,
clicking exoskeletons,
the chirring of dry whispers.

We admire the purposeful
simplicity of the heedless.

Houses crumble as evidence.
Trees rot and give witness.
Caves crawl
with their evidential passing -
they command the locomotion and menu,
of the inevitable.

We who must be consumed,
know that as prey we are not too large,
and so, we lumber on as elephants will,
on their way
to long prepared graveyards.

Seams

trapped,
safeguarded,
each appendage
secured in amber,
some Jurassic specimen
created for your gaze

you regard me
with a quizzical eye,
comb your notes carefully 
for collected data
on my anomalies

how to straighten this limb,
shape this abdomen,
bend this thorax
to fashion the perfect
exemplar of your
scientific prowess

no manufactured artifice
will satisfy you
you deftly maneuver
and rearrange,
cut and reassemble,
manipulating your scalpel
and forceps

until you have your prize,
flawless and complete,
but for the glue
leaking from the seams

Formica Rufa

.... crawl across
the garden path covered with moss.
Creepy-crawly, completely black.
They dash off there and soon are back.
I was intrigued. Then during night,
from a deep sleep I woke in fright, 
for I was trapped in dreadful dream, 
in which I was Formica queen. 

I woke this morn, saw things amiss. 
It was my metamorphosis. 
Now I've abdomen and thorax 
where my head and six legs attach. 
I live in a dark earthy mound, 
in secret cell, all day confined, 
where there it is my task to lay
Formica rufa eggs all day.

Tughlug

You were exceptional 
among the ancient Indian emperors
with vast learning,
yet your silhouette stands
under the signboard, 	
engraved with ‘Intelligent Fool’, 
in the recess of history. 

It was tenable 
to transfer the capital
to the thorax of your empire. 
But why’d you drag 
the people of Delhi to Devagiri?

Your innovations turned 
curses and corpses
in improper implementation.  

As a ruler’s thoughts
fall into the maelstrom in brain, 
his subjects
sink into the fathomless suffering.

Nous deprivation determines
the decline of each reform.  

It’s fate
you’re reborn on the earth 
again and again.




Muhammad Bin Tughlug(1324-1351), was an ancient ruler of Delhi. 
Though he was a learned man, his reforms, including transfer of 
capital from Delhi to Devagiri, failed due to improper implementation.

First published in Hawaii Review (University of Hawaii)

Evidence

The chitinous mechanics
of head, thorax, and abdomen,
clicking exoskeletons,
the chirring dry whispers.

We admire the purposeful
simplicity of the heedless.

Houses crumble as evidence.
Trees rot and give witness.
Caves crawl
with their evidential passing.
They command the locomotion and menu,
of the inevitable.

We who must be consumed,
know that as prey --- we are not too large,
to be inedible.
A truth that all elephants understand,
as they make their way to
their bone-gnawed graveyards.

Tired

I place the noose around my neck
Asking myself is this really it
what will I miss
who will miss me
As I tighten the rope
I can feel it beginning to choke me
It hurts my thorax
I'm afraid
I'm happy
The note I left behind
explains everything
No one is deserving
not even an inkling 
of my collections
The makeshift of the chair beneath my feet
The unsteady shift of my weight
it's more painful than I thought
dangling in the air
waiting for my last breath
chocking
soon the pain will be gone

Sore Illusion

Tippling I’m from the ink-pot by the pen
Fool drunkard on the path of expression
Wandering I’m on the bone of thorax
Going to leprosy feelings of thrall
No smiling, no crying, paralyzed I’m
An obsession invites only to grope
Seemingly got I everything alone
But in light discover me as nothing
Oh! It is trap in white path of paper
Inks concise me in self sorrowful bud
Oh! Its ladybird in my lame writings
Blindly kisses hypnotic nectarine
Blundering blends me without self knowing
Its way of wisdom but sore illusion


-November 27, 2018 Chattogram

My Eyes Have Seen

To be bathed in the blood 
Of the unwary stranger 
Is to know empathy 
I am but spectator 
In this sinister sport
And all I can do is wail 
Deep within my thorax 
My heart
My lungs
My breath full of anger
At this duplicity of humanity 
This mask of death 
That hides in my sight 
That mocks my love
That taunts my earnest repose 
Has me weak in its cruel clutches 
These pixels have multiplied too many times 
Each dot of blood
So sharp, so clear 
Technology has stained my eyes 
I am bathed in the blood of strangers 
My ears ring
From the timbre of voices in death 
I fear the loss of pain
I've seen this sport before 
I've seen the innocent become hero
I've seen the chains of succor 
I've seen the valor of strangers 
Steeped in the blood of victims
I am the spectator of empathy

Genetic Robbery

So you’re her saviour
God’s gift to woman to savour
Six packs and thorax like a superhero
Shoulders bulging like a Mandingo

So you’re a romantic, a charmer
Body built like a hummer
My role as decided by this lottery...
Jealousy for this great robbery

A senseless inference
She’s a woman of great deference
A notion your eyebrowage fails to apprehend...
The indifference to the delicacy of a rose in that vice like hand

Return to the caves
And stop breeding in droves 
So I can never have her hand
Because she’s wired...

She, Stallion

Gasping for air, nostrils flare
At the profile of her elegant mare
Stroking the ground with each hoof
Rearing his dominance to the roof

He suspends moments in time
With each stride like a pendulum
The seductive sway of her trademarks
Pulsating the sinews of his thorax

The whip of her tail his jog
The whiff of his mane in sync
He’s the head, but she takes the lead
Pounding ahead like a thoroughbred

The body throbs like a heart muscle
Poetry in motion like a chartered vessel
Her hind drives with perfect rhythm
His gallop resounding the love anthem

They ride their whims like free spirits
Power is his course, stamina is her force
Torque is the body language they speak
Riding in unison to reach the intended peak

Web Spinner

Giant spider, climbing up the spout
Downward it tripped right on my pillow...
I croaked and rattled a loudest shout,
And glue-stick couldn't rid its long toes.

As thorax clung on the bedside wall
Spinning a web, a bold fight did dare
Wired mouth sprawled, I wanted to fall
But with my toy gun, war we declared.

I’ll pulp them eyes till the neck-bone drops
Spurting water on vile insect's tricks,
Until cape flings like a hero’s props...
It's Spiderman from Marvel comics!

Debbie Guzzi's Monsters and Marvels Contest
nette onclaud

A Monarch In the Lilac Bush

~~A Monarch in the Lilac Bush~~

There she was dressed in full array
The most beautiful Monarch butterfly posing quietly before me
As I painted her wings upon my canvas
Motionless except for a few moments when she stretched her wings
Caught up in the moment 
My heart was captivated by her beauty

Her leopard-spotted thorax
And her stained glass window wings
A beauty to behold like a priceless Mona Lisa

Her antennae erect
And her soft spindly feet
The tapestry of her splendor was beyond my wildest imagination
Caught up in the moment
My heart was captivated by her beauty
There she was dressed in full array
My perfect butterfly
My Mona Lisa...ahhh!

Written by Gwendolen Rix
8-26-14

Collage of a Drifting Love

Memories of  a  love I’m losing
arrested  thoughts on sculpture paper-
an altered photograph, adorned
 by hand cut leaves, evergreen shades, and lace
From the page emits, cricket songs
 drifting  to gloaming,  and on and on
 into my own mandarin twilight.

I adjust a pair of glittered wings
 to your thorax,  twiddle them
 these symbols of  your intending flight 
Next, I place a crumpled love letter. 
 its text, garbled by smeared on gesso

 Covered so no one will guess the message-

 except, perhaps where a small spy glass
 magnifies, I LoVe YoU- I LoVe YoU-   
 

High on the page a bluebird brightly sings

10/28/2013 10:17 AM

Baited

that fish patiently wait 
at interface of water and fate
burping bubbles for their troubles
water bugs and mosquitoes
unwilling, unsettling for nibbling placebos
acting on a deeper, more hungry drive
to ascend today, eager to stay alive

jaws set wide for voracious consumption
sweet thorax collapses to juicy bite
hooked into a jarring compunction
steeling the air now, a painful insight

to bait, to fish, to hunger, to wish
to fish, to bait, to consume, to sate
ichthyes pisces, jumpin' Jehovah might these
waggin' winged fins fly these troubles away

jumpin' the air and pulling the lines
hard to believe that the mettle redefines
the parts played of the hunter and hunted
penetrating mistakes are now confronted 

shoulda looked at bit harder towards a bait
to now spit out this damned curved harpoon
at any rate, it's beyond meaningful debate 
escaping unlikely - freedom inopportune

panning to sky, maybe panned over fire
maybe that end ain't so bad after all
peckishly satiating lifes consuming desire
fish for a fisherman so that life takes all

© Goode Guy 2013-06-19

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