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Best Poems Written by Megan Swell

Below are the all-time best Megan Swell poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Megan Swell Poem

No Baptisms

I tried to tread inside temples
but I wasn't permitted past the doors-
my reluctant repentance ignored.
I have no need of salvation
because I have been bravely born
into terrible times. This is only one
of my many manifestations of form.

11.22.21

Details | Megan Swell Poem

Dilated Iris

I know something of betrayal-
how lies can be white or hide in the silence;
a kind smile that glides over violence-
rifle to scope to dilated iris.
The left hand that beguiles
and the tight right fist
Denial of the dawn, sunlight from the mist.


I’ve seen eyes try to hold mine
but waver.
What is it to decipher a smile
that refuses to be labeled?
Mired and incapable.
Tired. 
Replaceable.
A void inside bends the mind
and makes it feel unstable-
A too taught wire
Or a fire, insatiable.

This is not a test.
If you should choose to salvage what’s left,
uncurve your spine from rest.
Breathe one breath
(deep, two seconds)
and seek three ribs down, then left.
Crack open your chest.

Wet smooth muscle 
pulsing,
daily
divulging 
time,
always lamenting,
always despondent, 
infinitely bereft.
This isn’t the part that’s best.
This isn’t all that’s left. 
You’re more than tissue, 
algorithm,
breath?
You’re made of this 
and made of what’s left.
Ars vivendi ars moriendi est.

Details | Megan Swell Poem

Mao Mao Doggiepants

I.
Human, I am starve.
Please feed me chicken. I love
you. Then ride in car?

II.
It's wag? It's moving?
It's problem. I wish I know
what tail is doing.

III.
You think I'm sooo cute.
I wants you to snuffle me
like I snuffle you.

IV.
I'm big, brave. I bite.
Proteck childrens. Guard  house and
keep you safe at night.

Details | Megan Swell Poem

Undertow

Your arsenal never seemed so weak 
when you showed up  after countless weeks
we didn't speak
you were living in the moment
Why does this tunnel light
never seem to close?
it leads me down this shadow path
I never even asked
about that overdose.

I twist I trip to intervene
come in between
now you're laying low
You're back to slipping suits
up your sleeve 
wondering if you can breathe
wandering in this undertow
a scramble of need,
of ramble and bleed
of come and go.
I watched you leave
and couldn't believe
that I said no.

I bet on never being missed
swam alone into the ocean
dissolution into mist
atonement for no one

You came home pale
silent and grey eyed
you're a basilisk stare
of violence and failure
Unprepared 
for what I found inside
and didn't want to know.

You faded away
became paint became frame
now I'm swimming in your ocean
You faded away
like stains or like rain
like words best left unspoken.

Details | Megan Swell Poem

Guerre De Trenches

Who waits  on tomorrow when today is barely tolerable?
greet the sun
and the light
Green leaves,
Warm brown bark.
How many dawns will see them still,
as they have always been?

It happened a century past.
See the Black Hand. See Ferdinand.
See war born of nothing.
The young men crawl hopeless toward the trenches.
Suffocation. Putrification.
This generation sacrificed and abandoned,
lost,
came creeping home broken. The false embrace
of nations (named hero, enslaved by honor)
pestilence brought horror,
gave mercy.
You never really leave the trenches.

one hundred years passed.
Nothing lasts,
less changes.
See the Black Hand. See his glove over rot.
See war born of nothing.
The young crawl hopeless through the trenches
suffering; they open
the same sore
again and again and again.
The gangrenous wound and the wasted bodies,
bits of cotton, syringes, half smoked cigarettes,
corpses and half grown desperate children-
none are named hero,
all are slaves to the horror.
This generation came creeping home, broken.
Embraced by no one,
ever-
sacrificed and abandoned and lost.
Pestilence, again
there is no mercy.
You never really leave the trenches.

How can these kids fail so miserably at life?
They live as if the future doesn't exist.

You work and work and work.
Your entire adult life you never had anything.
Nothing lasts,
less changes.
You lose it all,
you lose it all.
You already knew
the particular, singular agony of the Hand.
Fingers dig in straight through your gut
and take hold of your spine- the grip,
The intense rip and wrench,
and wrench
and wrench.

You look at your poor sweet dog
(soft ears, heavy sleepy paws)-
why is innocence so agonizing?
Transcendence is just hopelessness.

Who waits on years?
Days are the home of the barely not
starving; the future is for the wandering 
passed. We know
the present-this supposed gift.

The world,
the world will burn so beautifully.
We never even made it out of the trenches.

Details | Megan Swell Poem

Wrecked

Fearless fearless
Not compromised
Careless awareness
Not ostracized
If I lay down to say goodbye
there's the whole world one last time 
at night as I make my bed for the daylight
when I crawl inside the sunshine
who set a price 
on seeing the whole worlds electric lights
Last rights pass me by
I'm shamelessly patient
As a sky
I'm aimless I'm hateless
It's a lie
that you fade away into star light
Guess you're all right
Sliding in the moonshine

When we left out where we're headed 
Tires spun out when you kicked it
How it played out pretty sickening
Dig a grave out and jump on in it
People talking they were tripping 
Sneaky gawking caught me slipping
psychosis isn't imminent
Eventually stopped listening
That September I was healing
Encumbered with guilty feelings
Morphine so appealing
Drip 
Drip 
Drip
Drip
Peachy Keening.


Don't wake up a sweet dream extension
reality creeps in full of apprehension
defenseless to an inquisition 
Suspended my world's been ending
Does it look like I'm pretending
Wheel me away from my skin it's peeling
Stuck in a space made for kneeling
Escape the day, nights unfeeling.
Will this stillness please stop spinning
Limitless pretenses
Glimpses
Grinning
Oblivious in iridescent linoleum unconsciousness 
Glorious-
dismantle me into dust

Details | Megan Swell Poem

Disquiet

It's in the gloaming
in lingering twilight
that beside me the disquiet sidles 
clouds idle, the violet of a bruised eyelid
and shape of fingers broken
and long healed
permanently wrong.
Inside me the violence is silent
but wants me pried open
wants my right hand knuckles swollen
wants an explosion 

The release of a fight 
so long denied I've forgotten
how my nose feels broken

It's ironic, my kindness.
The lie of my niceness.
How I hide behind politeness.

I'm like a vegan that ate meat as a child and loved it, devoured it, cracking  open the bones to lap up the marrow, who greedily suckled the fatty sleeve on a new York strip, who now frequents dreams where steaks make blood puddles all over the plate. In the dreams the blood tastes of violence and light, when she breathes she can taste the death in the silence and in the blood on her tongue she tastes life.

Details | Megan Swell Poem

X

Grinning
Oblivious in iridescent linoleum unconsciousness 
Glorious-
dismantle me into dust.

"wrecked"
11.16.21
Liberum Divisa 8 Poetry Contest