A Tall Man
The mouth of this man is a gaunt strong mouth.
The head of this man is a gaunt strong head.
The jaws of this man are bone of the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachians.
The eyes of this man are chlorine of two sobbing oceans,
Foam, salt, green, wind, the changing unknown.
The neck of this man is pith of buffalo prairie, old longing and new beckoning of corn belt or cotton belt,
Either a proud Sequoia trunk of the wilderness
Or huddling lumber of a sawmill waiting to be a roof.
Brother mystery to man and mob mystery,
Brother cryptic to lifted cryptic hands,
He is night and abyss, he is white sky of sun, he is the head of the people.
The heart of him the red drops of the people,
The wish of him the steady gray-eagle crag-hunting flights of the people.
Humble dust of a wheel-worn road,
Slashed sod under the iron-shining plow,
These of service in him, these and many cities, many borders, many wrangles between Alaska and the Isthmus, between the Isthmus and the Horn, and east and west of Omaha, and east and west of Paris, Berlin, Petrograd.
The blood in his right wrist and the blood in his left wrist run with the right wrist wisdom of the many and the left wrist wisdom of the many.
It is the many he knows, the gaunt strong hunger of the many.
poem by Carl Sandburg
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Related quotes
56
he is in the middle of something
Painful
Choosing between slashing his wrist with a blade
Or firing a bullet in his head
In the middle ambiguities
he stopped
You called.
What if the blade slashed his wrist?
And blood squirted on the Floor like a basin of water
Like falling tears On his cheeks
What if the gun fired?
And his brain spills on his chest
What if you did not call?
It is the middle of pain It is the middle of confusing things
Sometimes, it is the middle That saves.
Luck.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Luck
he is in the middle of something
Painful
Choosing between slashing his wrist with a blade
Or firing a bullet in his head
In the middle ambiguities
he stopped
You called.
What if the blade slashed his wrist?
And blood squirted on the Floor like a basin of water
Like falling tears On his cheeks
What if the gun fired?
And his brain spills on his chest
What if you did not call?
It is the middle of pain It is the middle of confusing things
Sometimes, it is the middle That saves.
Luck.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Wrist Watch Man
He is marching dusty highways and he's riding bitter trails,
His eyes are clear and shining and his muscles hard as nails.
He is wearing Yankee khaki and a healthy coat of tan,
And the chap that we are backing is the Wrist Watch Man.
He's no parlour dude, a-prancing, he's no puny pacifist,
And it's not for affectation there's a watch upon his wrist.
He's a fine two-fisted scrapper, he is pure American,
And the backbone of the nation is the Wrist Watch Man.
He is marching with a rifle, he is digging in a trench,
He is swapping English phrases with a poilu for his French;
You will find him in the navy doing anything he can,
For at every post of duty is the Wrist Watch Man.
Oh, the time was that we chuckled at the soft and flabby chap
Who wore a little wrist watch that was fastened with a strap.
But the chuckles all have vanished, and with glory now we scan
The courage and the splendor of the Wrist Watch Man.
He is not the man we laughed at, not the one who won our jeers,
He's the man that we are proud of, he's the man that owns our cheers;
He's the finest of the finest, he's the bravest of the clan,
And I pray for God's protection for our Wrist Watch Man.
poem by Edgar Albert Guest
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Why slap them on the wrist with feather when you can belt them over the head with a sledgehammer.
quote by Katharine Hepburn
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Bleeding Wrist
Another time has come
For me to cut my wrist again
You left me in the dust
Said I was cheating
But I never was
You had my only heart and
You broke it again
My wrist are bleeding because of you
You broke me down until I was nothing
More than a memory of your Raping Dream
Caught in the middle
Of a terrible nightmare
Bleeding with broken pain
Caught inside this fog of fear
Listening to your voice
Which was once soothing to me
Time and time again is but
Just now a memory
Of you and the warmth of your hands
Pain and pain
Of agony once again
Bleeding wrist of concurrent pain
Gone To Your Head
It's on your mind
But you can't say it
It's in your eyes
But you can't see it
It's on your wrist
But you can't time it
It's off the top of your head
But you can't wear it
It's in your face
It's in your hands
It's in the air
But you can't breath it
You're not the one I used to know
Gone to your head
It's up your nose
But you can't snort it
It's down your throat
But you can't suck it
It's in your lap
But you can't have it
It's in your reach
But you can't grab it
And what if I said
It's in your head
You're not the one I used to know
And what if I said
It's in your head
You're not the one I used to know
Gone to your head
song performed by by Zeromancer
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Slit the wrist and let it flow.
Hate and pain, feelin’ it in my veins.
Hate and pain etched in my mind.
Love and hate are all the same,
Life and death are all our problems, but you treat them as there mine.
Slit the wrist and let it flow! !
Slit the wrist and let it flow! !
Life and death are all the same in my mind.
Life and death are all the same,
Play with fire and get burned.
Accusations flying my way, will they ever stop?
Slit the wrist and let it flow.
Slit the wrist and let it flow.
Life and death are all the same.
Life and death, when will it end?
Anger and frustration all boiling to the top.
Vengeance and Violence seems to be the only way.
Slit the wrist and let it flow! !
Slit the wrist and let it flow! !
Life and death, it’s all the same.
Life and death, is it my turn yet?
Death is living again.
Death is bliss I will never discover.
Slit the wrist and let it flow! !
Slit the wrist and let it flow! !
Life and death, it’s all the same.
Life and death, a new fire is born.
Death is an eternal fire being blown out.
Death is being free from the shackles of life.
Slit the wrist and let it flow! !
Slit the wrist and let it flow! !
Life and death, it’s all the same.
Life and death, it’s our destiny.
Death is the only escape.
Death is the forth stomach of a cow.
By Ariel Morris.
poem by Ariel Morris
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My Father's Hand
I like to wear a band around my wrist,
an amulet of copper, links of bling,
a hippy weave of cotton or dried grass.
Reminds me of a change my father made
as I grew up from toddler to walker;
crossing the road he stops holding my hand
and wraps his finger and thumb around my wrist.
My bracelet now is like the brag of a teenager leaving home
and flashing his cell-phone where father's number sleeps.
I wear my father's hand around my wrist.
poem by Gerard Rochford
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Chicago
Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse,
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
poem by Carl Sandburg
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West End Girls
(....forever)
Sometimes youre better off dead
Theres gun in your hand and its pointing at your head
You think youre mad, too unstable
Kicking in chairs and knocking down tables
In a restaurant in a west end town
Call the police, theres a madman around
Running down underground to a dive bar
In a west end town
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
West end girls
Too many shadows, whispering voices
Faces on posters, too many choices
If, when, why, what?
How much have you got?
Have you got it, do you get it, if so, how often?
And which do you choose, a hard or soft option?
(how much do you need? )
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
West end girls
West end girls
(how much do you need? )
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
Oooh west end town, a dead end world
East end boys, west end girls
West end girls
Youve got a heart of glass or a heart of stone
Just you wait till I get you home
Weve got no future, weve got no past
Here today, built to last
In every city, in every nation
From lake geneva to the finland station
(how far have you been? )
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
A west end town, a dead end world
East end boys, west end girls
West end girls
West end girls
West end girls
(how far have you been? )
Girls
East end boys
And west end girls
And west end girls
And west end girls
East end boys
The west end girls
The west end boys
And west end girls
The west end girls
The west end boys
The west end girls
song performed by by Pet Shop Boys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Those twenty-first century bluues...
So it’s morning start time at the office.
Or should be.
Red-eyed, those tell-tale diagonal ridges
from eyes across the cheeks..
we roll in late, proud, but exhausted..
our wrists flashing with
bling allied to timekeeping…
but even we ourselves don’t care;
and sore did you say sore…
By now, judging from my emails,
just about every wage-earner in the East and West
sports a fake Bulgari, Patek Philippe, Gucci,
weighing down their wrist; and
who believes or cares when we say, we keep
the real one at home?
Ah yes, at home -
where our nights are longer
and more extended and
you know just what I mean..
and we’d love to go freelance but
where but the office
could we discreetly boast, show off
our new swinging thingies,
or our pert bouncers, or simply flash our wrist,
to all those who are now equipped with just the same
by consumerism’s joyless games
and internet’s gross joyless claims,
and money now, only confers
the same as his; the same as hers.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Little Green Men
Little Green Men
I lay in the sand gazing at the stars through glassy eyes
Sound has been taken, stolen away, pain is no more
As I start to fade into a sea of unknown darkness
My eyes finally close
I am moving, though I know not how, fear has overcome me
Eyes still shut I dare not open
This world I’m in makes no since for I am here
But have not taken a single breath
Peaceful melody the sun is shining
I hear two little boys one laughing one crying
Eyelids creep open, one than another
Two little boys surrounded by little green men
Some held pistols and others had rifles
I know these boys! The one laughing is me
My little green men were victorious that day
They fought the evil army of my brother John K.
He cries, I laugh and say
War is for the strong and keen of heart
You are dead, all of your men are Dead, Dead, Dead
I don’t want to die big brother why must I die
This game of War is not fair I don’t wanna Die.
Gasping and wheezing, blood in my eyes
I lay in the sand gazing at the sky
Pain has returned, and I hear every scream.
Off in the distance a voice i know well yells out
I don’t want to die big brother why must I die!
Why, Why, Why big brother, why must I die!
I brought him to war, a game all I thought
Little green men danced in my head
Fun and adventure was all that I sought
Now I lay here alone, my men their all dead
War is for the strong and keen of heart
I lay and laugh for what else to do
Cry then die, littlle brother ill see you soon
Little green men danced in my mind
I love you Little Brother, we both lost this time
poem by Brian Hayden
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My Hero Bares His Nerves
My hero bares his nerves along my wrist
That rules from wrist to shoulder,
Unpacks the head that, like a sleepy ghost,
Leans on my mortal ruler,
The proud spine spurning turn and twist.
And these poor nerves so wired to the skull
Ache on the lovelorn paper
I hug to love with my unruly scrawl
That utters all love hunger
And tells the page the empty ill.
My hero bares my side and sees his heart
Tread; like a naked Venus,
The beach of flesh, and wind her bloodred plait;
Stripping my loin of promise,
He promises a secret heat.
He holds the wire from this box of nerves
Praising the mortal error
Of birth and death, the two sad knaves of thieves,
And the hunger's emperor;
He pulls that chain, the cistern moves.
poem by Dylan Thomas
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Man at the Bus Stop on Halloween
The others, of course,
are more rabid than he
but less apt to show it.
Whenever he strikes,
he never romps off.
He stands with the wrist
that he's snatched
from the lady
tight in his teeth
as he waits with a smile
for the wagon.
He's one of the few
wrist-snatchers still
on the streets of Chicago,
and he makes his rounds
in old tennies.
His technique is simple:
He dives for the purse hand,
gives it a whack, and severs
the wrist without slobber,
then stands like a Vatican Guard
with the wrist in his teeth
until he is certain
he has no pursuers.
At night in his dreams he sees
the women whose wrists
he has held in his teeth.
They stand at the bus stop
like Statues of Liberty,
shrieking and waving
their stumps like flares.
He prays their screams
will bring to a frieze
the patrol cars glowing
in the middle of the street
poem by Donal Mahoney
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A Cameo
THERE WAS a graven image of Desire
Painted with red blood on a ground of gold
Passing between the young men and the old,
And by him Pain, whose body shone like fire,
And Pleasure with gaunt hands that grasped their hire.
Of his left wrist, with fingers clenched and cold,
The insatiable Satiety kept hold,
Walking with feet unshod that pashed the mire.
The senses and the sorrows and the sins,
And the strange loves that suck the breasts of Hate
Till lips and teeth bite in their sharp indenture,
Followed like beasts with flap of wings and fins.
Death stood aloof behind a gaping grate,
Upon whose lock was written Peradventure.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Morbid Art (A mother she calls herself)
black nails
a dark soul
half a heart
never again whole
cut wrist
blood hides
people see
with eyes that abide
A torn body
scars all around
A quiet mouth
with a screaming sound
She crys for help
first with her wounded skin
she shows her mother her hurt
in hope getting help her mother will give in
But so wrong was she
for her mother only said stop
no compassion in her words
so continued to the blood drops
yet the girl trys again
instead of scars she uses her word
pleading and begging
until she is heard
A mother the woman calls herself
yet she neglected her own
A selfish woman making life hell
while her children feel unwanted and alone
poem by Silent Speaker
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Suicide In My Head
I cut the wrist of my left hand
Drupping, dripping,
Dieing, sitting here crying
Sighing, listening to your
Lying
Do I even care?
Do I dare to stare into?
The eyes of darkness open
My heart to the sharpness
Of my heart, my life
Is at steak
Writing suicide notes
In my head, wishing I didn’t
Say what I said
Committing suicide
In my head
poem by Tanya Lorenzi
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Lose you
tears flow from my eyes
my mind is racing
palms are sweaty
as you tell me you don’t want to do this anymore
you cant
you don’t believe me when I say I love you
you think I’ve fallin out of love with you
and your questioning your self if I ever loved you at all
I’m thinking what have I done
what did I do
what will I ever do without you
the tears are clouding my eyes
like smoke at the end of a waterfall
I run over you and try to kiss you
thinking that will make it better
but you push me away
and tell me I cant change your mind
that your leaving and that’s final
you walk out of the door
not one tear rolls down your face
I droop to the floor crying
I crawl to the porch
watch you drive off without even slowing down
I collapsed on the porch and the last thing I thought is
when I lay my head down and drift off to sleep
I hope I never wake up
cause without you there is no point in me living
for you are who I am today
and you are in me
without you I am not whole
once you are whole you will die if you become one half again
I walked into the bedroom with the razor blade
because you had taken the gun
muttering the words I cant do this not without you
I slice my wrist as I watch the blood gush from my wrist
I pass out because of the sudden blood loss
you will always have me
so why did I
have to lose you
poem by Mrs. Cynosure
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Abandoned Prairie
A house sits empty
Upon the plains,
Left so suddenly
To bear it's own pains -
The windows broken
Doors open,
Dust walks right in...
and right out again.
No other homes
Any where in sight,
It moans alone
In the darkest part of night -
Sitting isolated on the Western prairie
Holding memories too strong to bury,
It looks and longs
For all who are gone...
From this country so solitary.
The abandoned prairie
Laughs in the wind,
At those intruders
Who tried in vain to tame this indefinate land -
With their weak cattle
To replace the buffalo,
And wretched reservations to capture
The proud Indian people of long ago.
Where are these invaders now, and
How shall they be found,
Lying so still
In the cold prairie ground.
And yet, the endless wind blows on
Singing so contrary,
The only one to never
Abandon the lonesome prairie.
poem by Smoky Hoss
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A Song in Time of Order. 1852
PUSH hard across the sand,
For the salt wind gathers breath;
Shoulder and wrist and hand,
Push hard as the push of death.
The wind is as iron that rings,
The foam-heads loosen and flee;
It swells and welters and swings,
The pulse of the tide of the sea.
And up on the yellow cliff
The long corn flickers and shakes;
Push, for the wind holds stiff,
And the gunwale dips and rakes.
Good hap to the fresh fierce weather,
The quiver and beat of the sea!
While three men hold together,
The kingdoms are less by three.
Out to the sea with her there,
Out with her over the sand;
Let the kings keep the earth for their share!
We have done with the sharers of land.
They have tied the world in a tether,
They have bought over God with a fee;
While three men hold together,
The kingdoms are less by three.
We have done with the kisses that sting,
The thief’s mouth red from the feast,
The blood on the hands of the king
And the lie at the lips of the priest.
Will they tie the winds in a tether,
Put a bit in the jaws of the sea?
While three men hold together,
The kingdoms are less by three.
Let our flag run out straight in the wind!
The old red shall be floated again
When the ranks that are thin shall be thinned,
When the names that were twenty are ten;
When the devil’s riddle is mastered
And the galley-bench creaks with a Pope,
We shall see Buonaparte the bastard
Kick heels with his throat in a rope.
While the shepherd sets wolves on his sheep
And the emperor halters his kine,
While Shame is a watchman asleep
And Faith is a keeper of swine,
Let the wind shake our flag like a feather,
Like the plumes of the foam of the sea!
While three men hold together,
The kingdoms are less by three.
All the world has its burdens to bear,
From Cayenne to the Austrian whips;
Forth, with the rain in our hair
And the salt sweet foam in our lips;
In the teeth of the hard glad weather,
In the blown wet face of the sea;
While three men hold together,
The kingdoms are less by three.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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