Arms and the Boy
1 Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
2 How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
3 Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;
4 And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.
5 Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-heads
6 Which long to muzzle in the hearts of lads.
7 Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth,
8 Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.
9 For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.
10 There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;
11 And God will grow no talons at his heels,
12 Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.
poem by Wilfred Owen
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Lingers
shotgun shells,
and kentucky bourbon;
long howling nights,
bound by the moon/
teeth bared to the icy cold,
the taste of blood.
lingers.
the fiddle weeps,
while the mandolin prays.
old hat pulled down,
feet dance to the sound/
teeth bared to the icy cold,
the taste of blood...
lingers...
broke down and busted,
carried by the darkness.
fists pound the walls,
but there's no one home/
teeth bared to the icy cold,
the taste of blood.
lingers.
woman, smell and touch,
sucks the light from empty.
she rolls me over,
cries out like a cat/
teeth bared to the icy cold,
the taste of blood.
lingers.
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Mental Cases
Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
Drooping tongues from jays that slob their relish,
Baring teeth that leer like skulls' teeth wicked?
Stroke on stroke of pain,- but what slow panic,
Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
Ever from their hair and through their hands' palms
Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?
-These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.
Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter.
Always they must see these things and hear them,
Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
Carnage incomparable, and human squander
Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.
Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented
Back into their brains, because on their sense
Sunlight seems a blood-smear; night comes blood-black;
Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh.
-Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous,
Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.
-Thus their hands are plucking at each other;
Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging;
Snatching after us who smote them, brother,
Pawing us who dealt them war and madness.
poem by Wilfred Owen
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Pictures Of A City
Concrete cold face cased in steel
Stark sharp glass-eyed crack and peel
Bright light scream beam brake and squeal
Red white green white neon wheel.
Dream flesh love chase perfumed skin
Greased hand teeth hide tinseled sin
Spice ice dance chance sickly grin
Pasteboard time slot sweat and spin.
Blind stick blind drunk cannot see
Mouth dry tongue tied cannot speak
Concrete dream flesh broken shell
Lost soul lost trace lost in hell.
song performed by by King Crimson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To Sin Is Worse
To sins I relax my shoulders,
My heads are two and they are single,
For I am not evil as can be,
From sins and religion that bit into flesh,
Forbidden flesh that clings to the teeth.
Teeth are stolen, and their dice are stronger than more,
For the sinning is the killing and I know more.
More is the sight and hearing of a good man,
He is man enough for me.
poem by Naveed Akram
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Midnight Creature
They run in the dark
Swift and sleek
Their eyes glow midnight blue
They go in packs
Teeth razor sharp
Claws that scrape the ground
They growl and fight
Mothers with pups
They bring in others
As if they are all family
They hold their heads high
And howl into the night sky
At the full moon
They are a mammal of night
They are
The wolves
poem by Allison Unknown
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With Teeth
But she will not let you go
But this time Im not coming back
She will not let you go
But this time Im not coming back
Keeps holding on
She will not let you go
Keeps holding on and on
She will not let you go
No, no, no, no, no!
With teeth
With teeth
With teeth
With teeth
I cannot go through this again /x8
No, no, no, no, no!
With teeth
With teeth
With teeth
With teeth
Youve finally found the place where you belong
It comes on strong
She makes you hard
The rules have changed, the line begins to blur
To what you were
Wave goodbye
With teeth
With teeth
With teeth
With teeth
And it runs deeper than you dare to dream it could be
The black seal
She makes you better than anything youve tried
Its in her kiss
She comes along
She gets inside
song performed by by Nine Inch Nails
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Boy Soldier and The Military Man
Let the boy ridicule the military man,
How cruel could words be uttered in Afghanistan.
Akimbo with all spitefulness, like a rascal son;
And booming with hatred and abomination.
Lend him to argument of rigorous use,
And let the boy address the military man for a truce.
Or give him bullets whose solid teeth,
Are piercing and sharp for perhaps a ‘wreath’.
For his teeth appear to be across his face,
Showing from grinning, there in case
The serviceman decides to shoot the boy-soldier
From his spot, and deliver himself from danger.
poem by Naveed Akram
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Teeth
English Teeth, English Teeth!
Shining in the sun
A part of British heritage
Aye, each and every one.
English Teeth, Happy Teeth!
Always having fun
Clamping down on bits of fish
And sausages half done.
English Teeth! HEROES' Teeth!
Hear them click! and clack!
Let's sing a song of praise to them -
Three Cheers for the Brown Grey and Black.
poem by Spike Milligan
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Envy
envy is amorphous monster
that has sharp teeth and clinging claws
especially about somebody else's happiness
poem by Maria Sudibyo
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The Idler’s Calendar. Twelve Sonnets For The Months. December
AWAY TO EGYPT
Enough, enough! This winter is too rude,
Too dark of countenance, of tooth too keen.
Nature finds rebels now in flesh and blood,
And hearts grow sick for change and eyes for green.
Let us away! What profits it that men
Are wise as gods, if winter holds its sway,
If blood be chilled, and numbness clasp the brain?
Frost is too stubborn. Let us then away!
Away to Egypt! There we may forget
All but the presence of the blessed sun.
There in our tents well--housed, sublimely set
Under a pyramid, with horse and gun,
We may make terms with Nature and, awhile,
Put as it were our souls to grass, and run
Barefooted and barehearted in the smile
Of that long summer which still girds the Nile.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Bullet From A Gun
I lived my life
Like a bullet from a gun
racing down a barrel
from an explosive past
Always smoke and fire and blast
Then I moved on
In my haste racing away
I'm concerned not who
I graze
All my days I came
crashing into, littered souls
What carnage, too
Once I left I was gone
awesome, strong
Hell-bent on ways
that destruction sent
Cold steel and
Hot lead
My nerves bled
and others too
Through your flesh and heart
I pierced
With never a thought
of mercy due
I lived my life
Like a bullet
from a gun
Cold, cold steel and
Red hot lead
poem by Midnights Voice
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Dilemma
There was the hunger
and suicide.
In favor of my brutal truth
or virtue of my failure,
I do not want any comments on my trauma.
Morality has a dubious equation
with power, provoking my anger.
The days were full of abandoned kilns.
No more shaping of containers
in which one can put the moon,
and honey and roses.
Everything was turning brown
with infinite, sulphur smelling teeth
ready to bite into golden flesh.
Convicts behind the walls were playing
with mirrors to throw the light on slick
towers. Death was laughing, waiting on the trees,
eating black berries.
And I was forced to taste the blood of sky
with sodium –
in sanctum sanctorum.
poem by Satish Verma
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I Grow Old
I grow old I should feel the cold
I grow old I should have grey hair
I grow old I should sit and stare
I grow old I should have false teeth
I grow old I should have poor sight
I grow old I should forget to write
I grow old I should have aches and pains
I grow old I should 'stroll down memory lane'
I grow old I should walk with a stick
But as I grow old I KICK ASS!
And that's about it!
poem by Yvette Smith
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Bullet In The Head
This time the bullet cold rocked ya
A yellow ribbon instead of a swastika
Nothin' proper about ya propaganda
Fools follow rules when the set commands ya
Said it was blue
When ya blood was read
That's how ya got a bullet blasted through ya head
Blasted through ya head
Blasted through ya head
I give a shout out to the living dead
Who stood and watched as the feds cold centralised
So serene on the screen
You was mesmerised
Cellular phones soundin' a death tone
Corporations cold
Turn ya to stone before ya realise
They load the clip in omnicolour
Said they pack the 9
song performed by by Rage Against The Machine
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Introspection
If you go deep
Into the heart
What do you find there?
Fear, fear,
Fear of the jaws of the rock,
Fear of the teeth and splinters of iron that tear
Flesh from the bone, and the moist
Blood, running unfelt
From the wound, and the hand
Suddenly moist and red.
If you go deep
Into the heart
What do you find?
Grief, grief,
Grief for the life unlived,
For the loves unloved,
For the child never to be born,
Th'unbidden anguish, when the fair moon
Rises over still summer seas, and the pain
Of sunlight scattered in vain on spring grass.
If you go deeper
Into the heart
What do you find there?
Death, death,
Death tht lets all go by,
Lets the blood flow from the wound,
Lets the night pass,
Endures the day with indifference, knowing that all must end.
Sorrow is not forever, ad sense
Endures no extremities,
Death is the last Secret implicit within you, the hidden, the deepest
Knowledge of all you will ever unfold
In this body of earth.
poem by Kathleen Jessie Raine
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Even When Alone
the blackened plow,
the blood stained glove.
the hammered blade,
some call it love.
the bottomless well,
cant drink enough....
the blackened plow,
the blood stained glove.
the eyes of hunger,
empty face of loss.
the wheel of man
turns despite the cost.
when you're lost at sea,
and your ship is tossed.
the eyes of hunger,
empty face of loss.
and still the takers take
till the blood is drawn.
while the innocent pray
in the dark before dawn.
the weak sacrificed
to feed the strong...
the takers take
till the blood is drawn.
love plots no revenge,
stands even when alone
with the heart of right
forgives the wrong.
knows there has to be more
than just flesh and bones...
love plots no revenge,
stands even when alone!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Winter Poem
Tonight the wind gnaws with teeth of glass
The jackdaw shivers in caged branches of iron
The stars have talons
There is hunger in the mouth of vole and badger
Silver agonies of breath in the nostril of the fox
Ice on the rabbit’s paw
Tonight has no moon, no food for the pilgrim
The fruit tree is bare, the rose bush a thorn
And the ground is bitter with stones
But the mole sleeps and the hedgehog lies curled in a womb of leaves
And the bean and the wheat seed hug their germs in the earth
And a stream moves under the ice
Tonight there is no moon
But a star opens like a trumpet over the dead
And tonight in a nest of ruins the blessed babe is laid
And the fir tree warms to a bloom of candles
And the child lights his lantern and stares at his tinsel toy
And our hearts and hearths smoulder with live ashes
In the blood of our grief the cold earth is suckled
In our agony the womb convulses its seed
And in the last cry of anguish
The child’s first breath is born
poem by Laurie Lee
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Never to Dream of Spiders
Time collapses between the lips of strangers
my days collapse into a hollow tube
soon implodes against now
like an iron wall
my eyes are blocked with rubble
a smear of perspectives
blurring each horizon
in the breathless precision of silence
one word is made.
Once the renegade flesh was gone
fall air lay against my face
sharp and blue as a needle
but the rain fell through October
and death lay a condemnation
within my blood.
The smell of your neck in August
a fine gold wire bejeweling war
all the rest lies
illusive as a farmhouse
on the other side of a valley
vanishing in the afternoon.
Day three day four day ten
the seventh step
a veiled door leading to my golden anniversary
flameproofed free-paper shredded
in the teeth of a pillaging dog
never to dream of spiders
and when they turned the hoses upon me
a burst of light.
poem by Audre Lorde
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Gentling a Wildcat
The yellowish-red of the caracal
blended like natural camouflage
into the yellow-brown winter grass
and when it moved its head,
the pointed ears with tufts
of black hair caught my eye.
Eighteen kilograms of hate
and pent up rage
hissed and growled at me
and white teeth
was biting death
out of the air.
Far too weak to move from
a hunter’s shot
and caked
with blood oozing
from its lungs
a paw clawed the air.
No birds and small mammals
or any lesser antelope
were to fall
to its claws and teeth again
and as life faded away
with the setting sun,
I saw hate glaring
out of yellow eyes.
Some faculty of mine
let me stretch out my hand
to stroke the soft head
between the pointed ears
and something changed
inside that deadly cat
and for the last moment,
it was at peace
and to this day
I can swear
it sounded
like a kitten being stroked
as life ebbed away.
[Reference: “Gentling a Wildcat” by Douglas Livingstone.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Christmas Landscape
Tonight the wind gnaws
With teeth of glass,
The jackdaw shivers
In caged branches of iron,
The stars have talons.
There is hunger in the mouth
Of vole and badger,
Silver agonies of breath
In the nostril of the fox,
Ice on the rabbit’s paw.
Tonight has no moon,
No food for the pilgrim;
The fruit tree is bare,
The rose bush a thorn
And the ground is bitter with stones.
But the mole sleeps, and the hedgehog
Lies curled in a womb of leaves,
The bean and the wheat-seed
Hug their germs in the earth
And the stream moves under the ice.
Tonight there is no moon,
But a new star opens
Like a silver trumpet over the dead.
Tonight in a nest of ruins
The blessed babe is laid.
And the fir tree warms to a bloom of candles,
And the child lights his lantern,
Stares at his tinselled toy;
And our hearts and hearths
Smoulder with live ashes.
In the blood of our grief
The cold earth is suckled,
In our agony the womb
Convulses its seed;
In the first cry of anguish
The child’s first breath is born.
poem by Laurie Lee
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