Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Some say I'm soulful,
Others the Devils tool,
One minute I might find you doleful,
The other acting quite the fool.

Yet that's patently unfair,
One aspect that I can't abide,
For I'm as pure as the morning air,
A child of the gentle ocean tide.

You may not think I live, but live I do,
Spawned in my cocoon of flames,
I thrive, but then die too,
Often amongst angst and conflicting claims.

My pedigree is strong,
Admired and always wanted,
With me you simply can't go wrong,
At times even something to be flaunted.

Your forebears held me close,
I'm privy to their secrets,
Through me their lifeline flows,
Despite them lying with the crickets.

I'm a chameleon, color is my muse,
I change according to my company,
Treat me well, never abuse,
For at my core a fragile symphony.

Where I came from no one knows,
But the world is my own oyster,
Having neither friends nor foes,
Life itself is what I foster.

Now you ask, who can I be
Someone quite so clearly needed,
Look around and you might see,
Generations that preceded.
The one word answer needs fit every stanza and there are clues throughout. Feel free to email me.
Jeremy Betts Apr 2
If I were to slip and fall
Relinquishing the saddle
Once and for all
A clear sign of a lost battle
Would they lie just a little
Pretending it's a riddle?
Would I be Jeremy still
Or just the latest ashes on a relatives mantle
Unable to get a grip on a life with no handle
Forced into being a monkey in the middle
Avoiding the ferry man becomes a new struggle
Will I hear a verdict from a god or a devil?
Or choose for 'em, trying to make it all simple
Thanks too the highway install
And despite all the people
It's far quicker to stroll into hell
And the toll is only one soul

©2024
topacio Nov 2023
So often you vanish in the dark,
          my fair weathered friend.

Although it is there where I require you the most,
          my reminder of a silhouette existence.

I will become my own shadow,
          no difference between me and lightlessness.

I expand like a riddle in your thoughtless mind.
Devil Atticman Oct 2023
For what is work?
To be complete.

What is strength?
The death of defeat.

Love, as well,
Is to rest one's feet.

Forces and their ends
Must meet.

Then I ask you,
What remains past death
A worthy edifice to seek?
A thought about the physical termination of energy in physics expanded in consideration of our own human values.
Zywa Aug 2023
The past is a rope,

a tangled ball of knots, play --


with it, like a cat.
Novel "Oranges are not the only fruit" (1985, Jeanette Winterson)

Collection "No wonder"
Ken Pepiton Jul 2023
Next then now, then next
no line, no dot, nothing now

time passes, came to pass,
as a near answer, a near new
point from which to view now.


In my case, my time as part,
smallest difference made,

the air you breathe, once,
I breathed into, and once,

I made you think yourself,
become a being I am not, but

then,
time,
and chance, all things working,
being, by gone, on gone working
to gather the momentum to make
time stretch into another whole mo-
ment, monumental pillar of earth salt.

At this point, next seems inevitable.
So we wait.
Thinking a next like this next one,
has never had a state of being common.

What - all ifery asks, if, imagined, seen, see

we agree and proceed to see, so time's
essence is momentarily mental, we think,
therefore we do many mental moments, we
think we would, or could or should be ready
for ever to cease forming myself, from myself,

slowing time, to myself, for myself, taking mine
and forming some for you to use, to take a second

order of packeted eventuality, side-tracked,
to let the important news of many deaths elsewhere,
make us agree to become so much better informed,

buy the best life has on offer, ready,
read the instructions.
{ lifetime acheivement, never reached}
Chiefest among missers of the mark.

Of course, in the course of human events,
from the playing fields of Eton, to the battlefields
of Afghanistan, what power reigns supreme?
- The Lion came, and brought the Tiger,
- the Bear came, and left, and then the Rat,
- or the Weasle, we can even see a Squirrel
- in the role of first worst case scenario on offer.
VOG - quiet on set, quiet back stage,
mind reengage tongue, taste the fertile reality, who
and what we are, enjoyment, actually, being, mere joy,
ahoy, adrift in all our otherwords, set idle by our tech-logic
- What fear rules the man who has learned his role?
Broken leg, reversed cursing, blessing God, just in case.

-- A day, Ivan Denisovich, Zeks, yes,
man's inhumanity to man, and best layed plans

plotted course of concentration, minds meld, given
incentive to spill over the banks of the feeder canals,

as the hermit's cistern in the Lagunas, topped it's edge,
and he sighs, thinking, so it is, you got a cistern,
I gotta cistern, if yours were to overflow,
it is your fault, or your glory for the joy, in the streets
in the summer,
in the city, back o' yo' neck red and sweaty, you dig,
you become worthy of the daily bread we are given
for righteous duty done, did I do, or did you, did we

sing along with the bouncing ball, did we all?

Thinking, all we do is wait,
becoming old, we wait to finish thinking,
thinking old, old, olden days, before letters,
before
knowing, being nothing, becoming this, these
lines of lettering linking noises used among us
to carry thought from me, myself and I, to you,

the one other at the moment, in the state,
what if, what if, what if nothing makes more
difference than you, one of us, one in our once

in an unbroken history of science and philosophy,
our hours of confluency, our instants in shared
learning, minutes of life's use, as used to make us
up from nothing… to think about a series of every

expansion to our sense of connectedness, seeing
we lieve being true, first proof the priests do lie,

first proof the chaos is not evil, but essential
patient zero, paradigm,
"logical or conceptual structure
serving as a form of thought
within a given area
of experience," Kuhn, perhaps, aligned

any worth, any value, any cost or price,
eventually, any time is too short.
Any vessle filled with experiential wonders
projected on reflective walls, six ways walled.
windowed and doored.

In parts, in passing, taking offerings
left in pasts for hungry spirits, urging

answer seeking, seeming endless, whying,
ifing, framing forms for fitting twos to ones,

as when we agree, we form a two headed
thing, with we agreeing meatily to work
as carnal minds do, given set and setting,

inform a vessle for holding self evidence.

Governing systems, blindman crosswalks,
mandated, ai, remote eye aware, are we,
seeing from television, new form, digitized
bit maps of surprising resolution, if one re-
members learning lessons of scale, how tall,
how small, the ratio, this pattern of whorls,

and that, fingerprint from some once in ever,
there, we all see it, so huge we lack the frame
of referrence, we cannot bear the weight of knowing

we are the tipped point on our wave's recourse
around the laws serving stanchion roles in god's houses.

Pillars formed from promises, to those who find the time,
now, in a given day,
plain old everyday summertime, growing time, passing
as quaint, handcrafted meditation stations, desert fathers,

have we any wool, yessir, yessir, three bags full,
master, dame, and some poor spinner
who lives down the lane… earning daily bread,
as penance for being born in sin, losing all the good God
had planned, I' know a guy,
he can tell this story,
as a called and reconnected son, of God.

And the likelihood, actuarially, as tithes passed,
interesting, heft, umph, to the indulgent users, knowing
good and evil, evil is lazy money, doing no man any good.

Knowing how to grow more money, Midas, reminds,
as do many voices from the tombs, liars prosperity changes

legends, shapes myths, fixes history just so, at the instant,
we knew, we all knew, at once, everything,
is after ever before,
and we have stores of knowns, unbeknownst,
arranged in time and alpha beth order, for habitual
referrence, you know, we all know religions are powers
wielded by Ideal candidates, chosen children, and broken
old ladies,
what mystery is more mysterious than they,
the power they rewield as time stamps, proof, there

that guy was a witness, and he was not there,
on the stair, I
sat, imagining I remembered that, and found it odd.

I have been lied to, and I have lied, to you, I do,
naturally, I am of that class of sapient things, I can
lie, if lying leads the mark into the mark-et try and do,

do, indeed, Yoda, wink. Done, and beheld, now, that
is time well spent.

AND there's more…

Meta Kuhnian Crisis Paradigm.

Four nickles, two dimes, time was,
two novels, or four one reel peep shows,
-SECOND COMING TYPE- ten 2 cent papers
WAR CALLS
PEACE-
times means for holding a cultural bubble,
intact, sticky in fact, tacky to the touch,

RSO and blue stripes… settled hermit state,
from a granite lip of a feng shui breeze,
AI, what do I know - in summary,
a procession
Summarizer
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a book written by philosopher Thomas S. Kuhn in 1962.12 Kuhn argued that scientific advancement is not linear, but rather a series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions, where one conceptual world view is replaced by another.3 The book offers a general pattern of scientific change, where inquiries in a given field start with a clash of different perspectives.1 Eventually, one approach manages to resolve some concrete issue, and investigators concur in pursuing it—they follow the "paradigm." Kuhn challenged long-standing linear notions of scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don't arise from the day-to-day, gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation, but that the revolutions in science, those breakthrough moments that disrupt accepted thinking and offer unanticipated ideas, occur outside of "normal science." The historical process of science is divided into three stages: a "normal" stage, followed by "crisis" and then "revolutionary" stages.0

Of my own volition, if one were to assume
one of my stations in life could possibly know my own will,
revolunteered to lead a raid behind the lines,
out of loyalty to a bucket list
perfect cow dismemberment, check,
tear a sacred cow to shreds and leave it to be ciphered out,
by farmers living high on the Teapot Dome affair,
and its coincidence to great social reformation,
- steam roll, electric mind of Tesla
- and all the unsung genius under Edison, into one,
- as the online entity with roots back to BBS and
- dial tone tricks of a switch…
yes, the burden of the rich, as we saw the similarities,
become the unresolved problem,
- mission drift, art intuited cognosis
have you never read where it is written that we,
we who read
being the only letting being
to let it be known, that we are to judge angels,
- where does this go?
as best messaging noncorporeal beings, wielding spirit in truth,
not some clown troupe trope miss
representing feeble minds reattempting trials,

Not Clarence, or Caspar, or the couple in the Thin Man,
nor Harvey, the Pooka manifested as human in a rabbit hat.

In profile he became the ******* Logo, same rabbit head guy.
Bunny lore, wrapped in chinchilla, soft as kitten fur,

who would ever tell?

--- Business, summer makes me think of winter sales.

No curious use of curio arts, ancient
beta better possible ways, from when we knew nada
at all, zip, zilch, no se, no way, we were babes,

and if we are raised, we become like animals, we sweat.
But, if we are reared, we become as men, we perspire.

As sentient beings who read as readily as we write,
we accept the role of reader as ours by right, or rote
ritual quotidian duty, each day, we plan to finish re-en
lightening the mob, the masses, eight billion of us now,

as we approach the peak, powers of ten, times six,
why six,
cubes stack nice… least heat, cool
enough to seal a preset get,
go, be gone to elicit light,
research into mind mold.
I write for fun, the stuff in entertainment, mental activa, I may suppose.
Ken Pepiton Jul 2023
One more silver dollar
buy another time a chance,
it was a time, not a dream, and

now has been, after that ever since
wisdom swept over me, my reality,

yours, in the same time, our reality
on starship earth, where the ancient
spells have been found to loose oath bound,

if you read this far, I wrote this far, and loved
the company in a same yeast state, define
state in states where war is made possible,
by treaty, representational power,
aimed at the child in the old man
being given worst, worsted wool's my first
right twist to be available in culturally npc
blend, walk by, that guy 120 fps

You could always see first he was not there.
Window's open he couldaflew the coop. Dime'sup.
Ken Pepiton Jul 2023
In my shop I have many unused tools,
and many useless things if electricty fails,

if crafts were to prosper, self sufficiency,
enticements might be as messengers,
in light, show-wers of the way, in story,
as once all knowing was made sacred, set
up right, perpindicular to the axial age last

rotation of the guards. How long this mad
mad mad mad made up and fed us, realm
stuttered into our commonsensed dance
where reason claims war is economical,
eventually, we assume we are all pawns,
so we do what pawns do,
get through
to the otherside, dude,
do you imagine,
chess players today less adept than AI
the prime ministerial idea, taken at init,

correspond
dance, what was it Foulcault's said
to have said? How can one discern,

5wpm quill to scribble, letter forms
sounds fit to, to say How can one discern,
a mad happenstance revealing an edge,
just in time, to stop, and think it over,
one more time, why am I alive, for good?

Eternal question all one trick ponies ask.
Animalistic nature of the rural breeds used
to be used to feed the cities, now they breed.

As the plow horses freed by machines, bask
in what looks like wild horse freedom, to a child.
Flank straps induce a buck up response, influid
flowing response,
to clover in bloom and bees, a buffalo
and then, some men,
on horses, olden days, three generations back.

The after math of war is a societie's honored dead.
Should the logical out come
of a point to point
message transmitted in the clear out
of the blue,
direct to you
as love, not of the Freudian mindsets sexuality
fact or realized co-related, lately piled on,
happenstance and dammed good luck, free

really, humans do these displays, and reflect,
scheizkunst riddle art with holes in the empty
Universal soldier modeled on all boys hero's,

drama sells glory, even to the losers,
look at Custer, and the medals for Wounded Knee.

So, what must one account for, idle word wise,
I burned each one redeemed, as raw aha, mere
words to the wise, each enough to titiosis curiosis

in volk, ah, dem Milchmadchen boo on u uumlaut

whoa, go slow, madness and mayhem, tears
in the flat felt seaming, inner thigh, sore

flat black and white yen to yank reality into my time,
I offer you this investment
of your otherwise used time,

which goes on forever in six differing ways.
In the middle of every thing I find a self expressed here as nowhere else, so far.
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2023
~for my dear, dear friend, T.R.
who tills the soil of Jordan’s Garden,
from which life springs eternal

<>

see your words, sent direct to my ears and all our mutuality of senses,
fingertips tasting the soil, the moisture, the granularity,
the chemical composition and the color, always the colors…

our gardens are our children, each similar but always,
unique, altogether different, altogether similar

how I love the how-work of it;  how the soil, you, suckle each other
with nutrients of tears, Georgia heat, outcomes of
the summer produce(s),
a refresher course of memories, of frustrated endlessness

we see heaven only by looking down, you, me, on our hand and knee,
touching each plant by hand as if soft stroking a cheek of our children

in some spots, the ground unyielding, keeping its riches
stored for another day, only then, when it wills, offer up
its specialty - a surprise, a wind-blown in, seed sprouting

it so many different ways, the work gets harder, and yet,
more tender, more desirable and we do not wonder on it

for this the way, of planting, and planning human desires,
tempered by elements over which we relinquish a
sense of control, yet forever knowing, happily, renewal~marked by

the forever and ever on seasonality
of a rebirthing garden
that sustains
us






6/25/23
irinia Mar 2023
but who are you, Theseus, what is your name
behind the name that I call even in my sleep
when there is no memory of the worlds
you have founded
and will

what stays hidden beneath your name that I whisper
with a hunger older than ourselves
with a thirst so fresh in the fleeting moment
that words to name it have yet to be born

who are you to me, Theseus
my lord of many lives
and a hidden essence?

who? the labyrinth of days
shows me a different you
every time I open my eyes

it’s my words that ask, not I

not I who can listen to you with my skin
and can feel you with my hearing,
taste and touch and arrest with a gaze
across expanses bending over the horizon

bridge over the water
cobweb over cliffs
joy
joy over joy

a life-saving answer
maybe
to the riddle
when the time comes

by Ioana Ieronim from Ariadne's Veil
Next page