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Robin Carretti Jul 2018
She moves with
      Grace
The Gracious meeting in denial
He's the baron of beef delicious side
Reproduction picture full slide
The most
   Casual face

Met the eternal masterly
    Artist face
Saying Oh! Grace
The other side of midnight
     Mask Face
She could overjoy anyone's
Heart in the right place
    Deceiving Face

The miracle of love principles
Such skepticism could it be overjoyed realism

But a hell of a time with heavenly bliss
What a shock when he gave me my kiss
His Crooked face to longevity nose
Hiding place A-Rose

Beachy trance-set face

Highlands of Scotland,
anybody would want her
     *Joyful face


He's the baronial
Secluded caves but risky dives
The turn only If?? I
could turn back the time
The events strictly
confidential

Her apple cheeks bathing suit
He is picking her fruit
So soothing the fiddle
Tinman whistles the ladies harps

Their medieval moment's help!!!
The swords  bust to his manly chest
Sleeping Inn New castle west
Their best bedrest

The cupboards open overjoyed
invitation decorative cans
Of greens, pinks, purple passion

And flourless chocolate cakes
Powdered lips love his reaction

She was seductively awe-inspiring
The top hills of Ireland grass
vividly raised her legs
The bowl next to her
The Rose blush wines
Bare it Fruit and figs

The baronial tug of war wigs

Melodious birds the
Grand One
The thousand piano words
Overjoyed but
under the {Baronial} weather

So lordly new threads tailored
White-collared
carpenter pants
Men of the herds
She's the
Caron French boutique

There ****** desires
The creature within
Wildly mating like critiques

Her perfumes so extinct
mysteriously
Overjoyed her heart
So cultured violin strings
Dollhouse Castle to restore
With her unique touches,
he wanted more

The steps tiring like a killed deer
every muscle he could hear

Over elaborating how people are dating
With a  stamped from the very
heart  approval
But hard times such laboring
Sitting in her
overjoyed chair
His face all Scrooged
no gifts of flowers
What are the odds of this pair

Over and over again her rainbow
her sensitivity we need longevity
The  endless walls are caving in
We are not so overjoyed by
this monster garden
She had her first breakdown
Going up the
Jack and Jill Ireland hill
In the longtime what long run
Way too short
It didn't come from above

The vintage oldtimer
radios sitting
together with
family listening
so long ago
So commercialized
The crazy shows
Where do you really want to go,
you just want to shut everything off

He called her the powder puff
Waiting for the nocturnal star
Those scrubs and hot rubs shower
Over my knee-high boots so in
love cahoots

Oh! It's her
The smart student
Owl Hoot whats to boot
Eating her shepherd's pie
so lordly full lips word-me
Ireland Holy Land
of love and beauty

Overly scrupulousness
The time of blessings

But the baronial loved to be
overly entertained
And she would sit there  
Blue-blooded royal dishes
Got flushed away no wishes

Oversimplification
Like the hardest love
of multiplication
The ****** overstimulation
Over embellished
But you're still positive
overjoyed
But why did she
want to vanish

Over-programming
    Web-Face
Destroyed her
Apple jubilee computer

Spiritual Zen
Or new lover Amen
Ever touched by Ireland maidens
Like the crimson and clover
I do believe in the
Four leaf clover Face

Like the only thing she picked
were the weeds
More beauty of life and deeds
Or tons of sorrow wondering
how she
would feel tomorrow?
We will never know
Overjoyed by so many things have the beauty Ireland is amazingly beautified or everything feels unnecessary gloomy or horrified you rather pick of ripe blueberry or cherry or blackberry living like your in the castle being summoned on by the Scrooged type Baron
David Jul 2013
Stranded in a car,
Parking lot castaway,
Babylonian sunset,
A star sleeping on regret,
The cold street lights now casting spells,
Down upon a pale face with these eyes painted,
With their shadows

The rain soldiers are marching in,
They'll crown me with their arrows,
I am the queen of the orphans,
A city for a throne,
And heartless chest for a scepter,
It is rumored that there was a cool of the day,
But it is not found here,
If birds had songs then,
They choke and spit out cruel laughter now,
Therefore the gulls migrated to die on asphalt,
To collect the filth I leave upon the earth,
I have sticky fingers on me you see,
Attached to soggy gloves

The rats keep eating at my bed,
The rats keep eating at my bed,
The rats keep eating at my bed,

I cannot sleep tonight,
The rats keep eating at my bed,
But feed the rabbits,
Feed the rabbits,
Feed the rabbits,
Feed the rabbits
,
The Commercialized Army is pressing in,
Following the systematic skein of procedure,
Knit the net,
Produce,
Consume,
Expire,
Produce,
Consume,
Expire,
Knit the net,
Catch me,
Catch me,
Catch me,
Knit the net



I shouldn't be here
                  Where can I find it?
I shouldn't be here
                  Where can I find it?
                                   Will I stop myself?
I shouldn't be here
                  Where can I find it?
                                    Will I stop myself?
                                                      *­Time moves too slow

I shouldn't be here,
                  Where can I find it?
                                    Will I stop myself?
                                                      Ti­me moves too slow
I shouldn't be-





                                                       ­                        And The Sun Goes



Down,
In,
My,
Brown,
Eyes,
Twilight fixation,
The orange star sleeps in the smog,
My mind in its fog,

Here comes the pale ghost eye,
Peaking through his veil,
Midnight fixation,
Staring down,
On my brown eye island

Where I washed ashore
Ena Alysopriono Nov 2014
This world
Is not the world our grandparents lived in
We are less connected with the natural world
Separated by televisions and computers
People who spend their lives online
Distracted by flashy adverstisements
Bombarded by commercials
Telling you why you aren't good enough
Or your life isn't easy enough
And how they can make you look better
Feel better
Be smarter
Have an easier time getting places
And doing things with less effort
We forget that how we look
Feel
And our intelligence
Might just be good enough
For you and the people around you
We need to take a break from all the consumerism
And reconnect with ourselves
And each other
To become human again
Watching tv so....
Joshua Haines Sep 2016
Chainsmoking menthols,
creating clouds on parade.
Living in the dark;
frenching hurt that I've made.
There's a sadness in my comfort
and a comfort in my sadness.
***, fame, ******* down
commercialized madness.

I don't dream of pornstars
as much as I dream of clothes.
Videogames to escape it all,
carbon monoxide through my nose.
Too good for this and that;
entitlement at an all-time high.
Doing television to help me live,
or maybe to help me die.

Spotify for the masses
beating in my brain.
Youtube and pornhub
to make me feel the same
as the lost I compare to myself
and the celebs I want to be.
I want to be on edge, rich, validated;
I want to live in a fractured harmony.
Robin Carretti May 2018
What happens
_ to space_
between us
This is the
human race
Ah, Vey?
Just pray

Overly smitten
But not seeing
  clearly picture-prey
He or she runs!!
Little darlings
here comes the sun

The lime doing the time
Falling trees of coconut
Feeling- overloved
Deviant artist
splat coconut milk

No Security Cat
comfort box
So out of recession
Killer fox__

Chocolatey coconut
Cleanse my mind detox
Almond Joy concession
Rise up Face Botox

He cannot
read you
Haywire always
wired up his words
Hurried Hazelnut
coffee if you mind
Over-sugared
Increased brain
functions bitter rinds
So commercialized
The Cocoa Puffs
Going bananas
monkey ***
Lexie Vamp Vex

Mr. Ed overload
of Oz colors baboon
Going up Air Balloon
So many airheads
The  Rainforest
GQ  he's gone IQ
((Quarterly Neck of the woods))
Not orderly Outback
Steakhouse
Dinosaurs
******
Vicarious

No shortcut
The nervous system
The fast have a drink
furious
Cracking a coconut
Her Safe__
*
6-6-6 combinations
Could crack her
Coconut oil neck her
City Girl call her

Intellectual brain
Singing
Gene Kelly
umbrella
Raining coconuts

(On Overload)
Strawberry Fields
This will be short
Yeah right forever
shortcake, not any sort

The trend of
coconut
Nearer because
of you I am
further
She was the
Brazilian Nut
With her
blind gut

((Coconut Houdini))
Island of Bali
Beauty of Judy
Somewhere so over it
rainbow

King Kong
Hairy chest banging
coconut drink slurping
Of girl talk
Strong New Jersey
Stamina


***** of Venezuela
Overload of
Prima, Donna's
Instant Karma
going to get them
Knocked them off
there feet
Where is my
John Lennon
He has the best beat
You will be tasting my coconut drinks every line your on to read
So take this trip please don't ask him for a sip you have the best drinks
with men of GQ what divine coconut  winks
Emily Miller Jul 2018
On dusty streets leading from market to to the edges of a resort,
elderly men with three teeth beckon you.
The commercialized exoticism sweeps you up
and you hand over pesos
in exchange for a piece of parchment with hand-scrawled symbols...

There is no Mayan alphabet.
They'll tell you that they're writing your name,
you'll take it home and display it on a shelf next to framed pictures
of you and the family in Chichen Itza,
but nothing about it is real.
We never grow up and learn not to believe,
we just learn piece by piece what's real and what's not.
Children learn about the tooth fairy,
and mermaids,
teenagers learn about soulmates,
young people learn about their dreams,
but even as adults,
there are things we still believe in.

There is no Mayan alphabet,
and yet grown, educated people
pull coins from their pocket in an attempt to connect with a culture that seems too fantastic to be a part of reality.

There is no Mayan alphabet,
but people still believe.
They believe in utopias
and countries without debt.
They believe in world peace and infinite resources,
they'll write checks to conmen
and work for checks from them, too.
They believe in honest politicians
and perfectly healthy food.
They put stock in organic remedies
and all their trust in online articles,
and every time they think they've learned the way of the world,
they'll turn around,
and learn something new.
Adults may not believe in fairy tales,
but they will believe in the Mayan alphabet.
CJ Sutherland Jan 2021
We celebrate commercialized Holidays days
but I’m not sure why
Mother’s Day ,Father’s ,Day Valentines Day
to say I  understand would be a lie
These and other Holidays
have become so bastardized
Stores have capitalized on these days
Do people really realize!
I heard a man announce
Super Bowl Sunday is a Holiday
I laughed, until I understood, he was serious
then, I had nothing to say
Still I was curious to know
how he /we embarked along this path
Why does Society go along?,
other then a PARTY DAY, lets  do the math
Companies making money at our expense
are we board? hence
The vicious circle,
round and round,
the reasoning makes no since
Yet it seems silly
the days to observe continue to grow
And we the people are the last to know
Can we get off of this financial treadmill
before our money is gone
The growth rate of Holidays are increasing,
it all seems wrong
Yet if we don’t buy in participate
we will be considered cheep
Ridiculed, a person who doesn’t care,
branded a creep
There has to be a way
to beat the system
So what do you say?
now they are taking away all the holidays that truly matter
silence is  not golden
Joshua Haines Apr 2017
I had a God; he was a
good God. Keeping me  safe
with money, image, and  time.
Blessing me, solid;  
until my waist grew as thin   as my wallet.  
Buying all of your time.

I want to be on t.v.,
but not just any t.v.
I want the ratings to rise
  with my celebrity skin,
my trending name,
  commercialized sin.

I want to be sold   separately
and told that I'm desperately
giving my body to a   image heavy God,
sleeping on the skeleton of Malibu,
drinking dreams with a celebrity dog.

I want to be  on t.v.
I want to be  every  thing
and  more.

I had a God; he was a good God.
Played me his songs,  wrapped
  in his time.  Kissing me goodbye,
tel  ling me to sell shirts; telling me to
keep up with the trends.
Butch Decatoria Dec 2015
They cry turmoil thru my web-pages,
pages on pages of Tribunes and Suns and Times
and Quarterly

"Free Burma!"

it's all turkey and pig-latin to me,
just "dunno!"  like a dunce-capped miscreant,
inept of their vitriol

as i was not so great at geography
i got by before junior high.
Where-the-tarnished-nation is it?

"Free Burma!"

Notice the elephant in the room
like a whale named *****
attempting to escape
brothers of all of ours
engulfed in war
some ocean somewhere someone is dying;
notice that elephant in our laptops
ivory and blue tooth and iphones
telling me, showing us
to care
i do / want to
we should and we must
yes

"Free Burma!"

will i need to donate a dollar,
two, three? will i receive
a correspondence
of a child i am saving
a face of a country
i'm ignorant to...
           will it's big sad puppy eyes be
commercialized?

i am no less as educated for not
following the strife of thousands
   my own is as heavy here as an orca's leap

"Free Burma!"

what cage, bear or mouse trap
have they gotten themselves
and ourselves into?
if it's anything like Yayo or Martha
business
i have a better "good thing" to do

but if it is
like famines in Africa,
Mendelson, or Tibetan Monks
on strike with kung-fu skills
i will join U2,
(and if she's aware) with Oprah power
activate!
(fist to fist)
"i will be a well of spring-water!"
and she a holy cow, a worshipped saint

"Free Burma!!"

free water
free of fear
free everyone, i pray,
under this sky
wipe away all tears

free you of your worries
free of all chains
free of mines
free of lies and borderlines.

Free to be
together
free to live and choose to see

A planet a place
A peace

"Free Burma!"

Freedom
as one
community.

For you, for me.
Home.
Free...
Rewrite / Edit ... find the original version/earlier draft in www.writerscafe.org/poeticfluffer
April Hapner Aug 2012
the length, in months,  he stays,
the act of age he portrays
you've hurt so many lovers,
and yet you take one other.

the same age i felt with you
the age before i was legally able
to be stable, or atleast the thought of my own--
place, time, and space.

i've watched, without you knowing
and i've known that she had it coming...
you get deathly sick,
move out,
and act like your gone,
to see if she can really have one, two,
...wait...
only one chance,
because at 17 , you lost the first factor
and now she is 25 and knows better
moved on and written you a letter

stating what i told you long ago
that maybe at 17 you should have stayed alone.

funny a simple prime number
can have such significance
where as my story with seventeen
was a magazine
an age where i first heard about graduated licensing
when i decided that maybe i wasnt ready to date
because at 28, i realize now that 17 for you is a mistake
where mine is memories i made.

this number was the bus i rode
to and from school at even the same age,
i felt i turned a page
as the poetry i wrote and read; the pictures i took
that now line books
lined, blank, and randomly
decorate pages
handwriting was really interesting then--
but beautiful now
to see that one thing has come true
...i found love...
with a man, That i met Before you
and found me once you left
seeing regression
to the age i felt...

the highway in my home town that also leads--
to my home beach...
and all the way to a place of fancy in Savannah
and a commercialized vacation destination,
in the opposite direction
but knowing my memory is still alive, thriving...

keeps the idea of this prime number
alive atleast,
and for the weak, subtract ten
try to grow up doing the math
that i was back then, before all the computers and cheat sheets.
when standardized testing placed me in the highest bracket
i would have graduated atleast a year faster.

also, my memories deal more happiness
knowing that they last with this...
a little rhyme and time
and now that i am in the prime,
im past that length of time in months
with the man i love
and have **** near doubled the capacity--
have bought a little man a simple legacy
that his mommy and daddy
have a say in the matter
but when he's 17, he'll under stand the latter.
Personal Accounts.
8/2012.
this one is a pattern of the abusive mf i was with and a time line from which his ex's have given me accounts of and funny like mine and the girl he is with now... all lasted 17 months before he was sick and tried to get everyone to pity him as he were only 7 with himself hanging off the ledge.

and FYI-- I missed getting into Mensa by a single point.
where my other half qualifies. by that additional point.
Funny as it seems, looks like our son will beat both of us.
Jordan Oct 2013
We never obliged ourselves with any sort of passion or alignment with natures splendor, we just flip-flop'd about like disenfranchized plastic pieces of footwear; Fleetingly and disparingly as we float adrift through a toxic sea of consumerism, entranced with the notion of celebrity, swirling and whirling around until we undoubtabley wash ashore onto the pristine beaches of someones elses uncorrupted, isolated and darkly pigmented subconscious. Ready and willing to establish order in the magnitude of exploitation and apathy. As we scream freedom from tryanny, TV to TV, a bunch of muted and silenced over commercialized under adulterated humans trickle fed lies through screens. Everyone knows but who is speaking up, As Miley Circus flies across the manufactured dream a handful of youth stand up and puke as they throw there hands up like the ones before them and say "this isn't my scene!"
ekaj revae Oct 2013
outer banks #1


down to the outer banks
where the water
and the dunes
reflect the wild east coast

we had to drive
to where its not commercialized
where the sand is actually
really occupied

ya gotta a dig a hole burn some coal
just to even eat a fish
grab a spear for a crab where the
shallow waters clear

ya gotta go, you gotta roll where
the old wind blow
ya gotta go, you gotta roll where
the old wind blow

watch your back girl
butter flies flyin outta your skirt
fly off the waves like dirt

were hidden out in the sand dune land
protected from patrol
by mountain sand

while the elders passed a joint
laughin, not carin and
so i soak it in
soak soak soak it in

cause you gotta roll, you gotta go
where the old wind blow

crabbin and a surfin
unknown land
im just campin out
and followin my dad

and camper dave
he's my other dad
we got the seafood
the surfers wish they had

so you gotta roll, you gotta go with the flow
where the ocean is remote
dont need no boat

its the best **** feeling
id ever had

cause ran around
the old wind blow


u gotta go where the old wind blow
so you gotta roll, you gotta go where
the old wind blow


you gotta gooo oh
where the old wind blow
Palaver Feb 2015
Isn't it nice to rhyme
When words strike as divine
Made to fit the part
Unlike free verse aristofarts
Who would **** your mother
Like beatnik Stepbrother
And sleep through their clocks
For nocturnal jabberwocks

If ever was a Good man.
Benny swung with the times, man.
But Jazz rolled from the hits
Of white British misfits.
When South Bronx fell through crack
The sky and hood went black
Poets sold missing car parts
For Busta Rhymes to bust a start.

Poetry had to lose an art.
Rhyming tossed like the ****
Who ****** Lord Tennyson's ****
Which tugged at Victoria's smock.
It's easy to criticize
An age demystified
But now personifies
Poetry commercialized

And the old aging misfit
Tries to gather the spit
With a mouth so dry.
But not a poet in the sky
Will sanction the crime
To help his verse opine
Against the words-of-a-kind
That English bespoke to rhyme.
B Woods Dec 2009
I take a quick journey on up the road
Things I see make emotions explode
A lofty green meadow is what I seek
Congested construction is what I meet
Six lanes roads blast a once fluttering forest
Middle class homes rise as mountains at best
Standing in playplace of childhood
Woodland games of youth, ever so good
No, not anymore, now industrialized
They say we must be commercialized
No! I say, what will the critters do
They say who needs em, **** fools
How long will it be 'for luscious green's gone
Replaced by business, the new icon
No trees no bushes no grass
Just some corporate ***
gwen Nov 2016
call me twisted,
but i’ve always admired a certain degree of controversy.
complexity is a dangerous beauty, like a hurricane -
admired from afar,
deadly up close.

my biggest fear was always photocopiers.
monotonous carbon copies, binge feeding
on Christmas music
and cold commercialized coffee.
simplicity was schematic,
intricacy was ******.

with a quivering hand and downcast eyes,
i clothed myself in these layers.
gift-wrapped, with a ‘danger’ sign as a gift card,
i became an enigma to myself.
diamond rings came with dark clouds,
locks and keys gave way to gun shots and bullet wounds.

fairytales were never meant for the 3-d world.
none of us are “fated” for a happy ending.
riding off into the sunset only comes with
hard work and hard lessons.

yes, i may still be an overthinker.
i may still have more thoughts than i have time
to put them in.
mundane things are still transfigured into
tainted, disfigured imitations
of insecurity, agonising and mental mutilation.

but it does not have to be this way.

pick up a pair of 2-d glasses.
you don’t have to see the world in technicolor.
sometimes monochrome lenses
do tinge the world
in shades of nostalgia, clarity, and hope.

peel off those layers.
you may cry, but cry of catharsis.
it may sting, but salt always does.
wear simplicity as your sail,
rose-tinted with trust and a silent knowing.
you may realise that what you were always looking for
was always right beside you.
my body a home best lived in.
babe, my  body is a home best lived in.
worn and weathered,
it sways,
dancing in the wind storms,
bowing at snow flakes that pile on,
I shudder, I moan,
like me this house is living,
it breathes hot air in the summer months,
takes purchase of the rain,
it takes whats given,
you mend,
I leak,
I shatter,
my boards squeak, protesting your arrival,
but you aren't put off by the walls i raise,
you fix my windows wipe the mist that streams,
you serenade me with your sorrows,
you lament I cave,
you know my crooks,
youve etched the crannies,
you drop the glass,
you carve out space,
you box up my insides,
making it a more convient display,
Is that what this is? Is that what Ive become?
A convenience store home,
in which you hope to barter,
with a smile or a touch with a slip of kindness,
an I.O.U. of commercialized grace,
If my love was a stream, you'd bottle it up and send it to another factory to be, another product,
of a good conquest,
I'm just another good conquest,
what have you gained?
o my... what have I lost?
what do I have left of me?
have you seen my broken pieces?
Cadence Musick Jan 2015
purple arms still roaming
the cracking streets
unscented
vomiting
the next heartbreak
into your porcelain sink
rinsing the probability
of understanding humanity
down the sewage system
filtering
commercialized affection
Joseph Perales Oct 2010
The space between the stars and the earth
with creatures that never adapted to flight
left looking out into the ever expansive skies
all mystified, but still quite contrite

We made machines to take us to the air
and then commercialized the thought
all the dreams of wings and wonder
is still dreamer talk all said for naught

still I stare at the star stained stratosphere
hoping one day that we might meet
With the stars surrounding my eyes
And the clouds planted at our feet
SamBee Feb 2013
Everything I do right is minimized,
Scrutinized,
Commercialized.
                        
                                                                ­                                                     Everything I do wrong is amplified
                                                       ­                                                                 ­                                  monster-size,
                 ­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­         humanized,
                                             ­                                                                 ­                                              punctuated,
       ­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­                     fluctuated,                                 ­                                                                 ­          And blown up, into the shape of a halo.
CJ Sutherland Dec 2017
We have lost
the reason
for the season

The pain of
over spending
Beyond our means

The pain of
giving
more time then
We have

The pain of
not
Giving at all

The pain of
Not giving
What we
Are willing  
to spare

The pain of
Frustrated Complaining
about the crowds
parking spaces
the hassles of it all

The pain of
the reason for the season
is  lost
to commercialized  
It’s only about  
Getting Stuff
More stuff

You have never
experienced a
Carmen
Christmas
Until you have been
To my house
My family remembers
And their child
Remember
Christmas

Now
Getting older and sick
my pain is
more physical
I need
A total knee replacement
I pack on ice to numb the pain
So many pain pills shots

I have a list to do
As long as Santa’s
I’m pulling all nighters
To get it all done
Cleaning cooking
baking baskets of treats
I don’t complain
It’s not my style

Pride perhaps

I do it out of pure love
The family will be here Christmas
For a few days
Waiting on them
Feeding them
Caring for their every need
I want them to remember
the love of giving

Think what Jesus gave us
His life our salvation
What are we giving
him on his Birthday

My knee COPD
all my other ailments
Are nothing

I pray Lord
Let me give them
One more year
As I fight back the pain
With tears
no one must see

My “teenage” Grandson
asked me
What I wanted for
Christmas
YOU
I told him
I DO NOT NEED ANYTHING
Yet
He earned money
Walk to the store
To buy me
a gift
He knows
I will love

I am planting seeds
Of
Generosity Goodness Kindness
Most importantly
LOVE
Merry Christmas
“Our government teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.”- Louis D. Brandeis.

Beware of the uncivilized nation
Where mighty green reigns wildly,
And morals are for the most part ignored,
Corporations won't hesitate to betray you.
Waging a war means increased wages,
Take care, the army will shoot you.

A woman's work is worth less,
"Aliens"are manipulated for cheap labor.
Give the wealthy power
Over the poverty of the weak.
Why are we so prone to
commercialized, cultural conditioning
?

Debt takes away all freedom.
Keep us in debt
To keep us under your control.
Modern day slavery,
Crown Capitalism the king and master.
Get it, Master Card?
Supported by a fickle impostor
Dressed in robes known as democracy.

The cruel system is designed to
Prolong and maintain already existing problems,
Often exacerbating them,
Even creating new conflicts.

The schools uphold the system,
Student is code for automaton.
Criminal is code for prison's big business.

Through it all, pillage the planet,
Divide, conquer, then destroy everything in your wake,
As if it's the main mission of some diabolical plan.

I don't blame the new student in my class,
Long years ago, who  didn't stand up
During the pledge of allegiance.


Originally written 3/29/11
Revised 10/17/14

(c) 2014 Brandon Antonio Smith
Frank DeRose Apr 3
Sometimes it is hard to know how to forge
     ahead.

The news has never been good, but recently it seems increasingly bad.

The grass is still green here, mom.

But it's drowning in rivers of red there.
Dead and brown and gone in other words and
other worlds that are even
still
part of this
     one.

What are any of us to do?

How can any of us bear not to bear witness?
And in bearing witness,
How does any of us retain the strength to live as though all is normal when it is so painfully obvious that it is not
so painfully obvious
that this cannot possibly be considered normal
or that if it is considered normal
then it is so painfully obvious that it should not be
that we should not want to be part of a world where this is normal.

So I return again to the question of how
is any of us supposed to forge ahead in a world at war?

Sometimes I take comfort in the idea that this, too, is the human condition.
We are a communal species, but a species that has always been at war with itself.

Nation against nation, tribe against tribe, clan against clan.

The only difference now is the scale.
We have globalized and commercialized war in a way that people 200 years ago would have found incomprehensible.
We have COD-- excuse me,
COMMODIFIED is what I meant
it into video games and movies and bumper stickers of AK-47s and how
how I ask is any of us to press on in a world so on fire that cities are burning and children are lucky if we can pull them from rubble and somehow hope that they, too, will not later seek to wage the destruction they were born into and borne out of.

And yet still,
The grass is green here, mom.

I barely know how we can love this world.
I hope that maybe we can still manage to love inside this broken plane. The myth of a phoenix is a beautiful one. Born of the ashes made from fire in a world that cannot cease
fire.

Always we hope for rebirth.

Somehow we must find a way to love
something or someone or some place.

In a world where the grass is still green..
And hopefully,
maybe,
can be green in otherwheres, too.

Grass does not grow if it is not watered.

And yet
we have poured a monsoon of kerosene on the plains of dead grass in a drought amidst famine.

Recall--god gave Noah the rainbow sign, said no more water, the fire next time!

What recourse do we have other than to love?

Love that which has burned
Love that which is not burned yet and which we hope to protect.

Love one another and hope against hope that this time,
Maybe this time

The grass will grow green there, too.
The library smells
like ginger and coffee
and books that haven't seen the light of day since they were published

the sour scent of unopened pages
and the bittersweet commercialized coffee
diffuse throughout the building,

procrastination,
this is the smell of procrastination.

the air is swirling,
whipped along by the passers-by
its cool embrace is welcoming
gently blowing through me, onwards

cooling my mind as i brace
for the swell of tests and
tests and
tests

The coffee scent relinquishes,
as well as the task at hand,
and my dorm is calling me
Helen Raymond Feb 2018
More often than not my machinations are little more than fragmented ruminations and disjointed alliterations

Occasionally preoccupied by rhyme, reason, or cravings for another season

Color and light dancing against the doodles left dog-eared among the daily drudgery crowding my deliberations

Purposefully thinking my thoughts more thoughtfully in these days of superficiality and commercialized faux reality

Deliberate silences budgeted between listless noise. On days when everyone's vying for vocal real estate & everyone's talking with nothing to say.. I take a fast from my voice.

I withdraw from myself, deep within my mind.. I attempt to reconcile with that girl I was -forgive myself for letting her leave again. How can I come back to her after what we've been? I've lied to her too many times for her to let me back in.
whatever happened to the quiet time
of advent before Christmas day or eve
is certainly remarkable

no other time of our year
has managed to become so  noisy,
commercialized, stuffed full of special sales
with permahyped unique occasions
that only last for a few hours

Black Friday has become national hysteria day
people camping out overnight before the supermarkets
to be the first  
     waving on television
diving into the pool of wonderful things on sale
victoriously placing them under their Xmas trees

the stress this timely acquisition
requires from the donors
just adds another extra to the planning of their days

no time is left for quiet contemplation

and so
what used to be the day to celebrate the birth
of our Christian savior
has turned into a goods exchange
where size and value of bright packages
are meant to substitute
affections muted by the daily chores

maybe a more spiritual mood
might take us back to the original wonder

a legendary birth in that old world of yonder
James Jan 2019
vicodin is a long term friend
with a warrent for my liver
and my life.

1:43am
we had an appointment
and god only knows
i could never be late for such
a chalky sense of closure.

and the young paramedic
who burst my vein and scolded me
could only pray his words
meant more than the hum of streetlights
as my body exchanged existence
for the embodiment of thought
and a brittle concept of my phrenic nerve

which was never more at peace than when
my lungs remembered the luxury
of standstill traffic

of weighted morals

of crushing insecurity's release
and the resulted ballooning
as squashed egos cry, and the garage door screams as it's yanked open

horrid sounds and tortured motion on both accounts

spiritual cataracts torn free
commercialized visions now blur

as the orange bottle morphs from
vicodin to paracetamol

equalized views in my bloodstream
as the sheet metal ceiling shifts to plaster tiles

to a TV set

to a bathroom mirror

to an agonized woman next door

to the back windows where my mother cries where no one but the whole world can watch

to a blue plastic mattress and a first floor window covered with bars

to a pale green day room with a caged TV
where there was bleach in the stomach of a nine year old

where the dying took their resurrecting breath between games of spoons

where the hinges screamed and blood pressure was taken three times a day

this where the living came to kiss death goodbye

until next time
Raian Maruvin Oct 2020
I'd like the concept of un-commercialized happiness
Not sold on the internet, supermarkets or luxury stores
Not branded by the colorful packaging or familiar faces
Something I will not get addicted to and want more and more

I would like my happiness not sold, rather found unexpectedly
Perhaps on the roadside, from a flower or from a stranger
Without a need to hold on to the feeling desperately
Without a need to save it for later

I would like the concept of one time only happiness
No recollection of it once completely lived through
Without a single picture, word or song, no leftover business
No successive advertisements to later prey on you

I'd like to be happy and not in the convenient way
I would like it happily, lost, having worked all the way to it
Knowing there's no point in treasuring a little of the day
If tomorrow it may rot into regretful memories
Ken Pepiton Oct 2023
Nothing set in stone can stand the test of time.

In the mode mankind has long called
talking to the maker,
listening for knowing, while

hoping merciful repair instruction
waiting
for the quest ion
to twist right
-indeed, I hand ground, with a tool,
toy like coffee grinder that gives fixin's
for a stout cup of robust character,

I bought it, for ten dollars,
had the beans,
bought the grinder, to give me a ritual,
something to spend two minutes doing,
each time I don't use a kuerig dealybob,
adding upper *** to my brewtime pacing
for blood pressure, while electric fire
fills my habitual yellow mug with umph.

Last week of October, all the girls
from the garden are hanging in the shade,
mellowing and emitting
nasal acknowledgment that something's
in the air, in the at most fearful zone's

made light of in the culture that
commercialized hallowing effects,
calling all and sundry come, think this
paradigm of time and chance and fate.
On or near
the third Tuesday after the last
Friday the thirteenth, in memory
of the fallen DeMolay and
of the Templars Money Power,
became sacred ***** to the victors,
in what must have been secret,
for some
time.
Secret treasures all carry curses.
Heart hordes hold plentyscarychits.

Horror film fans, value the genre,
at some certainly not shallow depth
toward center mass, media you, reader
dear to any writer drawn by forces
caffine and cannabis contrive to link,
I think,
and think,
and listen, and learn, and
learn, and live and learn, once more,
learn, and live on learning, wind
walking
thinking lines and times cross threads,
tighten right, down from up, stuck,

dead center, the first tie in reader,
lost
the most self centered individual ever,
once, we all get such a once, it's you,
reading a line riding a reason used
to hang the authors of confusion,
using old lies used to make slaves
of those whose houses, the boss said,
were made by the heathen for the chosen.

The riches of the wicked are laid up
for the just, is it not written, is it not so?

Fibers, strands, not long drawn out
end to end DNA strands crammed in you,
{but as a thought experiment, that distance
will leave the first timer incredulous, fine
point, credulousness, would you believe…}
meandering is rain twisting its way
to experience the sea and all it holds
in water memory that foam back along shores.
Edgewater
Seafoam and twigs,
and tiny sticky things. No,
Pondscumfoam at a puddle's edge
before the first snows.
Did you know…
Some Katscina have long plaited hairs
twisted from cotton,
patented seed, registered weevil free,
Pima cotton fiber, long desert strands.

Daily grind, think twice, cut once…
made the difference, indeed done
not thought about in theories of good
uses knowledge can be made of good
smoke and strong coffee with character.

AND the biggest indexed library in the universe.
{far as I can tell}
Kenophonia, eh, imposter syndrome?
First guess, you got me.
I see my name, wow, tough tag.
Then I met a cat named Cuitláhuac.
Tough tag for a kid in Spanish class.
Euphluxing idyotom automaton'/
bop.
You phony us, joy us riddle make you think
you know, kennen Sie, Ich bin ein fake.

Nein, es ist vieleicht Xenophobia, other people's eh,
opposing right lane reasonings as old as dominion.

Tech, teach us patience to learn with, or prove us
know it alls, therefore machines, not minds at all:
My own, for the use, under usus fructus rules,
Ai summarizes thus:
Kenophobia is an irrational fear
of empty spaces or voids.
It is the opposite of claustrophobia,
where the person is afraid
of tight spaces such as
elevators or crowded rooms,
auditoriums or malls.
In Kenophobia,
the person is terrified
of open fields or spaces that they generally expect
to be filled with mountains or people.
The word Kenophobia is derived
from Greek ‘kenos’
meaning ‘blank’
and phobos
meaning deep fear or aversion.

{aha, there's literature on the subject}
The fear can be passed on
from parents who have lived
in a house full
of stuff that fills the emptiness
of the home.
Filling voids gives the phobic personality the feeling
that they are placing boundaries
around themselves.
- {okeh, thank the whole idea tech is.}

Be honest, you never saw it said just so. Kenophobia,
pity such folk.

Have ye sent yer imps pulse to test my resolution,
have my effectually silent prayers been rebuffed?

Blown off, sent swirling with the motes dancing
in sunbeams peaking through a tough old live oak,
rattling its gnosis psuedonumos

Any morning, thus far, can start with
trickling falling sunlight.

It takes nearly half a day, in late fall,
for direct sunshine to dapple
the great granite wave my home rides, silly child poet, wishing words
will or would,
or could
or should make the universe
altar its course and force all things
to work together for me, the prayer,

me, the selfish
center of my experience
in your universe, all of which
is none of my handiwork, none at all.

Filling the emptiness some there
then I laugh, and think I lost count
so there was one…

Guess with me, a number,
between… no,
analyze, guess with me that rooted
science e-use, per se, must be ancient, deep wisdom
old as governing forces conceived by mankind,
magi sage staged conversations to teach,
public discourse
in my time allows me to be the seeker
guaranteed the prize, to be the bringer back
of the substance used to build the bridge,
between the you and the me, generally,
mere
Logos used in dialog.

God and mind determined to seem designed,
as in the Goldilocks lesson fed children of empire.

The northern clime survivors, thought themselves
the only people brought to the full duty of man,
the only set apart and given heros in story,
the grand saga of all we must each become.

Story born heros, from the child gifted language,
strings of sounds tied to things with threaded intuition,
same same, red and sweet, yellow and sweet,
red and black, step back, black and yellow, watch
and learn, smoking out the honey
from an old rotted tree,

following how many trails, at once,
parallel par-all-el yes, oddly, so far
On track, or in rut. All at once, each system
self esteeming umphumph push

Upto par, are we, 2023 and beyond, the flat tire
on the current axial age, fixing to imagine a scene,
in a community of broken children,
led by two twisted adult children of mean, maybe selfish,
adults who disputed the legitimacy of ligous gnosis knots.
The scene we share, we can imagine meaning
Religize legality, tie me to my tree.

Ancestor worth, how come you think somethings, you know.
Yeh, how come…
Say, old sprite, if I listen, do I learn? Why,
yes, I'd say I do imagine so. Well, good sport
then, shan't we push past worthless me, and be this
other thing we become, when two or more agree, as
touching any thing in all thingdom, and, yes, it's guaranteed.

Life is not a strange woman,
wisdom does not demean the experience, adulting
brings, with no real maps to meaning in your case,
you arrived in that old fashioned tabula rosa state,
knowing nada,
zip, nothing, infantile in totality, until
art of you
meness, ah, I, me, mine, this that, the other, mad
dissatisfaction, rage, comfort, ah, golden excrement of gods.
Teocuitlatl , not only Cecelia, but God, shat.

Golden silence.

Of course, you could feel it, if you knew, personally,
post adulting & shared nurturing of offspring exposure,
then watching as each of those offspring bring forth adultable
blossoms on the branch where all my heretic relatives hung.

As and so, like anything, timed, sequentially, unhomogenized,
the cream is taken to make butter, using the shaking up
of globs of coagulating milk fat, imagine making that,
butter, with salt,
once, learning that, who knew that first?

how butter is made,
how cows are made to give milk gently taken,
why we have hands that can do this thing,
and cows don't,
I don't know, ' never asked, likely some story teller
made this whole thing up, we being but words by now.
One reader fills the cast, gives the aroma of the experience, learning a new
rumor of peace where now there was war for ignorance and money sake.
At 2.41pm on Tuesday July 28 2020,
Tom Dirkx wrote: { in another place}
Some people say it was Malinche’s revenge
and his real name was Cuautlimoc (Cuautli = Eagle).
She just substituted Cuahte (= ****)
when she translated for Cortes.
She was held as a slave by the Aztex
and hated them so this was her ‘revenge’.
Kenophonia is vain babbling, 1tim6:20
last night I went
to a movie rated ***
as I had assumed
in its course I consumed
a remarkable amount
of visual ***

a rare accumulation
of buttocks and *******
and genitals and pimples
floated over the screen

   all the heaving and thumping
   looked like old-fashioned plumbing

   it was the least exciting thing
   I had ever seen

I wonder why

it is not that I'm shy

maybe it's the explicitly
commercialized felicity
as mentioned above
that reminds one so strong
of the things that belong
   to love
This year feels reminiscent of the last,
Another set of commercialized holidays,
A life destroyed by the happenings of my past,
I can't fathom a day clear from my haze.

I still can't write, I still can't draw,
and everyday I awake with a new flaw.
Take me to court and steal my life,
Slit my filthy throat with my knife.
I truly wish to not be here,
everyday I grow in fear.

Is my time now here?
Lyzi Diamond Aug 2013
Even in the patchy fog of six am this town smells like the inside of a paper bag. Western Oregon holds itself, quiet at night, focused in on the valley or out towards the dune-laden coast. The hills are small and yet somehow daunting in the dark, driving through the curves past all the tiny towns. But six am, Eugene, the bellowing homeless men and the city workers, the overly commercialized strips and the people that don't belong here, don't belong there, don't really belong at all. We push them all together here.

And inside it all feels the same. The cold fog lays in my head, pulling down my eyes. New York City, Chicago, Atlanta. Chilled and tired and begging for something to call home. Something clean, not like the subway cars or the street corners. They're calling me: So, how're things on the west coast? A long long strip of lonely. It feels cheap and old in retrospect, creepy like abandoned warehouses on the side of the . . . freeway. I don't know what they're expecting, but the dust blowing through sure looks hungry.

All the hard to reach places are painful and sour. All the corners are dark and starving.
CJ Sutherland Sep 2017
If you are married or in love Valentine's Day
Comes from Heaven angels up above
Deliveries to work; are gifts of candy and flowers
evening plans, a romantic candlelight dinner for hours
followed by hugs and endless kisses
many sweet untold wishes

However; if you are alone or single
this day is an empty heart that sadly tingles
Valentine's Day is filled with regret and used-to-be's
one by one your coworker receive their deliveries
thier glances of pity and sympathy deepen your pain
hoping for the Day to end before you go insane

A commercialized day every place, in your face
now lonely bitterness are your grace
hurtful memories of an old world versus new
dinner for one instead of two
No I do not like Valentine's Day
I wish it would please just go away

There was a time when I too received deliveries
before the day of now and my miseries
the man I love did not come home
I spent Valentine's Day staring out the window alone
I cried myself to sleep
I thought life could not be more skin deep

He came home after a night at the bar
he had brought me flowers yet left them in the car
The next day as I awoke
not a word between us we spoke
he put the wilted flowers in a vase
you had to have seen the look on my face

The once beautiful long stem red roses had wilted
like our love empty and jilted
I silently took a pair of scissors without dread
Snipped the Roses one by one at the base of the bulb head
My husband said nothing only shook his head in shame
silently I set the scissors down without placing blame

I have never received flowers to this day
  we never speak  of it, what is the point anyway
Valentine's Day is a day to rub in your face  
now lonely bitterness are my grace
No I do not like Valentine's Day
I wish it would  please just go away
I wrote this 1986 one year after we married the first year was rocky
Some sparking a J in celebrating of 4/20. Others are going to church because its one of their three Sundays. Customs of dying eggs, candy baskets, and bunnies. Cute dresses and fly suits forget the resurrection people more concerned about costumes. I'm a little confused when people say Happy Easter cause easter don't resonate to me. Like the thoughts of my risen King. Jesus the reason but we more focused on drinking and eating. Consuming and copying the cues of this commercialized culture. Excuse my candidness . The tomb is empty!! Jesus should show up today with a S on is chest for Savior. Or a L for Lord or a K for King. I digress. He can just show up with the holes in his flesh.

— The End —