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fray narte Jul 2019
There's some kind of emptiness inside your chest, where your heart is supposed to be, and it's sort of similar to the one that's buried in mine.

And maybe we're two halves of that emptiness. Maybe we make the whole. Maybe that's our kind of love.
I asked your mom for pictures of that
New Years Eve, and yeah, I'm kind of sorry,
but I don't think I'm at fault.

You were cute before I met you,
and you're cute now, so forget
about the camera, and sit back
and talk like Moses talked to God,
and talk like Mom and Dad would talk
before they found out she was pregnant
with the worst and best two decades
that she still feels were a dream.

And talk like we do; talk like one
of two identical, divisible
denominators stuck inside a
textbook made of dances.
                                              
                                              Please
excuse my dear Aunt Sally for
forgetting how to knock.
Robert Ronnow Jan 2020
"The question should not be in what ways writing and utterance trope each other, but how both are involved with number. Without relating the technology of writing to number (as opposed to sound or drawing), it is impossible to discuss it meaningfully as an aspect of versecraft."

          Courage to write and courage to not write. Read
          The great poets and highly accomplished letters
          Of leaders. Yet the war and the book have lives
          Of their own. Vacuum house, analyze mankind.
          His idea of himself. Ideas subsumed
          By better ones unite people into one people.
          I watch from my little bowl of nuts. Watch
          The one red squirrel and the many gray.
          Watch the nuthatch pair, platoon of chickadees.
          Here is what I say: When we can go
          From planet to planet on nothing but air,
          Leaving behind a drop of water,
          No burger bags blowin’ in the sun,
          I’ll love my children, my dogs and be happy.

"What is needed is a way to pry apart the polar, mimetic fiction that undergirds discussions (even sympathetic ones) of writing and versification, and see how we can relate writing to measure. Roy Harris’ investigations into the origin of writing make this connection possible."

          Electronic millennium. A long silence
          Wouldn’t hurt. Not that the national debate
          Should cease, it should proceed, passionate
          And furious. Those who have studied the matter
          And have something to say should write cogent
          Opinion pieces on the totalitarian
          Tendencies of minaret Islamists,
          The terminal contradiction of advancing
          Democracy with the unitary military.
          George Washington would not have approved
          And even Lincoln vacillated between
          The practicalities of preserving union
          And the ideal of freeing slaves. The president
          Carries his burden of matter, the physics
          Of existence cannot change our aloneness
          Or the butterfly’s importance, the very
          Last insects at the screens of August.
          It is life we face and death we meet.

"He argues that the origin of writing did not lie in the drawing of figures, or attempts to imitate speech, but in the recording of number. According to Harris, the oldest ‘writing’ that we have, like that on the 11, 000-year-old Ishango bone, is in ‘lines.’ The surface is scored with rows of short, parallel strokes, which probably served a numerical function. We still use such scoring systems today on occasion."

          OK, different strokes. But reading North’s poems
          And his predecessors’ in which noun and verb
          Are so far separated by modifiers,
          Post-positioned prepositions, diversions
          Into ditches, gardens, heavens, I don’t know
          What to do laugh or put the book down and eat
          Several cookies. In other words, anything goes,
          There truth resides. 1/3 life in suburbs,
          1/3 on the subway, and the last third
          On the mountain. A fourth hallucinating
          In heaven. That’s how it goes. You get what you believe.
          Bones in mud. It’s always possible I suppose
          That for nine months analogous or symmetrical
          With gestation our souls wander call it limbo,
          Doing the limbo and harassing the living
          With unanswerable questions, finally accepting
          Free molecular rent in a cubic meter
          Of interstellar space, a rose hip.
         
"Harris speculates about counting by scoring:"
'What is relevant for our present purposes is the fact that counting is associated in many cultures with primitive forms of recording which have a graphically isomorphic basis... The iconic origin of such recording systems is hardly open to doubt: the notch or stroke corresponds to the human finger...'

          Partridgeberry, mugwort, mats of raspberry,
          Cranberry, bearberry, autumn eleagnus,
          Autumn Nocturne, Autumn Leaves, the changes
          To the tunes and the scientific names.
          When it doesn’t matter what you do
          You’re probably doing something new.
          That’s a woodpecker. That’s a moth. I’m bounded
          By my surroundings, I feel at home.
          Could be Schenectady. Could be Troy.
          One of many small cities in which to while
          Away my anonymity. Be specific.
          Not asphalt but impermeable surface.
          Not trees but mature stems. Quercus rubrus—
          Quality veneer. Into such a garden
          Have a victor and a fool penetrated.

'In short, the rows of strokes are graphically isomorphic with just that subpart of the recorder’s oral language which comprises the corresponding words used for counting. It makes no difference whether we ‘read’ the sign pictorially as standing for so many fingers held up, or scriptorially as standing for a certain numeral.'

          In a crowded world every action results
          In an equal and overwrought reaction.
          Yet, all the energy recycles
          And there is not one thermal unit more or less
          When all is said and won. Even when the tribes
          Were isolated behind mountain ranges
          And rushing rivers, they sought each other out
          For trading and for taking. Humanity
          Is lonely. Humor is the only remedy
          And going to your daily discipline
          The only way past Monday. Join the torrential
          Flow of words, emotion, wit and erudition.
          It is embarrassing to see a good writer
          Work himself into a lather, having
          Something to say. A system of beliefs
          To illustrate, characters dressed accordingly.
          Gardens and wilderness in which to wander.
          A cave with a view. The plumbing problem never
          Resolves. Fax your results. We’ll be working late.

"Along with other evidence, this leads him to argue that the invention of writing–or the division of writing and drawing into separate functions–occurred when the graphic representation of number shifted from the token-iterative system that appears on the Ishango bone, to type-slotting."

          Electricity is occult enough for me.
          Excessive classifying could be fascist!
          Yet how else can one organize people
          Into contexts. By their associations.
          Family, work, habits, each assigned
          A day of the week, moon of the month.
          Poets rhyme, jazz musicians count time.
          There is more than one way to make war. By
          Declaration, by punishing offenses
          Against the law of nations, by granting letters
          Of mark and reprisal, by making rules
          Concerning captures on land and water, by
          Suppressing insurrections and repelling invasions,
          Erecting forts, magazines, arsenals,
          Dock yards and other needful buildings. Today
          I face the blank page between the finished pages.

"Harris gives the following example of what he means:"
'The progression from recording sixty sheep by means of one ‘sheep’ sign followed by sixty strokes to recording the same information by means of one ‘sheep’ sign followed by a second sign indicating ‘sixty’ is a progression which has already crossed the boundary between pictorial and scriptorial signs.'

          When my grandmother considered it favorable
          That I would be a writer, she had in mind
          Clear commentary from which many people
          Would derive meaning. No such luck. My writings
          Are like the flicking tail of that flycatcher,
          And I am the flycatcher, weighing but an ounce.
          My grandfather’s rough-hewn peasant chairs
          Are well known by my sons though they never knew him
          And the chairs were not hewn, just owned by him.
          One is in a corner of the room and two
          Are scrimmaged around a computer screen.
          Computers post-date him and cars post-date
          His father and so on. If the grid collapses,
          The crops fail and the roads close, some will be forced
          Across boundaries among boulders, naming snakes
          And stars according to memory.
          They will be hungry, mortal and strong.

'A token-iterative sign-system is in effect equivalent to a verbal sublanguage which is restricted to messages of the form ‘sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep...’, or ‘sheep, another, another, another...’, whereas an emblem-slotting system is equivalent to a sublanguage which can handle messages of the form ‘sheep, sixty’.Token-iterative lists are, in principle, lists as long as the number of individual items recorded. With a slot list, on the other hand, we get no information simply by counting the number of marks it contains.'
"When this change occurred it opened ‘a gap between the pictorial and scriptorial function of the emblematic sign’, which had been previously inseparable in the counting represented by rows of slashes."

          No book I know tells if blue cohosh
          Caulophyllum thalictroides—a barberry—
          Is edible. Other barberries are
          But that blue berry looks risky to me.
          And May-apple—Podophyllum—other
          Than the fruit itself which is definitely
          Sweet. So I read, not sure of myself.
          There is a patience with which to wait out anger,
          And a patience with which to endure ignorance.
          The job is everything. It is freedom
          And purpose and religion. It is acceptance
          And shelter and sustenance. Last night
          We were watching Tweet’s show: groveling before
          The rich pharisee’s judgements. I said no
          Amount of money could make me grovel
          Before that guy. His toupe’s gayer than his lisp.
          But who am I? You think bullets won’t ****?
          I’m the guy they put before a wall and shoot
          Then eat lunch. But that feeling passed quickly.

"This semiological gap, made writing possible because it meant that signs could be manipulated to ‘slot’, or identify, anything whatsoever. The open-ended quality of the scriptorial sign was a necessary precondition for the development of writing systems."

          Lately I’ve been copying wholesale
          From the great poems, lines and ideas not my own
          Or owned by all? It’s ok, I can be ignored
          Or appreciated in a future city,
          By a future shore. The honest man can
          Only recognize what he loves and point to it.
          That Borges poem called In Praise of Darkness.
          Emerson and snow. A meditation
          That bumps serenely, with acceptance,
          Between things and thoughts. It is said one should
          Know for whom, to whom one is writing.
          These are letters to those who love letter writing.

"As Harris points out, no writing system is accurately phonetic. Even the alphabet only highlights certain phenomena in the speech stream. The reason for this is that alphabetic writing did not begin as a simpler or more accurate way to record speech than other writing systems, but as an easier way to write."

          A possible cancer had taken me
          To the edge of my endurance. Pokeweed,
          Poisonous, became attractive. Red stems
          And juicy black berries. I had packed warm clothes
          And pain killers. Why the warm clothes if this
          Was to be my last walk? To die in comfort
          Without a fly’s buzz. Overlooking a ravine,
          Sea of mountains, dawn. But it proved a false alarm.
          Now Sunday will be a holy day of plant
          Identification. Nothing better
          Than lying in leaf litter, skin drying
          To a taut drum. Ravens stay away!
          Until cougar’s had his fill! Instead
          I showed the boys pokeweed growing among blackberries
          And taught them the differences and uses.

"Through a radical reduction in the number of signs, the alphabet simplified the scriptorial system in and of itself. The evolution of writing therefore may look like this: simple forms of counting preceded the complications of pictorial representation, which in turn led to simplification of the writing system in cultures that adopted the alphabet."

          I was running uphill, parallel to
          The Taconics extending northward into
          Vermont (I find Vermonters in their jalopies
          Annoying but admire them for planning
          To arrest the president for war crimes) when
          I happened upon a flock of cedar waxwings—
          Said to be a gentle and politic bird—
          Sharing—very orderly—dried frozen grapes
          On the vine. (Rose hips, buckthorn, ash, pokeweed.)
          I tried one, too, the two seeds in my mouth
          Keeping me company down the mountain.
          I see no downside whatsoever
          To compensating for global warming,
          Constructing the green energy economy.
          New inventions may facilitate
          Our transportation to other planets.
          Yesterday a young man, Barack Obama,
          Won Iowa. I’m hopeful he will
          Articulate an international vision,
          A world order in which each neighborhood’s
          Good as another. I have no particular
          Love for writers; they’re a dime a dozen.
          But so are chickadees and I love them!

"Discussing the power of inscriptions of number, Harris points out:"
'Counting is in its very essence magical, if any human practice at all is. For numbers are things no one has ever seen or heard or touched. Yet somehow they exist, and their existence can be confirmed in quite everyday terms by all kinds of humdrum procedures which allow mere mortals to agree beyond any shadow of a doubt as to ‘how many’ eggs there are in a basket or ‘how many’ loaves of bread on the table.'

          True, nature would be a stern, unforgiving
          Mistress too, and man is but her right hand
          Acting on her command. How cold! How hot!
          The individual doing what he loves or not.
          Trees and cities. Herons, hawks. What we fail
          To govern in ourselves, nature will.
          We caught the killer and his gorillas,
          Now let’s go home, let the “innocent” choose
          Up sides. A good thing was done but the tyrant
          Should’ve been undone through global governance.
          Writing is divination using rhymes
          And estimations. Words like mammals
          Come near your sleeping head. Last night I emerged
          From the hum of our refrigerator
          Under a hazy, phaseless moon. The peepers
          Were an exact expression of my happiness.

"Or, one might add, for how many stanzas there are in a poem, or lines in a stanza, or stresses, feet, or syllables in a line, or occurrences of particular syntactical or grammatical patterns, and so on. As every serious student of versification has always understood, versification is about counting language."

          5:30-6 write poetry,
          6-7 ****, shave and shower, stretch
          Then get dressed, 7-7:30
          Clean house, 7:30-8 drive to work
          8-6 work (except Monday and Friday
          Work 8-4, basketball 4-6)
          6-7 drive home, shop, help make dinner
          7-8 eat dinner, read paper,
          Watch McNeil-Lehrer News Hour,
          8-9 play trumpet, study plants, type poems
          9-10 watch TV Mon: Murphy, Cybil,
          Tues: Frazier, Grace, Wed: Roseanne, Ellen,
          Thurs: Seinfeld, Friends, Fri: go out to dinner,
          10-11 read, except Tues watch
          NYPD Blue, Fri: Friday Night Lights,
          11 sleep. I could send this to the networks,
          Get a gizmo in my box. I hope my
          Schedule won't be interrupted for war.
          My dentist asked had I seen this morning’s
          Press conference, didn’t it just scare the ****
          Out of you. I said your bill is what scares
          The **** out of me. But here I am, writing
          And the sphere’s still turning. Or should I say
          Burning. As long as you write one poem per day
          You’ve left a little litter in the world.

"The reason to write verse is less to score the voice than to imbue words with the magical quality of counting. That is why meter, or measure, is at the heart of debates over all verse forms, including free verse."

          Vigorous wind, voracious ocean,
          Many merciless hard frosts, hurricanes.
          The bed of a human, its smell and warmth
          36 teeth, 46 chromosomes, 2 feet, a loose dime,
          61 summers, some soot, some sand,
          Thunderstorms. I wake up to a lightning strike
          And my dream incinerates. When they say
          Life is but a dream, that’s what they mean.
          The writer working hard, telling the story
          Of what happened yesterday or yesteryear,
          A man’s born to a country not his choosing,
          Let labor flow like capital, of mere being!
          Pomegranate juice, broccoli, arugula,
          Brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower,
          Collard greens, kale, radishes, turnips,
          Garlic, leeks, scallions, onions, 2 lbs
          Swordfish, tomatoes (8 medium),
          3 cups almonds, carrots, a sweet potato,
          Winter squash, cantaloupe, mangoes, watermelon.
          2 daily writing exercises,
          50 words on any subject: complaint, headache.
          The imagination applies a
          Countervailing pressure to reality.
          Writing badly is the best revenge.

"Number is one of the creative grounds of poetry, and the idea that writing grew out of counting is the missing link in studies of the graphic in versification. It is almost uncanny that lines of verse look exactly like the most primitive ways of counting–parallel scorings that can be numbered."

          What you do to one side of the equation
          You gotta do to the other. Isolate
          The variable. Combine like terms. Metaphors
          And analogs are reduced to least common
          Denominators. Multiply through (parentheses).
          Write a new equation after each operation.
          Inscribe neatly. Check your work. Imagine
          That if you’re wrong, the astronauts burn.
          Change the signs which will avoid going
          The wrong way down the number line. Zero
          Is the middle of your universe.
          There it is, calm, comfortable as an egg
          On a spoon. That is, before possibilities
          Become probabilities. This is just
          Another equation manipulated
          With opposable digits. For at the ends
          Of your guns is the earliest calculator
          A magical machine which converts
          Numbers to words and words to numbers,
          Measures the mists, frequency and wavelength,
          Of the material penumbra.

"Verses are countable in exactly the way that token-iterative digits are countable, from either end of the sequence. Each one indicates only its singularity, not a number. Every poem in lines effaces, or predates, the distinction between writing and drawing in the same way as the lines on the Ishango bone."
www.ronnowpoetry.com

--Rothman, David, "Verse, Prose, Speech, Counting, and the Problem of Graphic Order," Versification, Vol. 1, No. 1, March 21, 1997
--Harris, Roy, The Origin of Writing, Open Court Publishing Co., 1986.
Tommy Johnson Jul 2014
Tell me would you rather be a star or an icon?
No hard feelings let's let bygones be bygones
Because by the time that I'm done it'll all be gone
And that time has come now bang the gong

Poetry takes over me its in my blood
Millions of ideas overflow and flood
I'm the guy who can't explain the things that he does
Before I can finish one the next one's already begun
Call me Bush cause I make preemptive strikes
Late at night, can't sleep I got night terrors
I'm a writer, human error
Make mistakes, but never fake
Verbal assaults, symbolic somersaults
You never spot it, I got it, Haley's Comet  
Get it? got it? Good
What is this amateur hour?
Over these insects I tower
And I leave 'em with a sour taste in their mouths
Too many syllables to count, the can't figure out how
This came to light how this came to be
How someone can be so lyrically and poetically skilled
I'm strong willed to make a killing
To put my name in the top billing
That's T-O-M-M-Y J-O-H-N-S-O-N
Don't wear it out or make me spell it again
The rhythm and rhyme is mine
To take and break, mutilate and manipulate
Into one of my mutated manifestations of soul
So if we go blow for blow
Just roll with the punches
Because I'm no where near done yet
Just one more cycle of sun rise and sun set

Would you rather be a has-been or a never-was?
Authentic booing or half hearted bogus applause?  
Juggling juxtaposition and pulverizing paradox
Opening eyes and dropping jaws

I write for the eccentric and excluded
The ones who know life doesn't have instruction included
The agitators, aggravators
Trouble making perpetrators
The ones high in the sky yet still down to earth, the least common denominators
The imaginative innovation of evolved revolutionaries
And the intuitive message they all carry
I'm inspired by the ones who came before me
Ginsberg, Morrison, Dylan and Cassady
Shakespeare, Fitzgerald and Lennon all influence me
To write and have my name along with theirs on someone's shelf
That's why I'm here everyday writing away to make a name for myself
I'm after the Holy Grail
Na, not a Pulitzer or Nobel
But moment someone tells you, "Hey man I love your stuff"
That right there is enough for me
To know people would take the time to read what I put out
Then without a doubt
I'd know I took the right route
And they all love what I write about
Life, death and everything in between
Sick subhumans and saddened circus clowns
We're all here to see the tides change and the tables turn
There is no turning back now
Sorry if it's too loud
All you can do is kneel and bow
Just wait for it all to change
Keep your confidence up but your ego down
Life is round , the earth is round
It isn't flat and new land's been found
I claim it in my name
And in the name of the game
The game that you we're never even a player in
So don't make a sound, just watch me win

Would you rather be an unknown or a memory?
To live a life of fame or infamy?
To die heroic or live villainy
The subject of a biographic documentary
Remembered for centuries upon centuries

You're good but I'm the greatest
Your're over rated but I'm the highness anticipated awaited
You're on the wait-list, I'm on the A-list
I'm on the tip of everyone's tongue on a daily basis
You keep yourself on repeat on the lamest playlist
So press pause and listen to my words so heinous
Your head is so vacant you haven't got the faintest idea what I'm saying
You're tasteless and I don't care if I'm hated
You play it safe and I like to make bold statements and live dangerous
And I can use my abilities to either trash you or slash you
But I just wanna aid a few of our brothers and sisters
To enlightenment so they can see the bigger picture
And expel all the ******* behind-the-back whispers
Been walking on eggshells and tip toeing around broken glass so long I got blisters
**** the Benedict Arnold's, Judases and *** kissers
Kiss them all good bye
As we blow the whole bunch of 'em sky high
Oh my is that a threat?
Na but you bet it's a ******* promise
Pay homage to Dylan Thomas
And have a drink to him
Until the whole room spins
And we witness the after affects of 9/11
I still don't understand how we got to Iraq if t was Afghanistan
Eh, whatever nevermind I don't want to get into that rant again
But I will give you some food for thought
That you ought to be eating
Why is it people are meeting life with such opposition
It's because we are taught to combat it with these fix positions
Well I've got new and improved fool proof fire power new way
And I'm about to press ignition
I'm refurbished, recondition out of remission
Learn don't live in the past
No looking back live in the now
Don't worry about tomorrow it'll all work out
The Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman case
Isn't about gun laws or even race
It's about the morals and values no one cares to save
The sooner we all realize that the sooner we can have better days

Oh wait I feel spurt of verbal diarrhea about to take place
This is coming from me to you, the fact of the matter is you're through
I'm impervious, immune and merciless
Murderous, your nervousness, you're subservient and worthless
I'm losing my patience with you, I'll try to make this painless
You're going outta here nameless as the whole crowd goes zero gravity weightless
Because I'm a pile driving, stylizing craftsmen of words
And you missed your turn, get burned never return
I write so ridiculous
You write conspicuous
I'm am limitless
They think I'm frivolous and have a bad attitude
They just envious of my monumental aptitude
Its not writing it's typing
Clickty clack clack just like Kerouac
I won't take it back that's just the way I attack literature
I have a big vocabulary, I like onomatopoeia not a big fan of nomenclature  
I put myself in every poem
In every verse or stanza
In every line and word
From storytelling to dispelling propaganda
As for you I don't know
I guess ****** was all she wrote
I got my back tot he ropes
I take e'm and make a noose
It was duck duck goose now you lose
You lost out to a lower class *** head
A brain dead writers who straight outta special ed.
But look how much of my work has been read
No more need be said
I'm ahead of my time and miles a head of you
I got time to stop for a drink
And a trip to the edge of reason to the brink
Then come back again and I'll still be ahead and on top
What you go?t Nothing
Stop bluffing
I'm huffing pure creativity
I listen to the voices inside of me
Telling me to end this quick
And I agree it's time to cut this session short
I think that's the long and short of it
I'm boss and you're a lost cause
You may be the Lion of Zion
Or even Titan of the Horizon
But when we're both gone
You'll be some guy who wrote
And I'll be an Icon
Craig Dotti Mar 2010
Alabama 3:34 am-

I don't know much of time
I'm not familiar with ratios or denominators
Angles make me uneasy
And I can't deal with numbers
That my son can

On this I swear,
time for me
Is measured in segments of the roles I play
If quantified at all

Because I drive and drive
And walk and walk
And soar
Come join me
Bus Poet Stop Apr 2019
not much he reasons, resonating the question,
in the resounding places where both are congruent kept

we talk of lines all the time, line divisors of our
denominators and our numerators,
but truth and secrets are 1/1
so the rational number is always one indivisible whole,
with liberty for both,
when
the glass shackles^
be broken

but let us not dance around the marshmallow fire,
while watching clocks melt as our memory persists,
so secrets and truths have a rigorous solute/solution relationship,
yet, the dividing line melts over time and the answer

in all the poems that the body worked,
with experience, you can see the works becoming
the body solution blended,
undefined admixture, defined, refined, all just fine,
for the microscopic difference is in the eye of the beholder
but requires breaking
the glass shackles^

for
one will enchain
one will set you free
when their meld is melted
Larry Potter Sep 2013
Earth is a pretty
Messed up equation
Of quite hastily
Made up solution.

We are but numbers
Of different values
Every sign matters
In this set of issues.

Many were born real
Physiques built evenly
Few quite look odd and
Imaginary.

Some are but factors
Serving evil's loots
Denominators
Of ungodly roots.

There are radicals
Who've got point of view
So are rationals
To speak a word or two.

We're discriminant
To other religions
Differential rant
To other opinions.

Can't we simplify
This complex squirm
And instead unify
To a common term?

We're just variables
Merely dependent
On the valuables
Of our environment.

We were given one
To be shared by all
Equality's gone
And this is our call.
Richard Riddle Feb 2016
"OVERWHELMED!", for lack of a better word. At 7:30am(CDT), my piece "For My HP Friends(response to Eliot York),  reached an altitude 5k 'reads/hits. Although the piece was penned in 2013, I mean every word written as I did then.
But, this isn't about me, it's about "you", all of the poets, writers, young/old, newcomers, and mainstays. It is for those who have passed away(God bless you), or have moved to another site(we hope you will return, at least I do.) It is for all who enjoy what we do, or think we do, best; writing about our deepest thoughts; what makes us laugh, what makes us cry, coping with adversity. It's about "living", learning of different cultures, visiting with words, places where we may never go, realizing that regardless of where we live, we are very much the same in thought and deed, discovering the common denominators between all of us. It's about "lending an ear", doing our best to comfort, strengthening a "family", which HP has developed overtime.
Without "YOU", this piece would never have never been written. Although my name is on it, it contains the  signatures of each and everyone of, "YOU!"
I will be forever, grateful.

Richard Riddle, February 07, 2016
Scott Swanger Nov 2011
digging in,
the way your teeth crawl.
and latch onto my heart
or my hipbone, when we
do our thing. digging in,
like the first shovel into
the earth when burying
someone you love. you
remember how fresh
the soil is, and you think
it's ironic and somewhat
painful. don't think.
don't think. digging in,
and you whisper in my ear
like you're telling me something
no one else knows while you're
having your way with me, or I'm
doing something to you. don't
think. don't think. forget digging,
forget the hipbone, forget all
of your common denominators.
don't think. don't think. and
you won't.
digging in.
digging into fresh soil
like there's something
worth finding.
Traveler Mar 2016
Uncommon are the necessary
Common denominators of thought
That can unlock the prison of mind

As is irreducible
This eternal enigmatic maze
As our personal stories unwind

Deity becomes accessible
In the privacy of heart
But lost upon the multitudes
Of religions so far apart

And this too shall pass
Is but wisdom of the weak
As we're locked in a free fall
Hoping to land on our feet

And perhaps I know nothing
Of tears that fill your eyes
Or hearts that beat in suffering
Or the arrogance of human pride

But I will not lie to myself
Or pretend that I am special
I am but a molecule
Just a single particle...
I am a Hadron Collider,
Colliding my life particles together
deducing the common denominators,
finding the parts that define me.
Classy J Jul 2019
Started out doubtful,
Lost at sea like my boy fievel,
Partying every night yet I was spiteful,
Mouth full of things yet was not thankful.
Always wanting more,
Yeah I was a carnivore,
Was so rich yet so poor.
Had everything yet was empty to the core.
Smiles as phony as some real fake doors.
Hoping one day I would be on the Forbes.
For I yearned for the illusion of grandeur.
For I was tired,
Tired of being barred,
Barred from what society deemed popular,
But popularity only has so much allure,
It certainly is not a cure.
In fact I would say it’s more of a cancer.
That becomes as obsolete as a blockbuster.
And I can no longer be an actor.
Faking smiles and shaking hands with gators.
Or Catering to dictators,
For I’m an innovator,
A lyrical operator.
And a educator,
That spits lyrics with high energy like a particle accelerator.
Yeah I am unlike the rest of yawl common denominators.
U gotta understand,
Ain’t no way to truly comprehend,
What it is like to come from nothing,
And make it into something.
Yet still remembering,
Where one came from.
When one barely had any income.
Gotta stay humble man,
Because tomorrow it could all disappear fam.
Richard Riddle Feb 2016
FRACTIONS!
FRUSTRATION!!

NUMERATORS

DENOMINATORS

Homewo­rk
never stops*

NEVER WILL!
"Always Something!"

"Always Somebody" (who wants to complicate your life )

"teachers!"

r riddle 02-07-2016
Classy J Oct 2019
Hook:
Hero’s and foe’s.
Assigned to roles.
Hero’s and foe’s.
Where Divide and conquer rules. (X2)
Verse: 1
Uh, check it!
Centripetal force coursing through the veins,
Mixed with henny, speeding through multiple lanes.
Rudimentary devil, spewing coarse language defying parental guidelines.
Villain of the century, swooning hearts whilst dismantling traditional racist designs.
Such craftiness, isn’t it wild?
That our worlds filled with such nastiness.
Bringing truth brought forth from past experience.
Yet people still look at me like some incompetent child!
But I’ll continue fighting,even if I end up like John Coffey from the Green Mile.
Plunging propaganda down the toilet,
Expunging paraphernalia that has left us exploited.
That’s why you shouldn’t underestimate an apple.
Classiness defiled, how vile, engulfing youth into the Bermuda Triangle.
Barracuda coming for ya,
In order to scramble the status quo.
A hero seen as a foe,
Misunderstood like Edgar Allen Poe.
A hero seen as a foe.
Misunderstood like the edge lord shadow.
Hook:
Hero’s and foe’s.
Assigned to roles.
Hero’s and foe’s.
Where Divide and conquer rules. (X2)
Verse:2
Chaos stems from abuse of power,
That will burn us like a fire power up flower.
But once that power is stripped away,
All your left with is scared little cowards.
So, why do we continue being submissive to these rat *******?
Why don’t we question their status of master?
That wasn’t achieved but ascribed to fit dominant factors.
Making slaves of those they deem as common denominators.
Thinking they are the Luke skywalker’s of the story,
But are actually the Darth Vader’s.
Thinking those oppressed will simply forgive them if they say sorry.
Well, sorry but come back when your ready to change policies.
Ready to change racist terminology.
Ready to tax the wealthy and give it to the rest of our struggling economy.
Ready to make the curriculum honest.
You want our trust.
We want laws and legislation to not be racist and biased!
Ultimately, we are calling for justice!
We should no longer be foes.
Don’t ya know?
It’s not to late to become a hero.
Don’t you know?
We are all just misunderstood like Edgar Allen Poe.
Don’t ya know?
We are all just misunderstood like the edge lord shadow.
Hook:
Hero’s and foe’s.
Assigned to roles.
Hero’s and foe’s.
Where Divide and conquer rules. (X2)
Sometimes I don’t see you moving
You’re as big as the universe
But there is never enough of you to go around.
Do you have any family?
Are you watching me?

You move so smoothly
No space between
to mark the differentiation
in your journey as you constantly travel
into my eyeballs
and through my brain,
I am a ping pong ball
travelling in your ocean
It all looks the same
With each second,
Only to know by how far away I am
From the places I’ve been
the common denominators,
they will always be there
until I stop floating.

sinking into places unseen.

Do I get to keep the time that was given to me?
If not then what is your motive?
Descovia Nov 2022
Eat you foolish meatheads alive, Yeah.
I'mma CARNIVORE.
None of ya'll compare to me at all.
You ******* eyesores.
I been on magic ****
igniting incantations.
fire blazing, Harry vs Voldemort
Got a trick or two up my sleeve
guess, I learned a lot Dumbledore.
My light doesn't shine without my son.
Nah homie, no play on words that's not a metaphor
Remove the light, from your world.
Lay you down like the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs
You grindin with three jobs and hustlin like a body builder to get more?
Nothing is going to stop for us.
Me? Gon-gonna Make it happen.
What the ******* out here waiting for?
Gotta keep flowing and lifting weight like my lyrics
Minus the common denominators,
I simplify complex matters and make it visual.
Cause I see, things take turns. People get twisted.
Cause it only makes sense, if it's vivid.
Why you call it "life?" If you ain't even livin it?
Some days, I feel down under my limits, feel limited.
Double shifting is a way of life,
work as hard as I live, talking 10 (am ) to 10 (p.m)
The sword has much power as the pen.
Yet, I dwell in my head on my ******* trips
My son loves my stuff, alas
I question every aspect of my penmanship.
All rights reserved

Reproduction prohibited....
Michael T Chase May 2021
All mathematical equations
from differential equations
to quantum field theory
to string theory,
have a backdrop,
i.e. can be read as,
a series of fractions
with differing numerators
and denominators.
Self-study

This works, of course, along with set theory.
Aa Harvey Jun 2018
United states


You and I are not so different,
But still we are worlds apart.
You and I are living with each other beneath the same stars.
You and I are different people, living ordinary lives.
You and I live under similar banners;
They tell me mine is a union,
You tell me yours are the stars and stripes.


But what each of us has inside, is the will to change;
The will to try.
What we have together is everything;
The only thing we always need, is more time.


Life is a fleeting illusion of a perfect dream,
Inside a story book fantasy; we each have our own Queens.
Books written for children and adults; the rich and the poor.
We are all capable of many things together, you and I.
We have many common denominators and we all want more.
New York to London and back again;
We are only separated by the sea and the sky.


We are not so different you and I;
They tell me of a union; you tell me of stars and stripes.
So let me read you a poem on this cold dark night,
That will tell us that you and I are not so different.
We are united by television.
Songs and the internet connects us
And we each have stars in our eyes.


(C)2016 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.
Berry Blue Dec 2018
Afraid of living life in variance.
In vainglorious,
Not proud of the factorial desgin.
Theres steps to the madness.
Levels on levels on levels
She's a 3x4x8x7x125
Three by four by eight by seven by one hundred and twenty five.
Experimental data reigns here yet bows to detrimental denominators.
Watch your parameters!!!!
Rho your boat and watch the time!!!!
Just enough to keep you confused until you decide to restart the computer and surrender to professor neuse.
Research methods fall 2018
kfaye Jul 2023
:


And all the fads function as the cyclic wheelings, more real than the lowest common denominators.
And that plain way serves only as an anchor to continuity, never as a true path for exclusive modeling.

There is only one truth
And it’s hard to
Remember

And the young
May dance
And sing

While [we] can.
  


This mean world makes
Meanies of us all
All along I kept it under wraps for the wasps from the veld.
Their senses of smell and taste were the real denominators of ruining my case.
I tried my best to keep the silence but things were turning out to be a ****** mess.
Oh yes oh yes, how could I miss the simplest things.
From the moment she walked in she suspected something was amiss.
Tisk tisk tisk.
Of course she was gonna find my black list.
Fortunately I erased the single hint that could give it all away.
Gladly at the end of the day everything worked out perfectly.

I ended up Proposing to her ;)
Delyla Nunez Mar 2022
It’s like breathing,
Only I don’t know how I’m breathing.
Everything seems dull,
Uninteresting,
Bleak.
I hate knowing you make me feel like this,
All because of lies, miscommunications,
And connections.
An unspeakable phenomenon that occurs to the few,
Yet everything can’t be as is and I destroy.
Losing everything to be constantly reminded,
Too many denominators to discuss one thing.
What I wanted,
What I was happy for,
But this is life.
Ryan O'Leary Nov 2022
.                   Altruism
            

  Pain reflects attracts and shelters,

   benevolent havens are indicated

      with empathy or compassion

  

Human suffering has a magnetism

  invisible to an eye not the senses,

  common denominators apportion.



  Awareness of the importance of

   equality, is binary, especially if

     opposites are marginalised.
Yo I'm mighty healthy combat stealthy kick wealthy
Knowledge scholastic classic bias racial tension static
Frequency more tunes than Quincy Sanford and Sons
Making number ones Broadway comes almonds
Nuts lays joys since I caught bass in my voice noise
making from girls vibrating rear steer they derriere
Pams smack it like spam internet ram Emos cram
Back up in ya face like Bam wake up stack cakes up
Hold up my money rolleth up times twelve thou plow  
Haters below denominators top money numerator
Vintage Sega can't play me out black ****** scout
Hit men to women back up in the club sipping gins
Don't become a dead friend no liquors poured out
I'm taking a classic rout storytime Rudy Ray grind
Of the rhymes kicked out the timeline crime
Making becomes a new pedigree dark and lovely
Women spot 'em like mirrors off of a sun shine confined
Thoughts a maze frankly caught a glimpse of a golden daze




Intergalactic space age crafted been drafted grafted
Politician move wicked checked out the tickets pick it
Like Wilson grass keep it greener have ya seen her
**** gives me a chi-lite words flow like a kite no marquee
Vocals Voorhees king of the lost seas deadly ready
Nightmare hunter pin head hell raiser grazed ya
Microphone speak baritone principles of a decipher
Stolis Dr doo-little break chips yo I'm far from brittle
Minds a titanium turtle shell broke the white spells
Flippin' white yeyo pharcyde official runnin' homicide
Dirts done daily my lady workout harder than Donna Bailey
It's crazy crisscross look at the lost living a coin toss
No flips change the kabbitz stop the flow cycles
Bad as Michael dangerous only in guns we trust rust
All ya metals no firing see the spirits admiring
No retiring a black panther clouds of torments
Storming legacy raw creativity haters envy me
Can't change up my plot grave stakes kamikaze
**** a Maserati I rather bag Mercedes 80s
Bang a buck plus 50 picky me waist deep as Lucky
Charm she'd beautiful harm calm the seven hills
Have eyes waste nine live angelic prophetic regret it
Knowledge mystics embedded only false wisdoms get wetted
Apocalypse kindles    
relighting the fire
Malignant denominators
melt from above
Savior disdained
pontificate’s stain
Tomorrow endemic
— in nuclear love

(The New Room: March, 2024)

— The End —