your eyes are the devil's work
but your hands, good heavens,
and the work of god
he told me
WE'RE ARCHBISHOPS OF MISERY, BUILT ON ENDLESS LIES, CORRUPTED POWER AND STATE OF MIND. FEEDING THE POWER-HUNGRY WITH CATHEDRALS DRAPED IN GOLD. WE LAID SILENT FOR YEARS, BURIED IN A TOMB OF DUST. WE WERE REBORN, RESURRECTING YOUR TRUST, AND LEFT YOU DEAD IN A SEA STAINED THE DEEPEST OF BLOOD REDS. STILL YOU PRAISE US, RAISING YOUR CHILDREN WITH OUR MISTAKES AND CRIMINAL NATURE AS THEIR SCRIPTURE. GO FORTH AND POISON THE EARTH. WE'RE SERVING AN IDEA WITH EMPTY FAITH, DEEMING THE SINS AND MORALISING THE OBVIOUS. SERVE US, PRAISE US. SPREAD THE WORD OF GOD.
You
You know not what you're doing,
You drift, in ways of abstract design,
You give false impressions,
Of things deeply untrue,
Oh God,
I wish that you weren't you!
You are anonymously sweet,
Portraying that you're bad,
When in fact,
You're really sad,
Full of lost delights,
Everything is wrong,
Not much is right!
You found the right one then,
It melted, lava bursting,blood ripples,
You get judged in ridicule,
By all who surround you!
In you're life,
They all confound you,
You want to fit in and fall in love,
But all around you,
Astound you.
You are not a frog on a leash,
To be toyed with,
Nor one who wants to play,
You are a person!
You have a heart,
A heart which sustains and nourishes,
Protects and cossets,
You have dark secrets,
Running through cold veins,
A brain of creations,
Your thoughts run deep,
Still waters they say,
You have to hold them everyday,
Black as night is,
As white as pure is,
All you want is love for sure,
Do you know your name?
Do you know who you are?
Full suit of armour protects naked soul
Falling deeper into a hole, daily,
You are me, and I am you!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
do you know how many times i've had to suffer through the same tired metaphors over and over and over again.
put down your tears and your stars
and your cigarettes and your coffee
and your waves and your skies
and your hearts and your bruises
and pick up your pen and write
something worth living for god damn it.
because i haven't read a poem from the heart in years
and all your elaborate conceits and sadness and promises
and "i love you"s and lips and dreams
are getting on my fucking nerves.
rage against the stereotypes and conventions and
rage against Petrarchan and Romantic and
Post fucking Modern love.
Don't write something because you feel like it.
Write something because you would explode if you didnt
.........................................
I don't come here much anymore.
Too many memories.
They say every house has a tale to tell,
Every rusted door jam a mystery.
That window over there, looking pale
And yellowed with age
And dust and yesterdays wonder, I broke
Way, way back before Grandpa had his stroke
And Grandma left her rocker for the last time.
I'd thrown a baseball right through it.
Pa was drinking then, the hard liquor,
And he whipped me raw out back behind the shed
With the full buckle. He reminded me
Windows cost money we don't have.
And Eleanor...
She was six or seven then.
She was just learning how to ride a bike,
And she was proud as can be.
She would hang out by the hollyhocks,
Pretending they were scarecrows,
Naming each one,
And telling me she'd found a pirates treasure
Buried out there near the windmill that still needed
A coat or two of fresh paint.
She was that shine in Momma's eyes,
The one person in all the world Grandma would tell
Her stories to -
Stories that would bring Eleanor
Into worlds of imagination and wonder
She'd never known before.
And Eleanor would drink it in,
All the color and fire,
That lingered in every word.
And when she wandered that late October night
Into the fields,
We searched up and down with lanterns lit and flashlights, And the neighbors helped,
And we found her come morning in the silo.
I guess she'd climbed in to explore.
You can't breathe when it hits you. It's like it
Sucks the air right out of the little space you find ,
And the weight of the grain slowly drowns out your Thoughts and your struggles, your prayers
And your cries. And nothing's left to do
But feel that terror
Of nothingness pull you away.
So many memories...
And I was angry then. Angry at Pa,
At Gren,
At God.
I blamed them for everything and then some.
I learned to smoke , and I did it well.
I learned to swear, and I was good at it.
I didn't stay home much after that.
I left, hitched a ride to New Castle Valley,
And then to Porterville.
I didn't care for schooling,
So I found a job feeding pigs.
That lead to butchering. And I was good at it.
I could lose myself in it. In the thunder of the sin,
Found some satisfaction in how they bled.
I didn't go back til after Dad died.
He'd lost everything, did a bit of drinking,
Spent his time in the county jail,
Did more drinking
When he got out.
I'd learned Grandpa died of the pneumonia,
And Grandma had a few strokes.
Nobody ever told me what happened to Momma.
She just disappeared.
...and over time I grew less angry.
And I'd talk to God at night,
Sometimes I'd talk to Eleanor, cuz I knew
She was up there with God doing angel things,
Probably riding a bicycle real good by now.
Time marched on and I made due.
But I don't come here much anymore.
This place haunts me.
The silo that claimed Eleanor now a rusted heap
Of wood and metal that watches every step I take
...and I hate it,
I'd burn it to ashes if I could.
The porch where Grandma's rocker sat
Is weather beaten and tired.
And the stump where Grandpa would sit
Trimming his fingernails with that pocket knife
Lays on its side, victim to the winds of time
And those echoes that whisper things I thought
I'd forgotten.
And I lose it for a moment
And have to mop away a few tears.
Me, a fifty-six year old blubbering fool,
Still picking at the scars.
I can hear her voice,
Her laughter,
As she circled the gravel road on her bike,
Kicking at the small stones to get the bicycle moving
Just a little faster.
And I can almost see her sweet face
And her eyes so wide
They captured the Autumn sun like a rising star.
And there's Momma, hollering "Supper's ready."
And Pa, slamming down the hood on
The truck and wiping the hot sweat from his brow
As Grandma's little rocking chair squeaked its protests
Into the wind.
And there was Grandpa,
Grinning and pocketing that knife
And kicking mud off his
Work boots and heading on in.
No, I don't come here much anymore.
This place holds far too many ghosts for my tastes.
Copyright © 2012 Richard D. Remler
.........................................................
"You fall out of your mother's womb,
you crawl across open country under fire,
and drop into your grave."
-Quentin Crisp
........................................................
unbearable pain has lift the veil from my eyes.
Oh, God of gods I see thee now.
You care neither for worship nor tribute
nor songs of praise.
As the faithful lie in huddled rags,
So do butchers rest in slips of fine linen.
Yet, I know thee by your covenant kept;
"I am the lord thy God and thou shalt die".
For death, not deliverance is the truth of your grace
and not man's love, but his rotting flesh
that satiates you.
0mnipotent,
0mniscient,
0mnipresent,
celestial being.
unbearable pain has lift the veil from my eyes.
and I see your true form -
God is a maggot.
...on this Saturday afternoon there is a street fair in Greenwich,
You step off the 1 train at Christopher Street station and all along 7th Avenue,
the little sidestreets, Bowery, Commerce, give me that old Dutch sensibility
Street vendors and street people eating, laughing, trying on five dollar leather clogs
On a day that is slightly drizzling, we pause to consider the trees
In a flash I understand the world you come from when you say you normally stay on the East side of Lower Manhattan, you start counting the colors on the street and ask where all the Spanish people at?
there is this reversal, a turnaround, a recognition in me that binds me to you, when I realize you can teach me how to be young and dance with my hips, when I know that you can give me what I've craved for so long, freedom-the opportunity to face all my fears- and the chance to be a wild thing. I am nineteen, for the love of God, and I never got the chance to rage and abandon all cerebral intelligence and just live in the realm of the senses! But for now, I'll settle for to know myself better and to live without apology-but of course, there is a certain fear with taking that step and giving all of myself to you.
Yet I find myself considering it as we walked with your arm around my shoulders and my hands on an eight dollar bag of Swedish candy. I know you know the effect you have on people, other women especially, I see the way they eat you up with their eyes. But then again I'm only beginning to notice the same kind of attention from men as I walk down the street-though I owe that to you too, giving me enough confidence in my body-to sway a little bit more.
And the fact that you repeat thoughts and ideas that have been constantly looping in my own mind makes me believe we are on the same wavelength. Like when the lights suddenly flickered off on the train and you glanced up at me and said how much you love it when that happens? Goddamn, it sent my head spinning.
And now we are together, supposedly. But of course I always keep in the back of my mind the possibility that everything you are is a lie and you could wake up one day and say I don't want you anymore and just walk out my life with both hands in your pockets.
If that happened now, I could say fuck you and move on.
But if I love you the way I want to love you and the way I long to be loved, all of that mind body spirit crap, a piece of me would just break and float away forever.
I guess that's a risk I might have to take one day, and I find myself considering it as we race each other to get burritos and later on I flick some water in your face and you just stare at me with a faint smile on your lips. So, at this moment, I am too much with you. It scares me when I think of what I might feel for you, and so I am on the edge of a precipice here-wondering whether or not to run with you.
The Womb:
a sacred place,
Gifted by God, almighty,
inside the women’s body;
Where her unborn baby grows:
The only Cradle of our comforts!
Life and Love together;
Flesh and blood shared;
The place where God occupies
his Initial resting avenue !
Hence, someone who is on a
High altitude told women:
“Be productive; Possess as much as;
and shelter in your womb;
the pure shelter ;
without any hurt and dirt !
BY
WILLIAMSJI MAVELI
williamsji@yahoo.com
www.williamsji.com
From the Anthology of Poems "On the Tip of the 6th Finger "
(AARRAMVIRALTHUMBTH...), written by WILLIAMSJI MAVELI.
The phrase
'Jesus oh god why?'
Should enter into every
relationship.
Where the sky is as blue as CG special tinting reality to a sharpened point.
The seas are. As warm as the womb.AMNIOTIC shock when I dive in.
I can smell beauty in the cool trade winds. My god made paradise here
Carried it away to parts unknown.
My god.
My lover set me free many years ago but I never returned to her tender
Arms. I had forgotten her charms even while laying in her four post bed and running my hands slowly over silken skin. The thrill was gone.
She is forgiving
She looks at me with eyes that glisten.
In the starlight. But time is not my ally.
Soon I think she will deny me.
A lover scorned.
