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FIRST DAY

1.
Who wanted me
to go to Chicago
on January 6th?
I did!

The night before,
20 below zero
Fahrenheit
with the wind chill;
as the blizzard of 99
lay in mountains
of blackening snow.

I packed two coats,
two suits,
three sweaters,
multiple sets of long johns
and heavy white socks
for a two-day stay.

I left from Newark.
**** the denseness,
it confounds!

The 2nd City to whom?
2nd ain’t bad.
It’s pretty good.
If you consider
Peking and Prague,
Tokyo and Togo,
Manchester and Moscow,
Port Au Prince and Paris,
Athens and Amsterdam,
Buenos Aries and Johannesburg;
that’s pretty good.

What’s going on here today?
It’s friggin frozen.
To the bone!

But Chi Town is still cool.
Buddy Guy’s is open.
Bartenders mixing drinks,
cabbies jamming on their breaks,
honey dew waitresses serving sugar,
buildings swerving,
fire tongued preachers are preaching
and the farmers are measuring the moon.

The lake,
unlike Ontario
is in the midst of freezing.
Bones of ice
threaten to gel
into a solid mass
over the expanse
of the Michigan Lake.
If this keeps up,
you can walk
clear to Toronto
on a silver carpet.

Along the shore
the ice is permanent.
It’s the first big frost
of winter
after a long
Indian Summer.

Thank God
I caught a cab.
Outside I hear
The Hawk
nippin hard.
It’ll get your ear,
finger or toe.
Bite you on the nose too
if you ain’t careful.

Thank God,
I’m not walking
the Wabash tonight;
but if you do cover up,
wear layers.

Chicago,
could this be
Sandburg’s City?

I’m overwhelmed
and this is my tenth time here.

It’s almost better,
sometimes it is better,
a lot of times it is better
and denser then New York.

Ask any Bull’s fan.
I’m a Knickerbocker.
Yes Nueva York,
a city that has placed last
in the standings
for many years.
Except the last two.
Yanks are # 1!

But Chicago
is a dynasty,
as big as
Sammy Sosa’s heart,
rich and wide
as Michael Jordan’s grin.

Middle of a country,
center of a continent,
smack dab in the mean
of a hemisphere,
vortex to a world,
Chicago!

Kansas City,
Nashville,
St. Louis,
Detroit,
Cleveland,
Pittsburgh,
Denver,
New Orleans,
Dallas,
Cairo,
Singapore,
Auckland,
Baghdad,
Mexico City
and Montreal
salute her.



2.
Cities,
A collection of vanities?
Engineered complex utilitarianism?
The need for community a social necessity?
Ego one with the mass?
Civilization’s latest *******?
Chicago is more then that.

Jefferson’s yeoman farmer
is long gone
but this capitol
of the Great Plains
is still democratic.

The citizen’s of this city
would vote daily,
if they could.

Chicago,
Sandburg’s Chicago,
Could it be?

The namesake river
segments the city,
canals of commerce,
all perpendicular,
is rife throughout,
still guiding barges
to the Mississippi
and St. Laurence.

Now also
tourist attractions
for a cafe society.

Chicago is really jazzy,
swanky clubs,
big steaks,
juices and drinks.

You get the best
coffee from Seattle
and the finest teas
from China.

Great restaurants
serve liquid jazz
al la carte.

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they serve is Jazz
Rock me steady
Keep the beat
Keep it flowin
Feel the heat!

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they is, is Jazz
Fast cars will take ya
To the show
Round bout midnight
Where’d the time go?

Flows into the Mississippi,
the mother of America’s rivers,
an empires aorta.

Great Lakes wonder of water.
Niagara Falls
still her heart gushes forth.

Buffalo connected to this holy heart.
Finger Lakes and Adirondacks
are part of this watershed,
all the way down to the
Delaware and Chesapeake.

Sandburg’s Chicago?
Oh my my,
the wonder of him.
Who captured the imagination
of the wonders of rivers.

Down stream other holy cities
from the Mississippi delta
all mapped by him.

Its mouth our Dixie Trumpet
guarded by righteous Cajun brethren.

Midwest?
Midwest from where?
It’s north of Caracas and Los Angeles,
east of Fairbanks,
west of Dublin
and south of not much.

Him,
who spoke of honest men
and loving women.
Working men and mothers
bearing citizens to build a nation.
The New World’s
precocious adolescent
caught in a stream
of endless and exciting change,
much pain and sacrifice,
dedication and loss,
pride and tribulations.

From him we know
all the people’s faces.
All their stories are told.
Never defeating the
idea of Chicago.

Sandburg had the courage to say
what was in the heart of the people, who:

Defeated the Indians,
Mapped the terrain,
Aided slavers,
Fought a terrible civil war,
Hoisted the barges,
Grew the food,
Whacked the wheat,
Sang the songs,
Fought many wars of conquest,
Cleared the land,
Erected the bridges,
Trapped the game,
Netted the fish,
Mined the coal,
Forged the steel,
Laid the tracks,
Fired the tenders,
Cut the stone,
Mixed the mortar,
Plumbed the line,
And laid the bricks
Of this nation of cities!

Pardon the Marlboro Man shtick.
It’s a poor expostulation of
crass commercial symbolism.

Like I said, I’m a
Devil Fan from Jersey
and Madison Avenue
has done its work on me.

It’s a strange alchemy
that changes
a proud Nation of Blackhawks
into a merchandising bonanza
of hometown hockey shirts,
making the native seem alien,
and the interloper at home chillin out,
warming his feet atop a block of ice,
guzzling Old Style
with clicker in hand.

Give him his beer
and other diversions.
If he bowls with his buddy’s
on Tuesday night
I hope he bowls
a perfect game.

He’s earned it.
He works hard.
Hard work and faith
built this city.

And it’s not just the faith
that fills the cities
thousand churches,
temples and
mosques on the Sabbath.

3.
There is faith in everything in Chicago!

An alcoholic broker named Bill
lives the Twelve Steps
to banish fear and loathing
for one more day.
Bill believes in sobriety.

A tug captain named Moe
waits for the spring thaw
so he can get the barges up to Duluth.
Moe believes in the seasons.

A farmer named Tom
hopes he has reaped the last
of many bitter harvests.
Tom believes in a new start.

A homeless man named Earl
wills himself a cot and a hot
at the local shelter.
Earl believes in deliverance.

A Pullman porter
named George
works overtime
to get his first born
through medical school.
George believes in opportunity.

A folk singer named Woody
sings about his
countrymen inheritance
and implores them to take it.
Woody believes in people.

A Wobbly named Joe
organizes fellow steelworkers
to fight for a workers paradise
here on earth.
Joe believes in ideals.

A bookkeeper named Edith
is certain she’ll see the Cubs
win the World Series
in her lifetime.
Edith believes in miracles.

An electrician named ****
saves money
to bring his family over from Gdansk.
**** believes in America.

A banker named Leah
knows Ditka will return
and lead the Bears
to another Super Bowl.
Leah believes in nostalgia.

A cantor named Samuel
prays for another 20 years
so he can properly train
his Temple’s replacement.

Samuel believes in tradition.
A high school girl named Sally
refuses to get an abortion.
She knows she carries
something special within her.
Sally believes in life.

A city worker named Mazie
ceaselessly prays
for her incarcerated son
doing 10 years at Cook.
Mazie believes in redemption.

A jazzer named Bix
helps to invent a new art form
out of the mist.
Bix believes in creativity.

An architect named Frank
restores the Rookery.
Frank believes in space.

A soldier named Ike
fights wars for democracy.
Ike believes in peace.

A Rabbi named Jesse
sermonizes on Moses.
Jesse believes in liberation.

Somewhere in Chicago
a kid still believes in Shoeless Joe.
The kid believes in
the integrity of the game.

An Imam named Louis
is busy building a nation
within a nation.
Louis believes in
self-determination.

A teacher named Heidi
gives all she has to her students.
She has great expectations for them all.
Heidi believes in the future.

4.
Does Chicago have a future?

This city,
full of cowboys
and wildcatters
is predicated
on a future!

Bang, bang
Shoot em up
Stake the claim
It’s your terrain
Drill the hole
Strike it rich
Top it off
You’re the boss
Take a chance
Watch it wane
Try again
Heavenly gains

Chicago
city of futures
is a Holy Mecca
to all day traders.

Their skin is gray,
hair disheveled,
loud ties and
funny coats,
thumb through
slips of paper
held by nail
chewed hands.
Selling promises
with no derivative value
for out of the money calls
and in the money puts.
Strike is not a labor action
in this city of unionists,
but a speculators mark,
a capitalist wish,
a hedgers bet,
a public debt
and a farmers
fair return.

Indexes for everything.
Quantitative models
that could burst a kazoo.

You know the measure
of everything in Chicago.
But is it truly objective?
Have mathematics banished
subjective intentions,
routing it in fair practice
of market efficiencies,
a kind of scientific absolution?

I heard that there
is a dispute brewing
over the amount of snowfall
that fell on the 1st.

The mayor’s office,
using the official city ruler
measured 22”
of snow on the ground.

The National Weather Service
says it cannot detect more
then 17” of snow.

The mayor thinks
he’ll catch less heat
for the trains that don’t run
the buses that don’t arrive
and the schools that stand empty
with the addition of 5”.

The analysts say
it’s all about capturing liquidity.

Liquidity,
can you place a great lake
into an eyedropper?

Its 20 below
and all liquid things
are solid masses
or a gooey viscosity at best.

Water is frozen everywhere.
But Chi town is still liquid,
flowing faster
then the digital blips
flashing on the walls
of the CBOT.

Dreams
are never frozen in Chicago.
The exchanges trade
without missing a beat.

Trading wet dreams,
the crystallized vapor
of an IPO
pledging a billion points
of Internet access
or raiding the public treasuries
of a central bank’s
huge stores of gold
with currency swaps.

Using the tools
of butterfly spreads
and candlesticks
to achieve the goal.

Short the Russell
or buy the Dow,
go long the
CAC and DAX.
Are you trading in euro’s?
You better be
or soon will.
I know
you’re Chicago,
you’ll trade anything.
WEBS,
Spiders,
and Leaps
are traded here,
along with sweet crude,
North Sea Brent,
plywood and T-Bill futures;
and most importantly
the commodities,
the loam
that formed this city
of broad shoulders.

What about our wheat?
Still whacking and
breadbasket to the world.

Oil,
an important fossil fuel
denominated in
good ole greenbacks.

Porkbellies,
not just hogwash
on the Wabash,
but bacon, eggs
and flapjacks
are on the menu
of every diner in Jersey
as the “All American.”

Cotton,
our contribution
to the Golden Triangle,
once the global currency
used to enrich a
gentlemen class
of cultured
southern slavers,
now Tommy Hilfiger’s
preferred fabric.

I think he sends it
to Bangkok where
child slaves
spin it into
gold lame'.

Sorghum,
I think its hardy.

Soybeans,
the new age substitute
for hamburger
goes great with tofu lasagna.

Corn,
ADM creates ethanol,
they want us to drive cleaner cars.

Cattle,
once driven into this city’s
bloodhouses for slaughter,
now ground into
a billion Big Macs
every year.

When does a seed
become a commodity?
When does a commodity
become a future?
When does a future expire?

You can find the answers
to these questions in Chicago
and find a fortune in a hole in the floor.

Look down into the pits.
Hear the screams of anguish
and profitable delights.

Frenzied men
swarming like a mass
of epileptic ants
atop the worlds largest sugar cube
auger the worlds free markets.

The scene is
more chaotic then
100 Haymarket Square Riots
multiplied by 100
1968 Democratic Conventions.

Amidst inverted anthills,
they scurry forth and to
in distinguished
black and red coats.

Fighting each other
as counterparties
to a life and death transaction.

This is an efficient market
that crosses the globe.

Oil from the Sultan of Brunei,
Yen from the land of Hitachi,
Long Bonds from the Fed,
nickel from Quebec,
platinum and palladium
from Siberia,
FTSE’s from London
and crewel cane from Havana
circle these pits.

Tijuana,
Shanghai
and Istanbul's
best traders
are only half as good
as the average trader in Chicago.

Chicago,
this hog butcher to the world,
specializes in packaging and distribution.

Men in blood soaked smocks,
still count the heads
entering the gates of the city.

Their handiwork
is sent out on barges
and rail lines as frozen packages
of futures
waiting for delivery
to an anonymous counterparty
half a world away.

This nation’s hub
has grown into the
premier purveyor
to the world;
along all the rivers,
highways,
railways
and estuaries
it’s tentacles reach.

5.
Sandburg’s Chicago,
is a city of the world’s people.

Many striver rows compose
its many neighborhoods.

Nordic stoicism,
Eastern European orthodoxy
and Afro-American
calypso vibrations
are three of many cords
strumming the strings
of Chicago.

Sandburg’s Chicago,
if you wrote forever
you would only scratch its surface.

People wait for trains
to enter the city from O’Hare.
Frozen tears
lock their eyes
onto distant skyscrapers,
solid chunks
of snot blocks their nose
and green icicles of slime
crust mustaches.
They fight to breathe.

Sandburg’s Chicago
is The Land of Lincoln,
Savior of the Union,
protector of the Republic.
Sent armies
of sons and daughters,
barges, boxcars,
gunboats, foodstuffs,
cannon and shot
to raze the south
and stamp out succession.

Old Abe’s biography
are still unknown volumes to me.
I must see and read the great words.
You can never learn enough;
but I’ve been to Washington
and seen the man’s memorial.
The Free World’s 8th wonder,
guarded by General Grant,
who still keeps an eye on Richmond
and a hand on his sword.

Through this American winter
Abe ponders.
The vista he surveys is dire and tragic.

Our sitting President
impeached
for lying about a *******.

Party partisans
in the senate are sworn and seated.
Our Chief Justice,
adorned with golden bars
will adjudicate the proceedings.
It is the perfect counterpoint
to an ageless Abe thinking
with malice toward none
and charity towards all,
will heal the wounds
of the nation.

Abe our granite angel,
Chicago goes on,
The Union is strong!


SECOND DAY

1.
Out my window
the sun has risen.

According to
the local forecast
its minus 9
going up to
6 today.

The lake,
a golden pillow of clouds
is frozen in time.

I marvel
at the ancients ones
resourcefulness
and how
they mastered
these extreme elements.

Past, present and future
has no meaning
in the Citadel
of the Prairie today.

I set my watch
to Central Standard Time.

Stepping into
the hotel lobby
the concierge
with oil smooth hair,
perfect tie
and English lilt
impeccably asks,
“Do you know where you are going Sir?
Can I give you a map?”

He hands me one of Chicago.
I see he recently had his nails done.
He paints a green line
along Whacker Drive and says,
“turn on Jackson, LaSalle, Wabash or Madison
and you’ll get to where you want to go.”
A walk of 14 or 15 blocks from Streeterville-
(I start at The Chicago White House.
They call it that because Hillary Rodham
stays here when she’s in town.
Its’ also alleged that Stedman
eats his breakfast here
but Opra
has never been seen
on the premises.
I wonder how I gained entry
into this place of elite’s?)
-down into the center of The Loop.

Stepping out of the hotel,
The Doorman
sporting the epaulets of a colonel
on his corporate winter coat
and furry Cossack hat
swaddling his round black face
accosts me.

The skin of his face
is flaking from
the subzero windburn.

He asks me
with a gapped toothy grin,
“Can I get you a cab?”
“No I think I’ll walk,” I answer.
“Good woolen hat,
thick gloves you should be alright.”
He winks and lets me pass.

I step outside.
The Windy City
flings stabbing cold spears
flying on wings of 30-mph gusts.
My outside hardens.
I can feel the freeze
deepen
into my internalness.
I can’t be sure
but inside
my heart still feels warm.
For how long
I cannot say.

I commence
my walk
among the spires
of this great city,
the vertical leaps
that anchor the great lake,
holding its place
against the historic
frigid assault.

The buildings’ sway,
modulating to the blows
of natures wicked blasts.

It’s a hard imposition
on a city and its people.

The gloves,
skullcap,
long underwear,
sweater,
jacket
and overcoat
not enough
to keep the cold
from penetrating
the person.

Like discerning
the layers of this city,
even many layers,
still not enough
to understand
the depth of meaning
of the heart
of this heartland city.

Sandburg knew the city well.
Set amidst groves of suburbs
that extend outward in every direction.
Concentric circles
surround the city.
After the burbs come farms,
Great Plains, and mountains.
Appalachians and Rockies
are but mere molehills
in the city’s back yard.
It’s terra firma
stops only at the sea.
Pt. Barrow to the Horn,
many capes extended.

On the periphery
its appendages,
its extremities,
its outward extremes.
All connected by the idea,
blown by the incessant wind
of this great nation.
The Windy City’s message
is sent to the world’s four corners.
It is a message of power.
English the worlds
common language
is spoken here,
along with Ebonics,
Espanol,
Mandarin,
Czech,
Russian,
Korean,
Arabic,
Hindi­,
German,
French,
electronics,
steel,
cars,
cartoons,
rap,
sports­,
movies,
capital,
wheat
and more.

Always more.
Much much more
in Chicago.

2.
Sandburg
spoke all the dialects.

He heard them all,
he understood
with great precision
to the finest tolerances
of a lathe workers micrometer.

Sandburg understood
what it meant to laugh
and be happy.

He understood
the working mans day,
the learned treatises
of university chairs,
the endless tomes
of the city’s
great libraries,
the lost languages
of the ancient ones,
the secret codes
of abstract art,
the impact of architecture,
the street dialects and idioms
of everymans expression of life.

All fighting for life,
trying to build a life,
a new life
in this modern world.

Walking across
the Michigan Avenue Bridge
I see the Wrigley Building
is neatly carved,
catty cornered on the plaza.

I wonder if Old Man Wrigley
watched his barges
loaded with spearmint
and double-mint
move out onto the lake
from one of those Gothic windows
perched high above the street.

Would he open a window
and shout to the men below
to quit slaking and work harder
or would he
between the snapping sound
he made with his mouth
full of his chewing gum
offer them tickets
to a ballgame at Wrigley Field
that afternoon?

Would the men below
be able to understand
the man communing
from such a great height?

I listen to a man
and woman conversing.
They are one step behind me
as we meander along Wacker Drive.

"You are in Chicago now.”
The man states with profundity.
“If I let you go
you will soon find your level
in this city.
Do you know what I mean?”

No I don’t.
I think to myself.
What level are you I wonder?
Are you perched atop
the transmission spire
of the Hancock Tower?

I wouldn’t think so
or your ears would melt
from the windburn.

I’m thinking.
Is she a kept woman?
She is majestically clothed
in fur hat and coat.
In animal pelts
not trapped like her,
but slaughtered
from farms
I’m sure.

What level
is he speaking of?

Many levels
are evident in this city;
many layers of cobbled stone,
Pennsylvania iron,
Hoosier Granite
and vertical drops.

I wonder
if I detect
condensation
in his voice?

What is
his intention?
Is it a warning
of a broken affair?
A pending pink slip?
Advise to an addict
refusing to adhere
to a recovery regimen?

What is his level anyway?
Is he so high and mighty,
Higher and mightier
then this great city
which we are all a part of,
which we all helped to build,
which we all need
in order to keep this nation
the thriving democratic
empire it is?

This seditious talk!

3.
The Loop’s El
still courses through
the main thoroughfares of the city.

People are transported
above the din of the street,
looking down
on the common pedestrians
like me.

Super CEO’s
populating the upper floors
of Romanesque,
Greek Revivalist,
New Bauhaus,
Art Deco
and Post Nouveau
Neo-Modern
Avant-Garde towers
are too far up
to see me
shivering on the street.

The cars, busses,
trains and trucks
are all covered
with the film
of rock salt.

Salt covers
my bootless feet
and smudges
my cloths as well.

The salt,
the primal element
of the earth
covers everything
in Chicago.

It is the true level
of this city.

The layer
beneath
all layers,
on which
everything
rests,
is built,
grows,
thrives
then dies.
To be
returned again
to the lower
layers
where it can
take root
again
and grow
out onto
the great plains.

Splashing
the nation,
anointing
its people
with its
blessing.

A blessing,
Chicago?

All rivers
come here.

All things
found its way here
through the canals
and back bays
of the world’s
greatest lakes.

All roads,
rails and
air routes
begin and
end here.

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
got a *** rap.
It did not start the fire,
we did.

We lit the torch
that flamed
the city to cinders.
From a pile of ash
Chicago rose again.

Forever Chicago!
Forever the lamp
that burns bright
on a Great Lake’s
western shore!

Chicago
the beacon
sends the
message to the world
with its windy blasts,
on chugging barges,
clapping trains,
flying tandems,
T1 circuits
and roaring jets.

Sandburg knew
a Chicago
I will never know.

He knew
the rhythm of life
the people walked to.
The tools they used,
the dreams they dreamed
the songs they sang,
the things they built,
the things they loved,
the pains that hurt,
the motives that grew,
the actions that destroyed
the prayers they prayed,
the food they ate
their moments of death.

Sandburg knew
the layers of the city
to the depths
and windy heights
I cannot fathom.

The Blues
came to this city,
on the wing
of a chirping bird,
on the taps
of a rickety train,
on the blast
of an angry sax
rushing on the wind,
on the Westend blitz
of Pop's brash coronet,
on the tink of
a twinkling piano
on a paddle-wheel boat
and on the strings
of a lonely man’s guitar.

Walk into the clubs,
tenements,
row houses,
speakeasies
and you’ll hear the Blues
whispered like
a quiet prayer.

Tidewater Blues
from Virginia,
Delta Blues
from the lower
Mississippi,
Boogie Woogie
from Appalachia,
Texas Blues
from some Lone Star,
Big Band Blues
from Kansas City,
Blues from
Beal Street,
Jelly Roll’s Blues
from the Latin Quarter.

Hell even Chicago
got its own brand
of Blues.

Its all here.
It ended up here
and was sent away
on the winds of westerly blows
to the ear of an eager world
on strong jet streams
of simple melodies
and hard truths.

A broad
shouldered woman,
a single mother stands
on the street
with three crying babes.
Their cloths
are covered
in salt.
She pleads
for a break,
praying
for a new start.
Poor and
under-clothed
against the torrent
of frigid weather
she begs for help.
Her blond hair
and ****** features
suggests her
Scandinavian heritage.
I wonder if
she is related to Sandburg
as I walk past
her on the street.
Her feet
are bleeding
through her
canvass sneakers.
Her babes mouths
are zipped shut
with frozen drivel
and mucous.

The Blues live
on in Chicago.

The Blues
will forever live in her.
As I turn the corner
to walk the Miracle Mile
I see her engulfed
in a funnel cloud of salt,
snow and bits
of white paper,
swirling around her
and her children
in an angry
unforgiving
maelstrom.

The family
begins to
dissolve
like a snail
sprinkled with salt;
and a mother
and her children
just disappear
into the pavement
at the corner
of Dearborn,
in Chicago.

Music:

Robert Johnson
Sweet Home Chicago


jbm
Chicago
1/7/99
Added today to commemorate the birthday of Carl Sandburg
Penguin Poems Sep 2018
If want was water,
I would be drowning, my head under completely
and my oxygen quickly depleting.
If confusion was cold,
My fingers would be numb and I wouldn't even
have a coat to ward off the freezing.
If youth was you,
It would be slipping away by the second,
And I can't get a hold to stop it.
Now,
my air is gone,
I'm shivering to the bone,
and can't keep a hold on.
But, this is only a poem:
I know I'm not suffocating, subzero, or slipping.
But I can't help but feel like the more I write,
the farther I get from reality
and the closer I get to metaphor mortality.
Andrew Rueter Jan 2018
You're a volcano in winter
Made when the Earth splintered
Tectonic plates shifted
And you were gifted

The frigid air outside is subzero
So you become my volcanic hero
When you scorch the cold
With your warmth so bold

I await an eruption
But there's a disruption
Dormant you remain
With suspicion engrained
But entering your main vent
Was not my main intent
Yet now that I'm in your magma chamber
I can see your anger
You're made of lava and ash
So you demand drama and cash
And violently explode in a flash

You've become my Krakatoa
When I wish I didn't know ya
Because of your grand magnitude
I question my aptitude
And insecurity ensues
As confidence I lose

I realize I've gone too far
When I feel your lava discharge
That pushes me into your crater
The pain I feel couldn't be greater
When all I see is an ashen cloud
And all I hear is your lashing growl

Inside of your volcano
There is a tornado
As sure as day glow
I feel I must lay low
And dodge the debris
While playing referee
As you're dissecting me
In your burning sea
That swirls in a cyclone maelstrom
Hell is where it was mailed from
I receive it
Reprieveless
I begin to drown in fire
And wish to retire

You think you're neat
Yet despite your heat
You're a cold blooded lizard
But outside there's a blizzard
So I get used to your volcano
I can't contain my disdain though
dj Jan 2013
All we are; I implore you
Come out
Come out

Isolation is icy
Useless frozen wrenches

All we are
Smartthings with hearts
Opposable thumbs & firethrowers

Isolation is icy
The Pope of Murk & Decay

All we are
Every fiber of DNA and
Every lost phone number on a napkin

All we are
Overgrown starry eyed babi  es
Happy birthday candles

All we are,
The cemeteries of our parents
Drain holes at the oceanfloor

Isolation is icy
Now,
          melt.
'ello 2013
Ari Dec 2011
“The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.”*
Stephen Jay Gould

Give me
vacuum tube torus Lorentz-Klein interference receptors
dual noble-gas maser integration processors
at least one
prosthetic Gaussian carbon-coated ribosomal Tesla coil
an anthropomorphic hierarchical temporal meme-pseudopod
some
support vector k-nearest neighbor algorithms
reverse engineered quantum optic die-cast silica motherboards
self-assembling three dimensional electro-active protein polymers
maybe even
a superconducting spectral alkali resonance analyzer
paired with
harmonizing piezoelectric kinematic thermal modules
dipped in
subzero Kurzweil-circuit nanite neurotransmitters
and voila!
God.
jas Aug 2018
***** and whiskey
mind gets slippery
uneven slopes down your body of..
hope,
one day, to understand
pessimistic feelings
fading away in the distance of ones thoughts
impaired
for moments of time
moments of life
escape
within the reach of my fingers
i can feel the exit on the tip of my grasp
subzero liquor bottles numb my soul inside
as i take a sip that drips down my spine
chilling
over an uneasy stomach
words ***** as i open my mouth to
express
certain sentiments boiled deep into a gut wrenching void
of living with distant reflections
intoxicated thoughts tangled in the brain.
Stuck inside for quite a few days
After the sky hurled down the ice, snow and freezing rain
Leaving bitter-cold temperatures that are quite frightening to hear
All the news reports suggest “staying inside and being safe”
I've decided to spend the days reading some on my collection of books
On presidents such as Lincoln, Truman, and Kennedy.
Sifting through information I've received of  family stories and genealogy
Writing letters to an old home-bound friend in another state named Dot
Sipping hot chocolate and Cinnamon toast by the roaring fireplace

Copyright 2014
All Rights Reserved






































Really I’m sitting by a cold sliding glass door wearing two sets of clothes writing this free-verse poem.
Don Bouchard Apr 2015
A fluff of feathers
Black and white,
Hide the scrawny scavenger
Whose "Rick, Rick, Rick!"
Identify some place of death,
This careful bandit's visiting.

He leaves outright robbery
To his cousin jay,
And flits,
One disaster to the next,
To see how he may capitalize.

Dead carrion, his usual fodder...
Yet one subzero winter day
I saw a magpie perched
Upon a shivering cow
Belly deep in snow, and
Chilled in minus 30 air,
Peck-scratching through a healing scab
And pulling living flesh away.
Nature in extremes is a cold-hearted witch. A memory from cattle-ranching days 30 years ago....
Andrew Rueter May 2017
I could've sworn I saw a younger version of you
going in the opposite direction on High Street
I wanted to stop and say something
But I had to die a gruesome death
It's just that you looked like the edition of you
I'm ashamed to have tainted
And we've been down this road before...

Like the time we saw that guy hit that telephone pole
I knelt in the muck with a stranger in my arms
His fleeting life transfixed me to his world
But once life returned
My interest was gone

Similar to the time I saw that fox dying in the street
I left the solitude of my car to gaze into it's primal eyes
Without communication
All we could do was cry together
I couldn't decide whether to **** it or care for it
So I did neither
And just drove off
I understand it may seem cowardly
But the thought of it living and continuing
to suffer and survive was too beautiful
And the thought of responsibly nurturing it was too repellent
Not to mention those things can be dangerous
no matter how small they appear
I guess what I'm saying is bad things happen when I leave my car
Usually, I drive with the windows up and the doors locked
Loneliness fills the cabin
I opened my doors but nobody entered
Only tears filled the cabin
They cascaded out onto the road
Forming ice in the subzero winds
I lost all control
And just before I crashed
I could've sworn I saw a younger version of you
going in the opposite direction on High Street
NeroameeAlucard Oct 2014
Now for those that don't know
I'm a huge fan of ninjas
From cyberpunks like Hiryu and Jago
I guess my subconscious is linked to them
These warriors in the wind
From Sheik to Smoke
Ermac's telekinetic choke
Ryu Hyabusa to scorpion
subzero to Joe Musashi
These warriors in the wind
are part of what defines me
Raven and Yoshimitsu

I'm nowhere near the ability or agility of a ninja
Ninjutsu probably would end up being the tool of my demise.
I may never reach the skill of a ninja
but that doesn't mean I won't try
Anthony Carrasco Feb 2016
We held each other
like breaths under water,
day old infants in their mommies arms,
and dreams we never meant to wake from.

You touched me
like I was your instrument,
a texture you were testing to buy,
and a newly used pan after cooking breakfast.

I loved you
like my favorite tv show,
warm blankets on a subzero night,
and the tattoos I designed with you in mind.

There are no amount of
     similes
I could say to express
how much I miss you,
yet here I am again
writing like an author
striving for a movie deal.
dye Aug 2014
Home
From shelter to smother

Hope
From zero to subzero

Dreams
From ceaseless to evanescent

Feelings
From persistent to transient

Solitude
From instant to rare

Beliefs
From firm to brittle

Judgment
From deep to epidermic

Sobriety
From fascinating to monochromatic

Transitions
From fast to rapid

Life
From tasteful to **insipid
edge moments
10/18/13
g clair Nov 2015
You were still asleep
        when from music I awakened
                to a sudden gale
And to my delight
      chimes played wildly in the night
                 wind is slicing wooden rail

Got me out of bed
       frozen in my sleepy head
                   clinging to the words
Could I keep this song?
      write the lyrics all night long?
                  theme for lonesome birds

stood to stretch and see
    caught a glimpse,  eternity
                 moon was center stage
sparkling diamonds perched
         far out in the universe
                glitter snow on page

beyond ice laden trees
    snow had nature on it's knees
          mean subzero chill
Funny just today
      sun broke icicles away  
           outside window sill        

Winter snow then ice
      weather man's advice, not a
                 time to drive alone
Not to drive at all!
         would be a better call to
               hunker down at home

Opened up the door
             chilled my carcass to the core
                   music of the snow.
Back inside again
         in the warmth of down and friend
                I decided to forgo

Winter lullaby
        soothes and lures a tired eye
                           back to dreamy home
Hearing starts to fade
       while wind chimes serenade
                           long and winded poem
Martin Narrod Jan 2017
L'heure verte

The mountains. The heaps of their bountiful gravels, and earth, and soil, large oversized masses of half-frozen water teetering on the precipice of subzero masculine *******. Francophilic cleavage jetting out of this deserted white pastoral dressing. The inaugural bawl, wanton fixations of putting the imperialist foot on every spot of tree, each and every shrub, until the limbs' cast reaches each dimple that foliage braves, where that blue eagle of patriotism dredges its claws to form every river, rill, estuary, creek, channel, flume, littoral, and waterway where the iron-rich gullies once brimmed in the interamnian basins, rich crimsony waters riffling through fruitful and extravagant aquifers. Beyond that, where an inexplicably feral wind rips vines from their dendritic housings, where barely an eye can see, this place of exsanguination and abysmal phytocide.

At the end of this lamentable torture, only a desert of human interest remains. There is no reason to laugh, or smile, or cheer, or put a leg up, to call on a friend, or to have ice cream. There will be no more ice cream. There is only the loathsome incredulousness and avarice in the semblances and familiarity of those with whom we thought we once knew. Little can ever be known, for there is much to gain in the absence of knowledge, and even greater that can be acquired in the alms of wisdom through patient examination and thorough silence. Here on the buttes and cornices, the thwacking gavels of evil power deities throw down their lust for more and soon become adjoined to these grand discrepancies greed mistakenly loses to a lack of awareness and to self-aggrandizement.

Power is the weapon of inexperienced wielders. Passion is the immortal frequency that is worn by artisans and artists, poets and painters, it is the business of quietness to learnedly evolve to protect our tomorrows from personal needs, but to instead preserve the integral parts of society. The words of languages, artifacts, and cultures, rather than the skeletons of ****** and the deeds of possession. Each who sleeps knows their bedfellows to equally be at peace. For no wealth can exceed that of comfortable pillows, soft quilts, and sheets. We are all the same while we sleep.
g clair Feb 2014
You were still asleep
        when from dreams I awakened
                to a sudden gale
And to my delight
      chimes played wildly in the night
                 wind is slicing wooden rail

Got me out of bed
       frozen in my sleepy head
                   clinging to the words
Could I keep this song?
      write the lyrics all night long?
                  theme for lonesome birds

stood to stretch and see
    caught a glimpse,  eternity
                 moon was center stage
sparkling diamonds perched
         far out in the universe
                glitter snow on page

beyond ice laden trees
    snow had nature on it's knees
          mean subzero chill
Funny just today
      sun broke icicles away  
           outside window sill        

Winter snow then ice
      weather man's advice, not a
                 time to drive alone
Not to drive at all!
         would be a better call to
               hunker down at home

Opened up the door
             chilled my carcass to the core
                   music of the snow.
Back inside again
         in the warmth of down and friend
                I decided to forgo

Winter lullaby
        soothes and lures a tired eye
                           back to dreamy home
Hearing starts to fade
       while wind chimes serenade
                           long and winded poem
Benjamin Wilks Nov 2012
Is there such thing as the greatest or are you just the latest?
DNA mixed with chromosomes, little bit of greatness,
Do you have to do it first, or do it better than the first person?
Life is not a game but the experience is in first person,
And the way you could hurt me is zero to none, but in the ways of many,
Hope the number of days I have left is not to shy of many, but I wonder the most all is at what’s the center,
Will you consider this a poem because I press enter? Just a thought, which is a splinter, leading to another moment, hindered, and it hurts like a wound cut open on a subzero winter day,
Blah blah blah, ****, I’m stuck, what should I say......
Looking in the dictionary where words are legislated, a place where black and white has never been so creative, and then I get creative, the piece of paper is landscape waiting for a God to come create it, so I ask God to make my words almighty, Speak it and none shall debate it,
"But watch out for the snakes Ben, anacondas of the drama, please think of relocating, as darkness unfolds, and I know you think I created it and maybe I did but  I...I...I. Forbid",
God Forbids,
I’m stuck again,  wanting to be great, wanting to be the best, wanting to be next, less stressed and Noticed, never did they say that life was no test,  and I hope I never fail again,
Because next time the gun won’t jam again, tried to play almighty and he laugh and said never try to play again, here’s another chance benny man, I hope you plan to win
Thought of death brings fear enough, but when you want to do it yourself, it never re-appears enough; **** right I’m tearing up, only for a moment my chest is clearing up, but when I go to bed at night I think ****, I’m giving up,
I live with what could have been, and now it haunts me, they say the fear keeps you alive but what’s the phrase for when you don’t want to be?
I’m done thinking now, of course of I’m lying,  because if I ever stop thinking of random of stuff, of course I’m dying,
I may never be the greatest, but you know I’m trying, resolutions for the pollution from the voices trying to **** Zion.
Nothing Much Feb 2015
The clouds are falling softly
And the air is saturated with snowflakes
I am already beginning to forget
The summer state of our frozen lake

Horizon lines no longer exist
Out of sight, out of mind
And the white and gentle sheets
Cover up footprints I left behind

The subzero softness casts its glow
And I search for salvation in the snow
Our town has shut down
It’s much like a ghost town

All the businesses are closed
No one wants to be exposed

To painful temperatures way below zero
Our weatherman called it temps of subzero

The streets are empty of cars as we have come to know
But filled quite thick and wide with sheets of ice and snow

The storm has knocked out the power to so many
Everyone stay inside and play games with Aunt Jenny

Power lines are weighted down with the ice
The lights keep flickering, and this isn't nice

My house is creaking and moaning from this cold
But the heat inside is on high and, up I'm holed

Glad to be where it’s nice and warm as toast
For supper I plan potatoes, carrots and a Roast

Copyright 2014
All Rights Reserved
AJ Feb 2014
I pretend that I hate nebraska
because that's what teenagers do
we b i t c h
and we w h i n e
c o m p l a i n
about our home towns
our home states
our home countries
we justify our desire to be
g o n e
a w a y
o u t of this place
with made up facts
about our ****** up hometowns
we never stop
to think
there must be a reason my parents chose to live
h e r e
honestly I have nothing against nebraska
my resentment comes from the desire to be
f r e e
which is just one letter away from
h e r e
so freedom can't be too far in the distance
the truth is nebraska can be pretty great sometimes
there's an honesty
an energy
an optimism that could only be found
in a state where even the city kids
know about the country life
and even though summers bring
90 degree weather
and humid humid h u m i d air
while winters bring
subzero temperatures
and
1
2
3
4
5
6
inches of snow
we don't complain too much about the weather
and a "nice day" could be
30 degrees and snow
50 degrees and rain
80 degrees and heat
we take what we can get
because nebraskans are not
g r e e d y
we made this state our own
but still we get lumped together with
iowakansasmissouricoloradoohioillinois
but we are not k a n s a s
we are not m i s s o u r i
we are not o h i o
and we are not
i o w a
don't even suggest that
we are
N e b r a s k a
and nothing else
we take pride in our state
though there's not much to be proud of
but we are p r o u d anyways
and I think that's beautiful
other places are about
c o m p e t i t i o n
biggerbetterbiggerbetter
but in nebraska we are all each other's neighbors
friends
caregivers
nebraskans stick together
no matter what
and that's why
when your car is barreling across that bridge that links
nebraska and iowa
across that **** river
you will see a rusted green sign
welcoming you to this state that always has nice days
takes pride in every moment
and sticks together
you will see words painted in white spelling out
"the good life"
because sure no matter where you go
life *****
but at least here the people are
g o o d
and some times that's enough
this is not the good life
this is the extraordinary life
F White Jan 2013
Go
it's cold

having tested the
boundaries of this
knowledge
my nose retreats
rough brushed felt
the most likely home
hidden behind the buttons of my jacket
and scarf
jam red, spilling
up over the collar
into the morning grey.

I squint up
the road past The
Rooster, down to the
bus hutch, barely containing
the  Asian nanny
with pink-hatted Precious

this bus is not for me
nor the next

I glance down at
the slip of paper
crumpled, dwarfed by
my mittens,
I thumb the coffee stain kissing
the blue of the ball point pen scrawl.

42.
was I even sure that
was a route?
the price?

no change chilling
in the pockets against my jeans
a bent fingernail against denim
reveals I've also
lost my pass.

8:58 now

maybe best to just walk.

what was I expecting?
that the meaning of life
would really cover my fare
on the next bus? the
self loathing brought on
only by subzero, interrupted by


the scratch of metal
on the concrete at
my boot tips

golden.
flat.
I have won.

that's more like it.
I'd rather travel by
glass elevator anyway.
If we're splitting hairs..
copyright fhw, 2013


existential credit owed to roald dahl and douglas adams.
Walls are closing me in every day, I say.
My sentence is for infinite,
Not even an Indian king could give me
the air that I so desperately crave.
By that time, I'd be long into the center of Earth at my grave.
I want the touch of your skin,
To just let you right in to my cell.
Restrictions break our connections,
wrap chains around my waist,
pulling and tossing me into those
subzero rocks near the sea.
How glorious, yet impossible, that it would be.
Oh, how I've longed to touch the ocean,
yet they pull me back once more for the
half-hour free-for-all cannibal buffet.
Not a bite for me to scavenge on,
just a bone or two to scrounge out,
just the bare minimum to survive upon,
and, once again, my stomach never becomes full,
because I release it all during the throat-slitters' hour.
The loss of souls and minds
are made from the aggressiveness of brawn,
leaving bloodtrails down each and every corridor.
Not one limb has fallen from me,
though I'm aware of eunuchs to be,
who survived the previous slaughterfest hour.
I pray for you to never lose
the wonderful mind you learn with,
or find a guy with a girl you want to ***** with,
because you will lose more than your mind.
You will lose your head,
left to drip your precious drops of life.
Jack Turner Dec 2010
I hate the hot and
I hate the cold.
First its one and
Then its the other,
Jabanero
Doesnt quite describe the
Latent heat to
Your subzero Mr. Freeze depths
You sink to
That threaten to **** me
Every time they dive.

Prairieland grass--
bent over towards the ground
by the dry, Fall wind
as the subtle warmth
  of a teasing Sun..

Submits itself to the
now impending Winter..
where grass and seed
sleep in dormancy
as the subzero wind
prepares the ground  
to receive  snow.. upon snow

upon snow.

..And there is this temptation
to draw feelings   and conclusions
from any one certain  part
   of the whole.

And those feelings and conclusions..
                             --they feel so very real

Because they were based upon  the real;
but only a part of the beautiful whole..
And though,  even  one part of the whole
is as real as every single  other part..

It is  in itself, incomplete.
Just as the bent-over prairiegrass
under the snow  is incomplete..


It is Spring now..  sweet, struggling Angel

    All things become new.



I remember in the mornings
   Waking up
With your arms around my head
You told me you can sleep forever
And I'll still hold you then

Now the weather's getting colder
It's even cold down here
And the words that you have told me
Hang frozen in the air

And sometimes I look right through them
As if they were not there
https://youtu.be/xvTvnltNmfc


There is a love..
that is measured  in years
the years..  in seasons
The seasons.. in days,  then hours..

.. even minutes.
     xoxoxo
Wack Tastic Nov 2014
What the **** is wrong with you America?
Why can't you wake up and see,
Why aren't you craving more,
Doesn't the sight of obvious injustice,
make you shudder and quake,

The pawn shops, the walls, the harems,
The grotesque, vile eating establishments,
The silly, sadistic joke of their,
devourous wake,
The prison sentence of commercial onslaught,
The centers,
The hubs,
The craters in the sand,
The dead pools,
The pool halls,
The mess halls,
The halls
and walls,
Mingled together,
Why haven't you made the distinction;
Why haven't we done anything,
Indeed...
                 Who are you to ask?
I felt a crushing depression,
being among the people,
we all sat and glared,
my normal disposition,
unaligned by the new line,
the path unknown made me
Feel Uneasy,
I always pull out my Kerouac,
and start massaging my brain,
feeling the nostalgia of a past
                Soul,
             a zero soul,
            a poet's cries,
         reach my ears, the innards,
                resonate out the mix,
    usually it works,
          But the bus driver yelled at my ***** *** for not knowing
Hamline, of Course!
         He said it seven times.
Inside the current trend of atrocity,
      in the heart,
             the core,
                   the honey,
  in the mad swirl of current trends,
       the sway,
              swirling of the dilapidated ocean,
I was returning work shoes that were,
                                    (I hadn't bought them, but were intended for a                   now terminated co-worker)
Given me, but two sizes too big, floppy.
She talked to her supervisor.
(Should've just walked out with the new pair)
Supershit said no over walkie,
"try yo luck at the counter."
Went to the counter,
to try my luck,
Striked conversation,
with a rough,
dusty girl,
who told me they had ******* at her
for being there too long.
I just wanted to get the **** outta there.
I handed the box to Lucy (cashier)
She besmirchenly said no,
I didn't fight the decision.
Which I felt will always haunt,
a moment in my mind's heart.

I should've stood up and
pulled off my shoes and
whamped her for what
she represented,
None of it made sense,
I asked nicely,
I mean was I supposed
to walk barefoot in these
subzero temperatures?
Lackluster I slunk away,
None of it matters,
I positioned myself
toward the
beacon twin,
The personification of
Racism!

The super Target across from
the Mart of Wal,
Whose merchants bumble,
yet I made no progress,
speaking distressfully,
influently for them,
While the policeman shelved the chips,
I spoke as courteous as any,
yet was torn away,
tuned asunder,
Lumbered over to the far off
sigh, Red...
They don't even have,
work shoes at Targé,
What does that say America?
The serpent silly sneakers,
laughing and hissing as I leave.

The bus is right there and
I have to catch it,
Lest I spend another half hour,
outside in this turmoil of frost,
In a wheel of torture and rejection,
always missing the bus to,
seek warmth,
Thought I would be hit by oncoming car
but made a mad dash to the door,
Just in time to be ticked off
at the empire,
at the ruminating,
the fermenting,
the rheumatoid arthritis,
affecting the fingers of careful planners,,
the scent o futility,
the fertility of existence was barren,
anything...
something... I'll pop up 'ventually

There I groaned,
retracing my steps in my brain,
but would end up at a
better launch,
in the ***** of downtown.

I kicked myself when it
said my transfer was expired,
with no way to tell time,
I just paid the man,
Then kicked myself because,
I must've used the older one,
from the former veranda
of the morning 'fore all this,

Now I kicked myself off the bus
pulling the yellow halt cord prematurely,
then walked the snowy,
lonely streets,
the cascading thunder of cars,
shoveling the air around,
the city sighing beneath my feet,
Walked past and contemplated
jumping on the little
platform between the
stages of the coaches
of the train...
16... to 17,
St. Louis Park,
Where began the loud,
obnoxious cacophony,
Obliterating my remaining faith in humanity,
The reason for this rant,
in solitude now,
in grateful sorrow,
in menacing tones,
the joke,
that we should all wake the **** up...

A B-boy girlie,
talked of pounding *****,
taming ***,
                                                    (how literate heroes will view this is outrageous)
Her counterpart with fisherman,
camouflage hat,
remarks of suckin' **** for two dollas.
I pretended to put my headphones in,
silencing the onslaught,
of inhumanity.
I had already gone through
my circles of hell,
that charlatan-laden circus of consumerism,
Now on the home stretch were,
these monstrosities,
mocking everyone in the bus
They talked of drink indulged,
The B-boy girl was the ringleader,
it was apparent,
the lackey sat behind her,
taking pictures, documenting?
and sharing images on devices,
that all amounted to,
nothing,
but tragic decline.
They spoke of dads in jails,
They spewed out nonsense,
They reminisced of fights,
The B-boy girl had a cast on her arm,
She had lied and told the
story of how she had
coldly beaten someone in the ice.
how brutish and untrue.
Obviously I didn't have words until now,
after arriving finally to my haven away,
to express,
in the mullings here,
on the pages of existence,
That we all need to
WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!
brixton bell Dec 2015
Peculiar seagulls soar in the skies of my mind, wondering where you are now. i run forever on this internal ocean's shore, your love the cruel lunar tide. i try but i am not fast enough; your undertow pulls me down, spiraling forever toward the black hole bottom of your heart.

i need you now,
deep into this madness,
no life preserver in sight.
my lungs scream
for resistance--
your love choking me,
c h o k i n g.
we need no white picket fence,
no charming stallion
to sweep us from
this black death.

Sugarcoma lovers with nothing left to hold back & subzero heartbreaks stinging worse than the sun.
You loved me once upon a time
& it was absolutely perfect.
I need you now but i promise it won't scar.
(My darling how beautiful you are.)
brixtonbell.com
Sara Reilly Apr 2016
Dear doctor, your goodbye

I am prescribed
to watch you
Perfidious dying star
Whose brilliant life
Dilated my eyes
A drug of promise
A Light on black water
I've been treading
And will tread
And will tread

Already nova
You disintegrate
Protracted
Yet instantaneously
Even as you sit so still
Composed while decomposing
Impossibly looking and
Not looking at me
Your disappearance is blinding
And massive
A denied inevitability
that quietly explodes me
Your nothingness
Crashes over me in waves
As I roll without direction beneath
Where the bottom used to be

Watch how easy it is
For you to take me apart
With your words
See my soft pieces writhe
mute on the floor
Disassembled
By a sentence
Betrayed by your mouth
Only my thoughts remain
Swimming aimlessly
Toward what is gone
Wanting to be known
Knowing they are hopeless
As cries underwater

tears on skin
Will evaporate
instantly
you will forget
their tiny sacrifices
Hundreds of brief lives
lived only
in your name
Hundreds of deaths for you
Miniature castaways
Of me
crying a siren's song
Sinking me further
Because it is my nature to
Give pieces of myself away
Trying to become complete
Until suddenly
I am gone entirely
Wanting to take you with me
Between the two of us
Someone is accidentally
A natural born killer

In the wake of
silent violence this
professional abandoning
is the collapse of gravity
of what I know
you know you mean to me
and then
you promise to never
ever
be my friend and
you will make sure
I will never ever
see you again
Subzero affect
forever treacherous end
this is the part when
i turn inside out
and self destruct in front of you
Spectacularly
as you watch  --  help-less-ly
Intentionally not saving me
Because what you do for a living
is killing me

I will tire of treading water
Because everybody drifts away
And I am so heavy
And broken
built to drown
And your goodbye
is the fullest
Of endings
Pulling me down
In progress
Jeremy Betts Apr 17
According to this here thermometer,
My heart hit ten minus absolute zero earlier
Impossibly cold and still getting colder
Think...nuclear winter,
Or Neptune in December
Sleeping in a subzero freezer
To be a smig warmer
Now imagine it getting run over
Over and over and over and over
What I'm left with doesn't ultimately matter
There's no chance that what I'm working with here,
The miniscule crumbs collected off the floor,
Will be anywhere near capable of getting the job done anymore
I hope there's no more of this repeat offender behavior in store
I don't want this as my muse or my lore

©2024
Bo Tansky Feb 2019
I can deal with aging
don’t mind how it slows you down
Even as if
Every step could be your last.

As an aside, while driving
How many truths are revealed
In the mind field concealed
As your driving

Passing an old man with a cane
Who stopped to spit on the sidewalk
Don’t judge, I tell myself,
Sometimes, if I’m being truthful
I hate aging and the aged
Present company included

And that is why Jane Fonda is my hero

Who really knows what goes on in anyone’s mind
I think while I’m driving.

My friend has early Alzheimer’s
Can’t even spell the word
So I think I’ll text her a joke today
I think better of it
My joke goes like this
Maybe you’ve heard it.
Betty White said it.
“My mother always said.
You don’t get older.
You just get better.
Unless, of course, you’re a banana”
Ha, ha
Yeah, then I think
Is it possible she’ll think
I’m calling her a banana.
Makes me wonder
Would I ever call anyone a banana
I don’t know
Maybe, if it fits
Could I be accused of yellow journalism
By some banana loving lunatic
Who thinks I’m sick, sick, sick

I had an ex-mother-in-law
Who passed over a while ago
While she was here
The very epitome of decorum
If it were a different age
She wouldn’t have married
She’d be home at nine
Do what your told, behave
See where I’m going
So proper, so refined
So tell me why
At the end of her life
She spewed the most egregious slurs
To make the most prudent
Sunday school teacher blush.
Maybe she was a secret lush.

What pretty dirt
Is swept under that
Pretty Persian rug
What silk coat does righteousness wear
I swear
What does purity dismiss

And that’s why Jane Fonda is my hero
Will somebody please turn up the heat
It’s like subzero
In here.
The swingsets,
the relief from the world's hypocrisy,
the only place I can feel as if I am a bird in the sky,
the bird that flies it's own pace,
acknowledging it's goal, but keeping it's distance.

The swingsets,
the make me know how it feels to die,
how it feels to go to Heaven,
and how it feels to fall off and go to Hell,
the contrast between the igneous, dry land,
and the subzero, wet heaven,
if I even believed in that ****.

The swingsets,
they set me free,
from how the people came to abhor me,
or how they came to have intimacy of me,
in reality,I only like those who present a medium of their standards,
for I am not perfect enough for those,
who try to exterminate me,
for those slaughter my wall I had constructed,
like the Roman's had done to Rome,
so carefully, and in coordination,
so no one would hate me.

The swingsets,
to make my ill intentions,
and my good will fade,
so I will both realize and reject the idea,
the abstraction,
the truth,
of the concept of nothingness,
nullity,
void,
because I want to be isolated,
but I do not want to be or see nothing,
so please world, continue to grow,
and
at least
leave me a swingset
for all
of my sins,
and virtue.

The swingsets,
where every child has grown up,
where every adolescent has matured,
where every adult felt nostalgic,
for they shall live on in existence.

The          ,
it has continued.
wow corny poem
how do i write some weird *** **** wooow
i blame myself
kirsten nichole Mar 2012
Give me something that’s in my nature to love
Something to drink that’s thick and sweet
Something to listen to that’s ridiculous and beautiful
Something to preside over disturbance.

Give me something to turn plastic poetry to risky lyrics that fall off my teeth
Something to shove my tongue into that’s warm and receiving
Something to send a shiver through my subzero lungs
Something to stir my personal life to keep it from burning.

Give me something sensational to breathe in when the oxygen is stale
Something to wrap my arms around when they’re screaming
Something to lick that’s delicious and crazy
Something to stop my mind running and allow it a place to rest.

I’m asking this of you because
I’m torn between caution and cupidity,
Trying to maintain the majesty of whatever moment we’re in,
And my fear cannot be remedied by your silence.

While you sit still with your lanky arms crossed and your wet lips together
I’m busy fanning fate’s flames because I care too much.
While your depths prove endlessly interesting
Your eyes do not shift, they do not express, they do not think.
My loneliness is clinical, quantifiable, combustible material for tears.
I’m sick of making love on triviality
I’d rather be ******* over by passion.
My back aches and my tongue is thirsty and my heart craves everything
And each of them has been given only enough to sustain, not enough to thrive.

Thank you for the sepia tone dreams
and the coffee burns
and the splatter paint wars
and the red raw bite marks all over my neck
But I know I’m not being felt the same way that I feel you,
Caring for every inch of you, your heart and your body.
And I can’t take the one way street anymore.
This is the sound of me crashing as I wave goodbye.
tabitha Nov 2019
i'm in the plains, i'm John Wayne, and Jim's got me beaming
they wait for me, no one but me, to scream/shout/break the ice,
subzero prairie air sticks to my breath as i mutter
something about needing someone to love me
it melts my red-hot words into smoke as i speak
my lips crack but don't bleed
it freezes my wounds so they don't leak
good enough for me
i stay out there
for the great release...

Lucy showed me the river of rainbows running deep in my veins,
Molly paraded me through the paths of pleasure saying,
"it's yours to choose, whenever you please."
Jim taught me that good things come with time, just in time
my vices / my mind whisperers

then my palms pop with static, my brain identifies havoc
a humbling wave of logic, there like a zealous paramedic,
snips a clean line through the icy glaze of my delusion.
back from whence i came. this bar. that stool. that night. acting cool.
i come to my own rescue.

emotionalism: subdued
heart's ripping flesh: re-glued
i know i've been runnin'...
not away from but toward somethin,
because the avett brothers warned me about that in '07
i chase, i glide, i soar
searching for something...
something...
not heaven...

i, in all of my aspiring ecstatic toughness,
i   -----  crave
             more:
a wicked-good fight beat
molten gold down my throat and then i feel it in my feet
sweet sweet sweet then down down deep
free it, release it, strike thunder
why do we hold ourselves back?
STLR Oct 2016
I ***** that cold spit on this hot terrain...

My subzero degree waves smash like glaciers and make ice parades

I'm hype like I smoked that right and when left instead

I will **** you and myself I simply knife gernades

My flows bomb-tastic

When I spit, your temple sizzles from my splashed acid.

I periodically pummel phonies in masses

Reverberations reveal Reactions.

My devilish grin shows satisfaction

Am lyrically chemically unbalanced

My lyrics ripple wild with drizzles of stylish accent.

I double dribble with the sound of pistols and stick back flips..

You fiddle skittles, blow like tea kettles an kiss assess  

My classic rip will make your brain flip like gymnastic tricks

I'm gone like acid trips

This is levitation no magic trick

Verbal constipation my massive ****

My words are pinpointed so accurate

I'm there and gone I'm oxygen.
Lately I’m just tallying grievances,
Just pending, just aiming for important,
Poisoning and drowning these fetuses,
But this subzero current feels constant.
And I can't get out and it's all your fault,
What was always will be and that’s that dear.
From now on, will this be our joint default?
I have been hounding you for a light year,
But the cosmic world wouldn't know this ache.
I'll engrave you into the skies for good,
From the cosmos can you see my hands quake?
The worst part is I still would- if I could.

I’ll erase you and I will erase me,
Leave me be or I'll do something extreme.
jack of spades May 2015
Words flow from
electric sparks
emitting ink thoughts from a
metaphorical heart.
Silence
reigns but for the
melody of an earbud anthem and the
tap of a pencil,
a nonexistent word for a nonexistent standstill.
Footsteps
echo on loop
and voices resume
empty conversations for
another
empty
day.
Earbuds tangle,
a metaphor bigger than these
words can convey:
fold
into a loop, one end
twisting around thrice,
tucking under to
pull.
The cold,
the monotony,
the burden of walking a world that
recently became
so dull,
so black and white.
Count the stars as they
count the cars that
count the red lights on
subzero nights,
a flip of a single silver dime
as
thoughts become optical illusions displaying desire for
less-troubled times.
Voices ring out in a
false symphony
as a
street-corner Jesus has an epiphany
of
color
and sound to
entice the audience
with its ambience.
A phone rings and
the operator claims that
help is on the way,
but
the victim is all alone because,
no,
nobody came
as the water rose higher and
the flames became
guilt and blame
for a long-ago sin
that
no one remembers being involved in,
The tide keeps
coming until the sparks are
silenced
and the brain is tamed by elegance lost
after the first verse.
another oldie
NeroameeAlucard Oct 2014
For many months now
relationships and I grew apart
over that time I developed a cold cold heart
colder than the villainous Mister Freeze if you please
Icier than subzero in a pinch

In short, I was mortified of becoming attached
My last relationships had become like Big Rigs over the road racing... before the patch
But alas this personal trend was destined to end
I finally met someone, who melted the snow within

So I thank you my dear, for shattering the ice that began to make up my life
please don't take this lightly, because I didn't get like this overnight
Yes this is dedicated to someone but I won't say Who, she knows who she is :)
Hell's said to be hot
But you were my truest hell
The subzero one
Hell is far from hot.
Juhi Jul 2019
latent energy I wish I had: cold hands
stick to themselves in subzero, sticky with
regret and stagnancy: too many stags running about
harbingers of doom and gloom
eden's garden disintegrating at the sight of
the new bloom: wind beating in my eyes
turning around trees and warping leaves
train stations leading nowhere
thoughts compressed into bullets
and backwards thinking: could you tell me where we are, please?
Ann M Johnson Jan 2014
I want to stay inside were it is warm
The subzero temperatures can harm
I don't mean to cause an alarm
The extreme cold has given new meaning to a brain freeze
I don't like Jack Frost nipping at my nose or any other body parts
I don't see the effects of Global Warming at least not right now
I know I will have to face the cold all to soon
I have to work tomorrow
I guess that some people go to shop, no matter the weather
It will be a case of mind over matter
To face the cold and be bold and dress warm and press on
Sara Reilly Apr 2016
i am prescribed
to watch you
perfidious dying star
whose brilliant life
dilated my eyes
a drug of promise
a light on black water
i've been treading

and will tread
and will tread


already nova
you disintegrate
protracted
yet instantaneous
even as you sit so still
composed
while decomposing
impossibly looking
and not looking at me
your disappearance is blinding
and massive
a denied inevitability
that quietly explodes me
your nothingness
crashes over me in waves  

as I roll without direction beneath
        where the bottom used to be


silent violence made
in your wake perpetuates
unforeseen side effects
effectively you abandoning me
vacuum void my undone body
black hole collapse of gravity
such is your fall out all over me
infuriating stellar reliability

unequivocal follow through
really ******* good for you


watch how easy it is
for you to take me apart
with your words
see my soft pieces writhe
wet and mute on the floor
disassembled
by a sentence
betrayed by your mouth
only my thoughts remain
teeming aimlessly
toward what is gone
wanting to be known

knowing they are hopeless
             as cries underwater


tears on skin
evaporate instantly
you will forget
in as much time
their tiny sacrifices
hundreds of momentary lives
lived only in your name
hundreds of deaths for you
miniature castaways of me
crying a siren's song
sinking me further
because it is my nature to
give pieces of myself away
trying to become complete
until suddenly
i am gone entirely
wanting to take you with me

between the two of us someone
            is subconsciously a killer


sudden deep freeze self defense
disassociation disbelief
because of what I know
you know you mean to me
-and-
also there are rules
to you leaving me
you promise to never ever
be my friend
and assure me
i will never ever
see you again

                 subzero affect
forever treacherous end


this - is the part - when
i turn inside out
and self destruct in front of you
spectacularly
as you watch  --  help-less-ly
intentionally not saving me

because what you do for a living
                                    is killing me


i will tire of treading water
because everybody drifts away
i am so laden
and broken
built to drown
your goodbye
is the fullest
              a set up
to pull me down


Sent from my iPhone
2nd draft. c.sdr 2016

— The End —