Life is mostly not a drag
it's important to point that out
at this moment
it's not a drag at all, at times
it all probably evens out really
you can still know these things when
feeling them feels like lies
most of my life has been
and will always be
out of my control
but within my bounds
for better or for worse
I have volition
the sun sits at the center of our solar system
except it doesn't
the combined motion and mass
of the rest of our solar system
puts the sun itself in orbit of a point
sometimes outside its own surface
when hope feels like lies
it's important to point out
at this moment
we have volition
Apr 6, 2024
Apr 6, 2024 at 1:53 AM UTC
May 21, 2021
May 21, 2021 at 5:21 PM UTC
It almost seems
As if there is,
In this community,
Some folks who work
To cast dispersions
Out quite liberally.
They work together,
If I judge right,
To shift negatively
The score of likes
On all comments
When they don't agree.
What is the point?
What can be gained
From this frivolity?
May 12, 2021
May 12, 2021 at 11:27 AM UTC
Awakened and
Awash with life, a soul
Abandoned amid artificial
Sophistication;
Blinded by beauty best beheld
Beneath bold bastions of
Blazing silence. Craze
Rules;
Cacophonies collide and
Congeal, coagulate and
Cluster—melting, not unlike
Neapolitan ice cream.
Durst the dwindling
Darkness dance its
Deathly defenstration? Ought it
To belay its night?
Evening ekes ever closer,
Edging; even seeking most to
Elevate eternity to its
End. Out with it. Time
Is not your pet!
Forward, faithful fowls of
Fancy: feast on flesh
For which you came!
Find a farewell fully
Sanctioned.
Get a grip on grime
Galore! Go, you gawdy
Grateful gyre; gone is all
Glory and rhyme. Now to
Exculpate a *****
He's the hero herewith, and
Helping hide his horrid
Histr'y is the hill you have to
Climb.
I, interloping idiot, I
Itch to irk some innocent
Ilk. I, the
**** ****** jankly onward
Just to justify juiced minds.
Jury, you must spew a verdict!
Judge you must sentence
This crime.
Klaxons blare that kegs are
Key to this
Kiss, but not to fool
Keen kind of
Folk
Limitations let me
Lie here looking like
Life left me lame.
Lots of lazy lack of
Praising
Made my music
Mainly maim. Most
Men motion more for
Glory:
No one needs to
Name their cause;
Nothing will. Notice now,
What is northward,
Only our obliging airs
Often offered on the
Order of the oligarchic
Thains.
Prosper we, politely posting?
Positing our prescient claim?
Passing not the prophet's muster,
Put we not ourselves to
Shame?
Quickly! Question who is
Questing quietly beyond the pale:
Quoth the raven quixotic chaos
Quite outside the
normal
Range? Really, rouse the
Raspy rooster, rising sun a
Ruse too rare:
Rafting in on rising
Currents
Stallions stride the earth
So bare. Sing the song,
Six pence so-called,
Still the cost of
Love riebald.
Touch the tangled
Truths which dangle
Tantalizingly close to there;
Take the taudry lesson
Home.
Unleash hell upon the masses,
Unsuspecting users will delight,
Until all the unlit gases
Usher forth into our
sight.
Valor vests its
Vanquished victims with
Vociferous applause. Asking
Very little of them—just a life for a
Just cause!
War will wake the
wasting weapons wildly
Whet with wonderous
Rage.
X, the spot is marked e-
xactly where was this
X-human
unmade.
Yesterday young warriors
Yelled out yearning for
Years they have lost
Yeeting sinners into
Their graves.
Zoom! At Zion
Zealot's rage is launching—
Zero zest for living love—
Zoo-like, all the world is watching; all the world,
And that above.
May 12, 2021
May 12, 2021 at 1:45 AM UTC
A great pitch for car
dealerships, but not so much
for a casino.
Nov 6, 2019
Nov 6, 2019 at 1:00 PM UTC
I.
Tнʏ functions are etherial,
As if within thee dwelt a glancing Mind,
***** of Vision! And a Spirit aerial
Informs the cell of hearing, dark and blind;
Intricate labyrinth, more dread for thought
To enter than oracular cave;
Strict passage, through which sighs are brought,
And whispers for the heart, their slave;
And shrieks, that revel in abuse
Of shivering flesh; and warbled air,
Whose piercing sweetness can unloose
The chains of frenzy, or entice a smile
Into the ambush of despair;
Hosannas pealing down the long-drawn aisle,
And requiems answered by the pulse that beats
Devoutly, in life's last retreats!
II.
The headlong Streams and Fountains
Serve Thee, Invisible Spirit, with untired powers;
Cheering the wakeful Tent on Syrian mountains,
They lull perchance ten thousand thousand Flowers.
That roar, the prowling Lion's Here I am,
How fearful to the desert wide!
That bleat, how tender! of the Dam
Calling a straggler to her side.
Shout, Cuckoo! let the vernal soul
Go with thee to the frozen zone;
Toll from thy loftiest perch, lone Bell-bird, toll!
At the still hour to Mercy dear,
Mercy from her twilight throne
Listening to Nun's faint sob of holy fear,
To Sailor's prayer breathed from a darkening sea,
Or Widow's cottage lullaby.
III.
Ye Voices, and ye Shadows
And Images of voice—to hound and horn
From rocky steep and rock-bestudded meadows
Flung back, and, in the sky's blue caves, reborn
On with your pastime! till the church-tower bells
A greeting give of measured glee;
And milder echoes from their cells
Repeat the bridal symphony.
Then, or far earlier, let us rove
Where mists are breaking up or gone,
And from aloft look down into a cove
Besprinkled with a careless quire,
Happy Milk-maids, one by one
Scattering a ditty each to her desire,
A liquid concert matchless by nice Art,
A stream as if from one full heart.
IV.
Blest be the song that brightens
The blind Man's gloom, exalts the Veteran's mirth.
Unscorned the Peasant's whistling breath, that lightens
His duteous toil of furrowing the green earth.
For the tired Slave, Song lifts the languid oar,
And bids it aptly fall, with chime
That beautifies the fairest shore,
And mitigates the harshest clime.
Yon Pilgrims see—in lagging file
They move; but soon the appointed way
A choral Ave Marie shall beguile,
And to their hope the distant shrine
Glisten with a livelier ray:
Nor friendless He, the Prisoner of the Mine,
Who from the well-spring of his own clear breast
Can draw, and sing his griefs to rest.
V.
When civic renovation
Dawns on a kingdom, and for needful haste
Best eloquence avails not, Inspiration
Mounts with a tune, that travels like a blast
Piping through cave and battlemented tower;
Then starts the Sluggard, pleased to meet
That voice of Freedom, in its power
Of promises, shrill, wild, and sweet!
Who, from a martial pageant, spreads
Incitements of a battle-day,
Thrilling the unweaponed crowd with plumeless heads,
Even She whose Lydian airs inspire
Peaceful striving, gentle play
Of timid hope and innocent desire
Shot from the dancing Graces, as they move
Fanned by the plausive wings of Love.
VI.
How oft along thy mazes,
Regent of Sound, have dangerous Passions trod!
O Thou, through whom the Temple rings with praises,
And blackening clouds in thunder speak of God,
Betray not by the cozenage of sense
Thy Votaries, wooingly resigned
To a voluptuous influence
That taints the purer, better mind;
But lead sick Fancy to a harp
That hath in noble tasks been tried;
And, if the virtuous feel a pang too sharp,
Soothe it into patience,—stay
The uplifted arm of Suicide;
And let some mood of thine in firm array
Knit every thought the impending issue needs,
Ere Martyr burns, or Patriot bleeds!
VII.
As Conscience, to the centre
Of Being, smites with irresistible pain,
So shall a solemn cadence, if it enter
The mouldy vaults of the dull Idiot's brain,
Transmute him to a wretch from quiet hurled—
Convulsed as by a jarring din;
And then aghast, as at the world
Of reason partially let in
By concords winding with a sway
Terrible for sense and soul!
Or, awed he weeps, struggling to quell dismay.
Point not these mysteries to an Art
Lodged above the starry pole;
Pure modulations flowing from the heart
Of divine Love, where Wisdom, Beauty, Truth
With Order dwell, in endless youth?
VIII.
Oblivion may not cover
All treasures hoarded by the miser, Time.
Orphean Insight! truth's undaunted Lover,
To the first leagues of tutored passion climb,
When Music deigned within this grosser sphere
Her subtle essence to enfold,
And Voice and Shell drew forth a tear
Softer than Nature's self could mould.
Yet strenuous was the infant Age:
Art, daring because souls could feel,
Stirred nowhere but an urgent equipage
Of rapt imagination sped her march
Through the realms of woe and weal:
Hell to the lyre bowed low; the upper arch
Rejoiced that clamorous spell and magic verse
Her wan disasters could disperse.
IX.
The Gɪꜰт to king Amphion
That walled a city with its melody
Was for belief no dream; thy skill, Arion!
Could humanise the creatures of the sea,
Where men were monsters. A last grace he craves,
Leave for one chant;—the dulcet sound
Steals from the deck o'er willing waves,
And listening Dolphins gather round.
Self-cast, as with a desperate course,
'Mid that strange audience, he bestrides
A proud One docile as a managed horse;
And singing, while the accordant hand
Sweeps his harp, the Master rides;
So shall he touch at length a friendly strand,
And he, with his Preserver, shine star-bright
In memory, through silent night.
X.
The pipe of Pan, to Shepherds
Couched in the shadow of Maenalian Pines,
Was passing sweet; the eyeballs of the leopards,
That in high triumph drew the Lord of vines,
How did they sparkle to the cymbal's clang!
While Fauns and Satyrs beat the ground
In cadence,—and Silenus swang
This way and that, with wild-flowers crowned.
To life, to life give back thine ear:
Ye who are longing to be rid
Of Fable, though to truth subservient, hear
The little sprinkling of cold earth that fell
Echoed from the coffin-lid;
The Convict's summons in the steeple's knell;
"The vain distress-gun," from a leeward shore,
Repeated—heard, and heard no more!
XI.
For terror, joy, or pity,
Vast is the compass and the swell of notes:
From the Babe's first cry to voice of regal City,
Rolling a solemn sea-like bass, that floats
Far as the woodlands—with the trill to blend
Of that shy Songstress, whose love-tale
Might tempt an Angel to descend,
While hovering o'er the moonlight vale.
O for some soul-affecting scheme
Of moral music, to unite
Wanderers whose portion is the faintest dream
Of memory!—O that they might stoop to bear
Chains, such precious chains of sight
As laboured minstrelsies through ages wear!
O for a balance fit the truth to tell
Of the Unsubstantial, pondered well!
XII.
By one pervading Spirit
Of tones and numbers all things are controlled,
As Sages taught, where faith was found to merit
Initiation in that mystery old
The Heavens, whose aspect makes our minds as still
As they themselves appear to be,
Innumerable voices fill
With everlasting harmony;
The towering Headlands, crowned with mist,
Their feet among the billows, know
That Ocean is a mighty harmonist;
Thy pinions, universal Air,
Ever waving to and fro,
Are delegates of harmony, and bear
Strains that support the Seasons in their round;
Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound.
XIII.
Break forth into thanksgiving,
Ye banded Instruments of wind and chords
Unite, to magnify the Ever-living,
Your inarticulate notes with the voice of words!
Nor hushed be service from the lowing mead,
Nor mute the forest hum of noon;
Thou too be heard, lone Eagle! freed
From snowy peak and cloud, attune
Thy hungry barkings to the hymn
Of joy, that from her utmost walls
The six-days' Work, by flaming Seraphim,
Transmits to Heaven! As Deep to Deep
Shouting through one valley calls,
All worlds, all natures, mood and measure keep
For praise and ceaseless gratulation, poured
Into the ear of God, their Lord!
XIV.
A Voice to Light gave Being;
To Time, and Man, his earth-born Chronicler;
A Voice shall finish doubt and dim foreseeing,
And sweep away life's visionary stir;
The Trumpet (we, intoxicate with pride,
Arm at its blast for deadly wars)
To archangelic lips applied,
The grave shall open, quench the stars.
O Silence! are Man's noisy years
No more than moments of thy life?
Is Harmony, blest Queen of smiles and tears,
With her smooth tones and discords just,
Tempered into rapturous strife,
Thy destined Bond-slave? No! though Earth be dust
And vanish, though the Heavens dissolve, her stay
Is in the Wоʀᴅ, that shall not pass away.
Sep 3, 2019
Sep 3, 2019 at 8:07 PM UTC
I spent all the time
to think it out,
to pour a rhyme
from verbal spout.
I chose all the words
to reap your spite,
to rile the herds,
to hear you gripe.
I watched every day
to check the bait,
to make you play,
to feel your hate.
I learned the right time
to make the post,
to top the line;
be viewed the most.
After all of that
where my hate be at?
May 2, 2019
May 2, 2019 at 3:17 PM UTC
In America,
my family owes no income tax,
but receives a large "return" anyway.
In America,
my whole family receives medical and dental care
on the taxpayer's dime.
In America,
my family would not be able to afford health insurance
if it was not free for us.
In America,
my education would be free
if I went back to college.
In America,
I cannot afford to go on a vacation, or lose income
by taking time off.
In America,
I am poor.
But,
in America,
everyone in my family will eat
more than we need to survive.
In America,
I have a home, and it is as warm, or cool, or dry
as I want it to be.
In America,
my water is clean,
and it's as hot or cold as I wish.
In America,
the internet is available to me any time
day or night.
In America,
I have access to so much electricity that
I can charge phones,
turn on all the lights,
use the stove and the fridge,
watch TV,
and use the internet all at the same time.
In America,
I can often buy things just because
I want them.
In America,
I earn more than two hundred dollars
per week.
So,
in America,
I am poor.
But,
in the world,
I am the 1%
Apr 2, 2019
Apr 2, 2019 at 11:56 AM UTC
Once, when often neighbors hastened greatly
to their own attents, there was peace abroad
the village owing to the grace espoused
and purveyed—yea!—preached and engaged by all.
None there, fain to smear his comrade, durst to
act upon his greed; none there, skint as cats
though he be, dared his ***** thirst to feed.
None the sweat-racked work were shirking, none the
darkened alleys lurking, none the brass-starred
men besmirching, in that commis'rate vale.
"Friend, I would thy load be bearing if thou
wouldst cast it on me! Let us both go forth
while sharing words and burdens, you and me!"
"I have nought for this to give thee; I have
ne'er the smallest cent. Sold today are my
holdings, and this grain's 'gainst the harvest lent."
"Friend, I would thy payment reject if thou
were to offer it! I wish only to
walk with thee: both thy load and spirits lift!
If I could from thee goad thine sad story
I would think it a great gift. Good sir, please
betale me! I will use my soul for ears."
Down the wooden shaded dirt lane these
new partners—strangers still—bore betwixt them
borrowed grain sacks and hope of crops come.
Mar 21, 2019
Mar 21, 2019 at 12:08 AM UTC
1. ʸN ðͧ b̓gʸnn̓ŋͥ Gdͦ cʴͥͤtd̛ ðͧ hͤvͪn̓ nͣd ðͧ rͤÞ.
2. Nͣd ðͧ rͤÞ wͣs wʸÞt̆ frͦm, nͣd vͦdͥ; nͣd drͣkn̓ßͤ wͣs pͧnͦ ðͧ fͤcͥ vͧ ðͧ dpͥ. Nͣd ðͧ Spʸrʸt vͧ Gdͦ mv̐d pͧnͦ ðͧ fͤcͥ vͧ ðͧ wtͣrͤs.
3. Nͣd Gdͦ sͤdͪ, Lͪtͤ ðͤʸr bͥ lʸght: nͣd ðͤʸr wͣs lʸght.
4. Nͣd Gdͦ swͦ ðͧ lʸght, ðtͣ ʸt wͣs gd̑: nͣd Gdͦ dv̓ͣdͥd̓ ðͧ lʸght frmͧ ðͧ drͣkn̓ßͤ.
5. Nͣd Gdͦ cͦlld ðͧ lʸght D, nͣd ðͧ drͣkn̓ßͤ hͥ cͦlld Nʸght. Nͣd ðͧ vͥn̓ŋͥ nͣd ðͧ mrͦn̓ŋͥ wrͤ ðͧ frͤst dͤʸ.
Mar 20, 2019
Mar 20, 2019 at 11:00 AM UTC