The Ragged Poet

The Ragged Poet Apr 2019

I see their silhouettes
Melt far into the horizon.
Their untimely dance
Knows no bounds,
No digresses
Continuing forward
With no pauses.

The nymphs have departed
And their feet do not hurt
Nor do they ever stop.
They walk right through me
Like the season’s of a year,

Like yesterday’s trees
That are naked today
With a shivering hope
For tomorrow’s new embrace.

Shadows loom amidst silences
Drenched with fever and sweat.
Stupefying moments of unbeing
Confirm impotency’s pending threat.

The nymphs have departed,
But their laughter malingers
As it creeps through tiny holes
And then the ears of some wretched

Like me, feigning to sleep,
While a bustling pageantry on the street
Slithers across from under my feet.
It’s almost nine, now I must set my eyes to weep.

The Ragged Poet Mar 2019

Lamentations of a sour whisky drinker

On nascent evenings
I find myself alone
My head up against an empty wall
While the weight of my mind is destined to fall
Or collapse into a billion pieces.
Luckily, I am not afraid of multiplicities.

Speech becomes paradox, sight remains illusory.
My bones feel cold, my skin burns with fever.
Forever burning, burning, burning

Each second is infernal,
Each alley enlaced in embers.
This burning makes me wander.
I wander wildly taking my neuroses by the hand
I follow blindly, always unsure where I am going.
And the face that I wear leaves no trace for showing.

Evening masks
Descend upon faces
Staring at the sky being brewed,
So blank and embittered
By the countless cups of coffee they drank.
It’s always too warm to take a sip,
So I sit back
I wait as the sky turns deeper,
As it drains pools of dark and rancid liquid,
Foaming at the sky’s mouth, eventually swallowing the sun.
Though the day has ended, the coffee settled too,
My mouth still feels dry and is unable to consume.

The night descends by giving directions
Through darkness. And colored lights
Join the cadence, so does the wind.
It is happening all around me,
But I cannot cut through
And I cannot simply join in.
My eyes are mere spectators
Since sight is all that they have.
And now the sky is melancholic,
So may the drinking begin.

I shall drink the pools that float above me,
I shall scorn at fools who try to teach me,
I shall hate and have hatred guide me,

Until I fall and the ground slaps me
On my smug face,
Until my senses seep into the ground,
And I am left expressionless.

Invisibility is a gift seldom appreciated
The comforts bestowed in darkness are unnumbered.
Too many to count, too many to list out loud.
It matters no more that I am human,
For I am not. I feel nothing, nothing at all.

The Ragged Poet Mar 2019

Drowning in Blues

Some jazz helps
My eyes see
Focus waver
With such ease.
Some coffee helps
My mind continue
Brooding
Along wayward paths,
Striding
Across evenings, nights,
And Mornings–
Swinging past,
While my torpid head
Lusts over
Something faceless,
Something trapped within
Some facade.

Some leaves rustle
Lifelessly,
Heard along dark alleys,
Hardened in the cold,
Robbed of all tenderness,
A trail of death syncopates
A trilling percussion.
A beat is born,
From the dead leaves
Beneath my feet.

Some magical key
Is held in the air,
Serenading the glowing heads
On scattered street-lamps,
Illuminating the very things
Nature tries to conceal.
Suspended and suspending,
No room for surprise.
Some strange piano-man,
Somewhere,
Plays an eternal reprise.
Latescence looms
Egregiously
In the air
That I breathe.

The Ragged Poet Feb 2019

My nerves feel bad today

Glimpses of your face keep
Weighing down my thoughts
Of forgetting you
They have turned into an impossibility.

Strange inclinations of remembering your name
Fester vehemently,
Every second of each day
I am simply appalled, entirely perplexed,
Who knew silences entailed such unendurable chaos?

Silences speak a strange language.
Learning how to speak them must truly be an art.
But the silence which brought us together
Shall only tear us apart.

I know not why I feel
The need to shatter its symphony
By pouring out these frivolous words.
I surrendered rationality long ago–
Along with categorical and critical thought–
Never yielding,
Never satiating–

My mind was always estranged.
Each book read out
My estrangement from this world.
My estrangement was inescapable,
So instead I tried escaping lucidity
By calling upon my distractions.
They came to rescue me,
They did try to make me forget,
But I was unaware of what I was forgetting.

Vividly, will I remember
Waiting for you.
Waiting for truth,
Waiting eternally.

Every promise contains a betrayal.
So I await,
Most afraid
Of being betrayed,
Helplessly perplexed,
Constantly questioning.
Can I turn off all the lights
Once and for all?
Can I plunge into a well of darkness?

My thoughts turn sour
In the bleakness of the air,
And winds that push me
Tell me to start over again.
But there can be no start
For the unfinished and undone.
Only an endless waiting
For you,
Forever,
With no end.

The Ragged Poet Mar 2018

Cries from a wounded tongue...

When words do not pour out from the mouth,
An inspired tongue shrivels and dies inside.
Each day is a new poison for the month,
For me to knock my senses, from wherever they reside.

So where do they reside? I ask myself often enough,
I ponder helplessly in search for something to make me feel.
But my wits have all surrendered and in shame they all kneel.
They cry at me, they say they are sorry and that a heavy conscience
Rails upon them hard, forcing them to ***** out their pathetic sympathies.
They have failed me every single time. I am upset. In dissonance,
I part ways and walk away. I don the mask of indifference,
I hide my wounded face in pretense, I do not fear ignorance.

I would rather be a fool a hundred times over,
Than try and make sense of life for even a second.
It’s simply not worth my time. It’s that dreaded cold shower,
Of mornings that especially chain me to my bed.
As I lie in silent protest, I let my habits feast and devour
Any judgment upon my sanity and what is appropriate.

Well what is appropriate? This question itself makes me cower.
It fills my body with chills. I lay stunned in bed; not even a tool.
I hastily realize, what could be more appropriate than playing a fool?
I would rather laugh at myself than let some flower
Laugh at me. I simply cannot give someone else the satisfaction of being cruel.
I would rather stuff my mouth with socks and scream and endlessly drool.

I was not always so resentful. I once dearly held life in high regard,
With kisses and warm embraces. Sadly, that feeling lives no more.

When words do not pour from the mouth,
An inspired tongue shrivels and dies inside.
Each day is a new poison for the month,
So that I may knock my senses, from wherever they reside.

Let us not prolong this for any longer,
Let us go at once to the corpse in the graveyard.
Let us see that mighty whale smother breathlessly,
Let us submit to the fate that nature has sealed.
I admit this a nasty sight, but we must endure helplessly.
Let us not ponder any longer.

When it's just too hard to talk...

The Ragged Poet Feb 2018

Beauty: a marble

Why are you so cold, so bitter and distant?
Your beauty radiates as intensely as sunlight
Of mornings and of hope. Why so distraught,
So unaffected then? Do godesses suffer plight?

Do words and sensations mean nothing to you?
Too meager, too mortal, too insatiable for you?
Is silence the better suitor then, and I a wretched sod?
My verses flee in vain, they do not even requite a nod.

Is it sorrow, or is it spite that makes you be this way?
I find myself bemused to wonder how these hindrances sway
Your mood, your deeds and all that you bless and curse.
So trivial and unthinking, your virtues increasingly become worse.