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Oct 2014 · 708
What's the Secret?
Jordan Presley Oct 2014
There’s a secret door
On a shelf in the back,
Begging, waiting
To be opened.
But the sly clock that ticks
Will never tock the tock
That will tell you how
The lock can be opened.
So you must find
The key that will wind
The old clock’s wily face
To get it to tock
The answer away.
And the key is still
Where it has always been
Behind the crazed locks
Of the wicked jewelry box.
But if you offer the box
A jewel of some kind:
A broach or ring or pretty pearls,
The key for you it unfurls.
Then with that key you can unwind
The wicked wily clock
And it will tock away
The enchanted lock
That tells you how
To open the secret door
Hidden on the shelf
In the back.
My adopted niece wanted a story on our drive home from the park tonight - this popped out and it's translated as best as possible from memory.
Sep 2014 · 570
404: Happy Not Found
Jordan Presley Sep 2014
What is this happiness?
Am I to seek out, yearn for, grasp up mere moments?
-or is it a perpetuated state of being?
One for only the rarest and most deserving?

Am I the saboteur of my own making?
Am I the weak-willed wallower
Who falls further faster farther under
Behind and beyond the rarified
Deified reality of some form of happy?

Who CARES?  Jesus, who cares!?
What is all this for anyway?!

We ****.  We fight.  We feast.  We famine.
We rage and ruin the peak of our creations
-we, in harmony, benefit from mass assimilations
While singularly sink in to oblivion.
So .....it was a rough day.
Aug 2014 · 276
Untitled
Jordan Presley Aug 2014
The ocean glitters - hot like gold on fire in that long line -
And the restless waves crash and die
Weaving back and forth
On their lonesome tide.

Is the sea lonely?
Does it long to be on the land?
Is that why it always dies with a thunder
And a crash against the sand?
Or is it so excited
To simply be alive
That it can't contain it's emotion
In the deep belly of the dark ocean,
And needs to crash with glee
On the empty sandy beach?
Hear those seagulls cry?
Flying through the day -
A wonder! -to be alive
And fly about that way.
Aug 2014 · 407
Wantful
Jordan Presley Aug 2014
Nothing - naught a thing -
Fills my festering Want Hole;
This void is a toxic warning
The same to blacken my pockmarked soul.

My sole desire seems ever
Changing shifting morphing
Into a new dream beyond waking
Remembering forsaken things forgotten -

And I keep spilling slipping sliding
Cascading ever sideways
Down the slippery ***** of my Want Hole,
So void-full
To the soul.
Whenever I get what I want, invariably, I no longer want what I have.


Edited out first stanza:

"I am a liar.

I perpetuate these paltry
Claims of desire which are
Proven false once fulfilled -
I am a liar,
Claiming desire when it's nil. "
Aug 2014 · 1.1k
Noise
Jordan Presley Aug 2014
Fill up the pages
With the stuttering nonsense
Drown out the noise
Of the distant excess
Too many distractions
It hurts the head
Fall down disgruntled
Alone left for dead
Sink without struggle
Into the noise now
If you prove unable
To shut it all out
To center yourself
Amidst chaos and rain
Fire and anguish
This human refrain
Hold up strong
Against the current
Swim above
this
Cacophony
of
*******.
I tried to do something with as little punctuation ('noise') as possible - hopefully the meter translates to its own flow.
Aug 2014 · 282
Ripped Moments
Jordan Presley Aug 2014
What more is there to say?
How can I keep filling up this empty page
With the same tired words
Every single day?
Repeating always
That which has already been said;
When the words run dry
And their meaning’s dead,
I’m left with dull forms
That from this dark pen have bled
Black onto this neatly lined page –
My confusion, my sadness,
My infinite rage,
Will never be known
Or felt by another
As long as I hide
Behind these empty phrases
And worn-out, empty lines.
Go on now,
Fill up the page.
Notice how the words come now
With less and less grace.
How every single second
Spent on these lines in vain
Is ripped from my life
And can never be replaced.
Aug 2014 · 331
11:20
Jordan Presley Aug 2014
I saw his name
And felt nothing -
What a wonderful feat!
To not have my heart plummet
Down my chest to my stomach,
And wind up on the ground in a pitiful heap!

I used to study the letters
And worry the lines,
I pondered the edges –
A victimless crime.
Rolling with their curves
Memorizing their bends;
Their small supple signs  
Stretching onwards, no end.

Yet now as I see them,
Strong, stark, and bare,
And though (as for that the passing there)
They belong now to another,
I recognize their shape,
And can still hear their rhyme,
But say now beyond all reason this season
Of torment gradually declines.

How freeing!
How liberating -
Oh god, this clean air!
It’s purer up Here – out………....………..
From behind all that doubt and despair;
Beyond darkness and fear:
A place where Stillness is born
And dawn is just breaking -
Where the daylight waits for waking
And nighttime dreams on no more.
Monumental moments when getting over an ex...
Aug 2014 · 321
Time
Jordan Presley Aug 2014
There is a a time to laugh
A time to sing
A time to cry
And a time to scream
Time's unmeasured
In moments unseen
Do the best you can
In this waking dream
Aug 2014 · 554
The Wind
Jordan Presley Aug 2014
A great Orb is held aloft
by the boughs of a giant Oak tree.
~
Sighing with the wind, the Oak
shifts his branches and catches
a wandering butterfly.

Holding the butterfly
carefully closely up high,
the Oak can hear her song
of beauty and of brevity and
a million moments in the sun.
The Oak stretches and responds
with ages and acorns long gone,
whilst above them the Orb
glistens with glee.  

Tickled by the wind the Oak laughs and
shudders his boughs reflexively
- the butterfly launches
herself back into the bright sky
- the Orb softly pulses
goodbye.
~
A great Orb is held aloft
by the boughs of a giant Oak tree.
8.8.14 ~ First poem I've written in quite a while; all my others were composed before 2012...
Aug 2014 · 428
December Ravings
Jordan Presley Aug 2014
My days keep passing
Right on by unnoticed
Unhindered in any way
By my ineffective
Inconsequential
And wholly insignificant
Dull gaze
Only moments
Those are all I see
Not the hours
Nor the days nor the
Meaningless long weeks
They never mean near as much to me
As those moments that always onwards flee.
Aug 2014 · 390
Untitled
Jordan Presley Aug 2014
When the final day songs have been sung
And the new night songs have not yet begun
The deafening silence of the twinkling twilight
Is the splendid calm before the sonorous night:
Clear now as a bell, the frogs and crickets sing –
And I feel the wonderment, the joy,
Of simply being.
Written while sitting outside on a beautiful summer evening
Aug 2014 · 714
Mac World
Jordan Presley Aug 2014
(written in the Apple store)
Brown shoes
Grey floor
Black pants
See through door
Blank stare
Shifting screen
You must stand up
To be seen
Iconic logo
See the list
Sell, sell, sell,
Buy our ****:
iwork
ical
ilife
I quit
You can connect
To what you please
Just one mouse click
Until you freeze
Aug 2014 · 281
Say
Jordan Presley Aug 2014
Say
Is there anything more terrifying
Than not knowing what
You‘re going to say?  

I can’t think of anything-

Do they always Say
What they mean – what they
Do you mean
Anyway? Anyhow
Oh wow my dear
You’re here – here
Nowhere with me -

We - you and me are
Have been will be
All. One. Everything.
Everywhere nowhere all
Now here, my dear.
We’re all here
All one in the same.

The same, the same, the
Circlingcurving same –
So don’t be afraid
Of not knowing
What you’re going to
Say --

Think of something –
Anything and nothing –
Dreaming beyond knowing
Your truth back to way.

Jump without leaping into
The unknown
And you’ll be the first
One to go.
Aug 2014 · 553
Towing the Line
Jordan Presley Aug 2014
Towing the Line

I drag it behind me,
Push it out in front,
But it seems I’m always
Never near enough.
The past plagues my present,
I worry the future now,
All the while forgetting
The way; the why; the how
To toe the line between
The “then” and the “will be” –
To simply walk on the brink
Of the joined eternities.
Conceived after reading Henry David Thoreau:
“In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too: to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.”
Aug 2014 · 333
My Body
Jordan Presley Aug 2014
I love my body:
The width of my hips
The curve of my waist
Every curling dip
And dark secret place.
I love my skin,
The smooth appeal,
The fragrant way
I smell and feel.
I love my body:
The way it moves,
How it bends and swoops,
And swerves and grooves.
I love my body,
When alone it’s perfect.
But I hate this body
Whenever you touch it.
With your hands on me
I feel fat and ugly.
When you press against me
I feel disgusting.
My skin crawls when
Your hands graze it,
Embarrassed at how
Rough it is.
My hips feel bad,
My waist too wide,
My body too big
When you’re inside.
I hate my body
Whenever it’s with yours.
What a shame too,
For I dearly love the look,
The smell, the taste and feel
Of yours.

— The End —