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Hesitations grips me
Sometimes with a soft gentle squeeze and sometimes with an iron fist
That split second where you see that girl with whimsical hair and a playful smile and your body is screaming at the top of its lungs “GO AFTER HER YOU FOOL!!!” while your brain mulls over the endless stream of stressful situations
I can hear Robin Williams calling out to me “Let me hear your YAWP!” and I’m shaking, quivering, rattling, generating the vocal ferocity of a lion! And all that comes out is a whimpering “yawp…”
Hesitation grips me
A harmless compliment to brighten someone’s day, no harm done, just a quick simple “I like your pants” a smile and I’m on my way
Simple! Wrong!
That flickering candle of pleasantries is cut short by a swiftly shutting window of opportunity
The breeze not hesitating to extinguish its light
Hesitation grips me
How many moments must I suffer paralyzed lips before my can of complimentary worms is opened?
How many lovely strangers will continue to mill about their days in unblissful ignorance of my enjoyment of their simple, subtle or overt characteristics?
This hesitation grips me!
It shackles me and holds the key in front of my face and all it requires is one real Yawp! The mustering has begun! That key is my freedom of hesitant chains! Just! One! Yawp! I think I can I think I can I think I can! Just! One! Yawp! “yawp…”
Hesitation grips me
Meant to be read aloud, quotes are whispers.
raingirlpoet Dec 2014
i like the chill that races up my spine
when my voice projects too loudly
it reminds me that my voice is mine
and so i'll shout from the rooftops proudly

my voice is most often soft
people rarely hear me speak
they look around, did someone squawk?
nope, it was more like a tinny squeak

i'm not the bravest person
yet my opinions urge me to speak my mind
every blue moon i'll gather the courage
and my definition of brave is redefined

my voice may be small but when it rains it pours
my mouth grew wings and away it will soar
bringing me to heights i never knew
speaking is only worth it if the words are true

today my barbaric yawp will be heard
both in written and spoken word
i will not hide behind the veil of silence
silence may be golden but being loud is preferred
My trembling,
pimpled little
yawp

on its way over
the rooftops,

Was blown by a whim,
bounced off
a gable

and fell into
the backyard
of a preacher

It was spitted,
and brushed
and cooked to a turn

Then served up
with coleslaw
to a chortling
crowd of
the brethren

after a sermon,
of course,
and hymns
and grace

and a chorus
of heartfelt
amens
ERR  Jun 2011
105. Noble 6/25/11
ERR Jun 2011
Arthur Bellow was a mellow fellow who never asked for much
Only child to a land man and wife who worked the earth
Their self-sustaining ranch the heart of farm and winding wood
They raised their living stock under siege from thriving crops
A private clan, Mr. Bellow kept to his collection of books
His wife would weave, would also read, and would take their terrier for walks
Arthur tagged along, full of creative verve and eagerness
The river, forest, beasts and wind were friends; they often spoke
He attended local schooling but had trouble fitting in
The children who mocked him he envisioned as cold blooded lizards
His reptilian teacher reprimanded him for tutoring one on his test
Arthur left the building vowing never to return
Committed himself instead to the plow, *** and plant
Back breaking labor from morning ‘til day’s end
In rest he walked with mother finding faces in the bark
The creatures kept him company when family was insufficient
Under a sunrise hotter than most tragedy struck the patriarch
Trembling and perspiring he dropped weak to his knees
His life muscle ceased its beat as he saw his flash of past
Arthur came running when he heard the music stop
Mrs. Bellow came stoic and pale, speaking only with her feet
Ordered her son to dig a ditch as deep as strength allowed
And once complete she lay her husband down and joined him in his sleep
Arthur begged and pleaded but she made him fill the hole
He bathed his mother in dirt like she had washed him as a babe
Sealed the grave with tears and sprinkled seeds like she’d instructed
His dog licked calloused, blistered hands to show not all was lost
He dropped the shovel and tried to yell, but yawp came forth as song
Arthur never left the farm or tended fallow fields
He managed what he could but the task demanded aid
A solitary man enjoys his island with friends he doesn’t call
A lonely man, however has no company at all
He caught a shrew-like thief one day with eggs he planned to steal
Being the only other human, he let him share a meal
The suspicious shrew fled through the now-unfriendly wood of lizard eye
Where the rumor speaking, mad old hermit seeking came to spy
Arthur had discovered he was not alone at all
A crepuscular couple returned to parley when the sun would fall
He found them in the library, alerted by the loyal one
Whose growl turned kind when wraith he’d find were family reunited
They visited quite often to keep him company in twilight hour
To praise him for his learning and kindness that he showed
For in their absence he had lived in books to replace all trace of school
And the seeds in the central grave that Arthur raised began to grow
His parents, very pleased, shared their otherworldly plot
Arthur was to release his goodness and knowledge to the air
Although no rewards would come to him, intrinsic deed be done
The forest heart would be reclaimed, and rest would come for flesh
In the next noon Arthur freed all beasts and let them walk away
Release from domestication, the mighty horse dark in tone
Turned golden as it left him, gorgeous and majestic
The terrier was last to leave, sad though it understood
Once empty, Arthur doused the house and then the barn in oil
Shattered his lantern and transferred the flame until they were engulfed
The local fighters came and did their best to end the burning
But despite all efforts the library sublimated in a cloud
When every page was turned to smoke he called upon the rain
To cool the glowing remains and give his friends a final drink
The men brought Arthur to custody for witchcraft and for arson
He smiled for even as he left the ground had grown more green
Immediately put to unfair trial, opposition ready
It would seem that the town in full demanded his demise
Arthur chose to represent himself as he supposed all men will do in time
He recognized the witnesses whose accusations boomed
The reptile claimed he was dishonest and a cheater
The little lizard spies said instead reclusive necromancer
The suspicious shrew told tales of Arthur luring him for ******
The fighters full of fear said a conjurer of the elements
Without a chance in the eyes of men he was taken to a cell
Feeling quite betrayed by the many he’d wished well
Arthur thought of his parents and wondered why he was alone
They appeared to him once more, apparating in his cage
My son they said in unison, you have been misunderstood
And spent a lifetime serving others for no benefit of self
For this your friends are free and the forest muscle flexed and hard
As blossoming beacon; in death the noble feel no pain at all
Upon hearing misplaced song echoing through damp stone structure
A guard investigated, preparing to beat the troublemaker
He came upon Arthur’s cage confused, head cocked and jaw dropped
The door was locked, yet the man he came to punish was no more
Thomas Mackie Jan 2019
We stomp and we romp
with our filthy, bare feet
we jump and we bump
in the high summer heat.

Just skin, nails, and teeth
stop when we see blood
we are the ***** girls
rolling around in the mud.

We're queer, we drink beer
in the park in the dark
we yawp, twist, and shout
and we jeer and we bark.

We **** for the thrill
in the sweet with sweat season;
we say it's revenge,
but we don't need a reason.

Saturated plum flesh
bursting between jaws,
we are boundless, we are seeping,
we are love without laws.
Dear straight people,
It is a common believe that queers are docile, non-threatening, non- violent, and weak. That being queer is a choice to attract others. This is a poem to remind you that we are as natural as the sun, we are everywhere, and that we are not afraid to smash your brains in with a brick.
Sincerely,
Author
Kevin May 2017
fury, winds raged the treetops
threshing branches, approaching brush.
but from a distance, natural destruction,
looked like beauty in the forest.

and this was just a piece.
this is not the whole.

inhale, exhale,
increasing repetitions
repeat, repeat.
decrease and deepen.

pause in awe of the machine you're given
watch the forest faint, beatific ruin.

feel the fibers tear in effort
feel the area inside you swell
this is just a piece
this is not the whole.

process unto another day
with brighter light and seasoned winds
as repeated swells exhale an ending breath
gawk, inhale, hold, process, yawp; repeat.

understand this thing, know it truly
die through effort, repeat, repeat.

beaks with feathered wings swarmed in silence
Persephone cheers with distance, "defy their gravity"
here; pause; absorb the leaded revolution
weigh inside this mockery of death

"this is just a piece,
this is not the whole."

abandon seated distance, chase with fire
the unknown of the unfolding.
ravenously consume  the untouchable time
feed, inhale, pause, process, exhale, deepen

repeat, repeat;
endlessly repeat.
this is just a piece,
this is not the whole.
this was inspired by a sturdy wind, crashing into treetops of little distance, while riding on our local bike path. it was beautiful and sounded with weight. i had this thought, that every experience that could ever be had is only a piece of what life has to offer and, the lessons or observations tied to such an experience will only lead to a piece of knowledge, not the whole of knowing.
Nikki Paulin Dec 2013
I don't know you, but I feel you right from the get-go. You go about your routine that lassoed my heart into you, you who prance around the vastness of my dreamscape. I come to recognize your presence only in my sleep, at the very least that's what I know.

In that hazy, twisted world of subconscious shuffling, we find ourselves sitting cozily, face to face, at a table outside that rustic coffee shop. Honeyed words and laughters sprightly echo from that very spot where only a vase of freshly cut chrysanthemum sets two bodies and heat apart, longing.

Sometimes, we glorify sunsets at the shoreline. Sometimes, we sound our inane daredevil yawp at a cliff. Sometimes, we simply stargaze and draw across the skies Cassiopeia and Ursa Major.

We embrace the beauty of chaos we often find ourselves walking aimlessly along that busy thoroughfare before we head back home; normally we exchange random thoughts about school, my fascination with Rand's objectivist framework, your addiction to Cobain's craft and story, my weakness over falling in love too fast, your resilience and hope in times of defeat.

We are wired to each other in a special way, so special that it all has to be in lucid dreams. Feelings are intense. Kisses euthanize the butterflies. Midnight cuddles are soulful  calisthenics. Holding each other's hand  is infinite.

You present to me a self that is nurtured by its soul. I think I love you in my sleep. I feel happy with everything that goes with closing my eyes and letting dreams of the world I created creep into my consciousness. In such a realm I don't know you, but I feel you right from the get-go.

Do you see me in your sleep, too?
My advice to fellow geezers?
Just say **** it!
“Roll up to the magical mystery tour!”
Just like John & Yoko!
Smoke a big fat doobie each morning.
Step out the Hogan door, just greet
The East and walk in beauty.
After a few weeks you just won’t
Give a **** anymore; just not give a ****
In general, no longer care about what’s
Not important: The Guv’ment.
Politics. The rate of unemployment.
Inflation. Even radical, freaking
Muslim Jihadist TERROR!
Yes.  Just light up, Babaloo,
Do one’s bit for the Decline &
Fall (dropped you, didn’t I?)
Let’s mourn the dying ***** goddess.
America: that shining city on a hill,
Colombia in all her senility, insolvency &
Not even D or I, just Lusions of grandeur.
Let us contemplate the decrepitude,
The crumbling, up-in-smoke spiritual infrastructure,
The USA: the United ****'s-Creek of America,
Going down, down, down . . . ALERT!
NEWS FLASH! It’s Rome & Great Britain,
It’s the update, the demise of Empire all over again.
I remember those sorry-***, pathetic Brits,
Met them all over while hitchhiking around
Europe, an intensive, closely observed tour of duty
Abroad: a gift to myself, in fact a scholarship,
I rigged for myself back in the early ‘70s.
Going abroad: once a reserved right of passage for certain,
Privileged children of the 1890s, lucky spawn from
Families known as the “Well-to-do.” And why not add:
Dubbed the “Mauve Decade" because William Henry Perkin’s
Aniline dye allowed widespread use of that color in fashion.
The "Gay Nineties,” referring to a time not of buggery, but
Merriment & optimism, & lest we forget, Twain’s “Gilded Age.”
Got the time, spare a dime, got the freaking time-frame, Mack?
It was a dark & stormy total eclipse of Jupiter.
Spiritually speaking, I was free-floating.
And what of those same-self, sad-assed &
Sorry, pathetic Brits?
Well, consider the specific years.
Experience in Europe in my early 20s,
Meant 1972, 1973 & 1974.
Surely, a time for English disillusionment,
What with the sun finally setting,
A vague, prismatic twilight time,
A virtual requiem for His or Her Majesty’s Empire,
“Rule, Britannia ... Britannia rule the waves.”
(Cue ruffles & flourishes, fifes & flugelhorns)
This was pre-North Sea Oil Bonanza days.
This was England before Mrs. Thatcher
Gave her good people a long overdue,
Richly deserved kick in the tuchas.
“The Iron Lady” they called her.
Stopped Orwell’s future, doornail dead, she did.
“Maggie’s Miracle” they called it.

Those Brits I met & knew back then,
Those “Used-to-be-Contender” types:
Self-deprecatory, apologetic & cynical,
Mocking the Union Jack,
Shedding salty tears for Lost Empire.
“This blessed plot, this earth,
This realm, this England.”
Ironic & bitter to a man,
“Gulping gin & bitters later,” observes
Current tenant occupier, 221B Baker Street,
Sherlock finding the word at last,
The definitive literary term,
That one precise mot juste, that says it all.
In a word? Sardonic.
The USA is going down, down down—
“And away goes trouble down the drain!”

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That’s right: $KA-CHING$!
An ad right in the middle of a ******* poem!
Always the sensible poet, I kept my day job.
But now in my 60’s finally figuring out:
HOW TO MAKE POETRY PAY?
Bow down to Adam Smith & Ricardo—
Not the ‘Splaine me, Cuban bandleader
Of that surname, but David, the classical economist,
The “Iron Law of Wages” guy
It’s time to make money.
Call in the Madmen.
Send in the clowns.

Mad Men – AMC - AMC.com www.amc.com/shows/mad-men Official site for AMC's award-winning series Mad Men: Games, making-of videos, plus episode & character guides.

$KA-CHING$! $KA-CHING$!

And Dan Draper: an alcoholic, chain-smoking,
***** magnet & Korean War ****-up, shifty
Name-changer, last seen at that Big Sur ashram,
The Esalen Retreat & Jingle Inspiration Center,
**** Whitman coming clean, at last:
Hovering a foot off the ground
In the lotus position, receiving **** *** from a
Coke bottle incarnation of Vishnu.

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Money: FUNGIBLE GREEN.
$KA-CHING$!

Those once sardonic Brits,
Now have Brooklyn accents.
We’re going down the drain, Babaloo!
The barbarians are at the gates,
A horde of hunger, a ******* rabble,
Green-eyed monsters, envying America’s poor,
Craving what little Uncle Sam’s indigenous poor have left,
Ragtag migrants, short, dark compañeros,
Swarthy Huns & Visigoths,
Whitman's last yawp, the last gasp breath of
Work Ethos, be it Protestant or Papist,
A colossal mélange of famine, hope & prayer,
The usual suspects: “Your tired, your poor,
Your wretched refuse & solid waste,
Your huddled, yearning masses.”
My advice to Emma--Sephardic-Ashkenazi,
Proto-Zionist, years before Herzl:
Get yourself a nightclub act, Ms. Lazarus.

America: I am hidden in a high grass savannah,
I watch the hyenas pick your carcass clean.
Adam Smith: he displaced the term greed--
Smacking as it does of deadly sin baggage—
Replaced the term Greed with Self-Interest.
And the only invisible hand I know of is
Down my pants, jerking me off,
Mesmerized by slogans, divine metaphors, like:
“A rising tide lifts all boats,” a Big Lie, for example.
Today’s economists call it “The Multiplier Effect.”
You pay me and I pay him & he pays he or she,
Merry Goes Round, Goes Round & Round the Merry-Ground.
All is just so cool & groovy,
Life is just a copacetic bowl of copacetic until
Some self-interested ****-*** decides to export
Your ******* job right out of the country:
Casus belli? Most certainly. Class warfare,
Always our hitherto history.
It’s not like that fat slob Michael Moore never warned us.

**Roger & Me (1989) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0098213/ Internet Movie Database  Rating: 7.5/10 - ‎22,470 votes Director Michael Moore pursues GM CEO Roger Smith to confront him about the harm ... Roger & Me -- Michael Moore's controversial but popular film is a highly ... Plot Summary - ‎Quotes - ‎Trivia - ‎Awards
I speak of fear, sheer limbic,
Reptilian fear, and there’s the rub:
Obliterate thought and all that’s left is fear,
And fear’s known associates & cronies:
Hunger, Thirst, *** & everything else
Triggering our amygdale nether brains,
Each synapse a single primal scream,
Rich Reichian fodder and sacrificial yawp,
Whitman’s bleating syllable, straight bedrock,
Down low on the Hierarchy of Human Needs.
Abraham Maslow: another shrewd Jew from
Brooklyn, New York. Atta boy Abe:
Adrenaline pure and simple,
An instinct for survival.
I suppose my only regret in life,
Was that I was not old enough to be
A victim of the Holocaust.
I mean nothing facetious or disrespectful by this.
(Like Jesus, I was born a Jew.)
All I mean is that a stint at Auschwitz or
Bergen-Belsen, might have done wonders for me,
Saving me much time, given the number of books
I’ve read on the subject, just trying to get my heart &
Mind around the throat of evil.
My story is truth, not science fiction.
Yet, I confess to having some difficulty
Discerning the difference lately.
Perhaps this is why my mind wanders.
That’s probably what I love best about Stanley Kubrick—
Another insightful New York Jew.
His vision of space, namely the shrewd perception,
That after 5,000 years of recorded human history,
It was going to be difficult.
It would be a challenging enterprise,
Noodging the human race to choose,
A more cerebral path;
A state of mind & brilliant grace,
Embrace a kinder, fearless self and future.
Kubrick understood he must first take us to Odulvai,
Our primal anthropological killing fields,
Then he could transport us to outer space.
Only then, could we evolve,
Adapt to cooperation and tolerance,
Shift our future focus,
Our natural and spiritual resources,
Our potential.
Collaboration not competition.
2001: A Space Odyssey: released
A year before the Apollo program
Put a man on the moon, five years
Before the space station Skylab.
Kubrick’s gift to mankind was a clear new perspective:
Man in space looking back at a very small holistic Earth,
And an infant self, both diminished,
Made insignificant in a vast cosmic context.
Other forces were at work, of course,
Lying in wait as always, global forces
Co-opting the vision, drowning it in an old
Unabashedly mercantile reality.
That Darwinian old world order,
Again, reducing human existence
To an economic absurdity.
Globalism: the scariest Bond villain yet.
Xander  Jun 2017
A Barbaric Yawp
Xander Jun 2017
Snow is not supposed to be blue.
But it is. Tangled
in her locks so blue that the seas become envious.
The hair of the girl I thought I loved when I
thought I knew what love is.
But I don’t think that anyone knows what love is. We
hope and pray that the phrases that we string together with
flowers and promises can represent this idea that we
dream
about grasping in our trembling fingers since the day we came into this world
kicking and screaming.
We’ve been trying to figure out how to feel love and tackling the freezing fear of,
“What if I never find it?”
As if love is inside the treasure chest buried beneath the world,
Accessible to those who can find the map and find the spot marked with an X.

X is such an ugly sound.

It’s the sound of listening to her argue with her ex-boyfriend about their ex-relationship
And about the ex-problems that they had in their past ex-together and
it’s listening to her slamming the door to her bedroom in a tantrum because
sometimes love is not enough.
But if love is not enough, what is?
And what about love is not enough and can it be fixed and
mended like your mother kissing your knee after you fell outside
playing tag
with the neighbor girl with hair so blue
you swear that the gods made it from a summer sky itself?
If we are too young to understand love at thirteen when
your crush kisses you in the darkened gymnasium at the middle school dance then
how can we know that love is what we feel at six years old for the
fathers when they play hide-and-seek in the yard with us and
know that there is an absence of love for the
mothers that turn us aside and build fences between us
are those fences there to keep me out or to keep her and her anger in?
So, logically, if we don’t know love at six or thirteen then
when do we learn what love can be and how do we learn what love is?
Is it trial and error where we have to wait for “the one”
or is it just a guessing game, a gamble, and
hope that the person that you have so many
similar interests and hobbies and passions and beliefs and feelings with is
a person that you are in love with?
So do I love the girl beside me
sprawled out in the morning snow?
With hair so blue that the seas become envious?
No.
After all, how can I?
I don’t even know what love is.
From someone who is still hurting
Tommy Johnson  Mar 2014
Hogwash
Tommy Johnson Mar 2014
They swoon on behalf of the exalted one
Brandishing the sword of the spirit
Deliberately making a racket
Tremolo picking

******* on the man’s marrow
Sitting on a pick nick blanket
Kicking up new ground
You sure have a knack

This is the taste of terror
Remember what you have learned
For now, for when?  Forever
Leave no stone unturned
Just wait your turn

A blind recommended private eye
Take into deep consideration
Deliver me from the life of a lemming
Diving off a cliff into a cesspool

Daunted, left helpless in the courtyard
Belated birthday gifts given so thoughtlessly
Nonchalant sarcasm afterward
They shall not speak henceforth

These are the days of madness
The sanity you’ll lose
The colorblind in glasses
Receiving Rubix Cubes
Tell me what’s the use?

Running across the T-ball field
Frightening a legion of geese
A teenage thrill only to realize
My shoes were covered in stool

The banshee so aerodynamic
Its yawp makes my head split
Calling collect just to say
Your virility is too impressionable

We were the living theater
From which your inspiration derived
The kettles of fish and cans of worms we opened
That we cannot deny
We will not lie

We are dead
From the neck up
From the neck up
From the neck up

— The End —