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Dark n Beautiful Mar 2014
Dispassionate Objectivity #2
The helicopter hovers over the neighborhood
I listened to the hiss of the radiator. Often I'd
awaken in the wee hours, somehow this morning
evokes a mother's greatest fear: and deepest pain
about burying her only child.
~~~~~~~~~2
Only God know what happen to flight three seventy
Have it been stolen?
Once again it crowd in the skies
Somehow, as years goes by it seem to
more dangerous than football grounds
So many question, but not enough answers
~~3
Unfortunately, only God know what lurks in the hearts
Of reckless people
Ones can only say, so many times
“Look what they gone and do”
~~~4
  Your Home, your sanctuary
your comfort zone
However, when you are blown to smithereens
From a building gas explosion
useless tears , silent prayers
Dark n Beautiful Aug 2013
The snow blanket the earth
but it would never covers the ocean
It became a curse of the sea
So, it stays on the beach
Like a dog on a leash
11
To hell with the night
It’s just darkness over- powering the daylight
When men are force to close their eyes
And dream of the events of the passing day.

111
Liars who called themselves lovers
Will never come clean
It’s a permanent tattoo
Concocted in their brain
The road to recovery for them is
Systematic and strategic process
For them it is a hunter’s game

1V
You have taken everything in one’s strides
The time sheets, the lunch hours
You have become the employer
Twelve hours prisoners of the time clocks
V
Last night I heard Nana voice
She said that I worry too much
And get little sleep
I smell hibiscus in my room
That old familiar fragrance scent still lingers

But her words became self-soothing
She said, let’s go to the kitchen
And make a banana bread
Worries is for the rich man

VI

The poor man display his graffiti on cities buildings
no admission, no fee
priceless art crimes or
the best of a simple criminal mind

High art or low art
Eyes of a rich man
Or the eyes of a fool
Wk kortas Mar 2018
Know this—I am well acquainted with the wolf,
Well versed in his ways, his demeanor,
His dispassionate relentlessness,
His pitiless focus on hunt and hunted,
His workaday disdain of pity.
There are those who would laud the mythical Spartan lad
Who hid the wolf beneath his cloak,
Affecting some gallant stoicism
As the beast consumed him without restraint,
But I say to you that is a mere romantic fallacy,
A wanton failure to apprehend the true moral.
I have learned that there is no accommodation,
No covenant to be reached with the wolf,
And any attempt to do so is merely to invite destruction,
And so I choose to engage him openly, without reservation,
Rolling tail-over-teacup in the streets,
Attempting to hold his jaws open with bare hands
While those who find such battle unseemly and uncouth
Jeer and hoot from porch and portico.
No matter, for I will continue to meet the cur on my terms,
For staid suffering in the hopes
Of reaching some accord with the beast
Is the not the act of the noble sage:
It is the mock heroics of the coward,
The sad acquiescence of the simpering fool.
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2014
The Sounding Foam of Primal Things

*(The title and the poem, taken from and inspired by
Carl Sandburg's "Who Am I?")


wind and rain pound the surf.
snow falls on the beach, on the shore.
man-observer cannot tell:
has the earth gone mad, all wet?
do the seas rise, whipped up, filling the heavens,
or does the white rain replenishes the very body,
from whence it came, and now returns?

this matters greatly, yet nothing answers this, his question.

the furious soundings, the green foam churn,
the silence of no response inebriates,
drunk on the tempest's hard wet liquor,
weighed down, sodden with the despair,
solitude, silence, absent answers,
his natural walking companions!

No Stopping signs on almost every corner,
Do Not Pass, Do Not Enter,
One Way, Two Way, No Thru Passage,
but the one sign he seeks,
"Stay On The Path" absent.

Eluded,
dispassionate endings,
the essential quietude among
furious surround-sounds of creative destruction
he ceases to ask, for unanswered, undirected.

Concluded,
either
their is no one listening, or,
there is no one caring, or,

Deluded,
illusion is truth,
he is an illusion.

------------------
Who Am I?
By Carl Sandburg

My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of
     universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I
     reach my hands and play with pebbles of
     destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs
     reading "Keep Off."

My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive
     in the universe.
Tammy M Darby Feb 2017
Rest your weary body
Drink from my golden goblet
The most delicate and finest of wines
A potion of wild raspberries, bitterness and jeering contempt
Assault the light that dare not shine

It is the elixir of a dispassionate heart
If you possess no fear
Taste the confectionery of sadness call
Where love frightened evades approach
Upon remembrance of the long dark fall

Sip from the golden goblet
Taste the cruel sweetness of pain
Damnation to those who denounce the motive behind the actions
Until the bed of anguish you have lain

But these rare wines have no equal in quality
Defiled by evil and cursed with shame
The unquenchable thirst for blood taints the golden rim
As the murderous night slew the rising of the day

So lift high the golden goblet and drink  
An immortal taste of time
Accompany me into the world of melancholy
Where is served the most of exquisite wines
Come close now the hour when words become whispers
Demanding recompense for the crimes.

All Rights Reserved @ Tammy M. Darby Feb. 8. 2017
Written for the Monster
Craig Verlin  Aug 2013
Quick Fix
Craig Verlin Aug 2013
Having *** in
a car is the most
dispassionate
of locations.
You drive up late,
wait on the curb
for her to sneak
out past her
overprotective and
well intentioned parents.
She gets in,
keep the music high
and the voices low,
any conversation at
this point is
simply to break
the slight awkwardness
of what you both know
is about to happen.

Park in a
shady lot
with no light posts.
You can see an
elementary school
down the street,
buses and pick up lanes,
in a few hours they
will scamper around
like rats
but tonight there
are no witnesses.
Tonight there is nothing
but the back seat
you climbed into,
music still loud enough
to dissuade
any personalization
of the situation.
It is ***** and cheap.
--a personal
preference--
She is nothing but a
quick fix.
She gets on top,
moans a little
as you slide in.
The seatbelt buckle
digs deep into your
back,
but you don't mind it,
this wasn't meant
to be comfortable.

You just want this over with.
She looks at you
and smiles,
you look away.
All of this
is shameful,
but a necessary evil.
There is a decadent
beauty
that surrounds the
cheapest and
rawest of pleasures,
that glory in the gutter.

*** in a car is the most
dispassionate of locations.
You drop her back off,
don't stick around to see her
caught by her
waiting father.
Her shirt is on wrong
and her hair is ******.
Not your problem.
You head home,
keeping the music up,
thinking about anything else.
You don't even know
who she is,
just some quick fix,
just another wednesday night.

You try to believe that
it is better that way.
Eric Dec 2013
Today someone laryngospasmed and dropped to 65%
Before I opened their airway
Last week, same thing, except 55%

I’m finding myself increasingly dispassionate and unconcerned during these episodes
Externally it would appear
I’m skating by
Skin of my teeth
Brushing off increased agitation by the OR staff
Watching the patient’s life bouncing on the roulette wheel as I tilt the table
........Come on red ................

But it’s not like that. I have a plan. Always a backup. Tertiary options.
A, B,C, and [God forbid] D.
So far, C and beyond is unknown territory.
I’m concerned with my confidence. Too much?
Alyanne Cooper Jun 2014
If your muggy-grubby hands
Even rise to slap me again
I swear I'll chop them off with my axe.

If your fangly-boniony feet
Get within kicking distance of me,
I swear I'll tear your legs from your hips
And then admire my workmanship.

If your mangy-crazy mind
Tries to infiltrate mine
To deposit some lie
That would change the perception
Of me, myself, and i,
I swear I'll grab a spoon
And scrape, scrape, scrape
Out your brain.

If your hoity-toity attitude
Tries to usurp my solitude
To make me someone I'm not
I swear I'll be completely dispassionate
As I wipe your every iota from this
Particulate Universe.

If I so much as hear you breathe,
I swear I will squeeze
Every
Drop
Of
Air
Left in your lungs.

You think this is too violent even for me?
You'd better believe
I've been pushed to the edge
Of all logical reason
By your every act of treason
And I won't hesitate to
Incapacitate,
Excommunicate
Eradicate,
You from my life.

You'd better beware.
I'm angry and all this I'll do.
I swear.
Who was the person in  Colonel Muammar Gaddafi
Was he a deadly Libyan tyrant as the west put
and dictator as the Western media and press
oftenly portrayed him  , here and there
as power voracios bent on assuming the leadership
of the Arab world and super sahara socialite
in the stamapede  of Gamal Abdul Nasser?
That Gaddafi was a driven and desperate man,
what a cruxificative tribe  of  question,

he gloriusly deposed King Idris
from the then rotting  Libyan throne,
President Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia
omenously  warned him that he had to stretch
  miles and whatever to go before he could claim,
to be un fettered  successor to Nasser's sceptre,


Gaddafi was a wildly and spotlessly  popular
among the Libyan masses,the earth's wretched,  
and even those in the rest of the revolutionary  world,
till the eyesore of his brutal ******,
  the tragics and haunting episodes,
of his life points clearly to the   truth of  truth:
  Gaddafi was a reasonless  hunted man
they way bin Laden was labbelled to be hunted,
for so he was a hunted man.

Gaddafi never had the time or the leisure
to do anything but run, but run and run
as an escape to hell, a clear testament
in his classical poetic, quilled properly
behind the dunes of the sahara desert,
His parting shots were true essence
of his compassion and generosity  to humanity,
a humongous  gift of a soccer stadium to Pakistan,
a plan to gift thousands of computers and laptops
to schoolchildren in  idyllic poor African countries,
and dollops of oil aid to poor Arab countries.

were these not totally dispassionate acts
For the Colonel was trying to build a support ,
and network throughout the  revolutionary world
because he was actively tracked and pursued
by the English and French dogs of ******,
tacitly supported by the United States.

The Western powers were committed to teeth,
to removing Gaddafi from his genuine power
lest he prove troublesome to currents of avarice
in furthering their interests in the oil imperialism,
for his daring rhetoric and outlandish capers
were sharp pedagogies to the oppressed.

western powers moaned and yelled doggishily,
for cheap Libyan oil well and item markets,
for  construction and drilling projects,
English and French origin companies
as well as American multinationals,
moaned daily  like female hyenas
when they  stood to lose  monetary gain,
if  Gaddafi remained entrenched in holy life
and  in power as the arbiter of Libya's destiny.

but that indeed was the holy  mandate
he had from the Libyan masses of peasants
even though it was imperially  questioned
by those of his cowardly enemies
moving in tandem  with cosmetics
of capitalism and burgeosie  development.

Gaddafi ****** the French presence in Chad,
as he did roundly criticize the United States
over its foreign policy of Bullish syndrome,
as he gloriously  shielded  the two Libyans
who were  accused without forgiveness
of plotting  and carrying out vietnam like bombing
of an American passenger jet over Lockerbie
in Scotland that led to Kissinger like  killings,
of hundreds of innocent civilians like in Vietnam.

History is yet to absolve Gaddaffi,
to glorify the dreamer with poetry in his eyes
who composed escape to hell in a desertly week,
exculpating him off false accussations,
of committing a crime of such magnitude,
good consicence must question the role of Jews.

It was only the status and stature
of Nelson Mandela as  a fellow comrade,
that managed to implore  the Colonel
to hand over the two accused Libyans
to the International Court of Justice
to face trial or even forgiveness,
The whole sordid drama of the Lockerbie bombing
is an enigma wrapped in mystery, jewish tricks center stage,
Sooner or later, posterity will  absolve out
with the truth and  save Gaddafi's name
and honor as leader of  the voiceless.

President Ronald Reagan did not even wait a little
before he launched those deadly missile strikes
against Libya,  against Gaddafi's private quarters,
to **** Gaddaffi's beggotten  daughter.

Was this not a base and cowardly
act unworthy of America and its great traditions,
Gaddafi, like Saddam, was a victim of labbelling
by  Western media who had painted his character
with satanic evil and malice , as if evil is alien to them,
even when there was no genuine evidence
to justify such a heinous depiction
  Gaddafi was seen to act irrationally,
was supposed to have mental delusions
why not  being mentally unstable!

Gaddafi's antics inspired acts of conscience
and a genuine and fitting response to a life
lived under mortal fear and terror  of terror
the fear of being tracked and hunted down
by Western agents who were out to eliminate him
with full backing from their governments.

Gaddafi, like Saddam  was not a criminal
although all sorts of demonic tendencies
were attributed to both leaders by the Western press,
All sorts of media scoops were ceaslessly  hatched
and all kinds of media blitzes  were  mercilesly launched
to create Muslim helots who overthrew Gaddafi,
and pursued him in armored cars and trucks
to his hometown Sirte deep in the Libyan Desert,
That he was killed with such horrible cruelty
with bayonets and gunshots,
pumped into his royal  head
such  is evidence that his assailants,
were  not  true Muslims whatsoever !

These enemies were petty paid murderers
and butchers who after the dastardly act,
proudly displayed Gaddafi's body
in a meat shop kept open for public viewing,
By committing these very desecrations
Gaddafi's foes had unwittingly revealed
their true un-Islamic and butcherous natures .

And what were Gaddafi's last pearlish words
to his assailants when he lay writhing in pain of death
on the ground unable to move because of the mayhems
of his injuries and wounds: WHAT DID I DO TO YOU?
Gaddafi had died like a Muslim Christ
on the American  cross with no words of abuse
or blame for his enemies, as they knew not
whatever the folly the were executing.

History will have to wait for generations
before another soldier and such a  leader
of Qaddafi's ilk and human  mettle surfaces
again  in the poor man's  world
to bravely  taunt the West
for its imperial perfidy and cowardice.
Whisperings of a morbid night foretell
Of a humble visitor that the velvet shall grace
Hope sears through the indolent air
Mutterings of a sweet dream it lays.

And its wispy arms, it spreads
Turned crystal white with its eternal age
With clandestine diligency it works around
A heavenly glow kindling from its face

It leaps across with its companion
On amethyst streams, through its sprays
The curved drops of life falling with a time-less reflection
Vivifying the wind in the boundless chase

And it blankets the forests in its spell
It plummets meticulously into the dark
Veering down the crevices unwelcome
Effacing the veneer of darkness, on a journey it embarks

It's gentle in its temperament
But of sturdy shoulders it boasts
With an unfaltering expression it entails
With a vivacious drive, all, it endures

Somewhere across a strewn landscape
An irrational vindictiveness comes to work
A carpet of bullets laid across
Sprays the emblazoning red across in its mirth

Fulfilling a painter's dream
The lewd red glistens on the grass
A town awakened to a carnage of dreams
The stars flicker, frightened, the night they grasp

And a clarion mingled with the mud beside
A crestfallen spectacle it boasts
This verbose only euphemising the sight
Knitting the strands of malice, the blood flows

Cries of agony and pain resound through the stench
Corpses of infants clinching their mother's
And the face of a young girl clinging to a pole
Whimpering at the face, numbness inside, it bursts

And this despondent night, the visitor visits
Sweeps across the blown landscape, dispassionate
Stops beside the girl and in its soothing elegy
Tells tales of the battles of happiness lost in time's chase

And Hope, it lingers on
With ardent belief and patience to reap
And the girl weeping with blank, black eyes
The memories that shall never be cast, the mother she shall never see

The young ones of a bird remain
Stranded in their nest, their stomachs inviting
Squeaking and gnawing with their tiny beaks
Oblivious, their mother shall never appear, suffice in this cold, biting

A mother in a furtive torment
Fruits of whose shall have been sweet
A life that may have spawned, laughing with clenched fists
Unknowing, what the vicissitudes shall entail, what fate it shall meet

A boy with a kite in his hand
And a euphoric smile on his face
With dreams of racing with the wind
And mists of clouds that he shall chase

Hope casts an omnipresent shadow, moves along
With a passive effect binding them all together
Harbringing life, sweeps off the tears
Lifts them up to the zenith in its calm, dependent clutches

Kingdoms fall and statues wither away
The tide of time takes its toll on all, in the unduelled race
But Hope suffices, clings on to the little crevices
Gives little flocks of dreams for the girl to chase
we gathered in a lighted tower
of a lower Manhattan promontory
seminarians listen
to discursive ramblings
of bank industry experts
on the finer points of
Basel II
Tier Three
op risk

towards a better better
best practice
we pique our ears to hear
the critical
dispassionate annunciations
of expert expertise

a panel of practitioners
a panoply of knowledge
networking opportunities
and hands on insight
we are granted
institutional affirmation
nesting warmly
in a corporate cocoon
13 flights up
off West Street
10 bucks a seat
30 for non-members

we settle
in soulless white rooms
divided by long
horizontal wall panels
bleached of all humanity
visualizing phantasmagoric vistas
of changing regulatory landscapes
in strait backed chairs
resembling the blanco armor acrylics
of Imperial Stormtroopers

on watch for Black Swans
the panel's moderator incants
if one appears
we told you so
if one fails to materialize
risk managers
have earned their dear keep
seminarians chuckle

the dais backdrop
a massive SONY plasma screen
stares down seminarians
with ruminative bleakness.
no digital blips or power points
will convey any meaning
turn a clever phrase
sprout a statistic
paint a pretty picture,
just the plain spoken word
of highly credentialed
speakers with bios
many paragraphs long
confers license to speak

the screens blackness
a perfect counter point
to a rooms spare whiteness
and pedestrian furbishment
save a day glow Warhol Print
of the heroic MTV moon walker
and a predominant majority
of Far Eastern attendees

questions from the floor
drizzle the panel
tied tongues
use tight selective language
of lexiconic colloquialisms
speaking a queer vernacular
of erudite bombastic bunk

questions are mumbled
with increasingly greater acuity
dancing around bank meltdowns
and global economic catastrophes
with a self anointed smug absolution
and poignant failure to acknowledge
a failures paternity
pink elephants and 800 pound gorillas
remain dance hall wallflowers


to be sure language evolves
the moderator instructs
as regulatory guidelines converge
to address market flux.
Is everyone comfortable with
the current acronyms
we devised
to describe our
present situation
best laid plans
and timely initiatives
to safeguard capital adequacy
and institutional solvency
right here in our own
little tower of Babel?

My tie is too tight
to clear my throat
I can't ask my question
of apples to apples
dust to dust
and oranges to tangerines
while the halting speech of others
is broken up
by timely ring tones
from Jeopardy
and Gene Autry's
Don't Fence Me In

every once in awhile
a chuckle is raised
we laugh about the score
in this inside baseball game
of capital requirements
regulatory Nexis
and smart *** traders
plying bold arbitrage strategies
blowing us back to Basel I
after the global bank implosion
oh the hilarity
of credit crises and crashes
the jokes on us
the joke-sters R US

some begin to
urgently finger blackberries
sending confident commands
to be dutifully carried out
by young back office minions
impatiently waiting
hanging on every word
of unintelligible texts
eagerly biding time
to take
the solid senders warm seat
in these cold blanched rooms

Closing the seminar
the moderator's summation
offered the thought
that her fondest hope remains
scenario analysis,
stress testing
and the new
emerging paradigms
will become
embedded in
risk management
best practices
and that fewer regulators
will be needed to regulate
and we will continue
to be employed
(nervous chuckles)
clapping
reception for networking
to follow
questions
and
cocktails
in the next room

I move quickly
to fill my plate with brie
English tea crackers
and a smoky tangy cheese.
A fellow seminarian
approaches me.
He smiles and asks,
Whats your name?
What do you do?
I tell him
and ask the same.
He says he is 50
and unemployed.
He sounds unsure
and frightened.
I bite into a chunk
of exotic cheese.
******* crumbs fall
onto the lapel
of my freshly pressed
pinstripe suit.

Music Selection:
Miles Davis
Red China Blues

jbm
NYC
03/03/09
Alice Lovey Jul 2018
Or do I already know?
I naively nourish these fervid feelings I hold.
Moving slowly, in rhythm, matching your sway,
Questionless is my admiration in every way.
Ardently I coast on the energy waves
Of your passions
And dispassionate despondency.
Waste the day together watching good TV;
It's not wasted if it's with you.
The never-ending riddle of learning how to love,
And learning how to love the one you love,
The one you think most of.
The unfaltering encouragement of success,
Filling in the blanks so the other won't stress.
I'll sweep the floors when you can't anymore,
Get us through the boring chores
Of every day life.
Those mundane motions for the future--
So much more to look forward to
With the addition of you.
Voices soften with the intimacy of quieter talk...
And the sensuality of our skin.
The carelessness and the giving in.
The tears shed, yours and mine,
Shared as "tiny dots on an endless timeline."
The subtleties of selflessness,
The subtleties of trying to change.
The obsession over mistakes,
Anxiety that keeps me awake.
Heated fights and
The addictive rush when we make up.
The selfishness, greed and possessiveness build up.
I am broken,
Or I act as if I am so.
I am broken, but there are sunflowers I wish to grow
In the broken *** within you
So that you may feel a little less broken too.
If this is love, I wish someone could tell me.
If this is love, why must it be so delicate,
Yet so assiduously enduring?
Continuous forgiveness
And the things we let each other get away with;
The "knowing better"s.
All those firsts, all those places that were meant to be with you.
Everything I would do
To make you smile.
How naturally I could laugh and feel at ease,
How naturally you brightened a smile on me.
How naturally, despite, we could become so miserable.
How naturally, despite, I could love so unconditional.
The wanting to just feel you there
Till we were unaware of our despair.
The frankness and the fall of our walls.

The letting go.
The folding up my heart and putting it away
When I can accept
It's not yet
To be worn by you.
"Shared dots on an endless timeline" borrowed from a song by La Dispute, called "Woman (in mirror)"

“White”

Letting myself feel, at least for today.

— The End —