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A B Perales Aug 2014
Sleepless nights
when I've
laid in
the thick darkness
listening to the
sirens scream
throughout
the city.

Drawn out sleepless
nights ,
nights that I spent
conjuring up
images of better
times.

Sleep deprived
lonely nights,
nights  I spent
counting
someone else's
legless sheep.

Nights I spent
wasting hours
by thinking of
nothing but
the past.
Wilfred Owen  Mar 2010
Disabled
He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
Voices of play and pleasure after day,
Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.

About this time Town used to swing so gay
When glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees,
And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim, -
In the old times, before he threw away his knees.
Now he will never feel again how slim
Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands;
All of them touch him like some queer disease.

There was an artist silly for his face,
For it was younger than his youth, last year.
Now, he is old; his back will never brace;
He's lost his colour very far from here,
Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,
And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race
And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.

One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg,
After the matches, carried shoulder-high.
It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,
He thought he'd better join. - He wonders why.
Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts,
That's why; and may be, too, to please his Meg;
Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts
He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;
Smiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years.
Germans he scarcely thought of; all their guilt,
And Austria's, did not move him. And no fears
Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts
For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;
And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;
Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.
And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.

Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.
Only a solemn man who brought him fruits
Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.

Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes,
And do what things the rules consider wise,
And take whatever pity they may dole.
To-night he noticed how the women's eyes
Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.
How cold and late it is! Why don't they come
And put him into bed? Why don't they come?
(C) Wilfred Owen
Gemini pen  Jun 2020
A Duet
Gemini pen Jun 2020
THEME:  INJUSTICE
A Duet by:
Hassan B. Hassan(Mr Sophy)
Opeyemi Fuad (Gemini)
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

An unsung warrior I am
One that serve his homeland
Now left to wallow in shame
Betrayed,  with no treacle -
To my broken esteem
What an injustice!!
👈Gemini👉

We doff our hat to them
Rubbing and cleaning it with their hands
We attain them the power
But they all create new edition
No to injustice!!!
👈Mr sophy👉

Preserve the nation's flag
Yet,  thrown into cell
Never to see the sun rise
merry-ing with Legless rats
An unproved innocence
Government's injustice
👈Gemini👉

The baby cry out when put to bed
The dog cry out when given birth to
But we all cry out when the molecule changed
But no reaction took place
Why?
Let Justice reign!
👈Mr sophy👉

I thumbed down,  on the papers
Still,  my worth doesn't count
I served the government
With my heart and soul on the platter
Staked to uphold their stand
But wronged,  injustice!!
👈Gemini👉

We put down our lives to save theirs
Yet they flow us with their power
Oh!what an injustice
fox government  with fox Power
Justice reign!!!
👈Mr sophy👉

Thou did nothing
Than bruise our humanity
And rub it on our fresh wound,
With pepper of your injustice
Oh,  an insolence!!
Despite our sacred deeds
👈Gemini👉

Indigent we are today
richer we are tomorrow
They are to keep the flag flying
Yet they make the flag vapid
No to injustice!
No to fox government
Justice we want!!
👈Mr sophy👉

©Pen of a true Gemini ™
©Mr Sophy ™
you haven't lived
until you've been in a
flophouse
with nothing but one
light bulb
and 56 men
squeezed together
on cots
with everybody
snoring
at once
and some of those
snores
so
deep and
gross and
unbelievable-
dark
snotty
gross
subhuman
wheezings
from hell
itself.
your mind
almost breaks
under those
death-like
sounds
and the
intermingling
odors:
hard
unwashed socks
****** and
*******
underwear
and over it all
slowly circulating
air
much like that
emanating from
uncovered
garbage
cans.
and those
bodies
in the dark
fat and
thin
and
bent
some
legless
armless
some
mindless
and worst of
all:
the total
absence of
hope
it shrouds
them
covers them
totally.
it's not
bearable.
you get
up
go out
walk the
streets
up and
down
sidewalks
past buildings
around the
corner
and back
up
the same
street
thinking
those men
were all
children
once
what has happened
to
them?
and what has
happened
to
me?
it's dark
and cold
out
here.
kfaye Dec 2012
the front door open.
the dogs not barking,
slapping some wet skinned faces in front of everyone,
wishing i was a broken bottle
or something.
there's want of a forest in my yard
-the whole world softing out:
action dust; to the girl that screams:
there's no such thing as sinners, there's no such thing as love, there's just people and what people do,
whole forests of paper feel your words.
           sincerely,
                            we're all just crazy.
sweet dharma dewdrops fell off the tongue of the clean-cut kid.
he had soapy teeth and no shame to speak of
and when he spoke to us, his fingers glowed
because.
did you think that words could do more than arms-
and that anything else alone could do more for you than a full bodied embrace.
and
i looked at the rose you had buttoned on your blouse and i tore it off and dashed it upon the ground
because of
the mist
and the yellow billboard
lit up softly like a wheatfield
and frost was setting onto the long blades of crisply dying vegetation.
and there is the matter of those ghosts in the parkinglot
unaware of the cars that skid by full of people, all with capacities to know and be known-
sometimes i wish i could tell them
that it's okay to reach out with soft red fingers, wet from running water, warm from hot running water rinsed
over our hands to bleed out the chill that leaches into our too-thin fingers on cold nights such as this.
meanwhile-whole forests of bright white paper
i think that if i ever found you,
it would be walking on a road next to blueberry blossoms-and close, dry
thicket branches that crunch swiftly sometimes-and slowly, others- behind our heels
and hands shaped like mantras gesturing towards us from trees- telling us to go this way, and that,
welcoming us with their imperfect notions of morality and telling us that everything was going to be.
light a match on the bathroom window,
take one step closer to breathe in the bad-handwriting of the graceless morning. put one foot forward on the floor-
one hand on your temple.
only time will tell
if this is hell or just a special hell for me and you
choke me in the white-noise drone
of the shower.
push against the vitalities of my neck-
offer your hands around my faltering voice.
tell me about the pharaoh.
and the legless learners of passion.
tell me that you need to fall forward onto your face just to remind yourself that you're alive.
drum against my chest imperfectly with your
fingertips.
the unskillfully applied paint on your nails already chipping off- (you do this thing with your thumb and
forefinger as a nervous habit and always ruin them.)

the sun come

i trace over my neck with cartridge-blade razors
-rip away the stubble like peeling off snakeskin shadows.
snow falls
dusting my eyes with the harpsichord sounds of porcelain.

there is no longer bitterness nor sorrow.
Miss Clofullia Aug 2018
we're gonna die at some point
and all that we're gonna leave behind us is a bunch of
bad reviews and 2 star ratings
for restaurants that didn't treat us right,
for uber drivers that were too quiet or too loud,
and airline companies that were responsible for 16 long hours
in an airport with too much light and no air.

the day will come and none of us will be ready,
even though some might lie about it, with a cold smile on their face.
there will be no bargaining then,
all the money in the world will be as useless as a pair of flip-flops to a legless person.
for sure, we'll regret using the expression "no regrets!" too often,
instead of accepting our vulnerabilities and our imperfections.

we're gonna die seeing our mother's smile
and hearing our father laughter,
from the day we were born.
just like then, we won't know for sure whether
this is the beginning or the end
whether we are leaving a world or coming into another.

we're gonna hope to use our last breath for something memorable,
something that won't make us not get a good death's sleep,
keeping us awake in a homemade YouTube video.
we're gonna wish that someone finds all of our passwords
and breaks into our emails and social media accounts to realize that
we were geniuses, or something like that and we're gonna look forward
to not being successful and
not seeing anyone cry over something that we said while we were drunk or, worse..

there's nothing more annoying than a come-back to an argument
that comes too late,
the one great idea that could shut down anyone if it would appear in the middle of a fight,
and not afterwards. always afterwards.
when the quarrel initiators are already tucked up in bed, covered in wet dreams and solitude.
nothing for you to do. no hour is decent enough for you to call them in the middle of the night,
shouting your retort, then hanging up the phone and laughing like a crazy person.
that's how after-death must feel like.
a smart answer that comes too late and that no one gets to hear.

our bodies start dying from the day we are born,
little by little,
small chunks of tissue getting rid of our existence,
making us less appealing, less ripe.
our bodies become dumber and dumber every day and start
throwing emotional **** everywhere, hoping to make others mad,
and not care as much about us, near the end.
in a way, it's a form of protection.

we're gonna live through other people's deaths,
we're gonna be "survivors" and "carriers of their memory"
we're gonna try and appear strong for their closest ones,
even though we will forever be broken on the inside after they
become cool, underground.

as we grow older, we believe that death is more about us than the one leaving.
It's possible that we didn't even get to meet him personally,
but he "left a great impression on us", from his real friends' stories.
it's possible that we randomly cross paths with a funeral cortege of some unlucky stranger
and we would still believe that it's about us.
every time we stumble upon it from an observer's point of view, we cannot stop
thinking that it could have been us in that box,
forceless, incapable of protesting against the tie
or the flowers that we are/were so allergic to.
we get lost in our mind, near the coffin and our eyes start to glow
and lose liquid.
every time someone dies, it's always about us. at least, for a couple of seconds or days.

when we die, or are about to die, we find out that death is not at all about us.
it's about those that are left behind, the above mentioned "survivors".
we begin to worry about them,
to fear that there's no fresh milk in the fridge, no gas in the car tank,
that no one took out the garbage, nor fed the cat,
we are about to leave life under the impression that we forgot the fire on.
every time we die, it's never about us. at least, up until the last seconds.

there's no chance in hell that heaven's gonna accept this kind of language!
maybe the subtitle won't work for this part and I'll get off the hook.
I was thinking that one of the greatest penalties
God could give to a feeble-minded person like me
would be the possibility to choose between the infernal region and paradise.
I would end up in a very familiar situation, experiencing the purgatory of my afterlife,
in the same way I did in my entire earthly existence, not being able to pick a side,
make a decision, take a left or a right.. without overthinking it too much.

we're gonna die crying.
we're gonna die hoping that we closed the door.
we're gonna die tasting coffee.

we're gonna die when we least expect it.
we're gonna die in 3, 2..

we're gonna die trying to live.


[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVemwwIDC7c]
Edna Sweetlove Dec 2014
I took my ****** sister Marigold to the cinema,
she had asked specifically and eventually
(she doesn't speak a lot on account of her awful stammer
and amazing cleft palate which has won prizes)
so I knew that this was something she really wanted,
and I teased for her bad taste
when she told me that she wanted to see
"Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Charlie
and the Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Chocolate Factory".

It was a Saturday evening and the local picture house
was showing a re-run of the classic starring Gene Wilder
as the enigmatically stylish ***** Wonka,
and not that steaming great pictorial **** served up by Tim Burton
and I knew that town would be busy with oiks
so as a treat I dressed her up better than usual,
and even gave her a hosedown to get rid of the poopy pong.

She had stopped crying by the time the feature started
and I think the Ooompa Loompa costume grew on her
but that maybe the orange paint was a bit of a bad idea
as people had stared as it was Day-Glo and she stood out
like a bulldog's *******, but I stand by my decision
to dye her hair green, it had taken thought and planning;
it was meant to add to her excitement of the day,
so I meant well, even if I was ineffectual in the end.

I sat her on my lap in the picture house
but still paid for two seats but I do get one ticket half price
though because of her disabilities, so it wasn'€™t all bad,
every cloud and all that, you know what I mean?
She tends to get a little down every now and then
but a £1 cinema ticket partly makes up for being born legless.
I knew from past experience that the cinema staff
prefer me to carry my stunted sis rather than wheeling her in
(I do recall that the time I taped her to her skateboard
proved somewhat a disaster - but really, the fat usher
had a torch and should have watched her step
or otherwise she wouldn't have bust her neck).

The Ooompa Loompa costume allowed Marigold
to amuse herself during the screening
(as there were no leggings to the costume).
She barely noticed when the fat little hero
got blown up on screen except to dribble "chocolate"
from her own little chocolate factory.
It was, all in all, quite an eventful outing
and one I might consider repeating but
probably in a different cinema next time,
mainly because we got banned for life
when the manager saw the condition of the seat.
Dah Feb 2016
Late spring. Early morning.
Horseflies in my dream,
dissonant church bells, legless pigeons

I wake to the light’s sharp angle
that cuts this day open.
A breeze stretches its wrap

Lying here, dawn is brief
like a banner slowly raised
then dropped abruptly

Rising from bed
I slump
a prisoner waiting for a beating
The chilled air, a sword
stuck into my skin

Through the blinds
a snap of sun
my eyes rollback
colors pop

I stand barefoot
and become the sum
of a legless pigeon
a horsefly’s faint buzz
dissonant bells

I think of my dream
how it called me
inward
closer to the core
a caravan of pine coffins
lined up in the streets
a future template

Suddenly, church bells,

a fly dead on the sill,

a mournful pigeon’s coo.

--------------------------------------------

from my sixth book-length manuscript

©dah / dahlusion 2015
all rights reserved

"Horseflies Pigeons Coffins"
was first published in  'Secrets and Dreams Anthology'
(Kind Of A Hurricane Press)
Tengo  Dec 2019
caterpillars
Tengo Dec 2019
you will thrive in your own cocoon—
legless arthropod wriggling out
of its leaved shell, crunching
on the stem of a marigold’s shrivel.
you crawl up the leaves like they’re
the steps of a winding staircase,
circling and circling to one day
step out of your cocoon.

you are your own skin—
a wing ripped in figure
eights of formative tearing.
at the bottom of a
wind-leaned green tower,
you are torn down as if starting all
over again, away from the pace of
a hundred other caterpillar’d creatures.

you are not quite a monarch butterfly,
not yet the zebra-patterned black and white,
but you bloom in the form of a familiar marigold, a daisy’d curve—
thriving as a flower, swaying and alive.
you must visit the filial leaves and trace
their veins gently.

soon you will thrive in your own cocoon;
as those plant’d seeds will
soon leave legless arthropods wriggling—
for how would a caterpillar’s cocoon wither
without your leaves crinkling beneath it?
beginning to love a change i initially hated.
Keith Douglas  Nov 2010
Cairo Jag
Shall I get drunk or cut myself a piece of cake,
a pasty Syrian with a few words of English
or the Turk who says she is a princess--she dances
apparently by levitation?  Or Marcelle, Parisienne
always preoccupied with her dull dead lover:
she has all the photographs and his letters
tied in a bundle and stamped Decede in mauve ink.
All this takes place in a stink of jasmin.

But there are the streets dedicated to sleep
stenches and the sour smells, the sour cries
do not disturb their application to slumber
all day, scattered on the pavement like rags
afflicted with fatalism and hashish.  The women
offering their children brown-paper *******
dry and twisted, elongated like the skull,
Holbein's signature.  But his stained white town
is something in accordance with mundane conventions-
Marcelle drops her Gallic airs and tragedy
suddenly shrieks in Arabic about the fare
with the cabman, links herself so
with the somnambulists and legless beggars:
it is all one, all as you have heard.

But by a day's travelling you reach a new world
the vegetation is of iron
dead tanks, gun barrels split like celery
the metal brambles have no flowers or berries
and there are all sorts of manure, you can imagine
the dead themselves, their boots, clothes and possessions
clinging to the ground, a man with no head
has a packet of chocolate and a souvenir of Tripoli.
Regal Pinion Dec 2013
Feel the entropy heating up your gears
With meshing poetic rhetoric flowing through your ears

Pistons pinions piercing pulsing
Calculating creates cruelty convulsing
Which confuses itself as a new form of dance
But it’s actually mating while still wearing pants

There’s mercury around your hat’s brim
As you look up to your cherubim
They’re not good MCs you’re suffering from delirium
We’re not an ocean we’re a city: Pandæmonium
Whether stage, stereo, or behind a podium
My flow so addictive you need rehab to quit this *****

Undercutting uppercuts straight to the jaw
Dangling there mangled but you’ll never lose the awe
I can talk sunlight into becoming my shade
Stand up to me? Step down before you fade

I am the Clockwork Seraph
Each word must be cherished
Because words hold more power than any man
So I’ll trick the legless to take a stand

We’ll walk miles for this vile style
Bloodied grin? Show us your smile
All is well? Or all is in denial?
Who cares? Let it rest for a while

Throat grabbing metaphors
Chokes gabbing sell-out ******
Garrote grappling violent scores
Rogues glancing harlot stores

Cut to the point or cut to source
Cue the anointment meant for the Force
Wrong religion but ***** it any myth will do
My words are Set to Isis like Osiris rose for you

Scheherazade’s in her padded cell full of fright
Shouting frantic nonsense for 1,001 Asylum Nights

Love is a chemical that seems too harsh
It comes from the brain, we call it the heart
Anger is an arrangement that can tear you apart
Here’s an outlet try again end at the start

Pause
Think
Take a breather now
While sixty feet under water
As you drown

Yesterday’s miracle is today’s explained fact
Truthful anomalies become outliers for the mass

If a beat drops does it plummet to its death?
Was it suicidal it could be anybody’s guess?
It tried to forget so it kept all repressed
Tongue play twisted by the embittered press

Oh yes! Says the ******* moaning ghost
Raise your glass take a sip prepare for the toast
Overdosed on rufilin for the life/death duality
The party forgot to plan this half-hearted tragedy

Fires burn like thunders boast
Of the speed the hot flash was provoked

I don’t do battle raps I just humiliate my foes
There reputation lying in graves row by row
Blank stares earned as they feel the throes
More white towels thrown in as their hope corrodes

My left hand spits for the pages thrones
My tongue tests it to see how it flows

Shoot for the moon and if you miss
You’ll be surrounded by infinite emptiness
Obviously I’m different so I won’t waste your time
Every rapper claims their special somewhere down the line

Are you lost? here’s a map: blank canvas
Crumble it up to see it form a crevice
A Knight of Bedlam here for your service
Rising with the lunar crescent for their hubris

Blood stained White Knight
A hero’s antithesis done right
Funeral garbs for this sable raft
Beating hearts for disabled craft

Buried in deep and now I’ll rise
To the occasion to claim this prize
The only thing we all have in common
Is the differences in our perception

I am the Bayssic scion
Hold on tight if you plan on riding
On my dark white lyrics
Beautiful insanity with spirit

Each and every person you meet
Is as real as you imagined them to be
From my mind un-vaulted in hopes it’ll last
Join us now, through the looking glass
Arthur Habsburg Apr 2019
I woke up *****
And went to the shop,
I got corn, peas, chopped gherkins,
All canned,
I raided the reduced section like mad,
Got some cheese
And some ham
That I won't allow to go bad,
cause I'll make a ton of salad
Out of this myriad,
For breakfast, munch and evening feast,
It'll last a fortnight at the very least,
I can top it up with this
Foul smelling liquor I brought from the east,
Among the other mementos in my cellarette,
I could have a party in my ******
In my kitchenette,
My flat is so hot I could sign post it
'sauna to let',
But the swingers here don't speak a word of
English,
One time they took their ya-yas out
And called ME a delinquent,
As if I've got a funny kind of pigment
They can't live with,
I've tried to put my finger on it
But I don't want it to get stinky,
I think they simply haven't got an inkling
As to what and why they're thinking,
But never mind those pinkies,
Let us go back to my shopping
Just as it was getting *****:
Before my skimpy trolley glided to the checkout,
I got a ticket for my pfand,
Which measured fairly to my pleasure
Of having my alcoholism,
Which is confess is merely leisured,
Redeemed into a form of solid ******* treasure.
Throughout the years my drinking
Let me celebrate the fear
Of lack of meaning,
It made friends out of strangers,
Lovers out of friends,
Ex lovers out of lovers,
Clowns out of boring people,
It made a clown out of me too,
My drinking took my money
And gave me a suspicious act
To cling to,
It made me a legless athlete
In a race against the future,
It excited me with waterfalls of chaos
Bursting through cracked normality,
It pretended to bring Arcadia
Into the ruling technology,
It invaded Scandinavia  
With lawless Somalia,
It put peaks and crannies
Into the dull landscape of
Nord Rhein Westphalia,
I have a whole worthless encyclopaedia
Of what my drinking did to me,
Page after page of random numbers
Makes for a baffling read,
I don't know if I should frame it,
Burn it,
Or get some ****,
My drinking always gave me an excuse to smoke,
I puffed my hours into nothingness,
Laughter & loneliness,
A condition of no ambition
Made life itself seem like a superstition,
But I don't want the repetition anymore,
Boredom is but a bed sheet of a sore old *****,
A stifling breath of a handicapped mind;
But
Being now so temporarily poor
I find it easy to smile
As the cashier counts my pennies
Making the citizens in line
In their Jack Wolfskins and denims
Very uneasy,
Men & women of the Rhein get seriously queasy
When they see a foreigner like me
Simply taking it easy,
You know I had to break my piggybank just to get here,
I crossed a red light when it was all clear,
I have no bike lights - I just disappear,
Who knows what is it that I do inside the night?..
Could be something good,
Might be something bright..
Anyway,
I got my receipt,
Said my 'schön Tag' alright,
I should have said 'schön Abend'
But I guess I'm not polite,
Then I rode in the street,
My bags dangling left & right,
Balancing my act
Under the waning Eurodollar moon,
Some react badly
when they're given **** to spoon,
But my lack of money
In fact makes me feel immune
To superficial cravings like
iPhones, clothes, perfume,
shavings, shoes, tattoos;
I'd rather spend a fortnight
In the arms of David Hume,
Than stopping by at Rügen
On my way to Cameroon,
On a beastly ocean liner,
With pommes and Pauliner
Supplied ad infinitum!
I don't know my own mind,
I's time to take a trip down the ol' cerebrum,
While tickets are at a minimum
And the season is at a premium,
I'll tame my tantrums without ******,
I'll let my maelstroms guide me to a podium
Of perfect equilibrium,
I'll get a glimpse of wisdom
By watching my own delirium,
I'm serious about this.
I don't reminisce about the years
I dismissed by watching television series,
Dumbing down with the Big Bang Theory.
I feel so blessed to be weary
And out of breath
From the long hand of entertainment
That wants to tickle everyone to death,
It's an epidemic worse than crystal ****,
But it's not hard to shake the fever.
Only a ****** was born to be a ******,
Man was cursed to be a dubious believer.
So kiss my feet
Or chop me with a cleaver,
Nothing will stop me from becoming an achiever,
Nothing but the habit pattern of my own demeanour.

— The End —