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Joe Workman Aug 2014
The radio alarm is a bit too strong
for his afternoon hangover taste.
He goes downstairs, sets the coffee to brewing,
rubs his hands through the hair on his face.
As he sits and he smokes, he can't quite think of the joke
she once told him about wooden eyes.

The coffee is ready, his hands are unsteady
as he pours his first cup of cure.
He tries to be happy he woke up today,
but whether being awake's good, he's not sure.
Outside it's raining, but he's gallantly straining
to keep his head and his spirits held high.

As soft as the flower bending out in its shower,
fiercer than hornets defending their hives,
the memories of sharing her secrets and sheets
run him through like sharp rusty knives.
He decides that his cup isn't quite strong enough,
takes the ***** from the shelf, gives a sigh.

He goes to the porch to put words to the torch
he still carries and knows whiskey just fuels.
Thunder puts a voice to his hammering heart.
Through ink, his knotted mind unspools,
writing of butterflies and of how his love lies
cocooned under unreachable skies.

From teardrops to streams to winter moonbeams
to a peach, firm and sweet, in the spring,
he writes of pilgrims and language and soft dew-damp grass
and how he sees her in everything.
He rambles and grieves, and he just can't believe
how much he has bottled inside.

He writes how the leaves, when they whisper in the breeze,
bring to mind her warm breath in his mouth,
how when walking through woods he loves the birdsong
when they fly back in the summer from the south
because she would sing too and he always knew
he wanted that sound in his ears when he died.

He writes even the streetlights, fluorescent and bright,
make him miss the diamond chips in her eyes,
how the fountain in the park plays watersongs in the dark
when he goes to make wishes on pennies
and while he's there he gets hoping
there will be some spare wishes
but so far there haven't been any.

He writes that the cold makes him think of the old
hotel where they spent most of a week,
lazing and gazing quite lovingly,
and how he brushed an eyelash off her cheek.
The crickets and frogs and all of the dogs
sound as mournful as he feels each night.

He writes about chocolate and fun in arcades,
he writes about stairwells and butchers' blades,
and closed-casket funerals, and Christmas parades,
then sad flightless birds and tiny brigades
of ants taking crumbs from the toast he had made,
and political goons with their soulless tirades,
old-timey duels and terrible grades,
strangers on  buses, harp music, maids,
the weird afterimages when all the light fades,
the pleasure of dinnertime serenades,
sidewalk chalk, wine, and hand grenades.

He writes of how much fun it would be to fly,
and saltwater taffy and ferryboat rides,

sitting on couches, scratched CD's,
pets gone too soon and overdraft fees,

the beach, the lake, the mountains, the fog,
David Bowie's funny, ill-smelling bog,

jewelry, perfume, sushi, and swans,
the smell of the pavement when the rain's come and gone,

and shots and opera, and Oprah and ***,
and tiny bikinis with yellow dots,

stained glass lamps, and gum and stamps,
her dancing shoes on wheelchair ramps,
that overstrange feeling of déjà vu,
filet mignon and cordon bleu,

bad haircuts at county fairs,
honey and clover, stockmarket shares,
the comfort of nestling in overstuffed chairs,
and her poking fun at the clothes that he wears,
and giraffes and hippos and polar bears,
cumbersome car consoles, monsters' lairs,
singing in public and ignoring the stares,
botching it badly while making éclairs,
misspelled tattoos, socks not in pairs,
people who take something that isn't theirs,
the future of man, and man's future cares,

why people so frequently lie
and bury themselves so deep in the mire
of monetary profits when money won't buy
a single next second because time's not for hire,
and that he sees her in everything.

Lost and exhausted, he sits back and reads
He barks a mad laugh when he suddenly sees
After such turmoil, just one words he needs.
Everything.  
She’ll always be everything.
1.

From our
safe windows,
we crane our necks,
rubbernecking
past the slow
motion wreckage
unfolding in Homs.

We remain
perfectly
perched
to marvel at
the elegant arc of
a mortar shell
framing tomorrows
deep horizon,
whistling through
the twilight to
find its fruitful
mark.

In the now
we keep
complicit time,
to the arrest
of beating hearts,
snapping fingers
to the pop
of rifle cracks,
swooning to
the delicious
intoxication of
curling smoke
lofting ever
upward;
yet
thankfully
remain
distant
enough to
recuse any
possibility
of an
intimate
nexus
with the
besieged.

2.

From our
safe windows,
we behold the
urgent arrivals of
The Friends of Syria
demanding
clean sheets
and 4 Star
room service at a
Tunisian Palace
recently cleaned
and under new
management
promising a
much needed
refurbishment.

The gathered,
a clique of
this epochs
movers and shakers,
a veritable
rouges gallery of
ambassadorial
prelates, Emirs and
state department
bureaucrats
summoned
with portfolio
from the
darkest corners
of the globe.

They are
eager to
sanctify
the misery
of Homs,
deflect and
lay blame
with realpolitik
rationalizations,
commencing
official commissions
of inquiry,
deliberating
grave considerations,
issuing indictments
of formal charges for
Crimes Against
Humanity
while
remaining
urgently
engrossed
in the fascination
of interviewing
potential
process servers
to deliver the bad news
to Bashar al-Assad
and his soulless
Baathist
confederates,
if papers
are to be
served.

Yes, the diplomats
are busy meeting
in closed rooms.

In hushed circles
they whisper
into aroused ears,
railing against
Russia’s
gun running
intransigence
and China’s
geopolitical
chess moves.

Statesmen
boast of the
intrepid justice
of tipping points
and the moving poetry
of self serving tales,
weighing the impact
of stern sanctions
amidst the historical
confusion of the
asymmetrical
symmetries
of civil war.

Caravans
of Arab League
envoys roll up
in silver Bentleys,
crossing deserts
of contradictory
obfuscations,
navigating the
endless dunes
with hand held
sextants of
hidden agendas.

The heroic
Bedouins are
eager to offload
their baggage
and share
on the ground
intelligence from
their recent soirées
across Syria.

They beg
a quick fix,
the triage of a
critical catharsis
to bleed their
brains dry
of heinous
recollections,
pleading
release from a
troubled conscience
victimized by
the unnerving paradox
of reconciling
discoveries of
perverse voyeurism
with the sanctioned
explanations
of their respective
ruling elites.

The bellies
of these
scopophiliacs
are distended;
grown queasy
from a steady diet
of malfeasance
an ulcerated
world parades
in continuous loop;
spewing the raw feeds
of real time misery;
forcibly fed
the grim
visions of
frantic
fathers
rushing
the mangled
carcases
of mortally
wounded
children
to crumpled
piles of smashed
concrete that were
once hospitals.

We despondently
ask how
much longer
must we
look into
the eyes
of starving
children
emaciated from
the wanton
indifference
of the world?


3.

From our
safe windows
we wonder
how much
longer can
the urgent
burning
ambivalence
continue
before it
consumes
our common
humanity in
a final
conflagration?

My hair already
singed by the
endless firestorms
sweeping the prairies
of the world.

How can we survive
the trampling hoards,
the marauding
plagues of acrimony
fed by a voracious
blood lust aspiring to
victimize the people
of Homs and a
thousand cities
like it?


4.

From my safe
window I stand in witness
to the state execution of
refugees fleeing the
living nightmare
of Baba Amr.

The ****** of innocents,
today's newly minted martyrs,
women and children
cornered, trapped
on treacherous roads,
mercilessly
slaughtered and
defiled in death
to mark the lesson
of a ruthless master
enthralled with the
power of his
sadistic fascist
lordship.

I cannot avert my eyes
marking sights
of pleading women
begging for the
lives of their children
in exchange for
the gratification
of a sadists
lust.

My heart
is impaled
on the sharp
spear of
outrage
beholding
careening
children mowed
down with the
serrated blades
protruding
from marauding
jeeps of laughing
soldiers.

I drop
to my knees
in lakes of
tears
reflecting
a grotesque
horror stricken
image of myself.

My eyes have
murdered my soul.

The ghastly images
of Homs have chased
away my Holy Ghost
to the safety of a child's
sandbox hidden away
in a long forgotten
revered memory.


5.

From my safe window
I seethe with anger
demanding vengeance,
debating how to rise
to meet the obscenity of
the Butcher of Damascus.

The sword of Damocles
dangles so tantalizingly close
to this tyrants throat.  

The covered women
of Homs scream prayers
“may Allah bring Bashar to ruin”

Dare I pray
that Allah trip the
horsehair trigger
that holds the
sword at bay?

Do I pick up
the sword
a wield it
as an
avenging
angel?

Am I the
John Brown
of our time?

Do I organize
a Lincoln Brigade
and join the growing
leagues of jihadists
amassing at the
Gates of Damascus?

Will my righteous
indignation fit well
in a confederacy
with Hamas and
al-Qaeda as my
comrades in arms?

Do I succumb to
the passion of hate
and become just
another murderous
partisan, or do I
commend the power
of love and marshal
truth to speak with
the force of
satyagraha?

I lift a fervent prayer
to claim the justice
of Allah’s ear,
“may the knowing one
lift the veil of foolishness
that covers my heart in
cloaks of resent, cure
my blindness that ignores
my raging disease of
plausible deniability
ravaging the body politic
of humanity.”

6.

Indeed,
physician heal thyself.

I run to embrace my
illness.

I pine to understand it.

I undertake the
difficult regimen
of a cure to eradicate
the terrible affliction.

This
pernicious
plague,
subverting
the notion
of a shared
humanness
is a cunning
sedition that
undermines
the unity of
the holy spirit.  

The bell from
the toppled steeples
still tolls, echoing
across the space of
continents and eons
of temporal time.

The faithful chimes
gently chides us
to remove the wedge
of perception that
separates, divides
and undermines.

Time has come
to liberally
apply the balm
that salves the
open wounds
so common to
our common
human condition.

The power of prayer
is the joining of hands
with others racked
with the common
affliction of humanness.

Allah,  
My eyes are wide open,
my sacred heart revealed,
my sleeves are rolled up,
my memory is stocked,
my soul filled with resolve,
my hand is lifted
extended to all
brothers and sisters.
Lift us,
gather us
into one
loving embrace.

Selah


7.

From the safe
windows of
our palaces
we live within
earshot of
the trilling
zaghroutas
of exasperation
flowing from
the besieged
city smouldering
under Bashar’s
symphony of terror.

Our nostrils
fill with the
acrid plumes
of unrequited
lamentations
lifting from the
the burning
destruction
of shelled
buildings.

Our eyes spark
from the night
tracers
of sleeking
snipers
flitting along
the city’s
rooftops.

The deadly jinn
indiscriminately
inject the
paralysis of
random fear
into the veins
of the city
with each
skillful
head shot.

These
ghoulish
assassins
lavish in their
macabre work;
like vultures
they eagerly
feast on the
corpses of their ****,
the stench of bloated
bodies drying in the
sun is the perfume
that fills their nostrils.


8.

From our
safe window
we discern the
silhouettes of militants
still boldly standing
amidst the
mounting rubble of an
unbowed Homs
shouting;

Allah Akbar!!!
Allah Akbar!!!
Allah Akbar!!!

raising pumped fists,
singing songs
of resistance,
dancing to
the revelation of
freedom,
refusing to
be coward by
the slashing
whips of a
butchers
terrible
sword.


9.

From my
safe window
my tongue laps
the pap
of infants
suckling from
the depleted
teats of mothers
who cannot cry
for their dying
children;
tears fail
to well from
the exhaustion
of dehydrated
pools.

10.

From my
safe window
my heart stirs
to the muezzin
calling the
desperate faithful
from the toppled
rubble of dashed
minarets.

We can
no longer
shut our ears
to the adhan
of screams
the silent
voices that echo
the blatant injustice
of a people under siege.


11.

From my
safe window,
I pay
Homage to Homs
and call brothers
and sisters to rise
with vigilant
insistence
that hostilities
cease and
humanity be
upheld,
respected and
protected.


12.

From my safe
window
I perceive
the zagroutas
of sorrow
manifest as a
whiling hum,
a sweeping
blue mist,
levitating
the coffins
from the rubble
of ravaged streets.

The swirling
chorus of
mourning
joins my
desperate
prayers;
rising in
concert
with the
black billows
of smoke
dancing
away
from the
flaming
embers
of scorched
neighborhoods.


13.

From my
safe window
I heed
the fluttering
wings
of avenging
angels
furiously
batting
as they
climb
the black
plumes,
lifting from
the scattered bricks
of the desecrated
city.

It is the
Jacob’s
Ladder
for our
time;
marking
a new
consecrated
place
where
a New Adam
is destined
to be formed
from the
pulverized
stones of
desolation.

14.

From our
safe windows
we peer into
resplendent
mirrors
beholding
the perfect image of
ourselves
eying
falling tears
dripping blood,
coloring death
onto the
blanched sheets
of disheveled beds.


15.

From our
safe windows
our voices are silenced,
our words mock urgency
our thoughts betray comprehension
our senses fail to illicit empathy
our action is the only worthy prayer


16.

From my
safe window
I hear the
mortar shells
walking toward
my little palace,
the crack
of a ******
shot
precedes
the wiz of a
passing bullet
whispering
its presence
into my
waxen
ear.


17.

From my
safe window,
my palms scoop
the rich soil
of the flower boxes
perched on my sill.
I anoint the tender
green shoots of  the
Arab Spring
with an incessant flow
of bittersweet tears.

Music selection:
John Coltrane
A Love Supreme
Acknowledgment

Oakland
2/28/12
jbm
Just Melz Apr 2017
Can you feel the ache in my chest?
Can you touch the cracks in my heart?
Can you tell where my soul begins,
And where it's been torn all apart?

I'm made of sharp edges and pieces fit with super glue
Can you feel it?
I'm a heartless enigma and a soulless slice of truth
Can you feel it?
Enemies make the best friends and now I hate you
Can you feel it?

Lies are like a bullet to my heart, filling me with holes
A feeling of emptiness overwhelms me, a space too bold
Trying to hold on tight to a tangle too tied to unfold
Lost in a web of pain too damaged to be controlled

I'm made of broken glass, chipped and shattered
Can you feel it?
I'm an empty shell of something that once mattered
Can you feel it?
Pieces are falling, a love now bruised and battered
Can you feel it?

The harmony of injustice is ringing in my ears
A lullaby of sweet nothings and my childhood fears
A common trend unfolds, a chorus of chants and tears
A pain ripples through my body and the monster finally appears

Can you feel it?
Thank You All for your wonderful comments.
I'm so grateful to have gotten the daily!
Can you feel it?
laura  Jun 2018
back from E3
laura Jun 2018
drinking all night,
watching a soulless reptile
talk about his company
and trying to sell a sea of nerds
overpriced videogames
drinking all night on some ***** LA heat
was great actually but that dude looked like a lizard and nobody seemed interested
As a darkness descends to these troubled lands,
carefully watching are those who feel a cold shrill,
hear with frozen aching,
breathing in the quickening frost...

Growing hoary slowly,
as the rime it seeds,
pressed blades of grass feel the man in need...
This is a toll that must be paid!

Her fleeting thoughts dance with the wind as she twirls about spinning into the winter’s descent...

Darkness falls and so doth she,
her thoughts in brightness, uncoupled glee,
her heart in love and mind carefree...

A sweeping, dashing, vision he shows,
In moon as deep earth,
her sweet heart glows,

“Forget the quickly, approaching fee!”

“Dear Night, oh Darkness; spare this man!”

“I see you, -hear me for I plead too, I’m watching from your ice-gripped troubled land!”

“Take me instead; I’ll pay his cost or your dark soul is truly lost!”

“I twirl with woe, I dance thus so, -wanton abandon…
the shivering cold and this ice I stand in,
Your chill, the frost, the illness and the terrible cost,
...our crops and all our people lost,
and still I shall ignore your hand!"


THEN HE DIES!

“No, your reparations I thus will pay!
Leave us now, unburden this land, your frory wind is not his plan,
God does love us, -he’ll stay your hand!”


“Some sign, an answer, please, oh please!
On frosted grass I press my knees,
will you not hear my lovelorn cries?
Why must you take him, why must he die?
I cannot stand so idly by!”


“How can you torment such good men, our town, our lands, tis ours, our home this place you’re in?"

Frigid heart of icy Dragon,
feels not nothing, mourns no loss,
bears down harder with his frost
and punishes them all for a sin...

“You beastly anger!”

“The cold hand of darkness in my eyes, my heart burns bright with moonlit scorn!”

A trumpet sounds when lightning strikes,
and thunder heard, it splits the night!

“A toll too great I shall not mourn,
Soulless winter’s passing bound,
in frosted days of chilling found,
You maketh tender hearts thus lost.
Your winter brings her frozen frost,
You tear and break frozen land asunder,
destroy our love our hearts you plunder!
Be gone such evil, lest love soon die, my heart he holds, my soul and sky!”


“Your freezing laughter has distended me…”


Storm God

“Clouds of fury, thunders might, upon that moon, clouds cover her light!"

"Sweeping winds, wisps of ice and snowy swirls opaque the night, freeze that man, take his life!”

“Break, then shatter with my cold spells of ice, he, then she, with no respite; I shall forever control the night!"

“Tell tale of love to me in playful fancy?”

“The darkness I bring; cower as your lives in fright, no man shall evade my thunderous might!”

“Sway me not oh fairy dancer from my cold winter in your bones shall arise a chilling cancer!”

“Destroy I must and hear you not, your land in peril with a wind I roar, cry you will in pain and so much more!”

“I am this world’s white awful sore!”

“Beg you shall, whimpering dearly, for darkness cometh so swift, severely!”

“Feel it, hear it, a painful sound my thunder shatters the peace with world renown!”

“As once, as was, forever more and now I smite so deafening score, I deliver you both to death’s door!”

“There is no heart within this storm; there shall be no heart in earth forevermore!”

“Love you say”

“…as if I know?”


“BE GONE NOW CURSED MOONLIT GLOW!”

“No life, no love, no NOT nothing, no, from nothingness I come and to nothingness you go!”

“Thus an answer to your pathetic dancing, your spinning motions, your frivolous prancing,"

“A stronger wind, a tor-na-do, witness the awful power I sow,”

“...my heartless mind to which you sing, out dance that you spineless twinning!”

“Die!”

“Yes, -die!”

“With his dead heart I’ll crush your soul for yours IS my quest to break!”

“Time is such a fleeting flower and Lo, I come with all my power, your time has come this is the hour!”

“I hate your love; die for me, your bond is cur-sed I decree!”

“My children are the Nephilim, their snowy crystals I turn to rain and freeze it quickly about your ankles for you as he, shall not escape, nothing, no one shall escape, all the creatures shall die this time for I am the maker of the flood, I am the abyss, the king of wisdom, the tree of knowledge, the one of action, crowned master of the earthen plane, the king of gods and king of kings and origin of all things, if God there is then he is I and what I create I shall make die! Know this mere mortal, the name of betwixting thing you learn…”

“I am that old God known as *Sah-turn!”

“My toll do I demand from thou!”

“My toll I ask, I DEMAND IT NOW!”



Sobbing sadness as she prostrates her hands to ice, her ankles bound and crying is the only sound...

The ego of the deity is in question, she searches for another way, a path of inquiry to make him stay, for the horrible fate wrought this day and lands of beauty coldly buried away...

For what could change the mind of darkness?

“Master, I see the wheels have ground to a halt and you’ve descended from the heaven’s vault but how can such lowly animals and nature be at fault, for is it not the goblins of the saw that should be punished, that should be sought?”

“Those who chop away at your great tree are the ones who smile with uncoupled glee for they smite your creation and tear it down and care not for your might, your world renown!”

“All nature is but your possession, oh timeless infinity I do not question, your purpose or need but I do ask, nay beg of thee, allow my love to thus be free, let us hold each other if we die, see my supplication, hear my cry!”


“If let go we will with all haste and prudence, your wrath is great and our presence a nuisance, away from this troubled land you’ve made, the frozen tundra of the grave, a night wrapped by your terrible song in this evil place we do not belong,”


"...please let us run!"


“You have cloaked the beauty of the moon,  covered her sky, I beseech you master hear my cry above the thunders of your sky, wrestle free my love from grip, let us pass, let us slip, let us go this night, oh great black wheel and great north wind and wolf and beast and Dragon from the faraway east and master of the air and seas and Lord of all as your voice decrees, I beg here on my dying knees,”


“The toll you demand is a life for a life, save him, put me under the frosty knife!”


Rumble, rumbling pondered thoughts, the wind is ceased and snow dies down and ground gets soft as air warms up and moonlight shines as clouds dissipate while the god of night decides their fate...

Her sobbing subsides as the ice and snow become water and seep into the earth, her dress soaking and hands covered in mud she addresses this king of kings once more. She stands and fills her lungs with warmth and begins to dance a dance of thanks to him who is hidden but a chilly wind shows that it is still forbidden. Her love watches from yonder far hill as she holds back her dance and stands so still, calling out to the color of night, stern her voice has no sign of fright...

“Punish the land and make your mark for that will teach us to give offerings to the dark,”

“Give rage unto that which hath no heart, pummel the earth and sink the ark.”

“Oh he is such a jewel to me, I’ll dance no more, I’ll show no glee, and no happiness to smite your sea in your great debt I thus will be!”

“Call your hordes, all four to thee, let them of wisdom punish me, my dancing finished great Gyges, your ring of darkness; oh wine-dark seas!”

“The four are eager for the flight to crack the seals and split the night, and show the signs, enact the plan, and run dark in blood this troubled land.”

“You see my master? We know your tales and tell our children the wonder and the mystery of our ark that floats upon your sea and all the things we know you make for we teach our children of them for heaven’s sake!”

“As natures hand you make the call, Oh Famine! Oh Pestilence! Oh Plague! Oh Death, -bring them all!”

“Come now in darkness for your master calls, his voice too loud as to be vague…”

“Run we shall, away, away…”

“Your great power, oh great one, the shatterer, thunderer, the bringer of the nightly fall, watch your subjects cringe and crawl, and supplicate on hands and knees with praise upon your mighty awe.”

“Why not bring them? Bring them all?”

“Enforce your toll, make your presence known, reap the seeds of what you’ve sown, our lives have always been yours to own, for you are great upon this land, your fury descends with mighty hand, now and forever shall it be known, no man can seat above your throne!”

“The trees thus stripped of their leaves and these hands are whipped upon our grieves,”

“Save my love from those stinging leaves from wintery chill and icy snows, hand of darkness, north wind that blows,”

“Lightning strikes and deadly throes,”

“In mercy your true power shows,”

“For you are the master, king of night, maker of fear, of horrible fright, the Ouroboros, the clouds your wings, the heaven’s motions, order of all things, the one who rings the magnificent treasure, the source of all our earthly pleasure, one to which we all do pray, -alas Ethiopia, dawn a new day!”

“The moon descends as does your power tis dawn you fool, that is the hour!”

“You can keep your anger and unpaid toll we’ll keep our love, our lives and my gentle soul.”

Storm God

“YOU DARE! YOU DO! YOU MOCK ME STILL?”

“Here comes my weathering, wintry, malicious chill!”

“Child die as your suitor must, this night, this storm, this hour unto my lightning ******! Rain, hail, fury thehowling winds of wolven glory and end I put to this sorrow’s story, down the trees, wash away the lands, rip apart the heavens know my hand!”

“…and what is this nocturnal noise?”

“In my storm are birds chirping? Is that daylight on horizon now? Nature cannot desert me, no, not now!”

“The daybreak shines, undoes my vow, ceases my storm and scatters my clouds; know this mortal is not the end for I shall come back again!Your words and pleas will not save you then, this trickery I shall not forget, your souls I’m coming back to get and when I do you’ll grovel in fear for you’ll know the moment of death is near!”

“On that night you’ll pay my toll, I SHALL NOT REST WITHOUT YOUR SOUL!”
A tribute to my favorite poet. Edgar Allen Poe.
Culpoetry  Sep 2014
Feelings #1
Culpoetry Sep 2014
Feelings are terrible teachers

They’ll stress your mind
and take away your time
you will never draw a line
on whether they’ll push or pull

If you refuse to listen
to their endless lectures
then expect to have these
constant complications
with their code of conduct
and their strict regulations

Yes, you can and will skip class
for as long as your white lies permit
But you know you’ll end up coming back
or end up punished by a higher hand

Soulless, stress-filled, a vacant face
stares you straight into your little eyes
and from here, your life begins to lacerate

— The End —