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Cecil Miller Feb 2016
There was a woman with an ecclesiastic body.
I found out I was just one member of its congregation.
She was a soothsayer when the lights were down,
When she proved she was a succubus -
But what the ****, I've never been a saint.
She put the screws to me.

She used to belong to another man.
Now she's putting me through my paces.
If I had paid attention to the signs,
I could have seen my fate before it happened.

There was this dude I knew who was hard pressed.
I thought I might could offer him a place to crash for awhile,
So he could get his **** together.
Apparently demons have an appetite for gutter ****.

They took a ride in my ride,
And didn't forget my checkbook.
They didn't neglect to clean my house
Of nearly everything inside.
It was just a reminder,
Cause it really ain't no surprise.

That there's a burning lake
And gnashing on flesh,
Yeah, it's nothing but any empty, cold black well.
It's a Godless place,
You're on your own.
There ain't no honor among thieves.
Remember this,
There are no friends in Hell.

There are accusations to bring me down,
It's like I'm already dead.
They throw down their gauntlets,
They make every pledge.
I don't trust a word they say.
They're liers and deceivers.
All they want is whatever they can get.

They prey on fools and their believers.
They'll prophesy, then pass you by
Unless you've got an edge,
The dusty demons, dryer than a dessert segde.

They took a ride in my ride,
And didn't forget my checkbook.
They didn't neglect to clean my house
Of nearly everything inside.
It's just a reminder, but it really ain't no surprise.

That there's a burning lake
And gnashing on flesh,
Yeah, it's nothing but any empty, cold black well.
It's a Godless place,
You're on your own.
There ain't no honor among thieves.
Remember this,
There are no friends in Hell.

She never failed to cause me woe.
But, I'm not an innocent soul.
I guess what goes around,
Comes back around.
When it's harvest time, they'll know,
They done ****** with the wrong one.
Everybody reaps what they sow.

They took a ride in my ride,
And didn't forget my checkbook.
They didn't neglect to clean my house
Of nearly everything inside.
It's just a reminder, but it really ain't no surprise.

That there's a burning lake
And gnashing on flesh,
Yeah, it's nothing but any empty, cold black well.
It's a Godless place,
You're on your own.
There ain't no honor among thieves.
Remember this,
There are no friends in Hell

There is no such thing as kindness here.
I'll save troubles for another day,
They only multiply.

The more I see, the more I know
That strumpets belong with urchins.
They never will know,
Until they are each other's paroxysm,
But even then, they won't care.

No good deed is without a price to pay.

They took a ride in my ride,
And didn't forget my checkbook.
They didn't neglect to clean my house
Of nearly everything inside.
It's just a reminder, but it really ain't no surprise.

That there's a burning lake
And gnashing on flesh,
Yeah, it's nothing but any empty, cold black well.
It's a Godless place,
You're on your own.
There ain't no honor among thieves.
Remember this,
There are no friends in Hell.
Last night my song writing partner(I do the Lyrics, he works up the music)  gave me the proverb "There Are No Friends in Hell" and asked me to write a treatment for another hard rock tune. He loves to rip on guitar. We talked many concepts. I reference some of the elements as a starting point, and built the lyrics from inside out.
I figured people don't get to hell by being good people. So the guy in my song is not an innocent victom. He kind of stole a woman from another guy, and in turn, she and another guy ends up ******* him over big time.
As soon as I could get home, nearly midnight, I wrote this piece. I retain ownership of the lyrics. I posted it to hellopoetry as soon as I finished it, around 1:36 the next morning. It is purposely jagged and rough because I wanted to leave a wide option for vocal styling, wailing, growling, moaning or screaming. We will make it fit whatever music he has in mind.
Initially, I wanted our collaborations to be more jazzy and r&b; routed, but our styles are kind of rubbing off on each other. Since all rock music comes from the same place, they fold well into each other.
*one final note - this song has to be very edgy if it is going to work. When you build a song around a cliche, it could easily become campy, or could be a "send up" comedic piece instead of being gritty. Sometimes I like the tounge-in-cheak outlandish approach and work toward an over-the-top affect. This is not the case with this song. It is a little thematic, but I think the real cleaverness is that hidden within the occasional expletives, the deeper subtlety of ****** innuindo can be found if you want to look for it. It is not really hidden.
Ari  Feb 2010
In Philadelphia
Ari Feb 2010
there are so many places to hide,

in my home at 17th and South screaming death threats at my roommates laughing diabolically playing  videogames and Jeopardy cooking quinoa stretching canvas the dog going mad frothing lunging  spastic to get the monkeys or the wookies or whatever random commandments we issue forth  drunken while Schlock rampages the backdrop,

at my uncle's row house on 22nd and Wallace with my shoes off freezing skipping class to watch March  Madness unwrapping waxpaper hoagies grimacing with each sip of Cherrywine or creamsicle  soda reading chapters at my leisure,

in the stacks among fiberglass and eternal florescent lima-tiled and echo-prone red-eyed and white-faced  caked with asbestos and headphones exhuming ossified pages from layers of cosmic dust  presiding benevolent,

in University City disguised in nothing but a name infiltrating Penn club soccer getting caught after  scoring yet still invited to the pure ***** joy of hell and heaven house parties of ice luge jungle  juice kegstand coke politic networking,

at Drexel's nightlit astroturf with the Jamaicans rolling blunts on the sidelines playing soccer floating in  slo-mo through billows of purple till the early morning or basketball at Penn against goggle- eyed professors in kneepads and copious sweat,

in the shadow tunnels behind Franklin Field always late night loner overlooking rust belt rails abandoned  to an absent tempo till tomorrow never looking behind me in the fear that someone is there,

at Phillies Stadium on glorious summer Tuesdays for dollar dog night laden with algebra geometry and  physics purposely forgetting to apply ballistics to the majestic arc of a home run or in the frozen  subway steam selling F.U. T.O. t-shirts to Eagles fans gnashing when the Cowboys come to town,

at 17th and Sansom in the morning bounding from Little Pete's scrambled eggs toast and black coffee  studying in the Spring thinking All is Full of Love in my ears leaving fog pollen footprints on the  smoking cement blooming,

at the Shambhala Center with dharma lotus dripping from heels soaking rosewater insides thrumming to the  groan of meditation,

at the Art Museum Greco-fleshed and ponderous counting tourists running the Rocky steps staring into shoji screen tatame teahouses,

at the Lebanese place plunked boldly in Reading Terminal Market buying hummus bumping past the Polish  and Irish on my way to the Amish with their wheelwagons packed with pretzels and honey and  chocolate and tea,

at the motheaten thrift store on North Broad buried under sad accumulations of ramshackle clothing  clowning ridiculous in the dim squinting at coathangers through magnifying glasses and mudflat  leather hoping to salvage something insane,

in the brown catacombed warrens of gutted Subterranea trying unsuccessfully to ignore bearded medicine

men adorned with shaman shell necklaces hawking incense bootlegs and broken Zippos halting conversation to listen pensive to the displacement of air after each train hurtles by,

at 30th Street Station cathedral sitting dwarfed by columns Herculean in their ascent and golden light  thunderclap whirligig wings on high circling the luminous waiting sprawled nascent on stringwood pews,

at the Masonic Temple next to City Hall, pretending to be a tourist all the while hoping scouring for clues in the cryptic grand architect apocrypha to expose global conspiracies,

at the Trocadero Electric Factory TLA Khyber Unitarian Church dungeon breaking my neck to basso  perfecto glitch kick drums with a giant's foot stampeding breakbeat holographic mind-boggled  hole-in-the-skull intonations,

at the Medusa Lounge Tritone Bob and Barbara's Silk City et cetera with a pitcher a pounder of Pabst and a  shot of Jim Beam glowing in the dark at the foosball table disco ball bopstepping to hip hop and  jazz and accordions and piano and vinyl,

in gray Fishtown at Gino's recording rap holding pizza debates on the ethics of sampling anything by  David Axelrod rattling tambourines and smiles at the Russian shopgirl downstairs still chained to  soul record crackles of antiquity spiraling from windows above,

at Sam Doom's on 12th and Spring Garden crafting friendship in greenhouse egg crate foam closets  breaking to scrutinize cinema and celebrate Thanksgiving blessed by holy chef Kronick,

in the company of Emily all over or in Kohn's Antiques salvaging for consanguinity and quirky heirlooms  discussing mortality and cancer and celestial funk chord blues as a cosmological constant and  communism and Cuba over mango brown rice plantains baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies,

in a Coca Cola truck riding shotgun hot as hell hungover below the raging Kensington El at 6 AM nodding soft to the teamsters' curses the snagglesouled destitute crawling forth poisoned from sheet-metal shanty cardboard box projects this is not desolate,

at the impound lot yet again accusing tow trucks of false pretext paying up sheepish swearing I'll have my  revenge,

in the afterhour streets practicing trashcan kung fu and cinder block shotput shouting sauvage operatic at  tattooed bike messenger tribesmen pitstopped at the food trucks,

in the embrace of those I don't love the names sometimes rush at me drowned and I pray to myself for  asylum,

in the ciphers I host always at least 8 emcee lyric clerics summoning elemental until every pore ruptures  and their eyes erupt furious forever the profound voice of dreadlocked Will still haunting stray  bullet shuffles six years later,

in the caldera of Center City with everyone craning our skulls skyward past the stepped skyscrapers  beaming ear-to-ear welcoming acid sun rain melting maddeningly to reconstitute as concrete  rubber steel glass glowing nymphs,

in Philadelphia where every angle is accounted for and every megawatt careers into every throbbing wall where  Art is a mirror universe for every event ever volleyed through the neurons of History,

in Philadelphia of so many places to hide I am altogether as a funnel cloud frenetic roiling imbuing every corner sanctum sanctorum with jackhammer electromagnetism quivering current realizing stupefied I have failed so utterly wonderful human for in seeking to hide I have found

in Philadelphia
My best Ginsberg impression.
Kara Rose Trojan Dec 2014
My Second Letter to Allen Ginsberg
Dear Allen,
Almost five years ago, I wrote you a letter, and in
That letter, I purged my drunkenly woeful cries
That seem so first-world now and naïve –
The things I grimed over with luxuries I didn’t
Realize that rubbed against my plump limbs
Like millions of felines poised at the
Tombs of pharaohs.

Oh, Allen, I’m so tired –
These politics, and poly ticks, so many ticks that
Annoy my tics. Allen! I smear your name so liberally
Against this paper like primer because the easiest way
To coerce someone into listening to you like
A mother
or predator
tugging or nibbling on your ear –
Swatches of velvet scalped from a ****’s coat
Are you and I talking to ourselves again?
Candid insanity : Smoky hesitance.

Dear Allen, I’m so tired –
Yes, I love wearing my ovaries on the outside like
Some Amazonian soapbox gem glistening from beneath
The iron boots of what the newspapers tell me while
I cough at them with the hurdled delicacies of alphabet soup.
Give vegetables a gender and call them onions, Allen.
Sullied scratch-hicks pinioned feet from slapping
Society’s last rung on the ladder.
Ignore the swerve of small-town eyes.
Scapulas, stirrups, pap smears, and cervical mucus – now do you know who we are?

That fingernail clipped too short, Allen. We’ve all got AIDs
And AIDs babies, haven’t you heard? Hemorrhaging from the political
****** and out – they haven’t reached the heart.  
Since when have old white men given a **** about some
13 year old’s birth control? I’m riding on the waves of the
Parachute game and I swear this abortion-issue is just a veil outside Tuskegee University
Being further shove over plaintive eyes, swollen and black.
Pay up and
shut up.

I still remember my first broken *****, Allen.
Can you tell me all about your first time?
The vasodilatation that made veins rub against skin,
Delirious brilliance : unfathomable electricity.
I made love during an LSD experience, Allen,
And I am not sorry. I see cosmic visions and
Manifest universal vibrations as if this entire world is
A dish reverberating with textiles and marbles, and
All are plundering the depths of the finished wine
Bottle roasting in the sink like Thanksgiving Turkey.
The patience is in the living. Time opens out to you.
The opening, between you and you, occupied,
zoned for an encounter,
given the histories of you and you—
And always, who is this you?
The start of you, each day,
a presence already—
Hey, you!

Ah, Allen, if you are not safe, then I am not safe.
And where is the safest place when that place
Must be someplace other than in the body?
Am I talking to myself again?
You are not sick, you are injured—
you ache for the rest of life.

Why is it that I have to explain to my students that
sometimes what I'm spouting is prescribed by a pedagogical pharmacy --
but all they want to know is "what do the symbols on the television mean?"
I am completely aghast against the ghosts of future goners --
I am legitimately licensed to speak, write, listen like some mothers --
I am constantly cajoling the complex creations blamed on burned-out educators --
I am following the flagrant, fired-up "*******"s tagging lockers --
Pay up and
shut up.

Yes, and it’s Hopeless. Allen.
Where did we get off leaping and bounding into
The dogpile for chump change jurisdiction, policing
The right and the left for inherent hypocrisies when
Poets are so frightful to turn that introspective judgment
Upon ourselves?
We didn’t see it coming and I heard the flies, Allen.
Mean crocodile tears. Flamingo mascara tracks
Up and down : up and down: bow – bow – bow – bow
Buoyant amongst the misguided ******* floating around
In the swirlpool of lackadaisical introspection.
What good is vague vocab within poetry?
Absolutely none.
Would you leave the porchlight on tonight?
Absolutely, baby.

Dear Allen, would you grow amongst the roots and dirt
At the knuckles of a slackjawed brush of Ever-Pondering Questions
Only to ask them time-and-time-and-time-and-time-again.
Or pinch your forehead with burrowed, furrowed concentration upon those
Feeble branches of progression towards something that recedes further
And further with as much promise as the loving hand
Attempts to guide a lover to the bed?

Allen, I wish to see this world feelingly through the vibrations of billions of bodies, rocking and sobbing, plotting and gnashing like the movement of a million snakes, like the curves collecting and riding the parachute-veil.

Ah, Allen! Say it ain’t so! Sanctified swerve town eyes.
And everything is melting while poets take the weather
Too personally
And all the Holden Caulfields of the world read all the
*******’s written on the walls and all the Invisible Men
Eat Yams and all the Zampanos are blind and blind
And blind and blind and blind and blind
Yet see as much as Gloucester, as much as Homer,
As much as Oedipus.

Oh, Allen, do you see this world feelingly
and wander around the desert?
Colored marbles vibrating on the curtailed parachute paradox.
Lamentation of a small town’s onion. Little do we know, Allen,
That what you cannot see, we cannot see, and we are bubbling
Over in the animal soup of the proud yet weary. I can see,
However, how the peeled back skulls of a million
Workboots and paystubs may never sully the burden
Of an existential angst in miniscule amounts.
Pay up and
shut up.  

My dearest Allen, there is always a question of how
The cigarettes became besmirched with wax to complement
What was once grass, and
What was once a garish night drenching doorknobs.
The night's yawn absorbs you as you lie down at the wrong angle
To the sun ready already to let go of your hand
As you stepped, quivering, on to
The shores of Lethe.
Michael R Burch Apr 2020
Limericks VII - Naughty, *****, Risque, Absurd

There continue to be modern sequels of the famous "Nantucket" limericks, including this ***** one of mine:

There was a lewd ***** from Nantucket
who intended to *** in a bucket;
but being a man
she missed the **** can
and her rattled john fled, crying: "**** it!"
—Variation on a classic limerick by Michael R. Burch

Here's another take on a golden oldie:

There was an old man from Peru
who dreamed he was eating his shoe.
He awoke one dark night
from a terrible fright
to discover his dream had come true!
—Variation on a classic limerick by Michael R. Burch

Here are some lewd, crude originals:

There once was a multi-pierced Bull,
who found playing hoops far too dull,
so he dated Madonna
but observed, “I don’t wanna
get married . . . the things she might pull!”
—Michael R. Burch

There once was a forward named Rodman
who said to his best man—“No problem!
When I marry Electra,
if the ring costs extra,
just yank a loop right off my ****, man!”
—Michael R. Burch

A formidable pugilist, Mike,
in a fit of pique called his mom “****.”
She frowned ear to ear,
then said, “You listen here,
I can still whip your ****, you dumb tyke!”
—Michael R. Burch

A cross-dressing dancer, “Dee Lite,”
wore gowns luciferously bright
till he washed them one day
the old-fashioned way ...
in bleach. Now he’s “Sister Off-White.”
—Michael R. Burch

There once was a bubbly bartender,
a transvestite who went on a ******.
“So I cut myself off,”
she cried with a sob,
“There’s the evidence, there in the blender!”
—Michael R. Burch

Our president’s *** life—atrocious.
Asian markets are all hocus-pocus.
Politics—a shell game.
My brief moment of fame—
flashed by before Oprah could notice.
—Michael R. Burch

Bill Clinton's a man we admire;
his opinion polls soar ever higher.
He gets much more flack
for a Big Mac attack
than for his ****** high-wire.
—Michael R. Burch

There is a new term, “Clintonian,”
which means, “Stop your naggin’ and moanin’.
He’s only a man
doing all that he can
to put kneepads in the Smithsonian.!”
—Michael R. Burch

Low-T Hell
by Michael R. Burch

I’m living in low-T hell ...
My get-up has gone: Farewell!
I need to write checks
if I want to have ***,
and my love life depends on a gel!

Grave Offense I

Is Ogden Nash gnashing his teeth,
upside-down in his grave, full of grief
that the term “limerick”
has been plagiarized? Quick—
dial 9-1-1; get the police!
—Michael R. Burch

Grave Offense II

Is Ogden Nash gnashing his teeth,
upside-down in his grave, full of grief
that his wit and his art
share this name I impart
to my “limerick?” Am I a thief?
—Michael R. Burch

Ghostbusters!

Is Ogden Nash gnashing his teeth?
Is his ghost rolling ’round in wild grief
that the Post would make crimes
of his “imperfect” rhymes?
Call Ripley’s—it stretches belief!
—Michael R. Burch

NOTE: The Washington Post in all its great wisdom would ban Ogden Nash’s imperfect rhymes from its limerick contests!

Keywords/Tags: limerick, nonsense, light, humor, humorous, ***, naughty, risque, lewd, *****, ******
vircapio gale Aug 2012
on moonstone slab Manmata flames again
from out of ashes rises, gloating unfinality of Shiva's dance
reincarnate offering of endless Self
in Lakshmi's avatar
a fateful prince's heart to lance

and lanced his heart her visage did,
                                                     though with vaster pinions fully pierced was she, in depths
                                                          ­                                                                 ­                 without rivalry~

his lust was sharp to invite solitude,
but easy to conceal,
he imagined cupping her against him,
scoured memory of upward glimpse,
inch  by  inch
with added imagery, invention moulding her
beneath his grasp
from forehead curls along
glowing skin and eyes
to curving, palatially appareled ******* . . .
her open lips . . .  her hips
--but after, merely to dismiss
and even sleep a bit
and quip inside at irony
to be at mercy
of a girl in flowers
when he with arrows demons lay to rest
(though she would, within the selfsame hours lose her wits ;)

in cityscape descried the triad:
gold dome gifts for sky
in shining generosity
Mithila's people overflow with joy
exuding free abundance carelessly--
jewelry loosed on playful street
from overkeen embrace, is left to lie;
loss in ever-present wealth nigh obsolete

musth of elephant, froth of steed,
floral garlands tangle, line and mix
for clouds of honey-bees to lick their feast.
a bustling of virile acrobatic populace--
symphonic mux of chaos tressed,
metropolis of idylls coalesced;
drums, races, grinning faces flinging courtship,
smirking merchants under wigs
bathers splash exotic fish to flit and weave
while ballads sift for higher pitch of love

from elevated terrace ladies prance
and watching from an inner spire
the princess spies her prince--
emerald shoulders, lotus-petal eyes
Vaikunta hidden from their mortal sight
but straining recognition there,
a union ageless as the stars
inspired suddenly another first:
Rama's transfixed stare she feels and meets,
strangers locked entwining glances
--fated simultaneous-- electric heat   like
from a planet sparking for the taste of outer space --
the lightning burns its mark ensouled
in blooms beyond her ripe, anthophilous form,
verdant visions planted in the rays of light
between two instant loves
to slip inside the eyelid entrance
and evermore impregnate with a glory ill,
as separation wills,
to colonize throughout with other Being there
phantasmal yearnings of entrancing elegance
--from dawn of time instilled, akashic script
of binding hurt with joy in love's embrace
condemn desire to a writhing term
when not imbibing such togetherness
a worldless crypt preferred

and so as swift as gymnast flip to fall
the heart is gushing toxic lack,
epic ventricles the viscose tug
in fluid inspiration wrote of Sita's
sudden addict gnashing inner plight
while slips the sight interred within the crowd,
as if a sorcerer the cosmic sea to play her destiny:
the waves inside enraged to overwhelm
the sudden coral crust beneath the swell
an unmarked seaside's lavish drown unto the land
and reeling send this fragile ******
into wilting, her floral haze to drooping fell...
        in revelatory crash of passion's oceanic weight...
attendants pamper uselessly
--from swoon to mood irate
to wait until the next appearance of her mortal god
the only one to sate the shameless need
entwining up within a clenching wrack of milky fits
from bed to sweaty bed they take the burning maiden~
the outer sea inflow in calming dusk meant nothing to the agony of new romance
                       sequestered in hymenic fire, dawning brilliant
                                                       ­                                omni chakral pierce in rays,
                                                                ­                                                              tot­ality relentlessness
and therein descry a wholeness
  yet unregained
a hopeless birdsong careless as the wind
in caring strokes of pollen redolence
for forest ears an endless vibrate mate
of elemental ease the simmer float
upon the dukkha broil paths embroidery of karmic
cookery the godly recipe invoked,
gibed her without cease,
****** flare eternal guna coals to stoke
and spite her with their peace,
for her attainment only next to he
the moon communes the message blinding clear
amid the ghee her girls would light in care
to soften her despair -- but only aggravate her state --
and so by dim refracted moondrops set,
in only gemlight, Sita basks in pain
her gaze entrained by night obsessively
while overhead the crescent hook beams
freely in to fertilize her all-too-chastely girdle there,
petals wilting under body pressed to slab of stone
as mounting groan on groan intones her writhing questioning
of whomever he could be to cast her moaning so
a deity in maidenhead unwitting of such otherlife
left by endless, anthrocosmos' whim to ache, and alone
in wonder scream abandonment from aether poise
confusion reigning noisome nescient choice


















.
Manmata: the god of love, who Shiva is said to have burned to ashes with the purity of his contemplation
Lakshmi: Hindu goddess of wealth, prosperity (both material and spiritual), fortune, and the embodiment of beauty. She is the consort of the god Vishnu. She takes her mortal form as Sita in the Ramayana, destined for Rama (who is Vishnu's avatar).
Guna: an element, 'thread', 'string' or principle of nature; the three gunas are (sattva), (rajas), and (tamas)
Dukkha: suffering
Anthro-: as in 'human'

"The impact of the Ramayana on a poet, however, goes beyond mere personal edification; it inspires him to compose the epic again in his own language, with the stamp of his own personality on it.  The Ramayana has thus been the largest source of inspiration for the poets of India throughout the centuries . . . Thus we have centuries-old Ramayana in Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, Tamil, Kannada, Kashmiri, Telugu, Malayalam, to mention a few."   -R.K. Narayan (whose prose version of Kamban's 11th c.e.Tamil --originally written on palm leaves-- i'm reading at the moment, and whose advice i've found myself compelled to follow. in no way am i an authority, but an amateur--literally--'in love')

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/ramas-inauguration-facing-the-murderous-gluttony-of-thataka/

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/soorpanaka-the-demon-as-kamavalli-lusts-for-rama-1/
he snaps his barbed jaws made of thin sticks— you know
the kind that
SNAP and CRACK ominously underfoot when the woods have grown too
quiet, too calm, for all to be well
teeth gnashing— this the sound of dead leaves skittering against pavement and river rocks at dusk (that time when you need to settle down and get a fire started, but you’re not quite sure of where you are)
              homeless
wandering the woods in search for something he will never find
hysterical, eternally lost his

eyes

are the dim, barely there glow of camp fires that go out too early
fingers the cold that creeps around the base of your sleeping bag and along your neck
cheek bones the sun-bleached sides of mountains
his voice is the unrecognizable call from some animal you cannot identify in the depths of the woods, but not so deep that you cannot imagine it coming towards you. not so deep that the sound doesn’t make your hair stand on end.

his feet are bound with the ghost skins of snakes that lurk under rocks, darting out only when you have one foot precariously balanced on its side.

he travels — howling and yowling like some hell cat out of deep
mountain lore— starved, half crazed, ravenous
fever hot and parched
his mouth a voracious, vacuous, vorpal cave
that leads down into his river stomach— that part of the river you thought was deep, but revealed its true nature with the electric sting of broken legs after jumping.
his howl is the pounding of the wind at your tent
angry hands running broken glass claws against your skin as you walk against it.

he is jealous of those who wonder the wood for he has no true home.
his ribs the skeletons of eerie, too thick mountain laurel trees and the hollow shells of long fallen oaks.
the light of the moon burns his moth-wing skin on nights when the forest is full of her radiance. so he yowls, furious and powerless
rattling and shaking his bones — the dead arms of trees that stretch out over too steep mountains, acid burnt and raw

his name could have been pestilence to the christians
but only the Natives know his name and only whisper it lowly
and on nights when the wind is calm and he cannot hear their summons—
Windigo.

his only purpose is that he has none.
his motivation is endless hunger
that is older than the mountain itself-
or maybe it was born with the mountain…
he in his rabid madness has long forgotten the origin of his emptiness.
he is hungry, and you are in his wood.
written at the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.
TDN Dec 2011
Had you entered my room
at a quarter till nine,
you have have found me painfully asleep,
with weeping and gnashing of teeth,
muffled by the pillow
my face was consumed within.

Nightmares
about dying from a broken heart
and living with a breaking one.
My father holding his collapsing chest,
and my Wish finally laid to rest.

The best of me seems to digress.
My jaw grinding,
grinding, grinding,
grinding unti the alarm sounds.
And as I lay minding the
terror-laden rest,
my heart starts beating out of my petrified chest.
Bryce  Aug 2018
((MODERN)) Man.
Bryce Aug 2018
A normal kind of guy
Just the guy
No cosmologist
Sans Christian
******* the droplet suns
Distant in the blackened sky

Gotta 'and'er some
The bristled gristle
The cryogenic iris
Steel teeth gnashing
Right-toe left
Ardent in an autobiography

Good man
Soft man

Locomoted his GMC
to the Sea
Thought maybe
With precise aim he
could undertow away
paradise.

No pick-me-ups
In copper-channels
That Ionized the pick-up-truck
With archaea iron
that ugly duck
Reminiscent of the man
In all but--

A castaway
Stowaway
The man who never hesitates
Bop upon the interstate
Lost within
concritical maze

Shoring up
Going home
Giving up
Turned to stone
Marble chin
Solumn grin
Chlidren sing
Seeking wings
How'd he know
Where to go
Will he see
What it means?

He's the guy
The one with the lollipop lap
Licking the syrup off the lip
Of a sweet polished sapphire
Gin
And the kids
My god
They think he
ODYSSEUS
And his dog not yet
Dead but depressive in the gloom
Howling into the midnight grass
And the creatures that stalk
With their ******* youth

Soon their weight will hit the deck
And like a noose,
Break the joints
The planks of which would stress
And bend his eyes upon his head.

God willing
Should he be exhumed
His energies excape to the river
And float,
Penultimate,
into the sea.
zero  Nov 2017
IRONY
zero Nov 2017
Ashen doves float within the waves,
slinking like silent demons in the night.
They curl around my body,
jaws operating like steel machines,
gnashing at my limbs.
I begin to scream for help,
but they ****** my breath,
they drag me under their tides of black,
unleashing my unremitting fear of water predators.
their teeth, sunken into my flesh,
gnawing at my mind,
painting me my new mortality.

These are my demons,
the sharks in the bath when it comes to hygiene.
the fear of the below and the depths of human mentality,
the untraceable percentage of human worthlessness,
the detestable attraction to the demise of our minds,

I float lower into the aqua,
pressure building,
unforgiving and foreboding
I close my lids, and dream of the sand,
praying it to be underfoot when I open my eyes,
but when my lids open, the doves loom closer.

The irony of a hydrophobe,
dying at the hands of the sharks.
The fear of the ocean is the greatest fear I know.
-Z.xo
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2017
i read stories of angry drunks and wonder:
           why am i so "pathetic" reading into calm?
don't know... truths by a millionaire
might make more sense...
mix ***** with coke watch
the icecubes melt and then take another
sip and it's harsh, pinching like
a crab's signature...
         but then alcohol formulates
around me like a memory tool,
gone are the lessons of school,
      gone the need for arithmetics that
lead to no hoard of gold of erebor -
just that cinema and standstill -
   like my genesis of memory,
  with a great-grandfather in kindergarten
him playing the piano and me playing
a toy piano aged 4, and in my memory
he representing no clear image
but a mere shadow / merely a shadow...
               or laughing at my great-grandmother's
funeral, then sitting up at night
   gnashing my teeth so hard
until i managed to bite off a piece of my
left mandibular central incisor...
         and in the mourning crowd
  when close family members were throwing
flowers into the grave unearthed
and being asked to do likewise
i shouted no!...
                      and took the intended flower
to be thrown into the grave
   to my grandparent's home and sat there
with a candle, gently burning
     the petals with the flame until
the petals, originally red, turned purple;
it seems i can't forget my education in chemistry,
that's not me saying i prefer thought "experiments",
i find them abhorring,
             it's still perplexing how that rose
that was intended to be thrown into the grave of my
great-grandmother ceremoniously
     turned purple from red when gently
applying fire from wax...
        i'm sure a bunsen burner flame of blue
flame would have scortched it...
    as i'm sure you agree, there are hues
to fire, blue flames and very engaging chemical
experiments... in all honesty?
   i did the best chemical experiment in school
and not at university... thanks to mrs. khan...
it involved extracting polyethylyne
in an in vitro environment...
               what you might call an event horizon
akin to physics...
                    oh physics, and the fact that
it's focus on procuring adherents does not stand
within an in vivo environment they propose
to speak about it...
          oddly enough, chemistry does not
popularise itself, only biologists and physicists
popularise themselves,
         chemists usually turn into amphetamine
pushers...
  like: because it began with a ****** name
     and an even ******* primate, do i care?
no... i'm getting drunk!
  why do physicists and biologists get the *******
high-ground in culture and chemists get
the sub-culture? oh right... poetry and
the counter-culture...
      i own the literature:
a. atkins' physical chemistry
          b mcmurry's organic chemistry
c. shriver & atkins' inorganic chemistry...
   from experience though:
    organic chemistry is where you have fun...
it's almost culinary in nature,
   and the patience involved...
sometimes an experiment can last for days...
i find the other two environments too sterile,
well... inorganic chemistry is spectacular,
i'll just add that it's flamboyant...
             physical chemistry is a ******* graveyard,
that **** is so sterile that you don't
   even know whether it's physics or just
applied mathematics...
               but how electrons travel in
organic chemistry's textbooks?
            i could do that **** for ever -
                    the nearest thing to x-ray vision
of what is formed and how it all seems like
quasi-robotics of something taking off a faulty
limb and asking for a more manageable counterpart,
it's all metaphor though, evidently not literally
applicable...    but that doesn't say it's not similar
in the case of having such a point of view...
  but yeah... why do biologists and physicists
think they can speak about their theories
  as populists might speak their political agenda
when they're forgotten the principum in vitro?
                 what they are doing is what
current right-wing political movements are doing,
giving them a platform akin to populism
     i.e. via the principum in vivo...
                    i mean it's there, including chemists
running amok shoving toothpaste and petrol down
peoples' lifestyles... and sure, pills...
    but i find that less demeaning than showing
ideas into peoples' heads... like it might
       change their narrative skills for the better...
still...
        now i'm tempted to find the third alternative
to vitro / vivo...
                               in mirror, a replica,
    something that can compensate the phenomenological
groundwork for, say, the punk or goth movement...
     trouble is, what could be resurrected from latin
to derive the word mirror...
     mercury?                           it has to be,
given in silico, so there must be a counter-elemental
derivative working from that...
thus -                                             in mercurius,
     that ought to prescribe the x            definiton
     to a situation                  where + is rarely
                       attributed to the movement of the canvas;
and yes, writing can also imply
serving the dish neglect to all wordly affairs.
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2013
I mashup me, myself, and thee: Part II

Excerpts from my poems about poets, poetry and the process of composition. In chronological order, from the earliest to the most recent.
---------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­----


The three poems went about their business,
Bringing heaven to earth,
FYI, even Angels can't be everywhere, so,
God invented poems to do his ***** work,
Cleansing souls.

They rode in~out of town on a prankster wave,
A cheering throng was not around,
But a singular poet saw, recorded the vision,
And thus, this nameless poet,
Below unmasked, unsealed,
Cleansed one more soul,
And that soul, this soul, as required,
Paid it forward.
~
Nothing produced from this place
where routine means the gorge tastes bile,
When surcease is welcome relief,
Where dancing on ice in bare feet
Is step one to ripping your chest open by your own hands,
The toxins thus released rejuvenated by salted air,
Can be finally be transcribed onto paper
And realized.

Warn them once and then begin, you,
Get serious, delve, with hurricane unambiguity,
to torrential words upon the unsuspecting,
let them taste the rawness, only the truth provides,
let them know salt tears so briney,
They will flee this place, n'er to return.

~
One day she intro'd me as her fav poet,
To which I acknowledged by addressing her as
My number one fan,
Which seems to have stuck,
so I acknowledge her as such,
And always add a polite, respectful, winking,
Yes ma'am!
~
Like this new day,
there are always
new poems

Like last night's sunset,
day's efforts reviewed,
a special light,
a yellowed marker,
highlighting a few deserving

Take them home,
kiss them goodnight,
rest them in the poetry file
that is no file,
but a large fabric box where
sewing tools once stored

How appropriate and
how happy that makes me.

~
Yo! Yo!
Remember your first real high,
That moment
No absolution, no return.
That moment
When you admitted, confessed,
to yourself:

I am
Forever forward,
A home-grown poet.
I am
Soul enslaved to words.
The alphabet - My oxygen molecules,
I am both,
Addict and dealer
A ****** poet

Yo! Yo!
So you do recall,
The exact moment,
God-spark-within, ascendancy gained
You lost control,
Wept words instead of tears!
A ****** poet ******!

Yo! Yo!

Sophie's Choice.
You chose writing over breathing,
Worshiper of the purest pleaure,
******* in deep the smoke-high of
Head-nodding discontented contentment
Stealing anything you saw
For to satisfy the need, the craven
Craving.
****** poets!

Yo! Yo!

Don't you're ever sleep?
Hear that the city, the state,
Gonna methadone your kind
In a special program
Teach you only language to sign.
**** poets!

I am a ****** poet.

The first step taken.
Admission.
Poetry is my default rest position,

My drug of choice.
~
Have you noticed here

Each poet declaims his fellow
The better one, his teacher,
From whom they shall learn and gather up
Inspiration

Gonna run for Congress,
My first bill, Poetry-care,
Will make it a requirement that
All citizens must contribute,
Exchange once a day
To this peaceful place,
Even just a syllable, a single letter,

K?

~
Literally my eyes see words awaiting coordinating,
Poems flying by, needing plucking,
How a child eats his morning cereal,
His rituals informing, of the man yet to be,
How our bodies lay, hair unbrushed,
Tying us into a conjoined knot...

No matter that plain words are my ordinary tools,
With them I shall scribe the small,
Cherish the little, grab the middle,
Simplicity my golden rule,
Write they say, about what you know best,
Surely in the diurnal motions,
The arc of daily commotion,
Do we not all excel?
~
The ice of poetry,
glassine smooth
but
charged hardness,
hits you, ****** you,
unexpected snowball in the face,

the fire of poetry,
cherished phrase, a patois,
comfort food when
whole winter skies
swallow you bleak

mutual contradictions of poetry
savaging the soothed ego,
revealing the raging id

what's in a word anyway?

~
Please Pop, pick wise,
the life and lies, the faces and disguises,
I will need employ to achieve success
in the eyes of my reading beholders,
who own the liens on my soul
because of the promises I believed,
when you sang me
glowing lullabies of my future days,
how everyone would love my stories,
my poems, someday...
~
Place your ****** hands upon thy chest.
Let them melt thru and come to rest,
Inside, the battle ongoing, under thy breast.
Watch, eyes open, knowing, fearful.
Swiftly, with no hesitation, from within,
Rip open your body, exhaling the best,
And the worst of what you got.

The cool air rushes in,
Stirring the inside stew of:
Infected grime, shameful desires,
Secrets that should not have been exposed,
The ***** stuff that you alone know exists.

Contact with the atmosphere makes
Self-pity dies, blue blood turn red,
The TNT tightness explodes,
Ashamed, you have only one escape hatch.

Now, you are ready to write.

~
My life is on the boring side,
So welcome gents to look inside,
The surfed sites, the emails, hardly slimy,
But stay the fk away from my poetry!

Tis obvious from your midnight editing,
That my wordily, working body has been discretely
Simonized,
My data,
Googlized,
My poems,
Scrutinized,
A comma, a colon, a verb, out of place, capsized,
Little threads kept in door jambs, their alteration,
Your snooping presence, a confirming revelation
~
Where I write, here, all comes so easy,
Every glance a poem formed,
Every phrase a title to a poem served,
Every conversation overheard and those wind-lifted brought,
A seed, a germ, a word~worm hooked to the pole crook of
My finger saying, see man, time to get more ink and paper,
Go and catch us a few poems for dinner

The snapper weakfish word colors are
Running past my-by the thousands,
We will need a basket to catch but a fraction
Of what you see, more than more enough to share,
Only Happy Poems for all

It is this rhyming way I view the wold,
That is my freedom, is my-present essence,
How the poems come, how thy flow,
Peaking, I cannot berate, rarely eat,
Sleep a thing of the past (as you be aware, beware)
There is poetry in simply everything.

~
But if my aura be a comfort insufficient,
Let this surprise poetic gift awaiting your arrival,
Give you rest, from crying surcease!

For when the who, the why of me interrogatory posed,
Describe me in a brevity I ne'er possessed, say:
He was just a poet, and I,
Just, his lover, number one fan.

This truth eternal, never to change.
~
But I am open to learning, the arduous task
Of raising a teenage daughter,
After I have my head examined

Though I am just a bunch of eclectic electrons,
I got powers a few, like making life's happiness
Hearted happier, encouraging your forays into
You-know-what,
And when tables turn, a hasty retreat you beat,
For imaginary cappuccinos and poems we will meet,
Comparing notes on who felt lousier when...

But what I can do 100% is assure you
There is no lone nor lonely daughter extant,
Your voice not just clear but soft-edged,
For I have poetically adopted you,
Here and now, assuming you sign on the
.............................................................­line

~
Take these words at plain face,
and look not askance
at this fair warning,
for I am but a tragic,
empty vessel for you to fill,
you are the raconteur,
me, just a  
poet poseur extraordinaire,
street urchin, word merchant,
all my verbally, wordly goods expropriated
from the wind,  where your scattered thoughts
lie about, carelessly,
unattended
~
Guiltless in life, we but survived,
Hurting no one, no thing,
Yet, here we lie, ignored, unattended,
Yet, you fail again to see our connection?
You do not recognize us?

We are the shells, the husks of you,
Your poems unread, you labors unpreserved,
All wasted, for unless they are read, they die,
As you will too.
Some fast, by water, some slower, time-eroded,
All, ended, by drowning in the Sea of Who Cares!

~
What sourced this elegiac distich,
Too many poets, fully disclosing their downbeat, aroma of defeat?

The world is in a **** mood, not one of us, got nothing
Good to say, seems that love storms ripping hearts
With no trace of mercy, the radio has elected nonstop
Taylor Swift and Jonas Bro's
Just to make the point!

It is so easy to feel ******,
When the sun is unshining, elegant distich, **** me.

Thinking back, getting a good idea,
Found some long necked Corona overlooked,
Turn on the tv, pretend I'm a real cowboy,
And for god's sake, shut down poetry,
Good Bye Poetry, for the rest of the day.
~
once upon a time,
a traffic light rainbow,
stopped n' go, was a word design,
demarcated visions of spun sugar,
bodegas sold me
magic beans by the pound,
masterminded into cups of delight,
treasury's bounty overflowed,
now, dregs drain, sink stained,
as are my writing utensils,
my ink stained, us-less, fingers

come visit me, unknown stranger,
let us exchange fluidity, barbs,
a contest of kissing, eye lashing
wit ands shared vision stashing,
and together, once more,
write with our feet,
while holding hands,
becoming once more
poets of the street.

Only, come quickly.

~

But reading thy cries, an exercise,
Teeth-gnashing frustration.
It brings no relief.

So sad girl,
Write till you are righted,
May be it will snow on July 4th,
And tho unnatural,
So is thy grief.

Nonetheless, write me write me all about it,
Right us,
For tho snow falls, its loveliness,
Makes the heart rise up in gladness!
~
She brings me coffee in bed.
I propose a violin accompaniment.
Some babka, with nice-crumbly-in-bed
Streusel topping,
A concerto we could make!

Her derision snorted so loud,
The mollusks on the beach
From their shells come out.

"Good luck with that,
Put that fantasy on
Your **** poetry site,
Cause that is the closest you will ever get!"

~
For she will be my heroine for all time,

These words to expand with rhyme and verse,
T'is a welcome task, one familiar, but anew,
Each dawn each dusk, a daily trust, a love poem diurnal-birthed,
As if god created the world, but left upon completion,
With a grievous thirst, a new notion, he did burst.

He created the Eighth Day, for celebration of his
Most cherished invention, the idea of love.
This is where, the secret writ Eleventh Commandment occurs,
Love thy Poetry Gods, Honor them with daily verbs.
~
Officer...you should see me gut a

Poem,

Slice its belly open,
Sometimes straight, sometimes Askew,
Feed the gulls them
****** insides on the dock, by-moonlight,
Can ya cut me some slack?

Mmm, I see here in your license,
You are a disabled guy,
A **** poet ******,
Who often does his best work
Legally all alone in the HOV lane,
So I'm gonna let you off this time
Just with a warning!

~
We can share words, we can grant tiny easements,
We can weep with you unseen tears,
We can etsy you little homemade gifts
Like this.

That you can take and keep, and break out in time of need knowing full well that these words will not spoil nor rancid turn, cannot be out grown,, or torn, or rent asunder in anyway for once they are shared
They are irrevocable.
~
When you write,
It as if you write upon our
One skin,
For I am your tablet,
Your sole/sol/soul composition.

So stop kissing me
and
Write upon us.

~
This will not be the hardest poem I e're wrote,
But if there is no inspiration
For you to smote,
And armpits refuse to provide perspiration,
To source juices for a new creation,
Try this trick,
I promise you
No one will lick your ice cream cone,
Nor mistake you for Leonard Cohen,
But when you are done,
You will be High Priest of
Hello Poetry for the rest of the day!
~
You think you can write?
Then employ  a word outside your comfort zone,
Go it alone,
And write four sentences that will make
The hopeful reader stand up and
you twice as much, and shout

Hallelujah
*******.

Work. Poetry is work. Hard work.
Don't fret. But, think on it. Have the sweetest dreams.
In the morning, when you but awake,
A poem will be aborning in thy mind,
And dare I say it, you will find a new freedom
In free verse.
(I know you will slip in a rhyme or two,
I can't help but do it too)

~
Had myself forgot,
That a poem needs a
Frame of jungle gym sounds,
An aural aura resonance unbound.
Purposed to make the heart lift
Your ears say:

Say what!

It needs a tune,
An internal music,
It needs a lilt!
A cadence, that both
Marches and swings,
Even when'd urgent dirge
grief pours forth.
~
This Sabbath day you fog-hide
Your gift of bay and beach
So quiet implore, beseech,
Keep the sailors safe,
And your poets saved.

I ask much.
But I ask for all of us,
There are so many such
That are booster-chair needy
That I am succumbed, overwhelmed,
Enormity fearsome needs help even from a deity.

Small words, big hopes.

If you cannot grant it,
Won't wait for intervention,
Do it myself, answer prayers one and all,
Best I can, starting now with this
Po-hymn.

~
I used to sleep
With pen and paper on my nighttime table.
Nowadays, my iPad tablet rests upon my chest,
Not only does it keep me warn,
It takes my poems from within, Fresh Direct,^
Edits, credits, and delivers them to your door,
While I'm still sleeping.

Which is why they come at all hours.
It is also why they call them,
Love's Labour's Lost saving devices.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
**So I spend my cold, hard time
laying down cold hard verse,
Can't stop, cause it's my daddy's dying curse.

I am both: Addict and dealer, a ****** poet ******.

— The End —