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Edward Alan Mar 2014
or "let's order takeout,"
or "small ineptitudes in the kitchen"


1.

butter
lop
it liberally
silver clinging

scrape it
pan side
sputters and hissing
smoky?

turn the heat
down
crimsoning
elemental

browning the
butter


2.

sizzling whites
diaphanous
stiffly whitened

bubbles surface
spatula stroking
poly—

tetrafluoroethylene
roll the egg
yolk

shattering
yellow


3.

****! the water
nothing—
evaporated

gasping
blue effluvium
windows
fanblades

blackened ***
the bite of a
char upon
it

tea for
tomorrow
Sapphic stanzas broken into free verse.
refresh mesh May 2015
the most perfect people invited me in their oddities
to their cozy crib for a night of civil anomalies.
they moved like dancers who dabbled in alchemy
and already i've created such a powerful fantasy

that i want to cancel all my summer plans
to touch their brilliance
and draw their soft hands
hoping they don't have terribly high demands
from other mollusks with failed projects
and weak attention spans

the tides within me rise,
higher than love,
roll with unfathomable speed,
crash so forcefully that i
then rise again.
i think i want them both
to love me like an oath.
i think it takes a lot of art
to grip a heart
so stretched apart.

i was introduced to these artistic geniuses
while i climbed the trees that jesus said
are made for monkeys: that's you and me
i've got it on letterhead. i have his blessing.
how slowly did you consider your discipline?
are you sure there's nothing you did not intend?
trust yourself to step aside and to pitch in.
this love is like clutching and grasping at nothing,
weeping and killing to reject my smallness.
my mark on his ***, my words in her ear.
i think i need more stamps to send ahead my gear.

fierce, powerful love erupts
on my left and right
their sudden smiles
baking me like a pastry.
lava leaks from my scalp,
thawing out my frozen eyes.
she laughs when i look at her.
she says i look just like him.
and we all gaze at each other,
knowing different things.
i feel singular
peace in my privacy

when suddenly i realize
i'm climbing an un-manageable height
on a ladder of flies
and a dozen sticks of dynamite.
there's too much to behold
among these clouds
even if they are, at first, cold
treetops cast in pale shrouds
and wet with slippery dew.
they call me to you.

holding lightning and hydration
it tears my name into pieces
and hands back all my devastation.
i could not share myself
even in our circle of small fires
i'm too huge and too small to decide
between any of my desires
i will thank them for calling me there
where it's okay to be a liar.

and if she could just tell me now
what it is her lungs ache for, and how, then
i could decide whether or not to disengage
with practicality.
i could decide whether to save or surrender
my time and energy.

i'm sectioned in itemized pieces, i'm the imperfect circle
with a small vacuum near my middle.
i'm the triangle transforming a line into a sphere
and finally finding my shape somewhere in here.

earth.
i'm the boundary outside the thermosphere,
look at us. just marvel with us.
earth.
i relinquish every ruling in my self-preserving fear
of the godly green guts.
earth.
what if i'm making it darker down here?
my teeth could break the crust.

i feel promiscuous
even when i am fully clothed
when I hear, "did you miss us?"
i feel my heart swell,
feel it split and explode
from a most painful knowledge,
what this foolish heart loves
that is; their marriage.
it is one friendship
i'd be disgusted to see die
it is one wholesome, lively thing
regressing my ineptitudes without reply.

my specialty is a destructive blast
that only hurts for a day
but for you both, i could not.
i'll just let this incense rot.
so grant me time and access
to the parts of your mattress
that you both find time to share
give yourselves a bed-rest
and I'll leave two pairs
of my flowery underwear.
surely i'll get over it
AB  Mar 2016
Trump
AB Mar 2016
Poor little Donny.
Long ago all he had
Was his overlarge, pumpkin-shaped head,
His tiny baby hands,
And a small loan of a million dollars.

He struck out for himself,
With only that million dollars to his name.
And he became a success...
And then went bankrupt,
And then found success again,
And then bankruptcy,
And finally more success.

He bought himself a wife,
Made himself a daughter he wants to date,
And put in a run for president.

Now he stands atop a pedestal,
Spewing forth hate-filled words,
Xenophobic and mono-syllabic.
His white washed fans, bowing before their Fuhrer.

Our best and brightest spend their days decrying his actions,
Our true leaders point out his massive ineptitudes,
Our comedians creating thoroughly researched,
20 minute rants about this tiny-handed, pumpkin man.
The other leaders of the world stand baffled by Donny's popularity.

But still his stands behind his podium,
With his red hat,
Waving his baby hands and blubbering about his
"Great brain. The best brain."
And the
"Fantastic wall. The great wall. A Trump wall."

And so the question becomes,
What will this tyrannical child do
When his presidential aspirations are destroyed?
For he lacks the support of any minority group,
Any women's group,
And any level-headed person.

The answer is simple:
He will sue, or at least threaten to do so.
He will rant and rave like the lunatic that he is.
His racist followers will do the same.
But their blabbering will be lost in the words of the intelligent.

Or at least we hope that will be the outcome.
Why, oh why, little handed Donny,
Must you spew such hatred and xenophobia?
Why can you not return to your tower of gold,
With your expensed wife, and bobble sized pumpkin head?

Please leave us be.
Just my take on this whole Trumpscapade
Antony Glaser Nov 2015
Weather tight
mist roaming over
ineptitudes follows
waterfalls and serpentines.
All would be good with  crampons, boots and fleece,
if prior instructions were  followed
but with a misfit  Meetup group
half are experienced
the rest are the stuff of strugglers
break or make every one of them
on the  Brecon Beacons
Christian Reid Oct 2014
This silent stewing atmosphere,
Air beginning to reach a boil,
Only smart amphibians jump from comforting waters
Into the oblivion of impulsiveness and
Throwing all things known
Into the fleeting wind,
Breaking free from freedom,
Finding old traditions in new lands,
Erasing memories, and forging new ones--

The silence.
The quiet pitter of precipitating plagues
Upon desert soils
Where magnificent poisons
Of stasis and spoils
Of capitalist endeavors
Piling upon one another to create
Monuments to their golden idols,
Solar winds tearing at biological fibers--
The Storm begins soon.

And I--
A wandering spirit,
tossed playfully back and forth
by the impulses of time and space--
I arrest this bright-eyed idolatry,
Escaping into fragmented mysteries
Awaiting me on foreign soil,
Not away from pain and war
Famine and dismay
Ineptitudes of a dying human race:
But simply away--
where the golden afternoon’s
lazy sunbeams will meet my
smiling cheek
at angles different and unknown.

Mystery within Mystery,

I open the door . . .
Marc Hawkins Oct 2017
The mainstay of guests,
Their backs against chairs
That are backed against walls,
Readily seated and settled
Into tight knit sub communities
And discussion cells…
Thrashing out social failings
And political ineptitudes
Gleaned from broadsheets
And RT News updates,
Mumbling agreements
Or gentle dissents,
Some too ****** to participate
(should have “passed the kouchie
‘pon the left hand side”).
One spills red wine onto white cloth
And they all laugh longer than necessary
About the irony of it all
Even though there was no irony
In the situation to begin with.
There are a small handful of male guests
That I feel I could get along with.
I give way in the doorway
For the hostess to deliver nibbles.
There are a handful of female guests
That I think I’d like to ****
(the hostess included),
But none of this allays the reluctance
To step through the threshold.
The hostess exits the room
As I pin myself to the hallway wall,
“It could be you”, I think,
And try to relay this through a raised eyebrow smile
That goes unnoticed.
I attempt my break in
Just as the conversation turns to
The importance of contemporary art
In modern society
And the relevance of Jim Morrison’s poetry
In the cerebral world of words.
I search audibly for a conversation
Centred around Adele’s latest album release…
And I NEVER, on a good day, want to talk about THAT.
In for a penny, I take the step with a fuzzy indifference
And am drawn to a hand extending the offer of a spliff,
And to the ***** of empty wine glass on full bottle,
And a “will you, won’t you?” expression,
And I trip and fall over a synthetic fur rug
Lying, recumbent, too scared to take my eyes
Off the pendulum light bulb that hovers above me
And all I can think is that the hallway
Was a much safer place to be.

Copyright Marc Hawkins 2017
Brent Kincaid Dec 2016
Dyslexia, mixed messages
Everything so confusing
Susceptible to misusing;
A 'B' becomes a 'D' instantaneously
And screws things up simultaneously.

A short trip from insanity to inanity.
Fiscal confuses with physical
Turning laudable into laughable
So quickly eyes can't disguise
Whether one means the skies
Or perhaps one means this guy's.

If read, confusion and contusion
Seem like quibbling over siblings
But things like read and read
Only different when they're said
Take un-signalled turns in the head
And instead come out backward,
Which should be spelled backword.

Muddling and confuddling resides
Issuing thundering broadsides,
Rendering and sundering any
Blundering inadept ineptitudes
Like some kind of garbled beatitudes.
Some take hostile attitudes.

Wheedling and wheeling away
Beetling and saying it wrong;
Maybe a song can be written
And some tongues can be bitten,
Taken aback by words taken back,
As the Raven said "Never more!"
mike  Sep 2013
2 handed struggle
mike Sep 2013
declaring the great war then winning while losing.
the perfect man sits down, with the wacko, and discovers:
im too perfect to understand this guys ineptitudes.
and thinks and equates and considers then concludes:
i am the perfect one, i should be the only one..
but then becomes lonely and sad and crippled,
and just needs a hand to hold, or to end him.
..keep trying
Why do you sneak into my brain like a silent assassin
I think about you as I hold someone else, Ineptitudes laughter
Forces me to run from every comfortable embrace
Like a madman poised on certain madness I whimper by myself
With eyes closed I strain to forget your image and breath on my skin
Your light still holds me as I stared for that last time into your eyes
Alcohol and cigarettes are now the sure sign of remembrance
A quick typing keyboard or a dull broken pencil......
Means that I no longer want to be the life of your party
I can no longer shoulder your pain... Missing her seems like everything
And as i Light one more cigarettte and open one more bottle....
No more tears no more thoughts....  I try not to think about it anymore....
nivek  Feb 2015
to wait is all
nivek Feb 2015
have a go at my ineptitudes
there is plenty to go round
and while you are blinded
what goes around......
comes around
Thomas Newlove  Jul 2020
Pandemic
Thomas Newlove Jul 2020
Pandemic
I.
Staring at the empty screens
Of all our ineptitudes,
Our demons whetting whistles,
Our joints atrophied.

Staring at the walls –
Surely not the news.
Can’t bear to look at a mirror anymore.
There’s something deeply unpleasant
Growling back.

Or the pub across the street with its
Christmas lights burning,
And the bar dark as the world was at night
Before we killed it with our fire.

II.
A million hours and a million monkeys
With half-baked ideas and reddening eyes
All trying to pen the next dime novel:
Pandemonium or Apocalypse Today,
Praying pulp doesn’t pulp before being read or read about
By the tired eyes and hands counting
Cheddar and pages and hours,
Until we all clock out.

My contribution to a dying ocean of death –
At least that’s what Bo reckoned
(Among many others drowning)
Is a journey through childhood
And wannabe streams of King and ‘cuntry.’

The old post-colonial riddle:
Can we be sorry for what we’ve done?
Endless masks thrown to the ground
Amongst self-respect and science and what
Used to be described as thought and thinking.
At least that’s what we kid ourselves.

Civilisation was never particularly civil.

III.
Start making the tin foil hats –
We won’t be leaving the house anytime soon.
We’ve a television series to finish scribing –
Eight years down and surely eight more to go.
There’s a four-hour silent French movie to watch
And what about your vegan friend –
Who hasn’t finished his journey to salvation yet?

There’s an endless stream of distractions to go:
You’ve read twenty-five books so far –
And it’s just gone July.
There’s an endless stream of desperation
And an endless stream of angst
And an endless stream of nothing
And death is just the beginning
Of
Your
Nothing.

And as the bard rightly charged:
“Here ain’t no place for dolls like you and me.
Everybody’s on a barge
Floating down the endless stream of great TV.”

So among the burning, we find a seat,
Nestle into that newly worn spot on the couch
And pretend we’re not there.
Mi corazón leal, se amerita en la sombra.
Yo lo sacara al día, como lengua de fuego
que se saca de un ínfimo purgatorio a la luz;
y al oírlo batir su cárcel, yo me anego
y me hundo en ternura remordida de un padre
que siente, entre sus brazos, latir un hijo ciego.
Mi corazón leal, se amerita en la sombra.
Placer, amor, dolor... todo le es ultraje
y estimula su cruel carrera logarítmica,
sus ávidas mareas y su eterno oleaje.
Mi corazón, leal, se amerita en la sombra.
Es la mitra y la válvula... Yo me lo arrancaría
para llevarlo en triunfo a conocer el día,
la estola de violetas en los hombros del alba,
el cíngulo morado de los atardeceres,
los astros, y el perímetro jovial de las mujeres.
Mi corazón, leal, se amerita en la sombra.
Desde una cumbre enhiesta yo lo he de lanzar
como sangriento disco a la hoguera solar.
Asi extirparé el cáncer de mi fatiga dura,
seré impasible por el este y el oeste,
asistiré con una sonrisa depravada
a las ineptitudes de la inepta cultura,
y habrá en mi corazón la llama que le preste
el incendio sinfónico de la esfera celeste.

— The End —