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A Nony Mouse Apr 2012
The bark is the mistakes along the way,
The squirrel holes are the passed up opportunities,
The twigs are failed attempts,
But despite all this there are thick healthy branches,
That couldn't be made possible without all its other parts.
Eslam Dabank Jun 2019
Deception feeds on ignorance in every lane,
Missiles are wrong symphonies in Ukraine.

The world won't rise with the cries of a thousand,
Corruption sneaks into the bones in Thailand.

Humans and bodies are wars' cheapest lance,
The riots take back stolen rights in France.

Starvation is stronger than the dignity of men,
Begging for food is integrity, in Yemen.

Moms paid, with their children, the fees.
Souls taken, are countless in greece.

There, living in an empty land is the plan,
Women, children and men, murdered, for power, in Sudan.

"Spending eternity in peace, is a ban",
Told the people, between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Depravity spreading in man like Ameba,
A losing game of change played in Cuba.

Billions of harassment cases, you bet,
Are, will be reserved in god's eyes in Egypt.

Buried her father, brother and,
desire of existence, dear Haya,
She, and millions another, in fenced Libya.

In the name of religion, crimes covered, disgracefully,
Chastity thrown, in land of churches, the Vatican City.

Shattered wood under a phloem,
Are the confused inhabitants of oriental Jerusalem.

Too many sects, invading the minds, anon,
Conflicts will split the one entity of Lebanon.

Washing souls with lies of worship, is a key
Says the elected president of Turkey.

To be served, pure blood awaits in the line.
It rains glory and sacrifice upon Palestine.

To regain true reality, they had to wham,
Under snow, through fog, numbed rain, in Vietnam.

Lost a thousands of years worth of legacy,
Guns are the rulers in Damascus city.
It is "loaves" not "loafs" - I know. But it is written that way, to show the ignorance some has, and still are proud of it, and show it confidently.
Vivian  Sep 2014
bateman, patrick
Vivian Sep 2014
phloem in your veins;
your tongue curls around
the syllables of my name
erotically, and I'm
daydreaming about
your tongue curling around
my ******* while you talk circles about
calculus and chemistry.
woodgrain and
blood veins and
gun-splattered gore-brains,
the kitchen counter
saturated in sherbet and
awash in girl-***
while you writhe next to the
fruit bowl, in flagrante delicto.
we conquered the universe with a
steady stream of xenon ions, probing
deep into the velvety wet folds
of the galaxy, *******
to the laws of physics, *******
stretching you out.
Bonswan  May 2016
A Comparison
Bonswan May 2016
If I were a tree
then a poem, to me
would flow just like
my xylem and phloem
jamie  Oct 2013
Parts of Me
jamie Oct 2013
i am

i. made of convergence of words, stems & ink.

never one to love geography but knowledgeable enough to know of the convergence of twenty six letters, wilted life givers and pigments that forms my skin. you can keep the feather light secrets resting on the petals―i only want the stem, the xylem, the phloem; to support my fragile state. you can be the pigment that stains my skin like the sun rise and sun sets i entrapped from Mother Nature. it is unfortunate the light has lost its way amongst the maze that is my veins, but i can be your light at the end of the tunnel if you don’t mind a flickering hesitant radiator. when you have mastered Taking Things Apart Without Killing, come to me and unpick the threads in my skin. maybe you’ll learn more about the words that latched upon me and if you’re lucky enough, you may uncover a raw portion i’ve hidden away. don’t forget the Lock N Lock container.

ii. held together by creaky cartilage

never one to study human anatomy but interested enough to read up and find out that i am held together by two hundred and six bones. the clavicle cradles liquefied pieces of you and the patella locks to allow the world to rest its burden on my shoulders. the sternum pieces itself and encases the lump of muscle that keeps me breathing, and cranium holds the Boss of my body. you can pick my spine and play it like a flute but please be careful for nothing resides in them. nothingness clots up my veins; nothingness fills the space between my bones; nothingness slowly taking over my senses. your October poetry piece stings me like the harsh winter wind, blows across the land and reduces my cartilage to dust. hold me like you would a newborn baby for i do not take supplement pills and i am the result of several fractured wrists & hips.

iii. harboring galaxies & objects inside

never one to take up Astronomy but aware that i harbor several milky ways and universes among the frantic chaos of every *****. flowers blossom in the crevices of my wrist bones and butterflies and birds of unnamed species flutter around in the comfort of my rib cage, just as pixies and sprites sleep and sing Church songs in the palms of my hands. sequinned galaxies swirl around in microscopic areas and i will expand until my seams burst only for me to bleed gold dust and crumpled stars. these tidal waves inside of my head won’t stop crashing until someone wakes me up to make sense of what i am and the meaning of lif
Hank Roberts  Mar 2012
Points
Hank Roberts Mar 2012
It's like trying to tickle someone when you have no fingernails

It's like writing poetry with no heart and with no words at all.

It's smoking cigarettes everyday for awhile and not thinking about it,

they say lung cancer wants to see you after your show, don't forget skin cancer called too

It's getting a massage from your ex and your girlfriend enters,
It's like hearing sirens but not seeing red and blue,
It's not remembering why you got their but do
you remember the path you walked to see those iron bars?  

It's a hat with no brim, or an animal lacking primal instinct

it's trees without phloem but osmosis is falling on itself

it's a painter without eyes, a prophet whose own cat got his tongue

its all about armed forces, arms dealers, war on drugs, war on terrorism, brothers in arms, support the soldiers, remembering those fallen, veterans, astronauts, republican nominees, presidential faults|
"We want the world to stabilize."

It's like vanishing and coming again, its not a reflection from water

it's not a magician revealing his trick or certainly not receiving a wizard's staff

it's more like having Shakespeare's pen but not quite enough paper

it's sort of like having the world in your hand but immediately getting your arm cut off.
wolf mother Jun 2014
moonshine on the lawn
amish rocking chair, creaking listlessly in the white wind snapping
howls
murdering crows with a swallow
fists to barking dogs and the dead bark, we are the 99%
of deadness on trees
only you are the leaves and root tips and phloem that thrives under the weight of dead things
and death
Connor Reid  Mar 2014
SMI²LE
Connor Reid Mar 2014
Incompatible, haemorrhaging  decimal points - from the hand of greed
Unbeknownst to those without a quant or quality
Death & equality
Money or ******
And if you're asleep, then let's coalesce
An acrid past in an acid bath
Xylem & phloem
Stockbrokers wilting into ordinance through capital
Yet another example of the cyclic futility of inebriation
Built up by *******, encouraged by intolerance
A needle full of cement and a casual whiff towards sentiment
You are a component, insufferable but worthless
The vacant unmeasured tenants of reality
Consumed by a silver lining laced with Ambien
******* won't make you indestructible
Prepare for a weak heart, fat **** and sports cars
Fake tan dribbling from your million dollar dandy
Into the lead-infested neuropolis named 'fertility'
And if we can't 'predict' economic downfall
Then we must 'ensure' it with social prosperity
All watched over by machines of loving grace
Left under clawed toes and prayers with bent backs
Clothen ears, earwax, anxiety and a box full of Vicodin
You...Don't know where you stand because you never knew
No new news, an insemination to propagation, fruitless
Seeded in tongues with an emulsified analogue of the truth
A compound, molecular in structure, stable, nootropic
Gods gift, ink on paper, weightless
Where is the honesty in currency? Money? Trade?
I've made what I've made, you make, you don't make
Energy fades, everything fades
Our lives are mistakes
Ghosts of a digitised embellishment
We're not smart
We are knowledgeable
We are insane
We are a texture in patterns in vibrations
Unprecedented, Eden, monolith
Yemen, Syria, Egypt
Glazed over with apathy, rejecting attentiveness
Global pandemic
Do you think you do enough?
Enough to warrant subjectivity and an opinion?
Social pariah, religious ignorance, indifference
1929, JSOC, Malcolm X, Davidians and al-ʾIkḫwān
It's a self imposed thought crime to embrace authority
Never to question, never to learn and think for yourself
Lay down and let monopolies & psychopathy progress
Complacent, unwilling, lazy and dumb
Why won't you let it change?
Why don't we help one another?
We're all becoming one side of a dice
Immature calves being bred for the slaughter
Becoming secular and ignoring we are but one hand
Abstractions giving light to fireworks at night
Gunfire and depleted uranium polarising dawn
There are two sides to life, consciousness in 0's and 1's
We are binary
π
Uzumaki
Fibonacci
Here is the last of me,
Subject to none.
2014
CC Capie  Feb 2012
martin
CC Capie Feb 2012
pick and choose and prioritize
you have one hundred different kinds of days to live
about 30,000 chances to repeat them
where does your heart live
in the depths?
or in the stars?

he said:

"you gotta hit it hard in the guts, blood and thunder and all like"

life is fraught with peril
like a foreign film without subtitles
you choose how it ends
the subtleties
the inconsistencies
the balance of here and there
the cliche duality of life
good and evil
god and devil
now or never

      he rolled 13 cigarettes
      took one glass of whisky
      stepped 3 times down the stairs
      walked 3 miles down the street
      and fell 6 million times in the dark

i was born like a tree
arms raised like branches
growing through my chest
leaves falling all around me
naked in the winter
clothed in the summer
roots go deep
no time to sleep
come here and flow up my xylem
lay in my phloem
my chlorophyl will fill you up
my sap is like wine
stay drunk all the time
Aditya Bhaskara Sep 2012
Do not touch me,
I would burst off,
Into flecks of chagrin,
And delate your propinquity.

I am rain dropped,
On the greener grass,
And there I hang slackly,
Upon its trenchant blade.

I am betrayed by vagrant clouds,
Suspended from moving sky,
My abode is forsaken,
Taken away by winds.

Do not touch me, rather
I would embrace the soil,
Seep into pores and phloem,
Meet the river and rise again.
Stephe Watson Nov 2018
The sun's setting,
though it may leave you darkening,
is the start of the burning
far under your soles.

The browning now crinkling of
Summer's endlesseeming greening
is but the start of Springtime's
asylum in Xylem.
Phloem's sweet ware will
flow in 'em somewhere
down the line.
It’s pithy, I know
but life is born in death.
And though, come Fall,
trees seem seemingly sapped,
there's an inspiration transpiring.


The firepit's cooling
it's embers cast only shadows
and shades of memories of warmth
and story
and light...
None gather round, the gloomy.

The dormant circle
an ashen reduction
of oak and of fir
but its blackdust when wetted
(yes, ink!)
and dipped in by brush
will one day,
with luck,
be the source of a poet's
enlightening words.

The monarchs have gone -
a silent orange rustle
and, all at once,
the milkweeds go dry;
the once-green
stalks stand stock still,
Rods of Asclepias whose
seedlings are ever
the earliest snows.

Leaving home:
wherever the Earthbreaths may
take them -
bleak, brokenhearted,
hope in a coma...
How unlike the joy of the
flutterbys whose time now
has fluttered by, a chorus
as uttered by
the ungiven hope
who, though unasked,
has wandered the winds
to bring its daughters
(each healing, each hopeful)
a deathgiven panacea
to lands now in their
own limited unlimited Spring.



And you!  I know
your (sic) fiercely pretending
not to be crying.
Hell, to never've cried.
I know your lifework is
'manly' (your words) or
some other idiocy (my words)
and unbroken.  Hell, unbent.

But think on this:
if she's gone far enough,
far enough along,
far enough away;
enough time gone by
since you broke into One
('broke in two' is NOT how it feels),
if enough not enough Her
has passed,
then she's also
more than halfway back
to you,
to Whole.

Nothing can go,
nothing is lost
for there is no
'away' within this Here.
No one now, either
at a loss -
for the knowing
is nigh.
Even the knowing
cannot be going
for long 'fore returning;
the yearning is turning
from far-off to nearby.



The Sky lives as well
in every dark puddle.
Its blues, now on Earth
where all even All is at Home.
For John Shreffler whose images are the sole inspiration for this poem.  Thank you, sir! :)
Through a split lip
red foam,
froghopper froth
fizzing, haemoglobin, half-life
sitting thickly-thick,
on a paving stone.
Looking like Clinton’s cards
think human hearts
are shaped like.

But mine’s an artichoke
a watery phloem thistle core
folded in fronds and furs,
bristles of cowlick baleen,
sailing, ship-lapped bark,
darkness and birdcages.

Mine’s a rigour-mortis pill bug
potato fly, oddball, ***** slug
an ammonite, a butterfly tongue,
a bending toe curled in ecstasy.
Exponential shell chambers and septums
ending alongside everything.

And the guts of my heart
incessantly churn mechanically,
maniacally and obliviously rhythmically
Keeping me malleable
soft,
moving,
un-enveloped by beetle wings.

Just like the platelets
of my hardening spit-heart
are, blackening blood,
amber caught bugs,
clay in mud,
elliptical,
eclipsing.
Nothing

like we think it is.
<3

Thoughts on how our hearts are nothing like their symbolic counterparts, or like anyone else's. They're ***** and alive, and, when drawn out, just feel dead.
L T Winter Jan 2015
I've become bilateral tainted--
By coincidences and ageing
Aegis fragments,

I wear sickle seeking madness-
Telling water to float, so dryads
Could root with xylem or phloem.

While the amoebas play
Webs like violin; harps-
The trees felt sorrow singing
--And dropped, but one leaf.

For--

This-was--
A waking-
'Wake'
I only tried-to-die once.

— The End —