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Àŧùl Mar 2015
So aged he is, but still so zealous for his job.
It feels like he has only known his rickshaw.
The ancient bard in him tells Punjabi poems.
He belies his wrinkles as he pedals his ride.
Just putting to shame his fellow rickshaw pullers.
None remembers or even cares to know his name.
He just pedals and remembers his deceased wife.

He told me a Punjabi tale of partition...

"We were really happy when it happened,
I was 16 and married to my beautiful wife,
But then he pressed for a separate Pakistan,
Just so much wicked was this demand of his,
Punjab was alight due to some people's doing,
We were to cross river Ravi en route to Amritsar,
In Lahore my childhood home was burnt to ashes,
My beautiful wife was still so young at that time,
She was ***** on the banks of river Ravi & killed,
In no cloth was she draped as they burnt her body,
After pouring whiskey all over her lifeless body."


His voice broke and a stream of tears escaped,
Down his eyes they flowed like the river Ravi,
"In front of my two eyes the men had ***** her,
Her mistake? Looking at them once & smiling,
Sin as great to be punished by such brutal drab?
What God, Ishwar or Allah did they follow?
I have known all & none advocates ****,
To which parents could they born?
Must be the devil & the witch."


By now his nose was red and his sobs audible.
He said, "She was not just *****, she was also killed,"
The ancient rickshaw puller gasped for breath as he said,
"Would the high heavens thank them for killing my wife,
She was a Hindu and an idolater with my mangalsootra,
Why they spared my life I have no idea but just remorse,
Will their Allah or God spare them on Doomsday?"

==============
And Google knows who pressed for a separate Pakistan in the name of communal majority.

My HP Poem #813
©Atul Kaushal
Somehow he pulls along
He breathes
In his little width of life,
He gasps
In making that width
When moves flesh
That far outweighs
What he gets at the ride’s end,
Sweats it out in the sun
Splashes in the rain
A pedaling run
Joyless but gritty
That if can be made
Would fetch him his bread
From the rider in comfort
To the puller who transports
Mountains of loads
Knowing not to pause
Till drawn by fate
For a rest in sunset!
In owl-moon night
when doors are closed
in shut out light
lanes breathe morose

He carries the weight
dead in drunk sleep
in chilled night’s sweat
of tightened grip

On side of street
men burning logs
seize some heat
as need too dogs

But he must run
errand of hell
till job is done
moon’s face goes pale

Jangle hand’s bell
veins swell up taut
marks frame frail
battle hard fought

From lane to lane
his stone feet roam
till rests his pain
on pavement home!
JC Lucas  Oct 2013
Pusher/ Puller
JC Lucas Oct 2013
Pushed?
Pull until they fall with you.
Shushed?
Make a silence so deafening it drives them insane.
If evil strikes your right cheek,
slip that right hand so fast he falls on his face.

Be aggressively passive.
Because fire plus fire just burns down the house.
Be the negative space
Invisible to everyone
but those who are
looking.

And if that maddening silence makes them scream,
(which it very well may)
reply calmly,
but give no ground.
not even an
inch.
and you will do more than win;
you will baffle them.

Because all the
pushers
know to do
is push.


They’ve never seen someone like you.
someone so
avoidantly
direct.
so deafeningly
quiet.
so precise in chaos.

You’re like negative space.
and you baffle me
because when I push
you pull
until I fall over myself.
When I roar a lion’s roar
you are a mouse

Yes, you are a puller
and I am a pusher
and I am so
astonishingly
fascinated
by you.
Harsh Sandhu Nov 2014
Having many irons on fire
Willing to die in harness tire
Take boll by horns to weather
Bound with the birds of feather
Sweat, thirst being leap in dark
Can see rotten vest pale mark!

Yet throw gauntlet to cut a gardian knot
Exalte the trap wince it's fate wrote
By the pinch of salt to stop
Make out rest on laurels! nope
Being at sea about own strife
Do i drag it or the life!!
An untold story of rickshaw puller.
Even the longest journey Begins with a single step
Tendulkar has waited patiently to be a part of winning the world cup
The master has some incredible records to his credit
No cricketer in the modern era can compare with him for merit

Yesterday nearly 120o million Indian glued to the television sets
Irrespective Of caste, colour, creed, religion or sects
Dhoni and Co rewrote history after twenty eight years
From the  faces of Indian cricketers rolled joyous tears

Cricket brought  All the cricketing countries Unbelievably together
The western Coach Gary Kirsten and Co were responsible For the Eastern thriller
The great sport became  the emotional healer and the gap filler
And the greatest ever crowd puller

Tendulkar has carried the Nation’s burden for nearly twenty four years
So His team mates carried him on their broad shoulders
Even Tendulkar could not help shedding his emotional tears
It was really a great Moment for the entire nation to  celebratewith cheers
Lynn Al-Abiad May 2017
Say hello to the monsters.
The ones that bed in you,
The ones that reveal themselves
The ones that turn into one
And the ones that find you.

Monster n°1 / The Fake One
This monster would want to prove itself and will use you because it can't depend on itself due to its insecurities. It's easily detectable.
This one is the least harmless.
All you have to do is simply lose contact - it won't need you twice.

Monster n°2 / The Backstabber
The one that crawls behind your back and leaves prints with every step it takes.
This one is the most vulnerable.
All you have to do is turn around, catch it and watch it tremor in-between your fingers.

Monster n°3 / The One That Dances With Your Demons
This monster dancer would do anything to get under your skin and show you what you'd wish to see.
This one is the most naive.
All you have to do is notice how it agrees with you on everything that comforts you instead of everything that makes you step forward.

Monster n°4 / The Puller
This one acknowledges itself as a monster and would show you, with all its ways, a road that meets your eye, but effectively, this road would eventually lead them to their goals.
This one is physically the strongest.
All you have to do is be mentally stronger and K.O. it.

Monster n°5 / The Choker
This one is an alpha monster. Its aim is to destroy you. It knows your power well and would do anything to stop you. It will make you love it as it poisons you. It would wrap itself around your neck and you wouldn't even notice.
This one is the most dangerous.
You can do nothing about it but seek help from people that can save you from all of what that monster has drained you from.

Say hello again to these monsters.
Now that you know them, don't become one and don't let them in.



- LynnAA
Monsters are never under your bed.

05/05/2017
That Girl  Jan 2013
Here's to you
That Girl Jan 2013
Here's to the...

Calorie counter
Long sleeve wearer
Excessive water drinker
Mirror believer
Professional over-thinker
Clever liar
Hair puller
Tongue biter
Thigh hater
Toilet bowl hugger
Magazine lover
Belly fat ****
At home cryer
Bedroom hider
Internet follower
Social stink bug
One sided therapist
Friend loser
Terrifying truth
Reality dodger
Space-brained
Nicknamed
Love rejector
Anxiety collector
Roller coaster rider
Personal antagonist
Perfection chaser
Hopeless dreamer
Nothing achiever
Unnoticed angel
Silent rainbow
Blood seeker
Soul-searching rebel
Wilting rose
murari sinha Sep 2010
1.
when the morning sets in
with the sun rising in the east
i put on the dress of a beggar
extended up to the horizon
and the canto of my begging starts

i beg
beside the big-bazar
beside the fly-over
beside the college-campus
beside the cow-market

you then put your elbow
on the body of the day
giving a perfect and unbiased pose
to attached to the album of life

people of the working-class
spread hither and thither
to write some more decimal fraction
on the notebook of life

2.
in the dusts and soil of rural-bengal  
in the testament written by the grass
i am a son of the immortal

my begging-bowl is the most
favourite go-ahead of a alone man

then speaking around are
the chop singara aluposta

and the love-story of a hyacinth  
blooming in the pond
blind by mud

also in the overflowed dustbin of the city
waiting rightly with an erected head  
the excitement of your absence

3.
coming to this canto of begging
do you know
i  enjoy both
your intensity and your sharpness

your secret current flows me to the pore of the skin
of the body of the puller of a hand-barrow
your cold attracts me
towards the syllabus of waning moonlight  

i do realise now that the stale afternoons
saved in my pocket
stitched so many new muscles
with my vocal chord

and i’m howling in joy…

4.
what’s an enjoyment… hahaha…day after day
spending too much chaos
and living to so little extent
tell me is it the least

within the left-over on the leaf-plates
after eating by the baboos
i can discover more and more
love

the mango tree the grass-hopper my begging-bowl
and from the tune of the laxmi-panchali
coming from the middle-class houses
listen, how flourishing is my mother-tongue  

5.
all long the day i beg

i beg rice pulses oil salt
royal blood

in exchange i also distribute
peace… peace… and peace…

and the horses of the gypsies making
a dip-swimming in the peace-water

in the canto of my begging
holding a whole body of love
i learn how to be burnt
by the shadow of the trees  

i give up all my courage
to book a room in your youth
only for me

6.
going upstairs on the railway foot-bridge
i see the strong light of neon-lamps

the girl from the avtar of the flex
induced trance

the aroma of chhatim-flower in the air
and the song of a blind-beggar
with tambourine

those neon-light flex-women
beggar’s-song and flower odour
i see they are all alive
in the canto of my begging

under the evening-star

7.
in the canto of my begging
at the day’s end
the moon that rises behind the rain-tree

i put up in her hands
the lemon-leaves the water-balloons the goal-kicks
that i have had throughout the day
by begging

and i beg from her the magic-wand
by the touch of which the date-palm
that was someday burnt by a thunder-bolt
in front of the church
looks very infatuating

and my dress as a beggar gradually
becomes a royal-dress
Ken Pepiton Jun 2019
each day is new.
each life is measured re-ified or ified,
--- but 1.0 can't think past named things and their uses.
--- 2.0 must have an intuition of good begetting
that includes 1.0 gnosis of aim in an immediate way.

Oh. Here's a map.
Like Disneyland as a mall...
or DC with the alu-mini-um pyramid on top.

A schema instantiation, says the blithering flow
charting our course to
sapins sapiens augmentatious
It's obvious,
the children shall all be 2.0 in 1.0 mechanical material;

the tree of knowledge was all inclusive.
hence, the POV development circuits
are cross sired-wired dialecticalishit

seen innerish, not clearly but
seen, men as trees sorta thing.
not blind
but not visionary in a professional
TED talk worth
attending to after eight straight.

The time on earth is variable.
The cost/value of a duration is perimental,
be
coming here
being still
unborn in silken wombs
--- chirp

there are ground squirrels in California
which chirp
incessant chirp chirp chirp with

enough variety in volume tone and frequency,
to make old Morse Code five-letter code groups
come rattling through the radioman's head.

killit.
no, focus, do some meditatishit mind over world,
silken swaddles to moth or...

squeeking wheel gits the grease.
grease it, no, go to the squirrel and trigger its
cog that has no
cognition save intuition. Click.

look it in the cute little squirrel eye.
see it see you, say to it, shut up.

it don't blink. it don't shut up.
bold rodent,
I AM MAN. I shout, it squeeks,
gnoshit,
no cognitive over ride of intuition to fear the man,
is thinkable.
It is a squirrel.

It don't mean nothin'. A curse o' apophrenia on ye.

Bubbles in bubbles, foaming Being
Thoughts resolve to gearish
imaginations
cogs and gears and wheels whirling through some
filtering of needless data informing points
big
number
dimensional, scale and distance, durational
direct
measure in systems
for value and balance,
with no true vacuum, but the idea,

the null-set. Where never happens and nothing is.

We twist hard here.
The torque is what jects
the ob at the sub, via a
mechanical cam-shaft, pusher-puller-twister system
mit ein trigger, which we
click.
Think.
Who is writing my part in the book of life?
I asked me, you are not here, but
in my mind I hear replies more wise than I was
inclined
to imagine
a common man of common gifts can be for
believing
magic has always been
what magi know how to do for goodness sake.
Magi. Heros.
Not a no knack common man, wombed or un.

Peace nullifes any reason War-corroded minds can
calculate,
the numbers prove it all. Count the stars.
Use your augmented eyes, search your global memory,

run the numbers, nullify time with eternity,
subtract the works of darkness,
(don't delve into the details, you can imagine hell some other time)

----
A Valis idea, stuck between my chew-eschew-awarea
P.K. ****, trips, bags, and scenes
as became the cliche'.

Let 'em imagine any thing, define the terms and force
agreement for access.

Insider wannabe, do you agree, come and see? Or
do you dare to challenge

the common sense of all man kind as represented in Christ
of Nicea and Abeka Books, from Pensacola, Florida,

Whoa, rock the box, make bubbles cavitate the prop,

spinnin wheels like the Bismark's final bow.

--- i'm un comfortable and I don't know why.
--- a feeling
--- those are mocked as meaningless, by apathetic slobs.
--- so easy being a ***, ethos pathos logos, ***
--- comic relief
--- in mortal moments of turmoil and confusion as things are stirred.

All that could be shaken, was shaken.
All that could be strained, was strained.
All that mercurial messages could mean, was meant.

We lie in wait, wishing cogs and cogitate was as symbiotic
a thought as we thought while thinking

earlier
Art is artificial intelligence. Imagine that. A.I.

Demiurge, my cultural osmosis of vocalizings,
left me thinkin' a demi urge
is a little urge, a diminutive urgekin,

urging me to be
creative, let that lil' light shine, Marjoe

these being public displays at the edges of some of the bubbles,

bubs, some kid just shook my bottle

to pretend the wine was moving of itself, making turmoil

careful as in accurate art-iculation, this is not realist materialist
gasping
grasping for
dignity, stalwort, courage, responsibility

we are yet legions, industrial models
used to build swords with motors,
when we come to America, we join the unem.
We, the people's industrial war complex, merge
with the abandonded gods Neil Gaimon pointed out,
formin a loose unity of spirits, engines and factories and artisans

self-defined, an unum from many, on a national scale,

Da deme demotic da-emonic conspiracy of steam, incorporated
with dwarven knackeristics of old,
fur usin' Hermes as a river to call gold to our rule maker,
food bringer, h'laf weard, Lord of the loaf.

Listen,

illiterate heathen, my Grandma said we'd be if we did not know the story
after hearing it told three times.
Third time's the charm.

We were weighing your worth,
got hooked on a breeze from the broom sweeping this
pile of parts and pieces of what you imagined being worth

that's not much more worth than one in eight millions of millions,
of you kind, unless you earned admitance to the inside

externalization of imagination
pro-ject that on next---
stop. Imagine all that
and guess... ob or sub... its your roll.

I'm the door, says the door. I have no key, it says to me,
come and see,

the progress regress con tro tra la la la

That rascal who just wondered by on Youtube

com a part mentalized, an urge to count the cost

ungrateful and thanksgiving
curse and bless
sweet and bitter from one fount, that ought not be, but
it is possible, all things are,
it can be evil, but
on
discovery
such a curse is not worse than miss fitting a taken point,

we ethos pathos logos ourselves, we say, my domain,
bad
poetry can have good ideas in it. Ah, I see.

Humble your self under the mighty hand of that which has been
given the joystick,

eh, what if a lie is running your ranking order?
careful articulation?

Jackson Pollack step up, this carefulness of art,
answer that for me.

Ah, the hero, around whom thy sun wraps, what haps ever after,

you get old and the world changes against your wish.

do you believe in God.
I do, the one Jesus believed in,

by my leave, my letting a true thing be

happily, after a life of seeking for another path.

The earth is round.

Are there ideas that cost, in the use?
Is there an ancient of days account
of idle words

verbs given for acts, as seen done, from an earthling POV
idle verbs that call no act
lest the cost come clear, daemonitic tech that seems magic,
blessing cursing and claiming to heal, all
mere art... the ability to be like Jesus, that knack

there was a wise man, as he was sweeping his way one day,
his daemon, who had the assignment,
reported finding meaning
in being filled
to over flowing, have you boasted that? Never?

Did you ever shed a tear for another's pain?

You know, pathos, commonality of us all, or you know
not
and the sufficiency of evil is calling you to be the inner hero,
making room for truth
in a heart fed lies from the womb.

After all is said and done. Believe the truth makes free
upon the point of knowing the story.

Love is a verb I seldom use. I dared redeem it for future use.
It cost me dear reader.
there are verbs we abuse at a terrible price. Paid. Not by me.

Show's over, Radioman morphed to Grandpa and Oliver
watching the real world turn beneath the sun,
relative to an earthling POV. The day's sufficiency of evil all swept away.
Seeking worth whiles while marveling muses from the global brain. The walls between a common man on earth today and the hightest reaches of Academe daemonium of pan,  Is nullified, nullified ask any question and you can find all anyone ever knew about it.
the dead bird Feb 2016
depression
is not crippling sadness
as most think it is.
well, sometimes.
it is
apathy
most of the time

who cares?
no point.
everything *****.

I lost my job today
cried, a little
but I cry about everything.
mainly
apathetic
now I truly have no reason
to ever get out of bed
sure,
I'll look for another
way
to live
but this *****
leaves me with no motivation

no motivation
to apply to colleges,
even though I have
a 3.9 GPA
no motivation
to hang out with friends
even though I am
lonelier than ever

no motivation
to eat food
even though I am
starving

after
I left my now "old work"
I had the impulsive decision
to rescue a dog.
maybe
if I have another creature
to look after
love
feed
I will start
to care for myself, too.

the shelter
made my heart hurt
the kittens
weren't crying
just
sleeping
in their jail cells
uninterested
in life
or their possible new
friend
looking at their possible
rescuer
with disinterest
looking
through their cage
like me.

finnegan
was a terrier mix
a stray
he was whining
licked
my hand
when I reached to him
eight years old
missing
his right eye
life has trampled him
yet he is not hardened
I cried
with him

as I walked him
around the play area
he sniffed everything he could.
curious
investigating
not crying anymore
just happy to be free
from the hell in his cage
he
treated the workers
with affection
like he treated me
with affection

it took awhile
until he came close
and cried while I pat him
climbed in my lap
and cried
I know
buddy

walked him inside.
the woman,
at the counter
looked at me eagerly,
"so?!"
I looked away.
can't
do it
not
today
I'm sorry

him and I
are both looking
for affection
love
a way out of this mess.
but
I can't help him.
no job,
no sure way I can buy him food
buy me food.
I can't
buy a living creature
out of impulse.

he needed security
I cannot provide that
only warmth.

I need to be happy
he cannot provide that
only warmth.

goodbye,
cutie
puller of heartstrings
I promise
someone better than me
will take you away.
not today

lost myself
lost my passion
lost my lust
lost my job
lost
my
soul.
it is everywhere in my life it is unavoidable it is me
r  Jun 2014
More's the pity
r Jun 2014
Shiny black spit-shined shoes
on the walk
in the Memorial Gardens
hurt my feet
to look at their stiffness
and his swollen ankles
in them.
His worn and creased pants
too short, belt buckle aligned
dress-right-dress
with the button fold of his shirt.
He wore
an old faded USMC campaign hat
pulled down
almost to his white eyebrows.
Almost comically.
I pitied him
in the way we sometimes do
the old who mumble,
never knowing
just who they are talking to.
I heard Inchon mentioned,
and Chosin a time or two,
and every time he said Puller knew,
yeah, Chesty knew
.
I quit taking my lunch
with a book in the Garden
when he stopped coming around
and after I saw his picture
in the obituaries
with a description of how he won
his Silver Star and two Purple Hearts;
wishing now I had listened closer.
More’s the pity
I never spoke to him.

r ~ 6/27/14
John Savage  Dec 2011
Allen
John Savage Dec 2011
In the dream Ginsberg tells me I am beautiful,
he moves his stool a little closer to mine
to see me in the dull glow of the bar.
I sip at my cocktail as he takes Howl from his briefcase,
tells me Jack loves my baby-blue eyes.
Somewhere at the back of the bar
I can hear the jazz men munching sandwiches,
chatting to the girls who bring them empty beer glasses
for coins to be dropped into, for requests to fill.
The old poet with his Buddhist waistcoat
wants to change the world with his masturbatory atom bomb,
wants the President of the United States
to be silent, to be silent, to be
silent.

So Ginsberg calls the barman Moloch,
wants him to find himself in a wounded page
filled with Christmas catalogues that make the children sing.
It’s a bald-guy thing he tells the beer puller,
‘Look at the jazz boys **** the metal,
sweet sounds, Jimmy The Joe makes , sweet sounds.’
The barman wants the music to end
just long enough for him to miss the woman he loves.
‘So get your heart in a sonnet,’ Ginsy tells him
‘Get your heart in a ******* sonnet, gypsy caravan boy.’
I put my fingers to my temples, try to bring the poems together,
try to imagine the perfect microphone in the Kaddish hand.
Tell me another three line joke, Alan,
tell me the one about the Arabic love call you never heard
when your papyrus was just desert dust.
You know the one, Allen.  You know the one.

The jazz boys find their lips as Ginsberg finds his tear ducts;
I want him to chant his evolution into the mind of the sax solo.
‘It’s just us,’ he tells me, ‘we’re saving the world, Johnny Boy,
the greatest minds of my generation were ****** up the ***
so you ungrateful rhyming ******* could put colour on your book covers;
you see Lawrence throwing his spanners into the printing press?
That’s our little revolution: cherubic haiku page numbers
just waiting for the computer evolution to do something worthwhile.’
So Alan sorts his papers and gives that little attention-seeking-cough
the barman has been waiting all night for.
He pours the drinks, cuts the lime,
lets the poets supply their own anecdotes for this one-night-stand
that’s going to set every ******* pulse racing,
every heartbeat breaking for the goatee beard going grey.

In the dream Ginsberg tells me I am beautiful.
I tell him his spotlight is shining.

— The End —