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Danielle Apr 2018
It’s a word on the tip of the precipice
Teetering and tottering
While I slide backwards away
Muttering sullenly and with bravado
“You can’t make me fall.”
Aaron Mullin Nov 2017
Delusions of
Futures untold
Created for
Us, you know: the un-bold

Braying our compulsions
To the big ear in the
Sky
As we seek:

Glor if i ca tion
Being meek likely won’t bring
Gra tif i ca tion
Dulling my senses points to
Stu pif i ca tion
But don’t I deserve it, ain’t i a
Hall u cin a tion

So why put in the work?
Let’s wait

<<<PAUSE>>>

The avalanche will find us in perpetuity
Coming in time cause we been shirking duty
Oh, there it is - it’s time for us to be:
Aggrieved

Shoulda known better but we was:
Deceived

IlWanted to tell my truth, wanted to be:
Believed

Shoulda kept something up my:
Sleeve

So how do you rise above?

Do you got what it takes?
Could you climb your
Kilamanjaro?
With a little training maybe
And a Gut check: to find your bravado
Wouldn’t it be nice to have your own number,
Just like Avogadro

Let’s ask again,
How do you rise above?

Breathe it in
Seethe it in
Find a vessel to
Conceive it in
Now that it’s full
And overflowing

Now let it go

Trying to find answers in a bottle
Could point you toward
A 12 step mis-step

Getting back on the right track:

Use a compass
That’s internal
Realign it, maybe
Through a vernal
Equinox, the universe speaks a language
We are untaught
It’s of the Earth and Sky and
Can’t be bought
Maybe it’s me and
Maybe it’s not
I want to commune with my god
Through thought and
Heartfelt overtures that aren’t constrained
By limitations of my brain
Or systems based on economics
My value is not gleaned from
Gross Domestic Products

Answers are found as you expand past the vessel
You may become part of the trestle
Follow the false path long enough
And you get trod under
The false pathfinder becomes the path,
Did you make a few to many navigational errors
Cause you didn’t do the math
And now, as a part of the foundation of which the unending wayfarers
Can use to go a little further and a little longer in the wrong direction
Your hard work has become a bridge to nowhere
But let’s not dwell, cause

Scrupulosity
Will never guide you to the golden city

Maybe its the meat suit that you’re wearing
The overcomplexity of your eyes
That won’t let you see
The unending nerve endings that make you feel so much
You can’t feel, you won’t feel
You could pay heed to Seneca
Consider giving the suit a slip
Taking a trip
Through the underworld
With everybody’s favourite sidekick: Virgil
Kickin’ it, workin’ it
Trying not to let the lost souls hold you down
Throw you down
Now it’s time, let’s start coming around

On my journey, seems
I can’t shake em’
Me, myself, and my shadow-self
Guess I’ll try and integrate em’

Time for a va ca tion
From thoughts that won’t un-
wind, in breezes

Gonna get around to it, to
Writing my treatise
Maybe I can elucidate this false peace
Via an army of one, en masse
Slipping through the bars of false
Beliefs
As the trees
Lose their leaves

Maybe for the last time

I'm working on the unwind
From a labyrinth that is unkind
So sorry:
Guess I'm playing up the sublime

Ah, never mind - it’s
Navel gazing
Self hazing
I ain’t done razing

Roofs and
Telling truths
Or drinking
Vermouth
Cause at my very root I am
Uncouth

Razing?
Or raising!
Roofs
Finding proofs
Telling truths

Ever listen to Ruf-
Us or Martha
The Wainrights
Canadian brain-trust
Listen too hard make your brain bust

Let’s get back to navels, or
Oranges
But nothing rhymes with oranges
Maybe not
Gotta flip it
Tryna strip it
This noose is so tight
Can I slip it?

It’s geometrical
Said Euclides
We got the Greeks
Or do the Greeks got us
Squeezing us into this euro-centric
Box
Can it be un-wrapped?
Can you un-rap this poem?

Busting brains
And taking names
No one to blame, I
Don’t feel ashamed
When I win
Just means I can take it
In my shin
It’s got nothing to do with my
D N A, eh
Nor the choice piece of geography
I made the conscious choice to arrive on,
genetically

But remembering brevity
It’s time to cut the rambling for the sake of levity
Speaking of sake, I wouldn’t mind some saké

Oh, what’s that:
~~~ boom ~~~
Pulled another one out of my medicine bag

Just sitting here

Shifting gears
Confronting fears
Yesterday I was

Bleak
Er

Meek
Er

Should have been a
Streak
Er

Laying out the facts that are
untold
Thanks for listening to me
Another one of the
un-bold
I've got rambling. I've got rambling on my mind
F Edward Oct 2017
beautiful whispers in my ears
easing all of my darkest fears
i kiss you then and hold you tight
and waiting for the coming of night

i light the cigarette and watch the smoke
and pocket my nails, jagged and broke
the tempest is nigh, winds are blowing
we zip up our coats, knowing:

it will be rough, it will be a test
everything dear will be lost lest
we stand tall and shout aloud
we are proud and will not be cowed

for we are stoic in the face of death
and with a full chorus of hitched breath
i pirouette and twirl and laugh and sing
nothing will subdue this couple of kings!
Francie Lynch May 2017
Kim
Some drive big cars,
Brag of deep scars
To prove they have big ******;
Some grow goatees,
Axe down huge trees,
Or chew on edible *******.
Real men, I've heard, eat Wheaties,
Enjoy lap dance stripteases,
Build towers with their empties,
The bravado is relentless.

Kim Jong Un,
Thinks his long
In his munchkin hands.
He does private battle
With his androgynous name;
While playing with lead soldiers;
Unsheathing a stainless sabre,
Lighting up his candles,
To show he's macho manly.
And I know androgynous names, like Francie.
Hank Helman Aug 2015
Carla kept nudging me to learn Italian.
It is the language of lovers and liars she said, life’s two best friends,
Discipline yourself, it will teach you to sing, she offered,
Each phrase a lyric, a seduction,
It will give you an unfair advantage over younger men, she promised,
Tickle her ear with this tongue and she will shiver and unfold,
Her heart, her knees unlocked.

Italian is a calculate of rhythm, Carla suggested,
Every woman understands timing and phase,
Our life is nothing but cycles for god’s sakes,
How have you not understood this?

It is the lingua of fair play, she continued, each syllable an equal citizen,
A dialect with an innate sense of justice,
Women are as intrigued by its possibilities,
As they are by threat and danger,
Either of which you can no longer promise.

Tell a woman you love her in Italian,
Ti amo più respiro, I love you more than breath,
And her ******* will disappear,
She won’t be able to take her eyes off your lips,
And as we all know, your mouth is your hook,
Your irresistible smile, the pout, the persuasion.

You are a poet, a miracle I know,
Your words are narcotic when you put your mind to it,
I’ve heard you quell an unruly crowd;
Your resonant tone could soothe a pack of ravenous jackals.

But with that intricate face of yours,
Your accumulating age, the leather wrinkles,
Believe me, you will soon need to help to ****** even a photograph.
Enlist, become Italian, Carla told me, it is your only hope,
And she tossed the last of her wine onto the sand,
Watched the red stain saturate and fade,
And lay back to face the sun.
Liam C Calhoun Jun 2015
I was, “then,” – when you found your voice.
I was, “there” – By trip come broken lace.
So it’s “there,” where bravado’d gallant, and
“There,” where time flipped tricks, and theatre
Prior regret. Previous want and wary brow,
More importantly, ‘fore we’d ever remember.

Perhaps and only precursory,
The single bead of sweat, making way,
Later tear, and forever’d a tale,
From forehead unto sacred navel.
So the story goes, blasphemous and becoming,
After us, after, “one” and later, returning to,
“One,” again, this singularity of sorts.

I’d wallow, “after,” wherein we succumbed,
So much like the rest of the world –
Under, “soil,” under spotlight, under scrutiny;
Somehow ill from our mutual ******,
But even more so, the anesthetic consumed
Hours early and promise come one walk home.

More importantly, though, I am, “now,” stuck,
Stalled, dripped with fear, downing one beer,
After another beer, after another, after another,
And in reconciliation ‘for your maintained halo.
I’d wanted away, achieved a block, fell short,
Yet still, I somehow remain, a first – committed,
Whilst you dreamt that I’d never look back.
Gabby R Jan 2015
Behind the drapes I used to hide.
Regret eventually consumed me.
And although I did prefer to hide,
Valiancy sufficed my needs.
Alibis were not enough for time lost.
Dreams were dreamt not by choice
Oh how I love the sound of my Voice!
This is a new format I'm trying out!
Miranda Kramer Apr 2014
Don't fall in love with a boy who loves himself more than a mother loves her newborn
Don't fall in love with a boy who compares himself to Alexander the Great (even though they both won every battle they had ever fought in)
Don't fall in love with a boy who would rather look in a mirror than stare into your eyes
Don't fall in love with a boy who had enough confidence to make Kanye look humble

Because he will never love you more (at all)
Because he will never use his greatness to climb mountains for you rather conquer you instead
Because your eyes only gave him a new source of reflection
Because no matter how much confidence he had, he will never use it to build you up

Broken girls cannot love secretly broken boys.
Tattered converse cannot stand next to Italian leather.

Despite being fostered by the same unknown force, insecurity and bravado cannot fall in love.

— The End —