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Jeremy Betts Nov 17
Awful is
The particular sound my tears make when they hit the ground
You'd think maybe they'd be entertaining, coming from a clown
But misery echos a history and the volume can not be found
Any smile is a complex frown I've simply practiced upside down

©2024
Lacey Clark Nov 14
there's a little room
with a round door
in the back of my heart
with a view of the ocean
it's here where i find myself
forgiving everyone and everything

the floorboards are worn smooth
from all my returning
i pass through corridors
where conversations
circle like trapped birds

but here, in this back room
there is only morning light
on bare wood, and a single chair
where i sit and watch waves
erase themselves over and over

sometimes i stay until sunset
when the water turns to copper
i know i'll leave again
dissolving into the sweet
clutter of being human,
my heart a crowded kitchen

but the door stays there
round like a full moon
waiting, and the waves
keep writing their one word
over and over: return
Ken Pepiton Oct 29
Doorkeeper,
where can I find an attention spanner?

Wrenching the nose, brings forth blood,
so it don't freeze, yawn and rub eustacy
from your wide open heavily hooded eyes

Eutopian Earthian Mind Schemes,
not dreams, moral equivalency resets/upgrade

Free any ostiarius,
and find doors open
in the realm of curiosity,

the bane of short attention,
at tenere, eh, stretch

the fabric of reality just so far, the bubble
we be sayin' wagwan like a password, pops

and what is going on, lets any enter, imagining

this exclusive, exceptionalist aweformed bubble…

when a reader re ads attention tension,
pop, the idea that was the weasle,
offers a way to say this and get free. An ostiarius,
freed from slavery when we read the idle teacher

of decolonizing clogged cognitive colons…

and the sweet persuaders remind us whose time\

Yours, we took this much attention,
but you can still use it, we sorta cloned you.
I did not know this, now we both do:
An ostiarius, a Latin word sometimes anglicized as ostiary but often literally translated as porter or doorman, originally was an enslaved person or guard posted at the entrance of a building, similarly to a gatekeeper.

In the Roman Catholic Church, this "porter" became the lowest of the four minor orders prescribed by the Council of Trent. This was the first order a seminarian was admitted to after receiving the tonsure. The porter had in ancient times the duty of opening and closing the church-door and of guarding the church, especially to ensure no unbaptised persons would enter during the Eucharist. Later on, the porter would also guard, open and close the doors of the sacristy, baptistry and elsewhere in the church.
Àŧùl Sep 16
Parents arranged my marriage with a girl.
I liked her at first sight—young and chirpy.
And I made up my mind to marry her soon.

In the followup to the marriage,
We interacted with each other,
In the beginning, I liked her.

Soon, courtship turned one-sided,
I was the only one interested,
Insulting me, she started.

She had a problem with quick love.
Berated me for saying it so soon,
She told me to behave mature.

I accepted her remarks,
The criticism of my ways,
I focused on all my means.

I proudly told her that I didn't give up.
The coma-inducing accident, and
Injuries couldn't reduce me.

I told her about how I literally won a war,
A war against time and disability,
The doctors labeled me as 42% challenged.

"But I didn't give up," I told her.
I defeated my disability,
And all of their speculations.

When I passed into that coma,
After the accident, I'd die,
They had speculated.

When they diagnosed me 42%,
I will do some easier work,
They all had guessed.

They wanted me to drop out of college,
Oh, they want me to be humble,
Be humble and accept fate.

Not that the other job is easier,
But they wanted me to set up a shop,
For daily needs, stationery & photocopy.

Even my mother wanted me to drop out.
Leave the B.Tech. Biotech incomplete,
Opt for an easier course instead.

But I told her that I didn't give up,
No, I did not; I did not give up.
I fought my way to the top.

I cleared my B.Tech. degree in Biotechnology,
Not only that degree, but my story continues,
Attained an M.Tech. in Animal Biotechnology.

I initiated a PhD in Animal Biotechnology,
However, I had to quit it due to COVID19,
I lost my opportunity due to the pandemic.

But she, out of her own regret,
Regretted about not being able,
To clear exams, me she insulted.

"People with disability achieve more."
I felt belittled, but she continued,
"They even crack UPSC-CSE."

I'm not disabled since birth.
No, I'm not, I'm not, I told her.
This disability I acquired in 2010.

I told her the same,
But she did not realise it.
How wrong she was.

How she had insulted me and my struggles,
I can't marry her,
The man I am today is after my struggles.

Though she loved my poetry,
The 'Angel?' Saga the most,
But she insulted my history.

She even compared my life against others.
As if she knows all the people like me,
My dreams shattered due to that accident.

No, she knows everyone not,
She doesn't know others who gave up.
Look at me; I didn't give up, but I'm victorious.

But she was not impressed.
She is rigid and argumentative.
Never going to apologise & accept.

I told her mother that I couldn't marry her.
Why? Because she doesn't know humility.
Obviously, she can never respect me either.

She wanted me to respect her.
She thought that only hers matters.
Because I live in the inferiority complex.
I'd rather spend my life alone than with some egotistical person who would insult my life to extract sadistic pleasure out of it.

My HP Poem #1985
©Atul Kaushal
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