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Nat Lipstadt Jan 2022
~for Robert C Howard, inspired by his “From Many, One”

I know nothing of poetry…

or ballet or symphonic works; a ******,
a passerby, a glimpser of other’s artistry,
neither can I add, nor delete, just observe their
intersection, a triplication, and yet, a snowy
Saturday Sabbath is colored now by their story

a  story of many, a symphony playing a concert
of harmony, the notes are grunts and shoutouts,
the high notes of squealing tires screeches, the bass
of growling heaving hearts, engines-beating revving,
music growing louder, to a crescendo of resounding success

sudden silence is the fiercest applause, a reverbing
mark, echoing in a forested heartland, quietly absorbed
into the scarred bark of the witnessing trees, adding a minute moment to their long playing recordings, approving  an
endeavor of many unasked, self-tasked to help, many into one…

a merging of a singular memory
Amanda Kay Burke Jan 2022
I know I make you suffer because you remind me all the time
As if yelling words helps me over this mountain that I climb
For a moment why don't you put yourself in my shoes?
Sure if roles were reversed it'd be a different life you'd choose
I want you to be satisfied with me the way I am
And wish you could see that I actually do give a ****
I care about opinion more than you realize
Not able to escape the crushing disappointment in your eyes
Well at least you have made your point crystal clear
Cut ego down daily then have the nerve to say I'm wanted here
I would walk out
Have nowhere else to go
I get high yet somehow still feel just as low
My pillow wet from tears almost every night
Zero point in arguing because you believe you are always right
I wake every morning hating myself more
Isn't your fault but you escalate the war
Internal conflict my ever present curse
Battling with you only makes everything worse
Chasing unrealistic dreams like dog after their tail
Subconsciously aware I am doomed to fail
I wish for once you could take a chance and put some faith in me
Allow room to make mistakes even if you disagree
I know how you feel so there's no need to rub it in
Deragatory remarks remain etched into my skin
I hope someday I will find the strength to rise above
Conquer demons
Discover the parts of me you unconditionally love
Trust when I say I wish I was different just as much as you
It's not that easy to change simply because you want me to
I love you when you make me feel so very bad
And apologize for the countless times I have caused you to be sad
No matter what we go through you will forever be my mom
In the future we can both work on staying calm
I'd corrall moon and stars for you if I thought it would make your smile last
You can't enjoy the present when you're caught up in the past
We wear the same size
Anais Vionet Nov 2021
Ooo! Your fake smile - what’s up?
Friends know when something’s wrong
Bardo Oct 2021
It's the winkers you wanna watch, not the wankers
A ****** is a ******...is a ******
But a winker's not a ******
A winker knows, Yea! he's in the know
And what's more he knows that you don't know
When he sees you coming, he winks over at his friends saying
"Hey look! There's a boy coming and he don't know
We'll have some fun with this one.
But such is life... such is life.

P.S. I'd keep an eye on the wankers too, all the same.
(Myself I'm confused, I'm just a Winky wonky ******).
The last line of this was a Note in the note box but I thought it so good I stuck it onto the poem.
Ken Pepiton Oct 2021
The being called Bob Dylan, asked me,
- caught my attention
- a blur on the radio

I asked, what if we entered empty,
came into the life
we lived through, we the old who
slipped that little rudder,
that pushes the bigger rudder, sailors
know the nomenclature
it creates chaos in the wake,
sail on, what were we hoping to find?

Sam Phillips from Sun Records
some link to us all, eachly, singin' t'me.
- there were songs saying sing me
I am the thing being asked as the you,
and the me,
and the we, I think you know what I mean,
--- did you really wannabe a rockstar?
--- was it not some older thing
you wished
to be.

A wizard was it? Yes. A wise old man,
anonymous, well quipped, sharp tongue
kind
healing swift cut, through the clench,
bite this,
incise decision to cut to the quick,
quickening
real deal, offered for free, it was given to me
and I never used it,
it's just an idea,
try thinking
a song does do this, but this is your song
vain you, who admit thinking it all
about you, when the link is
word to mind, no translation, no silly riddle
to bless yo' pea-pickin' heart.

Real life, once, one day, I picked peas,
so I do know, there is a pea-pickin' heart
and when it happens to be blessed,
it gets to be silly the old way, blessed
with a fine morning and birds that look lucky
to the kind of minds that discern such,
lucky birds, lucky me, got peas t' pick
and each pea I pick
is a wee bit o'money like matter
in my pocket,
as a thought, with this, blessed pea-pickin' heart

expanding as I live and breath,
peace I make
stays where I store, until, as we all hoped
hope over flows,
come be
still, this lives, this river, that was dammed,
this river wishes power were drawn
from the proud forces vulcan boasts of being
stuffed,
American stuffed, not raw Aussie outback stuffed,
live and learn, poetry takes time
to build the volition, gnoshit, time takes

attention to -- sense- shake fingers in air above head
ritual wu wu
right, that works, that goes into the legendary stock ***.

--Besom of destruction, some of the mess remains.
-- Besom of destruction, come sweep this mess away

So the bass is always the wizard, the knower in the clan.
We all share a part of knowledge, we need
each the other being savvy we are in one ***,

being watched, bubbles never forming, tempers rising
what is the heat to my skin,
ah
yes, the forces that fire sparks to jump the gaps,
augmented vision lets
us see, we are frighteningly complex beings
with bubbling souls.

In a state always called a universe from the inside.
Inside a mortal bubble,
at the very core, very being the philosophically precise,
not on the dotted line,
cut there,
that one point, empty find, for a future reason,
when you chose
to leave be, the prospect of unknowing knowns.

--- the legends all retell themselves,
--- caused by virtue of onliness,
--- amused as I was, entertaining
Interesting times need an attention economy
or we all become scatter brains,
drawn to screaming whispers whistling praise
worshipping wondering if I can ever prove
there is no hell.
Unless Jesus is a liar, himself
not the story greatly told at the heart
of the new order in the information economy
calling fractal realism
back into the every day opera of life,
down the drain,
drawn to
a river, literate-ly, reading itself to me,
the part of me noted in the book of life,
that bubble,
we be in, what was it you wanted?
Fame, or free from blame,
free from guile used to trigger shame,
those who wrestle with the message,
guile is there as game, she knew
mom, she knew, "I was beguiled."

Tricked, made to know all around,
the whole is good, and what was missing
was my knowing, my own knowing
the art of knowing more than names,
know ing I am naked, and
he told me he knew, I know, taste and see
To be seen, or
maybe to be known
as the hand that held the pen,
that
volunteered to make will seem too free
to talk
to sing
to wait to see if others heard the union songs.

Listening to Dylan, knowing the wind he said
he heard blowing
when I was a little boy,
is the wind that wraps the bubble
of air we share
Chronicles, his book is called,
Sean Penn reads it, and I can see them both
at stages,
boy to man to old man with a wish
to do whatever good
might

might
make the tempest tamed
seem willed slow
to geotime
mind-wise, in the way
of minds being
made up
to push toward emptiness,
to fill yours
with my emptying efforting, sweat
of my frontal cortex,
inner sweat.
They call that fretting, inner sweating.

So we teach our children, think
fret not, no sweat
apple a day keep the bleeding doctor away

aware of my power to hear that same
response, from the wind,
when I listen, assuming
you, dear reader, draw some sense,
of the vain vanity,

We must include you.
Do you wish this not so? What do you know?

Many wishes go wasted,
for lack of a mind made up to finish the story.

When you are old, older than any first time
you care to remember,
you feel older than any first time, remembery
moments
seen on a circuitous path down a meandering course,

of course, this is that
course of human events in which we
appear to be involved with clearing the air,

sweeping troubles away, shatter pots,
rotten thoughts, fiddle-sticks,
that was the word, fiddle-sticks, it meant
****, that didn't work,

-- The we I am in at that tip of taxonomy,
the pen, the fold

told that we know, by right opposed to wrong,
which
everybody in this we knows, I am at best a bit,
informing
you.
In the realm things manifest from-in-with-within
confidently, ensampled faith, mine, in me,
see
this is what I wished, I wished to know what
could provoke the stories told to children
who are new know nothings, born
into the safety of we, the people,
who follow a thought held
in words, written in stone and stars, and acts
of living things occurring around us in times,
lifetimes, many times
more and less than mine, yet in the oily slickness
golden oil
I recall,
not knowing this was my request…
- there a call, Rachel, from Dealer Services
AI, checking my access, robocalls are keeping me
alive, re
minding me, I have a say in what we think
at this point, stretched to form a line
in the naturally ready silicon surface ions form
a channel, a brook, or a rill
a poetic little river we can leave a nymphobia
to guard… grimacing do not **** with me

THIS is the peace made in sacred fonts of old,
it feels as if flowing from my left ear
when I first began to leak my
inner daemons, quickie routines to tweak,
the original tiny twist to correct an imbalance
gone
too far. A tic would be imagined as a flick
in time, not as a tweak.

Any way, at this stage Art is tic auspectically
aware you are there, as
wished, hmm, now, I am at a loss for words,

like an electron hole emptiness
ready to take hold
of the next new that fits
Ornery little variable declared some time ago in basic Morse Code FTA
Wilkes Arnold Oct 2021
Which way the wind blows
Why the night falls
Or where it goes,
When adventure calls
My attention grows
Til I drop my pretension
Of depressive prose,
With that said my apprehension
To speak of this romantic tension
Leaves my heart in locked up throes
Its wants and wishes won't be exposed,
I don't know what happens now
Or happened then to bring this out
Why the night falls
Or where it goes
It won't matter I promise, it's what we chose.
Aislinn Vesper Oct 2021
You would say life is how you make it,
but I dont agree.
Sometimes you can try your hardest
and still feel on a ground,
not able to get up, not able to see.

There are times,
when I dont see light.
Sometimes, just one sparkle would be enough.
Thats what makes me hold on.
Life is not always bad but often it is.

I guess what makes it good is the feeling.
Being important, being pretty, being active.
Being enough and still be you.

I remember times when I didnt think of
not being enough.
I was a kid who didnt have a reason to feel that way.
But as I was growing up,
all the things around me,
make me feel like giving up,
on everything I want to be.

I dont know, is it reversible?
I always try my hardest in everything I do.
I try to be the best student,
the best friend,
the best girlfriend.
But all I feel like is fail because
everytime I turn around,
some things just disappear.
Why they cannot just be good I ask.
Why?
Spadille Aug 2021
I knew love when I was 16
It was something new to me
An unfamiliar rhythm that I try to dance to
I tried hard to make it fit on me
But I always miss the beat of it

Love is like a familiar stranger
Or a scenario of deja vu
I somehow knew it but barely recognizes it
It's a lesson that I have learned that I forgot
Although I am willing to relearn it

Love was always with me
Like a secretly supportive friend
That knows my demons even if I am a closed book
Always gives me an invisible pat on my shoulder
Pushes me through the hardest obstacles

Love became a dear friend
That I would share a kidney to
It became my something spectacular
A burst of vivid fireworks in the night sky
It made me stare at it in awe

Love is something I can't afford to lose
Because in all honesty, I have grown fond of it
Losing love means I'll get to start over again
I don't have the heart to face the beginning
If it is not with the same love

Love is my reason to lie to my mother
It made me want to sneak out on friday nights
Just to have long midnight walks
While holding their precious hand
As the cool wind kisses our cheeks

Love reached all my standards
Yet at the same time, erased it
I learned to love the flaws and imperfections
Love became the high standard
That no one could reach

Love is my beginning and end
Love is both my fear and courage
Love is my peace and chaos
Love is my in between
Love is you.
I knew love for a short time. Gabo, I'll miss you.
Took half a milligram of bromazolam
after a long week, thoroughly enjoyed
the anxiolysis. Fifteen hours later
I can still feel its metabolites
at work, yet that feeling
when the world became a friendlier place
is unyielding.
I wonder how long I have before the rebound hits.

Odd to crave the lightness of something so apotheogenic,
Knowing full well
it's darkness.
The sedation lingered into the next day.
For those few moments
I felt the remnants of an old buzz in the air
which I would chase
if I didn't
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