#shackles
My thoughts are linked
like chains and shackles
and I can’t find the key.
My brain is synced to problems
I don’t feel equipped to tackle
but, I will get there eventually.
What resides will be succinct
and not feel like an uphill battle.
Left behind there will be:
an everlasting peace.
Mar 17
Mar 17, 2026 at 10:07 PM UTC
A wrong way trend setter
In my own personal time line
Can't say I didn't know better
Each decision was mostly mine
Goals for someone not a go getter
Become the shackles that bind
Having to eat my words for dinner
I fear sitting down to dine
©2024
Sep 20, 2024
Sep 20, 2024 at 4:09 AM UTC
I got hit with that one trick pony line
Luring my anxiety,
AND insecurity,
To the frontline
Apparently I do mind
My mind will make sure to remind
Ignoring useful comments I find
And not just the kind kind
Too anything positive I'll become blind
A one track mind, singularity defined
Creating new shackles that bind
A self enforced redesign
Leading me to leave a select few talents behind
Choosing thoughts from another's mind to get behind
Because that one guy that one time
Tried to take from me the one thing I liked to give my time
But here's the bottom line,
I've found I rather enjoy expressing in rhyme
Hurt and pain just happen to be most of what I've felt for a long time
So that's what comes out
When I pour my heart out
Into each and every line
Let me apologize in advance for next time
©2024
Apr 26, 2024
Apr 26, 2024 at 5:10 PM UTC
Sweet silver tongue
Builder of hope and of Nations undone
Whispers of light against the darkness beyond
Oppressive dictators, shackles of freedom with the tune of a hum
Hum sweet silver tongue, do you tire to be a rudder
Sailing your ship through the cracks of instability, tearing down a sister, or a brother
Setting up systems, to rob child from their mother
Foreign lands now discovered, shackled hands, the nations dollar
When you’re sitting in your palaces,
Sipping blood from your chalices, made from labour of your educated salve, indoctrinated ways, disseminated lies- made to believe these shackles are made to save
Sweet silver tongue, do you blame the throne or do you blame the song, do you blame the culture gifted from generations gone
Do you blame the man upon whom this title is on,
Or do you blame the nations lalaby to the newborn, “live for today, tomorrow may never come”
Price of admission
Feb 28, 2021
Feb 28, 2021 at 4:22 AM UTC
Break out of my world
let go of the shackles
free the chainend
no strings attached
wrapped around my neck
breath freely
at last
don't look back
what a beautiful mind
may you find the answers I'm missing
goodbye
Feb 22, 2021
Feb 22, 2021 at 3:40 PM UTC
When it comes to break the shackles fastening my feelings , then my sangfroid soul transmogrifies into a rambunctious wild creature.
Dec 3, 2020
Dec 3, 2020 at 2:56 AM UTC
with rain kissed plumage
cold in the moonlit expanse
over the evergreens i see below
- - -
i am free
as far as these shackles
will let me be
Nov 30, 2020
Nov 30, 2020 at 2:36 PM UTC
Love crooned to Fear
"Hello my dear,
what shall be of our dreams?"
Fear replied
"They shall be naught
but memories of our
slumbering hopes"
Love shook their head
"Fear, my sweet,
when will you learn?"
Fear sighed,
"Perhaps never my Love."
"Oh Fear, you're shackled to
yourself. Let go, Fear,
my dearest."
but Fear was afraid
and could not unlock himself
for his Love.
Love wept,
for loving someone, is the truest
Fear.
Jun 14, 2020
Jun 14, 2020 at 11:49 PM UTC
**“for when the mind has no solution to the rough and tumbling lives,
lived in glass shackled confinement, the poet’s desperation equals theirs”
The Bus Poet Stop “The Glass Shackles” ^
<|>
~this one for Eliot York, who gave us a great gift - opportunity~
§§§
The mandated city buses are largely denuded of passengers,
so the drivers, peruse the enriched, enforced silenced life of the
streetscape, and as they pass, call-out a fisherman’s plaintive wailing,
“here we are, where are you, do we exist?” Too few nibble “I am!”
Bus Poet Stops, stumbles on an older writ, now seemingly prophetic,
once again, he is back, living in a glass shackled confinement,
his 16th floor perch, besmirched, the mirthless empty outside well matched by the isolation inside him, a new kind of shackling bereft.
For these glass shackles are not new, but different, the glass is poorly blown, cloudy, pockmarked with air bubbles entrapped, useless
for fresh breathing, many containing a question mark, some ask
what, others when/where shelter, all, harsh pleading tones, why me?
“For when the mind has no solution” poet wrote in twenty eighteen,
unaware that this predictive value would return to rent & render mean,
his composure, no longer a savior, now he weeps copiously for thee,
those that he, in prior life, came to save, now too, another faceless face.
no, no!
Your writing saves self, and a thousand more, you infiltrate, penetrate our conjoined quiet, giving name to each of our unsalted tears, no fear poems that make us say, Merry, Merry to us all; God bless us, every one! Bus Poet head-hung, shamed, pained, looks away, mask-covers-gratitude.
Rough and tumbling times, we discount ourselves blameless, but voices
say time for gifting varietals of solace mysterious, this! is your business!
words, instruct to touch, to transport us on a poet’s bus to Delirious,
enable arrival+survival to destiny’s destination, “for all, a good night!”
May 1, 2020
May 1, 2020 at 2:08 PM UTC
Maybe I should leave him.
I can see the pain settling in his eyes as he stares me down eyebrows crinkling in pity.
"Why don't you fix your sleep schedule?"
It sounds like code for,
"Why don't you fix yourself?"
I tell him I can't. I tell him that I've been trying.
But he can't see it.
The shackles, the ball and chain.
The shadows that appear even when there is no light.
He can't hear them.
The demons in my mind whispering self hatred.
Maybe I should leave him/
I can't explain to anyone what I am, how I feel, what I'm doing.
I'm tired of trying to explain, exhausted from trying to live a life that I don't want and trying to change.
Happiness.
What a cruel word.
What a sad reminder that pain is all I possess.
I shackled myself and I should leave.
Before I shackle him too.
Jan 22, 2020
Jan 22, 2020 at 2:17 PM UTC
I love to see you fly freely
without the shackles that bind you to me
without the thin red string that connects us
without the belief that we're meant to be.
I love to see you fly freely
with all the love I can give
with all the wish I can whisper
with all the smile I offer for your dreams.
I want you to be free
Not looking back to what you'll leave behind.
Free from worries of what should have.
Free from worries of what should be.
Nov 4, 2019
Nov 4, 2019 at 5:28 PM UTC
They ask, why care so much?
Simple, my ancestors blood and bones
are the foundation of this nation.
But that isn't your blood or mine?
We have come a long way!
True but broken chains
don't free us from shackles,
and half measures
can’t get us across the finish line.
If you hate it so much leave!
In case you missed point one
I'd much rather fix what's broken.
I want to make sure that the stacked deck
is reshuffled. That kids don't have to grow up
in war zones, where the only way out is debt
or a casket. Where people don’t get to profit
from the very thing that took others freedom.
I want a playing field that all can use,
where the rules make sense and the enforcers
are kind. Where I'm not the oddity
for never having been behind bars.
That people realize that there's more
to our culture than our bars.
I'm over the 40 acres
I want 24 Oscar's. Maybe then I'll see
myself on more than just ESPN and MTV.
Others have it far worse than you!
Well then let's elevate them too.
A rising tide raises all ships.
So let's create a flood that washes
out the hate. When will people realize
that we aren't enemies. That the system
crushing you is already destroying me.
If they can put people in cages for where
they were born then Eastside or south
of the border are just bad hands we are dealt.
I don’t know how to fix it
but I care too much to be quiet.
So thanks for reading my thoughts,
but will you stay silent?
Jun 19, 2019
Jun 19, 2019 at 9:32 PM UTC
Cut my throat and let me bleed.
Your silence, love, is killing me.
A bomb went off inside my head.
But sadly, love, I’m not dead.
Not yet. Not yet. (I’m not dead)
Get out of my head. (I’m almost dead)
I’m not dead. (Not yet. Not yet)
These shackles are cutting my skin.
I don’t want to let the darkness in.
They’re sharp, so sharp.
The shards of a broken heart.
Get out of my head.
I’m not dead yet.
Hold me close
The blood is flowing
I'm not dead yet
But I might be going
Paint the roses red
With the dripping from my head
I'm not dead yet (Not yet),
Slit my throat
And watch me bleed
Your absence, love, is killing me
A bomb went off inside my head
But sadly love
Sadly love
Sadly love
(I'm not dead yet)
Jun 12, 2019
Jun 12, 2019 at 10:34 AM UTC
not much he reasons, resonating the question,
in the resounding places where both are congruent kept
we talk of lines all the time, line divisors of our
denominators and our numerators,
but truth and secrets are 1/1
so the rational number is always one indivisible whole,
with liberty for both,
when
the glass shackles^
be broken
but let us not dance around the marshmallow fire,
while watching clocks melt as our memory persists,
so secrets and truths have a rigorous solute/solution relationship,
yet, the dividing line melts over time and the answer
in all the poems that the body worked,
with experience, you can see the works becoming
the body solution blended,
undefined admixture, defined, refined, all just fine,
for the microscopic difference is in the eye of the beholder
but requires breaking
the glass shackles^
for
one will enchain
one will set you free
when their meld is melted
Apr 27, 2019
Apr 27, 2019 at 9:37 AM UTC
There's an invisible monster,
Who's holding me in its shackles.
And we share a great bond,
Not the one meant to be broken.
I'm a puppet, with anger as the strings
And he's my master, controlling me from within.
I'll never let it go, because I adore him so
And he's forever with me, even if I want to let it go.
Apr 12, 2019
Apr 12, 2019 at 11:06 AM UTC
I walk with a straggle,
The chains become tighter with
Every step.
You see, this is my reason for
Giving up.
"You hold the key
to your own shackles"
I can set myself free,
With what ambition,
when my hands are tied?
What's the point of changing
When I've lied
For them to Believe I'm fine?
They say you can change,
They say it's possible to Believe
In something other than pain.
For this, I won't give up.
For this, I'll keep going
Until my hands don't reach
As low as my shackles hang.
Nov 26, 2018
Nov 26, 2018 at 4:43 PM UTC
Isn’t it incredible?
How i fall in love
With a different thing
Every day.
Yesterday, it was your laugh.
Today, it is your memory.
And tomorrow maybe,
Just maybe,
It would be our communion;
Beyond the shackles of worldly ordeal.
Nov 13, 2018
Nov 13, 2018 at 7:28 AM UTC
~for those who will read this and weep~
*the quiet ones,
the silent Job ones,
who quote not from the
Book of Lamentations,
but author their own,
based on-the-job experience
localized versions of cryptic elegiacs
accepting the wooden crosses borne,
stepping up to the
unrequested unforeseen,
then buried under, burnt alive,
yet never relieved by dying,
nailed by words, stronger than iron,
promises sworn, promises kept
with no ending date relief,
promises by and to themselves,
but not for themselves!*
*the wearers of crystal glass shackles,
adorned with decorative locks for which
no key did the maker make,
nor any divine creator
dare conceive an early release,
never no escape contemplated,
for the lock human, unrepentant unbreakable,
a decorative useless metaphor gesture,
a blunt “life ***** advertisement
I compose amidst a
bus pond of mismatched city folk,
a tapestry of ages colors and differing views on god/no god,
none would believe that as the bus sways me,
it’s in rhythm to holy choral music,
hundreds year old,
divinity masses and motets worships,
where one human can hide temporarily
a safe house,
to calm his questioning relentless
from the horrors of no answers,
for when the mind has no solution
to the rough and tumbling lives,
lived in glass shackled confinement,
the poets desperation equals theirs*
*summon eagles to transport these imprisoned,
but the shackled refuse,
I come to them but they wave me off,
I go crazy for once I was enslaved,
thirty years war that left devastation,
from which so many poems created
so I speak with heightened regard
of one who planned futures for others where his
non-existence was a founding father (ha!)*
*but the day came and
I was released by my own inactions,
but means nothing until a way to
away found
to release the yet bound early*
got a couch, airline miles, hundred dollars
in my pocket and an unrelenting need
to save them, a consumption disease,
the glass shackled, at ease,
won’t rest till all are freed
this my creed
no one left behind
these cyber words do not mock
for they are unbounded, set free,
when
the flesh connects and the needs of the flesh
are stronger for they are in heart conceived
Jun 23, 2018
Jun 23, 2018 at 5:45 PM UTC
I have raised hackles
And wear grey shackles
They're distractions in my brain
They kind of sound like chains
They hold me still
Until I get my fill
And secure myself
To endure this hell
You tighten the screws
I'm beaten and bruised
Please don't stop
You're like the cops
I depended on your aggression
Then shocked by your secession
I wanted to be shot through the palms of my hands
That was the most pathetic part of my plan
You called my bluff
And put me in cuffs
You took away my agency
And then exited hastily
You're just part of the chain of rain
That will eventually stain my brain
I wear shackles
I hear cackles
There's amusement they find
In the fact that I'm blind
In the fact that I'm crying
In the fact that I'm trying
My miserable life is a joke to them
They think I have a broken stem
They callously disconnect my links
So they can crawl through my fence
Trying to change what I think
Making me constantly feel tense
So I can be what they hate
That'll make them feel great
I have to restrain reactions
Throughout our interaction
They're looking for reasons to hate me
And ways to grate me
And deflate me
I must dial my love back
Before they attack
My mind must be restrained
In this life I'm engrained
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017 at 5:01 PM UTC
I've gotten myself a pair of golden shackles,
It is shiny.
My parents love it,
It brings them pride.
My friends is envious,
Because it shines.
But soon, I realize.
The shackles' painted gold.
What's worse,
With it, I can't traverse.
Golden shackles,
Is shackles after all.
Now I'm trapped,
shackled, bounded.
Doomed.
Only time can release me,
From this golden shackles.
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 4:08 PM UTC
Who died and made me king?
Who burns my Icarus wings?
I can't afford such dreams.
They take,
They steal,
They seek.
Well, I'm no king.
Specifically, not your king.
But I dare to dream.
And I strive to sing.
Through wingless flight
I gain my stride
At altitudes high,
As the shackles start to sink.
I'm no king.
I'm no king.
But still, I dare to dream.
I need those things
Jun 16, 2018
Jun 16, 2018 at 1:27 AM UTC
But shackles under my feet
Pull me into the sea.
The world's most genuine kick-starter.
Unfathomable dreams,
I don't know what they mean.
Perhaps this sea's just shallow water to conquer.
Jun 16, 2018
Jun 16, 2018 at 12:53 AM UTC
The sun begins to rise,
Shining regret on a grown man's cries.
He knows he's irresponsible.
He wraps around the pole of knowledge-all.
There's a child who says
"I tried".
Regret on one shoulder,
Regret on the other.
A new day to bear new lies.
The ledge looks ever so tempting...
Jun 16, 2018
Jun 16, 2018 at 12:51 AM UTC