#shuffle
the hands of time selfishly shuffle the deck
who knows what card will be dealt
crisis creates opportunities to rise up
overcome situations that are not favorable
what is familiar, is no longer
the hands of time forever play out
Brian Hill - 2020 # 74
Mar 14, 2020
Mar 14, 2020 at 10:54 AM UTC
As I sit in this classroom
Listening to keys clattering
Pencils clicking
Feet tapping
Pages flipping
Shuffling feet
Creaking seat
Faint ac, or is that the heater?
Such is unknown to me
For it is all overwhelming
Things so small
Yet so impacting.
Then, from outside
Chatter of children
Wind whispering my very name
Calling me to the freedom of the outdoors
A plane overhead
Announcing its presence
Clicking of a mouse
A pencil dropping
People adjusting in their seats
Drinking water
Back to work
The tap of a foot
The shuffle of paper
Pages turning
Legs shifting positions
Another plane overhead
And all the while,
Here I wonder,
While pages are turning;
What am I learning?
- Jay M
November 22nd, 2019
Nov 22, 2019
Nov 22, 2019 at 5:20 PM UTC
Honey-flowing rivulets of jazz-beaten syncope,
Trumpets blowing smoke across the room,
‘Curveball’ Sammy hustles bass behind the bar,
Snares his songbird in a played back loop.
Harlem shufflers work the floor, breaking safe,
Clave rhythm scufflers with a New York twist,
Black keys write with borrowed brass on iv’ry walls,
Pick the lock on a swelt’ring southern riff.
Jun 12, 2019
Jun 12, 2019 at 10:39 PM UTC
I dream up lines
Philosophize
Spread a word
For the birds
The birds want
the bird feed
I swat the flies
Benchmark the binds
Stress the test
Do my best
The soul wants
what it wants
I've been too excited
About the things I learn
I've forgotten to hide it
The world is dark
The world is light
Which we define
Which we divide
Cut up and give a form
My heart is ill
I eat the pills
My mind is gone
I may be wrong
More often than I'm right
Lights in the skies
Here come aliens
While I'm on LSD
Jul 4, 2018
Jul 4, 2018 at 2:51 AM UTC
You don’t want the deck
Only a need for one
Somehow the shuffle still gets you
Warranting the luck of the draw
When the wild card is once in a life time
Yet you still bet blindly
Hoping for the forever hand
Full again but comes up empty
Find another way
If she smiled then she meant it
Ash has no density
Free from the party
I can’t get this song out of my head
The one you sang to me a Saturday ago
I’d kiss you next year
And thereafter
Probably not
Mar 16, 2018
Mar 16, 2018 at 11:08 AM UTC
A button that I press
shows me flashes of the past
words, and an address
on the internet, to last
Flowing as intended
from mind to the page
not that the heart was mended
or the soul assuaged
Feelings and emotions
pain, fear, love, and more
going through the motions
a voyeuristic *****
Consumed and captivated
as memories and heart
never ever fabricated
soul, the greatest part
All the words eschewed
and placed within the cloud
marked by my reviews
on poetry, unbowed
Oct 19, 2016
Oct 19, 2016 at 2:45 PM UTC
You were my Queen of Hearts
A top card to draw
My Queen of Diamonds
In the ruff
The best I ever saw
Turned out
You were just a lump of coal
And just as cold
The Ace of Spades
With a very blackened soul
You made a Joker out of me
Aug 5, 2016
Aug 5, 2016 at 7:06 PM UTC
Music is supposed to make us feel happy, so why is it that whenever I click shuffle I have to skip songs in order to not cry because they all have you in them?
Mar 1, 2016
Mar 1, 2016 at 3:34 PM UTC
Inside of the room where we smoke and draw pretty things in ink
I wrap my arm under your arm, and call our bodies into hug
I put my neck over your neck, you are the cheetah cub I am the fawn
How many rains old are you? No, how many droughts old are you?
I carry spirit sharks I've never seen inside my skinny legs. My hide is
Built of rhinoceros hearts and truth.
I have lived in webs, lived in dens, lived in bars and you. Your hair smells
Like freedom, marriage, and youth. I want to be osmosis where the cells Collide and contribute, even the physicist's are confused. What kind of Bird are you? I said what kind of bird are you?
I've been in the room with the garbage bags for a roof, dried berry bushes That Ed has eaten bare of fruit.
I want to hear you sing, the stories you carry with you from your youth. My trauma card is punched now, are you carrying the blues.
I have shuffled up, inside the Hebrew dragon gods I have never Understood, how the corduroy grows weary from the use, the cotton Threads they made are sewn and stitched well, so why do they tear on The legs I put them on, my legs are skinless, my pockets worn from Carrying things like a child whose curiosity is overused. I'm free for use, I'm yours for use.
Jan 31, 2016
Jan 31, 2016 at 9:37 PM UTC
A vast ocean swirls around,
Seagulls surround the shores.
There's plenty more,
Left unexplored,
But people are all around.
A nervous shuffle echoes,
With every step they make.
Lost in my mind, all the time,
Watching the scene displayed.
The only thing that's missing,
Are their voices and what they say,
It's nothing but that echo,
It's been rattling my brain.
-N.C.
Dec 7, 2014
Dec 7, 2014 at 12:05 AM UTC
I just clicked the "shuffle" button on the main page, for the first time,
Did y'all know that was there?
Honestly, it saddened me because all the poems I read only had, on average, about two or three likes and most of them were absolutely amazing!
So, I went to these unknown poets pages and got even sadder, hardly any followers either!
It's a shame that with all the readers, poets and writers alike that any poet would go unnoticed.
This is my challenge for you... It's not to write any poems...
Click the shuffle button! Read the poems, like them, share them, add them, everything!
Help the new and upcoming poets get the recognition and feedback they deserve for their writing!
***Challenge:
1. Click shuffle
2. Read Poems
3. Like and Comment
4. Repeat Ten Times***
Sep 26, 2014
Sep 26, 2014 at 10:44 PM UTC
It's the first day of summer heat.
Temperature is one hundred and four.
The junkies and drunks hit the street,
shufflin' towards death's door.
Freon raindrops fall from air conditioners
that hang from windows on the third floor.
I think "this day couldn't be finer",
as I shuffle towards death's door.
Bicycle tires roll over broken glass
from the shattered window of a store.
The prostitutes all congregate beneath the overpass,
as they shuffle towards death's door.
**** smoke fills the air
as I finish off beer number four.
A chance to put my mind elsewhere,
as I shuffle towards death's door.
Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 9:20 PM UTC
I watch my mother
Watch the colorful static buzz
Out of my television Set.
It was a show about dancing and synchronized steps
Bending bones
And malleable movements.
The screen was painted
With graceful bodies
And it echoed of
hip hop music
And I watch my mother
Scratch her head cause
She could never really get her
hips to hop
And she didn't know how that was different from
the pop
and the lock
and the shuffle
and the dougie
And I heard her murmur under her breath
"This is my biggest frustration"
I guessed that's what people say
When they just can't get something Right.
When
The feeling
The longing
The want is in them,
But their body
Still tells them to trip over their
Two left feet
When they watch
The way I watch my mother
Want to be a dancer
And I watch my mother
shake it off
and smile
and change the channel
And it is the saddest thing in the universe to me
That she could just forget
that one thing
she so desperately wanted to be.
You
Are my biggest frustration.
That no matter how hard I seem to try
I just couldn't get you right.
I swear, staring at you
Makes my eyelashes
Flutter a hip hop beat like no other
But you just can't dance
To music you can't hear
And you can't see
This amazing
Choreography
I have mapped out for us in my head
I know you're great at that.
You can
Pop
Lock
Shuffle and dougie
as far away as possible from me.
But just like my mother who couldn't get her hips to hop,
I couldn't get you lips
To talk about
Anything that wasn't her
And I know your mouth can speak
But why are you so at loss for words
When the lyrics come
Are my syllables not worth your breath,
Is my rhythm not worth your
step
Because
I promise you I try to catch up
But I trip over my two left feet
When I see your eyes glisten
When you watch her
The way my mother watches the dancers and I know you wanna be with her
So you finally hear my music
Or so I am convinced that you do.
And you shuffle
And take each graceful step
To the beat of
The wrong heart
But I just can't change the channel.
I can't smile and shake it off
Because I have to wait and see
If there'll ever be a time
You'd dance to me.
Jul 18, 2014
Jul 18, 2014 at 2:17 AM UTC
Help me breath again
And make my heart swing.
I want you to be
The one to shuffle with me,
Be the rock I lean on,
And let your shoulders meet mine.
I'll eventually snap into pieces
When I'm no longer holding back -
I need you to come back to me.
I held you in my arms when you left me,
And heard utter an "I love you,"
Before you closed your eyes.
Jul 9, 2014
Jul 9, 2014 at 2:43 PM UTC
Here's my story--it's sad, but true:
I've got nothing on my mind.
The sky isn't blue and the ocean's not grand.
I thought I'd be a hero.
If you've ever wondered why, Disney tales all end in lies.
I've been spending money like a king, but I'm not a king.
There's a darkness upon me that's flooded in light.
I've got these habits that I cannot break.
Wouldn't it be nice if we were older?
I think that, possibly, maybe, I'm falling for you.
I don't know, but I think maybe.
I'm going to be a mighty king.
When the night has come,
I'm not surprised--not everything lasts.
All the ghosts of the grandmothers have been haunting me in my living room.
Did you see the sky?
You say hello, and I say hello back.
You may tire of me.
In the light of the sun,
I never loved nobody fully.
Where have all the good men gone?
After all is said and done, I feel the same.
You know, this may turn into the longest day of my life.
Once upon a time, not so long ago,
Three little birds sat on my window.
"Hey, ain't life wonderful?"
When I see you, I really see you upside down.
Today, I'm going to write a sad song.
Follow me and everything is all right.
I just want to be okay, be okay, be okay.
I hold on so nervously.
I want to ask you, do you ever sit and wonder,
Why do birds suddenly appear every time you'e near?
I sense there's something in the wind that feels like tragedy's at hand.
May 11, 2014
May 11, 2014 at 2:38 PM UTC