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Jan 2020 · 252
The Wreckage
T R Wingfield Jan 2020
I feel
like I died
a horrible, ****** death
at the hands of some great and terrible beast
with razor claws and gnashing teeth
that escaped its cage and pounced on me,
out of the shadows,
glinting eyes reflecting
fire from the wreckage left
by the mile-long circus train,
now derailed, after running into me

full speed.
"Oh my god... I'm never drinking again..." He said, lying to himself, and God, in agony. "You'd think I'd have learned my lesson by now."

Happy New Year!
Dec 2019 · 326
Three cheers for evil
T R Wingfield Dec 2019
How come no-one ever pulls for the bad guy. He's just out there doing what we all wanna do: Being self-interested, self-imposing, self-actualising, carefree, and ego-maniacle.

Really he's the hero- making destiny manifest by his own hands; the spiritual successor of the settlers and explorers, who just happens to have run out of room.

Is it not those do-gooder heros who are villians,  for real, by forcing these noble individuals to abandon their dreams and fall back in line, with threats of violence, persecution, and hard time. They are the very embodiment of fascism, through and through.

So lets here it for the bad guys who keep the world sane, by showing us were all humans, one and the same.
So three cheers for evil!
Hip hip hooray!
Hip hip hooray!
Hip hip hooray!
Seems like this is how all the world thinks these days.

A counter-intution for those who are interested
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1863686/the-belltower-tolls-midnight/
T R Wingfield Dec 2019
God, for me,
is a selfish thing.
I only want him there to blame,
Or to ask him for that
Which I cannot seem
To produce for myself by other means.

And yet, for me,
To disbelieve is equally
A selfish thing.
To pretend that I have come this far
Without some kind
Of Divine intervention...

How could this be,
considering
The sheer stupidity of my decisions
The risks I took
with my own wellbeing;
the utter disregard

So it is and must be
that god, for me,
Is looking out regardless.
There must be some plan
regarding me
or else I'd have been disposed of.

Does this mean
I am a chosen one?
Not just dust-
but a favorite son?
I think it must...
There's no other logical conclusion.
Oh no!



I promise I'm not actually this vain. Words came in contradictions, and I was obliged to pen them down from the ether before they got away.
T R Wingfield Dec 2019
The music that lingers
in my mind when I awaken
is the rhythm of a life
of which I dream to live.

If I could get these symphonies
unlocked from the rooms
in which they reverberate and boom,
I would finally be who I know I should be,
but the rhythm's undone when I do come too;
I'm only ever left with the conclusion
that made my psyche break through-
A conclusion without the question,
a harmony without a melody,
a melody without rhythm,
a break without a build,
a crescendo undeserved.

I carry with me back to consciousness
no evidence of the brilliance observed;
no tally or tale or the things seen and heard.
But I know that I saw them;
I know what I heard.
I feel the rhythm inside me
and I hear the words.
I remember the beats
and the lost melodies.
Never-the-less...
they are incomplete...

just like me.

A clip of a phrase left to rattle around.
An earworm set to unheard sound.

"Dont be afraid
to get too wild"


These dreams are the compositions of some other soul
The music and musings of minds not my own
but I wonder in the early morning grey,

Do the people that I dream to be also dream of being me?

I awoke from a dream slowly
Sweet docile tones reverberating in my ears;
and as I came too with a rhythm and the words that broke through. I tried to hold onto them as long as I could do, but never can I keep them for more than a moment, maybe two.
It’s infuriating and frustrating,
because there is no way to capture the song that I heard: just the shadow of some snippet sneaking out the back door with the rest of the gang that got away already before getting caught in the midst of their thievery, when the man whom they are robbing walks in the front door

And there never has been.

I am no musical genius, but I know a good song when I hear one,
And I’ve heard such wondrous things
cascading through my dreams
Less now than before,
but I still find myself hallucinating wild bebop jazz
with muted trumpets and silky strings,
big band ballad piano swings,
deep-trance and euro-house dance floor thumpers, chaotic digital jungle themes,
indigenous rain-dance chants against primal drumming, Searing thrash metal with string burning sweeps of perfect improvisational leads, Merengue and Samba and Flamenco beats, with lyrics in languages I do not speak.

In my dreams they are full compositions, with layers and evolution and meaning; I just can't recall all the words and have not enough talent and knowledge of things to transcribe the notes in corporeal means.
Most importantly, the music of a mind’s eye or ear is not the music of the world, so I have no way to recreate the rhythms or melodies.

Mostly because I don't know where to begin.
Because the inception of the song,
in reality or dream,
is always a fugue of some other innocuous thing;
some music or rhythm that broke away from the meaning it has in the world
and echoed until it became a song I heard.


But I swear god once promised me,
In a vision unseen
that when I die, if I get to heaven,
The songbooks are waiting,
fully annotated, with lyric transcriptions printed up nice and neat, and not only can I see the compositions of these, but there are recordings of all of it. Everything!
That's the only heaven I want there to be:
The one with the words I lost in my sleep,
And the music of my hallucinations and dreams.

The soundtrack to my subconscious is something to be heard.
It’s too bad the world will never know of these things,
the mind music mingling amongst the mist of my dreams.
Such beauty deserves to be heard
By those here among us who love, live, and suffer,
who dance, cry, and sing.
But alas it is only a fantasy for me.
But it will be tremendous to finally free
the muses best work
when I inevitably meet
the maker of the muses and the music and me;
But until then the world will just have me to trust.

I promise.

It will be…

My Magnum Opus
Dec 2019 · 184
The winter jungle
T R Wingfield Dec 2019
It's winter now

                                Finally

I can tell by the presence
of two avocado trees
and a bevy of succulents, grasses, and weeds,
bamboos and air plants and dried-up leaves,
a snake plant thats also called mother-in-law tongue, one night blooming cereus, pencil plants, ginger, all potted and stacked.

She calls it "The Winter Jungle," and its my favorite time of year.

The already cluttered and cobwebbed chaos of crystals and minerals and Hodge podge is enshrouded inside lush green,
Jumbled and crowded.
The air is heavy, hot, and dry.
She'll turn on the shower, full heat,
to steam up the sky and the illusion is complete.
In clouds, the jungle blooms.
Its snakeskins and skulls and tapestries weave
a hypnotic pattern.
There is life here,
and death.
Her miniature tiger skulks lazily through,
while his pantheresque sister lays quietly.
A chow mix hound off in her mahogany cave atop a lanolin cushion, sits sentry.
Butterflies adorn the walls with beetles and moths,
paintings of wild women and valleys, of deities and dangerous deserts,
and soft simple illustrations
of various things,
bones and feathers and coins and dreams.

And feathered dream catchers have done their work it seems,
for I, like the great hairy ape,
sitting, quietly,
surveying from above,
cannot shake the uncanny feeling of love.

This atmosphere is enough to enamor, but the woman whose presence the the atmosphere holds
                                             is shamanic,
a healer,
              the oldest of souls.

And it is warm here
in her jungle,
but just through the door
is the grey cold of winter,
and nothing more.
T R Wingfield Dec 2019
Show me the secrets in the shadowy places that good boys and girls  should never see; like rock'n'roll rumbling in a dingy divebar-backroom, or lovers in a rain soaked alley.

Show me the secrets in the hidden places that only the lonely children can see: the shoe box treasure chests of broken shiny things, bric-a-brac in old tin cans, a cobweb covered crawlspace comicbook, or a lost love's lost love notes never sent and never seen.

Show me the secrets in the wilderness gardens that only the dreamers may dare to see: Dandelion promenades of pine needles paved over rotten leaves and treebark leading away to toadstool terraces among orchards of fiddlehead ferns and ghost pipes ascending to trumpet the day.

Show me the secrets hidden behind curtains that spirits and mediums only should see: the souls untethered and howling damnation at their veiled purgation in a dustless dimension forever unheard.
Dec 2019 · 306
Weathered Wooden Walk
T R Wingfield Dec 2019
I found a boardwalk in the woods
leading, seemingly, to nowhere,
In a timberland swamp I knew from much younger days;
Decaying and rotten,
Most likely long forgotten.
I wondered how long it had been there, abandoned to its fate:
Quietly mocked by the still standing timbers,
As yet spared the sawmills blade,
For its needless sacrifice, useless decay
As its strength is silently weathered away;
used
but unrequited,
wasted,
faded and unmade.

I followed along its decrepit path
as far as I could make,
and so laughed to myself as I thought aloud,
"Such is life's disarray."
Nov 2019 · 221
Breach of contract
T R Wingfield Nov 2019
We agreed to call it quits when it wasn't fun anymore. And it wasn't fun anymore for a long, long while. We ignored the exit signs because an uneexpected love bloomed and so we redefined the terms of the termination because we missed the first by miles. And determination turned to depression bitterness and resentment, then misdirected rage. I didn't want to end on sadness pain and disillusionment, so I tried to patch and glue the last good bits back together But i kept ******* up and it wasn't possible to make another attempt.

All I wanted was a peaceful ending
A pleasant parting between longtime friends

We'd agreed that it wouldn't be a big thing,
A painful splitting, uneven without amends

But what I got was tragic, uncompromising static
Undeserved sadness
And the loss of my best friend

Im Sorry that I ****** up.
I thought I could do better than I did.
Inellegant First draft, but I'm sad

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1852851/arrhythmia/
Sep 2019 · 297
So. This-
T R Wingfield Sep 2019
So
        This
-                         -
Is the one I don't like,
The one I keep tucked away.
The one that always ***** things up just to have something funny to say.

-This-
Is the one I was talking about when I had nothing else to say.

This
Is the one I warned you about back when we first got together and talked everything out.

This
Is the one I try to avoid
...
At least...
In my mind, anyway.

This is what I meant when I told you I was trouble,
I warned you before-hand to keep a lookout for mistakes

The more I make,
more I keep making,
I've lost control of everything.

This
Is what I mentioned might ruin everything
Sep 2019 · 181
50/50
T R Wingfield Sep 2019
Will it or won't it?
Statistically its the same.
It seems the odds don't change no matter how unlikely is the thing.
Will it to be or don't, but don't wait to hear an answer.
To be or not to be
Is not really that important.
Its not even the question.
If "to be" was how it's supposed to be, how come "not to be" is an option?
So how do I "not to be,"
if I think therefore I am, and do I believe that I am even if I think it?
And where am I when I don't believe in myself and my convictions?
Does it even matter what I think when I can't be sure if I exist? And if I might not be then what am I still doing here, when I could not be?
Should I stay or should I go?
But could I go and no one know?
And why bother leaving
when I know that if I go
it might be that no one would even miss me?
Might as well just stay here where my odds are 50/50.
"People don't think it be like it is, but it do"
-Oscar Gamble

Not sure where this one was headed, but I guess it got there. Or maybe it didn't. It feel like it's a poor attempt to obfuscate a simple thought through too many words. I guess everything in the sketch is t always good, but it's better than nothing, which is mostly what I've been writing...
Jul 2019 · 101
Back on my Bullshit
T R Wingfield Jul 2019
Well it seems that I'm up to my old tricks again
        But this time i know the consequence
Still I cheat lie and steal just the same, and then
        I wonder why no one still calls me a friend

somehow its always the same
why even bother to change
you never feel any shame,
If you never look back and you just walk away

Well I guess that I'm back on my *******
          But this time can we pretend its different
Then I won't have to lie about where I've been
      Or what I've been doing, or who I'm with.

But if the rules stay the same
then results will never change
And if you can"t win the game
why even bother to play,

when you can just walk away?
Jul 2019 · 212
The view from within
T R Wingfield Jul 2019
The view from within became suddenly fractured,
refracted and infinitely cascading through
a shattered kaleidoscopic perception
of diverging dimensional superimposition, 
spinning mathematically through all permutations 
of every possible configuration 
of atoms in all of existence at once;
resulting in fractals of all of creation 
and I found it unnerving, so I made myself lunch.
Jul 2019 · 408
Creatures of Habit
T R Wingfield Jul 2019
(A Public Service anouncment)

Ahem...

We, the creatures of the night, are the rattlers of chains;
The seekers of magic; the bearers of the flame.

Howling shadows beckon and shimmer with laughter in refrain;
and the screeching darkness holds terror and wonder waiting to be claimed;
In back alley juke joints, shitholes, and diners, down sidestreets and highways, we search for the thing that sparks and ignites us, that dances and delights us, that reminds us that living is more than just work interrupted by sleep; there's excitement, adventure, pleasure, and pain.


The sun burns too bright to see the light which we contain;
yet, in the dark but a spark is as bright as any flame.
Jun 2018 · 176
... Hmm
T R Wingfield Jun 2018
What was it that i was going to say. I forget thing so quickly its kind of insane. Too often, it seems, I'm put out to shame when forced to admit ive forgotten the name of someone I've met, maybe several times, to whom I have just introduced myself again, who probably hadn't yet finished their name before I forgot who they were once again. Usually "Im sorry. My bad... I drink a lot." is enough to diffuse any awkward exchange. Still i know better, just as they do as well,and politley we continue as if nothing had changed.

They say, "third times a charm!" and with names this is true. I read somewhere doing so somehow can train your mind to the get through to the part of our brain which stores long term memories, which are physically much more permanently made, by tricking the architecture of our neural array, which allocates resources based on the way electrical currents pass though the brain, stimulating cellular structures to make proteins and lipids which then activate other part of the xell which begin breaking things down and /or mixing them up, reconfigureing the shape of some loose RNA which is read by a protein design to replicate the mirror string of code which determines what the cell will make and altering as little as a single subatomic partical of weight can then fundamentally alter what the neucleic acids say, and change everything about the properties of the gene that it was trying to translate...

But anyway, repeating the new persons name several times in conversation, or right in a row, at the outset will help you retain new information to the brain, either way it still functions kind of the same. The energy thesh-hold required to make a shot term memory important enough to save is 3 activations of the neural relays, then the neurons begin fusing together, i think, and the information is less likely to dissipate.

now i remember it was something about 'how maddening it can be to be forgetful," or something like that, but worded much better.
****, I lost it. huh... What'd you say?
#streampfconciousness#iloveourbrains#howtheydoallthisisfasinating#metabrain#thebrainsbrain #metabrains #anallwhitebadbrainstributewhichonlyreadsscholarlyanalysisofthesongslyricsoverotherwiseperfectcovers
Jun 2018 · 422
Terminal Velocity
T R Wingfield Jun 2018
Before the muses all esaped, their voices used to fill my mind with too many things to ever say. Interupting each other endlessly, yelling and screaming and making a scene, each thinking their thoughts so much more important than anything else the others could posibly ever have to say. A sea of crashing caucaphony breaking in waves upon the rocky shores of a mind siezed by trying to decide who to listen to, to decipher what to take from them, if anything at all, each and every day. But the voices now are but whispers uttered from the shadows of a bedroom on the darkest nights. They had been caged, then they broke free, still contained though now released, then they escaped, and now they're free- having slipped through a crack which never got filled back in after picking up the pieces and putting them to together again.

So now the words dont come so easily as they did once, back before. Before the weakness became the very thing for which i no longer have the strength to bear the burden of its consequences, despite the pleasure of it's mistakes. The pain of losing makes it hard to see the light of everything you have to gain. And the heighth to which you rose before the crest informs how long the ride back down will take. The steepest peaks have steeper walls, and you fall much faster as you tumble uninpeded by anything, approaching terminal velocity before stopping dead as reach your fate. When you hit, theres a chance for it to give a little bit before it breaks. Sometimes, like on a trampoline, you bounce back, and walk away; Other times the world goes crashing in, colapsing underneath the very weight of all the things you carried down with you, like so many a ball and chain, revealing depths as yet unfathomable before the breach was ever made. Depths from which to reemerge seems impossible from down below; And just getting up is hard enough;  And ever harder after every fall. Harder still To walk away, much more the climb yet to be made.

It seems I never bounce back anymore... And no matter how long the fall may take, when the rock bottom hits you in the face, your mind shuts down, then hits reset and just sits there... and it waits...as long as it needs to assess the damage and make repairs that can be made to the fragile psyche your skull contained, before it shattered from the blow. As the gears come grinding to a halt, and then shudder back to life a gain, theres no telling what might come unstowed, and bang around until it breaks. Once the rhythms fall back into sync and you get yourself underway, then you can start ot realize what action you need to take. The reset button can be hard to find, and sometimes it doesnt work, or it breaks, Leaving a Jumbled mess of memory scattered everywhere there is space. And sorting through it all is treacherous theres no telling what might show its face.

Now my thoughts are interspersed with emptiness, but when they do come they flood the gates; and there never comes a warning of impending chaos on its way.  Like a Thunderclap before a Summer storm, from out of nowhere comes the crack of a lightning striking far to close for comfort no matter how far it is away. Then just as fast the stormclouds break, unleashing a deluge over the landscape. Then swirling the slipstreams they cluster and condense: And rythyms reveal themselves composed of gravity and weight, but the rhythms that i often find even more often slip away. Rarely are they ever permanent, and they always seems to change, mutating as it gets repeated, reguritated over and over again. inevitably the beauty which I thought I recognised at first, starts to seem uninteresting, like a too familiar word which all of sudden seemed awkward to say after saying it too much, and no sooner does it disinterest me than it slowly begins to fade- and as they do, they leave a broken trail of breadcrumbs eluding to the truth they once relayed, echoing from the chasm black in bits and pieces then descending back from whence they came, never to be heard again as they were when frist composed: Their rhythm and their melody the victims of the very thing they had portrayed; no sense of repeating the same thing. Yet never are the bits forever lost; merely to far away to hear or see, but quietly they linger ever on, a wave endlessly perpetuating into the distiance searching for something off which to richochet. and return, unexpected to the point of origin, whereupon its arrival its replayed.
May 2017 · 102
Collateral Damage
T R Wingfield May 2017
You should believe me when I tell you,
     "I can only break your heart."
Don't believe you are the exception,
Immune to all my charms.
I'm masterful in my deception,
In that I give away my play,
In a manner that seems endearing,
Like I'm kidding when I say,
     "Don't fall in love with me."
It's not hubris, or vanity
That makes me say these things.
It's a pattern; it always happens;
Every time its the same.
Dont let me in, beneath your skin,
Don't trust me to refrain.
Foolish girls get fooled
Only to get thrown away;
Tossed aside once boredom sets in;
After depleting the thrill of the chase.
May 2017 · 193
Dog days (fever dream)
T R Wingfield May 2017
As the sun starts to go down, I stop and take a look around to try to find a place to lay my head. If I lay here on the ground and maybe shuffle these old bones around I might convince my back I've found a bed. Then, as the colors fade away, I try to think about the days when I knew peace and I could get some rest; but I never get no sleep 'cause these old ragged runnin' feet run me ragged all night in my dreams...

And in my dreams there always seems to be the same old demons chasing me; and right behind me breathing down my neck. When the get their claws in me they always brings me to my knees, rip me open, and leave me there for dead; and, as the colors fade to grey, I try to thing about the days when I knew peace, and love, and happiness. Then the faces that I see bring me back up to my knees; they get me up a going once again.

And I don't ever need no sleep 'cause these old ragged running feet can run me ragged all night if I need.
And I don't ever get no sleep 'cause these old ragged running feet, run me ragged all night in my dreams.
Lyrics to a song I wrote years ago which have never been put to paper. I was fortunate enough to recall them all the other night. So I'm writing them down this time.
May 2017 · 1.8k
Deep in the Reach
T R Wingfield May 2017
Deep beneath deepest reaches
of the furthest recess of my mind
I found a craven creature, singing,
madly clawing blind into the darkness
desperate to find a shaft of light
by which to see its tattered tethered binds 
unbound.

Screeching at its unknown captor.
Screaming to the sky.
Shrieking like a banshee being slaughtered but alive.

Bellowing, bruised, and blackened beast,
best buried deep below-
you'll never see the light of day,
Nor freedom shall you know.

Claw madly at your cavern walls;
Howl mournful;
Be untamed.
But do not expect a civil birth,
born free of shackled chains,
without first being bested
by him to whom you belong;
whose nights you terrify;
who wrote your sorrowful song
May 2017 · 281
The Beauty Tremendous
T R Wingfield May 2017
Can you tame the unbridled misguided unrest, furiously seething, caged deep in your breast; devouring anything to come within reach. This ravenous, desperate, impotent beast seeks only release from the ******* of chains, to wander his cavernous, haunted domain.

Must you insist upon killing, in vain,
this animus spirit already restrained

The enlightenment that you so desperately crave lies buried beneath the beasts freshly dug grave. Exhume the remains, let it's death be unmade.
Resuscitate that which you fear you'll obey. The truth is the beast and yourself are the same.

See the beauty tremendous of entropy unleashed upon a life strictly structured to imitate peace. Embrace the chaos of your own destiny. Turn to the tempest, baring your teeth, and let loose the unbridled beast of the breach- unfettered, untamed, fearless and free.
First draught in notes
Can you tame the unbridled misguided unrest,
furious and seething, caged deep in your breast;
devouring anything to come within reach,
this ravenous, desperate, impotent beast

seeks only release from the ******* of chains,
to wander his cavernous, haunted domain.
Must you insist upon killing, in vain,
this spirit awakened by torturous pain?

Seek out the enlightenment you desperately crave
from quiet seclusion, not a freshly dug grave.
Find the beauty tremendous; watch entropy feed
on the stifling comfort you never did need.

Find the precipice calm, and a let silence prevail
lift your joy to the heavens and follow its trail
over mountains which seem to this mortal refrain
insurmountably treacherous, grueling terrain
Mar 2017 · 837
To conjure your contours
T R Wingfield Mar 2017
I love how the contours
of certain words
are shaped like you;
How I conjure you,
in dreariness,
merely from a sound in my mind.

Simple little flower,
smiling in the sunshine,
face turned beaming toward the sky.

Creased, crinkled nose,
singing softly to yourself,
Searching the distance,
Seeking the next flower to find.

Gliding through a gilded forest, elegant and alluring,
unencumbered by the cares
of the world in which you reside;

Free, and joyfully for it,
and for solitude
and for time.
Radiant and lovely,
eyes dancing all the while.

Graceful as you fall
upon a bed of sullied sheets,
disheveled,
glancing off and back again,
biting your lip as if
to keep it from a smile.

Temptress, trouble, siren singing,
bless me with you gaze,
Caress my troubled, timid soul; enrapture me,
your willing slave.

Yet your spectre still abandons me, and I long for you by my side.
So I call to you at nightfall, and my dreams do so abide.
Mar 2017 · 539
Gun-shy
T R Wingfield Mar 2017
Pow!

On a little red flag from the barrel of this pistol
pointed poignantly at my temple, 
it grazes the flesh and draws precious little blood in a rivulet down my neck.
I'm tempted to pull the trigger again,
to see if the gag is still funny,
for if the next chamber is loaded, I'll laugh.
Loneliness is like a lake under freeze,
iced over and still,
silent,
reflective;
and hard as ******* concrete when you slip.

      Bang!

Like my head on the floor,
like the door
behind you as you left,
like the doors always in front of me.
Ones I've seen opened briefly;
enough to vaguely glimpse
the trees and sunshine on the other side waiting.
But I can't seem to find my keys.
They were just here, I swear;
they were in my ******* hand.
Where the hell did they go?
******* I'm late, I'm always late.

     Slam!

My fist through a wall that I wish was my skull,
or you heart.
The cracks in my bones are
the cracks in the ceiling
I study as I stare soundlessly, sullen.
I only ever express my anger in solitude,
and dark, where it can be hidden
by shadow, surrendered
and silently sequestered to my hearth.
My fire is burned low and I'm running out of fuel.
It's growing cold in the dwindling light,
and I know if I sleep I'll just freeze;
better to shiver and seize;
to survive, to hope to see sunrise...

     sigh...

She is rising and I'm blinded,
but I refuse not to stare directly into her shine.
She breaks binds,
brings back to life my corpse with her light.
I won't let her day slip away this time.
I was told that I would know it when I see it, and I see it
star-bright, burning brilliant in the sky.
I take aim and hold my trigger-hand high.
I'm not scared of consequences;


I'm just a little gun-shy.
Mar 2017 · 229
Questions not to ask...
T R Wingfield Mar 2017
If you lie to yourself enough,
Will you start to believe?
Will false justifications
Make it easier to breathe?

With your head in you hands
And your heart on your sleeve
You tell yourself "It will be alright"

Do the words whispered quietly
To yourself in the dark
Gain truth as they take flight?
No
Mar 2017 · 240
Why not?
T R Wingfield Mar 2017
With you
I'm not trying
to be someone else;
I'm not trying
to be something
I'm not.

With you,
I'm not trying,
I can just be.

Can I just be
With you?
Mar 2017 · 374
Breath of Life
T R Wingfield Mar 2017
Breathe in
   The briny bonne odeur
   Of a damsel replete.
Remember the nape of her neck
   As she lay there beside you,
   Soundly asleep.
Relinquish your body,
  Your soul, to the rubble,
  Your heart, and your mind to the street
Wring your hands and curse the heavens
The fates, The Gods
On your knees

And what of these torments
   Of This regret
   What of these torments and regret
Lain aside
Breathe in the briny bonne odeur Of a damsel replete.
Remember the nape of her neck As she lay there beside you, Soundly asleep.
Relinquish your body, Your soul, to the rubble; Your heart, and your mind to the street
Wring your hands and curse the heavens
The fates, The Gods, On your knees

And what of these torments, Of This regret
What of these torments and regret Lain aside
Mar 2017 · 302
What is lost?
T R Wingfield Mar 2017
What is lost
   can never be found
      in the labyrinth of the mind.  

What was it you were seeking
   in this dark and dusty atmosphere?
Now doomed, you are, to find it;
   for you never will escape
The twist and turns of your
   mangled memory;
For what path is there to take?

Your string has been cut by the
   Brute
      Bullheaded
          Beast

Turn  corners
   Just to find dead ends,
Turn back
   To find them gone
With every disconnect
   recollected before dawn.

Then at the Sun’s behest
   The dew turns to rolling fog
     And that, which once was settled,
        Escapes upon the wind
Mar 2017 · 543
Canticle
T R Wingfield Mar 2017
I’ve been writing an unending melody
About a woman whose countenance could set a thousand ships to sailing
Just to crash on the shore at her feet.

Porcelain skin and emerald eyes, silken hair like spun gold,  
The envy to Helen of troy could be mine were I but more bold

A goddess of perfection sublime, in her absence the world is but gray
Her beauty must Venus abide, yet abhor to this very day

So now I’ve been plotting and scheming
I’ve got a ship set to sail in the harbor; at dawn we are leaving
To steal her away from a king and his land
And she’ll be mine if she’ll take my hand

Ten thousand women could never change my mind
A harem fit for a king’
Tender, supple, and kind,
Could never draw my hand nor heart from her embrace
I’d give to her all of my days for a chance but to relish her gaze


And now I’ve been plotting and scheming
I’ve got to have her for mine; and no, I won’t settle for dreaming.
So like a thief in the night I’ve come to steal her away
And she’ll be mine by the break of day
Mar 2017 · 602
In siege
T R Wingfield Mar 2017
I've been meaning to say this to you,
but I've been biting my tongue for some time-
You don't have to be so afraid of me.
You don't have to hold your walls up so high.
I'm not here in siege, to tear down your defenses.
I didn't bring towers or ladders to climb.
I simply came knocking,
here at your gates,
hoping to be let in.
I caught just a glimpse of your garden,
and I would love to see it again.
I've spent the last week sober, which has not been the mode I've been in for many, many moons. Intoxicants have been a crutch for me and my writing for years- I viewed them as a gateway to the beauty of the subconscious, to the caverns of the psyche, to the ethereal plain where poignancy and truth were found. It's a hard place to find when you don't take the short cut, and it's easy to miss, even when you do. I hope I can find that je ne sais quoi of terra incognita while remaining grounded in terra firma.
Feb 2017 · 3.6k
The Forest and The Waves
T R Wingfield Feb 2017
I found a coven in the woods
Amongst an oaken forest glen.
There,
hidden behind a curtain of Spanish moss,
amongst fiddlehead ferns and fungi bloom,
two of Gaia's faithful maidens
Enchanted me unwittingly, and took possession of my gaze.

A Pair of Muses
One, of the forest
One, of the sea
Both wind and fire
Equally
In opposition and in sway

Their incantations softly chanted
In a tongue to me unknown
and I listened quietly entranced,
between them in the glow
Of their cauldron hearth fire
Embers burning low

She of the forest was enigma, playfully shy,
coyly toying with the strings all men share,
And in her den, among her herbs and powders and potions  
In preperation, and prepared.
She spoke in riddles and in parable,
Both with body and with stares.

Instantly she knew me
As I had never known;
As if Devined by a mysticism,
Ancient and pure,
So sublime it startles the soul.
In her eyes,
so sweet and sincere,
simplicity and innocence obscure
A strange and intoxicating knowledge
Of the rare and deepest old
Of the world and it's great secrets-
What its darkest reaches hold.

She of the sea
Was shimmering
A specter
Against the stars
Floating

She was Waves
Of aquamarine
Blue Green
Irridescent
Obscure and reticent
Behind her ever pulsing shade

Camaflouged by her surroundings
This piscian vision lingered in relief
Over a Gilded titan mother of pearl chariot;
The Persephone Throne.
She cast her stare upon me;
My hypnotized mind laid bare,
Wiped clean of anything I had seen.
No man could know her shrine of love
Nor the secrets that she keeps,
And none ever remember;
For one cannot resist her lair

An aquarian cavern,
A haven of calm,
Rest, respite and solitude.
It's lotus blossom lantern
Heart of glowing gold
Cast in shadow upon the ceiling
Glimmering radiant refractions
of the waning day

Her ocean sings soft and sweetly,
Casting mist into the air,
And a siren's song disrupts me
Ever suddenly
She washes over me,
Unaware

And though the seven signs they showed to me clearly
Still the stars I misread
through misted eyes,
and soon I fell to dreaming without sleeping
Or so I thought, though i shall never know

In their atmosphere I relinquished this mortal coil into the haze,
And disappeared completely
For an instant, just a moment,
perhaps it was hours.
Perhaps,
it was days.

And as abruptly as rushing water to the somnambulists face
I awoke,
As a dreamer awakes
from dreaming of waking,
alone and bleary-eyed,
dreary and confused
amid my own disheveled cave.
And where they've gone, I wish to go,
But where that is, I cannot know
For I would follow them until the days
Turned forever into nights amongst
The Forest and The Waves
(Added roughly 7 years after writing this) An impression of the first time I met my lover through a friend and rereading it still takes me Back to that night and that first moment when I saw her clearly, ****** and silent watching her unfold to her friend in a conversation I couldn’t follow because they didn’t use any names or really finish any sentences. The two sat and stared at each others eyes and talked as if I wasn’t even there; and it struck me so very deeply. And I have a photo somewhere of the two of them laughing after one spilled a box of paper cones. Their names were Kristen (the waves) and Billie (the Forrest). And I love them both.
Feb 2017 · 259
Some kinda lonely
T R Wingfield Feb 2017
If everyone just needs to be loved for who they are, then why the hell is finding someone to love so ******* hard?

Maybe its just me, but is it really that much to ask? Is it so wrong to say, "I think I might could love you if we could get past all the games."

But honesty doesn't work in these twisted troubled times, because we are all so accustomed to normalizing lies, but for my own part I'll continue to be direct and hopefully one day my approach will be correct.
You know, thinking about it, I probably write poetry because I **** at getting laid #tomuchhonesty
T R Wingfield Jan 2017
Show me the secrets of your shadowy places, where the visage of men has not yet been.

Lead me to your garden in the grove amongst the pines, painted flaxen gold in dappled summer sun.

Show me your blooming petals and your fruiting trees. Let me harvest your abundance, caressed by honeyed fingers, cast long and low against the tree trunks, fading fire orange into vermillion, scarlet, crimson, and violet dusk.

 In twilight turning, with Venus hung low on the horizon, and Scorpius rising from the southern hemisphere,

Trust my hand and follow blindly through the forest, over hobbled rotten logs, under branches reaching, eyes shielded from their grasping, scratching talons creeping sticky with cobweb and lichen,

 Quietly toward the moonrise, eastward and down, upon a matted needle trail, softly trodden only ever

by you and by myself.

Wander with me, barefoot,
out, into the ether;
under the veil of our night-mother's gaze
and sublimate into the mist.

Lay with me in the clover beneath the starsign symphony

-Gaze upon its harmony and shimmering melody-

Inhale the acrid sweet scent of our settling dew,
and reveal to me your many flowered truths

Show me your soul
set aflame
from love, and life, and pain.
Share yourself unequivocallly;
My Goddess and my muse, betrothed of imps and faerys
radiate upon me
- Become my revelry -
You-
My Goddess Starchild
You- My Fire Muse
You- My Woodland Nymph, betrothed to Imps and Fairies...
Jan 2017 · 1.1k
The Belltower Tolls Midnight
T R Wingfield Jan 2017
This is a call to Arms
The time for action is now.
Our government is preparing for War
They're building walls and cutting ties
to conquer us they must divide
us from ourselves and from our world

This is a call to Arms
The time for Action is now
The board is set, and we, the Pawns, are all in our place, facing an enemy we are told to defeat,
though they appear to be identical to you and me.

This is a Call to Arms
The time for action is now
We must revolt
Lest we be sacrificed to Kings
To Queens, to Bishops
To the knights of the realm and the castles they call home.

This is a call to Arms
The time for action is now
We must band together to be heard
We will not be cannon fodder
For the frontlines of a culture War

This is a Call to Arms
The time for action is now.
Defeat looms ever closer
The Reckoning draws nigh
Will you stand and deliver
Or will you bow down and submit?
Will you face the coming adversity,
or brave the consequences
should you turn your back to it?

This is a call to arms
They've taken land and sea and air,
Poisoned them to **** us,
and then billed us for the repair.
The enemy surrounds us,
Threatening life and limb and freedom.
Demanding fealty and obedience.
Demanding tribute for the war chest,
And soldiers for the ranks,
Demanding that we pay the cost while they set price.
They want us broken, not just beaten
Only unconditional surrender will suffice

This is a call to Arms
The time for action is now
To chant the castles down
To fortify the streets
Against the tyranny and the hate,
Against powers of subjugation,
Against the evils of the world

now
The doomsday clock ticks ever closer to midnight. We must act now; so to avert catastrophe.

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1848390/sublimate-reiterate/
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1907682/gun-shy/
Jan 2017 · 554
Stars Trying to Sing
T R Wingfield Jan 2017
"Stars are trying to tell me
this is something like it"

The stars are trying to tell me something, but it's something I can't hear. Or perhaps it's showing me the light but it's shining on
something I can't see. The universe is singing somewhere vast and shimmering; expanding in upon itself, growing closer, still near exploding.
Reveal my soul to me


I stare into the heavens hopeful that she'll open her inky vale, shine her countenance upon me, and bless the growing glowing trail
of star dust and darkness and love and gravity, which spins beyond the precipice.
Ever in front of me.
Celestial Symphony of Fate and wonder guide me with your melody

An Azimuth circle and chart are all that I need to guide my soul to heaven in the heart of the black nights sea
Jan 2017 · 3.4k
Arrhythmia
T R Wingfield Jan 2017
Ours was like fireworks
in the mid-summer sky
Radiant,
       Iridescent,
                   Incredulous,
                              Alive
but the finale came suddenly, unexpectedly soon,
& the band played on,
as if nothing had changed,
as if a fountain of sparkling embers and flame
had not just erupted mere inches away.
And now,
where explosions once seared summer's sky with crackling thunderous incandescent delight
Only whispers and wisps of smoke remain,
Scattered by the breeze,
Whithered, then, by rain.
And of the evening's reveries precious little can be found:
some soured beer in crumpled cans, discarded haphazardly
surrounding a threadbare picnic bedspread
rumpled beneath the branches of an ancient live oak tree.
Dew now wet where lovers once had lain,
staring up into the night
in wonder, ignorant of such banal things
like: masquerading lust in love's robes, declaring,
"I've never loved a love as deep as the love I have for you,"
and truly being unaware of the uncanny substitute;
Or the unbridled disenchantment unleashed by abandonment
and the inevitable transience of an insufferable pain.

We ****** on bar balcony balustrades, over looking city streets.
We ditched tampons into trees rather than wait to satisfy our needs.
We left your ******* in a planter
on a patio under an eve
On purpose, So that some poor, unassuming shop-keep
Would find them
(along with cigarette butts and an empty bag of ****)
and have no choice but think to themselves,
"Did someone **** here?"
and then immediately understand:
the answer is
"Yes. Exuberantly!"

We defiled. every. place. we went;
giggling with glee at all of our indiscretions.

Oh how many indiscretions could there possibly be?
We shall know;
All of them!

And so we did,

And we were free.



On new years eve I carried you piggyback in your peacock blue sequined gown through the streets of our ****-soaked-gutter-of-a-town.
You were barefoot, drunk, and refusing to be told what to do,
that you had to wear your shoes,
that the streets were far to ***** and dangerous for your tender little feet- you said "Just let me be, It's fine. It wont **** me..."
then, looking at the gutter, continued,
"probably.
And these shoes already are, so..." sticking out your tongue
But I couldn't put you down.
Not in that place, not at that time.
Nor did I even want to. I could have carried you all night
(which was fortunate, because for most of itI did.)
We were declared the city's cutest couple by a stranger on the sidewalk whom we passed while galloping down the street, you, giggling, alight upon my back, running at full speed. This declaration is reaffirmed by everyone we meet.

- A pixie, you know, will always trip you up
(they're natural pranksters you see).
Their magic is undeniable, but oh what trouble they can be. -

- My toothsome little faerie - You meant trouble for me;
but what a beautiful,
beguiling mess you turned out to be,

You snuck pixie dust into everywhere we went, and
Dispensed it with abandon-
Spread it like caution to the wind.
Sanctifying everything and everyone we met.
That poor city was baptized in our joy.
It's sins washed into glittering gutters,
where we lay sparkling, genuine and loved.


We broke the records that night,
all of them, known and not.

We loved harder than diamond,
than a trailer-hitch to the shin,
Deeper than the fathoms of the trenches at the bottom of the sea.

We made soulmates seem like strangers.
We spoke nonsense fluently.
We shared mind and body, food and drink,
and careless wanton play.

It was

The most
     *******
          Fun
   I've ever had
       in my life...

Probably the most that I ever will.


Every moment I was with you had
the sizzle and the tease
of a bottle-rocket, lit
and held between my teeth.

I knew that I'd get burned
If I held it to the end,
But I did it just to prove I could;
To prove to me
That I was brave enough
To be unashamed
  To be unafraid
   To be.
First draft catharsis.
Second draft refined.
Third draft- shape and tone, structure and rhyme.

I've been holding on to some very dense emotional pain relating to a relationship which, for lack of a better word, collapsed. When it did, I was buried by my depression, and sank into drug and alcohol addiction. The depression and drugs had taken there toll on the relationship, but I couldn't not understand why someone who had loved and been loved so deeply could just walk away. It took a long time to understand that it was self-preservation. And that is a hard realisation to make. Still the love we shared was enigmatic. Like nothing I've ever seen in a movie or a song or a poem. This is hardly a testament, or even a rough approximation of the experience at its finest moments, but it is a reflection. A memory. She took a piece of me when she left. One I want back desperately, but also one I know cannot be found. So I'll have to search until I find something of a similar size and shape, maybe a little larger, and cut the whole to fit.
Jan 2017 · 897
Missive (paraphrased)
T R Wingfield Jan 2017
Castigate Sublimate
         Sanctify Indoctrinate
     Expatriate Disseminate
Proselytize Reiterate

     Reject, Deny, and Obfuscate

        Incarcerate Dehumanize
   Desensitize Decimate
        Incinerate Rejuvenate
       Simplify and Permeate
Jan 2017 · 632
Sublimate, Reiterate
T R Wingfield Jan 2017
Are we lost to a land of too many tribes,
  Too many choices, of too many scales,
  Too many communities of which to
avail?

  Could we be better off fractured and scattered
  Left shattered like glass by the highway
  A shimmering reminder to the wayward passerby,
  All is not lost though we
Subside

  Could that we merely be torn asunder,
  Pulverized, then obliterated by ritual fire,
  Then wrung from the colluding liquified minds
  Crystaline,
      Incandescent,
          Molten
Purifide

  T­o form as before but free from parameters previously applied,
  Forgotten in the furnace of insanity and strife
  Stiffled,
      Tempered,
          Emboldend,
Refined
There is a group of words in my mind I cannot seem to seperate.  The title represents two of the interior, juxtaposed outside the form of another poem.
It begins as a rumination on the disconnect between generations and geography made so starkly apparent by the recent election, and exacerbated by the duality of social media: it can isolate and embitter an individual in and toward their local community, while at the same time connect and embolden them with a global ego/echo chamber. It sat as one stanza for many months, until I decided to share it. It seemed hollow to pose such vague commentary, and not even attempt to address it, which catalyzed its creation and completion.
Dec 2016 · 218
Untitled
T R Wingfield Dec 2016
I remember thinking
My mother could sing like an angel
And my father could move mountains

It funny, you know,
How us kids grow up

-Guy Martin
These are not my words, but those of my best friend. Surely not the only poem he ever wrote, but the only one he ever shared with me. I memorized it immediately, and remembered it for nearly 20 years.
Dec 2016 · 3.0k
Pickup lines
T R Wingfield Dec 2016
The only line
I've ever heard that worked...

"Hey girl...
            Bring your fine *** over here and let me tell you some lies"

Honesty is always the best policy I guess.
True story
Dec 2016 · 414
Combustible
T R Wingfield Dec 2016
I thought of myself
As a phoenix
Set aflame

Now
I'm just
Ashes and Dust

Look at the mess that I've made.
I have a tendency to self-analyze. And, as often is the case, I am my own harshest critic. Often I tear myself down; sometimes I strip myself bare. I retrace my failures and the consequences of my own poor decisions. This habit is similar to prodding a canker sore with your tongue. It's painful, and does nothing to heal the would, yet it is almost impossible to refrain from doing. The nagging pain of an open sore is contrasted to the acute pain of direct contact;  but there is relief from the constant irritation in the brief intensity of addressing these sores directly. (Though counter-intuitive) It is, somehow, soothing. Perhaps by proving it could be worse. Perhaps it's just licking a wound.
Dec 2016 · 221
Better than nothing...
T R Wingfield Dec 2016
Heading out west when I get my money right, got some people wanna see me, need some rocky mountain high.

Spent the last year being busted up and broke down by bad ***** bailing at just the wrong time.

Never saw the trouble coming cause it came up on me slowly from behind, and from the front, and from the left, and from right.

Never knew I'd need no night rider to hold me tight. Always thought my self a loner, nobody on my side.

Got my dog and my old truck and about 300 bucks, got a tent, a tank of gas, and no strings to keep me tied

So I'm heading out west, as fast as I can drive, going 90 miles an hour towards the dying light.

Spent my days thinking and drinking all the time, making mountains outta Mole hills so I'd have something to climb

Now I'm leaving all that ******* on the Alabama line. Leave it blowing in the wind, leave it hanging out to dry.

So I'm heading out west, as fast as I can drive, going 90 miles an hour towards the dying light.
Bad poetry is still better than no poetry, probably should have scrapped this one.
Dec 2016 · 932
Man in the Monster
T R Wingfield Dec 2016
It's my own reflection of which I'm most terrified
Because it shows me exactly who I appear to be
It may not look like who I think I am, but it's the only me the world can see

Now it's been years and years since the man in the mirror
Resembled the man I know I can be,
But it won't be long until that monster is gone,
And the world only sees who I know I can be
Dec 2016 · 954
Weathered Wooden Walk
T R Wingfield Dec 2016
I found a boardwalk in the woods
leading, seemingly, to nowhere,
In a timberland swamp I knew from younger days;
Decaying and rotten, likely long forgotten.
I wondered how long it had been there, abandoned to its fate:
quietly mocked by the still standing timbers
(as yet spared the sawmills blade),
for its needless sacrifice; as its strength is weathered away - used but unrequited - wasted, faded and unmade.

I followed along its decrepit path
as far as I could make,
and laughed to myself and thought,
"Such is life's disarray."
A portrait of a landscape witnessed trespassing one day

— The End —