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Simon Monahan Jan 2018
Absalom usurped the throne
Ungrateful for his flesh and bone
His heart as cold and hard as stone
Declared his father’s house his own

Absalom, who in his greed
The fourth commandment did not heed
Rode his horse at breakneck speed
Anxious to see his father bleed

Absalom, who would not see
The just way for a son to be
From all good sense with haste did flee
And ran his horse right through a tree

Absalom is way up there
His feet are dangling in the air
Caught up in branches by his hair
Round the tree men stop and stare

Trapped Absalom, the young upstart
Had no one there to take his part
Joab armed with deadly dart
****** it through the young man’s heart

Joab thought the victory won
The messenger did gladly run
The King’s question was only one:
What of Absalom, my son?

The messenger confirmed his fears
And David weeping manly tears
Mourned his son’s lost unborn years
To cut the heart of each who hears
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2018
and

you think you are done with it.
but the notion potion returns
with your stolen free will
taunting and tearing, sealing
and then dissolving
the seals

no retirement in this world
from where human means pliable
and pliable means capable of being
twisted; nay, retwisted...

last we left you,
we were weeping on the
concrete sidewalk of
Third Avenue, the police,
giving you a move on command,
as Jean Valjean earworms one into
the incapacity of movement  
because of the audacity to request
to bring him home

such is the sorrow of the lost child;
it comes with irregularity
yet, never failing to return,
the child lost, the residual, resides
within like a violin adagio reaching
the punishing silence
after a crescendo that  pretense
promised momentary relief

we struggle to keep any and all keepsakes,
polished and fed; rust and time,
no polish in the five & time dime
that does a good enough job,
but you buy it anyway

well aware that fate will inevitably
rob you, it’s so purposed

twist you, retest you and re-will you, to never forget until
you have no need for forgetting but the peace of
constant remembering when all on that day
molecules and nucleotides
collide in the atmosphere,
dog licking, cat weeping purrs, meaning hallelujah home

the endless sadness of the lost lad-ness,
dimly grow the recollections of the first word,
the first delight, the confidence complete
that your babe is non pareil;
the violin sweeps you along and the
genteel tide still too string strong to resist

the woman comes into the room;
the reddened eyes no hide
the weeping outside and in the centerpiece of a soul;
why she asks, not surprised for she’s seen it
too many **** poem-times:

my Adam, I answer;
suffices and wisely
leaves me to
compose and decompose simultaneously
weeping weeping forever weeping
even when not

furious eddies rock smashing,
curious they splash me with taunts
"you want for naught!"

but naught is the only possess
that owing it makes one impoverished

perhaps he will email me, ewail me,
does he know I am at the
Wailing Wall, Jerusalem,
insert parchment prayers for his safety

oh my Absalom, oh my Adam, my favorite first born,
come sit next to me on the sidewalk
so close to where you live,
comfort me as in the days of your youth,
now that we are both
so very much older

sleep well all you lads and children,
never mind these unstoppable tearings,
never mind the heaviness,
for it has passed
as the tears ~shed,
enlighten and lessen
my embodiment

7/16/18 prone and alone
for my kinship
oh absalom, my son, my son.

cry out,  travel miles to

worship,  purify.



pray for him, the note

says all is disorder.



travel miles to tell those who

cannot hear, nor listen.



yet. if you cannot believe all

that is told, find a place your

own.



never mind the ancestors, absalom

my son.



sbm.
REDACTED Aug 2014
Run Rabbit, Run,
Alice is after you,
Alice, The Madman, or
The local federals-

Given the chance,
All would take a leg for luck,
The hand of fate,
Has passed you up,
And here you stand,
Hips in tuck,
Saved in passing,
granted luck-

it turns out that I’m the Rabbit
and you the Madman in the tall hat.

You've poisoned the tea and spiked the punch with ACID!

Oh Absalom! Absalom!
Grant me safety in your smoky blue carousel,
My legs have gone gimp,
I've been running for days-

The beast called Alice,
Is drawing near,
Her thundering steps,
Are all I hear,
This short-bread cake,
Will quell my fear,
Though the smiling cat,
Will forever peer-

His eyes are gleaming,
Bright and blue,
Iris sharp,
Focused on you,
No blinking, no moving,
That cheeky grin,
His frozen face,
Softened by the gin-

Brass buttons clasp,
The muddied breeches to my belly,
An everlasting coat,
That drags in the dust-

The smiling cat stoops his head,
“To get beneath the branch”, he said,
But really what I think he wants,
Is to get a better look at my watch-

If Alice were to find me,
The game would be up,
The treasure I've found,
The sword, the watch, the cup,
Lost to the ether,
They would be found,
By the big headed queen,
In her rouge hearted crown-

“Save me! Save me Queen!” I pleaded with the *****-

No longer needing,
My help or my time,
She had found the gold, found the sword,
And taken the crown-

My uses were up,
I was kicked to the side-

“Oh Absalom! Absalom!”
Will you help me now?
Have I shown you my worth as a runner?

All I need is a bite,
Of your spotted toad-stool,
A puff of your pipe,
And I’ll be on my way-

No help from the slug, I return to the tea-party-
To sit and drink and make merry with the wood-folk-

The Hatter has tricked me into his game,
It has rendered me blind,
His sweet tasting tea,
Is playing with my mind,
He says to relax,
Take it easy,
Close my eyes,
He’ll see me again,
Once that Red Queen has died-

I like it right here,
In my world of light and colour,
I can’t hear anymore,
Or at least I can’t hear the fuss-

Though I know when I wake,
That Alice will be gone-
When morning comes round I must be prepared to run-
Dreams of Sepia Jun 2015
a love song
by O. A. Unwin

for Joseph Rembrandt Clarke
poet of the Bronte Country


Immanuel Kant
'' We are rich not in what we possess
but in what we can do without''




I.


Midnight hospital rooms flicked eyelashes
off the slow duel of hours

imagine tall lynch mob grass
or Sing a Song of Sixpence or Bye, Bye Miss American Pie forever

Today I remembered my upbringing
spoke of Turner,Ginsberg,human rights,
painted, swore,tore up a newspaper


the Nurse looked at me and said
' Not doing very well now, are we''
Dear Roman Empire, Tribunals


Otherwise this Southern town's
all hills, steeples, clouds
unsteady heartbeat of sandstone swept sideways


occasional channel fog krimi & arthouse
and lives ending whiskey half way to the sky




Welcome,set down your bags
to you I am a stranger in your land
to me you were a visitor in my town

Recently I have learnt that those who love
live life on the wrong side of the looking glass
and are forever being given speeding tickets


I also wander Redcliffe Wharf these days by the swallows' nests knowing that Angels tread the earth in the form of people like you

I have been there.
I have seen the Light.
I have drained my soul
out in tears Absalom oh Absalom
I have known the Wall
of my prodigal body a Tempest
Angel wings clipped by old ladies
on Old Market bus stops
catkin feet rotating the underdressed night
under the Arsenic Wheel of Stars
I have gambled my future
on the mere shout of your name
I have risked my very life

I should be a woman serene as a fish by now in a pond by a mansion house beneath Redwoods

this is not dignified.


Dearest, did I **** up
may I call you this
or shall we be
empty footsteps
Stasi hallways
a disconnected phone

No. Wait.
I am doing this all wrong

Dearest, gentle zeitgeist poet
of Yorkshire and the North
the way your writing
fleets me of your subtle frame
remembered briefly from one night
the inner fire of your face
and eyes mysterious as pagan gods
or lonely hermit huts and bright
as Northern Seafront lights
blinking renegade the dusk
amid the heady din of amusement arcades
the smog lilt of your lovely voice
now I know these things about you
I am a Matryeshka lost
but at least it's easier to write
of imagined boyish swagger to Elvis
or the way you might also sing jazz
I belt out Duke Ellington in the bathtub
oh lets dance lets dance


Turn, turn
Sunset on Sunset
pages, pages back
I am an August rose
in bloom over you
in Welsh view suburbs
A Brothers' Grimm fairytale
that mother cuts down
and I tie it back onto it's stalk
with a vial of water
as if it's calling to me
to say  'thanks for letting me die here'
red, red, Russian red
that's no way to make your bed
but it reminds me of my Grandmother's garden
so it's also English
and then there's the thought of you
so it must be French red,
the color of love
Existentionalism and Rousseau
Elinor and Marianne
hothouse flowers or wild
I was always the latter
wild, wild
a bold freedom of a child.




in Jane Austen's ' Sense and Sensibility'  the heroines, Elinor and Marianne's contrasting characters
are described by their love of flowers. Marianne prefers wild and this
is a tribute to her free, delicate spirit, the stern Elinor prefers hothouse.








I.I


This is bad.
I'm done dancing.
actually I was recently a mermaid
& my legs still hurt on land
I can't write good poetry about this.
It's too serious.
It's all je ne sais quoi
& unknown potential of star signs
I've read of the way you wrote
of a girl all bells and incense
and think now that oh you are Love, love
love itself-fragile and kind
beneath that manner bold
and cheek as a Sunday brass band bright
' Your name's a bit of a mouthful isn't it'
that's what you said,right?
but you can't fool me,Love
are you the all the vibrant flair of gentleness in my Soul

your trance of attention to detail
the way you've loved places and people
the thought that there is such a man
pierces me like Van Gogh's last hours




dearest, dearest
you're my drug
that's just the way that I am,
or used to be
I'm a Romantic.
Neither capitalist
Nor communist?
Me too.
Soulmate.
Yep..
Drastic.

But that's
all the word that's left.
Now I'm just in trouble
and need wine.

To think I'm usually
quite good at Scrabble.
I don't normally do Kitsch.
I promise.Be Kind.
I must remind myself of this:

Love is a house of cards.
could we just be a plane trail
a radio signal
a satellite
forbidden bliss.




I.I.I


You're right
the Southern middle classes are ****** up.
as for me Dad all kindly alcoholism
and Kolobok* frame died
Step-Dad walked out.
All my umbrellas broke.

I've tried

but it was pointless loving my parents
poetry and paleontology
just can't live together.

*
I should have been an heiress
but my mother
lazily lost the place
and kept me poor & this stings
or did till I grew a backbone.
Our landlord's in New York.
Our house
is surrounded by cypress trees

You only live once.

or so I thought.
but I've lived and lost so many times
that I'm simply glad that I just bought a typewriter
for a quid
and am proud.

* Kolobok - a character from a Russian folk tale, made out of dough.

I.I.I

**** this curiosity.
A question.
Arise, arise Atlantic dreamer.
Why are you you
America, Europe and England
and goodness knows what else



By Descartes's* fire
I beseech you
are you a dream
Am I Ariel,
or else
a marvel comic heroine
pick and choose
toss your dice


Lets face it
we are both gamblers
because we're not afraid to feel
& we are both Kafka
when I read you
I'm the Zen
of my transnational dreams
I can't help this.
Where are the boys I used to kiss in my head.
This is maybe just how the Mad are.
I'm mock bubblegum brains.
You are my roman candle


as I said
I'm not a little Bristolian
& Southerner at heart
so I'm a pirate.
that's that.

I am sewing our flag in neon thread
I am eyeing you up
the way Smugglers eye up cargo
the way Kings draw up maps
the way salt melts in water

& the way books looked and felt
has always been important
so you must know
my mother read me Ruskin as a child.



Tell me, friend
could we be Northern lights
by whom & what was the last film you saw
Woody Allen,
Wim Wenders,Gatsby.
lets make a list
have you seen
'Goodbye, Lenin'
it's hilarious.
tell me of yourself

Berlin, Berlin
einz zwei drei
no, this is not the Polizei

or Blitzkrieg grandmothers
just hide and seek
Do you like gingerbread
Why is my neighbor called  Pete.

* Rene Descartes - 1596-1650, french philosopher
* Ariel - Ariel, a magical spirit from Shakespeare's ' The Tempest'
* Ruskin is one of Rembrandt's favorite authors
* I used to live in Berlin
* One, two, three, no this is not the Police
Please be kind. This is a highly personal poem. There is more to it but it's too long to post in one go. It's the true story of my love for a fellow poet & how I wandered 3 days & nights through the town of Bristol in the rain, without sleep, calling his name & later ended up in hospital against my will for what they called psychosis just because for a while I was scared for my life. A diagnosis I hope to overturn someday. The poem starts off talking about the hospital. At about this point I told Rembrandt of my love & of my tragic experience & he rejected me. This was 2 years ago now & I'm still trying to get over it. I hope to publish this poem someday as testimony to my love for R. & this experience.
JerrHoll Jun 2014
Sometimes we rant and rave here for no real value other than the release we think it grants,
A release as real as the ****** everyone seeks.
There is no release in this ether any longer, the words captured and dissected for all to consider, left us limp and wasted - unfulfilled.

The facade created for legalistic cause, show your lifestyle to be rich and full,
all it was is empty halls and vacant thoughts. Desires unfulfilled from the first, your facade.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner on the hoof!
Parties and settings to raise the roof,
False invitation and another deceit
Open the crypt of your own design.

Lay in the linens your deceit bought - rest your head on the silken pillow,
The door closes one last time
And the blade is raised.
Darkly - Kidron flows to its end
Temple on one bank, mount on the other
Dark with the blood of sacrifice
Gethsemane calling.
Inspired by my life's events and 2 Samuel 15
Panama Rose Apr 2013
My heart feels like an uncut diamond
Though it is still the same, it is not the same
Someone speaks of a bridge to be built from Tangier
to Algeciras or is it Gibraltar?
"Yes & then a highway to the stars or more likely
an elevator to the Underworld," says Yellow Turban
To White Jellaba as the exhaust fumes from the bus
engulf them, leaving behind not even a single
shadow.
Is that Mel Clay in a white jacket turning the corner?
No, it is a figment of my imagination escaped from the
asylum.
Is that Ian Sommerville walking backwards up the street
as if pulled by a giant magnet?
No, that is Wm. Burroughs making electricity
from dead cats.
Is that Tatiana glistening on Maxiton?
No, that is the sun dancing in the sugar bowl.
Is that Marc Schelfer wavering on the cliffedge?
No, it is a promontory in the wind of time
about to fall in the sea.
Is that Beethoven's 9th Symphony being played
up the street?
No, it is the sound of the breadwagons
rumbling over cobblestones
Is that George Andrews with two girls in hand
looking for bread?
No, it is an unidentified flying object about to land.
Is that One-eyed Mose hanging by his heels?
No, that is the hanged man inventing the Taro.
Are the dead really so fascinated by *******?
Yes, that is how they travel.
Is that Irving in short pants looking for trouble?
No, that's me unable to stop thinking.
Is that Kenneth Halliwell looking for Joe Orton?
Is that Jane Bowles looking for Sherifa, Rosalind looking
for her baby, Alfred searching for his lost hair?
Is that the wig of it all, the patched robe of my brain,
the wind talking to itself?
Brion is dead and Yacoubi is dead, and I am a not unhappy
ghost remembering everything, the warp & woof of memories,
her yellow slip, her shaved ****, her idiot child.
Dream shuttle makes me exist everywhere at once.
The blind beggars led by children keep coming.
"They all have many houses in the Casbah,"
chant the unbelievers ******* on sugar.
Words keep coming back like Bezezel for ****, Lictcheen
for oranges, like Mina, like Fatima, like Driss Berrada
dropping his trousers for an injection in the middle
of his shop.
The trunk is full of old sepia postcards,
barebreasted girls smoking hookahs etcetera.
We speak of the cataplana, the mist which obscures
even the cielo you cannot even see the hand in front
of your face.
We embrace, he says he thought of me only yesterday,
he says there are always nine such men who look like us
in the world and that we are the tenth.
We speak of the gold filets in the sky over Moulay Absalom.
The garbage men in rubber boots go thru the Socco pushing
wheeled drums of collected garbage.
An unveiled woman wobbles out of a taxi and heads home
before sunrise.
Paul couldn’t believe that was a Karma Street,
but I will never forget it.
And Billy Batman, who made the best hash in the world,
he dropped a loaded pistol in Kabul, shot himself in the *****,
took some ****** and lay down to die.
Now I must get up from my table in the allnight Café Central.
No more Dr. Nadal, no more window with red crosses & red
crescents.
The water thrown from buckets runs across the café floors
& over the sidewalks & I drop a dirham into the hand
of a blind beggar singing in the dark on the American stairs


From Anais Nin’s A Spy in the House of Love—"The women wear fireflies in their hair, but the fireflies stop shining when they go to sleep so now and then the women had to rub the fire- flies to keep them awake."
Asa D Bruss Nov 2014
I've got a gravy train riding hefer
and she's ready to deliver
all the goods and the services that I never give her
cuz she's mother ****** queen absalom
in the directory's cut
of the film that won a grammy and a mammy
and made it all the way to flavortown
in the south bahaman outback of queens land
and ate all my chili beans so that I would be sad on a green day
cuz I got granades in my ******* about ready to be pulled,
and there aint no sunshine when she's gone, and there's only darkness every day, but she's never gone too long because I never learn to live without her anyway.
Jonathan Moya Mar 2020
Five smooth stones David culled from Elah’s brook,
Shepherd knowing  dense ones to fit sling’s crook.

He released the first on Goliath’s shright
the giant falling back dead with the smite.

Goliath gazing into David’s eyes
felt his blade render head for David’s prize.

Head held high, high and tight, in David’s hand
Goliath gawked at where his body land.

He cursed David ’til his progeny’s end
and Scopus  Crusaders in next revenge,

slung fiery stones onto his holy grain,
his children inheriting Sauls migraines,

Absalom, Absalom! their refrain roars
as they smooth more stones with nuclear cores.

Notes:

The Scopus Crusaders are credited with the invention of the first catapult—really a giant slingshot, that launched fiery boulders at the walls of their enemies.

Saul was the first King of Israel.  He suffered from migraines that made him attack others.  One of his aides was David who suffered brutally when Saul was having one of his migraine headaches.  David later, succeeded Saul as King of Israel.

Absalom, Absalom was the cry of grief David shouted when he learned that his first son, Absalom had accidentally died in the branches of a tree he was traveling under.

The core of a nuclear bomb is about the size of the smooth stone that David slung to **** Goliath.
Bob B Oct 2016
Ol’ Jonah was looking pretty **** pale
After three days and three nights in a whale—
Or giant fish (according to translation).
Whatever the case, it was no vacation
For Jonah, who had to be pretty smelly,
Spending seventy-two hours in that belly,
Fending off digestive juices
And other secretions that a body produces.
He didn’t agree with the creature, no doubt,
Because the animal spat him out.
If Jonah had early on followed directions,
This story would NOT be in our collections;
And he wouldn’t have taken that trip
And found himself being thrown from a ship.
 
Now Solomon they say was supposed to be wise,
Which is handy when certain situations arise,
Such as the “Judgment of Solomon,” which—
Luckily for him—went off without a hitch.
Solomon understood human behavior
And proved to be for one mom a savior.
Taking a chance, and entirely off the cuff,
He shrewdly called the false mother’s bluff.
It’s amazing it all worked out as it did;
Otherwise, there would have been a dead kid.
Back then could Solomon ever have guessed
The advantages of a DNA test?
 
Kind David’s son Absalom was handsome and charming;
His personality was rather disarming.
Ostentatious and debonair,
He was known for his huge mop of hair.
His thirst for power got so overblown
That he usurped his father’s throne.
So David and Absalom had to wage war;
Father and son had to settle a score.
At Ephraim’s Wood when trying to flee,
Absalom got his locks caught in a tree.
If he had kept his hair short and trim,
He wouldn’t have died on that blasted tree limb;
And his plans might not have fallen apart
As he hung from that tree with darts in his heart.
 
Salome loved to dance up a storm;
And apparently the lady had perfect form.
Her mother, Herodias, bore a deep grudge
Toward John the Baptist; and she wouldn’t budge.
Just imagine the trouble he was in
For having told her she was living in sin.
Unfortunately, he landed in jail
And languished there with no chance of bail.
When Herod’s birthday came around,
To get the merriment off the ground,
Herod asked Salome to dance for him.
He’d give her anything—whatever her whim.
She didn’t want gold or silver; instead,
She wanted John the Baptist’s head.
(Actually, for one reason or another
She wanted to give John’s head to her mother.)
If John had NOT insulted Herodias,
She wouldn’t have found him so odious.
And if Salome hadn’t been SO into dance,
The poor guy might have had a chance;
But since her dancing was so first rate,
His head ended up on a plate.
 
IF...THEN in retrospect
Makes us want to stop and reflect.
Actions and reactions both make up life
And sometimes bring happiness, sometimes strife.
Behave with wisdom and common sense,
And know that there’s ALWAYS a consequence.

- by Bob B
Bob Shuman Mar 2014
“I killed my son,” he said, fielding the catch in his voice,
words plain, unwreathed with plea or pardon.
“They say it was an accident, but I swerved the sled
that hit the tree that slammed the skull
that bruised his brain and knocked the life
right out of him. I heard it slip away. Twice.
I couldn’t get a handle on something so fluttery,
went right past me real slow, but too quick
just the same. Air, they told me, is what it was,
escapes from the lungs when the brain is only matter.

“Ten years old, curled up, a question mark on an envelope of snow.
Death arrived and I, to him no more than a mitten or a cap,
barely breathed as any creature does when danger seems close,
a lunge or swipe away. He stood, his face beneath a mask,
or so I thought, although I’d seen neither.

“And then one night he came again, I knew, for me.
Hours I waited in horror, to see what look he had
or what he buried. The hardest work I’ve ever done,
to will my eyelids up, to see--not night, not death,
but light and love and morning.”
My nature, once pleaded for one of these darling ones!
The amazing hope only found in the fair women down here.
A strength found only in the wilderness having the ability
To drink bourbon until dawn being absolutely naughty
And then the next morning to show you how to properly
Use a fork and knife while signing thank you cards.
To be raised up to all the heights any man could bear:
Has my God ordained my fate to be southern reborn?
Perhaps he has indeed given this soul another turn.
Gullied without a patriot's name, have I lost my sense?
Yet to be treated as if I were by law a prince.
Am I so brave or just this Belle’s tool?
I never saw a patriot yet that wasn’t a fool.
Here comes she now with religion and the laws
Should I be Absalom or should I be David's cause?
But I am the instructor, or have I lost my place?
She has taken me over with so much grace.
Good heavens, how fast must a patriot pant!
She stole me away by saying “A saint I ain’t.”
Pulling off my shoes as she pulls me down from my throne
I cross my eyes as I moan and I groan.
A kingly battle within the sweetest of torments,
Was their ever a prerequisite or my consent?
The look in her eyes – flames, fire and fury – nothing to lose.
Inferring this infernal night is ours to depose;
Oh God it’s true she’s petitioned me to approve her by choice,
But are not my hands still powered by my voice?
So my pious subjects, for my safety please pray.
I do think this Belle has taken all my will away.
Read it aloud - makes it better somehow...
Aug. 9.
When He Fled From Absalom.

Lord how many are my foes
How many those
That in arms against me rise
Many are they
That of my life distrustfully thus say,
No help for him in God there lies.
But thou Lord art my shield my glory,
Thee through my story
Th’ exalter of my head I count
Aloud I cry’d
Unto Jehovah, he full soon reply’d
And heard me from his holy mount.
I lay and slept, I wak’d again,
For my sustain
Was the Lord.  Of many millions
The populous rout
I fear not though incamping round about
They pitch against me their Pavillions.
Rise Lord, save me my God for thou
Hast smote ere now
On the cheek-bone all my foes,
Of men abhor’d
Hast broke the teeth.  This help was from the Lord;
Thy blessing on thy people flows.
Counterpart opposite
and depleted by measures of time.

Time no longer counted upon
And its hands that measures the distance
All  
one, two, three
of
them
Watches closely with intuition
as
the
minutes
go
bye.

Resolute is absent and the balance of His nature
Is unstable.
Both have grown feeble, lacking interest.

Burdened down by the weight of unevenness
Absalom has risen above the absence of the absolute
leading to a labyrinth.
.
Mystified by the maze,
He
Sits,
counting backwards,
rotating on an unhinged alignment,
expounding the injury of His inventiveness.

In another dimension of Himself, all one, two, three of them
Helios is staggered as Cupid, The God of Dark Love’s
Bow
is broken.

Now
His
equilibrium
is
faltered by the parallels between its thoughts.

Wanting love’s incarceration corrupted no more
He teeters on a stool in attempt to reverse suicide
yet the ensuing ideology of procrastination’s pride
has detoured His dilemma
However in their misfortune,
Love,
hoping to be reincarnate into another lifetime, dissolves in its delusion.

Time, in its barrenness discreetly measures the depletion and void,
and
the hands
all one, two, three of Him sits opposite
Being His
Counter in
Part
Craig Verlin Jan 2013
With the absence
of Grace
or transcended
human morality
there is silence
so what do you believe
when almighty Jupiter lays
crucified in the caressing arms
of Vishnu
Christ bent
broken over the knees
of Mohammad
what do you believe in
Father?
what do you believe in
Mother?
when Absalom
ascends the throne
and Daniel suffocates
in the lion’s den
what faith holds you
speechless
and chaste
as the stories
twist and burn
to crash together
on the endless palette
of human belief

the needle’s worn the
groove too deep
now the record won't play
all we have to believe in
is silence

let the deity’s roll in
celestial graves
give me human interaction
the touch of lover’s hand
sacraments that bring more absolution
than sorrowed sermons
screaming out just to
break that silence

oh, la musique de nos collisions fabriquer
laissent peu pour la l'âme à faux
i come to you each month to leave a prayer to be said. i have no faith yet live in hope. #chestercathedral



look at mosaics, oh absalom, my son, my son.

wonder where the justice is. i come to think on things. each time i am challenged as to my reasons, & do i have a ticket?

#chestercathedral

it is enough to put some off from visiting at all. only the brave. thank you.

#chestercathedral



pray for them, all is in disorder.

sbm.
Tyler King Jun 2016
People I only knew in passing-
Lovers on a hotel bed, lost in the feeling of controlled chaos, ******* until the sun signals surrender, the stars burning holes in their memories that cannot be pieced together again,
Brothers in different hospital rooms, two halves of one whole engine praying for a spark, to be able to stand on ones own, IV drips trickling down dreams of a brighter morning to collapsed veins and broken synapses,
Sisters in opposing time zones, living out play acted scripts of the same drama in various adaptations, the first act the divine comedy, the second act the hellish tragedy, we all tend to fall somewhere in the middle with these types of things
I don't know where I fit into any of this
I once thought I could piece together the story from the fragments I am left with,
But they're nothing more than points in a vague interest, clean surfaces for drugs, nothing to write home about
Have you gotten thinner? Has your hair gotten longer? Have you slept recently? Have you left your house today? How long has it been? How many cigarettes? How many inches of rain? How many sunsets? How many phases of the moon? The last time you spoke to a ghost what did he say? Did he mention me?
I am living seance, forcing questions into spaces they have no business,
My art is the hand that murdered Absalom, the hand that cuts the lines of pills, the hand that slits the throat of the hydrogen future
The cool, slick ******* sitting wide eyed and high in supernatural pretense, in eternal condemnation of the enemy,
Don't you know if you're broke and suicidal you can just blame it on the alignment of the planets?
It could all be so easy
Damien Ko Nov 2021
at last, at last, hundred years have gone
her name keeps ringing
at last, at last, she has gone silent
bellicose percussives at once still
alas, alas, she has retreated from memory
frantically grasping at fading tendrils of warmth
alas, alas, what once was
will never be
tried playing with restricting articles and personal pronouns
left early yesterday to travel to chester
to prepare for winter

to see the mosaic again
to remind myself

that most have survived

i sat by the river saw the man
feeding birds to entertain
himself, his small son

they came after for my ice cream
cone crumbs

in rain i walked the cobbles
to the old toy shop, closed

peered through the windows

yes it is a good series, yet some refuse
to watch the unreality of it all

i go again next week
the three to see the spaceman
The music was crap and the singer went flat
but the words sunk in too deep and drowned

I rise in the lexicon
Luther and Superman
Marvel at me the comedian
see how they laugh,

On stage, one page, one more time
Lois is mine
but he's having none of it
I give him kryptonite and
he ain't laughing now.

In the hanging of the gardens at Babylon
where Maria met Joseph and got it on
a baby was born
call him
Absalom.

it's all mixed up because they fixed me up wrong
a song for the stein in me?
Frank has a line on me
and somewhere
I'm being reeled in.
Ken Pepiton Oct 2023
{it does take a half hour to read, I timed it.}

Pythagorian permission, Poet, today viz.
five years ago, auto-did-actical,
the output arrogance,
self categorization
accept the role, be a finger, or a toe,
be a knee or an elbow, chose a position,
take it
make it your part in reality function
as if it all just happens
on
accident,
you just happened along…
as though saying show, and showing so,
is the same as saying so, and saying see…
demon-stratem ****
miracles of crowd perception, everybody
look this way, look away, look away
Dix-ai 'da swanee, I tell you, I saw…
Land o'Goshen, locust free. I swanee…

Did you ever, even once, work dawn to dusk,
to pick the cotton before the rain?
You'd need to be born before 1954, I'd reckon;
to have ever pulled a cotton sack
any where in North America.
You can hand-pick about 20 plants in 10 minutes while it takes a cotton picker about 30 seconds to pick up to 1,200 plants. Ai knows.

-- good morning, mustabin--
Probable propitious auspices
- evening the occasional heaps
- sun's light blending peachy huey

Phrygian gardens had song birds, I bet.
Bluebirds, in season, certainly good,
expecting miracles, as farmers
expect rains and harvests and
no blights or bugs or birds or fires
or frosts too soon in the sugaring cycle.
For citrus, not maples, frost some years
meant no Christmas, if you know the sense.
--- we had beggars come to our door
on Christmas Day,
their car broke down, and something
told them, the people inside my house
would help… we were three doors down
from a Jehovah's witness church,
but we had so much, and those kids,
and their mom,
coulda been my mom, had things
gone another way, in the soul selling.

To observe the future from 1950,
are we not
made winners if by now we are not in prison?

Rabble, eh, my equal rank, common-sensewise,
I was once a dear friend of an angel, as real
as any ever to bring another bit of good news.

My messenger told me to say plainly what I see.
Habakkuk Habits invoked a disglosalialacical spell
Aha. If luck were not a factor at the edged abyss,
hiss steamsudden
Coolant ego '
idden agendas, owning the energy,
euphemism
for owning the earth's produce.

Imagining a representation of truth,
as a mortal, a spirit embodied, held out
for grasping fingers
to find handles,
or spikey burrs for tangled locks…
-----------
Examined my selves
for an empathetic one,
I heard Absalom swinging in the tree…
I found no functioning, pathos perceived
is as near as one could come, feeling pain,

awareness, pain at being made to pay attention
to the replaying trainwrecks from fifty years ago.
No.
No, three thousand years ago, really, that long ago
and no updates on Wisdom receptivity?

Life in logos, mere words living in lettered lines
and rows, columns and pages and sections and such.
There are no sacred secret rites.
The snake can take your life, or tickle your soul.

Logical steps lead from one word to the next,
with 151 pre-positioning aiming words,
words that take and hold objects,
to and fro upon a time.

Distance diminishing day dopplering toward us,
the experience bound by galaxy level gravity,

massive messaging apparatus
Nachrichtenübermittlungsgerät zending oud a tingtingting
strumming all the oud's strings in theory.
Would you prefer to have a day in touch
or to have a day out of touch, floating, drifting through
the halls of power, inner sanctum, towers atop slagheaps
of holyshitchewdonotwannaknow, but do, do undoubtedly
know.

Original disconnect. Aware become, conscience ****** eve,
goodness found hell inventing just knowing love most needed
opens possibility quickly ready searched truth uni versal xanex zone. Calming. Sigh, and listen,
where I live there are
still war planes passing over my head, practicing.

Just in case, Semper fi. Charge the fuel.

Pilot training in the real Chocolate Mountains,
so backwash sunset red this time of day…

A brain, already capable of completing
ambitious intelligent coded construction processes

to go, to yield, to go about getting around orders
intuited easily entreated,
with little need
for the power
to punish the cowardly shirker of war duty…

to empty space, tzimtzim on a human scale,
as when the messaging systems deployed metaphors.
Empty vessles, not a few.
Mental focus hearth felt hooks, catch your attention

Red herring and black swans and autistic savants, all
attract attention and something
more rare, a daring
to know why luck seems such a powerful factor.
Curiosity before knowledge they say.
Whatsoever we agree. Eh?
Religions of billions, or two, just me and you, we
believe for a second that eternity is ever right after
ever before, and we exist in the interim, and not before.

Ever, in the scriptural universal sense…
make up your mindshare…
ok.
Mindtimespace, point grid riddled
with holes.
Perspectives on history,
recent history, edging bets
most losers never knew they made,

when a choice is made,
according to the ruling stories,
despite the constant compute refuting,
sneaking
suspicion
sin, lying at the door, did you notice?

If money can fix it, then it is not a problem.
So said the grandson of the Mormon Pioneer
who laid legal real estate claim to raw Sedona.

The grandson of the mechanic, allowed, that so.
- stopped and thought, actuating a still mind,
- pondering, breathing soft, slow, gentle, easy
entreating a change to
to whom, eh, from the page, flat, word after word,
each defined between us, meaning, golden mean
curve to judge beauty by purpose design.

You have seen the curve, you know
what I mean is much along those lines.

Chances are good, we say without thinking,
feeling kinda lucky, a post anxiety high, per haps;
any
way. One day, to a mortal is a measurable span,
and in America, wasting mortal lives
with republic guardians
of the laws enforcing peace
within Belair and Hillcrest regions of Athens…
{L.A. as portrayed the city of messaging mediums}
and the near suburbs, for the managers of the help.
-Leaping millennia in a single second thought
it is Autumn, 2023…

At the scattered outermost edges of urban sprawl,
there remains a kind of creative ifity, an absense
of civil strife, a kind of pollen in the wind, as change,
on cosmic seasonal suggestion that we think long
co-gnosis, sensing augmentalated wedoms, stretching
fi, the idea,
the fi in fiduciary and Semper Fi, and confidence.
Tuning to middle c, wait and see, foe from Phrygia
drummed response, thump thump thrum.

Shofar sounding afar off, listen, listen, hear
the babies, always, babies, after bombs, in the tents
the babies always activate auto **** alert, and feel
terror, the actual mind state occupied by the prisoners
in poverty, every where.

Entertain my brain. Hold my attention to gain,
acquiescence, necience, recognizing your best self,
there's the old tongue in cheek joke, male bond humor.
Same crude pleasure pursuant patriarchal hierarchy.

By royal order, presidential decree and papal bull,

the powers opposing the light of holy truth, persist.
All subjects under the common global order, obey or
else, we disagree with basic gravity and Pareto distributions.

Where the feebleness of mind is first discerned,
was once the local village or shire, cluster of cousins
and immigrant help's children who - how you say, see
themselves being a baker, when they play patty cake, see
or being a maker of clay vessles for holding many things,

see, we make up our own minds, then ideas take over.

Entertain me, show me people involved in drama, over
nothing. ***, drugs, rockandroll, when did the music die?

We could calm the world, with a Coke®
it's the re-al thing, al-ways a ways away re
ality with you and me on the run down to Rosarita
inland route from Jacumba, around the fence,

Singing at the top of our lungs, IT’S THE REEE AL THING
baby.
Look away from the skinny moon.
These bodies preserve life on earth,
and signal nonsense when aiming at stars, however
considering the heavens, far from the glare of cities,

even then, naked eye, I was told, however
I fact checked with my Ai assisting intelligence,
Egypt had not known the Dog star binary.
So this is true:
ChatGPT
The ancient Egyptians believed that the star Sirius,
also known as Sothis, was associated
with the goddess Isis and had significant importance
in their religious beliefs and calendar system.
They believed that the rising of Sirius
in the pre-dawn sky,
which occurred annually around July,
marked the beginning of the Nile flood
and the start of the agricultural year.
The Egyptians did not believe that Sirius was a three-star system.
- last line is all I asked, all the rest, ah, doubblingentendrills,
- all the rest of time we have to spend enjoying hell,
- from some perspectives, this is currently hell, no other.

Thieves of detail truth precepts, lurk,
at this line the author activated prayer circuits,
to take angst
and spin it into genuine umph up
from the base mind level,
low as a mind of any kind can go,
to the core of all emotion.

Dead center initial gravity. First sequence ex nihilo, what
do you know?.. o o psci daisy, just dropped the baby,
baby
can't you hear me crying, baby-love. Blurplepeopleeater,
lyin' all the time, you ain't never caught a rabbit,
and you ain't no friend of mine…

Take us to the danger zone, flyin' all the time,
ease our feeble minds and give us good service

Action movies, make us squirm, who has time for this,
we mostly all do, it seems,
seems, seems unreal really unreal, dream-like,
entrancement, fashion alert, attuned to degrees of in,
and out, up and down, round this way, square this way,
amphoras fit snug, round jugs
in square grids, leaning
into the curve
of greater vessles, trading knowledge
for knowledge,
with a few side realities, professional
courtesies, judgement calls, authorized executive acts,

I declare… I'drather doubt I know what you know,
than doubt that you do not doubt that you know.

Voltaire… defend to the death your right to say you know.
Faith is your evidence, we all suppose, spiritual warfare
is proven by the lie that says Satan is the deceiver.

Wait. What did I say, have I come this far and none
know… wait, those poor souls cold calling on solar leads,
gees, I'm sorry you are so used, really, I feel for you, your
job *****, as they say.
In realized life as a grown up in the system;
got a job, cutcherhair, dopplering by as I manifest, as real
one of the hitchhiking pests, depicted as vermin
on a poster displayed at the Greyhound station,
nearest to Route 66 in San Bernardino, March, '70.

Anchor links, ancient landmarks, moments when pivots
occur, and as often as not, acute reversals widen with use,
dull witted boys with instant anger output honed to fine edge,
grow dull in three seasons, few hold the line on the fourth fight.

Here, in cyberspace, the information super highway,
and the solid state circuitry to deal with mean free ways,
in quarkish inverse infinity space, deep from any now,
in time thought since once,
you did it,
you passed understanding. Got an A.
Some things have no pause button.

— The End —