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Joseph Schneider Nov 2014
Distant learning courses in the heart
Irrelevant actions have left us all apart

Acquisitions decaying those stray minded people
It's no longer a commonplace to feel peaceful

Simultaneous occurrences have our mind in disarray
Through our pasts they begin to replay

All these calamitous activities brought through maleficent eyes
Disintegrate what's left sending us in a fools paradise

We reap to elope from these rigorous bearings we call home
Only to find ourselves cast away into the unknown

We strive to survive in a world full of abhorrence
Being seen transparent just as worthless corpses

Those few who prevail are not left without detriment
They are forever severed a mental delinquent

Nevertheless our story lives on
In this godforsaken marathon


-Joseph B Schneider
© Joseph B Schneider. All rights reserved

Life always finds a way to repeat itself, if not through your eyes then through another's.
Jordan Gee Feb 2022
early retirement                                           2.11.22 Mercury/Pluto conjunction

I’ve been cracking jokes lately,
when in the company of others.
When there was an opening in the conversation
I would insert a comment;
I would joke about my life in early retirement.
I would joke and say that I am retired.
It's obviously funny because I’m only 35;
fairly early in my second Saturn returns.

Over the last 18 months I’ve made modest acquisitions
fit for a retiree;
house slippers, a few extra lines in my face and
even a piccolo pipe with dark cherry Cavendish tobacco.  
They all fit rather nicely,
(according to my eyes)
when worn with my gray cardigan with the red whip stitch
suring up the right pocket;
the same cardigan I wore the night of the accident and the
morning of the ward.
That was an equinox to remember.

Maybe it's in poor taste to joke about early retirement.
Perhaps that it isn’t very funny to go on about,
or maybe it was only funny to me.
It hadn’t quite occurred to me until now that
it may be kind of awkward for a grown man to crack
funnies about his lack of income or industriousness.
I suppose I just gave myself a pass.
Because I figured everyone already knows I’m
a little unhinged-
a little ungrounded-
certainly a bit touched…
and that “he just needs time to heal because he is
an activated Light Worker and the benefits reaped
by his inner struggle to anchor the
Light upon the Earth plane is in everyone’s best interest,
and that it takes an untold exertion of Will to exact such an incarnation,
and that it takes more than a few several months for the
risen Kundalini to come to maturation.
Quick, can someone please get me a tourmaline.

Well, here I am in
southern Jersey
Manchester Township
Ocean County
Riverside retirement community
side of the pond (man made)
composite bench under a gazebo erected on a concrete pad.
Sitting inside my cardigan next to my piccolo pipe and a pen in my hand,
wondering how I could feel so lost and so found at the same time.

I’ve been a stubborn *******.
Afraid to bear my Light within my hands and
expose it to my kin in a meaningful way.
But here I am,
early retirement
on an early afternoon
in a retirement community
full of elders
slinkin through the
early dusk of the
twilight of their lives.
And I don't like it.
I am not equanimous with what is.
I’ve excreted so many toxins that the
re-uptake is nearly too much to bear.
I’ve carried empty green notepads in my back pocket for years.
Pen and pad with scotch tape holding down the binding;
worth about three or four poems max.
“Yea I fancy myself a writer, just not very prolific.”
You can only speak something into being so many times
before the universe starts agreeing with you.
Old man Saturn couldn’t give a **** about
little fears and excuses.
The limits of necessity were only
bad wiring
rendered by
my own hand.
And that goes down smooth like a fish-bone in the throat.

I own enough scarves and robes to
circumambulate the globe a few times.
If only I could fly
it would be in such style
because on the outside I look how I want to feel on the inside.
Before my heart center I hold the dharmachakra mudra and
I stare into a candle flame.
I could of sworn they prescribed this treatment
early in the Rig Veda for guys with ailments like mine;
running mad like beside his shadow and
fleeing all the house flies;
sliding down the side of a waxing crescent moon.

only the moon it is a scythe;
a crescent knife.
Waning in early retirement,
old man Saturn coming for his life.
death and the sickle
hebrew rope
and a buffalo nickle
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2013
The solitary reminder,
a sole survivor,
hopeful-placed,
forgivingly encased
in little boxes decorative
hidden in plain sight
throughout our home.

Single and incomplete,
the lonesome leftovers,
openly hid upon bookshelf,
desk corners, fireplace mantels,
storage units of the
I am unlost,
I am unfound,

Raise your hand,
stand up and say
that is me,
that is me.

Minor treasure chests,
of carved wood, seashell real,
acquisitions of trips
to faraway places,
these boxes, they themselves,
visible but unremembered,
just there, no cares,
no one knows,
when or why.

that is me,
is that me?

Space fillers, memory taunts,
grandchildren's playthings, delight,
when they someday come visit,
weather and parents permitting,
finding keys for locks, doors,
from three homes ago.

Can they unlock me too?

Boxes hoard the things
we have lost, but cannot discard,
can't sacrifice, gotta keep,
an admixture of buttons,
dried flowers, faded notes that
once upon a time mattered,
shook someone's world...

Some kept in hope,
others, sequestered, lock-up,
jails that we are both
jailor and jailed,
the joke being on me.

Should we, you and I,
exchange these
cases histories of lost hopes, memories,
it would not be surprising,
if when opened,
the contents identical,
even if you are in Manila,
Leeds, places of need,
and yet,
we would be shocked,
asking,

*that is me,
is that me?
If you like this, and as of yet not read
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/always-fall-in-love-with-a-poet/
take a minute, for it the best of me, perhaps,
the best of you too...
Joseph Schneider Jun 2014
Life's reflection glistens through sands of time.
Days past due reunite with our current days disguise.

We glimmer in the false light portraying us to our knees.
Reaping such qualities turns our words to disease.

Acquisitions conquer minds through solid demise.
Leading hearts of hate to realise.

We are our own living destruction.
Believing such theories brought through subduction.

We replenish the rot of our personality.
To feast off our remaining qualities.

Together we fail united we'll fall.
Through the eyes of evil till death do us all.

-Joseph B Schneider
© Joseph B Schneider. All rights reserved
Arjun Tyagi Jan 2014
Panasonic* and Sony beeping
in custom made Reid & Taylor pockets.
A trade for a Rolex throned on his wrist in lieu of
once existent dreams, in now hollow sockets.

Adrenaline pumping before
high stakes meetings and brunches.
Calculating the dose of his choice of drug,
penthouse suites and timeline crunches.

Dizzy with ambition, painting
******* bleached canvasses.
Narcissistic laughter aimed to beguile others,
he, for whom his relaxants are stresses.

Dealing with the Devil himself,
power tainted and ill-gotten,
the realization that humans are not beyond sale;
in markets, mergers and acquisitions.

Recessions, Inflations, cruel overdoses
of risk, of danger unspoken.
And when he surfaces again to consciousness,
profits, losses both taken and broken.

Lost in the sewers filled with;
stock brokers and agents alike: the pawnors,
a haughty expression with green bills,
to score his ecstasy, capital owners.

Another dollar, another hit
never enough to sleep remembering the day.
A Corporate ****** scouring for riches,
a high, a trance not soon before long will sway.
Anais Vionet Oct 2023
Hold the phone, hold the freakin’ phone. Lisa’s got a boyfriend!
I’ve never seen Lisa with a boyfriend. Lisa draws men like fireworks on a dark night but I’ve never seen her keep one. I mean, it’s not unbelievable but it’s on the edge.

Then, one Friday evening, he came to visit. His name’s David - “call me Dave,” he said, meeting eyes and offering micro-expression smiles as he nodded around the room. Knowing he was coming, our suite’s common room was full, as if everyone came to see Lisa do a dangerous magic trick.

Dave’s got a young, Michael Keaton vibe going (the original movie batman), with a cocky, easygoing confidence and comedic snark that suggests he has everything under control. He’s 26 years old, about 5’11’ (a little shorter than 5’9” Lisa in heels - but he doesn’t seem to notice or mind), with brown eyes and unruly brown hair.

With some cagy sleuthing (I asked) it turns out he met her at her father’s (company's) Christmas party last year! I was there - and they’ve been secretly communicating for ten months!! How did I miss that? My situational awareness is obviously porous, and unreliable - was the room spinning?

You know, I hadn’t really focused on it before, but one of Lisa’s flaws is that her feelings and opinions don’t always show up in her expressions - it’s very annoying.

I’ve always been interested - umm, obsessed - with fashion. If I weren’t going into medicine, I’d have majored in fashion (called ‘Interdisciplinary Studies’ at Yale). Anyway, Dave’s been “dropping in” for the last few weeks - every Friday afternoon - arriving from Manhattan in his (my guess ~$6,500) business attire. What does Dave’s fashion sense tell us?

His business suits (charcoal-gray or olive-green) are Brioni, his dress white shirts are Thomas Pink, his ties Hermès and his shoes are Santoni. He’s slim and well tailored. I give him 5 stars.

If his work attire is lux, his casual attire speaks volumes as well. His weekend wear is a white dress shirt, open at the collar and jeans - both crisp and starched to hell and back. The long, stiff, white shirt sleeves are never rolled up. The jeans - deep blue and new - have a razor sharp crease down the front and his shoes are burgundy, Timberline, boat shoes with no socks. That outfit screams (Texas) oil money.

“What is it you DO?” I asked him, that first night, as Lisa was off getting ready to go out.
“I’m a “M & A weasel,” he said, shrugging nonchalantly. (that’s Mergers and Acquisitions, if you don’t know - with one of the Morgans - JPMorgan or Morgan Stanley - I can’t remember which).
He’s one of those reviled, monied, ‘Wall Street’ guys. Yep, he‘s in control of everything.

“Tell me about you.” he said, giving me a serious, intense look that held immediate charm. He seemed relaxed, his suit coat off, his white dress shirt glowing in the suite’s soft lighting.
“I’ve got the highest GPA in Yale’s pre-med program,” I informed him, adding, “..in my opinion.”
He chuckled (which, of course, made me like him more).

You know, life in an education bubble can get tedious. Sure, it fills our days from edge to edge and satisfies our basic needs but it can be stifling - a faraday cage filtering life into carefully measured doses. Come Friday nights, we’re ready to hit it.

One thing I like about Dave is that he wants to be one of us and he’s never tried to peel Lisa away for himself - I think that shows an ease and generosity of spirit. Did I mention that Dave’s a Yale alum? He KNOWS New Haven.

The first night we all went out, it was the whole clan - my roommates, the girls in our sister suite, Dave and Andy (a friend of Sunny). We went to an expensive harbor restaurant to get to know Dave and seafood-martini celebrate. We had an epic time. Dave fit in like family.

I’m kind of used to paying for off campus stuff because some of these girls are tight and I’ve got a bag, but when the waiter brought the check, Dave and I found ourselves both reaching for it.
“May I?” He asked, with his Keaton-like smirk. “This time,” I said, with my own shrugging smile.

Later, back at our suite, Dave’s heading back to his hotel (less than a mile away) and slowly, quietly, saying goodnight to Lisa by the front door. “You’ve got some awfully long legs,” he said, like a 1940s black & white movie gumshoe. Taking her gently by the back of the neck and waist and twisting her tall, thin frame in a dancer’s backbend dip where she hung, suspended in his arms.

“I’d like to shimmy up one of those legs like a native boy looking for coconuts.” She chuckled.
Leong and I, sitting on our red corduroy couch, exchanged eye-rolls and smiles - he’s a romantic goof, but somehow, he carries it all off - right down to the kiss.
Fashion 411 - the business attire - how did I know?...
Brioni suit (Italian) - the buttons, mother-of-pearl, are delicately engraved with the logo ($6000)
Thomas Pink shirts (British) - there’s a faint, near invisible fox's head logo on the cuffs ($200)
Hermès ties (French) - silk, equestrian motifs, hand-rolled edges, giving them a 3D look $250
Santoni shoes (Italian) - there are crown symbols on the soles $800
Alexis J Meighan Oct 2012
2 addicts in conversation

I've always said the act of love itself from unrequited to world wind is a drug that claims more addicts than all narcotics combine. From the rush to the withdrawals. tears and anticipation to the eruption of having it taken from you. This love drug leaves you a fiend even if you've never participated in its consumption, you pursue, hunt, track and lose your mind for the slimmest of chance in its acquisitions.
Let's take a hit together now and forever. As friends, lovers, partners, and unify.
I feel you! I hear you! Where siblings of the same needle in its lust and retrieval.
-xin-
Disha Verma Oct 2014
One of those expensive shops
its name in large red alphabet
that wink into the night
its glass doors with handprints
'OPEN', they say
but the face behind the counter
wishes against.
See, I ran into big money
and I will spend it all on chocolate,
enough chocolate for a month.
Grabbing a clinking metal basket
I sprint to the section
of my recent interest
tossing fifty bars of this, twenty blocks of that
some milk white, most coffee black
wrapped in shiny colours and labels
nutted, chipped, tempered, moulded.
I bought a truckload
with a great sense of pride
and contentment with which
loudly, I sighed.
I went home, bathed, dressed
and set the mood right
imbibing first the sweet crinkling of the foil,
I took a generous bite
tongue and nerves at work
but quite early I open my eyes
to the heap of shiny acquisitions
to my first big expense that
stood dimly magnificent
but this time rather
quiety, I sighed.
"I don't like chocolate"
A very recent.. tragedy. I could have bought myself a decent book!
a music box of magic words
of circuses, gruesome murders and monsters
a mad logic of connected disconnected things
held together by the drifting mists of dreams
first air and rainbows
destroying pious falsities, telling new tales
of many things to come, flying above the crowd
showing the blinding white distance ahead
of the two ice capped poles
past he various categories
like old people who die when the weather turns
yet there is a desire to summon and expect disaster
you've seen the show, blinding like the sun on water
matched only by the patience
of the floating fall of a ladies silk stocking
a music box that looks immensely vindicated
and in those precious seconds, these busy seconds
that mumble and murmur to themselves
of divine and temporal forces
tastes the whiff of immorality
that possesses that special skin
that cruelty of countless acquisitions
of alchemy especially its capacity to coach sorrow
to teach it to touch the regurgitated
inaccuracies of indentured truth
ah! the music box who returns the echoing roar
of answerless answers with questionable questions
yet inoculated and protected by the vast pleasures
that somehow conceal themselves within the music box
in its rhythms and its clock-work metal innards
cancel out any pain and the half closed eyes that stop the heart
shatter the sky
shower with an avalanche of magnetic attraction
the magic music box, the magic music box
Pandora's magic music box
Wouter Oct 2017
I lament the days to come

they’re empty and look

so useless without



your words they moved

my view of things and

anointed the way



I look towards life

and living in a broad

perspective it’s seems



in vain, so now all

that’s left are forgotten

words memories of



brightness and a

sun that fades into

an ocean of emptiness



no flowers please

acquisitions are not

appreciated
Perig3e Sep 2010
The young contend
With broken hearts.
The old must cope
With rusting parts.

The young feel time
Barely moving.
The old feel time
In bones disapproving.

The young stop
In front of mirrors.
The old move back
To make things clearer.

The young focus
On acquisitions.
The old release
Past ambitions.

The young, if lucky,
Transition elders.
The old will then
Be Elysian selders.


* selder:  From Middle High German, selder 'dweller in a hut or peasant's cottage.
All right reserved by the author
Sia Jane Oct 2014
Written confessions of
Mundane avocations
Briefed & circled
Arrived bestowed
Swarming enemies
Cold wars
Doubled edged swords
Printed masks
Dust covered skin
Stretched over
Bones too big
Forms too estranged
Rips tear
Skin laid bare
How can thee compare
The glare blank stare
A body separated
From soul of self
Placed upon thy shelf
A heart burried
Planted below, feet
How they bellow
Silent screams
Muted voices
A lover of past
Reunited at last
The aortic pump
A mere *****
Beating throbbing
In her grasp
Claimed
Oh
How she dared claim
That sordid past.
And the other
She took the body
Both sufficed.
Two different stories
Questions, acquisitions
No confabulations
As to where art tho soul!

Notably, it is said;
The body is merely dust & stone
Bone & chrome
Plastic, catastrophic,
The heart, oh thy heart
No longer gaping
Lonely & pulsating
She stole thee heart
Oh she stole thee heart
His heart
Without even firing a dart.


The other, the wife
Filled with rife, strife
Burying those old bones
Of his,
Of his,
Six feet under
Covered
In
Gravel & sand
Mud & land
Spit on his grave
For at least
She can bury such resentment
For she,
The other
Stole his heart, broke her heart
Not once!
But twice.
Will that ever even suffice!
Two women at war,
One man
Oh he,
He is now dead!

© Sia Jane
It's 01.49am
My mind...
MS Lim Dec 2015
No wonder so many are unhappy
Their lives are predicated on pluses
Pluses= happiness
Unhappiness comes from minuses.

All this they hanker after:
Pluses in wealth, power , position
Fame, recognition- even pluses in good looks
And wisdom--anything less is no consolation.

More acquisitions---the goal of life
(Pity those who live in minuses)
All the time they strive and strive
Chasing like addicts for the next round of seductive pluses.

Shouldn't they change their mind-set?
Surely minuses are to be more desired and embraced
Minus ill health,  minus greed, minus envy, minus discord
Minus strife, minus discontent--aren't pluses sadly misplaced?
Paulos Ioannou Apr 2016
The great equalizer
stood by the bed
watching his laborious breathing
and the pain quaking the emaciated body.

It's almost time.

No more layoffs to increase profits
lock-outs to break the unions
hidden caches to avoid taxes
mergers and acquisitions
under the table payments
price fixing, loan sharking
no bribing and extortions
no naive women to exploit

The great equalizer
stood there watching
with pity and loathing
patiently waiting
The end of the line.
Alexis J Meighan Sep 2014
2 addicts in conversation

I've always said the act of love itself from unrequited to world wind is a drug that claims more addicts than all narcotics combine. From the rush to the withdrawals. tears and anticipation to the eruption of having it taken from you. This love drug leaves you a fiend even if you've never participated in its consumption, you pursue, hunt, track and lose your mind for the slimmest of chance in its acquisitions.
Let's take a hit together now and forever. As friends, lovers, partners, and unify.
I feel you! I hear you! Where siblings of the same needle in its lust and retrieval.
-xin-
Ronney Apr 2016
Taught  through criticism

Thoughts were fuelled with cynicism

Feeling love was conditioned

According to our submission

We were imprisoned

In our minds where we envisioned

Better lives it became a mission

Tears, sweat and blood were always a given

But we've risen

Above these constrictions

Freed from our prisons

To make acquisitions

To make decisions

Based on valid reason

We were raised to be different

A generation of deliverance

That would

**be of great significance
~ they way in which you are raised will shape a persons view in life and what we believe needs fixing or doing
PsycheSpeaks Aug 2018
There is a moment where in your life
you realize all of this-
all the possessions and "things"
have no real meaning

And that our existence is fluid
and that bodies are just shells-
and that pride and wealth
don't matter either

It is at this moment
we are left uncertain
of why we work hard
what are we working towards?

I think many of us
are still searching for happiness
among worldly acquisitions
rather than finding it inside ourselves

Looking for a key to meaning
but what if there is no such key
and what if there is no such meaning?
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2016
the nausea of wine is to say: one cannot drink it without eating, even after a meal, and a few slices of watermelon, the nausea from drinking it alone and not in the celebrated way with food... beer and whiskey are better compatriots to fuse a feeling upon feeling on an empty stomach, that spawn no nausea, but only reward at the limits an irresistible hunger that ends the ritual, unlike wine.*

sober composition is oh so unsatisfying,
so predictable, so afraid of the world so un-daring,
not patted by subtle sarcasm or some other Dionysian
muse: so rigid so accountable for strictness and base
facts...
      almost nothing heartfelt...
and so long winding it would seem,
without a clever feel for impromptu...
so time consuming and space
filling...
                           ...never again,
for this face it too recognisable,
to analogous to everything
else, so "with the times" or
by whatever definition
                        undemanding,
strained by the expectable,
never the unexpected even
in form of a nonsensical whim,
this sober use of language for
me the opposite of the poets
of the 20th century...
who invested in composition
in tiers higher even than drinking
beer...
          to me soberness is like
the higher tier of writing with
and within a certain intoxication
no intoxication at all...
a hefty sum of all elements,
all organs... where abstracting
the brain in the mind and allowing
a dis-joining of it:
to feed a placebo question
of fear relieved by actual fear
rather than its appreciation is no more,
or if nothing more, a bit like
awaiting caveman hunts reduced to shopping
in aisles of markets... deadened and therefore
predictable... afraid twice over with the loss
of familial tribalism of closet connectivity...
reducing us to a monetary interchange
or: broken roof, someone fixes it,
broken toilet, someone fixes it...
banking failure... suddenly we all congregate?!
i hate writing sober... it means i get to notice
i don't like my poetry, and poetry per se,
because i just don't want to voice it,
i just want to narrate, pure and simple...
a narration without characters akin to fiction,
or characters without third person narration
to ascribe a narcotic feeling of presence...
it's a drug that's hardly one worthy an ascription
of a psychoactive ingredient, it's a platonic cave drug,
a shadow you can touch and disappear...
i'm not like a writer of fiction,
i'm trying to reconcile poetry with philosophy,
i spend most of my times thinking, losing thought,
trailing with the unthinkable or simply thinking,
but i never see the book, that's why i'm sad
in terms of composition,
like the last wish of bukowski, to have written
a semi-pure fiction of the novel pulp,
to discard semi if not full autobiography...
true psychiatry is of the living
to read nuances into the once lived out leaving
notations... more to take care of the dead
than just through mantra or prayer...
if analysis leaves us without third party acquisitions
of thought away from the dualism of egos
as one sick and the other ascribing a status of healthy;
you see, it's a harsh case of not having
a narrators' complexity, not spending time
typing to excess, but the time spent
thinking about other people's units of thought:
also known as ideas... and with so many
decimals of measure a lifetime of individuals,
it is hard to narrate...
since the productive side aligns to dis-joined
expression of productivity,
and the economic side aligns to a linear fluid
expression of non-productivity....
it's hard to create a narrator let alone a narrative
of one's self without a loss of one's self to
the existential notation of a "self",
the inverse reminder of what writing fiction was
about: a concrete narrator...
there's no concrete narrator here,
no craft of character formulation...
instead we have an unstable narrator
that cannot truly narrate,
and the only character formulation
from the unease of the once eased narration
of existential fiction is a self lost among selves /
existential notation of a self as a "self" /
with loss of an anti-chiral hegelian approach
i.e. i am i... forgot the unearthing of a pluralism
of narrator that could not fathom a required
imagination for a raskolnikov,
                               marmeladov,
                               petrovich,
                               razumihkin... etc.
Marshal Gebbie Oct 2010
Golden windblown waves of wheat
Reflect a simpler time
When complications ragged arm
Intruded not on mine,
When halls of great endeavour
Held their hand for me to take
And the fire of inspiration
Did a racing heart create.

When the colours seemed so clear to me
The flavours cool and fresh
And time stretched to infinity
When clouds and blue sky mesh.
A discovery of wonderment
In the pride of new intent
And the strength to hold directions course
Despite all discontent.

And the gathered acquisitions
And the stresses and the pain
Holding family security,
And amassing fiscal gain.
In maintaining social standing
And competing for the best
In a litany of compulsion
In  enslavement for the quest

And the pressures of the morrow's dawn
Throw a clamour to the air,
And the jaded eyes of yesterday
Sight the windrows standing there.
The waving rows of rippling wheat
Thrown far to distant scan
Invoke reflections of a simpler time
In the recall of this man.

Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
10 October 2010
Mikaila Sep 2014
Oh, Mr. Prufrock,
Pinned and wriggling on that wall.
Sometimes I wonder what those painted butterflies feel.
Sometimes I think
I know.
Measured with stretched bits of thread,
Taut and clean and precise.
Labeled with little placards
Like neat white grave markers.
How macabre, that we must
Skewer
Lovely things.
Define them,
Limit them,
Destroy them to preserve them.

I
Am formulated too.
I have felt the cold cut of it in my chest.

Behind that glass, up on that wall,
I wonder what that royal blue, feather-light creature felt
Just before the lights went out
With a bulbous, giant eye peering down
Carefully impaling it.
Those shiny black legs--- so fragile!---
Struggling.

Oh, Mr. Prufrock
I grow old as well.

I wonder if they ever feel---
Those winged acquisitions of ours---
The crumbling fragility of their beauty
Of their bodies.
Bodies that a stiff breeze can knock asunder,
Bodies that a sewing needle
Can unravel- I am OLD.
Your words stick me through
With who I am,
A sword the size of a pin,
But I am powder light
I am
Paper thin and I am so
Absurdly trapped--- A soul of supernovas
Held inside the tentative shell
Of a monarch butterfly
King of
"If you touch me the oils from your fingers will burn my wings away like acid."
How cruel! How laughable
And how exhausting
That I carry inside me
My own destruction
That I am a paper lantern
Which swallowed a holocaust of flames
And realized its mistake only when
Pregnant with immolation.
How exasperatingly final, and how precarious.

It must be so frustrating to be a butterfly,
Isn't that what you meant, sir?
To be so light
To be so gentle
To hold in your hands your little white label grave plate
And know, just know
That hardly anyone will wonder how much the needle hurt
Before they read it.
There are several allusions to The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. The title is a direct quote from it.
Matthew Harlovic Aug 2017
I used to be a bright boy before the white noise,
disrupted my poise and ****** the joy
out from the world around me.
It’s astounding to see such a change.
No it’s strange but I found a way to get around the grey
but you’d probably say I’m deranged if I told you.
No I’m not scolding you I’m holding you to the acquisitions
you back with whack facts you extract from your fruitless
disposition. Act aloof but you and I both know it’s truthful
the only loophole here is feedback so don’t fear the relapse
and I won’t appear so relaxed to you.

I used to love the sound of white noise while I sat in bed.
I found it reminiscent to the voice in my head.
I counted sheep to the static;
the ratchet put me to a deep sleep.

I used to be a quiet boy before I found a slight noise
coming through the television.
I can’t tell you what it sounds like now
so you’ll just have to listen for yourself
Momma call the technician.
Something’s wrong with the transmission.
I no longer see a picture.
Momma fix it ‘cuz its pixelated.
Momma listen, I’d fix it myself if I had the proper tools
but school never taught me how to.
Wow look at what I amounted to
when you took the time of day to stay around
and watch what I’m doing when you could’ve found out
why I wasn’t viewing pleasure like I used to.

© Matthew Harlovic
copy & paste the link below to hear in full
https://soundcloud.com/outtatune-1/white-noise
Honeydrops Mar 2014
At the corridor of planet
Murmurs raise my gaze
The thorn of life
******* masses
Could this be fate?
Or life is just unfair

In a quest to ascertain my thesis
A log of thousand thought struck me
Soliloquing yet to myself
The visit of death
Even to the tender hearted

I found myself wrapped
In dilemma
Life criticizing death
Of been hallow,
Death took turn in pointing the *******
"That's for ******* lives over"

The agonizing dialogue ensued
Right in the depth of my clouded thoughts,
It then dawn on me
That indeed,fate prevails,
And
Even if we feel the harsh tone of life,
Or we enjoy the vast of its bliss
What remains of us afterwards?
For I later realise
That,
As the day close by rapidly
Our intense aim of frivolous acquisitions
Allow us exempt
the fact
That the end of each day
Brings us closer
To our journey beyond...
Poetoftheway Jan 20
wrestlemania

traveled cross country,
wrestling with extended
celebration and an
unexpected death;
the body maladjusts,
only to be disrupted
when time zones reset,
hard a-heels upon return,
packing up again for a
sacred pilgrimage
to a summer place
of sheltering, where poems
grow and dangle like participles
from local fruit farms, one
need only pluck and taste,
attach your moniker
and then feed them to the
joggers & walkers running past

send them all on their voyages,
hopefully protected from
travel disorientation and the
cycle of rebirth

with luck, bits and pieces of me
will accompany said word whispers,
them shreds and shards
requiring healing,
or just pruning,  
exiting old words,
fresh fruit berries,
roadside acquisitions  to b
carry me stained & strained
& happy new travels o‘er
this fruited plain
Graff1980 Jun 2017
They say greatness
comes from grand
achievements,
military service,
athletic endeavors,
or the acquisitions of wealth.

I do not need that flavor
of false bravado.
I would rather wrestle
poetry
from the heavy heart
of humanity.
Our lives crumble and fail,
East or west more losses, we avail.
Our foods turned life-******* cocktail,
You got our revenues and livelihood to curtail.

We, the creators of the foodbanks,
Our lives now turned, mere votebanks,
You destroyed all our riverbanks,
Brought our lives to end with your loan banks.

Lived and cultivated happily, with self-reliance,
Demolished our self-reliance, with your idiotic brilliance,
Deliberately stole our self-reliant roots,
Through your money-minded ****** selfish loots.

Toiled ourselves to turn lands arable, through generations,
Your land acquisitions, put us under dictator oppressions,
Blood-******* *******, gave us all fright & plight.
It’s time we rise and say Our Land is our right.
Deceived us with your developmental illusions,
Pushed us towards suicide, under incurable obsessions,

You commented our farming, old and backward.
Taught us land-killing cultivation, very awkward,
In the form of food, we harvest poisons,
With our life costing mistakes, learnt worthy lessons.

We don’t get our deserving price,
Unheard and Weakened is our voice,
To the rulers, we are just a useless choice,
For them, our deadly weeps are just a noise.

We sold our crops to middlemen,
Rulers sold our seeds to corporates,
We sold our lives, for a permanent solution.

For media, we are just a hype.
To the nature’s wrath, our crops became unripe.

For livelihood, we are compelled to get loans,
To repay you, push us to reloans,
Lose our lives, helpless and incapable to pay our loans,
Leaving our families helplessly to moan and groan.

It’s time we raise a warning.
To you we won’t keep serving,
You will realize our value,
To the corporates, when you lose your revenue.

It’s an alarm, it’s an alarm,
To the businessmen we lose our farm,
To the corporates our ownership is vested,
From owners we have turned rented.

Your life would be on danger,
Then corporates would play with your hunger,
You can’t even own a burger,
To them your lives too would turn meager.

Let’s rise and fight,
Exclaim our land is our identity and right,
Let’s correct, where we lack,
To the natural farming, let’s get back.

Let us raise,
Let us determine our price,
If we become selfish and vice,
You will lose all your slice and rice.
This poem is written in a way farmer sings towards the government and people. In the final stanzas after warning, farmers sing towards people, who witness all their miseries silent. In India, farmers lost their self-reliant farming slowly. Its time they get to it, to save them from all their worries. They want the rulers to let them determine the price for their own harvest. The land is their right. None should take it from them.
I think I'm giving up
I think I'm breaking down
I think I'm burning out
I think everybody turned me down

Hideous secrets,revealed to my dearest
Ridiculous acquisitions,provided to my ancestors
Wanted to send me to a dark and cruel direction
Now i just want to end it and go to my final destination
I'm about to break down everything is just not going how it suppose to and it comes in bulk
Brigid Sparks Sep 2019
Robots

boot up each morning,
******* their combat boots
and ride into the battle
of prattle.

Floods of wireless information burn
their wires, blow their fuses.
With fusions and acquisitions
they acquire higher
positions.

Detrimental turnover data talk turns
them over, upside down,
up and down the escalators
till they escalate,
deviate.

Spiked punch in one hand they punch
their boss in the face,
face trial, try
rehab: habitually helps reboot.
En route …

They learn that living without wires rocks,
they figure figures rock their world no more,
they shed their armor, breastplates, hard as rocks,
when inspiration comes knocking at their door.

They learn to cherish nature, the divine,
their limbs grow flesh where only metal dwelt,
so do their cheeks flash in a healthy shine
and from their lips a firy spell is spelt.

They sculpt and paint do yoga and restore,
their empty batteries, their fuses blown
they blow their money at the wellness store,
And finally, anew they find their own.

Afresh they get back home, where bills grew roots
they turn their router on, *******
their combat boots.
Andrew Guzaldo c Apr 2018
"She absorbed everything within my soul,
Like the ocean plummets a sailing vessel,
Ultimate cursed beacon acquisitions a fire,
As the estuary coalesce in the inclement sea'

Cognizance of her always emanates as if surrounded,
I have been forlorn as the tide crashes upon the reef,
Heart mutilated my enervated spirit limp and distraught,
My face cannot hide the perception of loves deceived,

Like frigid perennials fallen upon my dormant heart,
Now seems as expelled from the beaks of songbirds,
And from celestial thoughts to an abyss of detritus,  
Maybe I may never shine again or love again as once,

How terrible and brief was my desire to her!
I have built a bulwark around my sentiments
How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.
Although desires and bulwark aligned my being,
It is but a vellum of a falsehood of my,
Existing Desires”
By AG 20/04/2018 ©
Yenson Jun 2020
And your penance
is to daily reach into your disturbia
knowing your mark of Cain beyond whitewash
and the force of truth rakes searing flames on your pains
as you rage nursing the stillbirths of your lame acquisitions
inward to outward your beings shuddering in bloodless vacuums
the rogue pack of miscreants chained to hollowing  madded chants
excluded from banquet of lights your tears ring in hollowed chimes
you will always weep after Olympians for courage and grace is never yours
In white sorrow your penance is to daily reach into your disturbia

— The End —