"adages" poems
This here...my heart is a book
Sadness and hope inhabit most pages
Marred by past experiences that took
Scribbled are the ironies and broken adages
Worn pages tainted by the lowest of my days
Dark ink leave them smeared and stained Fresh ones stay crisp; free from nays
Awaiting dreams and wishes I have not gained
Silent are the pages still left unwritten
As though I have saved them for something
For future chapters yet to happen
For you to come and begin your writing
Welcome the pen that would herald a new start
Imagined it's ink to bear the flightiest notions
It would speak in volumes ensnaring the heart
It would sing a song with the sweetest of emotions
Seep in, dear ink, into my pages past and new
Seep through, dear ink, feel free to make your mark
Seep strong, dear ink, maybe you could undo
Seep true, dear ink, and bring light to the dark
But rip not the old for they forever will speak
Lessons that are learnt, strength that was bestowed
Tears that's been shed, happiness that I seek
Gloom that was braved, hope that I have sowed
Come, my heart is your book
You are the sole pen to my infinite pages
Ink are your words that would fill every nook
Eternal is the bond that would last through ages
This here...the rest of the pages are yours
Occupy them as you have in my everyday
I was saving them not knowing my course
Almost as if I knew you'd come to pen the words you'd say
A promise as sure as the sun would rise
A promise made as good as the noblest of men
My book is open to our laughs and cries
As long as you would forever remain my pen
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 6:06 AM UTC
"You know what they say:
it's all fun and games 'til you're outta *******
"Well, you know what happens when you assume."
"What, people recite tired adages at you?"
"Exactamundo!"
Jan 8, 2016
Jan 8, 2016 at 3:13 PM UTC
premier you've smacked
me in the face
my train ran late
yet again
what's your minister
and his departmental head
doing about this?
not much I wager
all my other commuter friends
are at wits end
not happy
nor will they be anytime soon
get the trains running on time
or you'll end up like an old rail line
piled high on a scrap heap
and forgotten
what's your vision?
what's your scheme for rail?
rail years ago ran reasonably well
now there's me getting sentimental
so much for innovation and technology
for the rail system
not much improvement yet
or on the distant horizon
I deserve and demand much better
none of this second rate stuff
I've had enough
make good my lot
what have I got so far?
dollars unwisely spent
on a parlous rail system
I used to enjoy my daily train trip
so too my fellow train travelers
we say this in numbers
numbers count
premier know one know this better than you
numbers stack up...
stop griping me
send a train to me
departures and returns on time
be prompt never late...
is the old adages
now this verse is written especially for you
you are my mate at least for now
in the future that may well change
I've been know to change trains
if circumstances dictate
I could well be writing this verse
for the alternative premier
I'm sure you know what I'm driving at...
You know...good rail policy
get cracking
get smart
allay this persistent pain in my neck
late trains, late trains, late trains
I vote for a well run rail network
yes every time
not for a premier
dragging the line
that's not a good story
in the media
Oct 20, 2013
Oct 20, 2013 at 9:04 PM UTC
if i were to ask
if you'd prefer the truth
over happiness, would you take
the red pill or the blue?
in *Your Heart is a Muscle
the Size of a Fist*, Sunil Yapa
writes, "care too much
and this world will **** you cold."
but there is no greater love
than this: i'll lay my life down
for both strangers and friends.
it's true what the adages say.
knowledge may yet yield power,
but most find bliss
in fictitious myths.
the tyranny of dead deities
cajoles the soulless, self-inflicted
ignorance claps the mind in shackles,
a brain neutered by obedient acquiescence.
there is a somber courage in sobriety.
i'll deny until i die, defying the urge
to idolize a substance that distracts
the mind from misery. i choose to question
everyone and everything,
even if a clear-head invites
utter agony. conviction is certainly
a long and lonely road, but our integrity
is the very last inch of us and—within
that inch—we are free.
so steadfast, i remain
a stone anchored to the riverbed
by the weight of gravity and the rushing
tides eroding me. we'll stand strong
in solidarity with all those suffering,
opposing the specter of dominance, illusory
as a phantom, ephemeral as the passage
of time. i'll unleash an omnipotent psyche,
inspired by the insight found in the closing lines
of a punk and artist's call-to-arms:
pursue what haunts you.
if the truth terrifies you, good.
that is precisely what veracity
ought to do.
Nov 27, 2016
Nov 27, 2016 at 7:59 PM UTC
He proposed to me at Disney World
and I loved him anyway.
He’s discovered his own brilliance at 22
It’ll ruin him early and completely.
The Ouija Board said he’d die at 33,
like Jesus he’s living fast and loose.
His sleep is a menagerie, a night-
time sound machine, all owls and lions.
He drank 2 liters of gasoline
and lived to tell it, used the fuel like sickness.
He punched his arm through a window because
of the gasoline. Swastika-shaped scar tissue.
He is at least 9 feet tall
and contrary as a tree limb.
He bought me diamonds and I lost them,
he bought me more and ******* them into me.
He liked to clamp his lips around cold cat ears
when he had no air conditioning.
His voice was an engine dying, choke and hold,
growling for new air and old adages.
His name walks in front of him, announcing
the second coming and the first going.
When he was sick or scared sick, he’d wrap in
his sister’s pink scarf, only that one, only pink.
He told us to be strong like men but act like women
so I wanted to be a doctor that always did the dishes.
His love was a closet too small for two peoples’ clothes
so I packed it in boxes and burned it on the sidewalk.
His eyes harbor the whole world: bombs, bicuspids,
A wink that could **** a small school of children.
He makes proverbs that tell the time
not minutes though, but centuries.
Jan 1, 2013
Jan 1, 2013 at 3:30 PM UTC
I see worlds of demons and villians as I take my last breath
I avidly add adages to the words that I press
Each and everyday strewn and littered with stress
Life’s just a savage game of chess
A new beginning has been presented
With her gone it’s like I’m living out a life sentence
Never again will a person so perfect be invented
She truly had an awe inspiring presence
48
Living life with a newfound belligerence
Like a high off of ten different barbiturates
Today’s generation is filled with complete ignorance
This cypher shall be thy deliverance
Since her death I’ve been nothing but diffident
Like a lost dog, I’m timid
People have always seen me as quite different
But to that opinion, I’m indifferent
48
Life is all about mind over matter
Look at the wall covered with your brain splatter
On some Ice-T **** rhymes that blow your mind
True love is hard to find
Do you live life as you want to
Or do you follow everything society tells you
In the end society will destroy you
No matter what, stay true
48
Just rolled up, five & dime
Every morning, rise and grind
Now I’m flying away with Peter Pan
Gone, gone, gone away, Never Land
So here’s to another day
Another coffin rots away
Life’s just a game we play
Until God takes us away
48
Tomorrow is not a guarantee
When my mind is my purgatory
No soul can control me
Your word’s do nothing for me
Now you’re saying I’m your salvation
Who the hell are you? What’s your relation
I miss seeing her eyes ablaze with elation
Her death was my inevitable damnation
48
No matter where I am, I’m writing a verse
I’ve seen too many loved ones dead in a hearse
My heart golden, but my blood’s black
My thoughts stretch to oblivion, like you leg on the torture rack
Is this where I belong?
This is only the beginning, not a swansong
I’m bound to be bigger than King Kong
Free my mind, get ***** eyed like Cheech & Chong
48
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 5:43 PM UTC
AS SURE AS SHOES IS SHOES
out of the interlocking needles
a sock
grows
hanging from its needles
the sock
a chrysalis
Auntie Marge's socks
as if a rainbow
had grown two feet
Auntie Marge's
infamous rainbow socks
flying off for Christmas
Paris..New York...Termonfeckin
nieces nephews children grandchildren
all wearing rainbow socks
the half grown sock
tick of a grandfather clock
wait for the mourners to return
her needles in a cigar tin
standing to
attention
sticking their heads
out of the bin
some large crochet needles
"As sure as shoes is shoes
I kept warm the feet
of this here family!"
clock cuts up Time
into little bits
so that the humans can understand
***
Her grandfather was a cobbler and would always say this whatever the situation. People would always need shoes...although the family of the cobbler often did without as shoes is what put food on the table.
But who is wurs shod, than the shoemakers wyfe, With shops full of newe shapen shoes all hir lyfe?
[1546 J. Heywood Dialogue of Proverbs i. xi. E1V]
All languages have same sounding adages...whatever the profession.
Les cordonniers sont les plus mal chaussés.
with a first quote by Montaigne : Quand nous veoyons un homme mal chaussé, nous disons que ce n'est pas merveille s'il est chaussetier in
In German:
Die Kinder des Schusters haben die schlechtesten Schuhe.
In Spanish (En casa de herrero, cuchillo de palo "In a blacksmith's home, knives are wooden").
In Chinese "the lady who sells fans fans herself with her hands",
In Arabic, "at the potter's house water is served in a broken jug".
***
Her grandfather was a cobbler and would always say this whatever the situation. People would always need shoes...although the family of the cobbler often did without as shoes is what put food on the table.
"Chomh cinnte is bróga atá bróga!" as she would say in her Irish.
Her grandfather would shorten it to" is bróga atá bróga!" or" shoes is shoes."
Feb 12, 2024
Feb 12, 2024 at 7:18 AM UTC
Life isn’t fair, they tell me,
it’s not always cut and dry.
You can’t always get what you want,
but that just leaves me asking why?
Ignorance is bliss, supposedly,
some days I wish I’d never met you.
Anything is possible, they say,
doesn’t that apply to us too?
Money can’t buy happiness,
but it can buy a plane ticket.
Everything happens for a reason,
well that reason can go stick it.
A closed door is a window opened
but what if the door was never there?
They tell you to follow your heart,
My heart’s with you; it’s not going anywhere.
Nov 1, 2014
Nov 1, 2014 at 6:43 PM UTC
I'm the reclusive wreck-loose
Who's about to let loose
And instigate and substantiate the fact that society's narrow mindedness is there for us to instantiate that we ourselves have to promote understanding and antiquate hate
Accidents happened and mistakes were made
They take a sardonic look at the schematics of a systematic syncopated symmetry
They say we dare not deviate from the Fibonacci Sequence
But to matriculate
And be quick on the uptake
Then add ourselves to the division of labour
I make empirical claims to disarm ephemeral things
Fashion
Technology
Music
Life as a whole
But then I'm the *******
They salt the songbird's tail
Clipping the properties of personality
"Bide your time so you don't do anything foolish and bite your tongue so you don't say anything you may regret"
But this is this part of the cocoon effect
Waiting to see all the failed racists
After this metaphysical metamorphosis
So modern
So contemporary
It's classic
Soon to be ancient
The adages and aesthetic aphrodisiacs
'Who do you want to be when you grow up?"
"What do you want to be when you grow up"
"I want to be civilization as you know it..or as you like it"
Peradam- Something that shows itself to those who truly seek it.
Mar 20, 2015
Mar 20, 2015 at 12:33 AM UTC
When antiquated tenets presume
Like Pyramids entombed
Buried Deep within sand Dunes
Old adages must be discerned
To bring this all to light
Mind and Soul begin Insight
That Contempt beguiles
Juggling Words and phrases
For modern philosophies
To find an Empty Concept
Lead by an inept Prophet
Who's vision awaits begetting
As I am ambivalent to
What is said to come
So no time's wasted
From awaiting the Event.....
All the Work here is licensed under the Name
®SilverSilkenTongue and the © Property of J.Flack
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 4:00 PM UTC
I know of clocks that render time
and stretch the shadows toward the skies
The weight of waiting for her world
is like waving white flags in disguise.
I know of books that have no words
yet each page filled with grammar marks.
The motif is often misconstrued
as each day spills into the dark.
Some get butterflies inside themselves.
But all I’ve got are dead cocoons.
A life which hoped to spring forth new
a death which loomed forth much too soon.
I’ve seen porcelains survive a drop
and climb to heights of mezzanines.
In reverse, the verse said that’s enough
so I began my steps in wandering.
I came across a set of stairs
upset I stared and steered away.
The fragile state of seeming plain
increased my odds of being changed.
I know of dreams that dictate words
for me to write in schemes of lines.
Cliches and thoughts and adages
repeat to her in rehearsed lies.
Apr 7, 2013
Apr 7, 2013 at 12:28 PM UTC
Chaos over sleep.
You supply the torches, I'll supply the mob.
This bed's too big for the one of us.
The maggots already ate through the moose, leaving two yellowed-white anchors made of bone to sink into the floor.
Bologna; The meat that lies straight to your face.
The news is getting olds.
Analyzing bags and trashes. Paralyzing eyelashes snap shut, trapping the fly.
Thus, the death of an ego was born.
Reading is kind of like smoking except you don't burn the paper.
The quickest way to burn a bridge is to kiss it.
Don't be a stranger now. I'm strange enough for the both of us.
The ins and outs of the whens and wheres I do and do not belong.
That bar fight with the bathroom door really did a doozy on my eyebrow.
You know I will hunt whatever, you pra(e)y.
Blessed by lowercase god and misspelled Amerika('Merica).
Same message, different bottle.
My dreams are too loud before I fall asleep.
The first possibility that you jump to write off has the highest probability of containing the things that will set you right off.
My teeth may not have any layers of skin left to ride by.
From poverty to profanity; proverbs to insanity.
A serpent a day keeps the apples away.
Growing weary of the definitive abstracts, I curl up somewhat uncomfortably numb in the cracks of the curbs and sidewalks...
And with that the last thought of the night twisted into the air and joined with the wisps of smoke pouring from the final cigarette. The odyssey in mind sends our hero sailing from the shores of "I know how to do it all" into the vast and turbulent waves of "I do it all."
The bird who clipped its own wings.
The Jack of All Trades, the Queen of No Hearts, the King of Nothing, the Ace of Idle. Faceless cards.
Just a chess piece on a checker board. Maybe there's less to figure out than there is to understand.
Always on the brink of making things right. Don't let it slink away in the middle of the night.
I had an uncomfortably close call with life. What some would call a near-life experience. I swear I was inches away from living...
Oct 5, 2015
Oct 5, 2015 at 9:15 AM UTC
I bought nostalgia a drink
Realizing I was sober
Never felt a feeling
A feeling less than feeling nobler
Without losing perspective
Perceiving what I could
Little less than nothing
Worthless wet wood
I am strung out
Strung together run on sentence
Ran through the old adages
Like 'don't be a menace'
Lucky Irish post penance
You're like pulling teeth
Sans dentist
There's a mirror in the water
The bathroom sink is *****
The conversations weak
And the dialogue is wordy
Granted that the guilt is stubborn
Shared by you and shared by me
Universal, lovely
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 at 12:18 AM UTC
it's become something of a cliché but
like most trite adages
for all its faults
it is not necessarily
lacking in validity
the journey itself is the destination
a phrase that conjures images
in one's head of subconscious
sojourns across arctic tundras
and windswept plains
savannas and mountain ranges
or perhaps astral and ethereal
projections of the psyche into
some pseudo-spiritual metaphor
for overcoming corporeal suffering
and psychological anguish
but it holds true too
to the metaphysical revolt
explored by Camus in
chapter two of his opus
on the spirit of rebellion
it is not enough to merely **** god
acts of deicide are at once
reactionary and revolutionary
imposing subtle dictatorships as
we merely claim a despot's
stolen throne for our
own whims and fancies
no
to resist the urge to become the master
to destroy dominance and empower each
other is the greatest test humankind will face
a constant struggle to pursue the
better angels of our nature
the means don't
justify the ends
the means
are the end
Feb 5, 2016
Feb 5, 2016 at 12:00 AM UTC
Don't let the door hit
Where fatigue makes you sit.
As people like to say,
Don't go away, mad, just go away.
These crusty old adages
Are better than biblical messages.
No meaning suffers loss.
Because the point comes across.
You hide behind double talk
That does not match your walk.
So down the road you go.
Find some other fools you know.
Preach your lies to all of them,
Because the point comes across.
Most know well who you are
And you are no shining star.
Steal from taxpayers and ****
We’ll gladly play back the tape
And show the world that can think
Just how badly the G.O.P. stinks.
You cheat and lie and brag about it.
Frankly we can all do without it.
The only supporters below you
And the people that don’t know you.
Most of your support come from bigotry
And some gun nuts in their zealotry
Who don’t yet see the picture clearly;
You cheat and victimize equally.
When the tally is taken at the end
You’ll find Republicans have no friends
Except those with millions to give.
Who care not if the rest of us live.
Oct 9, 2017
Oct 9, 2017 at 2:09 PM UTC
I found a true accomplice when her path crossed mine
She always kept me high, like we lived on cloud nine
She always killed my pain, anodyne
Since she's been gone, I'm waiting for the sunshine
Another day, another coffin rots away
Losing five friends left me in disarray
Trying to live life day to day
Until the day God takes me away
I guess I'm just too ******* real
For a world that is too ******* fake
Maybe that's why the Devil and I made a deal
And now my soul is at stake
Now duality's a reality
But how is that when reality is a fallacy
I hear you whispering, saying you hate me
But I could give a **** less personally
Now I'm seeing worlds of demons and villains as I take my last breath
I avidly add adages to the words that I press
Each and everyday strewn and littered with stress
Her death still feels like a **** elephant caving in my chest
Dec 6, 2014
Dec 6, 2014 at 7:55 PM UTC
your face speaks more
than a million heartfelt adages;
travailing, you
compel stone-cold statesmen to grieve.
was it debu-
-ssy who softened my heart to say that?
a cypress dies
when it touches your tear-snuffing sleeve.
Mar 18, 2019
Mar 18, 2019 at 11:22 PM UTC
I saw you smile that day,
Love soon overcame me.
Obtusely, I ignored this feeling;
Viewed it as nothing but wrongs.
Endlessly, I pondered your presence,
Your name, your voice, your everything.
Oaths are not one of my afflictions, yet
Under you, I'd swear upon my life.
A marvel, you truly are. However,
Lost is me between my thoughts;
Jousting is my pride, and my heart,
Overwhelming are one another.
Nights and days,
I am waked to the thought of you.
Am I to be like this, eternally?
Leaving my young heart insane?
Why? Why do I feel this way?
Adages are not enough for my toilsome affection;
Yes, I am afflicted by my affections,
Sounds contradictory, but true.
Wailing is my heart, truly,
I am desperate for you.
Lest would you privilege me of reading this ode,
Lest you privilege my aching heart.
Apr 11, 2016
Apr 11, 2016 at 8:03 AM UTC
i am tethered to my sickness—
brain worms and implacable affinity
soil and blood like strings on
careful fingers, knitting precariously
the loose ends, every alteration
another implication, pull hard enough
and i am tightly bound to peril
deeply fused into your liquid mercury
insensate though that may be
unliberated; as my mind is a metal can
rust and decay so effervescent
an empty clanking of unlinked adages
circulating alluvial expectations
throughout all of my weeping nerves
and stillness, if i were still able
pain could only wake me for so long
before attachment becomes a
blunted weapon, and your infection, my
bereaved maladaptive paradise.
Jul 9, 2020
Jul 9, 2020 at 11:51 PM UTC
A God or a Titan?
I think that might be
right on
the button.
In for a pound and you'll be in for a penny
any more?
if there's muck there'll be brass
that's another.
Adages are natures way
of saying,
get a life.
but good or bad
Jack the lad will
always be Jack.
Intelligence is real
the rest is artificial.
try telling that to a clever girl.
see how I ramble?
A God or a Titan,
a wrong 'un or right one
we all want the light on
when we get scared.
Apr 23, 2017
Apr 23, 2017 at 10:17 AM UTC
It takes cement
to make a gent
and
I've been chewing bricks
since nineteen fifty six
that's an awful lot of brick dust.
They say,
needs must when the Devil rides,
time and tides and other adages that
make no sense to me.
I always
listen carefully,
but it's in one ear and out
the other.
Learning is not my disability,
the ability to unlearn is what
unnerves me
and it's Saturday
I should be out at play
but
I'm going to work to
pay my tax
so
some idle swine on
easy street can sit back
and relax.
He's in a shaft
and
they all laughed,
but
it wasn't the
bottomless pit.
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 2:18 PM UTC
By: Cedric McClester
If you are free of sin
Then throw the first stone
But if you are not
Then leave it alone
If you point your finger at someone
As people often do
Don’t forget that three fingers
Are pointing back at you
When the shoe is snugly on
The other person’s foot
Where the onus usually is
More easily put
As opposed to when the shoe
Belongs to you
Then that’s probably something
You won’t want to do
People who live in glass houses
Shouldn’t throw stones
Because the glass might shatter
The window one owns
Look before you leap
Because you cannot know
If there’s any water
Down there below
Once bitten makes you
Two times shy
Chalk it up to experience
As the reason why
"It is better to give
Than to receive,"
Jesus once said
But how many believe?
Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2915. All rights reserved.
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 9:13 PM UTC
These days are for the daisies, accented with juniper and babies breath
A gazebo beneath a tree like shade on a cloudy afternoon
With our glasses more vertical than not; I drink you in and swear away the day
She smiles, because I stare off for long periods of time
Reasoning, that I don't want her to catch me gazing at what I have no right to love
A gardener's guilt
Plucking the ripe and ready
It's the time of season for cessation
The paradoxical harvest
An event of sustenance and death
A consumer has no sensation other than taste
A carnivore only taste one flavor
Your flesh on the vine
A rare and coveted commodity
Past vintages become quartets of meaningless digits, like discarded combinations on a constantly changing tumbler
The fortuitous ones will eventually get their chance, but only after the
horticulturist has gotten his fill
For I have forced breath into you
Developing your unique character
With subtle augmentations to your composition; and experience above all else
Only the most bitterly tortured fruit becomes wine of notoriety
A sadistic vintner periodically sampling the evolution of his wares
Very often the inflictions are bored by both master and slave
I feel it in you
It's the only time I do
Feel
Misery is contingent upon company
A fool's philosopher
With flawless adages and quips
He is no different
Eventually we all will be met with the contradictions of our exasperated convolutions
Then where will you be?
Why, you have been made golden!
A hopewell beacon amongst the treacherous and ******
You are now nebulous and immaculate
Like the figure encased with in the marble
Does the sculpture recall the stripping sensation induced by the artisanal hands of the craftsman?
Or is it's ears filled with the clamoring?
Ingrates and dolts who only appreciate the product rather than the steadfast passions of it's means
Amongst the gawking gazers I am indistinguishable; as you are now to me
Aug 2, 2018
Aug 2, 2018 at 2:14 PM UTC
Wait one ******* minute...
Okay, I'm one of those okie doke mother ******* huh?
Waddling and quaking right in to your pitiful rouse
Marksmen can make targets out of anything
Cans, bottles, fools
On the ground
On a fence
Hurled towards oblivion
Pull!
Hope fills the beacon as it crests the ascension
Notions of survival fashioned in a free fall
-Similar Sensibilities-
Gems sought out in dirt clods
Friends amongst fiends
Love's Gemini; Lust
Truthfulness in desire
Falicy gives the sustance of Chinese food
Gorging to the brink of gastric obliteration
Satisfaction meets it's pinnacle
Where does the mountaineer go when peaks become plateaus?
You will come down too
Soon enough you will come down
- The Simplest Adages-
Up is one half of a cycle that controls us all
Every dog has it's day
Every birthday suite; a funeral tuxedo
Remember to smile big
It's the only chance you have to win
Happy victims
Mercilessness's only weakness
Clay pigeons with guts grinning
Dec 8, 2018
Dec 8, 2018 at 6:20 PM UTC