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Joseph S C Pope Feb 2013
I

Wonderlandia, torn off the submerged lung
of a daydream diary.                   Reoccurs
as she does with silver eyes, weary Alice
during tea time--bullets burning past her
                                     like flowing nations.
Everyday similar tsunamis fund
                                     the lack of 20/20.
Nose to tail--the surge of angry engines
splits the ends of her blonde strands.
    Each one the last witness to maddening hospitality
--utopia never sweats as it talks and withers.
Amnesia blots,
new aspirin machines
vaporize apples and ***
on the other end of spectrum,
                                                     trans-positional labels--

Guillotine gargling teapots
       have no patience
         to the bushes of Olympus opiates
                                      bound in yellow barrier tape,
                     five o' clock traffic
               welcomes her back to what we are facing.


II


Dreary weather of late fall                       and her beautiful,
              powdered face

great mouth of atomic hell,
         when she speaks--80,000 deficiencies boil alive
                                                   --Trinity's teething test
                                                           on the tired bones
                                                   of a story-teller's raspy cards--

"None the wiser," she speaks,
                                "during the transition of ships
                   vermin turn into krakens culturing
                               on the surface of a raindrop.
    Heroes, villains, animals frozen together
                 after now eating for four days.
     The transition of one genocide
                                                        ­  to the other,
                the delineation of cat-and-mouse,
   mingle too long
   with the dead
   and its necrophilia."

                 Blind Alice wanders off the highway,
leaves her brewed cup of steamy static
on top of the unimportant saucer, sticks pins in her *******,
             and enjoys the sound of Cleopatra
             rolling over in reincarnation.


III

      Dear Alice smells
sunbathing, studded tangerines
                      assimilating liquor within the vast,
       empty, glowing nausea that is--
                        the warm germ

Oil                                    and                 ­          water
               rippled glass too silly for skulls
              made humid by distant salt water,

blood, acid, enzymes,
cheating probability
that runners with drunk kids
have blood between their toes.
                                                      Death­ to the distillation within
                                                    --the chronic diamond too polished
                                                       in *** to see the roses in her *****
    She curses these wood songs,
             heritage patriots with the pelts of wild lions
             with antlers over their heads,
                                                  faces advertising war paint
                                                applied by gargoyle hands
                    --sad memoirs always drink people
                                                  that use God as a cookie jar.


IV


  Gorgeous names
  on graffiti institutions give her a home
                                                         a market
                                                         a nickname
           still                  Alice only accepts Alice.

Grace periods where she misses tyranny
                  rise and fall like endorsed breathing.
    Now Alice feels her dress fall off,
                                  extinct years message future occupancy
                                  about what to wear.
New era, this era, past eras plead guilty
in a      clinic museum
             of forcing demons
              down the medical
              throats
of first graders. Court adjourns at 9:01 PM, Saturday

             The populus can sleep now,
                          but not her.
                 No one gave her clothes
                 to cover up the drained monochrome.


V

Instead she celebrates her flesh,
                                        the broken glass,
   and quakes and leads off to expose
           others to its potential vital prosperity.

         Instead
                     headlines like bumper cars read
                     about the beheading of weeks,
                     failing rescue missions,
                     and debates on teenage tolerance.

Nicotine intoxication points Alice
to over-extended memories--wards of music
sequenced to point out the extinction of marble tigers.
                        Only 550 expected to understand
                         tethered to millions able to survive.

  Flood waters look at moral standards, a mean hurricane
                                   that collapses the death toll
     all patented 50 states
     have a dating service
     and huff paint as a way
                              to pray to art.
                                                      Double­-canvas faces
                                                      dyed in pixel     hope
                                                       that the media levees hold,
             but volunteer to herd sheep into poppy seed fields.
                                            She refuses to stay,
                    to watch the long night
                    of castration on men with mud-covered ankles.
                                      Television says eunuchs want
                                       to be prodigal's children,
                                       everyone wants to come back home
                                       to mom and dad, safe zones, away
                                       from themselves.
                                                     ­                 It says our ancestors want
                                                            ­          this for all of us. They worked
                                                          ­            so hard to tie up the hair
                                                            ­          out of Aphrodite's face.

                                     They treasure the silver eyes of Alice,
                                          but call them blue,
                                                  they issue her high cholesterol
                                          but pump sweet ****** into he stomach,
                                                  they tell her to put down the drill,
                                            so she can finish their orchestra--

her lightning
    is
     a
  string
     of
  souls



VI


     She decides to depart Sunday,
to discover the ordinary beginning,
                        painting WHY? on its delirium.
re-arrangeable viewers become
                      inserted sounds under percussion and piano.

       Caging various important charts
                                          undetermined
   ­                           as finished attention.
                                                      ­              Three movements in flux
open end the people                     vacuuming
                            craftsmanship blocks
                   from                                dogs and zen.

                                                 The
                                 suspended letter               is happening in 1951
   drenched in existential white                                            spacing
        ­                                                   the viewer
                        from integrated architecture.

Down
the
bell is a structure called
"the quarantined wheelchair."
                               Dead ignorance changes pattern
                               after six movements of the second hand.
Alice speaks, "To you all, know
                                       that this is an un-dramatic situation.
          Everyday windows with the same
           participants have girls drinking
                                                     orange juice, activate fluid,
                    both exist as objects
                    and caught propaganda."

                                                   ­                      Six tunnel
                                                          ­      audiences are watching
                                                        ­        drown in the plastic silk
   her                                                       built by the motorized collage
                                                         ­                                        spider.

          Alice, a kinetic mannequin pop star
                        is limp in the glass point.
             Rhythmic flux is objectified war torture
                         censored in fitness magazines
by simple toilet literature.

                                        Six tunnels worth of eyes
                                 latch to the *******
                                           as a way to bury **** protesting.
                                  A coat of pepper spray
                                   works in front of the exhibition.
This stage is shaded by moans.


VII


      Alice the female, has a door-to-door friend
                                                          ­    over the sea
of the cathedral's ceiling               who died of disemboweled
pulchritude             at the mutilated nuclear other-place.
                     Her friend was a synthesized example
                     of staged catastrophes. Her friend is her, silver-eyed
                                                     ­                                             Alice.

            ­                     She performs herself and herself
                                 but they are played by polished, scored poets.

Everyone of them incorporates the events
                                 of a dancing gunshot. Everything rests
                                                           ­ at an intermission

               but after fifty minutes of pondering,
          the lost audience remembers
         her name is Alice.
                   So it comes back on with a shower of sweat
                  and this clear
                                  substance
               ­                                 called
                         ­                              patience.
       This composing, peering vulnerability
                        psychologically destroys the flux tension
              like analog genocidal dictators.
                                   Ultimately this is dream liquor

     commentating war to the war tree
      using trauma and chairs as humor.



VIII


               Patience on the water level lives translucent
                                            on networks that brand flesh
                                            with displaced identity.
Alice convinces us all that pickled ***
                                                             ­               takes eight years
                     to ****** and we accuse it
                                         of being fake. Afterwards, her character dies
in confident silence.


IX


     Not majestic, but she does cough
                  to mock the earth.
        The seeds of Alice are ripe,
                        harvested early, and now her children come out and dine
        like speaking tongues on gibberish.
                          The room is fat with hair

and kindness. Feeble, mundane hands chew on each other,
                                                         feet stand proud.
We even call her Alice or "the beautiful *******,
                                             a black cloud feasting
                                             in orange."
                       Everyone feasts on the nectar
                                                         she has, but never the rye
which makes her round. Juice is squeaking and her children laugh
                         as in competition.

     It's a distinguishable game as the mixed
                                                           ­      couple up front
              begin to play whistles as
                                         everyone eats
                   the pride of the silver-eyed Alice's children.


X

                                                ­ The children's souls
                                                       bow and say
                                           "Thank you for barely growing."
                                                   and dissipate after five minutes.

          "Curiouser                                   ­                                      and
           Curiouser"                                                       ­                   they
           say                                                              ­                        as
           they                                                             ­                       leave
           this                                                             ­                         homage.
                  The decimal backbone
                     of each of sweet Alice's
                                   blonde strands
                   divorced by the gust/ of a green light's/ allowance.


XI Epilogue*


  The day crawls away
                   a vigilant pest
     of the nocturnal project
                   --suns beam down still, like
                  stomachs of grinning felines
                           at Valentine's day.

toxic-dyed fingers
                        soldered
to bodies pittering across rainy streets

--legionnaires with hearts on stones
                         we are waiting for her orders,

     thistled-teeth clench,
                                         but did she
                                          actually
          ­                                ever come?
The red-capped ****-Man has just announced morning;
The Keeper of the Robes brings Jade-Cloud Furs;
Heaven's nine doors reveal the palace and its courtyards;
And the coats of many countries bow to the Pearl Crown.
Sunshine has entered the giants' carven palms;
Incense wreathes the Dragon Robe:
The audience adjourns-and the five-coloured edict
Sets girdle-beads clinking toward the Lake of the Phoenix.
Anderson M Oct 2013
My acute dementia
Seems to precipitate the need for immediate euthanasia
A hurried departure
Through the aperture
Deep set in the hollowness of time
Because essentially life’s been a lackluster mime
Imbibing flawlessly flawed ideas
That inform my capricious
Nature to various stimuli
It’s a life story based on a true lie
Frivolities interspersed with grave concerns
The myriad adjourns
Futile attempts at mitigating
A self-imposed galling.
1572

We wear our sober Dresses when we die,
But Summer, frilled as for a Holiday
Adjourns her sigh—
Tim Eichhorn Apr 2015
Across the purple mountain majesties,
flowing fields, and amber waves of grain.
The eagle flaunts wings of liberty,
she is focused, gazing without refrain.
Even intrusive when one is snowed in,
the eagle watches and "protects" us all,
but the masses refuse to be smitten.
The once omnipresent eye exists galled.
Indecision, haunting the eagle's eye
whilst law favors liberty's wing - A moot
adjourns amongst her eye and our disguise.
Expanding wisdom laments her eye - left shrewd.
But now, why at all be concerned?
Now, the eye's chances fall under one-third.
aar505n May 2017
This travel refreshes the eyes
Even if it is the same view
Day in and night out
Doesn't take away its beauty

A journey marked by swans
That runs seaside
then turns riverside
and adjourns right side
See, it's a journey burned behind my eyes

It is between the swans that I can think
And not think
This is my safe house and I'm a habitual criminal
Stowing away in this liminal place
Taking a rest from being arrested
for too much stress

I will never tire of these travels
Each sunrise and full moon
Falling that little bit more in love
Pupils dilating as the eyes refresh
damage has always been your forte -
an expertise,
your recalcitrant venom.
you annihilate
before they could burn you
and your fortress is painted
in a deep, metallic rouge.

you wear the word 'vicious'
like a crown;
loyal weapon tucked neatly in the
taverns of your mouth.
you are adroit with words, after all.
such a fine weapon,
such a clean cut.

realms bow down, subjects to terror.
sweet vilification's best served
in your court.
not one soul would dare to beard
the lion,
no single breath,
shall make your empire topple.

the caucus adjourns; your grip is slipping
you may be the head,
but we
are
the
body.

your realm will rot
from the inside.
(we) often fail to look deep within us to find the problem. (we) combat the diseases and threats, yet are oblivious to the poison in our veins - killing us from within.

then there's the other explanation. but you'll just have to read the title. ;)
Kevin Feb 2017
to catch a drop of water
to change its chosen path
deflects where it was needed
altering how it lasts.

it will one day return
into the cycle it belongs
bringing with all the stories
that it has forgone.

it adjourns amongst its peers
sharing its life over the years
revealing the beauty and horror
of all our hopes and fears.

its seen the effort to maintain
just how things are
and also seen this effort
not getting very far.

its seen the disrespect
and lack of understanding
unwillingness to change
has killed us where we're standing.

it cannont change our choice
to do this to ourselves
it weeps of hope and fall tears
in attempts to break our spell.

it knows and sees its influence
and importance beyond our years
it lives within a system
it cannot change its gears.

to catch a drop of water
to hold it precious and true
will hopefully secure a place
meant for me and you.
Abbie Victoria May 2019
As we toss and we turn,
Our conscious adjourns.
Thoughts start to disfigure,
When closed eyelids flicker.
Memories of time gone distort,
Visions of future form and contort.
Within the mind we easily create,
Wondrous love and passionate hate.
We’re free to judge all we have been,
Even the parts that we hide, the deleted scenes.
Too enlighten our deep seeded sorrow,
Or darken our ever awaiting tomorrow.
Spoken in tenses past and present,
It may be nonsense or possibly relevant.
When we spin ourselves tall tales to fantasise,
Time as we know it so easily passes by.
When torturing ourselves with merciless power,  
Every minute feels like an hour.
jordan Apr 2021
he is at home in the wild
wandering under transient skies
on bedrock crafted and scattered
by the almighty power of time

over frozen-ash clay in volcanic hues
and purple-white cushions of phlox
he is escorted by pale raven shadows
steered, like himself, by the wind

a meadowlark congress adjourns
their trills drift on the strong scent of sage
through lonely susurrant-pine whispers
the breeze sings the ballad of spring

on he roams through this gusty plain
immersed in his mother's deep beauty
toward the wedding of mountain and sky
as the day gracefully greets the night
B Mar 2018
Awake
I can feel myself falling
Into old habits and new people
A too-long torturous "What if?"
That leaves a tightness in my chest
And an emptiness in the words
Of these few poetic adjourns
Til that elusive sleep returns
Nathan Jun 2020
Woven tight the hands of fate
You or me can both relate
For trodden hearts and heavy fumes
Have carried us onto these tunes

I stand there still and wait for nigh
Where hands are held and hearts do cry
In nightly talks till break of dawn
We think of naught and dusk adjourns

Talking hearts and reddened souls
Have carried us up here once more
For heavy hearts and tangled hands
Are opposites O' grant me faith

Woven tight our hands of ice
A broken seal of fate's disguise
The steady flow of life in vein
For a skip of beat had touched our pain.
The X-Rhymes Oct 20
just past darkest, in pre-dawn
where only ghosts belong
somnambulist stood on the lawn
in lonely morn birdsong

up high a sky of dark blue slate
and smudged by moonlit chalk
inquired why, so soon, too late
he’d judged it wise to walk

he’d missed the gold at set of sun
the cloak of night long fell
and kissed by cold, feet wet and numb
been woke under this spell

in bare feet, naked and alone
his toes caressed the grass
had rare, sweet, sacred things unknown
disposed themselves to pass?

if not then how had this occurred -
just slept-walked down the stairs?
alfresco now, from slumber stirred
and crept out unawares?

no light did switch, no latch did lift,
no dead bolt did he slide
what nightmare glitch cast him adrift
and led him on this ride?

to understand why he’d been drawn
he leaned upon the fence
and scanned the hills ahead, forlorn
but gleaned no ounce of sense

his thoughts parlayed a trick was played
a kind of waking dream
for sport that bade him walk or wade
the mind’s unconscious stream

but when coerced the mist did clear
on tracks once shaded black
how he’d traversed from there to here -
the facts cascaded back

he’d climbed in bed to get some rest
a touch before nightfall
an aching head and tight of chest
that much he could recall

he’d said “I’ll live, not really ill
-benign, not far from norm
I’m fed up with this winter chill
but fine, on par, just warm”

then pulled the sheets ‘til tightly wrapped
to burn that fever out
but lulled from sleep, felt shoulder tapped
he turned as if to shout

a djinn or sprite was in the room
beside him, floating there
it’s skin so white it lit the gloom
supplied him quite a scare

and tall and thin, half out, half in
each limb a branch of birch
with pointy chin and wicked grin
the grim of some dark church

he couldn’t deal with that right then
so lay to face the wall
in time he’d steal a look again
or maybe not at all

“I’ll save my view from things untrue
and hocus-pocus lies
that see-through, voodoo, bug-a-boo
made by unfocussed eyes.”

since that’s the way he dealt with things
and had done all his life
downplay, delay the woes it brings
he’d shun, defer all strife

with problems near, beset by fear
he’d sit them out and wait
his steer was clear, why interfere?
commit them unto fate

you might expect fiends from beyond
that form of fevered head
won’t interject, reply, respond -
but here’s what this one said

“Why, don’t be shy, deny your eye
or will me to wink out
divert, decry, dismiss, defy
I’ll still be here, don’t doubt

concerns you spurn when trouble stirs
you never make a stand
your court adjourns, your head inters
wherever you find sand

but think on this, somnambulist
who sleeps all through his day
ignorant bliss by case dismissed
won’t keep my kiss at bay

Death, the darkest, endless black
says nigh it’s time to pay
somnambulist get off your back
or die right where you lay.”

what happened then remained occult
but hindsight left implied
the whys and whens and end result
was in the night - he’d died

a skipped heat beat, forgotten breath
then pale and stiff and cold
beneath the sheet, begotten death
the tale at last was told

unless, undressed he’d thought to rise
impressed by Death’s dark voice
duress he guessed might make him wise
if pressed with that stark choice

to Heaven’s bliss, to Hell to roast
or on Earth still to dwell
somnambulist or new born ghost?
the birthing morn would tell.

— The End —