"affirmed" poems
Bluto, the world’s strongest man, could tear bread loaf-sized pieces off a steel-belted tractor tire with his bare hands.
But he could not lift a single smithereen of his sensitive Piscean heart when Lily, the luscious, leggy Leo trapeze artist, left him for steely-eyed Arien Karl, the literate and literary lion tamer.
Horoscopic Circus, Act II
She was a Cancer Dragon. Like catnip to the Piscean Tiger, whose feline DNA was his Achilles heel. Especially when she wore heels. And nylons. The end is nylon, he thought. I love you she said. I love you more he affirmed. And firm he soon became. Then being the ringmaster, she opened her mouth and incinerated him -- as only dragons can….
Jun 10, 2015
Jun 10, 2015 at 1:53 PM UTC
553
One Crucifixion is recorded—only—
How many be
Is not affirmed of Mathematics—
Or History—
One Calvary—exhibited to Stranger—
As many be
As persons—or Peninsulas—
Gethsemane—
Is but a Province—in the Being’s Centre—
Judea—
For Journey—or Crusade’s Achieving—
Too near—
Our Lord—indeed—made Compound Witness—
And yet—
There’s newer—nearer Crucifixion
Than That—
6.2k
(and I cannot live
from with-out)
<>
a poem in appreciation to Rossella Di Paolo
<>
I, too:
- am an embryonic work in progress,
well into my seventh decade, with no ending in sight
I too,
live in the house of poetry, the address likely differs,
but suspect the innards of the houses differs little,
the decor, quite similar
- my house shrewdly requests a rethinking,
noting, it lives my artifice,
with in & with out
Then, we are a We:
- my cavities house her, She, Poetry is of Ruth (1) born,
- Poetry, She, reminds me, ”whither thou goest, I will go”
This duality:
- where the haunting of words providential,
emanate, both inhabiting & inhibits my breathing
She, a fearsome creature, a fearful-something,
for it tears me and shreds tears its demands be wrung
from with in to with out
She, Poetry:
- leaves me gaping, hollow, fills me with
depressurizing boreholes exposed to the elements of
externalities of an admixed atmospheres, that nature demands be refilled, fresh in, stale out,
for which the artifice trick is knowing which is which
when Poetry’s birthing:
- chest pounds, heart-rate beats heavy metal,
abdomen contracts, there then, no languid in my language,
no help untangling the alpha-bet jumbling,
product of the screams of pushing,
squeezing it forth*
*you’re hoping to quick-catch newly formed combinations,
for if you fail, a poem
noisily crashes to and through the floorboard cracks,
where poetry’s chaotic glinting etes
maliciously glimmer~winks at me
with a sarcastic thank you*
*“ah, too bad, another creation stillborn,
gone to rest, biting the nether dust,
without hope of resuscitation…”*
just another unfinished work in progress
periodically
a survivor clean caught, transcribed, edited to be finished,
amniotic fluids cleared,
poem resurrected
blessed with eternal life,
readied to be shared and delivered,
affirmed
and you say to no one and to everyone:
this poem will be our poem,
wither it goes, ascending, descending,
all live in the house of poets,
one house,
many apartments,
each poem a god,
and
my God will be our God,
your God, my God,
in the House of Poetry
Jun 21, 2023
Jun 21, 2023 at 5:55 PM UTC
When in dark despair drowned
I was thinking, joy was nowhere around
A gentle breeze from the upland peaks
Came and patted on my cheeks
Softly whispering- ‘joy is here’
When the last ray of hope had been snuffed out
From the vapid plane of my arid heart,
A cluster of orchids, beautiful and gay
Smilingly nodding their heads on my way
Sweetly murmured- ‘joy is here
When I feared the earth was caving in
Under my feet with no chance to win
A butterfly with rainbow colors
Alighting on a bunch of flowers
Euphoniously hummed- ‘joy is here’
When all my yearnings got shattered
And sustenance alone was what mattered
The blazing sun from behind the hills
Wiping away all morbid chills
Affirmed beaming-‘joy is here
When I thought I was drifting afloat
Without any moorings on my boat
A crystal drop precariously balancing
On the serrated edge of a leaf dancing
Confidently chimed-‘joy is here’
When darkness settles on the scene
When life loses all tinge of green
When days seem inert and grey
Don’t be in a hurry to say
“Joy is nowhere around”
Before you jump to conclusions dismal
And write off life as abysmal
Wait to see the cycle of seasons change
From winter’s haze to spring’s lovesome range!
Aug 22, 2017
Aug 22, 2017 at 12:43 PM UTC
I never gave interviews
There was nothing to say,
No one needs to know
What I had for breakfast
The day I made my mark
On an impressionable city.
They don't need my opinion,
It would just be another color
On their palette, and
I can't have that.
I don't want to see myself
Painted on the homes and faces of strangers.
I have lived to prove my worth,
Not to have it affirmed -
Mirrors are not worth their reflections.
Mirrors can be vacant.
I know my selfishness prevails on them
Only while I live. I don't mind.
Perhaps when I am gone,
They'll look me up.
They'll forgive my stinginess
When they have me pinned up in a glass case.
They will thank Death for transparency,
But use my name to save face.
At least I will be spared the sight;
That's all I have come to expect.
I console myself that it won't quite
Be me those empty minds reflect.
Imagination travels miles with a breath,
For that I thank the generosity in Death.
Apr 25, 2011
Apr 25, 2011 at 4:45 PM UTC
I pledge allegiance
to all the stones in the road
that have given me succor,
to every poet-of-anywhere
who greets me
with wetted, parted lips and open heart,
who greets the sun-rays shared, inching,
opening o'er my yet living,
praying body, reminding me
that I am alive,
that I am warm
that I feel poetry in, on,
cells, all over, deep in my extremities
Most importantly, in my busted heart,
where warmth is stored in a soul restored,
and Life affirmed,
For who knows how
many more times
I will know this,
How many more times
I will able compose this,
Play "measure the future''
in seconds or years and
grimaced smiles over tears,
or just one or the other,
that be willed to supersede;
Will keep you posted
in every realized and many some stillborn poem,
rising with the grand entrance of morn skies,
or perhaps, lies buried neath in each horizon's cemetarial,
and
even those,
that straddle a confusing and confused moon,
of a twenty fours hours existence,
be shoulder-borne,
bathed in
combinatorial equatorial
moon & sun light,
so we can bathe, like Bathsheba (1)
by both,
and delight
at the exact same moment's portent,
no matter,
the disregarded, discarded,
why
we are
who we are
when pledge and plead
allegiance to those eyes that read our scrivenings
nml
Aug 27, 2025
Aug 27, 2025 at 11:57 AM UTC
Singular
definition:
extraordinary; remarkable; exceptional: a singular success.
unusual or strange; odd; different: singular behavior.
being the only one of its kind; distinctive; unique: a singular example.
separate; individual.
Logic: a proposition containing no quantifiers, as “Socrates was mortal.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Singular Proposition:
you think you are special, exceptional,
you think you are unusual, odd,
proud of it.
extraordinary, exceptional, unique.
maybe so.
Here then is my Singular Proposition:
On the day that you unconditionally
accept responsibility
for the care and feeding,
for,
yes, the very
survival
of just
one single
other
on that day,
you may call yourself,
singular,
in every sense of the word.
Propositions:
I am a singular.
I am mortal.
Affirmed.
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 9:27 AM UTC
She is as lines to Bauhaus, oblique
In category yet commanding in form;
Her mind a pool of wealth and Grace,
Allusions to illusions, omega to
Alpha’s strongest gaze. I stand
Failed, distraught, lacking the
Dexterity of voice to call her name,
The temerity of will to regain her fair
Charms and affirmed charisma.
Lost I am within a cascade of
Superlatives and tribulation.
Were only she to have conquered
My mind, I would be of sound spirit to
Elicit some tempered comprehension;
Yet alas, I have been taken in soul
And I can do naught but wait
To see if she will one day return.
Jul 6, 2011
Jul 6, 2011 at 3:39 AM UTC
~for Steve R. & Stephen Y.~
*"two regrets are mine -
not finding you earlier in life when...words would have carved for me a better road, and...not hand-ing you a touch, the perfect tightness-shake of one's hand reserved for fondest friends and the light press on one's back deserved for dearest brothers!"
~~~*
the light press surety of five fingers on one,
oh, what messages it composes, oh, what duty weighty it transmits
dear brothers:
tho this hands-on handoff, this fly-over, is still a
mission unaccomplished,
yet no regrets, please!
men don't overuse superlatives,
what you lovingly uncover in my rocket-verbal Mars probes,
is more telling, more revealing of who you are,
than any hand-tightness shake,
any touching grasp, could e'er convey
yet I promise, forsworn upon the cross
of the north west Pacifico latitude and longitude
a latitude that just happens to intersect
my olden, new english state,
knowing that Interstate 90
a straight transcontinental shot,
and the car keys just an impulse grab away
to tell your arms, your face, your back, our hands,
that when you love my poetry,
you love me,
you friends,
are an affirmation of Pablo Neruda's words:
***"whoever discovers who I am
discovers who you are"***
fondness is not distance constrained,
touching grasps pay no obeisance to time,
the honor of your affection permanent
affirmed and enflamed,
all mine, sublime, to lead my heart,
where to lay hands upon your back,
to realize even more
our single united rhyme
Nov 7, 2015
Nov 7, 2015 at 4:58 PM UTC
To be blessed ,
favored and protected by the environment,
selected and isolated from your social groupings,
To be blessed is to synthesize what truly has meaning in life and self-meditate with the sake of life’s pace.
Before falling asleep, resting, force the mental to remain awake,
processing and breaking apart the information given today,
despite the fact that time wasn’t kind, brief or even prolonged; make it the moral commitment to self-reflect.
Make a correction if your answer is wrong; the fabrication of a scripture,
Make sure, for certain, that all the totaled scores calculate to a certain percentage,
Affirmed, scolded or ruled by another to convey your defined truth as inaccurate, almost there or rarely ample.
Time is allotted, effortless and to be taught a lesson is a blessing,
Space is limited, given and to be bestowed the gift of building is the set up version of a lesson, a shell of a blessing.
Sep 26, 2018
Sep 26, 2018 at 1:39 AM UTC
After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future world depends.
No was the night. Yes is this present sun.
If the rejected things, the things denied,
Slid over the western cataract, yet one,
One only, one thing that was firm, even
No greater than a cricket's horn, no more
Than a thought to be rehearsed all day, a speech
Of the self that must sustain itself on speech,
One thing remaining, infallible, would be
Enough. Ah! douce campagna of that thing!
Ah! douce campagna, honey in the heart,
Green in the body, out of a petty phrase,
Out of a thing believed, a thing affirmed:
The form on the pillow humming while one sleeps,
he aureole above the humming house . . .
It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.
2.1k
There is a void outside my window.
Pitch cascading into itself.
No. I am mistaken.
It is just night.
Someone was knocking on my door at some point.
Nipah. Nipah.
Nevermind.
A curious hollow groan runs through the house.
Perhaps a tap is being turned.
Hiss.
A moth catches in a stream. Wet dust clambers for existence, affirmed in the moment of death.
Sometimes it escapes.
There is a glow.
A streetlamp lights up the void, strong enough to reveal a small part of the world, but too weak to remove the grain. The noise of existence.
Blood rushes through vessels. Neurons fire.
Silence is merely the body experiencing itself. The self subverted into the other.
Oh. I have slept through the day.
A train rumbles in the distance, sonorous and bleak.
A bird cries out into the void.
Nothing responds.
A miasma blankets the city.
The choke of lack.
Jan 23, 2016
Jan 23, 2016 at 12:15 PM UTC
i lay out under the shade of the trees
embracing the cool breeze
it is comforting
like a caress between lovers
i watch the leaves blowing in the wind
never in unison but always in synch
the trees sway back and forth
back and forth
as if rocking to some invisible rhythm
i don't need to hear it to know its message
i can feel it in every cell of my being
awakening
rejuvenating
connecting me with the sounds of nature
my spirit is affirmed once more by the soft rustle of leaves
vowing that here in life's purest form
everything is okay
calm, not calamity
the sky, a blank canvas of open invitation
release yourself
let the soothing brush of fresh air intoxicate your senses
revive you
i sense autumn drawing near
closer every day
the leaves are bright with life
just starting to flash a glimpse of vibrancy that awaits
although there is not a cloud in the sky i sense my head resting there my feet planted firmly on the ground
my soul, lost somewhere in between
floating
waiting to be found
Jul 6, 2012
Jul 6, 2012 at 12:50 AM UTC
A crazy ************
got in my face
the other day.
"This is my shop!,
I put the work in this ************
see ya'll young people come in here
trying to mess up my shop,
this is MY SHOP!"
"Mmhmm," a fat ****
in the corner affirmed.
Crazy *************
are often your
barbers.
He's pulled this **** before,
I've seen him do it.
He'll just throw the clippers down
and get in somebody's face,
while they flip dumbly through
Sports Illlustrated.
It's funny as hell.
He had spittle
in cakes at the corners of his mouth
that wiggled
like eggs on an unbalanced beam
and fat lips that looked
like rotten peach slivers;
all brown and ugly pink.
He's in his forties and stumpy.
But all he ever does is yell.
I punched him
right in his lips.
His teeth were hard and scratched my knuckles,
but he backstepped,
gave me one of those crazy people
"I might just cut your head off" looks
and walked to the bathroom to clean himself up.
Crazy *************
think
they're the crazier than everybody else.
Dec 23, 2011
Dec 23, 2011 at 9:28 AM UTC
I am a child of truth
one not blinded by belief or whim
my vision is luminous with veracity
I am a daughter of science
the proven
there is pride in this
the authenticity of my perception
I see the world in all colors
not the black and white of sin and virtue
I judge the world on the confirmed and validated
my value is in the clarity of possibilities
and the assessment of the affirmed
but for however meritorious I may grant this view to be
is such sight of pure moral?
it burdens to recognize I am the only control in my world
there are none in my eyes with ultimate or immortal reign
the only fate I view is individual and collective ends
I wish I could have faith
perhaps the pain would ease
at the thought of another with power in control
knowing my actions are not my work
but the results of a larger set of hands
but how hideous is it of me to say such filth
to long to believe
but be supposedly unable to feel gods
I consider it disrespectful to those who do
so I keep to my facts
my deafening, blinding, muting visual certainties
but what if I am wrong?
after all, there are more colors in the universe
than those of which we see
Jul 18, 2014
Jul 18, 2014 at 12:19 AM UTC
the most dangerous person I know was a beautiful girl,
with a singing voice like white chalk:
when you came into contact with that voice, even momentarily
you found your fingertips lightly dusted
and the taste of chalk in your lungs
She settled on you.
This girl left pieces of herself everywhere--
anchors.
to things she knew should be
important to her, but instead she couldn't find the commitment
enough to make them important.
she could only find
fragments of a conversation
about anything
that affirmed her
self-importance
or made her feel
important.
even if only for a second.
she disregarded the pain that lumbered just beneath those
glimmering retinas,
only to step closer and see the light
was just a reflection of whatever stood before her.
so she anchored herself to humans.
she chose to connect with people
based on the "mutual" stars in
their eyes.
and how they felt important.
she anchored herself to
the expectations held aloof in
the eyes of her unattached lover.
Eyes that swam with the imaginary meetings and hopefulness
to obtain girls not her.
and so she swam.
at first, she treaded water like it the thing to do in the eyes of your
"lover"
then, the ropes she tied to herself
to make anchors began to drag her down.
the people she anchored herself to reached out as far as the cold depths would allow
but she refused to tread the last few feet and take hold
of a shoreline filled with
finite praise for not drowning herself.
The most dangerous girl I knew
made drowning the important thing.
and now she waits, sunken and waterlogged
with the weight of eyes that are not hers.
The eyes of her lover, who sparkle artificially
as the light is just a reflection of whatever stands in front of him.
Oct 25, 2017
Oct 25, 2017 at 3:18 AM UTC
It could be that I
Have misheard these words before
But the stench of them all
Reminds me
That they’re real
And it is there that they sit
Staring back to say
Nothing
Other than the inverted intentions
That these hands of character have affirmed
In both my eyes as well as
Yours
Jan 18, 2012
Jan 18, 2012 at 8:30 PM UTC
1
Doctor warned, “Your liver will strangle –
If you do not stop this habit”.
“That flower fell off long ago”
I responded.
“I might lose you if you hang on with this habit”
Gracy says.
“I already lost myself” I declared.
Next turn was my friend who is a story writer.
“I can’t see you as a character who smokes”
“You better do not have this protagonist in your tale”
I affirmed.
She whispered, “Your lips have become black”
I announced, “Not even a kiss with *** smell is available”
“Why are you deteriorating yourself” inquiry from Jinu.
“Just because, I don’t know how to spoil others”. My answer.
“K S R T C buses which arrived late taught me smoking”
A stranger said.
“I lighted a cigarette for the initial time, just for some light”.
My response with realization.
“They shout that you are a chain smoker”
My sister’s version.
“There will be no smoke without fire”
My variation.
A board in the hospital was engraved.
“No smoking here”.
“Everything else is allowed?
I asked.
“God will not pardon suicidal behavior”.
That was from Parish Priest.
I could say this much.
“Clouds are created from God’s cigar”
2
In this night filled with solitude,
God, let me have a *** which has soul and
Let me reach out to clouds.
Feb 5, 2014
Feb 5, 2014 at 12:01 AM UTC
A black maid enters.
Cowed, inarticulate,
she makes obeisance to her mistress,
our erstwhile heroine.
She is given a menial task
in a perfunctory fashion,
and you thrill at this splash
of historical colour.
But her mistress's command
is irrelevant. She is fully engaged
with two vital functions
with which I have entrusted her.
The first: she has bathed our heroes
in moral ambiguity -
she is a shortcut to complexity,
rendering the important characters
doubly fascinating,
bathing them in pathos.
The second: she has pleased you
as you recognise your own outrage:
"Why must she be black?
Why can't they treat her better?
Don't we live in finer times, you and I?"
And a happy reader
is a reader who will proceed,
enlivened, vindicated, affirmed.
And thus freshly enslaved,
she returns
to the sculleries of my imagination
as we press nobly on.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 5:39 AM UTC
Robed in angelic white, she rose.
Silent and serene, strange to sight;
Unknown, yet familiar; for my heart burned.
We have loved deeply, we knew each other.
Spirit affirmed; deep called unto deep: Peace.
Up above, into the light, she rose.
Light, a most brilliant white,
Sum of light from every heaven's stars;
Each a soul, at rest, awaiting the rest.
Into the light she rose, white diffusing into light.
Today, I learned, the light is Paradise.
Apr 24, 2019
Apr 24, 2019 at 10:10 PM UTC
He kneels ahead beneath the short death tomb
As tears affirmed his pain, regret burst’d out
They say it’s he who’s dumb, it’s he who’s numb
No one accused, just thought of it aloud
Nov 9, 2016
Nov 9, 2016 at 8:42 AM UTC
Sift I will and hold in path of
current's latent aftermath
heart befell, and breath in current
breath could tell, and most confirm it
Depth befell, a host affirmed of what compelled
the most determined
love's to sell and what could earn it
lust and amour, yet shift in focus
love of current, and opened play
could last it til, preferred today
now compulsion packs a passion pact
to back adaption banter tact
intact of what could help me focus
attraction stacked and traction bogus
love don't need to own possession
love just needs to show expression
Apr 9, 2013
Apr 9, 2013 at 5:22 PM UTC