"affronting" poems
There are many constraints that are beyond our control.
They often fight to define the boundaries that we are able to overcome.
However, it is our experiment with our lives to figure out how to resist.
We are not powerless even though we have no power.
We are not losing just because we are lost.
Our will to affront the usurpers of our life’s freedom is our own weapon.
We must have the conviction to overcome the norms of definition
That fight to establish who we are and where we fall within our own societies.
We must not succumb to the norms of definition
Of a Hispanic, a first generation American, an urban denizen,
A middle class or on the verge of poverty individual, a minority, or a foreigner.
We must find a way to resist even if it leads to our end.
Aug 14, 2011
Aug 14, 2011 at 7:34 PM UTC
A cave crawls into me, turns inside out,
Captures my heart and saves my skin for last.
Slimy shadows spread like faith to doubt.
Is this the Jungian Shadow here to lambaste
While all the photons of the sun depart
As quickly as they come--an original sin--
And stop my thinking like Rene Descartes,
Affronting twistless logic like particle spin?
Now perceiving nothing it must exist,
Like Freud with OCD made Oedipus blind--
Becoming nothing nothing can resist.
Finally into earth my mind confined:
Create in me a ***** heart, o earth.
Perhaps a worm will have a ****** birth.
Feb 3, 2012
Feb 3, 2012 at 12:51 PM UTC
After the whipping he crawled into bed,
Accepting the harsh fact with no great weeping.
How funny uncle's hat had looked striped red!
He chuckled silently. The moon came, sweeping
A black, frayed rag of tattered cloud before
In scorning; very pure and pale she seemed,
Flooding his bed with radiance. On the floor
Fat motes danced. He sobbed, closed his eyes and dreamed.
Warm sand flowed round him. Blurts of crimson light
Splashed the white grains like blood. Past the cave's mouth
Shone with a large, fierce splendor, wildly bright,
The crooked constellations of the South;
Here the Cross swung; and there, affronting Mars,
The Centaur stormed aside a froth of stars.
Within, great casks, like wattled aldermen,
Sighed of enormous feasts, and cloth of gold
Glowed on the walls like hot desire. Again,
Beside webbed purples from some galleon's hold,
A black chest bore the skull and bones in white
Above a scrawled "Gunpowder!" By the flames,
Decked out in crimson, gemmed with syenite,
Hailing their fellows with outrageous names,
The pirates sat and diced. Their eyes were moons.
"Doubloons!" they said. The words crashed gold. "Doubloons!"
2k
Before the time of Legions strong
When Romans wore their tresses long,
Before the ape man rose *****
To view the world as circumspect,
Before the storms of red dust came
To render this parched land arcane,
There grew a tree of ugly norm
Of massive girth and height and form,
Ungainly so and so immense
As to astound thee to commence,
To fear the very sight beheld
On Africa’s savannah veldt.
The baobab rose from the plain
Unearthly, in demonic name,
An apparition to dismay
All those who dare to come this way.
Vaulting from savannah grass
To clasp the heavens in it's grasp
Then spread its’ limbs, as if to be,
All silhouettes’ eternity.
Giant Aloft in giant-less land,
Far more than thee would understand,
Mystic in its’ silent way
Eternal as the light of day,
Starkly silhouetted sight
Affronting delving sunset’s might.
M.
18 January 2016
Jan 17, 2016
Jan 17, 2016 at 11:01 PM UTC
fellows of the world poet writer's cohort
didst so receive a poseur's chiding note
the tenor of it, of know it all dote
many were not verily happy with his report
figures of speech and tone the main drift
to swallow them down became really hard
insolent he in rubbishing their yard
of one who owns not the poetic word's gift
few saw any credence to his provoking
they took exception and didst do a flip
none of what was opined hit the mark
as if he had felt like some fire stoking
this type of character we'll give a slip
how dare he light such an affronting spark
Feb 25, 2018
Feb 25, 2018 at 4:42 AM UTC