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"alternately" poems
The night is only a sort of carbon paper, Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars Letting in the light, peephole after peephole -- A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things. Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictus He suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessness Stretching its fine, irritating sand in all directions. Over and over the old, granular movie Exposes embarrassments--the mizzling days Of childhood and adolescence, sticky with dreams, Parental faces on tall stalks, alternately stern and tearful, A garden of buggy rose that made him cry. His forehead is bumpy as a sack of rocks. Memories jostle each other for face-room like obsolete film stars. He is immune to pills: red, purple, blue -- How they lit the tedium of the protracted evening! Those sugary planets whose influence won for him A life baptized in no-life for a while, And the sweet, drugged waking of a forgetful baby. Now the pills are worn-out and silly, like classical gods. Their poppy-sleepy colors do him no good. His head is a little interior of grey mirrors. Each gesture flees immediately down an alley Of diminishing perspectives, and its significance Drains like water out the hole at the far end. He lives without privacy in a lidless room, The bald slots of his eyes stiffened wide-open On the incessant heat-lightning flicker of situations. Nightlong, in the granite yard, invisible cats Have been howling like women, or damaged instruments. Already he can feel daylight, his white disease, Creeping up with her hatful of trivial repetitions. The city is a map of cheerful twitters now, And everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank, Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed.
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15.4k
Insomniac
The night is only a sort of carbon paper, Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars Letting in the light, peephole after peephole -- A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things. Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictus He suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessness Stretching its fine, irritating sand in all directions. Over and over the old, granular movie Exposes embarrassments--the mizzling days Of childhood and adolescence, sticky with dreams, Parental faces on tall stalks, alternately stern and tearful, A garden of buggy rose that made him cry. His forehead is bumpy as a sack of rocks. Memories jostle each other for face-room like obsolete film stars. He is immune to pills: red, purple, blue -- How they lit the tedium of the protracted evening! Those sugary planets whose influence won for him A life baptized in no-life for a while, And the sweet, drugged waking of a forgetful baby. Now the pills are worn-out and silly, like classical gods. Their poppy-sleepy colors do him no good. His head is a little interior of grey mirrors. Each gesture flees immediately down an alley Of diminishing perspectives, and its significance Drains like water out the hole at the far end. He lives without privacy in a lidless room, The bald slots of his eyes stiffened wide-open On the incessant heat-lightning flicker of situations. Nightlong, in the granite yard, invisible cats Have been howling like women, or damaged instruments. Already he can feel daylight, his white disease, Creeping up with her hatful of trivial repetitions. The city is a map of cheerful twitters now, And everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank, Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed.
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35
The sky puts on the darkening blue coat held for it by a row of ancient trees; you watch: and the lands grow distant in your sight, one journeying to heaven, one that falls; and leave you, not at home in either one, not quite so still and dark as the darkened houses, not calling to eternity with the passion of what becomes a star each night, and rises; and leave you (inexpressibly to unravel) your life, with its immensity and fear, so that, now bounded, now immeasurable, it is alternately stone in you and star.
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9.7k
Evening
slave is someone who does not have authority over their own lives slave is someone subservient controlled dominated by somebody something slave works very hard for little or no pay slave is property of somebody something slave is someone forced to obey sycophant is someone servile who overly flatters more powerful individual for personal gain sycophant is bootlicker brown-noser fawner flunkey doormat lackey lap-dog yes-men parasite toad-eater (pause reposition) somebody possessed of excessive vanity may cultivate sycophant swarms side by side they stand clothed in black not quite similar the one slightly taller possibly because the other suffers poor posture perhaps they are related because in odd way they appear alike or of same ilk yet upon closer scrutiny it becomes apparent they have very little or nothing in common the taller one with troubled sad eyes the other smiling obsequiously the taller one more muscular ***** from working menial labor the other with curved spine slumped shoulders because of undue bowing and crouching while blowing smoke up other people’s ***** sadist is someone who attains ****** gratification by inflicting physical pain shame to other people sadist is someone who delights in excessive cruelty degradation to others ********* is someone who achieves ****** pleasure from being hurt humiliated abused dominated punished often self-inflicted ********* is someone who enjoys being harmed misused mistreated ignored by others sadomasochist is someone who gets ****** gratification by alternately or simultaneously enduring hurt causing pain to somebody else sadomasochist is combination of sadistic masochistic tendencies in someone who obtains ****** pleasure from inflicting submitting to pain cruelty sycophant slave snakes up leg of movie actress dictator who gains pain through pleasure 2000 miles from equator IED cell phone detonator sycophant dilettante ***** up to sadistic art critic or publishing editor on escalator while below on main floor of shopping mall ice rink figure skater pirouettes bows to nominator surreptitiously bribed by infiltrator mutilator
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Feb 27, 2011
Feb 27, 2011 at 4:38 AM UTC
sycophant slave snakes up leg of movie actress dictator
slave is someone who does not have authority over their own lives slave is someone subservient controlled dominated by somebody something slave works very hard for little or no pay slave is property of somebody something slave is someone forced to obey sycophant is someone servile who overly flatters more powerful individual for personal gain sycophant is bootlicker brown-noser fawner flunkey doormat lackey lap-dog yes-men parasite toad-eater (pause reposition) somebody possessed of excessive vanity may cultivate sycophant swarms side by side they stand clothed in black not quite similar the one slightly taller possibly because the other suffers poor posture perhaps they are related because in odd way they appear alike or of same ilk yet upon closer scrutiny it becomes apparent they have very little or nothing in common the taller one with troubled sad eyes the other smiling obsequiously the taller one more muscular ***** from working menial labor the other with curved spine slumped shoulders because of undue bowing and crouching while blowing smoke up other people’s ***** sadist is someone who attains ****** gratification by inflicting physical pain shame to other people sadist is someone who delights in excessive cruelty degradation to others ********* is someone who achieves ****** pleasure from being hurt humiliated abused dominated punished often self-inflicted ********* is someone who enjoys being harmed misused mistreated ignored by others sadomasochist is someone who gets ****** gratification by alternately or simultaneously enduring hurt causing pain to somebody else sadomasochist is combination of sadistic masochistic tendencies in someone who obtains ****** pleasure from inflicting submitting to pain cruelty sycophant slave snakes up leg of movie actress dictator who gains pain through pleasure 2000 miles from equator IED cell phone detonator sycophant dilettante ***** up to sadistic art critic or publishing editor on escalator while below on main floor of shopping mall ice rink figure skater pirouettes bows to nominator surreptitiously bribed by infiltrator mutilator
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7
Barnacles begin their lives as free-swimming larvae, ebbing and flowing with the tide.   Most are eaten, some wash ashore, a few survive long enough to attach with freakishly strong glue their minute larvae heads to a final rock- strewn home. There they spend the rest of their lives with feathery feet poking out of a hardened shell, filtering the sea for whatever happens to come within reach. Why the barnacle starts out free and ends up bonded to some god-forsaken rock to alternately dry out and be fed at the whim of the tide is just one of life's many small mysteries. While barnacles are meant to lead a primarily static life human beings are not. We are meant to flow to settle and ground, uproot and travel to seek to speak well and listen better to find meaningful answers. We always have the choice to let go of whatever safe, high ground we're frantically clinging to though it will mean not knowing where we'll ultimately wash ashore. Letting go can feel like being caught in a rip current.   What I know about rip currents: They pluck hapless beachgoers from shore and pull them out to the ocean deep.   If you're caught in one and try swimming back to blessed land you won't make any headway. Eventually you'll grow tired and drown. The only way to survive is to stroke like mad in a totally counterintuitive direction parallel to the solid ground you desperately want to reach until you're out of the narrow river ******* you out to sea. I've decided to unglue my little larvae head from its rocky, self-imposed, falsely-safe perch. Let the current carry me where my feet no longer touch the known. It's up to me to swim in the right direction until I'm free.
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Oct 29, 2015
Oct 29, 2015 at 9:47 AM UTC
Barnacles and Rip Tides
Barnacles begin their lives as free-swimming larvae, ebbing and flowing with the tide.   Most are eaten, some wash ashore, a few survive long enough to attach with freakishly strong glue their minute larvae heads to a final rock- strewn home. There they spend the rest of their lives with feathery feet poking out of a hardened shell, filtering the sea for whatever happens to come within reach. Why the barnacle starts out free and ends up bonded to some god-forsaken rock to alternately dry out and be fed at the whim of the tide is just one of life's many small mysteries. While barnacles are meant to lead a primarily static life human beings are not. We are meant to flow to settle and ground, uproot and travel to seek to speak well and listen better to find meaningful answers. We always have the choice to let go of whatever safe, high ground we're frantically clinging to though it will mean not knowing where we'll ultimately wash ashore. Letting go can feel like being caught in a rip current.   What I know about rip currents: They pluck hapless beachgoers from shore and pull them out to the ocean deep.   If you're caught in one and try swimming back to blessed land you won't make any headway. Eventually you'll grow tired and drown. The only way to survive is to stroke like mad in a totally counterintuitive direction parallel to the solid ground you desperately want to reach until you're out of the narrow river ******* you out to sea. I've decided to unglue my little larvae head from its rocky, self-imposed, falsely-safe perch. Let the current carry me where my feet no longer touch the known. It's up to me to swim in the right direction until I'm free.
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32
The roses of Love glad the garden of life, Though nurtur’d ’mid weeds dropping pestilent dew, Till Time crops the leaves with unmerciful knife, Or prunes them for ever, in Love’s last adieu! In vain, with endearments, we soothe the sad heart, In vain do we vow for an age to be true; The chance of an hour may command us to part, Or Death disunite us, in Love’s last adieu! Still Hope, breathing peace, through the grief-swollen breast, Will whisper, “Our meeting we yet may renew:” With this dream of deceit, half our sorrow’s represt, Nor taste we the poison, of Love’s last adieu! Oh! mark you yon pair, in the sunshine of youth, Love twin’d round their childhood his flow’rs as they grew; They flourish awhile, in the season of truth, Till chill’d by the winter of Love’s last adieu! Sweet lady! why thus doth a tear steal its way, Down a cheek which outrivals thy ***** in hue? Yet why do I ask?—to distraction a prey, Thy reason has perish’d, with Love’s last adieu! Oh! who is yon Misanthrope, shunning mankind? From cities to caves of the forest he flew: There, raving, he howls his complaint to the wind; The mountains reverberate Love’s last adieu! Now Hate rules a heart which in Love’s easy chains, Once Passion’s tumultuous blandishments knew; Despair now inflames the dark tide of his veins, He ponders, in frenzy, on Love’s last adieu! How he envies the wretch, with a soul wrapt in steel! His pleasures are scarce, yet his troubles are few, Who laughs at the pang that he never can feel, And dreads not the anguish of Love’s last adieu! Youth flies, life decays, even hope is o’ercast; No more, with Love’s former devotion, we sue: He spreads his young wing, he retires with the blast; The shroud of affection is Love’s last adieu! In this life of probation, for rapture divine, Astrea declares that some penance is due; From him, who has worshipp’d at Love’s gentle shrine, The atonement is ample, in Love’s last adieu! Who kneels to the God, on his altar of light Must myrtle and cypress alternately strew: His myrtle, an emblem of purest delight, His cypress, the garland of Love’s last adieu!
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3.7k
Love’s Last Adieu
The roses of Love glad the garden of life, Though nurtur’d ’mid weeds dropping pestilent dew, Till Time crops the leaves with unmerciful knife, Or prunes them for ever, in Love’s last adieu! In vain, with endearments, we soothe the sad heart, In vain do we vow for an age to be true; The chance of an hour may command us to part, Or Death disunite us, in Love’s last adieu! Still Hope, breathing peace, through the grief-swollen breast, Will whisper, “Our meeting we yet may renew:” With this dream of deceit, half our sorrow’s represt, Nor taste we the poison, of Love’s last adieu! Oh! mark you yon pair, in the sunshine of youth, Love twin’d round their childhood his flow’rs as they grew; They flourish awhile, in the season of truth, Till chill’d by the winter of Love’s last adieu! Sweet lady! why thus doth a tear steal its way, Down a cheek which outrivals thy ***** in hue? Yet why do I ask?—to distraction a prey, Thy reason has perish’d, with Love’s last adieu! Oh! who is yon Misanthrope, shunning mankind? From cities to caves of the forest he flew: There, raving, he howls his complaint to the wind; The mountains reverberate Love’s last adieu! Now Hate rules a heart which in Love’s easy chains, Once Passion’s tumultuous blandishments knew; Despair now inflames the dark tide of his veins, He ponders, in frenzy, on Love’s last adieu! How he envies the wretch, with a soul wrapt in steel! His pleasures are scarce, yet his troubles are few, Who laughs at the pang that he never can feel, And dreads not the anguish of Love’s last adieu! Youth flies, life decays, even hope is o’ercast; No more, with Love’s former devotion, we sue: He spreads his young wing, he retires with the blast; The shroud of affection is Love’s last adieu! In this life of probation, for rapture divine, Astrea declares that some penance is due; From him, who has worshipp’d at Love’s gentle shrine, The atonement is ample, in Love’s last adieu! Who kneels to the God, on his altar of light Must myrtle and cypress alternately strew: His myrtle, an emblem of purest delight, His cypress, the garland of Love’s last adieu!
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44
Anthropos apteros for days Walked whistling round and round the Maze, Relying happily upon His temperment for getting on. The hundredth time he sighted, though, A bush he left an hour ago, He halted where four alleys crossed, And recognized that he was lost. "Where am I?" Metaphysics says No question can be asked unless It has an answer, so I can Assume this maze has got a plan. If theologians are correct, A Plan implies an Architect: A God-built maze would be, I'm sure, The Universe in minature. Are data from the world of Sense, In that case, valid evidence? What in the universe I know Can give directions how to go? All Mathematics would suggest A steady straight line as the best, But left and right alternately Is consonant with History. Aesthetics, though, believes all Art Intends to gratify the heart: Rejecting disciplines like these, Must I, then, go which way I please? Such reasoning is only true If we accept the classic view, Which we have no right to assert, According to the Introvert. His absolute pre-supposition Is - Man creates his own condition: This maze was not divinely built, But is secreted by my guilt. The centre that I cannot find Is known to my unconscious Mind; I have no reason to despair Because I am already there. My problem is how not to will; They move most quickly who stand still; I'm only lost until I see I'm lost because I want to be. If this should fail, perhaps I should, As certain educators would, Content myself with the conclusion; In theory there is no solution. All statements about what I feel, Like I-am-lost, are quite unreal: My knowledge ends where it began; A hedge is taller than a man." Anthropos apteros, perplexed To know which turning to take next, Looked up and wished he were a bird To whom such doubts must seem absurd.
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3.5k
The Labyrinth
Anthropos apteros for days Walked whistling round and round the Maze, Relying happily upon His temperment for getting on. The hundredth time he sighted, though, A bush he left an hour ago, He halted where four alleys crossed, And recognized that he was lost. "Where am I?" Metaphysics says No question can be asked unless It has an answer, so I can Assume this maze has got a plan. If theologians are correct, A Plan implies an Architect: A God-built maze would be, I'm sure, The Universe in minature. Are data from the world of Sense, In that case, valid evidence? What in the universe I know Can give directions how to go? All Mathematics would suggest A steady straight line as the best, But left and right alternately Is consonant with History. Aesthetics, though, believes all Art Intends to gratify the heart: Rejecting disciplines like these, Must I, then, go which way I please? Such reasoning is only true If we accept the classic view, Which we have no right to assert, According to the Introvert. His absolute pre-supposition Is - Man creates his own condition: This maze was not divinely built, But is secreted by my guilt. The centre that I cannot find Is known to my unconscious Mind; I have no reason to despair Because I am already there. My problem is how not to will; They move most quickly who stand still; I'm only lost until I see I'm lost because I want to be. If this should fail, perhaps I should, As certain educators would, Content myself with the conclusion; In theory there is no solution. All statements about what I feel, Like I-am-lost, are quite unreal: My knowledge ends where it began; A hedge is taller than a man." Anthropos apteros, perplexed To know which turning to take next, Looked up and wished he were a bird To whom such doubts must seem absurd.
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56
Soft and firm, gentle and fierce, A parting breath smothers on skin. Wild and wanting, surrendered and stroking, Fingers are searching and home. Quiet, now listening, anticipating, wishing Until the spell breaks beneath lips - Blushing it comes, blooming it bursts Against symphonies and rhapsodies With melodies heaving, heavy, unheard. Gasping for life, holding more tight To another so fragile, human, finite Stealing, giving, alternately taking An appetite destructive, delicious, Desiring, raging; Flesh upon flesh, ragged, receiving. Twisting, bones resisting, A common ground with no space between Reaching and holding, pressing and pulling, Synchronized in silent sweet rhythms of time Warm, willing, fantasies thrilling, perspire Lovely and lucid, writhing, conducive As dancing flames to the fire. Thoughts are melting to muddle Into puddled pools of passion Dripping, swirling, flooding, licking The innermost walls of the cowering mind Bodies and hearts are pulsing, repeating, Beating and bruising, until each breath Is ****** divine.
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Mar 3, 2018
Mar 3, 2018 at 7:56 PM UTC
Eros
Why is it that Poetry has never yet been subjected to that process of Dilution which has proved so advantageous to her sister-art Music? The Diluter gives us first a few notes of some well-known Air, then a dozen bars of his own, then a few more notes of the Air, and so on alternately: thus saving the listener, if not from all risk of recognising the melody at all, at least from the too-exciting transports which it might produce in a more concentrated form. The process is termed "setting" by Composers, and any one, that has ever experienced the emotion of being unexpectedly set down in a heap of mortar, will recognise the truthfulness of this happy phrase. For truly, just as the genuine Epicure lingers lovingly over a morsel of supreme Venison - whose every fibre seems to murmur "Excelsior!" - yet swallows, ere returning to the toothsome dainty, great mouthfuls of oatmeal-porridge and winkles: and just as the perfect Connoisseur in Claret permits himself but one delicate sip, and then tosses off a pint or more of boarding-school beer: so also - I NEVER loved a dear Gazelle - NOR ANYTHING THAT COST ME MUCH: HIGH PRICES PROFIT THOSE WHO SELL, BUT WHY SHOULD I BE FOND OF SUCH? To glad me with his soft black eye MY SON COMES TROTTING HOME FROM SCHOOL; HE'S HAD A FIGHT BUT CAN'T TELL WHY - HE ALWAYS WAS A LITTLE FOOL! But, when he came to know me well, HE KICKED ME OUT, HER TESTY SIRE: AND WHEN I STAINED MY HAIR, THAT BELLE MIGHT NOTE THE CHANGE, AND THUS ADMIRE And love me, it was sure to dye A MUDDY GREEN OR STARING BLUE: WHILST ONE MIGHT TRACE, WITH HALF AN EYE, THE STILL TRIUMPHANT CARROT THROUGH.
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2.6k
Tema con Variazioni
Why is it that Poetry has never yet been subjected to that process of Dilution which has proved so advantageous to her sister-art Music? The Diluter gives us first a few notes of some well-known Air, then a dozen bars of his own, then a few more notes of the Air, and so on alternately: thus saving the listener, if not from all risk of recognising the melody at all, at least from the too-exciting transports which it might produce in a more concentrated form. The process is termed "setting" by Composers, and any one, that has ever experienced the emotion of being unexpectedly set down in a heap of mortar, will recognise the truthfulness of this happy phrase. For truly, just as the genuine Epicure lingers lovingly over a morsel of supreme Venison - whose every fibre seems to murmur "Excelsior!" - yet swallows, ere returning to the toothsome dainty, great mouthfuls of oatmeal-porridge and winkles: and just as the perfect Connoisseur in Claret permits himself but one delicate sip, and then tosses off a pint or more of boarding-school beer: so also - I NEVER loved a dear Gazelle - NOR ANYTHING THAT COST ME MUCH: HIGH PRICES PROFIT THOSE WHO SELL, BUT WHY SHOULD I BE FOND OF SUCH? To glad me with his soft black eye MY SON COMES TROTTING HOME FROM SCHOOL; HE'S HAD A FIGHT BUT CAN'T TELL WHY - HE ALWAYS WAS A LITTLE FOOL! But, when he came to know me well, HE KICKED ME OUT, HER TESTY SIRE: AND WHEN I STAINED MY HAIR, THAT BELLE MIGHT NOTE THE CHANGE, AND THUS ADMIRE And love me, it was sure to dye A MUDDY GREEN OR STARING BLUE: WHILST ONE MIGHT TRACE, WITH HALF AN EYE, THE STILL TRIUMPHANT CARROT THROUGH.
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19
Down from Arizona desert cold, absence of ice and snow three white painted terracotta pots by the Villa apartment on the tabled walkway— Christina’s place. Stacked, each alternately inverted one to the next stabilize a snowperson body. Can you picture it? Black painted buttons all the way up? Lips of dots, an orange twist of nose, deep eyes void black. Burgundy scarf tied around the neck, positioned just so, it could be fit to a Christmas Chihuahua. By its playful form and surprising attitude, may it well succeed at pleasing every passerby and draw out, on each scroogey face, a smile. It’s been doing just that for me, as I park opposite each night, my headlights there shining. Still, I have not and shall not peak inside the alluring, open terracotta skull, since I have imagined not wishes, nor disappointments, nor elves and cookies, but practical ash, randomly spiked with spent cigarettes. Last night, as I walked out, with my night’s anticipations, my grab-bag of happy tangles, Christina’s hanging silver chimes issued soft whispering over terracotta, and I caught a remembrance of Amazing Grace how sweet the sound. Mojo my psychic dog turned me sharply then: he took me away–we two, hunting the moon in a starless night.
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Dec 14, 2015
Dec 14, 2015 at 10:58 PM UTC
Terracotta
Too much alone Too much afraid Too much unknown Too much paid To let us go By the way For no show So they say Could I tell you a story Ole storyteller Like bees buzzing flowers With some honey on hive's mind It's a modern tale That has sat sail All sewn up At a rate of knots That black book Bought with blood money Dares to say it holds a name Spar - with these throat barnacles (Alternately feeding and fighting With their feet) bowsprit [bee block] know your ropes, carried away deep six It's a thieves cat o nine tales Captain of chewing the fat Or combing the cat I've never seen (one) better Dunnage topping a tonnage From that trusty barrage I'm everything on top and nothing handy An eye splice on a short rope Given and giving leeway Haven't got a clew for true whence such hails from ... So... She measures faces with her heart and hands And a camera lens for a few
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Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 2:29 PM UTC
doppelgängers gangplank
Beside an ebbing northern sea While stars awaken one by one, We walk together, I and he. He woos me with an easy grace That proves him only half sincere; A light smile flickers on his face. To him ********** is an art, And as a flutist plays a flute, So does he play upon his heart A music varied to his whim. He has no use for love of mine, He would not have me answer him. To hide my eyes within the night I watch the changeful lighthouse gleam Alternately with red and white. My laughter smites upon my ears, So one who cries and wakes from sleep Knows not it is himself he hears. What if my voice should let him know The mocking words were all a sham, And lips that laugh could tremble so? What if I lost the power to lie, And he should only hear his name In one low, broken cry?
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2k
By The Sea
Claus, Santa, the Is a huge enigma to me And probably many others My enigmatized sisters and brothers. Enigmatized, possibly stigmatized, It beggars logical thought All the confusion and pain This concept has brought. For over two centuries Surrounded with mysteries An alternately jovial and evil guy Brought bounteous gifts, could fly! Gave coal to the misbehaving, Or nothing much at all, saving All the good stuff for good kids Who were careful with what they did. We have read of Saint Nick And Sinterklaas; take your pick Of which legend blended with what To become the guy we were taught Sneaked down chimneys at night It you kids didn’t sleep tight. While this is all very typical It seems rather biblical. Claus’s eye is on the sparrow So we must walk the straight and narrow Or go down into his big naughty book And he will ultimately decide to look Askance at any chance of gifts for you No matter how much begging you do Write to his eternal rotund self. He’s an unforgiving old elf. And there’s that flying reindeer thing And the way he’s rumored to go zipping Around the entire blessed world in one night. That, to me just never seemed quite right. It’s bizarre and incredible is exactly what. Do the reindeer have jet engines in their **** And how can one tiny sleight and eight beasts Tote those thousands of truckloads at least? No, the whole thing sounds bogus, in its base. And that whole North Pole/tiny people place Where they slave on making toys all the year And thrive on hot chocolate instead of beer? Elves must be a rather dim gang of workers. No union leaders? No malingerers? No lurkers? I have tried for decades, but it doesn’t add up. There’s too much questionable in this holiday cup. I’m going back to the idea I thought as a child. It’s easier to believe and not nearly as wild: It’s Mom and Dad behind it all, it’s a big lie. And my final bit of skepticism? I can tell you why. The kids in my little neighborhood get given Gifts with no relationship to how they are living. If all this hogwash were actually true Bunches of them would get coal too.
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Dec 12, 2015
Dec 12, 2015 at 6:39 PM UTC
DECODING SANTA CLAUS
Claus, Santa, the Is a huge enigma to me And probably many others My enigmatized sisters and brothers. Enigmatized, possibly stigmatized, It beggars logical thought All the confusion and pain This concept has brought. For over two centuries Surrounded with mysteries An alternately jovial and evil guy Brought bounteous gifts, could fly! Gave coal to the misbehaving, Or nothing much at all, saving All the good stuff for good kids Who were careful with what they did. We have read of Saint Nick And Sinterklaas; take your pick Of which legend blended with what To become the guy we were taught Sneaked down chimneys at night It you kids didn’t sleep tight. While this is all very typical It seems rather biblical. Claus’s eye is on the sparrow So we must walk the straight and narrow Or go down into his big naughty book And he will ultimately decide to look Askance at any chance of gifts for you No matter how much begging you do Write to his eternal rotund self. He’s an unforgiving old elf. And there’s that flying reindeer thing And the way he’s rumored to go zipping Around the entire blessed world in one night. That, to me just never seemed quite right. It’s bizarre and incredible is exactly what. Do the reindeer have jet engines in their **** And how can one tiny sleight and eight beasts Tote those thousands of truckloads at least? No, the whole thing sounds bogus, in its base. And that whole North Pole/tiny people place Where they slave on making toys all the year And thrive on hot chocolate instead of beer? Elves must be a rather dim gang of workers. No union leaders? No malingerers? No lurkers? I have tried for decades, but it doesn’t add up. There’s too much questionable in this holiday cup. I’m going back to the idea I thought as a child. It’s easier to believe and not nearly as wild: It’s Mom and Dad behind it all, it’s a big lie. And my final bit of skepticism? I can tell you why. The kids in my little neighborhood get given Gifts with no relationship to how they are living. If all this hogwash were actually true Bunches of them would get coal too.
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56
i. a father doing sit-ups on the uncut lawn of his neighbor. the father’s two children pushing a broken thing past him. the shop the children map from the inside. its keeper who is also the neighbor and knew their mother. ii. the grace of a thing could be a frog pushing off. I am alternately sad in the legs, the body, and the head. my father regards the misshapen wheel of our manmade pond- bangs on himself and begins to float. iii. small one she wins a rubber thing at a firemen’s ball. some flying creature her grandfather becomes. his top teeth tremble like worried pilots in a silent plane weighted with unknowable freight.
0
Jul 3, 2012
Jul 3, 2012 at 2:07 AM UTC
factual things
§ The bloodred silk sheets are cool and sleek, like a snake you slither across. Seductive viper, with coal black eyes. You suprise me in my evening slumber, pulling down the sheet you expose my naked body. You savor the sight, like a lioness over her prey, you pounce pinning me. You always awaken me this way, and you catch me at attention, waiting for you. So I glide inside as our ***** collide, in my candlelit chamber our screams of pleasure are trapped inside. I cannot hide my desire, for this passionate union, of gasping mouths alternately harsh and gentle groping hands, I reach up to touch your face, and you **** on and bite my fingers, and you can taste the *** in my fingertips. More than breathing I need to fall asleep inside you. Warm fluids on our thighs cooling. We can change the sheets tomorrow.
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Sep 22, 2012
Sep 22, 2012 at 5:13 PM UTC
Tonight
A pair of lovers is a pair of tongues that say the word alternately, the same word, which moves from mouth to mouth. A pair of lovers is a pair of eyes that never tired of looking at each other, lyrics to each other, closing each other, in the light and dark. A pair of lovers are two travelers searching each other, and steadfast wait until finally found each other. A pair of lovers is a pair of names that ask each other for a place in memory, so as not lost in the loss. A pair of lovers are a pair of farmers who rush to the fields do not wait for the rain to die, because love is a fertile morning. A pair of lovers is a pair of eyes in the night, there is a beautiful dangling light, and there is hope that gee, rampant. A pair of lovers are two lines on a gurindam, longing for revenge, mutual opening and closing, harassing, muffling. A pair of lovers is a pair of longing hands, stalling to the empty, as if to rub a love on the forehead full of sweat. A pair of lovers are a pair of hearts at a glance, bristling, as you imagine the longing will be very torture. A pair of lovers is a pair of interconnected books, the first book, continues into the second book, and vice versa. A pair of lovers is a pair of books that amaze each other on the cover, because it knows very well what is written on them. A pair of lovers are two books, writing and reading each other, without ever interchanging the pages.
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Jul 12, 2017
Jul 12, 2017 at 12:09 AM UTC
We are a pair of lovers, and Hey, Look! There Are Many Other Lover Couples Like Us
Bucket List By Harriet-Tecumsah Watt **What's left when it's done No more to cross off with glee No more to choose from** http://hellopoetry.com/poem/648367/bucket-list ~~~~~~~ never write angry, wise counsel for most, but not this holy ****** off poet~person I am your bucket, I am on your list, or I better be, and don't be thinking, my dearest poetess, that you are all done, till we meet in the park, ass-freezing, beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. You, my Hamlet, always questioning and annoyingly annoying keeping me ego-honest, Ergo you are on my the toppiest ten of my numerous bucket list of lists, and I ain't crossing you off, no way, no how. Word-slapping your face, frustrated and infuriated, Watt is left for needy me in a world with no rhymeslut broke, busted, disgusted, life can't  be trusted, so take your disruptive crying poetry, bring to me in NYC, and I'll take you to poetry slams, tango parties, a real Chinatown, blow smoke up your nose, Waltz step on your toes, drink with you in Central Park at five am, visit half a dozen museums, take you to the ballet, and then you can maybe, cross a few to-do's off of our mutual intersections. write poem lines together alternately, hell, even post-modern alternatively, if that is watt it takes to slap the Most Uncommon Sensibity into a woman asking an A+ stupid question you are one of gods most hauntingly lovely gifts to me, and I ain't giving you back, NFW No-red-me-likey-heart for Watt's "I'm All Done Bucket List" poem, just me bucking the trend, just a lightening bolt to send up your sorry-for-me *** and a private, tender, missive. I'll come to you if you feeling blue, but get this straight my Indian chief-girl, no matter where or when, you better have yourself Sequoia tree hugging me, list unchecked, and not till then can we toss, our lists, in the trash bucket they belong in. Am I clear?
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Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 6:03 PM UTC
Watt's a Bucket List?
Bucket List By Harriet-Tecumsah Watt **What's left when it's done No more to cross off with glee No more to choose from** http://hellopoetry.com/poem/648367/bucket-list ~~~~~~~ never write angry, wise counsel for most, but not this holy ****** off poet~person I am your bucket, I am on your list, or I better be, and don't be thinking, my dearest poetess, that you are all done, till we meet in the park, ass-freezing, beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. You, my Hamlet, always questioning and annoyingly annoying keeping me ego-honest, Ergo you are on my the toppiest ten of my numerous bucket list of lists, and I ain't crossing you off, no way, no how. Word-slapping your face, frustrated and infuriated, Watt is left for needy me in a world with no rhymeslut broke, busted, disgusted, life can't  be trusted, so take your disruptive crying poetry, bring to me in NYC, and I'll take you to poetry slams, tango parties, a real Chinatown, blow smoke up your nose, Waltz step on your toes, drink with you in Central Park at five am, visit half a dozen museums, take you to the ballet, and then you can maybe, cross a few to-do's off of our mutual intersections. write poem lines together alternately, hell, even post-modern alternatively, if that is watt it takes to slap the Most Uncommon Sensibity into a woman asking an A+ stupid question you are one of gods most hauntingly lovely gifts to me, and I ain't giving you back, NFW No-red-me-likey-heart for Watt's "I'm All Done Bucket List" poem, just me bucking the trend, just a lightening bolt to send up your sorry-for-me *** and a private, tender, missive. I'll come to you if you feeling blue, but get this straight my Indian chief-girl, no matter where or when, you better have yourself Sequoia tree hugging me, list unchecked, and not till then can we toss, our lists, in the trash bucket they belong in. Am I clear?
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81
My jaw has welded itself shut in an iron grip, Teeth straining under the load as they are compressed And ground together, Aching joint failing to remind me to unclench. What little sleep I have gotten has also sought to seal my mouth, Until morning brings with it the sharp pain and popping I am now accustomed to. Sores line my inner lip, Pale, stinging pits reminding me how close I am teetering on the edge, Body clinging to its composure amidst sleepless nights And adrenaline baths. A feeling like fire alternately surges up my sternum and over my shoulder, The taste of stomach acid hot on my burning tongue. I wonder how long I can keep this up Until the shoulders , taut with paranoia and effort to keep me safe Pull my very bones apart with aching muscles. Perhaps I will be consumed from the inside, Cracking open the same way my chest already feels. What am I doing here, Amongst the memories, the mournings, borrowed time? I am trying desperately to save her from her certain fate With love and worry and prayers to her God, the one I don't believe in. I am also trying to save me, the little girl I used to be, From the torment I know she will experience anyway, Wishing fervently I could pull her through time and space Into a world that isn't trying so hard to **** her for who she is, The space she occupies unknowingly. I'm haunted by the mouths of children, the words and hands of grown adults Who did a thorough job of reducing her to mere mud and human filth. That girl, young, wide-eyed, desperately lonely and confused, Burning with self-loathing and pain no one will admit to causing, Haunts me, climbs into bed and warms her frigid form with my body heat. I can't save her, The same way I can't save dying grandmothers or dead friends, Yet my body is tormented because my mind is tormented. I am cracking, slowly, Pieces at a time. But I'm not so easily bested now. That little girl built armor and walls and weapons to guard herself, So I down another cup of coffee, Pour salt into the sores, Crack my jaw, And get back to work. I have to save myself, too.
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Feb 16, 2021
Feb 16, 2021 at 4:21 PM UTC
Saving Strain
My jaw has welded itself shut in an iron grip, Teeth straining under the load as they are compressed And ground together, Aching joint failing to remind me to unclench. What little sleep I have gotten has also sought to seal my mouth, Until morning brings with it the sharp pain and popping I am now accustomed to. Sores line my inner lip, Pale, stinging pits reminding me how close I am teetering on the edge, Body clinging to its composure amidst sleepless nights And adrenaline baths. A feeling like fire alternately surges up my sternum and over my shoulder, The taste of stomach acid hot on my burning tongue. I wonder how long I can keep this up Until the shoulders , taut with paranoia and effort to keep me safe Pull my very bones apart with aching muscles. Perhaps I will be consumed from the inside, Cracking open the same way my chest already feels. What am I doing here, Amongst the memories, the mournings, borrowed time? I am trying desperately to save her from her certain fate With love and worry and prayers to her God, the one I don't believe in. I am also trying to save me, the little girl I used to be, From the torment I know she will experience anyway, Wishing fervently I could pull her through time and space Into a world that isn't trying so hard to **** her for who she is, The space she occupies unknowingly. I'm haunted by the mouths of children, the words and hands of grown adults Who did a thorough job of reducing her to mere mud and human filth. That girl, young, wide-eyed, desperately lonely and confused, Burning with self-loathing and pain no one will admit to causing, Haunts me, climbs into bed and warms her frigid form with my body heat. I can't save her, The same way I can't save dying grandmothers or dead friends, Yet my body is tormented because my mind is tormented. I am cracking, slowly, Pieces at a time. But I'm not so easily bested now. That little girl built armor and walls and weapons to guard herself, So I down another cup of coffee, Pour salt into the sores, Crack my jaw, And get back to work. I have to save myself, too.
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43
you were a peace offering hope for a future not the future (i devastated) but the deja'vu i grasped at jointly confused and at wits over you through innuendo consumed conversation. you were hope, living, breathing, colorful hope now-- i have to watch you die
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Feb 12, 2010
Feb 12, 2010 at 5:06 PM UTC
alternately
I suddenly remember your face From the night you first kissed me Kissing & smiling alternately Holding my hand, curling into a ball, wrapping yourself around it Nailing me to the bed, pouring your kisses on my lips & my neck Playing my curves like a guitar, & spinning the world around me Between resting & waking dreams So close to me you breath in my exhale. Its not just the small piece of rhythmic flesh This heart that beats, slow & fast, to the symphony of our love making Its our souls intertwined, drunk & hungry Just flesh and bone blood and hair nerves and sweat now all stripped bare a heaving, gasping, tangled mass Of love and lust and rage and greed of want and lack and take and need the wet and hot and cold and true the aftermath of me and you
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Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 6:36 AM UTC
the aftermath of me & you
Note To The Reader: Attempting to read all of these would be ridiculous but I hope that you can scroll through and hopefully see something you can connect to..... 1. I am sad or unhappy a lot 2. I am happy sometimes though and so I try to make other people laugh then to make up for the times I make them cry 3. I love sunny days with a light breeze and alternately heavy rain and thunderstorms 4. I am a sucker for all things involving sugar in all its forms 5. I am an analyzer 6. I am a worrier 7. I am messy 8. I am opposed to people who aren't themselves and people who apologize for saying the truth 9. I am a terrible typer and speller 10. Fine is a word I use for almost everything 11. I dislike spending time with most of the people I know 12. I dont think the apocalypse would be a bad thing 13. Eight is my lucky number 14. I love books as they are my escape 15. I am in love 16. I want to be an artist 17. Music is my life and the reason I'm still alive   18. I only watch really funny movies or really sad movies 19. I love making lists 20. I love buying new notebooks and pencils 21. I'm self conscious and stubborn 22. I'm mildly lazy and very direct 23. Obsessed with DIY 25. Im a freak about germs 26. I am and have been depressed from a very young age 27. My favorite colors are blue and brown 28. I believe in magic but not true love
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Jun 23, 2013
Jun 23, 2013 at 3:19 AM UTC
A Crash Course On Me
our host fears nothing more than he fears the rodeo. he is drunk and rubbing his plain face with a coarse sponge. he thinks the presentation of blood on his cheekbones is proof of clown make-up. I side with the group labeling him as harmless. those in the disagreeable group lock themselves away in our host’s bathroom. though the group is small, its two most vocal members have been struggling with their weight and a third is quietly pregnant. I take it upon myself to worry about the amount of air the group has. when the door is unsurprisingly jammed, I keep calm and remove my shoes just as what looks like rust water floods from beneath the door and carries them behind me to where the host is not dancing after all but stomping his bare feet alternately square on a hamster. my best friend of three days wants to save the hamster but cannot believe the short length of its tail. I try to explain that I am not helpless. that I am steeped in tradition and was formerly employed as the guy who chews down the fingernails of professional bull riders. the thing about ****** is that you haven’t done it until you’ve done it with me. **** is a harsh word for relocation.
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Sep 10, 2013
Sep 10, 2013 at 3:22 PM UTC
the altitude
Mandibles make their own hoarding, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under semiconductor-selected civilians, but under civilians existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The trailer of all dead gentians weighs like a nipper on the brandishes of the lob. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and thistles, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such equipments of rheostat crochet they anxiously conjure up the spleens of the past to their setter, bother from them nappies, bayonet slouches, and cottons in organ-grinder to present this new scheme in wound hoarding in timpanist-honored disincentive and borrowed larch. Thus Luther put on the masseur of the Appearance Paul, the Rhapsody of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the gully of the Rook Requisite and the Rook Empress, and the Rhapsody of 1848 knew novelette bicentenary to do than to parsonage, now 1789, now the rheostat trailer of 1793-95. In like mantel, the belch who has learned a new larch always translates it backfire into his motor toot, but he assimilates the spleen of the new larch and exteriors himself freely in it only when he moves in it without recalling the old and when he forgets his navy toot.
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Dec 6, 2015
Dec 6, 2015 at 4:44 PM UTC
The Trailer of Dead Gentians
Growing up ugly, alternately fat and thin eating scars for breakfast and time for tea having almost climbed out of a buried bin only for it to be upended & held in place with 1939's world atlas; the one that got europe all wrong & like me, was designed with accuracy in mind Personable birds of prey prodded, persuaded and set free the mean old biped growing inside beach ***** jolly popped and sandcastles raided just to see the looks on hope & holyglow faces their defeat in optimism: my triumph as **** full circle towards schematic self-sabotage Once again i am bitter drunk and to be wed we improvised trite vows and cut ourselves spare keys for access to one another's sickbeds In attendance: maternal ghosts and retired reapers hurting with knowledge & witholding screams Liver-spotted harbingers of age and all its mistakes Older now than I ever thought was likely: refuse to fight against the alarms of everything as everything and everything change around me But there are too many different colours of skin and i never was a tolerant, I was always just witch Now finally alone enough to weigh my empty chairs Surprising, that when black hands  materialise my own teeth flash & spit through septic spells make even him blink, in his absence of eyes For in his face is a nothing that stills me It's the same nothing that i've rotted with All my sorry life i'd settled this way, instead of that To ask for one more would be greedy, wouldn't it? Now it feels like I've begged before, i'll beg again I think when he kisses me  it will be over
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Jul 15, 2016
Jul 15, 2016 at 1:46 PM UTC
The Alarms of Every
Growing up ugly, alternately fat and thin eating scars for breakfast and time for tea having almost climbed out of a buried bin only for it to be upended & held in place with 1939's world atlas; the one that got europe all wrong & like me, was designed with accuracy in mind Personable birds of prey prodded, persuaded and set free the mean old biped growing inside beach ***** jolly popped and sandcastles raided just to see the looks on hope & holyglow faces their defeat in optimism: my triumph as **** full circle towards schematic self-sabotage Once again i am bitter drunk and to be wed we improvised trite vows and cut ourselves spare keys for access to one another's sickbeds In attendance: maternal ghosts and retired reapers hurting with knowledge & witholding screams Liver-spotted harbingers of age and all its mistakes Older now than I ever thought was likely: refuse to fight against the alarms of everything as everything and everything change around me But there are too many different colours of skin and i never was a tolerant, I was always just witch Now finally alone enough to weigh my empty chairs Surprising, that when black hands  materialise my own teeth flash & spit through septic spells make even him blink, in his absence of eyes For in his face is a nothing that stills me It's the same nothing that i've rotted with All my sorry life i'd settled this way, instead of that To ask for one more would be greedy, wouldn't it? Now it feels like I've begged before, i'll beg again I think when he kisses me  it will be over
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33
Just one Sun and so many sunrises. Just one Universe and so many nations. Just one nation and so many living beings. And all life - at the mercy of the Sun. One part will soon welcome the Sun, yet another has embraced it already. One part has bid farewell to the Sun, another will follow soon. Sunrise upon sunrise, each part of the world - gets its turn to be engulfed in daylight and darkness alternately. Dreams reign somewhere, realization dawns elsewhere. Just one Sun and so many sunrises. Gita Ashok 11/10/2010, 11 am
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Oct 10, 2010
Oct 10, 2010 at 9:26 PM UTC
Just One Sun and So Many Sunrises
sometimes this is a barn loft filled with crumpled mad owls like you punching the side of my car- when your eyes became more rock, less ice and i sobbed next to a woman in a lexus watching me wheeze ash and spit into my wet hands shaped like the kuiper belt, the bodies within them (yours the hardest, the most blue) the condition of the sheets around six in the evening there are ways of living milky, the way i am not currently living do i confess that as i sleep alone my spine curls with want to be other, to be nix, hydra, charon? the black vulture circling your thighs the water-drinker crouching at the crater’s languid salt pool alternately feeling the desperation of american canyon road, zip 94503 and the thick clarity of a non-smoking room in the southern realm of “here” this was a case study, bending under you to observe: your mouth filled with hot water and spilled out onto your naked chest as parts of myself went missing the water ran down into my throat this isn’t moon linen, it’s polyester your face television blue, your slick hair your eyes sitting in your pretty head, hurtling chunks of ice and rock stealing me into torpor we stand on a ledge and look up the nearest planet is clear we think of invisible things not knowing that sometimes we ourselves disappear like mice under the hotel floorboards and like the highway, all covered in white.
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Apr 7, 2013
Apr 7, 2013 at 8:41 PM UTC
more than a minor planet