"arranges" poems
The artichoke
of delicate heart
*****
in its battle-dress, builds
its minimal cupola;
keeps
stark
in its scallop of
scales.
Around it,
demoniac vegetables
bristle their thicknesses,
devise
tendrils and belfries,
the bulb's agitations;
while under the subsoil
the carrot
sleeps sound in its
rusty mustaches.
Runner and filaments
bleach in the vineyards,
whereon rise the vines.
The sedulous cabbage
arranges its petticoats;
oregano
sweetens a world;
and the artichoke
dulcetly there in a gardenplot,
armed for a skirmish,
goes proud
in its pomegranate
burnishes.
Till, on a day,
each by the other,
the artichoke moves
to its dream
of a market place
in the big willow
hoppers:
a battle formation.
Most warlike
of defilades-
with men
in the market stalls,
white shirts
in the soup-greens,
artichoke field marshals,
close-order conclaves,
commands, detonations,
and voices,
a crashing of crate staves.
And
Maria
come
down
with her hamper
to
make trial
of an artichoke:
she reflects, she examines,
she candles them up to the light like an egg,
never flinching;
she bargains,
she tumbles her prize
in a market bag
among shoes and a
cabbage head,
a bottle
of vinegar; is back
in her kitchen.
The artichoke drowns in a ***
So you have it:
a vegetable, armed,
a profession
(call it an artichoke)
whose end
is millennial.
We taste of that
sweetness,
dismembering scale after scale.
We eat of a halcyon paste:
it is green at the artichoke heart.
16.7k
How do we begin
The music
Of love making?
Are we sure
That the language we share
Is harmonic?
Who arranges the pulse of the piece?
Who decides which beats are
Accented
Which beats
Are not?
Will they give rise
To our motif?
Will our phrases
Use repetition or contrast
Be weak or strong
****** or repose?
Will our passage
Be AABB
Or AABA?
How many themes
And how many variations
Will we play
on our
delicate instruments?
Will our cycle be
a symphony
or will we
happily create
a one movement work
with an air
of spontaneous inspiration
and call ourselves
a rhapsody?
Jan 6, 2011
Jan 6, 2011 at 6:17 PM UTC
.
As his words flow like honey onto the page
with a nod of approval from a linguistic sage.
Long gone are the days when a woman's plays
would look at the poet with a romantic gaze.
His sad verse no longer makes her cry,
his love poems fail to lift her heart to fly.
Her attention wanders like a lonely voice
away from sanctuary, towards more choice.
And as his pen drifts across a blank page
he remembers the ladies, being centre stage,
the looks of adoration in a beautiful face,
deep pools of experience for his art to embrace.
Melancholic he dips his pen again and tries,
imagination musing her gorgeous ****** eyes.
But the words won't flow, so defeated he cries,
and arranges poets tears into convenient lies.
© Pagan Paul (2017/18)
Jul 18, 2018
Jul 18, 2018 at 6:55 AM UTC
Smoke tokes out of the monkey's head, embers embellish empathic light enlightening gypsy nymphs from miles around, a glowing lighthouse haven heaven in nirvana massages lavender bubbles upon pores restoring strength to warriors of the rainbow tribe."
Wind rustles with us...
Stay grounded, you're found before you're even lost. Some get tossed and turned by the sea, but a smooth one never created a skilled pirate with third-eye versatile switch-blade heartbeat ink scribed on blood-vessel maps, following the soul tattoos and taboo time scars along with the azurite lightning stars shooting in our brain.
Time stops sometimes...
*Seasons change DNA re-arranges as we grow goin' with our own flow down the subconscious ocean, sometimes watchin' sunsets into a haze of sweet *** sweat and green cigarette peacetime sufi twirling our conscious to the north star crown chakra.*
Love is. Always.
Mar 22, 2014
Mar 22, 2014 at 4:12 PM UTC
Friend one:
Reads "Rotten Tomatoes"
Always early, parks in a handicap zone
Friend two:
quietly disapproves
knows Friend one walked her dog a mile earlier
Friend one:
moves her car
digs out two waters, chocolate
and back pillow
buys peace and tickets
Friend two:
catches sneeze with *** of tissue
aggravated exchange:
about walking too fast ahead.
“Are you not my friend? Walk with me!”
Buys popcorn
Friend one:
wants seats on the end
for handy bathroom runs
Friend two:
does not want “the blow by blow” of reasons
just not in rafters
sneezes, and says so
trips
spills popcorn on the stairs
Friend one:
Sets up “camp”
Friend two:
holds crap
Friend one:
Settles in, builds her "nest"
opens water bottles
arranges back pillow
half-a-million napkins
“Want your jacket?”
Friend two:
holds popcorn, helps Friend one with jacket
Friend one:
pushes button for her seat back
seat sounds like a ****
Friend two:
says so, both laugh like fools
Friend two sneezes loudly, rubs her eyes
loses self in movie
Friend one:
starts to snore quietly
Friend two:
nudges her
Friend one:
(Who is never really snoozing)
runs out to restroom
misses best part of movie
Comes back,
“What happened?”
What happened?”
Friend two:
aggravated
hushes her
takes allergy pill
Friend one:
weeping at the end, watches all the credits
starts her review
apologizing to the kids of theater-cleaning-crew
popcorn, napkins, tissues everywhere
Friend two:
Sneezes yet again
Friend one:
Knows all the stars--
of friendship
being how she is one :)
Oct 7, 2018
Oct 7, 2018 at 11:52 PM UTC
The principal in a cool cartoon tee
His fashion sneakers squeaking across the floor
Sets out candy, pizzas, and canned sodas
Arranges a door prize, and assembles the faculty
Requires them to sign in so he can check on them
Orders them to hold hands and sing the school song
Reminds them they are all one big family
As a preface to his primary agenda:
To tell them to be more professional
The principal in a cool cartoon tee
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 3:57 PM UTC
Eyes stare...
Into nothingness,
The jigsaw of to be’s,
Arranges and rearranges;
Into an appeal of mirage...
Swelling the oasis of life!
And when the glare pierces,
Eyes blink;
The jigsaw settles,
Synchronized with reality;
Strengthening my mind...
To derive the quirky balance -
Between the could be’s ;
And the one that is!
May 20, 2013
May 20, 2013 at 3:51 AM UTC
There is a sequence of small events, signs; that as they occur point us in the direction of the mid-winter festival. This morning: the first snow; iced rain, not the soft down-like floaty stuff, but hard crystal-shaped foot-crunching shards. Yesterday, it was on with the wooly hat, the padded waistcoat and a more than just sprightly walk in a park of leafless trees. Everywhere, a damp coldness.
Sitting companionably after the meal, a fire spitting in the hearth had brought a glow to her cheeks. She was replete with glowness, her speech dancing too and fro after the family phone calls of a Sunday night. Outside, the sound of wind against the house.
Settling herself against him, feet tucked under his reclining body, she tells him about her niece, a birthday girl just two last week. This little one was touchingly innocent of what happens on a birthday. She knew it was coming, next week, soon, then tomorrow. Imagine her the night before: just think you'll wake up and be two! And that's what this birthday business is? She wakes and there is something special in the air, her sister smile-full, bouncy with expectation. Her parents’ voices are louder than usual, there are bigger hugs and longer kisses. Birthday, birthday, birthday. Her grandparents arrive. More hugs. THEN her father appears with a cake! It's only just after breakfast, but the large people are having coffee and there's her juice cup and a cake! Birthday, birthday, birthday shouts her sister. For me, a cake for me? My cake? Daddy lights the candles! Oh, oh, oh. This is . . . and something wrapped in pretty paper is being handed to me. Her sister, being wonderfully sisterly shows her how to remove the wrapping. A book! Read it to me now, now, please. It's my birthday, now.
This is a sign he thinks later when in bed she folds herself to him, arranges his arms and hands to hold her into sleep, still glowing a little. This is surely a sign. A child's discovery of the birth day. The joy it brings, the way it lights up our lives. And never again will her father see quite that measure of surprise and delight in his daughter's face. Next year she'll be full of expectation, know all about birthdays . . and be three.
Dec 2, 2012
Dec 2, 2012 at 1:56 AM UTC
Oh, but it is *****
--this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!
Father wears a *****
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it's a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly *****
Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a ***** dog, quite comfy.
Some comic books provide
the only note of color-
of certain color. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.
Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)
Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
ESSO--SO--SO--SO
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.
3.8k
"Dear Mama",
Question...
"Is life worth living or should I blast myself"
I'm always searching for those "better days"
knowing that peace in my heart will come In "Thugs Mansion".
Where I can "sip champagne
while I listen to Billy Holliday sing
and sit there kickin it with Malcolm till the day came."
Should I "ride on my enemies"?
Become one of "Amerikas most wanted"?
Or should I remember
that "the road is hard so I'll never give up"?
And "time don't stop, always going by.
So I'll puff on mine, hoping that it will get me high"
Smile for me.
"Won't you smile for me now"?
"It ain't easy" being a changed man
so when it feels like "all eyez on me".
I just remember that
"heaven ain't hard to find".
But I'm Not starving, I been eatin Hardy,...like the night at that "Gangsta Party"....
Certain things happen, I wana be happy so I have to make some arranges... Hopin in my life I have the ability to 1 day make those "Changes"...
Aug 8, 2014
Aug 8, 2014 at 12:01 PM UTC
Waiting for that paper, a light
A cursor that keeps blinking for the next word
Even when the screen arranges to sleep in daylight
Fingers begin to itch and start being febrile.
An email, such a pity,
is more accessible than
a post box.
All the handwriting fonts that I did try, couldn’t,
Just possibly couldn’t mirror the impeccable tries
To struggle to be parallel to the top
Or bottom of a page.
The improbability of what the next thought would be
The prediction of where the addressee would smile
Or frown, or pick up eyes to stare at the wall for a while,
To embrace what had just been conveyed.
Letters are like light, they reach us later
From when they were born, but the spaces
they illuminate or burn on their arrival!
I wonder if our pupils shrink.
They more than just tag along, they tap in,
They’re the result of cleaning the ink from
the nib, a thousand times, over thousands
of sentences, or maybe just a few, but they do.
And don’t dare ask the pen for proof!
It’ll track down wrinkled pages
Who had their thirst quenched by
The swipes of fountain pens’ fountainheads,
And pictures of the fingers
Bathed in red, and black, and blue,
And occasionally of table clothes
Spilled over by the consequence of imperfect handles.
Imagine if light came as soon as it was made,
It would be difficult for our eyes to handle such bait
Sometimes, a pause is necessary,
Imagine a world without commas!
I’d like to peek into the writer’s letters,
Not to read, but to sense the shapes of emotions
And stretches of As and Ns, or the reach of commas
On the next line, and then, close my eyes
And shove my nose in it, to sniff hard
The paper and the blue smells,
And die doing so if it was eventual.
Jul 5, 2016
Jul 5, 2016 at 3:13 PM UTC
*She arranges her face into a smile;
And no one will ever know she was crying.*
Apr 18, 2013
Apr 18, 2013 at 2:36 PM UTC
My mother works as florist, she cuts and arranges flowers in order to make it pretty. Even though my mother works at home she never has time to sit down. She is always in a hurry and never has time to worry. My mother has a mentally sick family, it runs in the blood but skipped her generation and found its way to her children's brains. The sickness came as a lightning from a thunderstorm - totally expected. Yet, my mother never saw it coming because she never had time to sit down and listen to the thunder roaring, she just turn up the volume on the radio, which only played happy songs about love and flowers. Inside the house the flowers wither from all the depressed children compressing the air till there is nothing left. Everyone sits at the dinner table gasping for air while fighting for the attention of an uncaring florist. She never sees the pain in her children's eyes or how their always wear long sleeves even when the flowers are blooming outside. My mothers children never felt pretty nor good enough so they started cutting their own skin.
Feb 10, 2017
Feb 10, 2017 at 10:26 AM UTC
How strange
That this inedible feast
Should be arranged with such care:
Place one greenandorange gourd here,
No here! And –- oh!
But there are so many
miniature vegetables to be sorted.
**** The pumpkin could not hold its position.
Well, we’ll have to see to that, presently.
This ceremony lingers for hours
Beneath the well-placed coffee poster instructing
“Éviter les Contrefaçons”
Avoid the Counterfeits.
And all the while Mother arranges a
cornucopia of assorted indigestables.
Aug 10, 2010
Aug 10, 2010 at 1:11 PM UTC
"I easily forget names" his confession rings loud.
She smiles as if she knew this all the while,
She is a woman who forgives, like nature.
She loves his big hands and the promise
Of caresses to sow goosebumps all over
The infertile earth.Suddenly fecundity arrives.
Then, the scents, pheromones wafts to his mind
Speak the same language in different accents
At times it is read as the whispers of winged desire.
The purple hues of arousal, and if read from an angle
Different,it spells sin in black, in calligraphic letters
The flow he is, that dances through hills and dales
Wind and water romancing red earth and ocean.
Where once blood spilled in fierce battle with foes,
A tree full of flowers now smile,a magical moment of life!
She is the drop that oozes under the moss, gathering speed
The fog that spreads and embraces the extended woods.
She defies the limits of mind and touch ebullient galaxies.
She is the field of ripe corn, mellow yellow, gently swaying.
The seeds she collects and keeps safely in her living repository.
Whatever she spills becomes her on which tomorrow smiles.
At the window wind knocks,breaks the egg shell of a dream.
She emerges, opens the door, finds him gets charged once more.
It was raining outside, an auspicious hour, like blooming lotus,
Time to conduct fertility rights,for seeds to come alive.
He feels the stirrings nature creates, arranges all
Necessary things, he towers above all
He is the sun that spreads his warm rays around.
She is the fecund red earth to be sowed at nature's behest.
The horns blow aloud, she heard, and closed her eyes.
Felt like a flower, ready to open her petals for a bee folding wings.
Oct 11, 2016
Oct 11, 2016 at 4:30 PM UTC
Arrested and convicted of sabotage,
Madiba resists the Apartheid.
We live and rest in good company,
while counterparts seek new shelter to hide.
Time has elapsed, and man discusses these changes,
of the past that has rotted away, which builds upon our ignorance.
Do you not see the same in existence,
the backwards, in truth, which our skin folk arranges?
Rewind or fast forward, backwards will remain the truth,
I will remain Madiba, President of Belief.
Trusting enough minds with similar desires,
may place an unwarranted end to all others’ grief.
Swimming through a crowd of faces,
painted shades I witness unfolding.
We are but fingers on a hand, separate yet together,
Booker claimed this truth as a new era began molding.
Yet is this era really new; Are we to believe the past is past,
as I witness starvation, corrupt education, and abandoned dreams?
My kin folk inform and educate my evolving mind,
of hidden conceptions that my skin folk blatantly screams!
I am able to speak with my mother, knowing she is safe,
grateful that our family must not live in fear.
But why must some of us remain unused,
when our help is called for year after year?
Indira has communicated,
that you cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
The fingers, which are part of the whole, clasp tightly,
for my skin folk, not my kin folk, are amidst.
There are racial issues, undoubtedly,
in the land of the free, home of the brave.
And all over the world it reigns,
you cannot be blind to it, that we have a modern slave.
This is not a physical destruction,
you will not witness it branding the skin.
But a mental and spiritual deterioration,
directed, and has infected,
most of my kin.
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 5:04 PM UTC
The photographer
says to sit
and be at ease.
You sit on the chair
he has left for you.
Eye the studio
old photos on the walls
a tripod and camera
in front.
He standing there
bespectacled
dark haired.
You want
your photograph
with the headpiece on?
he says.
Yes it was my mother's
you reply.
He nods
and arranges
the headpiece
to set it straight
and even at the sides.
You have very
distinctive eyes
he says
standing back
gazing at you.
Your nose
is straight
and aligns
with the center
of your chin.
You say nothing
your nerves are bad
you want him
to get on with it
but sit waiting.
He takes the camera
and sets it before you.
He disappears
behind the camera.
You freeze
frightened to move
your hands stiff
in your lap.
Relax
he says
the camera
won't bite.
You feel hot
in the black dress
you sense
your underclothes
stick to your skin.
You try and relax
pretend he's not there
but behind him
over his shoulder staring
is your mother's ghost
or so seems
like a figure
haunting dreams.
Jun 29, 2017
Jun 29, 2017 at 8:55 AM UTC
I might be taking a break
but clearly he is not.
He watches as I spoon instant coffee
into white enameled mugs.
His gaze travels up my legs,
rests on the hem of his sweater.
I catch his eye, he smiles,
shrugs an apology, carries on.
I shift my weight from foot to foot,
arch my back, wiggle my hips-
Resist the urge to do
a bad rendition of 'Time Warp'
He accepts his coffee with a nod,
watches me drink mine-
then it's time for us
to settle back to work.
He re-arranges jars, cleans new brushes-
while I get naked and in position,
him watching from the corner of his eye.
Straight away the aches return,
my muscles tie themselves in knots-
and I know it's just a shadow
of the pain that is to follow.
muse
Oct 5, 2011
Oct 5, 2011 at 12:35 PM UTC
Love is a bit of comedy, so be rough with love.
He arranges her one way and then another,
in itchy dissatisfaction. She surrenders to the role
like a silent bystander, a plaything in the hands
of impatience - what does he want?
“Like this,” he says in a schoolteacher’s voice.
The imbalance of power, the almost impersonal
manipulations, the momentum toward surrender,
and then the shocking, primal desire - to meld -
like a gunshot in a canyon long thought empty.
Jun 2, 2022
Jun 2, 2022 at 10:54 PM UTC
my face is on my grandmother's lacy diningroom table
it used to laugh through the creaky hallways
and pounce up the wooden stairs
and lay in the creek
but now it is imprisoned on the table
with all the other relatives
who are gone
that my grandmother
leaves there.
she walks by them
dusts the shelves by the big window
arranges chairs
avoids my frightening grandfather
reads books
drinks her tea
stares at the ghosts of her granddaughters
seated around her diningroom table.
i didn't mean to haunt her
i am sorry
grandmother
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 12:31 AM UTC
Skill is not always as it should be or what you think it is. There are hidden gifts inside the friction. There lies the way to a graceful life. You are not what you do: it then becomes a mirror to provide a higher learning in your evolutionary process.
Thus you are given a higher skill and levels grown in leaps and bounds. The zen garden expresses the essence of life and a highly perfected skill. Today as i sit by the wayside calling up the gardens of senses i view the placement of things in the garden of my soul. I see that it needs manicured. As my very thought is in action it arranges the action of self to suite my visions but is this reality?
I know there are billions of possible answers and come to the conclusion it is in perfect state as it was before i changed its placement. With in the desire for it to be perfected in my minds eye it gave a glow of deep scarlet in appreciation of the acknowledgment that my provider was perfect in all things.
Nov 13, 2010
Nov 13, 2010 at 4:55 AM UTC
Your chaotic laugh
arranges my disorders
adjusts my serotonin level
regulates my heart rate
So start with a smile
and see
how this cure happens
wave by wave
Watch me
Bloom and shine
this time
Apr 22, 2019
Apr 22, 2019 at 11:46 AM UTC
Giddy with excitement,
she fumbles with her keys.
As the key slides home,
she grows weak in the knees.
She’s waited so long,
and it’s finally come.
She spent a small fortune,
and the thing weighs a ton.
She pushes in the package,
starting to sweat,
and suddenly realizes,
her ******* are wet.
She slides a finger inside her,
and lets out a moan,
trembling slightly,
all the way to the bone.
Gathering herself,
she locks the door tight,
and forces herself to calm down,
gathering all her might.
Getting down on her knees,
she opens the box,
brushing away the packing,
like styrofoam rocks.
When she sees his face,
she sits up *****
He is so lifelike,
and anatomically correct.
Reaching into the box,
she caresses his face.
He’s so beautifully sculpted,
not a thing out of place.
Then she runs her hands,
down his chest to his groin,
caressing his ****
feeling the warmth in her *****
It’s bigger than expected,
as long as her forearm.
The biggest she’s had,
but this raises no alarm.
Taking her time,
she arranges him on the bed.
Even laying a pillow,
under his head.
Running fingers through his hair,
she begins to undress.
Doing it slowly,
cause slowly is best.
He’s more than a doll,
more than plastic parts.
He will never hurt her,
or break her heart.
She crawls on all fours,
in between his thighs,
running her fingers over him,
as she stares into his eyes.
Then she fills her mouth,
******* gently at first,
and then she fills her throat,
trying to quench her thirst.
She’s dripping now,
so exquisitely wet,
and moaning deeply,
like a good little pet.
The doll lays still,
as she mounts it slow.
She’s lost in her pleasure,
as something brushes her toe.
She opens her eyes,
as a hand grabs her throat,
and another her breast,
her vision starting to float.
She struggles for air,
and feels a ****** as it moves,
and a soft moan escapes it,
as the blackness consumes.
Bucking and fighting,
she claws at its face,
but it simply slides deeper,
and quickens its pace.
She stares down into eyes,
that are filled with life,
and features so sharp,
as to be carved by a knife.
It’s beauty is gone,
simply melted away,
seeming to flow freely,
as if made from soft clay.
As her vision fades,
it moves inside her,
whispering “my princess”,
in a soft little purr.
Dec 12, 2019
Dec 12, 2019 at 4:14 PM UTC
Sometimes a poet's muse
comes
e
r
r a
t
i c
a
l
ly
like a
puzzle
s c a t t e r r e d
on
the marble
of
his
imagination
then
he
picks
his quill
with
his
witty
hands
and arranges
his thoughts
into a poem.
Sep 22, 2016
Sep 22, 2016 at 5:51 AM UTC