"asserting" poems
Bent
Near to breaking
by her burden
of fruit, swollen with seed
In that thrashing by wind
Bearing down on the sun
in her labor—
of Need
to bear
the pain
to bring
her yield
to his hands—
her harvest
of warm juicy softness
___
Gone—
the upright
reach of untouchable spring
When stems, stern and smooth
wore a lace-beaded bodice of bloom
of coral chiffon
First leaves
a scarf
with a fringe of lime green
wrapping her gifted and lean
to the buzzing
She was lighter than dew
to the amateur insects
smeared with her
Her only accessory--
a robin
They had left
as evidence
they had ravaged
its song
___
Now broken and leaking
more damage endured
Ripe fruit in rough hands
He leans against limbs
by his weight sternly pressed
so suffused in the fragrance
of peach intoxicants
which he will have--
He is lost to his lust
He is forcing his need
into another year's beauty
asserting his claim over and over again
of that lost and ancient bounty
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 3:59 PM UTC
#his eyes are warm, a hazel brown
upon his head the devil’s crown
hell's fire reveals his true intention
it's why the lord refused his ascension
his lust it flickers, a candle in the storm
mine burns for him, undying, unnerving
he doesn't love me
he never will
but oh he's a man when he grips my thigh
he spreads me open and makes me sigh
asserting dominance he whispers sin
i cry for god but my voice runs thin
he's had his ***** way with me
I'm tainted, ruined, marked and done
he's finished with me, had his fun
yet
sometimes in my wildest dreams
I yearn for him and that wicked gleam.
Jul 18, 2018
Jul 18, 2018 at 3:50 PM UTC
I thought I heard
Canadian slang
from the opposite bed-side
Like it's 2009, rub some lines off my face.
Inner space bleeding outward,
deep red, a nosebleed,
angled points on white of The Maple Jack.
A Nip at the Sal's on Esplanade-Riel.
Grab your runners and toque,
it's warm, but not forever
and these legs are sore. Polar bears
on the sweater you wore in the Fall--
Churchill, Manitoba, the streets are full of teeth and claws.
Awoke and wanted warmth lacking.
I thought I heard Canadian slang.
I thought I heard "it'll be okay"
from the voices of feathers fletching arrows falling.
they whisper and screams sink deep behind
eyelids
closing.
A sentence unfinished,
sinking in flesh
in time
sinking
in snow and ice
sinking
in water in Summer
sinking
in memory.
I thought I heard
plans being made
and shy laughter.
I heard it 5 times. Didn't I?
Days fade, ears dull*
Walking on streets, in the cold
towards her home
I thought I heard laughter--
heard something
like laughter--
I thought I heard rain, as the Lodgepoles drank water.
I thought I heard laughter.
I thought I heard wax melt.
I thought I smelled fairness.
I thought you wanting more time
to bleed and blur tenses.
I thought I heard rivers rushing and roaring
their battle cries--
--asserting their presence.
I thought I heard cars pass and sounds of the daytime
and late March walk along bridges.
I could swear I heard something
Like Canadian slang,
sweet
water
light
laughter.
Something.
Jun 28, 2018
Jun 28, 2018 at 1:28 PM UTC
TO AFRIKA, THE POWERFUL GIANT WHO IS BOUND, TEARS AT HER OWN FLESH AND CAN NOT SEE HER OWN BEAUTY
How long shall we grind our teeth?
As old man's bones crack to the beat
Of their picks digging white man gold in black man land
Afrika mama, you soul is sold
Vuka Afrika Mama
Ikati lilele eziko
As vultures tap dance on your corrugated iron roof
Hyenas point and cackle baring sharpened tooth
All the while you slumbered
They shackled you and tore your treasure asunder
Now is the time to break free
Clear those scales from your eyes so you can see
How long shall we cry these crocodile tears?
As the swollen belly babies, eyes filled with fear
Watch the queen who bore them, cowered in the corner, face to the ground
Battered by the head of the household, asserting his authority
No mercy to be found
Zijonge Afrika mama
Ubone ubuhle bakho
They lied and said your ebony skin wasn't beautiful
At all cost remain dutiful
Head bowed, queen uncrowned
All the while you doubt yourself
There are those who eye and pillage your riches
May our united voice bring you to your senses
Lest you find yourself stripped naked, while balancing on fences
Jun 21, 2014
Jun 21, 2014 at 2:42 AM UTC
1236
Like Time’s insidious wrinkle
On a beloved Face
We clutch the Grace the tighter
Though we resent the crease
The Frost himself so comely
Dishevels every prime
Asserting from his Prism
That none can punish him
3.6k
before existentialism, and nietzsche in mind, philosophy was written
or spoken of accepting the socratic rigidity of words,
the rigidity of words known through
the socratic method of inquiry:
the simplest of questions imposed on
the meaning of words; e.g. what is virtue?
but with existentialism this old method
of inquiry, the poised posing bewilderment
lost its quality, in that the new method of
inquiry was given to stress not a method
of questioning but that of ambiguity,
even though this new method that simply
said the reverse of what is virtue as
the preservation of a narrative: "virtue" concedes
many variations exampled true, e.g. -
this dittoing going against - previously said /
as above - became staged against
a brick wall - since this method, the existential
method of brushing aside inquiry and entering
the realm of ambiguity was already present -
the pluralism of meaning found in certain words;
it isn't a question whether red or blue can
be ambiguous, this allocation of noun
and quality is all too pervasive - so when
an ambiguity is allowed to exercise its stressor
posit - the word in question is allocated
a verb orientation in its exercise of use and example,
further diluted by the quantity and lack of example,
and ascribed contorting
adjectivity due to the dilution of meaning: with lessened
recognition of sought out qualification to sentence
an enzymic perfection of: banker and philanthropist,
priest and maximilian kolbe, poetry and lack of envy.
even though these examples are idealistic,
they provide the obvious ambiguity already apparent,
hence the double ambiguity of opposites, ideal opposites.
in shorthand - if socrates were to come
upon reading existentialism - his questions
regarding the virtues would be bound to free floating
terms in the ditto bubbles of flimsiness of non-inquiry -
bewildered by the number of prompts to question,
there would be no necessary ambiguity to many other
terms of inactivity - such as the previously mentioned
red and blue, dog and glue, but too many, it would seem,
should a strict belief in categorising virtue as a noun
but not a verb be kept - for categorisation of such nature
only provides a linear cascade without due action
or cared for imitation - ending with the only chance of virtue
chanced and seen as an unvirtuous person
doing crossword puzzles in silence - and already
virtue's opposite is engaged in defending itself
and justifying its ills by first forcing many synonyms to
cover it in ambiguity, and asserting itself as an adjective
within a noun framework blunt: virtue v. unvirtuous
will only confiscate siamese phonetic mingling to ease the definition;
i guess that's how rhyming was born, the opposite
of alphabetical ordering: a, aardvark the violet's blue
****** a doughnut with you.
Sep 22, 2015
Sep 22, 2015 at 11:31 AM UTC
concrete slams across my shoulder blades as you press your body against mine
an outside invasion;
oppression
my hands climb to my lips warding off the gin and wine of your
kiss
it poisons me as you reach to grab my flesh
I should’ve turned to coffee and water;
velvet nights of smooth moonlight and a bitter windchill
God whispered warnings of you
across my thighs, near your neck
gin and wine
it’s you and me, mixing liquor with jealousy
fabricated curls and a whitened smile
you stand towering over me
asserting deceitful dominance at every chance
yet darling,
I’m
Nov 10, 2014
Nov 10, 2014 at 8:45 PM UTC
Little wallflower at the back of the room
Sitting pretty, waiting to bloom
Watching the others in their gaiety
Dreaming of tiny steps to spontaneity
If you have something to say, say it
But even when you do, you delay it
Sitting in the back all alone
Where have you hidden your backbone?
You wait it out until that perfect silence
The challenge, the defiance
Of delivering the right answer
When everyone else just stands there
But it seems it will never come
You'd rather they think you were dumb
Instead of watching the heads turn
And feeling your throat burn
And it has to be something meaningful
Something wise, beneficial
Because this is the leaf upturned
This is the incense finally burned
You must be wise and reveal a profound truth
Or the silent one will be seen as the dumb mute
But not too weird and different either
Or you might as well be having a seizure
As you speak there is such an unjust silence
And as you finish an applause and laughter like raw violence
For despite your careful wording
They will never pay attention to anything but asserting
Asserting, asserting is gold
Asserting yourself and being bold
Being confident, being ****
Being exposed, being rude
Even if you proved the professor wrong
Even if in three seconds you wrote a song
Even if you recited a hundred digits of Pi
All they care about is that you are speaking and that you were once shy
And that
my friends
is a spectacle
Mar 29, 2012
Mar 29, 2012 at 4:27 PM UTC
oh such few words are minded,
no bravery apart
from the homosexuals
as skeletons in the chronicles of Narnia
being discovered among
the skeletons of tyrannosaurus rex
making a bed with its wheelchair able
paws - and the flag of the Cymru
fire-breathing turtles before excavation
and the myths of the mandarin too;
now tell me the sub-human plot with the
Normans when the anglo-sax reigned
to teach me to unlearn english
to avoid assimilation,
like you taught your former colonial subjects
to integrate and to alievate keeping assimilation:
which you taught to unlearn the mother's
tongue and learn a discrimination
against furthering the multi-cultural project...
which you taught to integrate and
keep at loss a sacred soul of never assimilating
akin to jew...integrate i must,
assimilate i care not for should i be totally
albino or asserting bleached with peace:
albino oder beteuern gebleicht mit frieden.
integrate i must to utilise the coinage
but to assimilate i must turn into a reggae african
with roots in the Caribbean than the Ivory Coast...
and god willing i will not claim to be
an arab's brother to settle karma over
uplifting the curse over Mecca with ibn Saud's
clock-tower; burn!!!
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 11:07 PM UTC
Reading the other day,
an article about some,
Renowned fellow's notion,
On the study of "Human,
Productive Locomotion".
A reputed Authorty,
of "Time Management",
His main proclivity being,
The belief in his increasing,
Other peoples productivity.
Modulating their all too,
common Human tendency,
For naturally wasting time,
and non productive energy.
Him asserting himself to be,
a self styled know it all,
Bonafied Expert in Efficiency.
Now I can see,
How it might be,
That this type of study,
Offers some relevancy,
For the Barons of Industry,
What with them regulating,
The flow, While streamlining,
and furthering the advance,
of all things, relating to commerce.
A purely Scientific belief,
For the primary benefit,
Of the Time Clocks sake,
And all those Bosse's
Emotional financial betterment.
But what on earth,
did that have to do,
with an old retired,
fool like me?
What matter that,
I merely sit and think,
for hours at a time.
Read the paper,
or a book,
Computer chat,
or cook?
Putter in my garden,
Or gratefully just stare,
at big billowing clouds,
or rainbows in the air.
Or perhaps I choose,
to hug my wife,
Or chase my Grand
Kids up a tree,
Maybe grab a nap,
Or even take a ***
Pet my dog,
Or have a Beer.
Watch the Tube,
a little bit,
Or congregate to meditate,
with a convivial group of friends.
Maybe take a walk,
Down by the river.
Get out my old,
Bow and Quiver.
Wash my car,
Cut some grass,
Go to my writing class.
Slip on down,
to the " Red Dog Saloon"
Where I'll promenade,
A little Texas Two Step.
Come home in time,
To unwind and,
watch some David Letterman.
What's efficient,
and what is not?
Clearly, that interpretation,
Is completely up to me.
No Efficiency Expert needed.
Aug 28, 2013
Aug 28, 2013 at 4:33 PM UTC
A Mothers Voice
The first that you hear kisses your tears and soothes your fears
A Lovers Voice
Who's whispers of *** entice and perplex your body's reflex
An Awesome Voice
That shouts out loud stands up and is proud not lost in the crowd
A Powerful Voice
One that rallies and fights without losing sight asserting its rights
A Survivors Voice
Riddled with pain no longer in chains her monsters slain
A Warriors Voice
Strong and controlled without being told breaks free of the mold
This is My Voice
All the above
Warm like a glove
And full of love
(C) Pixievic
Mar 8, 2016
Mar 8, 2016 at 8:00 AM UTC
is there noon on this comparison, and where does the stabilising hour care to fathom the giant and dwarf shadows of original shapes? if there is no magnetism of the clock's hour, minute, second, then the only magnetism apparent in the encircling of digestion / decimalisation, is to say the north of a compass, the compass' north equivalence of a clock's misdirecting eternity: of space for a clock asserting a mingling reason: the compass found it's existential reason in the north, yet the clock found it's "north" without care for magnetism, it equated the north with space, and yet what was encapsulated with rotary qualities? for clock the perpetuation of tick tock in space / for the clock treated space as a one-dimensional abstract, with its three-temporal awareness, and yet the compass said north thrice, and on the fourth said Antarctica was loosened to be explored.
i'm so tired - lifeless poetry,
make words encoded; i'm so tired,
so tiresome of other people
with bellies filled
and eyes in medium postponing,
to compass the needle
a gravity of servitude for the
clock of 12 (north), 6 (south),
and the disputed 9 (east) with
3 the (west),
darting eyes in Bahamas
for direction coarse yet coerced
by a promise, thus the compass riddling a madness
of constant stimulation with magnetism and
the magnet cursor of orbit -
wound three dimensions of time,
space optional, space always optional,
as ever time over-arching to be understood...
where then the compass, where then the clock,
if the compass led by vector of magnetism
to an uncertain place,
if the clock led by vector of missing magnetism
to a certain place of eased: tick, tock, tick, tock...
will that be equally given a wavering of
east, west, east west.... north, south...
what now?!
Mar 14, 2016
Mar 14, 2016 at 7:47 PM UTC
Running away from her feelings
Don't want no hurt
Don't want inspiration
They only subvert
Her poor fragile heart
She gives her all
Gets smithereens in return
Don't want no broken dreams
Don't want empty hopes
Don't want those sleepless nights
It's a periscope
Couldn't see it before
Now she knows
She's a shell of the old her
No signs of reverting
Built walls around her heart so high,
The heavens are confronting
It's comforting
This deserting
Feeling of the heart
No one's gonna break me
She says asserting
No one's gonna hurt me
Her lips reverberating
Eyes full of misery
Her loneliness shines through
Captivating silver eyes
Moist with morning dew
Or are those tears?
Taking a hue
Of molten silver
Or the dark stormy nights
They've witnessed all along
When they all eschewed
When they all ran away
Well, adieu
They don't deserve her anyway
Don't deserve her beautiful soul
Don't deserve her unconditional love
Or the compassion she holds
Her blinding bright smile
Or the twinkle of her eyes
The softness of her lips
She exists to mesmerize
So, adieu
Because she's a fighter
An igniter
Of the passion he holds
Adieu
He says thankyou
Because she's a queen
And all his to love
Oh if you only knew.
~S.L.
Jan 23, 2017
Jan 23, 2017 at 6:14 AM UTC
As time passes, loneliness remains present
Suddenly, the breeze metamorphoses,
Myself roams aimlessly like the seeds of the dandelions,
Once again, the thought of you...
Never fails to efflorescence,
Stop asserting to me that, with the passage of time,
Complete healing of a given affliction will certainly occur...
Because I am still mourning..
Apr 22, 2023
Apr 22, 2023 at 5:44 PM UTC
I had no intention of letting you come so close,
Why I let it get so out of hand, I don’t really know,
For I knew exactly when to go,
Even so I didn’t go..
This is what I get I suppose for hoping for the best,
For accidentally letting you get beneath my flesh,
True friends stab you in the chest,
Because they know your weakness..
I like the way you hold me,
Hold me, even though it’s holding me down,
My friends all thinking I’m getting kicked around,
You may hold me down, but at least you’re holding me
I wonder if you know just how much it hurt me,
That you could help me feel alive and then just desert me,
Even after asserting
You’d never hurt me..
I like the way you hold me,
Hold me, even though it’s holding me down,
My friends all thinking I’m getting kicked around,
You may hold me down but at least you’re holding me
Dec 8, 2010
Dec 8, 2010 at 12:29 PM UTC
Sub-atomic particles
the atoms they form
molecules, cell organelles
cells, machinery of life
organs, organisms
communities and ecosystems
planets, solar systems, galaxies
galactic clusters and their inverse
black holes the doors to other
universes, a contradiction
in terms.
For language and its shadow
consciousness must hold matter
the material world snugly inside concepts
theories and hypotheses to be
experimentally verified using vision
and the other senses, collecting data
and interpreting the known facts
accumulated over time.
Can matter
exist without a consciousness to behold it?
Believing in
our mortality (the species)
we have created God
(a supreme being)
probably not carbon-based
to encompass every universe
but is God
inside or outside
consciousness? Can God
tell us what to do
or must we tell God
alone
what to do?
Here is ego
projecting personality, exerting force
on community, asserting the existence
and predominance of component DNA.
An already hackneyed theory that DNA
survival drives
procreation, personality, savings bonds
everything but poetry (most poems included).
Mustache, cowboy hat
horse whisperer, gulag master
Odysseus, King Lear
salvation in the details.
Yes, these personalities individual and interesting
as opossum, bear
oak and ash
beech nut, pine cone
Grand Canyon sandstone, Green Mountain granite.
Aug 9, 2015
Aug 9, 2015 at 5:13 PM UTC
There can be no absolution
for the things I’ve done
yet you do not talk of revenge or retribution
you forgive, too easily
(or maybe I believe, too easily)
lulled into a false sense of security
maybe I will pay one day
offer a vial of my blood to a faceless God
break my bones down
until they are a pile of dust
dust that you can scatter, like ashes
pretending I was good once, kind, considerate
a girl a million miles away for the one
wielding the knife over your best friend’s heart
yes, there were mitigating circumstances
but very few victims actually **** their ******
I mean, that’s wrong. They all should, really,
and get away with it.
because people like that have given up
their right to live
**** is ****** in a way,
except you wake up…
to **** these animals is self defence,
reclaiming, asserting yourself that
you will NOT be a ******* victim
that there can be only one survivor in this
and that’s you
Aug 6, 2021
Aug 6, 2021 at 9:54 PM UTC
At the very beginning of time
The Sky and Sea were bound together
In a sweet embrace that graced their prime
Days were peaceful, with pleasant weather.
But they were wrenched apart, as Earth grew
Asserting his might in the trinity
With a chasm he split them clean in two
Dividing them for eternity.
So the Sky weeps storms in her sorrow
Weaving her anguish within the rain
In the winter, her tears turn to snow
Punishing land as they mask her pain.
It's the only way she remains brave
The one way that she can reach her love
So he stretches up with surf and wave
Telling her he knows what she feels above.
Nov 14, 2018
Nov 14, 2018 at 4:33 PM UTC
I’m in the same place as all of yous, but I’m absent minded and got misanthropic contempt, like anthropomorphic deer by the highway watching Cadillac surgery. But deep cardiac compassion, all you idiots are inside of me, lashing out with lively love. Scorns used to scar, but now I smile. **** the struggle you’re on, and put your shoes on the final platform. It’s not truth mama, it’s death. Have you tried it? Me either, we’re both among breathers. Now, tell me about your facts in expressions unconditioned by human history. Tell me about those bats on your shoulders that babble obscenities like Black Beard’s parrot, named ****** He speaks not of this century, so his ***** are now children’s songs, sung around plastic bonfires, trying to roast electrical socket covers. To no avail.
Born human mightiest
Socially slighted and far-sighted
Let’s bash through hierarchy
I said bash
you P.C. crusader
cold as a computer
slaughtering the people’s good language
in the name of removing something savage
instead of asserting a new image
A true sign of the artist
but I’m no artist
Dec 15, 2013
Dec 15, 2013 at 12:00 AM UTC
I am the prodigal daughter that
will not be returning. I have squandered
your forgiveness, if ever
it was, on small sins
that I probably
could have avoided. Tiny ways
Of asserting my individuality, my
independence, my unwillingness to follow
anyone blindly. The food
I eat, the friends
I have, the actions
I take, the people
I love, they
are not as to your
specifications. I am the prodigal
daughter, the one
that stopped believing in your
(supposedly) everlasting love, your
(apparent) watching eye and protection. I
am the prodigal daughter, I
have given up on trying
for your acceptance, trying
to hurt myself to earn
the warmth and love I never
saw. For so long you
made me feel unworthy
of you, ineligible
for your embrace, and now
I finally know that I
truly do not deserve
the iron bars
of your acceptance, disguised
as a structure to hold
me up. I now know
I deserve more.
Jan 6, 2014
Jan 6, 2014 at 5:17 PM UTC
Socially Engaged Poetry
As an effective tool for advocacy
Creating partnerships and sharing skills
A voice to the voiceless, Split this Cliché
Empowerment to the empowermentless
Through bleats of provocation and witness
Copyrighted and stereotyped
In a World That is Forever 1968
Exploring and celebrating the many ways
We can score yet another guilt-grant
Asserting the centrality of the 501C3
Through bearing witness to diversity
As long as it behaves itself and thinks like us
Accessible and yet authentic
A n d l i k e d o s t u f f w i t h s p a c e l i k e u no
cause spaces
are authentic, and,
like
stuff
Poetry as a living, breathing art form
If you listen, you can hear its respirations
Gasping in the long, dark night of group-think
Obedient to a mission statement
And the careful construction of resumes
Committee integrate complexity
Formula dampens the authentic voice
Perform this vital work imagining
Personal and social responsibility
Revolutionary transformation
Write and perform this vital work support
Of human social justice experience
Grounded in holistic spirituality
Flouting the patriarchal something-ness
An act that requires community
If you love freedom, you dare not disobey
And let all the people say “Cogent!”
Jan 23, 2017
Jan 23, 2017 at 6:15 PM UTC
I extolled them as they went about their
Menial tasks in suits of silk;
Sunday bests amidst the concrete, the earth,
The broken shards of
Bamboo splintered skin, hiding interiors
And further, the broken mirrors of
The broken memories of the
Broken histories upon the
Broken backs become names wrought ancient.
Though further from fractured, a family calls,
Beholden to the absolute intent, but one wish –
Eternity amongst the bountiful brethren left behind
Atop tea-brimmed Mountains and a
One malevolent, revered benevolent,
Mao.
One more saga prerequisite this newer dynasty red –
Witness the
Wives huddled plowshares,
The daughter scribbled arithmetic
And sons assumed thrones to legacy.
I scrutinize soiled – smoke amid pear peelings,
The dirtied – unscathed and archaic,
So very fatigued – just one more nail,
For his eternity, with scratch and
Sliver of blood, a sanctity upon chin
Beyond cradled hammer,
Hand hugging thumb,
Thumb beyond nail, iron or the
Heart impaled homesick;
But I and hand asserting tie, freshly pressed,
Almost gleaming with an embezzled prestige –
Born unto Arcadia, a puzzle near complete
Continued to run, with only second’s pause to admire,
So very far from the fields of, “father,” or first blink,
While Sunday’s best weep, work and wither.
This man with joint autographed, “end,” and
Soon to be mound, history wrought dust,
A chipped Henan ceramic
And hours in attempt to breach;
Behold the back of Chen.
The title of this piece was inspired by observing constructions workers wearing suits we'd typically wear for an interview. That being said, my venture in China is near an end - years in the making. What's next? Ecuador? Japan? Morocco? Montana? Either way, I could never thank China enough for all that'd become naked before I and my pilgrimage christened, "world."
Jul 5, 2015
Jul 5, 2015 at 11:08 AM UTC
Pixels weigh upon my opaque mind set
The normal third tier of distance
is not asserting its wicked face
Never before has this scent wrung it self
From a fugitives discarded clothing
Dared to cross these topographic horrors
Deep in the hands of some bewildered mongrel
The evidence engulfs the ghastly thin walls
To lose the branding Hannibal
and his nomadic pursuit
Would mean retreat to an empty cavern
But With not even some flimsy novella?
The currents and the basket weaving
widows would not appease
The Ernest clock of monstrous honesty
Calls for us to depart
This holding cell is still filled
Deep with ticking heart valves
How many times has this repeated?
Were losing our grasp
It’s been hours
And without any thought devoid of mossy textures
Chalk smears and ambitious plastic
Dual neglected lives in this purgatory
The ones that have been haunted
They are boxed into some neurotic tri-valve machine
It spits back the violent and the tardy
Pleasing the populace is just not accessible today
It is without any grass
But this overly sensitive blanket that I touch
I must venture to this foreign world of pleasantries
Where cry shed over a dingy t-shirt
And the slow desertion of the wilder beast will not be tolerated
Nov 30, 2010
Nov 30, 2010 at 9:20 AM UTC