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amanda cooper Jan 2012
when the earth makes a complete orbit around the sun,
it is called a revolution.
when people stand up for what they believe in, enough to make a change,
it is called a revolution.
when you save something, preserve it for yourself,
it is called conservation.
when you told me you were leaving and i couldn't come with you,
we held what is called a conversation.
when i followed you across the country, train ticket in one hand and your hand in the other,
it was called love.
when you left me with nothing but a note on a hotel pillow,
it was called hate.
they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but words and pictures, slip-ups and homographs, grammar and literature and math and science,
none of it matters anymore.
none of it matters when nothing is changing and time stands still.
none of it matters when preserves run dry and talking turns to silence.
none of it matters with notes on a pillow that doesn't belong to you, thousands of miles from home.
1/27/12.
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2018
.on a lighter note, from what you'll find included below... the Rolling Stones or the Beatles? well... as well when asking the question John Coltrane or Miles Davies, or, or... Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven... in the last case? the latter. **** me... he loved music so much that he became deaf... just like Homer became blind; god, i love these famous instances of benevolent reasoning; with its cruel culminating outcome / closure... fate, it would seem... but then the sly nudge by something akin to... well i'm unsure which i prefer: Michelangelo's creation of Adam... or Rembrandt's Belshazzar's Feast... i think (but not doubt) that i'm more fond of the latter depiction.

i seriously only have a couple
of words to make a counter-argument...
this won't take long,
this is not going to become
one of those video tirades
  (Beethoven's ode to joy
is still playing in the background,
and yes, i am moderately sober,
i had to cook up a butter chicken
curry with a coriander
    and mind chutney for the chapaties...
chap chap... bud bud...
you want a stereotypical
Apu from the Simpsons?
just watch Australia's master-chef
from this year,
and look up a guy called
Sashi Cheliah...
    buddy bud bud... you get
the picture; it's his recipe...
   curry all day, curry in the morning,
curry in the afternoon,
curry in the evening,
dreaming of curry)...
internet de-platforming...
isn't it... technically illegal?
       just curious...
because...
             my internet provider cannot
exactly switch off my access
to the internet...
like a bailiff...
   i'm not paying the electricity bills,
so they come, and switch off
my electricity supply...
   what "we're" talking about is
a case of illegality...
   to de-platform you'd require
a service provider to implement sound
justifications...
but then...
   paradox avenue:
    they're not getting the money
needed to be a service provider...
so... i'm only supposed to have
the infrastructure of buying ****
online, and banking online...
   STOP ******* UP WITH THE *******
PLAYGROUND! PUT THE SAND
BACK INTO THE SANDBOX...
PUT THE WATER BACK INTO
THE TRAFALGAR SQ. FOUNTAIN!
it's illegal...
              why aren't the hardware
companies, beating the living **** out
of these software providers?
websites are software,
they're not the computers,
the cables, the workload of Atlases...
****... this is becoming a tirade
worthy of a video...
but Beethoven's ode to joy is playing
in the background,
and i never feel like talking...
itchy fingers you see...
the devil has work for idle hands...
it's illegal...
   because it bypasses the terms
of agreement you already made with
the internet providers...
so what... you can only do so much
on the internet?
these people have paid
for their internet connection!
                 what, a, load, of, *******;
so? ensure they pay less
for their internet access...
  given that a limited internet access
is being implemented...
i'm already past being ******
off at the jukebox...
       now i'm fuming... kettle mad
just around the time when
the water starts to boil.
Donall Dempsey Jan 2017
ATLASES OF THE MIND

an Atlantic ocean of a sky
clouds creating creatures
from a crazy Book of Kells

all carved from the pages
of the living Now
Mind is an island.
Setting sail on conceptual ships with charts of stars and atlases
only limited by imagination.
We look to the sea and our reflection shows in calm or turbulent waters.
Waves of wonder crest and pause
in the moment when the sea sees it’s reflection in us.
Peering out at the horizon
pondering ways to reach the other islands.
Feelings bloom into language used as planks in our ships.
Taking magic and turning it into science.
Growing into a symetrist seeking balance.
Trying to stay afloat in a jolly boat
to breach interpersonal moats.
But a parched heart wants to get wet.
Eyes turn from where the sun sets
and into the self.
Unflinching, I abandon ship.
Care for a swim?
Deborah Lin Jul 2013
My body is not poetry.
My spine is curled up
into a question mark
from centuries of insecurity
and the weight of the
worlds trapped in my skull.

My thighs are canvases for
atlases, road maps, and
interstate highways that lead to
nowhere. Or everywhere.
They’re big enough for both.

Not when my hands
are the kind that are meant to tremble
not the kind meant to be held.

My hips are not made
for you to skim
your hands over.
They are guideposts:
between (here) and (here)
lies a dreadfully broken girl.

My body is not poetry.
Because it won’t last as long as
dried ink on yellowed, musty pages.
Because it breaks more easily
than the cracked spines
of a beloved, well-read book.
Because it is not something that
soothes the soul and
makes my heart ache all at once.

My body is not poetry.*
Mostly because I’m
just a little afraid
of anybody who would be able
to read me so well
to put me into words.
SANTA'S GETTING OLDER AND HIS EYESIGHT'S NOT SO HOT
HIS MEMORY IS FADING TOO, THERE'S LOTS THAT HE'S FORGOT
LIKE WHERE HE'S BEEN, AND WHERE HE'S TO AND THE THE HELL IS HOME?
AND WHICH WAY IS INUVIK WHEN I TAKE OFF FROM NOME?
THER'S PLACES THAT HE'S BEEN TOO, THAT NOW HE CANN'T FIND
IT'S NOT THAT HE'S FORGETFUL, I THINK HE'S LOST HIS MIND
THE ELVES ALL STAY AWAY FROM HIM WHEN HE'S AROUND BECAUSE
HE'S ALWAYS GOING ON ABOUT THEIR RELATIVES IN OZ
THEY TELL HIM HE'S MISTAKEN AND THAT OZ IS NOT THERE
THAT IT WAS JUST A MOVIE, BUT SANTA DOESN'T CARE
HE SITS AROUND AND MUMBLES AND TALKS ABOUT THE PAST
ABOUT HOW THINGS ARE CHANGING AND KIDS GROW UP SO FAST.
"BEFORE COLUMBUS SHOWED HIS FACE..I HAD THIS THING DOWN PAT"
"I NEVER MISSED DELIVERIES BACK WHEN THE WORLD WAS FLAT"
"THE TIME ZONES HE CREATED WHEN HE PROVED THE WORLD WAS ROUND"
"GET ME HOME TWO HOURS PRIOR TO THE TIME I LEFT THE GROUND"
"I LEAVE AT TWELVE, DO MY TRIP AND I GET HOME AT TEN"
"I CAN'T REMEMBER IF I'VE BEEN...SO, I GO OUT AGAIN"
"WITH ALL THE MAIL THAT I RECIEVE, IT'S GETTING RATHER TOUGH"
"SO LAST YEAR I COMPUTERIZED TO ORGANIZE MY STUFF"
"I DESTROYED ALL MY INFO AND STORED IT ALL ON DISC"
"I LEAPT INTO THE FUTURE AND I TOOK A MAJOR RISK"
"MY ATLASES I TOOK AND BURNED, MY LISTS I RIPPED UP TOO"
"I DIDN'T NEED THESE THINGS NO MORE, NOT WITH MY IPAD2"
"WAY BACK IN MID DECEMBER THE PLUG SLIPPED FROM THE WALL"
"I DIDN'T HAVE A BACKUP, AND SO I LOST IT ALL"
"MY ELVES THEY CANNOT HELP ME, IN FACT THEY SIT AND LAUGH"
"BECAUSE LAST YEAR WHEN I AUTOMATED, I CUT MY STAFF IN HALF"
"IT'S GOING TO TAKE A WHILE, IT MAY BE A FEW YEARS"
"BUT I'LL DELIVER EVERY GIFT WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM SEARS"
"YOU SEE, I'VE GOT A CATALOGUE AND I'LL ORDER FROM THEIR SHELVES"
"WHO CARES IF I GET MY STUFF FROM THEM, OR IF I GET IT FROM MY ELVES?"
"I THANK YOU ALL FOR LISTENING, BUT NOW I'VE GOT TO SCOOT"
"YOU SEE, I DROPPED SOMETHING OFF WRONG AND YOUR GIFT'S IN BEIRUT"
"DON'T WORRY YOU'LL STILL GET IT, JUST CHECK BENEATH YOUR TREE"
"IT MAY TAKE A LITTLE WHILE, BUT I'LL GET IT THERE....YOU'LL SEE!"
La Jongleuse Aug 2013
And there we were,
just the same
Metal hooks, green leaves,
& doors that don’t shut
you left yours’ wide-open!
So I walked right in…
I don’t need a key after all

On the walls,
of a delapidated city home hung
atlases & art
Memories taste sweeter in ink.
You want to put a map of Buenes Aires
on your body
I said your belly
& made you laugh

I like the way your smile
reaches the corners of
your ember amber eyes.
It dances about the ledges of your lips
Soft & corporal Hermes of oxytocin
You light up, oh well I do too

Fireflies, summer heat
blades of grass & midnight dips
in shallow pools of abandonned hotels
In the gentle release of a humane kindness
I remembered that it’s a falling
& not a pushing that we’re all after

sing to me
tell me your secrets
feed me beets & chardes
brown sugar
leave your window open all night
I’ll love you in the morning
Sean Yessayan Aug 2013
Planet silhouetting atlases
of worlds we'll never know.
Their histories repeat,
through mushroom clouds
of soft pink explosions,
crying their fears for us to feel.
We watch them live and die,
admiring the beauty of life and death;
only I weep when light eminates through their wars.
Clouds n stuff
aviisevil Nov 2021
the ripe winds
perch upon the threads of
western disturbance

trading through the
vastness of liquid turmoil

flowing and cutting
across the narrowest
of vengeance

that has laid upon
this land flourishing
under a disguise:
of mere nothingness and
certain similarity;

for who knows
what converses with the
frigid north

and talks to the
passes of the mighty
peaks of middle Asia

walking past the grandeur
of the Himalayas, and it's
many ancient towns

where no other
has been of any importance
whatsoever

there in the sweet solace
of solitude and crisp sunrises

i find myself dreaming
of the tranquil winds, and
ancient passageways:

far from Nazareth and
the cradle of men

where the old brick
roads now sleep in dusk

and there's nothing
left to conquer

built upon the spectacular
-- on this olden earth

i find myself yearning
for little things.
I really hope you enjoy this poem.
redemptioneer Sep 2015
I’m measuring heartbeats and gauging miles across torn atlases and
each space between the intakes of breath while saying I miss you
feels like my lungs are freezing over or decaying or burning

I’ve been pacing around my room for so long that I think
my floorboards are starting to form fault lines
and some nights I miss you with the magnitude of an earthquake

I’m digging trenches in my chest because
my heart holds more use as a graveyard
and I’m burying your memories there

It’s midnight on the first day of autumn and I don’t know
if the thunder cracked again or it’s just my voice
begging and screaming at God to bring you back to me

except no one can hear prayers over the silence
that’s fallen over me since you left so I keep missing you
until heartbeats can keep up with distance
Mitchell May 2013
In tired atlases the doorman in pressed uniform
Outstretches his left hand to the ladies right
The rich waver in snare drum vibration as the
Will seekers unnerve the puppy parade behind door #42

And when with you, I wish to be away
And when far, I only wonder where you are
Peddling rose craning over dusty text books
See the light of the sun across the prodigal meadow

Around the peso saloon under a half smiling moon
Every man you pass can't help but whistle to salute you
There's no reason to fight
And there's no reason to whine
With you and this moon, there will never be enough time

We are the fortunate young running wild half interested
Ignorant and wanting the next death, ******, war
Laugh tract addicts and screen dragging junkies
Pushing social standings to the edge of digital ego insanity

When the sick die, they are released to the Earth
When they ****** die, they are released to their past
When the blessed die, they are released into eternity
When the rest die, they are released onto the back pages of newspapers

I look out through these eyes I have
Seeing the world through a perception tainted, beaten, and enriched
To seek change, is only natural, but in the end, futile
Escaping myself would be my ultimate creation
aviisevil Oct 2021
the ripe winds
perch upon the threads of
western disturbance












days dissolve in sadness
find me when this ends

tell me about your
experiences

lets go for a walk
before it's too late

i'm awake just
for you

and i never sleep when
you are not looking

i stay still until the
alarm rings

and it is your time
to leave

early morning when
the songbird sings

there you are
never here

you've loved me in
the spring

and i've been in love
with you ever since

dying of sadness on
a tuesday








trading through the
vastness of liquid turmoil

flowing and cutting
across the narrowest
of vengeance

that has laid upon
this land flourishing
under a disguise:
of mere nothingness and
certain similarity;

for who knows
what converses with the
frigid north

and talks to the
passes of the mighty
peaks of middle Asia

walking past the grandeur
of the Himalayas, and it's
many ancient towns

where no other
has been of any importance
whatsoever

there in the sweet solace
of solitude and crisp sunrises

i find myself dreaming
of the tranquil winds, and
ancient passageways:

far from Nazareth and
the cradle of men

where the old brick
roads now sleep in dusk

and there's nothing
left to conquer

built upon the spectacular
-- on this olden earth

i find myself yearning
for little things.
Cali Jul 2014
I used to think
that everything would be
easy;
that my pallid brain conveyed
some intricate foreshadowing
of a life unseen, but beheld
like landlocked love.

What I know now is this:
love is a place
without maps or atlases,
where the sea smolders
gracefully into
the horizon,
and my eyes are too tired
to look past the shore.
Court Jan 2018
Selfish.
The only word that could replace my name
Because I’m never happy for anyone.
Yes I might be there for someone when they’re sad but when it comes to someone’s happiness, I don’t care.
And maybe that’s why I’m so angry all the time.
Not because I wish to be as happy as other people
But because when it came to you I wasn’t that person.
I wanted you to be okay. Happy.
I would cross oceans and search atlases to find you when you needed me.
I wanted you to be happy.
Because if you were happy that made problems seem a little lighter. They would be absent, even if it was just for a second.
I even stopped writing because I didn’t remember what it felt like to hurt anymore.
You made me hate that me that never wished anyone the best.
I said I’d always love myself more than anyone. I’d always care about my problems more than anyone else’s.
But I knew you were suffering so I did the unthinkable. I went against my instincts.
I let you go.
Because my selfish, jealous heart only held love for you.
And I needed to see that smile again even if I wasn’t the reason for it.
And I hope you feel free.
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2016
first learn to be a loner, then continually learn this isolation, by simply writing, or say it like you really mean it: i've got a cough and i need to hush it with something cold, a sharpshooter (balance in favour of whiskey rather than the mixer) will do, to freeze the agitated region of the throat.*

the digital imprint changes things, the old guard
of the printing press and the loss of forests
are watching and guarding the
outlet outposts in deliberation,
the high street has shrunk
to shoe shops, clothing shops
and mobile phone stores...
and those ****** book stores
that only sell autobiographies
of famous people, encyclopaedias,
atlases and tabloids of other artefacts
of nonsense... perhaps a charity shop
once in a while, banks aplenty
and fast food outlets... a generic
cloning device known as a starbucks
of those immersed intellectuals and
"serious" writers looking for a busyness gimmick...
the high street's diversity has turned
into a suburban street... rows and rows
of identical houses... all because
people decided with the slogan: ART IS FREE...
a bit like that problem with poetry...
they want it to be neat... they want geometric
neatness rather than the oddity of juxtaposed
colour... like a history book, e.g.:
There was once a town in the vicinity of Paris, where a farmer lived with his wife and they had twenty chickens. One day, one of the chickens laid a dinosaur egg and the farmer and his wife were eaten, which was a noumenon (a phenomenon of 1, a non-viral kind of phenomenon), because the area was plagued by a cannibalistic epidemic, which, to the authorities, was a disappearing necrophilia, the dinosaur egg that hatched and became a dinosaur that ate things just spiced things up... hence it didn't trend and became a myth, which is why most people treat myths as *******, because they're too plain mundane suited & booted and therefore excluded from myth-making that's reserved for a few (ezra pound's lamentation is adequate here: fountain of beauty, yet so few... so few drink from it).
you know, bogus ****, clear form, clear punctuation,
vampires, virgins and re-interpretations of Tolstoy...
nothing unusual... but it ****** me off
that when they allow free reign in painting,
poetry has to be neat, courteous, well-understood
in order to be recited from memory (the first
thing that puts people off poetry is the need to
recite it as the educational system says, hence
the technique of rhyming being crucial as a
numbing cognitive stimulant of memory usage
where you're told to forget personal memories,
priceless memories, just to remember, one,
stupid, poem... how about you recite me
the ******* recipe for spaghetti bolognese?
huh? oh right... you can't! here's a happy meal
or a ready meal... *******!
looking for inspiration?
the lost art of listening to an entire album
by one artist: vomito ***** - fall of an empire.
I miss you in more ways a simple human being could

I miss you entirely, from the whole of you to your smallest parts

I think I’d still miss you even if I didn’t know you

a part of me would always reach out and yearn for you

The deepest parts of my mind would try to make sense

of the maps I continually make, of atlases of impossible longing

I am missing you over and over, perhaps I’d still miss you

even when I already find you standing right in front of me
Cait Harbs Jan 2017
My body is not beautiful -
it shows every row of dirt plowed,
every callous axe handle held
irreverently between the hands
that are swollen and cold;
my fingers, the puffy soldiers who smoked
one too many cigars in the
valleys of their webbed hills.

My body is not beautiful -
it is pitted with dirt entrenched in my pores
and craters of microorganisms
embedded in my flesh,
sending red fires into neutral skin,
a war beneath the surface
with smoothness being a casualty.

My body is not beautiful -
it has hair growing in places I hate,
thick layers of clinging calories
and expanded fat cells that
refuse to expire no matter how many
suicides I run or deaths I die
daily in an attempt to flatten them.

My body is not beautiful -
it is strong as hell.

My shoulders, firm and balanced,
tauntingly mock Atlas for complaining
of holding the world on his -
what he calls a tragedy, they call Monday.
My back has always carried whatever
burden I laid on it,
and though it's strained and torn
has yet to break beneath the weight
of the sorrow and the memories
living has given to me.

My legs, short and wide,
have lunged with mountains
by their sides,
moving forward through infernos
I can only describe as
"liquid fire as heavy as lead,"
traversing continents
and rushing rivers
knowing they were not going to give.

My arms are atlases,
traversed for countless miles
by vein-y highways
that lead to the ghost towns
I've gotten tattooed on my skin
to remind me that my
vagabond blood is pure
and my bones are made
of wanderlust.

No, my body is not beautiful,
but it is strong;
it has been places,
seen and done things.
It allows the universe
to make its home in my spinal
chord,
midnight to seep into my pores
and sing my heart to sleep
with starry melodies,
to leave behind the cement parking lot
I was born and raised in
and chase the horizon
no matter where it leads.

My body is not beautiful,
but it still deserves respect
for all it's done,
and all it holds,
regardless of my cellulite
or fat rolls.
and I will choose to love it.
Gabriel burnS Nov 2017
cities with their
glass skin
iron bones
gray flesh
of concrete
and a soul of
light bulbs
silhouettes,
the skylines…
the giants that
swallow us whole
because
we didn't know
how to stop
the magic of
the beanstalk
and now
that we have raised
our titans to unite us
we gave them will
we gave them back
the gift of fire
and it returns
to **** the life in
to burn the bridges
throughout and within…
our Atlases...
are they home
the shelter, still,
or are they now
the labyrinth
and the Minotaur
Wk kortas Sep 2017
Well, the maps were quite ghastly, you know;
We’d assumed the Frogs would have a pleasure cruise,
All baguettes and brioche, up the straits.
We’d no idea the Turks had dug in as they did,
As the spooks and their charts
Revealed sheer cliffs,
Harmless as Dover.
Nor did we fare much better on dry land,
The topographical atlases we had in the field
Might have been compiled by Mercator himself.
The Turks fought quite well;
One gives them a measure of credit for that, one supposes.
Frankly, we’d have been better served
If we’d just waited for the de rigueur internecine slaughter,
What with the ease they’d hacked each other to bits
Over some ancient family squabble or inconsequential tribal matter
(Can you imagine civilized peoples
Fighting to the death over such trivia?)
I suppose such cruelty and boorishness
Should have not been surprising.
They wouldn’t take prisoners, you know;
Just shot our boys *****-nilly,
With no regard whatsoever to honor or military convention,
Though it should have been no surprise
That the swarthy ******* would not play by the rules.
c Jan 2018
There were a pittance of days she did things for herself.

She liked the way an orange could be peeled to its barest form, made each peel a journey to something.

She enjoyed knit sweaters pulled past her knuckles while barreling through wisping city winds.

She found much joy in closing her eyes among a crowd of strangers.

The mounted sky sheds opens above her. What a pleasure it would be to see and feel all at once.

These were human moments. Like the ones you read about in those poem books, those romance novels, those 500-paged atlases. They sat shallow and sweet in the valley of her tongue, a pinch of raw sugar.

She recoils as the taste fleets swiftly, melted away like each moment before last.

--
c
Making sense of a random woman I saw on the train
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2017
belgium? miniature mongolia. who on earth thinks that "other" europeans respect the belgians? no one respects these political quasimodo(s)... i'd love to think the belgians as the atlases of the world, but, to be honest, they're merely a quasimodo, rather than an atlas; there's no weight upon their shoulders, unless it's called a stack of paperwork that goes down the route of what all toiletry goes down the route of: wipe your ***, flush it down.*

you know what we call the belgians?
melkenjungfrauen týp - the milking virgins...
don't know: worth the giggle
though... the belgians were unspectacular
with football... the bulgarians were aiming
vegetarians: said die tomorrow,
better have said tonight.
and the last i.r.a bandit would 'ave
asked:
better the gaelic, than an i.r.a. crust...
give us an X...
the gaelic bird freed...
let us sleep past tomorrow...
              you want the "aristocrat":
death undue the xia of the living...
                    he was more an i.r.a.
slave he was, with a tickle...
              the milk virgins of
  tibet flatanned...
                                   care how the compass
fathoms gravity...
                and what belgium
could ever be...
                         the most grand
inquisition is that of:
of a terrorism teaching gaelic...
                  you can blow up lazily a pub...
but when you teach enough gaelic...
god forbid the opposite side
is mishandling saxon anglo-doo...
            the welsh have this immunity surrounding
them, sooner penetrate a tortoise than
a welshman, with his two puckers up
alphabetical F U of the langebogenmann...
                 milk a cow, wait for a dozen
belgians...
            it's right we call them the
milking virgins...
half-wit would be congoease...
            **** on me, even i find the kenyan
gals syropy, coconut oiled,
           shiny in moonlight...
      i hate the weather though...
                  but even brown they are aiming
at shining ivory in moonlight is shimmy...
       týp? type...
                      oh, sorry, i didn't realise
that the belgians spoke better english than
the english...
                      like i said:
perfect pride parade of
the milking virgins...
           gotta be gay to realise the plotline...
mind you, black girls are all coconut oiled
in moonlight...
     caramel, ivory, quickened ice-cream melt
of skin in lunar sheen...
      skin so smooth it leaves you itchy...
polite what?
     polite i turn to new york finicky piglet
of nine to five?!
      god, i love my woman,
ms. amber has never stalled, never failed,
never curtailed...
      and i can continue a
reminiscence of the baltic sea...
                    **** me...
the milking virgins...
               seems to me that i'm an offshoot of congo,
and kenya could be my second home,
why did the european "union"
  begin with the belgians?
   who the **** likes the belgians in europe?!
i don't like belgian choc, why would i like
belgian politics?!
                  it's too late to even state:
i don't know / i don't care...
like my father: i'd still prefer to see japan than
america...
                   **** happens...
              las vegas can remain a judea's sphere
worth of influence in the next decade to come...
some people actually mind
the monochromatism of a differentiated
assertive paradigm...
                           some people will actually
choose manga over disney...
                             the milking virgins...
     our ideas are so far apart, that they deserve
the geographic placement of being:
so far apart.
only the japanese are asiatic in euro:
with their protruding nasal cartilage -
                               in frame: lateral...
elsewhere? squishy asiatic central + south /
   african / missing lateral cartilage...
  so much for calling me short on
          the occipitale part of the cranium.
Our minds and bodies aligned with memory
history wavers against the odds
I sold my arms and burned my farm
and grieved for a million years of tyranny
Treasure chests in your necklace
set like rubies in a fire
Treat me lover like a muscle
and don’t be afraid to stretch me
You know how I struggle with atlases
and am challenged by arithmetic
balancing fractions out of fear
Still I hear you darling and know that I am near you
whenever the Doer of Nothing
(0) is given a chance to steer
Cassie Schweizer Mar 2017
You asked for me
to write you a sentence,
so I wrote a poem about why
I couldn’t live without you.
You asked me to write a short story
about our love,
so I wrote a book with you
as the plot, ******, and
my falling action,
and binded it
with my bare hands.
You wanted a novel,
so I wrote a trilogy with
thousands of pages,
and I still felt as though
I could not capture
how much I cared for you.
But you told me
you wanted more proof,
because you didn’t yet understand
that I could write entire encyclopedias
about your eyes
and create atlases
filled with maps and charts on
the perfect curves of
your smile.
You didn’t get that
I could, and would, write
anything
for you, about you,
that would let the world know
how incredibly
in love with you
I was.
I didn’t want to stop until the
trees were gone
and I ran out of paper,
or every pen and printer
ran out of ink.
I didn't want to stop
until I had written
enough for you to
comprehend the
amount of love
I held.
I tried and tried,
and wrote and wrote.
But,
it seemed there weren’t enough words
in the dictionaries
I created,
or myths and legends
in fables and fairytales
that provided the
analysis of my love
for you.
And you kept asking for more
and more
and my hands grew tired and cramped,
marked with papercuts
that wouldn’t close,
trying to keep up
with your confusion
and inability
to understand.
I found myself running out
of things to write
and words to write them with,
the ink was starting to fade,
and my mind began to
draw blanks,
straining to find the reason
as to why I started writing
in the first place.
Jonathan Moya Feb 2020
I am grateful for those strangers
who carry my grief in kindness,
those who shoulder it with no thought,
just a sharp awareness of the ache of death
whirling inside as I balance between
cancer and despair, the wondering of the
value of a cure in a world becoming corpse.

They pull me away from myself with
nurses’ caresses,  children smiles,
those few  holding the glass door
open until I pass the threshold
while they sing quietly to themselves,
all Atlases bearing milliseconds of ache
in the chain of Christ’s example.

I have called them and they have called me,
kindness birthing kindness, rearing kindness,
each reaching towards, backwards, forwards,
determined to keep me from myself
and the the temptation to step off the edge
that calls me and them, all knowing that Atlas  
never had  the solace of conquering death.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2020
because jim dine looks like
    jack nicholson from
afar...
but it's not about that:
oculus per oculus -
     eye for an eye...

when painting is involved
i hardly think it's necessary
to give abstract "grace"
to necessary objects:

a wonky hammer or a house
is sand and grimace
and all things unbelievable
but it's not the strict
schematic...

when painters have to invest
themselves in words...
that frank o'hara anecdote
about SARDINES...

or if it isn't too obvious
as to what will be cited next:
magritte's:
    ceci n'est pas une pipe...
well: at least colour is true
as much as a noun is...

here at the zenith
red dictates stopping at a traffic-light
junction...
and there's than synonym
of: strawberries...

              when painting had become
abstract enough:
words had to become employed:
i'm still stacking
x-rays and skeletons
with muscular meshes of grey
on the fading with words...

i don't bemoan the task:
looking for alternative, "better" options
in painting...
i've have to be blind...

that painting is all eye
that poetry is all ear and perhaps
the tongue too...
oculus per oculus: eye for an eye...

i allow myself to drink to excess
tonight,
because what i really want to write
is what i gathered from this
afternoon...

autumnal promenade...
         these trees and the sunlight raising
them... to trans-natural realism's heights...
it does 'elp to merely take
a stroll...

       it's beyond comparison:
i dared to think: and if i took a photograph...
no... a photograph would
make me sulk...
i would keep it as something
both horrid and both saddening -
mind you: my memory bank
is running dry and i much prefer
to take photographs with
a blinking of an eye
to expand my memory hoard(ing)...

clearly at this junction
of the near impossible: for something "new"...
there is no new...
when there were formerly people...
up in the northern most easterly tip
of greater london
i'm looking for a "delusion"
of being able to walk
several miles without any
human interactions...

well... would a creature such as a grouse
or a deer allow itself being
spotted in daylight hours
if such a place was governed
by a frequency of man?

the deer spotted me not too far off...
by god: i didn't give it prance to
a get-go to gallop ever so silently:
by the woodland pigeon did
breaking into flight... rustling leaves
of it perching in a crown...

in love with england: more to the point...
the countryside for the nth time
resounding...
the topology of the english countryside...
it must be a desirable word to use
when i have this picture before me...
there were feet that walked
these "roads" and there were eyes
that sorrowed for: the platter of details...

it was never an intended piccadilly circus
bulwark of **** neon...
insomnia neon and incognito -
the middle of this drab
of london bothers me from time to time...
from: time to time...

not in spring not in summer:
now... autumn and these trees
and this sunlight gracing them to an elevation...
i've already chosen anecdotal
points of familiarity...
celebrity trees -
trees like signatures like:
everything else that is also a tree
but is so generic it can't stand alone...
it needs a canvas a window or a view...

then those trees that... i swear they are
so: unto themselves that
i wouldn't require a mirror to peer
at myself...

sure... upon reaching a pinnacle
of cubism... painting new abstract:
a best a verbiage and forever this extension
of psychoanalysis -
at best this verbiage and...
what is it that they called it:
base: introspection of the self...
well... that's already a doubling of
the act...

   given there's (the) definite article self
given there's also "a" self...
and then the possession of it:
which is... compounded reflexive
rather than reflective... rarely is it
my self... yourself myself themselves...
hey presto! juggle circus with
the alphabet people...

i didn't take a photograph for i didn't
want to spoil autumn per se
or my availability of sponge brainz...
i had to excavate these words...
to borrow something from heidegger...
a major pillar ought be cited:

well... hier-sein... hell... expansion...
hier-jetzt-sein:
   or rather the most temporal:
jestz-hier and i'll leave being in a shallow
grave of grace...
i'll concern myself
with... not being a fear-mongering
vegan... when i respect the animal
produce thus presented:
i will not overcook a chicken...
when i insert a thermometer into
a chicken breast it will read
in the range of 165 - 170°F...

i will not become a vegan because:
i ******* well know:
i know blindly i will allow my eyebrows
to be gambled with...
these "vegans"...
probably never cooked a chicken
properly...
when a food can be
respected...
when the ******* are juicy...
one, can, be... thankful!
but if you do a second work-around
of a butcher's "quarter"...
end up eating... protein pasta glue...
no wonder: return to
overcooked vegetables!

i much rather respect a protein...
than fake veganism for
not having respect for it!
omnivores "anonymous"!
gaffs of trends of people who...
probably don't know how
to cook... i love my... presumptuous...
agony aunt sort of flicker...
of demands...
of: stereotypes...
sometimes these higher-tier
critiques of stereotypes pay off...
they have to.

oculus per oculus...
autumn, these trees and this sunlight...
it has to be temporally specified:
"circa" from 12:30pm through to...
4pm... enough time for the weather
to change drastically...
enough time to find an old acorn...
with a ladder attached...
and sit in it... like some long lost
late-starter in the darwinistic narrative
and hide from the onslaught of
rain...

i guess that's why i cited heidegger...
but i was meditating
on other words...
oko - eye -
oczy - eyes...
            to - this
             tamto - that
         tam - there...
     conjunctions more or less...
and... how i might describe myself...

anglo-saxons were my prior...
so the anglo- prefix sticks...
anglo-slav...
for the general purpose: works...
but saxon is specific...
it's not like there's a concept
for anglo-thurengians
or anglo-pomeranians...
or anglo-swabians...
               a specified germanic tinge
that encompassed
an outline of prior to celtic and
velsh...

anglo... an anglo-wend...
                         albion-veneti...
           well... given that every *******
two-bothered-sanctum-christi
auxiliary has gathered on these isles...
"of late"...
but like a sore thumb:
"my people" have
retracted on the tide
so overpowering come
the opening of the floodgates
circa 2004...

moi? earlier immigration...
as early as 1994... n'ah... anglo-veneti
is no sticking word... anglo-slav...
anywho...

a quadratic: because i just love: squared
t'inking...
it's almost like a magic trick...
two buzzwords...
reigning the niche outlets...

patriarchy! ugh! power wording!
and... gynocentrism!
well... let's party!

back to the days of copernicus...
gynocentrism is an elevated
variation of... geocentrism?
which is paradoxical since...
that would implore the vatican to play
it: hush hush...

no! no you idiot!
gynocentrism is heliocentrism!
the all encompassing...
sun *****!
a **** that spits out...
lucifer fell head-first...
"fell"... bungyjumped and
was tugged back onto
the throne when god had a medley
with a banjo piece of working
out: a cross is never a table?
a cross is never a table?

gynocentrism is... heliocentrism...
and "the" patriarchy is geocentrism...
god... i love this quadratic...
i had a cultish idea
today...
among a Pythagorean set
concerning eating beans...
how...
you must uncover your head
when walking under trees...
how you should cover your head
in public... but have to expose
your head beneath trees...

it's not unlike the already well established
kippah and the circumcision...
so... what? exactly?
i still hafe mine: doubly mine since
i don't vacate a tonsure...
a slap me pretty sort of "disguise":
for - covert... monkish brewer... alias:
house of purim...

          hafe hafe: a'v'eh! mein!
i look across... well... no wonder!
h'america by no invitation...
those black atlases would be forever
celebrated...
as they should:
but it's not like the hebrews
took too lightly concerning
intellectual gymnastics when...
intellectually: you'd only have
to replica... stalemate...

i too could perfect: plagiarism...
not that i'm... oh god my qabbalah fetish
and how:
the demiurge is one thing...
i don't need to demand more from
the yids themselves:
their god will do... just f'ah f'ah fine...
he's phonetically ingrained...
my words aaron bricks...
he's the cement...
less the grammar... in between...
after all... he... doesn't really...
favour them as much...
always putting them to the test
to reclaim the noun israel...
hey... of all the people of the ancient
world... a people that envisioned...
their own god... israel:
wrestling them... testing them...
more or less... keeping up their soul-search
vitality assured...

now i will start to chew chewing gum...
and pretend it's everything that
requires / required me the ability
to tie my shoelaces...

      oh yes... the god of the yids abhors them...
it's not like there was no other
memorable balam...
beside... the one still hanging around
with churches
and south america and tele-evangelicals:

after 2000+ years the question
is beside: are you the son of god...
it's more... morphed into...
can i still be a hebrew?

            if you can't celebrate something
when getting into the nitty-gritty...
je suis! my ******* oddity of ***!
throw that charlie hybrid-dough
into the cauldron and let's pray
for ******* bagels! or croissants!
whichever takes your fancy!

that i somehow allow myself a "revision"
of writing under the influence
of btih music and miss amber...
the god of the hebrews already prides itself
on a following...
so meticulous that it's satisfactory /
savory -

  i can't be allowed... a nibbling?
seems unfair to procrastinate on the altar
of how easily a moloch or a beelzebub was
sacrificed upon...
whirlwinds of aeons and of chaos:
how there's only a certainty within the
confines of space:

the clinal pressure for the eye's
critique of autumn...
and the trees therefore basking
in the light of borrowing azure...
these hints of auburn and
commando foliage...
of perpetual green: shying glee
of envy...

      i want this **** of verbiage...
to impress details of fracture
and "fiction"...
i want to return to the ancient
vernacular...
for all i want i must not never
hope to conceive as: outright will...
to hell with a freedom
so ill-advised...

in these pastures where old
ergonomics: horses - graze...
i heave a thumb... a fattening
of it... i experience creases best known
to the advent of the corruption of paper...
but i am not using any of it (i.e. paper)...

there was a rabbit... there was a deer...
a grouse...
and as many birds as my fingers
could fathom themselves alone
to suit up to a replica arithmetic...
i wanted to learn enough of
simplicity: but i was never to
be allowed: a finicky teenage phase
of taming a need for replica:
offspring...

  i desired to not leave any cul de sacs
of grieving processes...
this hebrew god, though...
antithesis: an-t-fezz...
it looks so much of so differently
from the standards of merely speaking
to peering at...
this language without a clear-cutting
of sounds: dyslexia...
what?!

in a language that doesn't allow
orthographic stressors...
and all it has to offer is...
"idiosyncratic" spelling?
   who could have guessed:
a who-dunnit exterior... purpoise?

purpose?
                  purr-poise...
i do have to allow myself to stage:
when dub-step was a music
genre was still worth salvaging...
distance... vex'd... burial...
and that's about all i want to hear...

i'm so adamant in being so therefore
blistered in a gangrene of
politics that has to borrow from...
time immemorial and secure...
it has to translate into a...

you can almost fathom the silence
of horses...
they approvingly nod...
somewhat... and whatnot...
agreeing
to you being a something
and somehwat...
that allows itself to pet
either a cradle of cats
or a brood and leash invoked
sour crease of doggy-dodgings...

it's not **** flinging invoked...
it's something more sinister...
personal: thereby all the more involved / invoked...
it's not Golders Green judaism:
tonsure for a scalp / circumcision for
a ******* kippah: y'er boot?

in that... yes... i appreciate being seen...
i want to be seen...
but at the same time...
i like quivering in a fancy
of being "counter-inquisitive" debased:
outright: anti-...

              i appreciate being seen...
replicating modus operandi: esse...
but... when i invoke this most private
made most public of disclosures...
and it... somehow... "works"...
i hardly think it's necessary
to achieve an omniscient status: quo...

especially when one can encounter,
passibly...
two women... perhaps two dogs...
a park... and on a bench...
a giggle and its most certainly female...
i don't want to be "known"...
existentially pronounced / prone
having to encompass this "audience"..
i desire to be less of what's
leftover / made available...

it's just a minefield...
i visited the Ypres cemeteries...
the anglo-
lingua rubric...
             then these... shallow... deafening...
germanic sorts...
sparrow and robins and wrens would
grace their amassing puncture
of details...
and i would want nothing more...
because i was not anglo-sas
and i didn't want to earn
or learn of make oath to such bridging of
sorrows...

the mass graves of the germans
in belgium come the enforced endearment of
memory come...
no more from cabaret volatire escapism!
no... more!
they are so fuckingly posed
to be therefore so poignantly named!
by grave and so therefore by so little
of body!
the mass graves of the: germanic:
peoples:
how the english, once upon a time...
allowed themselves to play a trough
of towing themselves... romanesque!
this: greviaous mud...
this... horrid first pretender!
Hey, can we talk
I get anxious
You are my source of remedy
I am hooked on to you
Like once everyday
I am needing you
Like twice for a weekend
So my Monday are artful
And Sundays paint the sadness
My days are losing colors each Friday
Saturdays move by on islands
Without smilingly or lively holidays
Hey can we speak to ourselves
Or do we need a break
Can you stay or does
The phone seek any use
Maybe, we could talk uselessly
Over poetry and power of penned words
Summing our daily grievances
On social media’s phone
Hanging up the calls
Rather than allowing bluer atlases to chart our conversations

— The End —