"barb" poems
You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
Daddy, I have had to **** you.
You died before I had time ----
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal
And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.
In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My ****** friend
Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.
It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene
An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.
The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.
I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You ----
Not God but a ********
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who
Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the *****
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.
If I've killed one man, I've killed two ----
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.
There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagersnever liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you ******* I'm through.
29.7k
Grabbing *****
in the New Jersey sand
demands quick hands.
Creeping deep
they dig down under
away
from the wind
in their seldom seen shells,
but my brother has a shovel
and can ****** them
even in the midst of sea foam
from small waves climbing the shore.
And at cousin Barb’s pond
Our hands swipe swiftly,
But stealthily enough
In brisk Michigan winds
to grasp and capture
the frogs lingering
near the edges.
Hardest to catch though
are cicadas
in our back yard
hiding in the trees
calling out to play.
My brother and I,
ages 8 and 10
cast our fingers
and clench only their wings
enough to fill two milk jugs.
Jun 4, 2014
Jun 4, 2014 at 10:14 PM UTC
Now this particular girl
During a ceremonious april walk
With her latest suitor
Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck
By the birds' irregular babel
And the leaves' litter.
By this tumult afflicted, she
Observed her lover's gestures unbalance the air,
His gait stray uneven
Through a rank wilderness of fern and flower;
She judged petals in disarray,
The whole season, sloven.
How she longed for winter then! --
Scrupulously austere in its order
Of white and black
Ice and rock; each sentiment within border,
And heart's frosty discipline
Exact as a snowflake.
But here -- a burgeoning
Unruly enough to pitch her five queenly wits
Into ****** motley --
A treason not to be borne; let idiots
Reel giddy in bedlam spring:
She withdrew neatly.
And round her house she set
Such a barricade of barb and check
Against mutinous weather
As no mere insurgent man could hope to break
With curse, fist, threat
Or love, either.
19.1k
if, somehow, you could see how high & dense your fortified groves has gotten
you wouldn't be asking me why i'm trying to get to you like a giraffe gets to the
leaves in the trees, because your barrier is like barb wire tangled around your
wrists and, almost like a failed lobotomy, you're as mad as a hatter, and the
ribbons that tied us together tightly unwoven it's knot, and i'm so careful in
finding the pieces of worn bricks to tear down and not break you in the process
the fear left me restless, without a doubt, you get helpless after a while and
start believing that sandpaper and silk are similar, but they aren't textured the
same in reality, yet who even really knows what is wrong and what is right?
maybe the puzzle pieces get worn over time and they're not even considered
to be pieces to a puzzle anymore, it's like putting together a falling apart pie
- kra
Jan 31, 2014
Jan 31, 2014 at 1:02 PM UTC
PARNELL'S FUNERAL
UNDER the Great Comedian's tomb the crowd.
A bundle of tempestuous cloud is blown
About the sky; where that is clear of cloud
Brightness remains; a brighter star shoots down;
What shudders run through all that animal blood?
What is this sacrifice? Can someone there
Recall the Cretan barb that pierced a star?
Rich foliage that the starlight glittered through,
A frenzied crowd, and where the branches sprang
A beautiful seated boy; a sacred bow;
A woman, and an arrow on a string;
A pierced boy, image of a star laid low.
That woman, the Great Mother imaging,
Cut out his heart. Some master of design
Stamped boy and tree upon Sicilian coin.
An age is the reversal of an age:
When strangers murdered Emmet, Fitzgerald, Tone,
We lived like men that watch a painted stage.
What matter for the scene, the scene once gone:
It had not touched our lives. But popular rage,
Hysterica passio dragged this quarry down.
None shared our guilt; nor did we play a part
Upon a painted stage when we devoured his heart.
Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
I thirst for accusation. All that was sung.
All that was said in Ireland is a lie
Bred out of the c-ontagion of the throng,
Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.
Leave nothing but the nothingS that belong
To this bare soul, let all men judge that can
Whether it be an animal or a man.
The rest I pass, one sentence I unsay.
Had de Valera eaten parnell's heart
No loose-lipped demagogue had won the day.
No civil rancour torn the land apart.
Had Cosgrave eaten parnell's heart, the land's
Imagination had been satisfied,
Or lacking that, government in such hands.
O'Higgins its sole statesman had not died.
Had even O'Duffy -- but I name no more --
Their school a crowd, his master solitude;
Through Jonathan Swift's clark grove he passed, and there
plucked bitter wisdom that enriched his blood.
7.7k
As when a pigeon, loos'd in realms remote,
Takes instant wing, and seeks his native cote,
So speed my blessings from a barb'rous clime
To thee and Providence at Christmas time!
6.7k
Angelic minds, they say, by simple intelligence
Behold the Forms of nature. They discern
Unerringly the Archtypes, all the verities
Which mortals lack or indirectly learn.
Transparent in primordial truth, unvarying,
Pure Earthness and right Stonehood from their clear,
High eminence are seen; unveiled, the seminal
Huge Principles appear.
The Tree-ness of the tree they know-the meaning of
Arboreal life, how from earth's salty lap
The solar beam uplifts it; all the holiness
Enacted by leaves' fall and rising sap;
But never an angel knows the knife-edged severance
Of sun from shadow where the trees begin,
The blessed cool at every pore caressing us
-An angel has no skin.
They see the Form of Air; but mortals breathing it
Drink the whole summer down into the breast.
The lavish pinks, the field new-mown, the ravishing
Sea-smells, the wood-fire smoke that whispers Rest.
The tremor on the rippled pool of memory
That from each smell in widening circles goes,
The pleasure and the pang --can angels measure it?
An angel has no nose.
The nourishing of life, and how it flourishes
On death, and why, they utterly know; but not
The hill-born, earthy spring, the dark cold bilberries.
The ripe peach from the southern wall still hot
Full-bellied tankards foamy-topped, the delicate
Half-lyric lamb, a new loaf's billowy curves,
Nor porridge, nor the tingling taste of oranges.
—An angel has no nerves.
Far richer they! I know the senses' witchery
Guards us like air, from heavens too big to see;
Imminent death to man that barb'd sublimity
And dazzling edge of beauty unsheathed would be.
Yet here, within this tiny, charmed interior,
This parlour of the brain, their Maker shares
With living men some secrets in a privacy
Forever ours, not theirs.
6.3k
I have been cruel
and unrepentant,
and on my knees
yearning for certain
benevolences
people promised
good people
get.
There is I suppose
a logic
to why it is not so tragic
I don't get when I didn't give
'cuz I was too busy
wanting
the best.
My conscience woke
when I stabbed a man
in the heart with barb
again.
After hours or regret
and notes that confessed
I burnt it down for I knew
nothing changes.
I am still
upset.
Dec 1, 2012
Dec 1, 2012 at 12:41 PM UTC
He loved it when she slid up
to him, as sweet as a sprinkle doughnut -
but now, something has befallen her,
she's been burned or frozen, tastes more like
cinnamon raisin; but by virtue of his
firelit face and tall tales,
he still gets invited out.
_____________________________
He creaks upstairs an hour late, we
are already tangled up on the
back porch, smoking, and the
liquor has made everything
an economy of scale.
He is a ray of sunshine. Tells us
all the old groaners. The big fish.
Ultimately says, "Happy birthday.
Never let your guard down."
and hobbles off, with barb-wire chafing
his heel, and the rheumatic suspicion
that "rest" and "wellness" are
the fables taught to us by
bogeymen, trying to convince us
there are no bogeymen.
I am a tender Twenty tonight.
I want to twirl my fists in Muhammad Ali speedbag-spirals,
saying, "I am the champion. Never undefended."
But I am too drunk, and maybe
too humiliated.
God! He floats like painkillers. He stings like loss.
There he is, the tall order, the iron giant:
a two-story brainfreeze milkshake.
I shudder, a pipsqueak of a prizefighter.
The bucktoothed squirt at the icecream booth,
too short to notice that there are only three flavours.
Sep 15, 2010
Sep 15, 2010 at 3:01 PM UTC
a ****** of crows gathers
over Hamburg, carrion carrying on
with business as usual.
feeding on the festered flesh
of a gentrified populace.
in private jets coughing carbon
they fly from the west on turbine wings,
engines screaming as they dive towards a nation
secured by razor-wound walls
and barb-wire borders.
they pitched a battle in Germany,
convinced that austerity
would ******* the resistance
and give justification to premeditated violence.
but the tables have turned on the thieves again.
we are the end result of your failed policies,
globalization has destroyed our homes.
if your cabal rallies like a kettle of vultures,
you will do so behind closed doors,
cowering in your fortress' halls.
you shall not pass. watch as the power shifts
like the melting gears of torched BMWs.
we will tear the vestiges of your authority down.
we will black out your surveillance cameras,
smash your windows, and block your limos. no pasaran.
flee, while you can still run. this city belongs
to the wild ones, a black bloc, thousands strong,
dancing amidst the tear gas, tossing molotovs.
marching to liberty's sturdy drum,
equal in our solidarity song.
Jul 8, 2017
Jul 8, 2017 at 12:14 PM UTC
Generations pass as autonomy eludes us denying us the opportunity
to reach for liberality.
Indifference, being a predecessor, digs shallow graves in so many ways,
Watching heritage that once was become something uncanny,
Unrecognizably lingering; lifeless.
Racial force fields, forces fields of incarcerated thoughts to take root,
Keeping us from seeing beyond ourselves,
and
The barriers built to keep those out,
only keep us,
from letting us, to allow others in,
and trust is placed on trial,
looking at a life sentence of death, unaware of its opportunity
to freely avail or elude it’s predicament.
If only it would appeal to the counsel of the majority.
Stubbornness sometimes refuses to embrace what we know needs to
be confronted in order to bring about change,
unifying an outside world
where life is not always fair and those around us calculate thoughts to hinder our progression.
We live in a place of democracy and disdain where street corner pharmaceuticals
****** the weary,
where adolescent girls are forced to become
teenage mothers or prostitutes,
where empty baseball diamonds and dugouts
are replaced by thick scaling barb wired walls and gray barred cells,
where young men and women trade their age multiplied for the number they will where in a system for life, and
where the sound of a crying disappointed child is exchanged for anger and abuse,
in the absence of a father or mother figure,
figuratively disfigured and lost in translation;
an abandonment of generations past.
Who will lead and guide us?
Who will plead and advocate on our behalf?
Who will stand in the gap?
Who will lead us past the captive mind to captivate hearts?
Who will provide the keys to unlock and break us free?
Free from the broken barriers that divide us?
~
Aug 18, 2013
Aug 18, 2013 at 7:55 PM UTC
--With antlers
Breaking; broken
We're all-
Wonder; wandering
Through the glass
Forest where trunks
Reflect regret--
And leaves cut mistakes
Into scars.
We are deer,
Eating barb-tailing
Grass.
But I'm sorry
Antibiotic acorns
Aren't working anymore.
My pupil's seep,
Mercury in return.
When that feeling--
Attaches bed-linen
To stapling sharks,
They begin birthing
'Acknowledgement'
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 3:28 AM UTC
One day someone will hold my body, reach
intimate places, steal breaths from my throat
and his cold barb-wired fingers will breach
my silk-woven skin, leaving me to choke.
I'm afraid I'm not sufficient enough
to let his love crawl in me, sweeping dust
away that no one has bothered to touch
after all these years. Certainly he must
not want to encounter a tornado
that destructs everything that could save me.
When he's done, there will not be a halo
above his head. He precariously
set my heart up for more disappointment.
He took my trust with the lack of consent.
Nov 1, 2015
Nov 1, 2015 at 11:01 PM UTC
I was taken by surprise
when her Dad handed me the keys..
“I have a meeting in the City,
Could your drive her to school for me”
That day I had not thought to drive,
My own “K” car was in the shop.
I was having the rear brakes replaced
because sometimes I like to stop.
My car was an econobox
but for my purpose fine.
His car was a Red Firebird-
Top down, top of the line.
The day was clear and drenched with sun-
The perfect top down day.
We waved goodbye as Barb and I
pulled out and on our way.
We heard something from Stravinsky
On her father’s Classics station
As we drove across the Bridge
to her college destination.
The Cross Bronx, unexpectedly,
was light of cars that day.
Traffic on the Bronx River
seemed to yield us right of way.
I pulled in near Bathgate Avenue
And gave my girl a kiss.
I would have liked to linger
But that final she couldn’t miss.
The engine gave a gentle purr
on my return trip down.
I met up with her father
And he dropped me off back home.
With both hands in my pockets,
I watched as he drove off.
The car would prove a classic,
The girl proved, alas, aloof.
Jan 4, 2012
Jan 4, 2012 at 10:51 PM UTC
My faint spirit was sitting in the light
Of thy looks, my love;
It panted for thee like the hind at noon
For the brooks, my love.
Thy barb, whose hoofs outspeed the tempest’s flight,
Bore thee far from me;
My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon,
Did companion thee.
Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed,
Or the death they bear,
The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove
With the wings of care;
In the battle, in the darkness, in the need,
Shall mine cling to thee,
Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love,
It may bring to thee.
2.1k
Gliding through the ocean on waterproof wings
Razor sharp scales cut through the wake with ease
Something bright shining in the distant dark
The barb on the hook takes hold of the shark
Pulled up to the surface the fisherman smiles
Until he realizes his catch was naught but a child
Mar 10, 2013
Mar 10, 2013 at 8:52 PM UTC
so let me tell you of my digressions
my hopeless realm of repetition
i am armed with
2 blacks
4 grams
and a pack of sour patches to keep me snackin
i have yet again
settled in
to my barb wired trenches in this hell
Better Is The Devil You Know
Than To Go Fishing For A Stranger
so i sit calmly
because i suppose it is
Better To Be Patient
than to act out of this anger
cause ive considered killing you at my leisure
Why **** Him
Cant You Just Leave And Feel The Same
Satisfaction
no
cause if i could then
would i be here smackin on these cracklins
I brought those to delay the decaying of
teeth as i endudge in
what's first sour then sweet
my cavity
and i fein
from one fix to the next
Oh wrong C
i said Cavity
i mean
*******
Crack rock
Crack baby
reaching for that pacifier
higher and higher i go
while diving deeper in this hole
no point of return
no lessons were learned by previous heartaches
i ache
cause i aint
exactly who i used to be
grabbed by my foundation
and ripped the roots from under me
God Heals All Things
But what about the ***** that breaks ****
takes ****
gets it how he lives and makes ****
Cause this sweet southern soul
is growing old
and i've been told that revenge is so sweet
and baby i'm gon eat
the troops have been patient
but now
we brazen
and a revolt is all i see.
Dec 21, 2012
Dec 21, 2012 at 10:23 AM UTC
Can anybody tell me what is Right with this world?
Even those in church refuse to budge or curse
The evil that is inside - man, woman, boy, girl
I for one, attest
That sin is at my breast
As I abandon my shame to a wicked, nasty tongue
Still I would never judge
Should plagues beckon at my door
While windows open - close no more
I've never gossipped in such a way
That threatens to destroy all a person's trust
Seemingly in righteousness, your barb has now been ******
Onto the canvas that was my soul
Now shattered, as if it never mattered
In twisted torment, in the name of your holy robe.
Nov 21, 2014
Nov 21, 2014 at 2:33 AM UTC
Times tackle on the threads.
We beat the strand seahorse
Dashed, unfurl the curling
Toes, your body twists
In the boat, only ribs
From the spirit waters.
Your fish fins from the net,
My rod pins on the pine
And the hooked meat, your barb,
Reels as it plays the swampy
Moan of the gutted bait.
Aug 18, 2013
Aug 18, 2013 at 1:33 PM UTC
heated flavors and
icy noises, up in the
high strata with
a singed mind of
transcendent swallowed thoughts
your molting feathers
fall down to the cobble stones
proclaiming the words
of your mind
up in this planetarium of
a passing breeze
you replace the stars
with gleaming clumps
of barb wire and broken wings
that rattle through the night
screeching frequencies
of your lost-in-precipitation mind
you see the dreams
of the masses
devoured by green,
which clash with
the medley of floral souls
within your grey matter
you breathe out a brink-filled
sigh of infinite--
all those emotional droplets
in that spiderweb mind.
perhaps one day
they will see with your eyes
or even the eyes of your eyes
but for now you are stuck
shouting at them to love
a love greater than that of Lady Black herself
but their ears are stopped up
with the spoon-fed lies of how
to live and they settle for
contentment, and not
passion
Dec 21, 2013
Dec 21, 2013 at 2:23 AM UTC
I
Under the Great Comedian's tomb the crowd.
A bundle of tempestuous cloud is blown
About the sky; where that is clear of cloud
Brightness remains; a brighter star shoots down;
What shudders run through all that animal blood?
What is this sacrifice? Can someone there
Recall the Cretan barb that pierced a star?
Rich foliage that the starlight glittered through,
A frenzied crowd, and where the branches sprang
A beautiful seated boy; a sacred bow;
A woman, and an arrow on a string;
A pierced boy, image of a star laid low.
That woman, the Great Mother imaging,
Cut out his heart. Some master of design
Stamped boy and tree upon Sicilian coin.
An age is the reversal of an age:
When strangers murdered Emmet, Fitzgerald, Tone,
We lived like men that watch a painted stage.
What matter for the scene, the scene once gone:
It had not touched our lives. But popular rage,
Hysterica passio dragged this quarry down.
None shared our guilt; nor did we play a part
Upon a painted stage when we devoured his heart.
Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
I thirst for accusation. All that was sung.
All that was said in Ireland is a lie
Bred out of the c-ontagion of the throng,
Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.
Leave nothing but the nothingS that belong
To this bare soul, let all men judge that can
Whether it be an animal or a man.
II
The rest I pass, one sentence I unsay.
Had de Valera eaten parnell's heart
No loose-lipped demagogue had won the day.
No civil rancour torn the land apart.
Had Cosgrave eaten parnell's heart, the land's
Imagination had been satisfied,
Or lacking that, government in such hands.
O'Higgins its sole statesman had not died.
Had even O'Duffy--but I name no more--
Their school a crowd, his master solitude;
Through Jonathan Swift's clark grove he passed, and there
plucked bitter wisdom that enriched his blood.
1.7k
I knew I should have ran
the moment he pulled up in a car
my parents can't even afford.
I should have ran when I noticed that
he had more hair on his face than his head.
Nineteen year old boys aren't
supposed to drive nice cars.
And nineteen year old boys
aren't supposed to look like
twenty five year old men.
It didn't matter though
because he said he liked me
and he invited me to
cuddle and watch movies.
So
I didn't care that his car
was probably stolen,
or that he looked twenty five.
I just needed to be held
and it didn't matter by who.
His house was just minutes away
But it felt like worlds.
This place he called home didn't
look like much of a home at all.
I should have ran
Soon as it became clear
that this was more than two
friends hanging out.
Because as we
walked through the door,
He pushed me against the
Kitchen counter
and he grabbed me in places
I won't even touch when I'm alone.
I should have pushed him away
and ran as fast as I could.
But I didn't.
He showed me upstairs
to a room full of innocence.
Pink walls,
purple ceiling,
and cute stuffed animals.
I should have ran when such a grown man
invited me into such a small child's bed.
But I didn't.
I layed next to him
resting my head on his chest.
I was expecting a movie
but what I got was
rough hands up my shirt
and a tongue down my throat.
For the first time in my life
I said
no.
I said
stop.
But this is a nineteen year old boy
who wants to do more than cuddle.
This is a twenty five year old man
who doesn't take no for an answer.
I should have ran down the stairs,
out the door,
down the road,
through a river
through a ******* barb wire fence.
I should have ran far as I could.
But I didn't.
"You're a tease."
Now I'm not saying no.
I'm not saying stop.
"No"
doesn't keep hands from wandering
"Stop"
Doesn't make him change his mind.
I lay there and do what I'm told
because im tired of
fighting battles
I'll never win.
He looks me in my eyes
as I give him what he wants.
He's looking into my soul
as I surrender myself.
I should have ran
but I didn't
May 19, 2014
May 19, 2014 at 9:30 PM UTC
Love is a roller-coaster with volatile emotions emerging from within.
To deny its existence will inevitably cause irrefutable sorrow guiltier than a sin.
Tis’ is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
Oh, the wise words of Alfred Lord Tennyson, how you enlighten us from afar.
An unfathomable angst intertwined with a euphoric state of passion.
Caged with inaction yet stupefied by its glorious reaction.
This volatility is not confusion, you see.
I am witnessing myriad waves of emotions emerging from the abyss within me!
Is it true? Could it be?
Has my unconscious decided to compose a poetic tragedy out of me?
Triggering aloofness and indifference to the goodness it perceives?
Have I become too jaded to feel real love literally?
This tender feeling deriving from my soul,
Yearns to journey beyond the engrained barb-wired pine road.
However, the universe continues to reverse the roles.
Now it's apathy that causes the heartache of this man’s soul.
By: Michael M. De La Fuente
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 10:03 PM UTC
we stroll the orchard
where grapes prune
and apples dutch
the burgeoning ****
of our memories...
we remain shimmering in true dusk. there
on the cusp of inscrutable lust and the chaste rabies
of a sliver of first bone
with tornado lips
and cotton
random.
we cajole our misfortune,
and rise at noon; without laughing -
we ****** our hags from the raven
that feathered our cap.
we elapse with the dead
in the basement of our rendering.
a little ahead of ourselves
or dead, no matter what.
the orchard glooms a demise
in the calm tourettes
of our syndrome...
both alone in the teeming all-spark
of our glorious sundering...
our Mondays say less than
our Present Day -
and a yarn of plight and sunstroke
gropes at the barb
of our bee stung
innocence
we chide the withering
for all the Withering -
and all the good
it does....
besides.
we wrath glide the plum
then have at Life.
Feb 28, 2013
Feb 28, 2013 at 11:28 AM UTC