"bartered" poems
smuggled in for a lucrative trade
beaten, bartered
broken in, until i obey
i used to be childlike
innocent and safe
now i’m someone else's treasure
a strangers pleasure
smothered in shame.
Mar 22, 2015
Mar 22, 2015 at 4:34 PM UTC
I am alive by luck at this point.
I wonder if the gun that will eventually take me has been made.
Whose trigger will bury me.
How many bullets, like a flock of sparrows, will come carry my life to its final bed.
Today, I am alive but there is no law to thank.
If not me, then someone else.
Born into a game of chance we never asked for. Traded diplomas for obituaries. Traded graduation speeches for eulogies. Traded futures for an early grave. Forced to cash in their chips. We don’t want to play anymore.
And this too is eulogy. And this too is prayer. And this too can resurrect the coffin wood back to a tree. Can sing back alive whatever parts of you died with them. Whatever leapt in your throat at yet another headline.
Mourning until you, too, are a thing to mourn.
But we will no longer be martyrs.
We are the rude awakening to politicians who pawned out our safety, who bartered our lives for bribes.
You say “gun reform is not the answer” but all I can see is a bullet rattling like a pinball in an innocent student’s jaw.
You smell like gun smoke and
I can see the AR15 you're holding behind your back and
I guess it's easy to crack jokes about dodging bullets when you're the one firing them.
Give teachers books not bullets:
Kafka isn’t kevlar.
Bronte isn’t bulletproof.
And how sick is it that we must add school shootings to your list of proud american traditions.
Throwing opinions like punches.
How many more have to die before you decide your ego isn’t as important as you think it is?
And I, too, am buried alive
My soggy grave parting its greedy lips.
To you, my bones, when ground into gunpowder and mixed into water, taste like champagne.
My pulse, as thin as an obituary panting beneath sweaty palms, and sure
We are “just kids,”
But you are forgetting we are the next generation
And you autopsy your fists.
Call it reclamatory.
Lately, when asked “how are you?” I respond with a name no longer living.
And who knows if mine will be next
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 10:32 PM UTC
Outside the miner's shack Joshua trees stand silent vigil,
expecting his imminent return, or perhaps his ghost.
Horn silver, weathered by rainwater from volcanic rock,
no longer strews fallow ground to lure the miner back.
In lieu, small succulents feed tortoise and jackrabbit,
replace the metal which only men could value.
Nevada gains a confluence of life in the exchange,
dry-lake flora and fauna bartered for chlorargyrite.
Barren mountains surround this desolation,
where nothing more than fungi lie in vapid dissipation
before the relentless punishment of the sun,
a lattice-work of valleys dissecting their *****
I ventured here to purge my body of poisons,
exhale the vapors and biles of city living,
to rid the alien presence in my mitochondria,
and let it go the way of Silver State.
Feb 19, 2012
Feb 19, 2012 at 11:58 PM UTC
So it is eighteen years,
Helena, since we met!
A season so endears,
Nor you nor I forget
The fresh young faces that once clove
In that most fiery dawn of love.
We wandered to and fro,
Who knew not how to woo,
Those eighteen years ago,
Sweetheart, when I and you
Exchanged high vows in heaven's sight
That scarce survived a summer's night.
What scourge smote from the stars
What madness from the moon?
That night we broke the bars
Was quintessential June,
When you and I beneath the trees
Bartered our bold virginities.
Eighteen -years, months, or hours?
Time is a tyrant's toy!
Eternal are the flowers!
We are but girl and boy
Yet -since love leapt as swift to-night
As it had never left the light!
For fiercer from the South
Still flames your cruel hair,
And Trojan Helen's mouth
Still not so ripe and rare
As Helena's -nor love nor youth
So leaps with lust or thrills with truth.
Helena, still we hold
Flesh firmer, still we mix
Black hair with hair as gold.
Life has but served to fix
Our hearts; love lingers on the tongue,
And who loves once is always young.
The stars are still the same;
The changeful moon endures;
Come without fear or shame,
And draw my mouth to yours!
Youth fails, however flesh be fain;
Manhood and womanhood attain.
Life is a string of pearls,
And you the first I strung.
You left -first flower of girls! -
Life lyric on my tongue,
An indefatigable dance,
An inexhaustible romance!
Blush of love's dawn, bright bud
That bloomed for my delight,
First blossom of my blood,
Burn in that blood to-night!
Helena, Helena, fiercely fresh,
Your flesh flies fervent to my flesh.
What sage can dare impugn
Man's immortality?
Our godhead swims, immune
From death and destiny.
Ignored the bubble in the flow
Of love eighteen short years ago!
Time -I embrace all time
As my arm rings your waist.
Space -you surpass, sublime,
As, taking me, we taste
Omnipotence, sense slaying sense,
Soul slaying soul, omniscience.
4.4k
Oh, I have never looked so good
running in armor thru the woods
Adept with blade or mace
And I know a little magic
which for foes is rather tragic
(it’s a perk for my race)
Be it mountain peak or ocean swell
thru rocky hill and grassy dell
nothing slows my pace
Many Quests I need to finish
there’s Evil I must diminish
(And weapons to replace)
Every belonging I have owned
I have bartered, won or stole
Hording gold just in case
I’m constantly slashed, bashed and burned
by dragons, wildlife and Curs
with no fear on my face
Though I have skills that get me by
There are occasions that I’ve died
Thank god for the last “save”
I will keep right on playing
leveling buy quests and slaying
in my CGI escape
January 2012
Jan 29, 2012
Jan 29, 2012 at 3:18 AM UTC
Confessions of a Blessed Hedonist.( tri word line)
-1- -3-
Lived this long, what makes change?
Time just flew, a metamorphosis divine?
Mind playing games worms to butterflies,
Heart desiring ever. saviors, angels, messiahs?
extreme cravings doused. what makes humane,
opiates in zillions, friends, lovers, brothers?
Cocktails, a million. Destinies unknown working,
Endless revelries futile, in times unconscious,
Loves instant, genuine. drunken slumbers dead,
Clean beds crumpled, uncaring deeds cruel,
Checkouts late rewarded. Unmanly acts shameful.
-2- -4-
Friends dear betrayed, maybe one dream,
Away bartered loves. among nightmares plenty,
Much monies made, that one love-germ,
Abandoned ethics many. under in-differences heaped,
Gods all rejected, faint glimmering self,
Except the Hedonistic! beneath mountainous egos,
World enjoyed fully, a sparkling life-sign,
Life wasted lovely. in cemeteries silent.
Morphing every second, causes matter not,
Into grandiose nothing, by destiny’s graces,
Skeleton cynical final. gratefully unscathed still.
Oct 9, 2012
Oct 9, 2012 at 12:42 AM UTC
Nothing could save you
from your addiction
No one can save you
from your self
When you fell
You fell
straight to hell
You were gone
when you started
And nothing could
stop you...
from your addiction
Hell-bent for trouble
Headlong into tragedy
Drug induced psychosis
held you tight in its grip
Tighter than the clench
of a tightly gloved fist
The clenched fist of...
Your addiction
You bartered away
everything you owned
While incinerating
Your mind
Your heart and your life
cannot much longer
hold on...
against your addiction
No one could save you
from your addiction
Nothing can save you
from yourself.
-R.
(10.12.17)
-LA
Oct 13, 2017
Oct 13, 2017 at 10:30 AM UTC
*The darkness that shattered her world was left behind. Ashes to forget, memory lost in the wind of no rewind
She finally took the narrow path towards a new life. Today, she stands so tall and bright. No one can bring her down, solid as a rock. There's no turning back.*
Selfless, relentless to fear
Everything that mounts to heights of frights, she's the warrior. Inferior to nothing. Candors of cadence impossible to break. Her heart made of mettle steel, nothing can make her falter.
All phobias are mundane
Except for one. That's when she met him at edge of the unexpected.
He sits at the rooftop alone everynight. Smiling to himself as he gazed into burst of constellations brimming with life.
"Is this love at first sight?", she thought
Past of men that broke her,
made her who she is today.
But this boy with a smile that could break her Titanic's Ice,
made her vulnerable.
With a smile that could break
the ice in her temple.
*The power he illuminates
can set her eyes on fire.
Her fast beating heart is jumping out
Thoughts scribbling every night,
'This is going to be a mess,
I can't decide'
He closed his eyes, feeling the euphoria flowing inside.
The chimes and the chill of wind are all he can hear. He slowly touched
his chest and feel the bliss
As he opened his eyes,
a scintillating star in his sight.*
Their eyes didn't meet, yet,
He glances back without her knowing tilting his head to the left, as she watched him from her window.
He was falling and sinking into her ocean eyes. Each glance makes him drowned and drawn deeper to her.
Yesterday was a blur, tomorrow is a vivid life. Within her is starting to tear with fear. Prayers of hope she will win and take the climb. She wants to grab the chance and be happy for once in her life.
Both having the intent to speak.
Both prepared to make the first move
But bartered smiles was all it took
Heart's stolen, melting ice
They somehow knew this love will last..
Forever.
Mar 1, 2015
Mar 1, 2015 at 9:21 AM UTC
Truly Great Gratitude knows how to cook
From my Mentor reward a Burger's Gift
Out of a Contest she saw a New Look,
A New White Shirt whose Collar I did lift
So during the orders our Themes discussed
From Family to Travel saw a Best Face
With you your own Self renew and re-trust
Your Fresh Bond Paper your Husband sought Grace
Only when we bartered our Wallet's view
Was when your Picture's truth I discovered
How Human you are; And Friendlier new
Which self-doubted Fever I recovered.
Luncheon was Great; And now invades the Rain
We better both run with Minutes remain.
Mar 10, 2013
Mar 10, 2013 at 8:40 PM UTC
*A tragic tradition from times long past
Weak of wit and hard of heart
Thus pawns are born and
Circumstance plays its part
Here we stand again, aghast
Alas, what evil has come to pass!
Questions burn, anger rises
Vengeance brews on the horizon
The world has turned for years and years
On violence and wars, and bitter tears
You build - they break, you smile - they’re fake
Injustice reigns in misfortune’s wake
Struggle for some, victory for others
Caps are waved with fair-weather feathers
Who are they, who are we?
Who is safe, who is free?
Where is the heart that knows no fear?
Where is the mind that’s always clear?
An ephemeral world, a passing phase
The old, the new
The false, the true
A blink of an eye in eternity’s gaze
Yet weak-minded malignancies
Must ply their trade of misery
Dispensed with as refuse in this life
****** as bartered souls in the next
Fate’s hand is heavy and dark is the night
For the vicious heart and feeble intellect.*
Nov 14, 2015
Nov 14, 2015 at 8:57 AM UTC
#*Promises, I make only to keep
You are a friend and that’s sacred to me
I will be holding space, for us, you see
My words safe in my heart
The hurt mine to behold
My inhibitions, fears
Tears and distance I keep
To elevate and alleviate
You may bring your words
My silence, I’ll keep
It’s been a while, the spoken words I’ve bartered for the written
Won’t give either to you
Escapist I am not
Happy in the crowd, smile and gel
Safely guarded by my shell
Mellowed with age
Outbursts few and defences weak
Empathy, I don’t seek
It’s only human
To let go and carry on
Looking fine and beyond
As quitting is not done*#
Dec 10, 2018
Dec 10, 2018 at 3:37 AM UTC
You are
every fallen piece of skin
and strand of hair you
left behind, along with
the perfume that
I can't seem to wash
from my pillow.
I spilled your love into my
sink and tried to wash it with
formaldehyde,
I bartered your words away to
the 90% of the grey matter
I don't use,
I taught myself to pretend
every emotion in your eyes
were just a mirror of mine-
but, despite all of this,
I can never coax my
memories to reject you.
This body was never your temple.
It was never your kingdom.
It was your carpet,
which you burned with each
steely gaze and flaming word,
and which you trampled upon after
every storm.
You were every broken stone I
painted bone-white
after you hurled them into the heavens
only to watch them fall
again-
onto me.
Carving your name into my ribs,
you taught me to
sigh you into existence
each post-mortem night,
and I haven't found a room yet
where I can breathe without
inhaling you in
again.
Mar 23, 2014
Mar 23, 2014 at 1:06 PM UTC
And these men that made the land,
That wove their dreams with dust and dirt,
That needed death to know the flower,
Men of the corrugated country.
Men of bones,
Propped in the rusted windy ruins,
Who watched the movement of the birds
And bartered life with sky and earth.
Men of the drought's bare-cupboard cradle,
Biblical through plague and famine,
Who struck the water in the stone
And fought with flesh to swell the soil.
Time's weathered toys,
Who sought a garden in the sand,
Where the withered streams of the dry season
Flowed with flooding summer rains.
Men of the dark deserted spaces,
That masked their ruined stars with drink,
That fed the shadows with strange desires
And drowned the broken plough with tears.
Mar 22, 2016
Mar 22, 2016 at 5:30 PM UTC
Merry Christmas, the voice greets me
humbug I mutter under breath
greed hatred jealousy
only things you live with.
Keep to yourself your mirth
I sullenly brood
such lies are too heavy for this earth
done this place no good.
Relations under cloud of doubt
each soul bears a grievous injury
merriment had long gone out
the greet is just empty.
It's a pity you still find it merry
with all the injustice inequity
men classified quartered
children for food bartered.
Merry doesn't the word stink
while some choose what to drink
fuss about the flavor to savor
many reach it by miles' labor.
Merry can't hide away the glum
of human habitats in dingy slums
strewn on pavements under open sky
breathing refuses left to die.
Still, Merry Christmas to you, says the voice
the time is to give and rejoice
the world though truly is what you say
haven’t You, I, We, made it that way?
Dec 24, 2015
Dec 24, 2015 at 9:45 AM UTC
I rode the crested waves
that graced the coptic sea
And crashed into the shores
of North Africa
The water was as warm
The blood hotter still
No one went on living
unless they had the will
You never made a friend
nor aquaintence by the hill
Life was sweet and short
Too easy to be killed
Your best friend was a bottle
A cigarette would do
And in emergencies
a colt 45 was too
We smuggled guns and roses
across the white hot sands and dunes
We bartered in broken languages
while whistling a softer tune
With a third eye looking back
where bullets would fall as rain
On our way to Gibraltar
One dip salute , rev the engine of the plane
There is no water to quench you
To wash away the sins
The waves of guilt run over you
They bring the sharks with fins
Jan 20, 2017
Jan 20, 2017 at 5:16 AM UTC
It's Sunday again for you cloistered patricians
aloof from the madness, the magic and myth;
who trust in your wisdom, investments, physicians
unready to answer forthwith:
"Why bother with worship—in church or the zoo—
why weaken the links with a dull set of tools ?"
you ask yourself over your high-end Tarrazu,
bemused at the fables of fools.
You've bartered salvation for New York Times articles,
sipping on bitterness (shade-grown organic).
You settle for molecules, atoms and particles
unfairly-traded, satanic—
while you celebrate emptiness, general futility
musing on nothingness, sure of specifics
ensconced in your kitchen of pampered gentility
flirting with atheist physics.
Those simple plebeians: you'd love to enlighten them
help them, like you, to become a free-thinker
but you remain tasteful, for boldness might frighten them
reeling in fairy tales: hook, line and sinker.
Yet somebody, somewhere has uttered your sentence
(though you abhor judgement, let's read it again).
Sheba and Nineveh, versed in repentance
await you—not whether but when.
The darkness is brewing unholy filtration;
the wine of the harlot approaches the rim;
your guilt is augmenting in slow percolation;
you shrug it all off on a whim.
The souls of Assyria rise from your paper
they watch in amazement, prepare your abyss.
Your coffee now brims a more sulfurous vapor;
oh sinner—there's something amiss:
The crypts of Marib and the tombs of the Axumites
shudder and groan while you're reading the Times...
(immune to the words that some Christarded poet writes
mixing psychosis with rhymes.)
Royal Sheba will chastise your erudite unbelief,
smug self-importance and cynical squawk.
Then she'll sigh with immense Ethiopian grief
and her Highness Queen Bilqis will talk.
It is Sunday in Babylon. What if your sunlight ends...
why are there mobs in the streets of the nation?
Shall you have breakfast—or calculate dividends...
what would you pay for salvation?
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 10:30 AM UTC
Bartered tears with your love adorn
Twin streams from pure, spring founts born
Sappy pores gushing with showers of contrition on christening morn
Exchanged with vows that o'er time were weathered and torn
Briny waves of doubt crested; fealties' banks shorn
Now bottled memories silted with salty tears forlorn
Eroding tear ducts innundated then with passing time worn
Brackish vapor distilled with rotting dreams; with nauseous fumes borne
Corroded promises mired in a dry bed of scorn
Cloaked in callous foliage; spited with thistle and thorn
Meeting at the jaded fork; once vibrant streams solemnly mourn
Stagnant puddles awaiting reincarnation; at next season's fertile rains reborn
Aug 12, 2011
Aug 12, 2011 at 6:11 PM UTC
Cancel Haloween, I'm not the monster here
Fall's my favorite season, but hell October's doggie days for me
Stagnant rivers, and pockets full of leaves
I try to run a little faster just to escape these things catching up to me
Big furrys and little monsters at my knees
Oh, geeze-la-weeze
I need to feed on something sweet
So give me your neck girl,
I need your flesh, give me your blood, your best
Give me your glitter, your neon *******
Oh, get me the hell out of this monsters nest
Adrenaline pumped into me, I feel every blood platelet intimately rushing through me.
Radioactively synthesized, authenticity arise
Don't wait on me babe, I'm just trying to synchronize
Worry about me, and I'll let the tension build
Till I get the attention fill I need, babe.
Raid my mind with all your battleships and heavy war machines
Break me down until you find something worth keeping
I've bartered the black market selling love for lust, and my dreams for less
I barter for pleasures, but I always want more
I've lived a shallow life, assured
I've become a monster, and a ***** all while trying something new
That I was told was a cure
Now I follow with the bewildered beasts boohoo
Now I follow with the bewildered beasts boohoo
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 2:00 PM UTC
“How far have you walked for men who’ve never held your feet in their laps?
How often have you bartered with bone, only to sell yourself short?
Why do you find the unavailable so alluring?
Where did it begin?
What went wrong?
And who made you feel so worthless?
If they wanted you, wouldn’t they have chosen you?
All this time, you were begging for love silently,
thinking they couldn’t hear you,
but they smelt it on you,
you must have known that they could taste the desperate on your skin?
And what about the others that would do anything for you,
why did you make them love you until you could not stand it?
How are you both of these women, both flighty and needful?
Where did you learn this, to want what does not want you?
Where did you learn this, to leave those that want to stay?”
--Warsan Shire
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 12:06 PM UTC
Considering me a talented, aspiring shill
My muse loaned me a feathery quill
Brokering her wisdom, leasing her skill
With embroidered frills each barb with beauty did distill
Lithographer's vision, a graceful dividend to reveal
Depreciating vane my artistic license to bill
Hollow shaft gilded so her availing light could the vacuum fill
Inky reservoir with inspiration did instill
A deep well with literary devices did rill
Ideas streaming from strained cavity to the mind's tip with zeal
Burnished hues, sharp tones aesthetic notions to congeal
A precision valve appended vagaries to swill
An automated inkblot defibrillating patterns to spill
Sep 15, 2011
Sep 15, 2011 at 11:28 AM UTC
Into the goblet of life did I poor myself, convivially jaunting; jumping for the juniper as if jolted into life for the first time by the cosmic current that sublimely filtered reality from the dream that had become my truth.
I, beheld to the newly found perceptions, careening through the trees, trampling upon crisp leaves, on my way to scenic experiences, was ever looking forward to the hopeful thrill and living in anticipation of the next climactic excitement.
I would be unable to be complemented by the moment, in which I did not truly live.
The adventure became a tragedy,
As is always with the changing of innocence into untoward regret.
Tears were novelties that were bartered for kindness, traded for the rhyme, but never the shine.
Illumination is priceless.
Jan 31, 2016
Jan 31, 2016 at 6:57 PM UTC
It is useless work that darkens the heart. - Rumi
And what is work for,
beyond survival or
occasionally joy?
It produces surplus
which is bartered,
traded and sold
until it becomes money.
The dark alchemy of usury
piles it into the hands
of the few who use it
to oppress the many
who created it
in the first place.
mce
Apr 12, 2015
Apr 12, 2015 at 6:11 PM UTC
Some past ago
Innocence carried my heart
And then one day you presented to me
The Impression of passion
It touched me
Changed me
Utilized my beating chest
And utterly broke me
I yearn still to embrace your body
The elegant contact of your lips on mine
To save you from the bitterness of snowy nights
But my mistakes bartered my undoing
That night
That cold, unforgiving winter night
Will forever haunt my dreams
As I try to find the past in my slumber
The extent of loves hand is weary and perplexing
But the willingness of a heart as mine will trade lives
For one
Last
Touch
By the divines, I am alone
Nov 22, 2013
Nov 22, 2013 at 11:50 PM UTC
Satin runs from dried stains
in torn reminders of convenience
Morning tastes of stale sweat and disappointment... again
Displaced retribution is a punishable offense
sentenced in hangover flashbacks fusing pain in lust heavy deviance
coddling complacency, impaling the nuisance of a persistent past
That serrated double edge glistens with humility and humiliation
licked clean by ravenous canine
flinging leftover apathy on unwitting pawns
Feeding on the deceptively needy
blinded by intoxicated cliches
mistaking release for emotion
Condemnation bartered in stolen commodities
Toilet water hydration reconstitutes enough to bleed
behind neuropathic armor and addiction to the nether
Feb 9, 2017
Feb 9, 2017 at 1:24 PM UTC
Tin cup
Simple pleasure common treasure it has its worth by it connection not everyone but many found this by an
On old pump by itself or next to a bucket you could drink or use it to prime the pump it lends itself to
Western lore found around the chuck wagon on a cattle drive one of the men on the trail drive squats
Before the fire with gnarled hands he holds the cup with hands that are callused from handling his lariat
Day in and day out on the cattle now he holds it filled with coffee strong river coffee drawn from the
Brazos shaded by mesquite cottonwood and juniper finest example of Texas this old cup ties you into
time and place a past that is loved and loved ones that shared campsites that now have passed on in the
Heat of the summer day you drank hardly from its contents it banged around in all kinds of
Circumstances invariably most of them pleasurable ones and who handled the cup mother or a favorite
Grandmother you see her hands lovingly holding the cup they go together like flowers and rain you strain
To hold the thought you don’t want to let go of that special connected memory or maybe they used it to
Measure flour by closing your eyes you can almost smell the bread or biscuits the flour produced it takes
You across many thresholds that are steeped in precious memories that can never be again you are
Taken back to childhood by something so simple but so useful it creates a lost time of joy and
Happiness long remembered and never to be forgotten a symbol or a symbolic trusted identification
With place or person you feel its coolness in your hand you move it around for a few quick moments
You return to yesterday not bad for a piece of tin they give so much credit to other metals for other
Reasons of course the value they possess and what you could exchange them for but that is talking
About a certain amount were dealing with priceless things of the heart that no amount of money can
Buy just think next time there are many items that are in themselves of little value but they are
Touchstones a gateway to a broken past riches that aren’t for sale or they are not to be bartered away
They are never put in a safe but they so readily take you to a safe place tender joy is felt in the heart
A calling can be felt and heard jewels of inestimable value lay hidden they easily come into view when
You touch insignificance without expecting anything the world lets you know you are richer than you
know
Nov 24, 2011
Nov 24, 2011 at 7:25 PM UTC