"bedeviled" poems
I took a stroll down my childhood lane
These neural pathways took me back
Multilingual versions of the narrative
Warned me of imminent attack
I made it work for me my people
Bedeviled on behalf of all my greater good
I took my time in stride with sidewalks cracked
And broke my swag along a scattered beach
Came down with that viral capacity to fluctuate
According to what gut feeling feeds heart pumping
Where we intersect that jazz bebopper inhabiting art
Draw outside the lines come together in stark contrast
To the words we negotiate with each other in exchange
For favors better left unpaid yet enacted cross-purpose
To our intended lizard goal to wrap our prey entangled
Tongued in the mail entreated globally galactic guardian
I’d simply settle inside ambitious repose armed by you
Draped across our gossamer webs wet commingled faces
Jun 29, 2013
Jun 29, 2013 at 1:30 AM UTC
Ghost Relics
Downtown,
where Main intersects Main
you'll see the last living tissue
of a breathing bazaar.
They weighed down her chest with bricks and girders.
It's a wonder she breathes at all.
-
Wander too far in any direction
and you're sure to see the husks
of once proud and bustling businesses.
Abandoned sanctums of mortar and majesty.
Scars of the Midwest etched as constants in our mind.
Dusty and silent since the cradle.
-
The theaters are bedeviled with dolled up haunts
who just wandered over from Greenwood to catch the matinee.
Management still leaves the lights on for kicks after hours
to throw off their sleep schedules while they wait for the feature to start.
Up all night, sleep all day; they read by neon and slumber under Sol.
Here I am, left lounging in The Devil's Chair. Crickets keep quavering.
-
Underneath the Franklin Street overpass sleeps a family bound by naught.
They watch in dawn's light as the few pedestrian that traverse Cerro Gordo
advert their eyes as some sort of silent symbol of respect for their situation.
It's as if the very stare of a privileged man could drain 'til depleted.
They never ask for anything, they just wade it out and listen to
the cars overhead, the train-clock's trumpet, and the heartbeats in between.
-
Leaks are patched, potholes filled, and yet
we're still loosing blood; becoming beguiled.
So many stray cats in the civilian savanna,
aimlessly seeking names and second chances.
"This premises is under police video surveillance" -
hanging like ornaments from streetlamp poles.
-
Guarding the gates
of a dwindling dominion,
as the armies of Union and Grand
wait in their camps
for the rust to take hold
of her iron veins.
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 12:52 AM UTC
i given nothing
i abandoned
i adopted
i dropout
i garage
i Apple
i NeXT
i Pixar
i Apple
i pilfered i
i invented i
i produced i
i market i
i retail i
i am i
i am
i
i tech beauty
i consumer fetish
i whom you love
i sleekest widgets
i Toy Story
i Macintosh
i macbook
i Lisa
iTunes
iPod
iPhone
iPad
i more
i rebel
i genius
i visionary
i entrepreneur
i world changer
i exceptionalism
i capital market hero
i bigger then business
i cool capitalism
i myth
i "the man"
i worker
i employer
i boss
i thief
i savior
i billionaire
i venerated
i vanity
i Buddhist
i prophet
i redeemed
i 1 in 300 million
i America
i sing the pathos
i am the creed
i define the ethos
i Steve Jobs
i amassed riches
i accolade crowned
i ingratiate world
i virtue
i success
i creativity
i favored
i Midas
i bedeviled
i tested
i afflicted
i retire
i human
i mortal
i succumb
i eulogized
i leave legacy of i
i am an MBA case study
i employed workers
i peddled intrepid product cycles
i subject of amusing anecdotes
i am heroic corporate folklore
i grew pods full of music
i incite kids to thumb phones
i captivate consumer imagination
i built rock solid balance sheet
i erected toxic Chinese factories
i enriched investors
i am the cool corporate brand
i inspired a million unused i apps
i hipster capitalism
i imposed my will
i insisted
i am that i am
i cannot take it with me
i leave blue jeans
i leave NB sneakers
i leave black collarless shirt
i will be asked what
i did with the time
i was given?
i did the best i could
i played the hand dealt
i parlayed it into a royal flush
i filled it up with i
i ask why
i am no more?
i leave the world
i am no more
Godspeed Beloved
Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs
(February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)
jbm
Oakland
10/6/11
Nov 4, 2011
Nov 4, 2011 at 10:40 PM UTC
maybe I am bedeviled by thoughts of you everytime my mind slips into the abyss, maybe that's the reason I don't tap into it the way I used to.
But If I told you how I felt, it'd get swept under the rug.
Suppose my eyes burn behind these creme- thick glasses everytime I see you, suppose I hate the silence and fight the urge to burn my surroundings with the heat behind my eyes.
But if I told anyone what I saw, it'd get swept under the rug.
Imagine I listen to music and hear your voice, so I claw my headphones out like they were ice seeping into my skull and freezing my cranium with words oh so soothing as a double-edged blade sinking both ends into me, Imagine a tear escaping my eyes, voice raising in a blatant attempt to ease the pain.
But If I said a word about what I hear, it'd get...... well, I think you know what'd happen.
Lets dig under that rug, four feet by four feet area of infinite emptiness.
Half of my life has been hidden in there: emotions, mental, thoughts, pains, lusts, curiosities, questions, intents, past, present and future, all have been hidden under that rug.
It's stitches are one with my soul because it has so many of my confessions that it absorbs part of my soul.
I trust that rug more than I trust some of the hoes I claimed to trust from day one.
I trust that rug more than I trust some of the friends I've had since meeting.
That rug has an affinity for gaining people's trusts, like me.
That rug produces more positive vibes than power chords produce energy, and yet we wonder why something being swept under the rug is a bad thing.
I sweep myself under the rug because I know I'll be safe there. I know that with all the thoughts and emotions I share, that with that safe haven, I am assured.
I rest under the rug, I cry under the rug, I sleep under the rug.
As it is my home.
And I love it's sincere serenity.
Jul 4, 2016
Jul 4, 2016 at 8:33 PM UTC
The Paragliders like ravenous vultures flew
to southern Israel to predate on soft targets.
Like swarms of bees, they snuck, ***** maimed, shot, burnt and slew.
Terror did every man's fragile conscience becloud.
Hate made their embittered hearts to mercy forget.
Abductions followed, having to terror avowed.
Then came the IDF's genocidal intent,
having intended global laws to circumvent;
Children, women, all consumed by mighty vengeance.
A disproportionate response beyond balance.
Homes, hospitals, Mosques, Churches and schools are levelled,
as Gaza is by torrents of bombs bedeviled.
I do not with a livid Israel sympathize,
nor do I with a besieged Gaza empathize.
With humanity I have my affinity,
for my deep love for it, tends to infinity.
Oct 23, 2023
Oct 23, 2023 at 4:37 AM UTC
Bravely Burn Barbaric Books of Belief Belonging to Bad Bigots to Become the Bearer of the Bright-less Broken Banners of Both and Between Bruised and Betrayed Beleaguered Borders to Begin Benevolence Before the Beings Below Be Benumbed and go Berserk for Bloodshed .
Boldly Bestow the Blessing of Brotherhood to the Blind and Brutal Blood Beasts and the Bound Brethren of Brazen Ballads.
For a Bare Bundle of Burnt Books can Barricade a Braced Battalion of Bayonets, Block Beyond Billions of Battle Blades, Buffer a Bunch of Big Booming Bullets, Backfire Boorish Ballistae of Bribery and Bury the Barmy Bastard's Baleful Brusque Breathes that Brings Back the Bedeviled Beacon of Blame.
Feb 24, 2011
Feb 24, 2011 at 8:11 AM UTC
**I
Found
The
Belladonna
In Nana’s bedside drawer
I slipped some in my pocket
To even up a score
Later
He came knocking
With that smirk upon his face
Yet another ****** night of being
Defiled
and
Debased**
*My
Lovely
I
Call
My wicked
Ways are always here
Taking you for granted
Having my way
Because
There is
Nothing
You
Can do*
**I set the scene
In such
An
Alluring
Seductive
Way**
Fool
**Thought I was finally coming out to play
Incense swayed
Candles burned
He drank the drink
Then
Tables turned
Vermillion visions slice through the stagnant air
Cleansing me of
Ignorance
Naivety
Despair**
*She doesn't know
That bottle of wine
That
We
Drink
That her
Glass
Holds
A Cyanide pill
So
This smile
She thinks
Is
For
seduction
Hides
The plans
In
My
Head*
**Something’s not quite right
I have a
Strange sensation
Why am I experiencing
Hell
Fire
&
Damnation
Evil starts to slither on my heated skin
Maybe he just slipped me a ***** Mickey Finn?
Feeling now bedeviled
I take another sip of wine
Bachus sits there laughing
Regal and divine**
*Where did this migraine come from?
But I am here laughing
As she drinks her fall
**** I feel sleepy
Could she have?
No!
She wouldn't be that shrewd
Women can't out think a man
So she smiles with me
Rubbing her eyes
I ask her to dance
It will be her last dance*
**I sense strong arms caress me
Music fills the air
Fluidity of movement
Lays my soul stark bare
I beseech the cold dark eyes of this man that I abhor
As
We
Slowly
Slowly
Slowly
.
.
.
Concertina to the floor**
Sep 29, 2010
Sep 29, 2010 at 6:25 AM UTC
I don't mind when it strikes and it hurts
Eighty miles per hour
It won't ache it won't irk
Discover when you've been lied to
And the ones with blood on their hands
Just wipe it on your face and kiss your cheek
I don't mind when it wounds and it shoots
The alcohol tastes so sour
Though it claws at the memory from its roots
And the times spent in your room
Dissolve with the tears from the fumes
Sons of bedeviled thorns and pistols
They take you in
And they swallow you whole
They take a shot
At your chest, at your brain
They take a shot
And they can't really explain
Hotels filled with lonely corpses
A beautiful face seems the only source
That might get you out of your mind
When you are sick and you are lying
Discover that the ones with blood on their hands
Are the only ones who take a stand
With their sins and knives behind their backs
And a smile, and a laugh,
You have to know where you're at
You spell an apology letter by letter
Yet the sky would know better
Than to clear up on a day like today
When it can strike your soul
So fragile and so frail
And your hands
So skinny and so pale
And your smell
So old and so stale
And your heart
I can almost hear it fail
There's no light at the end of that tunnel
There's no mercy for merciless gunner
Maybe next time they'll think ahead
Before their words shoot you dead
But right now I don't mind
If it stabs from behind
Eighty miles per hour
And I still can't race past my mind
And right now don't you mind
Of your hit and run
Are you blind
To the damage done
I hope the sound of the drums
Drowns your cries
Where my soul once lied.
p.t.
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 10:10 AM UTC
a refugee from wealth,
he and his Dartmouth degree found the spot
farthest from his New England roots, and the first roots
he saw there were those of a banyan tree, giant gray tentacles
piercing the Asian earth, imploring the black soil
for atonement, he thought
the natives said the tree was older than God
immortal, but cursed with some blight that bedeviled them
and that prudent pruning of ailing arms would be wise
the man had only a Swiss Army knife
with its minuscule saw, but soon he set about the task
of trimming the behemoth, one mad millimeter at a time,
and mad was all the natives saw
this white creature, high in the canopy,
often from dawn until the sun sank in the jungle behind him
sawing away, a half branch a day, treating the gargantuan arboreal
like a prize bonsai
villagers would come, hunker, watch in the shade of the tree
once in a great while, they would see a branch crash on the ground,
at which time they cheered the pitifully patient woodsman
many offered to help, some leaving bow saws,
axes at the banyans' base, but he would have none of that
over and over he received new red knives with their tiny saws
these parcels the only mail he got
even during monsoon rains,
the man's labors did not desist
though his audience waned
appearing to defy physics' uncertain laws
the tree was nearly felled, but the man disappeared
before his colossal task was done, the locals claiming he climbed
into the thinned canopy one day and never came down
not even a well worn blade was found
allowing the witnesses to aver he was yet high in the heavens
resting after love's labor had wearied his hands
but perchance healed his heart
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 2:46 PM UTC
NEWTOWN (TRIBUTE)
from Tucson,AZ
E.J.Anderegg
In a haven of knowledge, structured for sharing,
an intruder descends with all absence of caring.
Unleashing his crucible’s conscienceless yield,
student’s bastion transformed to a killing field.
Grim reaper bedeviled with hell-bent depravation.
Safe haven for children suffers love’s reparation,
It’s not really surprising that death toll keeps rising,
While the lost moral compass despised compromising.
NRA’s pompous position truly appalls;
Corporate greed clenching sacs that once contained *****
Though psycho’s name fades, he’ll bequest mental anguish.
In Newtown hearts, where young memories languish.
Dec 27, 2013
Dec 27, 2013 at 1:41 PM UTC
You came to me a morning star
You offered me infinity
I, bedazzled,
took your hand
We revolved around the sun
You ushered me to
an endless sea of possibilities
That was how you called it
That was how you used to tell me
You held me,
playing careful defense
A paladin
A sparrow to her nest
I, affected with great wonder
Mindlessly bathed the silken water
Drowned myself in the soft
bubbles of the crashing waves
Not bedeviled by troubles
nor disturbance, nor distress
You walked ahead of me
As if protecting me
from the swelling crests
or from the cold, or
from the salt that filled my chest
I, spellbind
influenced by your charms
and your incantations
Moved rakishly along
your convivial course
Unto your heavens
Unto your hell
Into your fire
Into your soul
that was what you said
That was how you used to tell me
I believed
I accepted in veracity
And I watched, a sentinel
As you moved in rhythmic steps
and playful gestures
Until I was confounded by
your intricate motion
I, caught in a whirling sensation
Imperiled by a tendency to fall
Was carried into your
nauseous complexity
I, paralyzed by my perplexity
You venerated me, you said
Or that was how you used to tell me
Yet, I was disconnected and
I, an amazed audience,
stood enthralled
Or was I merely standing in stunned silence?
Stupefied
Yet disconnected?
Jan 11, 2013
Jan 11, 2013 at 12:49 AM UTC
Invested in you
I find our better angels give ground
******* by our egalitarian feelings for each other
Trumpeted by Gabriel’s miscast players
Bedeviled, we take what are yours, mine, and ours
Accumulated wealth protected from predators
Gives in to charitable impulse
Gives out, a gated community against colored encroachment
My bias against the opposition
Dissolves in your arms
We resolve to devote our energy
Toward getting off on the best footing available
Place where we care and don’t simultaneously
Then make fun of our foibles laughing at each other
The same way black and white grays as we mature color blind
Loggerheads whipsawed and dovetailed
Until we forget why we ever came together in the first place
Then remember this location, this smell, this touch, this taste
Karass, storm's eye, held center, Kane's rosebud cathected
Aug 31, 2013
Aug 31, 2013 at 12:55 AM UTC
And then...
A diffident embrace,
Hankered after bedeviled yearning.
Instead, butterfly kisses,
She planted 'pon breathless lips;
Scarved my neck
And schlepped,
Into mystery miles of misty memories...
But now...
That yesterday lingers forever,
Leaving evocative footprints
Left behind by flirtatious fragrance,
That oft beguile my pathway,
Into memories of her;
Whence fantasy atones reality...
May 14, 2016
May 14, 2016 at 10:34 AM UTC
close your eyes
shut out the fickle light
leave this place
where your feet drag in the devil’s dust,
your arms flail in ancient red slime,
and blue skies have
turned gray with
the ashes of drunken dreams
fear not what the old ones have said
about the last gasps
let your body
find the indifferent earth
where the light you have always craved,
like one eternally bedeviled
by a desert thirst,
becomes a soft black song…
peto somnus
Sep 21, 2012
Sep 21, 2012 at 7:07 PM UTC
I Romanticize
And visualize
The Real eyes
Full of Despise
So Dramatized yet
Can't Realize the
Real Lies so quick
Disguised by
Their Improvised
Alibis that will arise
When ice flame dies
baptized by
Unholy flies now
Desensitized by
So blessed by those
Bedeviled Snake eyes
That traumatize,
Yet tantalize my soul
And likewise,
These ****** skies
Sorrowed demise,
Was brought upon by
White lies.
Now tainting lives,
Once colorized,
so grey.
Your eyes.
Beloved Reprise
Apr 14, 2016
Apr 14, 2016 at 1:10 AM UTC
NEWTOWN (TRIBUTE)
from Tucson,AZ
E.J.Anderegg
In a haven of knowledge, structured for sharing,
an intruder descends with all absence of caring.
Unleashing his crucible’s conscienceless yield,
student’s bastion transformed to a killing field.
Grim reaper bedeviled with hell-bent depravation.
Safe haven for children suffers love’s reparation,
It’s not really surprising that death toll keeps rising,
While the lost moral compass despised compromising.
NRA’s pompous position truly appalls;
Corporate greed clenching sacs that once contained *****
Though psycho’s name fades, he’ll bequest mental anguish.
In Newtown hearts, where young memories languish.
Dec 27, 2013
Dec 27, 2013 at 1:33 PM UTC
When the night takes you
into it's dark and mysterious embrace,
and you travel ever downward
through chambers that have never seen
the sun's glowing face,
and faceless archangels carry you
bedeviled place to place,
and you tango, allegretto
with Dante in his chamber space,
and you wake breathless
with an ashen face,
It's my desire to be pillow side
kiss your forehead,
hold you close, reassure you,
that once again you're now safe.
Jan 27, 2011
Jan 27, 2011 at 9:20 PM UTC
A husband -> a wronged wife
"My dear take a chair
Your affair is unfair
I can't stand
A suffocating air
This way you and I
Could no longer continue
A loving pair
Soon to my parents
I must repair!
How come for love of a ****
A marital vow
You thwart? "
This way since
You decided me desert
For what I did spurred
By transient lust
Chagrin my soul has hit.
As usual in deep slumber
When I extend my hand
To ascertain whether
You have slept sound
And stir you up
So as we sleep entwined
Yet get awake to a tragedy stark
That I but draw a blank
My heart indeed
Incessantly bleed
From the loss it incurred
Your obeisance and love divested.
If you can't find it in your heart
My folly to forget
Forgive me my dear
For without you near
My life turns insufferably sour.
A wronged wife—>A husband
After your body you befouled
And proved a down to earth cad,
After your spirits perfidy you debased
Impudently you demand
As before I should you hold
An esteemed husband.
Indeed this I will not!
For rancor laden my heart
Bleed incessant
It mustn't!
Away to my parents I fled
For you failed to abscond
After what you did.
'Once bitten twice shy'
Forgive you how could I?
A husband—>A wronged wife
Your forgiveness but
Nothing depurate
The blot
In your eyes
Down me brought.
I hope
Forgiveness is the least
Your impeccable heart
Me could grant.
Even the ocean of tears
I wept
Whitewash me still not
My dear there is a second
Man goes wild
And commits a deed
He condemns absurd,
My perfidy to nothing but
To this folly could be imputed.
Man is prone to err
So you should consider
What matters is his bid
Improprieties away to clear.
So my dear
Give me a chance second
To prove, you loving husband.
Your forgiveness will be a credit
That surely you catapult
To ensconce
In the apex of my heart.
A forgiving personality
Is a virtuous quality
Besides your heart
Me 'love' that taught
Which is also on me soft
Won't follow a policy
Watertight and
Once for all me smite
A wronged wife—>A husband
Raving ans volleying
Boisterousness nay, nay!
You stultify
Must not I.
My mind is bedeviled
Since you I missed.
On your misdemeanor
Brood I shall no more
To night
Come to the cathedral
We first met
As a jump-start
Together out
We have to spend the night.
The night's Zephyr wet
Will wipe away
Our disagreement!
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 9:25 AM UTC
NEWTOWN (TRIBUTE)
from Tucson,AZ
E.J.Anderegg
In a haven of knowledge, structured for sharing,
an intruder descends with all absence of caring.
Unleashing his crucible’s conscienceless yield,
student’s bastion transformed to a killing field.
Grim reaper bedeviled with hell-bent depravation.
Safe haven for children suffers love’s reparation,
It’s not really surprising that death toll keeps rising,
While the lost moral compass despised compromising.
NRA’s pompous position truly appalls;
Corporate greed clenching sacs that once contained *****
Though psycho’s name fades, he’ll bequest mental anguish.
In Newtown hearts, where young memories languish.
Dec 27, 2013
Dec 27, 2013 at 1:38 PM UTC
I am being bedeviled by the only stranger that knows me.
The only ghost that haunts me at night.
It screams my name while I try to dream through another day.
It whispers "you need help" while I pretend to be okay.
It looks for serenity while I'm nothing but insane.
My soul is haunting me...and I don't know how to escape.
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 12:38 AM UTC
Inquiring sons of daughters,
Equipt
Of a day, one day,
The unmalleable grounds
Of Untanga gardens
Will beget,
By far Richer.
Than today
Down to their own sons
Of a day, one day
Our land,
Agleam in lights of progress.
Surging nights
Bedeviled by the buzz of utopian youth
They, then also
Down to their sons
Of a day, one day
So on
And on...
Sep 20, 2020
Sep 20, 2020 at 10:55 AM UTC
Her aspirant heart once ventured
and then she was gone
No bugle at dawn.
The Songstress's cascade
bedeviled by the World unknown,
ivy festooned Water Towers
languished by the winds screech
siphoning the brasses cheer,
the pitch standing hollow
no longer lustral
merely a speckless whisper
Nov 18, 2012
Nov 18, 2012 at 7:05 AM UTC
Cracks run through you, doubt has overtaken; in a blighted show of this modern world
Faith, no longer enough for those with razor minds, 'though all of us make a leap at some bedeviled stage
For life, 'tis not knowable in its entirety
One needs to opinionate themselves to a world view, slick reasoning giving way to crunchy ideas that rot the soul
A faction; to alleviate lonliness' in dogma
In this age of logic
We have lost our heart
Aug 7, 2013
Aug 7, 2013 at 9:42 AM UTC
The itch
of poetry,
I had it bad once,
Like a teenage allergy that bedeviled me
and then it was gone.
I thought I’d outgrown it.
No words
could make me sneeze
or make my eyes water.
I went many years immune to beauty,
with no urge to speak.
Never so much as a phrase, a word,
tickling me.
But I can feel it coming back;
the itch of words
that must be scratched out
or they will fester.
Come back Muse,
and scratch my back.
May 26, 2017
May 26, 2017 at 9:09 PM UTC