"benedictions" poems
Lipstick cigarettes and the empty soul of modern rock n' roll
laid in ruin amongst my collection of black soul addictions and sultry benedictions.
MIDI saxophones and an ex-girlfriend on the telephone
directing me to find my home, to rebuild the comb, to banish the bartender and the Reverend ******
Alamo idiot stand and a neon Jesus
waving newcomers into the whitewashed port town known as "Cuba North".
At the Caged Gorilla, Linda, the waitress,
laughs through yellowed teeth, while my bloodshot eyes crawl up her red gums.
Binge'd and my brain keeps parallel with the ceiling fan
while a plain clothes cop tries to give me the reprimand for nostalgic mischiefs.
Handcuffed and looking for that old fiend, Freedom,
while Miranda spews on the back of my skull, slides down my shoulders, dots the cement.
Out the door and tourists with cameras looking for evil behind my irises,
but I can assure my handshakes feel the same, I'm front pew tame, and I blend with the parade.
Jan 12, 2012
Jan 12, 2012 at 7:13 PM UTC
My African culture
Uprooted from my ancestors
And pused on from generation to generation
My African culture- might seem
wied sounds funny or looks like a
**** but these carry alot of benedictions
My African culture tells the story of were we
came from and most probably were we are heading
My African culture describes and names itself
there is really no need for a heading
My African culture the one source of pride and
Joy
My African culture hard to replace yet easy to enjoy
My African culture oh my beautiful culture
my soul screams in joy from the energy of my
people and from the rythm of the African drum my
heart beats
movements degin within my feet
my inner voice telling me to move
in a fleet
I dispiss and dislike a person who
malingers or derides his culture,such
a beautiful thing,such a precious
, Special thing
My African culture tells the true
tells of fallen legends, of great worriors
And of most celebrated heros though
it never varies the tall in the telling
Now that's my Wonderful African culture
Sep 26, 2020
Sep 26, 2020 at 6:13 AM UTC
The poem was inspired by a particular photo of the WT C, and after that by my first visit to the 9/11 Memorial. On the day of 9/11, I was working about a diagonal mile away, and from our windows, we could see people jumping to their death.
Open sky annulled
to bordered lines of
uptown edges,
worldview momentarily
forcibly redefined by
memories of buildings and sadder days,
recollections of pillars of biblical smoke rising
A photograph
makes me look up,
and sit down historically,
need to catch a breath,
to rest mentally,
upon a storied small bridge's steps,
that I well recall,
a disappeared street stoop.
all were rubble then and once
upon that day.
Wear, tear, and older eyes distill perspective,
but the hardy heart is hardly stilled
by the recognizable gray upon
bon vivant gray reflective surfaces of
memories of buildings and sadder days
So today, on a reborn street,
I rest upon reconstituted speckled curbstone,
the city's lowered down ledges,
the city's lowered down-town boundaries,
constantly redrawn, but
nonetheless, always rebuilt from their own
regenerated stony compost,
and the NY passersby doesn't even notice
a man, head in hands,
silently weeping, thinking that:
We throw away so much we should have kept.
We keep so much we should have thrown away.
Lose keepsakes, but keep our mysterious sadnesses
locked away in compartments that open only to
benedictions uttered in ancient tongues.
Make your own list,
be your own curator,
catalogue visions of sophomoric triumphs,
museum mile pile
those early poetic drafts,
be unafraid of memories
raw and ungentrified,
overlaid, buried underneath
postmortem of dust-piles of senior critiques
Finally went downtown to see
where the blessed water falls
into catacomb pits that once
were the foundations
of buildings that ruled the cityscape,
downtown anchors
for a modern city that exists
only because it was built on
million year old granite bedrock
Stone monuments are stolid, discrete.
Memories are of grayed, frayed edge consistency.
Negatives resurrected that survive digitally,
all blend synthetically, layer upon layer,
essence distilled in a single,
black and white photograph
that serves to
disturb complacency,
awaken stilled pain,
reflections suppressed,
are restored
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 6:36 PM UTC
'The beggar boy is none of mine,'
The reverend doctor strangely said;
'I do not walk the streets to pour
Chance benedictions on his head.
'And heaven I thank who made me so.
That toying with my own dear child,
I think not on _his_ shivering limbs,
_His_ manners vagabond and wild.'
Good friend, unsay that graceless word!
I am a mother crowned with joy,
And yet I feel a ***** pang
To pass the little starveling boy.
His aching flesh, his fevered eyes
His piteous stomach, craving meat;
His features, nipt of tenderness,
And most, his little frozen feet.
Oft, by my fireside's ruddy glow,
I think, how in some noisome den,
Bred up with curses and with blows,
He lives unblest of gods or men.
I cannot ****** him from his fate,
The tribute of my doubting mind
Drops, torch-like, in the abyss of ill,
That skirts the ways of humankind.
But, as my heart's desire would leap
To help him, recognized of none,
I thank the God who left him this,
For many a precious right foregone.
My mother, whom I scarcely knew,
Bequeathed this bond of love to me;
The heart parental thrills for all
The children of humanity.
3.1k
Sore’ us
Ooze
‘da poor ‘ust ones
Black scotch and de’wars
**** ‘um is fin’er
As I run from life
‘a from any at all.
‘dis ain’t ‘dey party
Fa’ de’ parted departing
It’s just ‘dey way
Of getting ‘duh deed done
It’s not mystery
Nor ‘duh chance.
See?
Pure despair
‘nings discernment
Evils low ruse
Vindictive benedictions
Pleasures ease
Smell’s clear
While here
Something’s sick
’nings’ fatale
‘ah a‘traction
Sum treacherous torture
Of sentenced de jour…
Jeer’us!
Infectious disease’us
Runnin’ rampant
Of spells complete
Consumption ‘us
Divergin’ opinions ring
Must be sick ’o
Is pathetic delusion ’o
Imagine
Is just imagining
Flashbacks of ole
Smackums’ hymn
Kind’a makes me laugh
But truth is too
Much to rash
That woman’s
Complete
Abusive…
Trash!
Got the world?
Or her wrath
Taken out the best…
Mother Natures Son
Everything he cares for
His family and chill
‘da heir
‘dey run
Only pain and death‘ eruption
Ultimate relentless destruction
Her kind of fun
Yeh ‘dey disorder of disorders
Kin‘da be a gun
Yud luve to be swift
For such ‘da gift
That takes you from ‘dat world
She’s so horrid
From hell they’d tried to bar ‘er
They’d hope to have starv’n out her
But souls she’s quick devour’n
Takes you out
To bear pain upon ya’
Despair, would you’ve joy
Preparations of
Desperations…
She’s suicide!
She’ll get ya on her dream sensations
Thee unforgivable debts
War crimes kinda’
You’ve got comin’
Lest her best compensations
U’d try n try to escape
Marked for pain
Marked not to make it
As prey unto desolations
Of the desperate
And ultimate violations
(She is Suicide
Kind’a be a gun)
Jun 10, 2012
Jun 10, 2012 at 9:14 PM UTC
If man follows evolution
He'll come to distruction
No more revolutions
Nothing like reconstrution
A little humiliation?
One more deduction
No such thing as a nation
No chance for creation
A Sea of Tranquility
Only elimination, Mother Earth's abortion
What about salvation? Not even mutation?
We've lost our ambition, so we loss our reincarnation?
No more benedictions? Only discrimination?
A Sea of Tranquility?
Total annihlation? Call it "Holy Assaignation"
We should find our anticipation confronted with meditation
With no reservation for our obligation
There is no solution for a simple conclusion
A Sea Of Tranquility?
May 20, 2010
May 20, 2010 at 5:40 PM UTC
as the coffee cup is rinsed,
the filthy little ******* lands
on the counter to my right.
immediately,
seeking a bludgeon,
his demise is envisioned.
however,
this housefly stays in
my periphery
for just a moment
longer
and
I cannot help but notice
his tiny little mitts, working
and fretting.
imagining the tiniest string
of rosary beads wrapped
around his housefly fists,
it occurs to me that he
might be making his peace
with God.
offering up his little housefly
benedictions, contritions;
apologies for all the sugar bowls,
he’s puked in during his
miniscule little life,
all the little maggots that
he might have fathered
and subsequently abandoned.
I think, without thinking really,
to chide my little countertop
cohort, saying:
“Ah, give it up little one, He isn’t there, He never was,
and if He is, He doesn’t give a second’s thought to the
likes of us.”
the housefly looks at me;
still furiously working his
unseen beads.
“You fool.” he says.
“God has obviously heard my contrition, my apologies,
and has granted me a reprieve, however brief.”
interrupting his novenas,
the housefly continues:
“You, my friend, are so great,
and I am so small,
yet you’ve heard my voice,
seen my beads,
given me reprieve, however brief.
I had asked God to give to you,
just one golden moment of
true, honest belief.
And, so He has, and now
you understand that
the prayers of a housefly
have stayed your hand.
So, it doesn’t matter how
great or how small,
God listens to each of us,
one and all.”
***
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016
Sep 9, 2016
Sep 9, 2016 at 10:38 AM UTC
The Gods are money sound these days.
and priests have marketing degrees -
The faithful, called to worship
by giant plasma screens,
in mega-shopping sanctuaries
selling salvation through merchandising.
At the Church of Holy Consumption
all denominations are welcome –
hundreds, twenties, tens.
All the hymns are sung by Muzak -
the readings daily specials.
A sister spritzes us with holy essence
(The bottle's 40 bucks an ounce).
Leave your offerings at the till -
major credit cards accepted.
When worship time is up,
sign the dollar across your chest
and bend a knee to the talking head
cooing soothing benedictions,
“Go in Peace, my child. You’re worth it.”
January, 2007
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 3:05 PM UTC
it was that i was. gurgling a valorous *** of cells at the bottom
of the notched brick habitat of sickly algebra. and i and. with all
the dirt meticulously skeletal. trenchant chaotic lips blathering
skinny vocal animals. the smooth monkeys pinstripe about the
square in my needle city. well and i am an we. with your habitual
pocket of blood and dust in correct lumps small and large proportionately
spitted on your ideal, at my hips your hips(hand in hand). we walk
bythe specific straights towering sky breakers hollering reflective
skin. the neon electric residue of light smacks my eyelets. and
some ****** **** with the night air agreeably. but i,m a yours
and only. yes. so let's make some drips of clear tremulous benedictions
to this vibrant lovely hell
Oct 6, 2010
Oct 6, 2010 at 12:07 PM UTC
It all seem like yesterday
When we all gathered round your bed
Kneeling for blessings,benedictions
And warnings to live as one
It all seems like yesterday
When you will rock me with folktales
Stories of how you won my mum
And the blessings attached to you as one
It seems like yesterday
When your advise cuddles me in my blues
Re inspiring my soul
With it streams words of gold
It all seems like yesterday
That the devil took your breathe away
Leaving us with a hole
Scars like tattoos
As we mourn in silence
And here,
we standing all in a dark shade of glass
Black gowns,black suits,black tie,in the rain
Spreading our ashes over you bossom rest
Blaming the devil for the theft of a good life
Though your pictures glaze our hearts
Furnishing it with your radiant smiles
The memory of you
We continue to cherish
As we hold today a remembrance of you.
Mar 1, 2015
Mar 1, 2015 at 5:02 AM UTC
Wicked winds howled senseless from Great Lakes to Navajo
Screaming eulogies for the frantic madmen
And the love of rage they shot their veins black with
And the additive-free sadness that filled their lungs with ashes
Broke down church bells tolled, once, twice, three times on the hour
Resounding enough to wake Virgina her revered dead
The heart of mighty Shenandoah beats in shades of revolutionary red
And DC sleeps uneasy under armed guard
Here is where your mother lies and bleeds empathy to the tune of Suburbia's solemn hymns
And here is where your brother ticks his weight in manic speculation and nervous wondering
And here is where you straddle the nuclear armaments of culture atop the shoulders of those lonely mad giants you hold so dear
A dying breed, a skeletal frame of burning purpose and relentless conviction
The last great hunter of the American Dream
They said their prayers, their rosaries, and their benedictions floated carelessly off to nothing, from nothing
Laid to rest on the edge of a cornfield six feet under cold Earth and laughing heavens
Heads bowed in lurid admiration tempered with contempt
For the soul of the devil of the world to come
Jan 16, 2015
Jan 16, 2015 at 1:05 AM UTC
Dreams that collide in collective collaborations,
merging mercifully into identical imaginations.
In sporadic unspecified dioramas of decoration,
seemingly devoid of light, yet full of illumination.
Winds that billow in bellows of blue balderdash,
that hides these vague souls in the elephant grass,
as white horses run for an unconsecrated pass;
I sit sipping lightning from a small green flask.
I cannot see beyond this collision of cataracts,
sitting in a puddle of Alzheimer's and absent facts,
hard to predict parlor tricks' and posthumous pacts,
metamorphosis of those we ****** on, lies intact.
Veins constricted from catastrophes and contradictions,
synapses sinewed by audacious biannual addictions,
misdemeanors of malicious misnomers and maledictions,
breathing in the beneficent bleating of benedictions.
Dreams that collide in collective collaborations,
merging mercifully into identical imaginations.
In sporadic unspecified dioramas of decoration,
seemingly devoid of light, yet full of illumination
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 8:52 PM UTC
As I hold you in my arms I search my
spirit for the perfect words to say
Take a snapshot in your mind of these
moments of contentment for they’ll
sustain you and they’ll surely pass away
We all are stuttered benedictions
Played out of tune Hosannas
Imperfect parts, through God made perfect, Whole
A sweet and subtle contradiction
Of power and mercy defines and refines Our souls
Let the wind blow, let it move you on the ocean
Of yourself
Let the rains come, hailstones clatter but it doesn’t matter
It is well
Be slow to anger – for we are surely slow to understand
More out of simple fear than hate
People will break your heart and later on
They will regret – but you will never know
Try to find your joyful duty
Like the one I found in you
And in your brothers, in your mother Long ago
Find the faith of our fathers
It’s the harmony and rhythm
Of your symphony and all you’ll
Leave behind
Seek out the pen-strokes
Of your composer, and the watermark within
First edition, signed
Let the wind blow, let it move you on the ocean
Of yourself
Let the rains come, illusions shatter but it doesn’t matter
It is well
Be slow to anger – for we are surely slow to understand
And as I put my pen to paper I hear your mother calling, calling-
Me to bed, to gather strength to fight and rest my weary head
To wage war with the world and with myself
Let the wind blow, let it move you on the ocean
Of yourself
Let the rains come, hailstones clatter but it doesn’t matter
It is well
Be slow to anger – for we are surely slow to understand
Lord knows, we are surely slow to understand
Feb 13, 2013
Feb 13, 2013 at 11:20 AM UTC
My depiction of fiction
fits the description
uplifted from my own benedictions
been a ****
been addicted
bend and lift
benefited
my back... only difference
Is I had somebody watching mine
To make up for what I lack and
what I thought I know
By the fact I've brought you thought provok-
ing moments
Hold it
Mold it
Don't let go it's
life in motion
Nice to know that
most components
Grow and hold it's
value
The struggle's golden
Hold up swollen fists
To no avail you
Never give up
Never live up to
other's expectations
Know your limits
Set the boundary
Allowing for a more peaceful, sound sleep
Cuz at the end of the day
We all lay
Our head upon that pillow
And when contentness sets in
Voids...we fill those
weep like willows
Weak but still chose
To instill those
Values in our kinfolk
Mar 12, 2018
Mar 12, 2018 at 5:53 PM UTC
the simple undressed aura
shatters all fear for we are
so godlike
in our oneness
with eacother
so innocent, pure
and so very lovely
in the fullness of our love
let the dead just be dead
they can't use our benedictions
or feel the warm tenderness
that eminates naturally
from any one of us
to be human is to have all power
our simple undressed aura
shines with god's power
shines with our power
and is the power called love
Aug 3, 2010
Aug 3, 2010 at 5:35 PM UTC
Accretion,
Tis I seek!
Permission,
Of ones love to keep!
Partition,
I gaze for none!
Secretion,
Of child play fun!
Direction,
To giveth me her hand!
Completion,
A wedded band!
Ommision,
I want none more!
Suspition,
Please close thy store!
Assumption's,
I enquireth zilch!
Corruption,
Sleeps with filth!
Attention,
Wrap me as waddling infant!
Kitchen's,
To cook a meal of terrace's far and distant!
Affectation,
Of two fallen cherub's!
Alleviation,
Of the bug's and scarab's!
Abstraction,
I paint as a picture,
Benedictions,
Of one pellet, two triggers!
Complications,
Of breathing do I feel,
Irrigations,
Another deathly pill!
Saturation,
Man made queens to beasts!
Irritation,
Where art thou? Queen of settled feast?
Obliteration,
I lurk the high hilled tops!
Incarceration,
Where ghoul's meet thy cops!
Palliation,
To make sensual love in darker nights,
Excruciation,
Where art thou light?
***********
Of kings and consort souls,
Acceptation,
Wilt thou come mine love?
May 29, 2015
May 29, 2015 at 10:21 AM UTC
In the great wasteland of my youth
I buried all my loved ones I'd slaughtered with my own hands
Every girl who ever loved me I shot right between the eyes
& All my brothers I knocked unconscious and burned alive
Why?
Why must I senselessly sever every human connection I've ever made?
Faulkner told me to **** my darlings and so eagerly I obeyed
In the great wasteland of my youth
I alone drift wraithlike from nothing to nothing
Just me and my ******* poems
Which I deliver like resounding benedictions to cathedrals of the ghosts I've created
Lord knows I always wanted a captive audience
In the great wasteland of my youth
I am king of nothing but broken bones
Broken hearts & broken homes
I rule scorched Earth and tattered sky
I command the cruel seas to rise & I command beauty to die
I am king of nothing
In the great wasteland of my youth
I am a demon of some repute
Seeking lovers incapable of love or objective truth
And objective truth I've only found in bottles of pills
Downed by the lovely girls I've later killed
Sacrificed to the emotional gas chamber of my bohemian holocaust
In the great wasteland of my youth
I've destroyed all the places I could hide
& am now forced to comprehend this monster inside
And what I've always suspected has been present all along
Brothers and sisters, I am an atomic bomb
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 12:42 AM UTC
How easily affected are the minds,
God's children moving shakily between
The scripts and benedictions. Anon
Caffeine and cigarettes, some chewing gum.
A sketch of what goes on inside the brain.
Confessions, passes, stigma from the nurse
Who holds the pad at management. Pain talks,
At times it shouts, and who are you to judge?
Complete the course, it's all spelled out. My songs are just excuses for the life I've lived.
Not much of one at that, not ever worth
Enough to pay the bills or right the wrongs
That lately have accumulated here
In my thick head, Golgotha of the soul.
Sep 22, 2018
Sep 22, 2018 at 8:26 PM UTC
The devoted scent of relationships
And the unconditional love beyond compare
Hand-in hand in harsh hardships
Trusted promises not to set tears
Hearts enlightened by lush greenery
With the blossom of the sweetest flowers
And then the fragrance embellish the saddened sighs
With the love and benedictions shower
With sometimes the bitterness of weeds
But you both have already sprinkled pesticides
And as I watch day by day
These pesticides turning into mild perfumes
With again the victory of good over evil...
Dec 11, 2017
Dec 11, 2017 at 6:43 AM UTC
Bells in fires higher the realms -
rise winged from cocoon sleep!
Hymns:
aoens that endure,
rise friend of all life,
benedictions
in all the heavens and hells;
Of flame the garment
dyed of the earth
birth, loss, decay and age,
suffering of even the Gods;
Find means of peace that lasts
find and broadcast across
the worlds seven;
Rise winged from cocoon sleep
that it may rain grace
on the wonderlands.
Oct 29, 2017
Oct 29, 2017 at 3:15 PM UTC
Let us sing of your sorrow over our glasses
Until all your past has been cleaned of the dust
Taken out for a walk and sat down in good trust
Even the darkest maledictions can be assets
Jan 14, 2016
Jan 14, 2016 at 4:23 PM UTC
Winding shadowy etches
come whispering at
my window.
Night whispers.
Forgotten whispers...
whimpers of the wind.
Blow blue, wailing as you go.
Crawl inside an
empty paper bag...
play me tunes of the moors.
Give me lonesome tonight;
hollow dirges tonight.
Reality is the whisper
of grasses on a back fence;
the crying of an empty swing.
Some shred caught in a car door
struggles to twist free
with a slap and tug and creak.
Whisper me lies and benedictions.
I cannot hear the truth.
Jul 28, 2015
Jul 28, 2015 at 8:08 PM UTC
My African culture
Uprooted from my ancestors
And pused on from generation to generation
My African culture- might seem
Like a taboo , sounds funny or looks like a
**** but this carrys alot of benedictions
My African culture tells the story of were we
came from and most probably were we are heading
It describes and names itself so
there is really no need for it given a heading
My African- culture the one source of pride and
Joy
hard to replace yet easy to enjoy
My African culture oh my beautiful culture
my soul screams in joy from the energy of my
people and from the rythm of the African drum my
heart beats
movements degin within my feet
my spirit telling me to move
in a fleet
I dispiss and dislike a person who
malingers or derides his culture,such
a beautiful thing,such a precious
, Special thing
My African culture tells the true
tells of fallen legends, of great worriors
And of most celebrated heros yet
it never varies the tall in the telling
Now that's my Wonderful African culture
Sep 25, 2020
Sep 25, 2020 at 11:40 AM UTC
First day on the job
I pray
The breeze smiles
Trees rustle
Shower benedictions
Upon me
All is well
Always will be
Jun 25, 2018
Jun 25, 2018 at 4:31 AM UTC