"bipeds" poems
Off the train I hit the streets
and start laughing. This is ridiculous,
incomprehensible. How can innumerable bipeds
have individual inner lives. Why are they doing
what they’re doing? I have no answer
New York City but to also go about my business
in this case prepare for surgery, survival.
But why survive with so many exact replicas
to replace me? A swarm of ants or hive of bees,
social organisms they’re called, climbing
over each other, avoiding bumping and amazingly
making way, anticipating the sudden turns
and straight paths of others, strangers but brothers,
sisters incubating, the cells of a small
***** nodes of a single semi-conscious organism.
The concept of a higher power that cares
for me is also risible yet how else
can I explain the surgeon and his team,
robots and magnetic resonance imaging machines,
all primed and trained to save my life.
They are not particularly interested in what
I do with my time. I am immediately
in love with the Irish brogue of the head nurse,
the Indian skin of the physician’s assistant.
The long extraordinarily thin
fingers of the famous surgeon. All
mine to savor (and the other cancer patients).
Despair, lose all hope
that’s what the sign says at the gates of hell
and at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center the sign says
Be kind to our customers who are waiting and suffering.
Yesterday’s suicidal thoughts: the mind
is a clever servant, insufferable master. Therefore,
meditate on this: absolute need, dependence on the Other.
I still like Hombre, The Shootist and Ulzana’s Raid
but realize those dead heroes
were subordinate to society: the gun manufacturers who armed them.
Thus, I go for cancer tests, accepting, not predicting results.
Hero accepting help.
A torrential rain following five days of flooding,
tornadoes out west busting up wooden towns
all because too many of us are hoarding plastic, herding electrons.
None of us know how it will end, what the outcome will be
(of our surgery). The best that can be said
is Don’t forget to breathe. And you might
as well believe in that higher power.
Mar 5, 2019
Mar 5, 2019 at 6:00 AM UTC
Hard light bathed them-a whole nation of eyeless men,
Dark bipeds not aware how they were maimed. A long
Process, clearly, a slow curse,
Drained through centuries, left them thus.
At some transitional stage, then, a luckless few,
No doubt, must have had eyes after the up-to-date,
Normal type had achieved snug
Darkness, safe from the guns of heavn;
Whose blind mouths would abuse words that belonged to their
Great-grandsires, unabashed, talking of light in some
Eunuch'd, etiolated,
Fungoid sense, as a symbol of
Abstract thoughts. If a man, one that had eyes, a poor
Misfit, spoke of the grey dawn or the stars or green-
Sloped sea waves, or admired how
Warm tints change in a lady's cheek,
None complained he had used words from an alien tongue,
None question'd. It was worse. All would agree 'Of course,'
Came their answer. "We've all felt
Just like that." They were wrong. And he
Knew too much to be clear, could not explain. The words --
Sold, ***** flung to the dogs -- now could avail no more;
Hence silence. But the mouldwarps,
With glib confidence, easily
Showed how tricks of the phrase, sheer metaphors could set
Fools concocting a myth, taking the worlds for things.
Do you think this a far-fetched
Picture? Go then about among
Men now famous; attempt speech on the truths that once,
Opaque, carved in divine forms, irremovable,
Dear but dear as a mountain-
Mass, stood plain to the inward eye.
4.6k
Losing a tail
Is like losing a rudder
Like losing a ballast
Stability must be found elsewhere
As a quadruped there are four points of contact
A biped has only two
How do we replace that stability?
With aspiration
~ Extinct ~
**** erectus*
and
**** neanderthalensis*
~ Extant ~
Hominids
Great Apes
Primarily lumbering along on all fours
Quadrupedal
Except Us
**** sapiens*
What mechanism allowed for bipeds?
Natural selection?
Or a naturally selected collective vision
Through collective perspiration
Art is used to mine dream-time
Inspiring the masons among us
The art is the plan
The architecture is built upon
And the builders perspiration
Leads to the built environment
How do you cap it?
Egyptians used a capstone
Aspiration
Leading to
Inspiration
Leading to
Perspiration
Leading to
A
Spire
Naturally
Oct 24, 2014
Oct 24, 2014 at 3:58 AM UTC
a perfect, newly unveiled horizon line
ancient and promising
yet reborn as a newborn
to my industrialized eyes.
I haven’t heard sirens in days.
still, there is the hustle and bustle
of movement everywhere,
but not by people
nor Porsches and Escalades
and their infiltrating thick smog.
no inane chatter
and fake oohing and aahing
over Louis’ and who saw who.
no
here the possessions move
the so-called inorganic
the buildings, doors, and gates
yearning to be free
swaying, creaking
their tiny reins of confinement
too much to bear
for their free spirits.
taking their cue
from trees, plants, vines, leaves
which are overgrowing fences
and clambering over walls
a massive riotous uprising at a glacier-pace
to triumph over the bipeds
imagine the horror of the flora
at a sudden interment to La-La-Land
the hopelessness and oppression
at being trimmed twice a week
mutilated and then slaughtered.
no
they are the secret underground rulers
stubbornly proud but humble tyrants
mercifully loving their lowly subjects
feeling sorry for us
we who have been forced into
this unnatural industrial order
not their beautiful chaos.
and yet...
they lie in wait
patiently, silently
anticipating the day
when we throw up our arms in exasperation and relief
and acquiesce to their dominion
a return to times before times.
Aug 13, 2011
Aug 13, 2011 at 1:33 PM UTC
Grim grey day
starts in the dark,
grumbles, glowers
shoulders hunched
Everyone in bitter agreement -
"Miserable!"
Rain driven against windows,
streaming pavements,
shoe-squelched curses
cast at baleful sky.
Travelling home at last,
raincoat defeated
tricklebacked discomfort,
Windscreen wipers ten to the dozen
under sopping sorrowful trees,
headlights strobing relentless rain
And -
Those aren't leaves.
What are they?
Tumbling across the road,
crisscrossing parabolas
of peculiar joy
Frogs!
I stop:
I have to.
The night is alive
with manic delight
as secret creatures fling caution to the wind
and bound into sight,
into frantic celebration,
unphased by cars, by foolish bipeds
who thought this planet was theirs -
Open mouthed and uninvited
I gaze, displaced and foolish
for not knowing
It is,
it is the most beautiful night
that could possibly be imagined.
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 8:24 AM UTC
1THE DOWN drop of the blackbird,
The wing catch of arrested flight,
The stop midway and then off: off for triangles, circles, loops of new hieroglyphs-
This is April's way: a woman:
"O yes, I'm here again and your heart
knows I was coming."
2White pigeons rush at the sun,
A marathon of wing feats is on:
"Who most loves danger? Who most loves wings? Who somersaults for God's sake in the name of wing power in the sun and blue on an April Thursday."
So ten winged heads, ten winged feet, race their white forms over Elmhurst.
They go fast: once the ten together were a feather of foam bubble, a chrysanthemum whirl speaking to silver and azure.
3The child is on my shoulders.
In the prairie moonlight the child's legs hang over my shoulders.
She sits on my neck and I hear her calling me a good horse.
She slides down-and into the moon silver of a prairie stream
She throws a stone and laughs at the clug-clug.
1.6k
And I answered:
To see and touch all that I forgot,
To remember the delta where
Immense waters rushed to
My memory's melodic forms.
To remember that ***** that
Broke my heart,
How I loved her,
Look at all the poems
I wrote for her!
To feel the livid wounds
Of everyone fester about
Like domesticated bipeds,
Watch them grow entangled
Beneath a shivering sun.
To read the crazy beautiful
Of other people's thoughts
And get in their heads without
Psychological babblings
And manipulation.
To watch the shadowless sun
Create a phantom city
In the concrete swarms,
To stretch every sense
Into the living moment.
To catch myself from splitting,
Or perhaps to split from myself
And call me crazy,
Laugh it off and cry
When I read it again.
To embody what I miss
With these fucken cell phones
And internet opinions
With elongated voices
Lonely, their kind of
Misery loves company after all.
Why the poem?
Ask yourself,
What else is there??
Mar 14, 2016
Mar 14, 2016 at 11:02 PM UTC
I'm waiting with certain trepidation
Assured my reality
Is in for something big.
The eleventh dimension
Can't assuage my dread.
There's something happening,
As big as Dead.
The cellphone's our new Nativity,
Destroying my old myths;
Where's the white salamander hurrying,
Spirits hoovering, aliens lurking,
Hairy bipeds in the forests,
Yetis in the snow.
Nothing soon forthcoming.
It all looks like Alberta.
I can't snap inside the sun,
Nor freeze-frame a revolution;
Or the moment one feels love;
But truth is self-evident.
And the facts are yet to come.
All the best stories,
My life-changing beliefs,
Need one still, a black and white will do;
Til then,
I'll suspend
Disbelief,
And sustain credence,
Close to the dark room.
Then we'll be the Magi,
Bowing, grovelling,
Awed and surprised.
Jul 17, 2017
Jul 17, 2017 at 9:23 AM UTC
There it was just sitting
in the middle of the street
all black and white
waiting
for traveling feet
Herds of milling bipeds
traversed across it
as it stretched across
a sweltering pit of tar
While masses of
Auto.. mo.. biles
broke it’s back
wait
I think...
they call them...
Cars?
I just stood back
*Watching
Waiting
Wondering*
just contemplating
But still…
I was at a complete loss
I keep a vigil at the curb
waiting
for the zebra to come
and wondering…
how do they know where to cross?
Nov 23, 2013
Nov 23, 2013 at 3:00 AM UTC
I saw five blackbirds perched on a telephone wire at six am
They were black as the blackest of nights and as big as Caterpillars
They were looking down on cars taped over with blowing plastic bags
Floating in the hot pink wind like tornadoes made from lipstick
Their talons were long daggers looking to pierce the deepest part of my heart
To open my eyes with their meandering meaningful meaningless
They had shipwrecks adorning each obsidian feather and crooked teeth
Capped the nightmares that lurked behind the glare of their eyes
They watched solemnly at the scene below of closing doors
Of rustling papers and stained tears tarring the summer ground
They had secrets cawed in a language of screeched whispers
Warning and educating ears that were too deaf or too self involved to listen
We’ve got no chance to escape this drudgery of modernity
We’re stuck in this self-built prison of black and white prisms
Of three dimensional reasoning and the attitude that follows
Never meant to be but it’s what it is when we think we’re free
How can the one blind bird perceive things differently
If our shortsighted near-death experiences have left us numb
Numbing us to the presence of the stars in the morning sky
Or the Sun exploding torrents of fire during the night
Wrapping us in a chilly warmth like blankets soaked with gasoline
We've left ourselves to wander the desolate land thinking of the obscene
I saw five blackbirds blacking out the sun as they took to the sky
Laughing their murderous laugh at the awkward bipeds down below
Mar 2, 2012
Mar 2, 2012 at 11:35 AM UTC
*LISTENING
Poetry is so strange;
like a stiletto sharp moon
it shines our hearts
with midnight wonders.
And, by its glow I read,
**"our deep cosmic loneliness
and our starboard hearts
where love careens,
we are listening,
the small bipeds
with the giant dreams."**
***
*Yes D.A., we are listening
to the pulsar songs
played in the universe.
We are listening
for others,
who just may be listening for us.*
***
*Seduction is like this you know;
subtle, uncertain,
even fragile at times;
yet irresistable as Lilacs
beckoning the moon.
Seduction is also a
summer down pour
we willingly get caught in,
jumping greedily
in puddles,
laughing,
just happy to be together.
We listen to the patterns
water splashing made;
listen for others
to hear what they have to say,
even if they were many galaxies away.*
***
*We listen.
We wait, but not idly.
We listen, write poetry
sharp, like a stiletto moon.
And, under its midnight glow,
hold hands.*
*NOTE: the bold quoted lines are from a
poem called "We Are Listening", by
Diane Ackerman found in her book
entitled "Jaguar of Sweet Laughter".*
Aztec Warrior
Oct 18, 2015
Oct 18, 2015 at 12:27 PM UTC
There is a bay on the Oregon coast,
Shaped like a scallop shell
And ringed by rounded stones.
And from the darkening sky
Droop billows of blue and gray
Hanging and lit like Chinese lanterns.
Humans in the damp Northwest
Appear to drip from the clouds
In rain-washed colors
Of blue and violet,
Whose tattered clothes
Are softened and soaked
From ragged wool into rich satin.
Still others bask on shores
Of pebbles rolled by the sea,
Bone white and cloud-gray.
Down and up, down again
The light rays vault,
Painting bipeds into the land.
There are no reflections
But rather water in the air,
Looking like rain
Even on cloudless days.
Their world is saturated
Like the scarlet gowns
Of Waterhouse’s Ariadne
And the ponds of Monet,
Green as the British Isles,
Blue as the Aegean
And white as the Pantheon ruins .
Much like an ancient tomb,
The majesty of mortal lives
Commemorated in stone
Is here splashed in the air
And in every forest or cliff.
Hushing people into silence,
So they conduct the most
Serious customs in whispers,
Knowing how voices echo along
Water droplets
And mountain shadows.
Nov 19, 2019
Nov 19, 2019 at 2:50 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Mysterious Jellyfish Gathering
“Honey, did you pack the seascreen?”
That jellyfish gathering is no mystery
Like everyone they want to go to the beach
To play in the water, soak up some rays
Picnic, show off, buy some souvenir mugs
They caution each other about the humans
How bipeds are toxic to the slightest touch
They gaze deeply at the sand beyond the surf
And talk about the mysteries of the air
They brush the sand out of the children’s tentacles
At sunset, before packing up and going home
Mysterious jellyfish gathering grows in Rhode Island ponds | Centre Daily Times
Jul 8, 2021
Jul 8, 2021 at 9:10 AM UTC
Its not my short legs,
Nor in my overgrown beard,
It's not the big nose
Or small pockets women fear.
It is the corny poem
For which I stand,
The kind of hopeful
Romanticism the women
Can't stand.
If is not in my furry kisses
Nor my nonsense of style,
It is the dork in my walk
That keeps them a mile,
I am a dude,
Unphenomenally,
Unphenomenal dude,
That's me.
I do not have the body
The women might want,
The kind where my bipeds
I'd flaunt,
I haven't the coin
To release the swag,
Hell I'm still playing
Nintendo 64, not much to brag!
My T.V. is till a big box,
I have no women,
I got loneliness on lock.
I'm just a dude,
Unphenomenally,
Unphenomenally dude,
That's me.
I'll finish this poem
With my last pathetic rhyme,
Maybe a chick will like it,
Like me this time!
I'll get a haircut to match
The style of now,
I'll become phenomenal,
I'll get there somehow,
But for now.....
Im just a dude,
Unphenomenally,
Unphenomenal dude...
That's me!
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 6:23 PM UTC
When the landscape turned blurry
And the screaming eyes wanted help
Blinding wind raged across the streets
Famished bipeds drifting off course
Maimed souls searching for cover
Darkness became safe haven
Drained from the arduous trek for long
Attempt to speak the truth, gagged
Fools have created a web lies
Like unaware insects, caught unaware
Detained in the middle of huge mountains
Every will to escape is vanquished
The juices of willpower being ****** away
Hearts have turned to stone
Moulds have made their home
With glib talk everyone has been cheated
Away from the sunshine and hope
To the land of desolation and misery
In the land of apathy, they thrived
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 12, 2014 at 1:59 PM UTC
Don't speak the truth―
loudly. Bipeds
are listening.
I will not blame
any one ever,
for my poems.
I must invoke
Buddha, if he
was an avatar.
Rage again for
the dying sun. Night
was very cruel.
Nov 17, 2017
Nov 17, 2017 at 10:52 PM UTC
We watch from space
Safe in our spaceship
As a small rock planet,
That has orbited it’s star
Over seven and a half billion times –
All those billions of its years –
Is peeled away
And eaten
By that very sun
That gave it birth.
Two and a half billion years before,
This star ran dry of hydrogen
And grew
From yellow dwarf to red giant.
Now, nothing is left of three of its worlds,
All engulfed by flame
As the sun grew
Into a giant ball of death.
All history is gone.
Nothing to show
For countless civilisations
That adorned the third planet.
But oh what’s this?
We spot a tiny spacecraft!
Must reel it in.
Examine it.
It has a name:
“Voyager 1”
Inside: a Golden Disc!
A Golden Record.
We can play it.
Images of hairless bipeds.
Ancestors from that third planet.
Sounds of animals and someone laughing.
Images of bipeds taking sustenance.
And best of all
More sounds
Of something called “Rock Music”:
A being called “Chuck Berry”
“Singing a song” called “Johnny B. Goode”.
For we have feet too
And it makes them tap.
Paul Butters
© PB 12\12\2019.
Dec 12, 2019
Dec 12, 2019 at 2:02 PM UTC
Flowers bloom next to rusting Pepsi cans,
Watered by the spit of ******* dealers,
And the ***** and vaginal fluid,
Of hot lovers groping under blankets,
Under stars dimly blinking through thick smog.
Nightly haven for muggers, rapists, fiends,
Whose every breath profanes the species they,
So poorly represent, turning Plato’s,
Featherless bipeds, to dead plucked chickens,
Soul-less, pointless wastes of protoplasm.
Abomination-- not in itself but,
For the use it’s put to: a bone for dogs,
Who’ve never tasted steak, and are gleeful,
To feast upon the scraps of fetid meat,
Clinging to well-gnawed bones that they are fed.
Central Park, the bone we are to chew while,
Smiling complacently at skyscrapers,
Daily rising where wild flowers might have grown,
Our humanity proportionally,
Shrinking inversely to their daily rise.
If I seem narrow minded and unkind,
Or blind to the beauty of Central Park,
It is because I’ve stood on ****** ground,
In summer, fall, winter and early spring,
And cannot bring myself to love a *****
Dec 24, 2018
Dec 24, 2018 at 12:00 AM UTC
One should never regret coming away
From any crowd, and certainly not now:
Their loving voices are raised in chants of hate
And their funny hats aren’t funny at all
Their ultimate freedom is the freedom to
Obey with love the loudest loving leader
Who twists their supplicant hands to fists of love
For beating harmony into us all
One will never regret coming away
From any crowd, and certainly not today
Apr 8, 2019
Apr 8, 2019 at 4:39 PM UTC