"catalogued" poems
The old order changeth, yielding place to new
-Tennyson, Idylls of the King
Like dinosaurs our institutions gasp
In spasms of existential death; they pass
At first unnoticed by the casual unobserver
Who trips over a covenant that isn’t there
If you vote they give you a sticker
The ephemeral Constitution changed
Like sweaty skivvies by each president
Law libraries catalogued for pulp
By obedient functionaries in tees
If you vote they give you a sticker
The faithful escorted out of the cathedral
By a bored security guard on overtime
The altar linens for sale at Goodwill
And the sanctuary repurposed on T.V.
If you vote they give you a sticker
Some of The Just Plain Folks cheer for the Reds
And the others cheer only for the Blues
As the reincarnation of Jack Chick
Blesses their four-wheelers and plastic caps
If you vote they give you a sticker
Election placards on abandoned buildings
Promise again prosperity for all
The **** lab cooks behind The Kute Kidz
Private Academy of the Dance and Math
If you vote they give you a sticker
An outreach of the Bright Light Free Will
Missionary Temple of the Lord Jesus Christ
Of the Lamb Sanctified 501C The Reverend Doctor Master Bishop Billy-Bob Hairdo PhD, DD a-brangin’ Messages and His Esteemed Lady Apostle Heather
If you vote they give you a sticker
And blessed be the Holy AR-15
God gave to His People to defend themselves
Here in the freest country in the world
Which you can find behind the barbed-wire fence
If you vote they give you a sticker
While fleets of luxury presidential jets
Arc high over our public housing projects
Reminding us of our prosperity
Here in the richest country in the world
If you vote they give you a sticker
And them Jews for Jesus I guess they’re all right
But them other Jews they just ain’t no good
Nor them Cath’lics nor them Mormons neither
And don’t you get me started on them Baptists
(We seem to have been otherwise engaged)
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new” –
(But neither cares at all for me or you)
But if you vote they give you a sticker
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 7:30 AM UTC
Truth is the product of the pursuit of knowledge.
Though most people, I have found, do not embrace but fear knowledge.
I believe this to be due to the fact that knowledge is something that cannot be tailored to an individual.
What is, is.
Whether you like it or not.
Knowledge can often be daunting and go against the very foundation of everything you hold "true".
But truth is not there to keep you complacent, it's there to drive you, it's what you should live for.
The pursuit of knowledge is an ongoing process, constantly evolving.
One day you can feel without a shadow of a doubt that you "know" something,
and the next day be proven utterly wrong.
This is why it confuses me so that people hold steadfast to antiquated "truths",
catalogued by humans, and passed down through generations.
Like high school gossip, slipping from one grimy hand into the next,
riddled with the stains of ignorance and manipulation.
Knowledge can often isolate.
Spark hatred in those comfortably numb.
But those on the pursuit are not to be feared or confined,
they're to be celebrated and joined!
Because truth is freedom, and it will only unify.
Don't give up, don't give in.
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 3:22 AM UTC
These poems are an extension of me,
A pressure valve to keep my mind from exploding,
These poems are sieves catching grotesqueries
To be turned into something palatable
Poetry somehow doesn't pop without pain,
Somehow inadequate without lurking demons
Fueling passion and longing and fury
These cataclysms are documented and catalogued,
These emotions and stories memorialized,
Their existence in the world a fossil record
Of memories too precious to lose
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 11:22 PM UTC
the death
of self, exhaled, borne upon
wafts of
air, and
I, with my self-conscious
prose and pretensions
of intellectualism,
and I, dreaded I -
there is a beauty in
ideology; even wastrelism,
being the muck of the earth and
much reviled by Proper Gentlemen,
has its allure and adherents
those disciples of Dionysus,
bacchanalia becoming banal by
sheer repetition:
***** ***** ***** shotgunned beers, and then-
TEQUIIIILA!!
crowed at the top of their lungs,
memory expunged by
hepatic-processed organic compounds.
of course, these mannerisms are simply
beneath you, disdainfully
catalogued by keen eyes:
no, your form of forgettance
is much more forceful, much less
fanciful and romanticized:
your amnesia is
absolute,
it required nothing less than
total dedication, mortification,
death of self as you
expatiated lusts, loves,
aught but ambitions remain,
and now, you have triumphed:
you stand solitary, skyscrapers
shining for your personal
pleasure, yet you can find,
none.
Jul 3, 2014
Jul 3, 2014 at 9:56 PM UTC
The mind gets clogged with cobwebs with the steady march of years
“’Twas time,” I decided, “to spring clean between the ears”
The hinges were all rusted on the doorway to my mind
But I entered the dark abyss, not sure what I would find
I was faced with such a jumble of accumulated junk
That for a second I hesitated, and almost did a bunk
But I was driven by a request from a mind still young and fresh
And drew courage from her kindness and continued on my quest
It looked so dark and gloomy as I crept through memory’s vaults
The largest room, and darkest contained the list of all my faults
That room was just plain scary, so I softly closed that door
And went deeper into the labyrinth, determined to explore
Long forgotten smiles began glimmer in one room
And I gathered these around me to drive away the gloom
The more I gathered, the more appeared with a soft and friendly light
I freely spread them all around and made the whole place bright
I swept up unfounded doubts, threw out some groundless fears
And scrubbed the grime from my mind with a bucket full of tears
I catalogued my memories and looked at what I had
I moved the happy ones to the fore, but retained some that were sad
Though sad, they were genuine and had earned their rightful place
But I moved them towards the back so they wouldn’t cloud my face
Jealousy and envy just didn’t want to leave
But I managed to evict them with a super mental heave
I took a break and looked around to see what progress I had made
A top coat of happy memories had made the sorrows fade
I filled a bucket with my achievements, and things that made me proud
And tossed it in the room of faults. Boy! Was the conflict loud.
I gave thanks to the inspiration that first drove me to this task
The improvements that I felt were much more than I could ask
Before I attacked the cobwebs, I never realised
The different perspectives that you gain when your mind is youthenised
Jan 14, 2011
Jan 14, 2011 at 9:09 PM UTC
i was born at the heart of a ribbon jam
my analog pulse
tap
tap
tapping
out the lyrics of my fight song
since day one
india ink sludge blood has flowed
from my dog-earred heart
straight through to my ball-point fingertips
my DNA lays in cursive wait
leaping from the pages
into the light
at every aching plot twist
card catalogued depictions
not of how events factually unfolded
but of how it seems they could have unravelled
if this were a paperback i'd planned to read
and re-read
alike
but alas
when the lights go out
that's it for this round
and i'll be down for the count
no matter how hard i fight
but words...
words know not death
solely evolution
they change their shape
their time
their place
a word can only fade
like aerosol on dust colored cinder
a single word will outlive one hundred empires
one thousand governments
ten thousand authors
and so
it's within articulation that my loyalty lay
and in my words that i'll find my home
here
in the lowercase swoops and loops
of the 'A's
and the 'E's
and the 'D's
and the 'G's
...and those little cursive 'Z's that hang just the same as mom's old hammock
yeah
home
with every inhalation of stale inhabitation
i'll exhale a poem
my regenerative reincarnation through catalytic creation
Jul 8, 2013
Jul 8, 2013 at 4:34 AM UTC
German refugee husband: “Liebchen – sweetness – what watch?”
German refugee wife: “Ten watch.”
Husband: “Such watch?”
Carl the Bartender: “You will get along beautifully in America.”
-Casablanca
I check the time on my retirement watch
(A Seiko; they did not think much of me)
And consider that there is no time at all
Unless Creation is some sort of clock
Childhood is watchless, timeless, careless, free
But adults must be catalogued and timed:
Bulova, Timex, Rolex, and Longines
And even a railway Regulator
I check the time on my retirement watch -
And hustle off to my chapter two job
Aug 16, 2019
Aug 16, 2019 at 8:52 PM UTC
.
The blink of an eye would have missed it,
a brief glimpse of pure beauty
and then it was gone.
The passing of a gloriously sublime moment.
Darkness drew its curtain around
and it was forever vanished.
Folded away and filed eternal
into the vaults of history passed.
Catalogued and captured in an instant
from within the blink of an eye.
The afternoon sun lights the mountains,
reflecting the sheen of the forest
in a riot of greens and yellows.
Bathing the vista of sight in a scene of serenity.
The air, still and warm, echoes a kind of magick,
seeking to manifest.
An event approaching with certainty
yet waiting for the correct second in time.
And the day hangs
like a cloak on a winters morn,
unmoving and timeless.
Anticipation drips from the instant,
taking its ease at the imminent
moment of intensity.
A brief glimpse of pure beauty,
and the blink of an eye would have missed it.
© Pagan Paul (21/03/18)
Mar 21, 2018
Mar 21, 2018 at 11:27 AM UTC
you plan to trap
to take a cut-
a ripening peach
with sugar bait?
you soil yourself
remove all sense
when all you have
you desecrate
her body sees, her body sees
'I'll take it now
she's just the size
to make me big
bend over chick
for she won't see
to mists she'll flee
I'll do a trick
with my joystick'
her inside sees, her inside sees
it's not all past
in spurting spray
a laughing squirt
bull at a gate
to steal a bud
the harshest crime
to rob a child
her life dictate
her body tells, her body tells
for it is seen
and registered
it's catalogued
in Judge's file
the breakage raw
her broken selves
you callous brute
are facing trial
and all can see
as you do now
the lies you told
you **********
Feb 15, 2021
Feb 15, 2021 at 5:41 AM UTC
Huddled within boundaries highlighted by the craftier. Stubbornly, yet unwillingly willing, escorted to the connoisseurs of morality. Structured, consistent, but reembodied into randomness, the more the merrier.
Spoiled, unripened, famished and fat.
Pleasant, fresh, fit, chubby and… adolescent.
In the name of manipulation, and its ***** messengers, we honour the catalogued pious. To Venus; the untrue, the shameful, the blasphemous. We serve peace and love, abandon the lies of Gods, join your cherished sisters below.
Nov 21, 2014
Nov 21, 2014 at 10:02 AM UTC
America the Brave,
did you ever look beyond the porch, and see the smoke?
I have felt each gunshot wound and bookmarked each media news story
and even catalogued some photographs
for you to look over again.
because it seems you have a strange habit of forgetting
all the times
where places that children should be learning and laughing
began to look like cemeteries, the doors closing like a cruel purgatory,
when another **** maniac rages in with a legal firearm –
“mommy, I’m okay, but all my friends are dead.”
red crayons will never look the same—
I’ve found that bleach does not clean out
the stains on the carpet and words alone do not console the masses.
America the Free,
have you heard the terrifying orchestra of screeching tires on pavement?
didn’t you learn that running away is the same as running to meet a date with the reaper?
America, please tell me why
I cannot look for safety in a blue uniform, tell me why
the word “police” inspires more fear and pain
than it stands for justice?
there, in the empty streets, are the echoes of the voices in the night that you failed to hear when the sound of
sirens drowned the world in shades of wrong--
“I can’t breathe.”
“I don’t have a gun, stop shooting.”
“please don’t let me die.”
I stand at the gates between crossroads but nobody looks each other
even if there’s the unspoken truth
that some of us are more likely to be studying obituaries than studying to
be finishing our high school and college degrees.
America the Bold,
please listen when I tell you that there is a pain you cannot hide
beneath IPhones and reality television,
when all I see is hallowed eyes,
empty hands, and
more parents that shouldn’t have to know
what it’s like to buy caskets in mass production, before they even knew how to read, before they could sing praises of your liberty, before they even had a chance to pray for a different fate, one they actually deserved.
America the Beautiful,
for all your Spacious skies, and amber waves…
have you looked at the ugliness of your ****** palms?
Sep 6, 2015
Sep 6, 2015 at 2:51 PM UTC
I hid you under layers
Bright lies I told myself
In order to forget.
The words you sent
Once catalogued & treasured
Stopped my progress
Or the days that passed.
My eyes closed
Trying to unthink you —
A ghost in the attic,
The pain I can't be without.
I erased emails.
Messages.
Phone numbers.
My heart. My soul.
Yet you still remain.
Feb 7, 2017
Feb 7, 2017 at 12:35 PM UTC
A museum, a post office, a hoard of trinkets:
Think of all these things, and beyond them.
A room, vast as knowledge, filled clumsily
From top to tail with books and songs and poems and pictures;
Accoutrements of one life, lived.
All is quiet, save for the slow, sonorous ticking of time.
All is still.
Until:
A pale silver sliver of a
Jewel, locked loose in its box, starts to slip forward from
The chests and crates and jars and
Begins to roll, threads its winding way through
The labyrinth of shelves,
Picking up speed,
Brought back from beyond by
A ****** of song, a whisper of
Heartache…
… and drunk as a skunk I am roaming, reeling
Raw from a gig with the lads.
And as we chorus, cradling
Dreams and hearts and
Each other in our arms,
The night above is infinite
And the ground below is solid
And the starlight flows like our laughter
As we stumble home.
Time does not stand still. It never does. But in that moment, a
Measure of starlight, a ****** of song, come together and
Crystallise.
And deep in the recesses of the room
A pale silver sliver of a jewel
Is catalogued, logged, noted and filed
Before being locked away, for who knows how long…
…and then I am back. The gem once more
Is in its rough box, the key in the lock
While on the radio, a song ends.
All is quiet, save for the ticking of the clock
And the scratching of my pen.
All is still.
Nov 20, 2011
Nov 20, 2011 at 1:59 PM UTC
I crawled away from you
The way a dog deserts its pack to die
And you all
Watched me make my slow progress across the floor
Inch
By
Inch
And you did nothing.
You saw, and I saw you see
And you saw me see you pretend to know nothing.
And now I am alive again
Awake and able.
The shadows of my suffering still follow at my heels, trying to trip me as I walk, and scurry behind doorjambs and under tablecloths when I turn to catch them but,
I no longer crawl.
I no longer struggle.
And as I have woken and made my weary way back to humanity
I have found that my complete transformation
My journey into hell and through the fires-
The torment that forged me into something utterly new,
I find that you look past it
Let your eyes slide over me like you used to
Unwilling to ask,
Unwilling to know and yet your false knowing sets off bombs
The ones I walk so lightly over
Grenades buried beneath the tender green new grass
Which covers the battlefield where I fought for my life, for my status as a human being, for my place in this world,
And you say *"We all fight."
"Everyone struggles."*
Of course
To hurt is to be human. Everybody does-
But not everyone
Sits back and watches another crumble to dust,
Not everyone says
*Well
It isn't my problem if they can't cope,*
Not everyone looks with eyes
So cold
Upon a bleeding, broken thing
And concludes that because it bleeds when beaten it invites its wounds.
And as you look past me
As you name me by a word I no longer recognize
All I can think is that
I fought
I won
At a cost
And I am still not fully healed,
And yet I am the same to you
Either way
You who are supposed to see
You who are supposed to be
Observers
Of the human condition-
Observers, not bystanders!
Nowhere is it written that you must take notes--
*'Oh yes, see how her lip trembles as she cries
See how she fights for breath.'*
Nowhere is it set down in stone that you can't
Get up and at least pretend to be like they are
These people you look at
And study
And pin to your pages like butterflies catalogued.
Can you feel? Did you
Feel?
Did you look into my eyes and see me
Decimated
And blame me? And never ask me the truth? And create your own?
Did you really think I could forget being
In the center of a circle
Of lies I had to agree with to survive
Shredding my pride for the sake of my place?
My place, indeed,
In a place where emotions are bought and sold
But never owned or treasured.
You watched me fight
Life or death
You, whose arms I've fallen into when I could have hit the floor,
You who I am supposed to trust with my soul and its dark wounded parts
You who I am supposed to grow with.
You watched me and
You let me
Fight
Alone.
Oct 1, 2015
Oct 1, 2015 at 1:51 PM UTC
Big whack stack
of monetary memories
catalogued in dream states
vibrating at different subconscious frequencies....
With the headphones in I listen
to the past and future collide
into a cosmic harmonious kaleidoscope
of the present moment--
piercing through my perception
of right/left conscious thought
moving so molten fast
wielding each side together seamlessly.
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 11:15 AM UTC
If music were Arrhythmic it would consider us
On tinsel wire lit into net to beads
Eternally reaping
The clink of solar windmills
Echoing, echoing until it becomes flesh,
Tired, ringing decibels
Filling with water and becoming eyes
So that Death is a character
Swimming just past the horizon;
Collisions become heartbeats
Become locomotive thoughts
Charging westerly winds
Until our faces hone, stormed
And born.
Only my soul is left to fall,
Cygnus x-1 in a pool,
My life a distant call
Catalogued by the stars,
Noted for declination; classified pulsar
My words are dust in another’s space
But they recall fire and I blazed;
Numerically, years;
Physically, rage
And the only thing that breathed were dreams
And they sail, eternally, past the rhyme (Time)
They’ll still float when I return to haunt you;
They cast no light but they guide and sigh.
Alive
Aug 30, 2018
Aug 30, 2018 at 5:11 PM UTC
so...
I catalogued it-
You asked-
sorry...Assigned.
here's the sheet.
name an event, puzzle through your own
tumbling thoughts and
show me the reason.
right here, line three
it was a bad day.
line four shows my
neurosis.
will laying it
all out be
the cure
the fixer?
I've made lists,
but no matter how many I make
for you
for me
the
writing is still
on the wall.
Nov 25, 2012
Nov 25, 2012 at 8:38 PM UTC
To describe beauty—isn't by sight,
rather insight.
The mind is beautiful,
a *** ***** pleasing of the know how it shows,
of how much experiences it has catalogued.
As the heart—filled with passion flowing,
lips of course express the words of love.
The hands place action to the physical of one's
love to their own, given once by another.
To a resting place, is a forest of ten thousand
trees,
Where sweet nothings echo into their final bite
of one's words bark.
So as the two make love, under the canopy of
two's embrace—
Seems the passionate partaking, wisps the morning energy
for the day, and a reason to leave.
Too passionate beings, two lovers making
love.
Under covenant, as the circling ring,
she is his, as she calls to him.
He greets her always with a wet kiss.
It's bliss; ignorant forgetfulness.
_"I forgot what we were even fighting about"_
Aug 8, 2022
Aug 8, 2022 at 4:00 AM UTC
What is this mystery
we desire & call
love?
We all seek it
knowing or not
if it's in our
hearts.
We're driven to ask
whether it exists
at all, giving us
the perspective to see
that nothing exists
without it.
You don't read this poem
without love's
****** embrace.
Its creative power
pours the essence
of being.
The affinity
chemicals express
for each other
is catalogued
& categorized
into processes
& methods, evidence
of a mind crying
for absolute understanding.
We love truth
not for its beauty
but for its simplicity,
which carries beauty
in its form.
Yet the simple truths
sting the most,
like fear's glance
or the reaper's lance.
Let's follow the simple
truth that love is
all there is (for
The Beatles weren't lying)
& there's no reason why
love & death aren't
one & the same.
Perhaps life is
an expression of love
for the finer things
& death is our love
for the endless.
One moment we grow
tired of nothing,
swayed by love's
desire to be known,
born into another
universal fling.
Dec 8, 2010
Dec 8, 2010 at 10:33 PM UTC
Continue to lie to him
And to lie with me
For it is love not lust which is so bittersweet
By and by come
You who would allow
My poison to condemn everything you shall ever love
Then you and I can prostrate upon
The altar you hold so dear and that I know so well
At least for a moment
I will then trudge in to the horizon scorned by the sun
Leaving you in solidarity
So like the others I can be catalogued—
Stocked upon your shelf a token
Your conquered warrior king
Victim to your feral grin and unbound locks
Now fodder for your written emotions
For every night you close your eyes
You will remember the night where
Our chests heaved in synchronicity
And your cries were silenced
By the beating of your heart
There I will become the best piece of literature you will ever write
And you will become my most beloved sin
Aug 13, 2011
Aug 13, 2011 at 2:32 AM UTC
her father scraped his way across
the wooden floor
hauling his dead weight of rages
and cursing the libel that landed him here
he paused labouring his breath
like a dying steamtrain running on empty
and shuffled on when his labours ceased
his furry coat knotted with the tangles of his mind
she followed him carrying his bowl
of shapeless meats and shifting rices
a cold meal for his hard hands
and as he sat down to break that bread
he commenced to wailing at the rising of the sun
and the falling of the stars
spitting around mouthfuls he catalogued the woes
as she waited there by the shoulder of his
heavy mule skin jacket
with her eyes nailed to the floor
later while he slept
out back by the rain barrel
she and i did romance in quiet whispered tones
she in her best blue dress
me in my finest spanish leathers
we talked and held hands while the stars gave condolences
we kissed like two virgins tentative and shy
she with her golden hair and fancy lace
me with my dark eyes and mystic words
as dawn came she slipped away
with murmurs of regrets like soft kisses
each one so close to the last they came together as a single tear
and let slip of my hand like a farewell
as inside we could hear her father climbing
up out of his pale slumbers
like the driver of deaths carriage whipping
the grey horse's of doom
drive on drive on you fools lest you be found lacking
we each bid her father good morning
and his return was cheerful delights
as he saddled his ponderous thoughts on his mare
and set off to the seaside
in search of his galleons wreck
spend his day picking coins from the sand
and choking back tears for his labours
she will sit with me in the palms shades
and swing me a sweet song
with a melody like rain
and lyrics about the sun
we are a strange sight to see i'm sure
but the only vision we have is of eachother
and its a warm palace full of joys
among the towers and fabled roads of fiveashes
(the part of her father was played by our cat 'lizard')
Apr 9, 2014
Apr 9, 2014 at 4:48 AM UTC
they did not know she had millions, neither did she. just collected one item at a time, cared fully for each one of them. catalogued in eternally.
words affect us deeply. voices come and go. while the worlds spins with people’s chaos and confusion. yet. above the noise of the day they show me birds and insects did you know they cross their fragile legs?
did you find a pin there, did you pick it up and stick it? did you stay safe, wrap the shawl around and hold it close? did you see my life breaking, bring me pins for mending? …
stick in be safe , despite the pain and raddled cotton threads. to hold my life, hold the rusty hinges, prepare the coats of varnish again . remember your mother’s pins, my friend.
be well in your mending.
she asked what it is all about. just everyday things to look at, nothing to buy, like in a museum with strings and labels.
sbm.
Apr 16, 2017
Apr 16, 2017 at 1:27 AM UTC
Two heads
rest upon the bed
where genetics went haywire.
A simple mistake
with a complicated result
often too much for some to take.
Little cat, tumbling to life
two faces morphed and mewing
stumbling right to eternal sleep.
But it's not a life lost-no
it's a spectacle,
tiny monster,
floating in a jar
for nothing but "oohs", "aahs", and study.
Nobody mourns the little cat,
a second face deeming it unworthy
of concern.
Did mama cat know
her precious baby wasn't called a "kitten"?
but a Janus Monster,
a freak of nature,
a prime scientific diamond.
Little monster cat won't get a coffin,
it'll be jarred-catalogued-and stored,
burried in dust instead of dirt.
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 6:10 PM UTC