"charting" poems
i had a dream
i was flying
in the arms
of this grande old kite
and we drifted through canyons
and across flowered fields
over endless pastures
and restless seas
i looked down
somewhere near
the haldimand half-point
and saw friends
and patrons
smiling
while the busy keepers
of oasis
were singing
and loosening their vowels
familiar faces
were everywhere
and it was warm
and serene
they were charting courses
and building dreams
laying praise
untarnished by imposing views
and as much as i tried
i couldn’t express my gratitude
when i woke
i was lying
with an angel
at my back
whose eyes
were wide
and blue
and her words came crystal clear;
kindness will not be sold
and as i turned
to reach her hand
the rain had gathered
and washed away
a stain
Apr 8, 2017
Apr 8, 2017 at 3:19 PM UTC
multimedia macramé
sloshing propaganda sewage
on the unsuspecting public
***** lice infest ****** hill folk
west Virginia outbreak threatening the world
as we know it
flesh altering nonsense explicitly graphed
charting movement of microbes
on air, land, and/ or sea
global currents the new deliverer of death –
infected immigrants sit smiling
internment camps providing nutrition
never before experienced
as non-natives negotiate freedom
by submitting to vaccinations baths
and the standard delousing powder –
paranoid hand-sanitizer users
glued to the **** tube
spray their shoes with disinfectant
praying to an absent GOD for health
while shoveling GMO corn chips into ever widening
mouth holes
pharmaceutical companies lick lifeless lips
as Congress recognizes their humanity
while rejecting the concerns of the poor
…..no money in it –
outlandish claims of outbreaking Ebola
flood the mainstream outlets
fear: version – infinity
one more plague plan to stimulate new legislation
more law
no touching
even looking at the infirm can be cause for isolation
radiation treatments
courtesy of Fukushima, reactors 1-4 –
new found focus on fracturing the shale
releasing new oil reserves
and old bacteria
dinosaur killers
free-radicals
radically changing the genetic code
humanity altered
once again –
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 12:16 PM UTC
in june I felt the project change
from trying charting all scenarios of your face
to looking to books to blacking out spontaneous lines in found papers
to clearly eventually
be a misneglected omen of your impending collapse.
"I would like to blame this on the weather,"
I said to the sky,
"I would like to stay."
I felt the camera flash stop taking
strobe light moments of our strobe light moments
instead slipped tape recorder in your cereal box
videotaped the tooth brush
ever scraping dead skin while you slept.
I said, "If you wake up I will know nothing."
if you call this a dream, I will shake
and shake.
I said "it is clear now that you are decomposing."
(there's only so much the heart can take.)
stopped thoughts about the bus would hit you
spent time watching the sun through your palm:
little bones will scatter light.
little scars on thumbs.
we are made up only of who puts us back together.
and I could smell the rain.
I said, "It is easier if you stay angry"
I said to the sky.
"I would like to stay."
I put the Starbucks mug on the radiator
ceased to chart your worried looks.
I knew your brow, heavy clouds as you'd undress
but made a scrapbook of frozen dinner clippings
drew a line through where you went that day.
I said, "I want to prove that you meant nothing"
I said to the sky.
"I would like to stay."
I said to the sky.
and then the rain.
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 4:44 PM UTC
The sunset sky dazzling with the golden hues,
Taking bow in brilliant sparkle of experience
Is it not a ****** of the story so far, that was today?
Or is it building anticipation of the night yet to come.
Watch the days go, some proud of their accomplishments
Some leaving sighs of disappointments,
Leaving all in awe of its Amaranthine twists and turns
And the fortunate get to see the moon trying to steal the show from setting sun,
Oh she is such a show off, isn’t she, basking in reflected glory
Its magical, the sunset sky, Puzzling, sometimes just like a riddle,
Leaving the nature stunned and amazed
For it has been filling the canvas whole day with colours
And now the sunset threatens to hide them all
And in dark all the colours will be same
A cue for the wise.
Sunset sky has so much to offer,
is she not a fine example of how uncertain a life can be
Often reminding no matter what you planned,
there will be some unexpected returns
For End has its own brain, its own script
Charting its own course
So why just the beginning, every moment of the life should be grand,
meted with equal passion and fervor
She has been so clever; the sunset sky
Leaving Twinkling cryptic messages for the night sky
For even the dark has sparkle and hope if you keep your head up,
A constant reminder that exuberance is an attitude of deep, rich, warm hearts
**I want my sunset sky to be grand,
magical, and full of stories of my life that has been
And its memories to linger on in this world,
in the tomorrow and a few more years to come**
Jun 27, 2011
Jun 27, 2011 at 7:45 AM UTC
complexity
is your beauty
simplicity
your mystery
interdependence
sustains you
once upon a time
we dipped bowls
into your waters
and brought up
draughts of life
now
Skipjacks go
fathoms deep
into endless
depletion
charting
entangled
dead zones
broadening
into a sea of
inertness
your delicate
eco-essence tips
toward oblivion
effluvia farmers
layer mechanized
blankets of
nitrates on your
sunset shores
weaving
green tendrils
of algae blooms
strangling the
entanglements
of all links in
your miraculous
food chain
the EPA
proscribes
a Jenny Craig
pollution diet
to halt the
slaughter in
oxygen
challenged
dead zones
where rockfish
are garroted,
oysters get drilled
by screwworms
and azure tinted
soft shell *****
dance soft
shoe taps
lifting a tinny
chorus of sad
Piedmont Blues
the flat-lining
watersheds
voiceless
warnings
tremble
rocking the
purged nests of
screaming ospreys
in vocal protest
of a sinking
Tangier Isle
anointing it’s
tombstones
of unvisited
cemeteries with
multicolored
guano
fitting
alkaline
tributes
to the lost
inhabitants
and forgotten
languages
sinking into the
brine of gray
brackish tides
Delmarva’s fine
intra-continental
balance skewed
by the oozing
industrial swill
of Frank Perdue
chicken farms
ruling the roost of
sanctioned sustainability
tinging clear watersheds
of finger lakes
set in splints to
repair dislocations
and complex
compound fractures
that may never heal
again
Music Selection:
Taj Mahal: Fishin Blues
jbm
Oakland
6/7/12
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 8:36 AM UTC
“find a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic”
she does, Frida
she does.
she looks at me like I am Galileo
and I have mapped the stars just for her;
she has never been more right.
I have spent countless hours
charting the constellations in her eyes,
in the way she drinks her coffee,
in the sound of her breathing when she’s fallen asleep beside me.
when the room grows still,
I kiss the night sky’s secrets into the palms of her hands,
and know that they are safe.
I am so lucky to love her, Frida.
I am so lucky she sees the light in all my dark
and chooses to stay.
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 8:15 PM UTC
Footstep earthquakes are
Walking toward Tokyo
Charting his progress
Nov 5, 2012
Nov 5, 2012 at 8:20 PM UTC
Moved by the guiding hands of the wind,
While avoiding the living room box's trend.
Although fixate with this generation's iPad,
Or impulse to explore the Xbox's dungeon,
And glimpse the pages of the Forbe, the Facebook, and the likes.
Make time to be in the moment of solace,
A time to dream to explore ideals,
Like floating in nebula avoiding the all powerful black hole.
Navigating the void of the sense of inner torment,
Or charting the boundries of the next voyages of personal task.
One does need to depart from disparity of news,
Or lose sense of humanity by deprived reality TV,
For satirical movies like Idiocracy prophesied seem realized.
One does need to regroup in personal cocoon,
Meld by the silent melodies of beating chest,
Like metronome syncing the keys of the piano to Bach,
While breathing upon the horizon of rebirth,
And find your enshrouded foggy path by beacon of self enlightenment.
Nov 25, 2015
Nov 25, 2015 at 8:41 PM UTC
sitting in a bar unawares
sobriety is relinquished
incoherence
voicing hallucinated delirium
sweating profusely in distress
disconnected
without identity, without form
a long and terrible descent
into the effects of derealization
staring at nothing
listening to imaginary sounds
that cling to the dark draperies
that hang upon the walls of the mind
charting the outer geography of life
with invested inner humanity
Feb 2, 2013
Feb 2, 2013 at 11:46 AM UTC
Volatile vehicle vicarious voice
charting course on changing choice
guilty of your glancing guess
life of listening, liking less
stretched by the stripping strings
waiting with wasted wings
fueled by their falling fears
protected by prospective peers
This is about people that really don't have much of a personality or voice, until a bandwagon comes along that they can jump on.
Nov 9, 2013
Nov 9, 2013 at 9:24 PM UTC
*My old self keep dying everyday
To keep tryst with new beginning
Young heart beating with vigor
Every vein filled with brimming hope
Charting new territories
Being better than my old persona
Inception of fresh perspective
Every cosmic particle in me enthused
After fresh lease of life*
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 12:48 AM UTC
If I were to write a life-long poem
A line every day, so to put on display
The simple happenings of life
To weave verses together, an enduring tether
Of all life’s joys and strife
Would it have rhythm and beat? Skip and repeat?
Or would it just flow easy and free?
Would it charm or would it harm, this rhythmic yarn
That weaves the fabric of me?
Would this rhyme be a bildungsroman?
Charting progress, growth and learning?
Or would it compel, by whom it was written
To not publish but set it to burning?
Lumps and bumps, and dreary spells
Momentary lameness and drought
Every epic has its lows, as any writer knows
‘Tis what life is all about
Would it conclude with pride and nothing to hide
Confident and self-esteemed?
Would it spell to its reader, whoever at all
The tale of life lived and not dreamed?
Feb 20, 2013
Feb 20, 2013 at 11:22 AM UTC
harvesting parts from my garden of carnage
farming the darkness of my own catharsis
revealing the marks regarding the tarnish
hitting the target, the heart of the artist
how many times have i died?
to show the "i" that i am inside
nothing to hide, i'm cut open wide
these lines of rhymes are my suicide
embarking on journeys to harness the farthest
charting the course that startles the smartest
imparting a sparkle with scars as a garnish
hitting the target, the heart of the artist
Jul 29, 2016
Jul 29, 2016 at 12:51 PM UTC
Red sails.
Sing me sad songs of you.
The Sea. Deepening shades of blue.
Charting my course by winking starlight.
I'm just a stranger out here in the night.
Red sails, promise me love is true.
Daybreak.
Here comes the shining sun.
Blinds me, but fills you with strength and fun.
I've spent a lifetime out in the cold.
I've never known warmth, I've only been told.
Daybreak, to my love, let me run.
Twilight.
I've come full circle now.
Always, hope comes across my bow.
No matter how dark the waters may be;
I'll follow the ways of Love's star-crossed seas.
Twilight. May my dreams you allow.
Jan 12, 2013
Jan 12, 2013 at 8:35 PM UTC
Emma’s Journey
Now no more the slanting rays
Of rain or snow, this poetry
Of weather charting the bright haze
Of days on Earth, sweeping melodies
Did your forget even for a time?
That our days here are limited?
Feel it slipping like an evening hymn
The months become years of lost moments
Most musical and to heaven extending
The loves ones leave us now
The Sun we once held so dear
Is softly descending, O Lord our waiting eyes
This universe as wide as the speed of light
These ***** nightly meditations for what
You would have become, little signs
Of creation and contemplation
While my world is growing dim
Now no more the crimson blaze
Of fiercely loving, give me wisdom
For these tragedies, of losing and loving
And starry pleasures of transcendent gestures
Encoded in art in private moments
Of what it feels like to be lost, anonymous
And solitary, the unexpected sleep
Of a youth dying before their course was set.
Mar 1, 2015
Mar 1, 2015 at 6:47 PM UTC
My two weakling hands on my delusional head
A face tattooed with tear lines of anguish and perplexity
I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of this game
Many are sea sick with zipped lips in this freezing old ship
Precious dreams and lives; thrown overboard
Let me plead one more time with this heartless captain
We are charting upstream against the current, Sir
Sir! Please sir
Our lives and the lives of the next generation;
In your hands
Do you not care that we are perishing
He has a big navigational map on the wall
A gargantuan telescope in his hands
Alas, he is blind
Blind man will crush the blind into an iceberg
He is distracted by his own personal greediness;
Woe unto us, he is not far from a two hundred feet iceberg
He reminds me of the titanic
He has a crew who are not seas worthy
They are wearing their office like they are on vacation
The cry and the wisdom of the weak falls into deaf ears
Sir, do you not care that we are perishing!
Can you be my camera for a minute, Sir?
Focus below deck, sir;
Children without formal education
The future generation is today’s labor engine
They walk on the thin line of child...
Child, what?
Child slavery, Sir
They are brain washed
Manipulated and abused
Zoom on the mid-deck, sir;
The young jobless internet savvy
A storm tossed creative thinkers
A young generation with no future
A future neglected without action plan
Driven to push through the storm
One direction; the wrong direction
They are the masters of...
Masters of?
Masters of internet fraud and drugs, Sir
Gang banging is their security
Just like a candle under the night wind;
Their light goes off prematurely in lightning speed
Zoom a little high on the upper deck, sir;
Square pegs on rounded holes
Mismanagement and embezzlement
Unpatriotically obsessive creatures
Fanning the toxic flames of an aged ship
While expertise waste at the shore for decades
Will you anchor?
Will you pause and reflect
His words: acidic
Emotions: volcanic
Problems: oceanic
If angels rules; would have cry to them
Maybe they would hear the cry of the weak
Grant us safe voyage,
Thou that watch over the weak
Be our anchor in the midst of the storm
May we not sink in this sea of incompetence
Be our strength and hope in this journey to the unknown
Father, if it be possible be our captain and lead us to bliss
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 6:28 PM UTC
Wayward man, opposite clouds,
There and back again, far from crowds,
Disarray, astray through grey- where he shrouds.
Vague, vigilant, vastly enigmatic,
To see from such a point of view is idiosyncratic,
Astral miles, took off from land,
Charting depths of the unmanned,
Once on shore-- 'what's beyond the sand?'
Others lost wills to explore, a journey unbland;
Demand to expand, for space is your command.
Oct 24, 2012
Oct 24, 2012 at 12:08 AM UTC
beneath me
are oil stains
charting my way to victory
Sep 28, 2014
Sep 28, 2014 at 3:40 PM UTC
It is fragile
It is us
Teetering on broken glass
Figure skater pointed blade
As we draw our figure eights
Figure eight is what it seems
It is inverted infinity
Infinity is a new life
But from birth we live to die
Figure skater lies in wait
Till the day last grace is said
Figure skater life in traipse
Figure skater draws last eight
Though the funambulists unite
Figure skater falls from grace
Charting vulnerable territory
Thinking glass will never break
Then the grand tribune arrives
Figure eight is half a piece
And I never fully understood the gravity of life
Until I watched somebody leave
Feb 24, 2014
Feb 24, 2014 at 5:39 AM UTC
The space between us might disappear
Our mouths, careful cartographers, might record our discoveries with the pressure of our lips,
With our heavy breath and the rhythm of our heartbeats in unison.
Our hands might be like infant satellites charting the skies,
Feeling into the infinite distance and realizing
That what we once presumed were Planets apart
Are colliding and forming into something beautiful and dangerous.
But Oh
*IF he saw me
IF he saw me naked he would see the scars
He would see them, I know, and he would know*
He would shake with the earthquakes
He would feel the tornadoes that ripped apart my rib cage.
He would see the damage that was innocent and invisible from light years away.
I would no longer be a shining beacon of light in the far off distance.
IF he saw me naked he might see my past
Might fall and burn as he enters my atmosphere.
And know that my scars are no longer the tokens of hope that they once were.
They no longer show the past that I once believed might change.
The meteors will keep coming and I won't be able to clean the craters.
The disasters come with the tides
and with each sunset, the eve of the moon curses me with more tsunamis
To add to my naked shame
Kiss me in the dark
And the we shall join together in one great constellation
But you musn't see what I look like.
For I am not the star you think I am.
Sep 17, 2011
Sep 17, 2011 at 6:54 PM UTC
I woke up at angles with you
---a parallelogram, opposite but equal,
my thoughts in constant rotating view
---a diagram, showing us where
our homes are laid to rest,
where streets became dead spiders
caught in their own webs.
If we are in transit via tunnel,
aqueduct, or escalator,
it might be cinema.
If we lose atlas in the worship of light,
it might be cinema.
But I can't find you here;
here, where they used to build ships
from sand and steam
and science fiction;
where they used to design
buildings so as to create
a dissonant and mournful
whistling sound when wind
blew through them
---ostentatious things;
dead people’s things.
Through walls and underneath concrete, dug so deeply
into the wide plains
and withered, gnarled tree roots
of an agonizer's conurbation,
is a space halfway to the zenith,
charting the prescribed power
of in-betweenness.
Never again will we draw meaning from
our proximity to one another.
Dec 24, 2023
Dec 24, 2023 at 2:13 PM UTC
An unknown direction
on a day rising
with renewed energy
renewed vitality
so much potential.
Taking that direction
of mind over matter
with retooled perception
toward revitalized perfection.
Taking that direction
promotes deeper reflection
searching the soul
avoiding the role
of misguided rejection.
Keep the direction
going
keep the mind
knowing
keep the energy
flowing
keep achievement
showing.
~Miguel
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 11:37 AM UTC
within Zieglerville, pennsylvania
genuine snow white hair
upon her noggin doth adorn,
perhaps she will divulge to me (in private)
after i croon (to said lass),
the melody of Jimmy Crack Corn
hmm...or, maybe this mission
perchance twill be doomed from the start,
and hence finding me forlorn
thenceforth, a backup contingency measure,
would warrant me to don my thinking cap,
and for extra ordinary reinforcement unfold
each Taj Mahal shaped ear flap
plus (for reinforced ironic steeliness),
aye also resort to buttress
any aural "stormy Dani yelling)
via walled in interlap,
which accouterment functions
as a double agent i.e. (or,
to be rather crude),
an audiological jockstrap
to vet or figuratively kneecap
any unwanted infiltrating leaping lap
ping "FAKE" distracting news
inducing madcap
mass media circus
driving this generic teetotaler
to pour himself a nightcap
essentially providing wig gull room
with very little margin of ear err, or overlap
against bigwigs to trumpet pap
pill low ma rendered free and clear
asper insidious (mama mia) paparazzi
charting imp pea ching fear
bringing out bare arms
most likely something internuclear
simply to discover visa vis authenticity
if cute employee
(sporting hair
white as the ****** snow),
which doth simmer and glare
blindingly, thus necessitating sunglasses
(I choose the Ray-Ban brand)
as recommended by cited
all time favorite pharmacist
who unwittingly (or simply because
my myopic eyes didst stare)
fixedly - drawn to such a darling (doll ling)
explaining any reason to go THERE
to CVS - that tis where.
Mar 28, 2018
Mar 28, 2018 at 5:58 PM UTC
convincing consumers that “v” is for vineyard
not *****
no quick or easy choices
gin, tonic and a dash of restraint
mom’s advice to quit got Tumblr started
we must get rid of inefficient economic sectors
learning to give one item at a time reviving the soviet tradition
Sharing the siege mentality
cheekily hopscotching across genres
tell me how this ends
prison time was dreadful, but he sure likes the video
pain can make them feel alive
in 1949
he imagined an age of robots
at 94, still charting memory’s depths
imagining a grim past that isn't his own
semi-invisible sources of strength
milewide tornado strikes Oklahoma
2 FBI hostage rescue agents die in training exercise in sea
a genre, old and Irish,is renewed
but wait
didn't yahoo try a deal like this before
How about slow play, drugs and Phrankenwoods
May 30, 2013
May 30, 2013 at 1:15 PM UTC
i remember someone on this site a long time ago.
they would write unrelenting epic poems that
always made my fingertips tingle in that way
they do when you're surprised art made you
feel something again, you know?
i arrive back here tonight because i've been
doing a whole lotta feeling and far too little art
and i've stopped letting it surprise me.
i keep oversharing when people ask, "how are you?"
i keep wondering who i'm supposed to be at this point on this long path of becoming. i don't know, i've never liked the phrasing but it resounds so cleverly from forebrain to nervous system it's uncanny and unavoidable and ineffable. who am i am i am i am i am i ...
i want to make a map,
a cartography of memory,
charting the granite and
soil, marrow and moss,
river foam, abusers,
flower gardens, wild blackberries --
the purple dabbed away from those
soft parts that blackberries might stain
to wash deep berry blood off
in the public pool bathroom
where she first made you a novelty
to scrape darker
from under his fingernails
with bark from the tree she
made you hide behind
the same park you grew up in
a spot you always caught the sunset
a spot he caught you and the sun seemed always then to set
still haven't gone back
it's time to make a map
Apr 7, 2017
Apr 7, 2017 at 10:40 PM UTC