The tenderness as they described it is circumnavigating more than the ******* and the roundness of my protruding *******
Perhaps by tenderness of the breast, what they really mean is tenderness of the soul and the emotions one hurriedly tucks under the crevices of their *****
If one imagines how ******* are anything but tender, with their ferocity of nurturing life and their wholly encompassing nature to weigh and weigh and weigh
Weight carried by a mother,
Shed off by her daughter,
Caressed by the one she lies with in the crevice of her soul and the gap between twin XL bunk beds and walls full of picture of people who no longer weigh her down
It's the feeling of nostalgia and nostalgia feeling this tenderness growing from one's *******.
Growth of the ***** of life as a life imagined is destroyed, nullified, kaput.
But most of all she feels nostalgia.
Nostalgia for the people whose tenderness she felt,
Nostalgia yes for her brother and grandmother cloaked in love around her neck like crystals from an iridescent silver clasp

The following statements of truth were brought to you
Not through, but circumnavigating fated parameters
Of insane, yet normative, largely uninformative
Mechanisms that formally give birth to *******;
And instead, strategically splicing said bounds with
Ideal variables derived from the courageously quixotic,
Unrobotic, and outraged agents of, and for, capital Real:

The train of corporate reasoning derails so fast
To follow is to snap the head backward,
Far past angles within measures of pleasurable fit
And open gates to deluging tangled circular
Failures of logic that trick and co-opt the proletariat.

We are Present-Ambassadors with broken flux-capacitors
Demonstrating a consistent tendency toward error
In efforts to obtain diplomatic access to a future where
The same reemerging deficits do not manifest unfixed.
One of said deficits may include all positive freedoms.

For the record, it shall be noted that civil society
Currently arrives implicitly to find it compliantly fine
To promote systems of labor designed to illicit behaviors
That will eventually undermine the actors of exhaustive work
And make benefactors of those complicit in crime.

As case studies of this paradoxical paradigm, we observe
Nations signing trade agreements aligned with
Selling more of the goods whose extractions have
Cataclysmic exactions upon locals contracted not to resist.
Those who take issue with this are directed to appellate institutions.
The projected scarcity of over-consumed poisons causes fear
Which leads to faster hoarding and more ex(t/p)ensive death.

Thus, most human behaviors presently inflate pricing, popularity,
And rapidity associated with committing system-wide suicide.
As shackle-some power consolidation bends toward a transnational peak
I hereby slide-tackle these forwarded trends, seeking goals of the rational.

Our bed is the prayer rug where I found God.

Yeah, THE God –

Not circumnavigating morality
Or bones of old saints
Lonely illusions of the sad and middle-aged
All Fat Tuesday freakshows in comparison

Our bed is the altar of sacred rites –

Marked with the devil’s ******* Sharpie
And the intricately crocheted lace of sin
Nightly baptized in warm, honey-coated nothing
Pink patterns of iron and salt on linen

Painted idols on the shrine –

Absolution pours through drafty windows
Older than our bodies
Glass frosted by years without suds
Only rain

A holy city of yours and mine –

With gentle pyro ways
Stone and mortar become flame
The balustrades collapse
You light candlewicks with your fingertips

My poems, where are they from?

Westerner.

An appellation, of the 'hood of my nation,
Customary identity association,
But not one that springs to mind,
When they inquire, as they do,
Hey man, tell us about your "self."

But there is no deniability,
At least three hundred years,
That my father was aware,
Europe to America,
Westward **, the seeds sown.

From the banks of the Lippe,
Ocean crossing to NYC,
From the Krakow Ghetto
To the shores of the
Manhattan Indian Reservation,
By the banks of the grandest river Hudson,
They journeyed, they sojourned,
Staying for awhile, scattering across the Midwest,
"Coming to America."

Yet out West,
I am an Easterner,
My hometown teams,
In the East Division,
And this schizophrenia
Is non-problematical.

But where are my poems from?

I have studied the time zones,.
The AM's and the PM's.
I know when I deliver this to you,
If the sun is rising or setting,
Whether to greet you with
नमस्कार or magandang umaga,
Greet you with a "Good Sabbath!"
Or an Insh'Allah...

But where are my poems from?

Bog of technical definitions,
Matters not, my poems have no
Passport to be stamped,
The Customs lines they cross are the
Customs of mine and yours.

The are both immigrant and emigre,
Experienced, well travelled, they familiar
With the right satellites to
Grace thy welcoming space.

Tap dance, recitations of evasions,
Answer the question man,
But where are my poems from?
You tell the when, the how but not the
Where.

We can't wait much longer,
The inbox heavy with homework,
Your poems to love, like and take.

Don't you see?
They, born in the West,
For lack of a better answer,
Clock and setting sun racers,
Surfing the Atlantic, Indian,
Circumnavigating the Pacific Isles,
Is just the course they take
When out my window sent.

But is that your answer,
Their path, to the single quest,
From the West, is that the best
Answer you can equivocate,
Where do they come from?

**No.
Obviously,
They come from you...

My heart isn’t broken
It’s dented in places
I’m rather accident prone you see
With damaged wipers and broken hazards
This muscle is the heaviest machinery

Let's breathe.
Let's place our feet in the mud
and count the birds' songs without numbers
but with our souls
Let's let the branches speak to us,
the moon flood our skin,
the sun flood the land,
the flood chisel the river,
the bed grow to include us
Let's see life so precious circumnavigating
pushing on differently a little changed
Soon we succumb to the same
So laugh with a grim love and peace
that you come from the sun
sister the moon
become the mud
and the branch
that the circadian chatter of birds
will serenade
as we breathe.

Believe I am ruined


Habit of believing them
Always made me their followers
Even they proved thorn in rose many ways pricking other

Wanting or not wanting them
I sold my time further and further
Consequently, passing of era gave temple brown brother

Swallowing spit and even believing
Weightage of vote turned pale
Youths of both sexes decreased from my town brother

Couching in sofa their faces glow
As if almighty they are for all and for time
Consensus or process of opinion
Dying in my lap untimely brother

Believe I am ruined not having to drink pure water
Name of disease appears day by day
Killing numerous one after other

Town’s rumple in the evening and night
Tries to extract beautiful glamour
Poor they are even not know culture of death soaring hoard

Orphan children piles themselves
In my ruined town for sake of future
Certainly someday their turn of plight signals them come brother

Why a zero invention circles in me
Circumnavigating hopeless culture
When will those skyscrapers nod to salute my poor brother?

A class of enthusiasm and spirit glimpse
In the light of TV channel always
Programmer holding Mac to me and me like thousand brothers

Flown jets in the aerospace indicate
Dollars return bringing happiness for family
Suppressing heart by two hands see coffin’s of youth brother

Believe I am ruined in earth and space
Hesitantly seeing behave for soil, water and youths of village
Believe I am ruined seeing, leaving to respect youths’ spirit for.

We smuggled ourselves
on endless ribbons,
circumnavigating
towns full of iguanas.

Licking summer skies,
we displayed
kaleidoscope-eyes,
wore blue ribbons
in our hair.

Nothing compared
to the chivalry of the times,
naievity ruled us
like bosses, yet we
slayed with such splendor.

No prisoners taken,
just scars given,
along with tales,
stories from the borders,
our lives lived on the fringes,
hanging on endlessly
to lost dreams.

But the road is a dead end.
The raccoons rampage your cooler and
The compass moves no more.
The stars stay in a moving place.
Circumnavigating your home upon
Every hour.
The poor, poor girl wanders the
Desolate halls. Books strewn on the tile.
Where shall she go? What shall she do?
The toothbrush moves redundantly so,
Updown, updown,
Updown.
Free-verse haikus, a figment
Of the imagination. Five-seven-five
Forever.
Molasses spills from every orifice,
The throat's opening blocked by
Slop and gunk.
Will anyone help?
One would like to think so, but
No such luck.

Stare in the mirror and
Comb your hair, your train
Is boarding now.

One day Zeus called the God of Happiness and the God of Sadness into the academy of Olympus. He announced that he had prepared a test to see which of the twin brothers would forever dictate the lives of humans on Earth.

“You each have a blank paper at your desk. Happiness, Sadness, your task is to convince me in a list of 6 items why the humans should take after you and not your brother.”

At the end of the hour, the brothers turned in their papers. Hard lines formed in Zeus’ forehead as he read:

1. Whether you achieve your goals or whether you fail, in X years no one will remember.
2. You can make all the money in the world, but you can not take your money to the afterlife.
3. Often things don’t work out how you want and/or expect, and life moves on anyways.
4. Life on Earth is fickle. You can fall victim to chance and die at any moment.
5. Whether you play it safe and work a secure job or recklessly pursue that which you love, at the end of your life the outcome will be the same: death.
6.  You are part of a young and insignificant species, circumnavigating a small pocket of the universe, doomed for inevitable catastrophe, and nothing that you do (or don’t do) matters compared in this bigger picture. (According to what Earth-inhabitants know as “science.”)


“My sons, your papers are identical save the name at the top of the page. Tell me my sons, which one of you cheated on your test?” Zeus thundered.

“It was I,” said Sadness, “I read from Happiness’ page. Your test was too difficult for me, so simple in nature.”


“And it was I,” said Happiness, before Zeus could interject. “I stole the answers from Sadness’ mind. This way the people of Earth would follow my dictum no matter who won.

Zeus’ eyes burned with the fire of the underworld, scorching the flesh of his sons’ faces, which waned until their skin bore no light at all.  

“Cheaters.” Zeus accused. “You are unworthy of Olympus. As punishment I will send you to Earth. For as long as Earth spins, you will no longer be brothers but will face off in battle. Your lists are identical and so too shall your army’s be governed by these identical rules. When Earth ceases to spin, he with the largest and most capable following will alone return to Olympus.”


The sky vibrated and became impossibly bright, and when it ceased the Gods were standing at the corner of Times Square, each holding a sheaf of pamphlets containing the 6 laws they had created. Then, they did the only thing they knew how to do as a human, for it was the only thing they had known humans to do.

“Pamphlets here, get your pamphlets! These pamphlets have the answers to everything you’ve been looking for!” Happiness shouted at the crowd.

“I’ve got pamphlets, here! If you want to understand life, get these pamphlets now, now, NOW!” Spoke Sadness.

And so the crowd began to divide, some taking pamphlets from Happiness, some taking from Sadness, both groups eyeing each other suspiciously, holding their pamphlets close. How superior each group began to think they were—they had the true meaning in the palm of their hands. They had the winning cards. They knew what lay behind the vale of life.

We counted seventeen that morning,
driving in circles around Greenbelt Park.
Biding time before preschool drop-off,
we moved in measured paces beneath
a verdant canopy of oak and Virginia pine,
crossing diminutive rivulets repeatedly,
revisiting the same downed tree limbs
and tired park signs, disappearing and
reappearing in mist, our languorous
revolutions seemingly interminable,
each lap lost behind our slipstream.

It was a game we played together,
my daughter and I, circumnavigating
that slight road and counting the deer.
We tallied the bucks, does, and fawns
in plain sight, either ignorant or bold.
Vigilant, we watched for minuscule
movements beyond the windshield,
subtle stirrings in the understory:
a foreleg caught in a confusion of ferns;
a white tail, brazen, above the blueberries
or hovering, a clump of cotton atop holly;
caramel eyes cupped in mountain laurel—
ephemeral proof, woodland intimations.

Most days, we saw nothing
but familiar creatures as we
circled, spinning our wheels.
If we parked on the shoulder,
the black ribbon of bitumen
seemed to move beneath us still,
a vinyl track playing under tires,
daughter and I locked in place—
two diamonds at the tip of a needle,
skipping across prosaic grooves.

But the morning of the seventeen!
The moon hung dilatory in the sky,
a winking crescent eye, opaline.
And with each loop, the number grew.

-------------------------------------

Two years later, I circle back,
my daughter and I walking
toward a black fishing pier,
gulls etching invisible lines
into an aquamarine sky.

I ask her if she remembers
those rides before preschool,
if she remembers the morning
we saw those seventeen deer.
We pause, waves washing
white sea foam over our feet.  
She looks beyond the breakers,
taking in the horizon’s hard line,
a crisp indigo seam that appears
to stitch the round world straight.
One hand rests on her bony hip;
the other grips a shell-filled pail.
She turns, sizing me up with the
cold skepticism of a six year old,
and shakes her head in disbelief.
She tells me I’ve got it all wrong:
It couldn’t have been that many.

I’m tempted to argue. Instead,
I ask her, why does that number
(seventeen!) seem too high.

She looks at me, incredulous.
What am I trying to prove?
She speaks in small measures,
makes herself perfectly clear:

We were driving
in circles, Daddy,
and the deer,
the deer,
they move.

At once the horizon bends,
azure arc in space and time;
gulls stall in midair, snapshots
above suspended breakers. Silence.
Suddenly I’m back in Greenbelt Park,
treading nimbly, veiled by ivy screens,
leaping broken dogwoods cantilevered
over precious shallow streams,
muscles, ears, and eyes electrified.
I see as the unseen eighteenth deer
would have seen us—two creatures
harnessed in a restless death machine,
recumbent gods marking territory.

Around again. Wait.
Another close orbit.
Scrutinize red taillights
fading to distance and
then explode, vaulting
across alien asphalt,
hard halo of misery:
unnumbered,
exalted,
infinite.

Don’t you know, young one
That you can’t have both
The odyssey of sailing a raging sea
And the tranquil rest of silent waves

Don’t you know, passionate adventurer
That a hard-fought journey — the one they sing about in songs and tales
Is only because of pain endured and loss
You can't just throw the One Ring in any volcano

Don't you know, wandering genius
that eradicating a single problem
leads to more "success" than being well rounded
The names you know did one thing and one thing only
often costing them everything else

Don't you know, people-pleaser
that anyone can tell them what they want to hear
and garner applause
****** was loved by the Germans
MLK, hated by his country
yet history does not point and say
look at that fearless leader!
The one who committed genocide and freed his people from debt!

Don't you know, Byronic Hero
that your flaws define you
but do not make you a hero
It's the actions despite your flaws
It's tales of overcoming, circumnavigating the things that inhibit you

Don't you know, reader
that the words on a screen
even though you use them to fly
do not allow you to escape forever
control your descent
learn from your flight
Don't you know that your thoughts become your actions?

Don't you know, writer
that your medium is language
and like any good painter, it's about splashing color
where color needs to be
don't water down your words by speaking every time the opportunity comes a'knockin

I turned my attention to the water, and I was suddenly struck by the immensity of everything.
“The world is so big,” I said aloud,
more to myself than to him.
He nodded, but I couldn’t shake
the feeling that he just didn’t get what I was saying.
I didn’t mean, “the world is big.”
I wasn’t talking about the vastness of the seas’ endless waters
or the sheer size of the globe we walked on.
I was talking about the infinite
nature of the world, how it was stuffed full
of corners and niches that I would never see.
I imagined all of the homes, filled with love, with shame, with something
in between.
A bee, circumnavigating the area around a wilting tulip.
The involuntary wringing of a grandmother’s hands during tense moments.
A boy practicing violin.
A wedding, a birth, another wedding, a death, a funeral, and the continuation
of life around the hole left by the dead
until the cycle continued so much that the hole was filled.
I imagined the ports where ships docked and ******* between voyages, the cobblestone streets of French towns and the mountainous landscapes of the past.
I pictured dogs, scratching on fences, and a girl
brushing her hair by an open window.
I saw the corners and pockets of life, shared with the world
or kept to oneself. The gaps behind stoves,
the crannies seen only by blind mice and frightened roaches,
the dark tunnels beneath the earth. I saw in a flash the water parks where children played,
the quiet moments of morning coffee reveled in by morning people
who rose before the sun.
I pictured the greasy back-alley of a fast food joint
and realized that, for better or for worse,
I would never see
even a fraction
of what the world had to offer.

All beyond reaches of our own
Stretch of sea, land of the deep
In deathly still waves
Carried the weight of prophecy

Circumnavigating ---
Wrecked ship, so as I
Syphoned by the time

Pitch black in heart of sea
In this river of abyss, wake of sorrow
Darkness shrouds our being

Colors of my soul stolen
Fading, further and farther
From my spirit
Drowning into your darkness

As I gaze into abyss
And gaze upon mine
See no reflection
But drowned to your eyes

i wrote that drunk
i was trying to bypass
an impasse
lucked out and
circumnavigated the
rabbit
ran into the fox
he stole my color
only to find it again
at first light
and now i nod
to the speed of life
the unceasing turning
of greater and greater
wheels
the lightness of death
as it passes

there's no
circumnavigating
that

what message do you bring
blue and gold dragonfly
taking my attention
as you dart and turn
where are we going
my eyes travel with you
over and under
around and through
we buzz flower tops
seeking feast or rest /

it is your quiet song that sooths me
on lonely cloud filled evenings
endlessly circumnavigating the pond’s edge
only ever stopping momentarily /

breathing deepens
your wings engulf me
sinking into a soft and inviting
exoskeleton
you transport me /

flashing neon laser architecture
silhouetted pyramids pass
increasing speed
as we careen
multidimensional beings
statuesque
gaze through me
looking deep into a subconscious
imprinting designs and rhythms
asking me to carry something back /

the alarm buzzes and I am reminded
on the windowsill
a perched dragonfly twitches a wing
dial turns twice to a 9 a.m. position
and fly’s off into the morning sun……

my mind reels trying to remember
fading dreams carry the
idea of a message into the ether

I sit on the edge
contemplating /

Death may come,
to some sweet souls
we know this -
much too quickly
there in a flash,
- in a heightened dash-
perhaps not even sickly,

Oh how that fate-
so mercurial,
it doesn't tell us -
so often why,
as we gaze in daze,
upon our solemn dead,,
an throw our hands up to the sky,
we ask of our dear stars above,
just why'd they have to go an die?

As we are really sad for only just ourselves,
we're just not ready to be done,
so stuck there in our bad goodbye,
still looking for the shining sun,
parting is such sweet sorrow
when it's with the only "one",

To leave the lovely Earth,
a blinking eye,
before to grasp a changing thought,
to look up in a changing sky,
for the answers dearly sought,
or even only wonder why,
it wiped away a life so fast,
and suddenly-
it seems for naught,

Her people they not with her now,
as she lay so broken and forlorn,
until the strangers come to call,
her death-
it was perhaps just a chance to warn,

To expire in a cul-de-sac,
as they circle 'round her now to grieve,
watching as they march as one,
to see the only way -believe,
believe me,
they come to only bid farewell,
not to punish or a bone to cleave,
as the body fails,
gone away - a binding heave,

As a rolling tube of rubber brings
about the ugly severed end,
and a hard black inflated reality,
it comes around the final bend,
barreling down on a tiny female life,
no hand to hold-
not one to lend,
but the birds they came,
with a message we should send,

Harbingers come in the quietus here,
they come to dance in sacred feather,
an some say rare and very strange,
and predictors of the coming weather,

I think that might be true, I do,
but what do circling wild birds
really tell?
circumnavigating the dead of Earth,
while in the sadness do not dwell,
and still I'm sure they are afraid of those tires,
but those fears they only quell,

They circle round to pay respect,
an she an enemy in their eye,
still they only ferry her,
an wish her home
a last goodbye,

A ritual of death and life,
performed before the alter,
a spirit sighs -a soul she dies,
her body could only falter,
death may come,
they fear it - not,
and I believe they still-
believe no hell is hot,

How?
How do these wild wild birds,
understand better than we,
some how?

Ma Cherie© 2017

We recede back into the depths
Our minds harboring tangled webs
Giving credence to griefs and sorrows
Preferring to live in the past
We retrace footsteps back to the beginning
Fantasizing other routes
Of chances never taken
Alas that is all we do
Circumnavigating parts we already lived
On our long search for bliss
We find ourselves mesmerized by angst
Forever tormenting fragile hearts
Like once was not enough
Wandering awake we are black and grey
Daydreaming our eyes see more vividly
We lay tired but never sleep
Cogs of our fantasies turning evermore
Insomnia such a faithful companion
Never wanting to leave us alone

Submarine sailing
subaqueous submersion
floating through darkness
resisting radar
circumnavigating sonar
avoiding armada armageddon
torpedoes armed already
silent running stealth mode
eliminating unnecessary sound
surveilling would-be attackers.

Submarine suffering
sapphire scenery brings beauty
obscuring obsidian vanishes viewing
blinding black proximity paranoia
observing the unknown
behind titanium walls
contending colossal tentacles
extending from my kraken mind.

Caterpillar crawl
underwater undulation
supplies sparse
a city is needed
shore seems nice
party port
reconnaissance recognized
rejection redeployed
pebbles tossed in the ocean
sink to the bottom
but never die
and start submarine sailing.

A reddened messianic figure babbling inwardly,

A drunken guardian shining a petulant light

Doomed gymnasts performing blasé sequences in wainscoted rooms of unverifiable vintage

Half gassed pigeons circumnavigating the vestibules of burning trains,

A white noise amphitheater in the kingdom of heaven, an audience of oxygen impoverished capitulates heir thoracic ducts screaming,

Delirious children stalking sickened cats, Their feline ***** dripping from their mouths

My skull gassed and pliant Government of the absolved

Tradespeople are the crickets that choose to swim the perilous water -as opposed to circumnavigating the pond ..

TELL IT OUT
@niamornimo
Its said you never know pain
Till you begged God to heal you
I promise its true
Scars are maps to history
Night after night
Cried my little self
To sleep even if its just some
Power nap but I could not
The figure of him on top of
Me in that pink shawl
Claiming am beautiful only to dart
On the beauty
As if not done my own
Blood found a toy
He could jump on
And feel good
I tried to tell her
I could not bring it all
To context coz I had
Zero idea on what was happening
Forced to grow I was
Took in all trash
Re-cycling into positivity
Was my cup of coffee
Reckless and carefree my attitude
As I ran out of ideas
bashing out the wails buried in the
sea of tears in my stomach
Like a church mouse stuck in the sanctuary
Series of sermons almost
Like rehearsed songs
Swept like wind over my face
Was all fallacy
The daily inner battle of
What come may
Circumnavigating back to point zero
I needed to let go
Deep down I know
There is a girl I need to find
Face her and revive her
Torments never stop
As we journey on
In search of a better tomorrow
Just belief of scars are beauty marks

destination unknown
for this Earthling
stardate: February 26th, 2022

At sea since time immemorial
I relish being alone
upon oceanic expanse
yours truly doth bemoan
me gal Sal (one among
numerous female confidantes),
no matter, she easily
mistaken as a crone
magical powers keep
her manning far aloft drone
as surveillance hovers above me
(to intercept encrypted

communication maintained
courtesy bluetooth earphone)
the two of us sol survivors
I feel like a foreigner since
global thermonuclear war
bombed webbed wide world
into pulverized power
vaguely similar landscape
to age of Fred Flintstone
and Barney Rubble
recurring memories redolent
of yesteryear, whereby I groan
though simple living

such as me and the missus
did Potschke coaxing homegrown
organic fruits and vegetables,
though, I attest we did
get violently angry with each other
and unwittingly cross interzone
where brickbats exchanged,
especially after she discovered
an illicit extramarital affair
between myself and Joan
since kindergarten her I known.

Weather beaten cap'n,
and watertight bewitched craft
time tested since maiden voyage
(circumnavigating the globe
back in the day of my youth),
I ranked tough as a pitbull,
when severely pitted
against raw elements
of swiftly tailored,
harried stylish nature
against leathery faced

reptilian skin, hard drinking
(actually as corked
poetic convenience - vermouth
arbitrary bottle of choice
if for no other reason,
than to rhyme
with the above line),
and tobacco spitting, while
colorfully swearing as an uncouth
Furies (of Agamemnon)
fighting (tooth

and nail) Pirate,
where rickets, scurvy,
and thrice unconscious,
currently ample proof
could not forsooth
bring me to Davy Jones's locker,
cuz I never wanna
get relegated to an underwater
whale schooled booth,
this raconteur can nonchalantly,
glibly, and blithely attest,

with braggadocio, despite
no warm welcome will
ever greet mine tinnitus
pained ears, I can plainly
imagine acrimonious retort
upon me behest
his far more'n lifetime
bobbing (like a sponge)
square pants float
buoyed atop crest longing e'en for
(carping, caviling, hen pecking,
or shrewish) wife.