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Michael R Burch May 2020
Mayan Poetry Translations

The Receiving of the Flower
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let us sing overflowing with joy
as we observe the Receiving of the Flower.
The lovely maidens beam;
their hearts leap in their *******.

Why?

Because they will soon yield their virginity to the men they love!

###

The Deflowering
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Remove your clothes;
let down your hair;
become as naked as the day you were born—

virgins!

###

Prelude to *******
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lay out your most beautiful clothes,
maidens!
The day of happiness has arrived!

Grab your combs, detangle your hair,
adorn your earlobes with gaudy pendants.
Dress in white as becomes maidens ...

Then go, give your lovers the happiness of your laughter!
And all the village will rejoice with you,
for the day of happiness has arrived!

###

The Flower-Strewn Pool
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You have arrived at last in the woods
where no one can see what you do
at the flower-strewn pool ...

Remove your clothes,
unbraid your hair,
become as you were
when you first arrived here,

virgins, maidens!

These are my modern English translations of ancient Mayan love poems. Native Americans were creating poems and songs in pre-Columbian days; Mayan and Aztec literature may date back to the first millennium BCE. Unfortunately the Spanish conquerors of South America destroyed all but four of the thousands of pre-Columbian books that probably once existed (according to translator Michael Coe). Mayan hieroglyphs remain far from fully understood and dating what remains is difficult. However, the best poetry is timeless and I believe we can know our Mayan brothers and sisters a little better through their poems.—Michael R. Burch
These are my modern English translations of ancient Mayan love poems. Native Americans were creating poems and songs in pre-Columbian days; Mayan and Aztec literature may date back to the first millennium BCE. Unfortunately the Spanish conquerors of South America destroyed all but four of the thousands of pre-Columbian books that probably once existed (according to translator Michael Coe). Mayan hieroglyphs remain far from fully understood and dating what remains is difficult. However, the best poetry is timeless and I believe we can know our Mayan brothers and sisters a little better through their poems.—Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: ancient, Mayan, poetry, translation, translations, love, virginity, ***, marriage, joy, happiness, flower, flowers, deflowering, clothes, hair, ******, nakedness
IN SEARCH OF THE PRESENT

I begin with two words that all men have uttered since the dawn of humanity: thank you. The word gratitude has equivalents in every language and in each tongue the range of meanings is abundant. In the Romance languages this breadth spans the spiritual and the physical, from the divine grace conceded to men to save them from error and death, to the ****** grace of the dancing girl or the feline leaping through the undergrowth. Grace means pardon, forgiveness, favour, benefice, inspiration; it is a form of address, a pleasing style of speaking or painting, a gesture expressing politeness, and, in short, an act that reveals spiritual goodness. Grace is gratuitous; it is a gift. The person who receives it, the favoured one, is grateful for it; if he is not base, he expresses gratitude. That is what I am doing at this very moment with these weightless words. I hope my emotion compensates their weightlessness. If each of my words were a drop of water, you would see through them and glimpse what I feel: gratitude, acknowledgement. And also an indefinable mixture of fear, respect and surprise at finding myself here before you, in this place which is the home of both Swedish learning and world literature.

Languages are vast realities that transcend those political and historical entities we call nations. The European languages we speak in the Americas illustrate this. The special position of our literatures when compared to those of England, Spain, Portugal and France depends precisely on this fundamental fact: they are literatures written in transplanted tongues. Languages are born and grow from the native soil, nourished by a common history. The European languages were rooted out from their native soil and their own tradition, and then planted in an unknown and unnamed world: they took root in the new lands and, as they grew within the societies of America, they were transformed. They are the same plant yet also a different plant. Our literatures did not passively accept the changing fortunes of the transplanted languages: they participated in the process and even accelerated it. They very soon ceased to be mere transatlantic reflections: at times they have been the negation of the literatures of Europe; more often, they have been a reply.

In spite of these oscillations the link has never been broken. My classics are those of my language and I consider myself to be a descendant of Lope and Quevedo, as any Spanish writer would ... yet I am not a Spaniard. I think that most writers of Spanish America, as well as those from the United States, Brazil and Canada, would say the same as regards the English, Portuguese and French traditions. To understand more clearly the special position of writers in the Americas, we should think of the dialogue maintained by Japanese, Chinese or Arabic writers with the different literatures of Europe. It is a dialogue that cuts across multiple languages and civilizations. Our dialogue, on the other hand, takes place within the same language. We are Europeans yet we are not Europeans. What are we then? It is difficult to define what we are, but our works speak for us.

In the field of literature, the great novelty of the present century has been the appearance of the American literatures. The first to appear was that of the English-speaking part and then, in the second half of the 20th Century, that of Latin America in its two great branches: Spanish America and Brazil. Although they are very different, these three literatures have one common feature: the conflict, which is more ideological than literary, between the cosmopolitan and nativist tendencies, between Europeanism and Americanism. What is the legacy of this dispute? The polemics have disappeared; what remain are the works. Apart from this general resemblance, the differences between the three literatures are multiple and profound. One of them belongs more to history than to literature: the development of Anglo-American literature coincides with the rise of the United States as a world power whereas the rise of our literature coincides with the political and social misfortunes and upheavals of our nations. This proves once more the limitations of social and historical determinism: the decline of empires and social disturbances sometimes coincide with moments of artistic and literary splendour. Li-Po and Tu Fu witnessed the fall of the Tang dynasty; Velázquez painted for Felipe IV; Seneca and Lucan were contemporaries and also victims of Nero. Other differences are of a literary nature and apply more to particular works than to the character of each literature. But can we say that literatures have a character? Do they possess a set of shared features that distinguish them from other literatures? I doubt it. A literature is not defined by some fanciful, intangible character; it is a society of unique works united by relations of opposition and affinity.

The first basic difference between Latin-American and Anglo-American literature lies in the diversity of their origins. Both begin as projections of Europe. The projection of an island in the case of North America; that of a peninsula in our case. Two regions that are geographically, historically and culturally eccentric. The origins of North America are in England and the Reformation; ours are in Spain, Portugal and the Counter-Reformation. For the case of Spanish America I should briefly mention what distinguishes Spain from other European countries, giving it a particularly original historical identity. Spain is no less eccentric than England but its eccentricity is of a different kind. The eccentricity of the English is insular and is characterized by isolation: an eccentricity that excludes. Hispanic eccentricity is peninsular and consists of the coexistence of different civilizations and different pasts: an inclusive eccentricity. In what would later be Catholic Spain, the Visigoths professed the heresy of Arianism, and we could also speak about the centuries of ******* by Arabic civilization, the influence of Jewish thought, the Reconquest, and other characteristic features.

Hispanic eccentricity is reproduced and multiplied in America, especially in those countries such as Mexico and Peru, where ancient and splendid civilizations had existed. In Mexico, the Spaniards encountered history as well as geography. That history is still alive: it is a present rather than a past. The temples and gods of pre-Columbian Mexico are a pile of ruins, but the spirit that breathed life into that world has not disappeared; it speaks to us in the hermetic language of myth, legend, forms of social coexistence, popular art, customs. Being a Mexican writer means listening to the voice of that present, that presence. Listening to it, speaking with it, deciphering it: expressing it ... After this brief digression we may be able to perceive the peculiar relation that simultaneously binds us to and separates us from the European tradition.

This consciousness of being separate is a constant feature of our spiritual history. Separation is sometimes experienced as a wound that marks an internal division, an anguished awareness that invites self-examination; at other times it appears as a challenge, a spur that incites us to action, to go forth and encounter others and the outside world. It is true that the feeling of separation is universal and not peculiar to Spanish Americans. It is born at the very moment of our birth: as we are wrenched from the Whole we fall into an alien land. This experience becomes a wound that never heals. It is the unfathomable depth of every man; all our ventures and exploits, all our acts and dreams, are bridges designed to overcome the separation and reunite us with the world and our fellow-beings. Each man's life and the collective history of mankind can thus be seen as attempts to reconstruct the original situation. An unfinished and endless cure for our divided condition. But it is not my intention to provide yet another description of this feeling. I am simply stressing the fact that for us this existential condition expresses itself in historical terms. It thus becomes an awareness of our history. How and when does this feeling appear and how is it transformed into consciousness? The reply to this double-edged question can be given in the form of a theory or a personal testimony. I prefer the latter: there are many theories and none is entirely convincing.

The feeling of separation is bound up with the oldest and vaguest of my memories: the first cry, the first scare. Like every child I built emotional bridges in the imagination to link me to the world and to other people. I lived in a town on the outskirts of Mexico City, in an old dilapidated house that had a jungle-like garden and a great room full of books. First games and first lessons. The garden soon became the centre of my world; the library, an enchanted cave. I used to read and play with my cousins and schoolmates. There was a fig tree, temple of vegetation, four pine trees, three ash trees, a nightshade, a pomegranate tree, wild grass and prickly plants that produced purple grazes. Adobe walls. Time was elastic; space was a spinning wheel. All time, past or future, real or imaginary, was pure presence. Space transformed itself ceaselessly. The beyond was here, all was here: a valley, a mountain, a distant country, the neighbours' patio. Books with pictures, especially history books, eagerly leafed through, supplied images of deserts and jungles, palaces and hovels, warriors and princesses, beggars and kings. We were shipwrecked with Sinbad and with Robinson, we fought with d'Artagnan, we took Valencia with the Cid. How I would have liked to stay forever on the Isle of Calypso! In summer the green branches of the fig tree would sway like the sails of a caravel or a pirate ship. High up on the mast, swept by the wind, I could make out islands and continents, lands that vanished as soon as they became tangible. The world was limitless yet it was always within reach; time was a pliable substance that weaved an unbroken present.

When was the spell broken? Gradually rather than suddenly. It is hard to accept being betrayed by a friend, deceived by the woman we love, or that the idea of freedom is the mask of a tyrant. What we call "finding out" is a slow and tricky process because we ourselves are the accomplices of our errors and deceptions. Nevertheless, I can remember fairly clearly an incident that was the first sign, although it was quickly forgotten. I must have been about six when one of my cousins who was a little older showed me a North American magazine with a photograph of soldiers marching along a huge avenue, probably in New York. "They've returned from the war" she said. This handful of words disturbed me, as if they foreshadowed the end of the world or the Second Coming of Christ. I vaguely knew that somewhere far away a war had ended a few years earlier and that the soldiers were marching to celebrate their victory. For me, that war had taken place in another time, not here and now. The photo refuted me. I felt literally dislodged from the present.

From that moment time began to fracture more and more. And there was a plurality of spaces. The experience repeated itself more and more frequently. Any piece of news, a harmless phrase, the headline in a newspaper: everything proved the outside world's existence and my own unreality. I felt that the world was splitting and that I did not inhabit the present. My present was disintegrating: real time was somewhere else. My time, the time of the garden, the fig tree, the games with friends, the drowsiness among the plants at three in the afternoon under the sun, a fig torn open (black and red like a live coal but one that is sweet and fresh): this was a fictitious time. In spite of what my senses told me, the time from over there, belonging to the others, was the real one, the time of the real present. I accepted the inevitable: I became an adult. That was how my expulsion from the present began.

It may seem paradoxical to say that we have been expelled from the present, but it is a feeling we have all had at some moment. Some of us experienced it first as a condemnation, later transformed into consciousness and action. The search for the present is neither the pursuit of an earthly paradise nor that of a timeless eternity: it is the search for a real reality. For us, as Spanish Americans, the real present was not in our own countries: it was the time lived by others, by the English, the French and the Germans. It was the time of New York, Paris, London. We had to go and look for it and bring it back home. These years were also the years of my discovery of literature. I began writing poems. I did not know what made me write them: I was moved by an inner need that is difficult to define. Only now have I understood that there was a secret relationship between what I have called my expulsion from the present and the writing of poetry. Poetry is in love with the instant and seeks to relive it in the poem, thus separating it from sequential time and turning it into a fixed present. But at that time I wrote without wondering why I was doing it. I was searching for the gateway to the present: I wanted to belong to my time and to my century. A little later this obsession became a fixed idea: I wanted to be a modern poet. My search for modernity had begun.

What is modernity? First of all it is an ambiguous term: there are as many types of modernity as there are societies. Each has its own. The word's meaning is uncertain and arbitrary, like the name of the period that precedes it, the Middle Ages. If we are modern when compared to medieval times, are we perhaps the Middle Ages of a future modernity? Is a name that changes with time a real name? Modernity is a word in search of its meaning. Is it an idea, a mirage or a moment of history? Are we the children of modernity or its creators? Nobody knows for sure. It doesn't matter much: we follow it, we pursue it. For me at that time modernity was fused with the present or rather produced it: the present was its last supreme flower. My case is neither unique nor exceptional: from the Symbolist period, all modern poets have chased after that magnetic and elusive figure that fascinates them. Baudelaire was the first. He was also the first to touch her and discover that she is nothing but time that crumbles in one's hands. I am not going to relate my adventures in pursuit of modernity: they are not very different from those of other 20th-Century poets. Modernity has been a universal passion. Since 1850 she has been our goddess and our demoness. In recent years, there has been an attempt to exorcise her and there has been much talk of "postmodernism". But what is postmodernism if not an even more modern modernity?

For us, as Latin Americans, the search for poetic modernity runs historically parallel to the repeated attempts to modernize our countries. This tendency begins at the end of the 18th Century and includes Spain herself. The United States was born into modernity and by 1830 was already, as de Tocqueville observed, the womb of the future; we were born at a moment when Spain and Portugal were moving away from modernity. This is why there was frequent talk of "Europeanizing" our countries: the modern was outside and had to be imported. In Mexican history this process begins just before the War of Independence. Later it became a great ideological and political debate that passionately divided Mexican society during the 19th Century. One event was to call into question not the legitimacy of the reform movement but the way in which it had been implemented: the Mexican Revolution. Unlike its 20th-Century counterparts, the Mexican Revolution was not really the expression of a vaguely utopian ideology but rather the explosion of a reality that had been historically and psychologically repressed. It was not the work of a group of ideologists intent on introducing principles derived from a political theory; it was a popular uprising that unmasked what was hidden. For this very reason it was more of a revelation than a revolution. Mexico was searching for the present outside only to find it within, buried but alive. The search for modernity led
hand slaps shoulder knee rhythmically that’s called hamming the bone sitting on a street curb singing making up lyrics i got a transitor sister loves cossack named jake he rides Cherokee chopper all he’s ever known is hate he’s going down underground where a man can be a man wrestle alligators live off the land ebb flow i don’t know racing chasing hair-pin turning at 150 miles per hour downshift to 3rd spread the word sweet sour naked flower touching skin deep within defies all sin with a grin speed speed speed all i need i’m getting off coming on you tawny scrawny bow-legged pigeon-toed knock-kneed Don Juan Ponce de Leon Aly Khan all wrapped up into one going to have ******* good time good time tonight i feel like an orphan mom and dad seem so far away tonight i feel like an orphan you make me feel this way hand slaps shoulder knee rhythmically hand bone hand bone

Odyseuss drifts job to job construction worker office assistant waiter whatever he does not understand how road to recognition works continues showing portfolio to art dealers but they react indifferently he does not know how to attain notice in art world begins to suspect there is no god watching over souls instead he imagines infinite force juggling light darkness creation destruction love hate Mom and Dad insist he can earn respectable income if only he will learn commodity futures like cousin Chris Mom says you can work down at the exchange and paint on the side a part of Odysseus wants desperately to please his parents he considers perhaps Mom is right for the time being maybe build up nest egg it seems like sensible plan he wonders why Dad and Mom never speak about money how to save manage they treat the subject as forbidden topic Odysseus has no idea what Dad or Mom earn or investment strategies Odysseus is about to make serious mistake the decision to get job working at commodity exchange needs deeper examination why is he giving in to his parents what attracts him to commodities trading is it Chris’s achievement and the money? does Odysseus honestly see himself as a winning trader or does it simply look like big party with lots of rich men pretty young girls is that where he wants to be why is he giving up on his dream to be a great artist does it seem too impossible to reach who makes him think that? is he going to give up on his true self? he halfheartedly follows his parent’s advice begins working as runner at Chicago Mercantile Exchange several friends including Calexpress disloyalty for entering straight world commodity markets are not exactly straight in 1978 clearing firms pay adequately hours are 8 AM to 2 PM over course of next 6 months Odysseus runs orders out to various trading pits cousin Chris rarely acknowledges Odysseus maybe Chris feels need to protect his image of success perhaps in front of his business associates Chris is embarrassed by Odysseus’s menial rank and goof-off attitude maybe Chris senses what a terrible mistake Odysseus has made

Chicago suffers harsh winter in February Roman Polanski skips bail in California flees to France in April President Carter postpones production of neutron bomb which kills people with radiation leaving buildings intact in October Yankees win World Series defeating Dodgers in November Jim Jones leads mass-****** suicide killing 918 people in Jonestown Guyana in December in San Francisco Dianne Feinstein succeeds murdered Mayor George Moscone in Chicago John Wayne Gacy is arrested

darkness descends upon Odysseus his heart is not into commodity business more accurately he hates it he loathes battleship gray color of greed envy he resents prevailing overcast of misogyny he meets many pretty girls yet most of them are only interested in catching a trader it is rumored numerous high rolling traders hire young girls for sole purpose of morning ******* remainder of day girls are free to mingle run trivial errands commodity traders typically trash females it is primitive hierarchy Odysseus bounces from one clearing firm to another then moves to Chicago Options Exchange then Chicago Board of Trade on foyer wall just outside trading floor hangs bronze plaque commemorating all men who served in World War 2 Uncle Karl’s name is on that plaque Daddy Pat bought his son seat hoping to set him up after war Uncle Karl’s new wife wanted to break away from Chicago persuaded him to sell seat move to California Uncle Karl bought car wash outside Los Angeles with Daddy Pat’s support Mom and Dad encourage assure Odysseus commodities business is right choice they promise to buy him full seat on exchange if he continues to learn markets they feel certain he can be saved from his artistic notions the markets are soaring in profits cousin Chris is riding waves a number of Chris’s friends are sons of parents who belong to same clubs dine at same restaurants as Mom and Dad Odysseus is not alpha-male like Chris Odysseus is a dreamer painter poet writer explorer experimenter unlike Chris who has connections Odysseus starts out as runner then gets job holding deck for yuppie brokers in Treasury Dollar trading pit Odysseus holds buy orders between index and middle fingers sell orders in last 2 fingers arranged by time stamp price size in other hand holds nervous pencil he stands step below boss in circular pit in room size of football field full of raised pits everything is traded cattle hogs pork bellies all currencies gold numbers flash change instantaneously in columns on three high walls fourth wall is glass with seats behind for spectators thousands of people rush around delivering orders on telephones flashing hand signals shouting offers quantities every moment every day calls come in frantically from all around world space is organized chaos sometimes not so organized fortunes switch hands in nano-seconds it is global fiscal battleground rallies to up side or breaks to down side send room into hollering pushing shoving hysteria central banks financial institutions kingpin mobsters with political clout daring entrepreneurs old thieves suburban rich kids beautiful people pretty young females abound big guns **** in same air stand next to low-ranking runners everyone flirts sweats sneezes knows inside they are each expendable Odysseus is spellbound by sheer force magnitude he feels immaterial only grip is his success with girls it is not conscious talent he grins girls grin back Chris’s trader friends recognize Odysseus’s ability they push him to introduce girls to them it is way for Odysseus to level playing field he has no money or high opinion of himself he simply knows how to hook up with girls

1979 January Steelers defeat Cowboys at Super Bowl Brenda Ann Spencer kills 2 faculty wounds 8 students responds to incident “i don't like Mondays” in February Khomeini seizes power in Iran in March Voyager space-probe photographs Jupiter’s rings a nuclear power plant accident occurs at Three Mile Island Pennsylvania in May Margaret Thatcher is elected Prime Minister in England in Chicago American Airlines flight 191 crashes killing 273 people in November Iran hostage crisis begins 90 hostages 53 of whom are American in December Soviet Union invades Afghanistan 1980 in November Ronald Reagan defeats Jimmy Carter one year since Iran hostage crisis began

he meets good-looking younger girl named Monica on subway heading home from work he has seen her running orders on trading floor she is tall slender with long dark brown hair in ponytail pointed nose wide mouth innocent face she confides her estranged father is famous Chicago mobster Odysseus recognizes his name they talk about how much they dislike markets arrant disparity of wealth between traders and themselves Odysseus says i hate feeling of being so disposable worthless Monica replies yeah me too he tells her if i was a girl i’d ******* myself to several handsome generous traders Monica acknowledges that’s an interesting idea but who? how? which traders? do you know? he answers yeah i know exactly who and how Monica says if you’re serious i’m in i have a girlfriend named Larissa who might also be interested i’ll call Larissa tonight following day Monica approaches Odysseus at work agrees to meet at his place after markets close that afternoon Monica and Larissa show up eager to learn more about Odysseus’s scheme Larissa is petite built like a gymnast giggly light brown hair younger than Monica he lays it all out for them cousin Chris and his buddies the money ******* both girls are quite lovely he suggests they rehearse with him he will coach them on situations settings techniques girls consent for 4 weeks every afternoon they meet at Odysseus’s place get naked play out different scenarios he shows girls how to pose demure at first then display themselves skillfully fingers delicately pulling open ***** spreading wide apart buns working hidden muscles he directs each to take up numerous positions tasks techniques then has them switch places he teaches them timing starting slow gradually building up rhythms stirring into passionate frenzy having two mouths four hands creates novel sets of possibilities one girl attends his front while other excites his rear he positions them side-by-side so he can penetrate any of all four holes he stacks them one on top of the other many other variations after reaching ****** several times making sure to reciprocally satisfy their eager needs Odysseus dismisses girls until following day finally after month of practice Monica and Larissa feel confident proficient primed Odysseus arranges for girls to meet with 2 traders through Chris most traders have nicknames Twist who is hosting event is notoriously wild insatiable on opening night Odysseus behaves like concerned father Larissa and Monica each bring several dresses and pairs of shoes Odysseus helps them choose suggests Monica ease up on make-up he styles Larissa’s hair instructs Monica to call him when they arrive again when they leave he requests they return directly to his place Monica wears hair pulled back in French twist pearl earrings sleek little black dress black stiletto heels she stands several inches above Odysseus Larissa wears braided pigtails pink low-scooped leotard brown plaid wool kilt just above knees brown suede cowboy boots he kisses each on lips then pats their butts warns them to be careful mindful Monica winks Larissa giggles more than an hour passes as Odysseus sits wondering why he has not heard from girls suddenly reality hits he does not want to be commodities trader and certainly not a **** this is not how he wants to be known or remembered Odysseus wants to be a painter and writer Monica and Larissa are good sweet girls whom he has misguided he calls Twist’s place Twist answers Odysseus asks to speak with Monica when she comes to phone he questions are you all right Monica answers yes we’re fine we’re having a fantastic time why are you calling what’s wrong he explains you were suppose to call me when you arrived i began to worry i think maybe this whole arrangement is a bad idea i want you to call it off and come back home i don’t want either of you to become prostitutes i love you both and don’t want to be associated with dishonoring you Monica says it’s a little late to call it off but we’ll see you when we’re done kissy kiss bye Odys another hour passes then another he frets wondering what they are doing after 4 hours as he is about to call Twist’s house again doorbell rings Monica and Larissa both giggling beaming Odysseus can spot they have a coke buzz Monica announces you should be proud of us Odys we got each of them off 2 times we left them stone-numb and tapped out the girls open their purses each slaps 5 hundred dollar bills unto table Monica says this is your cut Odys we both got a thousand for ourselves he replies i can’t touch that money we need to sit down and talk Monica demands no talking Odys take off your clothes he insists i’m serious Monica i’m never going to send you out again Larissa claims there’s no turning back for me i had too much fun Monica  pleads come on Odys we’ll be good we promise now take off your clothes Twist and his buddy never attended to our needs i’m ***** as hell Larissa where’s that little bottle of dust Twisty handed you

Chicago Monday night December 8 1980 Cal and Odysseus sit at North End they're on 4th round feeling buzz the place is lively adorned with holiday decorations Cal says you’ve changed Odysseus questions what do you mean? how? Cal says the commodity markets and your cousin and his friends they’ve changed you when was the last time you painted Odys? are you dealing coke Odysseus looks Cal in the eyes answers they’re so ******* rich Cal you can’t believe it one drives a black Corvette Stingray another a ******* Delorean anything they want they buy girls cars clothes condos boats yeah i’m dealing coke to Chris’s friends it’s my only leverage remember the Columbian dude Armando we met at tittie bar? i score from him and keep it clean Chris’s buddies pay up for the quality i don’t remember my last painting maybe the black painting i never finished after breaking up with Reiko Lee a girl falls off bar stool crashing to floor at other end of bar Cal says Odys, you better play it careful you’re messing with the devil got any blow on you suddenly bar grows quiet someone turns up TV volume they watch overhead as news anchorman speaks slow solemn camera pans splattered puddle of blood pieces of broken glass on steps to Dakota Building Cal looks to Odysseus John Lennon has been murdered Cal waits for Odysseus to say something tear rolls down cheek Cal glances away stares down at floor they drink in silence
Michael Marchese Dec 2016
It walked on water over seas
And lurked within the hold
Deep inside it slept and dreamt
Of glory, God and gold

It raised its sword to take and have
And felled the trees with axe
To claim and own the uncontrolled
Then marked it on our backs  

It spoke in tongues of serpents
And hissed of demon flame
Promising salvation
If we but learned its name

It forced us to betray
And turn against our brother
Condemned us to a barren rock
By ravaging our mother

It offered us the thought of more  
And then reached out its hand
But only shared a sickness
That still spreads throughout this land
Samm Marie Jul 2016
Señor Garcia Marquez
Whatever did you mean
When you wrote of life
And of death by family
I'm in love with
Prudencio Aguilar's ghost
Roaming about the Buendía household
Hole in his throat
Washing out the wound
But what did you mean?!
I'm in love with
Do it yourself chastity belts
And Ursula's fear of ***
But why is this even a theory
Your concept behind biracial inbreeding
And Señor do not get me started
On Melquíades and José Arcadio Buendía
Because that friendship was
Fated to be doomed
I mean no disrespect in all this
I just want to know
Why use Macondo as an allegory
For the Angel Gabriel
You're genius, really
But your run on paragraphs
Infuriate every ounce of my writing soul
You're a Columbian Tolstoy
I mean that as no insult
Your works are tremendous and outstanding
But what am I doing
You're now just an old dead man
"Under the ground"
So now I belong to figure out
Why Pilar needs to fill a void
Opened by a ******
And why Colonel Aureliano Buendía
Thinks of his fond memory of ice
Just before being killed
I've paid my respects to your work
Please pay respects to my search
Just a poem about the late Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel *One Hundred Years of Solitude*
.


Collecting the years like a lazy butterfly
caught in the mouth of a lost time infested net.
Columbian Crush!

Where it never rains love nor money. ***** clothes,
***** hands, and
***** minds fill man's hole. Singing shotgun,
bottom feeder's cameras sling the dirt
and shoot the moon.
Wild childrens' vines still swing.

Will anyone here be voting next Thursday?

Remind me why time was killed,
so brutally gunned down in broad daylight.
He apologises as he secretly scratches her name
from his little black book.

Bartender,
another shot of Columbian Crush
on the rocks...
ConnectHook Apr 2016
Wife-beater, drum player
blower of holy pan-pipes
Plumed, bejeweled in ****** plastic
Inca priest, mestizo beast
multi-kulti prophet
(who chooses to live in the USA)
where liberals kow-tow
while you show them how
to adulate indigenous
crypto misogynous
eager to pay eager to please
diversity’s devotees buy your CDs

a perfect idiot from the mythic Sierra
naming your brood after Andean peaks
pre-Columbian pachamama freaks
eat it up: your Inca schtick
(but ask the battered gringa-chick
about your unsustainable ways:
who hits who smiles who beats who pays ?)
(based on a true story)

♂∅☯✰☠
a  poem a day for NaPoWriMo2016
            ✿
www.connecthook.wordpress.com
            ☮
Kevin Feb 2017
round and hot to the touch
a distant color
ribbed with texture
rich in tongues

the seeds abundant and pronounced
safety stored within
the mushy membrane
hollowed from beyond

discarded for fun
the columbian pumpkin comes undone
C S Cizek Nov 2014
The black, iron God arm punched
placid-blanched clouds, and dangled
cat cable down to lemon-vested men
with chalkboard faces.
Basic algebra, today's date, daily
syllabi, God-fearing anecdotes,
and the evils of homosexuality.

Fornicating with other dudes
is like moving Jesus' rock
with your ******'d *****.
Let sleeping dieties die.
We find them buried deep beneath
**** ceramics by T.V. criminals,
rapists, murderers, buzzers, free-
lovers, angelheaded sweethearts.
They have nearly four dollar souls,
barely enough for a Wilpo dinner
at Hepburn Diner. #2 breakfast
with one cup of Columbian cartel
coffee with a pinch of whole milk
to take the edge off, so he won't
be gripping the booth vinyl when
a "freedom" flash cop car passes.
Police cruisers are just bigger bicycles
that we're afraid of, sporting cereal
box baseball cards in the spokes.
Cops were the kids that needed help
their first time fresh off training
wheels. Training academy training
them for low-speed cat chases through
flower beds.
Sweet daffodil, you didn't have to die
like this. You could've drank straight
from the pitcher at a stranger's dinner
party potluck, seen the guts of a New
York highrise, shared the coke left
beneath a woman's botched nose job.
You could have been more than this.
You could have been more.
You could have been.
You could have.
You could.
You.
You, daffodil, stamen-down
in Miracle Gro and dog ****

could have been more.
The mirror, mirror lies
Reflecting back at me
All I see is powder
Where could I be?
Numb from the Columbian
A new national war bond
A roman hierarchy
Bang their drums obscenely
To One Right Wing God


The dragon took the towers
But man, it’s happen before
It’s been real hard to ***** all these drugs
To crush all over my mirror
And hide my ugly mug
When did I change?
I think I know who’s behind it completely
Samson’s in my blood
Wrote this in rehab no joke :)
www.eugene-moon.weebly.com
My coffee and I have quite the relationship
So hot, but knows when to cool down
Dark, smooth, tasteful to the tongue
She keeps me up all through the moonlight
Until my eyes peck the sun
Sweet *** of coffee
How is it so?
You are so arousing and pleasurable
I can not let go-
I always want more
I never stop at one glass
It takes me at least three cups
To make the night last
I am addicted to her
Columbian bliss
Sweet kisses of her flavor
All over my lips
Again and again
Until my cup runs dry
Until I fall asleep
Until I see her next time
She makes me warm
I like her this way
When she eventually cools down
I do still like her just the same
Quick, and easy to finish-
But such is a rare occasion
I don't usually wait or have the patience
She doesn't care either way
In the end one thing is for certain
I like coffee any time of the day
*So to speak
Brycical Sep 2011
His life was simple—
bound by action of a duplicate
forced to move with military precision.
Nobody’s asked what he thinks
or how he feels—
I just assumed he was ok with this.

He was stuck living a fake life
in a fake world that isn’t his.
While I wrote
he’d rather be fishing.
When I brushed my teeth,
again,
he thought about that Robert Downy Jr. movie he was missing.

One day,
I saw the sadness in his gray, baggy eyes
and offered a cup of coffee, Sumerian.
When he told me Columbian was preferred,
I relieved him—
told him to explore the reality in which he was born.
  
Before he left
with gleeful abandonment,
I proposed a time to hangout
should he ever be in need of a friend.
He smiled, thankful of my kind gesture,
but simply said,
“I’ve been staring at your face
for a quarter century.
I never want to see you again.”
Alan W Jankowski Feb 2016
She’s hot and wet when she greets me in the morning,
I know of no better way to wake up.
And when I need her she is always there,
She fills my loving cup.

It is an affair that has been going on for years,
And she will continue to comfort when I’m old.
When I am down she perks me up,
She warms me when I am cold.

Dark and bold she comes to me,
More beautiful than any sunrise.
Like a gypsy with her magic charms,
She has the power to open tired eyes.

Though some folks may criticize her,
Pointing out her mother’s a Columbian nut.
And yes, those South Americans are a bit hot-blooded,
But I just smile and say “So what?”

For coffee and I are partners in life,
From her I will never stray.
And should anyone try to get between us,
They will surely rue the day.

10-01-15.
I believe that more than a few here can relate to this one...
David Nelson Jun 2013
If you don't know me by now

I am gregarious
I am a loner
sometimes hilarious
other times a moaner
sharp as a tack
dull as a dark cloud
sitting quietly in a corner
other times I'm too loud
I'll lay heaps of praise
I'll call you out
wanna know what's on my mind
I'll leave no doubt
I'll give you kisses
call you an ***
never been confused as one
with too much class
I'm a hard worker
and a lazy ***
I can be your lover
I can be your chum
don't like being played
but crazy about games
don't like loudmouths
love **** dames
have fancy suits
and cheapo shorts
like tasty *****
but no ***** or snorts
oh I will take a hit
off a Columbian joint
get high into a trance
laugh dance and point
yes I am this
and I am that
if you need a friend
I'll be more than that
just treat me right
don't pull my chain
then I'll be there
again and again

Gomer LePoet ....
just in case you were interested :)
A slit, gaping throat
where a forked, snake-like tongue hangs
- it's columbian

Wrapped 'round and *******
like the hangman's favorite noose
- It's been done again

The lies once sold here
now see their values deflate
- time solders all wounds

The serpents words ceased
A silence takes us by storm
- decayed with three moons
Haikus n ****
It is 6:57. Startled am I,
by the nights dream.
Son of Jocasta, King of Thebes!

I head t’ward the morning steam,
To rid one’s eyes of the malaise
A few stabs
And my mind is clear.

Abruptly, like fire on the agora.
Desire veer me to vices!

A cup of Columbian roast, with stoge in hand,
I perch upon the balcony,
With no intent to slip, I s’pose

Each inhalation and sip
Fulfill temporal desire
beneath our aging celestial fire.

7:54
I am out the door,
out out with it!
It being me, me being it.
lorence beckle Mar 2012
Gravity's on more than usual today
and the tile is unforgiving to the gawky limbs in my shoulder sockets
that keep dropping my favorite ****.
My ******* flower mug.
My flower mug, with the two-finger handle.
With the hazelnut and vanilla and almond and Columbian dark dark roast.
With the "goodmorning" and "hows life?"
"Fine."
Lifey, isn't it?
And I'll be peeling super glue off my fingers for days
even though I know it won't hold what it's meant to anymore
(Who does?)
Maybe it'll start a penny collection someday.
(Who knows?)
And I'll wait in a silence with which I'm well-acquainted.
I know
if you break it, you buy it,
but I'm broke.
yea big yosef
expose government expos
that's all I know
so **** the cash flow
but I make cash flow like creflo
never chased a dolla
yo it makes me wanna holla
not talking Marvin Gaye
um tAlking bout the words I lay spray
techs but prefer aks miss ya next birthday
make ya best ya worse day
never thirsty
stay quenching like Gatorade
make serenades
in the street
ask big leech
we after the money and the power
leaving scars on ya face
eradicate the weak out the race
I set the pace beat the case
cuz they know they place
uh we mob like Italians Mafioso's
put holes in ones
like gulf course
with ya open torso so
ya know
the game is to be sold not told
and since I'm standing large
you know we don't fold holdem
like texas pushing lexuses beamers caddys to
Bentley coupes
quick to shoot through my 30 odd six poppin licks like kilos bricks
in the hood it's understood
that when we play the game
we go for flames
but miss the burn though
we go ever where riots show quick blows
make for blood out ya nose
fluid leakin mind sinking
I mo assist than pastors to deacons
**** Spanish broads
from Columbian to Puerto Rican
I'm seekin
out the best from east north south and the west I guess
I'm tying to take down the commission
no General admjssion just listen
closely to the sounds of shots glocks pops it don't stop
til the elite off the top


uh who ya know do it better
pack a berretta
still.rock Cosby Coogi Sweaters
get hos ***** wetter ***** slayer mack mayor
say ya rhymes with me
the best on the master of the ceremonies
like ghost P come close to thee
watch my gun burn thee
like sun burn ****** neva get a turn
after i touch the mic
i melt **** hotter than lava get
out of a volcano
kick rhymes since i was embryo
make ****** sing soprano
if they try to my money though
we flips keys then take trips to Belize
sneeze
on the track bless me says me
my pedigree is nasty as nas back in 93
ya see naw cuz i braille spotlight
n the limelight come in yo dreams at night
freddie cougar with tha 9 double m luger
make bodies flex like lex lugar
i drive a jaguar 20 inch rims across the bar ghetto superstar
n think before ya speak
think before ya blink?
my rhymes be confusin' as a riddle from the Sphinx
they can jinx
me all they want but all they get is a gun taunt amerikkaz most wanted
pop steels only if ya want it
representin' like ****** in the pen holdin' down on lock
i **** a glock for every year
that ya aint on the block
one luv to my army none can harm
if i got nations forming
every brother gotta ski mask
quick to blast from the past to present
never get tense or hesitant
we drop ******* puff on phillies
knock fools out til they look ****** n silly
i can go on & on til tha break of dawn
rappers get no delight when i grab the mic its like friday night lights
uh one punch one round
n you can tell i won before it begun
by listening to the crowds sound uh
Meagan Berry Jan 2012
I hope its a Saturday.

I would start by waking up before you do
(since I'm always the last one up)
and I'd cook you breakfast in bed.
It seems simple I know, but I'd start early
at, like, 7 am
and cook every kind of pancake and egg I could imagine.
Like eggs in a basket or cinnamon bun pancakes,
or maybe just the buttermilk kind.
I would tap the maple tree out back
and boil up a batch of the sweetest maple syrup
you had ever tasted.
Every time you would taste syrup after this,
you would think of me and this morning.
Then I would cook up all of the bacon I could find
until it turned black and crispy
(too burnt for me, but I know you like it that way).
I'd pull all of the mangoes and oranges and grapefruit out of the fridge,
and use that Jack LaLanne Power Juicer,
you know,
the one that we haven't used since it arrived on our porch.
There will be too much pulp for you,
but you'll drink it anyway.
I would finish up by brewing your favorite coffee-
isn't it that Columbian kind?-
and wake you with the smell wafting through the apartment
(like those Maxwell House commercials).
You would come downstairs wondering what was going on,
and where I was,
since I am never out of bed before you.
And you would see a table covered in food
with me ironing all of your work shirts for the next week.
It would be so **** we'd make love right there,
on the dining room floor
ignoring the food that was quickly becoming too cold to enjoy.

And then I would erase it all
and leave you.
This is an answer to the following question I read on iwastesomuchtime.com: "If you could live the next 24 hours and then erase it and start over just once, what would you do?" http://iwastesomuchtime.com/on/?i=18842
monsters call to themselves
and breezes eat the stones
a blue moon
sheds the underworld
of thought and time
it wallows in a pink sea
where out of the depths
his words like blown
cherry blossoms come
and a little bird finds
his pool of dreams
the birthing pool of ideas
then she is gone
flying under a soft
Columbian sky
growing hope, after him
whose creations and distractions
are the processes
that are necessary to show
the true feelings
hidden beneath the surface of things
where there is an endless combat
a struggle between darkness and light
the emotional duality of life
between that which is
and that which
has already been
for this is a place of images
images built upon images
constructed upon layers
and layers of so much paint
and you ask yourself ( without much insistence)
is there hope between a stone
and in this brief moment of asking
you give a lifetime
In memory of Gabriel García Márquez
Katy Lewellen Apr 2013
we’ve learmed to seperate ourselves from
columbian coffee night skies that breathe heavy,
whispering myth into our ears about a modern Perseus
and his love affairs.
i’m tired of the way air dances over fingertips
through open windows, disappearing like spirits
through blackened doorways.

MP is singing his personal praises in an aging voice
sounding of rock ‘n’ roll gravel and blood -
he is not the soft night breezes telling us of him
and we can’t understand why we’re separating.

i just want to listen to the myth,
old like the willows that leak sap upon their death beds,
but i’m drowning in silence.
we’re remembering grey rooms that hung heavily
over our heads, breaking the songs of MP
against the walls in a shattering display.

we’re shattering in the exact way demonstrated.

insomniac tendencies breaking into the breeze,
stealing myth and covering MP with filth,
with the stories that a modern Medusa split his heart
but never turned him to stone to make him suffer -
to bend but never break.
and we’re listening to the stories of old, written in the new,
wondering how to break the cycle.
Ryan Bowdish Sep 2013
Saturday tastes like bitter tea
Stuck between atoms that cannot be seen
The mirror ripples and the motor bleeds
Wrap up in syran and lie in the streets
The business end is no place to stay
Water from the naval is the only grace
Drink it in and enjoy your night
Your touch is candle wax acid bite

Let me remind you that the company sings
They never stay quiet about the things we've seen
Don't look now but we're about to drown
These are the things I think when you go down

Make skin with my teeth and a hard blast beat
Summer lovin burnin hot rain in the road
Cigarette pinholes and a lump in my throat
We all float on water when we croak.
Choke on smoke, Columbian coke
Serrated knives at the end of a rope
The knots fall off, the calls all stop
And the needle in my neck is soaked

We see the stars on our ceiling
We see fireworks on the walls

The world makes noise when the sun retreats
To weep with the fishes while the movie repeats
They sleep in the fission circle glowing, we eat
The sick on my pin cushion, unfurl, flowing, recede
Be me and see the need to breathe the ivory creed
Planting the seed for the last of my blood
Feel the trees grow in your lungs and free
Yourself from superstitions of heaven and love

Let me remind you that the company sings
They won't keep quiet about things we've seen
Stars on the ceiling
Don't look now but we're all gonna drown
These are the things I think when you go down
Fireworks on the walls
Still puffin' cigars in my sixty six jaguar
Made a hood star from climbing a far
**** the drug games I made my name
Through lyrics of pain easing ya migraine
Words pure as Columbian *******
That's means you'll go insane
Tryna hang with the dark Knight Bruce Wayne
Which means ya mentallydrained going
derange
My smiff n wesson lays a nice range
From the Midwest to the south of Central Texas
Get love from my barrio we stay thorough
Haters get marked like zorro  so follow
The leader beat pleaser turn ebenenzer
Once I spit vocals take over ya locals
Can't Max  me out my own **** hardest to hit
Ya swear it's back in the year of nine six
Slammin' all of the these industry clowns like Jordans did the Knicks
A Timely essence
Even if I'm chillin' with the dead residence
you'll still feel my presence no hesitance
To foes stained ya calicos wake ya up with a cup of
Flow
and I stay smokin' girls ******* holes setting fires to their mentals

My flows set on auto pilot causing riots
Baltimore rage untamed had to put my rhymes in a cage
Seen the guage
Cocked back ain't no taking away from that
Deaths in progress only blessing you seen
Is stress so take another hit of cannabis
Before you enter the eternal abyss hang ya body over the
cliff
Like Big Red record every word I said
And still can't get a word to the feds I'm the black
Hoover
got flats from Houston to Vancouver
Let me show ya who's the real bruiser
Spittin' rhymes that lay more bodies than Fallujah
Cruise right through
tha
My rhymes is tank shootin' missles with no
thanks
I'm only here to live out
My fathers prank
Though the devil keep me above all levels
Tryna stay from the goods I was made rebel
Fools thought they was Cain til they found out I was
abel
Killin' em with microphone cordless cables and
turntables
Read between my eyers n you'll see visions of many
halos
Rocky Loder Nov 2011
Ashen skies

she smoked,
columbian gold,
in the belly
of the cougar,
pledged allegiance
to no mans flag,
so beautiful thought I,
as the milky way,
took me on a journey,
beyond reality,
but who am I,
to think such thoughts,
just a poet?
searching for a pulpit,
a preacher
without a cause,
a prophet,
thoughts frozen
under the weight of reality,
insanity,
dispels the ink,
touches the soul,
keeps me sane,
all in the name of the pen,
the tears flow free,
as I walk away,
smiling,
refusing to kiss,
her corpse.
Cameron Haste Jan 2015
Her wasabi breath,
snake venom injected crow's feet
&  chain smoking reflex could
scare a country into prohibition.
Enough ******, power and spine behind
every word to ******* the
male populous into a plethora
of soggy invertebrates.
Barnacle encrusted spinach weave,
obsidian void lip stick she squeezed
off a bat's back
& a Columbian waltz she stole
from a putrid little beasty
all mixed up & spit into a murky
cocktail glass wearing high heels.
You could feel the atmosphere tickle
a bit when she raised a brow at
You.
That silky whisper of a voice
was just an illusionist prelude
to the thundering brass of her
ringing enthusiasm.

She was the most powerful being.
A lioness among the flock of sheep.
A droplet of viscous mercury
in an oil spill.
Raw.
Sharp.
Lethal.
Edward Coles May 2014
He washed his hands in the Caño Cristales.
Five colours of healing bruises put to pasture
Within his purpled veins. There was blood again;
He was now a resident of Earth.

****** hair had grown wildly into a half-beard.
He scratched at it in the Columbian sun,
Sweating in the lack of British rain
And thinking of all the miles he had
Put between the two.

He’d spent all his life combing the mirror.
Combing the mirror and expecting change;
An escape from vanity publishers and
Celebrity snapshots. Combing the mirror,
And so always ending up in the same place.

Searching his memories of Peruvian plains,
There were diagrams set by the former residents.
He took out his folded notebook and started on
The Brand New Testament; before throwing
Its ashes into the liquid rainbow.
c
A L Davies Jun 2011
i recall seeing you in september, you were drinking a coffee and your lengthy unkempt hair spilt down over what was probably an old sweater of your mother's. i thought maybe aphrodite had come down from olympus for a cup of hot water & cream & ground columbian beans. you were kind of lost in something on your phone, (kept looking at it there on the table) shifting your legs. there was a grocery bag beside you---not very full. maybe there were just a few things you’d needed? some orange juice and semolina pasta. but i was most impressed by a little mesh bag holding a dozen babybels, small and red like sliced apples thru the plastic. (christ, those are good.) after you left i went and bought a few, back home just sorta held them in my open palm eating them at leisure, committing your face
to memory.
this girl i know asked me (as a challenge) from across the couch to write spontaneously about babybels.. i'd seen another really gorgeous girl whilst havin' coffee that morning so i just stuck both together & trimmed 'til this sat on the page amidst a buncha scribbled out lines.
Pre-Columbian decomposition held over the shilling
Bleached in the lord’s name god willing

Bartered with Charon
For voyage through the Acheron

Slipped and fell into the first whole circle
Limbo bound with unbaptized babies looking mighty purple
Andrew T Apr 2016
This large square ceiling hanging above my body
is a blank canvass that needs to be painted
with bold strokes and bright colors,
with smooth orange and ocean blue,
rapid pummeling rhythms dictating tone and mood.

I have a pen in my hand that squirts out black bird ink,
but to me it’s a stone sculpting tool that carves deep inside my imagination,
and scoops up newborn thoughts before they disintegrate
when I wake up from my daydream.

So I climb on top of a cocktail chair with malleable
aluminum legs and I attempt to shape the dry whiteness
into something colorful and beautiful.

I want to create beauty because I don’t enjoy surfing the channels of Comcast digital entertainment
having to paddle through the brainwashing
and the ******* and seaweed that washes up
on my hometown shore.

The waves are all the same across the television screen, I am desensitized and numb to the upper class Anglo-Saxons,
who mind-****** my favorite poets and Hip Hop musicians in the mouth, so that they cannot speak with

honesty
and
compassion.

I don’t wonder anymore why some prominent media-figures choke on the microphone; it’s because they have been force-fed
chicken-****
and injected with
snake venom.

That’s why I don’t take all my time of leisure resting back on a tan cushioned boogie-board, riding a cable channel that will not take me anywhere except for an escape from the loneliness of living alone, away from close family and good friends.

That’s why I prefer to sit below a yellow and red pinwheel umbrella and stretch my toes in the wet sand, I don’t even need a beach towel to lie on, and sometimes I just want to sink into the grainy sand
and
forget about time,
forget about love,
and
forget about my reason for being here.

But back to molding a new form of living; that top white wall takes up the majority of my apartment and I think it deserves to be drawn on, painted on, spread with posters of voluptuous artists and cool brooding actors.

A canvass needs to have flesh, just as a skeleton needs meat and skin. I stack my sandy tan sofa cushions one after the other on top of the cocktail chair and I reach up to brush long and wide strokes of bravery and euphoria.

The bristle-tips flicked up specks of green apple paint and sunk deep blotches of red heart into the ceiling.

I danced on top of the spongy sofa seats while they swayed to and fro, but I didn’t think of falling down, what is the point of thinking about

failure?

That will only impede progress and I’m not merely trying to fabricate an illusion to drape myself with a safety cloak. I wish I could have pranced and jumped on the wavering cushion tower,
but instead I begun to grow a look of seriousness and submerged myself into a pool of
focus
and
concentration.

Nonsensical imagery floated adrift from my mind and the energy pounced onto my fingertips and I started to write and draw, and draw and write. I popped a small remote from my pocket and made the stereo sing opera, followed by jazz, followed by something bluesy.

Those songs carried me into this calming state where nothing mattered except for the now kaleidoscopic landscapes and the spacemen with hypnotic eyes. I wasn’t jacked up on Columbian coffee beans, diet coca-cola caffeine, nor psychedelic highs and lows, I was just going with the current baby.

When the canoe is in in the river and you’re rowing with a chipped paddle and without a life-vest, don’t even try to make an adjustment when the water gets rocky and the water pushes you around like an elementary-school ***** bully.

You keep paddling and you don’t throw a rope onto a branch and feel the scene; go with the flow and travel down-stream,
because where you came from is long gone and there’s no point in wallowing and pleasuring yourself late at

night just

to feel better about your ****** life.

But, I don’t even want to think when I’m in an artsy mood, I just want peace, and if peace won’t come to my doorstep and will not call me back when I left five messages, then **** peace,
I’ll settle for a shot of cheap ***** and a scrunched-up cig.
I stop drawing and painting and writing
for a while and take a nice long gaze
at my chaotic collage and smile until the jester frowns.

In huge messy cursive were the words, “LOVE YOURSELF, DO NOT SHOW YOUR EMOTIONS AT A WHIM.”

I was now beginning to struggle to smile. This wasn’t easy to be so straight with yourself, I’m used to bending my back in the wrong way

                 and not accomplishing anything in the process.
Still chasing broken ropes tryna elope to somethin' I can't cope
Dope pushed in the streets for high heat
Of police beats us til we loose teeth Rodney Kings
Trayvons to Martin who many start in?
Wars scared of an uprise ain't no saprise
The way they see my eyes rise realize baptized
By the sunrise then again once the sun sets in
My minds circling can't out run em the guns stay
Attached to me and my enemies see the wind breeze
We move like coke Columbian ki's from birds to bees
I gotta keep a low steez watch out for the monster aid disease
Increasing all over many folks dying no many realizing
The game that's being played by the invisibles marinets
They poisoning us from food to drugs we just a silhouette
ConnectHook Dec 2016
Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?
or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?
Have the gates of death been opened unto thee?
Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth?
declare if thou knowest it all.

       Job 38: 16-18

Oh that the desert were my dwelling place,
With only one fair spirit for my minister.
That I might forget the human race,
And hating no one, love her only.

       Lord Byron,Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

I walked alone into the waste
in search of rivers—not a taste
of water could I find
to liquidate my mind.

Under the sun in vanished lakes
alive with scorpions and snakes
I sought within my soul
her limpid watering hole.

The mogollón once hunted here
as piñon pines disclosed the deer
but now not even bones
remained among the stones.

Scattered beads and the odd spearhead
my visionary soul misled;
the moment was my home
and I was free to roam.

Burial caves of ash and silence
spoke in tones of bygone violence—
grinding stones lay broken:
her archeological token.

I found a *** within a niche
still balanced well, despite the pitch
as if the owner’s urn
awaited her return.

Amidst the fragments, free at last
in potsherd patterns of the past
I followed ancient streams
through arid zones and dreams.

Exploring a dry riverbed
unraveling her golden thread
while stepping off a ledge
descending from the edge,

I almost trod upon a snake
and quick adjustment had to make.
Reluctant viper-battler,
I flinched. It was a rattler.

As my right foot continued down
I saw the scales and dusty brown;
Mere inches from its head
the imprint of my tread!

The serpent was too cold and slow
to strike a poisoned morning blow
The sun still in the east—
I swerved and missed the beast.

The desert’s charm advanced from there;
She showed me sights I barely dare
to tell lest I sound singed . . .
My mind she so unhinged.

I stood before the gate of vision
rapt in shadowed indecision
gazing in the maw,
unsure of what I saw:

A ruined mineshaft’s empty grin
that mocked and whispered: “Come within.
The words of Job are here
in wisdom born of fear.”

Necropolis; a gaping  portal…
Feeling less than weakly mortal,
deep I stared inside;
allured yet terrified.

A passage to the depths of dread:
the Book of Job, the sleeping dead.
I barely now recall
yet understood it all…

Still thirsting through her arid land
divining truths in shifting sand
I ventured on in vain,
beseeching God to reign

The javelinas mocked my quest
beguiled me onward, further west
where Dutchmen hide their gold
and Apache tears are sold.

Her rainbow shades and distant mesas
silhouetted, paint her face as
nobly as the lands
her presence still commands.

Her beauty smiled: a virtual face
of glyphic pre-Columbian grace
decentralized desire
in sublimated fire…

She led me to the springs of life
my moonlight maid and desert wife;
my nights upon the mountains
in search of spectral fountains.

Ex-nomad of the mythic west
my unfound treasure now confessed;
her deserts had me smitten…
for her my poem’s written.
ARIZONA ! (put on your rainbow shades...)
https://connecthook.wordpress.com/2014/04/12/love-lines-az/
CM Nov 2015
stoop side you sit
fallen angels with broken knees,
40 ounce amber galaxies &
palms of prayer on an open mirror.

The benefactive is Columbian is
endless stairs on roofless buildings, is your
cracked knuckles of powdered meaning —
metallic shifts in the parking lot holy
begging thunder to threat everything
at once,

so then you can forget.

You prayed for all the wrong pronunciations
& when you sleep demons graffiti epistles
on the walls of your exposed chest.
Originally published in Electric Cereal

— The End —