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Alysha Marie Oct 2011
compasses, clocks, knives, are useless now.
clues, few.
coffinlike rooms full of certain exclamations,
4am empty train stations full of dangling questions.
selected memory, particularly of being
cruel to love. character,
existence, poetry, it all becomes layered
like crime novels.
blurred and unblurred,
in stained-rag mind, faces and places and
the theme,
tense, it is an age
where nothing begins and i myself begin to
(be) mean
many other things
in addition to what i say.
"what is the meaning of this?"
"i don't know."
"what should we do?"
get jilted again, spiral drunk, die on the
floor, bored, playing
sick,
i don't know.
"been there,
done that,"
it's a slow slowing and a trying to forget,
hands dirtier, shards smaller.
i don't even know if
this was an accident?

through climaxes and comedowns,
still carrying clouds
around; to cash the check, to the party,
to the pharmacist,
to the burial ground,
craving a reason to go hungry.

god, how big are your hands
god, will tomorrow be better
god, what have i done, what can i do, how

the more i remember
the more i just remember the young day
i had screamed so hard for so long at the unanswering rain
Julia Van Goor Apr 2014
O Geometry,
How I loathe the,
with thy prisms and proofs,
and thy figures and formulas,
and thy compasses and conjectures!
Why must thou require such mental strain?

        - Wait,
        What's that you say?
        Calculus next?

O my dearest Geometry,
How I adore thy common sense and logic-based nature!
How I dread the day when we shall be forced to part!
Letter Poem
brandon nagley Aug 2015
i.

Beset next to me
Coadjuvant to mine need's;
I couldst not asketh for more
Mine Reyna's all do I believeth.

ii.

She compasses me in Dwarf Daylilies
Her suntanned dermis is momentous;
Wallowed in her oversea's memories
A throne surpassing, Hari and Reyna scented.

iii.

In Luzon, the older part of the firma
Betwixt the Cordillera Region, see through pneuma's;
Hand-poke tool's, for me and mine dynasty amour'
To get tattoos, of her ancestry upon her own shore's.

iv.

Covered head to toe
By these inked protection's;
Spelling out the word's
Brandon and Jane's resurrection.




©Brandon nagley
©Earl Jane dedication/Reyna of mine soul
©Lonesome poet's poetry
Moored to the same ring:
The hour, the darkness and I,
Our compasses hooded like falcons.

Now the memory of you comes aching in
With a wash of broken bits which never left port
In which once we planned voyages,
They come knocking like hearts asking:
What departures on this tide?

Breath of land, warm breath,
You tighten the cold around the navel,
Though all shores but the first have been foreign,
And the first was not home until left behind.

Our choice is ours but we have not made it,
Containing as it does, our destination
Circled with loss as with coral, and
A destination only until attained.

I have left you my hope to remember me by,
Though now there is little resemblance.
At this moment I could believe in no change,
The mast perpetually
Vacillating between the same constellations,
The night never withdrawing its dark virtue
>From the harbor shaped as a heart,
The sea pulsing as a heart,
The sky vaulted as a heart,
Where I know the light will shatter like a cry
Above a discovery:
"Emptiness.
Emptiness!  Look!"
Look.  This is the morning.
Denel Kessler Nov 2015
I wish that I
was filled with stars
intricate, intimate arrays
to guide me to the edge
of myself and beyond

my soul
the brightest
in a unique constellation
of my naming

my love
many-hued nebula
expanding
to fill the void

my losses
supernovas
both beautiful
and tragic

But I am not
celestial
earth-bound
I must navigate

by stroke of skin
whiff of memory
trace of sadness
night vision

rudimentary compasses
in a sea of misunderstanding.
Descend from Heaven, Urania, by that name
If rightly thou art called, whose voice divine
Following, above the Olympian hill I soar,
Above the flight of Pegasean wing!
The meaning, not the name, I call: for thou
Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top
Of old Olympus dwellest; but, heavenly-born,
Before the hills appeared, or fountain flowed,
Thou with eternal Wisdom didst converse,
Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play
In presence of the Almighty Father, pleased
With thy celestial song.  Up led by thee
Into the Heaven of Heavens I have presumed,
An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air,
Thy tempering: with like safety guided down
Return me to my native element:
Lest from this flying steed unreined, (as once
Bellerophon, though from a lower clime,)
Dismounted, on the Aleian field I fall,
Erroneous there to wander, and forlorn.
Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound
Within the visible diurnal sphere;
Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole,
More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged
To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days,
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues;
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,
And solitude; yet not alone, while thou
Visitest my slumbers nightly, or when morn
Purples the east: still govern thou my song,
Urania, and fit audience find, though few.
But drive far off the barbarous dissonance
Of Bacchus and his revellers, the race
Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard
In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears
To rapture, till the savage clamour drowned
Both harp and voice; nor could the Muse defend
Her son.  So fail not thou, who thee implores:
For thou art heavenly, she an empty dream.
Say, Goddess, what ensued when Raphael,
The affable Arch-Angel, had forewarned
Adam, by dire example, to beware
Apostasy, by what befel in Heaven
To those apostates; lest the like befall
In Paradise to Adam or his race,
Charged not to touch the interdicted tree,
If they transgress, and slight that sole command,
So easily obeyed amid the choice
Of all tastes else to please their appetite,
Though wandering.  He, with his consorted Eve,
The story heard attentive, and was filled
With admiration and deep muse, to hear
Of things so high and strange; things, to their thought
So unimaginable, as hate in Heaven,
And war so near the peace of God in bliss,
With such confusion: but the evil, soon
Driven back, redounded as a flood on those
From whom it sprung; impossible to mix
With blessedness.  Whence Adam soon repealed
The doubts that in his heart arose: and now
Led on, yet sinless, with desire to know
What nearer might concern him, how this world
Of Heaven and Earth conspicuous first began;
When, and whereof created; for what cause;
What within Eden, or without, was done
Before his memory; as one whose drouth
Yet scarce allayed still eyes the current stream,
Whose liquid murmur heard new thirst excites,
Proceeded thus to ask his heavenly guest.
Great things, and full of wonder in our ears,
Far differing from this world, thou hast revealed,
Divine interpreter! by favour sent
Down from the empyrean, to forewarn
Us timely of what might else have been our loss,
Unknown, which human knowledge could not reach;
For which to the infinitely Good we owe
Immortal thanks, and his admonishment
Receive, with solemn purpose to observe
Immutably his sovran will, the end
Of what we are.  But since thou hast vouchsafed
Gently, for our instruction, to impart
Things above earthly thought, which yet concerned
Our knowing, as to highest wisdom seemed,
Deign to descend now lower, and relate
What may no less perhaps avail us known,
How first began this Heaven which we behold
Distant so high, with moving fires adorned
Innumerable; and this which yields or fills
All space, the ambient air wide interfused
Embracing round this floried Earth; what cause
Moved the Creator, in his holy rest
Through all eternity, so late to build
In Chaos; and the work begun, how soon
Absolved; if unforbid thou mayest unfold
What we, not to explore the secrets ask
Of his eternal empire, but the more
To magnify his works, the more we know.
And the great light of day yet wants to run
Much of his race though steep; suspense in Heaven,
Held by thy voice, thy potent voice, he hears,
And longer will delay to hear thee tell
His generation, and the rising birth
Of Nature from the unapparent Deep:
Or if the star of evening and the moon
Haste to thy audience, Night with her will bring,
Silence; and Sleep, listening to thee, will watch;
Or we can bid his absence, till thy song
End, and dismiss thee ere the morning shine.
Thus Adam his illustrious guest besought:
And thus the Godlike Angel answered mild.
This also thy request, with caution asked,
Obtain; though to recount almighty works
What words or tongue of Seraph can suffice,
Or heart of man suffice to comprehend?
Yet what thou canst attain, which best may serve
To glorify the Maker, and infer
Thee also happier, shall not be withheld
Thy hearing; such commission from above
I have received, to answer thy desire
Of knowledge within bounds; beyond, abstain
To ask; nor let thine own inventions hope
Things not revealed, which the invisible King,
Only Omniscient, hath suppressed in night;
To none communicable in Earth or Heaven:
Enough is left besides to search and know.
But knowledge is as food, and needs no less
Her temperance over appetite, to know
In measure what the mind may well contain;
Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns
Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind.
Know then, that, after Lucifer from Heaven
(So call him, brighter once amidst the host
Of Angels, than that star the stars among,)
Fell with his flaming legions through the deep
Into his place, and the great Son returned
Victorious with his Saints, the Omnipotent
Eternal Father from his throne beheld
Their multitude, and to his Son thus spake.
At least our envious Foe hath failed, who thought
All like himself rebellious, by whose aid
This inaccessible high strength, the seat
Of Deity supreme, us dispossessed,
He trusted to have seised, and into fraud
Drew many, whom their place knows here no more:
Yet far the greater part have kept, I see,
Their station; Heaven, yet populous, retains
Number sufficient to possess her realms
Though wide, and this high temple to frequent
With ministeries due, and solemn rites:
But, lest his heart exalt him in the harm
Already done, to have dispeopled Heaven,
My damage fondly deemed, I can repair
That detriment, if such it be to lose
Self-lost; and in a moment will create
Another world, out of one man a race
Of men innumerable, there to dwell,
Not here; till, by degrees of merit raised,
They open to themselves at length the way
Up hither, under long obedience tried;
And Earth be changed to Heaven, and Heaven to Earth,
One kingdom, joy and union without end.
Mean while inhabit lax, ye Powers of Heaven;
And thou my Word, begotten Son, by thee
This I perform; speak thou, and be it done!
My overshadowing Spirit and Might with thee
I send along; ride forth, and bid the Deep
Within appointed bounds be Heaven and Earth;
Boundless the Deep, because I Am who fill
Infinitude, nor vacuous the space.
Though I, uncircumscribed myself, retire,
And put not forth my goodness, which is free
To act or not, Necessity and Chance
Approach not me, and what I will is Fate.
So spake the Almighty, and to what he spake
His Word, the Filial Godhead, gave effect.
Immediate are the acts of God, more swift
Than time or motion, but to human ears
Cannot without process of speech be told,
So told as earthly notion can receive.
Great triumph and rejoicing was in Heaven,
When such was heard declared the Almighty’s will;
Glory they sung to the Most High, good will
To future men, and in their dwellings peace;
Glory to Him, whose just avenging ire
Had driven out the ungodly from his sight
And the habitations of the just; to Him
Glory and praise, whose wisdom had ordained
Good out of evil to create; instead
Of Spirits malign, a better race to bring
Into their vacant room, and thence diffuse
His good to worlds and ages infinite.
So sang the Hierarchies:  Mean while the Son
On his great expedition now appeared,
Girt with Omnipotence, with radiance crowned
Of Majesty Divine; sapience and love
Immense, and all his Father in him shone.
About his chariot numberless were poured
Cherub, and Seraph, Potentates, and Thrones,
And Virtues, winged Spirits, and chariots winged
From the armoury of God; where stand of old
Myriads, between two brazen mountains lodged
Against a solemn day, harnessed at hand,
Celestial equipage; and now came forth
Spontaneous, for within them Spirit lived,
Attendant on their Lord:  Heaven opened wide
Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound
On golden hinges moving, to let forth
The King of Glory, in his powerful Word
And Spirit, coming to create new worlds.
On heavenly ground they stood; and from the shore
They viewed the vast immeasurable abyss
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
Up from the bottom turned by furious winds
And surging waves, as mountains, to assault
Heaven’s highth, and with the center mix the pole.
Silence, ye troubled Waves, and thou Deep, peace,
Said then the Omnifick Word; your discord end!
Nor staid; but, on the wings of Cherubim
Uplifted, in paternal glory rode
Far into Chaos, and the world unborn;
For Chaos heard his voice:  Him all his train
Followed in bright procession, to behold
Creation, and the wonders of his might.
Then staid the fervid wheels, and in his hand
He took the golden compasses, prepared
In God’s eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe, and all created things:
One foot he centered, and the other turned
Round through the vast profundity obscure;
And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds,
This be thy just circumference, O World!
Thus God the Heaven created, thus the Earth,
Matter unformed and void:  Darkness profound
Covered the abyss: but on the watery calm
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,
And vital virtue infused, and vital warmth
Throughout the fluid mass; but downward purged
The black tartareous cold infernal dregs,
Adverse to life: then founded, then conglobed
Like things to like; the rest to several place
Disparted, and between spun out the air;
And Earth self-balanced on her center hung.
Let there be light, said God; and forthwith Light
Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure,
Sprung from the deep; and from her native east
To journey through the aery gloom began,
Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun
Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle
Sojourned the while.  God saw the light was good;
And light from darkness by the hemisphere
Divided: light the Day, and darkness Night,
He named.  Thus was the first day even and morn:
Nor past uncelebrated, nor unsung
By the celestial quires, when orient light
Exhaling first from darkness they beheld;
Birth-day of Heaven and Earth; with joy and shout
The hollow universal orb they filled,
And touched their golden harps, and hymning praised
God and his works; Creator him they sung,
Both when first evening was, and when first morn.
Again, God said,  Let there be firmament
Amid the waters, and let it divide
The waters from the waters; and God made
The firmament, expanse of liquid, pure,
Transparent, elemental air, diffused
In circuit to the uttermost convex
Of this great round; partition firm and sure,
The waters underneath from those above
Dividing: for as earth, so he the world
Built on circumfluous waters calm, in wide
Crystalline ocean, and the loud misrule
Of Chaos far removed; lest fierce extremes
Contiguous might distemper the whole frame:
And Heaven he named the Firmament:  So even
And morning chorus sung the second day.
The Earth was formed, but in the womb as yet
Of waters, embryon immature involved,
Appeared not: over all the face of Earth
Main ocean flowed, not idle; but, with warm
Prolifick humour softening all her globe,
Fermented the great mother to conceive,
Satiate with genial moisture; when God said,
Be gathered now ye waters under Heaven
Into one place, and let dry land appear.
Immediately the mountains huge appear
Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave
Into the clouds; their tops ascend the sky:
So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low
Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep,
Capacious bed of waters:  Thither they
Hasted with glad precipitance, uprolled,
As drops on dust conglobing from the dry:
Part rise in crystal wall, or ridge direct,
For haste; such flight the great command impressed
On the swift floods:  As armies at the call
Of trumpet (for of armies thou hast heard)
Troop to their standard; so the watery throng,
Wave rolling after wave, where way they found,
If steep, with torrent rapture, if through plain,
Soft-ebbing; nor withstood them rock or hill;
But they, or under ground, or circuit wide
With serpent errour wandering, found their way,
And on the washy oose deep channels wore;
Easy, ere God had bid the ground be dry,
All but within those banks, where rivers now
Stream, and perpetual draw their humid train.
The dry land, Earth; and the great receptacle
Of congregated waters, he called Seas:
And saw that it was good; and said, Let the Earth
Put forth the verdant grass, herb yielding seed,
And fruit-tree yielding fruit after her kind,
Whose seed is in herself upon the Earth.
He scarce had said, when the bare Earth, till then
Desart and bare, unsightly, unadorned,
Brought forth the tender grass, whose verdure clad
Her universal face with pleasant green;
Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flowered
Opening their various colours, and made gay
Her *****, smelling sweet: and, these scarce blown,
Forth flourished thick the clustering vine, forth crept
The swelling gourd, up stood the corny reed
Embattled in her field, and the humble shrub,
And bush with frizzled hair implicit:  Last
Rose, as in dance, the stately trees, and spread
Their branches hung with copious fruit, or gemmed
Their blossoms:  With high woods the hills were crowned;
With tufts the valleys, and each fountain side;
With borders long the rivers: that Earth now
Seemed like to Heaven, a seat where Gods might dwell,
Or wander with delight, and love to haunt
Her sacred shades: though God had yet not rained
Upon the Earth, and man to till the ground
None was; but from the Earth a dewy mist
Went up, and watered all the ground, and each
Plant of the field; which, ere it was in the Earth,
God made, and every herb, before it grew
On the green stem:  God saw that it was good:
So even and morn recorded the third day.
Again the Almighty spake, Let there be lights
High in the expanse of Heaven, to divide
The day from night; and let them be for signs,
For seasons, and for days, and circling years;
And let them be for lights, as I ordain
Their office in the firmament of Heaven,
To give light on the Earth; and it was so.
And God made two great lights, great for their use
To Man, the greater to have rule by day,
The less by night, altern; and made the stars,
And set them in the firmament of Heaven
To illuminate the Earth, and rule the day
In their vicissitude, and rule the night,
And light from darkness to divide.  God saw,
Surveying his great work, that it was good:
For of celestial bodies first the sun
A mighty sphere he framed, unlightsome first,
Though of ethereal mould: then formed the moon
Globose, and every magnitude of stars,
And sowed with stars the Heaven, thick as a field:
Of light by far the greater part he took,
Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and placed
In the sun’s orb, made porous to receive
And drink the liquid light; firm to retain
Her gathered beams, great palace now of light.
Hither, as to their fountain, other stars
Repairing, in their golden urns draw light,
And hence the morning-planet gilds her horns;
By tincture or reflection they augment
Their small peculiar, though from human sight
So far rem
Mike Valdez Jun 2014
I am lost
in this abyss
you have created
in my heart.
A hole that
only you can mend;
darkness
that can only be illuminated
with your smile.

I have put so much of myself in you
that after you left me,
it feels like
I don't know myself anymore.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2016
lessons in graffiti, or the Pinocchio giraffe;
and was the H absolutely necessary
when otherwise asking of a cappuccino
or at your local caf? evidently there was distinction
with the mocha too, but that won't matter,
otherwise the language isn't used... but abused.

lessons in graffiti, or other confectionary products,
while you ooze the shopping experience
on your daily commute,
       *skittels
on brickwork with the origins
of the #, cut short by simply the graffiti tag,
      you wrote tag, without the collective hash,
  not so much noughts and crosses gaming,
or remembering your phone number,
                  here graffiti: or the rekindling of
trademarks in the urban scenic bypass,
or: truly under the bridge.
             writing on money does very little:
but writing on newspapers? that say a lot,
the odd day i write something on a newspaper
review section and feel almighty -
        which is much more than the rage against
the machine instructions are about:
   write a message on a penny, it's still a penny,
write a message on a dollar, it's still a dollar,
but write a message on a newspaper:
you's basically encapsulating shouting at a protest!
() hence the picture.
             r.s. (receptui scriptum):
         i never knew whether the dot belonged in
the ). or the .) part of encapsulation, if that's to be
worded or acutely pill-sized embryo,
that bypasses the oesophagus workout before
the hydrochloric gym acidity.
   how is one to make science human again?
how is one to make science lessened in the Frankenstein
myth and the ostracized ostrich citizens
that scientists very much so, actually are?
       my notes on the matter?
non-existent: i see the feminist movement
i.e. there are more women than men as such
as not a case of **** culture, but as a case of "i'm not
getting any!" call in the Vikings,
mind you, even the supermarket cashier looked
astounded in between Friday and Saturday,
  on Friday a litre of whiskey
    on Saturday a litre of whiskey...
and some men climb the Everest or walk the moon...
while some envision their liver
as a Klitschko - the tetragrammaton exists only
because people made aesthetic suggestions / blunders,
it's a suggestion in the sur- or what's otherwise a surd /
a silent nonetheless inserted atom of sprechen:
like Nietzsche and Klitschko: you say less than you
write... out pops the tetragrammaton -
        if ever Caesar Octavian needed a teacher
my vanity suggests i'd done better teaching him
than Aristotle teaching Alexander, or Seneca teaching
Nero...
                  it's all down to excessive spelling, or
the keeping up of appearances, or simply looking
bizarre, and like in mathematics, there's a remainder,
what yhwh represents is in linguistic terms
as in mathematical terms: what's left over, scraps...
see it differently and it becomes gold:
five fish, two loaves of bread sort of scenario.
                           it's a remainder -
it cannot be eradicated, denied or be left into a limbo
of diminished responsibility
      it's man concern with how language should
look and how painting should feel:
               the fact that we created art from letters
and forgot our concern for art representing forms
is not postmodernism, it's post-Platonism; finally!
of course the s and the z are the crude and the refined
versions of each other via the transition of
being modulated by the chirality enzyme,
          but they're still called zigzag twins -
there's no delta involved akin to one face of a pyramid.
how grand then, to be living in a time
when a single phonetic encoding of sound
transcends into complex meaning:
akin to s and sigma and what's mathematically
the sum / total of constipated matter...
                    strange how the Cartesian model
falters thus,
           the fact that i think is never the ending
causality of my being's summation:
           it's but a summary, but never the summation /
sum - it's never the arithmetically sound answer:
hence the god-implant, or as i said:
the remainder, which i can't erase from the realm
of thought.
                 by the way? no Jew could have wrote as
much about their god as i have:
as said: the crucifixion was worthwhile,
      but there was no question that Latin had
to remain -
                     what was saved was the Latin encoding,
not some puny redemption from doing ****...
**** no! you couldn't create robotics or write
software without Latin: no other encoding has as
many "blank" hula hoops as already provided:
Q, R, o, P, p, A, a, D, d, g, b, B...
        26 x 2? 52 - and of those how many are spies
that we are descended from the gods and can
create our slowly-ascending replicas in robotics?
as the list suggests: 12.
     should i call up St. Peter and the rest to work
out the ******* numbers of correlation in
the framework of mirror / anti?
                      ah, the eagerly waiting public:
speak of the devil... and he shall appear.
      that ****'s been going on since the death of a man
in the year 1900...
           and oh my, the search has been gruelling,
you have Western Europe remembering the 1st
and Eastern Europe trying to not remember the 2nd...
   the name's Mars... while i say: try Moby **** first:
because god knows what's lurking in the depth.
or maybe i got my bearings wrong? maybe language
truly is a statement of Bermuda magnetics
that makes all compasses into twirling ballerinas?
to me? what comes with authenticity is a good joke,
nothing remotely suggesting a seriousness:
or as Wittgenstein said: have a joke, make a joke,
compose everything with a joke in mind -
        oh the fringe minority still have a bargain on
identity in this field, they're brewing their next cup
of tea brown-nosing and fidgeting over how to
answer... oh i'm mad enough to turn on the Mr. Bombastic
attitude, 1L of whiskey in a single night goes a long
way in terms of unwinding and making vocab verbiage,
or counter to that: something worthy of an antique status.
still, a reminder, the yhwh is the Jews' great
present, expressed dutifully in English as equivalent
of the mathematical remainder:
                      only because the diacritical bargain
wasn't met with much approval:
what with the elites wanting to push a global rather than
a solely Mediterranean twist on the plot of how:
a revival?          well... combing back to the ulterior
motive for graffiti, an elitist sport, your handwriting
over printed press rather than Coca Cola sorta similar
on a brick wall: i'm telling you, handwriting is
a bit like wanking these days...
         but isn't it true that when we write we are
sorta becoming radiologists? aren't poems essential
x-rays? am i not simply showing you my bones?
these isn't skeletal? you sure?
and there's me thinking that America is on
the threshold of romanticising the French Revolution,
with the former concern? to reinstate a Polish
state, i.e. the Duchy of Warsaw...
              but it's not really a first world war reparations
injustice while the Germans used money instead
of wood to warm themselves in winter...
no, nothing can be said that would ever appeal
to the fact that the Third ***** was milked:
not even Indiana Jones had a ******* of that horror;
me? i took the best of the ****** affair,
the fully bewildered insurance broker of the zeitgeist:
Heidegger, and yes, i made more apologetics with
him than philosophy: as with an fatal attraction:
be it the bazar flute charmer of the cobra -
this one is bound to sting in the ***.
then another thing hit me, usually an internet
variance off state media... you ever wonder why
very claustrophobic pronoun usage (frequent interchange)
is almost equivalent of brawling with someone?
dreams of Angelique:
                     imagine a scene at a protest (two people):
- i doesn't matter what you think! your opinions are not relevant!
- true, as is the case of: you don't matter with regards
                 to what i think.
anyone spot this concentrated pronoun use
for the purpose of aversed violence via a degradation
emphasis, concerned with defending sported violence
but not social injustice : turned into justified violence?
   (yes, colon as ratio, variant of fractions,
meaning? less comparative literature of the fraction,
   and more divergence of authority within the Libra
of what's necessarily unfair: the whole is no authority
to distribute fairness);
  it's just that i feel the relentless overuse of pronouns
in a confrontation symbolises a need to use the body
rather than the tongue -
when too many pronouns are interchanged
and the repugnant pronoun collectivisation begins
the paranoid "they" and the sane "we" -
            well... Rη-oh! Rη-oh! Rη-oh!     (sheen sheen Mecca
       ism)
                             well hardly ref. to Brazil: rhy ate!
rhy ate!
                see how that tetragrammaton remainder just,
like, plops up like a baby gazelle from the mama
gazelle's ******? plop! and no diapers either.
ah: the cruelty. or as someone said:
  few letters are given geometric status, or at least
something remotely symbolising twins,
but still there are a few:
   m - sine (trigonometry)
   w - cosine (     "              )
  Δ - Pythagoras for short
      LΓ - the right hand
                  and the left hand in the non-superimposable
          categorisation of things
   ψ - the devil's barrister / i.e. a fork
     also 8008135 upside-down on a calculator screen
(insert a weird face) -
   χ - compass convergence, i.e. the point b
        you need to get to from your starting point oh,
and i guess H       for a rugby goal...
             oh hell, only a few phonetic encodings make
it out of blah blah land -
                       and without really wanting
to orientate myself on the origins of things:
i'm getting a suntan basking in all of this
in the immediate sense: actually using it.
                             and to think: we actually think
about what we talk about using only 26 symbols?
that's ****** effective,
                             which is why we were so keen
to spread out encoding system to think / say things.
and why the Chinese felt the greatest pull of gravity
in all of mankind and due to their ideograms
got pulled way way down and just say there:
which enabled them to reproduce on a scale such as
is apparent to us exporting our manual labour to
them: who the hell would want to learn
unit wording when it can be wording units?
       they have words we treat as onomatopoeia
shrapnel -
                   which is why we have enshrined ourselves
to sit on laurel leaves with Mozart:
     if ever us, then never us: linguistic atomists
                                            who perversely dissect
words into, what i can only call: a Lingua Table of
the 26 elements. it's there, it's naked, compared
with the diacritical approach: English is all
and Adam & Eve ready for a voyeuristic spelling
out of realities
- hence the plural:
    there was never one intentional crowd-surfer out
there to make people form cults, plagiarise
and sooner than later: get lost.
Catrina Sparrow Nov 2012
an aerosol angel with college-ruled wings
and paint stained fingertips
stranded in a sea of pigmentation
lately, she's been feeling out of place
not all compasses point due north

a parrot in a sea of sharks
who's never learned to sail

they're selling tickets to the ****-show on the shore line
catch the half priced sunday matanee
save the date

a trapeze ******* with a choke hold on the universe's coat tails
tap dancing through star charts and love poems at the pace of lightning's strike
some failures just have to be public
if lessons are to be learned
the prettiest ballerinas aren't afraid to fall

she's learned the hard way to find beauty in skinned knees
strength in stubbed toes
and faith in a broken heart

no point in dressing up, honey
prince charming doesn't frequent freak shows

he's an arrogant flake, anyway
her best bet is a strong man
or a fire breather
when looking for a boy to bring home

one man to bare her burdens
and another to scortch the wreckage of what's left
careful what you wish for

butterflies the size of funnel cakes shake her rib cage to pieces
silver confetti on pitted pavement

he looked so handsome beneath the neon lights
horrified and ecstatic all at once
like a lost boy in neverland

scanning the crowd of strangers for any possible princess tiger lillie's

someone to ride alongside on the ferris wheel all night
untill the sheriff shines his flashlight down the path that points them home
alone

but handsome boys know little about matters other than themselves
so she's gotten good at feeling bad

it's time to find a man
someone who can build things instead of just break them
There's a magnetism -
in the air, in the ground, in the eyes of the sun,
keeping gravity in check with the mind of the sun
to keep things in order with the heart of the sun -
outside of structure, inside of paradox -
circles, circles, circling the cosmos with blank maps and directionless compasses
Writing, writing, writing - to collect a volume of love and work and truth and play -
seeking nothing more than meaning, an answer to the eternal enigmas
- why? - how? - what is this? - who am I?
Coming up empty as a begger's hands
and as rich as the poorest soul inside the palace of enlightenment -
silent solitude in the meditation of the sun,
inner exploration through the thoughts of the sun,
exploiting the strength of the light of the sun -
all to gain a following of selfless knowers -
all flowing along the river empty endless,
holding together through the magnetism,
Praying for salvation come the other side of this life,
the Heaven, the Garden, the Utopian dream
The magnetism - unexplainable electron of consciousness -
the Universal It - the All in the One - the Whole -
the Source and the Body,
circles, circles, circling in orbit the mathematical patterns of Being,
within the question of the answer,
within the definition of "nothing", where nothing is still something -
Let gravity fall where it may, just as love hunts its prey
As law holds flaccid in the court of Cosmic Direction,
The hearts beat stronger during resistance than in times of rest -
pulled into existence past the veil of illusory doubt through magnetism -
That taste of creation, grand awesome beauty within delicate fingers,
playing piano silent in halls of endless imagination - infinity.
There's a magnetism - everywhere, there's a magnetism.
Chris D Aechtner Aug 2013
(it's cliché to admonish clichés in their entirety)

I. (love)

We are meant to live the clichés;
we are meant to resuscitate the words,
and rehabilitate their wounds
into a fertile viewpoint
where we build respirators from clichés
to filter the virulent dust kicked up
by the marching pigs.

(re-invented clichés offer back breath
in an exchange of circular breathing)

The swine contort love
into armaments of antipathy;
they push buttons,
squeeze triggers,
pull pins,
and aim where it causes the most damage.

Even though we are natural born hypocrites,
we don't have to let that knowledge corner us
into using love as a weapon.

The pen is mightier than the sword,
and I wield both;
I sharpen the quill on the blade's edge.

If need be, use the pen for a counter-strike,
but only channel love in defence.


II. (poetry)

The pigs march to a beat
of nuclear blasts
that bring poetry's flag
nearer to half-mast.


Poetry should stand on its own merit,
instead of leaning on shanks that hide behind smiles
constructed with aspirations of popularity
that churn out lazy, aspartame-laced lines
devoid of accountability and integrity,

or lean upon smiles filled with slivers
from far too much fence-sitting,
too worried about the trending majority,
to see the complexity within simplicity

and clarity,

or

propped-up against degrees
while writing poems that are drier than the Sahara:
husks of lines tumbling across dunes,
only to be imploded
by atomic-pork mushroom clouds,
their fallout marring parchment
into a poisonous terrain.
.

III. (dreams)

(revive, twist, and switch the clichés )

We must not fear saying "never".
Surrender to love, but never surrender
to the jealous captains who attempt
to hook and net the defenders of Neverland.

With compasses of conscience
beating in hearts kept young,
navigate through the smoke and mirror-smog
emitted by the marching pigs.

(we must never give up on our dreams)

Dream about the courage needed
to love everyone and everything,
including our enemies
who conduct genocide
on the language of a purer intent.

Dream about word-seedlings
pushing through the arid rind
of dying poetry,

in hope for a more organic fruition
to grow in our hearts and minds,

so that poetry gains back its strength and vitality
to once again stand on its own merit.



+/-
07.30.2013
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
The breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
’Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows *****, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
Red faced and wasted
I saw you naked
And fell in love
With your ancient body
Gone is the impulse to run
And all i can do now
Is to write simply
Lies and truth
Mixed together
Like oil and vinegar
We are fumigating
Our own bodies
Remove these carbon copies
And quietly daydream
About the faces of lost
Summer lovers
Fundraisers say goodbye
To yesterday's vacations
Just as we long to cry
We catch ourselves
Smiling for a moment

What do the turtles wish to communicate
Are we awake in our shells
Or have we fallen into the spell of limitation
Consternation and *******
Facts and figures receive their adulation
While we attract only tender triangulations
Please finish up your investigation
I blame you for instigating this comedy
A catalyst of abomination and dichotomy
Which followed me into retirement
Let's give banquets back to the government
And return to ancient lands
Devoted to camels and drunken apologies

It's apocryphal
Pornographic phantasmagoria
Fantastic fan-fictions
Describing sacredly sadistic rituals
Glorious duality
Radically alters our expectations
Yet manages to satisfy your frustrations
In dissimilar situations
We liberate our agitation and consternation
Over magazines and barnacles
We are more conspicuous
Than an empty gap in the sky
Made by two constellations
Taking a long vacation

Intrepid sailors raise their sails
And navigate by stars and compasses
Renaissance dancers are porous instigators
They initiate our imitations
We dream of political sovereignty
To remediate these tragedies
I breathe warfare and cleanse the air
Of apathetic non-negotiaters
Harboring criminals like butterflies
Sometimes the means do justify your eyes

Targets never argue
And bullets never lie
Finances and fiancées
Certainly have some value
Yet we underrate our skies
Miles of lost continents
Drift out from your skin
We begin an embargo
Hoping in the future we will win
Metaphysical furniture
Effects the state of mind you're in
The record players turned down
But you heat me up to begin
hayden cooper Dec 2014
each morning the light leaks through my bedroom,
beautifully caressing our sheets, the spots where we lay,
cherishing the creases where you rest your weary head,
i often catch myself leaning in to hold you close,
only to be without what always brought solace.
my dearest girl, i find you in the light,
maps intertwined with your smile,
and compasses in your embrace,
you are the calm after the storm,
you are the light that brings me home.
Kevin Hayes Dec 2018
Like a bird
We have a lot depending on
the right direction.

But Unlike it
We have too many doubts
and questions.

Spread your wings
but don’t span out nervously.

God gave moral compasses
to Guide us personally.

Never be afraid
to go and do your best.

Keeping pulling straws
until you’ve built your nest .
India Chilton Jan 2012
There is a place where the birds go
When the air grows heavy
And it is not South


It is here that I will find you
When the dust has settled


You say you want to sing my bones electric
You want to whistle from the rafters of rainclouds
Become the weight of the rain
The kind that only comes
After the locusts have gone
And we are all waiting for something new
To keep us inside


This century was the moment
In your late-night lunch break
When you got so close to the end of your cigarette
That you wish you’d left the filter on


We are one race with seven billion shotguns signaling GO


Still we spin
Like tornadoes in plastic bottles
Cursing hands and the landfills we all fall into
Eventually
We might stumble into sanity
And mistake it for a honeybee sting


Resurrection
Is breaking past the parasitic anchors
In your skin
Propaganda over-fishing
Sinking 5th dimension realities
Into yesterday’s tomorrow


I will dig you out of this town until my fingernails are black from trying to touch every color at once


Hold me steady like September
The birds do not need compasses
But I do


You asked to leave the lights on
That night on the forest floor
The canopy rising and falling in the rhythmic breath of night
Tracing a circuit on the inside of my spine
The curve that proves that
We do not belong in boxes
With straight edges


Learning to breathe does not become easier the second time around


Catch my breath in a butterfly net
Send it back priority


In some other city
You spend the night with my footsteps
I spend the night folding swans out of your conscience
Jimeny-cricket style


There is a place where the birds go
When the air grows heavy
And it is not South


It is here that I will find you
When restlessness tempts you to fade


See you in my sleep
See you breathlessly awake
And shaking at the pearly gates
Because excuses were the birds
That flew from your chest
when you put regret to rest
Andy N Dec 2013
After Summer
Autumn is always brushed
Under the carpet
Like a half-baked afterthought
Before the Winter arrives
With its blanket
Of snow-rolled blues.

At the beginning of Autumn
There is a hesitation
In the breeze
Before the clouds
Darken the sky
And poison us slowly
With mustard gas.

There is a sadness
In the half-cut sun
Flickering once more
Before the clouds
Carry the sun away
Like a funeral director
As an ornament
Of a mystery
Dying with a silent scream,

Before setting their
Compasses north
Never to be seen again.

(Previously published on http://static.inexsilio.com/pdf/2013_spring.pdf)
A Jung Lim May 2020
Departure!

Raise the anchor
and raise the sail
Now the wind blows

Two compasses
inside of me
turn their lights on

The first one tells
where to go
by private signals

The second one
interprets the stories
from the sun, stars, sea, and the wind

Decoding the two 
from inner voice
and from the world

I decide
to turn the prow
adventure is there

How big the sea
Can't resist
the wind and waves in front

By drifting
and grounding
learned from the past

But being friends
with wind and waves
weaving own rhythm

New route appears
in each moment
to an unknown world

Seeing the land
lower the sail
and descend the anchor

Earth fertilises
the sailor's soul
to go back to the sea
gabriela Sep 2016
let's talk about curiosity.* let's talk about gas burners and sidewalk cracks and how there are french towns in canada where people who don't know each other greet each other with a kiss on each cheek. this is a collection of all the things you knew would hurt and then did them anyways but made sure i was looking. like all those kisses and trips to petco and looking at me from the drivers side-- don't take your eyes off the road, you'll end up like the rest of them did. let me tell you about how my favorite sounds include the following: crickets, gas burners lighting, coffee brewing, and you on the last train to god knows where but the train is coming soon. i can hear the trembling carts on the railway and i can hear you and your voice sounds like getting drunk off wine and witty jokes, sounds like the mantra of "temptation" but in the most subtle way as if i'd mistake it for something holy just to see if you'd notice, sounds like an epiphany i've waited too long to hear, sounds like every "let's talk about it" and "you look alluring" and "i just couldn't help myself" put into one. but mostly. this is what you're going to have to sit down for, because i won't repeat it. does perpetual comfort exist at your train seat? even when i'm not there? does she sit next to you? or is all the spilled tea pooling at my feet explanation enough?  i won't repeat it. not even to the sidewalk cracks or the broken compasses or the birds or the torn down bus seat behind ours or into your voicemail. i won't. especially not into your voicemail. *because here it is:
he makes me feel a little too much
Kathleen Nov 2015
You are fading jeans again
Try ripping them to shreds by skinning your knees
Try to squeeze blood out of stone-wash
You just crumple and fall on me love
Tired and trapped in denim
Too many buckles and buttons and zippers
But in freedom you do nothing more than drape over the sofa
Love in compasses you, freshly laundered.
Alice Burns Sep 2013
Have I not made myself clear?
Because each day the slate I write upon seems wiped clean
And my words read by your eyes have fallen to the same fate
I am brought to my knees once again, legs battered and weaker than before
Weakened furthermore by your considering  my voice unworthy of being graced with your hearing

This cycle is far from clear and circular
For your words cut through the curves taking the line elsewhere
Creating a maze of countless spirals forced by feigned confusion and diversion of ill intent
You have loyalty to your commander and keep disguises already known in play
Believing your presence proves fidelity and earns trust

But I am not lost in this web of manipulation
Just disoriented in your maps of honor and intention
But My hands still bear the route i follow
The lines compasses leading me honestly back on course
While the map you bear is no more than unreadable markings that you claim direction

Once the lines  alike mine were visible
But with constant trampling and pressing of fingers
All that is left is a dark mound
Corpses of lifelines  that are no longer followed
Yet still you spend time making pictures out of linear denial

But I see reality, despite your claims of my insanity
You hold nothing but ruins
But continue to stare and declare its superiority
fingers alone cannot rebuild your kingdom
The decay grows and your roads to heavenly future diminish
Yousra Amatullah Apr 2021
You are searching for stability,
As the ground starts to shake violently,
To settle down,
You hold on firmly to your base,
Burying maternal strength, like a ship striking its anchor.

Ignorance sought for what has been anchored, for centuries only to be obscured.

In the eye of the hurricane,
I stand with you,
Estranged from one another,
Yet having the same escutcheon;  أمي.
It is she who taught us how to lace our shoes,
Who taught us how to walk,
Using the heart as our ultimate compass.

Ignorance transfixed the compasses of our brothers and sisters,
in order to make us wander off.

Don't they know?
We shared the same womb,
Even if we don't share the same name.
It is our vision,
With which we maintain our reverberation.

His ignorance did not recall the ground on which he tried to march.
Nor was he able to understand that her compass was not born,
To be destroyed.

Like an unbreakable ship,
She is equipped with unprecedented durability.
Once again,
Not to be destroyed.
To all my beloved brothers & sisters!

Dutch version is coming soon!
Maggie Emmett Feb 2016
Lost in my chiaroscuro world
I cannot be followed
No-one knows my secret language
No-one knows my passwords
or my frames of reference
Everything said, is coded.

In desperate times
speech becomes pure sound
rhythmic and completely foreign
People can make out words
but they have no context

George, Jean, Martin
Arthur, Margaret
Names like rays on a compass
They were my world
of visible magnetic forces
I could no more abandon them
than rearrange the continents.

But you can learn
when the old geography
is too painfully familiar
not to abandon it
But simply invent
a country of your own.

A landscape beyond maps,
compasses and sextant
Beyond a dictionary
of common usage
and invented diction.

You can search
but the unseen
patterns of dreaming
are as easy to find.

Isolated, distant
language fractures
and returns to you
words are breaking the barrier reef
an exile in a shadow land.

The damage grows inside
sensed but unseen
seeping into crevices like moss
and lichen gripping
spreading and creeping
a spiked vine
flaring down to the tongue.


© M.L.Emmett
original unpublished poem 07/02/99 & revised 16/02/2012
Don Bouchard Jul 2013
When I heard the words that I had never hoped to hear,
"I'm on a path that you did not imagine,"
I trembled in the darkness growing near;
A green and deathly sickness grew within.

I can sense the Sirens' call to prayers unholy:
"Come dance the daring dances;
Sing the songs the sinners sing,
Defy the order of the stars to fling your flings,
And shake your ***** fists in pent-up rages,
Deny the structures of eternal ages;
Pervert the holy orders present at the birthing of the universe."

Does saying what is real is not or what is not is real
Change anything beyond the choice of action?
(Some would argue that the proof is in the consequence.)
Can mass opinion or the way a person feels
Change laws immutable: gravity's pull or magnetic attraction?
(Even theologians teeter now upon a wobbly fence).

If mass opinion moral laws can change
(Some critical percent of all believers
Taken in a poll believe the cannibals were right;
Please pass John's head there on that platter),
Then nothing stable really can exist.

When data-driven compasses redefine the laws,
When best practice comes from mass opinions,
We lose abilities to know ourselves as climbing up
Or scuttling down the ladders of Existence,
Confuse the benefits or dooms of consequential Ends.
Zoe R Codd May 2015
strong spirits

welcoming in nature-

powerful in instinct-

trying to find a moral compass-

one that they can believe in,

with all of their ****** hearts

searching for complete harmony

in a static world, charged by the sun.

their own saturated, sturdy bodies

learning to not know-

experiencing the now-

accepting that simplicity is beautiful-

realizing that no life has to be so complex.



no life needs to have so many thumbtacks

stuck in its cork board,

hanging on its bedroom wall-

only to be stared at by its owner

to distract from the present-

to keep sentimentality afloat-

to compare and contrast;

to remind a tired soul

of better moments and feelings

in its personal history.

but when those tiny memoirs

are reminisced upon,

the soul becomes vulnerable-

susceptible to reminding itself

of memories it does not want

to have as its own.

memories most likely forgotten-

blocked, and left somewhere

in the owner’s brain-

lost, due to lack of importance-

deterred from its conscious-

pushed back into its energy’s

open life storage, unconsciousness.



those memories like sharp tacks,

metal tips, dropped and unseen-

abandoned in a grey **** carpet-

left there so many months ago-

waiting for their owner

to decide their fate-

to either lay its bare foot

upon their thin metal,

creating a river of crimson-

so they may be finished with

their metaphorical life-

thrown in the trash can-

or they could taste the sweetness

of not being crushed-

of having one more day

to become as best as they can be-

to enjoy the soft, scraggily **** carpet-

to be unwanted, unfounded-

to aide in the growth of the now-

by refusing to resurface.

those memories, remembered or not-

are locked behind the purple indents

above the owner’s cheekbones-

below its red, puffy eyes-

violet crescents-

slowly caused by sleeplessness

and lack of nutrition.



if the past was not meant

to be consistently remembered,

why does humanity constantly try

to decode the future?

recorded history is meant so

living beings will not

repeat previous mistakes-

the human race is a cycle-

history will repeat itself-

mistakes and all-

the future is completely unknown.

predictions are never certain-

why spend the life one was given

trying to figure out why humanity

exists the way it does-

when in actuality, the researcher

is missing out on humanity as it is.

why try to figure out what happens

when someone’s energy is depleted-

when a mind is laid to rest, dead.

while searching, one is losing out

on actually being alive-

no one knows exactly

what happens when mortals die-

humans have been searching

ever since they developed cognizant

abilities, conscious minds…

the future will happen eventually-

people will experience it when it is time-

it is wasteful to spend one’s life

always looking for the answer-

instead of celebrating, and exploring

the earth that has given humanity

endless opportunities to love.



ghosts of creative minds

walking amongst the living-

ghosts encased in flesh

with no memory of their past lives-

their auras radiating-

saturated with ambition and kindness

following different dreams-

floating toward their goals

in a similar manner,

all with the same amount

of vigor and curiosity-

young (old) spirits;

hoping for their fellow

outspoken, anxious specters

to listen, and notice their potential-

to make their words understood-

to show their many points of view-

to let go of their pasts-

to stop worrying about the future-

to live in the present.

intelligent, brightly glowing entities-

the ones with flowing energies,

pigmented with color-

the ones striving for positivity;

the ones who really wish

for just one simple thing-

only for their peers

to consider clarity

as a degree or two on their own,

individual moral compasses.

to love this beautiful world

with no bias, with equality,

with excitement, and with

virtuous appreciation of life

as a common mystery-

one that would end a lot better

if it was left unsolved.
I did this after having writer's block for about two months. One night a few weeks ago around 3 a.m., I started to write and the words just bursted from my fingertips. This is probably the longest poem that I have ever written. (First draft)
Danielle Jones Mar 2011
i have been trying to do some spring cleaning,
like brushing out the cobwebs in my head,
but i always get stuck in the intricate silk and the thought
that i could be something.
i could be.
with each particle, i spin a new letter that fills a
good part of my curriculum -
the ABC's of love and Compasses 101 and
intro to new culture,
just so i can prove that i'm well rounded,
like the tip of my tongue,
like the merry-go rounds,
and the pupils behind my eyelids.
i know there was always a glint of worry
radiating from my mother's
half moon smile,
daring that i won't make it.
she never wanted to curse me,
so she spoke of opposites -
opposites attract (but we both know that isn't true.)
but this isn't about her,
this is about the days and nights i gritted
the enamel off of my molars to
pull myself off the bandwagon,
i've never really been into Natural Light beer,
(some call it Nattie Light),
or the fact that not being focused is what
i should be focused on.
this is about the one night stands with
Microsoft Word and my book of notes completed
with equations i knew i could never understand.
this is about the the day
i found
i could be the person
i never thought
i would be.
© Danielle Jones 2011
Jillian Elcie Dec 2014
He cranes tiredly over folds of parchment
As sunlight falls across his ashen features
And the restless night becomes lost
Within a sea of fading maps and broken compasses.

Worn pencils collect on hardwood like dust,
And discarded errors in calculation fall into the corners.
He stumbles weakly between varying levels of consciousness,
And exhaustion claims an inch more of his body
With each exasperated flutter of his eyelids.

He spins the globe to his right with a lazy hand
And catches Africa with his finger
Wishing that he could’ve been anywhere but here
Because it is immeasurably heartbreaking
To have the entire world at your fingertips
And to have never seen any of it.

j.s.
We are all passing ships in this life
Guided by misguided compasses

Floating along rocky shores
of ignorance and bitter distaste

But it doesn't have to be that way

We can adjust our sails
Reset our compasses
to love and peace

It's not to late
It's never too late
to change our journey

However, no matter
which sea we choose
to sail

In the end;

We all succumb
to the same fate

It's not too late..

© 2013 Christina Jackson
Olivia Sica Dec 2014
The distance between us
Small enough to feel your stirring thoughts
Long enough to lose yourself in the abyss
Is it possible to sense the presence of another
Across the span of your own lonely world?
Perhaps we're two ships who've lost their bearing
Floating aimlessly
Passing in the night
But then again we are just two people
Whose compasses stopped working
At exactly the right moment
For R
Morgan Oct 2013
we're the ones stuck somewhere between a passionate desire for life and a violent desire for death; trying to stop the hour glass from pouring its sand into the bottom half with a cigarette between our finger tips... we are scared and confused and contradictory...

and yea i guess
this is the human race
our compasses all
point to the same fate
but the beauty is seen
by those who dare to stray
we're all natural skeptics, anyway
Phosphorimental Feb 2015
Some languish sadly
drowning in dreams
Parched and thirsting for dawn
To dance in its light once again
But the music is all but gone.

Compasses set
on the albatross
We navigate through dreams of another
Our sails puffed out with ancient myths,
Empty winds from a safer harbor.

An aurora leaps
Across of the heavens
Dancing among the stars
Waves of harmony, crest and curl
Onto the awaiting shores of our heart.

One bright moment,
In a dark string of time
We wake to a new dawn sky
A multihued ribbon of horizon
In the gaze of anothers eyes

Discovered souls,
unravel their meaning
In the nexus of a kiss
Immortal lovers breath again
Melodies floating off their lips.

Meant to find each other once
Never to dream alone
A chorus of love breaks a sea of silence
We are…
Love’s mariners sailing home.

Petals of time, wither and fall
Into the garden of life
To nourish the ground,
And fill the palette
With our own blend of colors and light.

Yes, meant  to find each other once
And to that one be loyal,
We were only here as angels of love
to sew the seeds and till the soil.

And so from the moment we met
The now and then and all between
As our last kiss pulls away from knowing lips
Our love explains what forever means.
ml Feb 2014
I look at you and I see trees dancing in tangible rhythm with the wind like your hair blowing in directions compasses never seem to have captured and your face is clear now. I see those eyes. Irises so black i fall inside just to test the height because i've always liked doing dangerous things and that dangerous desire has led me to loving you. carving your name in skies that you will never see as you have always been blind to anything Intimate that came from me. you once told me you never liked Affection and that it only brings up bad memories and i sit there itching to scratch the back of your head to erase anything painful from your past. I see secrets hidden in between your long eyelashes that never once saved me from staying trapped inside your gaze and i am shivering at how cold it is in here. Then i see those lips. Lips that my mother warned me not to kiss but Temptation always gets the better of me. Now i feel the attachment forcing itself inside my mouth and punching the back of my throat and I am choking at how fast i fell for you. I wonder how to get over the feelings that have soared over my whole nervous system. i am convulsing with each passing thought of you and i am tripping over my own stupid feelings that seem to be towering over skyscrapers. I was never afraid of heights but darling,am i scared of you. I am scared of how fast i will fall and how deep and how you will not be there to cushion my fall.  I wonder how do i get over someone who has wrapped me all over his little finger like grapevines only you squeeze out my blood to drink over dinner as you watch me burst into flames from the way my heart ignites every time your skin touches mine. but darling, i would rather die with your arms wrapped around my neck while i whisper my prayers one last time that my ashes leave a mark on your fingers and that i will always be the dirt underneath your fingernails and i think, i think, i will die happily. if that happened, baby, i will not regret a thing.
James Gable Jun 2016
‘OLD AGE is a SHIPWRECK’
Charles de Gaulle

Some boats sink themselves slightly in order to
sleep—they awake with grog hangovers, leaning against

rocks, tillers askew as sea is softened by golden dawn.
The boom swung, tipsily; when the drowsy sail

was hoisted it groaned: *auxiliary!
Poking its prow
through the greybeards, the cutter then gathered pace,

parting plungers and apologetic waves as it cast off,
taking leave of the harbour in a cloud of spindrift.

The sail was slumped dizzily on the once-strong
shoulders of the mast—it sighs for its sorry spar and

state, remembering arduous journeys on seas of glass,
but no one dares say how conifer bark rains down in

flakes when it sleeps. The signal lamp, once brilliantly
bright, fraternising with the stars each night, is now

outshone by the eyes of abyssal creatures; see it
wrapped up in a pea jacket, perched on the yardarm.

On the weatherdeck mop and bucket are talking
scuttlebutt and canonising shipwreckless legends of the

past—when the laughter stops, and the deployment of
nets, perhaps they stop to think why, and sloppy work

and holystone and, sky…



Kittee-wa-aaake, kitte-wa-aaake—looking for a
school of fish whilst, in their numbers, orbiting the

vessel in an ellipsis; suspicious eyes on our walty
cutter and its measly midday catch. Tragic wrecks of

birds and ships alike, who is to say—to draw the lines
and make divisions of sea and bird and wood? Birds in

their collective strength move like waves, how they
could carry ships! This one is anchored fast, riding it

out as if a storm. But this collective strength, these
birds with villainous intent nip at the weather-worn

fishing nets and lines and a few ***** are lifted. The
barnacles sleep, nightmare visions of keelhauling—who

knew they had such wounds to heal?—forgotten
underneath in the darkness, they are plucked from their

shells by beaks regardless.

Back at the harbour the boat and its weary flanks and
planks and parts and hollow and hull are comfortably

submerged and sleep. The sun is sinking too it seems,
melting on the tongue of the sea. The broken-backed

vessel, dead doors shut, sail folded, mast
unencumbered. The signal lamp, intimidated and

outnumbered by the many who are brighter in the sky
with light years in their eyes, it decides to sleep out

and keep check for the night for the crows in their
murders covet nesting spots on board.


Splinters and vibrating minutes and the bitter end,
perturbed by the day of eddies and unseen internal

waves, nipped by the endless Kittiwake, they are
consulting compasses for the correct hour—

but no response, just the obviousness of the moon,
even from fathoms down and not a whisper.


As in every dark night here there is no silence for the
utterance of water and rustling of stars. You can hear

Sargasso **** dreaming, after hundreds of years afloat
without making root, dreaming of something better or

at last nothing at all. And in every creak of wood there
is a year of bad weather. And within the strength of

every bird is an empty stomach and a restlessness of
wings. In every decomposing fishing net there’s an

echo of vengeance, heard beneath the ringing of a bell
on the harbour. And in every compass there is a needle

tirelessly at work, endlessly referring to the stars—

The red-tipped needle in its binnacle tower
—confused it still spins and swirls

and in every skiff, freshly built or sea-worn and sore,
there is always a desire it will never speak of:


   to
   dive
   for
   pearls


                                     on the ocean floor.
Part Eight of The Man Who Longed to be an Oyster (see collections)
Chapter IV
Gordian knot

Greek legend according to which the inhabitants of Phrygia, Anatolian region, in the current one needed to choose a king, so they consulted the oracle. The latter replied that the new sovereign would be the one who entered through the Eastern Gate, accompanied by a crow perched on his chariot. The one who fulfilled the conditions was Gordias, a farmer who had his cart and oxen for all his wealth. When he was elected monarch, he founded the city of Gordio and, in gratitude, offered the temple of Zeus his chariot, tying the spear and yoke with a knot whose ends were hidden inside, so complicated that no one could untie it. According to what was said then, whoever succeeded would conquer the East.
Alexander the Great, supported by Vernarth and a hand impregnated with globules from Eritrea, was on his way to conquer the Persian Empire, already united with both Bi steeds, Fire Hoof and Ox Head, in 333 BC. C. After crossing the Hellespont he transgressed the Sudpichi Stream like a weightless cloak of a Machi Begging to the Cosmos for Negechen for the rickety Rehue, prophesying to him on his hands dismembered of bravery, great assistance of 300 years of Nge -Nge Mapus souls in his furious nose that propelled him with anger; and which untied the Champollion knot with some sphinx uncovering Pandora's allegories from the Valleys of the Kings. Then he conquered Phrygia, where they faced the challenge of untying the diocesan knot. He solved the problem by cutting it with his sword, cutting his head between the eyes, one for each side ..., the South one was from Vernarth with his beautiful eyes saying "I always see light when I wake up and dawn at night to rub the back of my Alikanto always riding with Him in Lid Universal Patriotics”.  According to Curcio Rufo's narration:   "It is the same to cut it as to untie it." That night there was a storm of unburied lightning that symbolized, according to Alejandro, that Zeus and Joshua´s stone were with him Espanta cuculí, genuflecting his knee towards such a Period in his analogy, that he would go through the shadowy time zone of Time and his eroded geo intelligence Both exhorting the oracles appeared before the stormy voices saying: "We agree on the agreements with the solution and its knot avoiding more knots by the hands of empires without a solution."

It alludes to this knot, made of mane's manes killed in battle and sleeping maiden's hair for the hope of widowhood beyond Eden: "both meditates cutting and loosing." That is, it does not matter how it is done, the important thing is that it is achieved. Millions of arrows actually fall from their badly vibrated bows, before this motto that appeared on the arrows, with a single rope cut around it.

Currently the expression Gordian knot refers to a difficulty that cannot be solved, an obstacle that is difficult to overcome or a difficult solution or outcome, especially when this situation only supports creative or own solutions of lateral thinking. "To cut the Gordian knot" means to solve a problem sharply and unceremoniously; that is to say, that discovering the essence of the problem, we will be able to reveal all its implications.

Top Ten Oases:
Just half a day after arriving in Gaugamela, Etrestles from Kalavrita, who came from Messolonghi, joined them; He came with his Kanti Black Steed "Rain of Perennial Fog". They came from Crete where the ultra cosmic powers were transmuted through their noses. That is why Kanti, as he approached the pair Vernarth and Alexander the Great flew leaping and shooting blue fire down his foamy muzzle. His ears sparkled like a Laziko dance of the Mediterranean Dodecanese of the proto Sirtakis of the north wing of whispered compasses. Holy kisses and hugs are halted and uttered, and the Macedonian Saints bowed to Lord Etretles.

Etrestles says:
I come from Messolonghi; of the eighth cemetery and of the eighth day. I get stuck the Dionysian aroma of his intentions when untying the Gordian knot. I was welcomed by the Charioteer in his armored car, after sleeping a thousand years I was reborn next to my face of the current of the greater solar star. The search for that shouting made me celebrate the search for that shouting of you. The similiar hairy body that fell contracted on my wonderful fingers, delighting my humble tributes to the beetles that accompanied me to direct my sight to the sepulchral vaults near their bodie Incorrupt.
Which of all the columns erected is capable of opening all the columns built in the pavilion of these moles without shapes or caves of colors ..., only the vitalizing Aeolian pulmonary diaphragm of my reverie, is who I think would ... To all of us who are trapped in holy Hellenic soils, I bring you good news: Auriga supports me with her Blacksmiths from the twelve rivers of the Dodecanese, to loosen the barriers of You, Beloved Brother Vernarth, and of you, my Lord Alexander the Great. .  Our father Staktos and our mother Vitabión that her lineage and beautiful face have not been corrupted in a thousand years.   Since our ninth baptism in Ayia Lavra, where she saw me be buried for the ninth time. Whose archpriest with his holy oils made him slide down our partition, pretending to be a dance of blessed water for this task in Gaugamela. To all of you. Blood of my blood, I feel your sacred vertebral need speak from within!

Auriga says: Orion's *****; everlasting fuel, will give strength to their steeds, to rise above the great contest, to brandish my undulating Xiph swords, to unsolder the bars of their oppressed souls before spilling the blessed blood of a Hellenic Soldier as sweet syrup for the dying delirium of those who will see the boom of the fireflies decay, baptisms about past lives, deaths about future lives.

Etrestles says: My ****** Vernarth, by the underground caste conglomerate you will wake up! To you. Like me, one day I lay as I was to my crude death in my last life at the hands of a Spartan Soldier. You blood of my blood released my bars to determine my Hellenic situation!

As this happened, I put in an odalisque and blew a similiar flow of ***** into my ear from the numb Vernarth. The waves and waves of paradise caused amazement at the coming duel. Before the enemy more than 250 thousand infantry and cavalry, faked tanks, archers, Greek hoplites, Peltasts, elephants and sophisticated weapons of war. Beyond mercenaries of death sowing the last words of ardor in their hands of faith of triumph, before the Macedonian militants too inferior  to the hordes of Darius in account only of 47 thousand militiamen of Alexander the Great.

under edition, to be continued
VERNARTH IV  LIGHT WARRIOR
J Hov Oct 2013
I go back to that precious place on the lake
The hill overlooking the world

A tranquil perspective
Where peace of mind can be secured

But we cannot sit here forever

No matter how hard we try
We always have to descend back down
To a world full of angst

A world congested with immoral moral compasses

But even just a few hours spent
With a view such as this, I wonder....




That maybe.....



Just maybe...........

We are closer to heaven than we recognize
With the sun setting behind the rolling hill
And silhouettes lengthening behind us

Looking into the ideal
At the mouth of this cave
We unearth what is real…

Subjects still imprisoned by their own ignorance
With the glimmering warmth of a fictitious blaze
From the deceptive flames of a fabricated fire
Faintly whispering up against their backs

The puppeteers' handiwork betrays them
Splattering superficial illusions
Along a dull ill-defined canvas


Becoming aware of their elusive scheme
We broke from the inhibiting chains

Liberating our confiscated minds
We deplored the fraudulent portrayals on the wall

Abandoning these projected shadows
We emerged from this somber fallacy

Bringing to light
A consequential validity....

Mind over matter,
A beautiful reality
A breathtaking ideal

Scatter the truth and let it unfurl
Climb towards the sun
On top of the hill overlooking the world
Inspired and influenced by Plato's Cave allegory. If you know Plato's Cave allegory I think this poem would make a lot more sense. Let me know what ya think.
Craig Reynolds Aug 2010
you, my dear:
weighed heavily
on my heart today;
your sadness
blanketed me,
and encompassed
everything,
that had led us
astray:

the drunken
bath tub shipwreck,
and the cracking
of our compasses.

what maladies
only a year adrift could bring?

but you
having appeared before
like a bottle
that had washed ashore
sent by the sea
with a script
so often read,
that my eyes
would sore
over and over
once again,

with hopes
they were addressed,
just to me and my absence.
pulling apart every vowel
with deeper hopes
to pick apart
their meaning.

but between
your words,
and between
you and i,
and the half-filled emptiness
of our loose leaf lives,

i've heard
these tack-hung pictures tell:
of your voyages
and the other captains,
bound for hell.

and so
i sent this note
and map, in faith, afloat.
to help navigate
your journey back.

and though
today you did not ask
me for a raft
or for the truth:

yes,
even on dry land
i still hold my breath
for you.
Copyright 2010

**Warning: work in progress**
Antino Art Apr 2019
In the warring states, they called us men of the waves: 'ronin'.
Masterless, we drifted in and out with the tide because we understood the nature of movement was nothing more than 'hi's' and 'byes'. So we wave both: peace.
It was in this freedom that we arrived at the fearlessness of dying.
We completed ourselves: one with our shadows, our hearts as broken compasses,
scars as maps and our souls held as swords to leave the mark of our nameless legends on the pages of history books that tried to forecast our fate. They now call us men 'a dying breed', though it was by facing death as a way of life that we became immortal.
We were light on our feet to the point of buoyancy, for you could not keep a man of the waves down.
You should have seen us in our element.
We pretty much flew.

— The End —