"confiscated" poems
1260
Because that you are going
And never coming back
And I, however absolute,
May overlook your Track—
Because that Death is final,
However first it be,
This instant be suspended
Above Mortality—
Significance that each has lived
The other to detect
Discovery not God himself
Could now annihilate
Eternity, Presumption
The instant I perceive
That you, who were Existence
Yourself forgot to live—
The “Life that is” will then have been
A thing I never knew—
As Paradise fictitious
Until the Realm of you—
The “Life that is to be,” to me,
A Residence too plain
Unless in my Redeemer’s Face
I recognize your own—
Of Immortality who doubts
He may exchange with me
Curtailed by your obscuring Face
Of everything but He—
Of Heaven and Hell I also yield
The Right to reprehend
To whoso would commute this Face
For his less priceless Friend.
If “God is Love” as he admits
We think that me must be
Because he is a “jealous God”
He tells us certainly
If “All is possible with” him
As he besides concedes
He will refund us finally
Our confiscated Gods—
28k
"I can’t figure it out.” She said.
“I like cigars,
and pretty dresses and crossing my legs.”
She paused,
then continued,
“And I like smoking cigars in pretty dresses while crossing my legs.”
She uncrossed them,
then crossed them again.
One smooth limb over the other.
Just like that.
“But I never seem to have a lighter on hand.
Could you— sir,
please light my cigar?”
“You see, I have no pockets to hold such things and my purse…
Well,
You’ve confiscated that, haven’t you?”
“Thanks.” She breathed,
and inhaled,
and exhaled;
Sluggish wisps of smoke dissipating into the air.
Just. like .that.
“I didn’t know L'homme was into women who smoke cigars in pretty dresses while crossing their legs", She said.
“I mean, how was I to know?
I only noticed him noticing me.
It was probably the way my hair was tousled like so,
Or how my lipstick shone a deep, dangerous rogue,
Or the way I sipped at my champagne…
That made him walk over.”
“But I never asked him to light my cigar
Or comment on my dress…
Or stroke my legs.
So when I whacked him up top over the head with my glass,
I bet he never expected it to shatter and split his skull like so.
He dropped so sudden, sir. I…”
Another ringlet of smoke, a sigh, an uncrossing and crossing of legs again.
“I had no clue,
what else to do,
But to sit still in my pretty dress, with my legs crossed, smoking my cigar trying to figure out...
Just how I'd committed ******
Nov 12, 2018
Nov 12, 2018 at 5:10 PM UTC
4 Years, 1500 days, 3600 hours, 2,160,000 minutes, 129,600,000 seconds
Yemen with a devastating war
Yemen crushed by Saudi war criminals
Yemen wounded by US' immorality
Yemen killed by too many's frigid hearts
Yemen unbelievably destroyed
4 Years, 1500 days, 3600 hours, 2,160,000 minutes, 129,600,000 seconds
Yemen a skeleton
Yemen with its sustainable resources confiscated
Yemen its country's wealth no more
Yemen with blood everywhere
4 Years, 1500 days, 3600 hours, 2,160,000 minutes, 129,600,000 seconds
Yemen with 20 Million affected
Yemen with babies deceased
Yemen with young orphaned
Yemen with old without shelter
Yemen with men buried under sand
Yemen with women *****
Yemen with countless widowed
Yemen trapped under rebel with people screaming for help
4 Years, 1500 days, 3600 hours, 2,160,000 minutes, 129,600,000 seconds
Yemen in shock
Yemen weary
Yemen with its hands up high in the air pleading for an end
Are our hands up with them
Are our foreheads wet
Are our eyes full
Are our mouths dry
Are our fingers in motion
Are our legs fatigued
Are our brains thinking
YEMEN: 4 Years Starving, 4 Years Dying, 4 Years Bleeding, 4 Years Grieving, 4 Years Hurting, 4 Years Too Long Not With Our Oppressed, 4 Years Too Late We Must Begin
Mar 27, 2019
Mar 27, 2019 at 1:27 AM UTC
Can I just write a poem that says **** the police"
for every single line
for every single stanza
and leave it at that?
Because I'm imagining his next victim, because there will be a next one,
and how she will feel when she finds out that he had my former report
on his private police record, accessible only by certain police.
I want to scream, but the metal chain he put around my throat to choke me because
"ha ha you like that, right?" after I had already said no
is still there, so nothing can come out of my mouth,
except I've been screaming as loud as I can for so long;
One year and I'm still not free.
His body weight is still crushing me, still heavy; the bruises on my body still felt every day, my body a museum of decaying loss and my mind a perfect video recording that plays on repeat whenever I just
want
some
sleep;
Nightmares I wake from and can't wake from.
I think one of the hardest days of my life was when I got my **** kit.
I mean- you know- other than the actual ****
I developed a stutter that day.
I blame myself.
I blame. I -I- I blame myself.
But I can't!
All of the "no's" that I said to him didn't matter, the police said;
everything non consensual didn't count;
it was only the one coerced "yes" that counted;
Scared for my life but, **** the police, right?
And all the times that I said to the police "yes" that I was *****
collapse and boom like a bomb on deaf ears of police that tell me that,
"maybe you just regretted having *** with him."
Or how about when they rolled their eyes when they learned that I met him on tinder?
I gave them a smile and answered that yes, that's true, because what else was I supposed to do but tell the truth?
Or the first thing they said to me was "so then you had a few drinks..."
Well no, sir, that's not what happned, at all.
See, there have been multiple levels of injustice here and I thought I was doing the right thing to heal.
In my partial hospitalization program that I went to for PTSD,
that I got from my ******
I learned that the "right" thing to do was to seek help right away after a traumatic incident so that it doesn't lead to lifelong suffering;
Quick help leads to a faster recovery,
and I've always wanted to do the right thing:
Like getting him arrested for ****** me.
But the police don't listen even when your body has been confiscated, graffiti marked by your ******
and the police tell you coldly to just seek counseling because, after all,
you "consented,"
and that your ****** isn't a ****** in the eyes of the law.
A ****** isn't a ****** but is a ****** and he's going free.
I did the right thing but I'm still stuck night after night, waking up crying;
I wonder who will be next, and that person's weight is added on top of me;
The gallery of bruises he inflicts will just continue, and I wonder where on snapchat will they be next?
Jun 27, 2017
Jun 27, 2017 at 8:10 AM UTC
Beneath the skin of my words
I am confiscated by the time of my own revealing self
But then again my love for my lover
Depends on the season that change through all
We will let our lips sealed in the air of slippery sky
No words could tell how much we love each other
Nothing is special but its been on my mind
Always that we folded each others arms
We both hang-out together
In the deep day or night that fluid embraces the silhouette dreams.
Jul 11, 2022
Jul 11, 2022 at 10:26 PM UTC
i. My mother's elbows. They
are too sharp and they twitch
in the direction of your ribs
when you invade
her personal space.
ii. Needing anything too much. Cutting
or writing or even
my own friends.
iii. Fast rides down mountains. I
remember each one, looking
out the window, wondering if
tonight was the night
finally we would go
plunging over the tiny
railing.
iv. Gangs of little kids. Don't
tell me they don't know
what they are doing. Children
are cruel.
v. Metaphors of fists raining down
all over your body. I'm
sorry, I cannot listen
to your metaphors, when
they make my skin tingle and
my hackles raise and
my heart play out the dance
of old fears.
vi. Anyone having leverage. Too
many times, showing caring
for a thing has seen it
confiscated. Also, anyone knowing
I care at all.
vii. Discovering that the scars gifted
to me are not healed and
long car rides and
her elbows and
cruel children and
impending addictions and
openly loving and
your metaphors make
me bleed along
old fault-lines.
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 6:14 PM UTC
The Pill
Called up big Pharma,
Sad and depressed,
I told them straight out:
Dudes, I need a new karma.
*NO problem they cheerfully replied,
(later I wondered, which pill they were on)
We custom make, haute couture, drug-design,
Mood enhancers, in little canisters,
You need only supply the cash and the system vascular!
Your soul's desire?
To be a better wilder, rambler,
Or a life calmer, better anchored?*
I know what I want, exactly,
A pill that removes
Specific words
From the frontal lobe temple
Verbal storage center.
*NO problem! (so cheery it was kinda scary)
Which words would you like to have
Exorcised, annihilated, irradiated, confiscated?*
I list from below, from side to side,
Let not one be denied,
Bury them all in nether-lands,
Swamp them under mountains of
Granite and sand,
Banish them from my lexicon.
How much do you charge?
But one dollar per word.
The list I emailed complete,
Herein I reprint.
Scars Pain Wound Strain Torture Anguish
Disfigure Damage Mar Mutilate Maim Blemish Deface Damage Ruin Distress
Afflict Trouble Wound Torment Agonize Sad Suffer Sting Throb
Torture Torment Despair Suffer Distress Hurt Vex Trouble
Ache Hurt Misery Woe Bitterness Misery Agony Bitter
Heartache Afflict Hurt Cut Loathing Shatter Broken
Alone Bleed Struggle Self-destruct Monster
Nightmare Cornered Darkness Horror
Loner Confused Goodbye Suicide
Slash Cut Desolate Submerge
Dissipate Dead Stinking
Enough.
Awaiting my concoction sweet,
When an answer they begat,
A response forthcoming, indeed was snubbing!
**Dear Sir/Madam,
We regret to inform you that we are unable to manufacture
Said item. Removal of these words would be a violation of
Federal Poetry Laws.
Sadly yours,
Big Pharma
P.S. Are you the author of "Yo! Yo! Warning: the government is reading your poetry! (Metadata Mining This Site) on HP?"**
P.P.S. Please do not contact us anymore.
Jul 16, 2013
Jul 16, 2013 at 1:53 PM UTC
As I walk down the street
That looks nothing but normal,
With pedestrians walking on the sides
Mothers calling sons after school,
Teenagers writing their dreams with sweat pants and converse shoes
Trotting down the pathways with their personalities
Compressed in their back packs;
I like to play a game called
“What’s behind the steering wheel?”
A bomb;
A wired representation of defeat
An open gate to oblivion,
A flower with pedals of fire
Pollen of political tyranny
With ignorant humans for bees
That “spread the word”.
“What’s behind the steering wheel?”
A kid reading a book
Forgetting the world outside
For the worlds in fairy tales
Seem real;
And as soon as his eyes start rolling
He envisions himself a leader of a striking army
A great protector of truth,
Or even a little girl dancing her way into the forest;
Busy being a child
She never thought about the monsters waiting on the other side;
And all those characters are despised,
In a world where innocence is put aside
Where dreams are confiscated
Like phones in elementary schools,
Where minds only follow
And hearts are black;
In a world,
Where reading a book becomes a threat
Only terminated by something louder than life
But nothing is louder than words.
“What’s behind the steering wheel?”
Afraid tyrants,
Calculating their reign
In seconds
And seconds are all they leave us
Before we leave us,
Before we start making martyrs of our names
And memorials of our pictures,
Before we write elegies
Before we write poems of anger
Before we cry down our thoughts
Screaming the names of those we lost;
Afraid that one day,
No one will remember those names
Afraid,
That one day,
Our name would be among them.
Ow martyrs who left us a world to fix
Our hands are tired of typing,
Our eyes are drowning
For the more we write down your names on our souls
The heavier are our tears;
Our thoughts are crumbling
Into posts and statuses
But who are we posting for, if all of you are dead?
Ow martyrs who left us with more spaces to cover
We cannot cover all this by ourselves.
Our trials are self-destructing,
Our memories are filled with images of you
Hoping that our memories stay memories
As we revolute towards our future.
Our flowers are wilting,
Our candles are too close to burning out
We have read all the prayers that we know
And as the journey prolongs
I ask myself…
“What now?”
Our rage is dormant,
Our eyes are open as we observe
The post traumatic epilepsies the world is coming about,
Our minds,
Once fooled
Are now base lines for our attacks;
Our hearts are filled with images of you
In an open chamber
Easy to access
For one day
All these images will appear on the surface of us
And that is the day we avenge you
Ow martyrs who left us,
You left us with a world to fix and a nation to create.
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 3:13 PM UTC
"They say I shouldn't use my phone
Because it's unsecure.
Anyone who tells me that
Is full of cow manure.
This talk about encryption--
That's a lot of bunk.
The thought of them taking my phone
Puts me in a funk.
"Some in my administration
Say that they foresee
Trouble if foreign spies are really
Listening to me.
Advisers fear that I might share
Secrets, but I say,
That's not easy 'cause I don't under-
Stand them anyway.
"How I love my cell phone
Because I love to tweet!
If they confiscated my phone,
I'd feel incomplete.
Having all my contacts in my
Cell phone really rocks.
I can get advice from all my
People down at Fox.
"I don't want my calls logged.
It really takes some *****
For my Chief of Staff to want to
Monitor my calls.
That's why I prefer to use
My private phone instead.
Who would even want to try
To get inside my head?
"Oh, Hillary's private server?
That's a different story.
Everything she does is in
A different category.
From rules that govern others
I feel I'm exempt.
That has never made my fans
Regard me with contempt.
"So they can't take my iPhone.
That would not be nice.
They say, 'Donald, it's a perfect
Location tracking device.
Spies collect your data
And know each confidant.'
I say, I'm the president,
And I'll do what I want!"
-by Bob B (10-26-18)
Oct 26, 2018
Oct 26, 2018 at 10:00 AM UTC
a minority of surgeons need
to have their knives confiscated
their ineptitude with these instruments
can be clearly demonstrated
injuries from scalpel croppers
are carried for a lifetime
poor usage of a cutting tool
causes culpability every time
litigation in court is awaiting
those who can't handle a knife
they'll be tried for maiming
their patients for life
redress must be sought
in the form of compensation
by those who carry scars
out of botched up operations
we entrust our limbs and organs
to the medical fraternity
and they are obliged
to treat us with the utmost care and dignity
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 7:21 AM UTC
This is the song of a Dreamer.
You would be hard-pressed to find
A more likable person.
He is one of a kind.
He moved to California;
From south of the border he came--
A four-year-old with his family.
Futuro, we'll say, was his name.
Futuro's father and mother
Worked very hard to provide
A good life for their children--
Something that they'd been denied.
Schooling was very important.
Futuro strove to excel.
He wanted his parents to see him
And his three siblings do well.
His college graduation
Made his parents so proud.
The smiles on their faces were something--
The biggest smiles in the crowd.
Futuro landed employment.
Later things went awry
When a cop pulled him over
And gave him a DUI.
That's when the nightmare started
Futuro was able to see
What it was like to be treated
Like a detainee.
Belongings were confiscated.
His hands and feet were chained,
As if he were a convict
Who had to be restrained.
They gave him no information
And moved him from place to place.
Each detention center
Was an utter disgrace.
Conditions were atrocious.
The rooms were damp and cold.
The food was barely edible
After you scraped off the mold.
Thanks to our heartless leaders.
Thanks to the CCA.°
We have detention centers
Where people are treated this way.
Such centers often become
A two- or three-year address
For many detainees caught in
A bureaucratic mess.
These for-profit prisons,
Based on what we know,
Are an assault on our freedom.
Let's face it: they've got to go.
When we civilized people
Treat human beings like this--
Worse than we treat an animal--
There is something amiss.
Futuro, well, he was lucky.
He was released on bail.
Now his fate is in limbo.
At least he's no longer in jail.
Must he hide in the shadows?
Must he be on the run?
What will it take for Futuro
To walk in the light of the sun?
Give Futuro your blessings.
Give the hopeful your praise.
May our eyes be opened.
May we see brighter days.
(2-24-17) By Bob B
°Corrections Corporation of America
Feb 24, 2017
Feb 24, 2017 at 9:14 PM UTC
it was the
summer
of 13
when a city
consumed in a
Cronut crazed
heat wave
amped
the tenderloin
slicing the underbelly
of Hell's Kitchen
packing meat for
Russian oligarchs
pouring fistfuls
of petrol rubles
down the
thirsty gullets
of glutinous
developers
their distended
bellies welling
with aching
avarice
from an
extended
stay at an
All You Can Eat
zero interest
smorgasbord
courtesy of
Uncle Sam’s Diner
somewhere off the
West End
getting fat
on the land
reclaimed
and rebuilt
on the dust
and detritus
of an expired
Great Society
Bloomie's metropolis
rising on the rubble
of razed neighborhoods....
the vertical leaps
shooting ever upward
the heady windows
framing portraits
of endless replication
offering the amenities
of the vain comfort
found in ghettos of
soulless high rises
and the billowing
gray perspective
of blanched out
street cafes
brewing $9 lattes
and big box
boutiques busy
busking the
latest rage
of sweat repelling
yoga mats and
wearable apps
America’s Mayor
Giuliani paved the way
he arrested all
the squeegee men
confiscated their Windex
dumped it down
the sewers and filled all
vacancies at Rikers
a year after Sandy
rolled up the Hudson
breaching the banks
of West Street
licking the streets
clean of urban
flotsam the
surging boom
bloomed
Bloomie bankrolled
a red carpet
for his global
fraternity of
plutocrats
unleashing a
tsunami of
shekels
washing away
the fading
memories of
Captain Sully’s
cool headed
lunch pail
heroism proving
that 727’s can
walk on water
was now passe
Lou Reed
left town
the wild side
monetized by
the belching
banality of
Urban Hipsters
millennial
babes in toy land
embarked on an endless
shopping spree
where credit limits
never expire and
giddy narcissism
greased with entitlement
orders up room service
as the next course
in this endless
movable feast
Music Selection
Philip Glass
The Hours
9/8/13
NYC
jbm
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 2:50 PM UTC
NATO confiscated my calculator as a weapon of math destruction
Or
Matches to a pyrotechnic cartographer are weapons of map destruction
Or
Moth eggs in the wardrobe are weapons of mac destruction
Or
Nuclear bombs used in warfare are weapons of mans destruction
May 15, 2013
May 15, 2013 at 8:02 PM UTC
i was drinking orange ****** ***** with Kitty
the mushroom cloud destroyer,
my compatriot, my downfall
the sky was purple and the grass was red
and we plotted the end of the world
we fought for dominance i lost
sat on my street corner
stealing kisses from
passersby like a magpie,
plucking the shiny buttons off coats.
when I became the queen of sheba,
decked to the nines in brass buttons
confiscated corroded combustible
i rode an elephant called shiva the destroyer
and sliced long cuts with a sword into my legs
and the white scars were like hope.
i played backgammon and chess with multiple lovers
and they all lost because i was an impenetrable fortress.
I wore the red crown and stabbed out their hearts with my pointed teeth.
then i sat upon the edge of the world alone,
tore out the cores of a million and four sunflowers
and watched all of the people riding trains
and walking in the parks holding the hand of someone else
someone who isn’t cold Kitty
as the violet sun began to set
i dreamed of what someone else’s hand
bones skin muscle corpulent sinew warmth
and I slept like an obsidian stone.
Jun 6, 2010
Jun 6, 2010 at 6:58 PM UTC
No facade elaborate enough
To adequately conceal
The inner-conflict
In which I am embroiled
No crooning of comfort
Can delivery me peace
Or forestall my mind's
Eventual unhinging
No foxed, tattered pages
Of forlorn loveletters
Strewn with stark promises
Can resurrect my will
My compass confiscated
My map of reason
Torn and trampled upon
My future at the mercy of shadows
Mar 30, 2014
Mar 30, 2014 at 1:11 PM UTC
The Street Cleaner
He is not a lucky man, but he is happy but one day he won on a lottery ticket,
not a not a big sum of money but enough to by wheelbarrow got permission
from the local council to keep the town's streets clean. Happy, telling himself
he was self- employed and could sleep till nine in the morn if he wanted to.
A busy bee a busy bee he was till he collided with Mercedes was taken to court
and his wheelbarrow was confiscated to pay for the damage. He had a bike and
got a local garage to put a two- wheel contraption to fasten to his bike, the town
got rid of its trash again until an officious policeman asked him if he had a licence
for this he didn't and it was confiscated. Now he had a jute sack slung on his proud
shoulders and a walking stick with a nail attached, a weapon a police officer said
he was carrying a weapon in public and he was prosecuted. He didn't show up
to the hearing and when the law came around, he hung from a rafter sometimes
even serious optimists give up and with no cleaner the town sank into misery,
plagued by vermin the population fled, a town given into paper napkins pizza boxes
and burger wrappers and the poor who had nowhere to go. And if this reflects
the life of a typical inner city of our English speaking world it is purely incidental.
Aug 14, 2015
Aug 14, 2015 at 3:42 AM UTC
As I drift I find myself looking down at a beautiful copper fox coyly staring upward. Head cocked to one side, he is unafraid of my presence. I crunch through the snow to the chain link fence beside where he stands and he does not run. Through the diamond shapes I can see my belongings....a set of car keys, some credentials and my leather covered Bible. I cannot reach them. I look up slightly to see a police woman ranting on about how she found my camp nearby and confiscated my things. I realize I must get to them but how? I am cold. I begin to run and my path turns to a reddish brown. I no longer see the fox or the snow, I am aware that I am completely alone. I feel a panic and begin to imagine a wolf and what I might do in the instance he appears because I am unarmed! So I imagine I would roar like a lion and of course he would run scared. Ahead and to my right there is a tall rock. It is completely grey in color with possibly some greenery. A beautiful grey puma sits atop the rock. Is it possible for a puma to be grey? I do not know but somehow I know this large grey cat is a puma. I am nervous. I begin to jog. My path is soft, I am worried I may fall....the cat jumps from it's perch. I am running now, my heart is beating fast and the cat is gaining speed. He is right behind me now! I can visualize his body much faster, more agile than mine. I turn for just a brief moment and to my fright the cat places his paw to the back of my shoe and gently pulls my shoe down off my heel. He is toying, playfully. Time seems to slow down and I see the picture in slow motion. As he licks my heel I am lost in confusion and fear; my mind tells me he is in for a treat which is me, but somehow his actions seem harmless. I am terrified. Suddenly my heart speeds up as my eyes open! For a moment I am stunned then I breathe out, a sigh of relief.
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 12:43 PM UTC
Walking Grand
Seeing friends of broken dreams
******* eyes crying streams
A constant river of hopes and lies
Selling grams,
Ounces, lies, those streams cry
Too many children for the mother to look after
See Cruz in the Tomorrow
Then Yesterday comes
And a year passes with no difference
Just more drive in Coca eyes
Snorting grime in afternoon midnights
Dirt nothing
Dirt nothing
Pity the soul who gives up forgiving and knows It All
Come springtime,
Gonna plant in the shadows, fortune growing
Plants - medicine - drug - confiscated time
Forgive the mind
Time ain’t time
Grime is grime
Prositituted hearts selling gold and green and white and brown
Trying for rent, in the gutter come night
No fight to vent, too numb, just can’t
Lawns come bedrooms
Bushes come kingsize
Bleeding nose and veins
Throwing needles in the park
The garden
The sidewalk
The supermarket
The local furniture outfit
You see,
They ain’t free
It ain’t me
I try, but there’s nothing to try for
Shoot fountains,
Smack come crack
Hotel burning back
Moment to pack
Heavy, heavy sack
Breaking my back
***** drag
No turning back
No den for slack
Sailing sick towards public arrest
Friends turn friends like rotating doors
Come and come again
In the middle of the day
Confidence doesn’t matter
Exploring blankets of warmth and escape
Poor, poor parades of humiliation
Humiliating Truth
Standing like stamps to smoke
Sad rock crumbling on diamond mirror
Scattering stairs to escape
Towards the park
Away from the dark -
Where’s the light?
Something ain’t right -
Vampires are lurking
And nothing seems to work
Save me if you can -
I’d save myself if I could
Dec 13, 2013
Dec 13, 2013 at 9:47 AM UTC
the breath of history in unknown bodies
intoxicate my sight I might say
it chokes me with a mystified light
I have to learn how to breath my own life
it's easy to confuse the absent with the real
the incorporation of dread, hidden feelings
and unspoken truths a subtle tyranny
no body carried my body in a mind
I want to spend my life writing love stories I will
forget by midnight and rewrite with laughter
between generations a subtle struggle cause there isn't still
enough space inside for the life of one's boundaries
it's either you or me to suffer but everybody is OK
we smile at each other, we appreciate each other
unbearable life colonizes the body with unbearable silence, signs without symbols but symptoms, drives and confiscated stories
unreachable bodies woven together by force in the fabric of illusion
cast a dimming shadow like the melancholy of an echo heard
by no body
Aug 18, 2023
Aug 18, 2023 at 12:06 PM UTC
My Face is held on with old shoelaces
loose and sagging at the top
the grease stained hat holds it together
tight and neat till my shift is over.
My leg bones are gone,
transformed into balloon animals.
silly, flimsy things that wouldn't stay inflated
if not for the bicycle pump
I keep in my back pocket.
Every few hours I slip into the bathroom
just to sit and awkwardly fill up my legs,
Tom & Jerry style, through my big toes.
I say I try to live in the moment,
but I don't when I'm here.
Daydreams about suspiciously well prepared hoboes:
"No cash? That's fine. I have a card reader."
Memories of friends and stupid mistakes;
the smile is real, but the eyes...
the eyes are where I fool them
the eyes are where I hide the fact
that my mind is anywhere, everywhere else.
My eyes will never tell you that here,
I wish for summer to be over.
That here, I'm scared to death
that three years from now, I'll still be here,
and summer's end won't mean ****
The only friend I have here
says I remind him of himself.
He is pushing six years.
I just passed two.
So.
I want you to beat me into unconsciousness
with a giant, squeaky toy hammer.
The kind you can only get at the fair
for fifteen dollars or feats of mild greatness
confiscated within the first ten minutes.
Silliness so intense that our parents
destroyed it as contraband
to protect us from the poison,
our bloodlust of absurdity.
Club me in the head with it.
Please.
I want my legs to deflate.
I want to be a giggling mound of confusion,
rolling around on the floor,
within inches of enlightenment.
I want my hat to fall off,
my shoestrings to come untied,
and this stupid mask to splinter into tiny,
stupid pieces and form onto a real, stupid grin.
But most of all, I want every single note
of your noisy and utterly useless inflatable bludgeon
to be the first thing on my mind
the next time I walk around here
in my slip resistant sneakers
scuffling along the greasy tile floor.
Jul 8, 2013
Jul 8, 2013 at 12:06 AM UTC
For the last five hundred years, posh “society,” is where the wealthiest and most influential people in the world mingled, inter-married and conducted business. If you’ve ever watched “Downton Abbey”, “The Gilded Age” or even “Crazy Rich Asians” you’ll know what I mean.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - a psychological pyramid that describes human fulfillment - states that part of our human nature (once your basic needs are met) is the desire to attain social position. Having mere wealth is just not enough once you are in the top levels of achievement.
In the 1970’s Arab money started pouring into the west. Arab petro-dollars bought swaths of land in the UK, in London and New York. The Arabs dazzled everyone with their wealth and bling but they never penetrated posh society.
Then in the 90s the second, Asian wave, of new wealth washed eastward and they had a bit more success in society. But starting about 20 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russians started coming to the west with new money to invest - in the UK, in particular.
Russia became the billionaire capital of the world, oligarchs were everywhere buying anything not nailed down and eventually trying to insinuate themselves into posh “society”. Tatler (THE magazine of society) even began publishing a Russian version. If you were a wealthy Russian, you were moving up. By 2022, they weren’t too far from the edge of REAL success.
That’s what evaporated three weeks ago - with the invasion of Ukraine - Russia’s luxury infrastructure and their hopes of acceptance into posh society. Gucci, Chanel, Hermès, Dior, Apple and Tatler (just to name a few luxury brands) have left Russia to rot. If you’re Russian now, the chances of being admitted into posh society are gone for the next 20 years - at least.
You may say “so what?” Well, one way a dictator holds onto power is through mercantile largess. The granting of rights within the Russian sphere of influence - to control and distribute goods and services - is how oligarchs are created. The support of these oligarchs is important and transactional.
A man with a 100-million dollar yacht - looking at what chunks of their wealth may well be confiscated in the west - or lost to the Ruble’s collapse - could easily offer life-changing wealth to any henchman willing to end Putin one way or another.
Will this happen? I don’t know. But this is the system they’ve set up for themselves.
Mar 22, 2022
Mar 22, 2022 at 4:12 PM UTC
Coiled fingers grasping around through
a series of grates alternating through spatial relation
Each subsequent orientation,
Rotated at arbitrary command,
Ham-fisted reverie, like the acceptance of Jesus as our personal savior
Colors their every artifice
As if the void that consented to multitudes
Were mutilated upon reentry
Like the volkswagon beetle
Made to upgrade on demands
Or the chemical makeup of fleas
That have buried themselves in the festering skin
On the half opened light bulb of
Apostasy. Hardships
won and their articles
signed, comprehension reversed
With demands to the populace
Each stating unthinkable wishes
Since they've steadily become
Eager in the belief that
Their souls were unstuck
As puppets left to decay on the rain drenched fair grounds
The things I'm avoiding when I stray from the river
Confiscated boss on your vaunted sky
Bring to us your design
Sing to us the reminders we know that will
Teach us to drive our demands to time
And influence the outcomes ourselves
Give us the power to carry them forward
And sharpen the strength of our mind
It's us that you're looking for now
[the manuscript was unreadable from this point on]
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012 at 1:58 PM UTC