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Alyssa Underwood May 2018
"The Struggle for Love"
"The Longing for Home"
So desperate to prove
That our hearts aren't alone

While death looms wherewith
To make dust of our flesh
We seek in a myth
Our souls to enmesh

With a hero of hope
A rescuing source
To widen our scope
And give pith to our course

An unshakable tie
An attachment at core
Which might silence the cry
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

But it's not our mere lack
Which causes most dread
It's the earth-shattering fact
That our spirits are dead

Cut off from their Source
In a black alienation
Humanity's curse
For its rank ins'bordination

We just want our own way
And to write our own story
So we plunge on astray
To seek our own glory

To play artist or muse
Or idol or chief
Any self-styled ruse
To assuage us of grief

Any measure to show
A lasting signif'cance
So that someone would know
Our unique magnif'cence

For our beauty's been marred
And we crave a redemption
Of souls twisted and scarred
By fulfillment's exemption

But, alas, we will find
That search hard as we may
There's not one of our kind
Who can carry the tray

Upon which the weight
Of our souls has been laid
For who can e'er tolerate
Its gross debts unpaid?

Such suff'cating mass
Of defects and ills
Pressed 'gainst delicate glass
Of egos and wills

Still more ghastly to bear
Is devotion unbound
For with millstone to wear
Its master is drowned

'Neath a sea of foul yeast
And becomes the enslaved
To a hungering beast
To a worship depraved

For the heart is a tiger
And must have its fill
So it raises a man higher
With a kiss before the ****

Not intentionally, of course,
Does it slaughter its idol
But of hurricane force
Is this longing so vital

And as pedestal turns
So quickly to altar
Our wounded pride burns
When our gods and alms falter

And the fire of its rage
Turns upon its obsession
Tiger breaks out of cage
To reclaim self-possession

It bites and it tears
What it once so adored
And pride no longer cares
If it kills its false lord

But upon such demise
The soul screams in terror
For it's broken its prize
And can't take back its error

It begs and it pleads
To restore what's been lost
But at end knows it needs
To consider the cost

Of the damage untold
It has left in the wake
For hearts can't be controlled
With a gush or a shake

No, men's hearts are like bombs
Which so easily explode
Once the pin is removed
All past wrongs will re-load

So the prey becomes hunter
When the tiger attacks
For he does not want her
To see what he lacks

As he, too, had put
Her up in wrong place
But now steps his foot
Upon her shamed face

To now pulverize
As his own heart's been crushed
To blind out her eyes
And to see her lips hushed

For with words idly spoken
She'd stabbed at his soul
And had left his pride broken
By her judgments so cold

She had not meant to harm
Knew not e'en that he heard
But one cannot disarm
A thought put to word

Worse than not knowing this
She no longer knew him
And her once imagined bliss
Proved a nullified whim

Oh, what games and delusions
We play and we build
Upon empty illusions
And dreams unfulfilled

Yet strangely it's when
Our worst fears come true
We can finally transcend
All those old tales we grew

Out of ego and void
Out of sorrow and pain
When our nerves felt annoyed
And our hearts felt too vain

'Cause when ego is puffed
It is primed, too, to pop
And with pinprick is snuffed
Like a pest-blighted crop

So imagine much more
When a venom's injected
Right into its core
And its heart is rejected

But can you also not see
How it needs such a burst
To begin to get free
From its self-absorbed curse?

Except now feels the matter
Of our soul's isolation
Fiercer still with the shatter
Of our pet consolation

So we wait and we wonder
If we've missed the true meaning
Of the frightening thunder
In our heart's constant screaming

Whether homesick or lost
Whether lonely or grieved
Locked in bleak Winter's frost
We find little reprieve

Yet we know we've been made
For the glory of Spring
Some card's still to be played
Some grand song still to sing

Inexpressible yearning
For some secret we know
But can't speak for the burning
Repercussions of woe

Not some mere melancholy
Nor nostalgic forlorn
Not the musings of folly
But a sense that we're torn

From primordial root
And from headwaters fresh
Yet much deeper to boot
From our spiritual breath

'Tis an ache not for wares,
Appreciation or fame
But a fight just for air
Against strangling shame

For we're naked, we know
And with all we devise
Our most flawed parts still show
To a pure set of eyes

Like we're walking around
With no covering intact
But thin hospital gown
With wide split up the back

So we hide our true face
Aim to be what we're not
Work our blots to erase
Lest our schemes should be caught

Be 't by friend or by foe
We dare not risk the pain
Of humiliation's blow
On top of our stain

But instead of relief
Anguish grows louder till
This life's loneliest grief
Paralyzes the will

And last hope all but dies
On doubt's bed of despair
While embittered heart cries
That its lot's too unfair

Yet on outside we play
Through our unconscious mind
Man's collective charade
That everything's fine

Like some pact we'd all sworn
To uphold and obey
To protect from the scorn
Of society's sway

If we run with the flow
'Stead of strive 'gainst the tide
We might make enough show
To salvage our pride

We forget that conceit
Is what caused all the mess
Through a serpent's deceit
And a couple's wrong guess

'Twas they first tasted shame
And then hid in a garden
Sewing fig leaves as claim
To secure their own pardon

Yet in horror they knew
They had squandered the Prize
And must flee from the view
Of a pure set of eyes

Now same state of awry
Runs through each of their seed
Inborn and borne by
Like the thorniest ****

Whose nettles pierce deep
And infect every part
While roots tangle and sweep
Through the mind and the heart

It mocks what we've lost
Torments every dim hope
To constrict and accost
Like a noose-tightening rope

Still, hope won't be decayed
Smold'ring fires yet burn
Sparking hints that we're made
For bright Eden's return

This redemption we crave
Is no phantom's false plea
But as crestfallen wave
Hides itself in the sea

It's been veiled in plain sight
Big as all of our stories
Deep as mankind's full plight
And as high as its glories

Cloaked in every ambition
That we have to get in
To some exclusive coalition
For its favors to win

Lurks a bleeding predilection
Frustrated from birth
A desire for election
To bestow on us worth

Lured by scent of a promise
To be chosen and known
Like the warmth of a mom's kiss
Given only to her own

We search tree after tree
For sweet intimacy's nectar
From a fruit that will be
Our secret connecter

To hope's nourishing breast
To life's honey from comb
To an undying rest
To a straight way toward home

One to wipe away tears
And allay deepest doubt
Which proceeds from worst fears
Of our being locked out

Of a garden again
Cast from pure tree of life
Dim remembrance of when
Mankind first entered strife

All our conflicts, comp'tition,
Confusion and blame
Find first cause in perdition
That's invaded our frame

Like the foulest disease
The most cankerous rot
Grown by monstrous degrees
Hatched by Lucifer's plot

This story's no ****'s attack
Nor archaic folklore
But the earth-shattering fact
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

And it's not our mere lack
which causes most dread
But the earth-shattering fact
That our spirits are dead

Cut off from their Source
In a black alienation
Humanity's curse
For it's rank ins'bordination


And yet...


This is also the story
Of how those same eyes
The Possessor of Glory
Looked with love and heart cries

On the crown of creation
His reflection of Self
Made His own treasured nation
The heirs of His wealth

Now broken and lost
All banished from Garden
And He knew the full cost
To grant them His pardon

Had known long before
He had e'er even made
That first man of yore
Yet handcrafts anyway

For His love is so strong
And He wanted to share
His intimacy with a throng
His own children to bear

So with souls in convulsion
From their rebellious misdeed
Just before their expulsion
He promised a Seed

One untainted from sin
Who could take its great boulder
And the weight of His kin
Upon His own shoulder

A Hero of hope
A rescuing Source
To widen our scope
And give pith to our course

An unshakable tie
An attachment at core
Who would silence the cry
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

For those eyes are His own
And He'd pay the full fee
By His body alone
To set our hearts free

He's hope's nourishing breast
He's life's honey from comb
He's our undying rest
He's our straight way toward home

He will wipe away tears
And allay deepest doubt
Which proceeds from worst fears
Of our being locked out

Of the Garden again
Cast from pure Tree of Life
Dim remembrance of when
Mankind first entered strife

But 'twas on another tree
That sweet intimacy's nectar
Was secured tight when He
Became sacred Connector

And the thorns of our curse
Were pressed onto His head
With not one there to nurse
As the Son of Man bled

Then the wrath for our sin
Was absorbed as He cried
And the foul curse was broken
When the Son of God died

But death couldn't keep Him long
Nor His glory dispose
And we found our lost song
When the King of kings rose!

The debt had been paid
He had finished the work
The tide 'gainst us was swayed
We weren't left in our lurk

And we've only to now
Just repent and believe
To open and allow
Our hearts to receive

Our Divine Fountainhead
Our covering complete
To sup from His bread
And to sit at His feet

To worship the One
For Whom we were made
By Whom we've been won
Whom forever we've craved

The One Who can bear
Our hearts' full devotion
The One Who won't tear
At our souls' raw emotion

The One Who will be
Sweet eternity's song
Who with lasting decree
Will...right...every...wrong
~~~

First two lines taken from Timothy Keller sermon titles;
also inspired by his other sermons:
"The Breastplate of Righteousness"
"Blessed Self-Forgetfulness"
"The Sandals of Peace"
"The Wounded Spirit"

~~~

for more on this:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2179517/the-gospel-of-jesus-christ/

~~~
Alyssa Underwood Apr 2017
"The Struggle for Love"
"The Longing for Home"
So desperate to prove
That our hearts aren't alone

While death looms wherewith
To make dust of our flesh
We seek in a myth
Our souls to enmesh

With a hero of hope
A rescuing source
To widen our scope
And give pith to our course

An unshakable tie
An attachment at core
Which might silence the cry
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

But it's not our mere lack
Which causes most dread
It's the earth-shattering fact
That our spirits are dead

Cut off from their Source
In a black alienation
Humanity's curse
For its rank ins'bordination

We just want our own way
And to write our own story
So we plunge on astray
To seek our own glory

To play artist or muse
Or idol or chief
Any self-styled ruse
To assuage us of grief

Any measure to show
A lasting signif'cance
So that someone would know
Our unique magnif'cence

For our beauty's been marred
And we crave a redemption
Of souls twisted and scarred
By fulfillment's exemption

But, alas, we will find
That search hard as we may
There's not one of our kind
Who can carry the tray

Upon which the weight
Of our souls has been laid
For who can e'er tolerate
Its gross debts unpaid?

Such suff'cating mass
Of defects and ills
Pressed 'gainst delicate glass
Of egos and wills

Still more ghastly to bear
Is devotion unbound
For with millstone to wear
Its master is drowned

'Neath a sea of foul yeast
And becomes the enslaved
To a hungering beast
To a worship depraved

For the heart is a tiger
And must have its fill
So it raises a man higher
With a kiss before the ****

Not intentionally, of course,
Does it slaughter its idol
But of hurricane force
Is this longing so vital

And as pedestal turns
So quickly to altar
Our wounded pride burns
When our gods and alms falter

And the fire of its rage
Turns upon its obsession
Tiger breaks out of cage
To reclaim self-possession

It bites and it tears
What it once so adored
And pride no longer cares
If it kills its false lord

But upon such demise
The soul screams in terror
For it's broken its prize
And can't take back its error

It begs and it pleads
To restore what's been lost
But at end knows it needs
To consider the cost

Of the damage untold
It has left in the wake
For hearts can't be controlled
With a gush or a shake

No, men's hearts are like bombs
Which so easily explode
Once the pin is removed
All past wrongs will re-load

So the prey becomes hunter
When the tiger attacks
For he does not want her
To see what he lacks

As he, too, had put
Her up in wrong place
But now steps his foot
Upon her shamed face

To now pulverize
As his own heart's been crushed
To blind out her eyes
And to see her lips hushed

For with words idly spoken
She'd stabbed at his soul
And had left his pride broken
By her judgments so cold

She had not meant to harm
Knew not e'en that he heard
But one cannot disarm
A thought put to word

Worse than not knowing this
She no longer knew him
And her once imagined bliss
Proved a nullified whim

Oh, what games and delusions
We play and we build
Upon empty illusions
And dreams unfulfilled

Yet strangely it's when
Our worst fears come true
We can finally transcend
All those old tales we grew

Out of ego and void
Out of sorrow and pain
When our nerves felt annoyed
And our hearts felt too vain

'Cause when ego is puffed
It is primed, too, to pop
And with pinprick is snuffed
Like a pest-blighted crop

So imagine much more
When a venom's injected
Right into its core
And its heart is rejected

But can you also not see
How it needs such a burst
To begin to get free
From its self-absorbed curse?

Except now feels the matter
Of our soul's isolation
Fiercer still with the shatter
Of our pet consolation

So we wait and we wonder
If we've missed the true meaning
Of the frightening thunder
In our heart's constant screaming

Whether homesick or lost
Whether lonely or grieved
Locked in bleak Winter's frost
We find little reprieve

Yet we know we've been made
For the glory of Spring
Some card's still to be played
Some grand song still to sing

Inexpressible yearning
For some secret we know
But can't speak for the burning
Repercussions of woe

Not some mere melancholy
Nor nostalgic forlorn
Not the musings of folly
But a sense that we're torn

From primordial root
And from headwaters fresh
Yet much deeper to boot
From our spiritual breath

'Tis an ache not for wares,
Appreciation or fame
But a fight just for air
Against strangling shame

For we're naked, we know
And with all we devise
Our most flawed parts still show
To a pure set of eyes

Like we're walking around
With no covering intact
But thin hospital gown
With wide split up the back

So we hide our true face
Aim to be what we're not
Work our blots to erase
Lest our schemes should be caught

Be 't by friend or by foe
We dare not risk the pain
Of humiliation's blow
On top of our stain

But instead of relief
Anguish grows louder till
This life's loneliest grief
Paralyzes the will

And last hope all but dies
On doubt's bed of despair
While embittered heart cries
That its lot's too unfair

Yet on outside we play
Through our unconscious mind
Man's collective charade
That everything's fine

Like some pact we'd all sworn
To uphold and obey
To protect from the scorn
Of society's sway

If we run with the flow
'Stead of strive 'gainst the tide
We might make enough show
To salvage our pride

We forget that conceit
Is what caused all the mess
Through a serpent's deceit
And a couple's wrong guess

'Twas they first tasted shame
And then hid in a garden
Sewing fig leaves as claim
To secure their own pardon

Yet in horror they knew
They had squandered the Prize
And must flee from the view
Of a pure set of eyes

Now same state of awry
Runs through each of their seed
Inborn and borne by
Like the thorniest ****

Whose nettles pierce deep
And infect every part
While roots tangle and sweep
Through the mind and the heart

It mocks what we've lost
Torments every dim hope
To constrict and accost
Like a noose-tightening rope

Still, hope won't be decayed
Smold'ring fires yet burn
Sparking hints that we're made
For bright Eden's return

This redemption we crave
Is no phantom's false plea
But as crestfallen wave
Hides itself in the sea

It's been veiled in plain sight
Big as all of our stories
Deep as mankind's full plight
And as high as its glories

Cloaked in every ambition
That we have to get in
To some exclusive coalition
For its favors to win

Lurks a bleeding predilection
Frustrated from birth
A desire for election
To bestow on us worth

Lured by scent of a promise
To be chosen and known
Like the warmth of a mom's kiss
Given only to her own

We search tree after tree
For sweet intimacy's nectar
From a fruit that will be
Our secret connecter

To hope's nourishing breast
To life's honey from comb
To an undying rest
To a straight way toward home

One to wipe away tears
And allay deepest doubt
Which proceeds from worst fears
Of our being locked out

Of a garden again
Cast from pure tree of life
Dim remembrance of when
Mankind first entered strife

All our conflicts, comp'tition,
Confusion and blame
Find first cause in perdition
That's invaded our frame

Like the foulest disease
The most cankerous rot
Grown by monstrous degrees
Hatched by Lucifer's plot

This story's no ****'s attack
Nor archaic folklore
But the earth-shattering fact
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

And it's not our mere lack
which causes most dread
But the earth-shattering fact
That our spirits are dead

Cut off from their Source
In a black alienation
Humanity's curse
For its rank ins'bordination


And yet...


This is also the story
Of how those same eyes
The Possessor of Glory
Looked with love and heart cries

On the crown of creation
His reflection of Self
Made His own treasured nation
The heirs of His wealth

Now broken and lost
All banished from Garden
And He knew the full cost
To grant them His pardon

Had known long before
He had e'er even made
That first man of yore
Yet handcrafts anyway

For His love is so strong
And He wanted to share
His intimacy with a throng
His own children to bear

So with souls in convulsion
From their rebellious misdeed
Just before their expulsion
He promised a Seed

One untainted from sin
Who could take its great boulder
And the weight of His kin
Upon His own shoulder

A Hero of hope
A rescuing Source
To widen our scope
And give pith to our course

An unshakable tie
An attachment at core
Who would silence the cry
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

For those eyes are His own
And He'd pay the full fee
By His body alone
To set our hearts free

He's hope's nourishing breast
He's life's honey from comb
He's our undying rest
He's our straight way toward home

He will wipe away tears
And allay deepest doubt
Which proceeds from worst fears
Of our being locked out

Of the Garden again
Cast from pure Tree of Life
Dim remembrance of when
Mankind first entered strife

But 'twas on another tree
That sweet intimacy's nectar
Was secured tight when He
Became sacred Connector

And the thorns of our curse
Were pressed onto His head
With not one there to nurse
As the Son of Man bled

Then the wrath for our sin
Was absorbed as He cried
And the foul curse was broken
When the Son of God died

But death couldn't keep Him long
Nor His glory dispose
And we found our lost song
When the King of kings rose!

The debt had been paid
He had finished the work
The tide 'gainst us was swayed
We weren't left in our lurk

And we've only to now
Just repent and believe
To open and allow
Our hearts to receive

Our Divine Fountainhead
Our covering complete
To sup from His bread
And to sit at His feet

To worship the One
For Whom we were made
By Whom we've been won
Whom forever we've craved

The One Who can bear
Our hearts' full devotion
The One Who won't tear
At our souls' raw emotion

The One Who will be
Sweet eternity's song
Who with lasting decree
Will...right...every...wrong
~~~

First two lines taken from Timothy Keller sermon titles;
also inspired by his other sermons:
"The Breastplate of Righteousness"
"Blessed Self-Forgetfulness"
"The Sandals of Peace"
"The Wounded Spirit"


~~~

The Gospel of Jesus Christ:

"...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..."
~ Romans 3:23

"...people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment..."
~ Hebrews 9:27

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life
in Christ Jesus our Lord."
~ Romans 6:23

"'Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake:
some to everlasting life,
others to shame and everlasting contempt.'"
~ Daniel 12:2

"For God will bring every deed into judgment,
    including every hidden thing,
    whether it is good or evil."
~ Ecclesiastes 12:14

"This will take place on the day
when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ..."
~ Romans 2:16

"Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight.
Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him
to whom we must give account."
~ Hebrews 4:13

"Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous,
    no one who does what is right and never sins."
~ Ecclesiastes 7:20

"...it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue
to do everything written in the Book of the Law.'"
~ Galatians 3:10b

"For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles
at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it."
~ James 2:10

"All of us have become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
    and like the wind our sins sweep us away."
~ Isaiah 64:6

"...sin entered the world through one man,
and death through sin, and in this way
death came to all people, because all sinned..."
~ Romans 5:12

"As it is written:
'There is no one righteous, not even one;
     there is no one who understands;
    there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
    they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
    not even one.'...
Therefore no one will be
declared righteous in God’s sight
by the works of the law;
rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin."
~ Romans 3:10-12,20

"But God demonstrates His own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
~ Romans 5:8

"This is how God showed His love among us:
He sent His one and only Son into the world
that we might live through Him.
This is love: not that we loved God,
but that He loved us and sent His Son
as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."
~ 1 John 4:10

"But God raised Him from the dead,
freeing Him from the agony of death,
because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him...
He was not abandoned to the realm of the dead,
nor did His body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life..."
~ Acts 2:24,31b-32a

"...He raised Christ from the dead
and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms,
far above all rule and authority, power and dominion,
and every name that is invoked,
not only in the present age but also in the one to come.
And God placed all things under His feet
and appointed Him to be head over everything
for the church, which is His body,
the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way."
~ Ephesians 1:20b-23

"For there is one God
and one mediator between God and mankind,
the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all people..."
~ 1 Timothy 2:5-6a

"...Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures...
He was buried...He was raised on the third day
according to the Scriptures..."
~ 1 Corinthians 15:3b-4

"...God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ,
not counting people’s sins against them."
~ 2 Corinthians 5:19a

"'Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that
through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.
Through Him everyone who believes is set free from every sin,
a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses.'"
~ Acts 13:38-39

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through Him all things were made; without Him
nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life,
and that life was the light of all mankind...
The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.
We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son,
who came from the Father, full of grace and truth...
For the law was given through Moses;
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ...
'...the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!'"
~ John 1:1-4,14,17,29b

"The Son is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn over all creation.
For in Him all things were created:
things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;
all things have been created through Him and for Him.
He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
And He is the head of the body, the church;
He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead,
so that in everything He might have the supremacy.
For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him,
and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things,
whether things on earth or things in heaven,
by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross."
~ Colossians 1:15-20

"'For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.'"
~ Luke 19:10

"...He appeared so that He might take away our sins.
And in Him is no sin."
~ 1 John 3:5

"...Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect."
~ 1 Peter 1:19b

"God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement,
through the shedding of His blood—to be received by faith.
He did this to demonstrate His righteousness,
because in His forbearance He had left
the sins committed beforehand unpunished—
He did it to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time,
so as to be just and the one who justifies
those who have faith in Jesus."
~ Romans 3:25-26

"In Him we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of sins,
in accordance with the riches of God’s grace..."
~ Ephesians 1:7

"For the life...is in the blood,
and I have given it to you to make atonement...
it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life."
~ Leviticus 17:11

"...and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness...
Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many..."
~ Hebrews 9:22b,28a

"'All the prophets testify about Him
that everyone who believes in Him
receives forgiveness of sins through His name.'"
~ Acts 10:43

"For by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever
those who are being made holy."
~ Hebrews 10:14

"'He committed no sin,
    and no deceit was found in His mouth.'...
He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross,
so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness..."
~ 1 Peter 2:22,24a

"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous,
to bring you to God."
~ 1 Peter 3:18a

"Jesus answered them, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.'"
~ Luke 5:31-32

"If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins
and purify us from all unrighteousness."
~ 1 John 1:8-9

"God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us,
so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."
~ 2 Corinthians 5:21

"...For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed."
~ 1 Corinthians 5:7b

"Surely He took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered Him punished by God,
    stricken by Him, and afflicted.
But He was pierced for our transgressions,
    He was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on Him,
    and by His wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on Him
    the iniquity of us all."
~ Isaiah 53:4-6

"And He died for all, that those who live
should no longer live for themselves but for Him
who died for them and was raised again."
~ 2 Corinthians 5:15

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son,
that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world,
but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him
is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned
already because they have not believed in the name of God’s
one and only Son... Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life,
but whoever rejects the Son will not see life,
for God’s wrath remains on them."
~ John 3:16-18,36

"God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
Whoever has the Son has life;
whoever does not have the Son of God
does not have life."
~ 1 John 5:11b-12

"He was delivered over to death for our sins
and was raised to life for our justification."
~ Romans 4:25

"...just as Christ was raised from the dead
through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life."
~ Romans 6:4b

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade..."
~ 1 Peter 1:3-4a

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation:
The old has gone, the new has come!"
~ 2 Corinthians 5:17

"...to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name,
He gave the right to become children of God— children born
not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will,
but born of God."
~ John 1:12-13

"Jesus replied, 'Very truly I tell you,
no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.'...
'Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God
unless they are born of water and the Spirit.'"
~ John 3:3,5

"...born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable,
through the living and enduring word of God."
~ 1 Peter 1:23

"...birth through the word of truth..."
~ James 1:18

"Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message,
and the message is heard through the word of Christ."
~ Romans 10:17

"...to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies
the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness."
~ Romans 4:5

"...not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law,
but that which is through faith in Christ—
the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith."
~ Philippians 3:9

"This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ
to all who believe."
~ Romans 3:22a

"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under
heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved."
~ Acts 4:12

"Since we have now been justified by His blood,
how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him!
For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through
the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled,
shall we be saved through His life!"
~ Romans 5:9-10

"For it is by grace you have been saved,
through faith—and this is not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast."
~ Ephesians 2:8-9

~~~
for a fuller list of verses:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2179517/the-gospel-of-jesus-christ/
Alyssa Underwood Apr 2016
"The Struggle for Love"
"The Longing for Home"
So desperate to prove
That our hearts aren't alone

While death looms wherewith
To make dust of our flesh
We seek in a myth
Our souls to enmesh

With a hero of hope
A rescuing source
To widen our scope
And give pith to our course

An unshakable tie
An attachment at core
Which might silence the cry
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

But it's not our mere lack
Which causes most dread
It's the earth-shattering fact
That our spirits are dead

Cut off from their Source
In a black alienation
Humanity's curse
For its rank ins'bordination

We just want our own way
And to write our own story
So we plunge on astray
To seek our own glory

To play artist or muse
Or idol or chief
Any self-styled ruse
To assuage us of grief

Any measure to show
A lasting signif'cance
So that someone would know
Our unique magnif'cence

For our beauty's been marred
And we crave a redemption
Of souls twisted and scarred
By fulfillment's exemption

But, alas, we will find
That search hard as we may
There's not one of our kind
Who can carry the tray

Upon which the weight
Of our souls has been laid
For who can e'er tolerate
Its gross debts unpaid?

Such suff'cating mass
Of defects and ills
Pressed 'gainst delicate glass
Of egos and wills

Still more ghastly to bear
Is devotion unbound
For with millstone to wear
Its master is drowned

'Neath a sea of foul yeast
And becomes the enslaved
To a hungering beast
To a worship depraved

For the heart is a tiger
And must have its fill
So it raises a man higher
With a kiss before the ****

Not intentionally, of course,
Does it slaughter its idol
But of hurricane force
Is this longing so vital

And as pedestal turns
So quickly to altar
Our wounded pride burns
When our gods and alms falter

And the fire of its rage
Turns upon its obsession
Tiger breaks out of cage
To reclaim self-possession

It bites and it tears
What it once so adored
And pride no longer cares
If it kills its false lord

But upon such demise
The soul screams in terror
For it's broken its prize
And can't take back its error

It begs and it pleads
To restore what's been lost
But at end knows it needs
To consider the cost

Of the damage untold
It has left in the wake
For hearts can't be controlled
With a gush or a shake

No, men's hearts are like bombs
Which so easily explode
Once the pin is removed
All past wrongs will re-load

So the prey becomes hunter
When the tiger attacks
For he does not want her
To see what he lacks

As he, too, had put
Her up in wrong place
But now steps his foot
Upon her shamed face

To now pulverize
As his own heart's been crushed
To blind out her eyes
And to see her lips hushed

For with words idly spoken
She'd stabbed at his soul
And had left his pride broken
By her judgments so cold

She had not meant to harm
Knew not e'en that he heard
But one cannot disarm
A thought put to word

Worse than not knowing this
She no longer knew him
And her once imagined bliss
Proved a nullified whim

Oh, what games and delusions
We play and we build
Upon empty illusions
And dreams unfulfilled

Yet strangely it's when
Our worst fears come true
We can finally transcend
All those old tales we grew

Out of ego and void
Out of sorrow and pain
When our nerves felt annoyed
And our hearts felt too vain

'Cause when ego is puffed
It is primed, too, to pop
And with pinprick is snuffed
Like a pest-blighted crop

So imagine much more
When a venom's injected
Right into its core
And its heart is rejected

But can you also not see
How it needs such a burst
To begin to get free
From its self-absorbed curse?

Except now feels the matter
Of our soul's isolation
Fiercer still with the shatter
Of our pet consolation

So we wait and we wonder
If we've missed the true meaning
Of the frightening thunder
In our heart's constant screaming

Whether homesick or lost
Whether lonely or grieved
Locked in bleak Winter's frost
We find little reprieve

Yet we know we've been made
For the glory of Spring
Some card's still to be played
Some grand song still to sing

Inexpressible yearning
For some secret we know
But can't speak for the burning
Repercussions of woe

Not some mere melancholy
Nor nostalgic forlorn
Not the musings of folly
But a sense that we're torn

From primordial root
And from headwaters fresh
Yet much deeper to boot
From our spiritual breath

'Tis an ache not for wares,
Appreciation or fame
But a fight just for air
Against strangling shame

For we're naked, we know
And with all we devise
Our most flawed parts still show
To a pure set of eyes

Like we're walking around
With no covering intact
But thin hospital gown
With wide split up the back

So we hide our true face
Aim to be what we're not
Work our blots to erase
Lest our schemes should be caught

Be 't by friend or by foe
We dare not risk the pain
Of humiliation's blow
On top of our stain

But instead of relief
Anguish grows louder till
This life's loneliest grief
Paralyzes the will

And last hope all but dies
On doubt's bed of despair
While embittered heart cries
That its lot's too unfair

Yet on outside we play
Through our unconscious mind
Man's collective charade
That everything's fine

Like some pact we'd all sworn
To uphold and obey
To protect from the scorn
Of society's sway

If we run with the flow
'Stead of strive 'gainst the tide
We might make enough show
To salvage our pride

We forget that conceit
Is what caused all the mess
Through a serpent's deceit
And a couple's wrong guess

'Twas they first tasted shame
And then hid in a garden
Sewing fig leaves as claim
To secure their own pardon

Yet in horror they knew
They had squandered the Prize
And must flee from the view
Of a pure set of eyes

Now same state of awry
Runs through each of their seed
Inborn and borne by
Like the thorniest ****

Whose nettles pierce deep
And infect every part
While roots tangle and sweep
Through the mind and the heart

It mocks what we've lost
Torments every dim hope
To constrict and accost
Like a noose-tightening rope

Still, hope won't be decayed
Smold'ring fires yet burn
Sparking hints that we're made
For bright Eden's return

This redemption we crave
Is no phantom's false plea
But as crestfallen wave
Hides itself in the sea

It's been veiled in plain sight
Big as all of our stories
Deep as mankind's full plight
And as high as its glories

Cloaked in every ambition
That we have to get in
To some exclusive coalition
For its favors to win

Lurks a bleeding predilection
Frustrated from birth
A desire for election
To bestow on us worth

Lured by scent of a promise
To be chosen and known
Like the warmth of a mom's kiss
Given only to her own

We search tree after tree
For sweet intimacy's nectar
From a fruit that will be
Our secret connecter

To hope's nourishing breast
To life's honey from comb
To an undying rest
To a straight way toward home

One to wipe away tears
And allay deepest doubt
Which proceeds from worst fears
Of our being locked out

Of a garden again
Cast from pure tree of life
Dim remembrance of when
Mankind first entered strife

All our conflicts, comp'tition,
Confusion and blame
Find first cause in perdition
That's invaded our frame

Like the foulest disease
The most cankerous rot
Grown by monstrous degrees
Hatched by Lucifer's plot

This story's no ****'s attack
Nor archaic folklore
But the earth-shattering fact
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

And it's not our mere lack
which causes most dread
But the earth-shattering fact
That our spirits are dead

Cut off from their Source
In a black alienation
Humanity's curse
For it's rank ins'bordination


And yet...


This is also the story
Of how those same eyes
The Possessor of Glory
Looked with love and heart cries

On the crown of creation
His reflection of Self
Made His own treasured nation
The heirs of His wealth

Now broken and lost
All banished from Garden
And He knew the full cost
To grant them His pardon

Had known long before
He had e'er even made
That first man of yore
Yet handcrafts anyway

For His love is so strong
And He wanted to share
His intimacy with a throng
His own children to bear

So with souls in convulsion
From their rebellious misdeed
Just before their expulsion
He promised a Seed

One untainted from sin
Who could take its great boulder
And the weight of His kin
Upon His own shoulder

A Hero of hope
A rescuing Source
To widen our scope
And give pith to our course

An unshakable tie
An attachment at core
Who would silence the cry
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

For those eyes are His own
And He'd pay the full fee
By His body alone
To set our hearts free

He's hope's nourishing breast
He's life's honey from comb
He's our undying rest
He's our straight way toward home

He will wipe away tears
And allay deepest doubt
Which proceeds from worst fears
Of our being locked out

Of the Garden again
Cast from pure Tree of Life
Dim remembrance of when
Mankind first entered strife

But 'twas on another tree
That sweet intimacy's nectar
Was secured tight when He
Became sacred Connector

And the thorns of our curse
Were pressed onto His head
With not one there to nurse
As the Son of Man bled

Then the wrath for our sin
Was absorbed as He cried
And the foul curse was broken
When the Son of God died

But death couldn't keep Him long
Nor His glory dispose
And we found our lost song
When the King of kings rose!

The debt had been paid
He had finished the work
The tide 'gainst us was swayed
We weren't left in our lurk

And we've only to now
Just repent and believe
To open and allow
Our hearts to receive

Our Divine Fountainhead
Our covering complete
To sup from His bread
And to sit at His feet

To worship the One
For Whom we were made
By Whom we've been won
Whom forever we've craved

The One Who can bear
Our hearts' full devotion
The One Who won't tear
At our souls' raw emotion

The One Who will be
Sweet eternity's song
Who with lasting decree
Will...right...every...wrong
~~~

First two lines taken from Timothy Keller sermon titles;
also inspired by his other sermons:
"The Breastplate of Righteousness"
"Blessed Self-Forgetfulness"
"The Sandals of Peace"
"The Wounded Spirit"


~~~

The Gospel of Jesus Christ:

"...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..."
~ Romans 3:23

"...people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment..."
~ Hebrews 9:27

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life
in Christ Jesus our Lord."
~ Romans 6:23

"'Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake:
some to everlasting life,
others to shame and everlasting contempt.'"
~ Daniel 12:2

"For God will bring every deed into judgment,
    including every hidden thing,
    whether it is good or evil."
~ Ecclesiastes 12:14

"This will take place on the day
when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ..."
~ Romans 2:16

"Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight.
Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him
to whom we must give account."
~ Hebrews 4:13

"Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous,
    no one who does what is right and never sins."
~ Ecclesiastes 7:20

"...it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue
to do everything written in the Book of the Law.'"
~ Galatians 3:10b

"For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles
at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it."
~ James 2:10

"All of us have become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
    and like the wind our sins sweep us away."
~ Isaiah 64:6

"...sin entered the world through one man,
and death through sin, and in this way
death came to all people, because all sinned..."
~ Romans 5:12

"As it is written:
'There is no one righteous, not even one;
     there is no one who understands;
    there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
    they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
    not even one.'...
Therefore no one will be
declared righteous in God’s sight
by the works of the law;
rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin."
~ Romans 3:10-12,20

"But God demonstrates His own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
~ Romans 5:8

"This is how God showed His love among us:
He sent His one and only Son into the world
that we might live through Him.
This is love: not that we loved God,
but that He loved us and sent His Son
as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."
~ 1 John 4:10

"But God raised Him from the dead,
freeing Him from the agony of death,
because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him...
He was not abandoned to the realm of the dead,
nor did His body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life..."
~ Acts 2:24,31b-32a

"...He raised Christ from the dead
and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms,
far above all rule and authority, power and dominion,
and every name that is invoked,
not only in the present age but also in the one to come.
And God placed all things under His feet
and appointed Him to be head over everything
for the church, which is His body,
the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way."
~ Ephesians 1:20b-23

"For there is one God
and one mediator between God and mankind,
the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all people..."
~ 1 Timothy 2:5-6a

"...Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures...
He was buried...He was raised on the third day
according to the Scriptures..."
~ 1 Corinthians 15:3b-4

"...God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ,
not counting people’s sins against them."
~ 2 Corinthians 5:19a

"'Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that
through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.
Through Him everyone who believes is set free from every sin,
a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses.'"
~ Acts 13:38-39

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through Him all things were made; without Him
nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life,
and that life was the light of all mankind...
The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.
We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son,
who came from the Father, full of grace and truth...
For the law was given through Moses;
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ...
'...the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!'"
~ John 1:1-4,14,17,29b

"The Son is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn over all creation.
For in Him all things were created:
things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;
all things have been created through Him and for Him.
He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
And He is the head of the body, the church;
He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead,
so that in everything He might have the supremacy.
For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him,
and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things,
whether things on earth or things in heaven,
by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross."
~ Colossians 1:15-20

"'For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.'"
~ Luke 19:10

"...He appeared so that He might take away our sins.
And in Him is no sin."
~ 1 John 3:5

"...Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect."
~ 1 Peter 1:19b

"God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement,
through the shedding of His blood—to be received by faith.
He did this to demonstrate His righteousness,
because in His forbearance He had left
the sins committed beforehand unpunished—
He did it to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time,
so as to be just and the one who justifies
those who have faith in Jesus."
~ Romans 3:25-26

"In Him we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of sins,
in accordance with the riches of God’s grace..."
~ Ephesians 1:7

"For the life...is in the blood,
and I have given it to you to make atonement...
it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life."
~ Leviticus 17:11

"...and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness...
Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many..."
~ Hebrews 9:22b,28a

"'All the prophets testify about Him
that everyone who believes in Him
receives forgiveness of sins through His name.'"
~ Acts 10:43

"For by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever
those who are being made holy."
~ Hebrews 10:14

"'He committed no sin,
    and no deceit was found in His mouth.'...
He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross,
so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness..."
~ 1 Peter 2:22,24a

"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous,
to bring you to God."
~ 1 Peter 3:18a

"Jesus answered them, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.'"
~ Luke 5:31-32

"If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins
and purify us from all unrighteousness."
~ 1 John 1:8-9

"God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us,
so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."
~ 2 Corinthians 5:21

"...For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed."
~ 1 Corinthians 5:7b

"Surely He took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered Him punished by God,
    stricken by Him, and afflicted.
But He was pierced for our transgressions,
    He was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on Him,
    and by His wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on Him
    the iniquity of us all."
~ Isaiah 53:4-6

"And He died for all, that those who live
should no longer live for themselves but for Him
who died for them and was raised again."
~ 2 Corinthians 5:15

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son,
that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world,
but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him
is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned
already because they have not believed in the name of God’s
one and only Son... Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life,
but whoever rejects the Son will not see life,
for God’s wrath remains on them."
~ John 3:16-18,36

"God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
Whoever has the Son has life;
whoever does not have the Son of God
does not have life."
~ 1 John 5:11b-12

"He was delivered over to death for our sins
and was raised to life for our justification."
~ Romans 4:25

"...just as Christ was raised from the dead
through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life."
~ Romans 6:4b

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade..."
~ 1 Peter 1:3-4a

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation:
The old has gone, the new has come!"
~ 2 Corinthians 5:17

"...to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name,
He gave the right to become children of God— children born
not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will,
but born of God."
~ John 1:12-13

"Jesus replied, 'Very truly I tell you,
no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.'...
'Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God
unless they are born of water and the Spirit.'"
~ John 3:3,5

"...born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable,
through the living and enduring word of God."
~ 1 Peter 1:23

"...birth through the word of truth..."
~ James 1:18

"Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message,
and the message is heard through the word of Christ."
~ Romans 10:17

"...to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies
the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness."
~ Romans 4:5

"...not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law,
but that which is through faith in Christ—
the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith."
~ Philippians 3:9

"This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ
to all who believe."
~ Romans 3:22a

"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under
heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved."
~ Acts 4:12

"Since we have now been justified by His blood,
how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him!
For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through
the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled,
shall we be saved through His life!"
~ Romans 5:9-10

"For it is by grace you have been saved,
through faith—and this is not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast."
~ Ephesians 2:8-9

for a fuller list of verses:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2179517/the-gospel-of-jesus-christ/
Alyssa Underwood Nov 2015
"The Struggle for Love"
"The Longing for Home"
So desperate to prove
That our hearts aren't alone

While death looms wherewith
To make dust of our flesh
We seek in a myth
Our souls to enmesh

With a hero of hope
A rescuing source
To widen our scope
And give pith to our course

An unshakable tie
An attachment at core
Which might silence the cry
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

But it's not our mere lack
Which causes most dread
It's the earth-shattering fact
That our spirits are dead

Cut off from their Source
In a black alienation
Humanity's curse
For its rank ins'bordination

We just want our own way
And to write our own story
So we plunge on astray
To seek our own glory

To play artist or muse
Or idol or chief
Any self-styled ruse
To assuage us of grief

Any measure to show
A lasting signif'cance
So that someone would know
Our unique magnif'cence

For our beauty's been marred
And we crave a redemption
Of souls twisted and scarred
By fulfillment's exemption

But, alas, we will find
That search hard as we may
There's not one of our kind
Who can carry the tray

Upon which the weight
Of our souls has been laid
For who can e'er tolerate
Its gross debts unpaid?

Such suff'cating mass
Of defects and ills
Pressed 'gainst delicate glass
Of egos and wills

Still more ghastly to bear
Is devotion unbound
For with millstone to wear
Its master is drowned

'Neath a sea of foul yeast
And becomes the enslaved
To a hungering beast
To a worship depraved

For the heart is a tiger
And must have its fill
So it raises a man higher
With a kiss before the ****

Not intentionally, of course,
Does it slaughter its idol
But of hurricane force
Is this longing so vital

And as pedestal turns
So quickly to altar
Our wounded pride burns
When our gods and alms falter

And the fire of its rage
Turns upon its obsession
Tiger breaks out of cage
To reclaim self-possession

It bites and it tears
What it once so adored
And pride no longer cares
If it kills its false lord

But upon such demise
The soul screams in terror
For it's broken its prize
And can't take back its error

It begs and it pleads
To restore what's been lost
But at end knows it needs
To consider the cost

Of the damage untold
It has left in the wake
For hearts can't be controlled
With a gush or a shake

No, men's hearts are like bombs
Which so easily explode
Once the pin is removed
All past wrongs will re-load

So the prey becomes hunter
When the tiger attacks
For he does not want her
To see what he lacks

As he, too, had put
Her up in wrong place
But now steps his foot
Upon her shamed face

To now pulverize
As his own heart's been crushed
To blind out her eyes
And to see her lips hushed

For with words idly spoken
She'd stabbed at his soul
And had left his pride broken
By her judgments so cold

She had not meant to harm
Knew not e'en that he heard
But one cannot disarm
A thought put to word

Worse than not knowing this
She no longer knew him
And her once imagined bliss
Proved a nullified whim

Oh, what games and delusions
We play and we build
Upon empty illusions
And dreams unfulfilled

Yet strangely it's when
Our worst fears come true
We can finally transcend
All those old tales we grew

Out of ego and void
Out of sorrow and pain
When our nerves felt annoyed
And our hearts felt too vain

'Cause when ego is puffed
It is primed, too, to pop
And with pinprick is snuffed
Like a pest-blighted crop

So imagine much more
When a venom's injected
Right into its core
And its heart is rejected

But can you also not see
How it needs such a burst
To begin to get free
From its self-absorbed curse?

Except now feels the matter
Of our soul's isolation
Fiercer still with the shatter
Of our pet consolation

So we wait and we wonder
If we've missed the true meaning
Of the frightening thunder
In our heart's constant screaming

Whether homesick or lost
Whether lonely or grieved
Locked in bleak Winter's frost
We find little reprieve

Yet we know we've been made
For the glory of Spring
Some card's still to be played
Some grand song still to sing

Inexpressible yearning
For some secret we know
But can't speak for the burning
Repercussions of woe

Not some mere melancholy
Nor nostalgic forlorn
Not the musings of folly
But a sense that we're torn

From primordial root
And from headwaters fresh
Yet much deeper to boot
From our spiritual breath

'Tis an ache not for wares,
Appreciation or fame
But a fight just for air
Against strangling shame

For we're naked, we know
And with all we devise
Our most flawed parts still show
To a pure set of eyes

Like we're walking around
With no covering intact
But thin hospital gown
With wide split up the back

So we hide our true face
Aim to be what we're not
Work our blots to erase
Lest our schemes should be caught

Be 't by friend or by foe
We dare not risk the pain
Of humiliation's blow
On top of our stain

But instead of relief
Anguish grows louder till
This life's loneliest grief
Paralyzes the will

And last hope all but dies
On doubt's bed of despair
While embittered heart cries
That its lot's too unfair

Yet on outside we play
Through our unconscious mind
Man's collective charade
That everything's fine

Like some pact we'd all sworn
To uphold and obey
To protect from the scorn
Of society's sway

If we run with the flow
'Stead of strive 'gainst the tide
We might make enough show
To salvage our pride

We forget that conceit
Is what caused all the mess
Through a serpent's deceit
And a couple's wrong guess

'Twas they first tasted shame
And then hid in a garden
Sewing fig leaves as claim
To secure their own pardon

Yet in horror they knew
They had squandered the Prize
And must flee from the view
Of a pure set of eyes

Now same state of awry
Runs through each of their seed
Inborn and borne by
Like the thorniest ****

Whose nettles pierce deep
And infect every part
While roots tangle and sweep
Through the mind and the heart

It mocks what we've lost
Torments every dim hope
To constrict and accost
Like a noose-tightening rope

Still, hope won't be decayed
Smold'ring fires yet burn
Sparking hints that we're made
For bright Eden's return

This redemption we crave
Is no phantom's false plea
But as crestfallen wave
Hides itself in the sea

It's been veiled in plain sight
Big as all of our stories
Deep as mankind's full plight
And as high as its glories

Cloaked in every ambition
That we have to get in
To some exclusive coalition
For its favors to win

Lurks a bleeding predilection
Frustrated from birth
A desire for election
To bestow on us worth

Lured by scent of a promise
To be chosen and known
Like the warmth of a mom's kiss
Given only to her own

We search tree after tree
For sweet intimacy's nectar
From a fruit that will be
Our secret connecter

To hope's nourishing breast
To life's honey from comb
To an undying rest
To a straight way toward home

One to wipe away tears
And allay deepest doubt
Which proceeds from worst fears
Of our being locked out

Of a garden again
Cast from pure tree of life
Dim remembrance of when
Mankind first entered strife

All our conflicts, comp'tition,
Confusion and blame
Find first cause in perdition
That's invaded our frame

Like the foulest disease
The most cankerous rot
Grown by monstrous degrees
Hatched by Lucifer's plot

This story's no ****'s attack
Nor archaic folklore
But the earth-shattering fact
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

And it's not our mere lack
which causes most dread
But the earth-shattering fact
That our spirits are dead

Cut off from their Source
In a black alienation
Humanity's curse
For its rank ins'bordination


And yet...


This is also the story
Of how those same eyes
The Possessor of Glory
Looked with love and heart cries

On the crown of creation
His reflection of Self
Made His own treasured nation
The heirs of His wealth

Now broken and lost
All banished from Garden
And He knew the full cost
To grant them His pardon

Had known long before
He had e'er even made
That first man of yore
Yet handcrafts anyway

For His love is so strong
And He wanted to share
His intimacy with a throng
His own children to bear

So with souls in convulsion
From their rebellious misdeed
Just before their expulsion
He promised a Seed

One untainted from sin
Who could take its great boulder
And the weight of His kin
Upon His own shoulder

A Hero of hope
A rescuing Source
To widen our scope
And give pith to our course

An unshakable tie
An attachment at core
Who would silence the cry
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

For those eyes are His own
And He'd pay the full fee
By His body alone
To set our hearts free

He's hope's nourishing breast
He's life's honey from comb
He's our undying rest
He's our straight way toward home

He will wipe away tears
And allay deepest doubt
Which proceeds from worst fears
Of our being locked out

Of the Garden again
Cast from pure Tree of Life
Dim remembrance of when
Mankind first entered strife

But 'twas on another tree
That sweet intimacy's nectar
Was secured tight when He
Became sacred Connector

And the thorns of our curse
Were pressed onto His head
With not one there to nurse
As the Son of Man bled

Then the wrath for our sin
Was absorbed as He cried
And the foul curse was broken
When the Son of God died

But death couldn't keep Him long
Nor His glory dispose
And we found our lost song
When the King of kings rose!

The debt had been paid
He had finished the work
The tide 'gainst us was swayed
We weren't left in our lurk

And we've only to now
Just repent and believe
To open and allow
Our hearts to receive

Our Divine Fountainhead
Our covering complete
To sup from His bread
And to sit at His feet

To worship the One
For Whom we were made
By Whom we've been won
Whom forever we've craved

The One Who can bear
Our hearts' full devotion
The One Who won't tear
At our souls' raw emotion

The One Who will be
Sweet eternity's song
Who with lasting decree
Will...right...every...wrong
~~~

First two lines taken from Timothy Keller sermon titles;
also inspired by his other sermons:
"The Breastplate of Righteousness"
"Blessed Self-Forgetfulness"
"The Sandals of Peace"
"The Wounded Spirit"


~~~

The Gospel of Jesus Christ:

"...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..."
~ Romans 3:23

"...people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment..."
~ Hebrews 9:27

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life
in Christ Jesus our Lord."
~ Romans 6:23

"'Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake:
some to everlasting life,
others to shame and everlasting contempt.'"
~ Daniel 12:2

"For God will bring every deed into judgment,
    including every hidden thing,
    whether it is good or evil."
~ Ecclesiastes 12:14

"This will take place on the day
when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ..."
~ Romans 2:16

"Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight.
Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him
to whom we must give account."
~ Hebrews 4:13

"Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous,
    no one who does what is right and never sins."
~ Ecclesiastes 7:20

"...it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue
to do everything written in the Book of the Law.'"
~ Galatians 3:10b

"For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles
at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it."
~ James 2:10

"All of us have become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
    and like the wind our sins sweep us away."
~ Isaiah 64:6

"...sin entered the world through one man,
and death through sin, and in this way
death came to all people, because all sinned..."
~ Romans 5:12

"As it is written:
'There is no one righteous, not even one;
     there is no one who understands;
    there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
    they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
    not even one.'...
Therefore no one will be
declared righteous in God’s sight
by the works of the law;
rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin."
~ Romans 3:10-12,20

"But God demonstrates His own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
~ Romans 5:8

"This is how God showed His love among us:
He sent His one and only Son into the world
that we might live through Him.
This is love: not that we loved God,
but that He loved us and sent His Son
as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."
~ 1 John 4:10

"But God raised Him from the dead,
freeing Him from the agony of death,
because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him...
He was not abandoned to the realm of the dead,
nor did His body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life..."
~ Acts 2:24,31b-32a

"...He raised Christ from the dead
and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms,
far above all rule and authority, power and dominion,
and every name that is invoked,
not only in the present age but also in the one to come.
And God placed all things under His feet
and appointed Him to be head over everything
for the church, which is His body,
the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way."
~ Ephesians 1:20b-23

"For there is one God
and one mediator between God and mankind,
the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all people..."
~ 1 Timothy 2:5-6a

"...Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures...
He was buried...He was raised on the third day
according to the Scriptures..."
~ 1 Corinthians 15:3b-4

"...God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ,
not counting people’s sins against them."
~ 2 Corinthians 5:19a

"'Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that
through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.
Through Him everyone who believes is set free from every sin,
a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses.'"
~ Acts 13:38-39

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through Him all things were made; without Him
nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life,
and that life was the light of all mankind...
The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.
We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son,
who came from the Father, full of grace and truth...
For the law was given through Moses;
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ...
'...the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!'"
~ John 1:1-4,14,17,29b

"The Son is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn over all creation.
For in Him all things were created:
things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;
all things have been created through Him and for Him.
He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
And He is the head of the body, the church;
He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead,
so that in everything He might have the supremacy.
For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him,
and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things,
whether things on earth or things in heaven,
by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross."
~ Colossians 1:15-20

"'For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.'"
~ Luke 19:10

"...He appeared so that He might take away our sins.
And in Him is no sin."
~ 1 John 3:5

"...Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect."
~ 1 Peter 1:19b

"God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement,
through the shedding of His blood—to be received by faith.
He did this to demonstrate His righteousness,
because in His forbearance He had left
the sins committed beforehand unpunished—
He did it to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time,
so as to be just and the one who justifies
those who have faith in Jesus."
~ Romans 3:25-26

"In Him we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of sins,
in accordance with the riches of God’s grace..."
~ Ephesians 1:7

"For the life...is in the blood,
and I have given it to you to make atonement...
it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life."
~ Leviticus 17:11

"...and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness...
Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many..."
~ Hebrews 9:22b,28a

"'All the prophets testify about Him
that everyone who believes in Him
receives forgiveness of sins through His name.'"
~ Acts 10:43

"For by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever
those who are being made holy."
~ Hebrews 10:14

"'He committed no sin,
    and no deceit was found in His mouth.'...
He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross,
so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness..."
~ 1 Peter 2:22,24a

"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous,
to bring you to God."
~ 1 Peter 3:18a

"Jesus answered them, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.'"
~ Luke 5:31-32

"If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins
and purify us from all unrighteousness."
~ 1 John 1:8-9

"God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us,
so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."
~ 2 Corinthians 5:21

"...For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed."
~ 1 Corinthians 5:7b

"Surely He took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered Him punished by God,
    stricken by Him, and afflicted.
But He was pierced for our transgressions,
    He was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on Him,
    and by His wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on Him
    the iniquity of us all."
~ Isaiah 53:4-6

"And He died for all, that those who live
should no longer live for themselves but for Him
who died for them and was raised again."
~ 2 Corinthians 5:15

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son,
that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world,
but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him
is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned
already because they have not believed in the name of God’s
one and only Son... Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life,
but whoever rejects the Son will not see life,
for God’s wrath remains on them."
~ John 3:16-18,36

"God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
Whoever has the Son has life;
whoever does not have the Son of God
does not have life."
~ 1 John 5:11b-12

"He was delivered over to death for our sins
and was raised to life for our justification."
~ Romans 4:25

"...just as Christ was raised from the dead
through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life."
~ Romans 6:4b

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade..."
~ 1 Peter 1:3-4a

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation:
The old has gone, the new has come!"
~ 2 Corinthians 5:17

"...to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name,
He gave the right to become children of God— children born
not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will,
but born of God."
~ John 1:12-13

"Jesus replied, 'Very truly I tell you,
no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.'...
'Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God
unless they are born of water and the Spirit.'"
~ John 3:3,5

"...born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable,
through the living and enduring word of God."
~ 1 Peter 1:23

"...birth through the word of truth..."
~ James 1:18

"Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message,
and the message is heard through the word of Christ."
~ Romans 10:17

"...to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies
the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness."
~ Romans 4:5

"...not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law,
but that which is through faith in Christ—
the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith."
~ Philippians 3:9

"This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ
to all who believe."
~ Romans 3:22a

"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under
heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved."
~ Acts 4:12

"Since we have now been justified by His blood,
how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him!
For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through
the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled,
shall we be saved through His life!"
~ Romans 5:9-10

"For it is by grace you have been saved,
through faith—and this is not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast."
~ Ephesians 2:8-9

for a fuller list of verses:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2179517/the-gospel-of-jesus-christ/
Gary Brocks Aug 2018
He wrote of the light of the world,
a testament, a lamp to illuminate
the place from which he came —

    I saw his lighthouse coalesce
    out of the cloaking mist, its blade
    shearing the sheath of darkness.

    I inhaled the dusk bloom scent
    - Four O’Clock Flower, Poinsettia, Frangipani -
    beguiled by a road, undeterred
    by calls in the night, the rain, the unknown way.

    I sang with one thousand night-drunk tree frogs
    proclaiming an equatorial cycle to the stars,
    choristers intoning a chant of existence.

    I rode balanced between
    the cycling engine's torque and the
    reflective cast of my foreign skin.

    I felt the grip of ignominy constrict the stir
    of my drink, amongst hands toasting
    the crush of entitlement’s bearing.

    I walked where people dwell, and stop
    to greet and tell news of the market
    or of their nets, bearing the sea’s returns.

    I savored the song in his speech,
    a seasoned stew, unshackling the tongue
    to ring like the steel of a drum —

a tapestry unfurled: a world
paced by sirens of wind and wave,
embroidered on the earthbound side
of heaven's abiding blanket.

Copyright © 2017 Gary Brocks
180730F -> rev 241118F
Jennifer Freya Sep 2014
Two decades in and already swamped with memories
And only the desire to make new ones.
Walking to class or coming home
People ask me what I want to do,
What do I want to do with the rest of my life?

I can feel my throat constrict and my heart skid,
Don’t they understand how much of a commitment that is?
The rest of my life.

And what if it’s not something I want to do, but something I want to be?

I’m 20 years old and don’t ever have my head in this atmosphere,
So how can I ever hope to decide the rest of my life?

I want to write with the raindrops that kiss the grass
Or sleep on the waves of the ocean
And hold the stars in my hands.
I want to climb the highest tree or the highest mountain
Just so I can jump and call it flying.
I want to read the faces of others
And put them into stories.
But mostly I want to run,
Not literally,
But running still.
I want to catch time as it passes by
And go to all the places in the pictures
Enjoying adventure upon adventure
Until the end of my days,
Surrounded by the select few that I love.

I want to be nothing short of me,
And who I am isn’t a constant that can be applied to a formula,
It’s constantly changing, growing, fighting, loving.
How dare you ask me to define what I want to be,
When it’s plain that I don’t even know who I am?

I’m 20 years old and what I want to do for the rest of my life
Is nothing sort of a mystery, an adventure,
Like a storyline leading to an epic plot twist,
But it’s wrapped in uncertainty
And the only way to find out where it’s going
Is to keep reading the book.
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2017
.how does philosophy and psychology differ? well. psychology was spawned from having to focus on the "need" of a "learning" for writing: speak comes easy, writing, not so much. psychology is so easily spoken, philosophy isn't, philosophy is like a child talking to an adult when psychology / sophistry comes into play /
    refrain... how do i rephrase this statement?
      ah! philosophy is like a child talking to a child...
psychology is like an adult talking to a child...
psychology is a supertition of knowledge...
philosophy? a fear of knowledge.
  knowledge does not make happy people,
or gullible talkative types, either.

... the birth of psychology contra philosophy... the when sophia over-powered the philosophers with too many observation cues... maxims and aphorisms... la rochefoucauld & nietzsche... it began with a dialogue, it maintained itself in a solipsistic monologue... it ended up as advertisement slogans: maxims and aphorisms.... cute observations: seen, "seen" but never tested... i've seen the ugly side of psychology... it's psychiatry... the big pharma carousel and slurred sedative spreschen... try getting a slurred sedative spreschen out of me... i'll sock you... i'm this: )( close to the itch of throwing a punch, i almost forgot what implies: peace... me dancing on old college's (edinburgh) roof while listening to: the shins, new slang... that was peace...
  that was me: rooftop, night, moon,
and the lingo of limbs floating freely off my torso
and at the same attached to it...

       i once cared about a "double" chin...
i grew a beard,
stopped worrying about: when will i learn
the violin... fiddled with my beard
for a while and figured: not now,
not ever...
                much much more gracious
than fiddling with ***** hair...
after all: a beard is very much akin
to ***** hair...

          jordan peterson and the old testament...
right...
       if ever a cain...
  siberia looks like the ideal prison...
after all god said, or "said": let him walk off his sins...
hard to walk off your sins when caged...
siberia? perfect training ground...
all that ******* being sold, cain? a vegetarian...
abel? sacrificed animal flesh...
paradox... so... god... expected us...
to remain hunter gatherers?!
  cain was thinking ahead!
he sacrificed fruits and veg. and...
cain was like: we better start thinking about
morphing into an agricultural society!
god praised abel, the neanderthal hunter gatherer...
cain was like: but look! look! wheat! bread!
we can feed more people!
god said: hunter gatherer! abel! win win!
cain paid homage to god
via fruit & veg...
abel... via kosher blood sacrifices...
now... either i'm just plain stupid...
or god is a really bad fiction....
written up by circumcised men
who never learned to *******:
since: the obvious impediment restriction...

cain was a veggie... abel sacrificed animals...
mea culpa somnum... send this whole
died on the cross
          ergo saved ergo ergo
my fault ******* to sleep... i'm tired of this mantra
like an eskimo is bored of ice...
i'm bored of listening to semitic proverbs...
   i'm bored of their rubrics...
their: "fate-warnings",
their superstitions... a semite will forever remain
a semite for me: kippah-***-tonsure...
or a camel-jockey brigade... lucky them they settled
on a once grand mountain range
of Sahara that was the bed for oil...

oh look! wow! i can think for myself!
wonderful...
               which is what i always thought
would become reality...
i'd watch a video...
not comment,
                 and write a rebuttal...
                  which would fall on deaf ears...
or that sacred minority report...
i'll face it if you face it:
the monotheistic god of the semites...
is as ridiculous
as the poloytheism of the pagans...
      the monotheistic god of the semites
is just too... pristine...
     give too many omni- prefixes
to a being and he becomes, boring...
like superman...
                  and to still preserve intellectual
integrity within the ontological omni-
zoo?
                              hey! feel free!
       i much prefer to believe in a "god"
of a limited circumstance...
                  as the will of creation? sure: omni- etc.,
but as a spectator in the back of the minds
of the "created"? cameo presence...
hence not omni- etc.,
                  after all: free will is free will...
and it requires no divine intervention
in order for it to be proved...
  however bad it happens to be upon
embodiment...
    god was never a source of intervention...
the jews begged prayed lampooned for
that sort of god...
did it fare them well? i don't think so...
god was always a cameo for me...
   something i could rely on...
in terms of finding my grand jurisprudence
libra... when the human sense of justice
would disintegrate...
and i'd be met with the west saxon mantra
of: innocent until proven guilty...
or a jimmy saville...
  i was wronged,
no one will believe me,
fair enough...
                     at least i've found some source
of compensation,
for the time being,
before i believe: not to be reunited
with the dead loved ones...
but before i believe to stand
in the grand court of judgement...
with king Solomon as the prosecutor
.


do what the english language does, it uses
hyphens to create compounds...  just do this:
            object-object...
   would i **** it?                depends on the follow-ups
that constrict the two-way "system"
of re-appropriation
            with the german language...
it really is the new: north south east west
"copernican" discussion...
    the **** am i supposed to do
(as a male) with an object
     that's not object=object... because it isn't...
      or object≠object: well? because it
clearly isn't...
                      ****, bro?
                       can i get a hotdog instead?
yeah yeah, extra onions on top...
                            but write it out in
that natural **** schizoi fashion
    as post-german compounds... hyphenated,
but instead include the following variations...
      and put them up for a narcissus inspection
and ask: are they chiral?
               stress-free is a compound word...
           but it's easier with an object-object
compound... 'cos' then you can **** around with
object-object... object=object...
             object≠object...
                                object~object...­
                       object≈object...
                           and   object≡object...
it's close proximity, i gather, so it's hard to
orientate yourself as you might with 1 + 1 = 2...
                      but it's in english, and english is
prone to try and forget the norman conquest
and rekindle itself as: with a germanic origin,
and all that custard that modern german
looks like: i'd be sooner wearing sun-glasses than
actual optic magnifiers if i was found
reading german krupahunddoughchew...
                               or the likes of this fake example.
true transgender? it happens in the ≡ category...
the binary...
       it means: even though you're male
   and can't fulfil the female role of a reproductive
****** capacity... i'd still *******...
    joke's on me...
                 but otherwise? apart from the starting point
in the english language...
      the hyphen and compounding words
as is the "vogue" standard...
               so working from object-object...
and then including the stated variations
                       of a dualistic **** by dichotomy...
         ah man... i'm just talking about
how english is trying to resurrect its saxon
ancestors... what with creating these hyphenated
words... you're going to shove some
      other mathematical symbol in between
the two stated words and think of
                                  some grander schematics...
the death of the university coincided with
the death of the asylum...
                               evidently 2 + 2 does equal 4...
         but it's still a case of working
from object-object...
                            object/subject-subject/object?
north, east, west, south...
                      what the ****?!
                        we have modern neanderthals
roaming this place, and they're faking
  the status **** sapiens... that the hell can
evolve from that?
                    clear and bite-sized truth acknowledgement:
we're **** schizoi... split brained...
                     we've reached a stage where
we're not modelled by a multiplication impetus,
but an obelus impetus (÷)...
                       western society figured...
as **** similis: we have a billion chinese and
a billion blue indians of the raj...
                                why should we be bothered?
                isn't that the case of what's happening?
unearthing the nag hammadi library
                               and the whole transgender movement?
oi! where's the vatican! get those cardinals off their *****!
                                 white, red, purple, black.
pope, cardinal, bishop... priest...
           sure sure... brown....                          monks.
but we're losing a fight against neanderthal islam...
                   come your hungry, your oppressed...
your first cousin ******* retards.
                                         i know i'm taunting,
i'm taunting with a reason: neanderthal islam....
                 so much for history and gloating about it
citing the ottomans; thing is... i have lost the ability
to fear death... i'm actually teasing it, more and more,
day after day, after yet another day...
                          it's a bit like the reverse process of
castration... i'm feeling up pigs' genitals, saying:
      oh look! this porky can sign in #A!
                               quick! to the castrato oink corp!
yep... etymology... the alternative to reading
history.
Rebel Against Rebellion
I have nothing to prove
No creeds, no doctrine to upkeep
We all have so much freedom when we close our eyes
And just think
Maybe you need to humble yourself enough
To lose
Rebel Against Rebellion
Because they're all just books
Your sword is looking pretty dull sir
Why are you so inclined to hurt?
Thought your prophet preached LOVE?
So repeat words
Choose what you choose
Choose wisely
Because soon the snake will stop his hissing
Constrict
And become your noose
Rebel Against Rebellion
I think I'll call your bluff
I bleed, I sin, I'll die
But I'm not feeling hot standing here
So tell me again why I should be afraid
Of my fleet mortal life?
Rebel Against Rebellion
Because a Sheppard leads a flock
But you never followed
Your a goat
Caught in your lies
Bureaucracy, Democracy
Man it's all a joke
A silly excuse
Rules, the sacrum of man's brain
Your doctrine is becoming lame
And your beliefs more insane
Coliseum
A game to play to make you so entertained
Please write another rule
Prove once again
The medium you choose is jewels
You fool
Rebel Against Rebellion
Why would I cut my brother short?
Because of appearance and all your silly rules
So many when uttered I choke
For all we know life itself a joke

Oh the irony
What began as unity
Became bowing down
To man's hierarchy
So I Rebel Against Rebellion
I'm a servant of no man
I know God has a plan
That over cries your silly fear
Unravels your vines
Your words
Agenda and
"Time"
Again my portfolio is at www.eugene-moon.weebly.com
Nadine Drake Feb 2013
On occasion, when the night decides to shine
And the day decides to deepen and darken,
You'll find yourself in the no-man's land of dreams.

Everything around will stretch and breath, alien
in disguise, it seems.
But all you can do is wait to be consumed.

The air will punch you deep in the chest,
The Color of a cut kiwi will shoot you in the eye,
Make you squint and cough.
But you've never felt so alive.

Your clothes will do nothing but constrict, your room
Will strangle until you can't take it.

And this will be the most important moment:
You will leave what you know.

No-Man's Land will become Your Land
If only for a moment.

You will walk along the line between
The end of the world and the beginning
And feel exhilarated when you place one foot
On either side.
You are new, you are life, you are existence.

And when you take all the softest and most beautiful things
And wind them together, creating one perfect thing,
You will name it Butch.
Because you have a sense of humor.

But you and Butch will live forever,
Making, fulfilling, and dashing the dreams
Of those who couldn't leave their own rooms
That constrict and limit;
Who couldn't recognize that the punch
In their chests was the Universe
Saying, "There's more to breathing."

But you know.
And you sit on Mt. Olympus next to Zeus,
Beat the Flash in a foot race,
Convince Mars to go to therapy,
Play with Thor's hammer, and
Crack jokes with Jesus.
You have looked into the eyes of creation
You have understood and
Ascended into Valhalla.

And you are not just sleeping.

Because you--
You are still a little boy,
And it's unnecessary to hold on to dreams
Because you're living one, with no suspicion
That you should be grasping for anything.
In time, your clothes will seem to soften, but
They will still constrict, kid.
Even more than before.
Don't return. Don't just breathe.
Don't call that punching Asthma and
Layer in with medicine and smoke and teenage angst.
Age is the monster you must ultimately fight.
Or do you not believe in monsters already?
Dexter Portalis May 2015
It started with our late nights and early morning conversations
The random occasions that turned into night caps of psychological ******* is what intrigued me
I only want to know her on a platonic level
I want us to feel something different
Something real
Because truth is when you speak
I get a little weak
The vibrating waves of your voice sends my adrenaline into a rush of multiple frequences
It causes me to have premature ventricular contractions
Meaning you make my heart skip beats
In other words I want us to have soul ***
Our bodies to touch but with clothes on because you haven't been fully naked until you've allowed your fears to be exposed
Understand this isn’t a ****** prose
I want this poem to reroute the superficial ****** game that men played with you
Tonight my only intentions are for us to get high
But not with herbs
I want us to be faded with nouns and verbs that speak life as I ignite this erratic twelve play because the foreplay is just for play
Eargasms that constrict our minds let our spirits bind from the moments when I forgot to pull out by not realizing I was coming on too hard
No need for protection when we experience the cerebral stimulating erections from the raw ******* of sedated discussions
Imagine the eruptions you’ll experience when you vibe off me
Can you feel it yet? No?
Maybe a little deeper is what you need
I need for you to feed me your thought process so I can taste your emotions
If this poem had a body you would be the brain
So let me investigate your introspection by interviewing every inch of you
Reaching the climactic **** of this conversation by deep stroking into your deepest seas so I can see exactly what lies inside a divine mind
You will make the seven wonders wonder where they went wrong
A love we share that's so vividly deep even the four oceans will be jealous of its depth
I want us to be in depth with each other
I want my thoughts to wrestle with your feelings and your questions play hide and go seek with my answers
Suffocate me with your beauty
Ravish me with every word so I feel the sensations from two sapiosexuals making love
I want us to stargaze under Jupiter’s moon as we stare into the solar system trying to combine our souls with God’s system
Let’s touch each star as we track down a meteor shower and shower each other with laughs for hours until you’ve fallen asleep on my chest
And the best part of it all is watching you sleep
Because as you lay here
I have dreams about your dreams
Then realize how jealous I am because your dreams can see parts of you that I’m still dying to meet
So if I am someday privileged to make this come true, you must allow me to fall in love with you
Tyler Dolch Feb 2012
Do the words that you rhyme still matter over time , or do they fade into the abyss like a memory you miss?
Do they fade away from you, like every friend seems to do. Not because of choice, but because of a voice,deep inside your mind, you search but never find.
Do they fill throughout your brain and exist with every pain?
Does the daylight contradict , what your nightmares constrict?
Are you afraid of today, because of what the past used to be, or fearful of the future because its a lock with no key.
Do you walk towards the light and see it in your sight! Or does darkness follow you, the light to never breakthrough?
Do you think of what could be ,if your mind could be free, Or does the darkness begin to ensue like a storm beginning brew?
Does the pain go to your brain, coursing every vein, you question if you are sane! Is this what life is to be , or is this only for me.
Do you question every thought, every sentence, every answer that could be. Why? Why do these nightmares happen to me! Is this what my life is to be ?! Or I have simply lost my balance and this is what I see.
Turn off the lights so then you can see, the darkness of a mind,
when that mind belongs to... Me
michelle reicks Aug 2011
Today, I wear nothing.
I strip away the hot heavy
shoes, the tights that constrict
my airway. My underwear, lacy
and uncomfortable and unseen by
everyone but me.
My deepest darkest most sacred secret
is held down
            slipping between my legs is
my moist wet womanhood
not stopped by any obstacle
and you try to touch me there
on my pink love button,
touching it
to understand a different part
of me that you wouldn't have
been able to see otherwise.
I keep it hidden.
it comes out
when they come off


Release
Strung Oct 2018
You’re forcing my hand, forcing the lungs to constrict,
What will you do
with the bits of love I’ve left to you?

I don’t trust you anymore

“Nothing is wrong”,
Let it be known
I’ve just had a bad week,
Though that’s naive.
A crooked dream
I like to think
about.

I know I’m surrounded.
Blood red hair you dye to stay pretty,
Like the blood drawing sharks in calm waters.

— I guess I deserve it.
Moon Humor Oct 2014
I woke up to the sound of a train and it was raining. I might be dreaming.
My mom has always loved
the sound of a train and here I am in someone else’s bed thinking
about how much I love the taste of blood and the smell of sweat.
My plant has a pulse but my eyes might
be playing tricks on me, I have a way of forgetting to separate my dreams
from reality. Sometimes
I share too much of myself with people too soon. I told
him that my grandma had green eyes
and that’s where I got mine and that I’ve got nightmares that test
my patience night after night
with grotesque new realities on display before my eyes
and that my nails are stained from pomegranate and that
I got straight As and I told him to bite me because
I like it
but I shouldn’t have said it all so soon.
When I’m hurtling home in my metal death trap
powered by explosions I take pictures of the sky to show myself that
I’m alive and beauty is only here now and a deer
could leap or someone could swerve and ****
me or the airbag could rip off my jaw and I’ll
spend my life bearing my ******* way that I didn’t intend. I’m the writer
with no jaw that everyone reads out of pity and to get a glance
in the windows of a ******’s life.
When I wake up my jaw is still there
but I’ve been clenching it again.
No adderall, no *******, no caffeine, just the pressure
I put on myself and the weight of life knotting up the muscles in my back
until my ribs start to tighten and constrict my breathing so I pull at the ribbons
laced up and down my sternum
but it is too late and the bone corset pulls me in,
pulling pulling pulling until
my organs burst out of my skin.
He tells me,
“You’re hard to read, you know.” I giggle
but I find it tough to explain the rich cascade of emotions that are tied
to the lunar tides and make me crave coffee at midnight in terms
that don’t make me sound completely crazy.
Well, tonight I am eating dinner and attempting to read while the television
babbles at me from another room
about something I don’t need to hear but I hear
a cracking sound and my teeth are sharp and jagged and crumbling
as I run my tongue across them. I wake up sweating.
When it was sunny I bought socks from the little girl section and I drenched myself in perfume. Later on we were drinking chai tea
and getting *****, so I **** on your fingers
while you choke me and in the morning you make pancakes
and I eat it
but I’m afraid of the flour and the substance because it rises up
under my skin and collects in unwanted pools on my body.
I shouldn’t have drank any beer but
I had three
and I spilled my secrets the second I felt the warmth of trust.
God ******* ****.
I drive in silence.
The poster’s eyes have been following me
all night and I don’t know if it is a matter of perspective
or some delusion convincing me that I’m not alone
word vomiting on notebooks and textbooks and gushing
piles of words onto my comforter. I pictured
growing a human being inside of me and my heart
started trying to run from my chest
I scared myself into an anxiety attack
picturing years flashing before me. Before I told him
that I’m not like most girls
he kissed my forearms
and then he kissed my neck. Maybe I’m crazy for believing in astrology but
last night I was hearing your moans
as roars like the lion you are purring, nuzzling me
until you fell asleep and I remembered
being five and wishing I was Belle, marrying the beast. I don’t know.
I don’t know if I’m crazy.
I kept losing my earring in your bed like I secretly wanted to leave something more tangible than my scent or stray blonde hairs for
you to find and remember me by. I think you like me too much and I’m
afraid of what you’ll find when you get in my mind and see the battlefield
that rages inside of a pretty head.
I used to see the world with the eyes of a child but today I feel like I’m senile and looking at the world from the future and dissecting the past
because I lost track of time again and no one knew where I was for seven hours. I might have been wandering but I think I was asking
a fruit fly for directions when she flew into my pupil and laid eggs on my optic nerve causing the light to fraction
and my thoughts to be projected onto the wall ahead.
People passing by could see it all streaming out of me,
every emotion, every desire, every fear and every image,
even the smoking **** on the cement
from when he left got stuck on my screen
and the dream I had the night before
about a man with gigantic hands
and a woman shielded her eyes
as I thought about the way you use your tongue on me. When I finally
stumbled home the projection had stopped
but the maggots had started and I stared at the mirror
and branded myself with the word ugly.
The pill is folded in the dollar and I whack it with a lighter,
the white shards scatter out and I lay the bill flat and crush crush crush
until the powder is free of chunks. One two three
making ten perfect lines, five on each side and my nostrils are on fire.
I **** smoke from a pipe and get so high that my entire face feels like melting
off and I’m so determined to sleep that I can’t
and I anticipate
gritty dreams but I never drift off.
Three glasses of white wine later I drive to his house and I can hear the train hitting the breaks while we throw empty beer bottles at the moving cars
from the roof of a crooked house. And then, the willow tree
draped over the train tracks
grabs the wind with her branches and she summons
sheets of rain that come blasting down.
I’m afraid of heights and I’m not sure why but I think falling
from the apple tree at age thirteen was the first time I realized that
bones break and they never heal the same way and my hands are shaking but

I stay on the wet roof with you and I let myself melt into this
momentary reality.
One of the most personal poems I've ever written. Thank you for reading.
*revised 10/3
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
Constricted in the tiny ***.
this plant has lost it’s will to grow
The lightness fades inside the room
the curtain shades the greenish brown
I forgot that i was more,
than this room. this house, this place

I forgot how to transplant.
I forgot how to grow

Don’t let me wither.
Don’t abandon me in the cold.

How can i survive this potted life,
this winter,

It was easy to love me when the spring was here, and i was bright and full of wonder.
I could fill a room with bright vernal sweetness.
And then i began to blend into the wallpaper.
a perfect little wallflower.
Tendrils constrict,
and branches droop.
flowers swept away,
and bark begotten by dust and moth

Who will inherit me?
Or perhaps just an empty ***.
your container, your arc, your tiny vessel, your cage and prison, is all a mind palace, where doors lead nowhere and i cannot become better. How will i be good enough when lost in a maze of loathing and indolence.
ALamar Feb 2017
Tell me every one of your issues
Lay them next to mine
I'll be your warmth for this cold world
I've got the medicine for your mind
All you have to do is yield your guard for a moment
and give in to the climb
Pressed up against you I'm getting hard
I
Can hear your heart beating see the sweat beading
Your tender knees trembling
In consent  I slip
My hands down your pants
Your head
leans back with your slightly opened eyes appearing closed almost
Your soft moaning only turns me onward commencing
Touching and teasing
Muscles clinching
Firm gripping I'm
Massaging and rubbing your ****
Circularly succulently ******* the taste of your juices off everyone of my fingertips
This is what's typically done
After a mental ****** and the ****** attraction of foreplay
It. Makes. You. ***.

... Selah ...

Sipping sweet melanin
Dripping off the lips of your *****
Bursting with ignition
The taste of your black...berry
Licking the overflow off your body
******* 'til spirits nod
'NAO' emanating from the iPod
Augmenting
Bending syncing your body with a mind despondent of time
No restrictions don't constrict
Just grab my **** and maneuver it like a guided ship
With the lights off find the throbbing swollen slit and put the head in
And dip the tip of my **** inside your ***** far afield
Only yield after you've had enough
But not until I'm deep enough...To Fill You Up
Hal Loyd Denton Nov 2011
The Bleaching Heaven
This was the dire conditions a ranch on the central coast of California was pumping gravel from the well
The first time this happened in over a hundred years of them having the ranch the heavens turned away
Its smile the soil started after a long line of days to appear as tile that was breaking and turning up on
The edges it was an emotional assault everywhere the fierce fiery hand left nothing untouched the
Saddest of all was when the visible pain and distraught effects started to show in the trees the great
Black oaks, Eucalyptus, the pine started to constrict the full busy top crown had the drawn most pitiful
Wasteful sad look they were dying by degrees and the merciful heaven looked on dispassionately it was
Hard to travel about the country without having pain dog every move you make it was pronounced the
Land cried for answers your hands were tied as a prisoner in the same predicament doing time in Yuma
They didn’t have to add disciplinary parts to the running of the prison just being there was punishment
Enough a lonely coyote calls in the silver moonlight not for a mate’s responding call but where can I find
Water a song said it best I face the barren waste and I think of cool cool water then you have a rich
Diverse part of the country that is the envy of the rest of the world now it is a tender box a lighting strike
Or any man made careless act and all will go to blazes all will be left is a black charred landscape it will
Blacken your own spirit this is a terrible outcome when clouds are with held and their life giving
Moisture is held in check at times a benevolent father uses this hard means to instruct and show
Your path that you are following is leading you to a like destruction its undetectable when the spirit
Within starts to die all that happens is the outward life kicks on like a backup generator all resumes
And seemingly shows that everything is fine some don’t even know and have never tasted the water of
The spirit everyone has those moments of laughter something stupid is said or portrayed but what
About a river of laughter that surges from unspeakable joy this is not the shallows of life but when deep
Calls unto deep those cherished longings bubble up and are giving free course to your dreams but a
Wicked one who has interest and designs on your life with lies and superior knowledge diverts the
Course Of living water it’s easy because you walk in darkness by choice our desires have blocked and
Dammed up Holy and incorruptible cleansing now the water unseen by the naked eye a poison has been
Introduced it slowly and acutely effects all freedom of thought and actions that are only normal when
You are cleansed by the blood sacrifice of the cross this is detestable to the rebellious spirit we all live
With but it is the pardon the opening of this devil bound prison that restricts and limits growth all of this
Carries with it untold dangers to self and our families the penalty for sin is death you start the death
Process long before the final exit from this life you go to places that puts you at the mercy of others
That have no thought of you what so ever you’re just a mark something to further their strong and out of
Control desires truly the sky is as brass and below if you could have your eyes opened you would only
See the bleached bones of a new generation dying of thirst while an ocean of love and care is dammed
By the prince of darkness and you are his slave doing everything to continue your own debasement and
Loss what more can the Father do he died in shame and agony the heavens even turned black but from
That forever a great upheaval began your freedom guaranteed you want heaven to open you want
Righteous rain you want to see your country rise from a cesspool of drugs and alcohol that creates the
Atmosphere that debases mans place as leader and benefactor for the family and then turns to first
Cheapen women then violate them through the power of *** that no one can control the innocent
Children face the unspeakable terrors of those crazed enough to use them in the most despicable way
Way then they raise a lethal hand to end their lives of promise and beauty turning it to a disgraceful display
Of sick madness that no one but God can defeat the answer just say his name with all of your heart
Jesus
Motion, 'side-by-side,' -taste.
Tiny ridges, odd projections, scales
over a hunken-frame, -slide.

Two Dead Bears; Red Eyes!
Two Dead Bears; Red Eyes!
Betwixt two bears; it lies.


Cranial portholes, back out, newt,
shimmery black tongues array, -kiss.
Tail around the head; constrict.

Two Dead Bears; Red Eyes!
Two Dead Bears; Red Eyes!
Betwixt two bears; it lies.


Celestial space, taste the air,
Now slither wrap the eyelashes...
twist, pull apart, open, -see!

Two Dead Bears; Red Eyes!
Two Did Bare; Red Eyes!
Betwixt two bears; they lied.


Three rows of teeth exposed,
to **** out the eye!
A Dragon consumes a Hero.

It is not a myth.
Jean Rojas May 2015
Run, Gemini child
And run fast
For tragedy is hounding
You in the guise
Of glory
And billing you
For excesses uncontrolled
The end is drawing near….
Though you have no fear,
Must you also have no shame?

Hide, Gemini child
And hide yourself well
Hold still, unmoving
Drop out of sight
And out of mind
For the consequences
Have exacted from you
A high price to pay
A form of revenge
Festering in your unkempt spirit
How could you live
As you have allowed yourself
To lead?

Destroy not your soul
For materials that put their
Patents on you…
Must you go so low?
Can you never go slow?
Downwards is a long
And empty route
It was not the road
That the heavens had
Destined you to take
Though it be the one
You will never, ever forsake…

Be kind dear Gemini child
And go down alone
If you think that you must
Your looks might be lasting
But your heart remains wanting
Let other people move on
And share not
This unnecessary pain
Let time be the judge
Nor excuses be made
For your living the fullest
Through irreverent ways….

Curse of the seasons
Child of the star
Rest but your head
On a pillow of stone
Walls that constrict
From maggots insist
Anaesthetize all emotions
That plagued you in life…

Meet me at Forest Lawn
Where to you I will sing
To wipe all your tears
And sunflowers bring
Moodust on my pocket
And one for the road
Dear Gemini child
Running from cold
Kiss to the fate
All the prophets fortold
Dear Gemini child
So beautiful and so bold
Mine is a love
That time can not fold
Depicted in stories
That shall never be told…
For: Errol Flynn
1994
Hollow Jul 2014
It was silent as Chelsea crept into the room
There I lay, nestled to sleep with a teddy bear
The moonlight on my back, soothing light
She awoke me violently, shaking me ashen
And my eyes widened in terror at her face

It didn't take long for her to find something
A tool to suit the job, my punishment
I was a bad sister, always was I wrong
So she found a pair of shoes, my shoes
And I braced for the nightly beating

But Chelsea had something else in mind
As she removed the lace from one of them
She gripped an end in each hand, staring
And she moved on top of me, saying;
"I hate you, stupid attention *****"

She placed the string over my throat
And she pressed down very hard, frowning
I felt my airway constrict, and I struggled
She put her knees on my elbows in anger
And my begging made her push harder

As I began to see gray, I remember a tear
But not the many that I released, I know
Because I felt it patter onto my dying face
And I sputtered and arched my back, hoping
And Chelsea only pressed harder, murderous

As I drifted out of consciousness, I heard
My brothers voice, sweet brother Damien
And he slapped Chelsea and pulled her off
As I curled up and breathed delicious air
And he caressed my face, and hugged me

That night acted as a catalyst for hatred
And within myself I bred a monster
But I suppose I cannot give credit for
My mistakes, to the true genesis of pain
I just haven't found anything else to blame
Myself?
_______
_______
Jean Rojas Dec 2015
Run, Gemini child
And run fast
For tragedy is hounding
You in the guise
Of glory
And billing you
For excesses uncontrolled
The end is drawing near….
Though you have no fear,
Must you also have no shame?

Hide, Gemini child
And hide yourself well
Hold still, unmoving
Drop out of sight
And out of mind
For the consequences
Have exacted from you
A high price to pay
A form of revenge
Festering in your unkempt spirit
How could you live
As you have allowed yourself
To lead?

Destroy not your soul
For materials that put their
Patents on you…
Must you go so low?
Can you never go slow?
Downwards is a long
And empty route
It was not the road
That the heavens had
Destined you to take
Though it be the one
You will never, ever forsake…

Be kind dear Gemini child
And go down alone
If you think that you must
Your looks might be lasting
But your heart remains wanting
Let other people move on
And share not
This unnecessary pain
Let time be the judge
Nor excuses be made
For your living the fullest
Through irreverent ways….

Curse of the seasons
Child of the star
Rest but your head
On a pillow of stone
Walls that constrict
From maggots insist
Anaesthetize all emotions
That plagued you in life…

Meet me at Forest Lawn
Where to you I will sing
To wipe all your tears
And sunflowers bring
Moodust on my pocket
And one for the road
Dear Gemini child
Running from cold
Kiss to the fate
All the prophets fortold
Dear Gemini child
So beautiful and so bold
Mine is a love
That time can not fold
Depicted in stories
That shall never be told…
For: Errol Flynn
        1994
Haitian style independence
no more whiteness at all
type independence
playing three rhythms at once
independence
blackness take over the entire
American sports and political world
independence
Went south to join the Seminoles
fight against the colonists
killer abolitionists
dangerous and feared
independence
economic
the beginning of the union
no more free labor
regulate that
government
paper bag 40 acres
and we are not ******* mules
independence
organized black militants killing
burning plantations of whiteness
yearning independence
captivating white audiences
nationwide
scurrying to the legal system
to constrict the laws
make more weapons
make more conflict
make it more dangerous to be black
independence
You will never find us again
whiteness
that independence
Megan Anne Dec 2011
Hold those steady arms out
Pressure on my skin
And choke the air right out of me
Panicked words locked within

A coffin for the living
Entrapment of the heart
Sleepless, lonely evenings
Spent listening in the dark

To hear your voice speak secrets
Whispered only in the night
“I fear I’m lost forever”
“Come save me from this life”

This hand I hold out shaking
Is not only for your sake
I need this more than ever
Or I will surely suffocate.
Lexi Oct 2013
I want to watch your lips turn blue,
paint elegies in your flesh with the
purple pumping of your native mind and
crystalline blue depths of your shattered sight.

I want to feel my love constrict your heart,
see the way my words dance beneath your skin
and the morse messages of ardor, true, displayed
in rigid bumps and sunken eyes.

I want to hear your raspy breaths go short,
constrict your airways with my flames and
steal your oxygen, slowly, how lovely, your
cries sound when you can't sigh my name.

I need to touch your icy soul with my
reaching grasp of molten hate, burn love notes
on your ribs of hollow promises and captive
thoughts I'd held so slightly, tightly, won't let go.
Written September 12, 2013
Francie Lynch Mar 2014
I don't have pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
I'll stay away from Yellowstone.
If one's asthmatic in the Eifel region
You don't pronounce the "P."
This won't **** me.

I don't have COPD.
Everyone coughs in blue smoke.
My throaty itch won't **** me.
I won't constrict and choke.

I don't have an infectious disease,
Despite my personality.
I run for shelter in acid rain.
I drink water with ice cubes,
And spray my green out back.
As much as I hate to, I avoid rusty nails.
*** is safe... and at a distance.
Despite being repeatedly told to,
I never eat ****.
The great imitator
Is a snivelling mime.
If I'm bitten, I recognize the marks.
The erupting of the ring of fire won't **** me,
but perhaps I was precocious
To drop the "P" in
Pneumonoultramicroscopicscilicovolcanoconiosis.

I haven't succumb to animal flues,
I stay clear from the bars.
I donate to the SPCA,
Bet on ponies or the odds of SARS.

I don't have meningitis.
I like lights and loud music.
If I get the night sweats,
I turn down my electric blanket.

I haven't the minor or greater pox,
I spurn comparisons.

According to the scoop and scope,
I ascend and descent C free.
But the time spent on Referrals
Might be the death of me.

I don't have botulism.
My smile still concaves down.
Curling convex above it,
A condescending frown.

I'm not a *****.
I feel every poke and like.
My digits number twenty...
Twenty one.
My glasses are smudge free.
If anything I see too well.

Alcoholism can't **** me.
Alcohol can.

I haven't cardio entropy,
But I'd be remiss
To dismiss
The wise counsel Oz gave me:
"Hearts can never be made practical until they can be made unbreakable."
So true.
So true!

Anyway, none of the above will get me.

But, I do have what you have.
The young and grown.
The able and ill.
A hand.
A sweeping hand.
A second hand
Setting those infectious nonogerms
Like diamonds
In my Time-x.
Kendal Anne Apr 2013
Lonely there is a female, just a small girl in all punctuality
and she sits upon the curb of a lovely looking marble paved road
Only the road is no longer marble, it is dusted with the fragments of ash
from the cigarettes she puffs away at, every day until her lungs constrict
The boa made of exaggerated smoke always is pulling upon her air passages
never wanting to let her esophagus be cooled by crisp and clean air
Her feet are bare, frozen and bleeding, leaving drops of blood behind
trails from where she's once been, and where the girls' feet will travel
Beaten and bruised, thrown and spat out, she was the trash of society and its remains
but in all actuality, society was the men she slept with, and she, only wanting cover of the rain at night
Forced into what they called sensuality, but the young girl closes off her emotions and senses
and wished for a home to call her own, but never feeling the want in her heart enough to stay
This girls clothing is ragged, shredded and torn, wrinkled from the nights she's spent
in a strangers arms, she takes danger by the horn, receives herself a death call instead
A disease has been forming, and it grows in magnitude with each passing strangers call
thus the girl has fallen upon her knees, and the disease still finds a way to pass along its young
The female has tried to quit, with her way of life, but the bills keep a'coming, and she is still in need
the hunger inside her drives her raving mad, it is slightly ludicrous, this lunatic she's become
To feed upon a strangers flesh, to conquer her unrighteous lusting and her want
this is the girl that we see who is foolish in her ways, as she folds her hands to her breast
Hands are paled and over worked, dry and calloused never have a bout of rest
so trustful in their own ways, hardy they work like crusted placid tools
Still upon the paved road she sits, crunching her bones into a ball
her skin is increasingly thin, no wonder she gasps with pain for every movement she makes
This young girl, is young enough to let the tears cascade over her heavily dolled up face
her cosmetic encrusted eyes run, covering her make-up splashed face even more
The grime and dirt smudged upon her face from being splashed by non-helping passer byes
and her mouth is made up of a slashed and jagged pair of lips, from lipstick she put on
Smears her great complexion , with the fiery burn of stained glass that was meant for cheeks
thinning roses of auburn, painted with a closed precision, soaked with raccoon cosmetics
Fearfully she sits, silent as water, her fluid running out as if the air around
whips her inside, and eats her on the outside, it begun by freezing her skeleton over
For she was always their (as in men)collected victim and she begun to wonder why
her fellow human's never had believed her she saw through her crystal tears
That doll faced men and doll faced women, had a secret they kept
they only wanted to play God with the clown she had become
I'll probably change this once I actually read all of it. Cheers :))
JL Jan 2013
I was young foolish and just out of the cookie cutter medical school at the community college.
I work in the mortuary much better than watching the old women who die from cancer
I've spent hours pumping radiation into their frail bodies
"Fighting Cancer"
I watched some die with terrible gasps of blood in the emergency rooms during a long internship
A sheet thrown over
As if we are already trying to forget it happened
Death seemed to touch everything in my life
Regrettably, it has yet to touch my life itself
I am exhausted with the process of death
But... I was both discomposed and
...aroused by its product
The dead were just that
Silent cold white
And we covered their private areas with a white cloth
If not under examination
She was not dead though
The mortician
Warm with long black hair
But almost just as white
She leans over a cadaver before me
Her voice echoing in the sterile
Rubber scented universe of the examination rooms
Her voice settling into the running tape recorder on the table
I check off endless boxes on the clipboard I hold
Only half paying attention
Her scent lulls me
I swear I smell her hair
As if I were at the nape of her neck
Seeping through the pungent and intoxicating scent of formalin
A spark of life in the void
She seems to realize all at once
The gravity of my gazes
She chides
Please Stay Focused
Countless hours we work together beneath the bright examination lights
Sometimes working late into the night
If a terrible car accident were to happen on the interstate

Once
On a dark night on just such an occasion
She enters the examination room in a rush
Approaching a corpse I had already cleaned and undressed on the table
A male somewhere in his early twenties with an unnatural ark in a few of his ribs. I was looking forward to photographing the anomaly for my


Most secret collection

She holds a 20 gauge syringe prepare with an odd violet colored solution
She injects it into a dark black vein in the hand

I remain silent
She stares at the injection sight intently
Bead of crystal sweat falling down her forehead
"We are never to speak of what we may see her tonight."

Her hair pulled into a tight bun
A serious gaze in her dark eyes constrict me
Somewhere far in the dark basement in the back of my mind
A flare of something strange to my soul
fear
I am flooded with adrenaline and she seems satisfied with the dilation
of my pupils and a smile stretched across my face

The corpse
The skin begins to brighten
Oxygenated blood running through starving veins
Then
A sigh
A breath
My hand pressed to the neck
An arterial pulse
Weak beneath warm flesh
The thing breaths its breaths ragged at first
Then faster
She holds a cold stethoscope above the heart
Each beat of it seems to reverberate in her eyes
She stares at me
Both terror and elation on her face
She looked terrifying and beautiful
Her face seemed chiseled of marble
A shadow falling perfectly on her face
Beneath the fluorescent glow
It sits up at a back breaking speed
Its eyes shooting wide open revealing
A massive black pupil in a sea of jaundiced yellow eyes
It's mouth opens wide
And a deafening scream tears through his throat
Reverberating through the two of us for eternity
And echoing among the dull fluorescent halls of the mortuary only for a moment
It's final word
*fate
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2019
for a heart's worth of stone,
will the mind
hardly succumb to
the sponge...
             easily ingested,
yet hardly
          perforated
to give off a worth
of a translation...

                         let alone,
        a chance to print less money,
and more,
postage stamps..
               my heart to no mind
belongs, even if it's the crucible
of my own...
                 the mind goes one way,
the heart, another,
    and by death,
in pristine inversion,
relocated to their former
bearing...

              the heart begins to speak
for the mind,
   and the mind:
"forgets" to speak for the heart...

   my worst "fear" of death,
is that...
   it will never be the akin justification
for taking repose,
   for sleeping...
how,
   somehow death will
                transcend sleep...
and i will be forced into...
        dignifying,
or undignifying dogmas,
based upon the whims from
a dream...
   conjuring...

                    i can stomach
a forever-slumber,
    when it comes to death...
but to have to put up
with...
           fears of dream
being realized?
             cats don't sleep
during the night,
they pretend to,
            you can pass one by,
and he or she is: "snoozing",
with eyes half-open...

                     peering at shadows
of shadows in the daft night,
then...
   also...
                  prying on
the eternal silence of man's
rested set of comforted body
to bid him and his fellow:
a good night...

             audacious, some will meow
akin to the sparrows come morn,
but between the 11pm and the 4pm
mark?
     the house falls silent...
a drunk shuffles...
     itching to tattoo his fingertips
with texture of the wallpaper...
a cat sleeps...

                    i can almost always,
find myself,
   ascribed to a haunting,
           like the atypical english
out-suburb house...
  a house, whereby the natives
care so much for a garden...
but then actually use it...

             glued to their "castle"...
bonsai felines...
ever notice, that they have
eyes, akin to reptiles?
       large cats have mammal
eyes..
   when their pupils constrict,
they are not akin
to their bonsai counterparts,
i.e. reptilian slits?

                   i sense there's a spy...
what was once a serpent,
became a bonsai tiger,
a cat...
    when these felines
are bound to rest
i almost alway find them suspect...

         pandemonium spies...
i never allow myself
to be comfortable in
the presence of a cat,
                spy of: beelzebub,
spie of moloch...
  and the whole milton litany
of names...

               i don't trust them,
they're mammals...
but they have reptilian eyes...
esp. when the pupil slits
appear...
   a normal mammal would
have the same shaped
     pupil dilation and constriction,
like a lion...
but little bonsai tiger over here?

            venus in furs...
reptile in fur...
             i think the dinosaurs did a sly
one on us, when we arrived
with the capacity to breed these
bonsais...
                
         you'll still find the cool kids,
"petting" / more or less: keeping
snakes, lizards, chamaleons,
      spiders...
        i honestly don't think cats
are that much different...
             were you ever fed a deception,
so good,
that you, "somehow",
began questioning the authenticity,
after many years of
convincing yourself it was "true"?

        a cat, a bonsai tiger,
is about as much mammal...
    as i'm a ******* cyborg right not...
it's a reptile, in a mammalian
disguise...
   a bonsai doesn't behave
like a mammal...
     not even a mammal...
that hasn't been domesticated...
esp. a mammal that was been
quasi-domesticated,
    for the worth of cow,
or pig...
             or horse...
                        sly little *******...

i'm suspicious of cats,
and the cats i "own" are suspicious
of me...
       they're nothing more
than a dinosaur remnant of a spine
and a brain in a pickle jar
of lost eye-lids (snakes)...
  with a taste for fashion,
furs, masochism...
                
           cats are deceptive...
looking at their eyes...
they're ******* reptiles!
                        that and the birds...
pseudo-mammals...
                reproducing via
the aid of the reptile egg...

         hell... sure... "it's all about
the bees and the birds"...
more like it being about
the cats and the birds...

    why else wouldn't a reptile fake
"being afraid" / or seek to find a mammalian
reply for: endearing?
  than expand their slit eyes...
into a fully dilated pupil?
           as a mammal...
my pupil either contracts
or expands... it's either
                                    o or O...
a cat's eye?
                        O or ()
    and that's still stating a "compliment"
with the () curvature of the slit...
       that's not how a mammal's
eye should behave...
   fur,
    and as much does for birds...
also with fur, but no female womb,
instead a plot of egg
                    and greedy omelette...

    sure sure, i could have owned
a snake, if a wanted,
    or a tarantula...
   but cats just freaked me out
to begin with...
   that whole fur bit of *******
is an act of subversion...

               as is the whole bird:
feed me a budgerigar clock...
   because the whole beak...
was never going to be akin
                                  to a horse's hoof...

cats, when they're faking it,
turn all O puerile with their pupils...
but then they revert back
into their reptile calculating
demure of the slit ()
                                pupils.

big cat,
                 elephant, dog,
the eye dynamic is either
from o to O or from O to o,
to conscript their allowance
for the traffic of light...
    once again...
      whatever categorical divisions
we have constructed
to process information?

               to me,
cats are the old fashioned
fabble of a hushed variant
of chimera.
Alicia Strong Sep 2013
She wrote love on her arms
with blood and ink
and watched her life
flow into the sink.

She didn't care,
no one was there
to help her see
the world's beauty.

She tried so hard to fake a smile
she tried so hard to walk that mile
to try to reach out for help,
but she decided to be alone for a while.

That's no good.

The walls constrict around her heart
and her veins constrict around her soul,
and the more her skin came apart
the more she seemed to fall into the hole.

She tried so hard to get back up,
but her walls had finally broken.
Too many people tore her down,
with the unkind words they'd spoken.

She was filled with so much hate,
she just couldn't survive in this world.
So she wrote love on her arms,
and watched as death unfurled.
kippi Oct 2018
a car on a warm summer night
is possibly the safest place on earth
i spill my heart to you
as lavender paint strokes
decorate the sky like
a masterpiece in the louvre

the sun that sets slowly
on our waking hours
takes away more and more
of his golden light
while i wish it would last longer
the moon knows all my secrets

your shining light creeps
onto my skin through
the window frame,
rolled down to let
the cool breeze flow through
this sanctuary

“artemis”
i speak
“i’ve missed you, my moon
why must you go
and stay for such a short time?”

“i’m sorry, my child”
she whispers to me
through her beams of security
“but i am here now
what is troubling your heart?
i feel its pain”

“well,
my love here on earth
they must leave me too
and someday they won’t
come back
and that day hasn’t come yet
but i know it will.”

“how can you be so sure?
to consider someone your love
is a force too powerful
to be ignored
it simply must be
or it hurts both hearts.”

“i cannot feel their heart
whenever i try to,
they build a wall of thorns
so i cannot reach it
and the thorns on their heart
***** my own
and it cries through my eyes
which tears you shine on.”

“don’t cry, my child
with every wound
time heals
love of any kind
can prevent another
bruise
or scrape
or stab
and their thorns will soon
wilt and die
giving you the chance
to heal them too.”

“your brother peaks over the horizon,”
i say
it’s time that you must go.”

“please remember, my child
that your heart is your own
and no amount of thorns
will ever constrict
its ability to
love.”
the moon is my mother
and her stars are my brothers.
derailed-trains Feb 2016
days are swinging past
and I wish I could finally
say to you the words
hiding under my pillows,
behind doors, and
scattered on the floors
I am walking on
I wish I could say to you
that my knees aren't
the only parts of
my body that
are hurting
that sometimes when
I sit in class I sometimes
stop and stare
and my throat starts to
constrict while my
tear ducts plan
their mutiny
I wish I could tell you
that I still remember
the sound of breaking
glass and I still
imagine the moment
of the glass kissing
the ground and, yes,
I still remember
how the shards
sparkled as I sweeped
the floors
I wish I could find a
better way of saying
these words to you
just like how perfectly
arranged the bones in
my body are
I wish I could say to
you that I fantasize
about telling you these
words that are
years overdue
and, no, I am not
okay, and, no,
you're wrong when
you said that I don't
care because I do
I just don't know
how to show it
and I also know
that maybe I'm
not making sense
because the real words
have morphed
themselves into
metaphors for having
been suppressed
for so long
and maybe I'm not
making any sense at all
but
the
bottomline
of this mess
is that I want
to say that I'm
sorry I wasn't
stronger for
you and me
Marielle indicates: “Your luminosity, Copernicus vibrating in Giordano Bruno, expresses hypotheses that they revive to Quentinnais from the third hour, from here now I am hospitalized and without light to line the end where I will put my feet evasive. Raymond Bragasse is here where I met him, and I saw him with his holy rosary on his necklace, and on Andrés Panguiette's claw. That you grumble, they excommunicate my sentences, which are that of the rooster that becomes gentle in a Corso, Sardinian or Roman Praetorian, in the leap I relegate to San Gabriel, with its magical art that excites the retentiveness of Saint George. Under what science do they moderate me by joining you, or what century will intuit us with its own splendor, whose obscurantism under his revolution mutes anyone in the darkness of the cave of Dionysius. The divinity postpones itself, to leave its daily chores where souls fly daily ..., they do not stop leaving with their spoils after the fairies that fly to purgatory. But many have passed over me, and I was wondering where to find you, I never thought that I should fly over a swarm of wasps to reach your divine lair, full of regulatory darkness for those who live against the light, and of an Elizabethan garment that dismisses my ring, where Its natural original magic is isolated from our semi-alive body, with brittle Egyptian suns that redoubled where I had to wait for you at the Pentecost bench. What retarding essence dries up who does not show any vital or symbolic avital sign, where the rough cyclicality does not allow me to chastise my hair in any vanity for you. Oh that Moral spellings referring to my commendation, if it is not apostasy! What else would I dare to speak, through the sky flying away from the lunar books of Vivencia, where it is sent from its orbit towards the cosmos free of all and of all with Wonthelimar free of me, confined of Marielle. I know that I am analogous **** of the Libri Dei Viventi, perhaps sackcloths or coats have to be spun in Parnassus, to gird myself to myself, and not Marielle cloistered in her solitude, who does not receive the Vivendi torpor of her paradisiac sacrilege when seducing a supposed daughter of Hecate, fortunately, I have to guess with a swarm, and stay in the nets of your cave. With the stanza that is invested in rhetorical values, I go crazy for love to which I am conjured, but from Marielle now or in hundreds of years that pester on my sackcloth, which will never be used for the liturgy with you, if I revive in the crisis of resurrection in the arms of Saint George in the stained glass window in Avignon, and in his forearm that passes through the worst emotional crypts of my author.

As I have to contest hostile votes that are netted in the puritanism of those who only wear sackcloth in the unstitched Mausoleums of Quentinnais, and in the strident leaves that move elected in his advent, where the subclavian of Luzbel stands. Unanimous I have to dare by asininity ...! Moderating threads of horror and silver light, which revives us in the beasts and in their perches, ad libitum in the lattices where it emerges from the conspiracy of our tragedy. Oh, what an impetuous incarnation of the anti-Christian verb has to express itself in your incarnations of light and restless shadow, in the apse of the discanted in Avignon, and in the acroteria shadow, suffering from cowardice by not wanting to see me angelic, universal predisposition, just to know fit and what to say with your soul lineage and twin life, who only knows how to love you. Our reincarnations are rescued, now that we go to Patmos intimidated, in the sound of shining the veiled Vernarth, reprimanded in his acquiescent morality under his own law and his glasses, born from his rib that ends in the exception of a foul dialogue. It is premature for me to say what I do not have to write, but the particles slowly fall through the beam of their adjective essences, reshaping exterminated historiographies that want to make green, in colloquia that draw the eyes of whoever wants to blind the profane cult, absorbed in sallow particles in four sciences and elements… What unresolved probe and mass can strike your heart poured into you Wonthelimar? You know when we get to Profitis I will go holding your hand in the morning, to adore you and kneel down, we will deal with why we lost ourselves, and why the sun has not stained me with so much fury, carrying me burned in tongues of its consumptive and guttural infinity. After taking the hand of dawn, I will sue the impossible quagmire and its Áullos Kósmos, weakened by theoretical openness, lacking unity, but not far from my vanistory, nor from the sessile fluff of my hair, waiting for you with your stormy return to hold me. Ayia Lavra will declare war on the eighth cemetery of Messolonghi, with solidity and sanctity that frees my chains in a single trident, paling in the rust of it, methodological treatise, and where the determination of veracity is annihilated.

Because I have to go to heaven when I want to offer myself to you, without any century that has received me with fewer wounds than those I had yesterday in its indolent septicemia, with miracles and incense burners that burn in imprecate, and provide a pagan theology of human filth. , not portraying biblical when your plurality dressed as a secular thirteenth, by referrals or Greco-Gallic that arise from the love that has no end or beginning in the autonomy of an incorruptible being, and even less when you wear sweets in its lavender lex. Genius Loci, or amplified reality, rather your idea of sticking with me when I have not been, and of attracting me when the future in the portal is made in the perfect symmetry of him, or whoever looms excited in his cabal. The body is no longer inscrutable, overworking with poetry to constrict my torn voice, running at great speed to seize the cosmetic that paints our faces, Selene and her luster aggravate punctuality and the status of science in creation. I have read volume VIII, and I saw that tears flowed by where I never thought ... !, for exchanges that marginalize an established authority, nor with more childish will I undone the garments of his self-description. Mime or jester in front of me in my catalog of the tragic actress with the anemic volume of her, pointing out uprisings in new waves, on seas that did not have them ..., loaded in new skeptical allegorical clouds, on truths that were already understood in the jealous name. It is incumbent on us to navigate with lamps that have to guide us through dark Ptolemaic hexahedra or henbane crusts, which do not manage to go over the sentry boxes of a divine gesture. How to dare to a final gesture of inflaming with you in factions and premises beyond an apocalypse, or of a Penelope that is gestated in a god, or becomes unknowable of a prevailing divine plan.

Charged with our dissidence, we will go far from the unknown burdens, that scripts are annexed in the new birth of our fiefdom and in their great expectation. Now four elytra have been born on my back, who hope to reveal to you the categories of the deleterious vanquished, reduced to only two Ptolemic emetics ..., you and I in a final judgment, which we already know well about, about the seventh eras that await us in the Southern Sporades, and in his final judgment in the eighth. O Jerusalem, I deprive my oldest sin by conceiving, but rather by confessing it with you. What insurgent dualism will make me get rid of myself and be reborn indestructible in its dizzying relish where the multi-chained temptation of redemption runs towards you? Wonthelimar…, I'm here, in this thunder slip writing for you. I have distanced my head united to yours so that it is not destroyed, for all thoughts, where although you are my diluted kingdom, I will beg You to leave me in the growing vertical anticipated flight from my body, but later in my consciousness which is what which will pre-exist with his Roman staff intertwining with his lusters, and in the syntagmas of Vernarth, which come from the Sporades of Patmos. As I honor and glorify Him in the southern part of him, my dear sackcloth has warmed away from my myopic eyes, already feeling your face breath on me, I will be able to vindicate narrated stories after we part before God!
Marielle Sporades
Kira Ferguson Jun 2014
A couple becomes comfy...comatose
Their coffins carved carefully
At the cost of the cuticles
That cut the cloth concealing the cause of calumny.
Cut with claws
Claus? Santa has no clue
But the paws with the claws came from Cope,
The coyote cub who clubbed with truth.

Calm,
Palms clasped on Aphrodite's coffee cup
Caffrodite, cups
Cups that carry potential - kinetic, energy,
Crash!
...Chaos conceived carelessly
A ****** tear

This is the C-Section
Confused?
No concern...know care
Because you are capable
Superman,
Cape-able

But soon the caffeine kicks in,
And the common carotid is cooked
Killer
Compare now, casualties to cows...
Not so different
Still, the crowd plays casual
Aloof

So dream of a connection concentrate in a container
And swig
Constrict the fists and relax
To be carried off into the cosmos
Consumed by clouds of gas...

Below are the circus clowns
Coughing, conceiving, creating.
Is it a crime? To be cut off from contemplation?
Akin to Galileo, craniums will roll
While eyes stay still completely

A quiet kiss to the clavicle of our collective cast
Soothes the commotion to
This clamoring performance
A hush to this cacophony
Kathryn Rose Apr 2018
Appearing in the dark,
You wrap around my love,
In greedy form.
A knife in my heart, I'm bleeding.
Frozen, watching you.
Laughing, no one seems to notice you
Sitting with ease, on his lap.
Unknowingly, my legs take me,
quickly,
out of your sight.
The bathroom mirror reveals
The true reflection of the woman
Living in fear.
Build my confidence, glass.
Erase the flutter in my stomach.
Stitch the wound in my heart.
Strong, beautiful woman -
Saunter back to your seat.
Sit with his friends,
Strangers to you.
Look in his golden eyes.
See his truth,
She disappears.

Imagine the present, reality.
Forget not the honesty.
She does not exist any place,
Other than your fragile mind.
Bruce Adams Jul 2019
She collected lolly sticks,
        The ones with jokes on them:
        Why did the chicken cross the road?-type stuff,
Which she stained brown and used as floorboards
in her magnum opus.

The Tudor house was the best one.
It had servants’ quarters
And a kitchen with little hessian potato sacks made
of something or other she salvaged from
somewhere or other;
And the floorboards looked so real:
        painted lolly sticks
        but almost evoking the smell of varnish,
        layers of polish on a floor trodden by centuries
        in perfect miniature;
                                                Almost­.

This was the last of the three
                                                or four
                                                        doll­s’ houses she built;
The devil’s work for her idle widow’s hands.
She built this one while you were entering your final
        stalemate
that doomed dance that sits so permanently
on your conscience
like a sack of compost
full of water.
        (I choose this simile only because
        I found this in my garden yesterday,
        and it was ******* heavy.)
On paper it was simple:
        You gave her your house,
        She gave you hers.

And so her house shrunk around her and
became a dolls’ house of your own making,
Irrationally
                        she saw your god-hands reaching in
to manipulate and
extort her.

She was wrong, of course.

You were making good on your promise.
You would come through for her in her frailty.
You did – but

it was a promise you made more to yourself than her,
And she let her illogical mind
        never analytical to begin with
        now razed and blinded by grief and loneliness
                        (there was nothing to work with)
poison your good deed,
you were both dolls now.

Eight years later she died lovelessly.

She retreated into her sitting room
        the only part of the house that stayed the same
        after you moved in –
                the walls closed in to contain it
                constrict it
a hospital bed and vinyl chair with commode,
and the brown laminate floor
        just like
        her lolly sticks.

You administered painkillers
Admitted the nurses
Negotiated with your estranged brother.

but her paranoia rotted everything
and your hands cared with compassion but not love.

Gone, now,
the dolls’ houses remain.
An inheritance of clutter
in a house you bought.

You answer the phone
                                        breathlessly
      ­                                  aggressively.
You have been heaving the big one up the stairs
        that sack of compost
        that heavy conscience of yours.

You will be heaving those ******* dolls’ houses around
until I have to buy your house and care for you.
But I am telling you now:
        I am putting them in a skip
        the moment I have the chance.

They are not imbued with the joy they gave her
any more than
                        by keeping them safe from landfill
                        you can imbue them with the love you withheld.

They are painted lolly sticks and sewn hessian.
They don’t contain any more of her
than the bits of paper she kept
        passwords and bank balances
        dates and instructions for the Sky box
There is nothing left of her to protect now.

Open up the hinged false front,
                tip out the miniatures
                let the little figures be free,
                                be landfill
                                (isn’t that what dying is anyway?)
all the tangible things she touched and loved
are not avatars for her touch and her love.

The past is not present through the preservation of objects.
The past is not erased by the advancement of time
                nor can it be undone by corrective action.

Now she is on the other side of the road,
        (why did the chicken
        behave.)
She has no further use for the things she left behind.
Teo Aug 2016
I am the Consumer
Not one of goods, not one of gold
Nor one of flesh and blood, but souls
I drink fear like water, engorge sorrow whole
We’ll see who’s the stronger one when that bell tolls
I betray Trust, blood splatters to rust
Beauty's a thing you call cinders and dust
I’ll build my shrine with hatred and time
Still alive in the muck, your spirit is mine


And I will eat until I’m complete
A satiated unstoppable beast
You do the math, there’s no going back-
To this world that we love once I’m on the attack
Money, my brainchild, nations, my stars-
In our fun little system of bites, wounds and scars
The borders they draw, like a hunter declawed-
Let me pacify them while they hem and they haw
Wealth’s worth more than life, how very sad
Death is encroaching, this earth has gone mad
And I am its true god, inside all of you
Division and pride, I am nothing new
Most fail to realize my myriad forms
Skin pigments, religions, when torment’s the norm
Strings for my show, your weak human traits-
Are the vectors of my blight while I sit and wait


I don’t want extinction, I’m full of love
I want global completion, I'm the eye above-
Pyramids of dead bodies and blank staring heads
The ideas behind them, they keep me well fed
No, I don't want death, my pleasure's your pain-
I'm insidious in dark parts of your brain-
Empathy is the whetstone, savage my blade
I am the tragedy where peace could have been made-
But the will of proud men wont let your hearts accrete
I am greed, but not greedy, I'm just trying to eat


This vision, my foe, I don't want you to think-
Apathy helps me forge my chain of endless links-
That will constrict this world till the fire or ice
Your whimpering fades while I steal paradise
Drugged minds that yet live drown in my river Lethe-
Dare to resist, you'll be crushed underneath me
But I'll keep you alive by a single hair's breadth
While poor dogs in the streets gnaw on themselves to death
And no, I'm not evil, there are worse than I-
My tools sold me this world as they watched children die
They’re the malicious, they gave their hearts to me
Counting the coins in which they put their beliefs
It could be anyone who thinks they are blessed
Because you're all the same, I have you fooled
Your children will be next
For I will eat
And eat
And eat
Owen Phillips Mar 2013
When you're gone I wonder when you'll start hating me
When you're with me I'm scared I'm not good enough
When I touch you I expect you to tell me to stop
When you kiss me I think you don't
Know what you're doing
When you sigh I know
You're tired of me

My memories of you are of things that surround you
You smell like your car
And the shampoo I watched you apply
In your bathroom sink from your bedroom floor
You say it's not right but the sweat from your armpits
Delights me as much as the scents you apply

You're smooth and unblemished like china
I scraped that perfection away
With vine fingers I scratched you
I am a scar on your perfect identity

You take what you want and give up what you must
You're generous but know when to play close to the chest
You're patient, you can get what you need

If I think too hard I'll do what I always do
Lose you by gripping too tightly
I want to constrict you when you lay beside me
The closer you wriggle,
The further I slip
Into jealous obsession
And lustful possession

We're wasting each other's time,
But we had time to spare
We're better than nothing, it's true
I love you in spite of my doubts but I can't help
Expecting you to leave any minute

We don't even see eye to eye on the things which
Concern me the most,
But I can't say it matters
We've opened the doors and accepted each other
There's no reason for us to turn back

Soon I'll have done what I always do
Driven you away or bored you
"It can't be neverending,"
My fearful mind tells me,
"You'll **** it all up before long"
And my self righteous sense says
You're not worth the effort
You're hopeless and fit to discard
My jealousy wants you to give up your lovers
Surrender your body to me
My loneliness hopes you won't leave and it cries
When you go to your own bed at night
My evil will wants you to drink yourself silly
And bend to my twisted demands
My shy side just hides in the bathroom and dreams
Of your smile, the blue of your eyes
My paranoid whimsy draws lines from your picture
To names dates and far out ideas
I'm sure you could be only my imagination
For you look like my fantasy girls

I magicked you out of the footnotes
And into the body of text
And now you are key to the story
And I don't know what happens next

I see you appear in distant past dreams
I fill in my memories with you
We walked the same earth for two decades
Together we walk from now on
My intuition left me so long ago
And you say it never existed
I hope my heart can be reopened
But I don't really mind if I'm dead when I die

To perish beside you would simply life
To be flattened together as one
We'd wake when our spirits were ready to dance
And we'd create EVERYTHING
To ABC
SJ Apr 2015
It starts with a pinch and an itch,
Between your shoulder blades,
Trickling down your spine like a bead of sweat.
You groan hot and heavy,
Doubling over in pain clutching at your stomach,
And you have this urge....

Your canines enlarge,
Further sharpening.
The hairs on your arms bristle.
Standing on end when you hear the first tear of skin,
At the base of your spine.
And it splinters your mind.

A wine high pitched and wanting,
A gasp as your hair thickens.
A pelt of fur to keep you warm,
There is pain between your eyes,
Your jaw stretches inhuman and ugly.

Legs snap and your squatting on the floor,
Arms pulled close at the elbow,
Back hunched over.
Dirt digs under your fingernails turned claws,
As you grip the steady earth for purchase.
You feel your heart beating against your shifting ribs.
Strong,
Fast,
And aching.

Lungs constrict and your eyes fly open.
Blinded by the ethereal light of the full moon.
You cry out,
Human voice bellows loud, loud, loud!
The beast sings in your ear.
A roar,
A howl.
The transformation done.
We are free.
Some times a want to shed my skin for a pelt of fur...

— The End —