"contrives" poems
the cold enfolds fingers and soul with a freeze that makes trees scream
as winds of loneliness sting eyes like a gut inflamed with poisoned thorns
more time slips pass and less joy comes forth and the yearnings overflow
as timid fingers ache for a hand to grasp, for a chance to hope for more
true love lies deep and only body heat from a fellow man can thaw; thus,
trust dwindles in the act of giving up much for a love that cannot touch,
this distress contrives tired romantic traumas which decimate a heart
and so sadness buries a lonely soul while quiet snow fall frames the tomb
joy delights in shared body warmth of restless minds on dreamy nights,
joy well-wrought craves close companions' unbridled streams of thought
Nov 23, 2010
Nov 23, 2010 at 9:35 PM UTC
Our love is like a microwave
We nonchalantly recognize its presence And we happily utilize it everyday
Yet we rarely sit and ogle upon the magic it contrives.
The beguiling beauty of the zappy microwave.
Nov 5, 2016
Nov 5, 2016 at 6:10 PM UTC
1406
No Passenger was known to flee—
That lodged a night in memory—
That wily—subterranean Inn
Contrives that none go out again—
1.7k
the streetlight outside my door
stops not at illuminating the lane below,
but also contrives to send,
a thin beam of yellow light
through a hitherto unknown cleft,
and into my room,
disturbing further,
my already disturbed sleep.
May 22, 2013
May 22, 2013 at 4:05 PM UTC
The fearful varmint that claws at your callous origin
Caused a ceaseless chain of nightmares
A simple faux pas contrives a generation of idiocy
The toes of a screaming infant dwindling in our wake
Loyalty had not yet bared a face of existence
Atonement was never a question but a riddle
Heed your forthcoming capers
For they just may deface you
Sep 7, 2012
Sep 7, 2012 at 10:55 PM UTC
A crossbreed will evolve its truth:
Such facets crafted my design.
I re-exchange, manipulate
Until the age, true fashion finds.
Postmodern wars are pedigrees,
I transpose notes to aptly fit
A sequence feigned mathematically—
Given new meanings I have writ.
It’s not an art, which fates betide,
It has suppressed no cataclysm.
The scheme to cancel and destroy—
We’ll never be obliterated.
The architect contrives such things,
The artist coins it impromptu;
But hybrids can construct those things,
New definitions—institute.
Jul 24, 2013
Jul 24, 2013 at 3:24 PM UTC
What is the sight of blood?
The essence of our mortality,
The horror of our brevity,
The factory of harmony,
Nourishment
life
awe
of, in the soul's home.
The Journey:
You can explore the extent of your boundaries,
Even transcend, but not without punishing balance.
Tipping, favoring a side, pulling it tight until
The Breakage:
Crevice filling to the brim, trickling to the depths of the
unknown,
awaiting, translating
Crystallization as the realization of the
personal scheme, the ego's circus, the mask-maker thrives,
the cultivation of sorrows contrives the demise of
Our own Evolution of sighs.
CRYSTALLIZATION
The process of modern self-identification.
We must fill a mold,
Originality must fold and
Collapse into a labyrinth.
Choosing to choose the options listed in front of us,
Never looking around or inside us.
What a clever game,
Self-aware while we remain ignorant essentially.
Climbing the hills, ladders, slides, and valleys
Without choosing to excuse ourselves
To a life without the conventional rides.
Perhaps, it can be no different...
The rose grows from the ground,
Some hidden, some found.
No ears, no sound.
We cannot fly.
To gravity, we are bound.
It matters
What matters
(it matters? what matters?)
For what exists has an opposite.
For what is freedom worth without captivity?
Where would passion be without apathy?
Wind, earth?
Peace, bloodshed?
Comfort, pain?
Fury, forgiveness?
Decay, fecundity?
Fundamentalism, atheism?
The world, our world, is a world of opposites.
Our building blocks are composed of
The Paradox.
A balance of what is inconceivable and actual.
Tip the scales, and Bleed.
Feb 13, 2010
Feb 13, 2010 at 9:37 PM UTC
My soul is starving
With my spirit striving
And my consciousness contriving
For death's arriving
Heaven proclaims, my soul is starving
For even though faith resides aplenty
Of all else, I am barren and empty
For even though faith burns strong and brightly
My every action speaks contrary
Heaven proclaimed, my soul should starve.
I truly feel my spirit striving
For sweet surcease and release from the grind
To leave mortal limitations behind
For change or escape, no matter the kind
To rush to a fate, others feel resigned.
I truly felt my spirit strive.
Hopefully my consciousness contrives
For is not cessation of self, weakness
Silly, disregarding, childish quaintness
And it must be selfish to seek solace.
At the expense of kin's caring caress.
Hopelessly my consciousness contrived.
Now my soul has starved.
And my spirit has strived.
But no matter how much my consciousness contrived.
Peace has arrived.
Dec 24, 2009
Dec 24, 2009 at 12:04 PM UTC
The rebirth of Spring is green by name.
T'is blue that the skies and seas shall claim.
Orange is but foliage subdued,
Or an aged sun then to death be wooed.
The Color of hatred, it is red,
As of passion and the warring dead.
Life is light while Death is gloom,
Like the stark of night against the moon.
The grave contrives a contrast'd hue,
But dying is to dull what's shaded new.
For all colors are painted to give
A hue on which mirrored life must live.
Without their blushed beauty, we would gaze
On a world of dark and hopeless days
Jun 20, 2012
Jun 20, 2012 at 1:59 PM UTC
expertise irrelevant, a knowing
recognition where & when & why,
venn diagram inflection points
intersect, and also confine
the nirvana nexus on a line of dots in a
movingly motion connected by a formula that
has an equal 🟰 in its muddly middle the man’s best sole instructions to her only
solve! me
when in an moveable interaction
the power of rushing baking cake & it’s filling
is akin to trying to hold back a bucking stream that cannot both be ****** or dammed
running words, making
you obsessed to remember
every detail, but commas only,
never a period interrupting continuity no
essential points of exit and entry
and yet…
you cold stop to breathe
wondering how came you
to be a container intertwining
motifs and motives, desires contradictory,
control contrives to be a
controversy pressured pressed
together, and you want to stop, go,
turnings to touch,
she be tablet and he the pen,
and you wrack to remember each
detail, the poem complete or will
confusions reign supreme
and all the fantastical
schemes are shot to
hell, ink spilled,
house doused
and she good naturedly laughs at you,
cause she knows poet better than himself
and forgives him his inspirational
dazes and gazes of confusion
because it is hard to give when
giving birth to
a dream’s obsessive demands
to love one more
than the other
each deserves no rival, just a final fini,
she wants the same, but the heart
is where he keeps hid, exactly
what she needs, so forgives a
little, because loving a crazy
man after all these years
is taking the excesses
costly cause that be
an insanity desired,
what she loves,
the dusky duo
inside him
a constant
battle re
fusing
resolving
the man’s contradictories,
that she cherishes him for
more, his mired mind, more and
laughs at mores, cause it is never ending;
his more is feature why she loves him very best, she showers and laughs, he rushes in
puzzlement featured on his face, so invites him in and as he falls to his knees in a watery
embrace, while grasping her hips, she
states with a finality: “‘
”let us discuss the importance of proper endings”
Oct 4, 2024
Oct 4, 2024 at 4:38 PM UTC
Upon observing the horizon
Shades and colors all gray-scale,
I noticed its affinity for her skin
When it's stained red.
And the mountains looking down on me
From the apex of the clouds-
Their beauty caused a callous haze
That almost made me forget.
The way she stood on stage in spotlight,
Awaiting the gradual fade to black
But never ceased her preaching
Even when the curtains fell.
The way the artificial lighting
Caught her eyes avoiding mine;
She wasn't happy, but still,
She smiled when compelled.
Compassion sits at the core of me
And doesn't wholly disperse.
My brain can't fully function
In the shadow of desire.
I could evaluate her absence
But not feel the slightest hurt-
I haven't grasped it yet;
I think she'll appear when required.
They eased us out of it, you see,
Those silhouettes hung over me,
The doubts encompassing my mind
Compensated with her death.
With age heightens indifference;
Every moment contrives distance
From the little girl who broke
At the thought of his regret.
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 3:06 PM UTC
Never was a death so gracious
And I fear there never ever will be
Granted fools may feel salacious
Let their limber bodies bend
While the savage animals rend
Their flesh to scandalous designs
The killer cabal contrives
To take away all lives
Because their body has no divine designs
It will fail faltering and fall
To ills and accidents that attack us all
To ages and we will find ourselves
Lost
We live
We die
And all that is between this and that
Is just a dance against the evening sky
Jun 11, 2015
Jun 11, 2015 at 6:15 PM UTC
Now I lay me down to shriek
This death of kiss upon my cheek
A taste of curse I cannot shake
This pain of truth the sharpest stake
Your hypocritic travesties
Have only but empowered me
To wage this war and **** my plight
In rage against your dying light
Now I pray me down to weep
Such great misfortune I must keep
This binding rope has set me free
No sin remains to harbor me
Alive in fires of purest ice
As death contrives to still me twice
So swiftly from its poisoned veins
Engraving soul with jagged stains
Oh, how I've paid it down...so weak
So futile, all these words I speak
Such wasted breath upon the masses
Faking selves and kissing *****
How much heartache will it take
For selfishness to finally break
What is it that controls the minds
Of those who tighten their own binds?
Break me down, for I can't sleep
Another nightmare comes to creep
Into the world of waking dreams
To burn the flesh and rip the seams
Such fabric of decay is woven
Lies we've lived, denies we've chosen
Is it regret, or what we deserve
For taking orders and losing nerve?
Let me drown in desert's dust
My skin to crack, my bones to rust
Much better than to drown within
With haggard sight and crooked grin
Mistakes I've made, and pay the cost
I'll never gain all that I've lost
But maybe I can leave this place
A memory that's not disgrace
So, lay me down my soul to sleep
Embraced by light that I still keep
And may tomorrow bring a smile
Through all the pain and loss worthwhile
May I still see the beauty there
And leave a taste for those who dare
To find what madness cannot take
Before we lose what's still at stake
Sep 28, 2014
Sep 28, 2014 at 12:26 AM UTC
I wear this flannel-plaid red and black button-up long-sleeved shirt
more often than a pair of shoes done-up
to the neck and wrists so tight
bunny-eared laces roped around blue hands and head
I sit on a couch bought however long ago with a floral fabric
dark wood trim flowing from back to arms into its talon feet
dug deep in the flesh of the oak-wood floor
it's quicksand cushions swirl to the dark cracks where change
and TV remotes die where habit lies
contrives to **** the quarters and dimes I might use to buy a new sofa
and wardrobe
Aug 8, 2014
Aug 8, 2014 at 11:11 PM UTC
IS THAT IT?
Time runs out
warps into itself
strata after strata
diminishing into
a dot before me
that I vanish into
Future-Past- the Now
all one and the same.
So this is what
Death is?
I'm not
impressed.
The silence
solidifies.
Memory contrives
to put the world back
together like a cut-out
Dada collage.
A postcard blue sky
hastily assembled
against some remembered
building famous for something
or other and
a photo of you
ripped out of an I don't know
stuck in place
glue seeping around edges
like a white blood.
Life is an Hannah Höch
photomontage.
Time congeals
like a fried egg
with a ciggie
stuck in its yoke.
I laugh at memory's vain attempts
"Don't bother!" I tell it
in a voice like the white space
between written words.
The world swirls anti-
clockwise down
the plug hole
of reality.
If this is Death
as I say
I'm not
impressed.
May 3, 2019
May 3, 2019 at 6:27 PM UTC
Aspen of Appalachia, away,
Bereft from bleating, brooding bovine.
Clay County contrives conspiracy
Doomed, darkened, deceitful. Directed
Eastward at Eastaboga’s emp’ror
Full of most fitting flight, fleeing from
God. Those good graces known given up,
Heartily, exchanged happenstance his
Immortal soul for idolatry.
Jeered at Jehovah, jested Jesus,
Kingdom keeping the kicked knaves knowing
Lowly that the Lord lash little at
Men who make ****** and mudwork made
Nightly. Nefarious no-goods now,
Open but not ostracized. Oh, old
People praise the past per penchant but
Quickly they quit; queerly quell their quest,
Running from redemption and rambling
So he stopped searching, got set soulless,
Turned to the tantric, tuned to the tumult,
Unburdened with useless unknowns. Up
Verily and vivaciously, vet
Words which will warrant wonder. Why not
****** excellent, exuberant?
Yet, ye of yellow faith, yon Yahweh
Zeros the zest of zig-zagged zetas.
Jun 12, 2019
Jun 12, 2019 at 3:13 PM UTC
The street lights kick in,
a pinkish hue,
some artificial moonlight,
in the fast darkening blue.
Only cars rush by,
cars and brave people,
back from work, their home a church,
their satellite dish, a steeple.
And here I find myself,
entombed in caffeine,
paint pages with words,
yet know not what they mean.
I sit in my sorrow,
and I sit in my haste,
to not disuse my emotion,
to not let this feeling go to waste.
And all that comes to my mind,
is to conjure a rhyme,
to garnish my words,
like liquor laced with lime.
Oh, innumerable streets,
with your innumerable lives,
each person a pattern
of what fate contrives.
There's just not enough time,
to scale these peaks,
truth far too elusive
to ever care to seek.
So I shall just stare into darkness,
in this coffee shop glow,
and chronicle this world
that sits at the window.
Nov 22, 2013
Nov 22, 2013 at 1:32 PM UTC
Though history may forget her kind,
Each life she's touched will soon remind,
The people of a thousand lands,
Of all the work done by her hands.
Through magick that her soul has spun,
Each mind's defence has been undone,
The beating of a thousand hearts,
Still call for her when she departs.
Though truth and love have been her kin,
Each breath gives her recourse to sin,
The secrets of a thousand lives,
Consumed in all that she contrives.
Through corridors of time and space,
Each dream she has will leave a trace,
The sketches of a thousand hands,
Will share what no one understands.
Though years fade into shadows deep,
Each memory her mind will keep,
The feelings of a thousand hearts,
Retained in all their broken parts.
Jan 15, 2015
Jan 15, 2015 at 4:16 PM UTC
it starts out being
a
single
persona
then it adds more entities
to
its
corona
it multiplies
score
on
score
the one persona contrives
more
than
a
few
more
at the writing forum
this anomaly takes place
a veritable production line
happens in its space
why does the single persona
keep
adding
on
there's sure to be a reason
for
its
ludicrous
carry
on
Nov 17, 2017
Nov 17, 2017 at 5:55 AM UTC
If onto death's own writ, I shall assign,
no casket then entomb this hollow husk
for wood has nobler task, than shelter mine
or wreak of tales from grief decaying musk.
Nor churches kiln, atone my steep abyss
so forged and billows when - the churning yields
tho' stone is cold, the sadness, I'll not miss
then lest repose to ash in barren fields.
Let none then ember from this corpse's blaze
if fire contrives to token dust therein
resist the soot, tho' if outdone by haze
then urn of brittle make - as was herein.
Should years devalue mine - own powdered rust
let sprinkle where; the winds shall sweep in gust.
Sep 7, 2018
Sep 7, 2018 at 2:21 PM UTC
Are they waiting for me patient,
as I’m caught up in the game
Are they counting down the moments,
till I breathe my last refrain
Do they wonder why I dawdle,
with an opening so wide
Do excuses stoop to waddle,
as my tardiness contrives
Is that light beyond my tunnel,
to burn forever long
Is the torch that lights my funeral,
one to mark and count upon
What now keeps me in this moment,
as new paths have cleared away
Is it something that I haven’t said,
—or wishes still to pray
(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)
Sep 26, 2016
Sep 26, 2016 at 10:26 AM UTC
TIME OR ENDLESS SPACE ?
So great is life if it's like space,
No years to count time's nervous pace,
No dates to sever people's lives,
But space to join as it contrives.
That man lived hundreds years ago,
And this, years later time did throw.
They are joined on one land and earth.
Why should time sever them by birth ?
How great is life in boundless scope,
With no days tied to gyroscope,
But just an endless view where all
Are joined in space outside time's rule.
We live with all those whom we love
And share the rule of space above.
All joined in one group with no years
To bind us with time and its fears.
BY JOSEPH ZENIEH
____________________________________
Jan 1, 2018
Jan 1, 2018 at 7:23 AM UTC