"cordoned" poems
i’ve long dreamt
of black flags in the streets
tonight i marched beneath
the shadow of their wings
shoulder-to-shoulder
in hope and solidarity
an anarchist professor
with a climate change activist
an independent journalist
and one of my students
as mid-November winds tugged
at her pink-and-brunette hair
she lifted a hand-drawn sign
of a gigantic sneaker
smashing a ****
and i felt
for not the first time
an enormous sense of pride
how humbling to at once
inspire and be inspired by
an eighteen-year-old
punk and artist
who asked to borrow
The Moral Imperative of Revolt
two scant months ago
then took to the streets
to oppose and depose
a twisted fascist virtuoso
for two whole hours
we hundreds owned the streets
we marched down Rosalind
Central and Orange Avenue
as protest slogans rang angelic
we raised hell and found heaven
in liberty equality and solidarity
but then the pigs closed in
cordoned to Lake Eola
to scream acquiescent rhetoric
at the fish sleeping
blissful in their innocence
beneath the jet black surface
a half-dozen cops in riot gear
astride horses loomed
ominous before us
backlit by the headlights
of the aggravated motorists
our march had forestalled
as the people abandoned the streets
we’d won so easily
i felt my chest wilt beneath
the weight of forsaken opportunity
my eyes scanned the remaining crowd
four stood strong
rooted to the concrete
by the world's weight
anchored by conviction
an anarchist professor
an independent journalist
a climate change activist
and a freshman college student
i heard the professor whisper to his student
i heard him say she'd put herself in harm’s way
that they'd lost the day when the marchers
turned their backs and walked away
but she didn’t flinch or move an inch
she stood silent and vigilant
shoulder-to-shoulder
chin held almost as high
as her Nazi-smashing protest sign
and her matching middle finger
and in that moment
i could’ve died
smiling
Nov 12, 2016
Nov 12, 2016 at 12:07 AM UTC
Packets of peace cordoned off by fences and barbed
wire, hooded lush in manicured fields.
Endless stream of labour crossing over water pikes:
hear, no see - river in the bush.
Emerges curved a mirror on a pole: three directions,
The three birds, tinier than my forefinger, eating grain.
Lisping away in the wood the warbler and the shrike.
Wild flower, pops out red from a corner
of the cultivated green: and I am...
Jul 30, 2014
Jul 30, 2014 at 11:37 PM UTC
In the early dawn
A shout is seen
As the moon is falling,
Tawny birds blithely dart
In the scarlet tangles
Of your heart, always escape
Yet never so parading past
The topped prime colours
Of bleeding eyes uncovered,
All the fields and clearing
Woods have cordoned
Themselves, beyond
Your glorious boundaries,
In the knotted, noble trials
Of briar and serrated leaf,
Green trails ply angled thorns
Leading to one ****** crown.
Feb 13, 2014
Feb 13, 2014 at 6:53 PM UTC
He filled up the bathtub with ink
and told her it was art. She asked how they
should wash. He shrugged his shoulders, and
then he mumbled something about buckets.
She cordoned off the kitchen,
said he was not allowed in and that she
was conducting experiments
regarding the solidity of limes.
He exploded their duvet so
Feathers pirouetted and flew again.
He said they had found their being.
She said that maybe it was time to leave
He followed her down the street, just
a few steps behind. Watching her hair bounce
upon her shoulders he wondered
what would be the best thing for him to say.
Nov 22, 2011
Nov 22, 2011 at 3:28 PM UTC
Pillar of strength
Standing free and alone
Never asking for support
But always there for others
When things got tough
When it helped to have something to lean on
Pillar of strength
Having endured many years of this routine
Never designed to go without repair
Or to even hold too heavy of a burden
The foundation was crumbling
Soon, everything would come crashing down
Pillar of strength
Needing to be repaired
Was cordoned off to keep the people away
They protested!
"How will we stand on our own?!"
"There is no way!!"
Pillar of strength
Tired of being misused and abused
Spoke loudly and clear
"I was never meant to stand for you or bear your burden alone."
"I was meant to give you some help and a break on your way home."
Pillars of strength grow weak
When they're overused and become meek
Bearing burdens is tiresome and dull
So check the pillar every now and then
To make sure it won't fall
May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016 at 3:50 AM UTC
The cordoned enclosure saw room for exposure, for left was a gap in the gate
Climb too, or come through because you are just you, others will just have to wait
”Pass right along” they pulled from the throng, you’ve made it to pass, what’s wrong?
What’s wrong?"
Statistically I’m missing from the list if it’s your interest, I’m fit to pencil in a premonition’s false opinion
Prequisites parameters convincing your decision, it’s easy to chew if you pursue, (yes I do, yes I do).
Does it matter if the gap between the passage and the trap was rapidly adapting to the path of least resistance?
(Knock it down)
The fence was built for me, you can see, you can see, and I slipped through where the crow
bar cut the seam at your insistence.
(Knock it down)
Now you can pass for normal if we’re looking through my eyes, but for the sake of records,
please mark all that applies:
Are you now or at any time have ever been hispanic, how much cans of beer were drunk
this week, now tell me did you plan it?
Are you a woman, are you gay? Are you black, or something else, how much money do you
make and did you make it by yourself?
(Knock it down)
List the creed that most reflects your personal beliefs, condense it for the register, it’s such
a big relief to know
That we can track the chart, we can craft the slope
We can tell you just by looking if for you there’s any hope
but X asks Y if it’s a study for the pundits
then tell me how we’re told to build if no one plans to fund it
Climb the fence it’s common sense, the barbs are not for you
Go on boy you’ve made it, climb on through, climb on through.
No need to be perturbed as fence hoppers were before us
Well the fence was meant for us, you no longer can ignore us.
Knock it down
May 8, 2013
May 8, 2013 at 5:49 PM UTC
A vintner of aged leaves in the wine-press of the sun,
Thin-skinned like the lucent grapes from the vine-runs
Of the island trellises and teal-cordoned waves, lowest slung
Fruit-laden bough of sky, Sicily, whose ateliers of rolled cigarettes
And uprolled sleeves like tides tease smoke into studio paints,
The black apple wine of storm made into mouthfuls of pulp rain,
Before the sunrise is gathered again in fishing nets and crab pots,
The coastal towns with their salted roofs of pied clay and pigeons
Along the lava stone streets, and night from the chanteuse of Egypt,
Singing her coral to heron, as when her bird-like barefooted slaves
Left tracks across Old Kingdom wastes, so this dreaming old man
Leaves his wrinkles to these grapes and across the sand-island pillow,
Asleep with his fathers, hay-hauling peasants of wandering darkness.
May 26, 2020
May 26, 2020 at 8:02 PM UTC
when i cordoned you off
with Gorilla Tape and lilac vine
once i was done attaching encrypted files
of pearls upon that sultry salt of your inner-thighs
once i’d borrowed bonds
off my favorite banker’s portfolio
so i could waste myself in their earned interest
ratios
of blood bourne by centuries of
hapless gathering oppression
so i could use them in mosaics of swollen sand
that i could lay
like sea-glass shards under your
ebbing feet as useless parchments
i swallowed you in all your swollen spasms of fragile oblivion
until that bottom of this tongue lept amidst surfacing juices
obliterating and obligating all that ever decayed amidst obelisks
your whispers
(hatched from your
breathy endorphins)
shook me into
mine own
desperate shudders
astride our gathering humidity
and i gathered in
your needle-nosed
plier
eyes
-rust encrusted grey
incisors-
wrought from melted andirons
mixed with slug
trodden
soils
of hinterlands i was
never
to penetrate
as if i ever slammed
you
with yore spinning flails
into night’s emerging chasm
of charcoal sprinkled
with inner-orange peels
and their attempts toward
all that is illuminating, wistful, brief, and
precious—
i am your son, i am birthed from your sal i vations. i am twisting, still, amidst these rudiments of brine...
Apr 7, 2016
Apr 7, 2016 at 2:20 AM UTC
In the early dawn
A shout is seen
As the moon is falling,
Tawny birds blithely dart
In the scarlet tangles
Of your heart, always escape
Yet never so parading past
The topped prime colours
Of bleeding eyes uncovered,
All the fields and clearing
Woods have cordoned
Themselves, beyond
Your glorious boundaries,
In the knotted, noble trials
Of briar and serrated leaf,
Green trails ply angled thorns
Leading to one ****** crown.
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 1:07 PM UTC
In the early dawn
A shout is seen
As the moon is falling,
Tawny birds blithely dart
In the scarlet tangles
Of your heart, always escape
Yet never so parading past
The topped prime colours
Of bleeding eyes uncovered,
All the fields and clearing
Woods have cordoned
Themselves, beyond
Your glorious boundaries,
In the knotted, noble trials
Of briar and serrated leaf,
Green trails ply angled thorns
Leading to one ****** crown.
Jan 30, 2015
Jan 30, 2015 at 6:12 PM UTC
Cordoned off from moneyed people
Kept at distance by the clique,
Separate by class and culture’s
Moneyed boundary is their trick.
Wealth creates a boundary zone
Where only wealthy tread,
Admission is beyond the reach
Of those who toil for bread.
The maintenance of status
Is defended by their code
Of only Rich association
With no dilution in the mode.
Rich parties held on tropic isles
Exclusive to their wealth,
Accessable by private jet
And curvey blondes with stealth.
With status strictly guarded
By muscle, dogs and fence,
And fawning politicians
Who clamour to commence
The photo opportunity,
The handshakes and the smiles
Of wealth and power in unison
To win them votes for miles.
The Rich protect their Rich friends
In their universal club
Exclusivity’s the keynote…
And you’ll deftly get the rub
Should you smear your gloss and polish,
Lose your money in a fraud,
Then you’ll be exorcised at once
And immediately ignored.
The rules here are quite simple
And elementary my friend,
No matter how you gain your wealth
Or make it in the end….
By fair or foul’s acceptable
Just so long as banks’ remand
That you OWN a ****** fortune….
Then the Rich will shake your hand.
Marshalg
Broke@the Bach
Mangere Bridge
4 December 2010
Dec 3, 2010
Dec 3, 2010 at 1:47 PM UTC
On my wrist
You trace a roadmap
Of your heart.
There are winds
And turns
And potholes
Where past loves
Have been
Here,
The road is
Cordoned off
And forward,
Endless sunsets
Over mountain peaks
And the sun
Rising over sea
And shore.
Your story
Comes in whispers
And sighs
The occasional
Gasping intensity
Of eyes
Meeting eyes.
Your hand
Strays from my wrist
To wisps of hair
That have broken
Free
To dance in the breeze
Of your breath
That hangs
Ever close to my neck.
Dec 17, 2012
Dec 17, 2012 at 10:45 PM UTC
Journal entry 20240401:
I've survived 16,488 days, I've not seen any known survivors. I may be the last one. Not going to give up hope though..
So far, I've cordoned the search area,
Going to take some soil samples, and
run some tests. Not sure if the area will be inhabital for life yet...
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 2:13 PM UTC
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One thing I would miss,
the elegiac street names.
angora, moyamensing,
escaping my red-berry throat
as if terms invented by a willow tree,
its ancient, parched lips defining first utterances.
from her droning tongue,
terms incomprehensible.
the closest we’ll come to some ‘true name.’
she speaks in our words now. they enter us from all around,
words seeping in through porous flesh.
she reveals my truest intent.
looks at it through her leaves,
but will not tell me,
because she has none of the authority to do so.
to you, i want to look like home.
arms, peripheral walls.
unfortunately, inside you’ll find the wings of the stately home cordoned off,
closed to the public.
my great tragedies lie in the thought of you having no curiosity about the events of those rooms.
feel free to do with the house what you’d never do anywhere else.
you’ll find no temple here.
no servants’ prayer room populated by makeshift pews.
let so many fall from its windows howling with competitive laughter,
each guest trying to outdo the last.
to see who can be the most clever about getting the joke.
May 31, 2013
May 31, 2013 at 1:41 PM UTC
The cordoned off cricket pitch,
behind orange tape long,
is waiting for the grass to grow
for when the summer comes along.
The leaves are shedding their autumn gown,
upon the grass it lays,
and in her winter-time-zipped-up coat
a small girl runs and plays.
The benches around the park border
sit solemn, scuffed and lonely,
if only someone would put them back together again
before they become broken debris
The sky lengthens overhead,
a puzzling sight to see,
it stretches forth over the horizon line
buckling past the old oak trees,
and the people walk in straight lines narrow,
concentrating on the ground,
if only they’d look up not down,
they’d see the city’s teeth and not it’s frown
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 12:17 PM UTC
I watch stymied
laughters of the world.
They are momentary tragedies.
Halting
Hindi laugh,
silent
Asian laugh.
Poking each other in ribs
infused with ****** morrow.
Why do I surreptitiously laugh, aloud on paper?
Each diseased curtain
of sawed-pulp wafts gently on
my breath, through ink, away--
contained in incense clouds
from sandalwood shrubs
which rustled once
beside a child
whose mother
dipped in Ganges
her ceremonial robe
whet, with tears,
the appetite you have
tonight
from laughing.
Downtown, outside
my cordoned hallway,
other people cackle;
they laugh like Sheikhs.
They laugh like Mullahs,
rolling copies of Qur'ans
held next to black cloth,
who ask us
"Have you heard the one?"
The bishops,
priests and
generals
lean over their broaching bellies
to hear described:
Crackling yellow flames cast shadows
on maps for weary pilgrims
with questions inside their heads
suspended on the moon-tides.
They sang in a circle, one.
Motives for allegiance
unraveled on the ground of man's
passion, now rotting, beside the
carcasses of camels
too meatless to eat.
In the once cloudless sky,
separated from the stars eternally,
they conceived of
pangs as great as loneliness
which laughter disguises.
Love, a painful, confusing torment.
of which
laughter never inquires
"Have you the time for me?"
although, every few days,
it should.
Running fingers through our lover's hair,
laughter tempts the intellect eternity to
conceive.
Constant fascination is
more bearable than death,
we dream.
We all need more
persuasion
to let go,
let leather reins pulled
taut behind vocal chords
snap free from our hands
in empathy for what
can't be said
and move our tongues aside
to shout
"Again! Again!"
through laughter.
No need.
It repeats, despite encouragement.
Arriving in self-addressed envelopes in your receptacle
each year
on your birthday
waiting in the dark, crying:
“Open up!
Climb down
out of your body.
Come laugh with me,
between the stars."
May 11, 2012
May 11, 2012 at 2:34 AM UTC
On on select part of an Israeli beach in Haifa
Army kids, boys and girls
Crowded in this one place
Cordoned off by Kadeema
Badmitton without the net
or soft little bungy thing
Two ping pong rackets and one
hard ball back and forth
Bat! Bat!
Two boys, in lines up and down
their beach, two rows deep at least
near the water's edge for traction
Walk through and a ball heads for your face
but never hits
they are that good
and you feel silly
for being scared
until a racket whacks near your ear
and your hair moves
with a current of air
Zillions of bat! Bats!
They never think to
stop for your benefit
that is not in their culture
as you are unscathed,
only fearful
A beach cluttered with boys and girls
sit on old towels close together
Ceaseless, lively chatter in the hot sun
Displaying to each other as the sound of kadeema
and the ocean waves slosh in and out
Girls relaxed ******* start to peak out
of their string bikinis
As boys look on, move closer
ever closer
and the ******* feeling safe, expose themselves more
to the Mediterranean sun
Nov 11, 2012
Nov 11, 2012 at 5:55 PM UTC
chain lightning blows across the sky like a radiant touch;
strikes the same tree in my hometown every time i fall in love.
what breed is it, this ruinous love? striking,
the white caustic light of it irradiating
the surrounding cornfields.
were you ever there to see it? from your bedroom window?
the arc and crackle? this tuning fork of astral flame resonating
between cloud and timber? this crippled elm where
my skinny suicidal teenage love bid me scale limbs?
where each time, like a surgeon, my shaky fingers stitched bark
with the corded sinew of raccoons and my fluids held it all glued?
in the dark? how so like an heirloom it seems now;
this lone tree, cordoned in scars,
all gnarl and char.
i turn to the map of my circulatory system in these moments,
follow the red army over a causeway of capillaries,
watch them fattened on oxygen.
how else to know that amongst all this,
there remains
a richness deep
down things?
make a supple leather from the hides
of the nights I knuckled crabapples down your roof.
It will be the color of a bruise; of a secret. all you do
is carve, slicing carefully to cut out my
silhouette projected against your bedroom wall –
all this, time and memory, just arts and crafts. molding
the vectors of us, hurtling through space
like coins drifting
to the bottom
of a well.
memory, the fashion and fashioning of it:
the way we wear our existence. our skeleton
to cobble and clothe. so while we’re at it…
let us forget the moments of trepidation.
Obliterate the clamminess of our palms clenched together,
the schoolyard drama of it all. pasted in layers
until it’s just a mess of glue. until the moments that matter
are traced with dotted lines
and lusted over
by the appetites
of scissors.
Apr 30, 2015
Apr 30, 2015 at 10:33 PM UTC
Along the shadows mirrored road,
I whispered to my ghost,
I said oh dear, oh my john oh my.
What are you doing here,
This failure you have paid for,
This debt You’ve made sure you will Collect.
How far does the rabbit hole go?
Deeper and deeper, I fear.
Laugh and laugh as the children frolic to and fro,
But to those days you will never go.
When I say you are forever alone,
Do not think im cliché, or a bore.
Instead noticed the holes you dig,
Shielding yourself,
In this dark fiery pit.
BUT I REPLIED,
OH GLORIOUS DEMON,
YOUR NAME I ANNOUNCE AND DEPLORE,
BEELZEBUB, FOREVER MORE.
GET AWAY FROM ME, KING OF THE KNATS,
TO YOUR SCOURGE I DANCE ALONG,
BUT NOW LAY YOUR FLUTES,
AS I REST ALONG THE BAY.
MY FUTURE, THE ONE I’VE CURSED,
LIKE MACBETH’S WIFE, VILE PROPHECYIES DISBERESED.
ALAS, NO MORE!
I AM NOW MY OWN.
I WILL NOW BEGIN TO FAIL!
FOR NOW I SHALL BEGIN TO TRY.
Oh little boy, little boy,
He said.
In a sad, sad, man’s shell.
What is this emotion you feel?
If nostalgia met unchangeable fate,
Still not would we find one, as engorged
As you.
Listen to me now, I am not demon, not even a man, I am you,
Or am I just the wind rolling through.
You are your own worst enemy.
You opened the door knowing,
The Knowledge that abounds,
Was the Devil’s lure around,
The once slim waist,
Of your cordoned off face.
NO! No… I cried.
But to my tears,
I heard not even pitiful sighs.
The voice left me.
And in its absence came my own.
But no matter how it echoes,
No, no matter, how it sounds.
It is dull and lifeless now.
It is my future known and found.
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 12:07 PM UTC
.
In the early dawn
A shout is seen
As the moon is falling,
Tawny birds blithely dart
In the scarlet tangles
Of your heart, always escape
Yet never so parading past
The topped prime colours
Of bleeding eyes uncovered,
All the fields and clearing
Woods have cordoned
Themselves, beyond
Your glorious boundaries,
In the knotted, noble trials
Of briar and serrated leaf,
Green trails ply angled thorns
Leading to one ****** crown.
Feb 23, 2017
Feb 23, 2017 at 4:35 PM UTC
rest of title...Parkland, Fla.,February 14, 2018
One more senseless mass homicide
twas the sole arbitrary aim
as a former student nonchalantly
sauntered empty hallways
seconds preceding blame
brazenly intent to maximize total killed
matter of factly telling police
(his incomprehensible)
(ill) logic he did explain
when cornered, he willingly,
unflinchingly, reticently admitted guilt
Nikolas Cruz rocketed
to instantaneous infamous fame
pulling a fire alarm
("FAKE") emergency,
then going leisurely ambling
along his killing spree
total of seventeen slain (comprising 3 faculty
and 14 students)
mercilessly gunned down
as if they were wild game
when handcuffed, an innocuous
19 year old did readily admit
emptying one firearm after another
at a fairly rapid clip
then at some predestined
or spurious moment didst dip
and dive out amidst
the chaotic madding crowd
before reality flopped then did flip
as lower teeth he nervously bit upper lip
made feeble getaway
at a nearby eatery casually flirted
with cashier and made no move to flit
upon his seizure as cornered prey
subsequently large tract
massively cordoned off
strong arm of the law
slightly halting in speech
detailed his gambit
deliberately staking
a stance to maximize hit
and once again afflicted parents lit
up with rancor and rage pit
toughly battling sorrow
which will not quit
til death doth bring peaceful rest
sans, those grieving family visit.
Feb 16, 2018
Feb 16, 2018 at 7:18 PM UTC
the first time i choked on tear-gas,
we were standing in the heart of the Empire.
the scent of capsaicin still smarted
as we fished our medic bags for water-bottles
to flush our comrades’ eyes. we did not weep
for the revolt. we were at peace even as we knew,
beyond a shadow of a doubt,
we were ******
the black bloc, three thousand strong,
had raged through the streets of D.C.
overturning dumpsters, torching limos,
taking hammers and crowbars
to Bank of America windows
with gleeful abandon, a sense of endless,
militant joy. it would be
anarchy or annihilation.
the spontaneous insurrection
of the antifascist demonstration
was an inferno hotter than the dumpster-fires
we’d left like signal-flares in our wake.
for a moment, there, we could feel
the ******** quaking as our feet
shook the Earth, stepping
in-and-out of Lovecraftian shadows,
eldritch horrors of doom gloating over us.
but we’d been kettled,
cordoned by cops in riot gear,
cut-off from all possible routes of escape.
faceless phantoms clutching cudgels
to bludgeon our conflagration
into submission. and then
the call came. “this way! this way!
we found an exit!”
immediately, the cops swarmed in,
their momentarily vindictive arrogance
shattered by the freedom that rang
like church-bells in a half-a-hundred voices.
“this way! this way! we found an exit!”
motorcycles turned down the alleyway,
sirens screaming, echoing off the tenement halls
and only one of us possessed the sense to intervene.
for a moment, she stood alone.
a single figure, holding up her hands
and shaking her head, refusing to let
the ******** advance. but courage
is infectious. a moment later,
another joined her, then another,
until all of a sudden a half-a-dozen
of us stood shoulder-to-shoulder, shouting,
“no pasaran! you shall not pass!”
we waited for the billy-clubs to rain
hell upon our shoulders, but still
we remained steadfast, anchored
by the weight of our conviction
and the hope that even if we fell
the rest of the bloc would escape
to wreak havoc another day.
May 31, 2019
May 31, 2019 at 12:33 PM UTC
Brief Yet Common Encounters Pt. II
Stage rose to the coach,
Trouble with flies is they
Never know when to keep still-
Pumped full up of automobile dust and Neon lights and blank stares and
There goes the inaudible tick
The wings of minutia passing us by.
There goes the dusk spattering,
Feral men cordoned by beasts-
The great epée of thorn branding
The early light summoned,
Wounded obelisks of strength and Immortality brandishing the dagger
That built Her Earth. Before the sirens
Rang beyond the crepuscular fortnight,
Deep valleys of arid central hills
Attempting to rise to the day
And show compassion to the Underprivileged.
Jun 2, 2018
Jun 2, 2018 at 7:01 AM UTC
In the early dawn
A shout is seen
As the moon is falling,
Tawny birds blithely dart
In the scarlet tangles
Of your heart, always escape
Yet never so parading past
The topped prime colours
Of bleeding eyes uncovered,
All the fields and clearing
Woods have cordoned
Themselves, beyond
Your glorious boundaries,
In the knotted, noble trials
Of briar and serrated leaf,
Green trails ply angled thorns
Leading to one ****** crown.
Mar 6, 2016
Mar 6, 2016 at 4:52 PM UTC