"culled" poems
All things that pass
Are woman's looking-glass;
They show her how her bloom must fade,
And she herself be laid
With withered roses in the shade;
With withered roses and the fallen peach,
Unlovely, out of reach
Of summer joy that was.
All things that pass
Are woman's tiring-glass;
The faded lavender is sweet,
Sweet the dead violet
Culled and laid by and cared for yet;
The dried-up violets and dried lavender
Still sweet, may comfort her,
Nor need she cry Alas!
All things that pass
Are wisdom's looking-glass;
Being full of hope and fear, and still
Brimful of good or ill,
According to our work and will;
For there is nothing new beneath the sun;
Our doings have been done,
And that which shall be was.
9.4k
In times gone by, now recondite,
Neanderthal, ***** upright,
spoke softly, tones so lily-white,
and tried to put the world aright.
He taught us how the flame ignites
that wearing furs will warm the nights,
just why the rolling wheel excites,
and how the beveled flint stone bites.
Before the days of dynamite
he fought his foes with spit and spite,
and swung big sticks with all his might,
and rendered death with stones in flight.
Engaged in never-ending fight
(arenas were a global sight)
he forced his forces to unite
to sate his oily appetite.
To quell rude thoughts that may incite
he ruled the realm with fly-by-nights
and culled the winds of words in flight,
and darkened minds to anthracite.
With fairy tales of evil sprites
and how the fist of freedom smites,
he washed the world with flames alight
to vanquish hoards of parasites.
Each dawn the damage brought delight,
the foe was bent, a bit contrite…
yet battled on with no respite
until the dusk and evening light.
Encamped beside the firelight
Neanderthal, that shiny Knight,
awaited morn while sitting tight
assured the end would be alright.
Yes, conquest seemed his sacred right…
Forevermore?… well, no, not quite…
Neanderthal's extinct tonight
and lies beside the Trilobite…
MORAL
The Oreo is round, not bright:
while rolling near the candlelight
at first the searing seemed so slight,
the molten cream an oversight…
Apr 4, 2014
Apr 4, 2014 at 3:03 PM UTC
once more
layers of casing
are torn
papers culled
windows gleam
sheets smile
the cost is high
if not see
when to stop
can I find north
after all
I’d asked
so life’s paths
once veiled
in yesterday's grime
dispatched
to the winds
reveal
another vision
refreshing as
spring rain
seeking every fissure
quietly lodged boarders
not paying rent
evicted
as another corner
begs mastery
along with
a neater place
it dawns on me
atrophy
is the order
of things
vacate for a few
short paces
and face
it all again
wrenching me
from the lulling
status quo
of my stilted
blindness
Aug 28, 2018
Aug 28, 2018 at 6:49 AM UTC
Who here loves *******
I mean, dogs
Obviously…
Immature people.
I love ***** shows.
Seeing them all groomed to perfection, not a hair out off place
A shame some cute faces will just go to waste.
While some may whine and some may resist,
If it’s not monetised, well… does it exist?
Lined up in a row
Look at them go
Praying and hoping to win best in show, just for a itty bitty wittle headpat, while the owner gets useful things like money.
Cause a dog can’t use money, that’s just silly
Nails perfectly trimmed
Intelligence dimmed
Watch how they walk with a little trot, so proud of themselves,
its like they forgot they only have the same rights as their owners in 6 countries.
But dogs don’t need equal working rights, that’s just silly
Look its absurd
When they whine all their words
Clogging up space with their frilly likes and their silly ums that totally like inconveniences like everyone because they have to um like listen to a ***** talk for um longer than they like totally like um have to like ***
But they aren’t so bad, especially when you’ve had
A ***** that wont behave, a ***** that’s gone mad
Howling at the moon with their wandering wombs
It’s like there’s no party, only balloons.
If a ***** wears pants, do they go on all fours
Or do they get sent home for showing more than their paws.
Gasp at how they growl, protecting their hairy bodies, which, silly them, they don’t own.
They must be culled
Anger dulled
Knock in their thick skulls they are nothing but a *****
We all love ***** shows, we love the ******* even more.
So come on ladies, get down on all fours.
Feb 23, 2022
Feb 23, 2022 at 4:37 PM UTC
Observing these old men sitting at the stockyard cafe,
Suspendered bellies hanging above huge buckles
And button-crotched Levi's tucked tight over leather boots,
Legs grown bowed and thin, but carrying them to the sale, still,
To hear the auctioneer, talking fast to work the buying crowd,
And get their fill of cattle, shoved indoors,
Sold beneath the steady cracking whips,
A spectacle to burn its way into my minds's forever eye:
The skidding steers, the rolling eyes, the frantic scramble to find cover,
While buyers gave their quiet signs:
A tilted cap, a winking eye, a thumb or index finger up or at a side,
To purchase cow or bull or horse, in living flesh...
Then out again, through the other door,
And turn our heads to wait for more, and read the scrolling numbers:
How many head, how much per pound, perhaps a buyer's name,
And then the swinging sound of other cattle coming in to start again.
So, here these old boys sit again,
Slurping coffee through their yellowed teeth,
Remembering days of indoor cigarettes and harried waitresses,
The smell of cow manure and jingling spurs,
Though now the smokeless ring seems tame, more civilized,
I see the glory days reflecting in the old men's eyes.....
I was just a boy back in those good old days,
My memory is a little hazed, but I can recall
When smoking was allowed and sawdust covered the filthy floor,
A Coca-Cola cost a dime, and the cattle sale with Dad was the big time;
Quaking as we treaded light on the catwalks above the pens,
Looked for our calves, or cows Dad culled to bring to sale,
Then going down and in to see them sell.
Fondly now, I can recall the restaurant at the ring
Where I hoped for a slice of lemon pie from behind chill-fogged glass,
Saw cowmen wearing spurs and neckerchiefs and chaps...
Dreamed of growing up to be a cowboy.
Jun 30, 2015
Jun 30, 2015 at 1:32 AM UTC
homage to Wallace Stevens
I - My Focus pistoned up the rise
and all at once, the Rockies -
silhouettes against the western skies.
II - On the road to Boulder
a pleated ridge crawls north
like a blue whale bound for the open sea.
III - Appalachia's intoxicating verdure
never fails to induce in us
a certain mellowing of the spirit.
IV - You 'conquered' my North Face, did you?
Why, I should skewer your arrogant ***
like a holiday lamb culled for the sacrifice.
V - Lewis and Clark looked west
surveying the Bitterroots' frigid expanse.
Farewell Northwest Passage!
VI - Pueblos stranded on Enchanted Mesa -
their rock stairs crumbled to the valley floor.
Should they dive to their death or starve?
VII –Touristas at Big Bend Park
wonder at its pastel window -
its romantic haze a toxic gift
from stacks across the Rio Grande.
VIII – The once mighty Ozarks humbled by age,
dwarfed by the youthful Rockies.
Listen up, youngsters, your time will come!
IX – We de-bussed to seize the dolomites
with our hyper-kinetic shutters.
Pausing for a draught of Italian air,
I felt the whack of an Alpine snowball.
X - Before Oregon's crater had its lake,
the mountain scorched the village below.
Today its azure waters preach only serenity.
XI – Looking down from Shissler peak
to the golden meadow below
where the elk herd calmly grazes.
XII – Do mists veil the Blue Ridge Mountains
or are there really no mountains at all -
only clouds decked out in mountain attire?
XIII – They say that peaks more steep than Everest
soar up from the ocean floor.
Who will scale their sunken heights?
May 28, 2010 – Boulder Colorado
Mar 19, 2014
Mar 19, 2014 at 12:18 AM UTC
Creeping in my veins
Settled in my skull
I Hate Myself
Racing thoughts,
The dark takes a hold
I Hate Myself
Emptied out my organs of love,
An empty hull
I Hate Myself
Night swells up
The dark thoughts are culled
I Hate Myself
Pouring out my lymph nodes
Taking control, the only voices I hear
"I Hate Myself, You Have A Trigger to Pull"
Apr 23, 2013
Apr 23, 2013 at 11:09 PM UTC
As culled from an arts magazine, 13 March 2019
Socialist Realism - The official doctrine in Soviet art and literature after 1932 that evolved from the traditional commitment to social and civic concerns into an all-pervasive general ideological mandate.
-Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 20th Century Russian Poetry
collective exhibition space vibe community
interactive narrative brown neighborhood
defined commodified Indigenous
identity tone-deaf decolonial
narratives populist intertwined
exhibition curatorial vision
culture local artists arts district small galleries
DIY spaces speaking out against
gentrification displacing shelter
studio space elsewhere late stage capitalism
collective mantra underdog art savior
corporate entity partnering insensitive
ignorant collective brown people art
contemporary work that may not fit
into establishment art galleries
media advisory venture collaborate
creative community authentic
local statement of expression excitement
creative energy arts district project
many levels collaborate local
creative important creative
community what that collaboration
looks like ongoing local artists going
to be engaged in planning commissioned
project community buy-in consulted members of the creative community Indigenous artists curators museum
directors professors burgeoning landscape
cultural framework critique talk individuals
entities inclusivity open
dialogue opportunities project
conversations collaboration discuss
your projects share our work with you
common ground work together healthy sustainable
accountable decolonization
Mar 16, 2019
Mar 16, 2019 at 5:41 PM UTC
I will get straight
to the point, shoving
past year after year
after year, count them
dear, sick puppy
torn from the pack
blood smeared
you culled me from
the herd and made me
your stuffed meal
your worse than zeal
your mascot
When I was twelve years old
you bent me into a comma
When I was twelve and
one quarter you bent me
into a fist, a fetal position
you could not resist
The love of a child
when I was twelve
and a half I fought
back but lucky you
no mother love was
listening
The anatomy of a child
You son of a *****
Who's the hunter now?
Not you, nearly seventy
years old, ***** hippie
with one dry pointed
finger (you know
which one)
To be
To be continued
when I'm done
Jan 26, 2019
Jan 26, 2019 at 9:32 PM UTC
...Here a man stands accused--the pellucid jury
of his peers come to themselves in their life's arms
through him.
He wails upright...a shadow continent wedging
The Flood.
Timekeeping horseflies besmirch his chest cavity
with due kisses...par for par movements consume
time till the singular advocacy of he withstood.
The imperturbable essence captured itself, as so
at the height of its powers there's interplay.
Ease culled from tribulation...countenance slackened
by degrees...overwhelmed by awareness.
Kingdom come Kingdom--shoring space of grace
that is freedom.
As if Everything centering of itself, fawning over itself...
polar opposites in conjugal bliss.
Here a man stands accused...of being--fit for steely
juxtaposition...the murderous implement of will, or
salvation.
Envision him post-Flood, waist-deep, the living Face
of the Deep...look upon him!
Timekeeping horseflies besmirching his chest cavity
with due kisses...par for par movements consuming
time till the Singular advocacy of thee...look upon
him!
An encounter of pitless ramification: fear or love...be
it the last man upon the earth.
Look upon him--O jury of his peers boasting billions...
pellucid unto one another...look...The Hour is radiant!
Won't thee come to thine life's arms through him?
For he is Everyman.
Feb 6, 2015
Feb 6, 2015 at 11:25 AM UTC
To the tune "Courtyard Filled with Fragrance"
Fragrant grass beside the pond
green shade over the hall
a clear cold comes through
the window curtains
crescent moon beyond the golden bars
and a flute sounds
as if someone were coming
but alone on my mat with a cup
gazing sadly into nothingness
I want to call back
the blackberry flowers
that have fallen
though pear blossoms remain
for in that distant year
I came to love their fresh fragrance
scenting my sleeve
as we culled petals over the fire
when as far as the eye could see
were dragon boats on the river
graceful horses and gay carts
when I did not fear the mad winds
and violent rain
as we drank to good fortune
with warm blackberry wine
now I cannot conceive
how to retrieve that time.
2.2k
Winter evening days, frosty and frigid
Fading into the fading light from a culled and broken sun
Icy winds eroding the thoughts ever tepid
Fading into the fading light as the sky came undone
White pockets of cloud bursting into monochrome colour
Tones of happiness unseen in the white
Into the fading light were weary souls fading into the pallor
And a sprinkling of dreams brought them respite
Frigid and cold, frosty but bold
Their dreams rain down upon our heads
Floating from the skies as snow
Lying cold in their naked death beds
Glistening upon the salty street unwanted
And by their own wonders, they were haunted
They stayed away, afraid to look up
To see their dreams rain down upon them
The magic of the heavens weaving crystalline tales of glories
Every flake unique, fading into the salty tears with untold stories
And the people, they sit in their wealthy cages
Barred in their homely prisons, afraid of the world outside
Untold stories never to be seen on yellowed pages
And the eyes of the tepid, they see with their eyes
The wonder of the world outside
And the frigid air is not frigid
And the icy winds are not icy
And the freezing snow is not freezing
The air is cleansing
The winds are refreshing
And they look to their time ahead
They know not what lies in that time ahead, as it fades
Fades into the fading light
Fades like the dying sun
Like the fading past fades
Into the white winds of the road fading behind
And all they see
Is frosty pockets of delight coming out from out ahead
Crystalline glimpses into the unknown future
A dreary evening for some this may be
But it is to me, an evening of wonder
With a sprinkling of dreams.
Nov 30, 2015
Nov 30, 2015 at 12:57 PM UTC
He hates daylight with sense of a mole,
He has curtains all over his chambers, to preserve
His heart nocturnal, where he derives joy
As he does glory from his night shift
As a mortician at the city morgue,
Where I was deadly drunk one night,
And fallaciously declared dead by a nurse
And got dumped into this domain of the AG
Fellow drunkards who became sober to cry
For help out of the morgue, the AG clubbed
Them lethally to final death, forget of drunkardness
Another sick person un-convulsed back to life
He thrashed his skull with a menacing club,
Only two strong hits sent the misfortunate man
Back a really rigor mortis, finally dead,
I chose not to breathes loudly till dawn
When the dayshift mortician came on duty
I pleaded for his favour and sympathy,
He culled me out of death, I went home
Running swearing to myself never to drink again!
Jun 20, 2014
Jun 20, 2014 at 7:44 AM UTC
Not by one measure mayst thou mete our love;
For how should I be loved as I love thee?—
I, graceless, joyless, lacking absolutely
All gifts that with thy queenship best behove;—
Thou, throned in every heart’s elect alcove,
And crowned with garlands culled from every tree,
Which for no head but thine, by Love’s decree,
All beauties and all mysteries interwove.
But here thine eyes and lips yield soft rebuke:—
‘Then only,’ (say’st thou), ‘could I love thee less,
When thou couldst doubt my love’s equality.’
Peace, sweet! If not to sum but worth we look,
Thy heart’s transcendence, not my heart’s excess,
Then more a thousandfold thou lov’st than I.
2.1k
carrying Kalashnikovs on their backs,
the rebel mules have panic in their eyes
and resting at the back?
fear filled pupils that dilate
with every corpse seen vacating itself
of tissue and blood,
smell the perfume of gun barrels
and those lonely enough to be culled,
picked off by a trained eye
and a government lie and
a man laid down in an apartment block out of sight up high.
civilian fathers laying spread on the back of a flatbed,
cinderblock walls that offer no protection but that of protecting the dead,
sharpen another knife for another internet viral video of another guy without a head
and finally, cat walk model rebels wearing beaded shrapnel necklaces, gorgeous and chrome red.
and they’ll try give them away around,
a daily sound of the everyday
so they can have a price that they can pay
for the ordinary,
for the sane,
for America’s definition of the lame.
Jun 16, 2013
Jun 16, 2013 at 12:44 PM UTC
orange juice and a rabid flight
of love for you but not the kind
of love requiring either bent
over the counter. the kind
of love where what is one
is alls'. is everyones', is
everything and there is never
one - either side - going wanting
for our emotions shared are
those mutually lost in the greater
mass of what humanity has
culled into their concept of
social awareness and some
chick ranting about the collective
consciousness. they're evil, or so
told. and onward, always forward
but never straight to remember
a perpetual motion of the hands
controlled by the soul -
that's what's called the mind these days.
forgone, for a single word,
far gone and lost in the wind with
sails ripping from the flushed canvas
swollen by the trade winds -
not those trade winds, but ours.
our conversation and appreciation,
and this allegory - metaphor more likely -
is of the soul being the true vessel
when the vessel is the last vessel,
and to please the dying vessel,
repeat in infinity this ******* cycle
of Samsara. en eternal vessel of meat
ground fine to be filtered through
silicone. this is our ship, this spurned
burger of muscles that succumbs
to parasites finding us pork.
eat the **** gain the trich unlike caring
Canadians who destroyed the
pig in them. destroyed the mentality of
what is wrong but quit? why ever try
for greater, and learning is not an
end to a means. and again the souls
vessel - allegorized Ulysses proper -
is in metaphor a ship, breath the trade
winds and wisdom precious cargo.
the null are bandits, the haired beast
of both the North and South . .
barbarous action through organization
and labeling of existence as A to B,
as A to Z, and realize that means
twenty-six is the end.
Mar 22, 2013
Mar 22, 2013 at 8:00 AM UTC
I hate myself
I've lead a life that a lot of people don't understand
feeling the need compartmentalize my life to the point I don't even know who I am
stopped wanting ***
even now find it crass and crude
just another way for people to use me
afterwards feel see thru and ugly and gross
wilted sunflower to be culled from yr bed
even if mutual with ample loquacious lovers
I curl up in ball
don't let them look at me
in ugly failure skin clown mask
the **** of all yr jokes
'he's great but he's quiet'
talk on
everyone just seems so cruel
I weak like veal
tender for the taking
fry me up
straight from womb to pan
cowards make the best cuts
of wet meat to ****
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 12:17 AM UTC
Sweet dimness of her loosened hair’s downfall
About thy face; her sweet hands round thy head
In gracious fostering union garlanded,
Her tremulous smiles, her glances’ sweet recall
Of love; her murmuring sighs memorial;
Her mouth’s culled sweetness by thy kisses shed
On cheeks and neck and eyelids, and so led
Back to her mouth which answers there for all:—
What sweeter than these things, except the thing
In lacking which all these would lose their sweet:—
The confident heart’s still fervour: the swift beat
And soft subsidence of the spirit’s wing,
Then when it feels, in cloud—girt wayfaring,
The breath of kindred plumes against its feet?
1.6k
They crest the white foam in perfect formation,
With purpose and strength they flap as they glide,
Fixated ahead in assured navigation,
Each trailing the other with nowhere to hide.
Then all of a sudden with no clear command,
They veer on some path and head for the sky,
Soaring the waves like a mischievous band,
Riding the thermals with a predatory eye.
No longer a pod but single torpedoes,
Spotting their quarry they launch with intent,
Diving at speed like rapacious mosquitoes,
To feast on that glimmering shoal now hell bent.
Again and again they dive to then surface,
Their sacks full of loot hidden from sight.
Transfixing, majestic, nature's true circus,
The curtain then falling as they once more take flight.
Florida's Pelicans, a marvelous sight,
Gregarious and cheeky with us so entwined,
Once hunted and culled as merely a blight,
Now in our hearts so fully enshrined.
Jul 5, 2023
Jul 5, 2023 at 10:06 AM UTC
and she spoke,
and her lips were myth;
her tongue, song:
forehead scar shone
lodes of rune
re-membered ember
of yesteraeon soot cooked
sitting fire in ashen ire re-sired
without him
her self
felt, *********
clod alive
tooth of skull
culled forth
bone spoken
tomes uttered
and i felt her light enter
this dilating space
of ebb and ruin and alone
stile of mine
thresheld, again
footfall of wynd,
blown open
into dope field sprung swim
Feb 16, 2017
Feb 16, 2017 at 8:46 PM UTC
Promises of respite
from sallowed ashes,
adorned with feathers
from a thousand culled doves.
Haplessly wishing that freedom
comes soon.
A hope ensnared
in the clench
of crimson-stained gloves.
Jan 4, 2024
Jan 4, 2024 at 12:16 PM UTC
Once upon a time
Lived a boy drenched in reason and rhyme
He culled the fields
A plow he yields
With a smile as soft as soil
But he heard the call to better things
away to rocks and stones that sing
Buried down in dirt and dust
Yields a bite of metal's rust
A smile as sharp as flint
The hand of death touched his soil
But through that barrage he twisted and toiled
But as he pleaded an escape from the grip of black
He knew that it would pull him back
And a set as solid as stone
Back to farm and yield he traveled
To see he life had unraveled
His green fields of corn and roan
Was all dark, and filled with stone
The green boy shadow stained
The boy had twisted and shouted
That the shadow of death should let him out
But in his haste to escape
He forgot the trace of blood and the deeper scrape
That was gunpowder and blood
He forgot to ask
He forgot the tasks
That had given him a soil smile
And in that lost guile
He forgot to ask the hand that gripped him
To wash itself of the shadow
Of blood and gunpowder
Mar 9, 2016
Mar 9, 2016 at 3:10 PM UTC
It is ok to be
not
what you are
still
becoming. She said
"you're not special." Grinding teeth and sodden rails. My car is exhausted--
downwind, held in the air like branches of birches and pines
humming with each blatant engine-stroke
which fall onto that bleakening
icedock and curl-- culled passengers tossed to sea;
unavoidably
sharp veer left, beyond surreptitious and frantic spectators
and through a once-pearl snowdrift straying into my mind.
M
C
M
L
V
Turtlenecks can't keep us warm and soup can't clear my throat.
I choke on
sliced rubber, seatbelts cut halfway-- from
Spring. pluck us like cattails
amongst my marshy solubles.
Exposes my larynx she-- ubiquitous sonnet spews forth.
What contrite aberration, wears Kalapodi temple dress
made of rose petals blown in beneath love's column
and presses with her thighs my vision?
There is nothing more to say-- meals served
raw on Winter holidays. Steaming
spoonfuls dried up on her palate--
Special in the way I left you there.
Special in being the same as I should have been.
And I, no-- I!
I can not talk any longer! The clouds I thought to taste
won't allow me to
rain
be-- once dangling from the ceiling, my dripping prevented
with a pale, cotton daub.
You see
the paramedics
even as they sheath my torso
and hold your head with thorped sieves:
The driver steered his vessel wrong
an action which robbed his passenger's breath.
Sep 25, 2011
Sep 25, 2011 at 9:34 PM UTC
I have fallen asleep in your dark waters
And lifted the heavy meniscus thereof
I have been cut off from identity
And returned with your love
My eyes have rolled like floating maraschinos
Aimlessly drawn to the vacant potential
Out of the pool of scattered images
The puppet master culled
Stories written by grey neurological
Fibers assembled appearance of array
Fastening to muscular reflexes
That danced to the display
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 12:43 AM UTC
Words are fun to play about with -
to rhyme sometimes, or simply shout with.
Textured words with rich deep color
that vivify those words much duller;
phrases culled from a private stash
to give your expletives panache.
Cause shock and awe - gain admiration,
with erudite vituperation!
So let your language soar unfettered
away from tired words four lettered.
Jul 2, 2011
Jul 2, 2011 at 3:06 PM UTC