"custodian" poems
Two fine films: The Lost City and Blood Diamond.
I joined Blood Diamond during a village massacre
and said to my wife A gun in every home.
Those devils would think twice
before razing the village and seizing the boys.
A well-regulated militia.
The local militia the most interesting moment
in a strong film with motive (economic, emotional), action (chases,
fights) and a **** sexless love story.
Use of violence by the local militia for a limited purpose: protect the
community, the young
from the janjaweed. The crop from the ****
Limited scope and defensive posture
but armed and coordinated, cooperative, the men (and the women)
side by side.
Warriors at the gate, you will not run, you will not bargain.
Just violence = limited scope, defensive posture.
Great music. Cuba, Africa.
The Lost City, when the communists tell the club owner under threat
of violence
No saxophones in the band. The saxophone!
Invented by a Belgian--Look what the Belgians are doing in the
Congo!
When the state's violence is turned against the citizenry
for non-violent acts.
This quiet neighborhood, July,
undergirded by violence, force. That's a given--
any farmer, custodian, EMT will tell you that.
Without just violence
Gandhi's scope, and King's, might be vanishingly limited,
negligible (but not non-existent)?
Regarding King
the matter is simple -- he was non-violent but dependent upon
federal force to counter the South's violence.
No doubt without the larger force, the non-violent would be
overwhelmed by southern violence.
Here, non-violence was a tactic, not an ethic.
Gandhi, however, had no violent partner to protect him from the
British. Or did he?
1. There was the potential violence of the population, which Gandhi
restrained but could release which the British feared, and
2. It was the restrained (limited scope) violence of the British that
allowed Gandhi to exist rather than be extinguished--this restraint
was a (British) cultural imperative (limited scope) as well as
emanating from Britain's view of India as a protectorate and
valued citizen of the United Kingdom (defensive posture).
What about violence or threat of violence to compel compliance with
community
as in mortgage foreclosure, driving without license, drug possession.
Perhaps it is necessary violence to maintain orderly commerce, the
common space, and preempt bad behaviors associated with
otherwise neutral, private acts.
The defensive posture is the common good; the limited scope is
forgoing deadly force.
But the citizen, too, must maintain a disciplined, armed non-violence,
in case the state (the janjaweed) engages in an unjust, autoimmune
violence.
Hence, a gun in every home.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 9:56 AM UTC
Oh, my Father in Heaven
Guarding me from all perils and trials
And sets my heart free of all clutter
For you, my songs of praise, I reserve
All my life, I shall sing
Without fail, in bloom or gloom
On every unfolding day
Through months and years
Till death and beyond
Let my songs sail across the skies
And with the chorus of the heavenly band, unite
Oh, the benevolent Lord of all creation
Custodian of all wealth
Contriver of birth and death
The Master Crafts man
Everything is your handiwork.
The lofty mounts
Veiled in misty snow
The verdant dales
Lush and still
The fathomless deep
Where mysteries peep
All the flowers
That bloom and wither
All things
Bright and beautiful
Everything, above and below
In all,
Let me behold thy grace
And sing Thee praise!
Oh! Redeemer of Mankind
Guide me through the dark
Guard my steps where dangers lurk
Hold my hand
And never loosen your grip
Make me face the light
Illumine me with wisdom serene
And fill me with love divine;
So that you be glorified
Here, on Earth
And in Heaven be!
Nov 14, 2016
Nov 14, 2016 at 7:12 AM UTC
i'm living on a solitary prayer
vandalized my ego to make it rare
with teeth stained with lies i've told
and promises lost in the cold
i tussle and taser to hide my lovers
and all that i am - a mess or tastemaker
sprinkling tersely on my mercy seat
will make my season go complete?
i pull the labrys & the throttle
artefact-sprites in uranium soil
declaring my truth atop of the flagpole
i'm the custodian of haute culture
a flotilla of judgment riding skyhigh
like dido's love-lachrymose down demise
they say "better rethink your useless vendetta"
but first we'd better get out of their siberia
where the masses doubt the angry fix
"ignore the (g/h)aze above the pyramid
if we only couldn't have any more
locked in dominican ****** wards
Aug 7, 2013
Aug 7, 2013 at 6:21 PM UTC
Avian slave beneath arrays of decay
Beneath the will to move on
She is so rusted and gone
Afar from quintessence crossed
Into the realm of the lost
Slipped into the clutch of the maw
Of madness it’s savage
Where the judge is the jury
Executioners laugh at the magnanimous
Everything stripped from the flesh
Nothing left to see but a dejected show in the throes of wreckage
Because these lost prophets sit upon a stolen perch looking down on a fallen goddess
A desecrated figure devoid of any promise
The primary custodian of a land forever conquered
A society gripped in the chokehold of despair
Perpetual attunement to ruin consumes a flock of sheep in the leviathan’s lair
And the pretty little songbird
Torn asunder by each verse
Learns that from her inception
She never was a free bird
Oct 14, 2012
Oct 14, 2012 at 5:58 AM UTC
Four girls sit cross-legged
On cold pitted concrete
It’s always cold here
Their rear-ends frozen
Bare ankles growing sore
Pouring over textbooks
Finishing today’s homework or
Tomorrow’s.
Hope there’s no pop quiz.
They nod
In unison
I didn’t study
Neither did I
The other two stare
At their books nonplussed
Their papers scattered, a ruler and a pen
Out of the library and into the cold arrives
The fifth
She looks about and sees
A grey curl
A long head
A heavy tail
It’s soft, someone thought, as she saw the raised leg
Which came down fierce like lightning,
A defiant, queerly polished white saddle-shoe
One of two strange shoes
That looked like no one else’s but why?
Flattened the entirety into the cold, cold concrete
The meteorite that destroyed a species of one.
Conjoined twins, now dead
There’s no way we can repair it
Can’t even peel it away
The custodian will have to scrap it off with a blade and wash it down
We laughed
All but one.
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 12:23 AM UTC
I would like to think of myself as an intellectual, but really I’m just a regurgitation of the adolescent caste system with academic anxiety and a learned fear. Well, I suppose that is a bit harsh. I used to be social ***** now I am a lowly intrapersonal custodian (let us never mind my inter-personal mess-managing, please?), though I am far from clean. __________ I have found myself flitting back to this page from time to time and mentally inserting here a terse, self-degrading statement that could re-catalyze my pitiful little verse, but never actually writing it. I hold it heavy in my head where it shall remain, apparently. Apparently I don’t feel the need to read my flaws, transgressions, and fallibilities back to me. Perhaps I haven’t yet articulated them, and they’re just skulking around—hunched apparitions haunting my subconscious. (Death smells like dog treats: perplexing, but you want to touch your tongue to it so long as no one will know). I must slay them all, eventually, or else perish. But! It is not the transgression itself that I fear—my behaviors are observable, even tangible, I can stare at them for hours. It is the dark implication of the transgression—the churning matter only detectable for its outline of illumination—that gives me trepidation. How will I move-on? How will I grow-here? Like an impossible little spur that nestles between resistant skin and unknowing fabric? Can I penetrate the protection? My security is maniacal; it is evidence of crazed disillusion. I am the raven clawing through infinite veneers; I am tangled…
Out ****** spot! Out, I say!
I must regress to becoming the white blanket.
I must know nothing but God.
A simple cloth.
A towelette.
Rags!
Rags!
Rags!
…
….
…God?
…Hello?
…Is it too late to become
…plain?
Feb 14, 2015
Feb 14, 2015 at 10:40 AM UTC
I know not from whence my inspirations cometh
I believe I was chosen from the time of my birth.
Alone and undisturbed, I have strange visitation
Embellished with beautiful stories delivered via imagination
Even the mental drought known as writer's block
Goes away the very moment the spirits knock.
Thanks to my late Queen mother who told me stories
And tales of our ancestor's conquest of adversities.
I am the last of the great Grios from my tribe.
The spirits will always be my source of inspiration and guide.
I come alive at night when the entire world sleep,
That's when the best ideas and loose words creep.
These words I process as part of my solemn obligation.
As custodian of Ancient history and its dissemination.
Call me a poet because of spoken word and great poetry
In actuality, I'm the last Grio sent to write our ancient oral history.
IvanBrooksPoetry©️
Jan 31, 2018
Jan 31, 2018 at 7:31 PM UTC
Since we met in this life we’ve been so together
The trees and the sky will tell you, just ask them
Since, frankly and completely as one
Searching our souls, discovering each other and ourselves
Loving, living and learning with no effort at all
Moulding our life to divine goals, elements exploring
Each day we grow, smoothing our rituals and tasks
Simple, small, understated and beautiful
Yet enormous, devastating and wonderful
I’ve never been clearer in mind nor more ordered
Serious or intended, structured yet mesmerised and dreamy
Child-like pleasures our little hearts
Honestly, knowing you has given an exclusive season of patience
A crown of peace with measures of muted resonance
My emotion and behaviour jangle with excitement
Gaining speed and velocity as our developing love fertilises everything we do
If any part of me was withheld or absent it was without cognisance or most importantly intent
I was always here totally, loving you with an undivided heart
Building our future and having the truest most delightful life
Such destiny within two earthly beings, such kismet
But no..earth is not from where we sprung
No logic or contract by human standards but from cosmos and celestial forces
Stardust, moonbeams, sunlight and energy
Our future is viridian, cobalt, alizarin, ultramarine, carmine...
Colours drawn from a bow of happiness with arrows of true love
Thudding into our hearts every single moment
Rainbows of kindly sparkly crystals reflecting each tiny emotion
Willow tree flexibility, cool streams of pure clear water whisper in our ears
Look to your soul and to the memories of our short time together
Begin to believe that life is so very good ,so treasured like us
Darling Jan my complete lover
The wife I’ve always had, true soul provider, custodian of my heart
Clearer in the transformation from Jan and Max to a ‘whole’ inseparable
By anyone or anything for all time and eternity..
Even better knowing that as always
Now even more.....I’m all yours
Feb 3, 2010
Feb 3, 2010 at 12:22 PM UTC
It's 4:40 in the morning and I am at work.
I'm a custodian.
My whole night revolves around the clock,
drifting from one bathroom to the next.
Of course I do more than that.
But it's all such a bore.
I was done with everything for the night an hour ago,
but I can't leave until 6.
So, I will make myself look busy.
I have no **** at home so I'll probably stay up the rest of the day, watching YouTube videos since sleep will not be in the cards for me.
One more shift later and then I'll be free for the weekend.
Free to pay my bills, maybe get groceries, buy some **** and binge watch The Office on Netflix for the second time.
And then start all over again next week.
Oct 20, 2016
Oct 20, 2016 at 4:49 AM UTC
it's so beautiful
********
it's a heartless ***** that luminates the dark sky as dreamers lie to themselves
romanticizing and influencing young everywhere to love dream and hope alike, when it stalks upon the sun.
despite all this,
the red on your white pants
makes humiliation sound a lot better than the repulsion of a custodian finding a used **** pad, soaked in red
clogging up the toilet.
dear.
it's a ****** that flaunts upon it's charms
while lingers in the blue sky staring up at the sun.
the red in the sun,
burns eyes so that the neurons in the optic nerve
die and somehow gives you a miraculous squint
but it's far more better than the repulsion of the custodian finding "lady" napkins clogging the toilet hole.
dear.
someone's always got to be a custodian don't they?
Dec 28, 2012
Dec 28, 2012 at 1:48 AM UTC
Millions of years of existence
Earth carries layers of history
Abundant and bountiful
They thrived during their peak
Happiness and coexistence
Turned to rambunctious ambitions
Valiant hearts turned violent
Severing the ties of humanity
Colored the layers of history in red
Tyrants and traitors marred the existence
Of the beautiful fabric of mankind
Stained fate, never to recover
Sometimes nature turned foe
Obliterating life from this Earth
History is the silent custodian
Testimony to the many facets of humanity
We bring our downfall
Mired in controversies and revenge
Saga of shameful acts and own dereliction
Sifting through the layers of history
It’s not for the faint-hearted to endure
The rough tales of disasters and annihilation
Millions of years and many more thereafter
At the crossroads of humanity
History is waiting to add many more layers
To the annals of its testimony
Apr 21, 2015
Apr 21, 2015 at 8:17 AM UTC
Elizabeth;
Of immensely esteemed birth.
Highly respected in life,
but more respected in death.
Having a crown that ceased to decay
for many decades long.
A queen of kings, but still a wife,
custodian of traditions strong.
She that saw historic anniversaries,
She that saw millennial discoveries,
She that transcends previous monarchies
in length of days and pivotal reign.
Queen of a realm of historic gains,
where the sun never sets on their plains.
All to Westminster their griefs convey
to our departed who countless smiles gave.
And for your funeral would many for death crave.
Dec 12, 2022
Dec 12, 2022 at 3:09 PM UTC
Mr. Custodian, why must you be so?
You're my caretaker, for what? I do not know
For I am six feet under, safe and secure
The worms are my friends, darkness I endure
Amongst the dirt and dust, I am protected
Though on that grim day, my light has ended
Mr. Custodian, I am safer than you
Inside my casket from what men of life do
You polish my headstone, for that I thank
It won't weather or crumble, but what of that tank?
Though I have passed, I feel the plight of men
Mr. Custodian, take the hole next to me, God Send.
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 1:11 PM UTC
La princesa está triste... ¿Qué tendrá la princesa?
Los suspiros se escapan de su boca de fresa,
que ha perdido la risa, que ha perdido el color.
La princesa está pálida en su silla de oro,
está mudo el teclado de su clave sonoro,
y en un vaso, olvidada, se desmaya una flor.El jardín puebla el triunfo de los pavos reales.
Parlanchina, la dueña dice cosas banales,
y vestido de rojo piruetea el bufón.
La princesa no ríe, la princesa no siente;
la princesa persigue por el cielo de Oriente
la libélula vaga de una vaga ilusión.¿Piensa, acaso, en el príncipe de Golconda o de China,
o en el que ha detenido su carroza argentina
para ver de sus ojos la dulzura de luz?
¿O en el rey de las islas de las rosas fragantes,
o en el que es soberano de los claros diamantes,
o en el dueño orgulloso de las perlas de Ormuz?¡Ay!, la pobre princesa de la boca de rosa
quiere ser golondrina, quiere ser mariposa,
tener alas ligeras, bajo el cielo volar;
ir al sol por la escala luminosa de un rayo,
saludar a los lirios con los versos de mayo
o perderse en el viento sobre el trueno del mar.Ya no quiere el palacio, ni la rueca de plata,
ni el halcón encantado, ni el bufón escarlata,
ni los cisnes unánimes en el lago de azur.
Y están tristes las flores por la flor de la corte,
los jazmines de Oriente, los nelumbos del Norte,
de Occidente las dalias y las rosas del Sur.¡Pobrecita princesa de los ojos azules!
Está presa en sus oros, está presa en sus tules,
en la jaula de mármol del palacio real;
el palacio soberbio que vigilan los guardas,
que custodian cien negros con sus cien alabardas,
un lebrel que no duerme y un dragón colosal.¡Oh, quién fuera hipsipila que dejó la crisálida!
(La princesa está triste, la princesa está pálida)
¡Oh visión adorada de oro, rosa y marfil!
¡Quién volara a la tierra donde un príncipe existe,
-la princesa está pálida, la princesa está triste-,
más brillante que el alba, más hermoso que abril!-«Calla, calla, princesa -dice el hada madrina-;
en caballo, con alas, hacia acá se encamina,
en el cinto la espada y en la mano el azor,
el feliz caballero que te adora sin verte,
y que llega de lejos, vencedor de la Muerte,
a encenderte los labios con un beso de amor».
1.7k
The body of a woman's neutral fineness embraces the chords of my steel guitar; laughing about all the points that I've been chasing after. Or just running away- no more for today. Christ, you slipped but lied too many times before, and while you plunge your wrists into your knives, I thought we had a second chance. But that was before, you throw sticks and stones and store your anger in the three fingers of the drink that clinks against our first date when I bought you a 25¢ ring. It was a children's vending machine, that brought me three years of happy things.
I don't want to be fake with you anymore. So go and find your Milky Way. I'm staying dumb, Britni I'm in trouble. All the stakes are different when you are chasing yesterday's killing.
And even the sound of the gunshots don't overcome the voice of the human tongue, in violence and war and all that's abhorred, even the smallest vesper or prayer a whisper of three little words can always be heard, even the faintest whisper can always be heard, as long as the voice that says it is honest and pure.
I was too tight to drive with your hands over my eyes, even in Inverness valley and South Santa Cruz, the wheelbarrow of berries I brought home for supper, ingested in each little bite we cut in half, was the best of the worst time that we ever had. And always we were. In love. In parking lots, playgrounds, at concerts, on airplanes, in bedrooms, custodian closets, laundry mats, and carrying our nap sacks, while we attempted to sleep and hide all night in the Shedd Aquarium. I just should have known better, it'd wouldn't be easy, with you I'm always wrestling sharks with a mirror, your pink sugar perfume from the chains on my wrists tied up across the room. While you didn't trust me I was always at home. Trust isn't love unless it's enough, unless it's enough to quit drugs. It's symptoms are the same as that of great madnesses.
Nov 18, 2015
Nov 18, 2015 at 8:05 PM UTC
It's about 2:30 in the morning
there you stand
a janitor
weilding your gigantic
paintbrush
in a full jumpsuit
and a bald cap.
Nobody's around.
The mophead slaps the ground
you dance with it
Swirling it all
across the checkered tile
with such grace
and such beauty!
Soak
Swash
Squeeze
Repeat.
What magnificent art
Such extraordinary
masterpieces
being created
night after night
across this marble floor!
Why,
Michaelangelo would be
turning in his grave!
A shame though,
That the paint is clear
and it dries away in about
15-20 minutes
and no one will
ever see or know
the greatest art ever created
by you,
the unknown custodian,
the master of sanitations,
the mop artist.
Feb 10, 2014
Feb 10, 2014 at 12:16 AM UTC
She still had tears in her eyes
Her eldest son, Max, just passed
He had an overdose on July 5th
This woman held in real pain
I don't doubt her for a second
She is old, burnt, mad
Her madness is pure, pure madness
She tells me her stories
And I sit there, hungover
Looking into those tearey eyes
She elaborates her stories
Wou her motion as she sweeps
"He chased me yesterday!
It was real, I knew it
Even if it didn't happen, it was real
The man loves under the budge that
Connects one building to another
I think she said she might have scared him
Maybe he thought she was real too
"I ran into the street screaming!!"
I'm at the edge of my seat.
The police have her ****
"Historical" she says, well of course
Wouldn't you be too if you got chased
The man under the bridge
The second floor custodian
I was all too real
Jul 25, 2016
Jul 25, 2016 at 8:08 PM UTC
wild night videos
for the dark web
3 Atlean men
and a girl
she got it
by a mob
of Moroccan **** rockets
and will pine
for the rest of her days
screaming to the hells
in a reimagined language
the regression to Lilith
**** *********
the world
when hell touched paradise
***** and man handled
shot by shot
mouth to ****** to ****
split and folded
tooth and nail
to drive the ****** tides
of the world
***** monsters like
T Rex
force a ritual infliction
butter meat of dreams
pain sensually
reworked into pleasure
blister-hot and oh so sweet
married to a paradox
like feeling bad
about feeling good
give me your ankles *****
an unveiled immediacy
right off the bat
i got just the girl
confiding in me
so ready to die
like an Aztec princess
to be the star
like a peacock
in an engorged circus
blizzard of jealous snakes
strangled fanged and spewed
a swansong exhibition
in blood-soaked ponytails
a bobbing head
and choke throat ***** picnic table
with mayonnaise wounds
mediating power
in a psychoanalytic fetish
death is not death
but performative submission
her body ransacked
in tooth marks
and red tipped *******
steaming eraser head
pulses
a **** soaked
chicken on a plate
eradicating reality
are you gonna eat that?
pass the ***
collapses time
lust
custodian
of human archeology
**** piñata
bearing gifts
of squirty pork gasms
******** and cuchifritos
corpus of ****** horror
as liberation
crosses-temporality
and breaks the vessel of time
oow
Nefertiti where are you
a tongue up the ***
sniffs
Prada's Candy Perfume
**** blinking licks
up there where havoc lives
in **** **** farm country
Oct 5, 2020
Oct 5, 2020 at 2:28 PM UTC
I know not from whence my inspirations cometh.
I believe I was chosen from the time of my birth.
Alone and undisturbed, I have strange visitation,
Embellished with beautiful stories delivered via imagination.
Even the mental drought known as writer's block,
Goes away the very moment the spirits knocks.
Thanks to my late Queen mother who told me stories,
And tales of our ancestor's conquest of adversities.
I am the last of the great Grios from my tribe.
The spirits will always be my source of inspiration and guide.
I come alive at night when the entire world sleeps,
That's when the best ideas and loose words creep.
These words I process as part of my solemn obligation.
As custodian of Ancient history and its dissemination.
Call me a poet because of spoken word and great poetry
In actuality, I'm the last Grio sent to write our ancient oral history.
IvanBrooksPoetry©️
Aug 18, 2018
Aug 18, 2018 at 3:01 AM UTC
I am walking in a haunted land
full of voices.
Too many voices
and not enough faces to claim them.
I am disturbed by so many shadows.
No sun to make them.
Not even a moon to erase them.
I am drowning in waters
full of corpses.
Each one pulling me down
into the darkness.
Trapped in a well of raging night,
joy has lost all meaning here.
Claw marks on these walls of stone,
sign my fate away…
May 24, 2014
May 24, 2014 at 10:48 PM UTC
*Poetry gives the magic back to words
and makes words flesh again
as it was in the beginning
till our quantum-leap thoughts
spurred on by incantatory rhythms
often like latterday Gregorian chants
materialize into the dancing silhouettes
of solid but surrealistic forms in fantastic hues
thus the poet is the custodian of creation from nothing*
Jan 7, 2016
Jan 7, 2016 at 4:25 AM UTC
The moors seduced
The Sahara Desert Mountains
Mastered the Mediterranean Sea
Keepers of the flame
Custodian of Egyptian knowledge
Their horses made of moonlight
The world shall never be the same
Jan 19, 2013
Jan 19, 2013 at 9:05 PM UTC
They knew him well, knew he cared,
Attention and sweets, he would share.
"Thunder and Lightning" a girl, a boy,
One brought worry, the other joy.
He's gone now, went down to rest,
He did his job, passed the test.
Treat all the same, no matter what,
Love all the same, no matter what.
Aug 28, 2011
Aug 28, 2011 at 9:48 AM UTC
smudges on the glass
were wiped away each night
by a mute custodian
who found a biography
in each set of prints he made disappear
with clean cloth and vinegar
he could tell which ones
were made by children, dragged there
with promise of ice cream, later
oh, the young lovers' prints
were unmistakable--eager tracks being led to more
and more promising carats
and the thin marks left by the frail
made him wonder, if this would be their last
precious purchase: a reckoning; a remorse
the cases held diamonds, rubies,
by the score, but the silent sentinel
saw only the surface
that was his world,
one of transparency, and fickle
reflections
he reluctantly erased these fingered tales
the marks life left anon and anon, for he knew
it was his duty to wipe the slate clean
to allow resurrection,
renewed vision of a bejeweled
world, just below his sight
Apr 15, 2016
Apr 15, 2016 at 2:41 PM UTC