"damocles" poems
Intense eyes, a majestic eagle,
circling high, is the air she carries,
a samba dancer luscious, who strikes
blow after blow with her belly button,
central stage always is hers
a bird of pray elegant on the look out,
the heightened awareness from
a sense of clear danger present,
is the reward she assures,
to him every minute for being her escort.
Rub her right, rub her wrong,
find what it would bring was his itch
the eagle woman conceals nothing,
keeps her eyes keen, wide open,
her mind a radar, focused on
what is to happen the moment next,
from mid air like a missile she swoops down,
stand still for a moment and then strikes,
she is on her prey, but he has
slipped away, at the precise moment.
Both are in awe of each other, but smiles,
on the dance floor they are glued to each other,
he now plans a daring plot,
named "The sword of Damocles"
she is of two minds, love this game,
finds him fitting the bill,
yet the bird of prey awaits time for the next raid
"He is made of dainty stuff".
Mar 29, 2014
Mar 29, 2014 at 6:12 AM UTC
Staring at the ceiling sky
Past lover's faces
Eyes
Dotting
The midnight moonless skies
Stars twinkling
Their light having been cast
Many light years ago
Each one for their time
Had in their eyes - for me -
The golden glow
Meteor showers of montage sequences
faces
scenes
times
fly by
Trailing ribbons in the ceiling skies
The dots when taken together
Tho eons passed and separated
Pieces and bits form constellations
Eros
Aphrodite
The Mother
Sancho Panza in drag disguise
A female Damocles and her sword
The Companion Star, still glowing here in the Western sky
Looking backwards in time
Their presence was once present
Now, all have vanished
Moved on to other places in space and time
Aware of all I have been given
All I've learned
Remembering I loved each one
And when the moon is right
and the ceiling is dark
and there is no sleep
for me tonight
Their light still shines
On my ceiling night sky.
Jan 1, 2016
Jan 1, 2016 at 11:25 AM UTC
January 19, 2017
The sword of Damocles hangs tense in the American night as a nation steels itself,
My friends stick to their guns, my enemies do the same, and there's all these children who don't know which side of a border they'll end up on when the dust settles, there's all these trees down south who never asked to feel the weight of bodies on their branches, there's all these people talking in circles and there's nothing but doom on the television,
Dr. King, I think of you this night, three days following the holiday they pinned to your corpse like a participation ribbon, I think of what they've done to you,
Dr. King, they murdered you, they dissolved you in bleach, they rewrote your history and their mouths defile you to this day
Dr. King, I want you to know there are parts of you that cannot be stripped away,
Two hundred fifty thousand raised voices, five hundred thousand raised hands,
Countless bodies in the street, countless jail sentences, countless tears shed in pursuit of a dream
Dr. King, they tried to tell me your dream was of peace, but it's always been about freedom
Dr. King, I know you would understand what must be done in the pursuit of freedom
Dr. King, you knew that nonviolence could only work until they came for your blood
Dr. King, you knew one day you'd have to strike back but they never gave you the chance
Dr. King, they come for the blood of your brothers and sisters today
Dr. King, they put words in your corpses mouth and teach it to dance,
Dr. King, they will claim you no longer
Dr. King, your chains will be broken,
Dr. King, one day, you will be free at last,
Glory glory, hallelujah, free at last
Jan 20, 2017
Jan 20, 2017 at 2:01 AM UTC
she was the first
to act as though
she wanted to be my beretta,
to hold a holster to my thigh
and accept the badge
of partner in crime.
she spoke without shelter.
pool days of marination
in monsters and taurus,
a kiss for pity
as i'd yet to be corrupted,
and she stole some joy
in taking what wasn't hers.
she was bigger than me.
she showed me
how shattered touch screens
can look like dried petals,
but cut like cold *******
and when you're in a field of dandelions
how they come in handy.
she wrote the book on flagellation.
she promised it was all for me;
calloused fingertips from
loving me with lighter fluid,
scratches for feral adoration,
and the damocles' above my head
or rather hers, and hers to drop on a whim.
she wrote a chapter on manipulation.
i wasn't ready the first time
she pushed passed denim
and plaid as easily
as she waived my concern,
nor the second --
nor the third.
she had daddy issues.
i still didn't know
how tampons worked,
or vaginas for that matter,
and so to be forcefully
and viscerally introduced to both
behind a tree in Henessey
****** up my brain a little.
she called it "mad week."
ear bud cables
became garrotes
around my neck
in the suspended
movement of a pulse
through my aorta;
and as every day with her,
i felt she crossed a line,
and as every day before,
i never called foul.
May 2, 2013
May 2, 2013 at 2:07 AM UTC
Hangs over head by a solitary hair
Pommel set with Lucifer's star
Crossguard of the crescent moon
The Blade a king's interminable doom
Jan 31, 2019
Jan 31, 2019 at 10:30 AM UTC
We have seen your greasy lips
Of supple warmth nibble our geographical space with relish
With your cerebral repertoire of Machiavellian tactics
A savage sage gleaning with resounding skill
And crafty navigational sail
Your masterstrokes through climes and tongues reverberated
With your sparkling craft of vile crypt
Across regions, tribes and locales
Of your fangs that foiled good governance
But this time…
Your gladiatorial glide on this political turf
Shall experience a firestorm of rejection
Your emissaries across territorial divides
Shall be hounded to delusion
For the masses shall maul your mushy mantle of self grandeur
To the abyss of dishonour
For your subsequent arrival shall be booed to your doom
Your waning clout shall swing you to judgement
Of abysmal invasion
We are watching your fragile trot through this fearsome terrain
Of your permutation in levitation
For Damocles’ fiery sword shall haunt your ambition
Your raging mist on this cloudy night
Shall encounter a violent tussle
Prepare for war!
The scarlet venom from your cruel camp
Shall cease with instant visitation
From the warhorses of this fearless infantry
Armed with the right tools to disarm your fortified fortress
As you dispatch your foot soldiers
Of monsters and Leviathans
To play a callous hoax like the cunning fox
Their morbid mien shall encounter an eternal fall!
Let the music begin…
Onuchi Mark © 2010
Aug 20, 2010
Aug 20, 2010 at 6:32 AM UTC
Assertion
Clammed-up
On the relay
Second guessing
The shrunken head
Of old therapies
The clock says
It's time
To nod off
Greet the morn
With withered fist
Rationalised fury
Trying to
Replace the
Pimply face
Of ******
Angst baseless in
Content
On the tether
Of just another
Addiction in a
Succession
Of spiritual
Vices perpetuated
By the nonchalant
Visage of a world
Uncaring
In derision
From calloused hands
Caused by
Hard work
With little or no
Monetary avail
Hand to mouth
Foot in mouth
Hand on crotch
Crotch saddle sore
What's the point
Of a worn-down point
Dull but
Double-edged
Just to prove
The sword of Damocles
Is still hanging
Over the head
Of your enemies
Who pop
Their heads
Up over
The hedgerows
Like pictures
In a shooting gallery
At the carnival of
A battlefield distant
Filled with relics
Of another
Dead-end
Ill-purposed war
Of the worlds floating
On the crest of
Mine-dotted airwaves
Prompting viewers
To drown negativity
And to salvage
The positive
A broadcast from
Bipolar formats
In living colour
Double-edged
Double-standards
Double-dealing
Double-meaning
Double-minded
Double-jeopardy
Double-trouble
Double your money
Doppelganger leading
Double life
All propagated in
Double-time
Best
Double your efforts
And tune out!
Oct 18, 2017
Oct 18, 2017 at 1:42 PM UTC
PRISONERS
Men are born free
but everywhere are in chains
thus wrote Rousseau--I take the point further-
upon themselves they inflict pains
in being prisoners of time
which with a sword of Damocles hangs
over every head and herds them into closed barns
where they sigh and lament in silent pangs
of anguish with no hope to be free
they have lost the will to fight
to regain that which was once their heritage
and fundamental right
men are born free
but by the loss of freedom they are condemned
time is the slayer--would they wake up
some day and look upon time with contempt?
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 1:19 AM UTC
even a week is sometimes
not enough to recuperate
from a novel -
something has borrowed too much
time and expects its worth a miracle of
a penny found on the road of
the eternal walker:
long the road toward a majesty
of the riches...
whatever novel it might be -
and with it,
a paralyzing ****** of doubts -
whether sober or intoxicated,
not even when: wine and music
and a book of poetry suffices...
just like now:
Beethoven, kalimotxo,
and the preferred gems by
Frank O'Hara to suit the music...
chez jane and blocks...
if ever there is something
missing in terms of
Beethoven: it's a voice reading
a poem,
but not reading it,
not like a Beatnik who would
read in the furore of jazz
in the past century...
anything more than what
is still not a whisper...
and like some farce of
the sword of Damocles...
the pen of Dickens...
not the labours of a novel,
no... not the month's long
journey into the labyrinth...
music and drinking
simultaneously with a novel
will never work...
but a poem can...
my god... some wine some
classical music and... words...
when there's music and wine
who needs words like
labyrinths when:
just on the tip of the hour's
passing: a bird in the form
of a poem...
all i can say in the most mundane
phrasing...
but i have capitulated
all prior to thrill and audacity
for a novel...
a month's labour:
and silence...
a soul in such hiding...
feels hardly a thought necessary
to reinvent itself in its prior
activity:
an mingling of wine
and music and words: come and go...
like all novels:
as much an accomplishment
of the writer, as an "accomplishment"
of the reader...
and is it so wrong
to not be agitated with emotion
that: a month's worth of
base arithmetic sentences -
the logic of: once upon a time
as the logic: the end...
sanctity of prose:
that sensible nature of that
sensible afternoon
of that sensible life,
of that: unlived crucifix
of a shadow's confiscate;
routine and sitting
akimbo on some far removed
stage:
of a sea knocking
on the door of earth -
seeking rhythm -
or a heart.
as mundane as this language:
i'm not going
to find a different language
to change this evening,
even though not awe:
or relief... but a paralyzing
doubt has overpowered me...
and, come to think of it:
that's still much more
than a heart's worth of
sitting's comforts in
the armchair of apathy.
Jan 16, 2019
Jan 16, 2019 at 7:25 PM UTC
Every morning good Damocles wakes up
And after breakfast from a drive-through bag
Salutes the time-clock with a merry ding
From a little card that records his time
He drives his forklift or his cubby-desk
And sorts each pallet or computer code
Into their places in the secular scheme
The minor chain of being more-or-less
Until a meeting when, and with great sorrow,
A Suit tells all, “we’re shutting down tomorrow.
Oh, the company still exists (and what could be finer?),
But we’re sending all your jobs away to China.”
Nov 20, 2018
Nov 20, 2018 at 3:09 PM UTC
For Three years we had been used as slaves,
since surrendering to the Japanese.
We’d been starved, beaten and abused
and lived in filth and misery.
We’d heard they planned to **** us all
once it was clear they’d lose the war.
We’d lived in fear, like Damocles,
waiting for the day Japan would fall.
Then came the news of Victory
and our tormentors disappeared.
More eager, then, to save themselves
Than carry out the order we had feared.
Beneath my bunk a treasure hid,
concealed there from the Japanese.
It was saved from the fall of Singapore,
then passed through several hands to me.
We struck down their flag, the rising sun,
for we were sure their sun had set.
We replaced it with the Stars and Stripes,
Around that banner we rallied yet.
Hearts filled with pride, we stood as men
and saluted the red white and blue.
We were like scarecrows dressed in rags,
but we knew that this ordeal was through.
Our air force dropped us food supplies
and shortly after we entrained.
We’d made a bonfire of the camp
to consume the memory of our pain.
Nov 28, 2018
Nov 28, 2018 at 9:03 AM UTC
It's midnight and I love you.
In two hours, I will tuck you.
In one sleep, I will kiss you, with lips thankful, strong, and warm.
In two sleeps, I will guard you, 'gainst the rising summer storm.
In three sleeps, I will claim you, and never mar your skin again.
In three weeks, I will change who, you thought was in your Man.
I've spent four years in mourning, and eleven months in dread,
While the sliver sword of Damocles, dangles over my head.
I haven't slept enough or stayed consistent, falling on my heels,
But I've wept enough, and stay insistent, that my love is real.
I'm not selfish, I'm just sorry.
Like a blackfish pair upon the tide,
We're hurting cause the world just doesn't care what is inside.
I'm with you till the end, and then I'll carry you through the dark.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
I love you. Your heartbeat is my art.
Sep 4, 2014
Sep 4, 2014 at 4:00 AM UTC
I don't want to go out and face the sunshine
when all that's reflected on my face and whole life
are the jagged wounds caused by last night's vicious rains,
the asperities of the storm that attacked my sunny days.
I just want to stay here forever (I dare ya'll)
amid great poets' lengthy chronicles and tell-all
inspired by life and love and hope and rebirth
the perpetuation of their luscious grudges beneath the earth.
As I crave for more chancy ideas to come out through words
I desire to ****** my people with a nasty yet vague curse
That whoever imperils me with anything but one shrewd call
In my deathly poetic verses, expect your worst and loudest brawl.
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 11:43 PM UTC
The speed of life, faster than light
The sorrow of life, darker than night
The way of life, sinning in his sight
The fate of life, will it be wrong or right?
Death gets our attention because the human race lives under Damocles Sword; we know it is there but we are able to summon an inhuman level of denial about our mortality. It will always be a shock when someone dies; always to somebody. Then we move on and return to our world of delusion, chasing the fountain of youth.
In the case of Prince, it is the life he led that makes us notice his death that much more; to lose such a rare gift of creativity and true genius reminds us not only of what we had but of what we lost. We now see how he lived and contrast it with our own lives; and we realize there is so much a human being can do.
There are many others who are alive and walking among us. If you wish to honor them as if they just passed away then you have that opportunity but love is never greater than in the moment of loss. It is the human condition to not know what you have until it's gone. Tell someone you love them right now; do it for them, do it for you; do it for all of us.
I love you
And tonight I will be going alone to see Duran Duran and I'm going to enjoy them for the great times of the past and how this world still has joy in music; I'm going to receive it and hopefully pass it forward....
Apr 23, 2016
Apr 23, 2016 at 10:22 AM UTC
It must be progress
when Alpha to Omega
is uttered by a child.
Can their BBM's really
create a new World vision ?
Are part time Revolutionaires
thickening the Plot
and will the threatening Sword of Damocles
ever be ploughed into something
more askance ?
Oct 17, 2012
Oct 17, 2012 at 11:07 AM UTC
Melting away the crystalline snow underfoot
I spread crystals of salt
Scattered across the icy walkway.
Overhead Bohemian-glass icicles
Hang like stalactites
Like for the tenuous Damocles.
My beard is frozen, encrusted in the blizzard
But indoors soon I'll shed my layers.
And sit to warm my throat
With a bit of Scotch whisky
No ice in mine, please.
Dec 27, 2018
Dec 27, 2018 at 11:31 AM UTC
Pennated souls conform themselves
By gesture unto the penitent crack of doom,
Truths sombrous tintinnabular dissolution
Like to it; crossing the rubicon
Entering the sanctum sanctorum of Mors.
The wraith gerant priest of the
Higher world weighing trammelled
Empty bottles with the funereal
Sword of Damocles, gilding
Thread and thrum eternities moribund lily.
The hollow glass of mortality
Destinies lake of fire;
First purging the dickens dead men,
Living creatures on the wrong tack
Tarred with the same brush
To an igneous second death
Pent to illume the myrtle charnel house
Of the devils bones.
ELEETE J MUIR
Jan 13, 2015
Jan 13, 2015 at 9:45 PM UTC
Dionysius was a clever king
For about power and fear he knew some things
As Damocles wanted more, and so he offered him his throne.
So to sit in power has it's price, for power also has a darker side
Damocles had to choose
Everything or look a fool.
For paried up above his head
The kings sword on a single hair
One hair to hold it in it's place
A risk Damocles could not face
For the king knew of power and fear
Their anxiety In darker hours
For pain also comes with power
Cicero wrote of this tale of how fate plays its game
For love to life, fear to joy, we all have our own sword
A single horse hair held his aloft
What holds yours and at what cost
Jul 26, 2013
Jul 26, 2013 at 3:02 PM UTC
you need each other
like a vampires needs blood
you've always loved her ***
those long legs
unexpected arguments
the word no
fantasies of make up ***
make up ***
late night sneaking farts
off spring
springing
debt and drudgery
till half dead
weight gain from a sagging liver
and retching love
labyrinth's of desire and anger
divorce; the sword of Damocles
a mad hatter
Zyklon B shower
seeing stupid through her eyes
my face like a vitrine of broken masks
the way she looks in floppy slippers
or dressed up in black and pearls
snoring with a gaping mouth
of floating spirits in intricate patterns
of darkness made of nothing
making believe your with someone else
*** fantasies I've never spoken of
in sultry dioramas of glistening leg shows
mosaic starred
baiting unguent nights
on my knees again
eating thorns
and she is more adorable than the rumba
a hot arsonist setting me on fire
canopy of flowers
golden apples and blood
pouring down shade sun and rain
decades of the same sentences
and the same dead sea silences
in claustrophobic tangles
of devotion
seeing who dies first
or left desolate;
with a legacy
of gnawing remembrance
that chew moth to cloth
lantern of vapors; weeping
it beats the hell out of being alone
at the end
I go back to the beginning
the marrying kind
Mar 29, 2019
Mar 29, 2019 at 1:30 PM UTC
Let’s make a wish
Upon a shooting star
A wish that will go, and travel far.
No matter where, no matter how
Let’s make a wish
To a world un-round.
LOOK! Its Orion, which means Lepus is near
Soon we’ll see Fornax, but lonely Pyxis hides within the heavens still.
You say “They're not complex”
But, I argue they are.
You say “They're just gases”
But, I argue they're stars
And on them live wishes and chances and dreams.
So, let’s make a wish
On that frozen Asteroid.
On that white tailed beast.
And we’ll let it decide which wish shall be
You’ll make a wish for the Universe to unravel
For knowledge unbound, for the truth to be revealed
For answers to all, for guesses to none
For Peter to remain lost, for the sword of Damocles to fall.
I’ll make a wish
For Artemis to shoot her bow
And knock a star out of the sky
A gift to you my friend
For the Universe to remain a mystery
I’ll make this wish for you tonight.
Apr 9, 2015
Apr 9, 2015 at 11:39 PM UTC
My deeply hidden inner restlessness often finds me when it only walks the depths of my crouching trap-soul; Sisyphean boulders are cut first into tears, then into pearls with a buzzing, persistent work of the universal melancholy with the smell of spleen, carefully guarded. So many billions of instinct-splits of cosmic forces ready to crumble, the torn, abandoned hawthorn bush revolves like a sleepless swarm of bees, from which a camp of brainwashed idiots regularly light screaming bonfires.
My impulses are bound by Zhivágó’s gales, they would not let me go, because now I am still standing up to my waist, hesitant, often helplessly in my unfinished, ridiculous affairs, and it is no longer my mere actions that define me - but rather the devilish spasm-like convulsions of the soul, which not even the dog can hear.
With concentrated attention, I tie days together again, like the echoes of some strange coordinates, so that I can feel and know that I am going in the right direction.
Like a broken-hearted piece of **** I throw away the weight of my often useless memories, which still tempt me in the fangs of nights crouching in the form of my recurring nightmares: I should still hold on to myself tooth and nail, with the all-conquering holy tiger-will, as long as possible and as long as my prisoner-body allows it at all by the speeding highways of the rampant, daily changing, and worn-out cell-molecule tendrils.
It would be good to live a little longer, as if the free thought that continues into infinity, thirsting for independence, were to be rocked quietly by white silence, as if the one-Dear, who could still promise to wait for me from the far reaches of other shores. Black-eyed supplicants ring out in humming-melancholy voices while a Damocles-sword blade rests hissingly over my balding orthopedic head!
Sep 4, 2025
Sep 4, 2025 at 12:19 AM UTC