"derangement" poems
Fatima Latima
I had wished I had no gift of sight
That the worst I could endure is hear you speak
And not snapshot the footfall of your gradation
You may not be a thief
Nor **** daughter of the dayspring
But definitely my heart you stole
I speak of the daughter of Arabia
Aesthetically, she rocks
The queen of the pilgrim sands
And aeonian desert stones
Beyond the hijab
Artistically knead with consummate craft
Like the relics of Mecca
Blest by the prophet’s bones
The blessed
I see torches
Beaming with intelligence
Within those mascaras
Exquisitely trimmed and vibrant
A lulu class botany
She fixes a searching gaze
As she saunters close
And the stride and tread
Beats a drum entrancing
Soothed in her solacing spell
I give in, to her lullaby
She halts her perambulation
Stands magniloquent and stupefy
Like some pop diva magazine pose
Or Victorian secret shot
A tactical derangement of her gluteals
As she rests her palm in its cleft
I feel contractions, my dartos muscles
The blew of summertime
Gently beats her exceptional form
Her belt submerge her thigh crevice
Cleft by the sundered rift of fleshy fat
Built by the dainties and delicacies
Seasoned by the finest Arabian chef
As her silken dress slithers and gowns
Under the breeze bulging and blooming
Like a rose blossom or sunflower fore
As she bends down
To assuage the burlesque
The sun specula lilts her sensational
Her smile apologetic bids me stillness
I am caught staring
Guzzling down her scent and
Feasting on empty imaginations
Of What If that accentuate the mind and
Speed a hormone
And I pray I sin no more
Next time we meet and I see her again
For I am but a writer
Learning to use my pen and paper
And hope you but forgive
My linguistic impotence
When I make my confession
Employing too plain a language
When I say thus;
Her smile is classical
Her walk magical
Her beauty celestial
Her stride sensational
Her religion ethical
Her character spotless
And that leaves me breathless
And forgive if I step on broken toe
And try speak of the unspoken
Her ****** is sacred
Her being a type that dresses up
In the milliards of brutes dressing down
And shamelessly style it fashion
I must see a priest
One confession I ought to utter
And even vociferate abroad
For once I had fallen in love
With an Arabian Beautie
A ****** of Mecca.
Jun 18, 2012
Jun 18, 2012 at 9:12 AM UTC
*This is one of the racier "Memories" poems by the great Barry Hodges, my alter ego.
It might well make you come involuntarily in your ******
How happy was I once with the wind in my hair
Wandering o'er the dales with joyousness unmeasur'd,
In the sweet long passed innocent days of platonic love
When stolen gropes and kiss were to be treasured.
But all good and true things come to a sad close
And my poor first love lies in her grave so sorrowfully
Having been crushed to death by a runaway steamroller
Before I managed to go all the way quite thoroughly.
What a waste of delightful teenage flesh was that
Yet perhaps I had a narrow escape from the derangement
Which might have been mine had our trysting
Led to a semi-permanent matrimonial arrangement.
For I recall one afternoon in the old ABC cinema
In the delighful Yorkshire spa town of Harrogate,
Sitting next to my gorgeous love in the back row,
Exploring her not so very private parts on a hot date.
How I cursed the management's niggardly folly
In not showing a film with hot romantic blood
But saving pathetic pennies by putting on
Daffy ******** Duck and Elmer ******* Fudd.
But yet I perserved with my digital explorations
Unaware that the throbs my fingers felt were no dream
But darling Elsie laughing like a proverbial drain
At Daffy's hilarious anatine adventures on-screen.
'Twas then I began to wonder about the viscous liquid
I had hitherto imagined was Elsie's lovejuice flowing
*(dear, dear reader, cease your perusal of my tale forthwith
if you are of a nervous disposition or prone to food up-throwing)*.
It was only a careful examination of my sopping knuckles
In the dimly lit gents after old Daffy's film was done and dusted
Which revealed that my dearly beloved had leaked
Big time out of both ends, leaving my fingers well encrusted.
O to think that, but for Daffy, I might have been lumbered
With a different kind of bird for whom double incontinence
Was a way of life (thus, the fatal steamroller she encountered
The very next day was a blessing from kindly Providence).
Aug 16, 2015
Aug 16, 2015 at 5:07 PM UTC
They hide behind
A masked impunity
One that loiters on the lips
That gathers dust
While proclaiming
A nightmare of angels
Who haunt derangement
In startling blasphemous hullucinations
Which excite to the point of delerium
Who menace with grandiose examples
Which surpass all human capacities
Renouncing indisputable rights as heresy
Keeping their stones not cast, unthrown
Aug 8, 2012
Aug 8, 2012 at 3:04 PM UTC
This season we're going all out
And I mean ballistic
We ain't pulling no punches
Taking out all the stops
Were gonna go mad
Talk,talk ,talk
Go, go go!
I'm talking about road trips to nowhere
Bar hoping like alcoholic amphibians
Bus rides to The Big City
Cliff jumping
Hold our breaths as the fireworks launch themselves into the summer evening sky and explode
As we dance and sing of wonderful things
Debouched ***
Experimenting with sense derangement
Study the spiritual teaching from the far east
Make the suburbans myths that will never fade
Roller coaster calamities
Visit strip clubs under the unfinished highway
Lay back on a crowded beach and float in the ocean
Hike in the wilderness up a torrent mountain
And when we reach the top we'll howl at the moon in the starry midnight air
We will write compelling manifestos of freedom
And we will not sleep
We will grow stronger, wiser
And when fall comes we will be new
We'll be alive
We will have known what it means to live
Live
Live
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 2:42 PM UTC
Espresso Yourself
Word hit like espresso shots,
got that stress of regret you’re best to let it go,
best to express it outta your self tun it into espresso,
or else that regret will fester into gunpowder until it totally explodes,
unload reload,
you’re the gun,
memories are the ammo,
noting is verboten even when forgotten,
this twisted linguistic addict attitude is not an act or a show,
but the derangement of this is entertainment regardless,
and this artist is in demand all around the world,
they want to take my time,
and everything else that I thought was mine,
but I don’t have the time to spare because I’m in a race to nowhere,
trying to find the finish line before I completely lose my mind,
gaining ground in quicksand sick and no one seems to care,
grinding grounds no chitchat i just grab my espresso and get outta there,
there as in here no beer just these coffee beans this is a caffeine affair,
I’ll take a double on the double,
actually if it’s more simple I’ll take a triple,
no milk no sugar no trouble,
just this espresso and these expressions that ripple,
with words hit like espresso shots,
got that stress of regret you’re best to let it go,
best to express it outta your self tun it into espresso,
or else that regret will fester into gunpowder until it totally explodes…
∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆
Oct 7, 2016
Oct 7, 2016 at 3:14 PM UTC
Lady,
lady,
lady,
It made no sense then
and still I'm at a lack.
Those days I'd read and fall asleep,
take the cheap warmth of the sun on my cheeks
(and literacy) for granted, then
wake to a sunburn on my back.
Aloe evenings, peeling loose skin
revealing goose-flesh, feeling foolish
again, by my garden
on my deck
off my guard
and lonely.
Heck, this is only one instance where I had chills that summer
Another was under the orange glow of a poorly funded lighthouse,
Us there - just sitting - perched
on my car, parked
on
a
slope
West River lay ahead and below -
Behind were the kinds of smiles and glances
people give before they know
each other and the chances
of where they both may go
So,
I took my time
not giving a ****
despite the dame's insistence
on a kiss the tourists planned -
Too many instants
spent looking, fearing leaping
peering,
keeping
distance
sparse.
Alas, a tour de farce?
Thanks to pop-rocks when our lips touched
we chuckled at the sparks
Lip gloss
Then my loss of control
Utterly unable to console
Is it any wonder the cunning fox we saw just wandered home?
With this rhetoric I am ready to admit that
I lack(ed) certainty
Was the mist real or is't only foggy in my memory?
In hindsight I do mind causing pain
Though my brain,
it sure likes hurting me
And lo,
À l'acadie we go
...for academia!
My ego can't stand seein' ya
so the strained "Hello" is ignored -
Please impale it on the sword
of vanity and estrangement!
As I sway toward derangement
or insanity, I lurch forward
lacksidaisically
Need to learn to curb these feelings
to watch out for those of others
As the sun or lighthouse over us
this message resolutely hovers:
I hurt
Feb 28, 2013
Feb 28, 2013 at 9:52 PM UTC
Mental disability what an epigram, it bounds on burried complexity
Titter inside hysterical effectuation
Feeling electrical currents misfiring in my cerebellum
Screaming unremebered prayers in my night terrors at the devils fornication
Remaining in my presence, anticipating my sleep
***** to reverse the dementia
Waking day dreams, lost in unreality
Descry vociferation calling my name
Wanting to claw my etes out against nebulous shadows creeping behind
Wanting a medium to banih apparitions from my space
Paranoid of all establishment
While securing eye contact with others, they could decipher all my thoughts
With binoculars neighbors surveil
Me camouflaged with drawn shades and pale skin
To go outside summoned all my demons
Wanting to battle, rage war to fulfill some morbid desire
Annihilating hordes in my dreams by any means
***** to reverse the madness
OCD for a little control
A million times repeated thoughts flashing in my eyes
Confusion! What day is it? Am I doing something wrong?
Not glancing in mirrors hiding from myself Garbled guttural utterances in my left ear
Hot breath on my neck
Bawling at flexibility and spontaneity
Not in my scheme for the coming confusing hours
Wanting to pull my skull off exposing the insanity
Just wanted it to STOP!!
***** to reverse the derangement
Limbs not answering brain waves crisscrossed as they dwell
On a daily basis surviving hell
On a nightly basis in true hell
Needing to shriek and explode
Afraid to sleep, walking in exhausted dreams
Broken pains in my bones
No peace day or night
My medication saved my life
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 11:48 AM UTC
Where am i ?
What i'm doing here ?
I'm looking through my shadow
But what do i see ?
Black soul , maniac thoughts
How am i still living ?
I'm "almost" destroyed mentally
Physically strong as rock
Why can't i control myself ?
I'm so insecure , immature
I'm having Schizophrenia
Dementia praecox
Fundamental derangement of my mind
Probably caused by an emotional disorder
Emotional illness affecting in my personality
I'm Neurosis , Neurasthenic
Nerve dysfunction
I'm walking away
To forget all this pain
To walk and never get back
Part of my body already dead
I don't know if i'm going to survive
From this midlife crisis
This is nothing that elapsed
I'm sure it's just the beginning of hell
Half spent
Not much left
That's how it used to be
That's how it going to be
Struggling with desease
Smiling is hard but easy
As much as slutty
Psychotic confession
Irritability
Feb 25, 2014
Feb 25, 2014 at 3:57 PM UTC
(Happy 150th, Canada!)
Canada Day - Just One?
With love from an ‘umble Yank
But every day is Canada Day!
The afternoon plane lands in Halifax
When the hatch is popped, cool air rushes in
Even the fog is happy in Canada
The Muskogee never made landfall here
And so we pilgrimage for her, complete
Her voyage from ’42 to Canada
Wolfville, Grand Pre’, Le Grande Derangement
The Deportation Cross and beer cans
Well, God forgive the Redcoats anyway
Newfoundland
Is a bold
Anapest
The church spires in a line, the light is green
The bold young captain shoots the narrows wild
Can you find your way to your painted house?
To walk again the cobbles of Ferryland
And smell the very blue of the Atlantic
The sea-blown wind is cold in Canada
Blue Puttees and a mourning Caribou
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord
Good children sing “We love thee, Newfoundland”
Quebec – royal city of New France
May Le Bon Dieu bless the Plains of Abraham,
And may God bless
The signs an English driver cannot read
The Coca-Cola streets of Niagara Falls
Yanks laugh at made-in-China Mountie mugs
And buy them, happy to be in Canada
A cup of Toujours Frais from – well, that place
But to us in your southern provinces
Below Niagara, Tim too is Canada
Though Canada goes on, these scribbles must not -
Your grateful guest wishes only to say
That every happy day is Canada Day!
Jul 1, 2017
Jul 1, 2017 at 11:39 AM UTC
i feel so tired
there seems to be a lack of oxygen
have the demons all conspired
to make me their kin?
is it their whispers that sway my opinion?
i fight back the tears that my heart wants to release
i fight a battle of the mind, and all i want is peace
but it sickens me to think that i have this disease
so the medication seems to be working,
but the dosage is what they might have to increase
you don't know.
but thats quite alright.
it is mutual, and i don't think of you as my foe
please, i don't want to fight
i have the scars all over my body
that tell of past pain
and deep inside i know that i'm a druggie
use and abuse, just like any other ******
my heart feels as if it's sinking into an ocean
but inside i feel i have an inkling notion
that i have to fight this war
i have to survive through the bombs, and than even more
the swords pierce my flesh
i quickly wish that i was dead
but all of this, it's all just in my head
i keep going.
the words are continuously flowing.
and here i am, not even knowing--
what i am supposed to do next
when i feel as if i'm so terribly vexed
but to keep on keepin on is what is best
i don't even mind if i fail the test
we'll just have to find out whats left of the rest...
and i don't write these words for you to read
i write them because i feel the need
to let it out
before i turn into one of those demons;
to begin to scream and shout
for i do not want to hurt you
the way that i have been hurt
but even the most beautiful of flowers need the dirt
so i push my way up through the soil
all of the worlds gravity feels as if it's weighing me down
i am soon facing the hatred and turmoil
but i try not to frown
and i feel as if the smile is faux--
like the ones on a clown
painted up to decieve thee
all to make you think i am happy
and i am.
i am.
i am only human.
i am, and was born into sin.
i am no where near perfect.
i am an addict.
i am kirsten.
i am an enemy, but i want to be a friend.
i am bipolar.
i am living on the border.
i am faced with trials and tribulations.
i am prescribed numerous medications.
i am happy.
i am sad.
i am the words you are reading.
i am the smile thats so easily decieving.
i am the epitome of me;
does that have a meaning?
now the tug of war seems to be misleading
i am swaying from side to side
while others see my pain, i see them grieving.
but my emotions are what i try to hide.
i don't want to have to see them leaving;
i feel so alone inside.
i have a pain only i can feel,
and no, i do not want you to understand.
and no, i do not want you to walk in my shoes.
but won't you please take my hand?
help me forget all the past abuse...
Jan 7, 2010
Jan 7, 2010 at 10:29 AM UTC
*Down in the depths of a wilderness;
the derangement of **** and of wisp.
A creature is arched in a hunker
over bundled leaves; golden and crisp.
Its' blistered hands riddled with splinters
Its' tired face blackened by dirt.
Its' glowing and warm disposition,
Worn pale by commotion and hurt.
It is wary from cold and from torment;
the dark of the forests damp chill.
But it scuffs at the bones as with tinder
igniting the marrow with skill.
Wiping its' brow with its' forearm
the creature desists with a gasp
Smoke trails up through the forest.
A spark has alighted at last.
The flame inhales fallen pine cones;
blazing up through the bramble and briar.
Excitement and fear harmonizing,
'till their voices can't sing any higher;
'till the heart is consumed by her fire.*
Feb 27, 2015
Feb 27, 2015 at 7:17 AM UTC
A blue sun beats down from
An electrically charged sky
I step into chaos an exodus
Towards the wastelands of
Fragmentation and depletion where
Fictions are invented daily and all
Images change where the shadows
Of life disappear in desperation
Where blood drips from eyes
Into a cataclysm that waits
Strung out in the black void
Clock hands attach themselves
To my mind piercing sentiments
Of shame
They elucidate the journey from
The external world seeking sanctuary
For visions that have been thrown
Dashed against bare brick walls
The ultimate realisation of imaginative
Truth shatters in torment falling sprinkling
To a festering ground proclaiming the
Dominance of emptiness
The conscious ambiguity of betrayal
That deforms corroboration creating
Untruth/ the derangement of qualification
A dialogue with the unknown gives
Birth to fictional facts of unsuitable
Confrontations of displacement
Back to imaginative reality that
Feasts on the trivial the banal
The ordinary and the mundane normal
I take steps into the space others
Fear to occupy become inside
The incantation of a new dimension
An actuality they brand as madness
Yet I am ecstatic in its awareness
This shall be my retribution
For who shall be judged
Ha, illumination is timeless
Has no master they can only
Speculate about the unknown
Its infinity
It is all the imaginations I possess
That shaky bridge between worlds
Where I take my heels my mind
Cannot be redistributed
I have lived through a disturbing night
Now move into an equally disturbing day
It is here I know I will die
Apr 5, 2012
Apr 5, 2012 at 11:33 AM UTC
To elusive, to elusive a possession
This human identity, this love
To emulate the poet in justification
To imesh my mind in insoluble difficulties
To find strange colored images there
And yet with such derangement
A loving dispensation pours forth upon me
Extinguishing all else and restores
Stability to a battered self in awe and wonder
Oct 25, 2012
Oct 25, 2012 at 2:54 PM UTC
In these youth that only ditch,
There is a thread loosely stitch,
They gave a name for the glitch.
They just feel so entangled,
If I could satiate the deranged,
I would have felt happier & loved.
Not in the slightest her fault,
The fault is in my safety vault,
I can't protect it by adding salt.
She had her personality affected,
On the borderline of love she was,
She might get better when matured.
So I will wait for her to grow up,
Because mangoes are sour unripe,
So she might not repent her flurry.
Even though she is upset now,
I should patiently wait for her,
Us both together, life be wow!
She suffers a borderline personality disorder,
And I suffer its deranged consequences,
But I have not given up yet on her.
Nov 30, 2016
Nov 30, 2016 at 5:24 AM UTC
Your hair full of curls
Sends me in twirls,
For your dark rings of fire
Make me inquire,
How do you make them so?
Velvet charms shimmer and glow,
Upon your façade
I’d want to parade
You; up and down streets
Show everybody your feats,
Of marvelous cadence
All the while you sit in pretense,
Of meek humility,
But that’s your innate ability
To draw crowds from the throngs,
To sing of you songs
Of utter amazement,
Until they reach derangement
As I have up until now,
Delirious sweat on my brow
Eternal admiration of you,
As I gaze at the beautiful view...
© okpoet
Feb 7, 2013
Feb 7, 2013 at 10:27 AM UTC
“but you are too old for apprehension.” her
voice had sounded so, and of this one’s voice,
‘you are never too old for wariness of
an unknown.’ responded astute, drunk
on logic. returned was breathless thought
to the void, filling emptiness with irony.
(oxymoron) and weened the way thru,
concision turned derision with repetitious
definitions that found no actual meaning.
all thought without justification and no
thought with classification. words,
actions, wailing:
empty, empty, empty
then existed less and less from want
of purpose. less and less from interest of
the known; this once forged fear of life. and
with impressive derangement, grabbing at the
only sober keychain. they, with twitching vesper eyes,
their hands jit’ for a false-meeting fix. to nix
the nihilism. and:
‘People can go **** themselves.’
words of this one’s voice. of her’s, “thank
god you’re alive.” from those days, when rains
ranted down, and the trains tripped us out.
those days of our wood’s reclaimed trailer. and
each syllable was never thought to be anything
until aged eyes ached for review those epochs
of breath. but:
‘People can go **** themselves.’
voiced in response to a romanticized thought. and
all epochs lingered upon are no more than a
journal of the winds that blew while we were present.
some diary of listless lust left undated. of the woods, of
a reiterate span in once anonymized transience. and falling
back, thumbing pages for proof of experiences passed into
skewered memory. left are three lines, ill-verbed, to represent
an entirety of past lives. of time once present in yellow-lit
motel room, of apocalyphic musings, and veering prophets
of doom. they, turned sincere apocalyphites. their prayers
writ boldfaced, platitudinous, in concern of endless words
restating – in constant rephrasing:
‘People can go **** themselves.’
but they just kept goin’ on without concern for the dawn.
Feb 1, 2014
Feb 1, 2014 at 5:26 AM UTC
Awakening consciousness as the weight
of my despondency clears the air.
Demons retreat under a glowing light,
my weakness in this war troubles me.
Unable to pull myself to confidence
from despairs teary smear.
You must reach for me when they return.
Making known all signs of adversity.
I will remove all infertility from my actions
and be prudent of derangement.
We must communicate all issues with compliance.
My heart is yours.
Zeal overwhelms my senses.
My skin aches for your touch.
Take my hand and know that my love is pure.
My spirit is healed, my aspirations are lifted.
My longings met and my demeanor intact.
Dreams of forever walking by your side.
The day is new and our Father is waiting
for us to take and it and make it ours.
© 2010 joshua deathdealer
May 8, 2012
May 8, 2012 at 11:57 AM UTC
As the nights languish with a fond kiss from lover's lip; Spry words spring from the dwindling flame as to revive its languor. In vain they stumble; Quick to the sword.
Love is, alas, a simple trinket to be bought and sold as they chose. Let it **** the next folk who haplessly come across it's starry eyed embodiment. Oh how black and binding it becomes; blinding the eyes to the truth. Which foolishly enough we over take.
For any chance at the happiness we seek is a happiness we take; Little in the hearts of man do you find contentment in solitude. Such a desire that burns in the heart; Little do we know of the derangement that befalls us.
Damnable in all it's wiles; once as sweet as honey then in a blink of the soul a black churning cyclone. It is the destruction we seek; But yet we do not destruct alone. This is what love brings us.
Countless night up; With wondering minds and curious hearts. It brings spring on a whim to tempt the summer to come back to us. It brings heart ache like a dusk; As the sun sets and we have fear that tomorrow never will come.
When all you get is heart ache; Is this what you crave. Endless nights in the dark after the wolves devour all your happiness.
Crave this lust of love; For all your want, you'll never have. Bestow upon yourself this damnable title and live as you shall. For we are men, and this is our curse; This damnable want of love to escape the lonely pit of ourselves. If only for the night.
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 12:59 AM UTC
insecure
is why we do
what we do
that is why we are vulnerable
does anyone else
notice that there are no natives
around
close enough
on waking up
I bet you think this poem is about you
who knows the plants?
the trees?
who can speak to nature
and make agreements with it?
who signed the organic peace treaties?
organic contracts
who tried torturing ethnicities
into demanding to the death
they are in the state of whiteness?
You do not understand how lost
unsafe
vulnerable
insecure
until you call for help
out of desperation
echoing!
into nativeless derangement
you were wrong
about being able to control nature
and there is nothing you know
that is organic that can renegotiate
the organic peace treaty
Mar 2, 2017
Mar 2, 2017 at 12:26 PM UTC
I might be a little mad
A lot more than a little
But you'll never know it
You'll never see it
Except
If you let me take a peak
At your own madness
Give me a glimpse
Of your delighted delirium
Let me have a look
At your affable aberrations
Your lovely lunacies
And your faithful foolishness
And your foolish faithfulness
Give me a piece of your
Deceitful delusions
And your happy hysteria
And I'll give you a slice
Of my own crazy cake
Balanced with utter unbalance
And dire derangement
And adorable absurdities
And the naked truth
And mad, mad me
Show me your madness
And I'll give you,
Me.
Sep 21, 2014
Sep 21, 2014 at 8:19 AM UTC
Thieves, thieves.
Christ are we petty.
Could not have imagined
such a death
Such a short-sited
venomous slip of the mind
such a death-toll...
so unpredicted-ably sad to see
A mighty species
Die.
That's the fate of the fate-less, I guess
Our gods were a faceless
Mass
of derangement
Massive enough to take us to space.
What we've plucked from out of our souls
We can never replace
Such as it is, we have no chance
Put to death.
****** and detached.
That's how it ends
--surrounded.
We write out
these sorrows
that aren't really sorrows
and
Pin the tasteless love to our chests
Oratorical shit-hoarding
Trade-card victims
with no actual dignity left.
How embarrassing..
the glory of man-kind
To face a demise,
so mundane.
Forsaken by lies.
Our souls have been neutered and
Turned into tools for
Violently-popular
Prostitution-alized fools
Love for the luscious
the rush of the snarling
Hysterical rousings of
Tumultuous twerps.
This is the way that history ends.
Resting in our dreams.
Jan 30, 2018
Jan 30, 2018 at 3:14 PM UTC
*An eyewitness once recited
His bone-chilling account
Of his tightrope walk to Death
How he managed to return
Was, and remains, impossible to say
But his frightening story resonates*
"There I stood on my toes,
On an intermediate point teetering
Between the idyllic salvation
Of Heaven
And the macabre derangement
Hell promises
Lose your balance
And the wayfarer finds himself
Succumbing to the merciless
Pull of the underworld
Condemning him to eternal
Suffering
The scanty few who
Travel across the rope
Unscathed,
undaunted and unfazed
Indulge in the reward
Of the Holy Father's deliverance
And so I stood on the rope,
Its rough frays tickling my soles, I,
Precariously perched on the border
Of Life, Death,
Of Salvation and Damnation
Too overcome with fear to advance forward
I whispered a few syllables,
The dulcet notes rollicked up to
A Saviour above
Omniscient one who knew
The best path for my wintering fate
In a haze of bewilderment I awoke"
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 1:52 PM UTC
Canada Day? Just One?
With love from an ‘umble Yank
But every day is Canada Day!
The afternoon plane lands in Halifax
When the hatch is popped, cool air rushes in
Even the fog is happy in Canada
The Muskogee 1 never made landfall here
And so we pilgrimage for her, completing
Her voyage from ’42 to Canada
Wolfville, Grand Pre’, Le Grande Derangement
The Deportation Cross and beer cans
Well, God forgive the Redcoats anyway
Newfoundland
Is a bold
Anapest
The church spires in a line, the light is green
The bold young captain shoots the narrows wild
Can you find your way to your painted house?
To walk again the cobbles of Ferryland
And smell the very blue of the Atlantic
The sea-blown wind is cold in Canada
Blue Puttees and a mourning Caribou
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord
Good children sing “We love thee, Newfoundland”
Quebec – royal city of New France
May Le Bon Dieu bless the Plains of Abraham,
And may God bless
The signs an English driver cannot read
The Coca-Cola streets of Niagara Falls
Yanks laugh at made-in-China Mountie mugs
And buy them, happy to be in Canada
A cup of Toujours Frais from – well, that place
But to us in your southern provinces
Below Niagara, Tim too is Canada
Though Canada goes on, these scribbles must not –
Your grateful guest wishes only to say
That every happy day is Canada Day!
Jul 1, 2018
Jul 1, 2018 at 9:35 AM UTC
If you could only let it drop
we would not need to bear it:
that holy hoity-toity
illiberal burden you announce
from where you wear it.
Would you then be able to live
with your fellow citizens:
fellow toilers in rhyme
buying gluten-free time
at Whole Foods
US; your citizen-neighbors
online cloud of witnesses
Looking at used Subarus
and paying our dues
with you
at the dealership.
Could you only see
through deplorable eyes
and love with a deplorable heart
you would appreciate the art
of the real deal,
loose the seal
of your own apocalypse;
let love reveal
landscapes your pride
has kept hidden for too long.
If you could let your hatred drop,
Slough off the smug and the sneer
If you could stop
signaling to your own
long enough to know REAL diversity, and live
perhaps you’d give
a thought to your own fallibility
lost in a forest of woulds, failing to see
Your neighbor’s Tree of Life. . .
But you are busy perfecting strife,
screaming Timber!
before the axe has even been laid
at the root of your poetry.
If you knew, as the rest of us
how often you have shouted thus
you could understand why
we tend to ignore your warning cry.
Perhaps it could be feasible
to stop blaming
that orange source of all unreasonable
derangement, cease from naming
your neurotic projections
as they are unscrewed
to reveal another inside:
crazed conspiratorial Russian doll
of your own
discredited obsessive offended perpetual alarm.
Apr 7, 2019
Apr 7, 2019 at 6:16 PM UTC
It's a small world
for some girls. They live
in shadow
of the Himalayas,
and other assorted mountainous
peaks. They daydream
of being followed
by the camera eye,
adored for the top heavy
weight they carry with
a grinning bounce. They want
to be a cruise ship,
stacked to the deck.
They want to be
fashioned with torpedoes,
a bombshell to
reckon with. And so they lie
on a table
to become a sculpture in plastic
for a renowned
architect. A mad scientist
in his own right,
experimenting with his creations
on fragile psyches, banking
on insecurities,
giving them a deflated hope
that what God didn't
bless them with,
his derangement will.
It's a mind game.
A mantra to "she who sends up gifts":
if you feel as good as you look,
all is well.
There's no harm in that, right?
Let's ask Pandora...
May 13, 2020
May 13, 2020 at 9:56 AM UTC