"disquiet" poems
I.
“No doubt they’ll sing in tune after the Revolution.”
-Kamarovsky, Doctor Zhivago (film)
Everyone seems to clench his fist these days
In solidarity with ephemera
While setting fire to green recycling bins
Hurling someone else’s bicycle through a window
Armed with their undergraduate degrees
The comrades liberate a coffee shop
Wifi-ing the revolution of the day
Empowerment by beating love to death
Loudsplaining authentic victimization
Posing for selfies with a stolen ‘phone
II.
Their inhumanity seemed a marvel of class-consciousness, their barbarism a model of proletarian firmness…
-Doctor Zhivago, p. 349
Everyone seems to clutch his flag these days
In solidarity with a past that wasn’t
While setting fire to misspelled cardboard signs
Hurling someone else’s beer into a crowd
Armed with their lurid Confederate tats
The Something.Right liberate a dumpster
Bull-horning the counter-revolution
Empowerment by beating love to death
Bellowing their Reconquista of stench
Posing behind their cheap gas station shades
III.
“I used to admire your poetry...I shouldn't admire it now. I should find it absurdly personal. Don't you agree? Feelings, insights, affections... it's suddenly trivial now. You don't agree; you're wrong. The personal life is dead…”
-Strelnikov to Yuri, Doctor Zhivago (film)
Some few embrace civilization these days
In solidarity with humanity
While lighting one small candle as a votive
Whispering an Ave into the Light
Armed with wonder through pen and flute and brush
Recusants choose the liberation given
In singing of the eternal verities
Self-empowerment happily denied
With love, with poetry, music, and art
Celebrating life on this summer day
Aug 12, 2018
Aug 12, 2018 at 5:09 PM UTC
I locked eyes with the street last night
and it dared me to turn away
turn from the injustice
inequalities
ignorance
move on to some romantic scene
that lives outside the grey
I wrapped its cold wet skin
around my neck and began to shiver
as the rocks began to scrape
scratch
slither in my veins
as one hundred unknown faces
paddled their way down river
I tasted grief and empathy
and the mix was all too vile
more bitter than any sympathy
symbiotic
synergy
gears were painting machinery
cranking out disquiet and bile
It was then I found its corner
and the music it seemed to breathe
and despite my hesitation
hysteria
hellish intent on fiction
The asphalt smile began to grow
and pave my mind at ease
Apr 8, 2013
Apr 8, 2013 at 11:15 PM UTC
Why do you still occupy
the nooks and crannies of my head?
Drifting up through the cracks in the plaster
bent nails and poor construction
hammered hastily into place
How do you fill
my vacant minutes with shadows of you?
Your outline walks beside me on the street, wound up in my headphones
the echo of your daydream touch
a humming static on my skin
How still do you fall asleep beside me
when I am wrapped in the disquiet of a restless night?
How do you ease yourself into my brain like its nothing
and hide among synapses that try so hard to lose you
And how still to lose you?
When the thought of you occupies the wasted time
that escapes order and control
and slips under the floorboards
And in that quiet and that dark
is where you and I occupy,
held together by the wandering nature of thoughts,
that find their way into the nooks and crannies of my head
The thought of you is indifferent to my hasty plaster work,
and
the thought of you is intoxicating.
Jul 3, 2014
Jul 3, 2014 at 6:49 AM UTC
Yes I go, yes go to seek a Great Apocalypse
One that will unravel the complex elaboration of difference
To articulate a perpetual aesthetic with violated codes
Of the experience of illusions of temporal stimulus
That are beyond all compass and soothe a fragmentation
Oh Great Apocalypse of beauty whose deception finds strategies
For youthful prodigality and binds me to your inarticulation
An embodiment of beleaguered and charmed fictions
Whose artifice is the governance of generous impulses
As such sway about me with a harmony of moral disquiet
Inadequate in description of the qualities of their oppression
Yet oh great apocalypse there is a plausible generosity
In these pale assumptions of impatience which carry
The obligations of a universally shared human existence
Compelling a projection of charged issues on competing claims
For the enigmatic logic of life
Yes Great Apocalypse now I understand all thought
From Everywhere and for Always
Sep 15, 2012
Sep 15, 2012 at 12:18 PM UTC
Daily I open my e-mail
Check my inbox and search horoscope.
There I found new horoscope daily
I read my love horoscope there
which Described Your and My love relation status.
But today when I open my e-mail,check my inbox,search horoscope.
there is no mail related to horoscope.
I become worried about you,little bit despondent for you,disquiet
After waiting for long time.
when I press refresh button
I received a new mail
It is my Horoscope ,I become a happy once again.
May 6, 2015
May 6, 2015 at 1:52 AM UTC
Plumped rouge with pigment
her lip fills to graze the ********
intent to disquiet the likes of de Sade
autografted with ocular detachment
should a Marquis wish to harness
the song of the morning
within a bandolier of Seine
to ensnare any bustled Persephone
gilted by discharge of ions
into a ménage of torment
through the Porte des Lions.
Hers is the tincture of doxy
caramelized and debrided of naivety,
empowered by the eve of invention,
swollen to curves and grounded in Paris.
Illumination defies pervasion
down to every gear and pulley
she has hushed through mechanization
and lulled by steam,
swaging a cacophony of flickers
encased in glass by the Lady’s watch,
where every rivet of her plate glisters silken
reverberation in cascade,
elegant, caged, and towering,
outspoken in silence,
ever challenging the Champ de Mars.
"Paris by Gaslight," written by Dionne Charlet, is the title poem to be featured in the upcoming steampunk anthology Paris by Gaslight, the third anthology in the By Gaslight Series from New Orleans small press Black Tome Books. Look for the first two collections of poems and short stories set in Victorian Times, New Orleans by Gaslight (ISBN 9780615801186) and Cairo by Gaslight (ISBN 9781516961528). Both collections feature poetry by Charlet, under the pseudonym Dionne Cherie.
Nov 3, 2016
Nov 3, 2016 at 2:44 PM UTC
They huddle in the cold damp darkness
grateful for the sheltering sandstone
shuddering at each echoing blast
a remorseless dull ache
like their meagre rations
eyelids shutting wrinkling between attacks
seeking peace and inner sleepless solace.
'Them docks is taking a pasting.'
'Me Dad works there.'
Another attack, tunnels rumble
evoking century old echoes
of rusty trundling drum-line wagons
bearing sandstone blocks to build the docks
now being blitzed blighting the night sky.
The morning brings a dusty disquiet.
Merseyside emerges curses soldiers on.
Nov 1, 2015
Nov 1, 2015 at 10:42 AM UTC
His mouth puckers to the side,
his brow furrows when aware
an assumption crawls around
in the wormwood of his mind.
Every misconception,
unrecognized at first
swells within, until
his error bolts forth
like lighting on the prairie
breaks the swelter of
a summer day.
Meditations sooth his disquiet ,
perplexed by her perfection
he searches for scars in blossoms,
and defects in tree leaves. His mouth
grows dry as he mumbles
"there is no perfection."
If he finds a flaw
upon her cheek,
or a birthmark
on her shoulder
will his love fade?
Eyes staring ahead,
his mind in a trance,
he ruminates phrases
" stay open," "remain tolerant"
wait for flowers to bloom,
rains to come and
her to remain
incomprehensible.
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 4:02 PM UTC
***Creatively enticing,
profoundly sensual
boundlessly experienced,
cryptically presumptive
inordinately exclusive
effusively lavished,
anesthetized or blatant
allusive beyond ethereal,
metaphorically inferred
criminal insanity
disquiet midst agitation,
peaceably surrendered
illustriously polished
or indubitably raw
fruitful to a fault - -
in reciprocity's glory be
quenches thirst,
satiates a hunger
flourished midst ink's
designed grandeur,
poetry never fails to thrive,
tripping the light fantastic
in its exuberant offering***
Seize the power
Jun 16, 2015
Jun 16, 2015 at 7:22 AM UTC
it was like waking up to all white fume
or a long washline — masturbatory, feeling something stiff like a hand gliding
over a monsoon of emotions, the affect
jazz and the crunch of fragrance
forever like sandalwood;
on my way to Dumandan, i conjure an inward miasma of thrill, unfurled yesterday, today, or was it before when our eyes were fixated on the passing of things in myriad ways without any relevance to what has died, say wilted,
like a flower going away in closing seasons,
children in hurtling speeds at twilight,
gates welcoming a resounding sound of
rusting hinges,
slow rise of night, its vertical climb,
shadows collapsing on the Hibiscus
and the Poinsettia from the Cordillera,
dreary men taking out ******* throwing
them into metalloid beasts, verdigris
painted, grisly caravan of steel and
worthless scraps —
past neighborhoods thinking about
the simmer of onion and the hustle of
the feral over rooftops, clinking wine bottles undulating full to empty — both
unaware of acumen and only dizzying
ourselves mirroring each other eye
to eye and bridging this unclose-enough
a gap in between,
because you need it,
and i want it, or simply in reverse,
a sidewinding thought through dunes
of afterthought.
because you have to walk my side
of the Earth and I have to meet you
somewhere halfway where we can both
lounge at each other's steady presence
while the flyblown dry air ravishes
the piquant morning, all-telling what
this distance meant from its
peak up to the very last
traceable steps where i found you
and you found me, trilling in the neighborhood like how void
stills itself into all the mood of the Earth:
all moony and
fretting in the disquiet.
Nov 15, 2015
Nov 15, 2015 at 2:38 PM UTC
*Stellar spirit, fearless flier to high skies, your wings are gifts of freedom,
your florid songs, tug at my heart as much as those plumage,
your elan, though subdued a bit by harsh weather, takes new shoots,
never in disquiet, indomitable, your inner lamp, now burns with camphor light.
I see you fly above the storm clouds, singing anthem of your soul,
spectacular, in clear weather, cheered by your dear ones near,
the hillsides, valleys and dales resound with your dulcet tunes.*
Jun 4, 2013
Jun 4, 2013 at 9:37 PM UTC
“- Bacon sammich -”
Ahhh, liddle green apple 'pon my plate,
**** you ain't ever gonna satiate
my hunger, lust, for something more,
bacon sammich,,you know the score,
Home made bread, cut nice n thick,
full fat butter, ooh yea, that's the trick !
streaky bacon, with chewy rind
just cut off, from a pig's behind,
Fry it up, with a liddle oil
but steady now, or it'll spoil,
not too crisp, n not too brown
coz it's a little rough, when going down,
n to top it off, it's best of course
to maybe add, a splash 'o sauce,
So alas liddle apple, 'pon my plate
I'm afraid for you, the bins your fate,
at the risk of a liddle wife's disquiet
it's a bacon sammich,,,,,fuck the diet.
Alan nettleton.
May 8, 2010
May 8, 2010 at 8:22 AM UTC
oh what sustains this mind
a mind that teeters
on the edge of a spiral vertigo
that sways and rocks
in an unease of palpitations
attempting to escape
from the brutal insensitivity
of the granite faces that occupy the streets
a mind of hallucinated perceptions
with a constant stream of imagery
that finds a difficulty in the self negotiation,
the articulation of its inner geography
where a frightened availability of disturbance
in the vocabulary of its chemical graffiti
leaves speech vacated on the tongue
where eyes are pushed to see
a discord of sympathies for different dimensions
that has one disassociated, cut off from the immediate
living in an inner dialogue
of rebellious and unconventional preoccupations
a self alienation that heightens
the poetic colouring of the imagination
causes a ************ of the mind
that makes me cripplingly aware
of the abyss at the heart of my inner disquiet
makes my toes hover on the jagged edge of the world
yet I jump choosing discovery over societal dictum
to do rather than be
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 9:00 PM UTC
I felt an unusual twinge in my neck
as I turned toward you.
Heavy breathing signaled morning sleep
as my arm reached across your palpitating belly.
These casual cuddles, typical of the start of our day
emit a warmth unlike sunrays or furnace heat.
No use to wake you or tease apart your legs
for seldom do we play.
That may come after morning news is devoured,
bananas peeled and different morning hungers eased.
Now i rise to consume small pellets of brown, pink,
grey and white chemicals compounded to keep me alive.
There is a stillness downstairs with greetings from a well-worn chair
contoured to support my soul.
Blades whirl overhead churning a breeze
my face accepts upon my forehead.
Now is my time of meditation, my attempt to
listen to whatever god pervades this universe.
There will be no answers, no jolts of insight or revelations,
only small particles of peace to cover my disquiet.
You will lumber down steps with effort accentuated by creaks
and moans that are more pronounced each day.
Our lips will touch confirming both obligation and willingness
to walk beside each other.
I wonder if you think there could be more?
Could each gaze toward one another be longer?
Could I unbutton myself enough to see or would you scold me
for such an unrepressed display?
Nov 15, 2013
Nov 15, 2013 at 1:55 PM UTC
past wavering lights
B. Serrano and Bagong Ilog
love struck us down — sees no votive
clearing of the fog or a word sharper than any blade wrought from frays.
i have a photograph of you
somewhere in the ken of my silence
and on it paints lightsome hue
and sometimes pale when it rains.
KM 24 on a blue alloy and underneath,
a Baguio — some memories we keep
almost left by the last carriage homeward
from too much fire in our hands
only tremors could extinguish both
striking a balance and counterbalance;
the frequency of the electric and the
immense decibel of lions drowning
the disquiet. some places or some
looking back makes you want
to lose yourself in slight wonder and when
a memory comes back with the dreary
weight of its forgetfulness,
we fall asleep traipsing the steeples
of our dreams of each other
all-telling, still dizzy with the pirouette
of some distant longing bracing
the fall, triggering our darkness
and shooting out
ourselves, small,
love striking us down. arraying a triplicate
of hazy trails forking all roads
and we cannot find each other again;
throwing stones rippling
multiplied waves by the sea arriving
at separate mornings beneath
our feet,
bends on the bludgeoned curves
of love and hate ascertaining something
so unsure as a door agape and swiveling
in tense wind, tender is the night
and love continues
to smite us down, locking in, predatory precision,
running away, and away, and away
from the ache of it all.
Nov 3, 2015
Nov 3, 2015 at 7:11 AM UTC
~ ♡ ~
It's pleasure
~ ♡ ~
It's pain
~ ♡ ~
It's joy
~ ♡ ~
It's disquiet
~ ♡ ~
It's an antidote
~ ♡ ~
It's poison
~ ♡ ~
It's soundness
~ ♡ ~
It's madness
~ ♡ ~
It's a blessing
~ ♡ ~
It's a curse
~ ♡ ~
It's a haven
~ ♡ ~
It's a battle
~ ♡ ~
But above all,
Real love, true love
is sacrifice
~ ♡ ~
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 12:55 PM UTC
Walking home
at twilight:
the gentle breeze
the lavender sky
the wave goodbye
before the sun
closes its eyes
and the lingering disquiet
of knowing
you're all alone
for the next several blocks
Mar 15, 2021
Mar 15, 2021 at 9:41 AM UTC
My mind flutters,
A dainty butterfly...
Disquiet even over a nectarine pie,
Oft times the color allures;
A serrated edge attracts,
The stamen invite;
A pollinic conversation...
Little resting respite!
My mind flutters,
A distracted butterfly...
Does she not know;
She shall starve...
Concentration deprived,
Unable to trace the scent of the elixir;
That shall hold her high!?
May 29, 2013
May 29, 2013 at 1:13 AM UTC
I couldn't know you'd need me then!
Just a human with all frailty and much fault....
Do you think the wind blows differently
When it passes over leaves and trees?
That it says: "Wait, lemme stop here a bit
And blow on this one leaf in a special way"
Hardly! Time to get with the manure beneath
And see that sunrays shine on everything
And indiscriminate clouds shimmer on all,
How haphazard, the way the wind blows.
So, don't hang your head and moan so much
Time dawns for you to get over yourself
Don't you see that I'm still here?
Now quit getting your knickers in a knot!
You rant and rave while I pant and slave
Dissect my every move, make me aloof
How can you possibly go counting
And re-arranging all the marbles in my head?
You're so insecure, you make me mad
So exhaustive are your constant jibes
So tiring to soothe your unfounded fears
I'm having to placate you so often of late.
Before it all gets blown out of size
Sit a while in (h)arboured thought
Confront the dreads which cause disquiet
A trove may wash up....but broken, on your shore.
The wind comes not with tardy tidings
For it isn't the what you say or do
But forsooth, the how which carries weight
Let's not over-whip each other so.
My thoughts may be wanton, wild or reckless
Telling tigs bend on a riotous grind
Yet feckless deeds don't follow suit
Pardon my slightly-misbehaving mind.
Patient and respectful, I remain to be
Just guard against esurient whims
Paucity of faith and clockwork trivial'ties
Will lead us down a road of trials.
Fallen martyrs should not feign, see
The wind makes no pretense. It just blows....
Now, I really couldn't know you'd need me then
'Cause, baby, that's the way the wind blows!
S T, 5 April 13
Apr 5, 2013
Apr 5, 2013 at 8:26 AM UTC
When I try to sleep, I remember all my fears,
And every mistake I've made in the past five years.
My heart feels heavy, alone in a crowded room.
Suffocating claustrophobia, will this be over soon?
This is exhausting, trying to win this fight.
Hand over mouth, nothing's felt so right.
I'm running out of breath, I can't make this climb.
Chasing down the clock, seems I'm out of time.
First cut, not always the deepest.
Watching in the mirror, I dont wanna miss this.
In debt, I guess you can say that I owe you.
All these years, still can't say that I know you.
Close your eyes, tell me I hit close to home.
Lie to my face, I'm tired of feeling all alone.
Always changing, why do I feel the same?
Pointing fingers, I know I'm to blame.
Tell me you care, don't cut all ties.
Don't lose focus, I'll find some truth in your disguise.
Sep 11, 2018
Sep 11, 2018 at 9:12 AM UTC
The lone wolf howls through the night.
Despair, pain, hurt.
Longing for the sound of the returning cry.
Painful silence is all he hears.
*Agony fills him as he listens into the hushed night.
He’s alone.
Longing for a pack of his own.
Searching for comfort and strength.*
The lone wolf runs through the night.
Weak, tired, somber.
Longing for the feel of fur on fur.
Cold wind is all he feels.
*Misery creeps through him as he rubs against a tree.
He’s alone.
Aching for the feel of another of his own pack.
Seeking for warmth and companionship.*
The lone wolf hunts through the night.
Hungry, watchful, sleepless.
Longing for the smell of playful competition.
Dry leaves are all he smells.
*Disquiet overcomes him as he pines for a new smell.
He’s alone.
Thirsting for the smell of a pack.
Scouring for love and friendship.*
The lone wolf howls, runs, hunts through the night.
Despair, pain, hurt, weak, tired, somber, hungry, watchful, sleepless.
Longing for the returning cry, the feel of fur on fur, the smell of playful competition.
Painful silence, cold wind, dry leaves are all he knows.
*Agony, misery, disquiet flow through him.
He’s alone.
Longing, aching, thirsting for his own pack.
Searching for comfort and strength; seeking for warmth and companionship; scouring for love and friendship.*
The lone wolf is all alone.
Searching without finding.
He’s alone.
Without a pack of his own.
Aug 5, 2012
Aug 5, 2012 at 12:23 PM UTC
in the weeds where the dark bees
believe in dark dreams; savoring the frostbitten
nostalgia of wet mittens and smokestacks
hacking hearth-smog and dingy bitters
against clouds from a nameless
grudge... spawn from downcast holly.
where red berries
gasp for yellow
in the crotch of a wooden Fluegelhorn
sprouting from the branch
of a hedge without
Lips.
But a mouth full of snow.
II
in the weeds where the dark bees
believe in atoms of uncorrupted joy and pollen.
where they collude with silent majorities
and swindle sunlight for a spawnsong
anchored to the beak of a kestrel...
shrieking the maniacal disquiet
of a perfect moment.
rattling the hinges -
adored.
without
a key.
May 4, 2018
May 4, 2018 at 7:33 PM UTC
All the roads are closed. Silence metastasizes through the stretch of EDSA. Cold seeps in bone. Sun still flagellates.
Oscillate through sound space and whitewashed walls. Seismic grunt of jeepney awakens the signs: no avatars, yet. The night was as deep as any lover, a fine blistering moon glares through lit rivers.
Nothing exists except heads of tacks and maimed populace ambulating across roads sequined with ermine light. The disquiet approximates the lightness of
buildings in repair. Scaffolds, ubiquitous lovers,
clouds explode into white, and everything else like pain, pales in comparison with the slow twitch of everything.
Today there will be no siren nor
simultaneous joust of cyclists in perpetual motion— just you contending
against hues of all graffiti:
Cataract of anguish. News of killing.
Incarnadine trees netted with aureoles burning bright in solstices. Penumbral undulation of
forethought and afterthought.
Dislimned – all; you, left
in polaroid taken in solitary shutter,
in pursuit of light.
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 1:59 PM UTC
Regret is not
The fleeting deferral of
some brief romance
Regret is
the inability to react
to the irreversible moment
of something created
slipping away
(My boy Jamie being led
into that bitter cold by
a hand that should have
been none
but my own)
Photographs
faded pulpit dark and
winter noon grey
are but the same as
extinguishing candles
to mark , instead , what
could have been done
for the world
(I thought they were better off
being together
with their own kind
so I used to hurry past
them waiting for the trains
their children tidy and
smiling, nevertheless)
And the Angelus bell
will continue to ring
long after we all rot.
And the ghosts we share
will take all but their
names with them, to
be dug up for some
purpose of record
to fissure a cause for disquiet
along the nuns' walk wall.
(Before that, she had been
such a carful girl
and these days I
wince at the sound
of giggles which
remind me of hers.)
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 9:19 AM UTC
Dreams of working with little objects,
but my fingers are grotesquely fat,
bloated with self worth.
Such frustration,
as the small metal ambiguity falls,
again
between my clutches to clang helplessly on the whitewash table below.
A growing discomfort that is oddly angled and
it’s hard to look away lest someone end up mangled.
Filled with the certainty of a dying man,
I race against the biological clock.
These clichés are sticking to me and
your black thoughts are wicking,
can't you see?
This task is meaningless,
teeming in seemingly endless trysts of error and visitation.
Your mask is bleeding from this,
streaming and adorned in nameless anger,
your own manifested creation.
So I stare with unyielding disquiet at your unhindered disdain,
and make elastic confessions of comparable pain.
May 13, 2010
May 13, 2010 at 12:03 AM UTC