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Virginity
My virginity was bang, a brain against a glass-tinted window. It was child-locked doors and ax cologne. It was too much muscle and a 13 year old body to weak to tussle.

My virginity was a man who made **** seem like an art, the same systematic way the mortician dissects the cadaver. Striped from a name like i was nothing but a corpse

It was the bruises left for weeks. The ****** teeth marks left upon my once sacred body. It that deep voice with Alcohol on its breath.

Yes. My virginity was a ******* earthquake. It was 7 minutes of the worst kind of hell. 7. Where I stopped believing in heaven. Trust became the law, fear my bible. I watched as my foundations crumble. and I knew that this Earth was no longer safe to walk on. It was the aftershocks running down my spine and me, a vacant building constantly about to tumble

So here I am. 3 years later, standing in his rubble. mistaking a kiss for his fist. It's been panic attacks in grocery stores. It's been 3 years of hating myself more than anyone else possibly could. It's been 3 years of
Self blame
And the shadow of a girl I became
Unworthy is a word that takes up so much space

It was the carrying the scars of my last binge.
The night I convinced myself if it burned going down it must be holy water.
Finally Salvation
drinking so much I couldn't stand.
Drinking so much I could no longer stand myself.

I familiarized myself with the taste of concrete and forgot the smell of old books.
constantly looking for a new hook.
Blowing halos of smoking trying to make death look beautiful.
I found myself in a deep dark hole
Oblivion.. My only goal

Lately, It's been learning my body isn't an apology.  
It's been learning that bravery  cannot be measured my a lack of fear;
some times it takes a ******* soldier to look your demons in the eye and say.
This is my body.
I am the beautiful owner of busy breath.
I'm that  shadow girl with a storm inside
No I am not that bruised soul in the empty bottle.
It's been 3 year of convincing myself that This world, it needs my voice.
It's been learning I am a miraculous dance floor of glittering molecules.

It's been learning that You will never have a greater opportunity to learn to love thy enemy, when your enemy is own holy, holy self.
Keith J Collard Jan 2013
Light in which memories exist,
Comes to me by way of fist.
And only when I bleed,
Red gown, white slip--match on me.
Painful color of rosettes,,
When horizon on sun dissects,
Grip flushing my cheek coquette..
And when I am concussed,
The empty channel of snowy dust,
The swing, our breath and our lust.
If choked, coal of memory stoked,
Leather seats--and leather coat.
But I cannot proceed in fighting,
Though I adore the lighting,
For it all ends the same,
Setting sun in horizon's grip,
Color of the full lips,
So beautiful, so fleeting,
Then blackness hits.

But colorful vision I won't see,
with no touch no flush--no face fading memory.
Its 8:30 in the AM
The Corn Moon
is being routed by a
Manassas cloud bank

NPR be barking
Irma this, Irma that
my tremblin Rav4
stuck in the rush
is idling behind
a pair of gray hairs
spewing
leaded premium
out the back
of a big old black Buick
sportin Florida tags

inching north up I95
I’m relieved to be
a thousand miles
ahead of the
monstrous *****
denuding Barbuda
deflowering the
****** Islands
and threatening to topple
the last vestiges of
Castro’s Dynasty
by disrupting upscale
bourgeois markets
for cafe Cubanos,
cool Cohibas and
bold Bolivars

she’s a CAT 5
counterclockwise
spinning catastrophe
churning through
the Florida straits
bending steel framed
Golden Arches
shaking the tiki shacks
gobbling lives
defiling tropical dreams

the best
meteorological minds
on the Weather Channel
plug the Euro model
to plot a choreography
of Irma’s cyclonic sashay

they predict she’ll
strut her stuff
up a runway  
that perfectly
dissects the  
Sunshine State
ransacking
the topography
venting carnage
like battalions of
badly behaved frat boys,
schools of guys gone wild
sophomores, wreaking havoc
during a Daytona Beach
spring break
droolin over *******
popping woodies at
wet tee shirt contests
urinating on doorstoops
puking into Igloo Coolers
and breaking their necks
from ill advised
second floor leaps
into the shallow end
of Motel 6 pools

but I’m rolling north
into the secure
arms of a benign
Mid Atlantic Summer
like other refugees,
my trunk is
filled with baggage
of fear and worry
wondering
if there’re be anything
left to return to
once Irma
has spent herself
with one last
furious ****
against the
Chattanooga Bluffs of
Lookout Mountain

Morning Edition
Is yodeling a common
seasonal refrain
the gubmint is
just about outta cash
congress needs to
increase the debt limit

My oh my,
has the worm turned
during the Obama years
the GOP put us through a
Teabag inspired nightmare
gubmint shutdowns
and sequestration
shaved 15 points
off every war profiteers vig
it gave a well earned
long overdue
take the rest of the week off
unpaid vacation
to non essential
gubmint workers
while a cadre of
wheelchair bound
Greatest Generation
military vets get
locked out of the
WWII Memorial on the
National Mall

this time around
its different
we have an Orange Hair
in the office and there's
some hyper sensitivity
to raise the debt ceiling
given that Harvey
has yet to fully
drain from the
Houston bayous

the colossal cleanup
from that thrice in a
Millennial lifetime storm
has garnered bipartisan support
to  clean up the wreckage
left behind by a
badly behaved
one star BnB lodger
who took a week
long leak into the
delicate bayous of
Southeast Texas

yet we are infused
with optimism that our
Caucasian president
and his GOP grovelers
now mustered
to the Oval Office
will slow tango
with the flummoxed
no answer Dems
to get the job done

pigs do fly in DC
Ryan and McConnell
double date with
Pelosi and Schumer
get to heavy pettin
from front row seats
beholding droll  
Celebrity Apprentice
reruns

The Donald, Nancy and Chuck
slip the room for a little
menage au trois side action
transforming Mitch and Paul
into vacillating voyeurs
who start jerking their dongs
while POTUS, and his
new found friends
get busy workin
the art of a deal

rush hour peaks
static traffic grows
in concert with
a swelling  
frenetic angst
driving drivers
to madness
terrified
they won't
get paid if
the debt ceiling
don't rise
they honk horns
rev engines
thumb iPhones
and sing out
primal screams

unmindful drivers
piloting Little Hondas
bump cheap Beamers
start a game of
bumper cars
dartin in and out
of temporary gaps
uncovered by the
spastic fits and starts
of temporary
decongested
ebbs and flows

A $12 EZ Pass
gambit is offered
the fast lane
on ramp
has few takers
just another
pick your pocket
gubmint scheme
two express lanes
lie vacant
while three lanes of
non premium roadway
boast bumper to bumper
inertness
wasted fuel
declining productivity
skyrockets
the  wisdom of
the invisible hand doesn't
seem to be working

DOJ bureaucrats
In Camrys and Focuses
dial the office
to let somebody
know they’ll
be tardy

gubmint contractors in
silver Mercedes begin
jubilantly honking horns
NPR has just announced that
Pelosi and Schumer
joined the Orange team
the rise in the debt ceiling
will nullify their 15%
sequestration pay cut

NPR reports the
National Cathedral will
deconsecrate two hallowed
stained glass windows of
rebel generals R E Lee
and Stonewall Jackson
it's a terrible shame that
the Episcopal Church
will turn its back on the
rich Dixie WASPS
who commissioned these
installations to commemorate
the church's complicity
in sanctifying the
institution of slavery,
WWJD?

as I ponder
this Anglican
conundrum another
object arrests my
streaming consciousness
upsetting an attention span
shorter and less deep
than the patch of oil  
disappearing under the front
of the RAV as I thunder by
at 5 MPH

to the left I eye a
funny looking building
standing at attention
next to a Bob Evans

I’m convinced
Its gotta be CIA
a 15 story
gubmint minaret
a listening post
wired to intercept
mobile digital
confabulations
from crawling traffic
inching along
beneath its feet

this thinking node
pulsing with
intelligence
reeking with
counterintelligence
the tautological
contradiction
guarantees the
stasis of our
confused
national consciousness

strategically positioned to
tune into the
intractable Zeitgeist
culling meta code
planting data points
In Big Data
data farms
running algos
to discern bits
of intelligence
endeavoring to reveal
future shock trends
knows nothing
reveals less

the buildings cover
is its acute
conspicuousness
gray steel frame
silver tinted glass
multiple wireless antennas
black rimmed windows
boldly proclaim
any data entering
this cheerless edifice
must abandon all hope
of ever being framed
in a non duplicitous
non self serving sentence

the gray obelisk a
national security citidel
refracts the
fear and loathing
the sprawling
global anxiety
our civilization's
discontent
playing out
in the captive
soft parade
ambling along
the freeway jam
imobilized
at its stoop

Moning Edition jingle
follows urgent report of
FEMA scamblin assets
arbitraging Harvey and Irma
triaging two
tropical storm tragedies
and a third girl
just named Maria
pushed off the Canaries
and is on its way to a
Puerto Rico
homecoming

while
gubmint  bureaucrats
anxiously push on
to their soulless offices
the rush hour jam
has peaked
my WAZE
is having a
nervous breakdown

next lane over
a guy in a gold PT Cruiser
is banging on his steering wheel
don’t think this unessential worker
will win September's
civil servant of the month award

Ex Military
K Street defectors
slamming big civie
Hummers
getting six mpg
lobby for a larger
apportionment
of mercenary dollars
for Blackwater's
global war on terror

Prius Hybrids
silently roll on
politely driven by
EPA Hangers On
hoping to save
a bit of the planet
from an Agency Director
intent on the agency's
deconstruction
the third 500 year hurricane
of the season
is of no consequence

obsolete
GMC Jimmy’s
are manned by
Steve Mnunchin
wannabes
the frugal
treasury dept
ledger keepers
pour good money after bad
to keep the national debt
and there clanking
jalopies working

driving Malibus
DOL stalwarts
stickin with the Union
give biz to GMC

nice lookin chicks
young coed interns
with big daddy doners
fix their faces and
come to work
whenever they want

my *** is killing me
I squirm in my seat
to relieve my aching sacroiliac
and begin to wonder if my name
will appear on some
computer printout today?
can’t afford an IRS audit
maybe my house will
be claimed by some
eminent domaine landgrab?
Perhaps NSA
may come calling,
why did I sign that
Save The Whales
Facebook Petition?

The EZ Pass lane
is movin real easy
mocking the gridlock
that goes all the way
to Baltimore
a bifurcated Amerika
is an exhaust spewing
standing condemnation
to small “R”
republicanism  

glint from windshields
is blinding
my **** is hurtin and
gettin back to Jersey
gunna take a while
GPS recalcs arrival time

an intrepid Lyft driver
feints and dodges
into the traffic gaps
drivin the shoulder
urging his way to the
Ronnie Reagan International
I'm sure
gettin heat from
a backseat fare
that shoulda pinged
an hour earlier

Irma creeps
toward the Florida Keys
faster then the
glacial jam
befuddling congress

I think I just spotted
Teabag Patriot
Grover Norquist
manning a rampart
bestriding a highway overpass
he’s got a clipboard in hand
checking the boxes
counting cars
taking names
who’s late?
who’s unessential?

man
whatta jam we're in

Music Selection:
Jeff Beck: Freeway Jam

Orlando
9/21/17
jbm
written as im stuck in jam headin back to jersey
Joseph Schneider Jul 2014
Dissected brilliance
Admissible propositions
Sculpted resilience
Destructing predispositions

Initiates our purpose immensely
Criticism gives it's crucial effect
For the better, accordingly
It's for us to detect

Why? we ask throughout
Our incompetent delusion
Through our endless bout
Here, take your conclusion

"Why" is a sensational question
Dissects mind's interest
Releases its compression
Yet we remain among the belligerent

This answer prolongs
Through your eyes only
In our hearts it belongs
Don't persevere your phony
Bring back your trophy

-Joseph B Schneider
© Joseph B Schneider. All rights reserved

Brilliance lives in us all. It's up to us to find it. Don't get down on yourself if you aren't good at what you weren't meant to do.

"Everybody is a Genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2019
Poem Analysis

1st read, I thought gibberish,
2nd I thought Hmmm,
3rd I thought interesting,
4th I felt genius
.  billy


your poem comment-dissects my poem
my process,
a marathon interview for a new poem pole position,
limb by limb, word by word,
chewed and re-chewed,
like a tiring piece of bubble gum,
the flavor remaining ebbs, but is not extinguished,
and can live in your mouth,
forever

and the praise and this poem,
not a rodomontade,
for your comment dear Billy,
is the process description of a poet’s labor,
from word first to a baby’s birth,

gibberish into genius

emergent from first pain, then pushing, then tilled, at long last,
the dirtiest immaculate conception beautiful

billy reads my rambling, silly abstruse^ & wrote me:
1st read I thought gibberish,
2nd I thought Hmmm,
3rd I thought interesting,
4th I felt genius


this is a much loved critique
for I well recall each step of creation,
a summarizing parallel
that your words+genes replicated so well,
forgiving you a minor typo, Billy,

it was genus, not genius that you meant

(but then again, why quibble over a miscellaneous, harmless, delighting, tiny little  extra i...not me, said he, my muse ego )

Billy has gone gray dotted, but his dot, his comment,
with gratitude,
in me, he,
lives for ever

I feel gibberish coming on...
***
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Fit
Patterns spiral on
like the hands of a clock.
My mind dissects the mechanism
to learn where I fit in.
I fear if I should find myself,
then I shall be forgot.
Where will I fit in?
Sometimes I scour the walls of my room
desperately searching for where I fit in,
If I lost count of all my lovers
& my very dearest friends.
I'd always be waiting for the bottom to drop
& wondering where I fit in.
Twelve moons have passed
with you
& I do not know where I fit in.
Like twelve years ago
in school,
I did not know where I fit in.
The twelfth I shall pack to travel North,
a brief moment of time to fit everyone in
to a world where people love me
precisely because I stand out.
Prabhu Iyer Aug 2012
Again that roar of sea dying into murmur.
Yet another splash and retreat.
Wild wind wet with the constant spray.
Sometimes I don't and sometimes, you don't.
We walk together here, this way.
Sometimes the sea, the world at others.
Yes, sometimes there's only one person's track here.
So many years now, yet everything is in those first days.
Voices that persist in the interludes to birdsong.
At noon they peep in through revolving
shadows of the tireless fan.
Forms that flit in and out of my mind
as I motor away into the ebbing evening.
Streak of light that dissects the painting on the wall
late every night. Blinding every morning.
Broken well that chimes back
your own distorted voice and visage.
Sometimes I wish I could walk out of your life.
Sometimes, you wish you could from mine.
My altar went dark the day after I set it in order.
What if I lose you, what if I lose you?
The rose plant died when the maid watered her
this summer when I was away.
What of me finding her dead like this?
Withered leaves, speak to me.
This bare silence is thorny to my soul.
Solitary pond, speak to me past the springs of teals,
rain that obscures the closed temple to the deity of love.
Kenneth Gray Oct 2020
The poetic apprentice constantly
ponders and plans.
He dreams up wondrous writings that through critisms can stand.
He imagines mystical miracles he elaborates with his hand
Unending possibilities his vast
Mind demands

He scoures the depths and peruses vast heights.
He indulges crisp, cool mornings and envelops the nights.
He listens for lyrical lullabies and observes majestical sights.
He journeys throughout space
as he embarks on jaw-dropping flights.

The poetic apprentice searches
The depths of his heart
He dissects it and reads it
And tears it apart.
Then divulges it's secrets
And crafts them into his art

He wishes so dearly that his
Work becomes no disaster
He keeps his senses in tune
In hopes he'll one day be a master
As more work pours out the
Pressure grows faster and faster
But he'll slow down and humble himself
As his work evolves and becomes vaster

Now the poetic apprentice sighs
A great sigh of relief
He wipes off his brow
As he mumbles "good grief!"
His work is now over his
work is complete.
He knows they will like it.
Its his faith, his belief

The poetic poet now bows
To you, his work is bequeathed
I was just trying to bring a writing forward again from a slightly different angle. Just trying to be a little unique with my approach. Ive been thinking a lot of how I need to learn and grow. So through that the idea of an apprentice came to mind. I thought writing in 1st person as I wouldn't create much of a persona with the character. It would have just been me and that's not quite as interesting to write about. That's kind of the thought process with this one.
I recently agreed to leave my body to science
In return for free cremation & disposal services.
But I insisted on one small qualifier,
A precise stipulation that
The first-year medical student, to which
My cadaver is assigned,
Be female & lovely,
Brilliant & curious,
Fevered & insane,
Seeking a miracle cure for broken hearts.
The damaged among us,
Yearn for a magic elixir,
Some long lost potion,
Arcane & miraculous,
Insightful & perfect in simplicity.
A man who truly loved women,
My last woman dissects me,
I, a species of man she would master.
Cuts out my heart and weighs it,
Divines my psychology from slice of spleen.
Or liver, toxic, cirrhotic,
Surely, random entrails hold some key to me.
I--in all my incandescent incongruity--
Must render up some gender-specific clue,
As to what it is men really want;
Proving, again, the simplest answer is best.
martin May 2016
We follow the bridleway that dissects the growing field of wheat, now dark green and vigorous after it's Spring dose of nitrogen. Pass the smouldering ruin of a bonfire which has been awaiting the torch for weeks. Charred black are two big sections of oak trunk which I considered purloining every time I passed, but decided they looked too heavy to move.

Reach the road, rein in the dog's lead, turn right. The thatch I renewed a few years back is definitely not looking new any more. Past the houses, past the one where the whistler lives. All the way across the wide East Anglian field I often hear him trilling, when we are both pottering in our gardens. He has a brick outhouse, probably a former loo or wash house. A thrush is sitting on top of the chimney and a blackbird on the weather vane, they look about four feet apart. I pick up a lager can, crush it and slip it in my back pocket. A pigeon climbs, claps its wings and glides back down. Jogger's footsteps catch up from behind. It's the chap who owns a Harley Davidson.

I turn back into our lane, a skylark is singing loud and clear above us to the left. A rabbit dashes across the lane a few yards ahead, disappears. The dog's ears go straight up and he eagerly sniffs its trail. Back home.
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2016
i'd really like to punch Roger Boyes in the face... that kind of therapy talk akin to Fight Club... i'd really love to punch Roger Boyes' smile off...  can't stress how much i'd like to punch his face, simply to add the mascara of plum with that grin of his... i'll say it one more time for the therapeutic reasons, akin to 1916 and northern irish zombies; god, i'd love to punch that man into a Picasso.

why... the pristine supposed involvement of
Colonel Kentucky in Syria...
leave them to it! your opinions are just invests in war,
look at you, cooked-up in a semi-detached
in Warwickshire... i'm sure the select journalists
ageing have moved from the column to
the opinion section, because they are *proper

bulldog bred to choke a Belgian waffle
and *****-up a moth for a tartan pattern;
******* in the Caribbean - pilot features added
to the wingspan about what i wouldn't integrate into
even if Dickens or Shakespeare was an ice cream moment
of melting into a society... honey pooh...
you want the community experience?
abolish the strategy for urban areas and Greek-likened
free-city states... you want a community?
move to a village... no immigration will change
that demographic, village life means village life,
and villagers... and your neighbour's breakfast
on your table given the gossip at the hairdressers...
get a prim and the low-down;
that English, functioning atheism:
left hand (a-, the indefinite article) - and right hand
(the-, the definite article) - Kula Shaker'***** -
but i'd really love to punch Roger rather than Gandhi...
for Aleppo... i guess it's fun and morally pristine
to serve a comment along with oysters away
from the tabloid section of Loners of the newspaper,
a poet best dissects a newspaper -
did Cromwell ask for aid? Charles got the Chaplin
chop - Russia assured everyone, the support
of the Armstrong - because Colonel Kentucky and
every other entrepreneur of capitalism was not
part of bookmarking the last few pages of the Syrian
civil war... is that because no English civilians
knew the reality of war that Syrians concerned themselves
with? hence the punch for the journalist...
how about infiltrating a far-right perspective to counter
the spread of Jihad in Europe? being an island will
hardly help, as pseudo-****** said: now the channel
tunnel... let the tanks roll in.
England is under this fake impression that America
cares two-shots of whiskey three shakes of the dice
about its opinion... it doesn't...
America is pro-Israel.. England is quasi-pro but by
majority not wishing the Palestinians to experience
a 2000 year old Exodus... so here come the balaclavas
with black & white or red & white Houndstooth patterns.
still... i'd love to punch that Roger into a tombstone-flat-face.
leave them to it! it's a civil war! none of us
were ever Syrian civilians... we were civilians elsewhere...
in the green mint-fresh rolling hill countryside...
this isn't your son's Special Ops first-person shooter
on a computer screen... **** me... let the gym meat-heads
pump the iron... you a covert disciple of the diminishing
English high-street franchise... you know
that when a franchise begins to become turned FLAWED
it invests in adverts - capitalism's exposure comes
with advertisement, when a company is on the fault
line of bankruptcy or making profit, if decides on
an advertisement project, a crusade - to rekindle
public trust, i.e. naive handshakes all round.
Chris Voss Jan 2012
“Just loosen your grip a little,”
Fiddling fingers say to me
Quite condescendingly,
“If you hold on to something
Too tight for too long
One day you’ll open your fist
And realize you’ve crushed it.”
The breath that carries his words
Buries this stone heart like a seed
And parts the rising steam of the
Teacup he raises up to steady lips,
Of which my quivering jaw grows
Envious.
“That’s *******.”
I spit the venom back at him,
Proving my limited vocabulary
And badly developed “come-back” skills.
It makes me ill how much he tries to pretend that
Everything is fine.
“Everything is going to be
Fine”
He says,
“Everything has a reason.”
And I hate him for it.
But I can’t hide the upright curves of a smile
When he tells me
We all make an impact.
We all buckle at our knees in the rain,
Fists full with parts of our soul
That we wish to add to this the world.
It’s why we leave behind fingerprints
On everything we touch.
It’s proof of our existence
And a reminder that once,
We cared enough to reach out and
Make an exchange with the things we love.

But I counter it with,
“Fingerprints can be washed away
In the time it takes a snowflake
To melt in your palm.
In the split second of a gunshot.”
It’s too risky to wear our hearts on our sleeves
These days
So instead we push it down
Our solar plexus
And compress it like coal.
We fill the hole in our chest
With cyanogen-filled cigarettes
And nicotine best guesses.
We doorbell-ditch the addresses
Of our Demons in Disguise
With makeshift wings and sky blue eyes.
Taunting them with kid tricks
But always running
Because we’re too afraid
To strip them of their masquerade.
Naive to the fact that it might be more
Than just child’s play.
So I tell him it’s okay
To admit that he’s still afraid of the dark.
That we need to strap ourselves
With something harder than skin.
Because this world is hazardous,
I learned it the first time I saw my father cry.
That’s why I sit here with
White-knuckled hands clutching to
Everything that I can call my own
And not opening my eyes
Because I dream better with them closed.
So I won’t loosen this grip
Because it seems so simple to slip
Through these fingertips.

And so he sits.
And so I shake.
And he sits, and I shake
And we take that deadpan silence of a symphony
Right before the orchestra strikes the first chord
And we make honesty with it.
We make honesty like,
Honestly, the next sounds
To escape our mouths
Are going to be the most important words I’ve ever heard
So let's make them worth it.
We make honesty
Like concentration camp *******
Because it’s how we still feel alive
And a way to say, “**** the world
I’ve still got something it can’t take.”
And while I can’t shake this moment of vulnerability
He draws a hand up to my chest,
Pulls out a breath,
And dissects the swollen god-complex.
He filters the air
I hinder to bear upon my heavy shoulders
And slips it back, past cracked crimson lips
To ignite this sarcophagus with life.
“Everything is going to be
Fine.”
He says,
“Everything has a reason,
So explore the world with both hands before of you
Feet making a rhythmic beat on the
Black paved street
As you follow broken yellow lines,
Racing headlights to the horizon.
And leave behind a trail of fingerprints
So you’ll never forget where you’ve been.”
Omarcito Jun 2023
Staring off, into a hallucinogenic scar
Of a. Man that used to frolic,
I notice their eyes dwelling in its luggage,
Seeking diamonds of speculation though
Some might think of this as attention.

It burns in its atoms,
Hoping to observe shock.
Perhaps, a catastrophe.
Perhaps, an awakening,

It’s up to the magical world of the mind
To procreate perspective on that
Cacophony of benevolence, as
A mother does when presented their child,
By means, of surgical hands,

Concurring it’s value,

Like a beauty salon,

Signaling its importance
By rendering eyes to acknowledge its
Constant self transforming,
While dollar signs kindle their way through the Amazon to confrontation,
A song The Spectacle knows oh so well
While society dissects in its cultural forms,
Like Yahweh,
And “you don’t know what you say”
Or essence of Christianity,
And Tathāgata.

Brain dead poet,
Lost in the slums of
Originality and inspiration,

A hue of blue,
What else is new?

                                The changing of the guards.
Rachel Giudici Aug 2014
I am hallow and your cryptic messages echo echo echo in the cavern depths of my mind. and I erase myself into a hallow dark nothingness because your voice reckishays so beautifully into my abyss. to let your essence fade within me until i can feel your silence, is a sound I cannot regurgitate. I hide in you more than i do myself and the feeling of vulnerability entraps my soul inbetween-and i taste it on my exhale and you sense it on your inhale but you will always breath it out and ill always breathe it back in. the dictionary in my head is composed of emotions and my fragmented thoughts will appear on my tongue in words that know well solitude. so don't ask me to compile a sentence when nonsense is such a poetic language. and maybe you're shocked by your own electricity but i know that when my socket lips meet your outlet I don't need my eyes open for you to feel my stare. I started in a void, rap music drains me into being comfortably numb like the security of a scratched cd that will repeatedly mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble nonsense until you can handle the silence again. Sedation. but silence does not exist-there will only ever be nothingness.

and memory is a misconception. and my memory is paranoid fading fading fading fading deceptions that i mutilate into some kind of black hole limbo of existence. I forget memory does not exist. not even the best moments are worth remembering into ghosts, shadows, silhouettes, silhouettes, silhouettes. I wont remember but i wont forget...an inbetween. I've never felt so lonely as you keep a memory but forget me within it. my extinction to you is inevitable. Forget me to death. I only know the sensation of breaking, breaking, breaking. but you say my name in halves like it was meant to be broken. like the last syllables of my names are the sound of my last breath. a secret spilt in the killing, your last words to me were my first name. that was the most purpose ever put to my accidental label that my parents branded me with because mistake, seems more like a nickname than a first. first times aren't anything more than any other time. Innocence costs more than its worth, and my worth to you and you and you and you over and over and over again was never a matter of giving or taking because purity and promiscuity are just different forms of the same breaking, breaking, breaking. you **** me like a mortician dissects a ****** victim. and i ******* like a corpse in a dirt smothered grave, ***** to the bone. love has everything to do with it because loving me is the promise of i will die for you. will, not would. and i love you like the ceaseless immortality of time measuring my bodies end in mortality. so all jokes aside, id rather say ill ******* to death than ill love you because it more crude, offensive, and morbid to ever suggest my love for you could end at wood. intensity, burdens, accidents, rejection, characters, you don't know me past an expiration date. You don't know me and my caffeinated brain at 3:22am 156 days past last, high on an artificial happiness overdose. To never sleep as a self inflicted insomniac. Intoxication, addiction, I understand survival. I never write anything short. I never write anything worth saying. Irony is the core of infinity and infinity is temporary and my muse is the epitome of all. And in the end, you are every question and i am a single factual answer.
my muse
martin challis Jan 2015
child- small voices sag
bomb-smoke rises from the ground
far off, birds still shake

Billy Striker blown
to Holland, the north sea wind
took weeks to fall

beforemourn chimneys
slate rooves yawn hunger,
one cigarette draws breath

moon crater on the
road to Derry, limousine
sarcophagus lands

siren scream and scrape
tears rigor mortis frozen;
the sea now quiet

hands across water
missing fingers, Gabriel
silent, the watcher

he’d stopped to look
smile asking the time of day,
pressing the trigger

one small death for man
one giant death for mankind,
eyes search behind moons

bicycle wheel turns
awkward lazy arm protrudes
broken flaying skin

obliteration,
scalpel dissects argument
camera’s detail

a.m. paper print
fortresses build stone by verse
each wall a chapter

retaliation,
leopard stalking, counter plot
begun in blueprint

burnt flesh of kingdoms
republic’s frost bitten dogs
bark anger blood ***

interrogation,
splattered kneecap agreement
hands shaking silence

investigation,
no stone unmoved, evidence
a silent quarry

old man keeping dust
one eye swollen, hunching armour
his grief in buckets



MChallis © 2015
Written at a time at the height of the conflict in Northern Ireland - sadly still relevant today in another setting and context.
Olivia Kent Aug 2013
In this unreal reality,
How does it feel to be blind,
In an abyss of ignorance of the darkest kind,
Eyes are locked under heavy lids,
Encrusted under layers of dust,
Evidence of life long gone,
When leisure time was pleasure time,
For you are not deceased,
Your heart beats on in tragic solitude,
The chill outside, encases a fiery interior,
Banners laid aside,
Stuck tight, trapped within trends of poetic justice,
A judicial reward, not retribution,
Poetry is our solution,
For she opens eyes to vision,
Dissects the world around,
Recants impressions of visual images,
As imagination plays,
Surface sights alone, conjure no imagery,
To see vision for what it's really worth makes life enchanted!


By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
April Hapner Jul 2018
I lay here watching
Which layers are spinning...
And what direction?
My mind dissects the clouds
Like a fog being burned by sunlight...
During the late morning.

This pattern above me
Rather pleasing... yet confusing...
I'm on the right,
I find it yielding left...

There's designs I can't name
Animals I can make...
Yet they all run away as I move
And the clouds spin trails...
Watching them evolve
Like a lifelong time lapse.

The drawn up moisture....
The streams of steam condensed...
Swirled and forged into cotton-like pillows of uncertainty.
The colors are the Indicators of moods
The light and mysterious
White and normal
Green and envious of the oncoming destruction
Black and gray depicting ends of sunshine filled days...

The life underneath grows, quivers, and in series of decays...
Some offer condensed clouds as flavored swirls in mugs...
But I rather watch the ones that love
Carrying wind and rain...
Have swirls of their own and a Name.

Though subject of objections
The will of nature has a forge...
To churn this stream of water around
Like spun sugars of cotton candy.
Much like a carnival, life is a surprise
An unyielding wild ride.

Directions are unclear
If i will be here
I have watched the life of
The swirl in this giant mug
Smack the coastlines with giant hugs...
Some rough love...

Though oddity
Have you seen what clouds can do
When spun around oak trees?
I am a Hurricane Hugo [1989] survivor.
I enjoy weather and thunderstorms.
Once I dreamt of being a meteorologist.
There used to be a 100 year old oak tree outside my bedroom window. During the eye of the storm we notice the tree was turned. In fact you could see the disruption in the earth... as roots were twisted around and almost braided. The tree was uprooted and twisted like a tick... And survived for years after that storm. By far... the most interesting tree story I have.
JP Goss Nov 2013
The wind that roars and shatters the night
Kills solace, this, and peace, that
What little balm is here for me
Is torn away
By the Wind.
Metal twists and whines out loud
These walls are bowing in
To entrap me like a seed
Encloséd hard
By the Wind.
Impassioned, is this wind-wracked night
Full of sadness, love, and spite
The wound inflicted long ago
Made gangrenous
By the Wind.
I see chains that shake and choke
Where their sleep is unpleasant
Bound by hands that do not touch
And laughed at
By the Wind.
There, those chains in brunette hair
And blue eyes and silver tongue
Turned away and turned back
Vivid life enforced on me
By the Wind.
Closer and closer the wind pushed walls
The farther you are away
The tightness, oh solitude
Your cadence carried
By the Wind.
The wind, the wind dissects the very earth
I split, it splits by loss of harrowing trial
The chasm it makes, pure anger bursts forth
I feel the distance as it grows,
An adult wound, mile by mile
We’ll soon be foreign people
Breathing foreign airs
So be it! I say, just let me rest,
You just keep walking from my mind
Blown back again, festering,
Blown back again
By the Wind.
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2016
we just provide the bang, you provide the number of bangs as necessary to craft an execution of poetic extinction via ideology of supposed "survival" with executing the myth of Dr. Faust, because too ridiculous, which begs the question: so Darwin and the Galapagos turtles isn't a good joke akin to some pervert inspecting butterflies who turned out to be a ******* - because of that cherry skin buttocks?*

all this LGBT thing going on
doesn't appeal to me to
reproduce, i just can't be bothered to get married,
i can't be bothered feeding
heterosexual labour
with the end product being higher prostitution
of surrogate mothers,
you have the power to grow ***** into
foetuses and designer babies, i'm not
necessary given this passive-peace;
i'm liberal up to a point,
after that something horrid takes over...
leave me alone, get the ***** bank to be completely activated
and surrogate mothers the new prostitutes accomplish
a new stratum of earning and spending:
heterosexuality is dead...
or if alive it's what enslaves...
i'm no longer the necessary the body to provide
choice, science over-powered man,
not unlike man over-powering nature
akin to china and india,
but over-powering nature unable
to out-number nature's example of ant of termite;
oh indeed the power, and family as pathological...
enslaving nature limits our growth,
liberating nature dis-inhibits a care to gain power over
when still the earthquake and tornado and hurricane...
science is merely millimetre and a gram!
why take faith in itemisation of such nature
when satiated with dinner you take the dog for a walk
and still look into the distance without clear
dissection - because you do not dissect a living thing,
and when science dissects, it presuppose the thing
to be dead, whether dead or alive, but in chemistry
and physics the thing is either too ridiculous to be alive '
or too grand to be alive -
yet the popularisation of a biological theory
is like the birds & the bees, and the hives, and the candlestick
wax made from pollen of what could have been honey...
biologists are the nazis among scientists,
because, i mean, they're not exactly surgeons,
or medical students, are they? they're about as useful
as psychologists when you have historians
and literature students to make the healthier point of *huh?
She’s in the mood
But everyone is playing
She’d play too if she could
But she’s just praying
For someone to listen
To a concert of words
She plucks like chords
A harmony when written,
As she conducts her pen
Like a scalpel she dissects
The truth of her life and then
She spills onto all her secrets
Dark and many;
Entrenched and heavy;
But she’s digging
Fighting and kicking
Through the black tar
Layers laid thick
Seen at a glance from afar
And brick by brick
She cracks the walls
Widening the halls
She’s writing through
To break a smile
And not be blue,
This will take awhile…
© okpoet
Mahima Gupta Apr 2014
Two buttons. My mind is not being able to register either of them. Each procedure triggers an impulse in my body, reaction is inevitable but the forces around hypnotise me and I purport to falsify all the claims within. I'm forced to believe that this is the truth. I can hear strange noises. None of them seem to please me. Every word that comes out of her mouth dissects a segment of my imagination and breaks it into pieces mercilessly and unconsciously. My mind begins to stutter. This is unacceptable. Why are they making me write a passage of euphemisms. I do not wish to write. This place seems to be a trap. They're trying to divert my attention by placing these still life objects and their reflection under the sun is transforming my mind into a different dimension. They're using art for the supposedly magnanimous motives but I know it's a trap. I'm befuddled. Why are children playing games of life while I sit to crib about things which aren't worth. Are they mocking at me because of my indecisiveness. The room is filled with chalk dust and the only one person here is speaking her mind out. Why am I confined within these four walls? Why are my choices not my choices?
Toxic yeti Nov 2018
I am sitting in a chair
Or at least I think I am siting
In a classroom
Studying computer science
Bored
Frustrated
Sad
And angry
I realize this I am dead
Dead because of the class
The boring class killed me
I am still able to speak but that is it.
No fancy lights
No pearly gates
Just a trip
To the morgue
There I am prepped for autopsy
The ME makes the first y incision
And open me up.
“ if you are looking for the cause of death
It was the lousy class my mom made me take!!!”
I cry this to the ME
But she doesn’t care
And continues on with the autopsy
I am at this point crying
I cry for my mother to and help me
As the ME weighs and dissects each of my organs
I cry
“You idiot I died of extreme stress caused by the class....
I had a heart attack! Please leave”
I scream
I yell
But I am  dead.
Then after the autopsy
I seeing the fancy lights
And cross over
While my parents claim my corpse.
My first poem ever.
Honna Root Sep 2015
My beating heart has been ripped out my pulsating blood flow.
Those jagged claws dissects through my chest, one sharp finger at a time
I can smell the rust from my open wound traveling through the air. I glance at your left hand and saw the blood gushing from the artery.
My heart may not work but my mind will.
I wonder, do you feel remorse because I don’t, nothing but numb.
Yet you stand there too,
nothing but silence and your words lipping
“i love you”.
yet you bruised my black and blue soul, that was once gold.
Makes me think that is another fib that you tell, just because you might as well.

You try to bandage it up by shoving it back into my punctured chest.
but at this point I’ve become restless.
I fall into the ground wishing you’d save me,
instead following me to the ground but kneeling above me,
sewing my hole shut by gouging the tiny needle one thread at a time.
I am mangled.
Your thumb and forefinger held my wrist and led for a kiss
until you felt my pulse stop.
I’m sorry, this is all my fault.
sunprincess Jun 2018
Second by second, minute by minute
Like twenty first century robots
The time keeper keeps periods of time
organized in individual slots

He dissects these periods methodically
Creating mysterious time lines
Cause that's his thing, his own thing
Just to blow away our minds
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2017
the templars can sing all they want... we're dealing with really sick people with the insurrection of the nag hammadi library!

kaptur...
   of a monk's hood...
           kapć -
slipper -
      noun-verb translation,
for some reason,
other than what the orthodox
people state it being...
     but how would you
ascribe the trill to R using the existing
diacritical marks?
  and example...
   a monk's hood:
  kaptur      v.                      káptür:
both instances exist and are equally
justifiable - let's suppose there is
a need to add a diacritical mark on
one of the consonants,
k? no... due to c and q...
            p?         papa pa... no...
     t?   † or st. andrew's X?
        no... r... R though... i can revise the vowels
to embody syllables... acute a to cut up
the word: ka-     like a bad crow onomatopoeia...
  -ptoor          hence the umlaut doubling up
      on the U parabola...
        ::                       ::                     ::                  ::
but i want the trill R! i want the sign denoting
that it should be "rolled"... rattled...
the rattle snake symbol...
                  no, not the french vogue of
levitating it toward the hark... the phlegm consonant...
i don't want that... ȑ? i.e. " above the r?
              it's a real word though...
the word: kap-tur.
                      a monk's hood...
               and depending on how you engage
disecting a word according to the rule of syllables...
there's a higher power that also dissects words:
diacritical markings, that was invested in
by guidance of the thought: it will make it easier...
evidently it made it harder...
               funny me, in the 21st century pointing
this out.
e.g.              : + u = o        
                       dot dot... join up the dots for a circle
and then say: : + u = oo.
                                        ooh! steven fry playing
                 *austin powers
! yeah baby! yeah!
Megan Sherman Mar 2018
A hand - dissects - the Lion
Was the Lion bated?
Nature never queried her
Or left her enervated
Magnetic were her movements
Magic - rambunctious roar
Mezmerizing - obsidian stare
That pierces air no more
Her beauty - passion - tainted
Wisdom - eviscerated
The Heart - of Nature's loyalist
By scholar - emaciated
Dr Peter Lim Apr 2018
With regard to nature
the scientist dissects
the poet gazes in wonder
and such beauty it adores and respects
Kurt Philip Behm May 2019
Back in their nests,
  birds chirping out loud
Retreated in bed,
  a boy dreams ‘what if now’
The moonlight not finished,
  what it started before
The church clothes all hanging,
  alone on the door
What once was thought ended,
  began then again
What never befriended,
   a new search to begin
The glass from the parlor,
  the long darkened hall
Reflections of squalor,
  distant riches to call
A bell starts to ring,
  signaling all bets are off
As a meadowlark sings,
  of eternity’s cost
The revelers revel,
  the sanguine proclaim
As the church starts to fill,
  and they’re calling his name
Any proof in the pudding,
  has now curdled and soured
As the chalice is filled,
  with a vision most dour
The mood is entranced,
  as time starts to drip
The minutes and hours,
   all scattered in bits
The reasons no matter,
  alone as before
And all sanity worships,
  death closing the door
Your collar goes on,
  white starched and unblessed
Your sermon made ready,
  for those still to behest
And what might you offer,
  where the prisoners hide
What salvation is proffered,
  when funded by lies
The eyes looking back,
  fixed distant and low
The eyes looking back,
  from the pews far below
Surrounded by elders,
and deacons to scold
His eyes were then only,
  but thirteen years old
The distance seemed fatal,
  the distance seemed grim
But now looking down,
  it was all about him
To one then so young,
  and so new and so fresh
Still wanting to believe,
  in not leaving the nest
Surrounded by neighbors,
  deceivers and friends
Dressed all in his finest,
  his hair slicked on end
His eyes remained down,
as his thoughts drifted up
His face never frowned.
  as your sermon erupts
“And what must this youth,
  think of me on this day”
Your collar getting tighter,
  praying mantis to prey
The height differential,
  the power sublime
The stairs leading up,
  for the blind to then climb
And once at the top,
  all so distant below
And once at the top,
  nothing there left to know
The birds dare not enter,
  the hawk or the dove
The cougar at center,
  devoid of all love
The peacocks outside,
  all withered and gray
The peacocks remembered,
  in colors portrayed
The hand bills were placed,
  at the end of the pews
A message designed,
  to riddle the stew
Caught up in the fable,
  caught up in the lie
To burn down the stable,
   horses scream as they fry
But the truth knows its teller,
  …that told in the end
Whose message is heaviest,
   where meaning transcends
Belonging to no-one,
  to you least of all
And to only itself,
  as the just heed its call
The blamer blasphemer,
  false prophet and *****
Silent screams from the pews,
  that they need something more
And in private you suffer,
  with a collar so tight
While in public you bombast,
  to portend and to fright
The law here unlettered,
  the reason unschooled
All souls once unfettered,
  no one left to rule
You know your time’s short now,
  all sins in the brine
That boy just below you,
   to always remind
You start at the beginning,
  you restart at the end
You start where you stopped,
  to get lost once again
As your powerful confusion,
  escapes you today
Using cryptic delusion,
  to parry and feign
Beget not the begotten,
  claiming all for yourself
All virtue forgotten,
  all feeling unfelt
If it mattered whenever,
  if it mattered at all
That meaning is hidden,
   as you struggle and fall
Accuse if you must,
  saying again to yourself
Betrayal acutely,
   is gifted unfelt
Benediction now burning,
  communion’s last host
All tides begin turning,
  more meaning to toast
The blend is left thickening,
  ruination sublime
Intention the most wicked,
  unfiltered unkind
The brave don’t get braver,
  as cowards rejoice
A knave in the shadows,
  to hide from his voice
The bend in the circumstance,
  the straightening lie
The clue that was missing,
  its poisoned reply
Walk down from your pulpit,
  those steps that won’t end
The pride and the fury,
  you stole to pretend
Looking out at the parishioners,
   his eyes are still down
And you know without asking,
  that his soul has left town
As you take your last breath,
  speaking then your last word
What once was a boy,
  separates from the herd
He gets up, turns and leaves,
  without once looking back
Your collar chokes fatally,
  his rejection attacks
The gathering outside,
  all merry and gay
The most devout neighing,
  like a horse in new hay
The church social breakfast,
    all slaps on the back
“Another great sermon, Parson,
  we had to hold our tears back”
A boy heads down the lane,
  head neither bowed nor *****
No breakfast for him,
  all celebration dissects
Knowing what he now feels,
  you will never beguile
Walking in through the back door,
  his elderly aunt smiles
Asking, “Is everything alright
  you’ve been gone quite a spell”
Her concern most maternal,
  in her thoughts he would dwell
He answers, “Everything’s fine,
  as his father distills
And closes the window,
  saying: “It’s starting to chill”
He walks up thirteen stairs,
  and lays down on the bed
Looking straight up above him,
  a floating image now dead
Asleep before noon,
  in his dream meets his peace
Knowing surrounded by doom,
  he must now leave this place
He is up before dawn,
  and back out on the lane
One sack over his shoulder,
  one orphan to claim
And the walk to the harbor,
  is rocky and steep
His trek ever steadfast,
one promise to keep
Signing on to the first ship,
  that’s now setting sail
Setting a course that’s uncharted,
  in a sea of travail
The clouds ever darker,
  the waves though they fall
His soul is on fire,
  his spirit on call
With the ship disappearing,
  beyond sight of all land
His future now clear,
  his mission at hand
That first day on board,
  and first night below deck
Were the first that had ever,
  held him safe in their net
With dawn’s light he climbed,
  to the crow’s nest above
And said ‘Thank You” to no-one,
  his future ungloved
And he sat there for hours,
  till his name was called out
His past now a memory
  —his heart free of doubt

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2014)
john Shelton Sep 2019
Lasers don't always hurt you when they touch your skin,
I learned that the other day,
A wave of light, pushed through a filter that dissects,
or atleast that's what Grace says.
Tyler Jul 2022
a thief of elemental meaning-
a rogue lifting lexicon.
acquiring this-and-that one
to add to the bound collection.
dulling or sharpening the scalpel that dissects expression of greater verbage
to smaller little slices.
a dictionary of spells, these languages,
that wind the world around
us.
the way of word is all distinct larceny on the path of yearning.
Black crosses and lace
1 part love
1 part hate
Lust
Want
Fate
Rip me open
Let the world burn
Open to dripping bloodied heart
Watch as the sword dissects every cruel and loyal part
Throw them in the fire
Molten and ash
On the banks
bodies
dying
To taste
...........
what they get back
Poetoftheway Jul 2023
They write of rivers and streams

with effortless precision, crystalline clarity,
of hauntings by white frothy flows, and men
who plow and glide upon them, earning
their sustenance and sometimes their death,
verifying their lives with castings that sink
below them, proofs of their peril.

some months of the year, I too live by a bay,
on a isle surrounded by a long river that dissects a
larger long island, from end to end, that empties
into the Atlantic.

this bay, it is the first and last vision imprinted
when I bed, when I rise, picture windowed with
shades that are never lowered, for what would
be the existential purpose of living here, if you didn’t
check the water’s mood first and last, even before
looking skyward to complete an understanding
of the status of nature’s intentions toward you.

These other poets write better than I, artistically,
effortlessly, and one flows with ease within their
word-pictures, flowing upon their rivers, like a
twig carried out to sea, an unticketed passenger
stealing a ride who pays for the journey with life.

to read of their comprehension of water flowing,
is to read of how men breathe, how they wrangle
and wrestle with forces that diminish the human
scale to 5/8” model size, and no glue to keep them
upright.

I ask forgiveness from my bay, for my ineloquence,
my belabored scratchings, to do it justice, show
its honor and grandeur, but it doesn’t acknowledge
my words, for I am skill-lacking, verbiage-challenged,
and inadequate. This why I read the work of others,
poets who walk on, and within, their rivered boundaries
and who speak with skin and pore knowledge their waters.

July 4th 5:33 AM

— The End —