"disused" poems
I use technology to take me to a time when it only half-existed. In a blue-shell room of mega-pixel photographs and rolling news feeds, I can put on my headphones and disappear into an instrumental Sunday.
There are stamp collectors making their lazy way over beaten roads and disused railways. 'Surrender' only means to fall asleep and to leave your book as a hut on your bedside table. Where war may still go on and on,
but at least you don't have to hear about it. Show me the place where pine-cones fall and women stare across the river. Where coffee is for taste, and not self-medication. I want to walk bare-foot and feel thorns
toughen my heels, infect my blood with Earth or God or Any Other Name. We will **** in the bushes, singing those fragments of Leonard Cohen lyrics that we can still remember from times spent smoking in my room.
I can almost feel that pointless happiness. That location in a canopy to retreat when the bills are due, when the walls needs re-painting. When the neighbour strangles puppies and all you do is complain about the time.
I use new music set to old sounds: freed slaves living in the cross-hairs of tradition. White lovers breaking their hearts over guitar strings and harmonies, always a semi-tone apart. I find your hair on my pillow.
There is no technology in the world to distract me from that.
Aug 30, 2014
Aug 30, 2014 at 6:29 PM UTC
Katie Price
Had a collection
Of last season's
Brassieres
Which she indexed
With the help
Of a sincere
Bilingual reindeer
Dressed in spandex
Who for some reason
Was single.
Taxonomy
Is so important to me
Said Katie.
So they were labelled
And kept in taxis
At disused angle grinder factories
Near the Tower of Babel
So posterity
Would be able
To analyse
The finer points
Of her physiognomy.
Quite an unusual praxis
And something of an anomaly
For someone like me
Wouldn't you agree?
Cross my heart
And hope to die
I agree.
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 2:42 PM UTC
The living come with grassy tread
To read the gravestones on the hill;
The graveyard draws the living still,
But never anymore the dead.
The verses in it say and say:
“The ones who living come today
To read the stones and go away
Tomorrow dead will come to stay.”
So sure of death the marbles rhyme,
Yet can’t help marking all the time
How no one dead will seem to come.
What is it men are shrinking from?
It would be easy to be clever
And tell the stones: Men hate to die
And have stopped dying now forever.
I think they would believe the lie.
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We stalked hawthorn hedgerows,
Backyards our battlefields,
Wielding wooden swords,
Dustbin-lids, for our shields.
We scouted railway cuttings,
Long abandoned and disused,
Where friendship’s blended alloys,
Were cast, forged and fused.
We patrolled village streets,
Marched along muddied lanes,
Proudly defending ‘our land’,
From raiding, heathen, Danes’.
We boldly challenged Vikings’,
Beneath a Sixties-summer-sun,
Bonding loyalty, faith and trust,
That will never, come undone.
Those days will not return,
Memories-mismatched-truth,
Recalling the fallen heroes,
Fighting follies of our youth.
Protecting imagined Kingdoms,
Lost in time, for evermore,
Boy soldiers standing guard,
In Castles built from straw.
Oct 3, 2010
Oct 3, 2010 at 2:06 PM UTC
I dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
And left no trace but the cellar walls,
And a cellar in which the daylight falls,
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow.
O’er ruined fences the grape-vines shield
The woods come back to the mowing field;
The orchard tree has grown one copse
Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed.
I dwell with a strangely aching heart
In that vanished abode there far apart
On that disused and forgotten road
That has no dust-bath now for the toad.
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;
The whippoorwill is coming to shout
And hush and cluck and flutter about:
I hear him begin far enough away
Full many a time to say his say
Before he arrives to say it out.
It is under the small, dim, summer star.
I know not who these mute folk are
Who share the unlit place with me—
Those stones out under the low-limbed tree
Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar.
They are tireless folk, but slow and sad,
Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,—
With none among them that ever sings,
And yet, in view of how many things,
As sweet companions as might be had.
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Hey there, you, driving the lawnmower,
sitting atop your shiny red toy--
state of the art, the best of the best
in lawn technology.
My meager fields are no longer in disarray
since you came around;
Tell me, Mr. Lawnmower,
Do the aspiring clovers and rogue dandelions irritate you?
Is their determination to survive a mere inconvenience,
Or is that the slight trickle of fear running down your back?
What about the bird's nest perched perilously in the gutter
and the rusted horseshoes nesting in my flower bed?
The disused swing set, now eroding in my backyard?
I rather like my own personal jungle!
Still, I suppose someone has to trim the branches
that hang over the power lines.
The poison ivy sneaking its way toward the roof
needs an occasional reminder
of the terms of our uneasy truce.
Perhaps I need you after all.
Mar 30, 2012
Mar 30, 2012 at 5:27 PM UTC
The decaying mansions of English language
Rot and recede
into teenage grasses
with each unspoken year
The hired help have left their hair unmown and surrendered their uniform dress
Content with the neglect of nature
taking its timely course
When the architects and master masons of linguistics
Survey their forgotten plans in the heaven of English literature
They are not dismayed
but patiently sit and sit
The pristine edifices of the classics
Once grand and clad in deferential brick
Stand scaffolded and unread
The doors unlocked, ajar and hopelessly inviting
Into the library of the English canon
The dusty cloak on the carpets of grammar
Sheets thrown over the disused armchairs of archaic words
Echoing the plink of the out-of-tune pianoforte of the perfectly crafted short story
Bathrooms of formal poetry
With the rusty plumbing of metre and rhyme
Whereas the temporary outhouses,
hastily arranged huts of slang and idiom
are adorned by the living grasses of new forms,
creepers of half remembered dreams
mulching leaves of half formed thoughts
forests of half forgotten loves
writhing in living incompleteness
Which will in turn harden and fossilize
And we can then rue the passing of our once organic lingo
Dec 14, 2009
Dec 14, 2009 at 10:18 AM UTC
I have heard the haunted whispers of screaming and necrophliac anguish from the depths of the eerie crypts of ancient mausoleums.
There is a damp smell in disused railway tunnels which generates a fearful sense of grateful awareness.
Flying down the streets in astral projections of nocturnal liberation reminds me of the warmth of hateful urinary incontinences.
Does a Gold Star adequately represent a brand of brown sauce, or does it represent something else? Please enlighten me, as the guise of Rabatak inscriptions unravel ******* dismay.
Jan 7, 2014
Jan 7, 2014 at 12:05 AM UTC
A cider and a minder
Passing time as a reminder
Pink glow and songs flow
A waxy time erodes the mow
Renegades and perspiration responds
Swimming in winded seas of Jordan
Heated in space, evicted in their pace
Libido fails as the liquor dilutes in taste
Catch an esse as the moonlight smite
Hold another to fake a romantic right
Filter to the cards of ace as the one winks
Emotive intruders farm in fields of pastures
Imbued with alcoholic waterfalls
Molehills of termites condense lose soil
A lack of connection a taunt that apes
Future anthems triumph in hungered strums
Amused by the music erupting volcanoes
A morrow blows as the candle slows
To tow the tall grassed disused straw
A spring to summer that promises sun rays
A resolve to moderation to preserve modesty
A kiss stored forever peeping the awing stars
To guard a heart and hatch uniformity
Trembles justly forgotten in termed premises
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 2:42 PM UTC
A chilling solemn breeze sweeps thru the town,
Down empty streets where children used to play;
The crumbled buildings, many falling down,
A monument to history's darkest day.
The rusted hulks of burned out motor cars,
Discarded bicycles against a wall,
The roads that carry disused tram-line scars,
The poignant remnants of the old church hall.
No more, the children laughing in the street;
No more, the parents in their Sunday best;
No more, the echoes of jack booted feet;
Forever shall ye martyrs lay in rest.
The town will always stand as testament,
To sons and daughters France will e'er lament.
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 10:07 AM UTC
The bullet was made by an expert
discovered when removed.
At the autopsy of a young guy
one of several just arrived.
Not a gang war it was known
but a ****** working alone.
The public scared out of their wits
the police under pressure.
Three dead this boy the latest victim
attacks in varied locations.
Was it by somebody from the military
an expert with a unique ability.
No clues was not good to hear
the public afraid to be here.
Tall buildings made them easy targets
when would the next strike be.
Though summer the temperature cold
through information they trolled.
As another victim was gunned down
more evidence was found.
Two teenagers saw a man with a case
get into a city works van.
Contacting with what they had seen
a new image came on the screen!
Every law officer was instantly alerted
a face found to fit description.
An ex soldier with traumatic stress
caution the critical word.
Quickly a sighting was received
the entire force relieved.
A gun battle ensued policemen hurt
not killed in the line of duty.
A swat team eventually shot him dead
in a disused ammunition factory.
News soon spread of the snipers demise
the gloom factor began to rise.
You can never argue with a bullet!
The Foureyed Poet.
Jun 15, 2011
Jun 15, 2011 at 1:20 PM UTC
Of the five senses, touch was the first to go
When the rot set in.
Necrotic from disinterest; disused and numb,
A disconnected ***** a colony of one.
.
Then sound; your messages left unheard.
Just the tap tap tap of some manic mind.
No pause...just repeat; the eternal rewind.
Sleep starved, all words stick frozen in time.
.
For leading me into temptation; my gluttonous sins,
Taste and smell succumbed, then withered and died.
Staunch as a deacon, control finally mine.
The harvest ignored, bloated on the vine.
.
Only sight eludes my metal fatigue.
The mirror much stronger, it haunts and it taunts.
Its warped funhouse images all I can see.
The bully I made...this cruel double of me.
Sep 29, 2013
Sep 29, 2013 at 3:39 AM UTC
**once there were three kittens
three fluffy blue-eyed kittens
huddling in the dusty corner
of a disused swimming pool
where mother cat put them all
one day the rain poured down
in sheets to make all three drown
but they had nine lives by three
so after the rain the kittens still
huddled together waiting still
for mother cat to bring the mice
one morning one kitten was gone
on another morning another went
to join it's semi-wild cousins in the dark
then at last the third kitten leapt out
and was gone to cat hunting grounds
in all this drama the fluffy kittens were cute
cuddly and demure with soft pleading eyes**
Feb 21, 2016
Feb 21, 2016 at 5:21 PM UTC
The familiar complaints, the cozy ones.
Ambling through the hedges of grievance.
I never know what I'm feeling at any one time.
Usually more of the same. Bragging my inadequacies.
Winter is coughed from the addled coalsmoke sky.
Chimneys chugging ash. Clumps of duress.
Blake's choir of children lying in a heap.
Noontime streetlamps regaled in holly and poinsettia.
A ***** moss enters from the vacant lot, cautiously.
The homeless have been scraped from under the bridge.
Geese call and flee. The snow is flakes of ash,
the sun finally burnt itself down.
Disused meanings are flushed. A carefully wrought
vocabulary we have disabused ourselves of.
Crumbling monologue.
A new grammar forms. Light and Motion dances
from the screen. A panoptican of laughs and serenades.
Sometimes there is a magazine no one has a
subscription to. It is the digest of a human heart
dressed to the nines in thorns and flame.
Mar 7, 2014
Mar 7, 2014 at 7:00 PM UTC
Mediocre Flow (Spoken Word- Freestyle-Dramatics)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
==Mediocre Flow ==
by
SassyJ
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
(Copy the link below to your browser)
https://soundcloud.com/user-367453778/mediocreflow
In the woods I get lost, arrays of green specked by the rays of the sun. The wind blows but its swift in measure. I get lost my body in the breeze, as the time runs faster I breath slower. Lost in the wonder of the nature. I lay it all down, the worldly desires, disused contributions… all in the mediocre flow.
The grounds feels so alive, alone but never lonely. The trees talk to me, they journey my vulnerabilities. A hug of the branches goes far beyond. The only lean over that drives me to ecstasy of …….my mediocre flow.
All done with expectations and chasing the unending mazes. We become the mistresses of the earth, arching and protracting with emotions, lotions ……looming greyed blues. Hold this packet of stars, I pass it to you to touch, to overflow in it’s magic and fantastic voyages of the. …..mediocre flow
Feel the greenness patched on the muddy grounds. Have the enliven nature of the flying bubble. See the flow of the waters, the contraction of the streams to the lakes. Touch the drops….the raindrops, nurture them as they sink below your feet. Feel the life, feel alive….. the mediocre flow
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 7:42 AM UTC
The three of us sat on the disused, plastic patio chairs. Their white facade had faded into a malformed sort of grey, with grazes of mud and collected rainwater erosion further condemning them. We were blind drunk after three-and-a-half beers that were tempered with lemonade. The dreary five a.m. dawn threatens daylight, bringing an end to the party. In a few years’ time we’d be here again; coming down off drugs and talking about missed chances.
Tom and Amy are in my parent’s room, as we whisper conspiracy theories about his impotence, in the light of our lonely morning vigil. I barely remember what else was said, after we spoke of *** and love, and of our life beyond home. “There has to be something more, somewhere…” we would all insist. Yet, one by one, we have turned to shrugs, and those left to insist, do not.
What I do recall is the coffee (I never drank the stuff then) and dry crackers. As the sun came to rise and patterned the skies, we had seen one day slide into the next; we aged brilliantly in a moment. I stared out at the Rugby field just beyond the overgrown allotments; you could only make it out by the floodlights that towered over the trees. I knew then, of where I had always been, yet knew not where I needed to go.
I still don’t.
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 11:18 AM UTC
If love is a garden, growing green,
And lock'd away, to be ne'er seen,
Then mine is dead and abused,
Neglected and disused.
For while you toil and labor,
I seek only favour.
For Love is only cruel;
Life's unpleasant gruel
And pleasure should reign,
As forthwith we gain
And stride to endeavor
Ourselves to find pleasure.
Aug 15, 2010
Aug 15, 2010 at 2:05 PM UTC
I have been singing for forgotten things,
beer bottles hidden in the hedgerows.
The opera singer, the strangled vibrato,
ash-filled cokes cans; the afterparty sunrise.
This recovery has been long, fickle.
Reckless optimism and the science of failure
collide into the colour
of a Daniel Johnston cartoon,
or a songwriter's sense of humour.
Disused pencils stand as monuments
to old dreams of grass-roots art,
the fragility of neurotic *******
drawn with innumerable straight lines
that composite a woman's naked body.
I have been drawing on memories
and hoping for a brand-new image;
dissolution of old borders - a strangled voice
in a room full of opened tongues.
The Hawaiian shirt made light of depression
in darkened hours and wax smiles.
Plastic cocktails, the pending brides;
desperate men - the post-work demise.
I have learned a lie ever since.
This recovery has been imperfect, a fraud.
Swollen truths to satisfy the concerned,
only myself left to fool.
I have found the early morning
but cannot reach a sober conclusion.
Redundant habits mildew my mind
with the backwater of yesterday,
familiar street names to mourn
those who became strangers,
the negative bias of my mind's eye.
I have been writing words of action
from the safety of my desk;
all that the desk-lamp can illuminate,
all of which words can make sense.
This half-lived recovery is bunk, irretrievable.
Working poverty and untied knots
are co-morbid in meaninglessness;
chains to hold me in Plato's Cave
whilst her skin freckles in the sun.
Disused and living outside of love,
morning curtains open to a sheet of light
that obliterates loneliness
in the presence of shared heat,
only for it to return again, come night.
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 3:25 PM UTC
Here take my picture; though I bid farewell,
Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell.
’Tis like me now, but I dead, ’twill be more
When we are shadows both than ’twas before.
When weather-beaten I come back, my hand
Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sunbeams tanned,
My face and breast of haircloth, and my head
With cares rash sudden storms being o’erspread,
My body a sack of bones, broken within,
And powder’s blue stains scattered on my skin;
If rival fools tax thee t’ have loved a man
So foul and course as, Oh, I may seem then,
This shall say what I was: and thou shalt say,
Do his hurts reach me? doth my worth decay?
Or do they reach his judging mind, that he
Should now love less what he did love to see?
That which in him was fair and delicate
Was but the milk, which in love’s childish state
Did nurse it: who now is grown strong enough
To feed on that, which to disused tastes seems tough.
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Finding a living is so hard,
so difficult to sustain
without a reason to sustain it.
Beyond personal dreams
and a need for greed.
An ocean of eyes follow me
through the working day
until I crave isolation.
Only to stumble into
my blank-walled retreat
and realise what isolation really means.
What happened to our potential love?
I cannot read your last letter,
too scared to hear
that you hold a happiness
that bears absolutely
no reliance on me.
You found our distance
lost its charm. You have him,
with his immediacy
and a history to draw upon,
to justify.
I am a teenage folly,
left in the scrap of old photographs
and even older emotion.
A disused, defunct muscle
left to atrophy
as you find your comfort
and your way in life.
But you are a stray, a stray
with the desire
to be led astray;
with the want for a longing.
You know I can fill your days with poetry,
your bed with flame,
your winters with heat.
Feb 19, 2015
Feb 19, 2015 at 5:31 PM UTC
O Sweet Edna, how can I forget thee!
So beautifully named after the daughter of Count Telfener,
Promoter of the Macaroni railroad,
Home of the monumental Edna Theater (SEE NOTE # BELOW).
I recall a chilly Christmas spent there:
Unfortunately Edna was closed for the day
But I met a nice girl in the one bar that was open
And for only twenty five bucks she went all the way.
By purest chance her name was Edna too,
And she gave me a real Christmas treat;
I could so easily have fallen for her bigtime
Had it not been for the smell of her size twelve feet.
O how your architectural marvels will live in my memory
Dear principal "city" of Jackson County, O Edna divine!
Home to six thousand Texan souls
Of whom only one in five lives below the poverty line.
NOTE:-
(#) Actually a cinema and disused anyway. Paste this link for a photo: http://media1.picsearch.com/is?hWN6taRELewhHHMx-FMVpQOXSK4aNdmtABXGB-ZxEyA&height;=257 (if it doesn't work, don't blame me).
Jan 12, 2016
Jan 12, 2016 at 10:21 AM UTC
.
In disused field is a blooming temple.
An ancient apple tree waiting eternal,
This stone bold sculpture was forged
With nimbus hands and windy eyes.
In hushed airs, Shiva dances to light,
Waves, sacred arms without swaying.
Bearded ones come to pay homage,
The solemn chickadees, the ranging
Sparrows, red robed robins— priestly
Doves, all who see are one enveloped
In graces of the New World Bodhi tree,
Waiting for blossoms so dearly come.
Edge of boughs brim under heavens
Landing with mystic verges of spirit
Into the mind of the eyes of nature—
Kali-flowered ears of lichen are pale
Green in their devotions, pummeled
By seas of seasons, foggy to the fray.
Finches, yellow, reflecting in a star,
Devout wee lamas golden with halo,
Are kneeling above berm, this nobby
Trunk, stave, inside bodacious stupa
Bell who sings clear, without ringing,
Body of elder grace, wisdoms, ages.
In cast irreverence, seldom do crows
Visit, when they do there is menace
Of the Jinn, dark giants in the levels,
Mercifully, out of shame, they do not
Stay, black wings due, die in luminous
Day moon, rain soak sun, balmy mist.
On pilgrim journeys, whirlings, prayer
Wheels, guide shy flocks riding gnarl,
Indie goddess, to overreaching love,
By sores of hollow in the steps, open
To being, brindles of myriad meadow
In temple blossoms— numinous suns.
Of both earth and sky, shines a beauty,
Whose form is written in blistering bark,
The ciphers of tongue to Sanskrit leaves
And lost fruits, given over, unforbiddens,
Within old apple tree a great wilderness
And all the branch of wings are knowing.
Feb 23, 2015
Feb 23, 2015 at 5:40 PM UTC
… On a bustling street,
she shuffles her feet,
her eyes hold a desperate heat,
eyes darting, discretely charting
a line through the crowds that are parting for her.
In a world of abundancy,
she sees redundancy.
Where waste is rife,
her life breathes new life into the rubble
from a fickle society’s burst bubble.
Her world otherwise grey,
she colours her day,
collecting, affecting
what the world has thrown away.
Single-mindedly transfixed, her target mixed; decayed, disused, no longer affixed.
Refused, unused,
discarded, unguarded;
all detected, all collected, all recycled, all respected.
Debris she chases, through a sea of down-turned faces she paces.
Those faces think she disgraces their spaces
but she shows no emotional traces.
She just fills her cases.
She kneels on a cold floor, search no more, search no more. Through a broken window comes dim light, from an oncoming night, passers-by dare not look in from disgust or from fright or sorrow for her plight. Her face covered in feeling but not for the walls peeling nor the ceiling that leaks, nor the floor that squeaks under a carpet that reeks and is torn and frayed in pieces arrayed in front of her.
She kneels on a cold floor, surrounded by more of the same she collected before. Old cushions: tattered. Plates and platters: shattered. Curtains in shreds, ripped clothes, parts of beds. A massacred lounge, wallpaper scrounged. A casual glance at the floor shows a junk-yard and no more. To her it’s ethereal, much more than material.
Her eyes focussed, near to lust as she begins to adjust her treasure, saved from the dust. Within it she trusts.
In her eyes pieces glow to her, in her eyes pieces show to her, a beauty known just to her.
She kneels on a cold floor with a purpose like none before. Within her scrapheap dominion she needs no opinion she fears no ones minion. She knows the beauty she seeks, the beauty that peeks through the grime as she tweaks, the beauty that speaks to her. As she sews it grows and shows and she knows what was once dispose is becoming her rose.
She loses no pace as the last piece of lace delicately takes its place; a tear of pride slides down her face. Her complexion ashen, knowing her passion has brought fashion from a discarded ration she lays down on a cold floor, search no more, work no more.
Daylight breaks, sunlight that shakes and awakes her. Her eyes fill with elation as she clothes herself in last night’s creation. What she wore before goes on the floor where lay more creations from nights before. She heads out toward the sunlight.
On a bustling street, she shuffles her feet, her eyes hold a desperate heat, eyes darting, discretely charting a line through the crowds that are parting for her …
Jul 30, 2011
Jul 30, 2011 at 2:26 AM UTC
My muse diffused
A love abused
The news infused
My dream refused.
Your life deduced
My life reduced
Our lives seduced
In the end confused.
Words effused
Our lines reused
My passion disused
Together, bemused.
Our game overused
Our emotions excused
Our love perused
But really misused.
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 9:43 AM UTC
There's a dragon in the garden.
Huffing, puffing, billowing smoke.
Trees recoil in abject horror.
Dragon's noisy.
Hissing and sparking.
Dragon melts in to the atmosphere.
High-flown brazen.
Hideously beautiful.
He puts forth his strike.
Striking out at dried out leaves.
A stupendous bang.
An explosion of long dead transmitters spray across the lawn.
Popping loudly as they fly.
Spawned from dragons guts.
Someone fed him a disused T.V.
From his belly sparked kaleidoscope of coloured lights.
Children should not feed the bonfire.
(C) LIvvi 2014
Jan 27, 2014
Jan 27, 2014 at 6:06 PM UTC