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We come to a complete stop.
At a red light.
We wear our arms like seat-belts-
crossed for protecting our pilot lights.˚
I can't help but wonder how many airbags might deploy
if a meteor crashed headfirst and heavyset into the planet
and pancaked us eternally into this moment-
and how our fossils would look confused;
funeral flowers on a wedding cake.

None of this matters, we're both thinking it,
God is a foster child playing with his erector set.

You grin with as much conviction as a dented automobile,
breaking the months of silence to say,
"I miss you."

We can never fold these road maps back the way they came.

Somewhere existentially above this moment, there is an asterisk
that confirms
you- are here.

There was a younger version of me that you never got to meet,
he was here once,
stupid as a slinky.
Shaken like an Etch-A-Sketch.
Crooked as the question mark that punctuated his voice.
I looked good in hydroplane,
my eyes- bigger than my belly,
so I drank my weight in promises- I knew would be hard to keep within arms reach.
I also knew an encyclopedia's worth of how it felt to lie to myself.
I did it for twenty-three years
until I finally let go of stupid and held on to reason.

At some age I wrote letters to my favorite musicians,
using the sloppiest side of my penmanship, I'd ask for answers
and my mother, like a paperclip, used to tell me - she'd say,
"Kiddo, just because they don't respond
doesn't mean they didn't get the message."

She kept her chest of hope upstairs, away from the living room.
She only opened it on the hallow end of October;
that's where she kept the blankets.

Shy, I kept my hope chest covered in a T-shirt-
at the very least.
I never opened up.
I emptied my toy box of all its fiction, filled it with voices.
Deployed an army of rubber wrestlers, martial arts amphibians
and those inanimate toy soldiers with plastic parachutes attached
in search of the confidence I knew was supposed to belly-flop inside of me.

It hid, unfound for decades.
Until you entered.

Hawaiian domino effect, circus of chain reactions, avalanche of affirmation, chest-plate yielding gravity mouth speaking brightest anything forever night light, all apex and eyelash and cheekbone.
You -from big island- broke me.
I opened like the dry side of an umbrella, kept my back turned for shielding you.
I showed up for love on time, like a subway train in echelon city
wanting these arms to feel less like turnstiles.

All my sign languages were in waves.
All my ceilings turned to skies.
All my jitters packed into my hunger stomach.
Typing hyper with caffeinated hands
a swarm of nervous words bee-hiving in my butterfly chest.
Something like a hummingbird
when I finally drop your name like an alarm clock whisper
my lungs empty like cathedrals on the day after Christmas.

I brought the sermon to your Sundays,
you brought the choir to my masses.
We built a church around these esophagus bell towers.
Held ourselves up to the stained glass and showed off our light;

I swear I don't believe in a lot of things, God knows,
but there's always a but,
so much as I believe in the eternal depth of everything,
so much as I believe that we'd have plenty of water if it weren't for salt,
so much as I believe in eight marbles rolling around a gas lamp,
I believed we'd find a way.

'Cause in all the ways my sky could never hold you- and I mean this-
I believed in you- same way some people believe in Jesus.

Because you never judged my albatross mouth when I said things like,
"Self deprecation is the new love."
You kissed me-
less like doorstop,
more like lighthouse illuminating windmill.

You were a merry-go-round pivot decorated in Kona coffee beans, Christmas lights, cough syrup, paper mache pineapples, plastic dinosaur bones, a collection of worn-out Asics, board shorts and a dubstep remix broadcast through the static of a blown-out rotary phone.

You were everything I could get my hands on-

A full-tilt action-packed kaleidoscope jungle
with blender tongue and volcano heart.
I looked good in your sad panda coat tails,
teaspoon swallowing my doubts
while you Tarzaned my ability to breathe,
gave me ocean view and weak knees.
Is that sea breeze in your aftermath or are there already tears in my happiness?

You came camouflage out of my blind spot dressed in magnet armor,
diving board and drum set.
We passionbent cymbals into cannonballs.

I found comfort between your breastplate and your shoulder blades,
where you held me like a promise
when all my wishing was for want
and all your wanting was for wishes

Granted,

I know that there were days when you couldn't help but wake up like gorilla speaking Pidgin
and I couldn't help but waking up like an abandoned highway with a chip on my shoulder-
some maps don't show this much detail, Google Earth-

Which is why I always came through for you like a well-lit citrus truck stop
pressed against the dusk in your moonlight life crisis.
We only saw stars.
From our moon base.
In bewilderment, in our hunger, we learned
that if you hold me to my vending machines you'll get what you pay for.

So here it is, the truth, as I have always known it,
delivered to you on the outskirts of an echo,
my voice, supporting my existence like a monolith.

I'm standing in the middle of a you-shaped hole.
It's as wide as a promise crater-
we built it together.
It's not my favorite place to stand
but the exit strategies are made in the shape of a me that I haven't constructed yet.
I had a lot of things planned.
I referred to things as "ours",
when I really meant "please".

Bury me in your time lapse.
When your emotional excavators discover me in your sediment
they'll find me all pterodactyl-
wings spread wide as potential, sky-diving toward forgiveness,
forever.

Truth is, I'm wingless.

We met at a stop sign.
Our paths crossed.

There's a lot of accidents at some intersections.
Maybe it's because that's not where those two roads were supposed to meet.

We can't time machine argue with the way things landed.

We weren't an avoidable accident.
We were just two cars that really wanted to dance.

I don't know what I'm trying to say but I know when I mean it.

There's a tyrannosaurus rex cradled head-to-tail just behind my curator heart-
all fossil spine, monster teeth, jaw head and piano hands.
His presence says a lot about the past.
There's an asterisk on the surface,
above this moment,
that confirms with absolute certainty,

˚something wicked awesome happened here.
The (˚) is supposed to be an (*)
You can hear me read this here: http://tumblr.com/xft51gwrf0
Edna Sweetlove Dec 2014
When I was a little lassie my Grandad and I
were very fond of each other indeed
(although not sexually I must add
before you suspicious buggers start complaining).

Over the hills and fields we used to wander just like, er,
...let me think of a nice metaphor here...
er, like a man and his granddaughter or
like a couple of not so lonely clouds.

Oh how joyfully we would seek out rare birds’ nests
so as to smash the eggs to bits in a frenzy of joy,
which we both enjoyed a lot as it was, er, reet good fun
and a statement of individual choice we both appreciated.

Sometimes we would noisily take a steaming **** together
(although ABSOLUTELY NO ****** contact ever took place
I really must reiterate that for all you ***-abuse-obsessives,
but he had a stupendously big ***** for an old codger).

When we got home in the evening dear old Grandad
would usually make us a nice *** of builders' tea
and some ****** great doorstop sandwiches, but
even at that tender age I would have opted for a good stiff whisky.

Or, come to think of it, a large glass of chilled Chardonnay,
and a plateful of smoked salmon or some oysters,
but the old ******* was teetotal (at least in public) -
either that or just plain ******* mean as Hell.

Darling wizened Granny would make us some toast
out of leftover stale Mother’s Pride white bread,
but, being half blind, the silly fat old cow usually managed
to burn it to a sodding inedible cinder.

On Sundays they would get the gramophone out
and put on some tango 78 records
as they loved Latin American dancing and a good old *****
of each other's flaccid, age-withered buttocks.

How happily I remember the old couple tangoing away
just like a couple of wrinkled whirling ****** dervishes
to 'La Cumparsita' recorded by Mantovani & His Tipica Orchestra
on 20th June 1940 and issued on the Decca label.

They also taught me how to do the rumba
(oompah, oompah, stick it up your jumpah)
and I became quite an expert at the Cuban samba
(which my beloved Grandad wittily called the *****).

How joy-filled were those faraway times of my golden childhood.
but one day I went round only to find an ambulance outside
and the paramedics told me the old pair had been found dead in bed,
their boudoir resembling an abattoir at closing time.

Grandad had bashed the old *****’s brains out
with a red-hot poker during some depraved *** session
and then shoved it eighteen inches up his own *******
which must surely have stung his piles quite a bit.

But what a creative way to go - I bet he danced a bit
as the steaming poker seared his poor back passage.
And thus my grandparents ascended up into the sky -
may they stay forever young in the company of the angels.

Let me again emphasis our friendship was purely platonic
because this was in the rare old times of yesteryear
when widespread paedophilia was not yet a gleam in the eye
of some trash newspaper editor eager to engage with the plebs.
A rest stop outside of Richmond VA.

The sun is bright and annoying as **** as usal the woman pull's up  in a brand new Mustang
cherry red gleams in the parking lot.
She's living the life but hey sometimes when ya stop to take a restroom break ***** happens.

Halfway back to Carolina me and my loyal hetro companion Bone.
Are doing what two full blooded American men would do riding like bats outta hell
going through this womans cd collection Alanis Morrisett dear lord man do they hand these ******* out as soon as they get there periods?

But isnt it ironic dont ya think?
Flying down the interstate music blasting beers gathering on the floor like brainless ***** at a
Justin Bieber concert.
I gaze into the rearview only to come to realize like weirdos in a schoolyard we are not alone.

Looking at from the backseat appeared to be some sort of old ****** in a diper hey ***** but whatever
floats your boat jesus these flashbacks are getting to be hell.

My amigo slash  fellow tripper of the light fantastic was in  a trance already
into track seven you oughta know the brainwashing was a ******* dam lesbian **** front!
Even I was fighting the urge to go to the lilth fair and stop shaving but the fellas
were so against the natural look oh snap.

Bone dear lord snap outta it were not in a movie thearter!
Sorry Gonz what the ***** up ?
Well my mexican amigo I belive theres a little perve dwarf in the backseat that or that acid
crazy Larry sold me really is kicking my ****.

Looking at me like most do with that strange since of hey should i just get out here
or go with the trip he looked for a second.
Silent in a awkward sense like when my prom date caught me masterbaiting in her closet the night befor
hey it looked better on me anyways  yeah dont ask.

Bone finally spoke you crazy ***** it's a ******* kid **** we stole a ******* kid were so ******.
Jesus we had both been so safe how was i gonna explain this i thought deeply then finally
took a detor from my usal insanity to do something i seldom do.
Think.  

Well Bone looks like were gonna have to get a abortion.
It's already born *******.
My deep thinking and total drunk amigo made a good point it would get kinda messy.

Well maybe we can check it's collar or drop it in the post office box or even a dumpster
hey dont knock it thats where momma gonzo misplaced me strippers there so care free
and total ***** im just saying but enough  bout Katy Perry

Dude are you totally ****** nuts?
It was at that moment the little bald man began to cry.
Bone calm down cant you see your upsetting it Jesus wheres my manners give him this.

Gonz dude it's my last one.
Bone had a point but this little hairless doorstop needed to take the edge off so
the beer was his.

Miles passed as we thought what to do but with this little jumping bean
it wasnt gonna be easy getting into the ******* or getting him a fake ID.
course we could always say he was that dwarf from Austin Powers
But hey even I had some morals the poor little ******* had it bad enough let alone to be connected
to Mike Myers im just saying.

The ride to grandma Gonzos chop shop proved to long for my two drunken companions hey it was past Bones bed time after all he starts drinking at 6 am  .
I gazed down apon the little amigo as he slept so peaceful must have just had a ******* ahh memories.

Then Bone finally came to Gonz what the **** dude I told you stop cuddling with me people are gonna talk!
Like they havent already just go with it and yes I am happy to see you.
After a brief fight and some make up hugs and cookies mmm cookies and ****** harassment it goes togather like poetry and misery winning.

Gonz where the hell is the kid?
My friend seemed concerned I wonder did these two have something going on
yeah maybe that was it hmmm never trust a drunk or a bald headed dwarf in a diper
but grandpa wasnt all that bad.

Gonz wheres the baby !
The sound of the car being crushed made it hard to hear yet still I could here jagged little pill
playing ranting bout what true ****** men were amen to that sister.
Jesus that Canadian ***** died hard!

  Gonz !
Finally I snapped outta my trance oh yeah that dwarf dont worry he's in the trunk.
The trunk! The ******* trunk!
Hey dont worry I left him some beer and penuts jesus man calm down must been his time of the month.

Bone was frantic like when he herd there wasa beer truck overturned on the interstate.
Tears rolled down his eye's once like any good friend i did what all true men do when a bro is crying.
Video taped it and put it on you tube to laugh my *** off later.

Gonz how could you ?
Bone he's in a better place now whats wrong?
You killed him how could you destroy such a innocent thing.

Dear lord I know my pinto is old but it's far from a deatn trap well okay it kinda is but relax
see i popped the trunk grapped the little hamster by the leg held him up high
he's fine a little stinky hey if he cant hold his  ***** thats his issue.
Btw where do we get feed for this thing cause im almost outta dog biscuts?

After Bone finally stopped being such a drama queen Jesus that album had some strange powers.
We were off with are little stinky drunken friend brothers bent on sharing experience
and drugs and maybe some strippers hey kids are chick magnets im just saying
I should have stole one ages ego.

We laughed we cried we found out dipers can really get filled up .
He sometimes it's best not to hold everything in.

And as are money flew from us like braincells from a ******* shoot.
I called the smartest most rational person i knew Richard Shepard.
Who after cussing me for waking him up at 3 in the morning finally explained
it all to me Jesus who ever knew thats where babies came from.

So there we parted togatehr the three amigo's
Man what a party hey Bone?
Dam right hey Gonz i got the stamps on his forehead help me get him in the
post office box.

And after a brief moment like my mind are little amigo was gone
Outta are lives.
We stood there silent.
Hey Gonz wanna go back to the *******.
Amigo all i gotta say is **** yeah !

And like that we were off to more adventures that rambled on for hors till ya want to strangle me or take me home and keep me like a demented perverted puppy that although seemed cute
if petted would just **** your leg.

A week later

the woman sat there with little wahtever the hell his name was in his high chair.
Harvey get the camera I think he's gonna say his first word.
The two parent's so excited  come on whatever the hell your name is say it it.

The little rascal grinned from ear to looking at the object of most means thoughts
I belive the proper term is *******.
Building up the strength from somewhere deep inside.
His parent's so excited and happy he was gonna talk also  hahaha im not right.

Finally little whats his name spoke
****!  ****! ****!
His parents stunned I told you frank not to cuss around him.
I didnt and my names not Frank *****!

***** you I told you your family's ****** up side would ***** everything up.
Yeah couldnt be the total ***** side rubbed off either huh?
It was like a scene from the Waltons.
Little whats his name speaking his first word  two parents
cussing each other out it's so holesome reminds me of home.

Untill next time watch your kids cause theres some bad influences out there
unlike my wholesome ****.
Stay crazy Gonzo
Justin S Wampler Mar 2015
Welcome to my home, oh won't you come in?
Allow me to show you around, would you care for a drink?
Tell me your poison, maybe a highball of gin?
I keep it in the kitchen with the coffeepot by the sink,

or maybe you'd prefer a tumbler of crown?
Whiskey is right in the foyer by the doorstop,
there's nothing like a nip right before I bounce.
And if it's wine you crave, it's in the living room atop

the tube television beside the VCR in it's place.
But if you've a tongue for peach schnapps
then make your way to the crawl space.

Whilst your up there I say, would you do me a fave?
Look in the attic for the bourbon, it's beside my baby pictures,
and bring it down for me. I'm sure that I saved
some from the last time I was up there alone with self-stricture.

Oh you don't care for bourbon, then maybe some brandy?
The cognac is somewhere down the basement,
but ignore the rope and the candies.

You're unsettled you say? Then ***'s how to spend
drinking the night away with me in the den.
OH! Just send a beer your way?! you should've just said!
A six-pack's in the bathroom, right next to the head.
Samuel Jan 2013
the stillness is never still
   and all the world is a
             door left ajar
        without you here
Justin S Wampler Dec 2014
"My future ex-wife,
are you still alive?"*

The thought hit me as I was out of cigarettes one Monday morning, when I remembered that the previous night I was only able to smoke half of my last one. I had put the shorted cigarette underneath of a spring doorstop, still in plastic and uninstalled, that lay resting on the brick pillars erected on the front porch of the house. For as long as I've lived there, that doorstop had been lying on those painted bricks just waiting for a half of a cigarette to protect from the wind and snow.
The filter, on that common Monday morning, was ice on my lips, and your frostbitten love was inside of my lungs.
As it smoldered and spewed twirling blue swirls,
I sat and recollected upon you.
Donall Dempsey Aug 2017
TELL TALE TALK

Shark's tooth
draws blood

( even though long dead )

a startled red
against the sharp whiteness

lost in a bric-a-brac
box of shells & things.

"Gotcha!"
grins the dead

shark's set of
choppers.

Baby shark
but a shark nonetheless.

I drip a trail
of red

across the Charity
shop

snap up
a tattered HUNTING OF THE SNARK

a battered
AT SWIM TWO BIRDS.

Here
a broken ballerina

on a jewellery box
( minus her music )

there
( I stop dead )

a used
soul

bruised
badly used

Godless
without guile

my fingertip traces my initials
on its dust

tarnished
without hope

immortal and unnoticed
amongst shark's teeth & shells.

I get
a SNARK & TWO BIRDS

for a pound
a piece.

The shark's grin
for a pound again.

"What do you want
for this old thing?"

I nonchalantly
ask

setting the soul
with great care

within the cage
of teeth

perched atop
the books.

"Being dying
to get rid

of that
for ages."

"It just sits there
staring at me!"

"Scares the life
outta me

to tell you
the truth

even though I don't know
what the hell it is!"

"Give us 42p for it
& we'll call it quits!"

I buy back
the soul

( my soul )

I had given away
with some old shirts and shoes

things I thought
I wouldn't ever be needing

. . .again.

But seeing it
discarded amongst shark's teeth & shells

I thought
twice about it.

Maybe
( perhaps )

I can use
it

for a paperweight.

Or a doorstop.

Sedulous

PRONUNCIATION:
(SEJ-uh-luhs)

MEANING:
adjec­tive: Involving great care, effort, and persistence.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin se (without) + dolus (trickery, guile). Ultimately from the Indo-European root del- (to count or recount) that is also the source of tell, tale, talk, Aug 9, 2010
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Poetry is the art of saying what you mean but disguising it. -Diane Wakoski, poet (b. 1937) and Dutch taal (speech, language).
USAGE:
"Elizabeth Bishop was sedulous, pernickety, quietly determined; she would work on poems for years."Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell; The Economist (London, UK); Nov 20, 2008.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
<strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><p>A beautiful thing is never perfect. -Egyptian proverb</p></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong>
Brays Maced Oct 2011
i wait for her to ask,

so i can tell her about the poems i write
that never get read,
or the feelings i have
that never get shared.

so i can show her the drawings
that exist, because of her,
or the photos and books i've set aside all these years,
that made me think of her.

so i can let her know about the light
i let burn, throughout each night,
just incase the dreams where she and i are together,
become too real.

so i can tell her how i wait all day,
sometimes until 2, 3, or 4 in the morning,
vigilante and prepared,
just for a call, a message, a kiss.

so i can have an excuse to drive to the airport,
leave my car in LONG TERM PARKING,
buy a one-way ticket,
tip the air hostess for a glass of water,
pay a taxi to step on it,
and show up at her doorstop,
with nothing but devotion, passion,
and a week's worth of clothes.

but at least
so i can tell her
that i love her,
without it sounding weird.
Darbi Alise Howe Jun 2013
this happiness possesses the fragility of
freshly painted walls, so easily marred
by an accidental shoulder brush, exposing
the dingy grey beneath, once white, like the balloons
we hung outside the house when we moved in,
but they fell, at the leisure of the wasted breath
I filled them with, though now, now it is just the stone
floors and I, and a silence that is not quite a silence,
more so the whispers of a church,
or the sound that a cloud makes as it drifts away,
there and then gone, without warning,
a glass figurine propped against a doorstop-
one hard push and it will crumble into glacial shards,
crystalline dust that I will piece back together, even though
the scars will always be visible, and that is fine,  wonderful even,
because it is so beautifully human, and
because perfection is a plateau, and
I would rather climb a ladder of rotten wood
because each rung unbroken is a step up, and
because I love the way my heart jumps anxiously
against my rib cage whenever I stop to look down.
M Gordon Meier Nov 2013
24
Watch me bear
Face deep for forethought
Left at the doorstop
Because fear wrangles
What present thought can't CANT grasp
This eternal emotion
This this human commotion

So (please) don't be afraid to say love
If it's for me
Whether it's cried for tomorrow
Or a breath unto yesterday
I'll hear
And I'll read you
Because your body's a novel
Let me take in every page
Every word

And the visually modulating trademark of autumn
Now lacks monotonality
Since forgetting myself in a kiss
But isn't that the point?
When love's white as fire

Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Told of a Übermensch
Und obwohl ich bin nicht der Übermensch
Vielleicht kann ich deinen sein

I can't stop and won't
Unless you want me to
Because for you
I'd hopscotch heartstrings
And crisscross cardiacs
Because all I want
Is you to be happy
(and maybe a little bit naked)
Because you mean more to me than letters mean to words
Than stars mean to sky
And if I Neruda a poem
Will you Fitzgerald a novel
Ken Pepiton Oct 2019
See this old fishin' reel snarled? A waste of time to untie
what can be re-tied
and, and is a big junction in the start of a story, and
after retying, be used for it's purpose,

see, if a retie won't work, you know, this monofilial-******
fibratory idea's slippery,
inside outside one way optical influence, IF
this was that situation then this knot would call patience
to bher the burden of learning to
un ravel a snarl of expert's ties to rights which they hoped would never slip, as they stepped into next...

in this instance, fishin', out in the gypsum beds,
ancient corals once grew,

-- real life Lake Mead, who was Mead? A man who executed a plan
to dam the Colorado,
and the whole world heard the whales in Baja weep, but we have learned.
We go on

learning earth has lived through
times and times and times

a gathering must have first

seemed a good idea,
by then, by the point any story can stand, but first, a
point upon a time,

tricky balance act, takes this much of ever to imagine right,

many Planck-secs and Google-plexhours past
way back when
we the earthy sapient beings, be came, ere
we were
human, we were

what? Not angels and demons, those need so much more time to evolve than this.
Word stuff,
Poetry.
This is the third millennial bubble
begin
when my da was working in Alamogordo, '44.

I'll go see, live or die, try

to remember, who took the doorstop? Feynman said it was platinum

This is default download from the germs,
first tasted in open air on a moment you imagine you remember,
you can now imagine being born and no scarier story need be known
--- past now is only next, never never,
--- always a place to step
--- there, be
--- still
--- connection secure
knots of knowns, are knowledges, gotten with wisdom
getting, as we mellow and
ripen to re
al ize
common sense complexes of knowns needed to operate earth,

these aphoristic word frames encaging emotions we
need gage theory to envision, these
we believe, are edged in the sort of dust
a diamond farmer might use to shine a mirror

here, we give such a mirror to
each child surviving you,
should you
have survived, thus far,
you must
find
your kind, in the will,
your kind inherits the earth, and
if you
stir things, meek as Moses, make some trouble in you own 'ouse,
see, we
double dip, we inherit the wind, as well.

Earth is the whole biosphere, here. Thus, the troubler of the house of knots worth untying, begins to unravel the snarls and straighten
this knotted thread

to spite the micro-bio leaven pollen dust enclosed, as a curious bee
leaves a little could be
upon this line, where this knot
fast-bound,

we know

Hermes-tic click sealed since a known
knowable was tied in this
wordy
very complex bit of re
lated things, things known knowable in theory,

now, power is back on, it is 2019, on land once involved

with a story begun in 2018, when the power went off,
bowing to a named wind… as did the fire that year, too.

--- what have we learned?
knowledge means locked knowing, click. A knot, after a previous knot,
no feathers or stones of seed,
a touch of shaken pollen,
from a bee-- such

we be leaven be, long, long, long strings of knots and fibers marking

needle-point story stitching, sinking
into ancient ancient sapience,

unimagined - ha- nadas unimaginable ifn ye magine it...

we bee safe in this us, this we, the people who hold truth

learned today as tightly as our kind holds truths,
as treasures found, stolen, lost, bought, stolen, lost, found, taken as granted,

this legacy of ideas fit to words fit to my tongue, tasted, tested, spoken,

yea, for ever, in every imaginable sense,
AI account for every idle word,
uttered
which may ever be ab-
used by some here-tic wishyawasme.

Loving my enemies is one of those things,
I take with a grain of salt,
knowing there's room for hate in love,

as there's a set for null in all,
assets-wise

big data is how 2019 functions, idle word
counting algorithms,

are mining all myths and shipping manifests
for clues to who's making money
seem worth dying for,

in mortal terms.

Amusers are first paid in amusement.
Is the roofer dancing?

Peace is heaven, I heard, my word, I said,

heaven and it's kingdom are,
in me, if i examine my
self-logo, my brand,
my mark left to my children's thousandth generation,
who have survived
the upgrade.

Peacemakers who survive dimensional novel bubble-life,
mememeory Y as y in in all working things,


a knot is a stop, a step, where a knower of all as far as you know,

once, stood. The boy walking the trail marked

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+8%3A28&version=KJV>

This is on the trail very far along after the sign saying
this is the path less traveled by,

still.
Same AI
Frisk Nov 2014
"when god was chasing you,
why did you leave him at arms distance?"
i wonder if god knows that i haven't been
finding peace in anything lately. the last
time i felt safe and secure within this shell
casing called my skin was when they opened
up their arms like a door and told me it was
safe to look inside even if it was for fifteen
seconds to spare. i only wish i could keep
the door open, but I'm not a very good
doorstop. the only things that i can stop is
people getting closer than arms distance
because i can remember the last time
god abandoned me. i am not the architect.
i am a demolition expert.

- kra
Kewayne Wadley Nov 2016
Every gesture,
From every glance to every touch.
Was thoroughly apart of her.
A celebration of confetti scattered about her eyes.
A ****** of adoration.
Her toes bare, gripping the bottom of her shoes through her socks.
An extension of what's felt inside still unseen.
The glow of her skin.
The mess made in her eyes without need for a dust pan nor push broom.
The fluid and grace of being alive without restriction.
She made love outside for all to see.
The wisp of cold air made warm by her sigh.
The door to her now open, doorstop wedged in the crease beneath the door.
In a look exchanged between the thousands of days between her eyelids.
She uttered please don't make slam the door
This is what makes it sacred
Dust Jul 2018
Emotion surged through me.
It flooded my eyes.

"No."
"Not now."
"I can't deal with you right now."
"I don't have the time or the energy
to deal with you right now."

Like a child, it pokes and prods,
begging, with pleading eyes,
for my attention.

"No."
"Not now."
"Get away from me!"

It tugs at my lower eyelids.
Similar to the way
a child tugs at your shirt
when it wants attention.

I shove it away from me,
"No."
I insist,
"Not now!"
"Leave me..."

I shove it through the doorway
and slam the door behind it.

"...alone!"
I shout as I slam the door.

Slamming my weight
upon the wooden door
to make sure nothing can open it.
I slump down to the floor
before the wooden door.

It twists and turns at the doorknob
but to no avail.
A doorstop,
shaped like
a troubled-minded
human,

slams her weight
onto the wooden board with hinges,
making it pop open
for a fraction of a second
before slamming
back into its socket in the wall.

"I told you to go away!"

It cries out to me.

"No!"

It whines.
I stand up,

"I said..."

I slam my hand onto the door,
It lets out a little whimper
as the door rattles in its place.

"leave..."

I shove my hand,
in a violent motion,
onto the doorknob.

"Me..."

I **** the doorknob
intensely.

"...Alone!"

I shout
as I wham the door open
in a violent fury.

There is nothing there.

"Where'd you go you lil' ****!?"

I stomp one foot
through the doorway
and peek around the hallway.
nothing.

I coolly step
back into the room
and calmly
shut the door.
I turn around.
There It is.
Sitting right there,
Innocently kicking Its legs,
staring me directly in the eyes.

There is no escape
from overwhelming emotion.


The tears pour down my cheeks.
I really like this work.  I don't know if it counts as poety, but I like it nonetheless.
blueberry Jun 2017
Your door was open.
I sprinted towards it.
Tripping on my own enthusiasm, I fell to the ground before your feet.
However, she had beat me to your door.
It was slammed before my face.
I rattled it but it could not be opened.
It was locked.

The door was attached to a room.
A room with windows.
I could see you but you could not see me.
You were too distracted by her.

The seasons changed and coldness embraced me as I watched your happiness blossom.
Every smile and laugh shared pierced my selfish heart.
It was torture to watch from the outside.

One night you looked out the window and you saw me.
Instantly the glass shattered.
Violently, it tore apart my body as it flew in all directions.

I was finally free to go to you.
Not through your door; but around it.
As soon as I crossed the border my mangled body was finished in a final blow.

It hurt me that much more to be so close to you yet so far because she was still there.
And there she will remain.
I will continue to slowly die on the floor.
Because your smile feeds me and every glance in my direction puts air into my lungs.
But her smile starves me and every glare from her suffocates me.

She has every right to hate me.
I wasn't made to be a doorstop. I was made to walk through someone else's door.  
Anyone else but his.
Ksjpari Aug 2017
Book is the only stop
Where all halt from top
For knowledge or whop
Of all sort and thoughts slop.
Though it clear drains prop
For teacher or for carhop.
They are vaguely clear lop
Whenever read makes plop
Of cognition to take you atop.
This is for money a great swop.
These are sooth in great strop
For those who keep at doorstop.
What a pleasure they are as sop.
I loved to have ignorance to mop.
I am developing a new style of writing poetry where ending words of a line rhyme with one another, at least in last sound. I named it Pari Style. Hope readers will like it. Thanks to those invisible hands and fingers which supported and inspired me to continue my efforts in my new, creative, artistic and innovative “Pari” style. Thanks for your inspiring, kind, soft fingers.
Carl Velasco Apr 2018
Tight
in there, pulling
enough teeth
to doorstop the
night ghosts, who sing
songs of taking you.
Too dead then,
keeping secrets of
that time when
the mirror almost
sprung out a hand
to slap you awake from
self-loathing.
Here you come,
years later
on the floorboards
weightless.
Now that you’re made of light
only the shadow gets splinters.
Enough with your body, Carl.
Enough limbs have sunken
into gracelessness.
Enough, enough, enough.
Enough for reserved wounds.
Stop writing the instructions
on what it takes to become unforgiven.

In half the spine still a spine,
longing for its missing parcels.
Your body will rest
in the middle
of its punishment, but
still no tailbone.
Incomplete, you did that.
Now learn, Carl.
Pay prices.
Brie Williams Apr 25
My twisted hue
On doorstop eyes
With crystal windows
Drip drop drain
My velvet hair
On tear stained blues
Back bend summer
Screen door warmth
On a cement porch
Perhaps like a lightning
bolt of clear out of the blue
rigor mortis (tenon and
three decades hence)
two thousand fifty nine if you
count from January 13th 2019, adieu

attest that day 9 months I did brew
in wound (of the late Harriet Harris),
now finds me loved ones
crying boo hoo,
after this stiff mortal
Earthling bid toodle loo

with symbolic casket
(carrying cremated urn of ashes)
remembrance attended
by gentile and Jew
sharing positive memories purportedly
about this nondescript

fellow they knew
mainly indirectly, poignantly,
and wickedly shot thru
with his insightful humorous scribblings,
plus magnus opus titled
"How do ye do,"

an informal rambling missive bereft
of any subject and
devoid with little clue,
the purpose of said hefty tome
out weighing The Federalist circa: knew
lee after American independence

Papers, written by true
purrs under the pseudonym "Publius"
but great (as a great doorstop), or
alight as tinder for barbeque
since many admirers never
read his text written in Hebrew,

fluency acquired spending
final years he grew
old, since automatic citizenship
granted based on genetic goo
plus Mediterranean climate helped promote
longevity to century his health did hew

thus naturally pronounced philosophy,
where he drew
quite a wide web asper the many
claims Matthew Scott did eschew
to maintain longevity (more
quackery than science), but who

could dispute glorious
principles, not to poo poo
analogous to placebo effect
harmless fervent coping methods,
whether to cure ague
interestingly enough he cited ack hue

puncture for a gamut of physical ills
as well he did advocate chew
wing food (after taking small bites)
until mouthful became pulpy slew
(proponent of Fletcherism), this to
exercise dentures in addition

to maximize stew
pen diss experience of simple
routine eating view
wing thoroughly good (by George)
said quotidian activity grew
tubby spiritual, similarly basic

functions in general did get skew
ward whereby meditation on intrinsic,
metabolic and scholastic
processes to name a few
added a dimension of enhancement prior to
exiting life into frontier mortals can only rue.
TELL TALE TALK

Shark’s tooth
draws blood

( even though long dead )

a startled red
against the sharp whiteness

lost in a bric-a-brac
box of shells & things.

“Gotcha!”
grins the dead

shark’s set of
choppers.

Baby shark
but a shark nonetheless.

I drip a trail
of red

across the Charity
shop

snap up
a tattered HUNTING OF THE SNARK

a battered
AT SWIM TWO BIRDS.

Here
a broken ballerina

on a jewellery box
( minus her music )

there
( I stop dead )

a used
soul

bruised
badly used

Godless
without guile

my fingertip traces my initials
on its dust

tarnished
without hope

immortal and unnoticed
amongst shark’s teeth & shells.

I get
a SNARK & TWO BIRDS

for a pound
a piece.

The shark’s grin
for a pound again.

“What do you want
for this old thing?”

I nonchalantly
ask

setting the soul
with great care

within the cage
of teeth

perched atop
the books.

“Being dying
to get rid

of that
for ages.”

“It just sits there
staring at me!”

“Scares the life
outta me

to tell you
the truth

even though I don’t know
what the hell it is!”

“Give us 42p for it
& we’ll call it quits!”

I buy back
the soul

( my soul )

I had given away
with some old shirts and shoes

things I thought
I wouldn’t ever be needing

. . .again.

But seeing it
discarded amongst shark’s teeth & shells

I thought
twice about it.

Maybe
( perhaps )

I can use
it

for a paperweight.

Or a doorstop.

— The End —