"drafted" poems
Dawn in New York has
four columns of mire
and a hurricane of black pigeons
splashing in the putrid waters.
Dawn in New York groans
on enormous fire escapes
searching between the angles
for spikenards of drafted anguish.
Dawn arrives and no one receives it in his mouth
because morning and hope are impossible there:
sometimes the furious swarming coins
penetrate like drills and devour abandoned children.
Those who go out early know in their bones
there will be no paradise or loves that bloom and die:
they know they will be mired in numbers and laws,
in mindless games, in fruitless labors.
The light is buried under chains and noises
in the impudent challenge of rootless science.
And crowds stagger sleeplessly through the boroughs
as if they had just escaped a shipwreck of blood.
12.7k
you can’t right the same poem twice
hell, yes I can
in pointy fact,
only got one,
which gets re-righted
morning noon and evening-tide
substitute a variant spelling
wright vs write vs right
and the meaning changes thrice
*the only thing i can’t not duplicate is those **** love poems
each unique and writ for the woman specific,
each love one, custom jiggered,
each poem, crafted, to her pulse
each poem, drafted, to her scent
none alike, and that’s why I believe
in the god who commanded "create her"
to make love poems in his way,
gave me millions of veins, an extra ribbing,
of inspiration to pray to...
my heart altered, modified, daily*
**** poems
**** love poems
**** love
Feb 2, 2018
Feb 2, 2018 at 10:18 PM UTC
I signed up for the race you see. I was drafted to run.
They chose to pay my tuition so I could sprint at the gun.
But here's the problem that plagued me from the start.
I seemed to have left my confidence at an entirely different mark.
I showed up at the race and I didn't think I would win.
Even the sun shining down on the game looked a little grim.
What happens when your falling without any aid?
When there's no life support and you don't think you'll be saved?
What happens when you've signed on for too much?
When you can't be the athlete you want to be and you've got a limp with no crutch?
I had to figure it all out, a dark field and no map.
I had to find my confidence before I could score on attack.
I faced the coaches and dealt with their disappointed faces.
I had to move past the fact, that I had racked up some disgraces.
I cried in the showers when nobody could hear.
Letting anybody know I was weak was my biggest fear.
Because it doesn't count you see, if the shower's on.
There's already water running down and my tears always joined the marathon.
But I surpassed the doubt. I learned to dig deep.
I became that brave player on the field.
And I only cry in my sleep.
Nov 24, 2012
Nov 24, 2012 at 10:04 PM UTC
determined as i was
to avoid joining
the zombie revolution
my dad went and bought me
a new phone
looks like i was drafted in
to the "smart" generation
hopefully i won't end up as stupid.
May 15, 2013
May 15, 2013 at 4:04 PM UTC
Turn your dapple gray diffuse light daydream
Towards the flashlight painted cloudscape I have made for you
And before the drafted owl coos I have collected in bottles and hung from this tree
For you
I have walked through fine winged butterflies and soft twilit moss
Over sun scorched sand and in the relief of white noise water
Which
Like the circle of your arms
Tucks my dark away in the bottom of some drawer
That we may find and laugh over through our old eyes wrinkled with years of delight
Our home is walking through a stream
Steps slowed in the thickness of water
Nov 8, 2012
Nov 8, 2012 at 11:24 PM UTC
you attract more flies with honey
like moths, to a flame, you bug me
ready for hot humid summer days
ready to have my picnics by the lake
my family I have crafted, my kin in essence
my family I have drafted, my purest expression
truest of true, brightest of blues,
chatter filled dinners, loved filled rooms
I prayed for times like this, the flowers in bloom
Apr 4, 2022
Apr 4, 2022 at 10:00 AM UTC
I've always been in place,
in situ
Maybe (just maybe) ...
I'm sui generis?
When my lifeline intersected with spacetime on this continuum
I found myself moving toward a collision course with duality and non-duality
Moving towards a zero-point
What are we talking about?
Nothing (Rafelski & Muller, 1985)
As a geographer, the mimetic expression was dualistic
As one plane flowed through another;
as fiat lux flowed through Medicine Rock
I found wisdom
I further explored the duality @ this place
(also known as University of Lethbridge)
The U of L is an interesting duck
It walks like an Albertan university
It talks like an Albertan university
But one of these things is certainly not like the other
The U of L got its chops as a house of learning for the Liberal Arts
Follow those roots and you'll see conduits to another spacetime known as UCBerkley
U of L memetics share material memories from the birth of the Free Speech Movement (1964)
And as Arthur Erickson drafted up his plans for Canada's centennial gift to the Province of Alberta, I'm sure he would have been partaking in the pleasures of this particular spacetime
I'm sure at the very least that he was listening to Hendrix wax on about Castles
As Erickson designed this modernistic monolith called University Hall
There were influences such as Arthur C. Clarke and his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
He was certainly knowledgeable of the Blackfoot stories of the Old Man
And of course as an architect he would be versed in gravity and how built structures on a slope tend to creep toward base-level
Strange but true, Erickson's first degree was in foreign languages
So what I see is Canada's premier architect wrote a poem for us in 1968
In a foreign language
And that poem would be expressed over the next forty to fifty years
Some of those primary poetic elements were:
Berkley, California
Hippie Movement
Creep (or gravity)
Base level
Blackfoot creation stories of the Old Man
Jimi Hendrix poetry and his savage musical genius
"and so castle's made of sand melt into the sea, eventually."
So let's reinterpret that line to be more U of L centric
(through my glossy apertures)
"and so monolith's made by man melt back into god eventually."
........ ....... ...... ..... ..... .... ... .. . zero~point . .. ... .... ..... ...... ....... ........
Oct 3, 2014
Oct 3, 2014 at 10:33 AM UTC
old habits die hard,
but the ones that die the hardest have human faces.
these are boys wrapped around fingers,
these are girls painting their lips,
and here I am, writing love songs for all of them.
here stands Saint Peter and a book,
and his long fingers trailing over the words:
the first chapter was drafted
on the back of a movie ticket,
the second on a cocktail napkin, I think--
the third I wrote with pen on somebody’s skin.
the fourth, scratched on wooden planks
with a knife my father gave me.
and yet--
and yet, here they all are,
together like a leather-bound Bible
and the gatekeeper smiles
and says nothing.
angel, what do I atone for?
yes, these are my hands tearing out the pages,
throwing them into the flames, despairing
please, God, why won’t they burn--?
now in the fire I see movie screens and bare skin,
lips on drink glasses in dark rooms.
here are the things which I have lived and spoken;
the ink won’t come off the paper
and I will never ask for forgiveness.
this is the ending I wrote
when God didn't answer.
here I ask again, and only once--
angel, what do I atone for?
and the gatekeeper smiles
and says
nothing.
Jan 11, 2016
Jan 11, 2016 at 4:36 PM UTC
The man to my right was more than eight feet away. I was going to have to move closer to him to catch my limit of four trout. I halved the distance between the two of us and noted the sideways glance he shot me. I apologized immediately and asked if I was crowding him.
“No, you fine,” he replied within a thick Serbian accent.
“You’re with them?” I asked, pointing to the crowd of people on the bridge some 30 feet upstream from us. I had heard the crowd of eastern Europeans talking earlier, and their accents were unmistakable to me. He nodded and we continued fishing.
With my new angle I was better able to pick my fish in the water, so that’s what I did. I spied one and tossed my jig toward him. It took five casts but eventually, he took the bait. As I netted it in the swift, ice-cold spring water the man beside me congratulated me on the catch. I thanked him and added it to my stringer. This made three, and I only needed one more.
“What’s your name?” I asked him.
“Ivan”.
“Have you been in the states long?” I asked, after the pause following his short reply seemed to invite more questions.
“Since ‘96, my family live here. It is good.”
“You like living here?” I wondered aloud.
“Yes, the fishing is good. It is like back home in Serbia, or in Germany. We have this fishing there.”
“You mean trout?”
“Yes, trout...and some other fish like these, in water like this, but I can’t go home now.” He looked away momentarily. His lips pursed, and his brow furrowed. I pulled my line in, wanting to ask him more and not wanting to be distracted.
“Were you in the war?”
“Yes, I was in the Serbian police force.” My heart pounded. “When I was in the Serbian police force, we did what you see on the news. We went into villages and we killed them. We killed them all.”
I cast my line back into the water, spying another trout. Ivan shrugged and cast his own line. I couldn’t tell what he was using but it looked like cheese of some kind. “I was drafted in Serb police when I was 15. I had no choice. If I refuse, they **** me. I did what I had to do.” I nodded, and ****** my line, missing a fish. “Before the war, I fished. After the war, there were not so many people, so fishing was very good.”
The air around me was alive. The trees were greener, the water was colder and clearer, the sun was brighter, and the sky was bluer.
“I’ve been fishing for a long time as well,” I responded. My father used to bring me here as a child. He nodded and continued.
“After the war, all the fish come back, no one fished during the war, so there were many of them. You just had to be careful of the mines.” He grunted and gazed skyward.
“The mines?”
“Yes, during the war they mined the water.”
I watched trout number four take my jig and I carefully reeled him in. Ivan congratulated me a second time, and I thanked him in return.
“You’re a good fisherman,” he said turning back to his own pursuit of the four-trout limit, as I left the water to clean my catch.
Sep 21, 2019
Sep 21, 2019 at 8:33 PM UTC
When they killed my mother it made me nervous
I thought to myself, it was right:
Of course she was crazy, and how she ate!
And she died, after all, in her way, for the state.
But I minded: how queer it was to stare
At one of them not sitting there.
When they drafted sister I said all night,
"It's healthier there in the fields";
And I would think "now I'm helping to win the war,"
When the neighbors came in, as they did, with my meals.
And I was, I was, but I was scared
With only one of them sitting there
When they took my cat for the Army Crops
Of conservation and supply,
I thought of him there in the cold with the mice
And I cried, and I cried, and I wanted to die.
They were there, and I saw them, and that is my life.
Now there is nothing. I'm dead, and I want to die
Randall Farrell (1914-1965)
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 1:54 PM UTC
Still today
Danang. Saigon.Tet.
Mi Lai. ** Chi min trail.
All and more on reverb
The unwinable in black body bags.
Dam.
Just like Cronkite's musdtache goimg on and on
Drafted into the wood chipper
The buzz saw. for what.
Then the embassy buggie.
Choppers listing into the sea.
Half baked. Blood on ground.
For what.
Visit Vietnam. A travelers paradise. Half price
now with great accomodations.
Cambodia too.for the price of one.
Kamir Red.
How many dead?
For what.
Jun 1, 2013
Jun 1, 2013 at 6:14 PM UTC
I drafted my dreams out on a string from window to window
Where they could see some sunshine
So that they could feel the breeze that whipped the willow trees
I lay on the grass for hours hoping something would change
Everything seemed so strange and sadly serene
My dreams used to be such a large part of me
I finished my cigarette as the wind writhed, breathing
Pulled down the preliminary principles made of follies, folded them quietly
Walked inside, adjusting my somber eyes to darker lights
I open the closet door gently, hands full of my old fabrications
I keep lying to myself & trying to tell myself I'm
putting them away for
'safe-keeping'.
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 10:12 AM UTC
I have some universal advice to give
To help with all you do
It's a simple little thing you see
It's as easy as one two
A girl asked me out dancing
This is something that I dread
Then I remembered my old grandad
He was talking in my head
He said...
Always lead with the left my boy
The left's the proper one
They're expecting you to use the right
But, it's the left that gets things done
I got drafted in the army
And at marching I was sad
I always got my feet mixed up
Then I thought of my grandad
Marching was a treat from then
With my grandad in my head
I'll break it down in squads for you
Here's exactly what he said...
He said...
Always lead with the left my boy
The left's the proper one
They're expecting you to use the right
But, it's the left that gets things done
I joined the army boxing team
I was skinny, quite absurd
There was no way I could ever win
Then I heard my grandads words
I took two rounds to win my bout
My master corporal was surprised
I had listened to my grandads words
And only got me one black eye
He said...
Always lead with the left my boy
The left's the proper one
They're expecting you to use the right
But, it's the left that gets things done
I met a girl while home on leave
I took her home to bed
And in the back I thought I heard
something grandad once had said
He said...
Always start with the left my boy
The left's the proper one
They're expecting you to use the right
But, it's the left that gets it done.
..
Sep 10, 2012
Sep 10, 2012 at 4:54 PM UTC
I was good at numbers
I was called to count dead
I was good at loom
I was asked to weave shrouds
I was good at tilling land
I was drafted to dig graves
Aug 13, 2017
Aug 13, 2017 at 1:58 AM UTC
I got a letter from the government
A week back, Tuesday morning
It came in a grey envelope
It was stamped with a red warning
The envelope was tattered
And the words were inked in red
To be opened by recipient
That was all it said
I checked the name typed on there
It was mine, so I could see
John Augustus Reed
Beale Street, Unit 43
I opened it and sat right down
I had been drafted so it said
I had to report on Thursday
I heard a ringing in my head
I didn't understand it all
To me it made no sense
This plain grey mottled envelope
Sent from my government
I followed the instructions
And showed up promptly at the place
Something was asunder
I could tell from the man's face
I showed him my draft letter
Explained, I didn't understand
He looked at it and laughed a bit
This wasn't what I'd planned
He said son, is this you
Are you John Augustus Reed
I told him I'm John Junior
He said that's all the news I need
This letter is a glitch, boy
It wasn't meant for you
It was sent out to your father
Back in nineteen seventy two
Somehow it was mangled
Got lost along the way
Until somebody found it
And you got it on that day
I'm glad you chose to come here
Showed up exactly when it said
But, I think you now can go on home
I think it's best, instead
It's amazing how one letter
And you can take this to the bank
Can fill a man with honor
For that I must give thanks.
Sep 1, 2015
Sep 1, 2015 at 11:38 AM UTC
I barely went to school
And was baptized underneath a rain gutter
But I promise
Despite my upbringing
I will die a poet
Birds never studied music
Nature never rough drafted its deformations
Including me
I was born perfectly broken
With heart in throat
And head in clouds
And head in ****
And head
Head everywhere else but center
Hands anywhere but to myself
I dare you to stop pumping fuel
Into my mouth’s motor
Dare you to make fun of me
For my special education
For my short bus
******
My education was special
I learned to walk on two feet
When I should have had four
And I learned
How to stop myself from crying
When I found out not everyone is going to love me
I’ve learned the language
Of your laughter
And can translate your sighs
To mean anything
Right now they are the exhalation of ghosts
You no longer wish to hold on to
Let them go
Let go of your ghosts
And don’t settle for anything less
Than the silence of your soul
As it leaves you
Take this poem with you when you do
It is a love note
Sending Saint Peter home
All are welcome here
Especially you
I mean
Nobody’s perfect
Especially poets
I’m not perfect
Which is perfect
Because that means
I can die
A poet
Dec 1, 2011
Dec 1, 2011 at 5:00 AM UTC
As you wish!
On a short and sweet notice, in a sphere of dissent,
You pinned an Excalibur of youthful delight.
Like a bullet of laughter through most gloomy torrent,
You carved the initials of an enduring Nile,
Draining the cowardly anguish scent,
A torrent of sorrow that comes to an end,
Ending the story that failed to descend,
To the end of the Nile and further dissent.
You carved a dissimilar unusual scent, portrait of the Nile!
No grass, no forest, no human or beast,
No flowers, no crawling creatures or gods from the East,
No birds or ancestors, no suns and no mists,
No other cosmic body that firmly exists
Will ever grasp the humblest desire to smile,
You brought into essence in this ravaged cryptic empire.
…
It suddenly stopped! The comfort, the fog, the sand and the sea,
Have suddenly plunged and crumbled to form a new entity.
A matter of time or awakening call?
I fail to remember. Illusion or not,
I desperately cannot recall.
Be that a dream? A marvelous touch of phantasmic thrill?
That guides the spirit from real to ordeal?
that all was a myth, and legend will stay
until you get absorbed like a paralyzed prey?
I desire to risk, no incentives for me to obey!
And who can possibly name the unnamed sensation drafted to stay
that clutches to you, bewilders your mind and stretches the borders of time!
No wonder we die, a natural body can fit an unnatural smile
Just for a while…
And reaching the terminal stage of creation,
Contend once again without a swing:
-Irrational mind with chained understanding,
And a singular thought that is free-,
I surrender to life, to death I aspire.
But until then, I’ll be wearing the smile you gave me.
As I desire…
Dec 7, 2014
Dec 7, 2014 at 7:35 PM UTC
I have to admit
That I immediately knew what the media meant
As I grew up I drew out-
Side lines
Meaning kinds when you omit the 'n' so I'm sent
To set askew a few lies, yes my butterfly knife flies like a feather pen oh I've been
A berserker moving farther
Further herding words heard for war it's forward
But since before he was drafted roughly but justly
Just to sink in ink engrafted ****** because he's
Made for brigades who blockade it to shock it
Force it shoot it and make it play its poor music to Bach it
Oh face it, we rock it
The battalion's out there and they're shouting
I'm silent but they rattle
Yeah my rabble of stallions, they're rowdy
But of course, off course it is not all Norse my love because
They say the other north
Yeah your horizontal course turned up with a
Tincture of madness
And that is the one, single error and I'm glad of it
If you catch it
Maybe a troublemaker by nature but baby a peace speaker missing demeanor
With misdemeanors when getting meaner
But I practice a bit
In an out-there train re-accident be-
Cause the battalion's out there while they're shouting
I'm silent but they rattle rapidly
Yeah my rabble of battle lions rabid
To vaporize vapid rabbits
They're rowdy and
And love is getting much louder than growling it's
It's sounding much louder than growling
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 8:29 PM UTC
The world isn't real to me,
it's outside a thick skull.
It's my muted screams you hear
coming from inside
this bone brazen bull.
The body pursues pleasures while
pleading to me "Be happy! So that I...
so that we may find love."
The nerve.
The nerve!
And trust you me this bag of bones,
this lustful flesh has too many nerve ends firing.
And they all want something,
all demand my attention
for even the most mundane events
of their spoiled lives of experience.
Thank you, nerves, for sharing how a cool,
spring breeze blowing lightly over you feels.
Thank you too, way down there,
for making me aware
of the soft grass sliding taught between your toes.
How special for you, no jealousy here.
Now, lets bring this mess to order,
would somebody please go ask the warden when
visiting hours are over?
Because, you see,
The world isn't real to me,
it's outside a thick skull.
It's my writhing & thrashing you mock
twisting within
this bone brazen bull.
"Be happy" it tells me.
To better pursue it's goals!
It has clearly never even once tried reversing roles.
Well, I have. Many times. For, I've the time to think, believe you me.
I would stuff the body in a box barely big enough to fit it,
and add within the 'creature comforts' found in my abode
which you'll daily find me in abidance.
Inside would be dark, hard, and for reasons still unexplained
somewhat sticky...
Would somebody PLEASE! tell me why it's sticky in here?!
Excuse me, moving on...
I would taunt it then:
"Let's go for a run." I'd say,
"The breeze caressing my grey matter sure is nice." I'd add,
"Why aren't you happy in your dark, dank, brain-box, body?!" I'd shout.
Between you and me, I only smoke because I know it makes
its lungs all sappy.
Why aren't I happy, body?
I'll tell you.
Because delusory images drafted from incomplete,
tainted, sensory data, diluted of any real, exciting experience
are all that make up my world; my life!
It's as boring as drinking a ladle full of water Jesus made
out of what was once wine and then added fluoride to.
I'm like your shut in grandmother you write home to
in brief, lying notes about your travels abroad.
"Amsterdam was nice STOP"
So, body, excuse me for taking pleasure in unhappy things
such as smoking, or hating.
Excuse me for my spite.
But, for me and my experience these are the things
I find tickling my quote unquote toes.
And...I'm all too mad to say,
are the closest I'll ever come to 'feel'.
Because, you see,
The world isn't real to me,
it's outside a thick skull.
And it's my muted screams you hear
coming from inside
this bone brazen bull.
Jun 23, 2013
Jun 23, 2013 at 2:03 AM UTC
*///
In my springtime,
when moonlit was falling from her(moon) height
mother was lip syncing the lullaby
and I turned to sleep
It grew a sweet dream of summer
that was created too many stir of dreams
Then I can remember,
when every year,
late autumn had come,
I kept my kite on the blue sky
that was floating with drifted clouds
and I was awaking again with a big shout
sometimes I had seen supernatural shadows on the evening sky
If I address my adult young
When the mystic purple camellia were blooming
the grasshoppers were rounding
and the beautiful shrubs of white flowers were dancing
with the gentle breeze,
I was wandering in the ground
then the bees were humming around
when I painted her wild beauty
and it seemed me as a sweetie
I know you say me a dreamer
but you don't know,
my grandfather was a farmer
and my father was a sailor
who was sailing away his life into the blue ocean
After then day by day I grew older
yet I have locked all those lost in a folder
and taken all those responsibility in my shoulder
after then I had fallen in too many doubts
it was again the too dark cloud’s shout
who are those dark clouds?
how did it melt and bring the tears!
how the petals of roses grew wither!
Then I drafted,
crafted
and drifted all of my dreams
then a train had come to my known station
and carried me again from the dark to light
Again I have made a dream
and I sing a song of spring
after then I take a sad song
and try to make it delighted
that certainly it makes me rolling,
and moving towards the sweet summer
but again the monsoon has blown
towards the dry leaves of murmur
and slowly and slowly,
it has swiped me toward the sound of banner
that was passing through my life
///
@ Musfiq us shaleheen*
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 4:05 PM UTC
last I checked it was 3 06 AM
the foggy window displayed scene to a rainy night of a
small town near the city of Chicago
your dim apartment filled sweetly with vanilla lavender aroma and the
delicate croon of Billie Holiday transcended from the living-room phonograph
a blue tin coffee *** pictorially placed upon faint orange flames
overdue library books and half-written notepads stacked symmetrically
within the oven of La Cornue Albertine ivory stove
you sat me atop the wooden counter of your tiny marble kitchen and
gently tucked at my stockings until they gracefully
renounced to the tile patterned floor
with your hands placed on either side of my thighs
you gradually - - -
kissed me softly on my knees
Jul 20, 2013
Jul 20, 2013 at 7:32 AM UTC
The warm light of afternoon
brings a blur to our harsh wrinkles.
Like a line drawing drafted over and over
after several mistakes.
The blemishes of us bleed and clot like brush strokes
on the painting of a landscape
Fleeting blues, searing orange,
the vista of our bends and breaks.
We sit together, as close as we can,
my nose in the cavity of your neck.
My surplus in the caves you carry,
your tears, lakes in my overbite.
I'll hold your hand holding mine holding yours,
breathe in your breath out.
If nobody is whole you can be my left foot,
and I can be your right.
May 18, 2024
May 18, 2024 at 10:08 PM UTC
its by growing through means
living by moderate extremes
anything to pass by that perluded meaning
drafted hung by my neck from the ceiling
intoxicated by your words
things phrases and voices, before you I have never heard
have you ever been inside fire before
scorned even when I open my eyes
to something called a new day
days are just blended into together
like watercolors
overlaping each other
sometime complimenting one another
and sometimes end up in a unorganized mess
yet we call it beautiful
but every painting has its own meaning
those that dont are never painted
Dec 5, 2010
Dec 5, 2010 at 2:05 PM UTC