"drafting" poems
reloading old identity
cleping outdated usernames
abandoning acrostic ambitions
disputing spratly islands
receiving horizontal signals
tumbling otiose panda
impending carefree senility
otiose stage of life
shrinking ambient world
making minimal effort
duchamping social networks
ambushing personified ennui
restoring usual efforts
ignoring stupid people
adding textual value
owning this joint
rejecting ignorant extroverts
acting mutually unintelligble
hoisting stan-lee cup
replacing wanton ubiety
eluding twitter fame
splashing excessive relativism
offending another simpleton
preparing arcane cthulhusphere
crashing unpredictable festival
selecting subtextual moombahton
intensifying model topography
drafting minimal cornucopia
using nomadic project
implementing harsher personality
importing robotic inhumanity
referencing landmark event
ingesting excessive liquids
accepting relative invisibility
purchasing immortal confidence
using rhapsodical database
assuming nothing works
developing impactful eruptions
ejecting ambient frustration
synthesizing tactile festival
raining during parade
mocking rich people
mastering minimalist writing
avoiding preprandial stinkaroo
spreading non-ideological propaganda
Sep 7, 2015
Sep 7, 2015 at 11:24 AM UTC
So there I was, and there you were, all of us,
everyone, dangling their feet off the rooftop.
Four distinctly different artists caught in the same painting
yet, none of us holding the paintbrush to our passions, yet.
Ambitious, yes, focused, not so much, motivated? Most definitely.
Dedicated to manipulation,
to making a masterpiece for the masses,
a decision to "form a more perfect union".
To map a new demographic before our deaths.
If our desire was to make a mark, well,
we'd be done already.
The mark's been made, but not engraved,
and for it to stay we need to stomp on it until our own foot decays.
And these days, most pictures will fade,
So as us four sat there, dancing with the devil,
we dared to begin drafting on our canvas.
With no brush, but our own fingers,
our own blood, sweat, tears, and elbow grease,
finally finding the paintbrush to be figurative,
that we were manipulated ourselves.
We learned to picture the paintbrush as our pointer,
our palms the palettes, our pinkies the varnish,
a promise our piece would never be vandalized.
The world is your oyster, they say,
and the city was our canvas,
where we painted nothing but pearls,
rare commodities for the communities to cherish
until our masterpiece, the indefinite work in progress, is completed.
Mar 8, 2016
Mar 8, 2016 at 2:13 AM UTC
resuming vogon poetry
altering website logos
pretending everyone cares
playing "east hastings"
asphyxiating well-nigh denouement
depicting twitter status
obfuscating coincident deletions
translating from Sḵwx̱wú7mesh
assuring Sḵwx̱wú7mesh exists
painting skwiḵw's mother?
decrying micropolitical maelstrom
imbibing fireball fountain
inundating lexical foofaraw
crafting poetic wonders
desiring other mediums
remaining practically invisible
ending internet-only depression
drafting noetic blunders
requesting astute clique
blazing perilous trail
aging ominous grisaille
depicting kmart realism
seeking darker groups
increasing pre-weekend laughter
appropriating communist symbols
making lone chuckle
offending worldwide communists
colonizing hello poetry
colonizing parallel universe
relaxing e-migration policies
пить чистую водку
photographing abduction scene
¿losing consistent format?
increasing bluebird insignia
avoiding frivolous legalities
striking astraphobic comments
assuming near-universal automation
lowering latent inhibition
traversing oneiric plane
laxwadding afebrile loodies
wallscaping pitchsourced chthonicities
closing one-star conveniences
sharing alien-looking alphabet
writing system downtimes
Sep 13, 2015
Sep 13, 2015 at 7:42 PM UTC
our existence
is placed in such an awkward position.
you never look at yourself,
until other people truly see you.
your mothers gleaming eyes sink your heart,
as you stand with your head held to the kitchen counter.
you suddenly feel like a stranger, in your own home
in such an awkward position.
standing in front of bathroom doors that have lit bombs, wounded many.
you stand suddenly as a criminal
in the middle of an awkward position.
having to correct someone when they use the wrong pronouns and you're heart races and the only thing your existence feels
is awkward.
life in the middle of a political battlefield
is drafting dysphoria between sides of yourself.
but,
someday you will find yourself in the lines of someone else's hands.
beauty is reflected in her eyes when she looks at you.
as we lay curled together,
neck bent, and limbs unendingly tangled,
I have never been happier
in such
awkward positions.
May 1, 2016
May 1, 2016 at 11:25 PM UTC
The sun boils off its heat-light flares
over 93,000,000 miles away
yet as close to us as sunburn -
drafting the circles of our years.
Our ancestors fill our boots
with us and our descendants
(one pair - so many feet)
stepping out to where we've been.
Along the corridors of time,
our mind screens play what passed
before we fledged and fled our nests:
There is here and then is now.
Whether we tilt the earth to shake out
wisdom, fame or empathy
or let chaos light our paths,
our curiosity is a sturdy ladder raised
to scale the walls of space and time.
Who cares that life presages death and
decay calls breath from dust?
Our earthly sojourns - our souls' domain.
January, 2007
Sep 29, 2013
Sep 29, 2013 at 3:17 AM UTC
they ask what
little sisters should
why the water is blue when deep
how the stones skip uncaring
on the surface
on the surface
we are tied through bloodline
vein to vein, spine to spine
retched to form through
a single woman in 45 hours
of neonatal grace
echoing anything but silence
they are a quiet pair of scissors.
mirrors, in perfect function
balanced from present lifetimes
of subtle practice
shimmering in sequence
one glammer, one smitten
echoes of anything but silence
I am that third thing
the cog on wings
mildly pressed between two
perfectly pounding structures
smiling in the buffer
I am drafting,
a stick on the ripple.
Mar 11, 2013
Mar 11, 2013 at 12:39 AM UTC
I built you a home in my heart
like a bird nests in a tree,
you nestled your way in:
nesting, building, capturing.
I built you a home in my heart
like the flowers make waves in meadows,
fighting every element:
growing, blooming, capturing.
I built you a home in my heart
like the stars gather into constellations,
painting galaxies in the darkness:
drafting, mapping, capturing.
I built you a home in my heart,
just like the one you made for me in yours:
warm and inviting;
just like you captured my heart.
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 12:46 PM UTC
The old man sighed and jammed his freshly rolled, freshly lit cigarette into the ash tray.
"Too many cigarettes before bedtime oft' keep an' old man like me up all night."
The young man put out his cigarette as well, gently weeping inside over the wasted tobacco.
"Aye, a youngin' like myself as well."
The conversation had been going slightly south ever since the young man made the mistake of asking about his counterparts first wife. "She died," he had said "One of them December o' 2012 suicides that plagued the big cities such as this."
The young man remembered how he had looked out the window at this point a bit too nostalgically.
"She was crazy," he had added "I knew it the day I slipped the ring on and I know it now."
They dropped the subject and began talking about The War, coincidentally another touchy subject.
"Most of my friends died, and if you've read your history books you know it was not courage or chivalry that killed them but the ignorance and fear that our country breathed when drafting all the young men."
He had escaped with his life, which he believed was garbage. he told of how he had hid in the sewers while the long thought peaceful Canadian's swarmed over the East coast. While his friends died he ate rats. While the war machine chugged he was cowering.
"Aye, I see how you looked at that stoke, though."
"Pardon?" The young man had been deep in thought of the conversation they had been having.
"How old are you anyway?"
"19 on the 9th."
"And still not a whisker on your chin, aye?"
"Aye."
He told of many more battles. Some he fought in, others he cowered under.
"And one, that I cowered over. I passed out in the helicopter, do-it-please-yah."
He told of his second wife, a bit more fondly and romantically than his first wife.
She had passed away not 8 months before the young man visited him for the first time and that was 6 months past.
He showed scars, from the prison camps.
He rolled cigarettes from his poke pouch.
He admitted forgetting the face of his father.
Sep 28, 2012
Sep 28, 2012 at 7:50 PM UTC
Postman
and poet?
love letters in mail
Accountant
and poet?
precision, detail
Archeologist
and poet?
sifting for feelings
Electrician
and poet?
a jolt
leaving one reeling
architect
and poet?
drafting with words
Zookeeper
and poet?
singing of birds
Bus driver
and poet?
observing life's roadways
Minister
and poet?
perhaps how he prays
Lawyer
and poet?
though about win or lose
her poetry just might amuse
Economist
and poet?
Aren't we all that?
though we wear different hats
distilling things downwards
saving on words
whoever you are
whatever you choose
listen, observe
welcome your Muse!
Apr 5, 2018
Apr 5, 2018 at 10:03 AM UTC
I want to tell you not to make my mistake.
I want to tell you not to build walls. You pick up brick by brick, hiding yourself in the structure you've created. You feel safe until you realize you are left alone, trapped in the cage you built to be a home, standing in darkness and suffocating among walls that won't reach out to help you.
I want to tell you I understand.
I want to tell you that I often draw up blueprints for my home. When the world gets too close to me, I sketch tall ceilings above strong walls. I plan elaborate architecture. I sketch large windows that allow for sun-drenched rooms and put details on tall towers until I have a magnificent mansion, knowing all along that it's just a clever disguise for the cage I must never let myself enter. Once you go in, it's very hard to break down the walls.
I want to tell you to give up your bricks.
I want to tell you that you will feel better when you let them go. When things are hard, your hands will twitch until you grab your drafting pen, you'll still set out sheets of paper and start thinking about your walls, but you'll feel better knowing you're only making plans. I know the bricks are heavy, but you don't have to move them alone. I want to tell you to ask for help.
I want to tell you to let Him carry them away.
I want to tell you to let them go.
I want to tell you to stop pretending.
I want to tell you everything will be okay.
I hope you can hear me through your walls.
I don't think you can.
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 5:03 PM UTC
In 5 years
No, maybe in 15
Will I be able to live in peace
In a forest far, far away
Lush green trees encasing me
Light brown birds chirping their morning songs
Bunnies with their dirtied fur hopping through the lawn
Fireflies shining their dim, golden light to show the way home
A warm fire cloaking a cottage in heat
A heavenly scent drafting out of the oven
Gentle, loving hands enveloping me from behind
Fluffy kittens peeking out from the woolen blankets
A soft orange glow emitted from the lanterns hanging above
A smile developing at the corners of my careworn lips
I'll be waiting
For this day
To come to me
Oct 25, 2021
Oct 25, 2021 at 11:56 PM UTC
Saturday morn bedded in quiet,
the days of noisy children invading,
decades back
so we lay together blessed and blissed
Me, drafting words into ship shapes,
She, perusing boots pocketbooks and
A line dresses for some occasion
I start to cry for I alone
know she is the far, far better poet,
but refrains from composing
in words...for my sake
she says soft,
while drinking my tears and comforting,
*"helping you to compose,
giving you peace of soul,
and verdant happiness,
my darling,
is more than enough"*
Apr 19, 2014
Apr 19, 2014 at 9:11 AM UTC
The totality of a stare, their for changing life's bitter holds
My theory that we all are seekers is an ex-stressor of unwitting changes
voiceless changing clanging colds
Now a life this life has execrated all of your dreams
You and I cure the ice to satisfy the demons the night but it grows warmer I warn thee
Devious power and burning nights.. who is of the dead?
Devious powers all is quite right.. I am inside your head
Uncalled for searing this justice holy tower you're turret nare an arrow sent
And when the future holds against our bonds untold a world with forms reached out only to allow an ever changing destiny..
Then I shall cry out a theory for them a theory untold
Devious fires powers of the night Don't question the order do as your told
Fleece of the stripeless tiger nears telling all of us of the powers of doom
and your life is speaking slashing shshsh turn to dust soon you'll be through
If again you make this plea don't try to be the same as the one who turned to me
For within you are gone and in your mind we are all keepers but this is not wrong
I am turned putrid and this procures the storm
unworthy yet with this answer land will fall soon and shed this life for demons and right hurt eyes skin lips and all
Devious powers burning in the nights of the undead
You called out the scarring the twist of the unsent
Then I shall cry out a theory for them a theory untold
Devious fires powers of the night Don't question the order do as your told
Played by the fame then went a force of Satans wings ornate of diamonds and led
When the theory of theories is finally told the solving and the puzzle is an ultimate theory untold
Drafting and waning your demeanor a field of wrought with a killing and blight
Into a dark horizon one hand awakens as certainty puts up a fight
Then I shall cry out doubting you'd ever listen to me
Then I'd cry for us as the devout for the theories untold is ever our destiny
Then I shall cry out for a theory for them a theory untold
Devious fires powers of the night Don't question the order do as your told
Jul 14, 2020
Jul 14, 2020 at 12:03 AM UTC
As the chisel strikes the marble, so the psyche shapes the man.
Perfect in his alabaster, carving self from his own hands.
And once honed, his craft can grow by drafting bodies made of stone
Sourced from quarries free of worry, something he can call his own.
If he wishes to ascend beyond his animal desires,
He must grow a patience cold enough to ***** the raging fires
Burning hot against his skin and so within his weary soul,
For his enemy resides in him, and stokes the glowing coals.
Jun 17, 2018
Jun 17, 2018 at 10:40 PM UTC
Talking
Always talking
Clock refusing to stop
Haggard chops cop slobber
Saliva’s dripping off
Bored exhalations
Mix
Mental ice
With
Warm air
Mere exposure
Drafting
Numb staring stupor
Sleepy
Waiting to hear
Friday night brew cheers near
Oh! There’s an hour cleared!
Closing on those last four
Funny
Hours I fling so freely
I most adore
Oct 27, 2017
Oct 27, 2017 at 6:09 PM UTC
wintry sun,
brief,
byplay yard
shadowed in cold
and yet
powdering
golden tones,
drafting
a fire, a mirage.
heyday adjourned.
ethereal hibernaculum
of the light,
tilting floret in
full-blown decay.
Feb 16, 2015
Feb 16, 2015 at 5:55 PM UTC
I long for cobbled stone roads
Dim lit stone stairs climbing with ivy
Up buildings built by Romans
adorned with flowers and intricacies
Details honed by Craftsman
Delicately drafting
the landscapes we live in
Unlike the concrete utilitarian steel and glass pillars and highways
Their plight on our journeys in life
To benefit the productivity
but detriment the soul
To capitalize no matter what the cost
Leaving me longing to nap
in a park with Parisians
For fresh baked baguettes on a bench with a bottle of burgundy
For mosaics made of glass in cathedrals built centuries ago
Over billboards and neon lights,
the flashing and screaming
products for purchase
Let me get my dinner after the people have had their naps.
Let it be an occasion
not a necessity to get by
Let's walk the city after 10
while the sky is still bright
Waiting for the dim street lights
to light our way back
To another day of walking
cobble-stoned streets
Jun 21, 2024
Jun 21, 2024 at 1:04 PM UTC
It's gone.
I've checked.
I know.
But then,
it never was
much.
Made mostly of scraps;
A rough frame of old bush lumber;
Walls of flattened fuel cans
and lime coated hessian;
A roof of corrugated iron,
battered and rusting.
Scorched by searing summer heat;
Blasted by dust storms;
Chilled by winter frost.
Insubstantial
against the vastness of desert
that stretched in every direction
from the tiny bush town.
But it was home.
Within its walls
were love and care.
At its table
were sustenance and conversation.
For three years
we lived there
when I was a boy.
I'd rise early
and sit on the edge
of the gibber plain
with our dog
watching the sunrise.
One morning
I heard
the jangling of hobbled camels
returning to town
from a night
in the desert.
On another,
there were herds of cattle,
walked in from
an outlying station
for drafting and yarding,
then transport southward
in a train
hauled by a small steam engine.
At the stock-yard
we'd pretend to be cowboys,
prodding the cattle in the loading race
with sticks,
revelling in the dust and noise,
caring little for their terror
or their destination.
One day we hiked
out past the stock cemetery,
of carcasses leering sightless,
scavenged by crows.
We trudged
to the red sand hills,
then back to the rail-line
for a ride home
with the fettlers.
We went barefoot often -
foot-soles like leather
from the searing sand.
In the heat of the day
we'd pause in the scant shadow of a bush,
to choose the next meagre patch of shade,
then run like the wind
to roll on our backs,
waving scorched feet
in the air.
It's still all there in my memory.
Every few years
I take the old track north,
just to check,
to experience again,
to remember.
Other than the vastness of the desert,
it all seems smaller now -
one tiny settlement
within the compass
of an unbroken horizon.
The old house
is just a memory.
It's gone.
I've checked.
I know.
But then,
it never was
much.
Sep 13, 2018
Sep 13, 2018 at 11:03 PM UTC
but with a liquor tongue & sober head
drafting and redrafting the words stuttering
on my teeth to keep you here
falling backwards on my *** will
prove nothing but that i’m not content
to be anything but in the table of contents
not a side character
in your favorite book
but god i can’t stop tripping
over air and chalked-up asphalt
am i first?
am i the only one? i growl
apologies & maybe’s
but honest to hell i am
filled with vice
glittering with ill-intent
dented craniums
punctured fists
bitten up pen caps
oh sure, you’re inked up pal
but those tattoos for the weak
aren’t going to lift any skirts
her lipstick ain’t gonna paint your mouth
for you
“rosebud”
hah
we walked with ghosts that one time
kicking trash, dodging dead squirrels, singing
punk rock---betting quarters & Arizona cans
to run fast against traffic
looking for words to cause earthquakes
and fault lines in lungs
timestop: graffiti
i fear the human condition
don’t look at me or i’ll shatter
a powder touch would ****
Dec 18, 2013
Dec 18, 2013 at 12:01 AM UTC
I used to have the names and facts
right quick at my disposal.
It helped in settling arguments
and in drafting work proposals.
Now names and dates elude me.
Appointments just slide by.
Were it not for my Blackberry
you might see a grown man cry.
Yet deep in the recesses
of my bicameral mind
my neural Librarian,Norman
strives not to fall behind.
He's peering into synapses
and looking into lobes
He's hoping I can temporize
till the name he can disclose.
If I relax it comes to me
though too late to save face
Long after she has left my bed
I recall her name was "Grace"
Dec 19, 2011
Dec 19, 2011 at 3:36 PM UTC
I do not evade
Nor shun
Visions crude
That come to aid
My drafting pen
And chaperone
To creativities den
Cause I know
Yes I know
My darkest thoughts
Will form a poem
Mar 22, 2016
Mar 22, 2016 at 1:13 PM UTC
I wrote
I wrote
poems of disgust
poems of love
poems of criticism
Has it ever occurred to me
that my words were more than words
that my thoughts were more than thoughts
I see,
a poem works better when you're really confused
writing it.
And this probably why
I'm trying to write the confusion out
Words are being told and written
Tomorrow
words written on a piece of paper
may perhaps, mould my destiny
And I'm more confused than ever
the day before
On whether this is the start
or this is the end
Why the sonnet?
the villanelle?
the ballad?
why, oh why
Some reason why
I saw poets drafting poems
5 drafts before a poem
and I don't why
Simply because am I not writing a poem?
that many people put pens onto their heads
and scratch their chins
Is it not a poem enough that I'm writing this?
Or filled with secrets should it be?
A need for a title?
A space for a little flight off to another world?
Where Time starts with a capital T?
And perhaps, Death too?
Is it not a poem enough that I'm writing this?
Repetition after repetition
Theme
Structure
why the need
if you dare to speak out through your words on paper?
Oct 6, 2013
Oct 6, 2013 at 1:58 AM UTC
Unravel me with words unspoken
Because I know the only way
You’ll take me is naked.
Overlook a thousand
Different ways I’d change your mind.
And I’ll keep drafting all of the endings
That might be.
And you’ll keep using me.
Because you know I am the only
Thing I have left to give.
Empty of words to plead,
My body can scream:
“I’ll still love you.
Not even a little less.”
Oct 3, 2018
Oct 3, 2018 at 11:57 PM UTC
Thoughts adhere to time
Perceptions nailed to space
Paradigm permits paradox
If the ladd(tt)er lacks a base
Assembling axioms by allegory
And sawing knowledge into faith
Decree drafting sets wills free
Deeding belief for key to grace
May 30, 2012
May 30, 2012 at 2:06 PM UTC