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Julian Mar 2019
Tantalized by the fractious limerence of a vestigial habiliment of the old order, we conclude that hypertrophy leads to a limbo where random permutations alloyed by the rickety limits of concatenation subsume concepts that are equivocal but populate the imaginations of newfangled art forms that jostle the midwives of rumination to lead to unique pastures that are intuitively calibrated to correspond to definitive unitary events in conceptual space that sprawl unexpectedly towards the desultory but determinative conclusion of a meandering ludic sphere of rambunctious sentiments cobbled together to either rivet the captive audience or annoy the peevish criticaster when they dare to inseminate the canvassed and corrugated tract of intellectual territory created ad hoc to swelter the imagination with audacious ingenuity that is an inevitable byproduct of lexical hypertrophy. In this séance with the immaterial realm of concept rather than the predictable clockwork reductivism of a perceptual welter that is limited by the concretism circumscribed by spatiotemporal stricture we find that an extravagant twinge of even the smallest tocsin in the interstitial carousel of conscientious subroutines compounding recursively to pinprick the cossetted smolder of potentiality rather than extravagate into the vacancy of untenanted nullibiety can spawn a progeny of utilities and vehicles for dexterous abstraction that poach the exotic concepts we fathom by degrees of sapience malingering in lifeless bricolages of erratic abstraction in manners useful to transcend the repose of abeyance and heave awakening into the slumberous caverns of still-life to make them dynamically animated to capture ephemeral events that defy the demarcations of wistful indelicacy of the encumbered bulk of insufficient precision.

Today we embark on a quest to defile the anoegenetic recapitulation of canon that litters the dilapidated avenues of miserly contemplation that has a histeriological certainty and feeds the engines that enable novelty but ultimately remain rancid with the stench of the idiosyncratic shibboleths of synoptic alloyed impoverishment that leads to the vast wasteland of cremated entropy that is a stained foible of misappropriated context interpolated usefully as botched triage for daunting problems that require a nimble legerdemain of facile versatility that we easily adduce to conquer the present with the botched memorial of a defunct salience. Despite the travail of scholars to retreat from the frontier into the hypostatized hegemony of recycled credentialed information, we often are ensnared by the solemn attrition of decay as we traverse the conceptual underpinnings of all bedrock thought only to dangle precariously near the void of lapsed sentience because of transitory incontinence that is contiguous to the doldrums of crudity but nevertheless with mustered mettle we purport that the very self-serious awakening to our hobbling limitations is akin to a prosthetic enhancement of ratiocination capable of feats that stagger beneath the lowest level of subtext to elevate the highest superordinate categorization into heightened scrutiny that burgeons metacognitive limber. Marooned in the equipoise of specifiable enlightenment countermanded by the strictures of working memory we can orchestrate transverse pathways between the elemental quiddity of impetuous meaning and the dignified tropes of transitivity that bequeaths entire universes with feral progeny that modulate their ecosystems with both a taste of approximated symmetry and a cohesive enterprise for productivity that rests on the granular concordance of the highest plane to the indivisible parcels of atomic meaning that solder together to exist as intelligible if strained by the primordial frictions guaranteed by the brunt of motion incipient because of the metaphorical inertia created within insular universes to inform sprawling conurbations of mobilized thoughts designed to reckon with the breakneck pace of the corresponding reality to which they explicitly and precisely refer to.

We must singe surgically the filigrees that amount to the perceptible realities that transmute temperaments into the liturgy of routine conflated with the rigmarole of neural dragnets of reiterative quips in an elegant game of raillery with our supernal contumacy against the rigid authority of aleatory vagaries mandated by a dually arbitrary universe in a probabilistic terpsichorean dance with the depth of our dredge for subliminal acuity or the shallow bellicosity of common modes of glib contemplation characteristic of the basic nobility of improvisation. This basic interface with the world can either be mercurial or tranquil based on the interactionism of the enfeebled trudge of surface senses or blunt intuitions and the smoldering impact of the vestigial cloaks that deal gingerly with the poignant subtext evoked in the cauldron of immediacy rather than pondered with the portentous weight of imperative singularities of uniqueness derived from the plunge into the arcane citadel of microscopic introspection so refined that the ineffable drives we seek to fathom become amenable to the traipse of transcendental time that rarefies itself by defying the brunt of compartmentalized bureaucracies administered by the fulcrum of stereotypical notions of acquired gravitas imputed to mundane pedestrian quidnunc concerns that defile humanity rather than embolden the subaudition of gritty punctilios that show the supernal powers of the axiomatic divinity of sharpened sentience to reign with supremacy over the baser ignoble components of bletcherous nescience that leads to knee-**** platitudes that provoke folksy peevish divisions. We should rather orchestrate our activity by heeding the admonishment about the primogeniture of poignant sabotage buffered by the remonstration of innate tranquility and finding a whipsawed compromise of rationalization with true visceral encounters with the fulgurant quips of brisk emotions that grind industriously into amorphous retinues of the trenchant human imagination to either equip or hobble the leapfrogged interrogation of veracity and more consequently our notions of truth and fact.

When we see the hackneyed results of default ecological dynamics, we find ourselves aloof from purported transcendence because the whimpered bleats and cavils of the importunate masses result in a deafening din of cacophony because we strive throbbing with sprightliness towards the galloped chase of tantalization without the luxury of a terminus for satiation. Obviously a growth mindset is the galvanic ****** that spawns the imaginative swank of the pliable modulations of our perceived reality that, when protean, showcase the limitless verve of our primordial cacoethes for epigenetic evolution rather than the stolid and staid foreclosure of impervious sloth that memorializes the gluttony of speculation about fixed entities rather than imperative jostling urbanity that dignifies the brackish dance with dearth and the exuberant savory taste of momentary excess because it engages the animated pursuit of limerence rather than the exhumed corpse of wistful regret. Nature is a cyclical clockwork system of predatory instinct met with the clemency of the prosperous providence enacted by the travailing ingenuity of successive cumulative generativities that compounded unevenly and unpredictably to predicate a fundamental zeitgeist calculated to engorge the fattened resources of the resourceful and temper the etiolated dreams of the fringed acquiescence of a hulking prejudiced population of dutiful servants that balk at the diminutive prospects of a lopsided distribution of talent and means but slumber in irenic resolve created by the merciful hands of defensive designs that configure consciousness to relish comparative touchstones rather than absolute outcomes that straggle beyond a point of enviable reference to shield the world of the barbarism of botched laments clamoring for an uncertain grave from the gravity of the orbiting satellites of apportioned wealth both sunblind and boorish but simultaneously inextricable from the acclimated fortune of heaped nepotism and herculean opportunism. The intransigence of the weighted destiny of inequity is a squalid enterprise of primeval abrasive and combative tendencies within the bailiwick of the indignant compass inherent to the system that fathoms its deficiencies with crabwise and gingerly pause but airs a sheepish grievance like a bleat of self-exculpation but simultaneously an arraignment of fundamental attribution erroneously indicted without the selfsame reflexiveness characteristic of a transcendent being with other recourses to clamber an avenue to Broadway without malingering in the slums of opprobrious ineffectual remonstration against the arrangement of a blinkered metropolis of uneven gentrification.

We flicker sometimes between the strategic drivel of appeasement and the candor of audacious imprecation of the culprits of indignity or considerate nutritive encomium of the beacons of ameliorated enlightenment because we often masquerade a half-witted glib consciousness lazily sketched by the welters of verve alloyed with the rancid distaste of squalor and slumber on the faculty of conscientious swivels of prudential expeditions with an avarice for bountiful considered thought and wily contortions of demeanor that issue the affirmative traction of adaptive endeavor to cheat a warped system for a reconciled peace and a refined self-mastery. We need to traduce the urchins that sting the system with pangs of opprobrious ballyhoo and the effluvia of foofaraw that contaminate with pettifoggery and small-minded blather the arenas better suited for the gladiatorial combat of cockalorums tinged with a dose of intellectual effrontery beyond the span of dogmatism rather than the hackneyed platitudes that infest the news cycle with folksy backwardation catered to the fascism of a checkered established press that urges insurrection while tranquilizing dissent against the furtive actions of consequence hidden behind the draped verdure of pretense whose byproduct is only a self-referential sophistry that swarms like an intractable itch to devolve the spectator into a pasquinaded spectacle of profound human obtuseness that pervades malignantly the system of debate until the reductionists outwit themselves with the empty prevarication of circular logic that deliberately misfires to miss the target of true importance because of the pandered black hole easily evaded by creatures of high sentience but inevitably ensnaring the special kind of dupe into a cycle of bellicose ferocity of internecine balkanization. The vainglory of the omphalos of entertainment is also another reckoning because it festers a cultural mythos of glorified crapulence parading a philandered promiscuity with half-baked antics that gravitate attention and the lecheries of gaudy tenses of recycled tinsel alloyed by debased aberrations of seedy grapholagnia that magnetize as they percolate because of the insidious catchphrases embedded in pedestrian syncopation that ignite retention and acclimate to mediocrity the sounds of generations discolored by faint pasty rainbows rather than ennobled by majestic landscapes of ignipotent mellifluous sound that stands a supernal amusement still for the resourceful trainspotter.

Despite the contumely aimed in the direction of contrarians for deviating from the lockstep clockwork hustle of stooped pandered manipulation that peddles the wares of an entirely counterfeit reality, I stand obstinately against the melliferous stupefaction of entire genres of myth and subcultures huddled around the sentimental tug of factitious sophistries regaled by thick amorphous apostates that cherish the vacuous sidetracked spotlight with fervor rather than pausing on the enigmatic querulous inquisition about the penumbras that lurk with strained effort beneath or above the categorical nescience of the shadowy unknown that often coruscates with elegance even in obscurity. I fight with labored words to spawn a psychological discipline that invokes the incisive subaudition of the pluckily pricked exorcism of true insight from the husk of buzzwords that constellate auxiliary tangential distractions from the art form of psychological discernment that predicates itself on the concept that the rarefaction of rumination by degrees of microscopic precision enables the introspective hindsight of conscious events that can be parsed without the acrimony of cluttered conflations of the granular prowess of triumphant ratiocination that earns a panoramic perch with the added luxury of perspicacious insight into the atomic structure of the rudiments of our phenomenological field and the abstractions that linger beyond perceptual categorization. When we analyze the gradients of anger, for example, we can either be ****** into a brooded twinge of wistful resentment or we can decipher that through heuristics designed to cloister the provenance of subconscious repose with ignorance there exists a regimented array of tangential accessories embedded deep within the cavernous repository of memory that designates a cumulative trace of compounded symmetries of concordant experience immediately perceptible because of the tangible provocateur of our gripes and the largely subliminal tusk that protrudes because of primal instinct that squirms with peevishness because of the momentary context preceded by the desultory churn of smoldering associations swimming with either complete intangible sputtered mobility through the tract of subconscious hyperspace or rigidly fixated by an arraignment of circumstances with propinquity to the deep unfathomed flicker of bygones receding or protruding because of the warped and largely unpredictable rigmarole of constellated spreading activation.  
When we examine the largesse of the swift recourse of convenience we forget by degrees the travail that once bridged the span of experience from patient abeyance in provident pursuit to now the importunate glare of inflated expectations for immediacy that stings the whole enterprise of societal dynamics because it vitiates us with a complacency for the filigrees of momentary tinsel of a virtualized reality divorced from the concretism that used to undergird interaction and now stands outmoded as a wisp beyond outstretched hands straggling beyond the black mirror of a newfangled narcissistic clannishness that shepherds the ostentation of conceit to a predominant position that swaddles us with fretful diversion that operates on a warped logic of lurid squalor and pasty trends becoming the mainstays of a hypercritical linguistic system of entrapment based on the apostasy of candor for the propitiation of fringed aberration because of the majoritarian uproar about touchy butthurt pedantic criticasters with a penchant for persnickety structuralism. With the infestation of entertainment with the ubiquitous political cavils engineered by the ruling class to have a common arena of waggish irreverence we forget that sometimes the impetuous ****** of propaganda is cloaked by the fashionable implements of a rootless time writhing in a purported identity crisis only to gawk at the ungainly reflection of modernity in the mirror and remain blissfully unaware about the transmogrified cultural psyche that feeds the lunacy of endless spectacle based on the premise that one singular whipping post can unite an entire generation of miscegenated misfits looking for commonality to team up against the aging generations that cling to the sanctity of cherished jingoism against the intentionality of a revamped system that malingers with empty promises using exigency and legerdemain to obscure the mooncalves among their ranks that march on with quixotic dreams that tolerate only the idea of absolute tolerance and moderate only when feasibly permitted by the anchored negotiation of the fulcrum of totemic governmental responsibility between factions that wage volleys of invective at each other to promote a binary choice of vitiated compromises of mendaciloquence that ultimately endanger the republic with either the perils of hidebound conventionalism and nativist fervor or the boondoggles of fiscally irresponsible insanity cloaked with rainbows and participation trophies. Reproach can be distributed to both sides of the aisle because ironically in a world where gender is non-binary the most important reproductive ***** in the free world is a binary-by-default despotism that polarizes extremely ludic fantasies on the left met with the acrimony of the traditionalisms on the right that staunchly resist the fatuous confusions of delegated order only to the sharp rebuke of the revamped political vogue that owes its sustenance to a manufactured diplomacy of saccharine lies and ubiquitous lampoons that are lopsided in the direction of a globalist neoliberal bricolage of moderately popular buzzwords and the trojan horse of insubordinate flippant feminism that seeks to subvert through backhanded manipulation the patriarchy so many resent using lowbrow tactics and poignant case studies rather than legislating the egalitarian system into law using the proper channels. I myself am a political independent who sides with fiscal conservatism but libertarianism in most other affairs because the pettifoggery of law-and-order politics is a diatribe overused by sheltered suburbanites and red meat is often just as fatuous as blue tinsel and sadly in a majoritarian society the ushers of conformity demand corporate divestiture in favor of an ecological system of predictability rather than an opinionated welter of legitimate challenges to a broken system of backwards partisanship and wangled consent. Ultimately, I remain mostly apolitical, but I am a fervent champion of the mobilization of education to a statelier standard that demands rigor and responsibility rather than the chafe of rigmarole that understates the common objectives of humanity and rewards conventional thinking and nominal participation to earn credentialed pedigree when the bulk of talent resides elsewhere.
I am the coy smiling handsome man
and my feet beat the darkness away when I rush.
And I rush, in the alleys, sightless,
an actor led by lines of wilting dialogue.
And jasmine litters the gutters, fit to be dredged, the
aroma and the petals streaked with reminiscence.
I rush. I am the man toward an apogee,
a scalpel, with tastes as keen as winter lavender,
and eyes that feel the weight of tastes behind them.
As I dredge the depths for rarer tastes
I rush toward the gutter.
And like the gutters I thirst, in the levees and fen-
In the fen the rush of prey caught
Idling fills the space inside my eyes like oil,
and I dredge the lake for traces.
I am the actor, the dredge, my wit rehearsed
and I am acquainted with the lady of the night.
I smile as she caresses my oily deluged eyes-
And her eyes are filled with bile,
accented by jasmine, even
in the dimmest light of
gutters are rushing to an
apogee, fiercer than I'd like them to
appear, but I am the scalpel, to incise the insincere-
I am the prince, an heir to exacting the coerced-
I watch her eyes like windows from the gutter like a vigil
and hold tight to her breath.
I pour her blood in paper cups
until her breath is weightless-
And I rush, an actor, in the scene that we portray-
I am the giver, the oily deluged eyes that close around the flesh
and rend the fruit from the rind.
Like candle light we illuminate dark corridors,
As we dredge deep into our hearts,
Searching for a mirror to reflect the sun

I invite you to dig Deeper
Transform the Dreamer
Society is starving
For your mind and body
Become the change you want to be

Like floating stones we skip across the surface; leaping toward our true purpose
Like Brilliant tones we bounce in hues; through tunes, relics, and runes

I invite you to dig Deeper
Transform the Dreamer
Society is starving
For your mind and body
Become the change you want to be

Like spinning plates we shift the ocean floor; clockwork quakes rise from the core
Like divine starscapes we open cosmic doors; surging wakes of universal lore

I invite you to dig Deeper
Transform the Dreamer
Society is starving
For your mind and body
Become the change you want to be
[On my birthday]
                
                
At low tide like this how sheer the water is.
White, crumbling ribs of marl protrude and glare
and the boats are dry, the pilings dry as matches.
Absorbing, rather than being absorbed,
the water in the bight doesn't wet anything,
the color of the gas flame turned as low as possible.
One can smell it turning to gas; if one were Baudelaire
one could probably hear it turning to marimba music.
The little ocher dredge at work off the end of the dock
already plays the dry perfectly off-beat claves.
The birds are outsize. Pelicans crash
into this peculiar gas unnecessarily hard,
it seems to me, like pickaxes,
rarely coming up with anything to show for it,
and going off with humorous elbowings.
Black-and-white man-of-war birds soar
on impalpable drafts
and open their tails like scissors on the curves
or tense them like wishbones, till they tremble.
The frowsy sponge boats keep coming in
with the obliging air of retrievers,
bristling with jackstraw gaffs and hooks
and decorated with bobbles of sponges.
There is a fence of chicken wire along the dock
where, glinting like little plowshares,
the blue-gray shark tails are hung up to dry
for the Chinese-restaurant trade.
Some of the little white boats are still piled up
against each other, or lie on their sides, stove in,
and not yet salvaged, if they ever will be, from the last bad storm,
like torn-open, unanswered letters.
The bight is littered with old correspondences.
Click. Click. Goes the dredge,
and brings up a dripping jawful of marl.
All the untidy activity continues,
awful but cheerful.
I shall never get you put together entirely,
Pieced, glued, and properly jointed.
Mule-bray, pig-grunt and ***** cackles
Proceed from your great lips.
It's worse than a barnyard.

Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle,
Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other.
Thirty years now I have labored
To dredge the silt from your throat.
I am none the wiser.

Scaling little ladders with glue pots and pails of Lysol
I crawl like an ant in mourning
Over the weedy acres of your brow
To mend the immense skull-plates and clear
The bald, white tumuli of your eyes.

A blue sky out of the Oresteia
Arches above us. O father, all by yourself
You are pithy and historical as the Roman Forum.
I open my lunch on a hill of black cypress.
Your fluted bones and acanthine hair are littered

In their old anarchy to the horizon-line.
It would take more than a lightning-stroke
To create such a ruin.
Nights, I squat in the cornucopia
Of your left ear, out of the wind,

Counting the red stars and those of plum-color.
The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue.
My hours are married to shadow.
No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel
On the blank stones of the landing.
No, I have a ritual.
I turn it over and shake it.
Get all the loose crud out,
then take a paperclip & dredge
the remaining particles of detritus,
The dust can,
preferably with a red straw.
Clorox the tops of the keys,
The sides of them
(scrape, if necessary)
Then dredge the bottom again.
Repeat with the phone, the 10-key.
Blow these actions up,
Apply to thoughts, actions, emotions
Swirl it all down the drain...
Inspired by Hailey L's Do You Ever
Tags: grot, keyboard, OCD, boredom
©Atalanta Undigested, 2013. All Rights Reserved.
The Whisper Aug 2014
I sink.
Deep.
Further,
And further...

Down.

Until I reach the sea floor; scattered and strewn with my memories of you.
The floor beneath the Sea of Memory.

"How messy...", I think.
How will I ever find that memory of you?
That moment of bliss that you shared with me?

So I search on my knees as I dig through the dirt.
Through the memories of hell in the form of clumps.
Of **** and grime.
Of dust and filth.
In the form of all the pain that you caused me when you left.

Digging.
Digging.
Digging.

Encompassed by the sea,
I can still feel the tears rolling down my face.
Becoming a part of the Sea of Memory.

And the search goes on.

And on.
And on.
And on.

Desperation.
Suffering from starvation.
Fueled by your negation
Of our love.

The clouds of dust that I've created,
The product of my search,
Of my own aberration,
Bury me in the soil beneath the sea.

The Sea of Memory.
Does the form that our memories take in our minds seem a little unorganized to you?

And how we search endlessly, sometimes, for the memories that we cherish the most?
The River was dredged in multitudes,
A shadow of foreshadowing,
Against the mud and ichor, the servitude,
...The mass of bodies that came to floating,
Each face found lifeless, frozen genocide,
The peace in death, lost senses,
Against the tides the Moon hadn't faced,
The creeping stigmata, relentless.
Each one found their own disgrace,
The shocking scene of horror,
Left aversion in each innocent face,
Disturbed, the fishermen who found it
To be gentile in its own way,
The bloated faces rotting,
Beautiful in their decay.
Alone within my emotional wilderness

A reverie along memory lane when, this lviii sea sunned
row man (stills paddles in oarlocks and serenely quizzically,
lackadaisically, and harmoniously drifts) along the slip
stream of time. Awash on his figurative manual navigated
opportunistic prideful quintessential schooner reflects,
regales, and revisits ebbing lapsed instances (fast receding
into the past time, when psychological instability grounded
fragile my self esteem (generated venting, steaming, and
piping hot brickbats). As a newly minted harrumphing,
grubbing, and floundering dada enmeshment (analogous
to a fish caught in a net, hence quickly ricocheting, rabidly
splashing, and sloppily thrashing) predicated my foray
into das fatherhood. Aye experienced nearest approximation
Bing battered, rammed, and torpedoed from glomming
(par for the course riot ting heaps) necessarily imposed
adult responsibility. Such metaphorical motoring across
avast Battle Creek with no landfall in sight, this then nada
so Grand Turk (key in the straw) Otto man continually
snapped, cracked and popped. This human ping-pong
fitbit part player papa felt akin to subjection re: thralldom).
At this juncture in me cross currents of existence I can
harken back to those most exhausting, fatiguing, and
grueling endeavors. Hindsight offers this aging baby
boomer the luxury to cast astern. Retrospective leisurely
trawls along the shoals throes of fatherhood allow,
enable and provide and opportunity to scrutinize per
chance, where arises this on account of the empty nest
syndrome. Ordinarily the wife (i.e. missus to appear
more formal), would caw out my name nonstop….
”Matt”…”Matt”…”Matt”…, but she opted to organize
the cluster of assorted household items at the apart
ment (located in Crum Lynne – Ridley Township),
we hope to move within a fortnight. Thy spouse
volunteered her own mini reprieve by setting order
to the miscellaneous fixings gradually amassed,
appropriated, and gifted thru out the twenty plus
years of marriage, which hodgepodge of personal
possessions downsized whence circumstance dictates
evaluating goods having keepsake meaning versus
anomaly of belongings to be unloaded, repurposed
for someone else, or ordained as unworthy to schlep.
Alone asper like a very brief sabbatical from marriage
finds stillness amidst the white noise of the whirring
fan. Thus, I sit here ruminating how to dredge up
some idea for a poem,  (non) fiction or essay. This
husband became acclimated, conditioned, and em
bossed with a mate a tete for two plus decades,
whereby both thee dos delightful daughters on
Track 742 heading west. Honest to dog, I miss
the role of fatherhood when either off spring
(with an age difference of approximately twenty
five plus months) romped, scampered, and trotted
as toddlers, and upon childhood, thy little girls
found exultant excitement dashing higgledy-
piggledy, hither and yon, to and fro across the
playground as most glorious human indulgence.
Despite the plaintive wail vis a vis Juliet saying
goodnight to Romeo (…parting is such sweet
sorrow) haint pleasurable atoll. Hitherto un
known that during the most vexing, trying,
and quaking bouts when both kin of thy ****
fought like angry cats would there transpire
the occasion of sincere tearfulness ululating
vain warbling. Now a pang of nostalgia arises
when I drive past their happy go lucky stomp
ping turf, or reflect on answering the trumpet
call to chauffer one or thee other to amusement
park, play date, mall, favorite toy store such as
Fivebelow, birthday party, et cetera. Even
certain tunes recalled to mind and/or heard
being broadcast across the audio logical spec
trum a cause for moistened tear ducts. Wince
with sadness also mixed with sigh lent bundled
expostulations of joy. Both progeny metamorphosed
into able bodied, minded and spirited lasses,
whose attainment far exceeded any projections
internally forecast. Initial onset of parent role
found me all thumbs. Prior to begetting two
darling dames, this chap spent disproportionate
number of hours sequestered within some hide
away, which frequently happened to be the
designated bedroom at 324 Level Road, College
Ville, Pennsylvania, 19010. Never did thee major
rit tee days of mine life point to babysitting or
working with that chronological demographics
comprising the adoring blessed innocence,
murmuring newborn obliviousness, that bespoke
penultimate unsullied, utmost virtue necessitating
interaction with tender infants beckoning being
cradled, endearingly fondled, demonstrably easing
fondness gripping heartstrings issue jetblue kinks.
Aye felt pitched headlong into this foreign territory,
and initially experienced utmost awkwardness when
attending, pampering and pulling (albeit gently)
upsy daisy, the nascent hint of autonomy. Remembrance
and recollection of élan, joie de vivire, and yea those
ear splitting threshold of pain screaming tantrums
all boxed into tidy wholesome Zen announcing
nuggets of greater meaningfulness and absolute
value. The above long winded reverie intended and
meant tubby a semi biography, but leave hit up to
his hie n hiss, he went way overboard, and will give
a one line summarization to describe his i.e. yours truly
life sentence fate decreed. He (this Anglophile chipper
chap lived under duress of extreme anxiety, obsessive/
compulsive behavior, panic attacks and essentially
schizoid personality disorder for the greater part
of his life and hard times, which raw bits would
warrant fleshing out to extrapolate how these psychic
pitfalls represented critical factors at various and
sundry turning points in his life.
Sleepy Sigh Sep 2010
I like my headphones for the
Insulation. Sometimes my ears
Take in too much stray noise,
Dredge up too much disorienting
Mud from the depths of a TV
Screen or an iPod. Then I can
Always snuggle into my headphones
And be silent - and silence is a
Dear dear commodity, to be sure,
When every other scene-
Stealing, pudgy-mouthed buffoon
Has to put his ten cents in. So
Much sound should be a sin;
Background music, ambient noise,
Music for airports, and pubescent
Boys screeching from tinny silver
Speakers near the wall. I don't
Want it, not every bit, not all
The hate and the slippery tongues
That speak and salivate and don't
Say anything human. I want to reprimand,
To excommunicate them from
This Holy rite of sound. (And really,
I would be content to never hear
Music if I could block out the roundabout
Fights and the sultry nightlife descriptions
Gushing from my screen, if I could
Use my headphones to keep
That liquid crystal from pouring in
My too needfully silent ears.)
Maybe I'll follow a painter's path:
All visuals and open dripping wet
Wrath with a noisy race. I can be a
Terrifying girl. Cut off my ears and
Be deaf to the world. Wrap me in
Canvas and chase me back into the
Woods on a starry starry night.
you know the drill

Meh.
Denel Kessler Feb 2016
Everything heavy
settles
accumulating
as I go about
my external life
like my inner one
doesn't exist

when the tide
recedes
on my knees
in the fetid mud
I will dredge
meaning from
the layers
Sarah Wilson Apr 2011
i really don't understand why i am this way.
why every day is a struggle, why i have to dredge up
every single ******* positive thought from the parts of my heart
that continue to beat and bleed.

i really don't understand why i can do this.
why i can sling excuses and *******, why i can talk away
every single ******* positive thing that could happen to me when
all i want is something to smile at.

i really don't understand what keeps me here.
what keeps me holding on to you, what makes me think of
every single ******* positive thing you did for me
when there was so much negative.

i really, really don't understand why everything i write
is so angry, so sad, so ******* angsty,
even when i've had a wonderful day and i could swear to you,
i could swear it doesn't hurt anymore.

nothing hurts anymore, and nothing makes me angry.
walk away from everything i felt for you
and everything i did for you
and all the tears i ******* cried for you,
and it won't hurt me, not this time.
i've literally been trying to make something of this poem for months. nothing's come of it. so i threw some more onto it and that's it, i'm leaving it. i can't write for **** anymore.
Geno Cattouse Oct 2012
What is the thing in us who love to pluck the strings of our imaginations
and try to create resonance with the words that float to the page. To create something from the
nothingness .
We paint our pictures in tortured hues or opaque clutters of expression. At times the palate will surprise even we who mix and stir and strive to find a unique shade or texture. We trawl and dredge and send up pretty balloons  in hopes they will return with answers. Well I do

I am odd in that regard. I think all who strive to express , to be heard, to hear to see to grasp and
be ambushed by sudden revaluation. To make sense of it all. to look deep within and waft on the wind at once are kin.

What is it for you?
To wash away pain.
To turn your face to the pelting rain and feel the value of your existence.

What is it for you?
To say the things your mouth cannot express, untie your fettered tongue.
Do you dream in color.
Does  your poets voice speak to you in hushed tranquil tones
or rumble and stutter or whisper softly from dank and dusty places.

What is it for You.
A way out of your suppression if not expression.
The rubbing of a soothing salve over the aches and pains endured.
The betrayal acknowledged. The Key finding purchase in the  rusted lock. The key falling from your hands in the pitch dark once again as you wake up and find yet another door to open.

What is it for you. For me it is validation that my mind is unique as the neurons fire and
speak a language spoken not by many. We are seekers. You and I.
I do not fit the profile. I am rough and hard  my facade has bonded with my skin. But look within. I am bookish and brutal.Loving and glacial. Witty but slow. Volatile but pensive . A walking talking conundrum. I do it just to **** withum.

Why do you love poetry.
What leaks out of you mind.
What goes in.
What is it ?


.
v V v Apr 2019
She told me to
"Imagine a safe place",
a quiet place, somewhere to go
when the fog is at my feet.

But everywhere I went was
crowded with doubt
and a lingering loitering
presence on my shoulder,
come out from the fog to
hurl accusations and taunt.

I can only assume
it's a he on my shoulder,
an enigma,
my father's doppelganger
come to dredge my mind
of all the **** he dished out
when I was a child,

and feed it back to me again.


I tell her I'll need more tools
and stronger ideas.

So she gives me a seat at
the head of the table
where my ****** committee meets,
and a gavel to establish order
or bash in their brains.

She arms my dreams
with weapons and courage,
gives me REM when I'm wide awake.

We fashion a furnace of love,
hot enough to vaporize the
cold darkness pouring into my gut,
customized with levers and pulleys
to push and to pull in the fight.

We tally
Alpha and Beta waves,
trained and retrained,
hard coded messages
sanded smooth by repetition.

       Through it all I give too,
       and what I give is all I can give,
       it is the warmth of what enslaves me,
       and the thought of letting it go….  
       Well.... lets not go there right now.


In the long run I'm not sure that
any of it will be enough,
I am weakened by the war.

But occasionally there
are shiny spots that simmer,

You see,
I may have found that place,
the place she first told me to find
way back at the beginning,
the place to feel safe, although
it isn't really a place per se.

If it were true
I could finally ascend to
where no fog can go.
Where my father's voice
cannot be heard,
nor the ghosts I grew
up with.

A place of love and honesty,
where my furnace would sit idle in awe.

There is a picture of us
on our bedroom wall.
It is the perfect depiction of
all that is safe for me.

I look at your smile
and I see peace.
Nothing can penetrate
your radiance,
you are everything
I've never had,
double layered and
impenetrable
by all of it.

By all of the ****.

I am learning to go there
when the fog is at my feet,
and the ghosts are in my ear.

When the accusations come
I can escape there with you,

and together we can drown them out

if only for a little while.
Recently began therapy for my "issues"  related to PTSD.  Needless to say the therapeutic tools available today are much better than they were 20 years ago.
CA Guilfoyle Feb 2015
It is nothing hard to reach, looking outward
countless distractions, how they move me about
I play a game, circling moon-blue rings of sky
see a rivulet of stars quiver by.

It is nothing easy, fretful, I tremble with night
dark unnerving path, I run and hide
amble, fumble my way to reach inside.

It is something worthwhile at times to swallow a river
dredge miles of soul, to crumble stony towers
reconstruct this apprenticeship
slipping back into softness.
Third Eye Candy Feb 2013
They sell sandwiches and little nightmares with vanity inside.
i glide to a booth and schmooze the next wet group of compromised -
And Charlotte's web
of insular jokes,
snare me from outside my comfort zone...
and i own the green eggs and ham of our sepia tone in the septic lake
of our laughing groan.
We enjoy the view.
I drink to be We and Apart from you.
But the kegs dredge.
They plunder the blunderbuss of our best shot. With Silencer.
We crowd loudly in the Big Easy of our modern strife.
We scrape with dull Lives,
save those with sharp Eyes that see spigots
as unseen Blithe !
We gather in the Hemisphere of our Wanton Anonymity,
as divulged mirrors
in a House
of Cards....

All of my Best Jokes
are Friends
With hearts....
and Then
some...
Ignatius Hosiana May 2016
Don't wait till I'm tired to encourage me,I won't move on
Don't wait till I'm crippled to tell me about miracles,I won't believe
Don't wait till I'm frozen to warm me,I won't appreciate
Don't wait until I've stepped the trap to caution me, it won't help
Don't wait till I'm shattered to tell me I can be whole, I won't listen
Don't wait for me to yawn to give me food, I won't eat it
Don't wait until the treasures are depleted to tell me if I dig I'll find
its useless to tell me passion will drive me insane after I'm out of my mind
Don't wait till I'm famous to praise my pieces, aren't you seeing them now?
Don't wait until the Antelope has turned tail to hand me the bow
Don't wait for the birds to fly off the tree to hand me the catapult
Don't wait for me to step on the live wire to lecture me about vaults
Don't wait for me to slip and fall to tell me the place is slippery when wet
Don't wait until you've wronged me to preach "forgive and forget"
Don't wait until I'm in flames to tell me not to play with fire, bury my ashes
Don't try shutting stables after they're gone, instead run after those Horses
Don't wait until I'm soaked to give me an umbrella,I won't accept
Don't wait for the storms to wreck me to show me how to sail
who can listen to instructions while battling waves and hail
Don't wait until the snake has stricken to tell me about the venoms
for a dying man has no time and ears for caution then on
Don't wait for the war to devastate and ruin to preach peace
bombs would have deafened or the machetes cut me piece by piece
Don't wait for me to plunge to ask me if I've worn a ******
like a kidnapper freeing hostages prior demanding for ransom
Don't wait until I've dived into the Sea to ask whether I can swim
Don't wait for the end of days to find out whether I believes in Him
Don't wait until I'm bleeding to tell me about the beauty of scars
or until a clear night to praise the beauty of stars
Don't wait until I'm malnourished to bring me aid
until I'm dead and gone to praise the words I said
Don't wait for my life to flood to dredge the silt
that wouldn't be kindness, that would either be mockery or guilt  
Don't wait for me to find someone to feelings for me admit
Don't wait to offer a helping hand when I'm totally deadbeat
why wait to raise a wall when you can fill the crevice
you have something to do, to instill, to say, to caution, to give
do it now while I smile, while I'm strong, while I live
Don't  speak about the adulterations after I've drunk from the chalice
Cry Sebastian Jan 2010
The broken mold lies screaming with hopelessness,
its purpose lost-
the clay has discarded the form the artist wanted to emulate.

The mistake,
the fault,
the glitch,
warped from the copy to become an original-
not as desired or required,
but having a will of its own.

To realise the dream,
is to satisfy the itch.

To wake from the dredge
is the Life on the edge.

The fault of finding freedom from frigidity.

Spectacular views are seen when you wake from the dream
and the colours scream like coffee and cream

Laugh at the imagery,
the cardboard cutout words strung together like sweet christmas decorations.
Fall in the pool
like a funny bunny cartoon.

Be the sad clown for one more noisy day-
and while you're at it:
brush a giraffes teeth.

Smile at the dreary monotony
and greet the ever grey sky
like a buzzy nook not.
I feel as if I am trapped in this box,
Where everyone else has put me
But I know I don’t belong.

Suffocated - they make me feel it,
I can’t stand existing inside this bubble:
The walls are thick, there’s no way out,
It’s the home of the unfound,
Where they put people like me who they can’t make sense of,
Patients they can’t diagnose unless it’s with the term “functional.”
I know there are others,
But I feel so alone,
Isolated from being understood
By the only people who are able to help me.

They won’t help me,
I try to fight back, I try to scream
Either no one hears me, or they take it as a mark of insanity.

It’s hard to speak up,
When you know the process all too well,
You walk in, they repeat things that hurt you (psychosomatic), and then you walk out,
Though you don’t know how,
Because inside you’re torn down again,
Answers aren’t found and each time is worse,
You’re still struggling but they insist
That you’re as healthy as you’ve ever been,
So once again you’ve been missed,
By professionals trained to catch out illness.

Every time your reality trips you down again,
You repeat the words they told you:
“You’re fine,”
You tell yourself you can do it
-But not out of encouragement,
Instead of disdain, because when no one acknowledges you
Why should you not question yourself?
We are taught from a young age these are the people you should depend on and treat with respect,
So even when they toss you aside:
Remember to say “thank you” and walk out with a smile,
Seeing as they believe that you really are wasting their time.

This is what nightmares are made of,
Except when you’re both asleep and awake
It’s always still there.
It’s hard enough passing each day this way,
But without an ounce of recognition,
I wonder why I should even stay.

I don’t want to do this anymore,
But still I have to knock on doors,
Basically asking people to reject what I live,
Constantly trying to prove that I’m sick,
To countless people who don’t give a ****.
It’s already too much effort existing like this,
Yet I have to get out of my bed to prove it,
Even though each time they write an essay about me being fine,
Or maybe a few words because I’m such a waste of time.
I face what I fear everyday because my health’s at fault,
Yet they say it’s not really at all.
It’s been a year and they still have the audacity to tell me,
It’s because I’m not coping mentally.

Maybe I am a mess psychologically,
But I want you to know, it’s only because of them.
I would be stable, I’d be perfectly fine,
If they didn’t keep coming around telling me my efforts are wasted,
That I just can’t deal with my mind no matter how much I already put in,
So clearly I will just never be fixed.
It’s what they’ve told me though, it’s all of their responses and words,
That made me question my sanity,
That dredge up all of my anger for them,
Because not one bit of acknowledgement did they spread.

So here I lay,
Stuck in this box where no one can see me,
I can’t fix myself because - it wasn’t my state of mind that was broken.
I’ve been here for four-hundred-and-seventeen days,
Where I try to imagine a future where I’ll be safe,
But the trauma of looking for a diagnosis I know will stay,
Because they told me it was only caused my trauma in the first place,
But the only kind I’ve experienced
Is the kind they inflicted whilst I was already suffering.
Keith W Fletcher Dec 2015
Its the little things they say
That makes our lives complete
Little thoughts-little deeds
That small gesture ...
        .....offering up a seat
To someone you see in need
And the smile you get
Offer accepted or refused
That says "Thanks friend...
           ...that helped to raise my spirit
That the day had abused
Maybe some small gift you get
Just to let you know
Not only are you appreciated
We wished to make sure and tell you so

Its those little smells
That can raise titanic memories
And those little angry words
That can dredge up titanic agonies

Its those little bitty battles
Fought with nasty little words
That leave those little tiny scars
You get from hearing what you heard

Its just a little color
On a grey and dreary day
That can take some gigantic problem
And just melt it all away
mmm
you dredge up the memories of lost secrets
gathered up
in made up words and our twisted limbs and now
packed with yellowing newspapers in the cardboard boxes
lining the attic
ancient jokes are unpeeled too, dry and cracking
they emerge to see the sunlight
but are quickly blinded, ouch!
those pictures of our shared smiles and oh so tender embraces have faded
to sepia tone in their brittle wooden frames,
be careful as you grab them down from the shelf,
they might break.
Mmm* it all comes back to me now
-our treasure trove of antique memories-
as you oh so slyly mention them in passing,
slip in those references that you
know
I’ll remember,
Aren’t you cool as a cucumber now?
but they crumble quickly in your hand
and I only hear wisps of our whispers
as the record player leaves scratches on the disks
ah darling be careful you’re about to drop it all down the 3 flights of stairs and it might all smash into microscopic pieces so very
very
soon
mari Oct 2021
degenerate beauty queen
treasure from the dredge of the Earth
strung up like Christmas lights
white crystal **** aflame
hydrangeas cower from her gaze
pink ribbons stained with age
droop lonesome in soft noir locks
pulled loose from men along the way

she'll be lucky if she doesn't die young
photos on the television
gunned down in some gang's maze
or somewhere in the gutters she calls home
expensive death bought by scratch
she'll be lucky to make it to twenty three
cigarettes and xanax soothe her to sleep
dancing on a silver pole took her hazily

high school diploma left her trailer park bound
never felt love 'less it came from a bottle
kissed only by knuckles since she began
running from ambitions to become no one
just someone's baby mama left shattered
she smiles to the world, for anyone who can see
inside she's full of rage, i see the tear stains
mascara runs black from her bambi eyes

complacent at best, naïve at worst
****** never grew up, she just grew angrier
i pray for you and the person you've become
ring me when you find your head
ring me when you find your way home
there's nothing from you that i wanna take
no matter how insignificant or terrifying
i love you forever and always
you will never be anything but beautiful to me
Christopher Lowe Sep 2015
Broken bottle friends, some call it social alcoholism
Everyone’s famous, for the night at least
The value of signatures
Listed above names on bar receipts
Drug dealers playing in the street, what some might call shamanism
All it really is, just an eclectic collectivism
That leads to remarkable nights that aren’t remembered
Realizations that problems are just and our lives dredge on
Invincible for the night
Or perhaps
Just brave enough to embrace ones true self
Third Eye Candy Dec 2012
velveteen ruins cluster hush the horizon
smearing dusk and warp across the frog croak fracas
of the outer wilderness, where the buildings disassemble
the domiciles of dank and drab. where no maidens
await rescue. just the desolate hub  
of wilt and bane. towers felled by iron claws
and engines of rake and drain. our progressive diaspora
of un-living things. the faint jewelery of our banshee
before swine.
dead of night prone... while reading  ' Confessions Of A Hope Fiend '
we are leery of our tiny Thames
but dredge our Vistas
for humming
bugs.
Terry O'Leary May 2013
12 BARS

Twelve brazen bars, one frozen lock!
Confined, sublime, an ancient Roc
endures inside a barren cage,
her catacomb in sundown sage.

Of former days there is no trace
except displays of fallen grace –
Twelve dreams, abiding in her place,
are free, inhabit yawning space:

               12 DREAMS

... of wings unfurled, and seething eyes
that dredge the depths of dawning skies,
devining clouds that cling below,
once ice, dissolved in morning’s glow;

... of clutching winds that carry free
above an anguished leaden sea,
dispersing dust of distant stars
midst chunks of chain in slave bazaars;

... of swooping to a silent shore
to perch beside the ocean’s roar,
at last to feel the sobbing breeze
message the leaves of rooted trees;

... of stalking strays and twilight tramps
within the fog of lighthouse lamps
that blink forlorn through caldron nights
in search of shades of errant Kites;

... of darkling vast deserted lands,
with shadowed stones on windswept sands,
where ghosts of Moorish maidens lost
disgorge faint groans in mourning frost;

... of blotting out the bloated moon
while feathers beat a banshee tune
and glimmers dance and prance aglow
upon a pearly pale plateau;

... of tasting cool torrential rains,
beyond the realm of binding chains,
and sipping freedom they exude
in quite drops of solitude;

... of vanquishing a galley crew
aboard a ship in midnight dew,
beneath the pierce of seagulls' screams
that mock the strands of scarlet streams;

... of sating once an aching craw
with tearing beak, with ripping claw,
and echoed by an eldritch screech
while feasting on abandoned beach;

... of restive thoughts and weary wings
that drift on haze in smoky rings,
obscured within the opal shroud
of her resemblance in the crowd;

... of croaking caws in broken rhyme
in winter woe, in summer clime,
while building nests of sundown sage
beyond outside a barren cage.
H W Erellson Jun 2014
Clinging to the eternal truth
That manaña never comes
But put all faith in the dawn of tomorrow
All the eggs in the sunlit basket

Because here, now,
In the dust of the crushed buildings
The pettiness, the bite of bullets from rooftops
The megaphones screeching their siren songs across
The dredge of forbidden earth,
Here and now
We embrace,

In the dawn of mañana a mother feeds a son
Toasts are made
The Spanish smile and
Gesture to the sky;
They are undefeatable
In the face of defeat;
In the face of mañana.
possible second part to my original piece 'HUESCA' on the Spanish civil war.
Matthew Oct 2014
Two sailors navigate a turquoise sea
To stay afloat we made a brittle boat
The ship rides low: we’ve got buckets of glee.
It’s made from sails of laughter, planks of hope

The boldest storm can put away its thunder
Our rolling sails will last through coldest night
The stars will turn their icy orbs and wonder
How we manage to float along alright

But,

Green ocean waves themselves have turned cliche
And god, I keep on dreaming ‘bout that prow
My bottom-dwelling thoughts ruin the day
I want to wet my freezing feet somehow.

So,

I’ll sink the ship and dredge the empty sea
Because I'm so ******* thirsty.
I've been playing around with fixed forms. Also, I am miserable.
ConnectHook Sep 2015
You were telling him about Buddha,
you were telling him about Mohammed in the same breath
You never mentioned one time the Man who came
and died a criminal’s death.     [Bob Dylan: Precious Angel]

If Christ and His Gospel are offered you
you squirm—then dredge up the gods of the East.
Your act of avoidance is nothing new—
salvation proposed: evasion increased.
Waxing socialistic – as if on cue
your blustering is consistent, at least.
you brandish your anti-Christ point of  view.
Descending like Darwin: angel to beast.
In Babylon’s gardens you disembark
to deconstruct Noah, the flood, the ark.
On Gilgamesh, Enkidu, in madness
you ramble—and it fills me with sadness.
There is one truth, undiscerned, unadored.
Be still. In silence, acknowledge your Lord.
Proof #1: Man has no natural desire or ability to obey or please God for salvation.

Proof #2: God expressly denies man's will or works in obtaining salvation.

Proof #3: Faith and works are results of salvation, not conditions or means for it.

Proof #4: Jesus Christ saves sinners by Himself without any human cooperation.

Proof #5: The gospel and its ordinances were never intended to give eternal life.

Proof #6: The Bible gives examples of sinners saved without any conditions.

Proof #7: Unconditional salvation is the only doctrine giving God all the glory.
Apparently, there is a word for people who like to cover up pain with a smile.
That's such an odd thing to have a label and concept around
Considering how broad the meaning could be.
Are these people simply masochists?
What type of pain are they subject to?
Physical?
Mental?
Emotional?
My body doesn't always know the difference.

But when I think about my personal embodiment of such a concept,
I think of tense social situations.
Either private, or public
With only one other person, or a group
And the smallest tip of the scales has led to,
what was previously,
a tall and solid tower sculptured by your own iron will
Only to be unveiled in all its fragility
as a flimsy stack of paper sheets

Maybe you see your ex-lover are at a coffee shop
And you realize they don't think about you all that much any more
Or maybe they never did
Or maybe they just moved on.

He used to say he saw a universe inside of you
and oh, how he longed to be a part of it.
One day, he could see a future with you
One day.
But just not now.
He lied.

The anger grazes a kiss across your heartstrings
like the most vengeful angel fire
It sends low and heavy static through your bones until waves reach your seasick gut
and all of its contents beg to scrape a way back out of you now.
You're restless jaw flexes
primal reactions lead to feeling far too eager
to latch onto flesh and rip
Maybe you catch your own tongue or cheek in the process
and the blood will taste familiar
and coppery sweet

You're probably enraged.
You feel livid and betrayed and
entitled to their future and love and
at least some sort of explanation.
As if that would serve as sugar
to make the drug taste sweeter on the way down.
But, it does not change what's underneath that loud, hot and passionate aggression.

You're sad.
Your hurt, demanding to be heard.
Your body is carrying weight it wasn't a few moments before
And yet, you have not shown any of this.
You're not throwing a fit,
knocking over ****
or punching him in the face
in the way you really, really want to.
You're not screaming, or crying, disappearing or leaving
in a way you wish you could even more.

Because you may think your first response is more trouble overall if expressed
On some level you don't want to guilt or blame on this person
You may want to make it seem you're in the same boat of composure and indifference.
As if this show of self restraint will change his mind
And he'll come running back to you
As if him being impressed by apathy
and begging forgiveness is what you'd want him to do

No, on some level, its a feeling of embarrassment
and trying to cover up the fact that
four poems and two songs ago you swore
you'd stop having feelings for this boy
That your heart was your own once again,
and no one had a leash to **** you around
one way or the other.

Nonetheless, out loud, you say: "oh."
Because that is a few second window
to wrap all the dread and fury and hyperactivity
the adrenaline has shot into your bloodstream.
The entire world is frantically on full volume
There's a locomotive, crashing against your sternum
every split second
And you have to dye every sun spotted moment with him
In oily black disappointment

"Oh" buys you enough space to find bandages to hide the bruises
underneath your chest
In that "oh" you have compacted all that space junk whipping around and rattling your skeleton into a black hole
that will self destruct and,
hopefully,
collapse all it's contents unto itself

You hold that star sucker in your centre
and you slap a smile on top
You grin in the face of your own pain
Because it is safe, and what is familiar to you.
And you can hold it in a cocoon for protection
until your left alone to bleed
or breathe
or convince yourself this never really mattered.

But for right now, you show complacence in this agony
as not risk any more damage with exposure
Maybe you say something that sounds mature and impartial.
Convince them you are so happy they've had something good come into their life;
Implying that the same has come to you
Something, at the time,
you can't remember is necessarily true or not.

You are insistent not to stir the living creature
wrangled in muscle
sitting atop your lungs
And that grimace is a 'Do not Disturb' sign.

I think "oh" speaks for itself in its pain and simplicity
Its a gasp of pain
And the pause after a blow
The start to so many sentences with no end
And a reoccurring soundtrack to all my reluctant epiphanies
Played on repeat
and more consistently skipping than my lovers.

Disheartening moments like that
serve as uneven pavement I trip over and simultaneously
have gravel split my skin and break my nose on impact.

"Oh" was the delayed fire alarm
to tell you the building has already burnt to the ground.
Come and see the remaining disaster, now that it's over.
Watch helplessly as the building collapses with a whisper.
"Oh."

That is the sound of you hearing part of your friend group
Still hangs out with your local ******
Even after the dam of stories cracked onto their lap
the night they assured you that you had their ear
That they were listening
That someone cared
But now he's a different guy around me,
he doesn't remember it, I swear.

"Oh," is realizing the friend you never quite got the chance to know in school
killed themselves last week.
It's the sound that escapes me, when someone is interested in who I am
Until they realize I'm trans.
It's a noise that gets stolen when people are interested in me,
accept me for being trans,
but leave when I fall short of expectation because of who I am.

There is so much hurt encapsulated in those two letters
one syllable
one sound
for me
It's packed in pearly whites and dead eyes
a shaky wall with a tornado tucked behind.
How can a storm pass so quickly
Without any sign of trouble outside?

Simply put:
I don't want to let anyone know
I would rather be left to suffer on my own
Without any rescue team to disappoint
when they cannot find a single living body
to dredge from the rubble.
Traveler Dec 2019
I stand for love
For I believe love
Holds the only remedy
After all everyone deserves
To live their live's in
A state of blissful dignity

My weary pen runs dry
As my word's frantically cry
What if it was you or I
Would a Poet love you
Enough to even try

Try and shed light
On your private hell
Even if it were to mean
This soul I must sell
Real love is where I live
Surely I was put here
To give and give
And give

In my callused hands
I grip the dredge
Of humanity
Like a still born
I cradle calamity
I could never let you fall
With real love
I will carry us all
.......................
Traveler Tim
maybe we met and I , I forgot.

I am unashamedly Ashley. At least that's what "hellopoetry" calls me. Tumblr calls me "vesperoflove", but if you really knew me you'd drop off the glitz and just call me "Ash".

And here we are sitting on the subway and something about you makes me want to open up. Maybe it's the way you smile or the wrinkles you get when you are trying not to. But I look into your eyes and you hold my gaze, and I like that. You aren't staring at me like I am worthless piece of trash nor have you look at me like I am a piece of ***, you are just looking into my eyes. I am flattered by the attention, I might stumble over words, and your interest might even cause me to blush. You ask to sit by me and I wave you in, and that's where this new chapter begins.

"Hi." I say working up the nerve to meet your gaze,and I blush, I am the abscence of your color and I stare down at my legs and as you rearrange yours to accommodate the length of your logs extensions of your long trunk, I note the contrast in appreciation.

And I get distracted by this, but you are asking me questions about my life and I try and dredge up silver lining in monotony of years.

    What have I done exciting?
    What do I hope to accomplish?
    Where do I see myself in the next five years?
    What do I want?
And that is only the tip of the Iceberg you have thrown in my lap.

Coming off as an host of a talk radio show, I ponder these illuminating thoughts.

And your probably not the first person to ask me these things, but right now its like I have never been truly asked.

I don't know why I haven't asked these things of myself.

But cargo doesn't ask or question. And maybe that's how I have been living my life.

Merely reacting to things that have happened in the past and in the present.

I would like to blame it on my poverty mindset. On the way I grew up. But then when does my accountability start.When do I get to make choices for me, and be held responsible.

At the age 18 when I can rent ****, buy stick de cancer?

What age do we become our own person, driven by our own desires?

But you aren't worried of the questions I haven't begun to ask and I like that.
I lean in closer hoping to gauge you reaction in your eyes.
I am known and you see me not as I am but what I could be and all the things I have yet to achieve do not mar your rose color glasses.

I find joy in the kindness of strangers and reprieve.
Different then some of my usual stuff but just had to lay it out.
[draft.  I am a work in progress and so is this.]
Ariana May 2012
I hide behind a guileless face; shameful.
I can't stand to see what lies inside.
You dredge up everything I've kept buried away.
All my secrets, my fears, my shattered dreams.
I'm always caught between the anger and apathy.
What is it that you want from me?
You, with your faithless eyes and ***** lies.
Forever building me up just to watch me fall,
Giving me everything, only to ****** it away.
At the end of the day, you're no savior.

But I refuse to break.
Not about a specific person per se, more like a mash up about everyone who's been bringing me down lately.
Sora Jan 2014
The orbs are comfortable
To lay within the glow
Rounding up and over the moon lit by
Nightly prayers from the children and the whispering ambitions of the aged

Will we ever fit in
Well, fit out of the confinements we dredge to make it all okay when the family cries
Each of us have all been strapped with Velcro from our Day 1 to fit standards
But does it mean anything..
For if we fall short, it hurts more than falling long
Why must we hurt and bleed and scrape against the bottom when we're trying our hardest

Age holds no value
When the interlacing branches of the forest
All look the same
Because we cannot dare differentiate ourselves
What it is to live "normal" and society's "regular"

Maybe we hide ourselves
under scars and lyrics, between role lists and bus seats
Maybe our orbs are colored neon, or maybe a lingering Oregon grey

So maybe, clicks and groups and minorities
And maybe even the "freaks"
Are all synonyms for "normal" and "regular"

So please, these orbs have become comfortable
Don't hang your head and hide one minute more.
S S Jan 2016
I have a special superpower
Shall I tell you what.

Let us make a game of this
I'll let you guess my lot.

When the night is ripe and freshly raw
You can brandish me about.

Throw me at your demons dark
And their presence you will doubt.

When the piercing light spills over hills
You can point me at the flame.

Watch the rise of steam unsheathed
None can beat me at my game.

Can you guess who I am now?
Or what I can do for you?

I'll bet you wish you had me now
But you haven't got a clue.

When your string of life drops all its beads
You can roll me on the floor.

Pick ones you choose from off my skin
Rest will meld into my core.

I can be your crutch when you limp unheld
A pillow when resting your dreams.

I can be your sword slashing unseen foes
Or cup filled from meandering streams.

When all is done and tucked in its place
Fling me far to sightless edge.

I won't intrude but hold onto hope
You'll remember where to dredge.

Do you know what my power is?
Do you have me figured out?

My power lies in your need for me
I transcend both hope and doubt.

With mercurial blood
I'm a formless form
I am what you need me to be.
Close your eyes and
Summon my being
I am exactly what you see.
Joel M Frye May 2017
Funny how insomnia
and discomfort will
dredge a new room
into a safe harbor
Julian Mar 2019
Flippant polymaths exude the frippery of travail for lapsed inordinate surgical gains in temporal but temporary acclaim that owes its provenance to the gullarge accentuated by the guttural tempests of silent windfalls that wrestle with sharks and snarky cagamosis with pilfered fame without rulers for rules that own the profligacy of a cineaste game

We cannot surpass our talents with ease when the treecheese of inevitable distance between equipoise and insanity is a tantamount inanity of prolixity for the sake of freedom rather than servitude to the slow meandered steps of trudged verbigeration that needs to be exorcised from the seat of authority for the plodding inconvenience of time earned that shakes the listless yearning people who lie and spurn

Demagogues are trifles because they are anoegenetic and care not for the abligurition that consumes the energy of a dismal life lived on fringes rather than reaped with grimaces for binges that continue to absorb the painful pangs of twinges that hedonists are of interest

We cannot exorcise the demons that give stygian weight to exchequers beyond the gamut of money but rather the currency of velocity of thought that owes its weight to weightlessness of spaces between the spacious and the limited tract of isolative territory that many mendicants looking for sustenance travail in insolence and in perjury of their solemn duties for self-serious honesty they lack a vista to see their crimes as more than just a pettifoggery of disputatious wranglers that wrench and then contemn the objects of their moral scruples to contend with nothing but the vacant expanse of a limitless injury for a momentary slip of cultivation and countenance

Frippery is hard to cobble with lapidary wit because succinct grievances are fallow ground for the permanence of atrocity and the temperance of felicity to conform to the desiccated pathways of limpid but livid excoriations of willful ingenuity met with aleatory rambles that sprawl incalescence with words as a dying occupation that is resurrected from the abeyance of its pragmatic utility to distinguish class from crust.

The triadic fatuousness of snarky sharks recruiting the gullarge of paranoiacs to deputized alacrity lead many strident vocations astray as they pilfer the nullibiety of spectral ignorance and defy the gravitas of the primiparas of a swollen technocracy, an outrage that scarecrows with prevenance have adumbrated against with strident accelerations of sublime velocity

So we swim in perilous straits against the demiurge of inclemency in fated rittles for the turpitude of wraiths and engineer every aborning day a new foofaraw of unalloyed atrocity
Now more than never should be deployed to ensure that the castigation of scoundrels and guttersnipes that exert a rip tide to those stranded on the shores of littoral desiccation might find the pristine beachgoing public an amenable treat proffered by exorcised sheepishness in reiterative bleats that quarkswarm only the antinomy of sentient masteries by shoveled civilizations proctor to horological insistence in design

So we designated an abeyance of heydays to create a rippled nostalgia that creeps in the winter storms that singe even glabrous ignorance with the twinges in absentia of the regal crows that circle the sun as the sustenance of the alighted moon as we reach for the heaved Richter teeming with ablution for venial commination of prolix croons that exert a Palo Alto rhyme

Phenomenological fields distal to the cephalocaudal origination of limber and the ironic counterpoint to that strife in excess rather than dearth of the henchmen behind the exchequer showcase that fluid thoughts surpass the limits of the dentistry of cosmetic cosmology simultaneously a scientific boon but a coarse albatross

We are criminals in a world stranded by ****** apostasy because of the sincerity of minstrels meets plodding human ignorance as exemplars rather than the apotheosis of divine excoriation of wastrels and flattybouches who webdoodle their way into the extinction line in some computer file swiped from eccedentesiasts who often in uncouth barbarity forgetfully abide without the temperance of floss

So what are we to make of magisterial wits of wiseacres who pilot tenable objectives like Indiana Jones flexing his comical whip when the gunfire of cacophony inundates our ears with a lisp of cockalorum imposture rich in chewing tobacco and its ungainly gripes and tenacious grip

Should we seek salvation from the treecheese of arboreous terrain amenable to the newfangled windfall of agricultural whims that dare now with caprice but not quixotic disdain to reconfigure the parsimonious levered engagement of melliferous fungible transaction between sabbaticals and chief financiers dubbing the vociferous limn of the primeval fulgurant incandescent ethereal quips?

We strive for palaces issued with dimes, dozens and scores of retinues that retain the patina of sophistry as the gullarge makes the vangermytes cozy in their defensively mechanized citadel buffered against the unheralded malversations of mammon intersecting with primordial chemistry that give the philanderer a guise of philanthropy despite professed gainsay that perjures because hucksters are winsome with fiduciary risk

So we calumniate with lapsed puns and Potter’s Spells as we dredge the indemnity of bustling heydays that extend beyond the bailiwick stated because of the prolonged trace of nostalgia that frazzles our voluntary expeditions with misanthropy as each libertine instinct becomes subject to stop and frisk

How to balk at such a garrulous repartee as proffered by swanky intransigence that shakes it off in a quaky town that hates the Swift refrain that endangers the fatalism of recuperated foresight borrowed from the armamentarium of corrupted killjoys who swim in a dalliance with the itchy myths that drift from powerlessness to voguish debauchery of insouciant internecine fringes frayed by the tomes that decry Stygian drift

Shiftless and rooted in rintinole absolved by plackiques that enchant the voyeurism of repined squalor of industrious frippery deracinated from the aureate complicity of largesse calibrated to mobilize the skittish mercurial yuppies to a dance with divestiture, taxes and an earthen death, we sprint the evergreen mile toward the scrupulous invention of enthusiastic euphemisms arbitrated by the procrustean silt of the leaky faucet of enigmatic timelessness etched by chiselers to beat “Us and Them” and warn the vanguard of the front rank about the thespian rift

Exhaustive rescue squads prepared for the dearth of monetary heft in times of perilous drought denigrate the authors of famine to the indulgent parents of inordinate sabotage of narrative for riskless arbitrage that is the outrage of sciamachies between platonic indifference and the tantrums of the feckless in the dangerous hearth of the cavernous wilderness of limitless imaginations that stagger so far beyond orbit they become satellites to vagrancy and whittled paragons too distant to dissolve in the ethereal chemistry of incalescent uproar sadly flanged by the Dopplers of ephemeral fate

Squandered by the desuetude of a snarky intervention I issue invective at the proctors of deafferented limbs for barbarous swine meeting expediency in demise, bemoaning the placid distaste of rectified cries that issue candles for each acrimony beyond the permutation of the staid inflexible limit of 88’

Bashfully we careen through argosies of curiosity to fossick the stalactites of timeworn intuition and reckon with their converse ironies that drip faucets of mildew that remain hidden unless poked by plucky flashlights to inspect the paragon of erosive filigrees of a bewildering paradox of polarized design that one meets the ceiling at inception and the cousin strives to clamber empty space to know with faint certainty the bulldozed irony of superordinate coexistence

Now we return to the majesty of a spurned wiseacre that evades the snappy parlance of a wrenched friction between the physical and the metaphysical elements that constitute a commensurate reality so supernal that its ostentation creates lifetimes of reiterative growth that spawns crimson red and bloviated blues to find a fulcrum of balance between the malversation on one hand of criminal sinister machinations and on the other hand the execrable self-righteous ignorance of a hidden vehicles of dexterity that are subsumed by a subtlety of legislative graft that owes its forbearance to the sanctimony of perseveration without the laurels of persistence

Now we wed the concepts between the ambidexterity of a monolithic titan who wanes rather than waxes himself because his glabrous head already exposed requires nothing new because the empire that struck back is denuded by the thorny imbroglio of a sunken Rose

Timmynoggies are perfect for haberdasheries of saccharine and glib excellence as measured by the ****** cacophony of unmerited applause that strains the resourcefulness of the silent mastery of magistrates in mellifluous alcoves surrounded by the soundproofed rigors of an execrable dereliction wilt into the imaginations of the few that watch movies with errantry rather than pleasantries of gaudy nonsense enchanted by a striptease of the wanton zeitgeist that some balk at but everyone knows

Time earns the spangled banners of sloganeering because of the fastidious creations of pole folders that maneuver between quips borrowed from antique movies and swindled affectations of yearning of many of all fears inevitable with the malevolent passage of the technocracy from cheers to vehement inveighed jeers

We should fear the watershed because it necessitates the evaporation of winsome ambition and implores the subservience of a guiltless fascination with abominable regress concomitant to the acceleration of money preceding a whipsawed downfall ensured by the funereal spates of requiems to oneironauts who plunged to their deaths on headlong flickering whims past the craggy landscape of lunar concordance and through the abeyance of qualms to flabbergasted self-importance in the eradication of provident fears

Memorials exist encoded in the temporal twinges of agony that straddle the cardiovascular throbs of impermanence that sweat with each simple beat to blather about the repetitious nature of a livid nature scrambled in exodus of the emigration of senseless blather to the subroutines of regimented sleepless paragons of travail in every pedestrian feat accelerated with each passing foot traversed by vigilant and eager feet

Tempests crowd the cluttered hamartithia of dredged incompetence leading to the foreclosure that precedes the simple derelictions that amount to grievous uncertainties that squawk in the plumage of the frippery decay of an autumnal fall from gracile riches landlocked without room to sprawl rigged against every track that is a surefire gleeful keepsake to meet, greet and serenade the claques adorned with the monikers of the Greeks

Trembling beneath the weight of mellifluous sauntering dingy designs that exude the anguish of our provident but incidental remonstration against the plodding indifference of the artistic clerisy we sputter against intransigent annulments of the emotive human engine calibrated with creaky pistons that rumble with furor of abrasive protest in timely haphazard elemental designs for vanguard ears

Tridents shed the fossicked leaves that are divisible by two but not inevitably glue that solders the identities of people congregated around a situation of gleeful sprees rather than wistful regress into a temerity without regret that gets dangled in the purview of the spiteful wings of armies that drawl when they sing vapid songs for vaped bongs but not the soberly cheers because of the deafening din of conformity oblivious of the honorific crescendos that still peak after so many restless years

Confederates line the avenues of bustling caverns of cumulative human disdain so willfully flouted by the wrenched corrosive frictions of vibrant deformation of the cultural narrative that encapsulates the collective bubbles chewed and jettisoned like bandied candy and then defamed without justice because  hurricanes churn up the reclusive emergence of protective vanity chased down as a sunken cost for a siphoned glory of tribal pride despite the strictures of logic

Creeping with insistence is a subaudition of governing gravel that entombs many steadfast lies that embodied people living delusory lives under a paradigm that has been subverted by the feats of science into a morass of irrelevance and the chances are many of those so deluded still breathe the air now more polluted but balk at the memories of the fallen passengers on the convalescent train that accelerates sunblind but respectfully toward a systematic engrossment of swollen intellects whimpering about the tautologic

We finance our prescient rodomontade with rodeos equipped with zany clowns who spurn the tridents of Poseidon because of the iridescent gloss of sheepish and flippant zealots who churn against the wrestling match of televised irony with accentuated eccedentesiastic disdain amended by a tolerable diversion of ennobled gallantry zip-zagging among the many valid quodlibets and missing the mark entirely on purpose to vacate the possible raillery of those who balk at time’s chosen serpentine tracks because of limited pedagogical tracts

So lets solder a forceful brunt against the senseless regalia of modern omphalos and return to the plenipotentiary fields of resourceful human inquiry into the chagrins outmoded by convenience but amplified in vociferation by the prosthetic extension of a grangull humanity outfoxing itself into a zugzwang inevitable in the future with collateral losses because of senseless invidiousness orchestrated by the immiscible dermatology of divisive facts often about race and ineluctable tax

We conclude with the optimism that refineries become gentrified by the superlunary squadrons who bask in beatific beams of anonymity and that the pollution preceding our evolution is just adventitious rather than central to the amelioration of wavy screens ennobling so many upstarts to teach themselves the majesty of lucid dreams and to capitalize on ludic ideals divorced from the urchins of radical idealisms that ironically poach rarefied air with smug pollution of narrative scares

Without trepidation we can muster the largesse of civility to create a progeny that has a recursive progeny of heirs that defiantly imagine a world bereft of specters of the soporific imagination enforced by the lapidation of insight from termagants who stride with ursine acrimony naked bare and envision a global meliorism that is careful, picaresque, pragmatic and filled with meritocratic care

With those ornaments of an aureate measure in mind


We leap beyond the enumerated infinity in time's proper design

— The End —