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Julian Apr 2020
Floating above the rifts of apperception I glaze over the gaudy faucets of imagined vector thrusts in hibernation by the lucubration of space-time materialized crystal in the somber beats of fetched farrago of choice slices in delicate hums of hemmed balance rantipole only in ethereal importance but otherwise supersolid above the sprauncy vagrancy of dilettantism. We shout a clarion virtuosity so that the conclamation of neovitalism conjures upon a spell of lapse and regress a motive for further crystallization of epidemiology into harmony with syndicated admonition sleek in design and parceled into renown by feats of completion rather than slugabed gregarious fountains of wasted ingenuity bleeding from the vacuum of an empty hearth in a hospitable dwelling otherwise cleared of imperfection. Right now, I levitate with transcendence with an approximated eidetic memory that is the surgical vibrancy of renewal rather than the chameleons of hidden talents buried by the walls of Jericho sounding tocsins of alarm that the anointed favor of choice destruction is only an encircled rapture of rhapsodies of confluence found in axiomatic truths ribbed with the futtocks of seaworthy but cauponate recidivism into the donnybrooks of apocryphal revelation preceding the whimsical fall of cascading permanence just as gravity so ordained it. We breathe the life of the ethereal numinous spirit of isangelous repute because we navigate the exquisite cobweb of reconciliation to surpass all understanding in peace what would be a miscegenated carcass of war otherwise apart from the incidental apartheid of the drones of causality ignoring the antecedent reality too much to register fathomed streaks of preventive endeavor because of the scars of a scrappy schlep of the rampicks of ecbolic servitude to moth-eaten star-crossed lovers of the mean menagerie of gutless succor renowned only in tepid rejections of harbingers bequeathed in succession but ignored because of the procession of “Billie Jean” politics.

   The citadel aflame with controversy buttresses carnality by witless contaminants of hidebound scaldabancos of ineffable destitution so craven in eisoptrophobia for their hypostasized indolent fatuousness of capitulation that they are but a minor punctuation in the largesse of centuries to favor audacity in candor over the prevarications of catastrophe to dented human pride against humane dictates of theodicy in fatalism that predestination experimented with its own vaulted verve to find permanent solutions engraved in the agrapha of time to solidify the redintegrated truth of God’s divine stewardship above the quisquilous deism of former regnant centuries of blench and blandishment. We revolt at the specter of rot only when the effluvia of disgust elevates the visceral reality above the utilitarianism of recycled prim nuisances of noisome lineage that yet balk because they are bereft of attention but not a vacant talent and therefore should the subsidies of man surpass the ignorance of appearances he will shrug of the demur of the scrimshank and sharpen his scrivello in the service of redemption found through cultivated prowess of gardens beneath where rivers flow above a cubic centurion of embattled visages of the heavens becoming the rampart for the vestigial clarity of Secret Masters to foresee the bypass that heals decadence and rebukes the formalism of puritan endeavor to sweat with exhaustive patience over the gossamer intertesselations of a ripe reality rather than a groveled fragmentary world shattered too much by exigent metanoia to mount the crenellated catchpole of vigilant enmity towards the stew of listlessness found in epigone and farce more than in organic fortunes. We flip the upheaval of society to squander our proportionate degrees of wealth on the necessity created by dire quandary which enamors by interrogations of pulchritude the verisimilitude of participle ivory dalliance of etched canvasses of simultagnosia for the librations of the liberated rings of betrothed liberation despite profound lurches of the mistetches of ignorance presiding dismally over the hulked disdain of glamborge rather than resselenque.

     The winter is a poor porcine glut of ciconine swelters because the prickly obtuse recoil of the delopes of caution find their permeable balance with a sort of photographic photosynthesis that braves the dearth of reprieve for the reprisal of nostalgic deeds found in the docimasy of riveted reflections because the preordination of God is the superlative champion of the witeless grandeval protectorate of infinite concepts guarded from the parvanimity even of the most strident minds squabbling over the braseros and battues of history as though those funereal stains of lachrymose regret outweigh the traditions of vaunted human progress because they are finicky about importunate pleas of subsidiary injustice rather than fulminations of the modern rebuttal to the disclaimers of an uneven history that shepherds the doubts of nihilism into ripe fruition at the expense of very expensive moral rot for the codlings of urbacity and mendaciloquence used to foment that tribalism of totemic justice. We see in Penuel the wrestling match of specters and heroic giants documented on the ageless pages and we notice the ironic twinges of struggle that kneaded the propriety of gentilian privilege that ultimately fostered an insurrection against chosen bravado among those that sear with zeal beyond the yordim afflictions of yobbery because the Jewish heart is stronger than any calamity even if it departs from the reverence of the colporteurs of the integrated syncretism of the attempted monolith that beseeches polyphiloprogenitive growth in mindset rather than in testy abeyance of forbearance because of known scrutinies into the tropology of wilted facts remanded by curious historicity that crumples without disdain when we memorialize the erasure of scepsis by modern standards of thaumaturgy.

    The minauderies of growth are a repositioned tacit allegiance to the untold fanfare and hearsay immunized against the broach of facetious levity to buoy discordant hearts above fumatoriums of relentless ignorance because coherent masterwork can be cobbled without such lapidary toil and toll on sincere affectations of wizened brevity. The seismic precautions for the forefathers of incidental convergences between expectancy and crystallized history are an ironic intortion of priorities because the heralds and tribunes matched the peerless foresight with the gerrymandered figments of apartheid between the imaginary and the real so that the delicate synchrony of events could unfurl a riveting carapace from the shells of protection even in amiable squalor for its impenitent attrition on the volleys of sensible rumor becoming fashioned in covert bedazzled errors in judgment leading to the triumph of the eventual civilization over the futtocks of the burial of the former trekleador of zenkidu belonging to provincial cadasters found so tucked in the hedges that discernment of frikmag would be an indelible scourge on the biognosy of the diagnosed endeavors that elapsed into remediated circumstances that brave the depths of deontological violation for the breadth of apportioned loaves and two swanky fish earning a place among the miracles of transcendent liberation from articles of decree imperious by sardonic disdain becoming nullified by the histrionics of a delicately staged orchestra that cements human achievement.

       We relish the frescades of a ruffled autumnal reminder of flourish above pothers of the screed of admonition swamped by nostalgic backtracks in the séance with ultimatum of design and the impregnated and carnal lusts of a world pitched in darkness with guarded lambent lights fomenting a perjury against tact for the deliverance of freedom in tacit agreement with owleries that every bonanza be tithed in their favor regardless of hibernation of spoilsports or their subsidiary remarks on indelible quills of invented manufactured realities we crave with desperation rather than cower from in requited nescience urging us to depart from affairs and stagnate the loyalty of fealty above the limber of utility mobilized above levities for solemn remarks and rejoinders. Promulgated above the robotic rubble of staffage haywire in wiredrawn contemplative resonance of tremulous subterfuge vestigial but immediate to the yardsticks of reprehensible malarkey, is the barnstorm for erratic dimples sauntered by the saunas of shelter above the chaos of ruined ginnels for the gimcracks of auxiliary duty to service, is the glorification of the sultry intimations of legions of remonstrance in guarded decorum about sunken atrocities lapsed in memorial to the incumbent brunt of sockdolagers of justice returning revenants from the bridewell of historical internment. The symphily of orchestras to cineaste symposiasts of surquedry in impudence beyond the brays of betrayal is the aborning mythos of regimented perceptions of a world that when magnified by minutiae appears starkly contrast to the gapped gubbertushed reality of the average patron of the arts to such an extreme gulf of receptive understanding that the qualia are dovetailed only in the swink of careful kisswonks to certify certitude itself when all the fragments coalesce into subjoined harmony to the substructures of inherent conscientiousness. The miracles at work that are vesicles and vessels for the swage of imprint above the loyalty of the imprinted tribunes of the fluminous is how hidden protrusions can emerge so victorious over popularized glazes on the pastures of a farmed culture itching for timmynoggies of innovation but only finding the etched remarks of pristine imagos of heroism dwindling in motivation to surpass the imaginative leaps accustomed to a newfangled laziness that bedazzles the guzzle of crowds but not the discrimination of the crowded morass of incompletion found in mosaics missing enigmatic philters of intoxicated love for the profound. So to be intermediary as a custodian for artistry we must cozen the wheedled imaginations not of the relic but the archaeologist that discovered the embedded prisms of attentive scrutiny for glinting sunshine inherent in troves of surpassed excellence beyond parochial sympatric blandishment of donnism rather than a resselenque that floats above demeanor to usher the cosseted age of treasure above the glib brocards and florews of past success.

      Immanent to the provisions of God as decreed from a syncretic reconnaissance of the pitiable gulfs that separate boundless divine love from the clavigerous potential for scrappy sympatric affiliation to **** through the barnstorms of internal comestions of conflated priorities we are ourselves prismatic in the indulgence of a tasty life sprinkled with zest rather than tempered with the vengeance of retorted animosity that we knead the pottery of ironclad resistance to a metallic conduit of pruned fulminations of unguided intuition so that the natural accord supersedes the goad of materialism for the sustenance of antiquity beyond its heyday for vital gains against the tauricide of panic and frenzy. The linchpin of all realistic attempts at the sympatric symphily of civilization is a guided remorse through the torment of affliction that sizzles without anteric barbs as it measures through engrenage how to pilot the vehicles of prosperity through the minefields of contingency that invisibly bequeath new hurdles and inestimable obstacles that collude surreptitiously to fulminate measured controversy against the backbites of restrained equipoise created by polities of the macadamized fabric of a welded smithy of a universe that with ubiquity proclaims above the senseless the harvest of conjugal repartee in sensible pride against militant bastions of incidental prejudice for a careen against the flyndresques of danger and the flyndrigs of glaikery alike for a humane spurt of enlightenment to tower peerlessly in supervision of entelechy created by esemplastic unity in apolaustic purpose. We cannot be puritans engaged in a pilgrimage to a palimpsest of priggishness because the daring elements of adventurism are necessary ingredients to catalyze the supply-chain of the innate gluttony of ego-seeking endless balance with a natural sustained biognosy that prizes biocentric harmony above bibliognost scepsis so that the enthused can flock with liberty divorced from libertinism. The ultimatum is a war between hedonism wed with donnism against eumoirety and self-restraint and this battle will be waged on the indolence of a future of cordslave tethers to interrogation of privy conceptualism hamshackled by the gradgrinds into the neat nexility of precise conformity that blacklists the samizdat because the genizah profoundly twists the already jumbled jengadangle and provides a junediggle of procession and ceremony rather than pomp without substantial grit embedded in the showmanship of a reality in need of a fourth-wall.

        It is ironic how we bewrayed our stewardship of the planet as a plenipotentiary sentience waged against the vesicles of instinct but more fundamental to this tattered but pregnant psalm is that the stronghold of our future is the tenacity of filial duty to enthrone the household with husbandry and restraint as an emolument to divine justice that sparkles opalescent in its own redacted notions of gravity imperfect in the taradiddles of science but refined by the eclat of the combustible syncopation of a reiterative trope of realism combined with surrealist caprice to henpeck affectionate violation above inviolable screeds of blood sport rather than conjugal affections afforded to the brood and the feast of the flocks that rein supreme over all things but exert inclement justice over the cattle and chattel of civilization itself. The minkumpf against the sacrilege of a prioritized kosher is to abhor the suffering rather than embrace the penitence of perceived but specious sacrifice which is an ornery thorn on the stained conscience of the yobbery of both the apikoros and the obedient because to attenuate all suffering even of instinctual beings we anneal our hearts to a glorified compassion that supersedes the relegated relics of pushful genuflection by succedaneum of sacrifice waged against the docile whangams of otiose theodicy. The filibusters against the regnant complexity of regalia that is a sprauncy poivrade with terpsichorean flairs to transmute the intimations of hibernated perfidy into finicky transmissions for the riometers that accord orbific merit in a lackluster time enchant the rollicking audience of this auditorium of the prevenance of the conquered universe bracing for the camorra of the insipid entreaty of defalcated casuistry—the prominent exchequer in hoodwinked political agitprop that forges ironclad allegiances to flimsy facades of the verisimilitude of dignity with recalcitrant but incondite bruits of venom militant against secular apostasy—that the fitful arrivistes that swim in dire dearth will be welcomed into the reconciliation of all time with a tempered lurid glint of revelation bounded by sunken albatross of hype unbounded with a peace insurmountable in prestige rewarded only with the highest reservations.


    On 3-1-2020 when I penned my philosophy—even at a slowpoke margin of crafty precision above rapid empirical faucets of folly—I was entirely selfsame with the autotelic engravings of the smoldering aboriginal talents within that many can swing through by tenacity for enormous plaudit but a flagrant majority will apprehend with flippant scollardical tenets of rebuke and remain honest in their appraisal only in meek resignation of parvanimity.
Consider the postulates of rarefaction whittled into a vehement zeal against the prostitution of our species to the anteric cycles of residual molds of dingy spectacle mired by the tyrannical towers of supercilious squirms of revamped novelty rather than enhanced by the freebooters of dirigisme that borrow from time the behest of philandered flairs divorced from the cadges of secular instinct and enthroned by the qualms of engineered virtuosity that is stark, barren but peerless in its outstretched clamor for luxuriant sprees against the silentium of grandeval asylum incurred by the flippant filigrees of recalcitrant modernism endangered by the irredentism of the future upon the whimsy of the present-minded momentary glare of rapture.  This impending architecture of nimble but subservient endeavor is a pinprick rejoinder against the wernaggles of prepossessed fountains of configured animosity against the stapled heed of a modality of trayned invictive invectives against the plodding course of fustilugianation that swerves in apathy of autopilot junediggle to emanate the surrender of epigone to the raktendure of the synaesthesis of the attuned perception of all superimposed minutiae delegated by calculated design into a synclastic focus on veiled caprice that is vaulted above the choppy and sketchy verdure of remiss perception to stellar continuities rather than mundane knickpoints of stodged blurs that magnify syncretic qualia into baseline congruity rather than staid torpefied resignation of the visage of thunder without the pangs of the widely vituperated lightning that bequeaths all certain notions but flouts the tortious saboteurs of the prim trucage of brittle fundamentalism.

     As the flawed paragon of a picaresque youth punctuated by vibrant plumage of self-wrought tropophilous usucaption of remote groomed frontiers of desolate luxury but buoyant morale into the ballasts of a nimble usufruct that hikkles yet still against still-framed thilloire--fatuous in endearment only to the polity of the waterdrip of craven but gravid disingenuous flickers of lambent cloaks of perfidy—that earned its birthright by meditative fruition rather than prodigal tallespin of indolent frapplanks of a vicarious personage rather than an autotelic haecceity showcases the folly of heterodyne inclinations meeting an impasse of accidental dislodgement. The interregnum between the spurts and sprees of luxuriance is a staid pause between continuities of afforded parlance becoming stapled demographic solidarity affixed to a strident gallop of effortful pushes against the tenacity of the slumberous wicked hibernation of vetust magpiety without hieratical internment because youthful industry beats hackneyed bludgeons of wiseacres of a stilted manufacture of steamy nostalgia for lickerish moments that dignify but undermine moral virtues but splash anointed and sometimes disjointed favor upon the congeners to a rabid escapade of a heedless love frowning on the girdles of the prim balderdash of heralded jolts dim on levity and puffed with elusive contextualized control of libidinous serrated defilement because the crotaline **** outmantles the sweedled limber of exploitable folly. The cosseted reality of wheedled gourmands of continuous perception rather than the Gaussian blur of the protean invention of stitches in time that obscure rather than magnify the supernal levity inherent to most artistry is a linchpin of lenient gravitas that levies the lavaderos of ripe perception into annealment.
Excuse the bravado of the gait of winnowed forks in a bronteum for heralds of megaloscopy fastened to the macroscian reality of indelible filigrees of countermanded controversy becoming its best behest in the sempiternal flowering of burgeoned demonstration rather than illustrious overhang of drab slabs of manufacture rather than organism that should be interposed between the constellated concepts of both apperception and the aggrieved counselors to obtuse obsessions that are an improper tutelary for a designated reprisal of the once profane now immediately gratified by ramshackle tenets of a guarded sublimation of the tenets of post-modernism into a sustained force of the internalized tabernacle of haecceity shepherded into exuberance by the manumission of spirit from the ******* of purblind scalds of defamation that incurs the penalty of flippant privation. The refuge the Lord provides is not contingent upon the vagaries of deliberation nor the calculus of oversight but the remontant amaranthine glower of a listed deed becoming an eternal reminder that a dismantled and disjointed world fathoming only remorse rather than the trudge of gentility against the headwinds of brunt asperity will always flout the successor rather than atone for the failure of the imponent condition that constellates around rudimentary drivel grubbing the momentary out of avarice for allotted merchandise rather than glommed magnets to amoeba sentiments for the kisswonk of ulterior motive beyond dungeons of desperation that lurk ghoulishly with spectral frights at the disfigurement of morale created by errors askew rather than a contagion of righteous valor.

   Ask the heedful servant if the captaincy of reneged commitment owes homage to dutiful instruction or whether it is a balking corpse of necrosis accorded to the omphalism of brutish carnal repose in times of sedentary silt siphoned in spelunked rijuice for preordination is a predominant specter for a world scared scurrilous and skittish in a diatribe against the very notion of tribal screeds embedded in the sedimentary heft of traditionalism above the pother of vacillation commended to the apikoros but counterfeit fiat system of a ruddy governance without a supreme magistrate. Now lets venture into the territory of visagists as we envision the swanky subversion of impoverished and nebbich visions of oligochrome that fixates on belabored but dead notions of rigid propriety and levitate above those concerns with a querulous transcendence that never wernaggles about the profaned irrelevance of burlesque tropes of sidereal friction but instead memorializes the thermolysis of permeable endeavor above staid countenances of imposture that lurk in the shadowy penumbra of the connivance of persona above the archetype of the tutelary guardian spirit that through windlass and sometimes deliberation affixes nobility to even the pedestrian in order to assize its proper proportions to granular ironies expounded into megalography transformative by the very rivets of its supersensible existence and cohabitation with histrinkage among human taboos.

   The handiwork of a permeable race prone to exacerbated proclamations of prerogatives bulldozed by the rapid percolation of insoluble quandaries to the gripes of the feast of foofaraw sometimes shelters our otherwise regnant concern about the plenipotentiary God that observes all latent affairs without the paramours that conflate vivid carnality with appeased luxury and superimposes a crafty system of seismic shifts in rantipole dances with numinous flux rather than dissipated militant suppression of the fracklings of dissolute pollution which swirk in their dastardly desperado endeavors to corral the entire monoliths that guard each province into a winnowed rumble of rubble by tarnish of Tyre rather than by the upstart rejoinders of Canaan. Every creature which has the capacity to perceive language is afforded benedictions by the overhailing force of the hypaethral heights of superlative ingenuity founded in the bolted speculation of the endearment of all to tropological seesaws embattled against the hearsay of nyejays that contaminates the telmatology of the ecosystem of revivalism rather than buries the leaden debts of the disjointed revenants of past prominence into recycled irrelevance for posterity rather than for anything but a machination of a clockwork apple rigged for a rotten worm to swindle the sweet delicate tempests of unforeseen disaster to perjuries against financial solidarity.

The spinsters of sardonic drollery underscore the imminence of an incondite cutthroat collapse blackguarded by the hucksters of incontinence grubbing every fetched noisome notion and congealing a bonnyclabber of desiccated mildew that proves vestigial when the victors of time earn their joyous serenade to the pinnacle of the totem of jaundice slits in wavy endeavors for the participles of sejungible syntax of the ephorized furor to outlast the draksteng of droned dereliction manned by half-baked spies of ulterior recitals for imprinted vicissitude in supremacy in synquest for frizzlounges rather than the pedestrian circulatory system of careworn polity. We vaporize the petty hatred of sympatric regelation that neuters the virulence of motivated impediments to the draconian surge of asperity that sinks temporal haplessness as a regaled blasphemy that crowns only the ringed betrothal to spumid serrated halts in slick superstition that is a buggery to the idea of insectivores devouring the erratic chantage of germane germs that pauperize rather than even blind the deafened to be a crutch to vehicular homicide. Melismatic sennet is a dirigible of immense herculean sinew without the traces of vestibulary retches of kisswonked grisly tepid intimidations of eccedentesiasts by the radioglare of wizened corrugations in thanatism that exhort the avatars of narquiddity over the natural departure of revenant souls back to their temporary hostility to crass lifeless decarnate immediacy that slinks with foibles magnified by vertiginous heights of scollardical reputes rigged by the rijuice of the plackiques of meaningless spoils for swashbuckler bonanza borrowed from serrated vengeance exacted in prominence to provide false avenues of extenuation to malefaction that is confidant to the panopticon of exemplary dimples meager in the largesse of the composite realism of a sizable imprint on megalography that outlasts impertinent excuses for dangerous trout swimming against the mobilized selachostomous frizz of sharks gathering to avenge disclosure with insolence and gravid atrocity of incisive surgical evisceration of attempted depositions that falter by innumerable facets of countenance that belie ultimate realism and the perdurable construction of a sturdy hive of bibliognost revelry.

     Even with the blaring sennet of majesty inundating my piecemeal perception with the marstions of flarium that is an efficacy in a flaccid world of otiose pretenses limpid only in folly but contraplex in ironic skewbald skerries of grubbed destination that is the terminus of karezza despite the maledictions of vehement guarded betrayals that conjure up lurid noisome virility against the gamines and gallywows that populate interstellar fictions of virtu rather than mundane pragmatica that astound with the resselenque of contaminated skeumorphs of latent fracture belonging to a skeletonized ossified reification of farce above historicity in seemly seamless countenance with overwrought princely stature deserving integrity to ripples through sparkling opalescence. The vapid insularity of the self-contained mythos of appeased groundlings is based on the rhizic and rhizogenic fracklings destitute in predicative flares to swelter above stratospheres of the illimitable into the dwelling of the highest serenity inherent to the pacification of truth to neglect its egregious errors of mistetches of a ripened pachyderm of bravery in times of austerity and now a reclaimed notion of sempiternal charades swimming above the punitive draksteng of dranger that is enlarged by acclimated attempts at foiled raltention hikkling against its own superior forces of galvanized preterition to elide over screwball insanity of derangement in this virtual paradise of inhabited souls belonging to former times congregating on the pasture of the evanescence of now for all eternity having the optative condition of incarnation above the ferules of the stagnant brevity of oversight in heavenly realms by postulate but not confirmed by regal logic.

     The troponder of the flickered lambent niceties of polity is a countenance that piggybacks on simpered jostles of negligent engrenage to appease sworn enmities among beatific havens for certitude swarmed by the fisticuffs of darbied bridewells of desiccated drainage traversing the distant disdain for the gravel of cemented slits of stilted pragmatica that is a gavel of atrocious estoppel mediated by heroic heresiarchs against pitiable betrayal for forceful remedies in acclimated servitude to the groans and groaks of a life of remorse and dearth rather than the glut of luxuriance in forbearance to its own intorted mirrored ironies that etch infinity with every scrawled rejoinder to austere ploys of checkered rumbles of threat and exigency posed by the clairvoyant hypocrites who benefit greatly by the design of the omphalism above the frays and brays of corporate dogmatism slowly outmoded by vibrant plumages of heteronormative originality beyond petty chantage. A hesitation overcomes the bluster of bravado as the restive earnest concerns of tribulation beset the minauderies of divine affection to reaffirm the teachings of the Gospel so that future generations genuflect beneath the altar of the ultimate stroke of sociogenesis and the blood ransom of suffering that promoted the human latitude and liberty against incarcerated throngs of virtue over caesaraproprism accorded to genuflection beneath denarii rather than absolution by tether to the eternal vine of sensation of the supersensible entelechy of all valiant insurrections against defective polities and renewed policies.

     We thus seek a transdimensional bridge between the morphean virtu of rudimentary alchemy of propitiation divulged by leverage and the teeming rambunctiousness of fiduciary tribes to the ultimate duty of man to consummate the future of eternity even in slowpoke mannerisms that sidle through rigors of entelechy and assize the masterwork of tutelage above the circumforaneous entrenchment of glut above the mastery of the subtle subaudition that beleaguers an adept conflagration of harnessed human ignorance staid in the incarceration of exotic virtues of freewheeling sapience never vulnerary to hospitable concerns that entrenches the verisimilitude of a refracted justice to reign over the stultification of a primitivism inherent to man and not man alone.
Used some neologisms
Commuter Poet May 2016
I hunger
For your body
Your external incarnation
Your entity
Yet I know
That beneath your skin
Flows the river
Of all of your
Hopes
Dreams
Disappointments
Experiences
Victories
Heartbreaks
D­esires
And
Sufferings

I thirst for your physicality
But I cannot fathom
Your internality
And the alchemistry
That we will forge
If our beings
Ignite
And our souls
Elide
30th May 2016
Michael R Burch Oct 2020
These are poems about Ann Rutledge and her romantic relationship with Abraham Lincoln.

Winter Thoughts of Ann Rutledge
by Michael R. Burch

Winter was not easy,
nor would the spring return.
I knew you by your absence,
as men are wont to burn
with strange indwelling fire —
such longings you inspire!

But winter was not easy,
nor would the sun relent
from sculpting ****** images
and how could I repent?
I left quaint offerings in the snow,
more maiden than I care to know.



Ann Rutledge’s Irregular Quilt
by Michael R. Burch

based on “Lincoln the Unknown” by Dale Carnegie

I.
Her fingers “plied the needle” with “unusual swiftness and art”
till Abe knelt down beside her: then her demoralized heart
set Eros’s dart a-quiver; thus a crazy quilt emerged:
strange stitches all a-kilter, all patterns lost. (Her host
kept her vicarious laughter barely submerged.)

II.
Years later she’d show off the quilt with its uncertain stitches
as evidence love undermines men’s plans and women’s strictures
(and a plethora of scriptures.)

III.
But O the sacred tenderness Ann’s reckless stitch contains
and all the world’s felicities: rich cloth, for love’s fine gains,
for sweethearts’ tremulous fingers and their bright, uncertain vows
and all love’s blithe, erratic hopes (like now’s).

IV.
Years later on a pilgrimage, by tenderness obsessed,
Dale Carnegie, drawn to her grave, found weeds in her place of rest
and mowed them back, revealing the spot of the Railsplitter’s joy and grief
(and his hope and his disbelief).

V.
For such is the tenderness of love, and such are its disappointments.
Love is a book of rhapsodic poems. Love is an grab bag of ointments.
Love is the finger poised, the smile, the Question — perhaps the Answer?
Love is the pain of betrayal, the two left feet of the dancer.

VI.
There were ladies of ill repute in his past. Or so he thought. Was it true?
And yet he loved them, Ann (sweet Ann!), as tenderly as he loved you.

Ann Rutledge was Abraham Lincoln’s first love interest. Unfortunately, she was engaged to another man when they met, then died with typhoid fever at age 22. According to a friend, Isaac Cogdal, when asked if he had loved her, Lincoln replied: “It is true—true indeed I did. I loved the woman dearly and soundly: She was a handsome girl—would have made a good, loving wife… I did honestly and truly love the girl and think often, often of her now.”

Ann Rutledge’s grave marker in Petersburg, Illinois, contains a poem written by Edgar Lee Masters in which she is “Beloved of Abraham Lincoln, / Wedded to him, not through union, / But through separation.”

Ann Rutledge’s original grave at Old Concord, once neglected, has a fairly new marker provided by her family. One side of the maker, along with her name and dates, reads: “Where Lincoln Wept.” An account popularized by William Herndon in his biography is that Lincoln was so distraught by Ann’s death that he knelt and wept at her grave. On the reverse side of the marker is carved “I cannot bear to think of her out there alone in the storm. A. Lincoln.”

Herndon was Lincoln’s law partner and a friend. He also attended poetry readings with Lincoln, who wrote poems himself. Lincoln called Herndon "my man always above all other men on the globe."

Following Lincoln's assassination, Herndon began collecting accounts of Lincoln's life from people who knew him. Herndon wanted to write a faithful portrait of his friend, based on the hundreds of letters and interviews he had compiled, plus his own recollections. He was determined to present Lincoln as the man he actually was, not as a romanticized national hero and saint, and this meant revealing things other biographers would omit or elide, due to the puritanical conventions of that day. Such details included Lincoln’s suicidal depression and his contentious relationship with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. And Herndon maintained that Ann Rutledge was Lincoln’s only true love.

Keywords/Tags: Ann Rutledge, Abraham Lincoln, poem, poems, poetry, love, lover, mistress, paramour, romance, romantic, quilt, grave, Dale Carnegie, William Herndon
dj Dec 2012
what on earth is this feeling
(yellowing formaldehyde)
kind of like old heartbreak reeling

a vivisection, never healing
coat & spray on the insecticide
what on earth is this feeling

criminal butterflies stealing
the cogs & screws in my arthropod insides
kind of like old heartbreak reeling

heartthrobs come frenzied then unfeeling
my vague worries preside
what on earth is this feeling

whateverphobia; a personal ceramic ceiling
to myself, is how I've always lied
kind of like old heartbreak reeling

carcass littered webs are usually unappealing
my own web has much to elide
kind of like old heartbreak reeling
what on earth is this feeling
the villanelle has been often used (for the element of repetition in the form) to express feelings of dislocation and disassociation. I've always found it ironic that such a rigidly structured poem could be used for such a feeling. (I completely said '**** it' with the meter, though)
mike dm Dec 2015
carve the bark
you plus your love
testified
made hard

heart needs a box locked
otherwise the feels fly

or maybe the big ought's that hover over us elide
that long hair lush inside
a sin if let down or
maybe jus one small discretion
to put behind you

or maybe it's an observance
to a rune more ancient
than history and its codes

your orb at work
his swell under spell
turn around and don't look over your shoulder
little spoon arch
wrap it in silk
spill the milk
Aquesto dixo El Ebrio, una vegada.
Aquesto dixo con su voz cansada.
Aquesto dixo por la madrugada.

Yo dello non sé nada.

Bebamos en las cráteras de oro
que laboró el cincel benvenutino,
champagne, bulbente y bullicioso vino.

Bebamos en las ánforas de barro
doria hidromiel; en el panzudo jarro
blonda cerveza, y en las cristalinas
frágiles copas el anís sonoro
así como las finas
mixturas sibilinas.

Porque es dulce olvidar.

Bebamos en las cráteras de oro
el líquido tesoro
que enloquece las mentes
y elide los deseos,
y que sume los sueños impotentes
en helados Leteos!.

Porque es dulce olvidar. ¿Algo esculpido
quedar merece en el cerebro? Nada!
Porque es dulce olvidar...

El viento azota
la cima de los árboles, tedioso;
vacila el corazón ante la rota!
El espíritu vago!
¡La voluntad errátil
es un tortuoso Yago!
y el soñar aterido...:
¡el soñar aterido y nó vibrátil
ni altanero!... y nostálgico, anheloso
de una distinta vida...

Los jardines románticos
horros están de idilios.
Y son hueros los cánticos
jocundos de Himeneo!

Dormita ya el Deseo!
Ya dormita el Amor!.
Y yerra -enloquecida-
por sus ludies exilios
de Dolor,
l'alma pura de Ofelia,
mientras Hamlet, moroso y taciturno
sepultose en sí mismo!

Ya no existe
la verdad, si ha existido... Ya no es nada
la belleza, y lo es todo! y la tristeza
¡cómo es asaz ****** y adocenada!

Yo bucéo un abismo
y el tal abismo es hueco!
Todo es superficial, mentido y triste.
Todo: el Amor y la Naturaleza,
el Mar, las Nubes, la ideal Belleza:
sólo restan cinismo,
rutina, y el enteco
sentido de lo práctico y la cómica
metafísica vómica!

Es preciso beber la sangre cálida
de los magos elixires!
Complicados brebajes, quinta-esencia,
sudor de las retortas y alambiques;
todos los filtros químicos y alquímicos
el díctamo, el nepentes,
súmanme en la demencia!

En el absintio quiero que se esconda
-tras de sus de sirena glaucos ojos-
mi espíritu arbitrario,
mi corazón, y toda la amargura
de abolidos despojos!

Es preciso beber la sangre cálida,
sangre morena
o sangre blonda!
En el absintio quiero que se esconda
-tras de sus glaucos ojos de sirena-
mi corazón, y toda la amargura!

La azul locura pálida,
soberana locura,
se asile en mi cerebro solitario!

Bebamos en las cráteras de oro
todo el licor que corre por la vena
de la pródiga uva;
y hagamos la serena
-la serena o la loca-
vida del que en sí propio no se toca
y que en nada se halla...:

-Búdico sér en éxtasis,
Jaiyám bajo los astros,
Edgar en la taberna,
Diógenes en su cuba...
Desdeñosos e impávidos,
sonrientes,
mirando la batalla
sempiterna, mirando la batalla
de apetitos, la gresca y el estridir de dientes
y el ****** forcejeo
para ascender, para medrar, para vivir...

Nosotros -sí, nosotros-
olímpicos yazgamos sobre el trípode sacro:
claudicantes e irónicos,
sonrientes espectadores del simulacro,
sin recordar, sin añorar,
sin anhelar,
¡sin un solo deseo!

Brtiña el trágico véspero
con sus hórridas lumbres
incendiarias;
dóre el amanecer con vagas lumbres
y medias-tintas de atediada suavidad;
o aljofáre la luna
del bebedor la cabellera bruna
o la blonda o endrina cabellera
nimbada de doliente claridad,
y bebamos el vino,
y bebamos el vino,
y bebamos el vino!

Aquesto dixo El Ebrio una vegada.
Aquesto dixo con su voz cansada.
Aquesto dixo por la madrugada.

Yo dello non me curo. Yo dello non sé nada
mike dm Jan 2016
i, jus now, walked to the store to get some water
and - it's weird but - the sun
  hit
me: and, somehow, i felt
detach e  d no more;
one lit plane, arrayed
beneath my sandals

and walked my feet
along the woven pavement, which had
either come alive at that moment or
had always been so and i just never noticed it before.

but then, i felt

some weird s i d e inside of me grind
its bony armor, elide the light, and
glyph into existence, dark. it spoke; it wrote

me down. it captured me with an adroit hand. it
fed me lines. lines. lines. lines brighter than star proximal.

my insides stood divided.

i got home
and drank
the water: straight from
the jug.
RAINDROPS
Drop on her like never before
Touch her like chilled weather
Caress her hairs like sweet mother
Crawl over her like tiny Scorpion
Feel d warmth of her
Making sure nt to be melt either

Tease her like mad woofer
Provided she must nt kick u either
Wet her ***** like desperate lover
Drink her smile like thirsty summer
Roll over her lips like stormy river
Brush her cheeks like flabby feathers

Stop loosing urself
Instead u may go unconscious
Jst came n mix in my soul to make me feel precious
Let me invade d aroma inside
Where do those cuteness reside
Loose urself to inhale my breathe
Which I hav pattented(only fr u) till death

Extract The love hidden inside
Make her realise how it elide
Gv her my dearest soul
Which z still existing(incompleted)
Core is left but lustre eroded..............
Mohd Arshad Apr 2014
My eyes
Are my legs
To mosque
They carry me

They are my hands
That thorns elide

Thousands precious
Gifts upon me
God has bestowed
But eyes are diamonds
They are the most precious
mike dm Dec 2015
if this it'stoofuckinghard
could
just
speak fluent scar
im sure the pebble
that landslides my little stream
every now and then
would slip and slide and elide into river run but
it never has
it's always mum
mike dm May 2016
it isnt easy for anybody
to write
themselves

down.

the gaps of what is
or is not

elide

the silly lines you lay.

most of it is ****.
true story.

but -still- you
write the space and
chase the miss

with appendages
that lift
concrete feet.
Aa Harvey May 2018
Worthwhile


Your smile is a sonic boom, it blows me away.
I didn’t have a wow moment,
There is no word that can say,
How amazed I was,
I was lost,
I was gone.
I ceased to exist and I was reborn eternally,
In a picture book image of our first encounter;
The second I realised your beautiful smile.
You stopped me being a doubter.
I hope I have found my divinity.
You are an angel for sure,
Because no other could shine so bright;
Try as they might.


If you blew a kiss a thousand ships would be launched
And I would be found on each of them,
Pining beneath every sail
And waiting to return to your beauty,
As soon as possible,
Without fail.
For I would break as you faded away,
But my heart you would keep with you.
It would remain beating,
For hope,
For the truth,
For love,
For you,
For one more chance to see your beautiful smile.
Mona has got nothing on you.


And if I never return to the land on which you walk,
Then I will only ever pass through endless doors,
So empty of desire, so full of second choices,
Extravagance useless,
Gone will be the memories.
For if I cannot love one hundred percent,
Then I am surely dead.
Such love is never truly worthy,
Of roses that float like ghosts in the centre of a cemetery,
Never falling or fading, just staying afloat like a life jacket,
Washed away on the waves of goodbye.
You are the air I need to breathe, I am a discarded crisp packet
And I will float wherever your words send me.
Whether that be stuck in thorny branches or flying high.
Up or down,
You set me free.


Within your centre, am I welcome to venture?
May I be so bold before I am in need of dentures?
You must invite me in if I am ever to enter.
Inside your heart I would be sure to find only diamonds,
Built to protect and last, in your voice I hear violins
And so you must keep yourself safe until you can truly be seen,
As I see you now in my dreams.
Holding me,
Kissing me,
Loving me,
Missing me.


And if it never becomes,
Then tear away the sun!
Pull the mountains asunder like thunder and bury me six feet under!
For life without beauty is not worth living.
A life without love is no life at all.
Life without you would only be worth keeping,
If there was a speck, of a morsel, of a chance at revival.
All things fall…

But then they rise once more…

And if sight-seers and seers became transfixed in your eyes,
They would surely elide all the lies, for they are the never-truths,
That could never be spoken to you.
Only love is welcome inside my heart.
I am surreal; you are a work of art.


All onlookers would not want to miss,
Something they could never have seen before!
Such a smile!
So beautiful!
So enamored am I with the lines that you draw;
I am all yours…
I am…
So yours…


All dreamers,
Would use all their effort,
To try and become kings;
Just to be rich enough to see your smile.  
I hope you leave them dreaming.
For if they saw you, as I see now my Yen,
Then you would make all the broken hearts believe again.
You make life seem worthwhile.
The biggest secret you hide is your smile.


When the gone are once more at one with this place we call Earth,
They will find you, hopefully with me
And they will thank you,
For helping them to once more believe
And allowing them to find their own Her.


A pretender to the throne upon which you sit,
So they are welcome to take away all the fugazi,
For I would only sell my soul for an original print.
I’d rather be with you,
Than be lost to the empty vessels of those who just want me…


I think you need me, I know I need you.
I think we could be; I hope you do too.
I know if you could just speak, we could make it through.
I know, if you and I became happy,
We could be whatever you want us to be.


(C)2018 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.
Tadmar Jelly May 2018
For we chose this path to walk side-by-side.
And when it widens and when it narrows,
We do not seek shelter or place to hide.

We rise and fall together like the tide.
Kinetic beings in the ebbs and flows.
For we chose this path to walk side-by-side.

And ever moving we cannot elide
The surge of life when pebbles bite the toes.
We do not seek shelter or place to hide.

You found me in my twenties full of pride,
But what was that to what my life now knows?
For we chose this path to walk side-by-side.

The trees cast shadows, you and I have tried.
Your sublime being through your beauty shows.
We do not seek shelter or place to hide.

When you change pace I'll always match your stride.
And live this love and watch it as it grows.
For we chose this path to walk side-by-side.
We do not seek shelter or place to hide.
Mohd Arshad Aug 2017
Kitchen is a far better office.
It has a greater life
That awaits everyone of them.
They, like befuddled moths,
Keep flying to figure out
Something splendid,
And that would be
A perfect cushion to lie on
They think.
Each utensil is a tap of joys.
No care is taken of.
Who would tell them
Man is to mint money,
Man is to shoulder family,
Man is a horse,
A camel,  and he scales up the hill,
Still no sigh.
They elide his greatness.
The moon can't do the work of the sun.
They are trying to be the sun.
In solitude their bones crack.
A sense of not letting themselves
Go down in the age of gender equality
Pushes them out.
They need to get
Man is to chop the wood
Woman to chop the carrot
And understanding of this
Is the fountain of
What they are looking for
The quest of mankind
(albeit boyish), I tell myself with pride
always look on the bright toothless side
of life, this nonconformist tried
his darnedest with
threadbare trappings to abide

despite bristling, harumphing,
and lamenting luckless life,
while woe didst ride
shotgun squeezing snotty
schnozzle, nuzzling nose, wide

dilating nostrils coquettishly cozying cold
conical snout splayed alongside
steering column as if silently to chide
yours truly for impoverished states
of body, mind, and spirit hermetically hide

ding, asper necessary manna,
hence, (no eggs add chore ration) I yolked
reining clamps down hard, ultimately dried
existential wellspring, especially averse to risk
rejection, when as supremely

scared boy stifling bittorrent tide
natural animal propensities squelched elide
ding healthy mental, physical
and spiritual development
desperation found future bride

less because stricken with love bug,
versus when pent up vasocongestion vied
hardened male member, which relied
on instinct to seal biological pact
sporting two (now grown) daughters bonafide

birthright genetically patented
each taking their respective stride
toward housing vibrant young women
expanding their comfort zones,
unwittingly forcing this papa to admit he denied
himself obligation to foster maturation

implicit with every species within world wide
web, no chance to rectify the bitterness inside
hence pervasive reference, sans annulment
portraying "FAKE" motif life, liberty
and pursuit of happiness only
experienced, when Alpine for Swiss side!
re: visited today April 12th, 2023

Way before aye knew
the name Fletcherism applied
family and friends even the bartered bride
would (tongue in cheek) chide
tummy uncommonly (recherché) atypical dyed
ded if the letter “y” one did elide
in the wool feeding
and/or slaking thirst guide
did precepts sans hungry
deaf eating beast impossible to hide

(the ferocious growling harassing imp -
armed to the figurative teeth ready to pounce
viz casus belli sans reeling off
a pseudo say id dish us vicious jeremiad
me, this unrepentant conscientious masticator,
who re: lied
on self control unbeknownst
to this pumpkin eater
(me not named Peter)
unwittingly followed

the basic tenet of Fletcherism - custom made
modus operandi vis a vis exercising okayed
mandibular metered (when famished),
eyes kept closed while tongue gently played
adhered to practice of eating small amounts,
which discipline stayed
engorging self, and as a result
(consuming sustenance
only when hungry avoiding
(wolfing like an instantaneous blitzkrieg flash)
found me aware visa vis master car ding
marginal increase in pounds meaning
thy body electric weighed

approximately for long stretches
to enable safe passage for sturdy brigs
when a habitue at one or another dining digs
stuffed nibbling on hors d'oeuvre figs
adequately satiating with with oomf
when contra dance caller Scott Higgs
announced "hands four," which signal
helped get my mojo back
and reel lee deuce home jigs,
which indeed kickstarted and syncopated,
oft times espying Bobby Riggs
who years gone back **** Vic Tory huss
e'en when donning apparel of Whigs
like colluding trumpetting molecules
that via tiff ***** doth zags and zigs.
Qualyxian Quest Jan 2023
The sky fades to orange
I call to California
Mr. David Markson
Can't say he didn't warn ya

The early days of Venice
Good place to hide
Tidal pools in Monterrey
Memories elide

Mircea Eliade
In Chicago with the Fire
Denver, Colorado
Rocky Mountain Higher

Grateful for my dad
Quiet in my room
Dread Annihilation
Coming American Doom

              Ka Boom!
Plus applying index finger as pointer guide
(take that Missus Wells),
who best not take objection, hence let snide
blackboard barbed comment dultifully slide
chalked up and emanating

from gentleman with pride
and prejudice toward third grade teacher,
whose archaic rubric, I no longer abide
when a student at Henry Kline,
he now doth elide

ridiculous bans Boyer Grade School
instituted), who undoubtedly Gracefully yells
from her grave, against these codas long defied
condemned, exorcised, forbidden taboos,
nonetheless tactically helped this pied

piping peter pan, an aging (intellectual baby
boomer bookworm) as his tried
and true knowledge bank account swells
conviction communicating wide
across avast web donning

and/or trumpeting averring,
he always decried
"FAKE" arrogance, conceit, egotism,...
which learning my methodology quells ride
ding high crest of aspiration an aside

to increase cerebral deteriorating multicells,
thus lessening the smarts for suicide
this technique fosters enhanced cognition,
galvanization, pronunciation, et cetera,
whereby vocalizing words,

while ensconced backside
voicing, learning idea
constituting each sentence,
(within figurative nutshells) decide
dutiful dogged diligence involves eyesight,

mandibular interaction
jabbering, sans oral jawbreader divide
aided by vocalization augmentation allows,
enables, and provides groundswells
flowing fun like joyride

with incorporation to hear
nasal twang only downside
syllabification altogether garnering
boost to comprehension outstride
ding learning taking paradigm nationwide.
I comfortably position
     derriere with pride
(all cheekiness *** side)
lightly seat dated, inside
ideally with bifocals removed,
     recalling "Plato's allegory of the caves,"
     where everything espied
a blur, more so (from mine

     severe myopia) conjures
     dark shadows flickr ring across,
     the edge of night - stride
rite across dreamy field of vision,
     no matter (despite)
     superfluous squinting briefly applied
across webbed whirled wide
universe till ocular orbs

     instagram, snapchat, and
     shutterfly, lids slowly slide
shut, whence immediately
    dark doth light divide
consummate relaxed mindset
     frame imbued, and imbibed,
where gentle existential
     awareness dost glide

     ever so nonchalantly,
     my consciousness of self I abide
faintly effortlessly breathing n'er decide
ding nor discriminating spontaneous
     notions nothing intruding denied,
     flitting to and fro, hither and yon
     of each inhalation and exhalation,
     then, aye approximate,

     I imagine an analog clock
     some few minutes elapse,
     when minute hand silently sweeps,
     re: completing micro orbitz ride
ding tiny armature nsync as thought

     processes soundlessly, mindlessly,
     and independently elide
into mild trance send dint altered state
     akin subtle difference,
     where engaged bachelorette
     becomes a bartered, bettered,
     and buttered bride
likewise with meditation disembodied self
     ascends cerebral cortex
      figuratively lapping - sea ming lee

     asper gentle timeless tide
buoyed by bobbing
     mantra setting placidity
     wordlessly teasing, massaging, and
     evoking enchanting ecstasy
     motioned via film meant invisible guide.
Yours truly plagiarizes himself with zeal
courtesy mental cogs and rusty wheel,
thus no literary crime committed to steel
I broadcast material shown thru rickety
black and white Roman Times newsreel

forthwith shoddy wordplay exempts me
against copyright infringement meaning
only I own privilege to take self to heel,
nevertheless yours truly hoops longshot
to score brownie points a higher power,
I will not cajole, bribe nor appeal...

while sitting on haunches horsing around
contemplating how to clearly expound
idea that the here and now does not exist
cuz no sooner then present moment
experienced than bitta bing bitta bang...
little block of time immediately gone,
hence quite profound...

Whereby present, i.e.
2:24 PM March 4th, 2021
instantaneously becomes past.

Linkedin thru tenuous
webbed world wide
electronic thread defied
no matter flurry of emails/
messages exchanged flattery applied
courtesy transient online

tête à tête downside
cyber venue offers convenient exit
personal aversion, I chide
brevity figurative thorn in side
futile effort Androcles tried
I haint lion, familiarization denied
fledgling cyber acquaintanceships
dead on the vine, yours truly sighed
potential friendship never fortified,
cuz immediate value judgement cast,

instantaneously prejudiced aversion
perhaps hidden agenda implied
maybe intimated illusions of grandeur
netiquette nuances overstepped, I chide
yours truly vouchsafe
absolute zero great expectation
love smitten wounds pride,
the Italian girl in Algiers

inchoate mystique forever unknown
nonetheless fantasize bartered bride
figment of overactive imagination
hence grist for poetry mill
grateful fleeting rapport tried
to take flight before sputtering

doomed to dustbin of history (mine)
filed within memory as template guide
against future unnecessary disappointment
best stick to your guns abide
against infatuation lest
conjured lass doth override
focus on reality no matter who espied

Facebook post, tis foolhardy
to allow, enable, and provide leeway,
hence aimless thoughts elide
dear boy, ya never learned always denied
rapture becoming ensnared
noose sense and sensibility stride
ding blindly, dumbly, foolishly...,
into own perilous entrapment, verstehen?
(thank you All Poetry, Facebook, family
Poetry Soup,... et cetera global friends.)

A network of cherished kinships allied
forged, and linkedin analogous
to union of groom and bride
thru electronic bonds engender intrigue,
nonetheless unconditionally accept,
no matter I chide
self, and reference mine existence
as if...this mortal already died

now more appreciative than ever,
cuz younger days witnessed
peers that did elide
me accompanied with relentless
teasing, snubbing, roasting
akin tubby kindled over a fireside,
thus...solitude shadowed me as sole guide
peopled with books

to escape and hide
from so called "real"
webbed world, yet inside
this former grievous
lad through alienation,
emasculation, and isolation no joyride
valuing myself less than a pawn on
chessboard of life

envying extrovert as kingside
station depriving, insulating, and
ostracizing yours truly belied
to Matthew Scott Harris
marginally functioning, and denied
him camaraderie, dating, enjoying
female friendships due
to lack of confidence and pride

and at the cusp of
pubescence...a slow descending ride
into the hungry (anorexic)
maws of suicide,
which ideations hammer psyche,
now aghast how I tried
(without success) to disappear sundering
mine complex edifice
into the wide

abyss of nothingness, hence to treasure
those electronic connections,
perhaps...totally no more'n four score
(and seven years ago)
all told of unbeknown village people
comprising worthy chums,
sans human league roar
ring (okay pardon the hyperbole),

but letting this foo fighter explore
a greater range of interpersonal
(no matter virtual), but each
unnamed cyber buddy worth more
than simple rhyming galore
words express, some
or all those who sprung
from Earth, wind and fire,

viz cosmic toreador
this poet would their
physical presence adore,
who realizes genuine experienced love
second best option

communicated thru the Internet...bonjour,
hence please accept at the least
(even thee lovely cousins,
daughters, sister Shari por favor,
a hug emanating from within mine
integrated central processing unit core!
(thank you All Poetry, COSMOFUNNEL,
Facebook, Hello Poetry
Poetry Soup,... et cetera global friends.)

A network of cherished kinships allied
forged, and linkedin analogous
to union of groom and bride
thru electronic bonds engender intrigue,
nonetheless unconditionally accept,
no matter I chide
self, and reference mine existence
as if...this mortal already died,

now more appreciative than ever,
cuz younger days witnessed
peers that did elide
me accompanied with relentless
teasing, snubbing, roasting
akin tubby kindled over a fireside,
thus...solitude shadowed me as sole guide
peopled with books

to escape and hide
from so called "real"
webbed world, yet inside
this former grievous
lad through alienation,
emasculation, and isolation no joyride
valuing myself less than a pawn on
chessboard of life

envying extrovert as kingside
station depriving, insulating, and
ostracizing yours truly belied
to Matthew Scott Harris
marginally functioning, and denied
him camaraderie, dating, enjoying
female friendships due
to lack of confidence and pride

and at the cusp of
pubescence...a slow descending ride
into the hungry (anorexic)
maws of suicide,
which ideations hammer psyche,
now aghast how I tried
(without success) to disappear sundering
mine complex edifice
into the wide

abyss of nothingness, hence to treasure
those electronic connections,
perhaps...totally no more'n four score
(and seven years ago)
all told of unbeknown village people
comprising worthy chums,
sans human league roar
ring (okay pardon the hyperbole),

but letting this foo fighter explore
a greater range of interpersonal
(no matter virtual), but each
unnamed cyber buddy worth more
than simple rhyming galore
words express, some
or all those who sprung
from Earth, wind and fire,

viz cosmic toreador
this poet would their
physical presence adore,
who realizes genuine experienced love
second best option

Loneliness I abhor,
nevertheless wistfulness
to communicate
thru the Internet...
finds me writing bonjour,
to random readers
familiar with literary nuances
of yours truly
within whose integrated
central processing unit core
reasonable rhymes coalesce
as trademark décor
lapsing words to explore

his existential crisis
enduring eighteen years
subtracted from fourscore
orbitz athwart planet earth
in the balance as informed
Former Vice President
of the United States Albert Gore
his 1992 tree tease
at that time *******
revelations Greta Thunberg
makes sure **** sapiens do not ignore.
Qualyxian Quest Mar 2019
Lucky 7 Linked In
      unknowing if known
             abide, elide, hide
I cannot grasp myself:
I elide through my fingers.
I cannot face myself:
one pair of eyes eludes my look.

I am intended by consciousness,
still surpassing myself in passion,
still reaching beyond my grasp.
In what is not, I find myself.
rather yours truly doth thrive
on keeping the ethos, mythos,
and pathos of Pigpen alive
subjected to eternal
abomination, brutalization,
condemnation, damnation,
emasculation, humiliation, ostracization,
who one day envisions himself
as a decrepit solitudinarian
an aging long haired baby boomer,

(I seriously contemplate donating
about a dozen inches of straggly hair
to locks of love, hoping
a stylist makes house calls -
since anticipatory anxiety
wracks these lovely bones
at the prospect
of setting foot inside a salon)
wherefore he might finally
cease to be a subject of derision,

but please do not chide,
a sexagenarian whose bruised ego
experienced more'n lifetime
worth of rejection,
whose first three plus decades
(approximately half my existence)
of mein kampf livingsocial I gingerly elide
where persona non grata of Charlie Brown
(essentially portrayed as a loser)
on his keister he did glide

cuz unkind behavior
demonstrated by Lucy Van Pelt
without fail always pulls away the football
disclosing her character,
who harbors spitefulness inside
earning her another point
of maliciousness notated
on the figurative blackboard,
when I chalked up and kreide.

The Peanuts gallery
populated pleasure reading
during mine boyhood
as well as the Little Engine that Could,
whose disposition evinced a solitary lad
never delinquent except one attempt
to get caught shoplifting a yoyo at Ames
Department store in Lansdale,
but other than that amazingly as all good
boys do fine.

Matter of fact quite few other comic strips
ranked as my favorite back when I read
the Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday edition
approximately two thirds
of threescore and three years ago
(approximately half life
of Matthew Scott Harris)
I cannot forget other comic strip titled
Andy Capp, Beetle Bailey,
Berkeley Breathed, Blondie,

Brenda Starr Reporter,
Calvin and Hobbes
Dennis the Menace, Dilbert,
The Far Side, For Better or For Worse,
Frank and Earnest,
Fred Basset, Garfield,
Hägar the Horrible,
Mutt and Jeff, Nancy, Pogo,
Shoe, The Family Circus, Tumbleweeds,
The Lockhorns,
The Wizard of Id, and Ziggy.

So many choices availed themselves
regarding how to while away
my leisure hours during
those fleeting twenties,
thirties, and forties of mine,
but yours truly (me)
frequently, easily, and decidedly
found contentment then and now
among the rank and file
of other not ready
for prime time players
soaking up newsworthy morsels
and if not reading aforementioned material
than appeasing the insatiable bookworm
holed up within corporeal complex edifice
housing these lovely bones  
cerebrally feasting on a favorite genre
possibly fulfilling hunger
for historical fiction
or miscellaneous nonfiction.
Steve Matthews Sep 2021
Desiring a long life,
I renounced Pleasure,
Distraction, Fun--

Like a Buddhist monk--

And offered my delinquent
but pliant body
to the waterboard,
the smoldering cigarette,
the clenched fist,
the medieval rack

In the dungeon basement,
screams unheeded,
the seconds passed like hours,
the hours like days,
the days like years,
the years like millennia,

Each excruciating moment
impossible to elide or ignore,

I felt as close to Eternity
as a mortal man can get
Qualyxian Quest Aug 2020
I got Catholic guilt
But I got Mark on my side

And I got a shanty Irish priest
When I have to hide

I traveled the mystic East
Took the Siem Riep ride

72 when I have to part
And Eliade to elide

— The End —