"embattled" poems
Where's the ventriloquist
throwing voices around
like whistling stray dogs
the voice and the vision
a crystal *****
whispering
with mud in the mouth
the ***** doesn't lie
a yammering vantwilaquist
who's voice springs from a blood cream corridor
with electric lips and rainbow flesh
a lost beast dazzled in endless wander lust
in search of a scarlet women
surrounded only
by aspiring virgins
sworn to be true
by desolations caress
in black ash weddings
with white frilly dresses
weeping for delicate cruelties
they will never know
his father a falling star
his soul
an undulating cobalt shrine
to her
who he can not find
a catalog of discrepancies
a noxious experiment
with a wandering eye
lust ******
embattled between reason and passion
is that look your giving me
shorthand psychic humiliation
for my vile indiscretions I'm trembling to visit upon you
I'm wearing my face like window dressing
hiding the obscenity of my true will behind a curled lip
eyes down cast
hoping to use you like a vacant room
to smear the walls and floors
with your flesh like ************ glitter
too bad
i'm outnumbered by good people
there are sky-fulls of them
agitated with moral concerns
ruining my life with logic
those scoundrels
got pedigree
ideologies
religion
folded ears and moving lips
all monkeys see and monkeys do
who are they
and
were
is
their
ventriloquist
Aug 21, 2017
Aug 21, 2017 at 12:41 PM UTC
~dedicated to the old poets here~
the addictive pairing of certain words, a line,
a lyric, slap-snapping you to full attention,
unfailing decades of instant recognition,
an adrenaline + caffeine shot that powers
a chance, a tensile injection that causes
the lips to commence a new choreography,
the fingers to tap, a jumbled, hurried, embattled
disorderly mess that regenerates, reformulates,
concords into agreement, a harmonic consistency
a geometry of many differing angles that equate
a hard physical, a soft mentality in a singled work,
coexisting in a sacred state of singed confluence,
though imperfect, satisfies mathematical boundaries
of a random outpouring, crowning the stripe inspiring
the spark that finally satisfyingly silences an ignited
filament a-glowing for years, that holy happens
to cross your antennae, fulfilling the need to honor,
the sacred geometry of chance, the honor to need,
the joy of saying, at last, this unwritten debt, paid!
————————————————————————-
(1) a favorite of many years, a lyric from “The Shape of My Heart” by Sting
(2) Dec 3 2020 2:53pm NYC
Dec 3, 2020
Dec 3, 2020 at 2:59 PM UTC
Only the stars endome the lonely camp,
Only the desert leagues encompass it;
Waterless wastes, a wilderness of wit,
Embattled Cold, Imagination's Cramp.
Now were the Desolation fain to stamp
The congealed Spirit of man into the pit,
Save that, unquenchable because unlit,
The Love of God burns steady, like a Lamp.
It burns ! beyond the sands, beyond the stars.
It burns ! beyond the bands, beyond the bars.
And so the Expanse of Mystery, veil by veil,
Burns inward, plume on plume still folding over
The dissolved heart of the amazéd lover-
The angel wings upon the Holy Grail!
2.7k
Sung at the Completion of the Concord Monument,
April 19th, 1836
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
2.6k
We’ve accepted that we’re already dead.
Like the soldier
Like the victim
No, the veteran of love
(and subsequent heartbreak)
We’ve accepted we’re already dead
So we can keep on living.
I was broken.
No longer working
No longer dreaming
No longer wanting
Pushing away
The hands that tried to help me
The encounters that didn’t last broke me.
I was embattled.
In the trenches of my own existence.
Those we met
Under picture-perfect circumstances
When we thought utopia could be real
woefully disproved this theory.
Rude awakening to what agony feels like
And sleeping all day so we could self-medicate
all night.
Self-medicating with ***** and cigarettes
Not because we needed to but
For respite
For the moment
For a friend in the bottle
Or the lighter.
Life is war
Survival is the only option
Death, inevitable and imminent
We are the ones in the ring
We have lived here
We will die here.
There are those who are weak
Succumbing to the needles
The tap tap tap on veins
Or worse
Ordinariness
Boring as the 8x11’s
found in printers
All around the world.
I will not be ordinary.
Surrender is not an option.
Because I am a gladiator
I have adapted.
I’m still in the ring
But I will defend myself now.
They are the lions;
The king of their race
But I
I am a gladiator in a Gap V-Neck Tee shirt.
I will die with love in my heart,
Belief in my soul
My ashes will spell out the word Hope.
Nothing will break me ever again.
Feb 12, 2013
Feb 12, 2013 at 2:58 PM UTC
Milton! I think thy spirit hath passed away
From these white cliffs and high-embattled towers;
This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours
Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey,
And the age changed unto a mimic play
Wherein we waste our else too-crowded hours:
For all our pomp and pageantry and powers
We are but fit to delve the common clay,
Seeing this little isle on which we stand,
This England, this sea-lion of the sea,
By ignorant demagogues is held in fee,
Who love her not: Dear God! is this the land
Which bare a triple empire in her hand
When Cromwell spake the word Democracy!
2.3k
a tongue with cheek lampoon
that shout Barca, save
Barcelona when blazing jack (of spades)
into the net with goal of The King's Cup
if Estelada retort his court
these embattled cries of democracy in Spain
why land ** as Mariano Rajoy
Nov 10, 2017
Nov 10, 2017 at 8:40 AM UTC
What shall be said of this embattled day
And armed occupation of this night
By all thy foes beleaguered,—now when sight
Nor sound denotes the loved one far away?
Of these thy vanquished hours what shalt thou say,—
As every sense to which she dealt delight
Now labours lonely o’er the stark noon-height
To reach the sunset’s desolate disarray?
Stand still, fond fettered wretch! while Memory’s art
Parades the Past before thy face, and lures
Thy spirit to her passionate portraitures:
Till the tempestuous tide-gates flung apart
Flood with wild will the hollows of thy heart,
And thy heart rends thee, and thy body endures.
1.6k
no guilt lives here
no binding fear
no last chance proof
no remedies moot
the hollowed heart
pounds still
the measured mark
unfilled
driven thoughts
will stay their course
amid the freaks
of future's force
change of mind
is change of time
chain this shame - raise this blind
fork this road - freeze this cold
bide this crime - bend this fold
embattled breath
to and fro
know no rest - take this toll
buried love
long and low
climb this crest - breach this hole
here where no guilt lives
where the hollow heart pounds still
pumping pain like a train through my brain
'til i'm a free bird in the rain
'til i'm a T-Bird in a frame
'til i'm a face without a name
©Jason Cole
Mar 26, 2015
Mar 26, 2015 at 10:20 PM UTC
Yep, that’s me,
Totally and absolutely ******
(Are totally and absolutely the same?)
Sure they are, proves my point!
Victim of my own frustration,
I put down the bottle,
****** but not entirely stupid.
Well, ‘not entirely’ says a lot.
Am I alone in this?
Nah, many often realise,
They are utterly *******
But they keep on,
Bending over in life,
Taking it up the ****
Screaming in pain,
Wailing at the world.
Untill they see, notice,
Begin to understand,
They may be crushed,
Battered down, diminished,
Embattled by little things,
But it could be worse.
Much, much worse, indeed,
They shed the depression,
Wipe away the tears,
Nurture their damaged soul,
Learn, progress, live,
Yep, that’s me.
© Paul Chafer 2014
Jul 6, 2014
Jul 6, 2014 at 6:00 AM UTC
i would have been barefoot
with cuffs not hemmed
and rolled
but its not fashion
my jeans are aged
but not from design
i wear my life
into a one roomed class
it dons a bell tower
and, post-toll
no one prays
one instructor for all
each led in divergent direction
according to our abilities
and while the greater lot
learns an appealing cursive script
i curse at the blank pages before me
in my simple way
passing them as notes
but they fall on ears
as barren of hearing
as the recipients feet are
of the callous and sediment
that make mine
breathe life into my narrative
but here no lessons are taught
however gleaned from discord
interpreted through grime
grime and rebuke
filtered through shallow waters
through embattled plains
rife with mole hills and ant piles
scattered with patches of knee high grass
spotted with blooming indigenous flora
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 1:37 PM UTC
I would like to know you
More than I do
You are a gracious presence that in glimpses I have seen influence the mightiest egos to acquiesce
I stumble across you at times yet would know you more as a constant companion
I forget you often and when in the throes of reaction and defensiveness I catch myself in arrogance or in self righteousness or justification
This is followed by regret
How do I know you?
How do I find you in the moments when I am alone and embattled?
How do I find you in that first breath?
Of surrender
MChallis @ 2014
Nov 19, 2014
Nov 19, 2014 at 5:29 AM UTC
Aloft in my helium balloon
I watch the cloud formation.
White puffs of water vapor
Play scenes of battle simulation.
Of great dragon wars
and vast rebel forces
Colliding with hellspawn
and gladiators with horses.
Soldiers impaled on billowing swords,
Dragons in full embattled flight,
Brash vivid images up in the heavens
Lead to victorious imaginings this night.
Jul 9, 2011
Jul 9, 2011 at 4:12 PM UTC
(March 2003)
Alas, ambitious girl, foregone of France,
Thy days are numbered now, through loss of power.
Though once thou led the king a merry dance,
His gaze will wander from a faded flower.
Women are cattle in the eyes of men,
Mere chattels; drear, embattled, scapegoat souls;
How utterly unthinkable, Boleyn,
For queens to rise above domestic goals.
Thy barren womb is witness to thy shame,
Its emptiness brings punishment anew;
The king grows ever scornful of thy name,
Look to thy prayers and dreams, however few.
Bereft of love, one girl branded as jade.
The flagstone cracks beneath the slashing blade.
Sep 2, 2009
Sep 2, 2009 at 11:23 AM UTC
WHILE I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes,
My heart would brim with dreams about the times
When we bent down above the fading coals
And talked of the dark folk who live in souls
Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees;
And of the wayward twilight companies
Who sigh with mingled sorrow and content,
Because their blossoming dreams have never bent
Under the fruit of evil and of good:
And of the embattled flaming multitude
Who rise, wing above wing, flame above flame,
And, like a storm, cry the Ineffable Name,
And with the clashing of their sword-blades make
A rapturous music, till the morning break
And the white hush end all but the loud beat
Of their long wings, the flash of their white feet.
1.3k
Sauntering casually,
jostled by shoppers,
teatime bargain hunters;
curses of common folk
ringing in my ears,
out of tune with
the cries of the traders.
Two for one here!
I say, two for one here!
Embattled in the
throng of a slow
moving crowd, shoulders
heaving, swaying to an
inaudible beat. Tired
faces marking time,
quelling inner frustration.
Get a move on!
Please, just get a move on.
Now it’s raining,
incessant needles
prickle my face.
Suspended water droplets
dangle from striped
awnings, reflecting
trapped, busy, images.
Caught in a moment.
Spattered, in a moment.
Then I see her,
the fruit-stall girl,
her words and gestures
touch me like music
rippling over my skin.
Secret caressing fingers,
bringing me to life.
She doesn’t see me.
No: she doesn’t ever see me.
I’m almost mesmerised,
by the light catching
the white curve of
her neck. Her hair,
like spun gold, dancing
on her ruffled collar as
she serves with a smile.
Your change sir.
Don’t forget your change sir!
I turned for home,
head bowed, shoulders
stooped; no crowded bus
for me with standing
room only. A slow
solitary walk, past
dark, dripping gardens.
Her face for company, how
strange: her face, for company.
© Paul Chafer 2014
Dec 12, 2013
Dec 12, 2013 at 6:09 AM UTC
Oh, gravest star!
Such a wary little lighthouse
watching in the dark
our miseries and poignant pleas
how bored you must be!
For so sat I, embattled in a café
these grumbling bones in order stowed:
first old lovers, with naked buds
makeshift friends dancing upon their nose
second, young Thomas Toy
his hands tied, his feet cold
a warning melting in his mouth:
"This verse," he told me, "remember the key."
"How so?" I dared ask.
"Remember the stumbling block of sleep.
Remember, and let it keep.
With so much hope, I can near see it:
of friends already fallen
their paths of his design
of a life, or least, a feeling
its colors undefined
of hands unused, though worn
furrowing with waste
If so, I couldn’t blame you
for drowning in the sea
in truth, I would near desire it—
just to light the dark
yes, light the dark
and meet the world beneath.
But jealousy aside
you cannot long to die
in hindsight, even worse—
we’re all a second gamble.
Oh, beloved star
just a laughing little lighthouse
watching in the dark
our miseries and poignant pleas
how happy you must be.
Jul 6, 2011
Jul 6, 2011 at 9:38 PM UTC
© 2009 (Jim Sularz)
In a strange land, in a far-off sea, ships set sail to scar man and earth.
When diplomacy fails, shattering hopes for peace, hate propels war’s unwanted birth.
Months and years of mock exercise and drills to check complete.
To prepare for a war that may never come, but is born when tyranny’s unleashed.
On that tearful day when soldiers called, break formation to say goodbye.
Children rush out to clutch soldier’s legs, tremble, and start to cry.
But soldiers know, they have to go, to keep play soldiers safe.
From yet another tyranny, in yet, another place.
On embattled shores where fallen foes and heroes fiercely fight.
The battle ground will be sanctified by those who die that night.
Through the grime, and with sweat, and with blood, and with tears.
Through the horror of war, many frozen with fear.
From battle to battle, fighting shore to shore.
Nothing escapes from the hands of war.
Men killing men with all of their might.
Unchain a bomb with a blinding light.
When a long, brutal war finally ends - claiming it’s broken and countless dead.
The boys that charged as a spirited godsend - return dazed, war hardened, iron men.
And when some soldiers come home, they’re never quite the same.
Because their silent war rages on, every night and every day.
On Veteran’s day with the cheering crowds and the waving flags.
They celebrate the soldier’s sacrifice in a very special way.
But a soldier’s mind is just a flash away.
To a place called Hell where they died that day.
Now, with the soldiers worn and their bodies bent.
A once embattled foe has become a friend.
And when the day comes, to blow the final taps for all.
The old units will be lined up and ready - for the last roll call.
Jun 10, 2012
Jun 10, 2012 at 5:34 PM UTC
"Forgive me father for I have sinned"
"Will you take my confession?"
"I'll listen to it, yes, my son"
"But, remember with who you're messing"
"Sorry father, I am confused"
"I do not get your meaning"
"Don't worry child, it's ok"
"It's not your soul needs gleaning"
"Tell me son, what did you do?"
"That you need to lose your burden"
"It can't be nearly half as bad"
"As all the folks we're hurtin"
"Again dear father, I'm confused"
"You speak in muddled rhymes"
"I'm sorry child, it's just that"
"We're in tough, embattled times"
"No matter what the sin you have"
"We've done much worse things than you"
"And I as Holy Father"
"I hide all the things they do"
"I say, my son...if there is one"
"Who needs to be absolved"
"You're sitting in this box with him"
"It's me who should be solved"
"I was the Pope, just days ago"
"I led the Holy Roman Church"
"No one was more powerful"
"And I left them in the lurch"
"I was the one who spoke to God"
"I was the Holy See"
"If God had wanted something done"
"He spoke to you through me"
"But, I chose my own path"
"Hiding sins of Catholic Priests"
"I turned away from all their wrongs"
"I let the bad ones feast"
"Pedophiles, I hid them all"
"I turned a blind eye to their sin"
"Then, I hid the papers showing proof"
"I would not let God come in"
"Now, I am protected"
"I can not be touched, you see"
"The Vatican is still my home"
"I'm not the Pope, but still am free"
"So, child, tell me what it is"
"You think may curse your soul"
"I'll give you three hail mary's"
"And then I'll send you for a stroll"
"I was the Pope, the voice of God"
"Now, I'm just a normal man"
"I'm as guilty as the rest of them"
"Catch Me If You Can!!!"
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 11:50 AM UTC
Tilts and toughenings.
A fort under siege,
A surge upon itself,
Embattled. Imperiled
Within.
What days have past
With some peace,
In nothing but a song?
Fortified with mud,
And fools penetrate.
A break.
The breaking of late,
Warts entwined with blood.
Their stems growing long
And won't cease,
Given their past
Within.
In battle, in peril,
The reach of the self
Can't fashion a bridge.
Toughenings are tilting.
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 3:28 AM UTC
~
*It's all about
to become reimagined
along a foreign coast
Embattled shorelines
an archer on the beach
girl in a sling
facing the other way
playground martyrs
Random acts
of senseless violence
the warm taste of human failure*
~
Apr 21, 2024
Apr 21, 2024 at 2:17 PM UTC
The tolling of a fallen
heart
The rendering of the hearts
that weep
I rest my body near a tomb
and lay me down to sleep
I sleep to hear the moans
of war the embattled spirits
cry to
me
please no more graves of war be made,
the echo from a digger's grave
The dirt upon my hands
I see, of blood and dirt and bodies torn
My hands do hold this heavy clump, my mind can only see,
my digger's grave, far lost
from humanity
I awake to hear the spirits cry, my heart in sadness be,
to hear the tolling bells, of fallen hearts,
and the rendering of these souls
that weep
So let the dove of peace,upon our land-
forever be...
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 4:13 AM UTC
Which path to take?
Become lost
And follow destruction?
Or find
A truer way
And live with the higher self?
A self that does not blame others
A self that strives to live humanely
A self that creates
And does not destroy
Which person to become?
Embattled, defeated
Drifting, rootless?
Or strong, grounded
Honest, compassionate
Which path to take?
I may need a guide, kind and true.
I may need a friend, clear and strong
I may need support
To help me climb the many steps
All are there,
But
Which path to take?
Nov 10, 2017
Nov 10, 2017 at 2:31 PM UTC