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"embittered" poems
There are cemeteries that are lonely, graves full of bones that do not make a sound, the heart moving through a tunnel, in it darkness, darkness, darkness, like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves, as though we were drowning inside our hearts, as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul. And there are corpses, feet made of cold and sticky clay, death is inside the bones, like a barking where there are no dogs, coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere, growing in the damp air like tears of rain. Sometimes I see alone coffins under sail, embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair, with bakers who are as white as angels, and pensive young girls married to notary publics, caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead, the river of dark purple, moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death, filled by the sound of death which is silence. Death arrives among all that sound like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it, comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no finger in it, comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no throat. Nevertheless its steps can be heard and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree. I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see, but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets, of violets that are at home in the earth, because the face of death is green, and the look death gives is green, with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf and the somber color of embittered winter. But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom, lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies, death is inside the broom, the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses, it is the needle of death looking for thread. Death is inside the folding cots: it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses, in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out: it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets, and the beds go sailing toward a port where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.
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18.5k
Nothing But Death
There are cemeteries that are lonely, graves full of bones that do not make a sound, the heart moving through a tunnel, in it darkness, darkness, darkness, like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves, as though we were drowning inside our hearts, as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul. And there are corpses, feet made of cold and sticky clay, death is inside the bones, like a barking where there are no dogs, coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere, growing in the damp air like tears of rain. Sometimes I see alone coffins under sail, embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair, with bakers who are as white as angels, and pensive young girls married to notary publics, caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead, the river of dark purple, moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death, filled by the sound of death which is silence. Death arrives among all that sound like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it, comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no finger in it, comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no throat. Nevertheless its steps can be heard and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree. I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see, but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets, of violets that are at home in the earth, because the face of death is green, and the look death gives is green, with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf and the somber color of embittered winter. But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom, lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies, death is inside the broom, the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses, it is the needle of death looking for thread. Death is inside the folding cots: it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses, in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out: it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets, and the beds go sailing toward a port where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.
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48
Tick tick I hear your teeth click time's going and gone too soon Ballerina tip embittered lip Degenerating mentality rippling morality Love tipping fraying and ripping asking quietly, "did you Ever love me?"
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Jan 29, 2014
Jan 29, 2014 at 10:54 PM UTC
January
if words are food for the mind, then here is a glimpse of mine if words are drugs for the brain, then here is why i'm so pained. abandoned, abhorrent abnormal, absent abstract, abuse addicted, anxious betray, bitterly blank, blasphemy bloodless, breakdown breathless, brutal captive, casually catastrophe, cautiously change, cigarettes crucial, clueless damaged, dangerous deadly, disastrous disheartened, disconcerting dramatic, dreading eager, eccentric ecstasy, eerie effete, effortless embittered, excess faded, failure faintly, fallacy faltering, fatally fearfully, finally garbage, gawky gibberish, gloomy gone, goodbye graphic, gratify hallucinate, harshly hazy, heartless hectic, helpless hesitant, hit-and-miss idiotic, idly ignorant, intimacy illogical, imaginative infatuated, intoxicated jealousy, jittery journey, journal joylessly, judicial junk, juvenile keen, killing knavish, knocking knockout, knotty knowingly, knowledge laborious, lacking lame, languishing lifeless, literature lovelorn, lugubrious madness, maintenance make-believe, malaise mean, melancholic mellow, melodramatic naff, naivety nameless, naturally nauseous, nebulous neglected, nervous oasis, objectionable obliged, obliterate oblivion, obscurity obsolete, one-and-only pacifist, pained pale, panicky paradise, paralyze passionately, passively raging, ranting rationalize, raving realistic, reasonable rebellious, reckless saboteur, sadness sake, sameness sanity, satisfactory scar, steady taint, tangled tasteless, tearful telling, temperamental terror, theoretical unaffected, uncanny uncommon, unconsciously undesirable, uneasy unfortunate, untidy vaguely, vanish vanity, vanquish versatile, vicious violence, voracious waiting, waking walkout, wanting wasteful, weary withering, wrecking if words are food for the mind, then you've seen a glimpse of mine if words are drugs for the brain, then no wonder i'm so pained. -djs
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Aug 5, 2013
Aug 5, 2013 at 11:21 PM UTC
a glimpse of my mind
if words are food for the mind, then here is a glimpse of mine if words are drugs for the brain, then here is why i'm so pained. abandoned, abhorrent abnormal, absent abstract, abuse addicted, anxious betray, bitterly blank, blasphemy bloodless, breakdown breathless, brutal captive, casually catastrophe, cautiously change, cigarettes crucial, clueless damaged, dangerous deadly, disastrous disheartened, disconcerting dramatic, dreading eager, eccentric ecstasy, eerie effete, effortless embittered, excess faded, failure faintly, fallacy faltering, fatally fearfully, finally garbage, gawky gibberish, gloomy gone, goodbye graphic, gratify hallucinate, harshly hazy, heartless hectic, helpless hesitant, hit-and-miss idiotic, idly ignorant, intimacy illogical, imaginative infatuated, intoxicated jealousy, jittery journey, journal joylessly, judicial junk, juvenile keen, killing knavish, knocking knockout, knotty knowingly, knowledge laborious, lacking lame, languishing lifeless, literature lovelorn, lugubrious madness, maintenance make-believe, malaise mean, melancholic mellow, melodramatic naff, naivety nameless, naturally nauseous, nebulous neglected, nervous oasis, objectionable obliged, obliterate oblivion, obscurity obsolete, one-and-only pacifist, pained pale, panicky paradise, paralyze passionately, passively raging, ranting rationalize, raving realistic, reasonable rebellious, reckless saboteur, sadness sake, sameness sanity, satisfactory scar, steady taint, tangled tasteless, tearful telling, temperamental terror, theoretical unaffected, uncanny uncommon, unconsciously undesirable, uneasy unfortunate, untidy vaguely, vanish vanity, vanquish versatile, vicious violence, voracious waiting, waking walkout, wanting wasteful, weary withering, wrecking if words are food for the mind, then you've seen a glimpse of mine if words are drugs for the brain, then no wonder i'm so pained. -djs
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97
I live a life collecting pieces. Pieces of fantasies forever the realm of childhood; Pieces of imaginations turned wild and wonderful. Pieces of laughter, confusion, delight and tears. Pieces of melancholy, shards of sorrow; fragments of regret, portions of jealousy. Sections of desire, passion, leading us on blindly to others of heartache and yearning. The rough edges of frustration, yet the smooth curves of contentment, peace. I live a life collecting pieces; this is what I’m told makes a life worthy. Worthy of remembrance, joy; fulfilment. But only I can see the struggles, feel my bones bearing more weight; the aching tiredness I fall into, when I’m not at work, collecting the pieces I speak of. The fright I hastily pick up off the ground, when I compare my clumsy, ***** array of pieces to your perfect and bound ones; when you aren’t looking. The dread I reach for, because you leave it crushed beneath your feet. The nervous tension pulling strings beneath my skin; leaving me a reckless, vulnerable puppet collecting the pieces left in your wake. Torn to scattered, dusty pieces; Reborn a puzzle of simplicities, bright and shining pieces woven into form. No matter where we have been, where we were taken, where we were loved, where we were betrayed, where we fought bravely, where we surrendered nobly, where we were embittered, where we learnt of strengths and weaknesses; we are all made of pieces. We are collections of pieces. You and I. Our collection is known as life; each piece is our experience of something. Someone. Somewhere. And the more we know each other, the more often our hands can reach for two of the same, available pieces left before us. I pen them down, keep them special and fragrant. I live a life collecting pieces and often they are of you.
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Aug 4, 2016
Aug 4, 2016 at 9:16 PM UTC
The Pieces of This Life
I live a life collecting pieces. Pieces of fantasies forever the realm of childhood; Pieces of imaginations turned wild and wonderful. Pieces of laughter, confusion, delight and tears. Pieces of melancholy, shards of sorrow; fragments of regret, portions of jealousy. Sections of desire, passion, leading us on blindly to others of heartache and yearning. The rough edges of frustration, yet the smooth curves of contentment, peace. I live a life collecting pieces; this is what I’m told makes a life worthy. Worthy of remembrance, joy; fulfilment. But only I can see the struggles, feel my bones bearing more weight; the aching tiredness I fall into, when I’m not at work, collecting the pieces I speak of. The fright I hastily pick up off the ground, when I compare my clumsy, ***** array of pieces to your perfect and bound ones; when you aren’t looking. The dread I reach for, because you leave it crushed beneath your feet. The nervous tension pulling strings beneath my skin; leaving me a reckless, vulnerable puppet collecting the pieces left in your wake. Torn to scattered, dusty pieces; Reborn a puzzle of simplicities, bright and shining pieces woven into form. No matter where we have been, where we were taken, where we were loved, where we were betrayed, where we fought bravely, where we surrendered nobly, where we were embittered, where we learnt of strengths and weaknesses; we are all made of pieces. We are collections of pieces. You and I. Our collection is known as life; each piece is our experience of something. Someone. Somewhere. And the more we know each other, the more often our hands can reach for two of the same, available pieces left before us. I pen them down, keep them special and fragrant. I live a life collecting pieces and often they are of you.
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54
There are so many sides to me... A perplexing mixed identity... A spliced yet whole menagerie... Of characters... To meet each one...is to be undone... Touched...without flesh... I am Vesuvius...just below the surface... Molten malice merging...swirling... The narrow Nile... Meandering mildly...coaxing vexing perplexing...wildly... A temptress...a child...a bitter diatribe...holding...no...unfolding... This story...non-benign... And this is where you come in... Tumultuous tide...your raging winds... A course-less calamity...to pursue... That is not me...THAT...is you... Unbridled...and unabashed... Alas our toxic story line...how well embittered did entwine...our love... Dangerous pursuit...then...you took root... Off with the loot... Of my misfortune... I attempt to fold... Forfeit my resentment...discontentment... My own deliverance from you... You disappear...no...transform Retreat...from your chaotic norm... Another type of magic trick...to capture my bewilderment.... Fully... Fooly... Folly... Tears tremble on edge...carried swiftly from ledge...where they teeter... Behind each one...is held an ocean... A watery well... Endless emotion... Navigating features...dodging dignities plea... WE... Toss the currency of love into the depths... Whisper wishes on the wind... The downward dance...a wishes chance... The murky bottom is but wishful thinking... I should be rich off the wonder... That put asunder...Our love... I am Vesuvius... Just below the surface...
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Jan 24, 2013
Jan 24, 2013 at 12:50 PM UTC
I Am Vesuvius...
There are so many sides to me... A perplexing mixed identity... A spliced yet whole menagerie... Of characters... To meet each one...is to be undone... Touched...without flesh... I am Vesuvius...just below the surface... Molten malice merging...swirling... The narrow Nile... Meandering mildly...coaxing vexing perplexing...wildly... A temptress...a child...a bitter diatribe...holding...no...unfolding... This story...non-benign... And this is where you come in... Tumultuous tide...your raging winds... A course-less calamity...to pursue... That is not me...THAT...is you... Unbridled...and unabashed... Alas our toxic story line...how well embittered did entwine...our love... Dangerous pursuit...then...you took root... Off with the loot... Of my misfortune... I attempt to fold... Forfeit my resentment...discontentment... My own deliverance from you... You disappear...no...transform Retreat...from your chaotic norm... Another type of magic trick...to capture my bewilderment.... Fully... Fooly... Folly... Tears tremble on edge...carried swiftly from ledge...where they teeter... Behind each one...is held an ocean... A watery well... Endless emotion... Navigating features...dodging dignities plea... WE... Toss the currency of love into the depths... Whisper wishes on the wind... The downward dance...a wishes chance... The murky bottom is but wishful thinking... I should be rich off the wonder... That put asunder...Our love... I am Vesuvius... Just below the surface...
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44
Somehow, I managed to get to my thirties without eating a cherry --- a fresh one, anyway, raw, untamed, unshelved, and forgodssake, unmarischinoed. I had them in pies, gooey, sickening, too much syrup, and in sundaes --- again, not real, a turn-off, saw people tie the stems in knots, I had the impression, I think, that if people had to do all the things they do with cherries to make them flavorful, they must be really **** straight out of the bag. I made my mind up that they were unpleasant and I would have nothing to do with them. Even, or especially, in chocolate-covered cherries, which my mother loved, so I wanted to love, I could at best eat the chocolate around that thick viscous sugary embryonic fluid wherein lay the embittered, unborn and unloved cherry and not the coveted prize. So imagine that day when, careless at a cocktail party, or at someone's house, hungry, I nibbled at a fresh one, deep red and whole, gingerly working my way around the stem and coming awake to ohmygod what have I been missing all these years? They still seem brand new now, every time, a delicacy, something wealthy people indulge in and so not really belonging to my world. They beg for the company of wine and the most delicate cheeses, they ask to be shared and doted on. The keep revealing themselves, on the plate, unadorned, and they keep reminding me to try something else that I have never tasted, like complete and utter honesty, or looking at myself naked, without judgment, even at the innermost feminine parts, upside down with a mirror until I see why they say making love for the first time is giving away your cherry.
0
Jul 31, 2014
Jul 31, 2014 at 1:03 PM UTC
Ode to the Cherry
Somehow, I managed to get to my thirties without eating a cherry --- a fresh one, anyway, raw, untamed, unshelved, and forgodssake, unmarischinoed. I had them in pies, gooey, sickening, too much syrup, and in sundaes --- again, not real, a turn-off, saw people tie the stems in knots, I had the impression, I think, that if people had to do all the things they do with cherries to make them flavorful, they must be really **** straight out of the bag. I made my mind up that they were unpleasant and I would have nothing to do with them. Even, or especially, in chocolate-covered cherries, which my mother loved, so I wanted to love, I could at best eat the chocolate around that thick viscous sugary embryonic fluid wherein lay the embittered, unborn and unloved cherry and not the coveted prize. So imagine that day when, careless at a cocktail party, or at someone's house, hungry, I nibbled at a fresh one, deep red and whole, gingerly working my way around the stem and coming awake to ohmygod what have I been missing all these years? They still seem brand new now, every time, a delicacy, something wealthy people indulge in and so not really belonging to my world. They beg for the company of wine and the most delicate cheeses, they ask to be shared and doted on. The keep revealing themselves, on the plate, unadorned, and they keep reminding me to try something else that I have never tasted, like complete and utter honesty, or looking at myself naked, without judgment, even at the innermost feminine parts, upside down with a mirror until I see why they say making love for the first time is giving away your cherry.
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36
melancholy blanketed the whites scarred voices muffled by a ****** mind. an avalanche stuck in my soul severer than a bee at a forked road    how confused! red-cheeked petals and afternoon birds glare     in confusions at the footsteps : unbalance, shaded, muted! the green umbrella's warm, so scorchingly cold! all embittered, by solemn beams of the soulless sun.      their eyes widen,      for they had never seen such lone, for such lone, rare, is forbid to the sons of nature, never belong to happy child's arms, that dreams in a mother's charm. grieving droughts in the air and grass, no dews, why!,    yawned the madden, soporific rabbit Ah, so wild. the windless noontime cross, my quivers stopped, mild. lashes waxed, blacken like a coal,   mind stuck in a haze, or maybe a threatening maze. stiffness of the air injected to my nostrils into my white tongue they will soak, like perfumes to a clothe. Selene will gaze angrily at this and say,       why no, it shouldn't be in there! the midnight orchids waver and frown. soon the frothing dreams peter, but the bolded letters in a white board stay, my chair stays. creaks of an abominable burden became a din. The smudges of grey-white dust I smelt hover gaily in the air of pompous breath.     spellbound by the stagnant languor, mazy, in hallucinations of the heat and homesick.     I sought the fount of hypocrisy and vile, my hiding nonchalances rosen (towards a flock of friends) and loathes to an abominable sun frozen (I wished it to die!) Tilted to the windows, I saw nothing, but fatal secrets of a heart rosed like window dust to a nose.
0
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 3:45 AM UTC
Rosen fury,
melancholy blanketed the whites scarred voices muffled by a ****** mind. an avalanche stuck in my soul severer than a bee at a forked road    how confused! red-cheeked petals and afternoon birds glare     in confusions at the footsteps : unbalance, shaded, muted! the green umbrella's warm, so scorchingly cold! all embittered, by solemn beams of the soulless sun.      their eyes widen,      for they had never seen such lone, for such lone, rare, is forbid to the sons of nature, never belong to happy child's arms, that dreams in a mother's charm. grieving droughts in the air and grass, no dews, why!,    yawned the madden, soporific rabbit Ah, so wild. the windless noontime cross, my quivers stopped, mild. lashes waxed, blacken like a coal,   mind stuck in a haze, or maybe a threatening maze. stiffness of the air injected to my nostrils into my white tongue they will soak, like perfumes to a clothe. Selene will gaze angrily at this and say,       why no, it shouldn't be in there! the midnight orchids waver and frown. soon the frothing dreams peter, but the bolded letters in a white board stay, my chair stays. creaks of an abominable burden became a din. The smudges of grey-white dust I smelt hover gaily in the air of pompous breath.     spellbound by the stagnant languor, mazy, in hallucinations of the heat and homesick.     I sought the fount of hypocrisy and vile, my hiding nonchalances rosen (towards a flock of friends) and loathes to an abominable sun frozen (I wished it to die!) Tilted to the windows, I saw nothing, but fatal secrets of a heart rosed like window dust to a nose.
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44
Torrents of vapor ridden wind, snatched at her hair. Below, rattled the rapid, riotous and vast, rippling sea. Churning, like a chewing, charming serpent's lair. Once long ago I knew her; with time she left me be. On the edge she was, with will to leap t'wards the horizons. The brittle cliff would not give way, for even it was curious. Dare say all of nature reacted for the most prurient reasons. Even the sky descended to watch, with a lightning so furious. She beheld no fear and the sky wept with thunderous applause. Her bare marble-like features glistened in the gleaning of the gloom. Why she stood there, triumphantly, tempting, terror, for what cause? It will never be known, for she never was, in a time before this doom. The earth shook like the hands of a beleaguered, berated old man. It erected monoliths. Volcanoes, pluming molten magma skyward. The red glow brought heat; earth thought to please her, or so was its plan. The elements wrestled for the better view of that beauty stalwart. Never had a sight been so majestically violent, so mightily tame. Where she stood, should and would forever more be a sacred place. The tempest of the elements raged on, though none would win the game. A silence, softly, settled the rambunctiousness, and halted their race. The skies parted with a sad and lowly somberness. Every elated, embittered, element safely put to rest. As the sun swept aside all their postulated, pettiness. Rays of the sun showered her with bright white zest. The lady, she moved with unfathomable grace. She tilted her perfect head up to the skies. With the slightest of a smile shook her face. Like all before, she left them there surprised... and forever, there she stood.
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Mar 22, 2016
Mar 22, 2016 at 3:21 PM UTC
There She Stood...
Torrents of vapor ridden wind, snatched at her hair. Below, rattled the rapid, riotous and vast, rippling sea. Churning, like a chewing, charming serpent's lair. Once long ago I knew her; with time she left me be. On the edge she was, with will to leap t'wards the horizons. The brittle cliff would not give way, for even it was curious. Dare say all of nature reacted for the most prurient reasons. Even the sky descended to watch, with a lightning so furious. She beheld no fear and the sky wept with thunderous applause. Her bare marble-like features glistened in the gleaning of the gloom. Why she stood there, triumphantly, tempting, terror, for what cause? It will never be known, for she never was, in a time before this doom. The earth shook like the hands of a beleaguered, berated old man. It erected monoliths. Volcanoes, pluming molten magma skyward. The red glow brought heat; earth thought to please her, or so was its plan. The elements wrestled for the better view of that beauty stalwart. Never had a sight been so majestically violent, so mightily tame. Where she stood, should and would forever more be a sacred place. The tempest of the elements raged on, though none would win the game. A silence, softly, settled the rambunctiousness, and halted their race. The skies parted with a sad and lowly somberness. Every elated, embittered, element safely put to rest. As the sun swept aside all their postulated, pettiness. Rays of the sun showered her with bright white zest. The lady, she moved with unfathomable grace. She tilted her perfect head up to the skies. With the slightest of a smile shook her face. Like all before, she left them there surprised... and forever, there she stood.
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28
My beautiful Oak stood nobly on its own It embraced my troubled mind and all my deeds condone And when its sickly leaves lay crushed upon the soil They would cushion me in comfort as Id dream there for awhile A chainsaw massacre!!! How can this be? Some dammed blind fool your beauty couldn't see No passion or affection, this man knows His love a plastic piece or chalk repose Things without a life , like this mans heart He looks upon and calls a work of art At his uncultured hands, your acquittance bell did tone To see your life all drained has chilled me to the bone All my innocence and youth has been severed with your mighty root My embittered heart or so it seems has cursed the man that killed my Oak And all my dreams
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Jun 22, 2010
Jun 22, 2010 at 4:09 PM UTC
Death of the Oak Tree
It has every right to bare this clenched fist of a grudge embittered by techno-Jovian whims and base transformations Once delicately formed— two tips pressed en pointe, three others elegantly tucked— it danced with a golden shaft pulling indigo pirouettes across a swept ivory stage Then came the re-pose: a claw’s arched looming. Unhappiness fell as five wilted stems, beggar mouths forced to fumble toward those impoverished humps of white-on-black glyph The other hand is left complimentary, richly gripped by understudy glee, being
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Sep 23, 2010
Sep 23, 2010 at 9:43 AM UTC
Degradation (and uplift) of advancing technology
On a grey asphalt midwest road lay a terrible place to weep and moan.. where white ***** rain trickles low on poison ivies and blurry saxophones.. ..with unified yellow lights that neither blink nor stare unending love the throbbing blue road and metal statues whose souls lay bare. The silent night gathered all even my brown pain and the terrible fall what remained was none-so-less threshed and withered like those leaves of green.. ..empty thoughts, silent stills, and wanderlings, with dreamy quills. Broken i lay, with those captured skies.. flashes of lightning empty gazes and embittered souls painful verses of a poets play are those terrible blue dreams, they say.
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Dec 6, 2014
Dec 6, 2014 at 6:22 PM UTC
Hurt
Edgar Lee Masters. 1869– Silence I HAVE known the silence of the stars and of the sea, And the silence of the city when it pauses, And the silence of a man and a maid, And the silence for which music alone finds the word, And the silence of the woods before the winds of spring begin, And the silence of the sick When their eyes roam about the room. And I ask: For the depths Of what use is language? A beast of the field moans a few times When death takes its young. And we are voiceless in the presence of realities— We cannot speak. A curious boy asks an old soldier Sitting in front of the grocery store, "How did you lose your leg?" And the old soldier is struck with silence, Or his mind flies away Because he cannot concentrate it on Gettysburg. It comes back jocosely And he says, "A bear bit it off." And the boy wonders, while the old soldier Dumbly, feebly lives over The flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon, The shrieks of the slain, And himself lying on the ground, And the hospital surgeons, the knives, And the long days in bed. But if he could describe it all He would be an artist. But if he were an artist there would he deeper wounds Which he could not describe. There is the silence of a great hatred, And the silence of a great love, And the silence of a deep peace of mind, And the silence of an embittered friendship, There is the silence of a spiritual crisis, Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured, Comes with visions not to be uttered Into a realm of higher life. And the silence of the gods who understand each other without speech, There is the silence of defeat. There is the silence of those unjustly punished; And the silence of the dying whose hand Suddenly grips yours. There is the silence between father and son, When the father cannot explain his life, Even though he be misunderstood for it. There is the silence that comes between husband and wife. There is the silence of those who have failed; And the vast silence that covers Broken nations and vanquished leaders. There is the silence of Lincoln, Thinking of the poverty of his youth. And the silence of Napoleon After Waterloo. And the silence of Jeanne d'Arc Saying amid the flames, "Blesséd Jesus"— Revealing in two words all sorrow, all hope. And there is the silence of age, Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it In words intelligible to those who have not lived The great range of life. And there is the silence of the dead. If we who are in life cannot speak Of profound experiences, Why do you marvel that the dead Do not tell you of death? Their silence shall be interpreted As we approach them.
0
Mar 12, 2016
Mar 12, 2016 at 2:24 AM UTC
Silence by Edgar Lee Masters
Edgar Lee Masters. 1869– Silence I HAVE known the silence of the stars and of the sea, And the silence of the city when it pauses, And the silence of a man and a maid, And the silence for which music alone finds the word, And the silence of the woods before the winds of spring begin, And the silence of the sick When their eyes roam about the room. And I ask: For the depths Of what use is language? A beast of the field moans a few times When death takes its young. And we are voiceless in the presence of realities— We cannot speak. A curious boy asks an old soldier Sitting in front of the grocery store, "How did you lose your leg?" And the old soldier is struck with silence, Or his mind flies away Because he cannot concentrate it on Gettysburg. It comes back jocosely And he says, "A bear bit it off." And the boy wonders, while the old soldier Dumbly, feebly lives over The flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon, The shrieks of the slain, And himself lying on the ground, And the hospital surgeons, the knives, And the long days in bed. But if he could describe it all He would be an artist. But if he were an artist there would he deeper wounds Which he could not describe. There is the silence of a great hatred, And the silence of a great love, And the silence of a deep peace of mind, And the silence of an embittered friendship, There is the silence of a spiritual crisis, Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured, Comes with visions not to be uttered Into a realm of higher life. And the silence of the gods who understand each other without speech, There is the silence of defeat. There is the silence of those unjustly punished; And the silence of the dying whose hand Suddenly grips yours. There is the silence between father and son, When the father cannot explain his life, Even though he be misunderstood for it. There is the silence that comes between husband and wife. There is the silence of those who have failed; And the vast silence that covers Broken nations and vanquished leaders. There is the silence of Lincoln, Thinking of the poverty of his youth. And the silence of Napoleon After Waterloo. And the silence of Jeanne d'Arc Saying amid the flames, "Blesséd Jesus"— Revealing in two words all sorrow, all hope. And there is the silence of age, Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it In words intelligible to those who have not lived The great range of life. And there is the silence of the dead. If we who are in life cannot speak Of profound experiences, Why do you marvel that the dead Do not tell you of death? Their silence shall be interpreted As we approach them.
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79
if i were to bread my tongue with rocoto and cornmeal and twist to reach the andean soil my tastebuds long for so many nights out of the year olfaction and your left-sinus blockage would stay cradled in broken-baguette bread-crust baskets, a trebuchet's missile, naïve to the horn of the world, and brittled to a carcinogenic crisp caped in my earthenblood geysers en el humo, en la tierra del fuego in(fierno) i recount by the tally marks of black felt resorted to in the puddling of spilt tea, (like broken china, you never missed a beat to correct potential error and my memory), i count them to remember the epiphanies standing over a red faucet a gallon water jug, whistling snail-trickle, wishing away the cracks in the grout or the grout itself, wishing away the cracks in the pottery or porcelain facade of which you're so fond and grace with singing cuticles the fingers of a pianist lacking the wherewithal and solid brick gall to answer the ivory's summons i am not a piece of clay, i respond poorly to your sculpture of my surface, covered in oxides and baked in hell's oven, your mountain fire scathes me as it does cedar resin and i am similarly embittered, pooling sap & draining smoke in the embers and dead charcoal of your embrace avant le corps, sans l'âme sans le corps, avant l'âme
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Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 9:30 PM UTC
ir(reconcilable) linguistic difference
We nestle into chaos like an old friend’s embrace, Spitting fire-encrusted words sharp as the smack of my palm on freckled skin, Under skyline bespeckled night like ebony, hearts like stone, We became a self-consuming ever-implosive volcano. ***** slithered through our veins igniting synapses into eruption, Your fingernails dug into my palm, your name hoarse on my throat, We crave these embittered words, these scorched nights. Mad as hatters, we beat on, drunkenly gulping down saltwater tears. In the morning I’ll kiss your temple, love. We forget our sins.
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Jun 23, 2013
Jun 23, 2013 at 11:19 PM UTC
calamity
The Paragliders like ravenous vultures flew to southern Israel to predate on soft targets. Like swarms of bees, they snuck, ***** maimed, shot, burnt and slew. Terror did every man's fragile conscience becloud. Hate made their embittered hearts to mercy forget. Abductions followed, having to terror avowed. Then came the IDF's genocidal intent, having intended global laws to circumvent; Children, women, all consumed by mighty vengeance. A disproportionate response beyond balance. Homes, hospitals, Mosques, Churches and schools are levelled, as Gaza is by torrents of bombs bedeviled. I do not with a livid Israel sympathize, nor do I with a besieged Gaza empathize. With humanity I have my affinity, for my deep love for it, tends to infinity.
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Oct 23, 2023
Oct 23, 2023 at 4:37 AM UTC
Black October
She labors to smile, irony draws lines on her embittered face, thick dark iron bars, temporarily cage pain; yet the risk the two run is toxic. soon they 'd have to face it, unmistakable indications reveal, her velvet voice over the phone, conjured up an image, drastically different, a sadness now faintly asks his permission to spread quickly, confused he postpones, buying time. guilt, a shaggy, smelly, hound suspicion, its dominant trait, lurks sniffing around, the table they mutely sit, like prisoners of unburied past convoluting the plot, by playing ***** tricks. the air thickens chocking both, the haunt leers, licks its paws in glee what is its intention? "You look more or less like him, my former lover- I try to erase from memory by every which way possible, sorry about that, but i can't help it, he traded in pain of many kinds ingeniously, nothing else he did" she shoots from the hip. memory of an evil genius was quickly resurrected by him from the assortment of stereotypes, vision of caravans transporting gun powder kegs of bad memories, flashed he had a match stick handy. soon, everything exploded to culminate; darkness devoured all,  breaking limits. caravans slog towards horizon, one after other still.
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Jan 24, 2014
Jan 24, 2014 at 9:26 AM UTC
The blind date
I remember sitting On the tiny porch Of my dad’s home Offended by the sun That continued to sink and set Without pausing to acknowledge My dad’s passing. Offended by the cars That continued on the highway; Callous indifference, it seemed to me. Even the birds at their feeder Greedily fed and failed to look up To mark the loss of their benefactor. I found myself Silently demanding condolences In every encounter. Not for the sympathy, Or worse, pity, But for the acknowledgement That he was here And now he’s gone, And something, However infinitesimally small In the scopeless universe, Has changed. I have two cousins. The first called my dad Every month. His regular call came During the last days. The decline surprised him. He took a deep breath And asked for speakerphone Near my dad. He told my dad How much my dad had Influenced his life; How as a child, he anticipated a visit from my dad Like kids stay up to see Santa; How my dad made my cousin feel Like he was the most important kid In the wide world; How my dad gave my cousin The otherwise unavailable Sustenance of heart Young boys need; How my cousin had strived to be Like my dad And how he hoped His own children see in him What he saw in my dad. That was acknowledgement, Profound acknowledgement. My second cousin called Shortly after the first. He had heard That my dad was dying. He did not ask To speak with my dad. He wanted to tell me To call him As soon as memorial Arrangements were made So that he could purchase Discounted airline tickets, To include a subsequent visit To his son who lives In the southern part of the state. My dad was still living. That, too, acknowledged something, And served to impel my pending decision. So I opted for A less conventional Memorial ritual That required neither Plane tickets nor attendance Nor a frozen smile reception. I would not suffer Insincere acknowledgement. I am sure I scandalized Many acquaintances of my dad Who enjoyed the social conventions of The anticipated gathering If only to point out the deficiencies Of the event and the host. I am sure I offended And frustrated And embittered One of my cousins. The other cousin thought My dad would have preferred Sincerity Over a pantomime. I would suffer The disfavor and distaste Of the discontented With no difficulty.
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Nov 10, 2018
Nov 10, 2018 at 9:59 PM UTC
Acknowledgment
I remember sitting On the tiny porch Of my dad’s home Offended by the sun That continued to sink and set Without pausing to acknowledge My dad’s passing. Offended by the cars That continued on the highway; Callous indifference, it seemed to me. Even the birds at their feeder Greedily fed and failed to look up To mark the loss of their benefactor. I found myself Silently demanding condolences In every encounter. Not for the sympathy, Or worse, pity, But for the acknowledgement That he was here And now he’s gone, And something, However infinitesimally small In the scopeless universe, Has changed. I have two cousins. The first called my dad Every month. His regular call came During the last days. The decline surprised him. He took a deep breath And asked for speakerphone Near my dad. He told my dad How much my dad had Influenced his life; How as a child, he anticipated a visit from my dad Like kids stay up to see Santa; How my dad made my cousin feel Like he was the most important kid In the wide world; How my dad gave my cousin The otherwise unavailable Sustenance of heart Young boys need; How my cousin had strived to be Like my dad And how he hoped His own children see in him What he saw in my dad. That was acknowledgement, Profound acknowledgement. My second cousin called Shortly after the first. He had heard That my dad was dying. He did not ask To speak with my dad. He wanted to tell me To call him As soon as memorial Arrangements were made So that he could purchase Discounted airline tickets, To include a subsequent visit To his son who lives In the southern part of the state. My dad was still living. That, too, acknowledged something, And served to impel my pending decision. So I opted for A less conventional Memorial ritual That required neither Plane tickets nor attendance Nor a frozen smile reception. I would not suffer Insincere acknowledgement. I am sure I scandalized Many acquaintances of my dad Who enjoyed the social conventions of The anticipated gathering If only to point out the deficiencies Of the event and the host. I am sure I offended And frustrated And embittered One of my cousins. The other cousin thought My dad would have preferred Sincerity Over a pantomime. I would suffer The disfavor and distaste Of the discontented With no difficulty.
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98
because love when cut, lets loose an empire of blood: i have in my lips, a treaty of oblivion— releasing an embittered lemon. in the throne of the sea, waves repeat the crash of perfidy. by the mountains they ride, the thick air of strobe. rocks receive the genital fire of lighthouses exposing intones of shadow one by one. the beast maimed behind the zither of trees makes no sound like an aleph. i herald the collusion of night and children and weep at the solicitude of mothers, because pines swoon in the dark and with its hand, the gentlest war threshes the flesh and blood, raining on us forever. hostile eyes bypass the silence of things and lovers closing doors repeatedly, disrupting the vale from its slumber. it is because when love is let loose, it releases both of us — weary, inescapably ripe with the wind, looking for each other as doves do in flight, separate and obscured, opening gates; nightfall: the savage aroma of wood on the leaves that sway fervently tippling away from boughs.
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Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 4:32 AM UTC
Gates Opened: Nightfall
Storms of oblivion cloud my mind As I battle to moor my inner conscience Life was once an abundance of hope Defeated & beaten by reckless dreams. Embittered storms that ravage seas Darkened clouds that strike with fear With lowered heads we fight in vain But waters always find a flaw. - Deep inside and further down Visions of guilt burn through my mind Release the pain in a barge of gold But left to sail these waters alone. Confused I wait upon my berth Entangled doubts that weave my mind Careless I drift alone and forlorn As I battle the waves that engulf my soul. - Thursdays child was marked from birth But shoes of stone have held him back In a struggle of life that ponders deep Where waters flow and never cease Desperate times bring wish well friends Brazen words and reckless deeds Consume a passion that passes time Yet plates lay bare & casks run dry.
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Jan 27, 2010
Jan 27, 2010 at 1:06 AM UTC
Left To Drift (A poem about the mental effects of unemployment)
The unpurged images of day recede; The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed; Night resonance recedes, night walkers' song After great cathedral gong; A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains All that man is, All mere complexities, The fury and the mire of human veins. Before me floats an image, man or shade, Shade more than man, more image than a shade; For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-cloth May unwind the winding path; A mouth that has no moisture and no breath Breathless mouths may summon; I hail the superhuman; I call it death-in-life and life-in-death. Miracle, bird or golden handiwork, More miracle than bird or handiwork, Planted on the star-lit golden bough, Can like the ***** of Hades crow, Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud In glory of changeless metal Common bird or petal And all complexities of mire or blood. At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit Flames that no ****** feeds, nor steel has lit, Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame, Where blood-begotten spirits come And all complexities of fury leave, Dying into a dance, An agony of trance, An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve. Astraddle on the dolphin's mire and blood, Spirit after Spirit! The smithies break the flood. The golden smithies of the Emperor! Marbles of the dancing floor Break bitter furies of complexity, Those images that yet Fresh images beget, That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.
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1.7k
Byzantium
From the abyss of despair,disdain and desertion            My angel ,my harbinger my reason to blosssom and bloom            you hatched my abeynce and gloom...            Now tht i can see the verdant and braeth the ambience            i can barely be thankful enough to the cryptic  zephyr            The rapunzel who led me down her long dark ravishing locks            to the respite of the embittered recluse ....            You r my guiding redolent mermaid who            help me conquer the vast cerulean deep oceans of grief...                    Without your love my life is just like a tree without leaves           my heart without beats,ohh my dear i don't knw whr it is,           in my auricle or ventricle but i know it is within my heart and will be forevr for u           which rythyms my soul by giving energy to confront this curious world              I can get the vistage of love from your comely eyes but how simply           you just deny by phoxy lines from your red luscious lips.......           please,please don't play with my emotions it just kills me day and night in motion           My eyes are wet,lips are dried heart is broken, dreams are scattered but still           there is a hope that you will give me another scope.........           and i promise i will not let my love for you go in vain untill the last drop of blood flows in my vein.........
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May 14, 2012
May 14, 2012 at 4:25 AM UTC
RIPPLES OF MY HEART FOR YOU..
From the abyss of despair,disdain and desertion            My angel ,my harbinger my reason to blosssom and bloom            you hatched my abeynce and gloom...            Now tht i can see the verdant and braeth the ambience            i can barely be thankful enough to the cryptic  zephyr            The rapunzel who led me down her long dark ravishing locks            to the respite of the embittered recluse ....            You r my guiding redolent mermaid who            help me conquer the vast cerulean deep oceans of grief...                    Without your love my life is just like a tree without leaves           my heart without beats,ohh my dear i don't knw whr it is,           in my auricle or ventricle but i know it is within my heart and will be forevr for u           which rythyms my soul by giving energy to confront this curious world              I can get the vistage of love from your comely eyes but how simply           you just deny by phoxy lines from your red luscious lips.......           please,please don't play with my emotions it just kills me day and night in motion           My eyes are wet,lips are dried heart is broken, dreams are scattered but still           there is a hope that you will give me another scope.........           and i promise i will not let my love for you go in vain untill the last drop of blood flows in my vein.........
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19
Love me for my destruction, for my mayhem -- after all, loving you isn't so much different, I could have chosen cigarettes, smokey ashtrays over your smokey eye make-up, Or maybe alcohol, sip at lukewarm beer, and become embittered by how your lips are stained elegantly wine, and then again, I might've had the opportunity to inhale car exhaust but your breath is much heavier than monoxide and much more deadly-- turns out nuclear warfare is much more easily attainable by your explosive needs for genocide -- you love those broken hearts, you little radioactive succubus. Knives, I could have made love to a knife, but I guess your nails served the same purpose, you've left your mark, okay? I have a target in the shape of little crescent marks on my back from you and people keep staring. And yes, I could've injected myself with something stronger like morphine, but you're already running through my god **** veins -- I looked up "infatuation" in the dictionary but the words kept blurring because all I could see was your blushing expression when I used my fingertips like paintbrushes on your cheekbones.
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Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 12:28 PM UTC
she's a bombshell to this city and i'm a civilian casualty
I SOUGHT a theme and sought for it in vain, I sought it daily for six weeks or so. Maybe at last, being but a broken man, I must be satisfied with my heart, although Winter and summer till old age began My circus animals were all on show, Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot, Lion and woman and the Lord knows what. II What can I but enumerate old themes? First that sea-rider Oisin led by the nose Through three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams, Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose, Themes of the embittered heart, or so it seems, That might adorn old songs or courtly shows; But what cared I that set him on to ride, I, starved for the ***** of his faery bride? And then a counter-truth filled out its play, The Countess Cathleen was the name I gave it; She, pity-crazed, had given her soul away, But masterful Heaven had intetvened to save it. I thought my dear must her own soul destroy, So did fanaticism and hate enslave it, And this brought forth a dream and soon enough This dream itself had all my thought and love. And when the Fool and Blind Man stole the bread Cuchulain fought the ungovernable sea; Heart-mysteries there, and yet when all is said It was the dream itself enchanted me: Character isolated by a deed To engross the present and dominate memory. players and painted stage took all my love, And not those things that they were emblems of. III Those masterful images because complete Grew in pure mind, but out of what began? A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street, Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can, Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving **** Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone, I must lie down where all the ladders start In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.
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1.6k
The Circus Animal Desertion
I SOUGHT a theme and sought for it in vain, I sought it daily for six weeks or so. Maybe at last, being but a broken man, I must be satisfied with my heart, although Winter and summer till old age began My circus animals were all on show, Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot, Lion and woman and the Lord knows what. II What can I but enumerate old themes? First that sea-rider Oisin led by the nose Through three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams, Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose, Themes of the embittered heart, or so it seems, That might adorn old songs or courtly shows; But what cared I that set him on to ride, I, starved for the ***** of his faery bride? And then a counter-truth filled out its play, The Countess Cathleen was the name I gave it; She, pity-crazed, had given her soul away, But masterful Heaven had intetvened to save it. I thought my dear must her own soul destroy, So did fanaticism and hate enslave it, And this brought forth a dream and soon enough This dream itself had all my thought and love. And when the Fool and Blind Man stole the bread Cuchulain fought the ungovernable sea; Heart-mysteries there, and yet when all is said It was the dream itself enchanted me: Character isolated by a deed To engross the present and dominate memory. players and painted stage took all my love, And not those things that they were emblems of. III Those masterful images because complete Grew in pure mind, but out of what began? A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street, Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can, Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving **** Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone, I must lie down where all the ladders start In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.
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