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zhouli Aug 2013
A man may usually be known by the books he reads as well as by the company he keeps; for there is a companionship of books as well as of men; and one should always live in the best company, whether it be of books or of men.
A good book may be among the best of friends. It is the same today that it always was, and it will never change. It is the most patient and cheerful of companions. It does not turn its back upon us in times of adversity or distress. It always receives us with the same kindness; amusing and instructing us in youth, and comforting and consoling us in age.
Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book just as two persons sometimes discover a friend by the admiration which both entertain for a third. There is an old proverb, ‘Love me, love my dog.” But there is more wisdom in this:” Love me, love my book.” The book is a truer and higher bond of union. Men can think, feel, and sympathize with each other through their favorite author. They live in him together, and he in them.
A good book is often the best urn of a life enshrining the best that life could think out; for the world of a man’s life is, for the most part, but the world of his thoughts. Thus the best books are treasuries of good words, the golden thoughts, which, remembered and cherished, become our constant companions and comforters.
Books possess an essence of immortality. They are by far the most lasting products of human effort. Temples and statues decay, but books survive. Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh today as when they first passed through their author’s minds, ages ago. What was then said and thought still speaks to us as vividly as ever from the printed page. The only effect of time have been to sift out the bad products; for nothing in literature can long survive e but what is really good.
Books introduce us into the best society; they bring us into the presence of the greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what they said and did; we see the as if they were really alive; we sympathize with them, enjoy with them, grieve with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if we were in a measure actors with them in the scenes which they describe.
The great and good do not die, even in this world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which on still listens.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2016
there's much gesture in thinking out the nonsensical,
the un-thinkable - the un-pardonable - with sheer gusto
you tend to think out the unsolvable -
the nonsense people are afraid to
think about - the impractical -
and that's for one reason alone -
                  it doesn't create real problems...
you do not engage with real struggles
people encounter - because by doing
all the above stated... you are not the one
who says to a person: you can't do this,
and you can't to that.
                 which is why i don't understand
the English aversion toward philosophy:
say the word, and the English immediately
succumb to the notion of pedantry and
snobbism - when in fact: it's hardly that -
          perpetually philosophers entertain
themselves with invoking awe, as with ageing,
and seeing the many pitfalls of romance
and comedy and tragedy... awe becomes
very hard to find... it's simulated ignorance
in a way... for example Heidegger championing
Aristotle is a gesture intended in this direction -
and his concept of dasein is another
way to stage a coup against the world...
              it's an antithesis to what would otherwise
be regarded as activism... or more piquantly:
hedonistic activism, which primarily encompasses
staging a higher moral authority -
but never reaching for the fist making a signature
for the cause... that phrase: just empty words...
and humble pie. well... if you're a bachelor,
have this instilled aversion toward having a private
relationship with women: suitor - Kierkegaard -
well... you are bound to create pointless problems...
because... to be honest... you'd rather throw
"imaginary" problems into the metaphysical arena
than sit there... as a competent English gentleman
and speak of philosophy with about two or
three terms... reality... god... monkey...
                  or at a chessboard with a desire to provoke
a telekinetic pandemonium.. x-men apocalypse and
all that ****** imagery...
                             it's odd... but it's just so...
the English had an idyllic life,
                                      as any island dwellers might...
which is why they don't like impractical problems...
because they blabber about practical solutions,
to practical problems... that never get solved,
i.e. engrossed in more politics than anything:
the English have no ear for philosophy -
the mere word frightens them should anyone admit
to being the stated adherent: for god's sake,
the Scots are perceived as barbarians with the
deep-friend Mars bars (and pizzas) - but Hume
rang the eardrum in Kant's ear... and wallah!
a new chapter... Locke? only Darwinism,
popularised with images, as they say:
best leave these skeletons in the closet.
                             what am i working up toward?
well... it's a bit specific...
                                     first... the easiest proof
of solipsism... a crowded train... someone farts...
     guess what... the person who farted is
the only person on the train who appreciates the stink...
            hence: the theory - you like your own -
hence the abstract of the self, competing for a theory,
the self - as an optical itinerary: from head to foot,
from hand to toe - a long list of self-serving
          accomplishments in detailing all acquired
difference...                    but it's not about that...
          for all the reasons that life can become perfect...
at precisely that moment people began to
philosophise -                       and that condemnation
of reading a book on the topic in youth
rather than old age?        well... the glory of old age
is kinda slipping away...    if not now? when?
obviously you might jump the wagon too eagerly...
but at least you'll soon realise how
    a philosophy book (excluding Plato) can actually
help you in forming a dialogue -
                       i think that's what they teach primarily,
the art of dialogue... not the art of persuasive speaking
(rhetoric) - but the art of dialogue... after all...
   Plato... right? all dialogue...
                                  and they do: it only takes one book
in this literary region, i became convinced of it
after only being introduced to the subject area quiet late
in life (21)...        prior to that? fiction and poetry...
   and science... nothing else...
                              like a fish to water...
the necessary 21 years of strain having avoided the subject
(not on purpose, mind you).
                  yes, a glorification, why not?
     it's because these nonsensical problems arrive
as a reflection of a defence mechanism...
     the English don't like "too many words" or
the continental verbiage they coin as the psychiatric
phrase word salad - precisely because, sometimes,
language is not about entertaining someone with
tragic choke-jokes and songs...
          great singers, great comedians,
   great engineers... but in this field? obnoxious *****.
  the English are the first instigators of
     enshrining a quicksand pit of a person's
esteem in his ability to use and comprehend language,
primarily because they can't comprehend
the complexity of language being thus expressed
they immediately conscript against him
    this... odd... quack-wacky need to teach
the person in question refer himself to the Jane Austen
clinic of correct language parameters -
            nothing beyond! nothing foreign and
original! we need novelists who only travel in
straight lines (preferably on a Benelux plateau)
        and never dazzle with a tarantula bite of
disorientation (akin to the cut-up method)...
        and you will find that the English are primarily
concerned with making people suspicious of
   their sanity... strange... i once had a work-horse
work ethic and that became undermined,
                       then my use of language became undermined
because, as already stated: the English don't
do impractical things with their thought:
                it has to be practical...
like the Germans and time... everything has to be
efficient... or the Japanese and space (*******
cardboard sized hotel rooms)...
                             which brings me to the point of my
original intention:
                 deleuze's and guattari's searching ambition -
the anti-oedipus, or: body-without-organs...
             in turn the dark ages of Cartesian thinking (in England)
or how            mental health is somehow a lesser
   health to physical health -
                 sweat... and exocrine glands v. endocrine glands...
    <yes, telegram mode, precursor to a detailed
        explanation>
                                i'm just proposing what i dare believe
to be a thought-object, or more precisely a
             thought-***** -
                    no point looking for a shortcut with this,
      it's either the sort of verbiage compound you'll
reason with... or you'll treat it as *******...
                     as ever, whether that's investing in
a gym membership and a suitable diet...
         you won't get the ****** six-pack on your torso...
  this concept is reserved for what i find problematic
in mental ailments - which, in turn... somehow,
"miraculously" translate into physical ailments -
           but of course, amputees get the priority seats
in the eyes of every Jack and Dolly... because it's easier
that way...
                        my back-reading in psychiatry? well,
it's not exactly limited... on the plus side -
a theory is nothing more than a placebo trial -
                   you're not thinking about it being effective,
that's the default point of applying thinking where
pharmacology cures are pretty crap and its side-effects
catastrophic... and talking therapy ends up being
a monologue with a table filled by notes with single
words on them and being asked: to identify their meaning...
anyone who has experienced these practices
can also say: i'm actually conscious you're making me
feel like a ******* ******... you've just insulted my
intelligence... and i'm back to square one at kindergarten...
   have you ever watched you-tube frustrations?
well... a thought-***** has nothing to do with
    that map of the brain...
                                feeling goes here,
  seeing goes here...             a mash-up and a mess akin
   to the map of the European union...
          because some rich boy scumbag drew it
in crayon at the beginning of the 20th century means
it has to be right...
                                  but if i treat thinking as a thought-*****,
i know how the ***** works...
            a heart is a muscular pump...
  the stomach is a digestive acid swamp...
                        the esophagus is stretch-armstrong...
should i feel guilty writing about this?
          should i? touchy subject? well... you won't
find any pills around here... well, apart from the sleeping
pills... they're sacred (to me, at least, as if the bourbon,
but that's my private affair... you walk down this
route: it heals me... not necessarily you) -
  this is to simply end the whole pseudo-Cartesian dichotomy
of philosophy popularised by psychology and
psychiatry - for these two areas are bound to simply
popularise philosophy... and given that most people
don't read a book in that area... it's easier to manipulate
people in therapy with the knowledge passed down
from on high.
                                       and it's there...
the dichotomy parallelism is primarily due to the fact that
most people think of the brain with two categories:
a. when physical pain strikes it (a headache)
and b. when physical pain is absent (with what ease
    they think)...
  the problem lies in the perception of b.,
most people can conceptualise that there's something
deeper than the raw physicality of things...
i do remember times when i encountered that
ease of thinking...
                                        i experienced it...
it was there... ****, i lost it... but that provided me with
an un-inhibitory trance of a writing capacity...
   the question is... how can merely thinking be painful?
most mental health problems never ask this:
thinking is painful...
                                      isn't that what most melancholics
state, but with a more emotional language of
feelings and emotions?                  
             if the thought-***** is damaged...
then all thinking coming from this compartment of the brain
will be painful...
                               so what sort of paracetamol
do you take? it's not as easy as being prescribed
high-blood pressure pills...
                                      popping pills like that
you're only escaping a conscious moment of what
an automated ***** feels
The first was like a dream through summer heat,
  The second like a tedious numbing swoon,
While the half-frozen pulses lagged to beat
  Beneath a winter moon.

"But," says my friend, "what was this thing and where?"
  It was a pleasure-place within my soul;
An earthly paradise supremely fair
  That lured me from the goal.

The first part was a tissue of hugged lies;
  The second was its ruin fraught with pain:
Why raise the fair delusion to the skies
  But to be dashed again?

My castle stood of white transparent glass
  Glittering and frail with many a fretted spire,
But when the summer sunset came to pass
  It kindled into fire.

My pleasaunce was an undulating green,
  Stately with trees whose shadows slept below,
With glimpses of smooth garden-beds between,
  Like flame or sky or snow.

Swift squirrels on the pastures took their ease,
  With leaping lambs safe from the unfeared knife;
All singing-birds rejoicing in those trees
  Fulfilled their careless life.

Wood-pigeons cooed there, stock-doves nestled there;
  My trees were full of songs and flowers and fruit,
Their branches spread a city to the air,
  And mice lodged in their root.

My heath lay farther off, where lizards lived
  In strange metallic mail, just spied and gone;
Like darted lightnings here and there perceived
  But nowhere dwelt upon.

Frogs and fat toads were there to hop or plod
  And propagate in peace, an uncouth crew,
Where velvet-headed rushes rustling nod
  And spill the morning dew.

All caterpillars throve beneath my rule,
  With snails and slugs in corners out of sight;
I never marred the curious sudden stool
  That perfects in a night.

Safe in his excavated gallery
  The burrowing mole groped on from year to year;
No harmless hedgehog curled because of me
  His prickly back for fear.

Ofttimes one like an angel walked with me,
  With spirit-discerning eyes like flames of fire,
But deep as the unfathomed endless sea
  Fulfilling my desire:

And sometimes like a snowdrift he was fair,
  And sometimes like a sunset glorious red,
And sometimes he had wings to scale the air
  With aureole round his head.

We sang our songs together by the way,
  Calls and recalls and echoes of delight;
So communed we together all the day,
  And so in dreams by night.

I have no words to tell what way we walked,
  What unforgotten path now closed and sealed;
I have no words to tell all things we talked,
  All things that he revealed:

This only can I tell: that hour by hour
  I waxed more feastful, lifted up and glad;
I felt no thorn-***** when I plucked a flower,
  Felt not my friend was sad.

"To-morrow," once I said to him with smiles:
  "To-night," he answered gravely and was dumb,
But pointed out the stones that numbered miles
  And miles and miles to come.

"Not so," I said: "to-morrow shall be sweet;
  To-night is not so sweet as coming days."
Then first I saw that he had turned his feet,
  Had turned from me his face:

Running and flying miles and miles he went,
  But once looked back to beckon with his hand
And cry: "Come home, O love, from banishment:
  Come to the distant land."

That night destroyed me like an avalanche;
  One night turned all my summer back to snow:
Next morning not a bird upon my branch,
  Not a lamb woke below,--

No bird, no lamb, no living breathing thing;
  No squirrel scampered on my breezy lawn,
No mouse lodged by his hoard: all joys took wing
  And fled before that dawn.

Azure and sun were starved from heaven above,
  No dew had fallen, but biting frost lay ****:
O love, I knew that I should meet my love,
  Should find my love no more.

"My love no more," I muttered, stunned with pain:
  I shed no tear, I wrung no passionate hand,
Till something whispered: "You shall meet again,
  Meet in a distant land."

Then with a cry like famine I arose,
  I lit my candle, searched from room to room,
Searched up and down; a war of winds that froze
  Swept through the blank of gloom.

I searched day after day, night after night;
  Scant change there came to me of night or day:
"No more," I wailed, "no more"; and trimmed my light,
  And gnashed, but did not pray,

Until my heart broke and my spirit broke:
  Upon the frost-bound floor I stumbled, fell,
And moaned: "It is enough: withhold the stroke.
  Farewell, O love, farewell."

Then life swooned from me. And I heard the song
  Of spheres and spirits rejoicing over me:
One cried: "Our sister, she hath suffered long."--
  One answered: "Make her see."--

One cried: "O blessed she who no more pain,
  Who no more disappointment shall receive."--
One answered: "Not so: she must live again;
  Strengthen thou her to live."

So, while I lay entranced, a curtain seemed
  To shrivel with crackling from before my face,
Across mine eyes a waxing radiance beamed
  And showed a certain place.

I saw a vision of a woman, where
  Night and new morning strive for *******;
Incomparably pale, and almost fair,
  And sad beyond expression.

Her eyes were like some fire-enshrining gem,
  Were stately like the stars, and yet were tender,
Her figure charmed me like a windy stem
  Quivering and drooped and slender.

I stood upon the outer barren ground,
  She stood on inner ground that budded flowers;
While circling in their never-slackening round
  Danced by the mystic hours.

But every flower was lifted on a thorn,
  And every thorn shot upright from its sands
To gall her feet; hoarse laughter pealed in scorn
  With cruel clapping hands.

She bled and wept, yet did not shrink; her strength
  Was strung up until daybreak of delight:
She measured measureless sorrow toward its length,
  And breadth, and depth, and height.

Then marked I how a chain sustained her form,
  A chain of living links not made nor riven:
It stretched sheer up through lightning, wind, and storm,
  And anchored fast in heaven.

One cried: "How long? yet founded on the Rock
  She shall do battle, suffer, and attain."--
One answered: "Faith quakes in the tempest shock:
  Strengthen her soul again."

I saw a cup sent down and come to her
  Brimful of loathing and of bitterness:
She drank with livid lips that seemed to stir
  The depth, not make it less.

But as she drank I spied a hand distil
  New wine and ****** honey; making it
First bitter-sweet, then sweet indeed, until
  She tasted only sweet.

Her lips and cheeks waxed rosy-fresh and young;
  Drinking she sang: "My soul shall nothing want";
And drank anew: while soft a song was sung,
  A mystical slow chant.

One cried: "The wounds are faithful of a friend:
  The wilderness shall blossom as a rose."--
One answered: "Rend the veil, declare the end,
  Strengthen her ere she goes."

Then earth and heaven were rolled up like a scroll;
  Time and space, change and death, had passed away;
Weight, number, measure, each had reached its whole:
  The day had come, that day.

Multitudes--multitudes--stood up in bliss,
  Made equal to the angels, glorious, fair;
With harps, palms, wedding-garments, kiss of peace,
  And crowned and haloed hair.

They sang a song, a new song in the height,
  Harping with harps to Him Who is Strong and True:
They drank new wine, their eyes saw with new light,
  Lo, all things were made new.

Tier beyond tier they rose and rose and rose
  So high that it was dreadful, flames with flames:
No man could number them, no tongue disclose
  Their secret sacred names.

As though one pulse stirred all, one rush of blood
  Fed all, one breath swept through them myriad voiced,
They struck their harps, cast down their crowns, they stood
  And worshipped and rejoiced.

Each face looked one way like a moon new-lit,
  Each face looked one way towards its Sun of Love;
Drank love and bathed in love and mirrored it
  And knew no end thereof.

Glory touched glory on each blessed head,
  Hands locked dear hands never to sunder more:
These were the new-begotten from the dead
  Whom the great birthday bore.

Heart answered heart, soul answered soul at rest,
  Double against each other, filled, sufficed:
All loving, loved of all; but loving best
  And best beloved of Christ.

I saw that one who lost her love in pain,
  Who trod on thorns, who drank the loathsome cup;
The lost in night, in day was found again;
  The fallen was lifted up.

They stood together in the blessed noon,
  They sang together through the length of days;
Each loving face bent Sunwards like a moon
  New-lit with love and praise.

Therefore, O friend, I would not if I might
  Rebuild my house of lies, wherein I joyed
One time to dwell: my soul shall walk in white,
  Cast down but not destroyed.

Therefore in patience I possess my soul;
  Yea, therefore as a flint I set my face,
To pluck down, to build up again the whole--
  But in a distant place.

These thorns are sharp, yet I can tread on them;
  This cup is loathsome, yet He makes it sweet;
My face is steadfast toward Jerusalem,
  My heart remembers it.

I lift the hanging hands, the feeble knees--
  I, precious more than seven times molten gold--
Until the day when from His storehouses
  God shall bring new and old;

Beauty for ashes, oil of joy for grief,
  Garment of praise for spirit of heaviness:
Although to-day I fade as doth a leaf,
  I languish and grow less.

Although to-day He prunes my twigs with pain,
  Yet doth His blood nourish and warm my root:
To-morrow I shall put forth buds again,
  And clothe myself with fruit.

Although to-day I walk in tedious ways,
  To-day His staff is turned into a rod,
Yet will I wait for Him the appointed days
  And stay upon my God.
Nolan Willett Jun 2019
In ancient unenlightened days,
There came a man whose triumph would’ve laid
Foundations for a better world,
Our inner compassions unfurled.
For we thought we found a holy seer,
To rid our lives of all our fear,
To tell us what to say and what to think
What to do and what to drink.
He did his best,
I can attest,
To warn us of that one,
Who would see all our progress undone.
Indeed, many in our history have been
Told what constitutes sin,
Left with a hurtful scar,
By one who never wandered very far.
And our true messiah saw
This prophet for a gaping maw,
Another of the tempter’s tricks,
A man whose touch could heal the sick.
For he loved God more than most
But found him in the cosmos,
Our divine provenance,
Rooted in collective consciousness,
Not an oath to take or die
Or a being to mollify,
Nor any kind of credo,
But an universal ego.
Heeding logic over gullibility
He recognized the liability,
One who would see them die for naught,
And stray them from the insight they sought.
But in trying to break the cycle
He heralded its arrival,
Enshrining the son,
In the cursed three-in-one.
He made a martyr
And thus followed generational slaughter.
Promising sacred haven,
Causing war and famine.
For deceivers are known to appear as savior,
For them there is no pleasure greater,
In casting down the righteous,
And rendering them mindless.
And so millennia could have been spared
From some cruelty our kind have shared-
So long and so onerous, never ending-
And our pity’s rending.
The earth’s inhabitants coalesced,
No longer their souls oppressed,
Saved from prejudice,
Alas, poor Judas.
Sorry I published this a couple times I had to fix some things and I like it so
A
Drop.

Then it came
Pirouetting.
It came clattering
It came guttering
with furore and fight
with rhythm and rhyme
like many dancing feet.

On steel roofs
On downy pines
and baobabs
and old cracked earth
Pattering and shimmering
drawing dust from dirt
women and men from houses
enshrining the sky with their trembling hands.
ConnectHook Sep 2015
☺♥☺♥☺♥☺♥

The worst will be found toward the end of the book
When you’re scanning the lines of a weighty anthology.
Centuries have shaken what works can be shook,
and what’s old is refined – and I make no apology.

Angst-ridden ramblings, so fashionably bleak
Start appearing somewhere past the middle, I fear
With those modernist psyches, whose raggedly weak
and depressing confessions sling mud in the ear.

Like the scribblers of Suicide, brimming with bile
or the autodestructive self-pitying ******,
whose quaint observations enshrining the vile
are a crime against life – and an art for the loser.

You ideologues, with your axes to grind,
propagandizing causes in militant styles
ought to  stay in the hills, where the struggle is defined,
and spare us the old dialectical wiles.

The Feminist scribe, with her *** for a mouth,
Ever pressing her case, for fallopian reasons
Grows saggingly sterile. Her muses fly south
with the passing of harvests and goddessless seasons.

Absurdists, surrealists, and nihilist mystics
whose hymns to destruction make glory of chaos
should leave the black humor to God and ballistics.
Your poems, like Judas, are bound to betray us.

The Freudian flirt (whose neuroses abound),
And the Jungian shamans (their animas, too),
ought to rest on their couches. Why should they be found
By the wellsprings of Spirit, whose guidance is true.

The art-lover’s lines gild a frame around Knowledge.
Their poems are like an art history course.
As they flit past the idols they studied in college
their name-dropping odes are a grand tour-de–force.

Sixties drug-revelers, love beads a-jingle
And brothers dashiki-clad, howling at Nixon
no longer strike chords in my soul. Not a single sitar lick
nor visions of hippie-chick *****.

You rhymers and rappers of rhythms in sample
Whose words like a kick-drum send shock through old Whitey
Now cease from your chanting. The genre is ample.
Your gangstering paeans are too fly-by-nighty.

Revived Roman legions, who relish things Latin;
Your martial convictions inspire the hero.
But while you are looking for cities to flatten,
remember – old Julius was nobler than Nero.

The theme of World Peace –  this crops up near the ending:
a desperate hope for New-Agers and liberals,
who cherish a dream of reality-bending
Through networking, magic, and energized crystals…

But what can be shaken shall perish, forgotten.
Anthologies show us that truth is enduring.
All praises and laurels shall prove misbegotten.
The Word become flesh is the most reassuring.

So I leave the anthology, closing its cover.
Three-quarters at least seemed like nonsense to me.
Yet still, I admit, I’m a poetry lover.
Let time do its work and in future – we’ll see…
https://connecthook.wordpress.com/mine/various/

☺♥☺♥☺♥☺♥
Helios Rietberg Jan 2013
Coriander sprinklings and subtle tastes
as we lean together and giggle as children
exchanging nibbles and pecks of love
at the gentle lullings of our sleeping boats

And the sun would shine on our dark heads
burning our hairs and lighting the fires
echoing our laughter while we filled the earth
with eternal love that would span the sky

And all the distances would pull us apart
taking our lives this way and that
winding through the darkest routes
enshrining our happiness to the past

But we would - as always - remember well
clinging to the smells of the world
keeping our hearts closed to disruptions
but letting our confidence sway––––

And yet the world would bring us back
to hear our giggles and childish banters
taking delight at the slightest triggers
and painting lives in watercolour

So moments pass and times repeat
clear in the eye of our observers

But crimson shades and all spring scents
watch our bonded rains and shines

And for every moment I reflect
you shine brighter than luminance.
© Helios Rietberg, January 2013
Deovrat Sharma Jan 2021
●●●
no
one
on earth
is complete
or perfect until
straggle into small
particles burnt into
ashesh and finally
enshrining into
the ether

●●●
©deovrat "अयन" 17.01.2021
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2016
it was 1994 - the offspring just did their most infectious
drum beat with gotta get away from their album
smash; years later their most infectious
riff off americana with pay the man,
they set up a charity foundation
with the quote: any hacker who downloads
our entire album gets $1 million -
true story, heard it when i heard it -
but this thing about imitating a fox's
mating calls, Keith Lemon would know
via his sketch show - wazza wazza poo p?
listen, when the offspring's smash came
out i was 8... introduced to them via
my uncle... when **** took off for them
the dreadlocks were sheered, Kerrang!
inspected the case and they were playing
arenas rather than the Brixton Academy...
so the laughter... well, you gotta laugh...
a saturday the times magazine flow:
pages 6 - 7 the sheikhs of instagram,
Lamborghinis (bikinis?) gold plated parked
with a £350 fine by Harrods, the cheap
shop for the rich - the £1 store for the rich...
Knightsbridge - call it what you like with
capitalism's Hajj of eager bargain hunters on
boxing day - shtampede! indeed, a stampede...
then on pages 8 - 9 'i knew i needed a chemical
crutch. get back on the antidepressants. be realistic.
feel no shame.' she fell off her love machine
like Catherine the Great in a bed with one
to seize the craving of the appetite - horses,
wheelchair, you get the picture, ask the Übermensch
christopher reeve -
then the crescendo - pages 10 - 11
would you re mortgage your house to save your
fur baby?
- yep, arabs as decadent as the westerners
with the poor wheelchair bound woman in between
them - the vets doing brain surgery, MRI scans,
kidney transplants on dogs, cats...
i've actually never felt happier to be alive
given how the world looks right now,
and let me tell you, if Muhammad came back...
ha ha... he would do the same as all these jihadi
peasants are doing to europeans, he'd slit their (the sheikhs')
throats... at the same time wishing islam was kept
in a tight circle, passing the baton of observation to
Ali - the patron "saint" of Iran -
rather than enshrining it in the caliphates
for widespread scheme of conversion ranging
onto the borders with Catalonia -
how early the schism then! how early the schism!
the genius of the egg: yoke and white -
for years the Vatican the yoke and Canterbury and York
and Cologne (etc.) the white.
Felix Sladal Mar 2017
Hardwood floor pushes pressure points into the meat hanging off the bones of ribs and hips
Lifelessly staring over head, the false elagant propeller twirls
Attempting to make this over priced shoebox seem exqusite
Tassles on a silicone breast, spinning as the cockroaches crawl up my back
Gag on this sick joke, you gladly will
Is this the pipe dream, perfumed reality masking societies sweat
All that the populous aims for?
A self depreciating laugh

I

Raw eardrums are about to burst
Tearing into nothing, twisted words set off burning fireworks
Death rage fights, moronic blame, victims in our own heads only we're right
Neither could we ever be wrong, just wronged we make ourselves the prey
Fire in the vains over wet brained illusions, stories made up on the spot
Enshrining the chip on that shoulder

I Hate

City teeth a chalk smile, missing a canine seems all more harmlessly passive, the defanged vampire
The beast lays in wait licking it's chops thirsty for all it can take
Bare your thoat be the willing meal
Let it **** you dry, why not?

I Hate This

Fret and flutter running loose on a lost dime
Calm, cool, collected, yeah right
Lies, storming rage under too thin skin till it bursts at the seams
Lava pouring till everything's gone
"Life's what you make it"
Spoon fed hogwash to make us feel it's our fault where we end up
Dreams held in front of our faces
Treats on a stick, can't reach it but it keeps you going
Till legs break, lungs cave, and your will is snuffed gone to the gutter.


I hate this ****

I think bugs are creeping around in my pores, in the stitching of my clothing, each individual focal of hair, running rampage in the creases of my frontal lobe.


**** I Hate This ****
Bronx, NY
We were weeping by the missionary tree
In the company of wiser men than we
On the border of the black sand and the sea
As the sunset sighed an island reverie

From the fire bed a thousand sparks did rise
Upon the crooked laughs of spirit guides
Above the dewy wingspan of our eyes
And down into the swirl of shifting tides

Distant echoes bled forth from the graves
Of sailors buried deep beneath the waves
In coral tombs and ruby studded caves
Enshrining both the hero and the knave

Regardless of the folly of our thrills
In spite of what the clergy called our ills
Those crystal stars beat back Pacific chills
And forged a bond upon the bamboo hills

We were harnessing the missionary tree
In the company of duller men than we
Sweeping through kaleidoscope debris
As the sunset smiled upon our revelry
Amy Grindhouse Apr 2016
We pause to rest on the hilltops just before
the afternoon gives way to evening
While her young child
crawls innocently across the grass
A tiny cherubic visage silhouetted by the slow flare
of the summer sun enshrining the scene
She tells me
that even with these things
that bring her such intense joy
the darkness would not relent
It was always there taunting her
just beneath the surface

She tells me she wants out of these panicked strain eclipses
tugging cantilever protrusions through heart chambers
The worry of writhing sickness murmuring like scorned blasphemers retreating to cimmerian shade
Incessentally dominating
the pleasant moments of her life

I could not offer any reassurances
other than to say
Perhaps these moments
must interlace
forever woven together by
the passage of time
that we are blessed and doomed
to walk alongside them simultaneously
And that just as light and dark
are separate parts of the same day
Our experiences
are just different expressions
of a magnificent existence
on an unstoppable wheel.
We were weeping by the missionary tree
In the company of wiser men than we
On the border of the black sand and the sea
As the sunset sighed an island reverie

From the fire bed a thousand sparks did rise
Upon the crooked laughs of spirit guides
Above the dewy wingspan of our eyes
And down into the swirl of shifting tides

Distant echoes bled forth from the graves
Of sailors buried deep beneath the waves
In coral tombs and ruby studded caves
Enshrining both the hero and the knave

Regardless of the folly of our thrills
In spite of what the clergy called our ills
Those crystal stars beat back Pacific chills
And forged a bond upon the bamboo hills

We were harnessing the missionary tree
In the company of duller men than we
Sweeping through kaleidoscope debris
As the sunset smiled upon our revelry
Within the walls, I could hear
Those hums like they were near;
Hark! How the opulent skies
Fill with colours, cough up lies.

Within silence, I could listen
To dim words I had written;
And your breath by my side,
On a sweet autumn night.

Within the airs, their dramas;
All were stricken dormas,
I would have thee over;
Didst thou know where we were?

Within the wet nightfall;
About yonder blank hall,
I could feel twitching music,
Dancing to the flown week.

Within the burnt candle;
Thou be mine to ******,
To live, to bend to thee
Whilst youth’s last may scare me.

Within t’is solitude, love
Thou be more than enough;
These summers petrify me;
Peel my blood right out of me.

Within t’ese days, darling
Thou be the throne that rings
My mere haven of dreams;
Unlike their harried screams,

Within t’ese colds, my sweet
Shy me to thee, and read
The unsung of our fears;
Our abrupt weak tears.

Within t’is high snowfall;
May we meet, and house all,
May we herd the sublime,
May we slumber in time.

Within the dark, my frost;
Pick merely the black rose,
Lighten my most unsure;
Taint me, but keep me pure.

Within the insane gloss;
I knew my doors had closed,
My lyrics had made so wrong;
My poems, my lines, my songs.

Within the unsaid haze;
Memories in my face,
Their sobbing in such pain
I could not feel the rain.

Within the hoarse terror
Just like the sun before;
Thou come round to my room,
To sit, keep warm my poems.

Within the stiffened chords
Thou be the lyrics for;
Be May’s shard of light;
Make a way for its night.

Within the angered voice
Thou be the modest bliss;
Be such presence so quiet
Be thou the time, the first.

Within the adorned shades
Thou haileth from the West;
Enshrining flesh with mine,
Making true love so kind.

Within the adored love
Thou be given my half;
Thou be the lost way’s back
The first love I shall take.
aurora kastanias May 2017
Evolving human
Surrounded by colours,
Gentle grins provoking last
Enduring glances of suspicion,
‘What have they to smile?’

Unfamiliar green-carpet
Streets and glowing faces,
Sounds of unusual happiness
Inundating land, echoing
In the calm unsuffering seas.

Dark elegant suits knit
With gold and silver threads,
In disuse.

Lost briefcases enshrining
Carbon-stained paper sheets,
Unowned, unwanted, and unneeded.

Trees no longer afraid.
May the souls of their ancestors
Rest in peace. Memory does persist.

Sober fancy ties around
Chocking blue necks,
Thrown away.
White collars freeing from chains.

Unleashed,
What was, forgotten.
Forging truth in history
No one teaches,
Lies of imaginative deceptive minds
No one learns.

Red once-fashionable high heels
Buried with garbage, along with
Addictive games and batteries
Creating manmade hills,
Offered to nature as Trojan horses
Waiting to astonish.

While flowers bloom
And wilderness takes over,
Evolving human wonders
‘Where have I been until this moment?’
And smiles.
On post-modern humanity
Sarah Kunz Feb 2017
The sputtering world of eudemonic merriment often times feels very illusive. Just as you begin to feel nestled in equanimity with the essence of sunny joviality, blustering winds topple you off your blissful leisurely swing and back to the gravel strewn floor of reality.
Happiness is something I insatiably seek, yet happiness isn't a tangible thing, but rather a spell of beatitude enshrining my body in gold, aligning the world to the euphoric filter of my desires.
Happiness spurs a smile so fervid that despair can be muted if only for awhile.
Happiness manifests in various forms percolating through all stages of life like some iridescent amorphous syrup.
I must accept that happiness intersperses through all things as the duality of our world is etched with ebb and flow.
With that being so I can't deny the reverberating enchantment of this moment.
Your scintillating broad smile eradicating all laws of gravity leaving me buoyed in the milky sky of pooling happiness.
I am here, as are you, flesh robed orbs  radiating in saturated pools of happy.  two pulses united among the masses.

We are here now
now is good,
and this is happiness.
Sarah Kunz Nov 2016
Oh dear, say it ain't so
I have tumbled once more into the Ensorcel rabbit hole.
Such beguiling charisma and perplexing dexterity wound up inside the man seated next to me.
Perhaps he has broad branching toes like a stoic Tarzan type, nesting in foliage and kissing the stars goodnight.
Or maybe, just maybe he's a beatnik poetic pulsating with the rhythm the earth has bestowed in him.
His finely aligned scruff and quaintly poised glasses may suggest his love for musical classics.
Oh treacherous day, what ever shall I do?
This man of such illusive origins glazed in nectarous morning dew.
Logistically you could precipitate more interaction to decode the cryptic fabric  fostering this bizarre attraction.
But...
Enshrining and alienating yourself from said object is the best way to circumvent its truthful product.
He is feverishly contaminated by the condition of human, fettered by the society's rubble and ruins.
Ah, no matter I say. I can jowl upon my pumpkin pie and wistfully ostracize the pestilence shreds of reality away.
Anyhow, I do much prefer the aggrandized lofty plot of land transcended from our fickle mortal hackneyed plans.
A throne of land so void of reality my fabricated man could lie beside me in all his Tarzan beatnik classical music glory.
Ahmed Ali Nov 2017
Khan BA Nov 2017
Sun and Moon
Moon  shining ever so bright,
Enshrining everything in silvery light,
Even the stream flowing like silver fright
The flowers too lost in this cascading night
All in awe of the delightful sight
Yet they will know the truth in the morn light
When the Sun will shine itself so bright,
All the silver gone from the previous night,
And shining gold, true to the truthful bright
For it has ever been thus from the first light
The Sun always shining true and bright.

(By Khan, BA (C) 19/11/2017)
Knowing Folks will know the value of Sun and Moon
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2018
what am i with regards to language:
   another person -
             or some complex tool?
my grandfather is still bewildered
by invisible telecommunication
lines of connectivity -
and if philosophy begins with awe,
poetry - well hardly a bewildering
enterprise -
            back to language as a primitive
tool box -
         a shape ascribed to words -
rather than colours -
      take this one word:
   what shape would be ascribed
            to bewilderment?
           nouns are all straight lines?
and so unto bewildering-,
  are adjectives squares?
         there must be a grammatical
geometry of some sort -
otherwise how are we to compete
with the chinese encoding
complexity -
   if we are to return to such
openings of phonetic complexity
as Handel's messiah -
             while the chinese call themselves
Lee Chow - or Li Po?
              i'm buckling under the fact
that english speakers are literate in
that they are literate by some measure:
        odd...
         is language another person -
or as i like to think of it:
            a "primitive" toolbox of screws
nails, hammer and sickle...
better still: a scythe's shadowy peering
into the light...
            i think of death as with a hope
of immortality, armed with a hammer -
nailing each staff of wheat
               into place -
rather than: with a guillotine grin
marking each equal: before itself...
        i too wondered whether language
needs complicating -
     or whether at best: to simply grunt
and growl through...
       but that's beside the point when i
wonder that the brain: has no knowledge
of the tongue...
     how many times i've heard people
speak of: the eloquent thought,
coupled to a mumbling tongue...
   which is why: a cartesian dualism is hard
to fathom... summon Libra!
eternal Libra - nothing precipitates
to an equal fathom (unit of comprehensive
in situ) -
               there was and always will be
a dichotomy... hence the dualism advocates
invented the: schizoid mind...
   which is 2 x 2 = 4...
                     so is language not worth
complicating - after all, i have no other,
"greater" concern in using this: tool... person?
    can language really devolve
to scoop, or is it mere a shambles of
floating vegetables in a soup?
          drinking helps to numb the pain...
oh how friendly to return to
   a pseudo-incubation of sheltered
ego-foetus...
            ego... foetus...
               it must be an echo from the future
shouting: right back at me...
    for not having a memory of
being a tad bit tadpole: foetus -
  here - said god: i give unto you ego...
and thought - your 2nd womb...
         and for the love of god:
so few images have been ingested with
words, having to weigh the ******
obvious, smirk of science.
   of what i've seen of Warsaw i remember
not too dearly -
           the Warsaw Central Trainstation:
a barren place... a beautiful girl engrossed
in techno-attachments -
   the capital with so few people -
          a sight of a head with thinning hair -
if only: the apocalyptic
                  baldness of a Golgothan scalp...
then i could: smirk and retort -
last man standing is never the king...
perhaps a pawn, a bishop, queer or rook...
i laid my king into a pocket rather
than a coffin...
          last time i checked i was able to
numb mein schmerz with the antic of
sleeping for 14 hours...
            and can you believe it that:
graphemes are needed?
               the germans require S C H
to utter the same sound as the Poles do
with S Z and the English do with S H...
  some spaces ought to enforce
the Siamese dictum of Roman hellish
spawns...
                  because what is language at
best?at best it's not another person -
but a tool, however primitive language
not looks compared to <code> ext .2
practice...
                or that techno-puritanical posture
without a glum book...
                   either i am using a hammer
as i use my tongue to babble or lick -
    otherwise...
             a sickly simplicity?
  - and words do have grammatical geometry!
clearly, a verbum similis changes
shape: from the form
           bewilderment -
    through to (to) bewilder -
   into bewildering -
        otherwise named from an observation:
the genius monkey who said:
   (that) thing makes be more wild
   in temperament...
      and open: the universe -
   and closed the sight of stars in an
oxygen tank...
            for i am sure -
of a satanic possession that stirrs the mass -
as i am sure: god took a seat back -
what proof?
                  home bid yet homeless -
in the same station, a gradfather watched
his grandchild taunt a pigeon -
in her arm no breadcrumbs but only
a wish: perish: or perch here...
       i am blind to see past only
two existential arches: types -
  winged or horned -
    and beyond that: a zoo -
    something daunting to clarify with
an intelligent discussion...
      so is language another person -
or a tool?
                may i be understood
or must i necessarily be: standing ground -
never aloof - never fascinated
with an attic?
                am i to always lounge with
an antithesis of friction?
                 - and that's what sitting on
the throne of thrones does to you with
a dollop of Heidegger -
             yes, dropping a name -
but it would be hard to accomplish what
i am strumming without a mention of
what "mirror"-psyche i looked into,
before i looked into mine...
      it would be hard to digest myself
as being this complicated,
   on an a priori whim...
                  as if it was worth a base of:
uniform humanity -
    sooner finding an answer concerning
the existence of a mole looking
into one's own ****:
     and only one act is left with an
impossibility -
    the mole is as certain to exist
as a floating **** in the oasis -
   but my ***: might as well be
the regurgitating mouth...
         - and for all the beauty -
  it's crasness that shines for man -
                   to have to educate foul
speech is one thing -
              but to have to use it:
                 a lesson in liberty...
               besides - never mind "educators"
outside educational institutions -
     the muse: gratifyingly ends -
    but unlike a sense of accomplishment
a reader ascribes to having finished
   a historical novel...
     saying that - what is below a poem?
a novella -
      at least i can be honest -
the novella can only be dwarf of a Goliath:
the height of Goliath's armpit hair...
         BUT TO THINK I HEAR WHISPERS
IN MY DREAMS!
     who was the original iconoclast?
       "paradoxically": Medussa...
      enshrining them into stone -
        the word is odd - to make icons -
      ah... ****: tribe -
                caste - to caste is to make -
         again why the Americans don't know
that the suffix -cicki is actually slang for:
*******... i.e. **** - well, piquant zingy -
for the original ingests cycki...
         never mind nationalkapitalismus -
the nakies?
          because obviously it's not just:
nappies, is it?
        big baby was told it could poach
bacon instead of frying it?
                           evidently we can't complain -
unless of course we care to be
both nationalists and capitalists
  at the same time: as the English found
out the hard way...
                       but little Joey and big Sam
can be: national capitalists...
                   the rest just sign of
whether they're capitalists or nationalists -
since, outside of h'america:
   the two are never supposed to meet.
The essence of wit is brevity
which interestingly evinces chivalry
delivered verdict to hex **** size
   (once and for all) president

   dons mantle of deviltry
and trumps constitutional credo
defining American elementary
particular edicts denoting, enshrining,
   framing, grand honorable inalienable rights

when foolhardy lobbyists prevail
   evicting execrable“enemy”
i.e. forward thinking (progressively liberal)
   which subsequently might help

   timid citizens to invoke probate, procure, produce cojones
   in opposition against rabidly power hungry,
   misogynistic courting among the body politik
   fostering future feverish fortuity,

toward risking life and limb sans
   Uncle Sam selfless gratuity
(especially as Benjamin Button syndrome –
   reverses aging process

   acquired thru heredity
gets in full swing) stamping mindset
   nonestablishmentarian identity
with my Kosher blessing despite any infamy

permission to go ahead with jocularity
from a superstar coach named Kennedy
thereby garnering homespun liberty
where icon bank on direct
   laudable, linkedin longevity

with unrolled Scottish grandeur
   (Pomp and  Circumstance broadcast)
   synchronized with precise
   unrolled welcome mat
   yule receive granted “FAKE” feted soiree

as curtain call doth close toward
   final decade of mortality

yet dismiss bing hash-tagged
   a scofflaw at any opportunity
especially if legislated mandate
   earmarked as priority

in tandem with the key quality
apothegm stipulates decrease sing sanity
as the hands of father time
   spin (Doktor Dude Little) backward
   away from present day turbidity
increasing revanchism uber victory.
Ha!

Human (rat) race doomed!

Foregone conclusion hashtagged,
linkedin, predicated, et cetera, cuz
overactive derrière of yours truly
(no names mentioned, nor fickle
finger of fate pointed), and writer
of these words and one among many
riders (he adores) on the storm –
referring to brewing, looming, and
quaking potentially severe economic
fallout shattering The "debt ceiling"
or "debt limit"recommends ye dear
unknown (anonymous) readers bid
thee toodle loo  to civilization
and its discontents.

So much for hyperbole!
    
How axiomatic, ironic, quixotic, zoologic
that thee unavoidable ****** urge occurred
while in the midst of writing about that
vitally important ****** function, which
for any other Tom, **** or Harry would
be safer endeavor at least within their home.

That margin of err rear harmlessly doth
NOT exist within the rented domicile
of this twenty six plus years a married
(lighthearted) middle aged man.

What requisite non-forceful,
essential, dutiful call visiting
the ***** to purge the body electric
of supposed waste matter
(quite efficient machine ****
Sapiens anatomy), regarding
said expelling solid, loose, liquid...
thru **** ought to rank as
minimally risky private business.

Imagine matter of fact saunter
to the loo fraught with Uriah heaps
of danger that could imperil
the very existence of (in this case)
myself, and the rest of humanity.

Upon attempting to amble
very short distance, (perhaps
half a dozen paces), an
immediately deleterious,
hellaciously luminous, and
perilously serious threat
(unsurpassed even by hooliganism  
signature destruction forever
enshrining Gothic or Vandals –
if such peoples lived today and
occupied this apartment unit),
loomed as a far more impossibly
harrowing mission any combination
of maximum strength (Excedrin
would be superfluous) supposed
major natural disasters all rolled
into one frightful maelstrom.

Oft times the powerful need
to relief thyself disallows any
preparation H(abiliments), thus I
am forced to make a quick dash
to the toilet, BUT between
the cozy comfort of this easy
chair and the durable material
designed to suction even the
baddest, biggest, boldest BM
belies a trail and mountain
far more of wicked bewitched
crossing then say the now defunct
Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

Though this comparison may seem
like an exaggeration, the higgledy
piggledy hewn heap of fetid foul
fermenting faecal matter poses
dangerous, death defying diabolical
(DO NOT ENTER) dump.

No other option existed for me
to eradicate, expel, exorcise, et
cetera potential ***** matter except
to strike out toward barrier reef
of noxious, odoriferous, pestilential,
queasily revolting sky high (declared
SuperFund Site) to  enjoy simple
pleasure, whereby Gluteus Maximus
dispenses with human toxins.

The urge to let loose a stool sample
overrides any time to pen loving
note to surviving family members,
which (two darling grown daughters
seem like foreigners (or survivors
on a desert island) as each precious
Punim pursues autonomy countless
miles, whereby the eldest then
a Junior at The University of Pennsylvania,
and the youngest offspring plane
and simple sailed about seven
years ago to become
seasoned student abroad.

Though a tenant at this subsidized
(and quite agreeable accommodations
nestled within Perkiomen Valley,
Pennsylvania), no exaggeration necessary
to describe daily cataclysm perchance
spelling doom and downfall of this
dry husband and loving father to deux
progeny, who would hate to leave said
special offspring behind under
the sheltering sky.

Thus every onset to traipse
so few feet to flush out
thine flotsam and jetsam,
(when stream of ***** sprays
like a hose) to pay obeisance
and homage to modern
plumbing, the flash of mine
lxiv years zips thru me
memory, particularly when
carefully, gingerly
lumbering ridiculously slow
(lest mishap finds ambulance
siren wailing destiny of this chap
(most likely pronounced
dead on arrival), whereby tell tale
sigh of turgid tummy
would automatically inform doctors
that obstruction preventing quintessential
rear supply tubby
undisputed venal wickedness.

Tis at  unstoppable twitches
to defecate, (which sharp
saber rattling ****** spasms)
denote common urgent irrepressible
need arising within bowels),
when mental gallows humorous arises.

Such an embarrassing ending
(post eerie er) demise re: conclusion
to my rather ordinary life – (visa vis
being constipated, deprived
or hindered freeing offal,
would put to shame “windbag”
i.e. google as  proof positive
of blocked means to eliminate waste).

Also in tandem (though very
slightly tangential to above
distressful horrible likely presentiment,
this xMan bemoans being
swept off my yam bic pent
tam meter feet (literally)
by gigantic hands of she
(thee divine Gaia, who now
scatters defecated detritus
damning ability to access
commode constitutes reflection
on remaining Norwegian
Bachelor farmer from Lake Woebegone.

How trajectory of one measly
mortal primate webbed
whirled wide eyed schleps
along boulevard of broken dreams
(he may as well live planets,
galaxies or universes apart
worlds) ever shared
an intersecting vector
with another continues
to confound this crossword puzzler.

Again that sneaky sobriquet
irony doth mettle with
steely goatherd drivers
goes Pasteur ****, where gin
till lit tee lives.

Long story short described below.

Circumstance found this then
quite content solitary
son of the soil invited
to admirable, estimable, inimitable
estate listed as “Glen Elm”
within  National Registry of
owned properties within
Collegeville, Pennsylvania.

Garrison Keillor slated guest of honor.

He possessed je nais se quois
ability to tell tall tales,
whereby audience members
became rapt with seduction,
usurpation, and wide eyed yearning
to lean in so as to hear the suspense,
which increased in magnitude
in direct proportion as
his home spun voice became softer.

Unbeknownst to this
poor country bumpkin, when
he took bathroom break
during impromptu intermission,
a gal in her mid thirties
livingsocial with her parents
within the Mainline
(very wealthy enclave of residents
within southwestern Montgomery
County, Pennsylvania)
agreed to follow Jewish tradition,
asper prearranged marriages.

Though neither of  Semitic peoples,
nor the least bit familiar
with one of the oldest Religions,
thee family, whose youngest daughter
hinted of spinsterhood, their
open minded kindred ideas
generated exception to  
dictum remaining steadfast
to pinpoint “a nice Jewish
Kosher Boy”!

As frequent attendees
at this Leiper Mansion and
storied magnet for literati,
the accidental chance encounter
found thyself and unfamiliar gal
(fate decreed as thy bartered bride)
happened to be awaiting use of water closet.

As tends to be the predilection
of so called fairer gender ***,
this petite and attractive dame
introduced herself, which subsequently
found us becoming more
curious about the other.

The natural order of two
heterosexual individuals
(one male, the other female)
allowed basic instinct of
attraction to engender
fledgling friendship, that quickly
leapfrogged into
a sexually intimate dalliance.

Without any precautions
qua birth control inevitable
outcome of hitting
the figurative bullseye linkedin while
listening to the rhythm method occurred.

This reality determined
tepid reception courtesy
future parents in law to marry gal,
whose youngest daughter's
future child I fathered.

Even from this fairly commonplace
getgo dynamics wildly described
along seismograph of 10.00 earthquake,
one category 5 hurricane,
and an F5 tornado thrown in
for good measure for measure,
these tidbits totally hyperbolic,
thus equal much ado about nothing relative
to the interpersonal juxtaposition
of our quite rapid tête-à-tête,
that continues (to much lesser degree –
analogous to subsiding
storm of the Century 21) to this day.

After surviving approximately
two and a half dozen plus years,
(the marital inflictions
unquestionably more harrowing,
strangulating, and threatening
life and limb) battle scars
(many broken bones begot
by innocuous shuffling to
bathroom) populating neary
every square inch of this
ordinary chap deserves a medal of honor.
Before golden opportunity
(goes no argh hue mint
the way of Long John Silver)
doth fade and dwindle
not necessarily cuz the missus
did (NOT) bribe and swindle
an ambition (for nor rhyme nor reason)
arose to kindle...

Affectionate communication
employing (figurative) gambol
probably testing your patience
to decrypt me trademark ramble
essential crux of matter after
ye prune thorny verbiage,
metaphorical berry good bramble.

Methinks yar psyche slid into funk
cuz usual upbeat gregarious disposition
of late (June 26th, 2020)
analogous to reclusive monk
whose nonverbal body language

shrieks "LEAVE ME THE ƒµ©* ALONE"
lest recipient (in this case yours truly)
receives judicious suckerpunch
finding him landing - ouch
on his buttucks - kerplunk!

Nevertheless as one
mister misanthrope to another
who could pretend cavorting
as asinine make bull heave brother,
(or undergoing extreme makeover,
and stretching imagination voila
one garden variety generic beastie boy
rendered into... yup, your grandmother.

Hoop fully no unpleasant memory
doth suddenly unfold
linkedin to said very old
boot (moost likely)
long deceased family member
turned to dust commingled with auld

Lang syne amidst weathered tombstones,
markedly intact skeletons absent
any flesh o'the rear
some etched with hands folded in prayer
mausoleum enshrining even in death near
(think grim reaper kingly leer)

still provoking jeer
profligate (yet prolific) paperback writer heir
housing generations ghostly forebear
comprising your family tree, once... dear
father, mother, sister, brother, et cetera
who profusely guzzled beer.

No intent to induce fury if playful banter
loosed psychological trip wire
merely harmless ambition to deliver mirth
lobs strike out as decided
by just now summoned umpire
on the ball punning away without tire
greatly flattered if literary antics inspire
ye to pen memoirs,

which become New York Times
bestseller, thus countless clamoring demands
to serve as ghostwriter hire
prompt ye with fame and fortune
before thee doth exhale last breath and expire
when moments prior,
I while impersonating a squire
wished ye a cheery bon voyage.
Kurt Philip Behm Nov 2023
The bums and the heroes
of revolution
asleep
As drawn to the cosmos
a light
travels deep
He asked for no quarter
playing outside
the game
His legion in shadows
he’d never
explain
Each song once it’s sung
his interest
foregone
To blind repetition
he couldn’t
belong
The critics in reference
enshrining
his fame
As the midwestern
prairie wind
—calls out his name

(Ode To Bob Dylan: November, 2023)
Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2018
Living inside the moment,
Temporal things
Pass me by
On their march to permanence

Attached to everything
But themselves,
They stand as false Icons
To a time once lived–then put away

A trophy case of remembrance…
Enshrining what was lost
In the gathering
Dust

Never rediscovered…
Defining what death means
In the gathering
Dust

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2014)
Yenson Jul 2020
Serves him right, matey
we've done him and even that wife
good and proper
We've stitched him up like a kipper
framed him and ruined him
mud clings, matey, mud clings.
haha

Think you can mess with East-end mob
think you can come here
giving us lip
talking about exposing us
grassing us up

The ****
we gave him the chance to pay us money
just make little regular tax to us
we would have let them be
keep it all sweet, just twenty a week ain't too much
but no, the greedy ******* refused to pay up
then stuck his black *** out, all lippy and sanctimonious

Ya, he was clean as a whistle
not a **** stain, actually a grand bloke
but we soon fixed all that
we sorted him out good and proper
its a wonder he hasn't topped himself
we've ****** him up good

Now he knows
in Civilized Western Democracy
in the home of Democracy itself
enshrining Human Rights, Freedom and liberty
we do stone lives to death, we too are uncivilized Barbarians
just watch the attached below, to get my meaning
Ya, life is unfair....**** it up



This is a must see, watch this film!

https://youtu.be/E2Z3KQXK_oQ
https://youtu.be/E2Z3KQXK_oQ
Yenson Sep 2020
Attrition sings the blues
in hidden stables rocking in mangers  
no God here only sinners welcome for homage
to the weakened troubled pained and diseased minds
enshrining envy jealousy and fears of the insecure and inadequate
where relief is sought in sharing  miseries in dud hope of like for like
attrition sings the blues morning noon an dusk in hysteric punctuality

The weak and fearful will run
for screeching dirges will strike raw nerves
vacuous entities will flee for putrid idioms will stain
the cowards will rile and flunk off in wounded tantrum of pain
and snowflakes will melt and turn into the quavering wreck of husk
while the real solid true an characterful sees nothing but dolts aching
and hears in attrition blues caterwauling of losers without essence or self worth

— The End —