"enumerate" poems
~
not a fan of reality TV,
plenty of "unreal" episodes
of my own direction stored,
available for further review
in the storage units of
neuronic black and white prison brain cells
which is why I have free~will chosen
to enumerate my poem~videos;
for easy retreat retrieval resurrection
of the travelogue of mind own insurrections
*a garage of mobility devices,
car, rollerblades, cross country skis plus,
a potpourri of escape methodologies
that by definition are all round trippers,
returned to their storage unit after use
and I count them Noah~like,
two by two, as they come on board,
and when they disembark for days of
rest and recreation*
this one, #4,
is born
among headstones,
just anther memory storage unit
specialized,
flag decorated,
but different
This is a one-way,
no return,
unit
but
it can be viewed at anytime
by those who care to be users,
by speaking this:
*Read to me poem number four,
on a day we celebrate,
about free men of every color and persuasion,
who are calling out to
open the door to storage unit four,
so we to can perform
our once-a-year
Tour of Duty
to the those who called,
and answered with limb and love,
for by their glory,
we are
free too*
to remember in any way we choose
~
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 5:18 PM UTC
Listen. I'm not silent.
In fact, I'm immensely talkative.
I have a loud mind that produces battalions of statements daily.
I am talkative.
Words egress from my lips like rivers flowing to vast seas.
I speak of my aspirations, dreams, and visions for the future.
I brag about my strengths and feats that I have achieved.
I impart my knowledge and discoveries to the curious.
I am not silent.
I share my experiences and learnings to elicit self-reflection.
I exclaim my inspirations and interests with much enthusiasm.
I was never silent.
I admit my weaknesses, insecurities, and fears with difficulties.
I enumerate my quirks and oddities despite hesitating.
I disclose my secrets and sins that marred me.
Why do you call me silent?
I elaborate my thoughts and my whims on the spot.
I sing my favorite rhymes, lullabies, and songs that are more than just mellifluous melodies.
How can you call me silent?
I utter peculiar lines and cryptic metaphors in varying tones.
I narrate stories of friendships, love, romance, and passion in diverse forms.
I spit verses of hatred, greed, atrocity, and apathy with vehemence.
I scream what's taboo, ****** unconventional, and abhorrent unabashedly.
There is absolutely no space in my mouth for silence.
I am not silent and my lips are not closed.
Your eyes are just covered, and you do not know how and when to listen.
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 2:16 PM UTC
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.
1.6k
There is a word that expresses all
the ways in which you have disappointed me
and driven me to tears of frustration;
I could not enumerate them without displacing
my mind in the process,
I can only seethe in the chagrin
that you have left behind you,
a thick gelatinous mess you spread
with each movement of your sluggish body
and with each breath you take
you augment my resentment for you
until it boils over into one expression,
one word that encompasses this
empirically justifiable vexation,
uttered with the sarcastic malice
that could drive it into your dense English skull;
cheers.
Aug 3, 2013
Aug 3, 2013 at 12:33 PM UTC
I
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.
1.5k
They claimed to have heard a voice in the sky
A voice that promised a civilization to safety and salvation
But maybe I was too deaf to realize
Or even hear that such a voice could be heard from thousands of miles up high
Maybe I was too ignorant and followed my own instincts and lies
But who are you to blame me, I was a young child
Eyes that have not yet been opened
Arms kept clean to the years to come, and counting
Skin left to reflect the admiration the moon has for its lover
And a smile kept genuine, that served as a curtain for the crooked teeth behind it
I was a young child at 9
Years passed and the moon still had a lover
The sun emanated its guidance and love for her
Yet the people still worshipped the voice above them
I heard they started building statues and churches, to which I turned the other ear
Because the only thing I believed was that they were soon to crumble
And become the origin of which is rubble,
A combination of corpses, offerings and slavery on top of one another
I refused to believe that such a voice could lead a civilization to destruction
Yet people were so deceived, their heads remained high,
Exposing their necks to a god that I called a murderer
But who are you to blame me, I was an ‘ignorant’ girl
My eyes were coated with the truth
I had stopped counting the years I was clean
And began to enumerate and name the scars I hid beneath my sleeves
Yet my skin remained warm from the radiance of two lovers I believed
The sun guided me and the moon sang me to sleep
I was an ‘ignorant’ girl at 17
The year when my genuine smile, disappeared
Now I am left with nothing else but to question
And in return receive an answer not worth my time nor the oppression,
That I experienced throughout this lifetime I chose to not believe in them
The 'them' who claimed to have heard the voice in the sky
And the 'I' that chose to turn deaf enough to realize
That there is no such thing as a perfect civilization of safety and salvation
I was not ignorant because I had my facts laid out in front of me and them
But they never believed a word I tried to verbalize,
How ironic for a nation of people to believe a non-existent voice from the sky
To which they turned their backs to the sun that kept them warm and to the moon of dimmed brightness and light
But now, I am left with nothing
So I went back to where it all started, the origin, and held my head up high
Revealed my neck to the god I believed was a lie
And for a split second, I thought my neck would cut open and blood would start coursing down my chest instead of my throat
I believed I thought I would die
n.j.
Jul 12, 2015
Jul 12, 2015 at 5:28 AM UTC
when he says he wants to put you
in a poem, don't believe he'll
put your petals to his nose, inhale gently,
and enumerate the tickling scents
waltzing in his nostrils.
believe he'll put your stem to his tongue
lick the thorns slowly
to open his masochistic
metallic blood.
believe that he'll spit
that blood on the floor
or in a teacup to
sit out for hummingbirds.
believe he'll paint you
naked in verse
clothe you in meter
and strip you once more.
believe that no poem
is refuge
and that your ugliness
and his ugliness
will not make a poem
beautiful.
Sep 2, 2016
Sep 2, 2016 at 3:21 PM UTC
I must have touched the heavens today
It weeps for me as I remember you.
Sturdy mask hides a broken spirit
Numb heart embraces a crippled soul.
How many seasons do you have there?
I only have two: sadness and emptiness.
I cannot count from one until eternity
I just let my tears enumerate it for me.
They say prayers move jagged mountains
The pills don’t make me fold my hands.
I gained experiences in life but I lost you
How long will I wait to see you again?
Three six five days and counting…
Jun 21, 2022
Jun 21, 2022 at 4:20 AM UTC
listen and look,
honey,
dear,
sweetie,
baby,
won't you shut the hell up,
you're driving me crazy.
I'd survive if you'd save me
but
love hasn't saved anyone I've ever met.
maybe someone who wants to know what to expect
like
home before dark and promises never kept,
and secrets in the park with naked words
frozen
on the lips of an adulterous misstep.
this is useless to those who crave the subtle bliss,
who enumerate ridges of skin dedicated with a kiss
and
catalog nerve endings that shiver and resist . and . just . (quiver to exist)
so promises never need be made,
so we can fall apart and it won't matter, none of this
we never needed a place in a poem or a dictionary,
just a dial tone or a few letters to arrange
to call home and portray the strange
and… try… to find a word…
that rhymes with… dictionary
never trying to deny
our eyes cannot lie,
they will fade from glory.
like the dead,
like you and I
like we needed to fake these scrawling notes
that claw for understanding of mistakes we once wrote,
inky sketches that wax polemical over a misquote
and crying starry eyes over favorite chemicals,
the elements we conjure with, so verbose and so broke,
over coffee and cigarettes and mostly ***** jokes
Nov 27, 2011
Nov 27, 2011 at 3:18 AM UTC
we are
all plagued
by some churning remnants
of haunting pain and shame
but we are not to blame
for repentance oft falls short
no matter how much we try to exhort
these murky maddening memories to depart
they flow yet in even the purest heart
for me
my crimes, too many to enumerate,
will all cause me to self deprecate,
but of the ones I seem to recall
the deed that taunts me most of all
was the simple thoughtless movement
of two five year old fingers
I used
to crush
two sublimely blue
robin's eggs
in a nest
on a promising bright afternoon
in the dark land of memory
Nov 21, 2011
Nov 21, 2011 at 5:10 PM UTC
**** poetry when I could be in a bed
with you no unfuck poetry
because how else could I enumerate
your tidal wave hair rising and crashing
under the light of my moonbeam fingers?
**** tv when I could be at tate street
coffee on saturday morning livid
with jazz hopped up on the best **** cup of coffee in greensboro sharing bass notes with a caricature of iggy pop and you.
no unfuck tv because that's the way we spend our tuesdays giggling
up in high definition with a freshly packed bowl and your head on
my belly tired as tires pushing 85 on 85 for 85000 miles but netflix leads to chill leads to naked leads
to my tongue to your belly's favorite cavity leads to ** ly **** hallelujah! if anything **** god and
the devil **** yin and closed fist yang **** bodhisatva **** dharma and the other things i dont know **** the big bang because the
universe we **** into creation is a rainbow balloon
bursting candy confetti compared to the one we leave when I, all hands and ribcage, am allowed to share your bed.
Sep 23, 2016
Sep 23, 2016 at 11:17 AM UTC
Tea and bubbles:
they may cure all your troubles.
If the world would listen to the silence,
Maybe we wouldn't experience such violence.
We hear all these words each day,
But they all conflate into one eventually, and just go away-
Almost as if they had never been said.
God, this is how people end up dead!
And I cannot enumerate,
All these beings surrounding,who cannot communicate;
Yet, they refuse to absorb the silence-
They give birth to and raise up these tyrants.
Tea and bubbles.
May very well solve all these troubles.
Dec 26, 2014
Dec 26, 2014 at 2:49 AM UTC
I can clearly state
And easily enumerate
No need to exaggerate
That in the aggregate
Up until the current date
The state of our beloved state
Has chosen to populate
The majority of the electorate
With the dregs of the vulgate.
I’m stating that our congress
Has become a total mess
With the outcome being less
Pleasing than a pool of cess.
With many of ‘no’ and few of ‘yes’
I fear we have to confess
We will be forced to dress
In ***** rags and even less
Too broke for a game of chess.
We are a buckless stag nation
On less than WW2 B rations
Caught in the collaboration
Between rightist indignation
And hyper-religious damnation
Golden calf worship and adoration
Built on the dollar sign adulation
Fostered by the dissembling peroration
By the authors of American privation.
Our representatives sell out constantly
And take in our dollars steadily
Saying yes to bribery readily
Feathering their beds happily
Ignoring their promises fearlessly
Because they proceed quite protectedly
From any repercussions legally
From the almighty powers that be
That coddle and tend them carefully.
It has to be that way necessarily
In this falsely-labeled free country.
May 1, 2015
May 1, 2015 at 10:20 PM UTC
As of late I have been told an excruciating number of times, by a couple types of people, that they do not understand me, these people are often in positions of power, between me and some goal, usually I would wonder why they neglect to specify what they don't understand but I've gone so far as to enumerate and source my messages in point-by-point explanations, in about three messages I'm just pasting quotes from where I've already answered their questions, I've tried being "reasonable" for weeks in some cases, if only when I was obligated to try and make it work, bureaucracy has finally hit its boiling point, The Stanford prison experiment could be redone for office work, Forum Administration, and any number of benign micro powers, it's not just absolute power corrupts absolutely, people are absolutely corrupted by power, it's statistically quantifiable now given ninety-plus percent plea bargain convictions to say the only courts that still exist are kangaroo courts, there's no point in testimony or evidence, even our scientific community is learning from our governments, fixing things by definition, like the unemployment rate, yes 5% unemployment, celebrate while nearly 60% of people don't have jobs but I may as well being trying to discuss the reich's in Germany.
Jun 6, 2016
Jun 6, 2016 at 1:42 AM UTC
From the Prayer of Saint Ignatius of Loyola (see notes)
<>
the phrase grabs my eyelids,
a forced opening,
nay,
a denial of closing,
our most human
and natural
escape hatch
and I wonder…
is it self~slander,
or is it the obverse,
that explores a desire
to enumerate honestly
for what is…is…
let the costs count us!
is that it?
merely
poetry
airy escapery,
what passes
for t r u t h in
these dark days?
<>
the damning costs count me
in their number!p
as ******
<!>
hapless victim of living,
pondering ponderous
divination of saintly
defiant definitions
of ‘greater good’
’tis the difficile,
entre the pill and the
bitter, oh so bitter the herbs,
for it is
so plainly & so hard
to differentiate, et
distinguer mais être distingué(1)
distinguish tween but not to be distinguished
memories that are costs disguised,
reverting as dreams, in the true~alone
hours of the twenty four, when it’s
just you, & fighter and worthy opponent
them costs,
who needs no definition
tolling the steeple bells
of utter anguish,
as you're thre greatest living expert
in these matters,
(le plus personnel)
the sins of action and transaction,
And the worst, those truly heinous
inactions,
face off in opposition in the boxing ring
<>
and the costs paid, a savage skilled
opponent, intimate of your every trickery,
the bare knuckled brawler, whose knows,
knows! the true tally, the bodies you’ve
buried, the children witnesses to your
creative abominations, lies you tell no
one else, but yourself- every single day!
the urge to cease here
grows stronger by the second,
minutes past and les défenses have risen,
what disclosures revelations bring forgiveness?
this my spotlight,
caught in the headlights,
where fessing up is in reverse,
fessing down to the black bottom,
where ugliness is the normative and
vain attempts at denial offers no escapes
from glutinous disgusting mess of gelled of
nothing but the truth
nah,
you don’t want to know,
what a human can accomplish
in a short seven decades of decadence
and recount constantly the costs of consternation
<>
so I‘ll let you
retreat to the gray masses
all your own where your very
owned
wonderings
are intercepted
for where I go now
willingly, unfailingly,
failing
needing not, requiring not
no company
Jul 13, 2024
Jul 13, 2024 at 7:17 AM UTC
I never counted the stars
In the night sky;
I counted memories.
The times I feasted on the milky way-
Oh, how they tasted like chocolate.
The times I looked up and spelled out your name-
My heart leapt and reached out for them.
The times I hand picked parts of galaxies-
I held a box of the remains in my arms.
We connected. We shone.
I love the stars
They shines bright, in my heart.
But you held it all.
They were in my smile,
But you were the reason they showed.
They brought out the best in me,
But you were the reason for my rising self esteem.
I could enumerate the ways they spoke out to me,
But it was you who helped me understand.
Yet, some nights,
They don't show.
I feel like my world has crumbled to pieces.
Some nights are stormy,
And no stars are there
To comfort me.
It's dark out now.
I can't find my way.
I'm lost, completely.
They've all vanished.
Or rather, been taken away.
Some people don't like the shining asteroids.
They forget the beauty of it.
The galaxies.
The universe.
They keep it locked away,
Far from me,
In fear it would blind me
Give me too much hope,
Make me love.
But you are my star.
My milky way.
My galaxy.
No matter what they do,
They can not keep me from loving you
Mar 11, 2016
Mar 11, 2016 at 1:48 PM UTC
When my friend asked me to enumerate reasons why other people shouldn't date him, instead of answering, I paused. Then I replied with the reasons why people should.
Why would I say such ******** to someone I care for? Why would I tell him things that he would most probably overthink later? After all, my thoughts would only be biased to my experiences -- my answer is a very very small piece of the bigger puzzle. However small that piece may be, I would never give him the damaged version of it. That is my precious contribution to him.
I realized that a pause can make everything nicer. Words are powerful; it can either destroy or heal. Why does it feel like saying good things is so underrated and boycotted. That when you simply say, "You are such a gentleman" it can make a man cry for he became extra appreciative of himself.
May 17, 2022
May 17, 2022 at 6:43 AM UTC
Allow me to enumerate, subjugate and demonstrate.
To those parts of you which hold doubt.
But first, I must abdicate, on how your words agitate,
all the parts of me which act out.
You talk about eternity, the ageless infinity
But your precocity holds you like a vice in its grip.
You hold its hair back, like girls in sorority.
Desperate to keep it making the slightest of slips.
Don't ask for reason, is there ever any worth hearing?
I can tell you "you're beautiful, with a personality to boot."
But does that really make my words any more endearing?
For me, that is something that your self must refute.
If you had telepathy your thoughts would be a mess.
Sorting out the messages, from thoughts I can't suppress.
Enabling my addiction to your body and your soul.
You would watch my mind, as infatuation takes control.
Faith I have in abundance, in people not in gods.
Charon can take all his coins, and I will take those odds.
I approach with uncertainty. and offer it candidly.
My love is yours to take, don't take it offhandedly.
Oct 21, 2017
Oct 21, 2017 at 2:25 AM UTC
I am showing you how god works in one way
I cannot help but think, speak, dream,
Holding life as a box of chocolates
and wanting badly to poison the dog
the bugging, nagging, aching thing
the ballbusting nature of loneliness
of solitation
"salutations, sweet girl
I am one of the many males."
We don't pick our breakfasts
We have to fight for them
because we ate a crabapple
with our balanced scripture
Now we're Mars' Barred.
I want to touch the vessel that holds you
I want to touch it gently, molding it as clay
your cheeks, rosy, adobe,
the same red as the old
Your eyes the colors of amber before it was made
The subtle breath of turquoise
The diamond-speckled rings
I want to be the emptiness that gives you form
I want to be the innate human function
I want to kiss you because you are god
and you are god that speaks.
I want to kiss your soul,
I want to feel your light
because the aesthetic of you:
A Cole Thomas in the gallery
Rhapsody in Blue, the love theme
A swan in the early autumn, seeking herself
in the reflections on the pond
I want to be the god back
The spoken voice that gave you chills
the same way you shiver on a lonely night,
staring at the enumerate stars, lining up into couples
via perspective parsecs dancing across your eyes
and pulling each follicle closer, closer--
Darling the high likelihood is that we will pass each other by
I will wave goodbye to god, pay my tab,
stumble outside
Maybe watch you disappear
listen to Adagio as the engine begins to explode
controllable
Knowing this will all happen again until it doesn't.
Oct 13, 2018
Oct 13, 2018 at 5:05 AM UTC
The black blues looking back at us
As we try to enumerate what actually is 300 billion in number
Stargazing you - beams a little brighter
Especially when you extend your arms to show me what you out-pass
The stars. The night sky. The moon. The universe.
Theres this unexplainable spell you cast
We’re intoxicated. Can’t tell if its the whisky or just the night
We’re isolated. The rest of the world is tucked in behind closed curtains.
And your mere sight, is the brightest thing tonight
Are we in love? I cant tell
You’ve always known your way around things.
You know the constellations.
You know that if you flip your hair one more time,I’d die in admiration.
You know how to tease between conversations.
You know this isn’t just infatuation.
You know your way. Like I know mine around your hair.
Your accolades melt my barricades
Your smile is my gatorade
Your laugh a grenade
And me, is what you've attained
You’re a bomb. And I am your ****
You’re singing to me. Your voice lets me travel through time
A cascade of memories flashcards
You’re an enchanter. Big time
We float through the night.
Arms extended for each other to lay upon.
Head on shoulder and eyes on eyes. Fingers intertwined.
We kiss each other one last time before the dawn breaks.
Its about time we leave.
Will I see you again? I dont know
but one thing I do know
I'll always have you on my lips
At least your name if not your kiss.
Apr 3, 2020
Apr 3, 2020 at 4:42 AM UTC
My most precious memory of you is the last photo we took together.
Your gaze was calm and mesmerizing, full of intentions impossible to enumerate.
Your famous mischievous smile almost seemed innocent in contrast to your mocking tongue, which displayed the secret jewel that adorned it.
But that wasn't the boldest decoration of your body.
Some of it was born with you, like the three perfectly aligned birthmarks below your left eye. Others you decided to bring to light, like your fascinating and terrifying lilac eyes, and your silver hair, pieces of the moon Herself melting over your head.
You were bizarrely lovely.
Like a good dream that would make waking up sweeter, you became my most beloved fantasy.
It ran through your veins a natural drug that you secretly shared with me and the world would become colorful as a deranged kaleidoscope every time we started flying.
And then, tragedy.
The world turned into gray, the color of your new uniform and ugly handcuffs.
Never again did a fun day come, just new horrific scars.
They cut off your wings, bound your hands, and plucked what they called “your abominable eyes”.
Screams, cries, and revolts did nothing to save you. Soon, there was only silence.
Lost and desperate, I decided to imprison myself in the same darkness into which you were thrown, attempting to be united to you again.
That picture became a blade that cut deep into my brain as it reminded me of how beautiful our madness was.
So I became blind, just like you.
My sky never again had bright, endless lilac stars that colored my life.
We were forced to discover sanity is not so pleasant...
Jan 25, 2020
Jan 25, 2020 at 3:26 PM UTC
How many times have I wanted
to leave the world?
Actually, I know the number.
It’s a very holy number
though hard to enumerate.
It’s the last prime number,
indivisible. Just a number
declaring that dumb love is the body
before all numbers
tumble off into infinity.
That’s how many times
I have wanted to leave
the world, because I reject
the world’s destiny into
all infinity, and prefer
the ignorant everlasting
of love’s decay.
Nov 22, 2021
Nov 22, 2021 at 12:57 AM UTC