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Out here there are no hearthstones,
Hot grains, simply.  It is dry, dry.
And the air dangerous.  Noonday acts queerly
On the mind's eye erecting a line
Of poplars in the middle distance, the only
Object beside the mad, straight road
One can remember men and houses by.
A cool wind should inhabit these leaves
And a dew collect on them, dearer than money,
In the blue hour before sunup.
Yet they recede, untouchable as tomorrow,
Or those glittery fictions of spilt water
That glide ahead of the very thirsty.

I think of the lizards airing their tongues
In the crevice of an extremely small shadow
And the toad guarding his heart's droplet.
The desert is white as a blind man's eye,
Comfortless as salt.  Snake and bird
Doze behind the old maskss of fury.
We swelter like firedogs in the wind.
The sun puts its cinder out.  Where we lie
The heat-cracked crickets congregate
In their black armorplate and cry.
The day-moon lights up like a sorry mother,
And the crickets come creeping into our hair
To fiddle the short night away.
ryn May 2015
Let me be captured by the night.
Engrossed in the conversation
between the stars.
Syncopated twinkling like...
thousands of fireflies
trapped within sealed jars.

Let me be enslaved by the moon.
As I drink her glow in
greedy insatiable gulps.
Crestfallen...
Her beam with an agenda...
As the landscape she sculpts.

Let me be ensnared by my solitude.
But I hear crickets...
Chirping and chipping away at my
bastion of dreamstate.
Persistent calls
I try to shun
that never abates.

Let me be trapped in my thoughts.
So I could harness...
And immortalise them in
indelible careless scribbles.
Erecting and...
Rebuilding them from the
rubble of conflicting squabbles.

Let me be overwhelmed
by the mess of my being...**
Let me wallow
Then emerge strong from this
decrepit state of mind.
Let me breathe heavy from my
punctured lungs.
So I could heal in time before
true solace
in this dark,
I would find.
RJ Days Oct 2018
Each sorrow is the child of a happiness
you thought would never end;
Every happiness is a sadness
I may not survive—
a brilliant October day
lying back in dock hammock suspended
quoting bits of Rilke and starlight anthems
the shadows cast by buildings and frogs
ink drawings made on August nights
by our beautiful chain-smoking artistette
admiring a giant spider friend who’d
spun her majestic web and vanished
while we were swimming
backdrop of bay and boys and cherries
creaky boardwalks under bare feet
and stickiest pine and sand darkness
photos over wing clouds below
creepy call to prayer from ancient Mosque
at twilight punctuating strange dreams
perfect reconciliation on hotel balcony
McDonald’s after soaring from Black Sea
to Bosporus Straight, edge of Asia
visible on the horizon and all of life
a nightmare from which I can’t get woke
terrorized by ***** donor bonesaws
homophobic maternal afternoon rejection
peace that passeth no understanding
when you’re a ******* genius or just
a few points lower sorry never enough
compassion leaking through pores
drawn out by steam more darkness
Eucalyptus perfumed
another flaccid experience on a stranger’s
bed recalling Hippocrates on the drive
away after more bad ***
shots of sauces and grilled roasted
poached lentils bespoke chickens finery
malodorous wafts limestone smoothed
by centuries of acidity oily tourist touches
but they’re in Mexico Australia India
we’re back at home twins calling
each day an error of time rounded off
the incorrigible quark refusing
to cooperate with Einstein choosing its
own entangled path and lighting fools
what beautiful skyline
what amazing celebrity capture
what nostalgic group assemblage
what **** cute puppy who’s no more pup
what swanky tailored look
what smiles what smiles what seriousness
the soft and supple features curves lines
practiced looks and wayward hairs
a simple flourishing according to the lens
so much that skin conceals and eyes
beer garden sidewalk orations
wedding after party for April fools
we were who dance grabbing rings
swinging wildly discussing the vulgarities
of gastronomy and digestion
tumbling into diners midnight offices
brick lined streets magical talks
demonstrations and ideas unbounded
carving pumpkins into likable politicians
we think are statesmen and wailing
when she loses winning a trophy case
buckling under weight of moral victory
the thought of skyscrapers lit
shining under heaven unsubtle insinuation
we’re better than all this nonsense
and stronger having raised this glass
and steel by our own hands, our parents
rather now maybe that’s confusion
erecting higher stairwells to escape
encroaching seas and bums below
all memory all happy every laugh
each rumination on the hours
kisses cocktails cuddles laughter
that perfect vest completed outfit
those thrift store jeans that shirt
that secondhand one speed bike
those lunches with the priest
those brunches with the students
those happy hours with the coworkers
those dinners with the beard
all interchangeable parts in show
theater of recollection one subway car
one taxi ride one bus to NY or DC
one flight to Seattle or Vegas
or some Floridian seascape, mansion
each cog or bit like paper currency
imbued with no value but buying
the totality of lived experience
from which to draw upon in sad elsewhere
—but they cut deep, well meaning though
whenever was now isn’t and can is blind
to what day will ever be when I can say
in truth now sadness isn’t.
How memories, even of happy times, can feel smothering when recalled from within the Bell Jar.
You: have the wounds everyone wants to kiss and love
You: recognize you're only important if you're pretty, dead, and or just so happen to " beautifully "  borderline either at any given time.
you :let people satiate their misplaced guilt and empathy.
let them coin you a case of charity,
a stigmata *******,
Is it building or belittling to be someones muse?...
If your only inspirational because you're looked upon as broken or used?
Why are you stretching around?
Like a crazy creature, stretching
And erecting at every bossom’s sight
Don’t you know this to be vile?
Behavior so uncouth and basest
That all men on earth dislike,

Leave me alone master, leave me alone
Show me a happy man without a ****,
I will show you the sorriest point on earth,
Which woman burst not with ecstasy?
On taste of my nature, which woman?

Shut up you sly creature
And manage you mandibles,
You always stretch and stretch
As if you want to lacerate my muscles,
Don’t you know that you put me in risk?
*** is all over and you stretch like crazy,

Leave me alone and let me stretch,
Don’t fear disease and risks,
For *** is now impotent
***** blood is now natured
Above any nonsensical vice
Like *** and his brothers,

Stop stretching or I chop you off
I don’t want any burden of next kid
I am not in any pocket fitness,
For one more mouth and one more ****,

You are a foolish coward
You fear even your success,
Who told you kids are a burden
And parenting a curse?
Beautiful liars taught you these,
Can’t you see china and Islamic State?
Declaring their muscles and mighty,
For no other reason but children
Surest quivers needed in your arch,

For sure don’t stretch, calm down
And stay balmy or I tear you off my torso
Where will I get land in this world?
To contain the useless proceeds
Of your raucous *****?

I am tired of cautioning you
Or I dare you and dare you again
That perhaps I am on the wrong body
Those who are few need land,
But those who are populous need not,
For their victuals come from tertiary means,

I am finally tired of your rudeness,
If you stretch again I will be irate,
As it will be uncouth act of mannerlessness,
For you surely know that my wife is aged
She shares not in your school anymore
If you stretch again know then that you’re vile,

Look again at your thoughtlessness
Who told you that I am condemned forever?
To be feeding on old women, harridans and *****?
I no longer want them on my ****** menu
Feed me on the young wenches in a polygamous fit,
For the elders like you and many others on earth,
will only renew their  old sinews
By merely feeding on the French chicken,

Then you persist in one line like the possessed
Are you possessed by the ****** devil?
I don’t have any ****** energy for your business,
You only put me into a desire for what I cannot eat,
Leave me alone by quitting your vicious *******,

Fear not at all for how you will eat,
You fail to enjoy because of your ego,
You focus on the finish line alone,
Remember  the process in coition,
Tighten you **** to delay *******
And here you will cogitate with gusto,

Negroes! Negros! All over the world,
Again you want me to make more Negros,
Be aware that your melanin is an eyesore
The world looks at you but in pain,
Suppliers of blinkers cannot quench,
The thirst for these wares,
With which the world can put on,
To ward off the pains in the look
At the skin of the *****,

Fear not Negros don’t create themselves,
They come from the supremo of deities
All creation is beautiful in wisdom’s eyes
Whoever that hates creation hates the self
No other act can then match the wickedness.
sked Sep 2014
I was working at the local McDonald's
In the afternoon and was
Told by my boss that since I disappointed him
On not making the fries salty enough
That he would put me on the midnight shift

So there I am
Taking orders in my little cubicle
Hearing the headphone
BEEP BEEP
"Yes I'd like a whopper, crap wrong place"
*******
I take orders and then work the dishes
Jorge calls out to me whether or not
I took off the pickle in the order by mistake

Night shift comes and the air feels cool
Through the drive-thru window
I feel the night time air caressing
And cooling me
My ******* erecting
Exalting a scent that reminds me of perfume

Afterward I have to take the trash out

As I go out the air hits me
Tackles me as I transfer myself
From inside to outside
I feel the same sensations but yet I hear music
DaDAdadumDAdadumDADADAAAADaDAdum
And I feel the sudden change to fill me with warmth

I go back inside and one of my fellow employees
Comes to me
"You want to see something cool?"
We walk to the back of the store
Where all the fry boxes are kept
And there is a whole in the ground

"I dug this hole and I think I found Mother Earth's ******."
I give him a puzzled look
"Looked, I ****** it earlier man and I've got to tell you.  It's a wild ride."
I begin to walk away
"Look man, these people around here call me The Master man.  I'm your guide through all this.  I'm the closest thing to the Alpha.... Or was it the Omega?....  **** man, I don't know just stick your **** in there."  

I walked away from it
But as I looked at the hole
I felt a certain allure to it
Drawing me in like a Siren calling
Perhaps it could be my Muse
My reason for being
Am I meant to do this?
An attempt at procreating with Earth?
It'd make sense since The Master had made
With love this handcrafted ******

I couldn't resist any longer
Temptation being to strong
I knelt down and inserted myself
Into the hole

At first I felt nothing but a scraping sensation
The sharp rubble of the ground grinding against my flesh
But then it became wet and calm
Almost soothing
I closed my eyes and then I saw her
Earth
Coming toward me and pressing my head against her breast
Calming allowing me to **** the ******
Which let me take in the sensation
Running through me as rapidly as a river
I heard the streams
Calming
The dirt was wet and I could put my feet in it
The wind blew with a lush autumn air
That was when I knew it was almost over
And I soon as the white of winter came
So did I

I removed myself and no longer knew what to think
I went home and slept and mulled over what happened
Over a pancake brunch
With chicken on the side
They go better together than you think
Em E Mar 2015
1.
One beat at a time,
Sound
Reaching in, pulling your core out
until you are exposed, open,
expanding.
Your chest flowering into eternity with the vibration
Following a stream of being
Mapped out by chords and rests,
pulses, breaths.
The sound navigates you through the waters
Avoiding obstacles
Demolishing barriers and erecting bridges to shores unknown,
so far from home:
Someone else’s epiphany, piped into your lungs and heart.

2.
You’re being pulled out to the event horizon
Stretching towards a black hole
A place of possibilities, not of endings:
Your own boundaries are blurring, erasing.
You, as you float out in space:
You are only your heartbeat, your blood,
life force being pushed forward in time.

3.
The sound
Dissolves your body, shakes apart molecular bonds,
temporality becoming vibration and simple infinity
You are nothing, obliterated
You are everything, integrated
(Perfectly,
Ultimately)
The sound

4.
You find yourself, alive
There in the deep, bass bones of it
And up in the high treble cry of it
And all the substance/flesh/marrow/meat
in between
Andrew Rueter Sep 2017
Oh, what I would give to be nine and benign
Because as I grow older the flow of concepts grows heavier
And swirls around me rapidly
Creating a whirlpool
I can feel the world pull
In the gravity of ideas
Given weight by words
That brings down birds

We look up only to see Jupiter
And we live on the Earth's back
Weighed down like mules by it's presence
Carrying conflicting considerations
Ideas inflicting incineration

The rain precipitating from the clouds in our minds
Develops a lofty humidity within humanity
And the leaves on the trees point downward
Erecting walls
To trap us in our gravity garrison
Plotting ways to crush each other
Time becomes the most effective method
As we wait to weigh down wanderers
With a point of view
In our gravitational pull
To make them our mule
Carrying our concepts
To strengthen our impact on the maelstrom

As our brain gets bolder
The water gets colder
But this ocean keeps spinning
Keeping the frigid water from freezing
And the gravity of what we think
Is the gravity that makes us sink

From concept cradle to gravity grave
Tranquil transcendence is what we crave
Alan McClure Nov 2016
Brothers,
let us stand together.
Sisters,
you can stay sitting.

Let us stand
united
by our inability
to stay out in the sun
too long.

In fact,
would someone mind
erecting a gazebo
for us to stand united
underneath?

Thank you.

Brothers,
having proven
that we cannot demonstrate
our superiority
through sport,
rhetoric,
mathematics,
music,
drama,
art,
science,
business acumen
or military might

Let us instead
prove it beyond all doubt
by gathering in groups
and chanting slogans.

Flags are good, too.
Dagnab it,
just look at the way
we can wave those flags.

If that
doesn't qualify us
as the Master Race,
then I don't know what will.

And thus anointed,
let us expunge the world
of miscegenation.
Let us cleanse public radio
of anything other
than Bavarian folk music.
Let us revel
in boiled beef
and wheat-based foods.
Let us return
the mineral wealth of the world
to the tarnished, coloured nations
from whence it came.

Let us reject
foreign mythologies
apart from that one
about Jesus
obviously.

Let us all return
to the country, town,
street
and house
of our birth.

History is with us, brothers.
If there's one thing
it teaches us
it's that nothing should ever change
and empires
never fall.

Sieg heil!
Freds not dead Mar 2011
With my hands on the back of your neck
I see the crackling raising erecting
Of your swan skin
My thoughts are gasping for breath
       Going upwards in the
            Filling shame
War and city battles, apartment bullets
Motel room fiascos, jigsaw pounding passion

With my body cutting you down the center like a diamond
I’m breaking you into formlessness
Jagged like clean glass
I’ll pray to your white scars
              I’ll reinvent myself
Come out of the still lake
             Cleanse myself in black oil
Lips like razor blades, teeth like wet wings
       Innards on the pillow case, on the
Boring walls, on the idols

With your hands around my neck, your fingers in my mouth
Cheating life out of life
Taking it out on one another
                    Bruised peaches bleeding on the ****** scene
Dead red balloons left over, molding cake
Boot marks on the white rug
I want you puritanical, *****
We’re finished
We’re glowing
Lifted up waiting
for the floor.
Trevor Gates Mar 2013
On a night like this, of full-moon bliss
Of the midnight winds and collecting mists
I remained, forevermore
Chained, to the floor
A victim of joy’s…goodbye kiss

In a dungeon I lie, hidden from the sky
A shadow untamed with vile red eyes
I waited, I hungered
Without proper slumber
In my mistress’ pit, awaiting time

It was from lust and desire to fuel and empower
For whom she wishes for me to devour
I restrained, she teased
I grew hard, to please
The widowed Countess: my dark sire.

Though my story may seem bleak
But not to those, whom morally weak
A tale, a fable
However which label
Entitles this to civilized freaks

I moved from town to town, home to home
In search of a life wherever I would roam.
At last, I came
To an estate of name
Belonging to a Countess of ancestral Rome

Countess Donatella, eyed my work and demeanor
From afar I could tell, I sensed, I smelled her
Her scent, so tempting
Was she attempting…
To allure my beastly form into something beneath her?

One night she called for me, alone in her quarters
She treated me to delicacies from rich exporters
She asked my name
I said none, I refrained
“Mysterious and Strong.” She said in order.

She walked over, to the silk on the bed
Colored in gold and shimmering red
Curling her finger
To me, and eager
“Remove your clothes” the Countess said

I did as I was told. I abide her command.
She seduced like a mistress of the eternally ******
Caressing my skin
Licking my chin
And instructed me to please her demands.

My strength increased as I ripped apart her dress
“Yes, my dear, rough and brute.” She stressed
My *** throbbing
Her head bobbing
She turned into an animal I could not resist

Through the night our lust ignited
Into a furious intoxication, organs united
A symphonic ******
Winds, rain and thunder
Matching the sweltering copulation benighted

In the glow of after, past the ****** she gathered
Breathing deeply she said, “You are mine. I am master”
For too long, I thought
I was ridden of what I sought
One to counter my thirst for lust, the tiring caster.

For many nights I swooned, I pleasured her in ways
No other human could fathom or reclaim
My art was of the flesh
And her succulent *******
Feasting like the dog of Hell’s fame

But in this time I feared
For my secret was severe
To show, to hide
My inner design
Of nocturnal savagery that is devilishly revered.

It was upon a warm night of *******
That the moon left me horrified and shaking.
I ran from the master
To evade disaster
Of displaying my transformational awakening.

I trampled in the woods and screamed into the night
The beast of the void howled under the moonlight
I ventured, I hungered
Awaken from slumber
A slave to Lycanthrope, a feral disease of might

The Countess’ workers hunted; “A monster!” they deemed
But I killed many before I was to be seen
Ripping, tearing, slashing, eating,
Guts, bones, skin, feeding
My viciousness, my curse, my bane and dream.

After my episode of moral slaughter
The workers found me curled in a fetal posture
I would have been killed
But the Countess, sealed
Me away in the cryptic tomb of her father.

I was left to suffer in the underbelly of my sins.
Shadows and demons moaning like the wind
My master kept me
Protected me
In her care I would no longer win

Now I lay, waiting for the my master to show
So the door above me will open and glow
The white orb
That will mourn
The lives I have taken, eaten and in my intestines flow

The tomb dungeon unlocks, creaking loudly with rust
The master, the beautiful Countess that I must
Please and satisfy
Penetrate, rectify
The punishment that was bestowed by the just.

“So you are known by many names.” She utters
I look up at her with eyes of thirst, my lover
“You are unique.
So much to keep
For myself, my beastly treasure and no other.”

She walks to the shadowed wall and pulls down a lever
And stands in front of me, **** and forever
A pale seductress
Her eyes focus
With mine, for I wait for the power that was severed

“Now I will be pleasure by that of a beast, that of a god.”
She says as she massages my erecting rod
“Now, my dear.”
As I hear.
“Enter me and leave me in pleasurably awe.”

With the chains around my wrists, ankles; my neck and waist
She mounts me in the moonlight space
Our sweat collects
Drips and specs
Glossing her pale skin and my ever changing face.

I stare into the moon as I ******, my moans of pain matching her voice
She yells from the seismic endurance, her dooming choice
To unleash my monster
With blood thirst conquered
No, it is not, it is her, growing with every other screaming voice

Moans of pleasure soon turn to moans of distress
The wolf of the night is coming, no less
My teeth protrude
My mind feuds
With reason and passion, where blood replaces the mess

My fur is black, my claws like steel
My fury is lustful, the deeper I feel
The Countess is in fear
I ignore her tears
And devour her, ravish her, take her skin and peel

Her lovely face is first to go, once flawless now disfigured
I tear her arms from her body, her liver in my teeth lingered
Blood, tears, flowing juices
Guts, gore, nail amuses
The laughing jackals and demons in a Hell for me that’s bigger

There is no more Countess. No more Donatella, nor master
The moon reflected in a red pool of suffering disaster
Of the ******* monster in our wake
Of the true one she had forsake
In the whims of lustful pursuit with death proceeding faster

Through the lubrication of excessive blood and ****** fluids
I slipped and broke from my chains and fled from the ruins
I remained the beast
Through the forest at least
And return to the woods, away from the her influence

I left the Countess estate as I arrived
Homeless wanderer who survived
Another full moon night
And devil’s sight
Of my life forevermore, the way of the morally derived

Where my nightmares are revived …

…Beyond my human disguise.
I was once working on a collection of interlocking short stories that detailed personal viewpoints of happening in popular horror stories. It would have gone through the Tale of Frankenstein's monster, to Bram Stoker's Dracula and to the wolfman, Invisible man and Jekyll and Hyde. Now it was only an idea, and now reading that description it sounds like a hash version of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. But I would have changed it all up so it was different.

I never really got around to writing any drafts for those stories, but the basic outlines were always lingering in my head. This extended poem is base on the Wolfman outline I would've used.

I would be lying if I said that this was the intentional goal or writing this poem. It gradually became that. Sometimes if I have unfinished works that have met road blocks, then I try combining them. I've learned after awhile that it's better to have a few completed stories than several unfinished outlines just waiting for inspiration. The act of revising and combining ideas can really get the creative juices going. So that method pretty much birthed this poem, "Primal Lore"

You can find the other posting of this here: http://fav.me/d5xgbju
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Is it sounds
                  converging,
Sounds
            nearing,
Infringement,
                     impingement,
Impact,
            contact
With surfaces of the sounds
Or surfaces without the sounds:
Diagrams,
                skeletal,
                             strange?

Is it winds
                curling round invisible corners?
Polyphony of perfumes?
Antennae discovering an axis,
                          erecting the architecture of a world?

Is it
      orchestration of the finger-tips,
                                                       graph of a fugue:
Scaffold for colours:
                              colour itself being god?
Logan Robertson Mar 2019
the fabric of her dress
clinging to a garden
of flowers
holding the contours
of her landscape
with blends
around the corner bush
for his pleasing material eye
she spreads
tempestuous the vine
colors of the rainbow
arching
along
contemporaneous
as the wallflower awakens
to the erecting wall
and winding trellises
tasseled are the tongues
as the songbirds
come to coo

Logan Robertson

3/19/2019
I read on another site (PS) of an ongoing poetry contest sponsored by CC. I read his poem and was really inspired. In this poem, I write of a garden setting, bougainvillea, the beauty of how the flowers spread, with a sensual meaning between the lines.
Mark Edwards Jr Oct 2015
A kindly heart, a hardened soul - the world has wrought to make it so, and though with love you'd hope to find equivalent hearts of those as kind, you're left with naught 'cause what you'll find is twisted up and shoved inside a decaying soul and broken mind comprised of pain and stalled out time.

Like shards of glass from symphonies, their hearts shriek out their shattered dreams, and while that pain you met with love, your olive branch brought on by dove, they shot it down and watched it die, and with that stick they drew a line, dividing ground and erecting walls, for a lonely castle with empty halls. Closing gates and closing minds, to the outside world, to the great divines. Leaving words on bated breath, their ringing ears have now gone deaf, the love you sought is now bereft, and the wars you'll wage are all that's left.

And as you sit here looking back, you long for that which to retract, and wonder why you'd even tried, for the love in you has likewise died.

For you I hope this isn't true, but for the rest, it's all we knew, yet clinging still to fleeting hope, while knowing dread is all she wrote. Like ash to ash turn dust to dust, my heart of hearts is likewise crushed, and in the end I can only cry, as I lay here bleeding... waiting simply, to die.

10/11/2015

Edit: 10/01/2018
I was born in grave clothes
Raised in grave clothes
Unaware I even bathed in grave clothes
I didn't know the extent of my decay
Like the bones were expose in my face but I didn't have reflective glass to see my flesh
I was on a rotten path
Death would have been the only prize at the end of my race
Strongholds wrestled my thoughts and subdued my brain
Bone marrow deep I was linked to Adam
Lord knows I wasn't Abel
Dna tied to  blood imprinted on the ground I had more in common  with Cain
It's true a heart beat of sin causes death to course through vains
I wondered how could I be treated
Something was missing something was needed
To my shock it was Jesus
Clear! He got my heart beat right
With that resurrection power
Made my heart see light
He changed my life
I started to realize that the same power that raised Christ from the dead
Was the same power that lived in me
That does more than allow me to breathe .
It brings life back to limbs riddle with rigor mortis
It's reverses  decomposition brings back what death has stolen  
It's  uncontrollable like a lighting storm.
It's unadulterated
Once it hits
It's changes landscape  like when a nuclear warhead is detonated
Hoover dam generated power
Turbine engine spending power
Lift the dead out of sin power
Tectonic plate shifting, erecting mountains from plains power
By one name only can we be saved power
Second coming cracking the sky power
All knees shall bow and all tongues shall comply  power
Corruptible turned into incorruptible in a instant power
Rebirth repositioned repurposed repented power
Turn  what seems to be a lost into a win power
It is finish the precursor to the release of infinite power
I could never be the same because  the spirit lives in me gives me power
My arteries are laced with a burning flame
A roaring wind, a groaning earth, a raging sea crashing waves
The impact of several elements crush the chains of a slave
It's the same power that said come forth Christ friend walks out the grave
The same power that moved the stone a borrowed tomb turned to a cave
It's the power of the Resurrection
In a world full of aborted life
It breeds conception
In a world that attempts to abort Christ
The church still  cries out in reverence
Changed death for us now it's portal
Changed lives of stop watches into immortal
Resurrection power a glimpse into the eternal
Luke H Oct 2011
The land was a body.  Aching bones of mountains limned with boreal forest
       veined with iron.

Men dwelt on the body.  Erecting altars, howling and dancing round fires
        their patriarchal beards knotted and waving

Men killed on the body. Waving crude axes  like ancient trailblazers of war
Would wave mammoth club-like femurs

Bodies slay different bodies so they may die somewhere on this body
That heaves with the rock
Robert Ronnow Jan 2020
"The question should not be in what ways writing and utterance trope each other, but how both are involved with number. Without relating the technology of writing to number (as opposed to sound or drawing), it is impossible to discuss it meaningfully as an aspect of versecraft."

          Courage to write and courage to not write. Read
          The great poets and highly accomplished letters
          Of leaders. Yet the war and the book have lives
          Of their own. Vacuum house, analyze mankind.
          His idea of himself. Ideas subsumed
          By better ones unite people into one people.
          I watch from my little bowl of nuts. Watch
          The one red squirrel and the many gray.
          Watch the nuthatch pair, platoon of chickadees.
          Here is what I say: When we can go
          From planet to planet on nothing but air,
          Leaving behind a drop of water,
          No burger bags blowin’ in the sun,
          I’ll love my children, my dogs and be happy.

"What is needed is a way to pry apart the polar, mimetic fiction that undergirds discussions (even sympathetic ones) of writing and versification, and see how we can relate writing to measure. Roy Harris’ investigations into the origin of writing make this connection possible."

          Electronic millennium. A long silence
          Wouldn’t hurt. Not that the national debate
          Should cease, it should proceed, passionate
          And furious. Those who have studied the matter
          And have something to say should write cogent
          Opinion pieces on the totalitarian
          Tendencies of minaret Islamists,
          The terminal contradiction of advancing
          Democracy with the unitary military.
          George Washington would not have approved
          And even Lincoln vacillated between
          The practicalities of preserving union
          And the ideal of freeing slaves. The president
          Carries his burden of matter, the physics
          Of existence cannot change our aloneness
          Or the butterfly’s importance, the very
          Last insects at the screens of August.
          It is life we face and death we meet.

"He argues that the origin of writing did not lie in the drawing of figures, or attempts to imitate speech, but in the recording of number. According to Harris, the oldest ‘writing’ that we have, like that on the 11, 000-year-old Ishango bone, is in ‘lines.’ The surface is scored with rows of short, parallel strokes, which probably served a numerical function. We still use such scoring systems today on occasion."

          OK, different strokes. But reading North’s poems
          And his predecessors’ in which noun and verb
          Are so far separated by modifiers,
          Post-positioned prepositions, diversions
          Into ditches, gardens, heavens, I don’t know
          What to do laugh or put the book down and eat
          Several cookies. In other words, anything goes,
          There truth resides. 1/3 life in suburbs,
          1/3 on the subway, and the last third
          On the mountain. A fourth hallucinating
          In heaven. That’s how it goes. You get what you believe.
          Bones in mud. It’s always possible I suppose
          That for nine months analogous or symmetrical
          With gestation our souls wander call it limbo,
          Doing the limbo and harassing the living
          With unanswerable questions, finally accepting
          Free molecular rent in a cubic meter
          Of interstellar space, a rose hip.
         
"Harris speculates about counting by scoring:"
'What is relevant for our present purposes is the fact that counting is associated in many cultures with primitive forms of recording which have a graphically isomorphic basis... The iconic origin of such recording systems is hardly open to doubt: the notch or stroke corresponds to the human finger...'

          Partridgeberry, mugwort, mats of raspberry,
          Cranberry, bearberry, autumn eleagnus,
          Autumn Nocturne, Autumn Leaves, the changes
          To the tunes and the scientific names.
          When it doesn’t matter what you do
          You’re probably doing something new.
          That’s a woodpecker. That’s a moth. I’m bounded
          By my surroundings, I feel at home.
          Could be Schenectady. Could be Troy.
          One of many small cities in which to while
          Away my anonymity. Be specific.
          Not asphalt but impermeable surface.
          Not trees but mature stems. Quercus rubrus—
          Quality veneer. Into such a garden
          Have a victor and a fool penetrated.

'In short, the rows of strokes are graphically isomorphic with just that subpart of the recorder’s oral language which comprises the corresponding words used for counting. It makes no difference whether we ‘read’ the sign pictorially as standing for so many fingers held up, or scriptorially as standing for a certain numeral.'

          In a crowded world every action results
          In an equal and overwrought reaction.
          Yet, all the energy recycles
          And there is not one thermal unit more or less
          When all is said and won. Even when the tribes
          Were isolated behind mountain ranges
          And rushing rivers, they sought each other out
          For trading and for taking. Humanity
          Is lonely. Humor is the only remedy
          And going to your daily discipline
          The only way past Monday. Join the torrential
          Flow of words, emotion, wit and erudition.
          It is embarrassing to see a good writer
          Work himself into a lather, having
          Something to say. A system of beliefs
          To illustrate, characters dressed accordingly.
          Gardens and wilderness in which to wander.
          A cave with a view. The plumbing problem never
          Resolves. Fax your results. We’ll be working late.

"Along with other evidence, this leads him to argue that the invention of writing–or the division of writing and drawing into separate functions–occurred when the graphic representation of number shifted from the token-iterative system that appears on the Ishango bone, to type-slotting."

          Electricity is occult enough for me.
          Excessive classifying could be fascist!
          Yet how else can one organize people
          Into contexts. By their associations.
          Family, work, habits, each assigned
          A day of the week, moon of the month.
          Poets rhyme, jazz musicians count time.
          There is more than one way to make war. By
          Declaration, by punishing offenses
          Against the law of nations, by granting letters
          Of mark and reprisal, by making rules
          Concerning captures on land and water, by
          Suppressing insurrections and repelling invasions,
          Erecting forts, magazines, arsenals,
          Dock yards and other needful buildings. Today
          I face the blank page between the finished pages.

"Harris gives the following example of what he means:"
'The progression from recording sixty sheep by means of one ‘sheep’ sign followed by sixty strokes to recording the same information by means of one ‘sheep’ sign followed by a second sign indicating ‘sixty’ is a progression which has already crossed the boundary between pictorial and scriptorial signs.'

          When my grandmother considered it favorable
          That I would be a writer, she had in mind
          Clear commentary from which many people
          Would derive meaning. No such luck. My writings
          Are like the flicking tail of that flycatcher,
          And I am the flycatcher, weighing but an ounce.
          My grandfather’s rough-hewn peasant chairs
          Are well known by my sons though they never knew him
          And the chairs were not hewn, just owned by him.
          One is in a corner of the room and two
          Are scrimmaged around a computer screen.
          Computers post-date him and cars post-date
          His father and so on. If the grid collapses,
          The crops fail and the roads close, some will be forced
          Across boundaries among boulders, naming snakes
          And stars according to memory.
          They will be hungry, mortal and strong.

'A token-iterative sign-system is in effect equivalent to a verbal sublanguage which is restricted to messages of the form ‘sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep...’, or ‘sheep, another, another, another...’, whereas an emblem-slotting system is equivalent to a sublanguage which can handle messages of the form ‘sheep, sixty’.Token-iterative lists are, in principle, lists as long as the number of individual items recorded. With a slot list, on the other hand, we get no information simply by counting the number of marks it contains.'
"When this change occurred it opened ‘a gap between the pictorial and scriptorial function of the emblematic sign’, which had been previously inseparable in the counting represented by rows of slashes."

          No book I know tells if blue cohosh
          Caulophyllum thalictroides—a barberry—
          Is edible. Other barberries are
          But that blue berry looks risky to me.
          And May-apple—Podophyllum—other
          Than the fruit itself which is definitely
          Sweet. So I read, not sure of myself.
          There is a patience with which to wait out anger,
          And a patience with which to endure ignorance.
          The job is everything. It is freedom
          And purpose and religion. It is acceptance
          And shelter and sustenance. Last night
          We were watching Tweet’s show: groveling before
          The rich pharisee’s judgements. I said no
          Amount of money could make me grovel
          Before that guy. His toupe’s gayer than his lisp.
          But who am I? You think bullets won’t ****?
          I’m the guy they put before a wall and shoot
          Then eat lunch. But that feeling passed quickly.

"This semiological gap, made writing possible because it meant that signs could be manipulated to ‘slot’, or identify, anything whatsoever. The open-ended quality of the scriptorial sign was a necessary precondition for the development of writing systems."

          Lately I’ve been copying wholesale
          From the great poems, lines and ideas not my own
          Or owned by all? It’s ok, I can be ignored
          Or appreciated in a future city,
          By a future shore. The honest man can
          Only recognize what he loves and point to it.
          That Borges poem called In Praise of Darkness.
          Emerson and snow. A meditation
          That bumps serenely, with acceptance,
          Between things and thoughts. It is said one should
          Know for whom, to whom one is writing.
          These are letters to those who love letter writing.

"As Harris points out, no writing system is accurately phonetic. Even the alphabet only highlights certain phenomena in the speech stream. The reason for this is that alphabetic writing did not begin as a simpler or more accurate way to record speech than other writing systems, but as an easier way to write."

          A possible cancer had taken me
          To the edge of my endurance. Pokeweed,
          Poisonous, became attractive. Red stems
          And juicy black berries. I had packed warm clothes
          And pain killers. Why the warm clothes if this
          Was to be my last walk? To die in comfort
          Without a fly’s buzz. Overlooking a ravine,
          Sea of mountains, dawn. But it proved a false alarm.
          Now Sunday will be a holy day of plant
          Identification. Nothing better
          Than lying in leaf litter, skin drying
          To a taut drum. Ravens stay away!
          Until cougar’s had his fill! Instead
          I showed the boys pokeweed growing among blackberries
          And taught them the differences and uses.

"Through a radical reduction in the number of signs, the alphabet simplified the scriptorial system in and of itself. The evolution of writing therefore may look like this: simple forms of counting preceded the complications of pictorial representation, which in turn led to simplification of the writing system in cultures that adopted the alphabet."

          I was running uphill, parallel to
          The Taconics extending northward into
          Vermont (I find Vermonters in their jalopies
          Annoying but admire them for planning
          To arrest the president for war crimes) when
          I happened upon a flock of cedar waxwings—
          Said to be a gentle and politic bird—
          Sharing—very orderly—dried frozen grapes
          On the vine. (Rose hips, buckthorn, ash, pokeweed.)
          I tried one, too, the two seeds in my mouth
          Keeping me company down the mountain.
          I see no downside whatsoever
          To compensating for global warming,
          Constructing the green energy economy.
          New inventions may facilitate
          Our transportation to other planets.
          Yesterday a young man, Barack Obama,
          Won Iowa. I’m hopeful he will
          Articulate an international vision,
          A world order in which each neighborhood’s
          Good as another. I have no particular
          Love for writers; they’re a dime a dozen.
          But so are chickadees and I love them!

"Discussing the power of inscriptions of number, Harris points out:"
'Counting is in its very essence magical, if any human practice at all is. For numbers are things no one has ever seen or heard or touched. Yet somehow they exist, and their existence can be confirmed in quite everyday terms by all kinds of humdrum procedures which allow mere mortals to agree beyond any shadow of a doubt as to ‘how many’ eggs there are in a basket or ‘how many’ loaves of bread on the table.'

          True, nature would be a stern, unforgiving
          Mistress too, and man is but her right hand
          Acting on her command. How cold! How hot!
          The individual doing what he loves or not.
          Trees and cities. Herons, hawks. What we fail
          To govern in ourselves, nature will.
          We caught the killer and his gorillas,
          Now let’s go home, let the “innocent” choose
          Up sides. A good thing was done but the tyrant
          Should’ve been undone through global governance.
          Writing is divination using rhymes
          And estimations. Words like mammals
          Come near your sleeping head. Last night I emerged
          From the hum of our refrigerator
          Under a hazy, phaseless moon. The peepers
          Were an exact expression of my happiness.

"Or, one might add, for how many stanzas there are in a poem, or lines in a stanza, or stresses, feet, or syllables in a line, or occurrences of particular syntactical or grammatical patterns, and so on. As every serious student of versification has always understood, versification is about counting language."

          5:30-6 write poetry,
          6-7 ****, shave and shower, stretch
          Then get dressed, 7-7:30
          Clean house, 7:30-8 drive to work
          8-6 work (except Monday and Friday
          Work 8-4, basketball 4-6)
          6-7 drive home, shop, help make dinner
          7-8 eat dinner, read paper,
          Watch McNeil-Lehrer News Hour,
          8-9 play trumpet, study plants, type poems
          9-10 watch TV Mon: Murphy, Cybil,
          Tues: Frazier, Grace, Wed: Roseanne, Ellen,
          Thurs: Seinfeld, Friends, Fri: go out to dinner,
          10-11 read, except Tues watch
          NYPD Blue, Fri: Friday Night Lights,
          11 sleep. I could send this to the networks,
          Get a gizmo in my box. I hope my
          Schedule won't be interrupted for war.
          My dentist asked had I seen this morning’s
          Press conference, didn’t it just scare the ****
          Out of you. I said your bill is what scares
          The **** out of me. But here I am, writing
          And the sphere’s still turning. Or should I say
          Burning. As long as you write one poem per day
          You’ve left a little litter in the world.

"The reason to write verse is less to score the voice than to imbue words with the magical quality of counting. That is why meter, or measure, is at the heart of debates over all verse forms, including free verse."

          Vigorous wind, voracious ocean,
          Many merciless hard frosts, hurricanes.
          The bed of a human, its smell and warmth
          36 teeth, 46 chromosomes, 2 feet, a loose dime,
          61 summers, some soot, some sand,
          Thunderstorms. I wake up to a lightning strike
          And my dream incinerates. When they say
          Life is but a dream, that’s what they mean.
          The writer working hard, telling the story
          Of what happened yesterday or yesteryear,
          A man’s born to a country not his choosing,
          Let labor flow like capital, of mere being!
          Pomegranate juice, broccoli, arugula,
          Brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower,
          Collard greens, kale, radishes, turnips,
          Garlic, leeks, scallions, onions, 2 lbs
          Swordfish, tomatoes (8 medium),
          3 cups almonds, carrots, a sweet potato,
          Winter squash, cantaloupe, mangoes, watermelon.
          2 daily writing exercises,
          50 words on any subject: complaint, headache.
          The imagination applies a
          Countervailing pressure to reality.
          Writing badly is the best revenge.

"Number is one of the creative grounds of poetry, and the idea that writing grew out of counting is the missing link in studies of the graphic in versification. It is almost uncanny that lines of verse look exactly like the most primitive ways of counting–parallel scorings that can be numbered."

          What you do to one side of the equation
          You gotta do to the other. Isolate
          The variable. Combine like terms. Metaphors
          And analogs are reduced to least common
          Denominators. Multiply through (parentheses).
          Write a new equation after each operation.
          Inscribe neatly. Check your work. Imagine
          That if you’re wrong, the astronauts burn.
          Change the signs which will avoid going
          The wrong way down the number line. Zero
          Is the middle of your universe.
          There it is, calm, comfortable as an egg
          On a spoon. That is, before possibilities
          Become probabilities. This is just
          Another equation manipulated
          With opposable digits. For at the ends
          Of your guns is the earliest calculator
          A magical machine which converts
          Numbers to words and words to numbers,
          Measures the mists, frequency and wavelength,
          Of the material penumbra.

"Verses are countable in exactly the way that token-iterative digits are countable, from either end of the sequence. Each one indicates only its singularity, not a number. Every poem in lines effaces, or predates, the distinction between writing and drawing in the same way as the lines on the Ishango bone."
www.ronnowpoetry.com

--Rothman, David, "Verse, Prose, Speech, Counting, and the Problem of Graphic Order," Versification, Vol. 1, No. 1, March 21, 1997
--Harris, Roy, The Origin of Writing, Open Court Publishing Co., 1986.
Sam Hammond Aug 2018
Orchids bloom in unison, erecting from my brain.
Pounding impulses take hold that nothing could subdue.
In this life you've painted floral all boring and plain,
So I would like, in return, to paint you floral too.
Cryptic, like the night sky, are the bruises on your chest.
Burning galaxies of bites now light your new-found skies.
On the ground are teeth marks planted, bear traps set to rest.
Keeping guard of what is mine that hides between your thighs.
Red rose petals on your lips, romantic stains of blood,
Made more vibrant with each kiss that I'll force onto you.
On our tongues we taste and share in your ******* flood.
It fizzes in its ecstasy, mollitious honeydew.
But best of all, the syzygy when you and I are fused,
The two of us and love itself all where we need to be.
Now the impulses you've forced have left you worn and bruised,
Painting you in love and lust and ownership by me.
Written for my muse, an artist
Tanner Angelo Dec 2013
considering reflections!
spectacular expressions excited by vernacular action
spicy and exotic erecting complexity!
forgetting the selective dyslexia
mental anorexia like pecs flexing
lacking dialect donating directions!
elementary subtraction of expletives
what the heck do they expect!
exclusion unaccepted
best guess reckon you're a wreck
what the heck no explanation!
PK Wakefield May 2010
do guilty flowers ever sin so savage
as the current elocution of cells
erecting a magic ***** on the saturday
saturated morning she drew
her
lacy clutch 'bout my sinew flecked
artifice
hips2hips
                     i
give her this:                           ME
Lucy Tonic Nov 2011
We're eating jellyfish
We're crashing oranges
We're bleeding evidence
We're smashing elements
We're erecting animals
We're subtracting syllables
We're electing cannibals
We're extracting visceral
We're worshipping magicians for a piece of the pie
We're recruiting musicians for a sound from on high
We're creating beauticians for a smack on the thigh
We're repeating contritions for an act un-divine
We're poking and prodding as we sing lullabies
We're rocking and rolling as she shifts to the side
We're planting and plowing as the baby lays quiet
We're twisting and shouting from the vat where we writhe
Rockabye baby, you've sure grown up fast
Let me embrace you, before I suffocate you
Rockabye baby, you've sure grown up fast
Let me cradle you, before I blast you away
neth jones Aug 2023
who re-marrowed this hollow tree ?
thought themselves of mythology ?
processed death into the dying **** ?
blunt   blackened hope
           buttering up what god ?
                                   what mischief maker ?
: Loki the crow with his promethean nose ?

covering his crooked actions
                          the defiling of a life
  murderer
  a coward of failed coupling
congress    a night down the pub
    the gender polar pair collided
            sottish upon their union
genitals bragging through urgent gaps in clothing
but that urgency deflated
it muttered away
he felt baited
and
  humiliated    
             he committed to ******

crude amateur throttling
  a ***** sogged brick  
an indiscreet botch up
    and a stolen wheelbarrow  
        to ferry her away

'The Mourning Tree'
           despondently sifts for nourishment
its gummy combs of branches
  sashing particles  from the night solution
the tree ; a cavity
too verrucose and fleshy to whittle the winds
                                               or fife a tune
a rubbery craggle     foreign against the landscape
should   rather   make out its' habits
                  off the floor of a deep sea trench

roughing in the corpse
head first   down the gullet thirstily
skirts up and claustro
between spread limbs
to ***** puckle in the hollow tree
evicting the bird of Minerva
      ‘whoing’ into the charged sky
  blooded over
             the night blackens further
               brooding on the event

who re-marrowed this hollow tree ?
married themselves to a mythology ?
force fed life   engorged within deathly seed ?
upended crime     in lieu of a sacrifice
           he offered a glass of woman
               to oder the night
he strummed teasing fingers
      raked them humming
         through the heady resistance of the air
electric creeping warmth   over the skin
                        erecting the hairs
   museum silence
   an arena    as fraught equal    between magnets
       clouds cut the moon
      moon cut the eye
    sinful kiting to mend a link
ramblings kinked
he makes sparking incantations to the gods

one scatting madman
one corpse woman


that same bled night
where the furrowed fields
            meets natures disarray
children approach this woodland border             
children with empty baked bean tins
      that they joined with lengths of string
trying to reach out their ears
    extend their timid range
       to sprites, nymphs, pucks or faeries
an older kid strikes up a cigarette
one of the younger ones squats to ***
         and be mocked

one brave girl of ten years
  runs a tin and the line into the woods  
it jerks taunt after about thirty paces
she wedges it in a tree fork and runs back
the children crowd the receiver tin
spooking themselves
eavesdropping   
        upon the hollow wisdom of small gods
            that mask their shame in the dark
influenced by ‘ Who put Bella down the Wych Elm? ‘

misuse of the word 'sashing'
Mike Hauser Nov 2017
Her soft tenderness
Can be ******* a man
When he's used to bricks
Mortar and sand

It'll shake the foundation
Built with his hands
Leave a man aching
For all that she has

She can tear down the walls
Erecting his years
Where he once had a cause
Now tossing his cares

Knows that it's true
Without a word being said
Her soft tenderness
Can be ******* a man

She can catch him mid-stream
Have him change his mind
Make him want to leave
All he's built behind

Pulls him to shore
Beached in her warm sand
Her soft tenderness
Can be ******* a man
Nelleah Nkosi Apr 2015
Jumping, bouncing and swinging from tree to tree
In a sparse forest just outside a village on the outskirts of Antananarivo
They adapt to the changes flung at them and strive to survive

On the ground a troop leaps sideways side by side in a straight line
What a comical spectacle
However solemn their purpose, they must find a home
The little one abaft of the line
Takes one last glimpse at the home he leaves behind
Oh it’s up in flames now and bulldozers knock down his trees
Beyond, just yonder
Over a hill further down south, the prospect is in sight
A new forest with new opportunities
It’s denser; it hasn't caught the eye of encroaching villagers
They forge on towards it in that spectacular procession

High up in the trees they mark their territory
Males call out to females and they howl in response
The young ones frolic in the underbrush
They mate, they eat, they thrive

Another forced migration
There they go again in that sideways march
More deforestation for infrastructure
There must be leeway for civilization one way or the other
One must wonder now
What future lies in store for these that have no place in government?
Their trails fade away from the Malagasy ecosystem
Their lives hang in a balance at the brink of extinction
Will our grandchildren ever get to appreciate
The extraordinary feats of agility they display
The gymnastics they perform from day to day
On the trees and on the ground in the jungle everyday
Ostentations of dramatic optical presentations
In their furry coats of monochromatic patterns
Perhaps they will disappear and my son’s sons may only get to
Read about them in the has been list of the annals of history
At this rate since erecting urban jungles
Of tar roads and skyscrapers is the order of the day
They might even be able to catch an obscure image of the lemur
In the form of a costumed trapezist mimicking one
Or a twisting contortionist in The Cirque Du Soleil









Nellie Nkosi
SassyJ Mar 2016
These words you speak
These words you spin
Have infinite meaning
A definitive substance
Inject my mind
Flipping the norm
Unravel all the lies
They fed to us


Unlock my mind, unwind my eyes
Take me out of this boxes, boxes
Erecting all around me
Untwist my tongue, deject my terms
Pull me out of the sinking crane
Piloting all around me

Who gives the ****?
Just give me a fact
All 7 billions souls unique
This linear life is meaningless
Fictions to act
One day I am frog the next a beauty

The mystery of the dark
All shrugged in blanks
They say its locked in your head
A crazy existence
Dehumanised to decay
The police can’t even help
Inspired by Mouthpiece
https://soundcloud.com/user-367453778/dejected-terms
Butch Decatoria Apr 2017
A gangly youth with his dangling
Truths
Star Spangled
Flagpole
In the far corner

Summer nudists'
Cabins'
Cafeteria

Ladies not biting
Their webs
To his fly

Now noticing the nudist
Silver Theme
As daddy foxy
Ladies
are not goyles

Most nudists are old
And have let go
Fat shaming jokes
Turns into a game
Yo mama
so....

Cougar sells
Her Jaguar / Grand Prix
She so cougar
She's an expensive lease

For summer nights
Crap shot
Tossing
Fun
waste of time,

A gangly youth
Will spill
The truth
His danglings
Dip and spit
Viscous
Losing your ******
you
Star spangled
Flagpole

Can only tell
The honest erecting
The hard evidence
UFO sightings
Full
proof

It's in the pudding
Truth is ecstasy
Speaking deep inside
The gangly kid now
A wrangling man
Lassos a harem in his pants

His dangling truths did just fine

Gangly youth drunk off
Silken wines divine
Moist of kiss
Passion blooms
of touch

Honestly, the truth is

Quivering love
My Inner howl
Feel the earth move

Under my feet
Truth is

'will

always run to you...
jayant palana Nov 2012
i could not fall from my mind because it is uppermost
thought act as spine erecting me comes from innermost
i can see what is good or bad but when i see what i want to see
you can't call me judgmental because i know what is good for me
i can be swayed by my feelings but then i have a mind to decide
it can be coincidence of emotions and mind ultimately who knows who decides
yet i can think i am right and feel bad when told i am not right
it is me who is judgmental or they who say i am not right.
jayant palana Nov 2012
i could not fall from my mind because it is uppermost
thought act as spine erecting me comes from innermost
i can see what is good or bad but when i see what i want to see
you can't call me judgmental because i know what is good for me
i can be swayed by my feelings but then i have a mind to decide
it can be coincidence of emotions and mind ultimately who knows who decides
yet i can think i am right and feel bad when told i am not right
it is me who is judgmental or they who say i am not right.
Austin Heath Jun 2014
There is a screaming silence on the
privatized public transportation of
Cleveland. A scream in the hearts and minds
of a people who live with less than zero.
Car fires in the streets.
Syringes next to the suburbs.
Nowhere is holy in this great city,
a veritable Gomorrah.
It's not a jungle,
it's a prison and a **** shame.
Ohio is for abandonment;
musicians, writers, astronauts,
pilots.
All desperate to leave a crater
where they used to stand,
to blast
a hole in the heart of this state.
A hole it already has.
They make it less than zero.
Plastering Chief Wahoo against
their foreheads, houses, cars,
lawns, chests, arms, bars, streets.
Saying it's not racism,
it's tradition.
Meanwhile, everyone else is
trying to explain that just because
it's old doesn't mean it isn't racist
to the idiots of Cleveland.
Cleveland is a city made of
stains, tarnish, rust and apathy.
Erecting a chandelier
instead of a dream,
a monument to desperation.
There is a scream in the back of the throat.
Oh beloved Hyacinth, my sparkling youth so fine
More brilliant than all objects that shine
Fit for erecting a sacrificial shrine
Let my whole self be only thine

Harken all of you to Apollo’s Serenade for Hyacinth!

Oh citizens of Sparta, offer me your finest *****
In my arms his amorous body will never shrink
Never will he be placed on peril’s brink
His glorious soul under my care will never stink

Harken all of you to Apollo’s Serenade for Hyacinth!


Oh beloved Hyacinth, you will learn a lot in my guidance
For any man of the arts, this is the greatest chance
In music & sports, you’ll surely enhance
You can have the future the power to glance

Harken all of you to Apollo’s Serenade for Hyacinth!


Oh gods & goddesses, behold Hyacinth evolve better
His charming countenance will turn brighter
His adorable assemblage will go stronger
If you give him to me and no other

Harken all of you to Apollo’s Serenade for Hyacinth!

Oh beloved Hyacinth, in my lap you’ll have the greatest nourishment
I will keep you away from any predicament
My healing powers will safeguard you from ailment
Never will your body & soul be in torment

Harken all of you to Apollo’s Serenade for Hyacinth!

Oh mortals & immortals, you will never regret
Hyacinth will flourish if you make me your bet
From me so many he’ll know & get
To you I’ll unveil his being’s greatest secret!

-02/12/2015
(Dumarao)
*Hopelessly Immortal Collection
My Poem No. 335
Pauper of Prose Jun 2018
All was peaceful in the young realm
Just and Un-just had finished erecting their epic statues
The tree of Taste had begun to bear fruit in the royal courtyard
And youthful bliss ruled over the realm,
With jewels of jubilance, adorning its crown
But from the ghetto’s rose passion and puberty
Together conspiring to rouse the masses, their words infecting,
Each sector of emotion and thought
Eventually swarming the grand palace with its paltry guards
The twin rebels lead a crazed crowd that crashed through gates
And toppled the two statues, burned the tree of taste
Finally poor, pitiful, youthful bliss was dragged from their throne
The crown jewels of jubilance replaced by emeralds of angst
And now Puberty and Passion ruled
Under new banners of maturity
Thoughts of you are near me this morning as close as though you were sitting next to me
I wish you were
And I wish it were raining here, and we were once again under the shroud of something bigger than ourselves.

I wish you knew what it feels like to be next to you. I wish you understood what it is to be held at arm's length. Always with you, waiting and watching for the moment you let me in. And in time you do, always, but it is something given like a gift. I wait for it.

I wish you were here today, as I awake, and could feel the warmth of your body next to mine though your heart may be closed from my view.  Behind walls that you're constantly erecting and dismantling before my eyes.

I am okay with the builder in you;  the walls I know every stone, every irregularity and every crack. I know also the man who comes in and knocks down walls to my amazement, and I see the surrender in your eyes when you do. In those moments, I reach out and cradle your heart lest you trample that too.

You have always felt undeserving and my love is something you have never been able to stomach all at once. It's too much.

We argue about what this means. To me it means I overwhelm.

You understand it to be something different which loses its magic in describing its attributes. It is not meant to be understood you say. It just is and that's that and why are we talking about this anyway?

And you laugh gently and hold me in your arms too tightly and I know it matters though we lack the words.

This is how it is with us, as imperfect as lopsided pancakes and instant coffee which I serve to you and you're polite enough not to spit out. As well worn as the t-shirt I sleep in that was once yours and is now too small and full of holes. Something that I have claimed for my own, the same way I claimed your reluctant heart.

But it wasn't always reluctant. You got brave and when you kissed me it was as though you'd been getting brave for an eternity and I swooned in the power of your love.

Swooned, my word, not one you'd ever use. But I did, the ground shook beneath my feet and everything changed. You reached deep inside me and stole my heart in that moment. I didn't even know it at the time. But you did, didn't you?

After years of this dance we engage in, I think I finally know the steps. Advancing and retreating as we have for years. I know this one by heart. You've favoured the periphery lately and that's alright Love, I've always been too much for you.

How deep is my love? Do you know now and trust that it won't drown you in its wake?

Oh Love, life is a funny thing, and when you left the dance hall momentarily. I wasn't ready to let you go. I just figured you were taking your leave and would return. Never did I think that perhaps it would be the last time, our last dance. Never did it occur to me that I wouldn't have another moment with you. And when you told me that there was nearly no breath left in this life.

Did you see for a moment what lay beyond? Did you turn back, because you knew that we couldn't do without you? Not yet. And perhaps we'll never be ready but I was so happy to hear that you would be here just a little longer. Until, maybe, just maybe I learn what saying goodbye feels like.
Jeremy Bean Oct 2014
The drones
made of skin and bone
The drones
with no minds of their own
The drones
entrapped in their homes
tied to their tvs and cellular phones

I see their pride in ignorance
both jailer and keeper
Who are enjoying this sentence
as the bankers run the meter

In a prison they were fooled to build
and gladly accepting
To pay their homage to the guild
who commanded its erecting

As the wardens stuff your faces
with superstition
and their pockets
with the source of their fruition

The drones
programmed to obey
The drones
believe all that they say
The drones

Right from the womb
  taught to march to the tune
      straight into the tomb


The drones
keep questioning me
The drones
will not leave me be
The drones
made an outcast of me
for failing to extinguish my humanity
HRTsOnFyR Apr 2015
Tetragrams and anagrams
Pseudonyms and sleight-of-hands
Betwixt the lines lie crooked spines
Textured, gestured, shamed and shrined
Functions, Factions, fabled fiction
Starred and Crossed, they're scored and stitched in
Faeries, furies, funded theories
Quantum physics, quarks and queries
Embers bright, a red clad knight
Winged cats with cubic heights
Flux your lux, set down your labels
Time entwines both swine and angels
Mumbled murmurs, lazy learners
Beacons, bosons, carbon burners
Codecs keyed for hertz and bytes
Ancient tones 'n pheremonones
Reflect,
     Refract,
         Retract...
             Ignite.
Our shadow selves toll ghostly bells
Building walls, erecting shelves
Saviours, slaves, enchanted knaves,
'Tis man, himself, 'creates these Hells...
Samm Marie Nov 2016
Innocent songbird
Keep singing sweet sorrows
Keep whistling lullabies
The cage they're erecting
Can't keep you in
Can't tie you down
O! innocent songbird
They can clip your wings
Trim your claws
But how stupid are they
Thinking you are a pet
A prize for cheap pay
Innocent songbird
They've not yet realized
Everything they are doing
Can't **** your singing
They don't understand
The words of a man
Are much more powerful
Than the laws of the land
Dedicated to Jack Michael Westland, even if you don't see it at least I'll know I wrote it
Hound-dog swallowing poly-coated pills, filling up, bloated, falling off stage, and into a more permanent and lasting Graceland, to be surrounded by another’s verse.

I only enjoy what comes from my own head, a modern Samuel Johnson, no matter what happenstance brought about to be said, a cage free Bronson. Hearing false verse through a syllable count, hoisted onto adverbs easy to mount. Congratulate a lesser mind, reaching commonalities most could find. Ease in creation, opens floodgate doors, distributing specs of grace through misworded spores. Life, love, and the pursuit of vanity, leaves simplified lumps of prosperous thought riddled with anonymity. The invention of despair overwhelms those ungifted, and leaves them erecting stale forgeries they grifted.

In the wee small hours of escaping light, a crooner steadies his hands as he falsifies his originality, reading off the music from another’s sheet.

A change in topic is something to hold as worthy, though in a modern context of prosaic prose, such good fortune can be exceptionally elusive. Broken hearted symptoms shared through a hash-tag, rerouted and worded, to fit an illiterate youth’s lesser diction, reposted to approach validity, only to be called forth as an original soul, one to revere, and hold as an entitled fraction of logic.

The piano man knocks out a tune, hit in stride with vocal conduct, inspired and laid in pen by a lesser man propelled by better wording, given up for another’s career.

Market’s over-saturated with teenage sonnets, weeping over cut wrists, ended (Victorian inspired) trysts, refreshed and brought back around until sentimentality vomits. Themes used to run rampant with fresh ingenuity, made extinct, occurred in a blink; now every poem has some congruency.

The grapevine got entangled, getting involved with a troublemaker, providing the soundtrack, using another’s words.

— The End —