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Tom McCone Mar 2014
dunedin. friday, three, afternoon.
set from home under a blue sky
with full& prepared pack,
a somewhat empty stomach,
and a necessity to get away from the city.
hiking boots tread asphalt down to the depot,
where, in thirty-seven minutes punctuated
by plastic seats grafted to a wall
and a mildly disjunct group of small or
big-time travellers, the naked bus
pulled in, a hematite centipede
crawling into the lot. it was a bus,
no complaints. all others' bags
stowed, twenty seven bucks outta pocket
and swung into the front-right-window seat,
bid a farewell to the beat-down
pub across the road and onto the one-way
merging into a highway and outta
town the dark bug skittered, on
schedule or something resembling it.
behind the driver, the sun came through
around the beam in the window. warm patterns
laid on skin, the countryside's broad expanse:

cylindrical bales of hay scattered about
paddocks, dark late-autumn florets of flax
on roadsides, plumes of white smoke from
bonfires in townships as small as a thumbnail,
hedgelines of eucalyptus, pine; russet streaks
through bark of single gum trees stood
off-centre in fields. sticky-wooded hillsides
punctured by fire breaks roll almost forever
and back. the rushing sound of passing cars
through the 3/4-golden ratio of the driver's
ajar window; twenty-first century mansions
verging on out-of-place. saplings emerging,
bracketed, through verdant grass patches.
museum abbatoirs. toitoi like hen's plumage
lining drainage ditches. another Elizabeth st-
(how many could be counted out by now?) tidy
front yards and milton liquorland through this
small town. an everpresent tilting sun. fields
of flowered nettle. s-bends through pancake layers
of hills. a delapidated gravel quarry at stony
creek. deer farms, sheep farms, bovine farms, alpaca
farms (favourite); another bonfire seen down a
long gulley; a power substation, all organized
tangles. a two-four 300m before the bridge into


balclutha. 4.40pm.
across the road into the i-site
two friendly ladies circle locations
to make (got a car) or try to make (on foot),
offering a ride in half an hour,
leave it to chance.
across another road, drifter's emporium
(that's the name, no joke) got a knife
to open up cans- bought no cans, brought
no cans, still nice to have one anyway.
down the road, 200ml from unichem, waste
no time, turn ninety degrees, cross a
railway, then outta town in a sec. first
photo: half highway, half clutha river. fine
shot. sit down, watch the water couple mins,
head down the road. red-black ferns radiate
under willows down the riverbank. metal
bumper-bars keep legs on, the road rolls
gentle turns, diverges from the river. stick
to the former, faster that way. no intentions
of hitching. just wanna walk. and walk. and
walk. guy yells out a car window. envy,
likely. who cares. apple tree hangs over
a dry ditch. pick a small one, gone in
a minute. probably ain't sprayed. been
eating ice-cream dinners more often'n
not the last coupla weeks- isn't much
the stomach won't or can't handle anymore,
anyway.

odours of decay from the freezing works.
seagulls sound out nearby.
typical.

down the road, the reek of death fades
out. back to grass. sit in some of the
tall stuff, under a spindly tree. put down
some ink, a handful of asst. nuts. 'bout
thirteen fingers of daylight left. no idea
if the coast is further than that. little
care. down the road the land flattens out,
decent sign. the junction was a fair bit
past reckoned, though. flipped a chunk
of bark (too lazy to get a coin out) to
figure whether the coast was worth it. bark
said no, went out anyway. gotta see the sea,
keeps you sane. past a lush native
acre or two- some lucky ******'s front lawn-
changed mentality, slung out a thumb (first
time). beginner's luck, kid straight outta
seventh form pulls over in a mustard-yellow
*******' kinda beach-van. was headin' out
to the coast, funnily enough. had been up
in raglan (surf central, nz), back down with
the 'rents now, though. out kaka point, only
one of his age, he reckoned, no schoolhouse
there, just olds. was going to surf academy,
pretty apt. little envious.

the plains spread out and out, ocean just
rose up out of a field. there's nothing
more perfect. gentle waves stroke the sands,
houses stare intently out at the mingling of
blues. one cloud hovers so far away it doesn't
even exist. down the other end of kaka point,
back on solid ground, walking into a gorge, laments
about not choosing the coastal route. but owaka
is the new destination, bout 11ks, give or take
(5ks later, sign says another 15.. some give). nothing
coulda beat that sight anyway, stepping outta
a van onto that pristine beach.

entry: gorge route to owaka. seven.
late light painted the tops of hills absolute
gold. thought maybe this way ain't so bad. beside a
converging valley, phone got enough reception
for dad to get through. said in balclutha coulda
got a room with a colleague. too far out now. lost
him in the middle of a sentence about camera film.
surprised to have even got that far. road wound
troughlike through the bottom of the gorge, became
parallel to a cute little stream. climbed down chickenwire
holding the road in place, ****** in it (had to).
clambered back up, continued walking as the occasional
campervan rolled on by. took a photo of the sun perched
on a hilltop, sent it to mel. dunno why. anxieties
over the perfect sunrise picture came frequently,
a goal become turmoil. the gorge flattened out,
and soon in countryside my fears allayed. round
a corner in picturesque nowhere, found my shot.
sat in long grass. stole it. sighed. ate a handful
of nuts. moved on. {about eight}

dark consumed the surrounding gentle-rolling hills,
nowhere near owaka, which was probably the tiny bundle
of lights nestling a little below the foot of a
mountain in the distance (not too far off, in
reality). near the turnoff to surat bay (was heading
there, plans change) a ute honks. taken as friendly.
a right turn instead of a left, farmsteads lit
up in fireplace tones, the sound cows make at
dusk. it got colder. would one jersey be sufficient?
hoepfully. stars began pinpricking the royal blues of the
night sky in its opening hues. eight-fourty-ish slugged
back about 3/4 of the syrup, along with half of a box
of fruit medley (so **** delicious), in light of dull
calf aches becoming increasingly apparent. needed
to walk a helluva lot more. ain't one for lettin'
nothing get in the way of that. lights in the distance
became the entry sign for a camp-site. no interest,
head on. past another farmhouse, stars came out in
packs. three cows upon a slight hilltop. next junction
pulled left a good eighty degrees and was on the
straight to owaka. less than two minutes later,
a dog-ute pulled to a halt and offers up a ride down
most of the stretch. didn't say no.

still stable, as two pig-hunters tell
of their drive back from picking up a couple
pig-dogs somewhere north. they were heading
out bush to shoot, thought they'd seen
another guy they'd picked up a couple weeks
ago, who'd taken 'em out somewhere they
couldn't remember. paranoia grips, but
the lads are fairly innocuous. they say it's
dangerous out here, gotta be ballsy walking
middle of the night, no gun, no dog,
all by yourself. wasn't worried, got nothing
to lose anyway (still, this sets helluva
mood). by a turnoff a k outta owaka, dropped
off. said probably all that'll be open there
is a pub, if that. bid luck and set their way.
above, the whole sky is covered with shining
glitter. down a dip and turn, **** in the
middle of the road. an ominous sign indicating
the outskirts of

owaka. approximately 9.40pm

my head loosens as i approach. the lights
form across a small valley i can't verify
exists or not between dog barks i mistake
for the yells of drunkards and lights
pirouetting from cars behind me. i slow
down i don't want to do this.

owaka is terrifying. plastic.

the street corners thud like cardboard. i
walk past a garden of teapots, a computer
screen inside the house glares through the
window pane bending breathing outward. there
is nobody here, still there is a feeling
like there's people everywhere, flocking
in shadows. a silhouette moving in a
distant cafe doorway. the sound of teeth,
of darkness fallen. thick russian tones
sound from a shelf of a motel. eyes
everywhere, mostly mine. i stop only round
a bend and down near a police station, yet
feeling no more safe, sitting in a gutter to
send mel my plans, to tell myself my plans.
i want to be nowhere again. i am soon nowhere.


out of breath, out the other end of owaka,
the sick streetlights fade into comforting
dark nestled between bunches of indistinct
treelines. the feeling of safety lasts but
twenty minutes, where another dip in the
road leads through a patch of bush, in which
gunshots ring periodically and laughter and
barking rings through. breaking down, it takes
five minutes to resolve and keep going. ain't
got nothing to lose, anyway. boots squeak like
diseased hinges all down the road. hadn't
noticed beforehand, the only thing noticed
now. an impending doom hangs thick like fog,
the thought of being strung up like an
underweight hog. walking faster and
not much quieter, the other side of the
bush couldn't have come sooner. the fear
lasts until the gunshots are distant nothing.
still alive, still out of breath, still
fairly ****** up, there's no comfort like the
sound of nothing but the occasional insect's
chirp. vestiges of still water came around
a corner and just kept coming as the golden
moon sung serenity all over. finally, a peace
came to rest over the landscape. sitting by
the road with a clear view of the moon's light
sheathed in the waters, the stars above wreath
a cirrus eye to watch over the marshland
plants leading into the placid waters of

catlins lake, west. ten fifty-one.
crossing a one-way bridge over a river winding
its way into the lake, another turning point
decision arose: continue down the highway
along the river, or head straight out and
toward the coast again. having resolved to
make it to a waterfall by dawn, and the latter
offering a possibility of this, the decision
made itself. turning back around the other side
of the lake, the road wound a couple times
up a gentle ***** out and up from the valley
at the tail of the lake, and into a slightly
more elevated valley. the country roads ran
easily and smooth, paved roughly but solid.
not a car came by for kilometers at a time.
lay on the road past a turnoff for quarter
of an hour letting serenity wash over, the
hills miniscule in comparison to home, the
sky motionless, massive thin halo about the
moon. walking on, night-birds called from
time to time (no moreporks, though. not until
dawn), figuring out how to whistle them back.
a turnoff to purakaunui bay strongly
considered and ultimately ignored; retrospectively
a great call, considering the size of the detour.
hedgerows of macrocarpa, limbs clearly cut
haphazard where once they'd hung over the
road. occasional 4wd passing, always a 4wd,
be it flash new or trusty old. you'd need
one out here. have no fun, otherwise.
monolithic pine-ish hedge bushes, squatting
giants. once, a glimmering in the sky, a
plane from queenstown (assumedly) almost
way too far to make out. the colossus of
the one human-shaped shadow cast down
from the moon to my boots. how small
a thing in this place. swamped out by
the beauty of this neverending valley.
breathless.

the road turned, not quite a hairpin,
but not entirely bluntly, a welcome
break from the straight or gentle
sway, and five minutes turned to dirt.
had to lay down again- legs screaming
by this point for rest. still, they
had nothing against pressing on. dad
taught me to just keep going. that's
the thing about walking. stop for a
little bit and you're good to go
again. pushing for the fall was probably
overkill, but no worry now. dirt road
felt so right after a good 20+ks of
asphalt, only infrequently punctuated
by roadside moss or thin grass. it
was as if beginning again (well,
kinda, if only with as much energy).
having downed only a litre of water
(leaving only half a litre more), a
litre of fruit juice and about 100
grams of assorted nuts since more
than twelve hours ago by this point,
it should have been a shock to
still be going by this point. don't
really need that much anyway, though.
gone on less for longer. hydration,
anyway, was the least of all worries,
the air being thick with water, ground
fog having been laid down hours ago.

up the dirt track, more cows. they make strange
sounds at night. didn't know anything yet,
though. that's still to come. a ute swang past
going the other way, indiscriminate hollers
from the passenger-side window. waved back
cheerily. so far from anything to be anything
but upbeat now. not even the heavy shroud of
tiredness could touch that, yet. the track wound
on forever. was stopping every half-kilometer
to stand and stretch, warding off the oncoming
aches. the onset was unwieldy, though. didn't
have long. past a B&B;, wondered whether anyone
actually ever stayed there (surely would, who'd
not revisit this place over and over once they'd
discovered it?)- certainly would've, having the
cash (apparently parts of "lion, witch and the
wardrobe" were filmed here. huh). further on, the
road turned back to seal, unfortunately, but
with small promise- surely, at least fairly
close by this point. turning a corner, a small
and infinitely beautiful indent against the bush,
a small paddock bunched up against it, stream
wound against the bases of trees, all lit by
the clear tones of a now unswathed moon, sat
aside the road. it was distilled perfection.
it was too much, just had to keep goin' or
risk shattering that image. next turn was
a set of DOC toilets, an excellent sign. must be
basically sitting on the path entry now. searched
all 'round the back for it, up the road, nothing.
not entirely despondent but bewildered, moved
forward and found a signpost. the falls were now
behind? turned around and searched even more
thoroughly, quiet hope turning to desperation
by the silent light of the moon. finally,
straight across the road from the toilets,
was the green and gold sign, cloaked in
darkness under clustering trees, professing
a ten-minute bushwalk to the

purakaunui falls. saturday. 1.32 am.**
venturing into the bush by the dull light
of a screen of a dying phone, the breeze
made small movements through the canopy. it
couldn't have been any more tranquil. edging
way through the winding cliffish track through
dense brush, the sound of a trickling stream
engorged into a lush symphony of water. crossing
a single-sided bridge across an unseeable chasm,
twinkling from the ferns behind became apparent.
turning off the dull light, the tiny neon bulbs of
glow-worms littered the dirt wall risen up about
half a metre, where the track had been cut out.
my heart soared. all heights of beauty come
together. continuing down the path, glow-worms
litter the surroundings and the rushing of
water comes to a roar. at a look-out platform
above the falls, nothing can be seen save a
slight glisten. down perilous steps (wouldn't
be too bad if you could actually see 'em) the
final viewing platform lay at level with the
bottom of the falls. they stood like a statue
in the dark, winding trails of thin white wash
through the shadows hung under trees. left
speechless from something hardly made out, turned
around and back up the stairs to where the
glowing dots seemed their most concentrated.
into the ferns above, clambered through and
around moss-painted tree trunks and came to rest
a couple hundred metres from the trail, under
a fern, under a rata. packed everything but
a blanket from nan into the bag, laid it out
on curled leaf litter and folded up into it,
feet too sore to remove 'em from boots, curling
knees up into the blanket and tucking a hand
between 'em to keep it warm. only face and
ankles exposed, watched the moon's light trickle
through canopy layers for a few hours, readjusting
tendons in legs as they came to ache. sleep (or
something resembling it) set in, somewhere
around four.

some time slightly before six, the realisation
that my legs had extended and become so cold that
they'd started cramping all the way through hit,
coupled with the sounds coming through the bush.
thank you, if you made it all the way through :>
J Arturo Dec 2017
A little bird tried to fly through the screen door and I thought, 'if only there were more air up here'.

The view from the second story deck encompassed miles of low scrub hills, piñon, and was daily growing less hazy as the fires subsided. The little bird was dead. Was not even twitching or rolling or whatever idiot birds do to fight or hold onto life. Or maybe it was unconscious. If it was a head impact, it could just be out cold. I could take it in for a bit, see if it revives. But the brains of birds are very small... maybe not large enough to switch out of consciousness without damaging the whole system. It could wake up brain damaged: amnesic, whistling gibberish, unable to collaborate or co-worm-locate or sit on eggs or whatever other higher functions birds perform. Angry, all the time. Likely a burden and a danger to the community. Condemned to either death or a life of lonely suffering. I'd rather not be culpable for that.

Prospective buyers are arriving at four, the realtor as well, for a tour, so I grabbed a broom and swept the quiet body into the shaggy juniper that surrounded the house. Swept up with maple leaves that had settled on the porch since this time yesterday, together a mass of decomposing matter, under the railing and into the dark.

I'd spent a lot of time alone in the house on Grand. Watched nature slowly creep through the iron fence and into the faux-pond, up under the patio bricks, purple flowered and needley plants growing taller and more hostile daily. Increasing numbers of little brown birds mistaking the reflected sunset in the plate glass doors for real sky.

"If only there were more air up here." A little joke I repeat out loud while sweeping broken bodies into shrubs. The thickest places, where they wouldn’t be seen when (if) someone ever dropped by to view the house.


I don't live here, the house is soon to be foreclosed. But a friend of mine knew I needed a place to stay and offered this, his third home, empty of everything except a coffee maker, some landscaping tools, a few boxes that had yet to be moved. I have a twin sized mattress in what must have been a child's room: a strip of Denver Broncos wallpaper runs the circumference, every other surface painted complimentary blue.


The couple arrived at five. She wears a salmon coloured shawl over a white blouse. They’re performing the theatric act of young couples in love (with the idea of a larger house): she ecstatic over the seven jets in the master Jacuzzi tub, he hesitant about the people-paths in the wall-to-wall-carpet, the everpresent pastels we know were once in vogue but will take weeks and at least two layers of base to fully eradicate. It’s the realtor’s job to showcase the place but I often stand outside the plate glass windows of the living room, keeping an eye. Playing the role of groundskeeper because hitchhiker is so much less glorious.

So far it’s been the same. Always she with a genuine smile that will be gone forty minutes after she’s left the driveway. He, always in t-shirt and “trying to be casual” jacket calculating the square footage of each room, the viability of the fireplace. Opening cabinets, but not concerned with storage space. He wants to see if the brass hinges really have brass pins. Is it wood, linoleum? Look closely at his eyes and watch them dance across a virtual blackboard, adding up the gallons of primer and paint needed to cover up the colour mistakes of a before-his-decade.

  2

You can almost watch his eyes dart across the blackboard. A house is a house but the home must be shredded, burned, before making it yours.


But they all do this. A dozen or so now, this summer. And I spend a lot of time alone. Injecting my thoughts into people who think they know what they need next, before getting in a small car and checking out a properly closer to town. Making little jokes to myself as I sweep the porch. The isolation even maybe altering small parts of my self. The social parts, perhaps. I feel good, most days, but find myself repeating the same phrases: “****. Shower. Shave”, “If only there were more air up here.”, “I could learn to love a leopard”, even recently a little Old Testament, which like a ******* I’ve been taking to bed with increasing frequency and a growing selfish guilt, repeating,

“As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.”


They won’t be back, but for the first time now there’s a deer in the yard. Meaning there must be a hole in the fence. A doe, and fawn too, and I can sit and stare with my broom in hand because my job is to sweep the deck. Dead birds and maybe rats, leaves of course, but with all the water the bank is wasting on this waste of a lawn, come deer: come all ye deer, come and eat. Maybe you will even eat the frighteningly thistly things. Regardless, in exchange for this room I was given a broom and deer are far too large to sweep.



When my student visa expired in Canada I left the country with no identification, five Canadian dollars, a five litre backpack mostly occupied by a camera, and in my mind some distillation of the romanticism from On The Road that I’d managed to power-read in a Heathrow bookstore four years before (lacking the pounds to actually purchase the book). I crossed the border via ferry, and entered the country without identification. I thought this was impossible but it turns out that when you have no time but your whole future ahead of you, and nowhere to get to anyway, insisting “I am a U.S. citizen and you need to let me into this country” does in fact work, if you repeat it enough, and are willing to wait. In my case border patrol even gave me a twenty note and a pat on the back before sending me on my way.


How I ended up sitting on the floor watching birds die, backlit by a desert sunset, in the mountains of New Mexico, is a long story, and to be honest the details have largely escaped me. I do remember I was reading Hemingway. “The Innocents Abroad”, and trying to find myself in any character I could lay my hand on. The word “Innocent” in the title, I suppose, far moreso any actual character, struck the most.


It’s the middle of The Great Recession. Or The Great Depression. The Great Compression. I can’t remember any longer which economic period this particular episode occupied (why can’t they name them more sensibly, like hurricanes?) Call it, then, The Great Introspection, as I narrated myself through the dozen rooms of a million-dollar house: the material self still alive and thriving inside in a self-congratulatory spiral over the personal ROI that left Canada on five dollars and put me, rent free, in a home worth that multiplied 200,000 times. The home where I first had my own key. The home where I learned to drink a glass of water before my morning coffee.

(Five years and $98,000 in college expenses later that was, easily, the best advice I’ve ever received.)


Eventually the phone was disconnected, the water, the power. The jacuzzi, though dry, was still a good place to lie and read. And the piñon and snakes, cacti and juniper, then inklings of pine trees came in steadily. When you would look at them they would freeze. But every morning something new was growing, some new pink flower popped up promisingly to crack the mortar in front of the door. Sweetly at first, then growing thorns, and I walking the perimeters saying “if only there were more air out here”, saying, “can not feel her anymore”, as if the decadent madness of the lawn could be silenced by speaking out loud. Trying to walk the edge of the fence, increasingly losing it in the encroaching bush, then resigning myself to the living room, the **** carpet flattening into a forest path while I impressed miles into that offensive floor.



words. seeds. thistles. marvin morales.


Sleeping on that filthy mattress, the Denver Broncos looking down, still optimistic about their upcoming trophy, or cup. Whatever it was that a bunch of cartoon horses could win. But the sweeping gave me solace, even though the growing thistles made the bricks uneven and caught in the bristles of the broom, leaving little shards of transplanted pink flowers emedded in the yellow polyethylene. I loathed them, but looking back I can see I played straight into their plan. Transplanting little seeds to new weak places in the cement, where they could grow tall again and **** up what little good was left of the land. Bring deer to eat them. Bring little idiot birds to pick the seeds out of the faeces, recycling with pure intent, and flying off into the bright light of sunset. Then crashing broken to the floor.

And like the lawn, like the porch, like what happens when you read Twain, something in me changed. “If only there were more air”, yes, but there is never enough air. Piling up among the deer, among the doe, among my now all-consuming pacing and talking to ghosts who don’t live here anymore, among the many birds who ate their worms and went on to hatch a dozen more, flew into a plate glass sunset, and were ignored.
9/22/2014
JW Carter Oct 2013
The chime of a bell and the tick of a clock
Time was invented by man but is god
Too much on our hands; too little too late
Our worlds all revolve 'bout our linear fate
Too much variety made world trade broken
So we regulated it gave each land a token
Of time they relied on to go 'bout their day
Slowly dissolving old lifestyles away
More loyal to chimes of a bell than the rule
Of how each culture functions, went far past a tool
"Your prioritizing is a big disappointment--"
"I'm so sorry sir, do you have an appointment?"
Schedules and calendars grew into the law
And soon the repairs became the new flaws

From daybreak to lights-out, at home or at desk
Lit screens bearing numbers define when I rest
Constant competition, endless applications
Upcoming interviews of unending durations
I spend so much of life prepping for the next step
Preschool to pre-K to K to grade school to Next
Then middle school grades prepared us for high
Since that's prep for college, where the end is nigh
But college just primes us for jobs we'll have someday
Tomorrow comes for us disguised as today.

Don't even get me started on earning promotions
Since the day you start work is the tip of commotion
To the top of it all with your assistant and office,
accountant, and ***-kissing levels of cautious
So perhaps one day you can have the cell in the corner
And dish out the rat race for its future owner
God knows you're too busy to appreciate now
You have children and a 401k on the Dow
Your mortgage and loans haunted you before you were hired
And terror they'll stay till the day you retire
So that's when the madness concludes, you would say
Tomorrow comes for us disguised as today.

We dream of a future where our present would do
A life we believe in where 5pm, we're through
Free to go home and watch our TV
Where someone can promise a product will free
Evidence of our stress from our skin and our tress-
-es which now grey with fear of outdated-ness
"Cause you're not young forever," goes the sickening cliche
Tomorrow comes for us disguised as today.

We feel what we feel and we fear the unknown
Too braced for the days we consider us grown
It doesn't mean we're inclined to give up our lives
To where relaxing's a thought that induces hives
"I'm just too stressed out!" We're not feeling okay
Because tomorrow comes for us disguised as today

So please do not tell me that I am too late
Please do not say I'll "regret this, some day"
For I'll break your laws with a snap of glass
Cogs and gears suddenly mangled and mashed
What will you do now?
Do you even know what now is?
vircapio gale Mar 2013
a poetic rain,
in small print,
fills the white sky page
...and leaves it pregnant with a frontier glowing brighter
than the prime moved space attuned to matter's birth
--all the freedom still, and more... continues growing heedless of the dark surround

and as a bright lotus conjures flight from murky soils--
heavy, sinking, rooted into nether darks--
you digest even drivel as you read, and leap beyond,
celebrating its inherent scope, tendril values spanning all potentiality;
i squint to see you silhouetted there: silent poet flying in between the signs,
to re-sign brilliance on that plane,
and voice the silence intertwining muse and verbal ruse

producing in an everpresent rain the giving-rise to words,
the meaning prior and pretend, and signaled apprehension past intent:
deluge inspiration in the rents of earth, carry dust into the rainbow clouds, and see the shaking world alight in lovingkindness without end

speaking now in arts reversed,
in playing poems and writing at a pitch to sweeten tongues with memories relived...
speaking in the ripple-visage looking back at skys beneath a surface weight we bear,
and shed in holding breath in waves, and squinting tight
the urge to love a universes' birth, conceive
the poem that generates progenesis of stellar forms
each...day
words to twist the vital helix of all oneness beings into being fair
chiasmi of the night alive to sing expanse, to sing alive galactic seas alight
into the pan-flute of the gods re-tuned to shakuhachi tones,
tabla moans and pops of ancient memories reborn
make verbal love within raags beloved rivers smooth at sitar drone
... within the theater your poetic home enfolds

Blinded by love,* can a lotus grow?
through this, beyond chance, to realize...kinship with a chameleon?
with an ant in unexplored territory?
mysteries hiding
revealing deeper mysteries, the hues of Kerala regrown
unknown cloud of "known"-unknown rising...
unknown cloud of possible-knowns to be...
being past, unknown cloud to wash the earth...
allowing all other clouds, dharma-megha cloud returning to that ocean..
--what limits of versatility attain here in my underwater tears?

we can be A dog and a cat transfixed by a sun set
lizards versus spiders crawling for our meals
the dance and dancer one
and we can tend the gardens all our lovers left
or tend the Goddess Night in daring shadow walks with her to inner, spiraled light
that inner vined garden of her truth forever singing you are me
tat twam asi in hues dark maidenhood restrokes
euphoric agony contains a clue
where negatives dream each other through and through
in a subtle exchange self with self before a mirror that eats all reflections









*)O(
italics are credited to the poetry of K. Balachandran, being either direct quotes or titles
Moriah Harrod Mar 2013
You carry your life on your shoulders; a swing in a park in a city, with a lonely, shadowy, ghost of you sitting so delicately. As people pass you, they stop and look, and words come to their minds such as "passion" and "sorrow," "broken benches," "spilled dreams" and they couldn't even tell you why.

You wear your heart safety-pinned to your sleeve; a grave declaration that you are not your own person. Someone has marked you, taken something without asking; this you show everyone, not meaning to, in hopes of finding a semblance of relatability. Was it normal, what happened to you? Is this a dark fog everyone lives in? You hope not.

You have an everpresent effervescence of the wrong kind. It's a nervous habit, a shuffling of the feet and a glance to the sky. It's the reincarnation of life before that day, with the tender rips of who you are now. One can only paint over paint so much; mix the colors, they will all become grey.

You've a vague sense of relief when you look around and see no one. It's a talisman, a testimony to your independence, and your dependence on lots of human-free air. It's the writing on your arm, words you shan't forget, words like delicate innocence shame tragedy naivete melody sorrow blame identity apology and the biggest, boldest of all heartbeat.

It's a short cry from here to insanity and you remind yourself that your heart beats in pride, in admonition to the evil. "I am alive. You couldn't **** me. You won't **** me. I have a heartbeat."

I have a heartbeat. I have a heartbeat. I have a heartbeat. And the little ******* the swing smiles to the sky, a premonition of her future, a confirmation of her strength.
C 2012 Moriah Harrod
Mari Carrasco Nov 2017
a community of wildflowers pretending to be roses.
befriending what we believe are better plants,
and covering themselves in lavender.
they dip their petals and spikes into ink,
and they pretend that they are feathers,
and with these feathers they pretend to be birds,
and being birds is the only way they feel free.
they are left uncared for and wilted down,
they are overlooked and thrown away,
they are called pests and flower killers.
but they are beautiful,
they are powerful and everpresent,
they are proof that no matter how much pulling them out,
cutting them down, and praying them away, wildflowers are here to stay.
vircapio gale Mar 2013
what am i about
giving you no gifts
unable to pin
my finger on a theme
phenomenal you
with whom i play away the year,
yearned love from a decade's dream
you've swayed into the real
to flesh it here and interrupt all Being
with a node of savvy personality
i lessen if i think my words can measure
that, how you emerge there, change
come across the shore of presence, waves of filtered seas
deeply you have gone and risen from within
expanding metaphor in a lambency of ageless gazing at the stars
and giving all a joyful undercurrent swim.

luffa vines abound, for future shiny backskins arching bliss--
shedding all, i snake my way around the roots--
the yellow sheen fades and pupils zero intimate
a finer lived experience... ripe intrusion truly love in tune with
tips of sneezing hearts, curling toes unite, shout
an intertwining pelvic orbit vaster space to yet unmake
unspoken pleasures wide in everpresent fontanels
the spectra plenum here again, next breath, ends of in, ends of out
vircapio gale Aug 2013
our yearning sent us
striding from the herd and out
to climb with fettle toes
an unknown height

our bellied wine and swoon
to open-eyed unveiling high
the purest vista sought, but found
another sight

flashing honey in our hearts
we sang into the stars
our dance of wandering
our lips ripe

and there on idyll spike
we coupled free
denuded each we let the cosmos see
how bright and fierce we came

yet quickly we were not the same
in culmination's wake
our visions meshed
subdued the flame

we fell apart in time
descending into spite
facing elsewhere
facing night

the ache was all of life
my private thoughts
were doomed to strife
and flirted vicious hate

devoted to escape the weight
of any snide devotion's cage
we raged a final rage
then gave ourselves to fate

our wounds would send us far
flying from our love
to seek with calloused toes
new unknown heights

i gave up understanding fate
i lay down
embraced the furthest peak
berating all i'd done

i hated all i was
a curse on those i loved
a darkness plague
i spat into my soul

i'd left my home  my love
to claim an ownmost throne
my hidden heart beat slow
and turned to stone

wind no longer blew
the sun went dim
stars forsook my song
and final silence won


i lay dead inside my cave
but for an obscure truth
that even weakest hearts
weave threads of ruth

the faces of the herd
rejoined me then
their whispers lured me out
and dared me  hope

i'd found my kernal self
a love remained despite the hate
the tone of loneliness had changed

a single loving vast instilled itself
on far off pinnacle alone
blissful in myself  at last
from cattle drone
from mired sweet decay
from friendship's whine
and lover's scree
i spoke   i wrote
and measured new complacency
believing i could write a final line
express an everpresent note

astride a mountain bull
i surveyed vales below
in reborn doubt retraced
the steps we'd come

mystic pretense dawned
in shades of brilliant gray
i leapt from paradox
i sung

my eyes became a mist
my arms the mountain range
sky for breath, all rivers
fed my heart

from clouds i looked
embracing earth i blew
love sprung green
and true




.
based on one of the early sections of the RgVeda
Me Nov 2014
Shaking hands
I turn to friends and weep
about the loss that did not even happen
yet

To me the everpresent threat of it
looms over me
and to get rid of it I really would
have to get rid of my own self

In my heart's shelf there stand
a thounsand dusty photographs of loss

Once tossed and smashed
I now feel numb when I remember
How those kids left

Bereft of all that usually helds up
a healthy rationality I stop
and stumble

Maybe -
a tiny flicker burning in between the dust -
maybe this time it could be different

Maybe this time
there will be clarity
and - rusting in the chambers of my heart -
the images will softly leave this rhyme

and drift apart
just like they should.

Just leave my heart.
...
argh.
Daniel Kareski Jul 2015
The first step is admitting you own nothing.
You have borrowed a vessel of perpetual motion,
transforming matter into joy. Or sorrow.
You prepare a lament for
every object being shrunk in volume  
to the point of liquefied singularity.
Your soul resembles a berseked monach
harpuned by the overflowing thoughts
of a whole world outside his sacred temple,
rediscovering GOD through a moment of NO BIG TRUTH.
Every item is handelled with utmost care.
Every hour of every day carefully measured,
overligned, overlived, predicted,
enjoyed to the highest crest of pleasures.
The excitement turns you into a dormant rage
of two incandescent lovers, sharing their last kiss.
A particular moving object (which borrows your empirical mass)
runs away over roads and tracks and clouds and temples,
from the decay measured in seconds of standstill, if at all present.
You left the last version of yourself at the doorstep.
The footsteps on the street are an echo of
your forthcoming change. Your exhaltation.
How am I supposed to fight this disposition,
the everpresent catarsys in each corner of the soul,
as the end is postpond by the black guitar’s lament
in the indigenous version of history.
Sometimes things overlap without obvious reasons.
Sometimes the foundations of our sorrow -
buried deep into everday house hold objects,
is the only threat which holds the secret
to the way back.
To the memories bookmarked in your going-away-ness.
To the saved points in your story
(to which you could return back in case of a disaster).
Like a tale, in which the bad prevails,
but
as she lays in your arms,
in a particularly ephemeral moment
all that matters in the end
is the desired absence of space
‘tween the most lonely abbrevations of
the two of you.
A Sri Lanka trip sublimated in words.
The Fire Burns Oct 2016
The here and now is often lost
in tomorrows hopes and dreams
c'est la vie, that we lead
though carpe diem is what we need

Is today simply a prelude
of what may be ahead
or should we live it to its fullest
or waste it planning instead
Eureka Merton Aug 2018
He is the sweet fragrance of a rose,
Smelt everywhere all the time
He is the Jasmine Breath
whose source cannot be found

I was a child...Searching for Him,
searching for this Source...
This intoxicating source of Love
I am pulled inside by its everpresent aroma

I swear this is what Infinity smells like, before it is birthed into form!

I could not find Him,
The source of my drunkenness
So I sat, defeated
With tears of sorrow and longing.

When The drop of love hit the ocean within,
Without warning, I heard a knock at my heart door
When I opened it
He said Hello!

all creation became a reflection
of the Flower of my Longing-
And the Source -
my Self
Nobody May 2018
I hate my life
Hate my choices

What am I to do?

reach back in time, try to find
a place where I truely belonged
out of all the places I've been
how many have really felt like home?

crazy, dazed; hazy late tomorrows
find myself regretting it all
and trying to numb all of my sorrows

in retrospect, most of my life has been a lie
so I retreat in cowardice, to hide the wounds
everpresent in my heart, for if one real scar where to emerge
I can't imagine what they would say

what would the point be? I'm a hypocrite, a liar
a shapeshifting bulldozer, running from myself
toward something less painful, destroying all in my wake

and when I arrive it's like the saying, the grass is always greener
tends to set me straight
it's unpalatable, what's on my plate

for every time I open myself to the pain,
it seems monsters, vampires, and ghosts
reach for the softest spots
and pull me back to a place
where I can't breath
can't see

and I'm really so tired
have you tried? oh I've been trying
it may all seem but a lie
but in my mind, I'm giving all I have to offer
I just don't believe any of it is good enough.

and sometimes you push it in my face,
I'm dangerous like this,
I don't want to hurt anyone
much less return to a place where I'm so cold
abandoned
afraid

because there; everything I could possibly be
falls away, and what's left of me is just what remains in your memory
It's not me, it's not the same, I'd love to be there
love you give you all the love trapped
beneath the layers of ice
that have frozen my soul, my mind
behind illusions everpresent,
where my life means nothing
and love is just an illusion; like everything else
It's not alright
I'm not ok

I'm truly sorry
I can't keep putting up a fight
I'm tormented, truly
in my mind, in my dreams, I've seen you there
and I'm terrified by what you may see
inside of me.

I've tried to keep it hidden,
but you keep pushing and pushing
and if one day you see me for all that I am
you will run away.. because

I am not who you think I am,
I've kept my pen in a cage.
Trapped.
Not to come in contact with paper at any cost
Like trying to hide the everpresent moon from a werewolf
Like hiding all your ***** from the family alcoholic
No use
"Resistance is futile."
I wanted to ignore the truths that never fail to spill out the second ink kisses the pages of my journal.
I tried to avoid the impending epiphany
      No more.
               No more.
And thus begins the tragic telling of a story
I wish to be fiction.
A story my mind hid from me
No Hero
      No ever after
Only the end.
Dylan Mar 2023
Silence lain in the shallows,
perched on the stillness of sea.
This moment of calm adorns you
nestled in your ponderous canopy.

While time lay fragmented
in motionless play,
it's a simple beauty
sketched upon the bay.

Your music of emptiness,
constantly everpresent,
shall wait silently broken
where waves come to crash.

Solitude paints your mind
lauding the soundless grace.
Slivers of peace entwine you
within the ocean lace.
Adam Schmitt Feb 2022
We're living a Dangerous Life,
tiptoeing on the Edge of a Knife.
What will come and take you in
The End?
Will it come from Behind
Or from Around the Next Bend?

Are We Here,
Really Here
Now?
...
The Everpresent Present

The Eternal,
The Undifferentiated,
dao
...
The Way of the Eagle
The Way of the Sun
The Way of the sweat
of the Toiling One.
The Way of the World,
The Way of The Track,
The Way of the Scorpion who rode
                                                    the Frog's back...

The Ways of Old We've left Behind
                          The Ways of New We must  
Now design...

The Laws of the Jungle
And the Laws of Gods
and Men.
The Laws of Those Whose Land
We're In.
The Laws of Physics and
The Laws of Time.
                   The laws of lawyers and
                                                      of Organized   Crime.

The Uncaused Cause,                                   

...

                 ­                   And                                  The Uneffected Effect.

The Unpolished Flaws,
And the Unfinished Project.

The Unwritten Rules and
The Unspoken Code.
The Unwitting Fools and
The Untraveled Road.

The Final Frontier,
And the Promise it gives...
The Things We Create
and the Life That Outlives...

The Dawn of the Century,
The Dusk of Mankind.
The birth of Something New,

Of a limitless Mind
                                              
                              Or is it really New?
Or was It done before?

And who is
the Ultimate Authority                          
on the Universe's lore?

And is Novelty
all that we aim to adore?
What about the Nothingness that came from
Before?
Did it have some Great Big Colorful Blob to explore?
Did We sunder the Stasis
forevermore?
...
Is there One God,
or an Infinitude?
...
What does it mean
to Truly Be

"The Dude?"

Or
Maybe the Many make up the One,
And from the One All
Things flow?
...
Have these Thoughts been Thought before?
How am I to know?
And
How about We Just Be
Good to Each Other
And
Help Each Other grow?
Just freshly written this morning. It is what it is. Depending on what your definition of is is
Julian Sep 2020
2 Kings 23:3-5 Version? (I found this by looking up the word Mazzaroth in Wikipedia it was the first reference and it is displayed in 23:5 (the hosts of the heavens and constellations)

3 And the king stood on the platform, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep His commandments, and His testimonies, and His statutes, with all his heart, and all his soul, to confirm the words of this covenant that were written in this book; and all the people stood to the covenant.

ד  וַיְצַו הַמֶּלֶךְ אֶת-חִלְקִיָּהוּ הַכֹּהֵן הַגָּדוֹל וְאֶת-כֹּהֲנֵי הַמִּשְׁנֶה, וְאֶת-שֹׁמְרֵי הַסַּף, לְהוֹצִיא מֵהֵיכַל יְהוָה, אֵת כָּל-הַכֵּלִים הָעֲשׂוּיִם לַבַּעַל וְלָאֲשֵׁרָה וּלְכֹל צְבָא הַשָּׁמָיִם; וַיִּשְׂרְפֵם מִחוּץ לִירוּשָׁלִַם, בְּשַׁדְמוֹת קִדְרוֹן, וְנָשָׂא אֶת-עֲפָרָם, בֵּית-אֵל.
4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the Asherah, and for all the host of heaven; and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Beth-el.
ה  וְהִשְׁבִּית אֶת-הַכְּמָרִים, אֲשֶׁר נָתְנוּ מַלְכֵי יְהוּדָה, וַיְקַטֵּר בַּבָּמוֹת בְּעָרֵי יְהוּדָה, וּמְסִבֵּי יְרוּשָׁלִָם; וְאֶת-הַמְקַטְּרִים לַבַּעַל, לַשֶּׁמֶשׁ וְלַיָּרֵחַ וְלַמַּזָּלוֹת, וּלְכֹל, צְבָא הַשָּׁמָיִם.
5 And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to offer in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that offered unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven. (Mazzaroth)

First I will refer to Job 38 which is clearly indicative of some guarded celestial truths that might be miscegenated of origins of the life forms that believe in synoecy among the dominions of the covert verdure of Earth reigning over us with silence and silentium with solatium for the soilure of the interregnum of times reigning with pollution and in stern rebuke by God I was reminded subconsciously that Climate Change is a truly evocative Lachrymose experience when encouraged by prayer that was a poignant moment of tears when I meditated on the Carbon Tax I immediately started crying even though I was not saddened by the affair in any other way that was palpable. The staddle of Job talks about specifically the tucked vestiges of the thorny imbroglios of intemperance countermanded by the master stroke of the divine interpretation of lightning which is essentially electricity and the clouds it is referring to are the internet where instantaneous communion can be achieved without exertion the line that struck me the most is the “Clods that cling together” because it is a resonant stroke of Islamic virtues that the ***** clot is the seed of all creation by which all have been created in the fungible image of our variegated creator who is not necessarily janiform of a leviathan of many faces but an experimental disposition of a disembodied figment that can assume any form on heaven or earth to dissemble his true cloaked identity of the original protoplasm of the first anointed civilizations in the long history of the Universe. Knowing the true visage of the first sentient civilization to bow beneath the creator with obsequious devotion in a presumably monolithic world where God’s presence was so obvious it might have actually been the first heaven before there was death and this pays homage to Adam and Eve the firstborn of all creation. The creation story might refer to the first sentient animated civilization in the Universe which sinned and then became a diaspora of a mirrored reality of the realty of heaven and  earth where many variegated snakes and beasts roamed about clamoring for God when they turned the synsematic toasts of revivalism to the newfound creation of sentience with rivalry potentially precluding the salvation of Abel who was murdered by Cain. These stories might be extraterrestrial vestiges of the true lineage of the Almighty God we serve and although controversial as it has been Biblical knowledge that Adam and Eve were humans before being tempted by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, it is possible this process was recapitulations of former times and the former protoplasm that precedes all things because the strokes of glory of sentient life was nurtured especially attentively at the beginning of the first civilization of the Universe where God was probably everpresent and ubiquitous and accessible to all creation and it is even possible that this world was the first heaven for the first death before many subsequent deaths of the lineaments of tribes that supplicated beneath divine mercy for adjudication. My theology is that God is attentive to a broad universe of quagmires and in perfection or refinement at the beginning or the crux of history we are a perfectabilism of God’s attentive scrutiny and we master ourselves rapidly enough so that God doesn’t intervene as often as some might hope but many people don’t understand the time frame of God’s everlasting perspective. So it is potential that the first habitable world in the universe became the utopia of extensive cosseted scrutiny that became the prototype for Heaven that eventually alighted into a cosmic if segregated fraternity of the chosen for the cubic metropolis or the gardens beneath which rivers flow. God can assume any form and he chose the pulchritude of humans to issue a strong statement about the verdure of our plenipotentiary potential perhaps replicated often with minor mirrors of dimpled design throughout the cosmos as it is likely that another civilization which resembles humans in DNA with almost exact precision currently exists and is civilized by advanced life at this current time and that we exist in a multiverse unbounded by the enumeration of infinity. God pays scrutiny to those civilizations that repent and many are saved by the salvation of their orbific longings but it is also possible there exists an operative design of cacotopias that don’t know God but relish prosperity or have derelicted the possibility of God for too long because of either extreme asperity or abundant warmth of luxury. Remember the universe is infinitely vast so the likelihood that God is fungible is possible but not yet confirmed because if other alien civilizations exist that yet know God because of Jesus of Nazareth they are reproved by the divinity of interposition of reality in its mercurial ways conforming to the grand design of perfectabilism and God has operated throughout humanity for thousands of years why now have we reached the pinnacle for repentant absolution? We bend towards the synclastic light of the culminated alien fascination with our pulchritude despite their dearth and they are attentive to God because of Jesus of Nazareth and subsidiary to that Muhammad or potentially the deities of the Egyptians which might be defalcated concepts of the alien version of a pancosmism that is mysticated on the rarefied commentary of the strictures of polytheism that might populate some regions of the universe. The absolute truth in the One God we serve is that human understanding cannot enumerate his truths without understanding its distance and segregation from other worlds as we fight the suffrage of old age to propitiate the longing for tranquility. This is all tethered speculation but I believe that God is regnant in all affairs and in this vast universe is attentive to all our pleas and the questions of heaven and Earth remain unheeded or distorted by our humane totemic versions of truth that all memorialized the pyramid a sequential convex formulation of a stratified system that reaches its apex in the singularity of the hypethral skies above and is the tenure of the majesty of the esoteric secrets that coshered and ushered societies into great divergence but ultimate found consecration on Mount Moriah with Abram’s sacrifice before he was known as Abraham of his son Isaac that was prevented by Yahweh’s messengers of isangelous repute. The mystery of Adam and Eve might be a recapitulation just as the story of Noah reminds us of the travail of other centuries and other worlds that provide the pathways to divergent creations that are ultimately saved by providence and the rich thickets of allegory throughout the Bible all point to the emergence of transcendental truth which is shepherded by the mysticism of this age and the surrealism of knowing we belong to the elect hive-mind cosmic fraternity built on psychism and titanism. The firmament is testament both to our distance from our cosmic neighbors and also our propinquity to their suffrage and suffering in their beatific but arid realities that are draped with the pangs of loneliness in their excursion to broader realms of conquest and in their wallop of time itself they have opened up the lychgates of Heaven and Earth to provide the provisions for a new understanding of history that is rich with the percurrent themes of a monotheism of a fungible God which took the form of Man as he can take any form he chooses in his aseity of being and his judicious providence to select the Earth as an exuberant exsibilation against glaikery but also a profound victoria for the awakening of humanity to its cosmic identity as a favored species young in years but enriched by celestial guardians that are among isangelous repute because of their decisive roles in human history throughout the Creations of their divergent designs that illuminate the illuminism of the pyramid the elemental form of the ultimate capstone of knowledge with the all-seeing eye of providence encapsulated above all ethereal reckoning. So it was the downfall of the utopias of ignorance by learning knowledge that bequeathed the lineage of mortality itself in the beginning in the form of men and angels both that inhabit our broad universe because in several occasions in my life I felt like I encountered human beings with such clairvoyance that they seemed like agents of God. Noah’s flood might refer to a distant or near civilization that was swamped by a catastrophic event or tsunami much like Atlantis and this predicates Noah and explains the longevity of his estimated lifespan and that of Methuselah who lived 969 years which ironically points to the  Apollo Moon landing in 1969. The fumatoriums of human ignorance can now be micromanaged by a swarm of up to seven alien civilizations but most likely 3-4 of them and they are all attentive to these theories and probably inseminated the Bible to begin with potentially with their own theological understanding of the universe transplanted on a human perspective to shepherd humanity into the answers it so desperately sought but found themselves famished by. So in Job 38 we crouch in our dens looking for the prey of the lioness of civilization that is embattled against itself for entirely internecine reasons. There is some temerity but I believe the theopneustic power of this revelation because I am keen to the attuned universe of the largesse of omnified civilization trouncing over the matter and fettle of instinct but Genesis is integral to understanding every cosmic mystery on Earth and in celestial Realms and is probably the seedy repute of Baal and Molech among other idolatries which severed themselves by heterodoxy of eunuchs and saturnalias too profane to expound because their epicureanism outweighed their pragmatic need for the virtues of the conclamation of heavenly authority manifest clearly on Earth at various times by various prophecies that all point to the Sacrifice at Mount Moriah and notice how God always works through mountains like Mount Horeb/ Sinai to provide his flock with everything they need to know to maintain vital sustenance. Surah 3.86 “How shall Allah guide a people who disbelieved after their belief and had witnessed that the Messenger is true and clear signs had come to them? And Allah does not guide the wrongdoing people.” Surah 3.84 “Say, "We have believed in Allah and in what was revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Descendants, and in what was given to Moses and Jesus and to the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and we are Muslims [submitting] to Him.". Surah 38.1-9 is mandatory reading even for the scepsis of Christians because it proves how farsighted the aliens that shepherded Muhammad really were and how insightful Muhammad really is and still is as an emissary of heavenly recompense in his guarded palace beneath which rivers flow. Surah 85:3 (853 AM) “And [by] the witness and what is witnessed” Lets return to the central thesis of all kerygma that is synallagamatic with mutual respect to the pillars of all civilization that the meeting ground of the jovial joust of gladiatorial conquest of the yobbery of rookery and the apikoros yordim that emigrated too far into esotericism might marvel that God is ultimately vindicated as an author of a true unfiltered version of a slightly redacted history suited for the auditorium of a universal audience that displays with majesty and power his foresight to tend to the distant constellations that are created by the tentpoles of the sky reaching their apex into the aperture of the allegorical veracity of all culminated creation exultant in its self-affirmations of pride that it might balk at the embellishments of pettifoggery by the kirkbuzzers of superstition and behold the true throne of grace and authority bestowed upon the bailiwick of the living and the dead in what might be a segregated heaven to prevent the pullulation of tribal discord even in omniety with eternity. I hope to witness heaven firsthand in my upcoming seances with the extramundane but first we must expound this troponder. Jews first, Christians second and Muslims third were all alerted to this watershed moment in history with exact knowledge probably encased in the Arc of the Covenant or some other divine artifact that embodies it but sometimes we pale in our pallor of substandard evils that lurk within the recesses and alcoves of our destiny that we forget to prophesy with earnest sincerity about an abiding hope for the forward rather than the froward future. A book that changed my life forever and shattered my worldview and made me obsessed with Earthquake science was 1906: A Crack at the Edge of the World because that quake inspired the Azusa Church Revival movement that lead to the resurgence of proselytism of protestantism of evangelical churches. I highly recommend buying that book on Amazon.com right now it gives you such a harrowing perspective on that Earthquake 114 years to the day that beset Northern California. Revelations 5:11-14 NKJV “11 Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. 12 In a loud voice they were saying:
“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
    to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
    and honor and glory and praise!”
13 Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
    be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!”
14 The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.
Genesis 2:1a (reaffirms my theory) NKJV
 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array
I am going to pause to marvel at the significance of that San Francisco Earthquake because that seismotic jolt shaped the destiny of our aborning nation and was the first time-to my knowledge-martial law was declared and they tried to extinguish the fire with dynamite which further spread the conflagration and San Francisco is obviously named after Saint Francis of Assisi who ironically died listening to Psalm 142 which is about the liberation of prisoners on October 3rd 1226 A.D. His name is also ironic in purely terms of cognomen that should not be expounded. Although depaysed from my original brunt I would like to extend the bronteum of theological reckoning to the absolved polity of the renown of gigantopariahs clamoring for vitality in a time of treachery and perfidy because the valiant insurrection of our adventures in decent music is the chavish of many birds to the itinerant hordes of adoration as in some parallax of reality in the realty of a potentially merged heaven compartmentalized into factions there might be an ulterior reckoning of overabundance but instead I propose a segregation of the heavenly realms postulated on the idea that in omniety we will know of many things that will fascinate entire generations of time as the knowledge of the esoteric percolates through the heavens by riometers beyond calculus and calculation that will one day heed these proclamations with a hortatory weight as the assized Epic of Gilgamesh echoes the same percurrent themes as Noah’s Arc including the forty day ultradian rhythm which signifies temptation and also the contrition of God signified by the flocks of the sigillum of the aspergillum of dignity afforded to all who migrate into tethered territory beyond the yokes of ******* to the dengonins which own all the ulterior praises but serenade lesser patrons in this almighty day of wondrous awakening to the cosmogony of the infinite justification of the allegorical heft of herculean prophecy entwined in the rhetoric of the primordial authors of human sociogenesis bound to the covenant of Abraham and his blessed sons Isaac and Ishmael who both deserve glory and honor. The elegance of the mystagogical parlance of the intrepid bravery of partial rogues but never full-fledged knaves impregnates God’s vibrant experiment with flourish that delights him with the zaktengur of individual raconteurship so an adventurism in life might be warranted as long as it is done gingerly and with love as the ultimate cloak of absolution rather than the self-insulated boredom of an impavid disposition of the self-settled sedentary languor of whilded depositions of thanatousia brought into parturition by the midwives to sorrow and tragedy that besets the human family from time to time but the sorrow of mankind is not beyond the bailiwick of God because perfectabilism is in his very nature in the adolescence of creation which can greatly be prolonged by the conservation of our robust intellectual bastions of energy and the sustainable development of a green planet beyond depredation that heeds some minkumpfs with some peremptory guerdon to save the spate of suffering among our animal brethren. I grieve that my profound plumb into the depths of psychism was abbreviated by the pomp of porlocking purpresture but I renege my former glaikery in sustained suspense over selfsame tridents of musical happenstance and with poignant evocation I convoke a solemn remembrance of all those lost to the spates of disaster and the paroxysms of the unpredictable that is now foreseen in time to forestall turgid tragedy and impregnate the world with a ****** of a thirsty new vogue eager to adapt and learn with laureate belletrist of the aubades of the dawning light of absolution granted the the sacred cross and the lives we relish in history that are dedicated in sincere earnest alacrity to become revenants of the new age beating the whiplash of the second death because the former things have passed away in a figurative manner even though there still is death one day the inventive verve of the quizzical nihilism will try to outfox death itself for a hollow memorial to preserved sentience which is a mockery of transhumanism that is a professed modesty of the ultimate vouchsafe of the transmundane but unnecessary because of the real palpable joy of the resurrection inherent to all segues between life and death that we all might embrace our creator with almsgiving and gratitude with patient forbearance for the virtuosos that memorialize a prosperity worth relishing even in the soilure of privation because no soul should grieve in bereavement when there is so much joy inhabiting this gleeful planet that is hardly glad in any way about the dereliction of spite and anteric schadenfreude of sacrilege on a massive scale that should be a blotch of a bodged chantage of evil. As I digest the memorials of the festive but never churlish traditions I marvel at the synclastic bent of amasthenic enlightenment concave towards certainty in a demarche for the diminished efficacy of viruses to scare us into trepidation but with dutiful caution of proactive measures taken in times of exigency and crisis. There is nothing facetious about God’s exigent deliverance in these times of leniency and fasting as the wineskins preserved from the lineage of old will perdure until they have their fill and the Earth is saturated with the blood of the prescience of a Cattaneo prophecy guarded in his 6-24-2006 set which hints at a catastrophic scenario potentially impending right now or of a future variety where “blood will be pouring like oil gushing out of a well” “respirators will have their fill” “hospitals be closing” etc. and in these steep harbingers we find poise and pause to reflect that the majesty of God is unfurled unpredictably by showcasing the redemptive power of the autarky of the imagination to see the unforeseeable and lurk in the dungeons of the unknown dengonins just to spy with privy knowledge about the circular circus of privation encircling me like the rapture of murders of ravens that are a crow shy of an X-Files repute...Of that situation that the afflictions of the many matter to the anointed few that delegate because of Jethro and through the power of the Levitical orders to abolish some Kosher restrictions among some apikoros Jews that lean on my wisdom because the suffering of animals should be a suffrage for sentient rights of animals not to bleed excessively into a slow painful death. I urge all Jews not to let those cows or other animals suffer so grievously at the hands of malefaction just for a petty consecration which proves a hollow point about sacrifice and thereby seek to abolish some Kosher demarcations on the grounds that they are inhumane sacrilege because the ransom of Jesus of Nazareth’s suffering and agony on the cross-rather than his blood as many people beguiled more on physical manifestations of trauma rather than the emotional toil of suffering that bears more incumbent on the human sympathy-consecrates all virtues of circumcision and makes meat ceremonially clean because we serve a miracle-worker God who hasn’t finished his last work yet because more thaumaturgy is in store. The antagonist of history is congealed human superstition filtered through the siphon of protective scurrilous fears and petty vendettas borne of willborne hatred of tribe and division that was the fettle of preliterate societies of hyperdulia because they knew the iconography of Christ and marveled at his miracles but believed too strongly in retributive justice to scare away the herds of the contrite to a monasticism of plight and blight that consecrated  many great human achievements in scholastic virtue and scientific importance but ultimately found relegation before Gutenberg saved history with his seminal watershed invention third only to the second place wheel and the first place advent of human language itself as the most prominent plucky invention of human revitalization and through the salons of France and the dramaturgy of Shakespeare we found an apex of enlightenment that provoked revolutionary ideas not so guarded by gingerly blackguarded varnish of a superstition for the metal tablets that illustrated magically the future for an abiding audience of the past which must have seemed an abominable miracle to the astounded puritans of the times because songs like Love Story (at least the music video) suggests that the song circulated in the past eras of the English Renaissance before electric lighting was invented. We have all to thank for the invention of rock and roll which is an esoteric title for a sizable momentum of catalyzed verve that enchants the planet still with the majesty of the harp and the lyre to glorify God for all eternity and Allah for all the worlds he possesses in his infinite bounty one in the same for the culminated vision of all hallowed prophets with an emphasis on Surah 2 accentuated to the Christian audience even if neglected by the Muslim audience. I am primarily a Christian but I believe Islam is a divine path worth pursuing on a tentative basis but I have yet to outstretch my hands to try and reach the barnacles of a distant world beyond my womb and bereft of my lineage even though I stand united with the Abrahamic faiths that solidify truth and memorialize the superorganism messiah of humanity in collaboration with our celestial hosts to foist the ribbons of the figurative far-flung Pleiades and the harps of the harpricks of the just as distant but transfixing Orion to envelope the earth in sincere repentance before the holy flock of the justifiable truths found in the candor of devotionals and hymns to the immemorial God of all Creation that is the impetus behind every ambition-if only subconsciously in his universal psyche and consciously the catalyst behind every cohesive machination or orchestration of complex human and alien activity but subsumed in the psychism of God-is the idea that we are living indelible elements that constitute his superorganism in the theoplasm that is circumjacent and adjoined to his intentions that he surveys with such nimongue ease that his wednongues go out of style very slowly because his vogue is the ultimate champion against the misprision of militant psychiatric injustice that needs to be rectified by top-down government action to debrief and inform the necessary travail to surmount my challenges and assume a subsidiary role in the government and the ecclesiarchy to shepherd the shepherds and write for a living with a fair governmental stipend and a partially uncensored internet so my fanfare can envelope a broader portion of the world. I issue a humbled but ultimately otiose entreaty that Donald J. Trump, a personal hero of mine, can be a participant to my plevisable situation by appointing a team of people to work with me on the social engineering of the future and most importantly the ligature of the ecumenical cause for aggiornamento of the ecumenical cause of Abraham and all of his descendants because we all abide by that sacred covenant in the broader world that inhabits our sacred rites and rituals. We should also embrace the boundaries of mysticism to fathom the depths of the theoplasm more fully to understand how the firstborn of all creation is the perpetuity of sentience for the revival of respiration for new species yet to come even more beautiful and prosperous than us and those that already exist frolicking in approximated heavens that we might meet upon transmigration as reincarnated wisps of superior worlds of heavens inhabited by the segues of death but knowing no despair. But I stridently believe in the ultimate promise of an ineffable splendor of a real final resting place or a cradle for the supervisors of the isangelous that orbits above our heads and flutters in our considerations as the vast multitude of worlds.with heroic saviors that spellbind the universe together with a stitchwork of mastery of the fraternal bonds that divide some species from others by insuperable bounds of space and time but through the gift of transcended time ushered by alienesque invention and we have thus been bequeathed a new unexpected emergence phenomenon that is aperspectival in temporal terms but always recumbent upon the prolific dance with a jousting destiny toying with us through swarpollock and other machines of sentinels but never tiring their terrier race as subservient to the human imagination ambitious beyond former bounds.
    Thank God we have a president that presides over the defeat of the strictures of warped and intorted hypocrisies of orthopraxy for the candid endeavor of the plain plaid truth of the vibrancy of germane beating the pulp pallor of the nebbich calculations of uxorious plumage plucky in its resolve to serenade our youthful cadets in their continued resolve to chaperoned campaigns of the barnstorm of the obvious for the conclamation of the ultimate victory of history over its worst proclivities that suspend themselves in the tentpoles of time and space as glaring menaces of affliction. The gated entryway to prosperity should be unfurled with majesty and a welcoming grace to sustain cordial deeds and promote fundamental encounters with vagary not with a vagrant fission but an emergent fusion not of hyperbolic atrocity but rather the subsidence of the chisel of directive ambition that serves the greatest causes of the ****** of dignity to transcend the fettle of disarray. The quibbles of the questermongers and the querulous wernaggles of relative impotence matter greatly to the large bulk of a hibernating humanity but when we all awaken to a universal truth that serves a flickerstorm of revolutionary usucaption of the halidom of tomorrow experienced by the foresight of today. We levy the largesse of a collective bronteum that warns and admonishes gently the people behind the curtains that might find objectionable some of the barnstorms inherent to this missive of doctrinaire but soluble missions to save humanity from its worse caverns of idolatry and to anoint the brightest light to beat the most deafening din of darkness that can be imagined by the sterile vapid retreats of privilege into insularity-we fight not for a mercenary cause but for the valorous insurrection sanctioned by the chartered expedition of new frontiers for a newfound freedom found in fundamental vouchsafes of a freer speech in the lyceum of the knowable reality of noogenesis. We should never suborn the dacoitage of the hybridized compromises of the halvork of mandarism but always tolerate the entreaties of amicable jousts of demarche even when combative with a peaceful irenic resolve that is contempered with virility rather than pomp and not even a hint of virulence because the collective world depends on a quorum of well-spoken and considered thinkers adjudicating a bonhomie rather than provoking a collieshangie. The world should not spurn error but castigate it calmly because the worst errors of temerity are remediated by the ploys of the treacle of the imaginary plane of the supersolid convergence of the ulterior with the pragmatic that serves the working class as well as the shepherds of elite institutions because all deserve a fair hearing in the court of commonwealth justice. There is no treachery in universal irenology that special barleychild of serendipity that shields us from harm while providing bulwarks to stabilize economies and sustain the recognition of our wholesome usucaption of newly acquired deeds and merchandise that spawns an ingemination of technological revolution incumbent upon declassification that leads to a resurgent robustness of economic conditions that calibrates properly on the proper alkendur of the hikkle of hype mixed with disdain. We suppose that the remixed panmixia of virtual insanity doesn’t become an affliction because in many ways it might meet abomination but some people lean on the leniency of felicity to swell the coffers rather than populate the coffins of the agreeable pivot between the sustenance of choice and amicable adjustments in economic security meets a run-on sentence of the levies of strain as the imponderables outnumber the certainties of the covert. We populate the future by going back to the past and this is why the movie is so entitled Back to the Future because if you think about it, it requires a recumbent logic of a recursive incursion of the origination of the future visible to the past to create the impetus to sustain the vitality of a resurgence of travel to the future itself one of the most obvious giveaways in movie titles ever devised by the clever. We encounter the timing of the lightning and thus hear the thunder not of the radioglare but the laskerade and serenade of the pulpit of good deeds rectified by the rectiserial visionaries that balk at orthodromics when the artful bypass of nonlinearity is favored for curiosity rather than missives of emissary diplomacy.
The reparations of tomorrow are the guerdon of yesteryear, the heyday of seminal prophecies that consummated a theological brunt that revolutionized the perspective of eagles nest lookouts all around the world to sempiternal decryption of history showcased by the sheen of prophecies now culminated in the effervescent now is a plangent epiphany in the life of a storybook romance with an artful dalliance with a romanticist ideal of an enlisted destiny recruited to cement its own purpose with concrete action without flagging resolve. The ultimatum of history was a faltered filibuster of the listless historian marveling at the prescient telaesthesia of the unknown visibilia that protrude in remontant certainty that the memorials of yesteryear catapult this cause into the fruition of a dated missive of coded bywords encrypted by the chronological clepsammia of allotted time for special occasions when the entirety of space-time folded upon itself to anoint itself champion of the supersolid reality of the surrealism draped over the tentpoles of abundant absolution that excuses the kisswonks of the glaring threats of Wilkes Booth to entomb a heroic titan of imposture as the real effigy of a slain delay of strenuous calculation to appease the Confederate heart wounded by the diacopes of struggle. In this rollicking turmoil of a roiled time of rookery we can celebrate that the amasthenic weight of the historical certitudes of the docimasy of memorialized junctures in time when all was denuded barefaced in the sight of the world to marvel at the rigged artisans of the artistry of furtive skullduggery that imposes no astringent rebukes other than those reserved for departed gyrovagues of hallswallop before their due time and season, we marvel at the irony that an insular vociferous vehemence of clairvoyance predicated on the absolved shrive of history for aborning and alighted apostasies now stands regnant in triumph of the space-time continuum. This might be an overstatement of the herald of a day signified by a transcendent conversion to a theology reified by the rengall discoveries of the intuitive theopneustic truths of the subsultus of vagary and vicissitude that the day when the code was cracked about the fractures of history converging upon the latticework of ephemeral and ethereal cords of cordial embrace of the cryptadia belonging to the “commonwealth of the aliens of Israel” (Eph 2:12) became evident to the masses was the chosen day of encroachment upon the suspicions of the alerted masons of the American Revolution-to ward off with apotropaic beacons of light glinting in lighthouse caverns of repositories of unknown treasuries-the salvation of the human race from the dudgeons of apostasy by the consecrated creed of the newfangled credenda that borrows heavily from lore to make this fabled date stammer as a freckle in a dimpled time that is cute but eccentric in its flapdoons of memorial that shower history with innumerable examples of the numerological importance of consecrating or desecrating a given day based on the furtive skulks of hidden troves of luxuries the elite have always bestowed upon the elect. So maybe this day wasn’t as transcendent as it could have been and maybe there is a resigned awgrudge that such a pilfer of time would make such a resonant dent on the pride of Britain to provoke their invasion and scuttle the American bastions of prideful reconnaissance of the future bestowed by the patronage of elective privilege, but this day will always be canonical in its ability to reprove the critics that the orchestra of history is not a heterochrony with destiny but a very validation of its truth in serpentine convolutions of the bywords of the guarded synquests of aristocracy. May the doubters gleefully jibe at the overstatement of a heroic task on a filibuster against the cretins that foresaw the trudge of ignominy and still willingly stooped to the levels of evil cadges into prurience that they foisted upon the reminiscence of evil protrusions that they might be forever banished to the barathrum for their pitiable deeds to desecrate and blaspheme that historic wallop of synquest to trounce the trinces of an uncertain future gravitated and mesmerized by certain facts known widely enough to provoke wars and enter the pasilaly of universal knowledge enough to warrant further inspection. The wravel of time is elegant and exquisite and all the glory goes to the coryphaeus dengonin that braved infamy and rebuke to soldier on in demarches to dignify the otherwise seedy drab and daft drolleries of pretense that any uncouth man could ever emerge from the throes of absolute defeat into the vindication that history either by intention or by accident is convex and aimed to entrench the vital truth that accidents are convenient but deliberation is calculus that deserves fanfare. It was because of a seminal theory of theology that this day earned its repute in history because it coincided with such rattled seismic events that are turgid with blessed tragedy that is never gloated over but always solemnly commemorated in hymn and deed of charity and eleemosynary duty. The irony is that the Revolutionary War ended on May 12th 1784 which marked the exact time of the Earthquake in California at 5:12AM PST and that fact makes many subscribers to the scepsis of sebastomaniacal delusion postulates more keen on the acumen of the day that history unraveled at the seams and revealed its circular reference to an ennobled prophecy that was the momentum and excuse for many clarigations of force and many other heralded deeds of posture and gentility or savagery and desecration. All that matters now is that we know that history is not a myth but rather a stagecraft of timing that is predevoted by preordained memorials to the tithes of time to cement its own legacy as foresight transcends hindsight in its own largesse but also its brutal slaughter. If the encroachment of tyranny poaches its greatest champion to excoriate an overstated case of mania they will meet the Army of Me and believe me their exhaustion will no know swift end in the halls of a deep dark purgatorial gridlock cell of eternal torment at the castration of their virility or their spayed femininity because I will not be reduced to rubble because of some hapless Facebook posts misinterpreted by the garbled miscegenated heap of albatrosses of invidious lies trying desperately to dethrone my virtues and seek the ulterior misprision of a  forever vanquished hope that resides in the torment of a plagued future negligent of the sacerdotal duty of the guardians to protect history rather than brutally savage it with dismal reprisals that are pangs of the deepest ire that will provoke a choleric rage enough for them to have to barge into my apartment and break down my doors. They will not trespass into my sanctuary city because I inoculate myself hereby from any incursions foreign or domestic on my livelihood for posts that do not hint at instability but only memorialize cute facts of the gawsy rather than the gawky imposture of the morality police trying to entomb me in the glaikery of a forever sunken refuge of homelessness and ill-gotten subterfuge.
Irene S Feb 2010
Oh, the days, the days.
The everpresent tick tock of that ******* clock.
I'll smoke a cigarette to pass the time.
I'll listen to the radio
turn on my stereo.
Pick up my phone,
There's nothing there.
Monotony has got me looking longingly
at my coffee machine
my guitar
my notebooks
Pens and Paper.
Books I didn't write
but love to read.
Applications that are half filled out
pills prescribed
uneaten.
Boredom is the worst drug I've ever taken.
afteryourimbaud Feb 2017
O' I can see that
things are much
clearer now
but somehow
I still don't like it
for your presence
is something
that I miss
seeing you move around
is pleasantly
destroying my ground
like how we have fought
and I thought
that I was an
absolute Messiah
but I was wrong.

You are the moon
that reflects the light
from the everpresent
Mata Hari
without you
my world is dark
and clueless.

Please, don't make another move,
may the constellation
soon collide
so that I can be with you
and shed the brightest light.

Forever.
Aina Oct 2018
Time
A nightingale always one step away from your grasp
Uncontrollable and everpresent
a constant ebb and flow
from one moment to another

Testing you
Always one step ahead

Giving you the fleeting moments that you want to hold on to forever

Yet time runs
Unstoppable and mysterious
It shines like a beacon in the darkness

The most loved force
The most hated tyrant

A nightingale always one step away from your grasp
Alyssa Nov 2020
the scar in the wounded ground
where your grave was dug won't heal
everpresent welt
meridian bisecting my heart

I've kept your cadaver in bed
for exactly a hundred years
wishing you'd wake up with me one day
but I haven't been able to sleep
KathleenAMaloney Sep 2016
Calm
The Remnants of a Ship
Softly Washed Upon an Everpresent Shore
Daylights Peace
A Walk Upon this Tranquil Beech
ladylee May 2015
i thought you were supposed to protect.
How can this much pain be explained with an "I did this because I love you"

if you love me so much give me an explanation.
why

why is this hole in my soul everpresent
demosofpyr Aug 2018
Walking down the beach,
And looking at the waves,

They roll in and out,
In and
Out

Like the ebb and flow of time
They flow,

A great cycle,
Everpresent,
We flow-
And wax-
And wane

People live
They contribute
Find a meaning
Then go on

Like the ocean meaning changes
Ebbs and flows
In and
Out

I must find my meaning
Among these flowing tides,

And when my tide goes,
I too must
Sail on.
Sally A Bayan Nov 2019
() 

I am always there.......never cold, or still...
i float...i roam with you in your journeys,
a torch for your dimmest alleys and
corners...i may flicker, but i never waver
.......i make sure you don't fall
into hidden abysses, or black holes...
my red-yellow flame has been
burning bright, since you were born,
i will fizzle out.....the moment you die...
........I am your God-sent candle,
i bring you clarity...and enlightenment,
everpresent......in your soul.......I am
always there with you.........in your
darkest hours........day or night...


Sally
Copyright Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
September 24, 2019
Ivan Brooks Sr Jan 2018
If only Kunta kanti had a camera phone
He would've captured many untold stories
stories of a sad slave girl sitting all alone
Sad stories of overworked slaves with worries .

Stories of ''*****'' holding the Holy Bible
And in another hand the everpresent whip
There would've been images of souls no longer able
To work from dawn to dusk without a drop to sip .

If only Kunta Kanti had a remote controlled drone
Or a Facebook account to share stories and go LIVE
The world would've seen the master's no go zone
Where he buried the bodies of those no more alive .

Stories of the slave master's cruelty would've gone viral
And on the other hand exposed the ugly slave trade
He would've been seen as a vile man who lacked moral
Maybe a jail sentence because of the video Kunta made .

Maybe ,just maybe if Kunta Kanti had a camera phone
It would've caused a public outcry and a Black Lives Matter's rally
Al ,Martin Luther King III and all Black folks would've gone
The names and stories of all slaves would've been read at that rally!



Facebook #IvanBrookspoetry
twitter @ivanclappers
In the absence of a camera,words speaks more than a thousand pictures.
Maya Feb 2018
you always think
that the sun
is so much brighter
than you will ever be.
that your soft, sleepy smile
can't compare
to its gentle rays.
that it is everpresent
and stronger than you,
a blinding charm,
a stunning light.
have you forgotten that the
sun must always
fall before it rises?
don't you remember
the desert wastes
and scorching summers?
the mightiest of gods
are not
infallible.
Alice Dec 2020
yet the days stopped turning to night
ever stretching
everpresent
I just wanted the sky to fade
Yozhik May 2017
Others have a before, before the aftermath
A past to look back on, a child in the mind
They mourn their lost purity
The fleck in their eye gone flat
The dulling of imagination and sharpening of
The ache everpresent

But I have no before.  There is no moment
No mindset to look to, cry -- bring that back
Bring me back to innocence!  No, for I lack
That yesterday...

yet my today is not dull
And I’m not yet full
Of grey dreams, grey hairs, grey blood
My blood yet runs red
And for each drop I’ve bled
And for each step I’ve tread
And for each word I’ve said
And for each hell I’ve wed
There is no before.  No past to look back on.
No virginity to mourn.

So was I just like this
from the day I was born?
Have I forgotten the taste
Of innocence...
Or have I, for everything, not lost it,
not yet been dragged to life by the sharp kiss of Reality?
Nat Lipstadt Jul 15
June was a disastrous month, with no direction but home,
as if it, home, was magnetized, and every escape/avoidance
attempt was refuted, and the irrevocable demanded my time,
my presence, in the city, where all my troubles lay pus~festering
lesions,  yanking me from my refuge, my peace of mind tattered
with bacillus interruptus

She called June the month of clusterf—ck, accurate and uncharacteristically, unlike her, a violent, ***** epithet

but correct.

July, the month that the gods of Cesar jealously rule,
bring Les Surprises, and the pattern recommences and
the mind surgically thinks calm yet knows no peace,
and sleep is contaminated, the dreams violent and
repetitiously, ******… a sure sign of the tumult within…
the eerie and  the unstable interrupting my writing,
breathing and ever constant denial of the peace afforded by
successfully lying to myself…

a minor action bring flaming, flashing warning lights on
my human dashboard, seemingly unconnected, but perhaps
a single sensor has gone detective… for the uncorrelated
stability of this vehicle, my anti-skid system have been triggered and the dread check engine light is ominously continuously yellow…implying worse is yet to come, before the finality of…red

symbolism us everywhere; inescapable, unavoidable and
irrecoverable and perhaps, alas, the worst - irreconcilable!
all this is the slowest excoriation of excruciating…and it’s
everpresent, omnipresent, like an angered finger pointing
a constant thunderbolt of guilt, which points transfixedly
at me…with the sneers of thunder preceeding its electricity

last year, around this time, the heart was near to dare explode,
with no overt warning that was paid proper heed, now I pay
and pay but there is no specialist available to cure, let alone,
properly diagnose what’s ailing me…even though I know
exactly, I cannot openly confess the origins of My Malaise

I recover old poems, mine, that delve into the mysteries of
solace, and they should  offer comforting direction, but the
sticking place is strong within my chest and all topical
creams cannot penetrate sufficiently to offer relief, let
alone, let alone, let a l o n e, provide an effective curettage of
removal…

symbols come before my eyes in formulas I do not understand,
which renders them worse than useless, for if a formula cannot
begin or end with = sign, what good is it, what good am I,
and now post-reparation, my heart speaks to me volubly
with such troubled sadness, I am nearly and dangerous
close to being a being who is nearly *frightened unto death
Tyler King Sep 2018
I’m jumping at shadows
Again and the night is closing in
With the kind of violence
Only a mother could know

Right and it’s like back in ‘06 when grandpa stomped the gas down on a ‘69 Camaro and he drove straight up into the sky and that’s why sometimes when thunder claps I mistake it for the chorus of a Bruce Springsteen song and that’s why I keep my read receipts on when I talk to the dead cause you really don’t ever know when heaven is gonna open up to you right? And who could ever know us better than the ghosts we choose to carry? What can living hands uncover about us that we don’t already know? So yeah I guess what I’m trying to say is sometimes it’s more comfortable to live inside the act of disappearing rather than being gone, or maybe that I’m a shallow grave and there ain’t enough bodies to fill it, or maybe sometimes a name can’t hold all the feeling in it so you gotta become something else, intangible and everpresent, I’m still working it out, mostly filling space and such, I wouldn’t know how to explain it to you if I could speak my own language, the clouds hang heavy like hearses on summer asphalt, September a phantom fire that spread all through these veins, I’m listening for thunder, a transmission from heaven that says it’s time to come home
Tyler Stoner Dec 2021
Notice the darkness in all things
write splendid words in a coffee shop
the dark spreads big and small
it fills in cracks and sheets of pages
Die in time rogue soldier, pack your bag and leave
My head is void, my thoughts are black
Go towards that warmth and feel content
Evil thoughts are not to be feared but cherished for their truth.
You lose yourself to the light
Its a cold light, that light of nobility
That everpresent do-gooder visage you display
Knave! splay yourself for the world to see.
Relax your sight and let glare hold your eyes
You see, for that is the light.
It is calm and bright and offers sensitivity.
But lo- it is not to be trusted.
A white hot beam of lies to block out truth
A wanting of a certain way that steers you off the path of truth.
Never fall victim to that cold light
for you are evil, and sad, and a creature of the night.
That dark warmth can grow into a monster most valiant
That table could be more crooked
A slanted smile offers more sadness than an honest scowl.
Offer blackness to those you see and use your soul as a shadow to receive cold light
And know
that you are not alone
IrieSide Mar 2023
Persistent delving
into the mystery

an everpresent dose,
of ecstasy
this taste
and recognition
of hidden
meaning

reality,
the recognition
and awakening

the presence and stillness
of all that
Is

find your ground
and witness this mystery
in the present
and everlasting
moment

Awaken,
awaken,

to this meaningless
place
where laws seem to
hold it
together
yet the laws
are of the same
essence

unveil some energy
this uncovering
of vibration
when I remember you, it feels strange.
a feeling of still being in it. as if I never left.
or maybe I was never there
and this everpresent feeling is a feeling of nostalgia
for something that never was.
The Fire Burns Aug 2017
The winds of change always blow,
in a neverending zephyric flow,
sometimes less and sometimes more,
you never know just what's in store.

Sometimes rains comes on with,
or hurricane's forces surpassing myth,
snow occasionally whites out blind,
then the sun comes and we're all fine.

From the mud grasses bloom,
and colors us away from gloom,
opportunities now abound,
pick and choose from all around.

Heat picks up and everything dries,
the only moisture is from our cries,
but this is short and seasons change,
life is cyclical, nothing strange.

Everpresent wind increases,
canceling all the leaves leases,
blowing them into pyres,
we ignite them with sparks of fire.
The Fire Burns Aug 2017
The smell of saltwater
the stench of fish and seaweed,
all blown away by the everpresent breeze,
forming dunes yards from the shore.

Colorful clams burrow after every wave,
garnishing the brown sands
with hues of blue, yellow, red and green,
bleached white scallop shells tumble in the surf.

The sun Burns in on the east beach,
bronzing exposed skin
burning as midday hits
the glare cut with Costa's.

The evening cools and fires start,
bikinis wrap with blankets,
and drinks and stories are shared,
as the spume glows in moonlight.

— The End —