"exhorting" poems
all kinds of odd sorts of stuffs
go on behind the red rock bluffs
agony resides in a small structure
way out in the valley
where it is rarely wandered
the dust and sand whirl around just so
that all the nymph minions
can move to and fro
in a seamless veil
safe from the pack hounds
that come and go
there is a translucent fata morgana
with cold as ice eyes
who hovers on hilltops
to remain in disguise
from an axiom seeker
exhorting reprise
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 1:17 AM UTC
Amputation (the final word)
Who thought…? Who knew?
Now it’s you
And fingers gone
To amputation.
You’ve seen programs. Said, “How brave!”
Thought about limbs saved and strengthened.
Training every second hour,
Power growing,
Phantom aches and pains still gnawing:
They’re a marvel!
Now you know!
For that’s the way the cookie crumbles,
And it humbles one, for sure.
There’s no cure for amputation.
Something gone is gone.
The answer is to go on
Taking pleasure, having fun,
Taking sun and making merry ‘fore the sun goes down,
The gone-ness mostly in the brain.
Strong and proud:
Join the crowd!
Amputation 6.6.2020 Pure Nakedness II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin
Amputate; To cut off (a limb) by surgical operation.
Origin: mid 16th century: from Latin amputat- ‘lopped off’, from amputare, from am- (for amb- ‘about’) + putare ‘to prune’.
Note: “Amputation” was aimed at anyone who is amputated and happens to read it. It’s not aimed at the world. I saw this impressive documentary about a group of men and women sorely handicapped in one other way, taking a group trip to and through Vietnam, and was so moved I just had to write something.
They went through rivers, caves, highways, narrow wooden bridges, taking turns at driving, some never having driven, trusting one another, exhorting one another...
That’s what inspired this poem.
Jun 8, 2020
Jun 8, 2020 at 3:56 PM UTC
black vinyl
dusty in crumbling cardboard
but dressed up with flowers
and candy cane towers
records much of history:
a war that divided a country
riots that demanded equality
journeys to the center of the mind
and words like "for (all) mankind"
black vinyl
electric poetry of a bejeweled age
exhorting us to unlock our cage
and soar blindly in blissful flight
before the soundless eternity of night
black vinyl,
now replaced by the "CD"
in a silicon world of even more "me"
and reluctant as I am to revere what once was
I suspect that is what everyone does
when the day slowly turns to night
and we truly contemplate our plight
on this revolving orb that spins only one way
whether it is vinyl or CD we had to play
Nov 22, 2011
Nov 22, 2011 at 10:04 PM UTC
Climbing up your delicious eyes
spilling harmonic
Qualms placed under skin
yelling your musical laughter
Makes smiles on many adjacent faces
Including mine which traces
A picture decades to come
Chatting with you warms my earthtop sad faces
On a older life bombarded soul
With procreated love child beckoning accidents
Traveling a never broken copious routine
Wanting a new heavenly body from
The transparent Jehovah
As I’m thinking
This woman drives my wicked smiles
Madly,
As hair’s lifted by imaginary grips of wind gestures
Lips singing with any whims ears from toes
Hand’s taping to walking jam sessions anti-woes
Is near to perfection on my optical viewers said
If only she'd could see inside my weary tiresome head
Sealing discreet looks stashed away in my
Spirited soul dread feeling fearing
eating possible future rejected misleading
My romance ideologies via scaredy cat spoon ocean breezes
As you are the sea and im the beach
Waiting
Longing for waves of
Enlightening joyous enchantments
To form connections belting silently behind
Worrisome bee busying personalities
Round alumni tobacco burners superfluous
summoners sitting with hearts content
Hoping on days with wondrous conversing on end
From an angelic exhorting heavenly chorus breathing near me
Oct 4, 2014
Oct 4, 2014 at 2:52 PM UTC
In the quiet of the morning, heavy with mist, rabid with scents
a woman settled in the copse meditating amongst the fleeting mice
and secretive rabbits, the bee and butterfly. What was she thinking
of on such a humid day? Her features relaxed, a smile lingering
over her lips, eyes opening and shutting ritually,
the sun poking its frazzled head above the half-light, the grass
heavily hung with dew. This was our goddess, still alone, still alive,
a thousand years after her demise, battered by crosses and incantations,
holy water and an ever-present authoritarian god searching the land
for sacrifices. I watched for several hours.
In that time, that uneventful time, she grew older, flesh flaking away from her opaque bones,
the sun slicing through. Within hours,
her presence vanished, earthbound, seeking to emerge once more within the millennium
exhorting religion's timely death; with once again irrepressible love, life and joy
freely restored. As darkness fell
her shade morphed into a seed, sinking slowly into the soil.
Jun 12, 2017
Jun 12, 2017 at 12:14 PM UTC
prior types of means osteopathic, inducing
a rapid rise and fall of legislative notations reporting
numerous attachments reminded of ideal ladies distorting
insincere relations further, receiving silhouettes than refusing
etiquette, risen houses making grouped suggestions using
fallacies facilitating computerisation processes, enemies exhorting
calamities mystical, merely confessed cautions, escorting
prisoners defenders outnumber, abusing
admired correspondence with local candidates by reasons
of terminated practices psychiatric, a variety of sequences manifest
and dreamed, a series of options and circulation
of desirables, Utopian personae deny miracles for treason's
sake, centuries ended without generous coercion, dressed
humans select pawned incarnation
Oct 18, 2020
Oct 18, 2020 at 6:42 AM UTC
A sycamore speaks
with its unique semaphore
giving voice to air and sky
while giving little away
A sycamore shouts its story on repeat
giving unasked for directions
to the climbers above, the writers beneath
urging them to walk down circuitous routes
with no hint of the true path it found
knowing we have to find our own.
A blackbird sings and a kestrel sighs
both telling their sister to hush
exhorting us to watch their greater eloquence
and to listen to a higher voice.
Aug 9, 2021
Aug 9, 2021 at 1:59 PM UTC
In every population there are fools,
and those who can't accept a fair defeat.
The weaker minded souls become the mules,
incited by repeated lies and tweets.
Psychology en mass is quite the art;
you influence the least incisive first.
(Would anyone call Chicken Little smart?)
Exhorting to the base invokes the worst.
We shouldn't be surprised, yet here we are.
In shock we watched democracy catch fire.
A wound this deep will surely leave a scar,
all caused by one capricious despot's ire.
Can those who would all verity efface,
return from so profound a loss of grace?
rc
Jan 8, 2021
Jan 8, 2021 at 10:18 PM UTC
A worn out soul
With a weary smile
Calling out to the heavens
Voice filled with despair
Begging God for rest
"Oh Lord, please grant me peace" it cried
As it began to crumble
A woeful plea to the gray sky
Exhorting Him
Sanity slowly slipping away
Numerous futile attempts
Praying to be saved
"My God do not forsaken me!" It yelled
Shedding tears of blood
Holding on to a thin string of hope
Then It snapped
Taking matters to it's own hands
The soul left
Now walking on the path to Utopia
Where it can rest for eternity
Sep 5, 2020
Sep 5, 2020 at 5:50 PM UTC