"feigning" poems
love is not made of giving and taking in equal parts
it is not a favor for a favor
i owe you nothing
love is not a compromise reached after long deliberation
it is not hurting on Monday
and healing on Tuesday
love is not touching because you will leave if i do not
it is not feigning naivety
when you see me cry
love is not the untimely squandering of innocence
it is not the suffocating grip of guilt
it is not your unwelcome touch
love is not
love is not
love is not
Jul 10, 2018
Jul 10, 2018 at 11:15 PM UTC
In some sense is our identity at stake?
Is friendship a relationship of knowledge, self knowledge, or has it to do with the imaginary, meaning in some sense who we are is imaginary, and we just construct ourselves through other people..? are we knowing the other, or producing ourselves in that relation through our continuous phases of knowing ? 'Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.' Maybe friendship is an imaginative task that has to then meet reality in some way- as a child hallucinates first what they might be, we have to own who we are first, own ourselves, and then meet reality so we can land somewhere- so that it becomes real, in order to own it, so that we can take part in life.
FRIENDSHIP – fragility of friendship
Is any friendship real?
What is real friendship?
Sincerity, genuine concern, legit interest
–
Friendship is
everything and fleeting at the same time
Jan 17, 2021
Jan 17, 2021 at 10:46 AM UTC
you are inches
measured by miles away
bulldozing oriental food
you don't intend on eating
around your plate
and i am imagining
the translation of asking
for a broom in a foreign language
for when you shatter over small talk
or the first sentence to start with "so"
breaks you into shaking
that i can feel from across the table
and i am thinking now
about tectonics and how you must be daydreaming of being submerged in a book
back home or gripping tightly
to bedsheets begging for familiar warmth
i can tell by the way you are looking at me
that you are feigning our salutation embrace
seconds drowned in ankle deep water and i wonder if you see my hands
as jackhammers and if the reason
why you hug so hard
but only for a moment
is to be as sharp as possible
so that i do not smell your perfume
or notice that you aren't wearing any and why
there are few suprises
in the safe you claim is a mouth
where shades of plush pink
hide a sickly pallor
and i continue to look over
brick & mortar borders
and think how maybe
she is thinking of kissing
but certainly not me
not these apologies nailed to my face
i give myself a moment
of benefitted doubt that you sometimes
picture your frame under mine
and if your clavicles would crack
if i were to touch them
i am sorry that i am a victim of imagination
but i swear i chalk it up
as the forgotten feeling
for when you look up
and the person you are looking
at is gazing directly at you
you have painted yourself
as a mosaic in my mind
as a mess of dust & incoherent words
that all sound like please in my ears
but that doesn't explain why
my hands are the ones that are shaking
when i imagine you
imagining me
in the spaces of yourself
where you've forgotten
you could put someone
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 7:32 PM UTC
there is a monster beneath
the lofty, billowing sheets of my bed
beneath the mattress
the box spring
the carefully crafted wooden frame.
[he lives in the shadows,
in the obscurity there.]
i should feel sheltered...safe,
underneath these sheets,
[like my mother’s arms
tucking me in tight,
don’t let the bed bugs bite.]
but when my arm dangles off my bed,
when i commit that fatal mistake,
i feel a draw to the ground
more forceful than the force of gravity
seizing my hand
paining to pull me under.
and i know it is the monster.
i feel his yearning
for the blood and guts of a child...
his desire to rip me apart
like a lion does his prey.
i take back control of my hand,
wrap my arms around myself,
feigning safety.
for as we all know
that monster could very well
clamber, creep out
climb onto my bed
and swallow me whole.
i don’t know why he hasn’t yet --
perhaps he likes the challenge
of waiting for me
to be susceptible enough to
forget myself
and leave my arm suspended
for more than
just a moment.
i am curled up into a fetal position
paralyzed by my fear.
the anxiety invades my joints
so that i cannot move anymore.
i fall into a fitful sleep
and wake up to sunshine radiating
through my window,
casting the intricate patterns of
my curtains on the rug.
during the day,
the monster cannot survive.
but when nighttime falls
the darkness returns,
my trepidation returns
and the monster is alive.
well, again.
Nov 11, 2012
Nov 11, 2012 at 2:54 AM UTC
Twisted
Burning
Toiling
Anguish
Wrapped,
Concealed
Deep
Beneath
Disconcerted
Contortion
Attempting
Feigning
Effervescence.
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 12:23 AM UTC
Tolerance is a form of intolerance:
public acceptance, private disdain,
the pretense that humanity is one's to allow.
Acceptable operating parameters
are not to be defined by support,
and certainly not by a token indifference.
To tolerate is to glorify one's limits.
Feigning acceptance of the beyond,
true character remains just out of reach.
Better to hate openly and honestly
than veil it in the robes of community;
...better yet, see tolerance for what it isn't.
Feb 25, 2014
Feb 25, 2014 at 8:43 PM UTC
A fueling, flashing fulgent, furnace, fulgurous, frothy, fumes and feathery flakes,
I do not speak of waves of snow, hoary frost, or ice, a cold gelare or even frozen lakes!
Formidable, furrows, fructifying, functioning fruition to foremost fondly found a flaming,
I revel not in such destruction but choices for my naming!
For flowers flow fields forever, forswearing funneling fjords finitely, fire fray’s forests furthermost,
Instructing in the arts of language, for I am your gracious host!
Fakir formulates factious forms fading flummoxed into fury, a fugacious fusible and furtive fleeting feigning furiosity,
A deep ditch dug, tight as pug, wrapped blanket snub though not a flub, all perspicacity!
Finds frosty frore a frozen freezing faction for fusty flaming feasance,
Fomorian fantasy of formidable faggoting, facient up to fancying, fancying, furnaced flesh fluidity finds itself factitivity, facets for fabulists from the faint familiarity,
Relating cold to heat as such, requires but a human touch, apologize I do you see for all my clueless severity!
Fans of all the falconry, who fallow fields of family, falter for a fallacy, falling into infamy as forgone flame frontogenesis, fatigues a Faustian felony, for which fate finds is fastigiated foolery, febrile features featly and yet furiously, favonian fear of fellowship fiendishly, figures foal to fatherly, finally fiddle flinchingly, although not so too furtively;
I finagle in my filigree!
Jun 20, 2016
Jun 20, 2016 at 1:13 PM UTC
.
*At the table of eternal sorrow
sits a fool with a crooked smile,
faking interest in a world obscene
and feigning the mood of yesterwhile.
Couched over bent with quill extended,
he writes his heart with a bitter beat,
floating in the mire of a memory stained,
poised with nib to command the sheet.
Capering words form across the weave
with capricious intent and shadow play,
smoke and mirrors intersect and disperse
whilst his mind carries the story away.*
© Pagan Paul (04/03/19)
Mar 6, 2019
Mar 6, 2019 at 7:00 AM UTC
I know you only wanna loosen the bolts in my head,
But i won't give you the pleasure of seeing me cry in my bed!
But what exactly do you gain?
Deliberately making me go through pain!
For crying out loud, I call you my friend!
So why did you turn abruptly towards the end?
I don't even know who to talk to,
because the you I used to know in black and white suddenly became another hue!
Now my only resort is to put my thoughts in declamation,
Because telling the world what I'm going through'll be like exaggeration!
But feigning not disappointed aint true,
So I'll take this as one of the major lessons to be learnt!
But know this,don't take me for a fool!
If you do, you'll be suprised to know the magnitude of the kingdom I'll rule!
I just don't understand why people take one for granted,
Hmmm,believe me when I say no one knows tomorrow.
Oct 27, 2013
Oct 27, 2013 at 12:25 PM UTC
There's something scary and beautiful
about doing something wrong
There's something scary about almost getting caught, someone nearly finding out
There's something beautiful about getting away with it unscathed and feigning innocence
There's something nasty about knowing its bad
Something terrible about not giving a **** either way
There's something scary and beautiful about doing something you know is wrong
We'll call it exhilaration
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 4:26 AM UTC
"Look!" she said,
Proudly holding
A tiny painted doll;
"I can make it dance!",
She squealed,
Excitement in her voice;
I watched, bewitched,
As the doll danced
And twitched;
Grinning like an idiot,
I joined the dance,
Arms flailing madly;
"Now watch!" she gasped,
Taking a darning needle,
Stabbing repeatedly;
"Urghh!", I laughed,
Bending over,
Feigning pain;
The doll moved faster,
Limbs blurring,
As she made it dance;
"I can't keep up!"
I laughed so hard,
Feeling sharp pain in my side;
I tried to stop dancing,
But my aching limbs
Kept on flailing madly;
She held my gaze,
Her eyes laughing
With manic intensity;
With a final ******
She pushed the needle
Straight through the heart,
The doll slipped from her grasp,
Tumbling to lay beside
My still twitching body;
The last thing I ever saw,
Her reaching into a silken bag
And picking up another doll.
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 11:43 PM UTC
The handcuff bites my wrist
as teeth sink, searing flesh.
A breath, a scent too familiar to forget.
Blind.
Massive palms, razor point
carving canyons down my spine,
blood is the wine.
The burn of beard
feigning consent.
Fistfuls of hair conquering words.
A corpse to rob me of life,
the press of perversity against satin.
Fighting, writhing
satisfaction.
Pain swells in every limb
the wet swell reveal my sin.
Slaps stinging awake
every fiber of clothing still keeping me safe.
The drive of possession
splitting secrets wide,
fingers around throat clenching tight.
Sweat running red,
the rising growls growls resonate in my head.
The raw force bruising
like claiming a slave,
body & mind consuming.
Ferocity leads to frenzy,
my senses rage against me,
The thickness rips,
devours,
conquers my body for paradise.
And I scream in the ecstasy taken.
A clenching incites eruptions,
the pulsing beast flooding.
My purpose awakened.
Jul 9, 2016
Jul 9, 2016 at 4:10 PM UTC
An errant search hath brought me here,
To the rabble rousers feigning an ear,
Complain, complain, yell, scream and jeer,
Seems to me it's not your year?
Label, bait, point your fingers and blame,
Knowing your side has lost the game.
No, America just won't be the same,
Asylum no longer, -run by the insane.
Dec 20, 2016
Dec 20, 2016 at 6:28 PM UTC
love is not made of giving and taking in equal parts
it is not a favor for a favor
i owe you nothing
love is not a compromise reached after long deliberation
it is not hurting on Monday
and healing on Tuesday
love is not touching because you will leave if i do not
it is not feigning naivety
when you see me cry
love is not the untimely squandering of innocence
it is not the suffocating grip of guilt
it is not your unwelcome touch
love is not
Sep 29, 2019
Sep 29, 2019 at 1:28 PM UTC
Ordnance of the wealthy, corrupt
Sculpting the public image.
Garnishing with admiration, cloaking gall.
Mass ****** and grand larceny
Have to, in some way, come clean in the books.
Money is fabricated out of thin air.
Know that you don’t know anything.
When debt is created, pockets are lined
This is the white way in a dark world.
When the receipts are missing, the cash is stashed.
Black must then become white for the sake of tax.
All of this ultimately boils down to charity.
Deplorable or reliable, evil or honest
Easiest way to wash the attic and eyes of the tax officers.
Feigning effigies and respect in the face of media
As they donate to those they’ve stolen from with a hearty smile.
Neither will recognize, but be eternally grateful the other exists.
Just another excuse to wake up in the morning and not feel awful.
Jul 28, 2014
Jul 28, 2014 at 4:51 AM UTC
mea culpa
mea culpa
mea maxima culpa
hear the song of the innocent
hung upon the cross
for the crime he has not commit
forced to plead guilty
by the precepts of society
whilst the crooked
stood at the base
shedding crocodile tears
eyes holding silent leers
feigning innocence
instigating chaos
taking into their advantage
dividedness, our ignorance.
here, the song of the innocent
nears its end
with his last, a doleful verse
"It is done"
Oct 11, 2017
Oct 11, 2017 at 8:08 AM UTC
humming tunes, singing blues, dancing jewels
miss looking for love is dancing all over your leather shoes
over uneven pavement, over failed engagements
i sent your ring back, i couldn't bear to see it, nor sell it
even now, my six-eight time signatures are still bringing
your custom-length tailcoats to a Viennese waltzing
all while your upper-echelon friends keep pretending
like they don't find satisfaction in my subtle mourning
tonight is all humming tunes, singing blues, and dancing jewels
i am still lingering, still humming our tunes, still singing our blues,
i am still feigning ignorance, and my finger is still missing a jewel,
i am still center stage, but someone else dances with you
Jun 14, 2023
Jun 14, 2023 at 2:05 PM UTC
I **** the mood in a sour June,
opulent misery, scorched Earth,
exchanging platitudes with old faces,
full of ******** full of hot air.
Both sides of the fence
at war with themselves,
feigning inner peace and profit
across the beer garden table.
I talk of hangmen and floods,
child brides and dressing gowns,
my hometown under the mythic spell
of collective memory loss.
We have forgotten our place
in the comfort of our urban sprawl;
sirens caterwaul past the high-rise,
past the vacant church with locked doors
and the homeless on the street.
A commonplace emergency,
young male suicides, women *****
in the safety of their homes,
taught a kindness through physical force,
the way the gun drops to civilians
in countries saved through the filter
of television screens; of dust and distance.
I sit and write and think of ****
of old loves, anxieties-
they call me crazy all the while
for not committing to the scene.
Now Afghanistan is a blueprint,
extended diagram of steady-state destruction,
a conspiracy of white man dreams,
farmlands bruised by machines of war,
by the Big Black Boot,
the feeling we have been here before.
All the while, the illusion persists,
car parks filled with smoke, professional escapists
with their 9% lager, bags of tobacco,
and the megalomania of art.
I **** the mood of a whitewashed June,
advertised freedom, a mortgaged Earth,
exchanging currency for a chance of peace,
the zen garden smoker, the looted mind.
Both sides of the fence are collecting bones,
at war with themselves, whilst my eyes are red
and my philosophies, ******
They call me crazy for dreaming of escape,
whilst never leaving the confines of home.
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 9:09 AM UTC
Ignore the veiled murmur beneath
the social graces and party conversation
excuse this bland ****** arrangement
feigning interest in tales worn thin
cruising the same old Memorial Parkway.
This, and the embedded gravel
marking each grim rotation:
expectation
disappointment
anger
the weight of relentless perfection.
Jun 13, 2016
Jun 13, 2016 at 11:38 AM UTC
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh ** sing, heigh ** unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh ** the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember’d not.
Heigh ** sing, heigh ** unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh ** the holly!
This life is most jolly.
3.1k
Paranoia in the dark of night
creating shadows into figures
and creatures from stacks of ***** laundry.
It whispers sounds of footsteps into my ears,
feigning the noise of an intruder.
It makes the darkness malleable
morphing it into a monster under my bed
or a boogeyman in my closet.
Maybe I’m paranoid of the dark…
Or perhaps whatever lurks within it.
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 5:34 PM UTC
all the **** from your mouth that you thought was inspiring
slowly broke me down until my hope was expiring
never opened my mouth to come back with inquiries
just kept my head down and wrote my thoughts in a diary
and you read it, pathetic,
invading my privacy
called me out for feigning sadness and my ‘bogus’ anxiety
cause “im a better dad than mine so shut up and be quiet kid”
“you’re lucky im the head of this dysfunctional dynasty”
well congratulations dad, you’ve earned notoriety
for forcing my respect in the form of compliancy
and disbelieving science and the facts of psychiatry
so i ran away from home to join the freaks of society
where else could i escape from your emotional piracy?
Aug 13, 2021
Aug 13, 2021 at 9:58 AM UTC
You think you know what it's like to give up your heart completely?
To drink your heart break into a shattered glass with your blood & tears?
I blamed myself, I didn't think I was good enough, I was hateful of myself.
**** me, **** you, **** everything.
Tears dripping on my pillow like a broken dream.
**** I fought people thinking that it would fix my pain.
Knuckles feigning to fight.
All the times I texted, called, voice mailed, and messaged and nothing.
You don't know pain.
You don't know Johnny Cash "hurt".
The past haunts me like a ghost and it won't let go.
Aug 16, 2016
Aug 16, 2016 at 11:46 PM UTC
Live by the sun; feel by the moon.
The sun has set; a rainy night in early June.
Numb as novocain,
Emotions pouring out like rain.
I can dream of spreading my wings, just flying away.
But I have to get behind the wheel, take on life’s highway.
Even with roads so dark and dreary, wet and slick…
There’s something calling me into the night, calling me quick.
The promise of feeling again lingers at the end of the road.
After all this time an answer, solution…a crack to the code.
But life never projects a straight shooting path…
Sometimes we are meant to slip, or maybe even crash.
Even so, the road splits…to burn out or start walking?
I take a breath, remember the moon…remember who’s talking.
One foot in front of the other… no sense in hesitation.
The sun will bring about another day, re-genesis of my own imagination.
Misty rain kisses my face as a struggle to walk tenaciously.
Feigning for the strength to accept these obstacles graciously.
One step, two steps; pro, cons:
One foot, two miles; pro, cons…and so on.
Just when my heart couldn't feel much colder,
A warm ray pokes at my shoulder.
Tapping back into reality at hand,
I kick off my shoes and let my toes twinkle in the sand.
The moon is low, now behind me, yet always hanging around.
& Before me the sun making an entrance, glistening against the dancing ocean sound.
An epiphany swims ashore.
Another day: to live, to reflect, & to unveil the reason we do it all for.
Embrace life; stay in tune.
Live by the sun; feel by the moon.
Apr 9, 2014
Apr 9, 2014 at 1:20 AM UTC