"feigns" poems
He is the tumultuous ocean,
The twisting, rolling sea
That feigns a certain gentleness
Until its rage breaks free
So vast and so unending
And limitless in worth
I took him once for granted
As I wandered through the surf.
Without the tumulus ocean
Without its rolling seas
Without the tide that tosses me
And never sets me free
The arid, fallow earth would crack
Beneath my burning feet
Reminding me of which I lost
And dried up with the heat
But salt leaves me to languish
No sweetness he can quench
Time will only tell from here
If love can fill this trench.
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 11:47 PM UTC
PART II: A GLASS CEILING DRIPPING WITH BLOOD
Mohanad Younis, of Gaza City;
Where the sand is stained with blood
As the world feigns pity.
Broken families, unspoken tragedies –
The order of everyday life.
He was born amidst chaos and strife,
To a divorcing husband and wife.
If life were lived in peace,
This dissolution would’ve been a release.
Not much more, not much less –
A family’s lore, a decision to digress.
In war-ravaged land, however,
One needs every helping hand,
Especially a soul that was so clever.
Such a curious, voracious mind needed to understand;
A furious, rapacious search,
Unexplained conundrums to unravel and unwind.
Why do we exist?
Why do we fight and resist?
Is it worth living with all these scars on my wrists?
Does anybody outside Palestine care?
Will they keep on watching?
Or will they be unable to bear?
Of this and much more Mohanad must’ve thought,
As he sat at the Marna House Hotel,
Smoking cigarettes, freshly bought.
A student at al-Azhar, a mild-mannered pharmacist,
A prudent man who would have gotten far.
An admirer of Bassel al-Araj, another victim of oppression –
An inspirer, a brother who alleviated his depression.
Hunted down and killed by the IDF,
Another pacifist murdered for being an activist.
One figure of many who died;
One of those who did not want to hide.
Mohanad wasn’t a resistance fighter –
He felt that such persistence did not make their burdens lighter.
Instead, he wished to make his mind brighter,
And perhaps have family of his own.
He was in love, and wanted to get married,
But life was rough, and warranted a future far more harried.
The final twist of horror?
Having the intellect to apply for University,
And deserving the respect needed to obtain a reply,
Yet not being allowed to leave the city.
That is the news Mohanad had received,
Hopes and dreams suddenly deceived.
Denied a right to education
Because he was born on the wrong end of a cruel fabrication.
The glass ceiling, dripping with blood,
Swallowed his hopes whole like a flood.
Sep 10, 2018
Sep 10, 2018 at 10:04 AM UTC
Corpses proliferate in soaring violence; heirloom of franchise and eminence— perish in erosion.
Timid denizens of derision, cynicism in roaring silence — optimism’s paling vapor—commodity of Indecision, our halcyon days forgotten.
Chosen token of audacity; the onyx maladroit feigns, prevaricating beneath the Sacred canopy.
Etudes of apathy; attrition unlamented; streams of guile— quixotic squall conversely merge — veiled conceit, eloquent arrow of equivocation.
The policy of attenuation.
Treason’s vine obscured beneath the blind surf of consent.
© 2014 & 2016 W. S. Warner
Jul 20, 2014
Jul 20, 2014 at 3:12 PM UTC
To behold the daybreak!
-Walt Whitman, Song of Myself from Leaves of Grass
In days like this one,
when rain drops so light
& everything dips
into weeping grey
my sanity longs for memories.
My sanity longs
like impulsive recalling
of plummeting sadness
in greying day
sashaying mournful recollects
from sunrise to daybreak.
Remembering vanishes
in the joyful marrow of life.
There, forgetting lives.
Tell me the last time
bliss comforts your soul.
It is a transient tick
too stiff to evoke.
What about the last time
pain feigns your saneness.
Memories turned into bullets
slitting shrapnel
warping into my soul.
Happiness lasts for a second.
Sadness, a lifetime.
Tell me how to get rid
the hurting clout of ache
existing as a blunt fragment
benign yet reminisced.
Daybreak pours so hard
and my sanity like a waning light
crawls back in a miasmatic cave
along the river known
to be a home of a witch
& her cursing narrative
of throwing silver saucers
making her a spotless shadow
through vestal times
never again a thriving spirit.
Forget Blake. Forget Whitman.
Only in daybreak
where everything
churns into life,
my sanity shrinking back
collapsing
into surreal gaps.
Here & there,
my sanity longs for memories.
Dec 9, 2016
Dec 9, 2016 at 10:31 PM UTC
*I am the hermit who lives in my head.
I gather...
I analyse...
I stow away all that I've learnt.*
Because when the wind would blow
and the earth wouldn't understand.
When the world would tremble,
shaken by man's ruthless hand.
*I am the hermit who lives in my head.
I listen...
I keep...
I stockpile in the shadows.*
Because in my blood exists grudge...
And my bones, weary from despair.
My skin screams exhaustion
and my body feigns to care.
*I am the hermit who lives in my head.
I overthink...
I hide...
I hoard all my thoughts.*
Because the walls have ears
and these pages bear eyes.
What my heart truly knows...
Is that your mouth tells only lies.
Aug 8, 2016
Aug 8, 2016 at 10:14 AM UTC
Here lies a continuation of being.
View it as scenery indifferent to the weather channel.
A silent, exponential inverted sunshine euphoria
Warming the deepest letters of the soul:
U and I swaying outside linear cubic conventions corroded-
We sway like flowering Earth Resonance blooming as foreign
[Sensations]
A toe-curling in the chest stretched intimate at the highest hour
[Movement]
An unconditional syncopation of the heart and mind echoing a
Design as Liquid Resonance - I am that which you are.
“I could cry solid tears. Where have I been all these years,” says
You to reflected I rippling
[Perception]
Never spoken, only written as an abstract entity aware of vibrations
Tethered to timeless stories never read, only felt as I and U in
Reflected them, the missing strangers with a need to be found
[Immortalized]
Twisted eyes, encumbered lips, everflowing knitted letters stuttered. Kissed. Growing from itself a rehearsed mantra embroidered pattern discord. Mythical. The murmuration of a serenade’s evil dermis that feigns thick to tooth and claw, but silences to love as the overture.
Wide-eyed, you and I are a nascent reprise of words cloaked in inked pages turning in the billowing wind.
"Read them to me."
So I read in heavy rain.
From Monday to Sunday.
May 8, 2016
May 8, 2016 at 1:20 PM UTC
Rippling outward till the waves stop.
Dropped from a 5ft 10" skyscraper with a plop.
Perfect circles in precession,
stretching into regression
The placidity is eerie
as it returns with no sign of it's companion
The next one cast did a flip flop
across the liquid table top.
Those ripples again.
As if this lake had a brain,
it feigns space to detain
the stone and share knowledge arcane.
The last one I decided to swap
I traded the lake's ripples for ones in my pocket.
Its a reason to return to the lake
The reason behind the pebble's wake
Scientifically, I know the make.
How is done, now why is at the stake.
,
May 24, 2013
May 24, 2013 at 9:33 AM UTC
Sun feigns heat
in a clear slate of blue above;
I gaze upon pale, brown hills and fields
through the smoke of my breath
wishing it would at least snow.
There was talk of cow-tipping
when I was in fifth grade,
but cows would've broken their necks.
Ground covered in frozen grass
is no comfort for fallen cows at 15 Fahrenheit.
Our small lake
transformed into a debating ground for skaters and hockey players,
each vying for control over the weekend's
primary source of entertainment.
(The dreadful alternative: afternoons shopping with parents.)
When it finally snowed, a wonderland was made,
a knee-high, get-out-of-school-free card.
We charted expeditions in corn fields, wooded creeks
and stone-colored barns that were beguiling in the white
of Chadds Ford pastures like untended English castles.
Woods like a Pollack of burnt sienna and white,
their only sound is weight of snow bearing down on limb.
Beyond those whispers, just a roaring silence
when I'm still as ice fingers
trying to touch the ground from the roof.
The cats of Baldwin's Book Barn nap easily within,
as we dig for a pearl amongst makeshift shelves
full of hard-bound reads for snow-bound youth.
These felines, grown, need not the words,
but the pages themselves for fine beds.
A blue-white glow from outside casts a cold light,
illuminating prints of Helga and Christina's World,
a reminder to all who live down the road.
On such a winter day, I didn't care to remember
that soon there would be Spring kittens in the books,
and a lake full of children's swimsuits.
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 8:16 PM UTC
I'm about to slip
quietly into sleep
when the cat,
her food bowl bare
and the drink dried up
like Mojave,
hops on my back
and feigns affection
her sharp claws
stabbing here & there
in a soft attack
as she carves out
a cozy perch
in my flesh.
I lurch up
grunting and fumbling
pull the short chain
on the night table lamp
and in the pale green glow
pad off into the kitchen
scouting for Cat Chow
and a measure
of peace
Sep 19, 2012
Sep 19, 2012 at 6:46 PM UTC
Laying on my back I watch the ceiling,
the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars begin to fall one after another-
as I regard my world crumbling from the bottom up
and the sky feigns my view to take me back
to picturesque memories of childhood in the summertime.
A ball flying towards the power lines in
the action of a cul de sac neighborhood game
And countless bending limbs towards a mailbox driveway
To saftey.
The verdant grass on the ground encompasses a happy body;
A ball of innocent energy laughing in the perfection of a moment
That wasn't captured on camera.
Road trips to New York in the camper
Playing music that I didn't know I would be holding close to my heart,
Living in time that went by much slower than it does now-
Forever joking to daddy are we there yet?
The sand dune hills never seemed so big
As they did when I built sand castles in the gritty beige of my grandma's land.
The bristling field never felt as fresh
As the first times I ran out in them,
Laughing in the perfection of another moment
That was not captured on camera.
Back home, when grandma and grandpa still lived with us,
I run around in tiny clothes in my tiny body
Planting flowers in pots with my grandma in the warm summer air
And hitching lawn mower rides as my grandpa mows the lawn.
Held in his firm arms I am laughing in the perfection of a moment
That was not captured on camera.
I can feel the golden light of happiness still inside me-
Bubbling and giggling as innocence hides somewhere inside my maturity.
I watch the ceiling above me fall back into place
Gaze at the stars flowing back into their given position
As if they'd never moved at all,
I lay here as my mind reaches back to when it wasn't hard to be infinitely happy,
To moments of innocence that bring me back
To safety
While I laugh in the imperfection of a moment
That is me now.
Mar 8, 2014
Mar 8, 2014 at 4:34 PM UTC
Casual catastrophe
The hollow yearn of death’s widow
Bites the pavement on a thunderous night
For crippled rattles to ignite
The insidious ruin
Rides a blanket corpse into the liquor store hold up
Feigns apparitions for the madness
Distilling cruelty as a hand’s reach for addicts
A sleeper savant
Stretches his face across barren lust
A killing grin between rotting tusks
That rent the light out of a ****** still blood
Devouring maggots
Of the ignorant, the arrogant, the cruel
Kiss the blisters on the swollen hearts
Of starving nations left to tear themselves apart
Jan 9, 2014
Jan 9, 2014 at 2:48 PM UTC
I weep for you, sweet angel.
So alone and isolated.
So scared of what the future could hold,
Or perhaps what it couldn't,
That you preferred to die rather than live.
I wish I could have held you.
I weep for you, brother.
Who lost your sibling.
Who regrets every cross word
And every assault and insult,
With the bruised eyes and torn soul
Don't blame yourself.
I weep for you, mother.
Who loved you baby more than anything.
Who laughed with him,
And cried for him,
And now battles with every ghost of a memory.
He loved you too.
I weep for you, father.
Who dreamt of your child's future,
Who imagined he would be a father someday too.
Who feigns strength for your family
But wants more than anything to break down too.
You tried your hardest.
I weep for you, world.
Who watched as an angel fell.
Who observed the skies opening for him,
Who watched the heavens pour out.
Who cradles him now, tighter than ever.
Hold him gently, for all of us.
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 3:28 PM UTC
soft soliloquies cannot touch me
for the mountain tops have blurred in the stratosphere
and still deny their shadows from the fog
and sink like marionette martyrs to the ocean floor
and sway refused forfeit flags painted as seaweed
--
stiff joints acost
and above, an albatross!
roams discreetly through the sky
yet all hell's dead
wretched through molten lead
succumb to false alibi
(and fate's caress never questions why)
--
your
bamboo words
and
tourniquet hands
bear loss of convicted man.
and
piano strings
like
forgotten things
have cost all the contraband.
--
--oh, but sweetly they had fallen
the petals which forgot the sun
and faces the moon while acrobats
form the constellations of the sky
and so— so weakly it had passed us by
but yet had still seen the sails of clouds
adream of every lost sunken shroud
ever shining by.
--
defeat me, hang
a noose from every ceiling
--and maybe i'll change my mind
or faint like festered wounds
trailing down the hallways
--and maybe i'll forget the way
you made me see it
clearer than mirror rooms
and moulded like day
(your lungs full of clay)
breathe me out or
sheathe it in
complete me, hang
an emptied world from every airway
to rust all the ventilations
to flood all the irrigations
and condense into the black hole
you left behind.
--
words called windows walk on sunday lanes
toward sideways tree roots with hallow'd veins
and iced over stairways that have no name
or excretories called inventories that fell on dead ends
or ghouls that catapult just to make amends
then rise from idle tidal waves with the bends
perhaps even holes called souls can confine
and mists like cysts fail to intertwine
and fall away as heaven feigns to maligne.
—and oh, how sullen scenes do compromise
the way our flesh restlessly burns and fies.
Nov 18, 2012
Nov 18, 2012 at 6:34 PM UTC
Gold's untarnished yellow feigns
dawn's igniting of soft edges behind a mountain cloud,
or sunset's beacon flashing reflected from home's far window.
A diamond's clear flash imitates
bright glints of blinding sun across the afternoon shore,
or a star's brilliantly precise ray through eternal night.
A sapphire's velvet marine resembles
the limitless horizon between azure sky and tropic sea,
or the vertigo of fathomless water below suspended feet.
An emerald's tantalizing green mimics
the vividly penetrating beam warming a rainforest's singular tree,
or the disarmingly beautiful captivation of a strangers eyes.
A rainbow necklace of delicate gems pales
on a summer afternoon porch shaded by stately trees
and a butterfly sanctuary of whimsical flowers,
calm breezes stirring blue shadow leaves
brushing intimately on white shiny paint.
By accident these jewels mirror life's ephemeral essence
Grasping for this illusion to hold fast the spirit
distracts one from living.
One can cling to stones for one's life,
Or
One can live moments for infinity.
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 10:42 PM UTC
Forever and ever and ever
my mind my raconteur
holds trust in indecision
and wastes another year
As in youth immortal
oblivious to life's change
I squander all my arrows
on targets out of range
There and there and there
opportunity taunts the soul
while here I stand unmoved
as time takes its toll
And soon out of pocket
a life frayed at the seam
as this man in the shadow
feigns the primal scream.
Nov 9, 2012
Nov 9, 2012 at 2:36 PM UTC
A bee whistles past his ear
He feels the sound . . he doesn’t care
Averts his eyes in case there’s others
Raises his hands to fix his hair
Divorced from reality somewhat: from feeling.
Or at least extremes of:
Never exceeding amounts unfeasible:
Pertaining to the limits thereof:
Plateaued at governable levels in present:
Exempt from enth
Kept in check
His whistle wet & he’s well fed
Real words strewn along the ground
Discarded leaves fallen
Left decaying: mostly forgotten
His pants look to him pantaloons
For the good they do representing him
the man chases an end necessary; resenting
not waning, he feigns stoicism
then his creeping cynicism clouds his eyes
‘u know what buddy, u can honestly get ****** he says ‘the 1st world cries the loudest; but is softest. Thinks it is toughest; it is weakest, smoothest, creamiest.’
‘u know what buddy u are honestly right’ he says to himself not wanting to admit to himself that he agrees with himself,
but despite this all, his gaze’s focus still lowers
the edges become softer
& he does what he does
he wraps up in his blanky
with his bottle; safe under cover
among some big ******* to feel warm
but the swarm of bees they circle
twitching fever; rippling waves
hope to god that they don’t sting you
as u hide & feel their sway
lapping closer swooping hawk like
collective wind; they rearrange
and then
they push left !swoop! they raise u up,
( a cloud of black and brown and yellow arches and hums, hums like a razor on steroids, seeping potent purpose, pushing, coming: close your eyes for impending hell)
leaving bumps that swell and burn, they grab, they encase, they consume, they drive, they raise and they push
and they deliver u
and u obey them
and u relinquish; u fold enslaved
they push u forward !the buzz! it wakes
it makes u groan,
u can’t ignore it
u know u need it
u’ve got to do it
u need to go
toil on & reap the spoils
another set with the walking beige
go here go there: be happy
u have no reason to not this day
just keep on going, mate my mate
lulling deep into the beige
Jan 19, 2013
Jan 19, 2013 at 2:09 AM UTC
Some nights I find you
on the ceiling, while I lie in bed.
Your face looms over me,
a haunting memory.
Some nights you're in the blankets,
the same ones you once touched,
and I swear,
they still have your scent.
Some nights, truly bad nights,
you reside only in my mind.
Thoughts of you intertwine with my nerves,
they send my system into overdrive,
they attack so forcefully,
I am left gasping for air.
Some nights,
it's crippling flashbacks,
glasses of warm milk
while curled on the bathroom floor;
my attempt at self care.
Some nights,
sleep feigns peace before transforming
into horrid nightmares.
Tears spill, screams emitting,
I drown in vivid images of you.
Some nights,
I cannot decide whether being awake
or being asleep
will cause more pain.
(d.d.b)
Dec 25, 2015
Dec 25, 2015 at 8:20 PM UTC
Gray is the season that withers
Blossoms dulled by satin frost
How they sadly fall
Cruel chill, it breaks them all
Rest, rest immortal doves
While winter feigns treasures lost
Crystal brooks still as dusk
Mirror figures warm at heart
Oaks over icy knolls
Sprawling old souls
Flutter, flutter leafless arches
For that single spark of life to start
Blushing through frozen woods
Morning hints at splendor, frail
A starling in the snow
Sleeping on her bough
Wake, wake feathered angel
Sing sweet trills of the nightingale
Feb 2, 2014
Feb 2, 2014 at 2:48 AM UTC
Our hands are lovely together
Not because of their staunching similarity
Or your smooth cracks
Or my chewed up nails
I don't mind the way
Yours move across my thigh
The temple of God
And then find their way into truth and goodness
Like trunks of two elephants
And you whisper 'interception'
I giggle to myself
You're raising your eyebrows at me
And in that expression
I forget who we are
But what's beautiful about our hands
is the Cimmerian darkness that lies between our clasp
It masks the depravity
And feigns the glory
Guarding hell at the edges of earth
The record stops
I fall asleep in your lap
As you study my face
Caressing my hair
And holding our shadows all at once
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 1:13 AM UTC
The puzzle of temptation,
some don't heed issue at all.
Surrounded by a gleaming ocean,
indulging is the water's call.
As the waves roll in,
a bright sailor's sky feigns delight,
what is promised tomorrow
by today what is in sight.
Temptation can pull you
to a raged and stormy sea,
it is not until you are in the middle
you realize you are not supposed to be.
Feb 27, 2017
Feb 27, 2017 at 2:50 PM UTC
They cage the animals at night
And once again when sun is bright
In cages gray and bleak and tight
Until the strong have lost their might
Until the free have lost their fight
Until sharp eyes have gone to white
Oh to be free like soaring kite
To fly away to heavens height
But steel bars block futile flight
And nature weeps at such a sight
While man continues with his blight
Yet feigns blind eye to their sad plight
And will not dare to see the light
That a caged life is never right.
May 15, 2013
May 15, 2013 at 12:17 AM UTC
Annona feigns sleep.
Marcus has bored her
With his talk of the
Campaign; droning on
About this aspect
And that and not a
Mark on his body
To show for all the
Dangers he says he’s
Been through. The flowers
He brought lie on her
Lap. Marcus gets up
To leave the room. I
Have forgotten how
Tired you must be,
He says looking at
His wife lovingly,
And me chattering
On and you wanting
Your bed and sleep, he
Adds craftily and
Smiling to himself.
Amy waits outside
The open door; she
Pretends to show her
Disinterest in
It all, holding back
A smile, knowing her
Mistress feigns well this
Tiredness and sleep.
Make sure your mistress
Gets to her chamber
Safely, Marcus tells
Amy bluntly and
Giving her his cold
Eyed stare. She nods and
Bows and watches him
Walk away with his
Usual swagger
And toss of head. If
You knew how I lay
In your wife’s soft bed,
She mutters, seeing
His figure go from
Her sight, how it was
I who kept her warm
And whom she kissed and
Made love to while you
Were away on your
Campaigns, you wouldn’t
Swagger so; would not
Seem so confident
Of your manliness
Or your wife’s fond love
And devotion. She
Smiles and gazes in
At her mistress who
Still feigns sleep, the red
Flowers lying on
Her lap like broken
Promises and frail
Tokens of lost love
After a long fought
Campaign. Amy stands
Waiting patiently
For her mistress to
Open her eyes and
Wishes her master
Were long gone; she wants
To share and sleep in
Her mistress’s bed
And that love again.
Dec 29, 2013
Dec 29, 2013 at 4:45 AM UTC
Time's clock ticking, drops
infinity into the rust of bedside tables.
In Bed-Stuy, in D.C, dear Baltimore. And you too,
Ferguson.
East Coast warriors raise high heavy heads.
Break loose shackles, blushing muscles. Veins
of ancients pump through us.
Now we cry for peace. Resilience and time
*********** out from present pleasures. T.V screens.
Longing hours contemplating
forgotten dreams. Nightmares,
trickle blood out of nosebleed section patrons.
An operatic multitude of greed
and insanity. Corrupt millionaires
spit down on struggling, stuttering
lost and alone
actors, poets
the good politician.
The neighborhood bully weeps after swatting a fly,
and immortality feigns existence. Be here
now death, let them know the coming of peace,
spiraling black holes
of emotion and pride and dead boys.
Broken time continuous, and hearts.
9-11, 2001 rocked a nation,
what rocked you?
Dec 10, 2014
Dec 10, 2014 at 9:49 PM UTC
our time in this universe
is ridden with a luminous oddity
for light is a rarity
in the biorhythm of the macrocosm
the normality is jet
nothing
inky, obsidian slate
such liquid void drips laboriously
completely free from ejecting effort
like beads of pine sap among evergreen needles
seeping in a slowed, oozing, endless rush
at gravity's inevitable, gentle tug
eventually it will consume the cosmos
like maple syrup poured atop a whole-grain waffle
primarily, the charcoal sweetness fills
the quite purposeful lack of solidified batter
but then greedily begins to swallow the flaky bread
it bleeds
spurting with immense weight and impossible magnitude
until each limb dissolves
drifting away in the acidic salt of onyx crimson
what would I see at this inevitable state?
I am in a cave
open to the same air as the peaks of mountains
and it is so dark
I see more color with my eyes closed
my vision feigns my mind
I almost believe the expected:
the twirling endless cluster of shining cream
spiraling above my head
Jul 19, 2014
Jul 19, 2014 at 3:55 PM UTC
Fumbling fingers over premature *******
The hardships of new men
Buttons and clasps, too many to handle
All but means to an end
She fakes smile as, he peels off her shirt
He feels the jump from down below
As she pushes down her skirt
So he rises to the occasion
Her cheeks redden as the curtain falls
Laying back, sweet kisses rain down
A moment so pure when nature calls
Cries of pain or pleasure?
Moment frozen in eternal time
His eyes on hers. Reassuring her
That their love is not a crime
She feigns a smile as he holds her close
The end is near, for him at least
She bites her lip as he confides n her
His face a hilarious picture of a beast
Falling out of her, they dress quietly
The love in hiding, lust under the bed
She lays there a second longer
He smacks the sheets playfully, cheeks turning red
Caught in a memory of when she felt lust for the first time
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 7:55 AM UTC