"fettering" poems
I have always accepted you.
I have watched you take and take and take.
You've taken my family,
hell, you've even taken friends.
Suicide. Cancer. Disability. Age of Old.
I've seen it all.
I've seen you in the pain,
the Love that is overwhelming as people weep over you.
Once have I cried because of you.
One funeral.
A boy, my age, murdered by his own hand.
A classmate. A friend. Dead.
And I watched, as people wept at his funeral,
and how easy it was to pick out false Love.
How untrue they were.
You take, and you hurt, dear Death.
But you show the reality,
our truest forms,
our deepest souls,
the Love buried deep down,
how real you make us.
But I see you,
even in things you haven't yet taken.
I see you in the trees,
as they turn to feathery golds and crimsons, oranges crisped as they crunch underneath our toes.
I see you in the morning,
as birds flutter amongst my window
fettering amongst the trees.
I see you in the river,
horses that run rampant across my memory,
as I long to just run away and ride,
to feel the wind rush through the curls upon my brow.
I see you in my mother's eyes,
in her laughter and smile.
Her eyes when she is pained, how hurt she has been, or as she dawns things anew,
or when she cries of the loss she has grieved.
Giggles and joy erupt from her lips, as she dawns on the silly things her father did.
The curve of her lips, as she remembers her past, what Time has given her and what has passed.
Oh how she looks of her parents,
how kind I remember them,
always full of Love, even after I have seen them leave, depart the land of the living and go onto the gates of Heaven.
For they live in memory,
and that is the gift you have given.
You have given us peace and memory,
and for that I thank you.
Most are angered by your name, oh Death,
but I?
I am not afraid for you,
and rather,
I welcome you.
Take me when you will.
I'll gladly take your hand.
I thank Time for what he has given me and countless others,
but you, I thank for the bargain of Time you have given each of us.
It is a treasure,
the memories we are able to hold dear
and the peace we don't have to fear
when we take your wrinkled hand,
and step into you fully,
without a pain left to feel,
because that pain is left in our world
as we step onto the floor of Heaven
and gaze upon the greatest sight of all.
Perhaps we as humans need to stop seeing you as we want to see you
but to see what's in you truly;
the collateral beauty of it all.
Apr 29, 2017
Apr 29, 2017 at 11:41 PM UTC
The fuzzy hug that never loosens its grasp
Clutching as a barbed wire hugs and puppies cuddle and love,
whiskers and noses nuzzling, the straitjacket loves your mind,
wishes it could just squeeze the nightmares out and streaming as juices from an orange,
but its might only pressurizes, the more you fight the more you hurt,
bruising our precious straitjacket heart, he’s here to help us
take the tasks of fettering hands
just to hug and coil about us
Learn to love them, the society blanket,
the crazy snuggler, the bunny constrictor
Crazy’s not useful and our little straitjacket cures our woes
strangling us within linen cotton folds
simmer our fires
breaking our bronc
hushing our tantrum cry
It’s the mother we Learn to love
Kin that keeps us in heavenly grip
The Straitjacket’s here for all our insanists
Aug 28, 2011
Aug 28, 2011 at 12:29 AM UTC
"You're no stray feline,
you're a lady," they will say.
As I trim myself to the pattern they made,
adjure me to learn the dance of their stick.
Turn a blind-knowing stare in a contrivance
of my tragedies, war, and my five inches feet.
"You're no stray feline,
you're a lady," they say.
Fettering my hopes to brew lies in my entrails,
for I have no value without a bind on my step.
Endowed with no shield nor shaft for fight that I was trained,
must cower behind closed doors with a conflict in my chest.
I am no stray feline,
I am a lady, they told me.
Churning and wobbling under their commanding breathe
to flaunt I am more than a dancing bone in a vessel.
But why would they bury my lust for helm and sword away,
and exhort me to put these 3-inch shoes of hell?
Jan 11, 2019
Jan 11, 2019 at 11:49 PM UTC
shirtless on porch,
beer and smoke after
days of filth. now,
washed body, cleansed
mind, though fretting
tightened rope of the
self-fettering variety --
taut enough for to
never be found complacent.
one of many a mortal sin
being cycled by this mortal
vessel. indulging in denial that
everything is one, and one is
nothing, and circular rhetoric is
nothing more than the semantics
of trying too hard to not try.
creating symbolism with
understanding the reaping
could never be perennial --
forming rituals to coincide with
the now, yet without devotion of
pious ages past. this in know-
ledge that once the flame dies,
none will be re-lit.
Jun 23, 2014
Jun 23, 2014 at 7:48 AM UTC
You, the invisible country
I have only read about;
Me, the half-veiled truth
That your words would rout.
You, the fettering bond,
With silken thread of chain;
Me, the evasive bird,
Comes circling round, again.
Give the land a name,
So it's heart, to frame;
Give the bird a seed,
Not caged, by distant deeds.
Jul 5, 2010
Jul 5, 2010 at 2:49 PM UTC
It is in the nature of clouds to hang high in the sky,
To cover the face of the sun with arrogance so stubborn,
To twist hope and fortune of man with its power on rain,
To enter with a stampede in thunderous claps to humanity,
Cooling the spheres with its Sun fettering power,
Clouds come forcefully as if they will wane not,
They catapult the times into a frenzy of no measure,
Cloud of Omar Khayyam in the skies of Nishpaur
Showered town tremors in the arts of Arabia
Rubiyats and Rubiyats to a thousand fold,
Paving way for others in the English azure;
Shakespeare William the thievish bard of John
He stole the political papyrus of King Lear
From indolent European in the English Shires,
*********** lyrics and Pindarics in **** of Lucrece,
Until the times came to its unbelievable exit
From the stage reigned only by culturally mighty
At the glorious hamlet of Stratford-upon-Avon,
Just has his master cloud solemnly disappeared,
Into the Arabic death gardens of Omar Khayyam,
It is indeed the true nature of all clouds
To appear with flamboyant spirit of tyranny
But only to disappear later like tail of snake.
Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 6:08 AM UTC
Sigourney was a saltwater princess
born from a flash flood;
a stray cat I found
stuck between the boards
of a wooden fence.
Her cries mimicked
the local 6 o'clock siren
with a backdrop
of toe beans fettering
on a park sidewalk.
I mirrored the way
her left paw traced
the cracks of the cement,
(fast paced, sloppily),
then ushered her out
using a combination of
strength and saliva.
"It's okay,
you won't get wet,"
I whispered
as my left hand struggled
getting out a plastic bag.
Carefully,
with precision,
Sigourney was plopped
backwards into
torn up plastic
marked
Have A Nice Day!
Alone we trudged
through flooded baseball fields
and gazebos
to cross the highway.
"Do you want
to go home?
Do you have
a home?"
I took a shortcut through
the Taco Bell drive-thru,
cars honking,
claws breaking through
malleable material.
cotton, skin, etc.
Sigourney said nothing.
"Good,
because I don't know
if I want to."
Tucked into a bag tucked into a jacket,
we headed westward
as far as we could,
before a cop approached
a teen at midnight
technically committing
a catnapping.
May 31, 2018
May 31, 2018 at 10:14 PM UTC
Dawn breaks on the quiet countryside.
The nightlife ghosts shuffle away to their daytime hideaways.
The strand of oak, bough of pine,
crevice of cypress.
The final inhalation of night.
The early bird janitorial crew wakes and makes sounds
to each other as the sun spreads across
the quivering Bahia yard. It drinks up the dewdrops
and straightens the fenceposts with kindness as it finds error.
The sun finds me, too, naked again, on the porch
and seeks to stretch my skin taught against my frame.
I scrape a toe callous across the brick of the porch step.
It is Wednesday the nineteenth.
It is 6:27am and I am grateful to be here.
As the morning mist unravels in the exhalation
and the crows set to work aerating the soil,
my attention drifts to the breeze and how I can nearly taste October on it. A red-tailed hawk observes this scene as well,
unbothered by the fettering mockingbird,
patiently waiting for the over zealous rabbit
or the confused field mouse to make itself apparent.
The girl in my bed routinely suggests coitus
on mornings such as these, with crispy autumn leaves drifting down outside the window. Which begs to be painted, white chips peeling in the dry fall air, but she says leave it --
she likes to pick them out of the flowerbed
after we ram the bedframe against the interior.
She likes to keep them.
Instead, this morning she’ll settle for bacon and eggs without much complaint. Although she will leer at me murderously
from behind her mustachioed cup of creamed coffee. She won’t tolerate my advances afterward, either --
insisting on her lateness, or mine,
or the cat pawprints
on the hood of her car.
She’ll hum through my comments
about the sunlight, the dew, my personification of the hawk.
She looks over the top of her phone when I mention ghosts, but happily returns to scrolling when she realizes I’m full of it.
And so, then, off we go.
Each with a bushel, and a peck, and a hug around the neck.
The quiet morning has been ruined. Although I tried, I failed to grasp it in its totality, failed to convey to you its extreme beauty.
It lies at our feet in shreds.
I know I will never have
a morning like this again,
not exactly like this,
and I’ve let it slip away.
Oct 19, 2022
Oct 19, 2022 at 7:33 PM UTC
Balsamic parades
appearing
before you now
A cosmic silence
fettering O fair winded fury
PassionGlancing
delicate fishnets casting for a stage of Arab desire
Neolithic pattern &
tender reflection does welcome the stone
which an ardentness accompanies
Long, Long and carried
and curious
a glance of eyes/
your cavern for splendor
freckled blossoms, tired
eve of tiger daylight &
steam whimpers from your
shadowy ash
church bells ask drawn-out questions for dogs that have long been dead
vision of an ambigous
baritone presence
daisies & mist settling over the valley
& the estate burned down! & multitudes of trees pray for your shoulders to be relieved of dragging your own grave
& expressed expressed expressed
until exhaustion
& the thread of thought is naked the tone is optimistic
The miracle is upon us
(the miracle)
shrines are rebuilding
patiently
I can feel a pheonix glow
can you feel it, too?
(and I and you and the animal outside and its noise and how it increases in size
and how the earth shakes from the vibrations and we try to sleep it off
we cannot distract ourselves from
the wind
is tearing apart the decorations we had on the balcony
the land is stirring with consciousness
it is whispering but the whole world whispering is
A great tectonic force
we will not run
we will sing too
we will sing)
my mind river pursues this
event
& babylonian cities flower from
the weathered
sea
eager to join our laughter
Mar 8, 2017
Mar 8, 2017 at 10:21 AM UTC
How do we get ourselves
back from the lost places
inside our own minds;
the places where self-doubt
swims like a school
of sharks,
a school of thought?
The page,
tells the kindest
lies;
doesn’t always have
to be true,
however, it should
be honest.
It should hurt
A little.
Like…
a cage fighter,
like razor-wire,
like a coffee cup,
like a broken bottle,
like suede,
like the left wing
of a hawk
or
the right wing
of a vulture.
Like the backfire
of an old car,
the roar of
a shotgun;
the tink and plink of
buckshot on
an old 50-gallon
drum.
like a saw-tooth,
like a lion’s roar,
like a warm blanket
or
a war machine,
like something sweet,
that’s become something
else,
something obscene.
like a sonic-boom
rattles a pane
of glass.
Nothing is really,
like anything else,
we’re all simply
figuring everything
out for ourselves.
We’re fettering,
ferreting our own
truths from
betwixt the
lines, our own lies
so,
keep a
keen mind,
a watchful
eye.
***
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018
Sep 4, 2018
Sep 4, 2018 at 10:10 AM UTC
Afraid to be with a man with a vision
Must be a reason why you taunt with fettering-fleeting contact
Look in the mirror, what love did you leave behind
Is he just another casualty
In the war that rages inside of you
I wanted to help you from that hell
The one you run from but fail to hide
All in the name of ******* pride
When all I said was I wish you were the girl
That would become my bride
Jul 19, 2023
Jul 19, 2023 at 6:12 PM UTC
I’m over here spending twelve stupid years
Becoming a parrot who repeats what she hears
It’s not for the learning, it is for the grade
So I turn off my brain seven hours a day.
I’m wasting, I’m wasting, I’m wasting my time
Even that phrase is a waste of a line
And I’m sick of all of these definitions
Pressing on in, getting marked in red pen—
What am I doing here?
You convinced me there’s answers for everything,
Unvarying, black-and-white lettering,
Supposedly bettering, more like you’re fettering
Me like a prisoner, mental inhibitor
Wish you were valuable, you little swindler,
I’ll play your game, ‘cause that’s all that it is,
A paper to frame, that is all that I get
But if I’m wasting away at this desk,
Forced in the system, then I’ll be the best.
Sep 4, 2024
Sep 4, 2024 at 3:35 PM UTC
** what noise? Ahhh 'tis but the wind disturbing
A precarious balance. Well I know
This barren waste holds naught but air and rock,
For once again has wrath and anger pricked
The mind of Zeus to vengeance, and bans He
Now all visitations. No more shall the
Daughters of Oceanos come to speed
The hours with mild discourse. No longer shall
Their beauty bless my days. The weight of isolation
Does so press upon me that the vain and
Servile babbling of Hermes would be welcome
But His voice forbids it. And these craggy
Towers wrought of Nature cruelly do
Bar the simple pleasures of rambling goat
And song full bird, for no beast may attain
These heights save one, my feathered torment. Half
My time is spent, half is yet to come, and
Darkly do my spirits waver. Is it
Not better to give to Zeus His want and
End this agony, than to grieve the trials
Of stubborn opposition? Would it not
Better serve my purpose to be free these
Fast fettering chains? Oh how dreary do
These weary thoughts color the mind, yet how
Quickly do they fade in the light of immortality.
It is far more wise to own this vile *******
Than bend to a raging will. Well I see
The coming of His pains and my release,
And the certain knowledge of those days steels me
To endure
Jun 22, 2016
Jun 22, 2016 at 12:05 PM UTC
such space for creation
without strangled-throat;
without pre-conception there
at fettering length. and i want
to smoke this *******
cigarette right here, right
now, where supined, ego
stoking knowing i can't. i
won't, and i'll just come along
down the road and revolt
against own great Ego; i'll
cycle cyclically some later day.
pretentious ****
sometime's we need to be hate.
sometime's there needs to
be contradiction; self-made
chaos in attempt to -- ****
i don't know. i wanna smoke
this cigarette. i could use
to burn a bit; could use for
a moment's blindness.
(you're there right now,
already. a while now)
could use for a moment's
luminescence out from supine sky -
textured dry-wall. want felt in
the bones; about a nic-fit, about
time to smoke this ******* cigarette.
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 4:20 AM UTC
weight, gentle against the softness of
my belly; there, mandible, and the
other: ribbons of cornflower fettering
hollow-bird-bones soothing
dessicated pinions; chasing the
empty billow 'neath ribs swelling, stretching, the
emptiness of the throat; gazing down; stroking
gentle against a silken cranium; pressure
points, GV20 TH21 GB20, then
down the pinna,
watched with placid wet eyes. Fingers
weave into your scruff, curling, longing;
consumed.
Oct 7, 2024
Oct 7, 2024 at 1:05 PM UTC