"forfeiture" poems
. . .
. . . .
. . . . . . . . .
i stare at a docile ocean
waveless sun accosted
dark and shadow edged
tinned with men's brave
history of misconception i
'Dragonne'.
'Colossuus'.
'Cetaecean'.
- Leviathan ?
As sure as hope setting sail -
Past shoal, past shallow,
So each chase begins.
Lines parsing out,
Expectations coyly
Embroidered,
Entwin-ned.
- Leviathan ?
Pray please this narrative be drawn :
Truth for sake of safe harbour;
Stillness without caution;
Softly ripening dawn;
Jupiter and Venus descendant,
Celestial promise anon ?
- Leviathan .
Violence
the casual violence of life
the worst kind
not casual really but whats violence anyway
few knew why why ask why the few
once the dice flipped get
its a flying a mind a dunzo game
gravity responds we hope hope together sake
to gether
we short the freaks short em' all them freakin freaks freaks
i want you I want yours
i want to take you over
take control take over
29' run kontrol all night day
long time end time
everthing happens forfurfor fit ur
once and done (nature) forfeiture
reason or ur other or ur another or ur a altogether reason
or simple GP drunkworld
reason (nurture)
surprise my ripest faither - less
5 rise 10 run huh
up the down and dumb
dumb ber right left left right thum ber
number one number
numb - ber
one ones
another
come
under
the
(tumb)
.
All Rights Reserved.
James R. Morse, NYC 2013.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 9:48 PM UTC
*I, fluoride - sanity theft
Winding toy soldiers
to march the path toward furtive glory
While spurting the tune of war
to the end of their very last breaths*
*Harbinger of certain death
Peek from behind the curtain
Witness the brain mining
From inside your skull
eyeballs explode, deftly blinding
Defining images which pervade
Overwhelming emotions stowed
Once turned to stone
mental harm, tractor combines harvest FarmVille tards by the barnload
Certainly,
The eye of Horus and ISIS see all
scorching and seizing nations, arm in arm
All for one, none for all
Bombarding bravado
Clasp the trap
Lapse in conscious
All tapped out
Drowning in tap water
Until all comes tumbling down like Niagara Falls, dauntless
Like Satan's hands expanding
advance upon the homeland
Then race trickling downward
Total assest forfeiture
***** buried in sand)*
Faces hidden, ashamed
Orchestrate the line in frame
Shape my frame of mind
Until my thoughtscape escapes
To peer through one eye
Met to widespread acclaim
Descending into the mind of Chaos,
His stables gates
burst forth with beasts of fable, insatiable and rampant
Triumphant, turn the tables
Arch-Angels blare your trumpets
*Tell Famine get off his high horse
And rear his ugly head
So we can really show that *****
Mother Earth what for;
**** that ***** until nothing's left*
*Effectively wrecked
From careening trains of wretched *********
Now she's hit
& the caged bird that longs to be free, is inevitably
dismembered to pieces by the felines that be*
Jul 10, 2014
Jul 10, 2014 at 4:07 PM UTC
rivers of salt; saccharine silicon and
iridescent nightmares;
kids carve their names into trees
because their concept of forever is
three summers forward;
entropy demands a tithe, a
forfeiture of lives; decimate your herds
and still
no, it is not enough.
know it is not enough.
don't keep your sweet little mouth
open too long; sugar attracts flies,
and pretty soon your
teeth will be teeming
with maggots and rot,
streptococcus sanguis
cheerfully wearing down your enamel
like you wore down my inhibitions.
"it'll be fun," you said, dropping
one hundred milligrams
on your tongue, firmly grasping the back
of my neck, and applying your lips to mine.
one hundred milligrams
slide down my throat, and despite myself,
I laugh, because even when I'm scared
I want to be with you.
the Black Angel is God On Earth; she is
lonely beyond belief, and I give her a hug.
people forget that monsters have
feelings too, and
God?
God is the biggest monster of them all.
God is entropy, and she is
unimpressed by the pyramids
on your dollar bills; she will devour
the stars and the planets and newborn
babies swaddled in blankets,
and she yet hungers:
redwoods and sequoias and aloe vera,
microchips and inkjets and MacBooks.
we are crowded around the bonfire,
s'mores and cheap liquor, your hand on
my thigh; the heavens have
opened up, drenching us
in starlight: I have never felt more
beautiful. you raise my wrist to your
mouth, placing a gentle kiss on my
scaphoid and my lunate; you swipe
your tongue across supple flesh
before clamping down with your teeth;
I am seeing stars and feeling lovely
and I am so, so enamored with you and
so, so happy you are here.
Oct 2, 2014
Oct 2, 2014 at 4:15 PM UTC
The cancer we feed
Western hegemony
A fire out of control
Imperialistic goals
The secret coup
The crippling fall
Forfeiture of resources
Loss of civil law
Do you not see
their master plan?
Jul 29, 2024
Jul 29, 2024 at 12:39 PM UTC
At a distance, the bland earth is a photo tinged of emerald green
Selfsame cars blow through. Playing in the margins
Forfeits judgment and your peace to the 10,000 shades of envy.
The usual story is re-penned like some perverse guarantee
We’ll all be disappointed some day, and everyone is at large
From a distance, those scowling portraits done with shades of emerald green
Something we’ve come to need and come to hate, against what men levy
Me and what they weigh the lithe little ghost of the human heart in
It seems strange outside light of rippling 10,000 shades of envy.
But where it is heard the gentle thrush say, “bereave, bereave, bereave,”
I’ll be a small voice in the coppice, singing, “breathe, breathe, still breathing”
At length, some small corners of the bland earth take on that emerald green
Thorns may drain burgundy from your hands, to leave your skin sticky sweet
Impressed in those ugly scabs like how you love yourself like sin,
The thorns just fall off like clothing in 10,000 shades of envy,
We lift pain away then, the happiness of the finally free
Hands lifted away from prayer can worship the single day in
And closely hold earth’s photo tinged of emerald green, then there’s no need
For forfeiture, I’ve my 10,000 shades of a different envy.
Mar 28, 2015
Mar 28, 2015 at 8:41 PM UTC
The triazolam is draining out.
Seeping down a peptic route.
Antacids disintegrate the lining.
Pain leaves me pinning.
Drowning on pink.
Spat up in the sink.
This sickness is wearing me thin.
Unsafe in my own skin.
Prescribed relief in the form of cold sweats.
Unapproved medicine tested on pets.
The rainbow pillbox comes in a set.
Getting wealthy off of the net.
Anemic royalty.
Sipping on Pennyroyal Tea.
Taking a drive to San Andres.
Dinning on mixed sangrias.
Bummed for a hit.
Blown…spit.
Complexion grows yellow.
The cost of my mellow.
Prescribed relief in a hospital bed.
Deaf to kind words said.
Can’t escape the notion in my head.
Telling me I’m already dead.
Loss of focus.
These drugs are bogus.
Light gradually fades away.
Soiled underwear, the thing to stay.
Soul ripped and torn apart.
Taken away on a crash cart.
Transfusion first, dialysis later.
Lack of a pulse, huge deflator.
Prescribed relief in the form of cremation.
Ceremony held, not a single relation.
No will left as a last proclamation.
Assets absorbed by a forfeiture corporation.
Oct 30, 2014
Oct 30, 2014 at 10:01 AM UTC
I am desolate, hollow
As the shaft of a feather.
I float easily among the rest,
Through fields of grazing bovine,
Heads bent to pasture.
My belly whines.
The noise it makes threatens forfeiture
And begs nourishment, a rest
From this emptiness.
I push firmly on it to shut it up.
I do this many times. It is a nervous hour.
With each passing day, a righteousness
flows through my every dry and shriveled vein.
This denial of self eats at my humanness.
There will be but spirit left.
Apr 11, 2018
Apr 11, 2018 at 10:13 PM UTC
You know your old when,
you buy a two bedroom with a den,
and it never empties out.
You have dragged emotional baggage,
cleaning your ears to discover cabbage,
busting at the seams, zippers are stuck!
For the first time in your life, you have a plan,
right?, oh no, you got this far on fruit and bran,
okay cereal killer, bust a move and your hip.
Have you smiled yet?
I really want with certainty,
to give you three steps, not wishes, for eternity,
it IS really important some how.
Not that this is the end,
could be drawn out like torture,
what would you give up, in forfeiture?
I've tried to do it on my own, painful right to my bones,
I am not powerless, nor am I a legend in my own mind,
Some One did it for me, and he found me, in a bind.
Have you found Him yet,
hit refresh, until you do,
don't believe in just anything,
even some lies can be true,
that baggage, it may be your strength.
Jul 1, 2013
Jul 1, 2013 at 10:59 PM UTC
With a hint of death
mingling in the air,
the nocturnal snapdragon is
digging wells,
not just for water,
but also as final resting
places for friends back home,
in the garden,
deep within the soil.
Callous hands and feet
speak of insufficiency
and misery under the sun,
the one lone solace comes
with night,
and the partaking of
her body's delicacies,
bringing her innumerably
to the helve,
as she sings heavenly things
about the architecture
we creatures fall
so easily from.
Nov 30, 2020
Nov 30, 2020 at 6:59 AM UTC
Whistling through right ear, gusting through left
Echo cracks on augural bone; it pings
Cymbol's sound on gray matter case-hardened dings
But to detect life's ignorance, measuring oblivion's theft
Lift sums of intoxicant veils, that foggy heft
Pay no attention to whispers, as you would shouts
Know calmed speakers indicate truth
For shouters and whisperers be so uncouth
Those speaking plainly give evidence no doubt
For reality's validity needs repose to rule out
Guilty we are of attainment and forfeiture
Life lessons learned or not
And more composed freethought forgot
As always this burden lies on enterpreter
When judging please regard radius of curvature
Mar 7, 2016
Mar 7, 2016 at 2:28 PM UTC
A Field Guide to Awkward Silences
The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings
A Field Guide to Secure Wi-Fi
A Field Guide to Asset Forfeiture
A Field Guide to “Fake News”
A Field Guide to Lies
A Field Guide to Antibiotic Stewardship in Outpatient Settings
A Field Guide to the Italian New Right
A Field Guide to Getting Lost
A Field Guide to Ripple Effects Mapping
A Field Guide to ****** and Fly Fishing
A Field Guide to Jerks at Work
A Field Guide to Bad Faith Arguments
And so it field guides, and so it field guides
As dear old Kurt Vonnegut did not say
And what field is the writer talking about?
About the farmer outstanding in his field?
Alas there is no field guide to writing
A title blessedly free of field guide
Which would be a feel-good fieldless guideless
For which humanity would be grateful
About as original as Keep Calm
Keep Calm and Say Something Original
Let the last field guide be Keep Calm about
A Field Guide to Burying Tired Cliches’
Jan 3, 2019
Jan 3, 2019 at 1:38 PM UTC
I feel everything in sporadic bursts of color.
Kaleidoscopes of orange and blue and green and red and crippling black.
I feel to escape the hollow screams.
I feel to escape my own insanity.
There is no beauty in pain.
There is no reward in silence.
I tried to talk to god when I was younger,
but I have since found that the sky is empty.
Feeling is humanity's forfeiture.
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 3:43 PM UTC
Crystal souls
cry condemnatory tears
bitter in the sagacity of their forfeiture;
The investigation exposes
pink blush, red life, and violet neglect
rendering transparent understanding
Accomplices
in the homicide of abducted youth.
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 7:10 PM UTC
Your smile stops this time in motion
Your gaze seem to chime sweet whisper
This heart quivers in amour emotion
Mine if not yours this heart forfeiture
Translation to Roman-Hindi:
muskarae jo aap, tho ye wakth kyoon rukha
nazaron ne kuch kaha, aisa hume kyoon laga
hume dar hai ki kanhi, aapse mohabath tho nahi
kho gaya hai dil shayad, aapka nahi, humara tho sahi
Dec 29, 2019
Dec 29, 2019 at 6:17 PM UTC
Frigid Winter whorls , Sunlights antithesis .. Cackling , disabling and bitter ..
Spring becomes a 'mongrel' with fragmented , midnight blue -cranberry evening apogee hallucinations .. Daytimes forfeiture of youthful ambition mingled with the wailing cur of March ...
Mar 20, 2016
Mar 20, 2016 at 9:47 PM UTC
Let it be known that every forfeiture will be accounted against those who misused the opportunities of day light
At the time when it was all clear and at ease
On winter’s day within the valley
Three geriatric women wandered
The first spoke of comprehension
The second spoke of symphonic action
And the third spoke of empathy
I listened attentively
The travel channel on a network of curiosity
Fast paced, translucent and strong
Foreign gestures
A warm compassionate meeting of hands
And the comforting message it preaches
Exploring caverns on an ominous day
Beyond the limits we have no sky or plane
Right here we are
Edified perfectly
-Tommy Johnson
Dec 19, 2013
Dec 19, 2013 at 1:09 PM UTC
Clinging to the edges
of a moving platform
that just refuses
a desperate diplomacy
Losing a grip I may have never once had
Retracing my steps
into familiar footpaths.
I'm constantly letting go
and always holding on.
Maintaining affection through the graze of rope.
Stepping onto my stage
of curtain call acceptance,
A grand finale,
a bittersweet sendoff.
Trepidation by the kick of a stool.
Salvation at the forfeiture of stability.
Gravity my only influence,
the one in which I'll always believe.
Sep 2, 2019
Sep 2, 2019 at 5:48 PM UTC
TLACAELEL
The weeks since last we met found Hungry Prince
Of late locked in his tower, casting scrolls
Which chart the star-crossed charms of the occult.
And in the predawn darkness of his arts,
He broke through to a voice from the beyond
Which whispered that the throne of Mexico
Must soon come to be ruled by foreigners.
PRIEST OF TLALOC
And thus the emperor submits to trial,
And these, their wagers, are red herrings, then.
TLACAELEL
To spare us the demoralizing news.
The spirits’ hands will steer them to reveal
If this prognostication failed or not.
PRIEST OF TLALOC
The ***** in motion. Let the gods decide.
TLACAELEL
Motecuhzoma falls! The ball is down! The ball is down!
PRIEST OF TLALOC
Dust rises, and our lord is lost to view!
TLACAELEL
Three in a row! Were we left hanging, then,
For torturers to **** by small and small?
MOTECUHZOMA and HUNGRY PRINCE reappear.
MOTECUHZOMA [aside]
I’ve lost then, but the full significance
Of that word “lost” I’ve yet begun to know.
Gods need not lie, and here we have their words.
Well, let it come. [to Tlacaelel] Unseal the wagers, lord,
And read before these noble witnesses
The stakes we trusted to you at the serve.
TLACAELEL
First, the abortive fee for Hungry Prince:
King of Texcoco, had this victory
Been won by his imperial majesty,
And you had failed, your forfeiture had been . . .
[Opens the first wager.]
The loss of all your lands, your courts, your throne,
And all, for your opponent’s acquisition,
Decoronation to a common man,
And forced prostration to this gentleman.
HUNGRY PRINCE
A staggering ransom! I must thank the gods,
Not for their championing me, but truth.
Oct 13, 2016
Oct 13, 2016 at 4:14 PM UTC
Come my way.
Past midnight's strung out overture.
With beginnings loud by compare.
Trance me along.
Be swept.
You'll be kept awhile.
I'll be forcasting forfeiture.
Disgrace their disquises.
All the while faceless.
My spin never quits the begin.
And you see...
As it clings unceasing.
Capping off each verse.
Erasing and repeating.
Mindfull while notes crease.
Chatter becomes new release.
Calm, your new fear.
Aug 19, 2017
Aug 19, 2017 at 8:33 AM UTC
I once did have an entourage, I once had social affections for them, that was in my younger years, in those blessed days before the forfeiture of my smiles; but now, now all are of the vanished type, each face has
dissolved from memory.
And long ago I abandoned laughter, I abandoned Joy, or rather they both abandoned me when I became ill of mind, and too caught up in my woes to see the hurt that I caused my companions with these my selfish ways,
which desired solitude.
You see, I valued a Love once- in my way-and I put her before all the world, before all of you -my dearest friends.
I lost nearly all of myself that day, the day I whispered to her softly that I loved her more than any other, and I did -rather so.
But, as my love for her grew into obsession, I was unaware
of what I was giving up -what I was becoming! I was becoming less of me, and more of her, more of that beast that hid beneath skin deep beauty.
My thoughts those dreary days would begin to whirl, my heart would race, as my
patience for humanity would come to an end; and as my nails turned to claws, my skin to scales, my teeth now fangs! I then, and only then, realized what I became - but I could not for the life of me change back into my old Self.
Dec 14, 2014
Dec 14, 2014 at 10:04 PM UTC
The horse has bolted
Day is night
Memories flight to County Carlow
whilst he lives in London SE27
A hard rain is about to fall
when he calls me John
and forgets to feed his cats
Sep 29, 2022
Sep 29, 2022 at 4:50 AM UTC
Gettysburg Address
A diaspora of stones make their way back, posted
by penitents keen to relieve long years of suffering.
Late at night under desk light they put pen to paper,
insert shims of confession to wedge bits of Pennsylvania
scree into envelopes, a wary eye on talismans cocooned
in twists of tissue or sealed up tight inside zip lock bags,
ancient Alleghany seabed pocketed one hot August
afternoon in the Peach Orchard, palmed on impulse along
Cemetery Ridge, another bearing the mica glint that drew
the eye of a desultory adolescent moping in the long
shadow of Little Round Top twenty-three summers gone
now, before the untimely death of a sister or a budding career
in HR derailed on the heels of divorce, DUI and depression.
How else to explain the plane crash, forfeiture of assets,
the shadow on the x-ray, the second one hundred year flood?
In after hour twilight, tour buses long gone, gaudy chains
out on Route 15 humming, all with waits of an hour or more,
a National Park Service Ranger, a man about my age and mien,
doffs his flat brimmed lemon squeezer to retreat behind a desk,
leaf through a sheaf of petitions for mercy addressed in desperation.
Silence pressing in from Culps Hill and Devils Den, the Wheatfield
and Seminary Ridge, he presses smooth a pane of stationary, eyes
closed, fingers brushing words of intention, box of stones at his feet,
heaped, indistinguishable as an unbroken line of advancing infantry.
Jan 20, 2017
Jan 20, 2017 at 8:58 AM UTC
*A cageling lurking in darkness , printing
impressions upon cobblestone and
wetted grass
Accused by sunlight
Its forfeiture of anonymity gracing
my brow , fragmenting scrubland in
vivacious color*
Mar 3, 2017
Mar 3, 2017 at 9:40 AM UTC
Life is a constant act of forfeiture.
We each begin as a singularity,
A concentration of pure potential,
In that moment, truly equal.
An instant later, the timer starts,
The years of our lives begin to drain away,
And thereafter we can know only the effects of our own clocks, and others', trickling sand across the sepulchre.
For me, this has long been the truth of all things.
Except you.
You came after me,
And so,
Years after my hourglass was turned over,
The trend was reversed.
You did not give me immortality,
That would be ridiculous.
The gift you gave me was far more simple and pure.
For every moment you were on this earth,
The hourglass meant nothing to me.
Every moment spent, was one spent watching you grow,
Learn,
Live.
Every child watches their parents age, unto infirmity,
Unto death.
For some parents, I know,
To watch a child grow into adulthood is to be reminded of their own aging, and encroaching mortality.
A sibling has a unique perspective.
I was not so much older than you as to feel old while watching you grow.
I was not close enough in age to you,
As to feel as though we were the same kind of creature.
A child's memory is a cloth which quickly frays and fades in colour;
As you grew and learnt, I did not remember my own passage through those stages,
And so all of your stages were new to me.
As I matured, I came to recognise what this meant to me.
I became engrossed in the observation of your life.
I discovered, with joy, that you were destined to outstrip me in every way.
Taller, stronger, smarter, more beautiful, more eloquent, more kind, and intrinsically good.
You put your grains of sand to better use than I did mine.
With every passing day, you gained strength.
And then, it was over.
And I realised that part of it had been an illusion.
You were real, of course.
None of what you were was diminished by this realisation.
If anything,
It only made you more valiant in my eyes.
Because you had been taken in, too.
The illusion was this:
As each of our lives is an hourglass on a table,
Yours and mine standing side by side,
Each appeared to hold about the same amount of sand.
It was a very convincing lie.
You lived your life as I have lived mine,
Making plans decades ahead,
Looking forward to a career, love, offspring,
Even so far as retirement.
The day you died, the truth was revealed;
That even at the instant you passed,
The lower hollow of my hourglass held more sand,
Than any part of yours ever would.
And that was the cruellest truth, for you.
The younger sibling spends all of their life,
Catching up to the elder.
Reaching every milestone in their wake.
The day you were born, I was two years and nine months ahead of you.
And you would never catch up.
Dec 31, 2017
Dec 31, 2017 at 8:38 PM UTC
You don't follow rules
Stop playing games with my heart
Forfeit so you win
Dec 22, 2020
Dec 22, 2020 at 12:47 AM UTC