"fulcrum" poems
You choose a sepia filter
To match your timeless visage
To match the clothes you've wandered into today
But it is not a selfie.
Your eyes pierce them through their iPhone screens
Your smile is casually not directed towards anyone in particular
Your outfit is recklessly on point
And it is not a selfie.
It is a punch in the gut
to everyone who has ever
said you are not good enough.
It is not a selfie.
The wings by your eyes will go out of style.
The dye in your hair will wash down the drain.
The clothes will wear out and you will take pictures again.
But you have fabricated a moment.
You are smiling towards yourself.
Slap your image onto every social media you know
Next to the supermodels and Kardashians and words of self hatred
This is the fulcrum with which you will lever the world.
This is not a selfie.
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 6:10 AM UTC
Age and Grace
Her steps were always slow;
Even in youth she swayed,
Walked with sultry composure
And seductive flow.
Like a heathen goddess,
She tempers movement with grace.
It was not done out of vanity,
But pleasure in the flowing stream of steps
That mark her pace.
The relaxed fulcrum of her hip
Tilts with undulations in the turf;
Her feet tread lightly with a claim
On the summer fields,
On the bending trees
Where beauty still abounds..
She savors the trailing of her skirt
Through unseen paths in drooping grass.
Until the evening mist accrues
From out the forest paths
Caressing her as she yields,
Until she and it are almost one.
Like Whistler’s “breath on a pane of glass”,
She bargains with nature,
Waning to become an aesthetic phantom.
She stops at a window and watches
With a sad smile, the warm light on life,
The laughter, talk and dancing grace
Of her children, who don’t yet know
The bittersweet taste of withered garlands.
Yet she accepts and passes into the dusk.
Now she executes a careful,
Battement fondu as her hands dip
To reach the soaking pods
Of next year’s summer flowers.
Every move must be planned,
To manage every hour.
For they are as precious now,
As her own days,
Fading into glory and reborn,
Into spring and youth’s careless riot.
Sep 24, 2018
Sep 24, 2018 at 11:19 AM UTC
I.
*“You can only fight the way you practice”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy*
His lessons started late
As always, and as always
What is thrown is a question
You grip tightly
around your fingers
as one would,
as one always should.
With a branch he beckons:
“Come” he asks,
*“if a stick is struck from this angle,
what would your answer be?”*
Always, the old man taught
With each strike, each parry,
Each disarm and lock,
Each time my knuckles
Would hurt. This way
he makes it sure
that my body
remembers.
This is always
the first step.
My mind might forget.
But the body
Remembers.
II.
*“It is difficult to realize the true Way just through sword-fencing. Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things.”
― Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings: Miyamoto Musashi*
With him, everything starts
The vague quality of nonwords
Taught from pain, simplified
Through science:
the fulcrum and the lever.
Each joint, each turn,
a pattern to comprehend,
all things work in context:
*A framework of the undeniable
Fact:*
*the world is separate
In only these two words:*
Taub at Tihaya
The colloquial words for
Face down and face up;
This is a pattern
of the body.
III.
*“If you wish to control others you must first control yourself”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy*
Tihaya
The lesson starts
When he presses
His thumb forward
to a hand asking for alms
like turning a doorknob
too far to the right.
Taub
when I pull back
four fingers
on a giving hand
too far to what is left.
these are the means
for control.
When I know
How much is necessary
To push or to pull,
To teach or to break.
- 18 October 2017
Oct 18, 2017
Oct 18, 2017 at 5:57 AM UTC
poem in two parts (a plane and bird)
You are a sound in still silence; a point against negative space toward which my eye is drawn. The sun set, peeking beneath a blanket of storm clouds, painting the underside, as a plane, an infinitesimal photon, a plane flew as an impossible pinprick of optimistic light, moving slowly against the immense parallax backdrop of bright and hazy pink-orange glowing thunder clouds. You are the first breath I took. You are the product of all infinities, divided by itself, the sum of all integers. When the earth falls into the sun, long after humans left, long after you left, and any recognizable trace of you is swallowed, your memory will persist. You will have still lived; You will have been the last breath I took.
A fulcrum of loss and a wedge between two equally lost people, but between them, between them still a bird, flying farther than any eye can see, but should the lights of the lighthouses lose you against their foggy panes, or should the salty wind dash you against something equally heavy, call out, and cast your voice into the sky, upon the sea, and against the stars, and maybe its echoes will live a little longer than you.
Dec 24, 2015
Dec 24, 2015 at 5:27 PM UTC
I am a supreme
Light framed being
Who leaves ferrari's
In the dust
I am sorry for your
Jealousy as I am
Totally terrific
And love wearing
My fabulous coat
Fiercely independent I
Imprint the air with
My personal spots
My proud individuality
Nothing out of reach
I wait for something to inspire
As I hunt lightly
Positioning intelligently
And quickly
Pads on fire
I grab the ground
As I grip the world
With the sharpest claw
As evolving and revolving
Forces compel me with desire
My vibrant cells flicker
Waiting for the right trigger
Spinning and twisting
They collapse into air
As I rush and rush
chasing and chasing
My focus still like stone
Lands lightly like a feather
As I am clear as
Diamond or glass
Empty of thoughts I am a tunnel
The wind blows through
As I run and run
Soft and agile
I can quickly change
Direction or pace
Perfect balance my
Tail acts as a fulcrum
It is as though a
Silver thread was attached
From high up in heaven
Moving on an electric circuit
I am lightning through the air
Stretching like elastic
Expanding into spaces
I become a mile long
Reaching and Reaching
Into proud new places
Slipping through the air
As though someone
Had oiled my hair
I slide weightless
Air born on ice skates
As I catch my hare
With her swiftness
We find she lifts us
With her fire we catch desire
Nov 29, 2014
Nov 29, 2014 at 6:09 PM UTC
See the Rabbi. See him tormented by choice. See his people. See them wracked by hate. See the others. See their anger radiate outward in glowing spokes, exploding firebrand in a tinder city.
On a night like any other, the moon at sixth house, fulcrum of pinwheel zodiac, the Rabbi, awash in lidless starlight, rises somber and makes his choice. And when the sun is furthermost, he and three of his others gather at the murmuring riverbank where the brown clay is most pliable and begin to dig, sifting rock and root from trundled earth. Hours spent exhuming the clay, molding it, kneading its muscles, tracing its veins, baking its skin in the starlight. More hours spent in whispering prayer, the words bent and somersaulting over themselves like tumbling books.
See Truth drawn on its forehead, life etched from clay and word. As the sun rises, so it does, wavering at first, but steadier, lapping at the river, and their faces move slowly across the water. See the Rabbi speak to it, his words winding its mechanism. See it stride past the ghetto, wade through the market, and into the borough, siege unto its own.
See the others scream for mercy from the kiln of its stare, from their flaming tenements, their crumpling rooftops.
See it wade back through the market, past the ghetto, back to the riverbank to kneel in the underbrush. See it tilt its head to the lilt of a stranded daisy caught in a vagrant gust. See it caught, too, and see it see. It sees the colors of Eden in the ferns. It hears the river churning sediment, fossils, gravel, whirling over driftwood. It touches moss on a rock; gently rotates its hand to let a grub complete an oblivious circumference. See it sit in silence.
See the Rabbi meet with the others, then his others. And on a day like any other, when the sun is at its apogee, they slip down the riverbank where it still sits, still. It ignores their autonomous logic, their homunculus rationale. They are perversions of variety cloaked in righteous intention. So it remains.
See the Rabbi and his others gather at the murmuring riverbank, shadow conclave in shifting sunlight, then rise somber and decided. They pin it to the earth as the Rabbi chants, invoking the void in which forbidden knowledge spirals. It squirms under the power of the Word, mind-forged manacle as incantation. See the Rabbi draw to a close. His hand is arbiter, swooping down to smudge Truth from its forehead. What is left but Death.
See its hand crumble in its passage as it reaches for the stranded daisy. See the colors of Eden darken in its eyes, its own body the dust that denies it light. See it collapse into itself, the clay that was once animate spilling onto the riverbank. See the Rabbi and his others shimmer then fade into city grey.
The daisy stands still.
Dec 15, 2011
Dec 15, 2011 at 4:22 PM UTC
of beautiful things
willowy warbler's
wax'n wings
silvery strumming
singing sands
languid lagoons
in luxurious lands
carvings of creosote
cacti create
fulcrum of flame
thru frivolous
fate
volcanic vestibule
vestments and
vestiges
historical hypothesis
harmonious
heritage
melanin melange
mellifuous
mild
woodduck waters
wheeling and
wild
crystal caverns
creating
light
nocturnal nymphs
announcing the
night
sumptuous sunsets
scintillation's
scream
dramatic dawn
drawn
from
a
dream
SoulSurvivor
(C) 12/2/2015
Dec 2, 2015
Dec 2, 2015 at 6:23 PM UTC
Incongruous by nature
wrapped in ignominious twine
I eat sushi and a 12 dollar slice of cheese cake
Chug two old english and spend the night at the porcelain throne both ends screaming
staring into eyes rapt with fear
all eyes are rapt with fear
Of what then? Death? Shame?
in the rubber belts and fulcrum arms and cogs of the melting ***
all perspectives have value
and the decadence signified in a haircut or a cadillac is nothing more
than the words on the bathroom walls
or little brown note books
Clarity is for saps
Flourish dans l'entropy
Ou mourir dans la peur
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 11:27 AM UTC
I.
Everything meets
in the middle,
all that is
and was
and done
or said
eventually.
So they say while
the fulcrum creaks
and the lever sags.
That’s where
they’ve
lost there way.
Take two magnets and
try to push them together
to meet at center, instead
they slide from side to side
and go around, no force
can bring them together.
I say everything
that goes around
comes back this way,
the wrong way,
to haunt or remind us
but never to the middle,
never offering peace.
Maybe that's why
some say suicide
is a valid option,
as if to trick
the sacred balance,
sneak up on
magnetic rejection
and force your way
to center.
Sometimes I dwell
on the mystery of
Golden Gate.
Such a sacred place,
the breeze, the sun,
her hypnotic beauty
and the fact that
no one jumps at
night.
II.
Nero: "Jax, do you believe in Karma?"
Jax: "Not today"
But I believe.
I believe because
I have lived it.
My Karma is Grace
and I can’t tell you
how many times she
has found me,
always where I didn’t go willingly,
dragged by a massive darkness
and held up high while the weight
of death sat across the divide
on the other end of the teeter-totter.
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 4:36 PM UTC
the thank you card was lost in the mail
to describe any human effort toward legacy is absurd
this world is overcrowded and any attempt
at achieving remembrance is futile
no explanation is necessary
the response is cold silence
no one ever returns
what is solid is called existence
yet granite is ground to sand
the surreal offers very little
believe if you will that faith is the fulcrum
that can lift the load of mystery
think what you like
our greatest words are trite
Caesar is dust yet the laurel lives on
ideas will not save us
no redemption is possible
while I appreciate you allowing me access to the room
all I carry is darkness
there is no explanation necessary
we have put all our trust in human emotion
and all is doom and the perception of doom
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 11:49 PM UTC
Vernal Equinox arrives,
a lush middle ground
fresh with turning,
on the fulcrum
of dark and light,
awakening dynamic gaian breath
and ambitious harmony.
Dancing in and out
of shadow,
darting into
waxing shine,
on the verge
of the continuous,
here at the thresholds fray,
off the precipice we go,
cliffs that drop into the burn
of the suns growing presence.
Fire moves into water
like flourish,
Water moves into fire
without extinguish.
The paradox of love
is alive,
with night and day
seen as equals.
In this colossus of rebirth,
the resurrection of winters death,
blooming out of earthen richness,
with the enormity of natures becoming.
On this brink of passions catching
in the Eastern sun rising,
with balance kept in the approach
of spring rains rolling in,
like tears of tender joy;
a drenching
and vaporous
arousal.
Mind is lost on winds of change
meandering amongst the grasses,
the feet hug the ground like roots,
the spine lifts like spontaneity,
bringing the heart to blossom
in it's ribcage branches,
pulsing aromatic swells
moving outwards
in veins of pranic rivers,
with gushing love,
turning the blood etheric
and unbound by the body,
in some natural suffusion
where earth and sky meet
in endless inter-change,
and all is complimentary here,
and everything is reaching,
to kiss the sky,
in gratitude.
Mar 20, 2014
Mar 20, 2014 at 10:18 PM UTC
Do you perceive the deep crack within the fulcrum of the universe?
Daylight and darkness blend into a hypnagogic and hallucinatory kaleidoscope, where the art of fantasy rises from oceanic depths in the form of a seductress who rides upon the wings of a horned god.
We could even enter into meaningful discourse, as we contemplate psychoactive echelons of spiritual intensity?
Are you hungry?
Dec 5, 2013
Dec 5, 2013 at 10:08 PM UTC
I, after difficult entry through my mother's blood
And stumbling childhood (hitting my head against the world);
I, intricate, easily unshipped, untracked, unaligned;
Cut off in my communications; stammering; speaking
A dialect shared by you, but not you and you;
I, strangely undeft, bereft; I searching always
For my lost rib (clothed in laughter yet understanding)
To come round the corner of Wardour Street into the Square
Or to signal across the Park and share my bed;
I, focus in night for star-sent beams of light,
I, fulcrum of levers whose end I cannot see ...
Have this one deftness - that I admit undeftness:
Know that the stars are far, the levers long:
Can understand my unstrength.
1.9k
Today
the earth
below me
provided energy
the grass and trees
around me
provided energy
the sky
above me
provided energy
the sun
beyond me
provided energy
Giving
in unique ways
asking
nothing in return
Red and Orange
from the earth
Yellow
from the sun
Green
from the grass and trees
Blue
from the sky
Chakras opened
to receive
spinning in glee
absorbing these gifts
I feel life,
and alive
I feel love,
and loved
Love in the balance
Love in the beauty
Love in the bounty
I have waited for spring
longing for just this flow
conversion of perception
shifting the Assemblage point
From this new fulcrum
comes further recognition
we are here learning
to create safe
nurturing spaces
for each other
Our gifts to give
are to respect
to encourage
to celebrate
to support
to cherish
to shelter
to create
to listen
to guide
to adore
to heal
Living
Loving
Unconditionally
Visualize this space
Deep roots of a tree anchoring
Strong trunk of a tree supporting
Branches of a tree expanding creation
Leaves of a tree celebrating life
Allowing each other
to be and express
in safety and love
we may create this
as gifts for each other
manifesting in our Power
bridging Heavens and Earth
Nov 13, 2010
Nov 13, 2010 at 10:17 AM UTC
Here, from the king's mountain view;
here, from the wild dream come true;
feast like a Sultan, I do,
on treasures and Flesh, never few;
but I,
I would
wish it
all away
if I
thought I'd
loose you
just one day.
The Devil and his had me down,
in love with dark side I'd found.
Dabbling all the way down,
up to my neck, soon to drown;
but you changed that all for me,
lifted me up, turned me 'round.
So I; I; I; I;
I would,
I would,
I would,
wish
this
all
a-
way.
Prayed like a martyr dusk 'til dawn.
Begged like a ****** all night long.
Tempted the Devil with my song,
and got what I wanted all along;
but I,
and I would,
if I could,
then I would
wish it away,
wish it away,
wish it all away;
wanna wish it all away,
no cross that could hold, sway,
or justify kneeling away my Center,
so if I could I would wish it all away
if I thought Tomorrow
would take you away:
you're my peace of Mind,
my Home, my Center;
I'm just tryin' to hold on
one more day.
Dim my eyes;
dim my eyes.
Dim my eyes,
if they should compromise
our fulcrum
if wants and need divide me
then I might as well be
gone-
[Most epic instrumental section in 6 ever]
Shine on forever,
shine on, benevolent Sun.
Shine down upon the broken;
shine until the Two become One.
Shine on forever,
shine on, benevolent Sun.
Shine upon the severed,
shine until the Two become One.
Divided, I'm withering away.
Divided, I'm withering away.
Shine down upon the Many, light our way,
benevolent Sun.
Breathe in union.
Breathe in union.
Breathe in union.
Breathe in union.
Breathe in union.
So,
as one,
survive
another day
in season.
Silence, legion,
save your poison!
Silence, legion,
stay out of my way!
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 6:39 PM UTC
If I could say one last thing you'd know I was different
You’d see these walls as something else
You’d see the holes for footing
The scars on my shoulders
From the grappling hooks I’ve shaken
It’s a reflex
I’d like to reset
If I could
I’d rip the seesaw from my spine
Break the balance in the fulcrum of my chest
So when you jump away
I don’t fall from you
Call me swing set
Give my arms monkey bar bravery
So I can shimmy close enough for you to see
I want you here
I won’t try and nock you off
I am done playing chicken
I am done playing chicken
Foot on the gas pedal beggin god I run you off the road
Again
This path I am on
Is lonely
I know this
I want to tell you I love you
When I know you won’t say it back
If you could
Shake the dust from your knees
After my walls reflexed a shiver
In your embrace so hard
You fell to the floor
If you stuck around long enough
You’d see
All the cotton I swallowed
So when I heard you leaving
You wouldn’t hear me say
Stay
If I could say one last thing
You’d know
I was different
Was better
Might be ready
With enough patience
Please stay
Apr 18, 2012
Apr 18, 2012 at 6:51 PM UTC
we want nothing to do
with nothing to do
grow up with me
and ill grow up with you.
my dear sweet childhood love
who loves me
left me
here.
by no fault of ours
it just
happened
one day
the fulcrum slipped
the world swayed
and slipped
away
from him
in opaque rage
and eyes wide open
and paranoid venom
and piercing humiliation
and hallucination
his ghost lingers
in thick cannabis fog
now
and i'm a buddhist, by god by god
god who
left me
here
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 11:35 PM UTC
it is a while since
the words have mince-
d though my pen
into papermation
so now
for your information
there are swirls
that are curls
around me like waves
in sunrise constellations
brave new summations
filling me to the brim
in an indescribable fulcrum
on which I balance
parched, starched, enhanced!
Nov 2, 2010
Nov 2, 2010 at 2:04 PM UTC
I told you that I wanted to float
and so you took me to the pool,
tipped my body slowly,
your hold on the curve of my back
the precarious fulcrum.
With shallow breath and the sun in my eyes
I think I fell in love with you a thousand times over.
May 9, 2017
May 9, 2017 at 5:51 AM UTC
**** man, how are you
going to get out of
this one?
I guess you are going to have to tell the truth.
But some people do not want the truth
some cannot give the truth to certain loved ones,
others believe that the truth is what must be spoken in every word.
But its like walking back down the mouth of the cave,
to the prisoners still shackled, watching shadows, and trying to explain the sun and the trees.
I would have better luck
trying to
**** this wall
than trying to get you to
understand something
which seems so obvious
to
anyone,
everyone,
but you.
Maybe we are wrong,
maybe you are an enlightened one, come to save our poor wretched souls.
But that seems highly unlikely dear, for you are far too selfish,
and shallow,
and oblivious to reason and accountability.
A line has been crossed,
that which has been done cannot be undone.
But are you so ******* arrogant
that you think you
are not worthy of forgiveness?
Do you think
your crime is
so bad you are beyond redemption?
You think you have leverage, but your fulcrum is weak and I am persistent and voracious.
The ruiner,
your precious
little nickname for me,
carries more significance
than the
destruction
of your
sweet honeycunt, darling.
You never should have given me that stupid ******* painting.
I have known what a vile creature you are since the moment I laid eyes on it and I have carried that knowledge with me.
You forget how intuitive and analytical I am. You forget how well I read your every glance and subtle body gesture. You forgot how much smarter I am than you.
Your inconsistencies make sense now,
now that I have accepted you as a liar.
Your patterns are predictable,
which makes your ********
so much
easier
to tolerate.
My sweet little liar.
I love you the most, baby.
Jun 14, 2012
Jun 14, 2012 at 8:54 PM UTC
She got her God at last.
Bathed and in white saree
she offers him his choicest food
burns his favorite incense
sits with him to converse
about the day and events
argues to make her point
smiles at his complaint
of less salt or more sugar
cries at his question
if she misses him
as much as he misses her
and the two reach out to each other
more than all the years
of seeking the fulcrum
to balance the bond.
Oct 2, 2017
Oct 2, 2017 at 9:58 AM UTC
I hinge upon you
you are the fulcrum
of all my motion
Feb 2, 2019
Feb 2, 2019 at 1:14 PM UTC
if marriage is the fulcrum
of your existence,
all i have for you is desperate disinterest.
what is there to talk about?
how you clean your kitchen and have submissive, dull *** once in a while?
here's a secret: he probably asked you so that he could get down your pants legally. you said yes thinking of a pretty white dress and that feeling you get watching Disney movies.
i asked a suburban woman this question:
who are you living for?
hollow eyes as she laundry listed Jesus, God and every one of her family members.
no concept of self.
are you satisfied?
yes. she said. i am satisfied.
how can you look at the state of the world and feel complacency? the longer i live the more i realize
that static is not an option.
girls, ladies, women
you don't need the validation.
Nov 30, 2011
Nov 30, 2011 at 8:49 PM UTC
.
There was a time
when a poet was the bane,
a thorn in the side of fathers,
seeking to protect their starry eyed daughters,
to keep their virtue intact and pure,
from the menace of romantic verse,
and the lure of a handsome wordsmith.
There was a time
women would queue to be his muse,
pray to be the next broken hearted tragedy,
in rhymes penned by his stroking fingers,
the fulcrum of an adventure in love,
to fulfil their private fantasies of destiny,
being the plaything of word woven desire.
There was a time
ladies in lace and fur and of status
raided accounts of rich and flaccid husbands,
to bestow favour and gifts,
upon the man who turned them on,
with *** for their lust starved bodies
and soft words for sensitive emotional need.
There was a time
and now its has long gone,
the poet barely catches a beautiful muse,
hardly ever breaks a heart,
nor seduces a benefactors second glance,
leading her to book and bed,
as the world offers her distractions new.
© Pagan Paul (25/04/18)
Apr 27, 2018
Apr 27, 2018 at 5:49 AM UTC