"gated" poems
Myself caught in the heatwave sunlight, brown eyes
furrowed in the sun, scarf loose on my neck/
the transcendental Denpasar morning-birds
are playing their melodies in my head still,
three years post-Indonesia.
All of my soul to India now,
sky the pink of painted elephants
on Jaipur dawning,
my afterlife was somewhere here
perhaps two generations ago, chances are.
Vijay Raghav Rao and Alla Rakha
playing the Tabla/via earphones/treading the
Funary Box City (Kashi) future Spring
hands held together keeping calm pace.
Looking about, my twenty-two year old face
catches humid wind
S
I
L
V
E
R
S
H
O
P
tattered bike leaning on the gated guest house entrance
PERENNIAL AZURE SHIVA SITS CROSS LEGGED/
COBRA NECKLACE IMITIATONS ON THE GODDESS THROAT/
MEDITATING SHIVA/
dulled from years and corrosion.
Brahmin center of the market street
flapping it's tail,
sweat beads from my forehead bleeding
to oily pavement.
At last the months have come for the river Ganges,
April penumbra/savage thunderclap
while school children uplifting the heart
AND MIND
are ROARING in their laughter
the CONTINENTAL DISCORD OF JOY
sleeping with their eyes open
while others are too tired for the Earth.
Sidney Bechet floating swan songs during
the black hour cremations/
“Bechet Creole Blues”
CATERWAUL IN THAT VOID
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF DEATH/
LUNACY OF LIFE
(I've arrived at the simultaneous crossroads
of both)
searing flesh in open air pyramids/
Manikarnika Ghat,
Asia F
L
O
W
S
through dreams
like inevitable prophecy
and as ash blends with stars
the CITY seems fulfilled
and mystifying
in it's
(((((RESPLENDENCE)))))
Jun 24, 2015
Jun 24, 2015 at 3:40 PM UTC
Don't want a girl child
Doesn't mean
I hate being a girl
But hate to be a part of this
Hatred male dominated world
Aug 18, 2016
Aug 18, 2016 at 12:54 PM UTC
Funeral processions
Spontaneous
Money, Money, Money
Bridges to Neverland should exist.
Wedding party
Music
Fall leaves
Breaks winter.
Intuition floods the sauna of life gated in
By the strong arms of the whispering trees.
******** profit, taking advantage of the sheltered
Wallets of men plagued by the insensitivity and greed
of the less mature.
**** you, sir, for charging innocent minds and hungry souls
To enjoy the entrancement of the world
Far older than you
Nov 29, 2012
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:59 AM UTC
Lush mango groves
where the musky scent of mango blooms
once wafted making the
bulbuls sing in ecstasy
from morning till sundown
are reborn as gated communities,
where grim seriousness parade.
In sun drenched vineyards,
shadows of dreams,
wanting to dress up as IT parks, spread.
Bangalore barters its medley of colors and smells
for prosperity in terms of greenbacks,
as people learn to be 'smart' players,
and more and more get 'Bangalored'*
from around the world.
Corn fields that danced to the tunes
of the songs of toiling farmers
go missing within days.
To match with the new mood,
nature, in this green paradise, till not so long ago
shamelessly wears the unnatural with style.
Mar 4, 2013
Mar 4, 2013 at 10:09 AM UTC
Memorized by a vacant lot. At the edge of an abyss. Darkness is solitude. Solitude for a crowded my mind. There is no break for a mind. Constantly crunching away at what is reality. The concept of nothingness makes the mind clock overtime. Are we creatures of logical limitless. Or finite beings who cant grasp that nothing is infinite. We are here to observe. To learn. To yearn. In search of a purpose. In search of anything that keeps us from thinking we are worthless. We are creators. We are makers. We are breakers. We are fakers. We are individuals. We are imitators. I am you and you are me. One in the same. On an even plane.. on a round earth. We are haters. We are lovers. We are creatures of similarity. We are creatures of contrast. Idiosyncratic nuances that make us a so far apart but so alike. The performer with a mic. The crazy man on a soap box. The angry in jail. The stoners in a hotbox. The gated community members. And the thieves breaking pad locks. The rich and the poor. The nun and the ***** The killer and the doctor. The lover and the boxer. All so far apart yet always united with a common theme. One in the same. He is her and she is him. Cell by cell. Limb by limb. United until every atom that we were connected through is torn away into nothingness. Vacant lots at the edge of an abyss.
Dec 29, 2013
Dec 29, 2013 at 3:16 AM UTC
*Lost in a sanctuary,
In the midst of a magical land,
Where dreams come true,
Stands an open portal,
Leading into a lighted pathway,
Upon its natural emerald scenery,
Surrounded by an inviting waterfall,
Cascading, beside a haven,
Into a gated wonderland,
Where fairies and treasures,
Lie beautifully,
In an unknown enchanting palace,
A small world of fantasies,
Leaving an illusion, of an airbrush painting,
In an elegant gallery.*
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014 at 6:14 PM UTC
I knocked on society’s door,
Hollow footsteps through the crevice of civility,
A ***** welcome mat with a broken doorbell;
No visitors wanted who were not invited,
And understanding was buried under the porch.
In Law’s front yard,
picketed with ire and arrayed with disorder,
Olive branches strewn across dry grass,
lay an empty briefcase marked in leather.
Gavel and irony betrayed her whimsically.
Garden beds in front of Understanding;
Plundered of roses and wanton petals.
Bland stems wilted amongst the weeds.
Relinquished of entitlement; water led
Towards apathy and entropy instead.
A house of Perhaps: vacant,
Open front door to empty rooms.
Leased to opportunity but vacated in days,
Renovations procrastinated; mocked by
The neighbor of dismay and wry.
Ignorance paved a new driveway,
The unanimous watch of Lively Cul-de-sac;
Gated community with hopes of manicured
Lawns and pools. Procreated in the minds
Of not wild men, but surveyors.
Mar 6, 2012
Mar 6, 2012 at 4:17 AM UTC
Like so many
Lemmings
they rush to southern climes for
greener pastures
year round golf a
Slower pace
Cheaper prices and
Tropical temperatures
Leathery
Tanned
Unnaturally taut and
Sun-spotted
they crowd the local haunts and
Clog the highways.
At best they tolerate whoever is not
Pensioned or
Privileged
At worst they ban the
Underage
Unfortunates
from their gated communities
and social gatherings
The pendulum has swung from a time
when the Old were at the
Mercy of the Young
to the present
when Youth is
Oppressed by Senescence
Once democracy’s backbone they now wax
Conservative having obtained their
Slice of the pie
Now there is no pie
Mother Earth has been trampled to death and the
Toiling hands of those who
Stoke the fires of industry are
Blistered and discouraged
Feb 26, 2017
Feb 26, 2017 at 2:27 PM UTC
The ancient Chedi stands eternal
in the gated town of the golden land
among thousand peaks, this is the primary
pilgrims take refuge and tourists wow
can one have desire and not suffer?
therein the omniscient one answers
Apr 3, 2018
Apr 3, 2018 at 9:36 PM UTC
Her eyes are the stained glass broken from confession.
Her withered hair buried beneath dirt gravel.
Her forbidden mind fosters slobs of crazy.
Her mind is a battlefield of Trojan takeover.
Her bare feet remember sacred ground of tainted memories.
Her ears embrace the screech of still weather.
Her grapefruit mouth juiced with venom is tasteless.
her sharp egg shelled fingertips woven from braids of straw.
Her body is the Earthquake ruptured by the vibrations of collision.
Her thoughts trespass gated abandonment
Her firework pen exploding with gunpowder secrets.
Her gunpowder secrets deterring the sanity.
Her cracked lips cobweb from silenced words.
Her puppet stringed smile puts on a show to the audienced world.
Her soul has been toyed with by the cynical Fates.
Her echo without direction is a heartbroken drum line.
Her armor has been dowsed with sharp, penetrating words.
Her skin has painted stories interior to her porcelain frame.
Her soulless story can be dry swallowed by rocks.
Her tears bleed of whispered screams.
Aug 9, 2012
Aug 9, 2012 at 2:02 PM UTC
Your sentences were gated,
And locked within your lungs -
Your words forbidden fruit to me,
The apple of your tongue.
The uninspired oft’ find it hard
To leave another’s song unsung.
So I harvested your phrases -
I burglarized your breath,
And nurtured all your laden words
‘Till there was nothing left.
And living with your hollowed words,
I died a stolen death.
Dec 29, 2017
Dec 29, 2017 at 2:08 PM UTC
Moving through the night, feigning sleep,
eyes closed mind open to the possibilities
that all we thought was known, is now not true.
That we are being cared for too, instead why
is a balding wolf chewing at my pain in the neck.
The pig is a snake and has a forked tongue,
fattens you with comfort as long as you like
blood tipped sharp barbed wire, ***** coated
to guarantee you catch something, even if it is
too late, to recognize the calamity.
Don't blame the pig, "all animals are created equal
but some animals are more equal than others"
So on the morrow we may become as unglued as
what we open, hopin' for a merciful gated pasture
rather than a lamb for the slaughter as fast as
it can be manufactured.
Oh sorry to disturb you,
I know you don't understand,
I mustn't either as then I would
not need poetry...to lie with me
and dry my tears each one wet
with fear that I torture myself,
sadly I know already that I am
right, but I am not up for
this
fight.
I will lose...no honour in this, against my beliefs,
my grief a failure will erode my will to breath,
so sorry go about your night or day, I don't
mean to disturb, let me fester, let me rot,
you all are, all I got Hello, goodbye.
Aug 10, 2013
Aug 10, 2013 at 12:41 AM UTC
I have a gated community
but I don't have a community
I only have company
I can't be alone in my bed
then I'll be left alone in my head
and this is why my "friends" run from me
Oct 18, 2019
Oct 18, 2019 at 3:02 AM UTC
i swear
but i'll sleep under your bed if you'll let me &
eat the dust in the crawl space between your kitchen walls
when you're entertaining guests &
only come out when they're in another room
or you ask me to
i'm not stalking you
i swear
i'm actually on this ladder fixing your neighbor's gutter
yes this same spot has been damaged for three years
& deserves a complex solution arrived at by
strenuous deliberation
i'm not stalking you
i swear
i'm not wearing the cologne you bought your ex
for christmas last year & threw out
into the aluminum trashcan six months ago
because that ******* didn't appreciate you
like i could
i'm not stalking you
i swear
i don't know how your mail gets mixed up with mine
at least twice a week the postman must be dyslexic
& also trade his mailbag with the guy who delivers mine
for five dollar bribes
i'm not stalking you
i swear
it's just funny we go to the same dentist &
you have such white teeth my mother would love
you if only for them
i'm not stalking you
i swear
this idea hasn't been growing in my brain since
i was an innocent boy spurting his essence into
a gym class knee high sock at night after
watching baywatch reruns
i'm not stalking you
i swear
i don't spend my days wondering if i should get
****** piercings
because you seem like the type to enjoy them
i'm not stalking you
i swear
i walk home this way too but instead
of a third floor elevator ride in a gated community
on the next block i'll continue three more blocks
west take the train back south four miles & finish
cutting through alleys for another mile until i
arrive at my own cellar apartment
it's not out of my way
i don't mind taking an alternative route
i'm not stalking you
i swear
but your cheekbones are stealing my sleep
& when i do dream you turn your ***
toward me not in surrender but
defiance that vicious
dilated ******* and heavy flesh
taunting me in my own
fleabed forever
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 2:10 PM UTC
I'm not the only me I see when I see me looking back at me
Bewildered by the impossibility of a blind visionary with the foresight to look past me to find me
I got caught staring so intently I lost sight of the true me completely
You see such savagery and think it must have been nurtured from infancy
While true, I had it in check, hidden away in the captivity of a long forgotten memory
But it still remembered me, waited patiently, predicting my return with a whimsical accuracy
It heard me frantically trying to find the glass to break in case of emergency
Not to set it free but to once again embrace what was scary, what might be the reality of the actual me
Instantly I handed over the key, didn't even keep a copy for me
Knowing exactly what I was doing and what it'd do to me mentally
It was always going to happen this way eventually
Finding solace in it's monotony, no more uncertainty
Both wake up and go to bed with the same angry energy
Done with the pleasantry and all the pageantry projected outwardly to seem more neighborly
Just so the world could be more comfortable with me when I pass through their snooty, gated community
While it pays no mind to what's being done to my psyche
This self destructive entity wasn't only the part of my reality I was told to bury
It is the entirety of my history, sad and happy, comedy and tragedy
I was it and it was me, the merger went so smoothly I believed it was absolutely meant to be, probably
Fighting myself got messy and wasn't necessarily a necessity
In the end there was no surprise who's hand was raised in victory
I already knew the part of me that held superiority but everyone else said it'd turn out differently
Like they got some kind of decoder key
Of course it didn't and they don't, thankfully I was welcomed back too once again become my own worst enemy
It ain't good company but I personally accept that personality and it's starting to warm up to me finally
It's been a strange journey, be thankful I didn't ask you to join me
©2023
Nov 1, 2023
Nov 1, 2023 at 12:22 AM UTC
LOUD trumpets blow among the naked pines,
Fine spun as sere-cloth rent from royal dead.
Seen ghostly thro' high-lifted vagrant drifts,
Shrill blaring, but no longer loud to moons
Like a brown maid of Egypt stands the Earth,
Her empty valley palms stretched to the Sun
For largesse of his gold. Her mountain tops
Still beacon winter with white flame of snow,
Fading along his track; her rivers shake
Wild manes, and paw their banks as though to flee
Their riven fetters.
Lawless is the time,
Full of loud kingless voices that way gone:
The Polar Caesar striding to the north,
Nor yet the sapphire-gated south unfolds
For Spring's sweet progress; the winds, unkinged,
Reach gusty hands of riot round the brows
Of lordly mountains waiting for a lord,
And pluck the ragged beards of lonely pines-
Watchers on heights for that sweet, hidden king,
Bud-crowned and dreaming yet on other shores-
And mock their patient waiting. But by night
The round Moon falters up a softer sky,
Drawn by silver cords of gentler stars
Than darted chill flames on the wintry earth.
Within his azure battlements the Sun
Regilds his face with joyance, for he sees,
From those high towers, Spring, earth's fairest lord,
Soft-cradled on the wings of rising swans,
With violet eyes slow budding into smiles,
And small, bright hands with blossom largesse full,
Crowned with an orchard coronal of white,
And with a sceptre of a ruddy reed
Burnt at its top to amethystine bloom.
Come, Lord, thy kingdom stretches barren hands!
Come, King, and chain thy rebels to thy throne
With tendrils of vine and jewelled links
Of ruddy buds pulsating into flower!
2.2k
This town is too small for secrets
The sidewalks are adorned with names and dates
Of couples whose love dissolved twenty years ago
While moss oozes out of the letters.
This town is too small for secrets
Through windows at night
The citizens play out their dollhouse lives
And dysfunction is locked away in grandmother’s armoire.
This town is too small for secrets
Where bars close at seven in the morning and open an hour later
And the tenders are purveyors of free psychiatry
Who put advice in bowls between stale peanuts
And place them on the counter.
This town is too small for secrets
Every hour the two churches compete for the loudest bells
But the protestant one always wins
And the Catholics having mass ignore its pleading voice
But whisper politely in each other’s ears
About the scandalous protestors out on Main.
This town is too small for secrets
With its coffee shops littered with youth
Who deny their wealth through coffee steam
And discuss the state of countries they can’t place on a map
And slowly leach out in to the frigid rain
Back to new cars and million-dollar homes
Where daddy pays the bills.
This town is too small for secrets
The college students drink their scholarships in red plastic cups
And scuttle towards their shared flats
Collapse in to bed too tired to sleep
Stare at the ceiling and wonder why they didn’t transfer
Three semesters ago.
This town is too small for secrets
With its gated communities of retirees
Where the homes are manufactured
And the walls papered with the smiling faces of clean-cut grandchildren
And the rebellious ones packed away
From the neighborhood gossip’s prying eyes.
Nov 30, 2013
Nov 30, 2013 at 7:59 PM UTC
I loved you
and such is the most succulent sorrow
to be written over like one scar upon another,
erased and retold, I can hardly remember
the way your fingers intwined with mine
and settled like the roots of the tree
resting in the front yard of our minds.
The gated iron face was weakening,
left, unattended by our neglect, our
endless longing.
The path was smoothed out for us.
I didn't desire to work in the coal mines
for you,
lungs, black and tender, to hold in
the weight of your laughter and me,
caged,
hummingbird.
So persistent is the exit wound
between two broken ribs.
You would kiss the scar tissue.
Tell me all would be well and I would
weep because how could it ever be so
lovely as it was before my fears rose
to the surface like a bloated porpoise bobbing
with the current and I'd stretch out my arms like I am
declaring allegiance.
To the starlit collisions that illuminate
this fate we were committed to from the start,
to the god I dare to mock:
once I loved you,
and you, I.
Once I lied.
Oct 6, 2012
Oct 6, 2012 at 2:51 AM UTC
And only when every prison
in the police state has
an art gallery
only when hip hop
sounds like a revolutionary
sermon
only when Congress disbands
itself for lack of moral conduct
only when condoms
are jammed tightly
into high school backpacks
only when free speech
isn’t subject to search
and seizure
only when housing projects
get gated fences
only when college
athletes use pi
to find the circumference
of a basketball in their spare time
only when food pantries
exist in old NRA hangouts
only when Monsanto scrubs clean
every black cloud
only when Noah comes back
and transports
two of everything to
a protest movement
only when a protest
movement morphs
into a diversity celebration
and only when the U.S. government
writes a 5,000,000 page
apology for every ****
****** and Bill O’Reilly
sentence uttered
will I even consider having
a picnic.
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 11:21 AM UTC
Nearly four decades ago, nearly half a century
I walked Freedom Boulevard from
a lonely bus stop and as I drove there
the other day I saw a girl standing at one who could have been
me, in memory -- frozen
Would it still be there? One of my treasured childhood memories
Still living, not someone's brand new home, or a bunch of Villas in a gated community, lost
The land bleeds in California, but has started to scar over and forget the apple orchards
across the street from The Barn, where I used to ride, and now the houses are at least
covered in trees as nature tries to overtake the foreign, like in Cherenobyl
The big red barn sitting atop a small hill, crammed with horse paddocks now that
the little barns turned to condos. But it is still there. Like magic, frozen in time.
The red barn, I walk in, it looks smaller than I remember
but the ***** brown cobwebs still cover the cieling and I am
nine years old again
Before I knew the boundaries of my gender
When I felt powerful, if neglected, strong and in charge
Before I knew the bindings of my ***
The limitations
I felt strong, and as I stand here,
I may as well be nine again, a single digit
And my fear melts away, and the lessons learned about my place
in the world evaporate
I stand, and look around at the barn nearly unchanged
and reclaim myself
Aug 15, 2013
Aug 15, 2013 at 10:52 PM UTC
I remember when
we used to straddle the fence
wandering labyrinths
of gated neighborhoods
we didn't live in.
'Cause way back then
the world seemed so big
dancing on the sky
when we used to get so high.
Committing petty sins
with a Cheshire grin
where the weekend was life
and we never planned to die.
Aug 1, 2014
Aug 1, 2014 at 1:53 AM UTC
The crowds flock to protest the new recipe,
as thousands die in the city of Jakarta.
Even as the tulip fields promise diversity,
another whitewashed wall appears
by the old laundrette.
I cannot understand sanity in a world so crazy.
Police barricade the homeless
and set the rapists free.
Each jewellery room is iron-gated,
whilst hospitals turn to soup kitchens.
There is no app to save us from human folly,
no special offer on compassion, or a trial period
for higher states of mind. Eyes are bleeding
by TV screens, as all expectations
are lowered to the high-rise.
Where comes politics in Democracy's atrophy?
Voter apathy, faceless names
and blood-lined tycoons fill the news.
They are saying “nothing will change,”
whilst promising the world.
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 11:18 AM UTC
My mind, spinning red like the spokes of your bicycle,
Dazed by halted slumber, lying flat and still.
The weight of Doubt pressed his callused hands
Upon my chest and at my laudable resistance,
He laughs.
I sink.
Dreams laced too vividly with haze-dusted fears,
Lasting in wake as only nightmares can.
Gaining strength with each repression,
Defiant, cold, and sharp,
Burns into thought to tease this somber heart.
Soaring downhill,
Wheels spin in unison without control.
The friction of conflicting realities
Ignite the fire in my core.
Cooling tears of salt and guilt fail to douse the flames.
Snapshots from the dreaming reel,
Float,
Snide toward my gated heart.
Falling.
Slow.
Elegant as sonnets torn in cruel haste
From the gold-gilded diary of a closet poet.
Jan 24, 2013
Jan 24, 2013 at 7:38 PM UTC
self deprivation
generalizations
self accusation
mixed assumptions
****** fluids
gated communities
federal violations
welcome
Sep 9, 2013
Sep 9, 2013 at 11:33 PM UTC