"gauntlet" poems
Though perception is interesting, how many was it really, wait, the joker never drank really? did he? **** I forget. um, but I think I recall the riddler had , wait, maybe not. um,, way under the legal limit is below two , but did he, the joker, you know how he is. considering, wait, who was counting those things? what, one and what, oh **** and we... what a **** this kat can be, wait, did he really, run the gauntlet just to show the world , oh **** pull the skit, it is too rich, and he was spotted at the bank earlier speaking of laughing next time he visited. **** writers and those skits. troublesome, and grrr, they forget to keep it clean. lol
Jul 17, 2015
Jul 17, 2015 at 1:28 AM UTC
Beautiful summer day. You know you're gonna die
that's why you know no joy
unless religion, tv, stories, sports matter.
For men like us dying's easy, it's living that's hard.
And since dying's much like living, that's hard too.
There's some contentment in letting community decide
your place in it. A good day to die, the Apaches say.
Can't stop the quince from blossoming
or my sons from smoking, speeding.
The best that can be done or said's a blessing.
Less tv, less guessing about the effects of your anger
unless you want to be an angry man forever.
Becoming knowledgeable is the best defense
against your insignificance. OK about being alone.
Alive, almost sure of it. Whether I'm a visitor
to my life or the actual owner.
Mature poets steal, most are masturbators.
There are a million poets, I'm poet #500K.
Plenty of mysteries, infinite philosophies,
prayers, laws and unwritten rules.
That's why we go to school, life's complicated.
All I do not know: ATP, probabilities,
the glorious revolution, meiosis and mitosis
and all I'll never see, the bottom of the ocean,
the palm at the end of the mind, a wolverine.
Forget-me-not, is that all I want?
To get lucky, you gotta be careful first.
To be great, you gotta be willing to sound BAD.
In last night’s movie, a young writer
and an older, married with children French woman
fall in love. They did not meet during a village massacre
and money is no object, Manhattan.
But after everything has happened
she cannot leave her children, not even for love,
because of love, the love that brooks no serendipity.
In the subsequent late night movie, a wealthy
altruistic doctor arranges for the ******
of his neurotic concubine. His guilt
provides us with an opportunity to consider
the concepts of faith and forgiveness,
that all will be well in the end
after a period of meaningless suffering.
Mar 6, 2017
Mar 6, 2017 at 5:21 AM UTC
Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.
Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.
They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor's sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.
They would no guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they
Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-littered ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,
Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:
Time has transfigures them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
8.8k
Inhale, feel, lets the flavors collide.
**** it down if you can
Every taste from your poisonous gauntlet
Reminds me of me your kiss.
Passionate, I keep sipping.
I love you more than I love myself.
You have become the reason I breathe,
And you will prove to be the reason I die.
My skin under my eyes loses color.
It is tired from the things you have thrown at it.
Trying to combat you is a lost cause.
In those moments,
I look into your brown eyes
And try to find something weak
Something human.
Your blank stare frightens me
As it is comparable to a demon, the devil
Devoid of remorse, or guilt, or sorrow.
Your words cut deeper.
They are the IV in my veins
They penetrate my skin
And invade my bloodstream
Yet, I continue to hook their machines
Up to my comatose body.
I have gone from having a bright smile
To wearing a perpetual look of anguish.
You have aged me ten years.
I stare down at my hands as they tremble.
My eyeballs have sunken into my head
I am a ruin of anything lifelike.
It is a defective disposition
But can it be cured?
An addiction is a pleasure is a curse
That grows as you feed it.
I must cut myself off from you, my lifeline,
Completely.
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 1:14 PM UTC
The White Whale
She swam the gauntlet
Six times, seven
Then took a chance on love
And was rewarded
Far beyond her hopes and dreams
But now this eighth trip south
Much harder than before
And she so weary
Overburdened
Unesteemed
Then it went wrong
The water
Kind no longer
Tainted and impure
Took first her child
And then, no longer caring, she
When soon she came to rest
Among the rocks
Almost as if to say
You’ve cared not for my ocean home -
Now you must deal with me.
Oct 23, 2015
Oct 23, 2015 at 6:28 AM UTC
Blurring,
Through a lifeless realm of light.
Blinding,
Is the massive ray display!
Phasing through two different voids,
As life enfolds, the dark engulfed.
Before the storm,
The tallest bricks reform.
And waves ring silence,
As the boat stays on the shore!
I'll travel to the distant past
To cast the gauntlet to the mass!
As the wise men fill with rage,
Their heads take cover
Under hoods of shape!
Detonate!
Oct 18, 2015
Oct 18, 2015 at 11:22 PM UTC
Tell your gods we call for blood
We're stirring hurricanes in your teacups.
It's an instant headache cure at the end of a barrel,
Though a worthwhile gauntlet to continue to breathe.
We’re stirring hurricanes in your teacups
It might be easier to crash and burn.
Though a worthwhile gauntlet to continue to breathe,
We should never measure our breaths to our steps
It might be easier to crash and burn.
Children die from the painful things they learn.
We should never measure our breaths to our steps,
But the dignity in life is too beautiful to regret.
Children die from the painful things they learn
It’s an instant headache cure at the end of a barrel
But the dignity in life is too beautiful to regret.
Tell your gods we call for blood
Jul 20, 2012
Jul 20, 2012 at 4:27 PM UTC
Mild day in winter, week before Christmas
Turns out the tree in your front yard has been
A holly tree all along, finally showing true colors
As a taxi driver leaves the driveway and
A neighbor in a red shirt crosses the concrete
Sidewalk. The succulents to my side reach like alien
Synapses, your white car looks at me cross-
eyed, cinnabar brick damp with Peninsula fog.
The morning’s cup of coffee still lingers on my
Tongue, my body aches with last night’s indulgences
And repressions. Warmth is relative, hangovers
Are absolute. A pagan zodiac spins inside a
Haze of long-lost memories, a gauntlet of trees.
A gentler repercussion, a less insightful song,
For I am only human, stains on my sleeve,
Sleeping in when I should be producing anything.
I forget what I am, except a shivering flesh vessel.
I cannot remember what I was supposed
To be.
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 3:49 PM UTC
the new tupac will have you too walkin with gangstas
the new two stupidity now two steppin with prankstas
murked the first one sayin he's blacker the berry
when i'm sweeter than juice
bass voiced top me if you want to experience that jacked tweeters induced
when i own all of Victoria's secrets as proof
tellin me what the body when all his deducement has him actin when he's wearin his shoes
crypt walking like that it's only talk
missed balking like has bass fits jocking as his only walk
******* with me when All Hailed Mary like if she was his when is only stolen balk
I'm walkin again the gauntlet cuz all the women they want this flauntin all **** like if i was jackin all the wanted
like ghost whippin me imma follow you till i'm haunted
pain really, so bow down, when my diamonds glisten
listen again is just as well bilateral biased has his confused his like the ol' eminem was in the new form gettin his face jacked again
like me smokin crack with friends like all given enemies stressed was all given was a race black and then
we actually are the same race like i knew you back like i owned all the streets like his females thuggin as heathen
**** riding i'll **** your *** up like settin me up when i'm always the last muthafucken breathin
exposing the ***** heathen breathin like if you were the only man catching bullet rounds exposed like the new you was still alive
to the next ** hiked my socks up construed you at hit stupidity when will ride
ghettos owned by just the black reppin when you're steppin the whack, honest it was just onyx
i'll blast your *** like if you stole my pump shotty:
like i never was wanted runst follies
anamoly run has all criminal cops all fathering fun deceiving that all to gain was never greed when all greed in need bothering sons:
all you still down with me when we ride it
looking like a *** while i'm guy gee stag when you're looking into their eyes, they'd know comparison of a bird control as if fathering guys
my knowledge is flight applauding the time, are you still down with me
i hide behind the love of beauty of my womens eyes when you're looking like the female opened you up to your face compared to opening thighs
they don't know like how you stare in the future that tommorow comes only after the dark
knowing me marks the coming of the actual god
I am "unconditional heart"
Sep 5, 2018
Sep 5, 2018 at 11:59 AM UTC
Why pucker the Doll which does not puck back
Was what they told me through the Window Pane
A-thinks they see Clear, keen on what they Lack
The Gauntlet needed to smash such Glass again
That dare you cut your Friend's supposed Line
Just because he saw the Animals play
They are only Plastic; And Air inside
A Harmless Chapter your Youth needs today
Do you think I will Sing? And rend your Shame,
Whose Salary you know I won't enjoy
Good Lord, Man! Why must you label my Name
Like those Land Sharks who bite you out of Joy?
What do you need to tie the Ribbon Blue
That is your Colour; That should have been you.
Mar 11, 2013
Mar 11, 2013 at 3:45 AM UTC
<!>
inspired by a conversation with Maira Kalman
strap on a name, adopt a persona, let my fingers do the talking,
place the instrumental sharp point tip upon the blankety blank paper,
maestro baton raised, coordinating,
the first sound, the vocal chords trembling,
the first thought, the ultrasound image, entrance of a first violin,
coalescing into, into the initializing single primary phonation,
the stinging geometry of chance at last,
throwing down the gauntlet, glove slapping, and the
tendons tense, the mouth opens, release and indentation,
a letter's curvature, a black and white downward stroking,
a sign is televised, revealed and released
a one way only sign
time bends knee, gravity suspended, terror morphs to
expelling rapid firefights of imagery needy for spacing,
even pauses mid-word leave just this:
where is the in in
intimate?
are you the in in
inmate,
or the jailor at the gate?
you swear never again
until committing once more,
a sentence commutation, by committing a first sentence,
and the greater toll taken and paid for,
and the in in in-nate,
questions your sanity
happily
<•>
9/17/17 10:55pm
Jan 12, 2018
Jan 12, 2018 at 3:47 PM UTC
I take up the gauntlet
Wrestling you, word and rhyme.
Posturing my play afforded,
For a mental good time.
Tatting for ***
This-ing for that
Battling your wit
Prose-ing a chat.
No way to win,
Enticing it may be.
The towel I throw in
You will always beat me!
Feb 26, 2017
Feb 26, 2017 at 5:09 PM UTC
Glances shared at infinitesimal instances
trickle up my vertebrae,
blow the dust away
& chew the tin foil for me.
Nonchalantly running a gauntlet
that I designed with architectural
displeasure.
If you absorbed all the gold you've ever touched,
feverishly drank the blood of gods,
suckled the syrup from tangerines
until you blessed a famine,
stole your story from a pack of gorgeous wolves,
or inhaled the whispers of every wise soul
it would still not explain your unprecedented
growth & elegance.
A superlative pressure wave in the eyes of
a politician.
Purely an enigma.
Beauty in the form of human nature.
I truly flourish in this experience.
Jan 8, 2015
Jan 8, 2015 at 9:56 PM UTC
To my dear son, Boaz in distant Idaho,
Saturday nite, the whole of New Zealand waited in apprehension for the All Blacks rugy team to play the resurgent Wallabys @ Fortress Eden Park.
The previous week at Suncorp Stadium in Sydney, in driving rain, the All Blacks muddled through a painfull draw with the Wallabys, 12 points each with no tries.
The Wallabys had fancied their chances and had wanted an emphatic win on home soil.
Both teams took that score as a loss and the gauntlet was thrown for the second match…..
A brilliant evening, clear and fine , 50,000 people crushed in to Eden Park and you could feel the apprehension, the rest of the country sat in front of their TV willing the team on.
The Haka was given a brutal rendition, you could feel the determination, the passion emanating….the Ozzies glared their defiance back…it was all on!
10 minutes into a titanic struggle with the score three all Captain Ritchie McCaw had a brain fade and was yellow carded off for ten minutes by the French referee.
The crowd roared…then murmured their worry like you’ve never heard before.
The Ozzies mustered a huge scrum which the All Blacks countered with one man down…. The counter ****** pushed the Australian scrum back 15 ft.
Every man in New Zealand was on his feet roaring, you could feel the spirit of nationalism soaring….the moment was a watershed.
The All Blacks counterattacked showing a brilliance in attack and defence we have not seen for years… and from that moment on the game was won.
Final score 51:20 The Bledisloe Cup was ours.
As the match finished the TV camera panned across the solidly black clad crowd…. I have never, ever in my life, seen so many, simultaneous, sets of white teeth grinning!
The trip home to Australia would have been… a very subdued affair.
Thought I should share this marvellous moment with you Boaz.
Luv Dad.
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 4:28 PM UTC
Tender weather summer
slumber ponder hunger
cover wonder lover
runner hunter comer
mainly gravely greatly
rainy daily ready
achy heavy crazy
lazy safety lately
hunted spotted haunted
solid gauntlet granted
plotted started halted
flawless gunner wanted
Dec 23, 2013
Dec 23, 2013 at 1:24 AM UTC
Bring down the moon for genteel Janet;
She's too refined for this gross planet.
She wears garments and you wear clothes,
You buy stockings, she purchases hose.
She say That is correct, and you say Yes,
And she disrobes and you undress.
Confronted by a mouse or moose,
You turn green, she turns chartroose.
Her speech is new-minted, freshly quarried;
She has a fore-head, you have a forehead.
Nor snake nor slowworm draweth nigh her;
You go to bed, she doth retire.
To Janet, births are blessed events,
And odors that you smell she scents.
Replete she feels, when her food is yummy,
Not in the stomach but the tummy.
If urged some novel step to show,
You say Like this, she says Like so.
Her dear ones don't die, but pass away;
Beneath her formal is lonjeray.
Of refinement she's a fount, or fountess,
And that is why she's now a countess.
She was asking for the little girls' room
And a flunky though she said the earl's room.
2.5k
*sailing on the blue-sea
sailing unknown-beauty*..
1.
the seas laugh in raucous-hacks
as the waves cough up the corpses of my dreams
at my feet, they come in from the swell of tides
seeming no more than
spongy sea-weed with sun-skin points
bloated fish who didn't make it
swollen seals with child
and the blue-boy on the whale's back
confident-smiles draped upon his demeanour
like a well-worn cloak of old-comfort
soft and velvety secrets hide inside the folds
of his true-age and pure-soul
nobody would believe
how many trips he had to make
to get to this shore
how many deaths he had to live through
to understand the purpose
how many tears he saw shedding
of nature's total-patience
how many of so much..
2.
on the back of a whale
he traverses the width of seas
the span of lands
the points of stars
the truth of man
and he grieves the piteous-souls whose backs break
so hard
on the interminable-wheel of penitence
turning and grinding
grinding
grinding..
always bent upon that gauntlet-grind
if they but knew how futile the turn..
carrying loads of mercy and goodness
only to see it seep out wounds ere journey's end
3.
cruel deified-laughter exists not
at man's readiness to crucify hope
with such four-square certainty
that redemption lies in suffering..
oh no..
4.
faint sounds of laughter on a broad-coast
whose sands give way to shy-dossiers
of nature's confidence
in the evening sun
secrets that I neglected to see.. first time round
have I failed myself.. ?
(but not again)
when awareness taps one on the shoulder,
is it not utter-folly to turn one's back on resplendence
that all the leaves and seas are willing to share?
*true-beauty lies in covert-blossoms
and opened-eyes
and saying.. yes
when the sun-breeze
dawns*
S T - sunnyday, 24 Nov 2013
Nov 24, 2013
Nov 24, 2013 at 1:08 PM UTC
meadows that stays so green at spring
and so bared in autumn
magically white in winter
scorching and gold in the air of summers
perennial.
how do they do that?
to stay the same on the foundation
yet ever-changing on the surface.
what difference does it make really?
what kinds?
of the surcoats of hazel and acorns
or the blankets of snow on the slender branches
of trees?
don't they, even once
feel weary of all the undercurrents,
of shifting shapes of shadows?
and stand their ground
and shouted their demands
and push at intractable walls?
and flop down
and sift like flour
and grate like mozzarella?
to toss the gauntlet
say
'enough!'
doesn't anyone ever muses then
of whether the slideshows of nature
being flagrantly displayed and paraded
before their soon indifferent eyes
would feel of their performance.
but oh,
those poor meadows,
those poor meadows,
those pitiable meadows.
continue with your acts and scenes
that shall never pauses nor halt
oh no, no.
for you are impressive actors
on the forested stage
and the eyes, belligerent
yes, they are
will be watching the other way
never straight to your eyes
your artic, chilled
encasing a turbulent, melting, whirling
hot caramel core
yeap, right there on your irises and pupils.
so go on
go on
my delectable
my neglected
my pushover
my poor meadows.
Mar 5, 2010
Mar 5, 2010 at 10:53 AM UTC
A man's ego is a thick wall
Covering his vulnerable soul,
Protects him from shivering
From the outside cold.
It is his coach, and his captain
As well as his life's good coach,
Protecting the his exteriors
From his fragility he never boasts.
As soft as the clouds wandering
Through the dust of the city life,
Same as the careful veins
Embedded in a womans' soft heart.
Snugged in his vicious tongue
With every word in his gauntlet
Warming his soul away
From any dark and cold blankets.
Like diamonds you try to dismantle
And see him break at once,
As he snaps to put the pieces back
But the cracks can't be undone.
Mar 13, 2016
Mar 13, 2016 at 10:53 AM UTC
Misty moonlight falls on dancing waters
Shimmers as it plays
Lights the fall of a gauntlet’s challenge
Called the sunrise
Of the day
Straining beams of iridescence quietly appear
Changing in a glow
Accumulating dust from a starlight’s sphere
A brilliant sparkling
From long ago
A splash of velvet is the midnight sky
Cradling our moon
Softly singing the sweetest lullaby
Knowing the challenge
Is ending soon
Streaks of crimson, fiery red appear
Across the velveteen
The moonlight's dancing end is near
As the sun again
Is seen
Oct 10, 2010
Oct 10, 2010 at 9:01 PM UTC
The ghost of Bill Kettchel still sits glumly on the bluff
Not but a few paces from where he was fell
He has risen majestic at night from the well.
Still screaming out loud, Hey give em hell boys, give em hell
Dropped in head a foremost by the heel of his boot
Give em hell goes the echo, by god give em all hell
The fields glistened brightly with crimson and gore
The fighting was grisly like none seen before.
All stacked up like cord-wood a good ten foot high, they smote grey and smote blue
by the hip and by the thigh.
Give em hell boys by god, came the echoing cry.
Now musket ball splatter, now cannon grape rain.
March through the death gauntlet and line up again.
As the dying lie crying Under shade tree spread wide.
I'm a Yankee doodle dandy. Yankee doodle do or die.
A real live nephew of my uncle Sam born on the fourth of July.
Look away ,look away look away.
Dumped in head a foremost by foot and by heel. My self, Andy, Caleb
Rest daily in the well. By day we lie peacefull, at night we rebell.
Especially those nights when the moon is aglow
We rise to the mouth and we holler and shout.
Give em hell boys by god, just send them all straight to hell.
Oct 4, 2012
Oct 4, 2012 at 2:33 AM UTC
O the mustangs stung like mosquitoes,
fast as lightning & thunderbolts,
liberators & fortresses,
hurricanes & tornadoes,
hell cats & bears,
invaders & dragons,
good grief Lord,
those mighty Gordons!
O wily foxes & quick lancers,
avengers & vindicators,
swordfish, barracuda,
some tuna, albacore.
Gladiators in the gauntlet,
zig-zagging & spitting fire,
spewing molten hot-lead,
bright-tracers in the night,
forever fighting
with their all their might,
bombing their daylights out
and into submission,
la morte, stone dead.
O they sank the Rising Sun,
'cause they had that *****
battling against all wrong
& protecting only
what was right!
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 8:50 AM UTC
Love was made on a level that only the stars above could discern.
My lips ensnaring yours, softly, but, aggressively
as the sweetness of lustful saliva lubricates
embracing you with my arms
I wish to fuse you and I together forever!
The natural expression of divine love that defines
the steamy procession that pursues the rawest display of our reciprocating affections
that moment of rewarding bliss as I enter you.
You, receiving me eagerly with your legs clutching me firmly.
One, we have become under the creator of all.
Early morning sunshine peeks through the window just to greet you,
but, only I can feel you close to me.
The angels have succumb to their envy of me
the celestials I must now fight
oh how they wish to be near you
I cannot lose you.
I love you.
There were those moments that I scoured space and time in search of you.
Breaking the mad tyrant’s gauntlet to confiscate the stones and crawling back to you on my shattered knees to rest at your feet,0
I will give everything that is good to you!
Yes, you!
Only you!
The sun incinerated my hands when I repositioned them to extend our particular solstice.
My reward was a prolonged winter
perpetual so that I could always cuddle with you.
You are God’s beautiful prose
the Creator’s presence is only visible through the essence of you.
You.
Jan 2, 2025
Jan 2, 2025 at 10:21 PM UTC
Running the gauntlet down Midchester Road,
A veritable suburb of Gleethorpes City,
You pass a line of house-castles
Of the well to do.
But don’t be fooled
By what you see,
For I know someone
Who lives there.
And he will tell you,
Of bountiful gardens
Stripped bare
And concreted over
So that families can park their fleets
Of expensive cars.
See those conservatory extensions
And widened pavements.
A lady poses,
Doing her best
To emulate the Kardashians.
Money attracts
No end of thugs
And dodgy dealers:
Swarming parasitic wasps
Around the honey ***
Nights of drunken revellers
From the local pub:
Swaying from trees
And kicking cans about.
Boy racers tearing down the road,
Music systems booming
With a mindless
Moronic drumming.
“Where has reality gone?” asks
My despairing friend.
They have their money
Their riches,
Expensive toys
But few of them are Happy.
What happened to “Goodness” and virtue
And dreams of Utopia?
Where are the heroes
Inventors and creators?
Instead we have a world of celebrity,
In which true talent – even genius
Is ignored and undervalued.
“Where are we going?” my friend exclaims.
Things get worse and worse,
The world all in reverse.
For it’s “Unreal City”,
Far from pretty.
So have a think,
Don’t let yourself sink
Even further into the mire.
Just get real,
You know the deal,
It’s you I’m trying to inspire.
Paul Butters
© PB 2\8\2019
(with help from a bloke who lives in such a place. Same town as me).
Aug 2, 2019
Aug 2, 2019 at 6:01 AM UTC
who will run
gauntlet fierce
scythe held high
through thicket thorns
emerge alive
stay sane
hours fuse to
decades spent
begging bird song
soothe dispel
savage sordid
scenes
crows confer
callous cold
steal each fractured day
as suffocation
stymies step
yet he walks free
not one escaped
each tender bud
torn in turns
as all around
walked on by
blind to ****
are all afraid
mesmerized
by podium power
pious privilege
feigned
masking sleight of hand
will someone stand
despite the odds
counter hallowed hall
covert thugs' threats
of slow death
if we tell
who can dare
scarred mirror asks
shatter code hushed
defy hypnotic trance
risk life and limb
to speak
or has their curse
rendered lame
those not killed
left to bleed
alone in shadows'
listless lanes
eyes stare
probe, confront
in mirror fogged
I wipe them dry
distraught no flame remains
I can sustain
to fuel the fight
and stagger on
through forest blaze
of justice failed
as cries of children
sear the night
while
he
still
breathes
Jun 28, 2017
Jun 28, 2017 at 7:03 AM UTC