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R J Coman Dec 2018
"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."
-Maya Angelou

My soul is a sweetie:
She’s a cute but ****,
with an infectious smile,
an enchanting personality.
She wears dark colors,
slightly goth makeup,
and thick-rimmed glasses.
She likes candles, tea,
sweaters, and cannabis,
and goes on long walks
in the woods by starlight.
She’s cool and confident,
outgoing and fun,
and as beautiful as
a moonrise reflected
off of a frozen lake.

She’s me.
But I am not her.
She’s the me inside
of the me inside of me.

She cries when my mind
grapples with the bounds
of the mental illness
that gives her life.
She screams in pain
when my mind tries
to rationalize her
and explain her away.
And she glows with joy
whenever I try
to grow closer to her.
She’s the part of me
I never asked for,
whose existence hurts
like a deep burn,
but nonetheless makes
me truly be myself.
This is dedicated to all my readers who are Trans, Fluid, Non-Binary, or otherwise struggle with the pain of Gender Dysphoria. I promise, inside of all of us there is a beautiful individual, even if it differs from what we see when we look in the mirror. Much love for you all <3
Raymond Walker Apr 2012
From the alleys and streets, from the door steps and heaths, from the meadows and farmlands,
A mist rises, and forms, from the rivers and rills, valleys and hills, from the fields and fissures
It swirls and turns in the night air, forming and fragmenting, failing and fermenting, till it yields.
A figure, blessed and bare, in the late night air, steps into the moonlight, baleful and brazen in its
Nakedness and knowledge, the pall of the shining moon, drips, Grey and silver from his eyes
Youth drips from his thighs, vigour from his lips and fingertips, crimson is his mouth  and *****.
Lions race across his skin as clouds scud across the moon, feral and wild this child of the moon.
Wild and *****, his face shadowed with growth, excited with his youth and desire. On fire.
Panicked by distaste, his own waste and needs, brewed in a mighty beer of disgust, a sire
Of demons, with packaged might, swooping and rearing, devilish and dervish, spiralled, a pyre.
For the noonday sun, wishing hope on everyone yet giving them night and darkness and doom.
Holds my hand and holds it tightly, grapples with me daily and nightly, even in my own room
Where hope takes hold as quick as fear or death or charity, spilling, humors, ethers, exhume
Nothing but a buried evil that has come to see the light. A paltry being, exhumed, of the night











Whilst over all the night comes creeping
Then I go out a’ stealing,
O’er tombstones and moss, where the dead lie sleeping,
Passing the fungi , sarcophagi, and the smell of weeping
Be it from crypt or hall or farmhouse steading.
collecting the shades of the bodies they’re shedding

Through sunlight’s bright blast
Or twilight’s last gleaming
They will be a sowing
And I’ll be a reaping
Through the strongest gale
Or mornings glittering hail
They will be a sowing
And I’ll be a reaping.

Whilst the morn sunlight, over hills comes creeping,
There in the shadows, I’ll be steeling,
Darkening daffodils, turning bluebells black and foxglove steeping
Poison filled and passing the narcissi, and the tears of the leaving.
It may be birth or anniversary or wedding.
I’ll be collecting the souls they are shedding.

Through all the breaths that you will still be breathing
And all those breaths that have passed
And all those breaths still to come you are dreaming
One day you shall take your last.
And that’s where I’ll be stealing








Through sunlight’s bright blast
Or twilight’s last gleaming
They will be a sowing
And I’ll be a reaping
Through the strongest gale
Or mornings glittering hail
They will be a sowing
And I’ll be a reaping.













A ****** of crows blackens the noonday sky,
Called from their nests and eyries
And so many ships have gone by, black masted and steering
Into the wind, Sails tattered and the keel close to shearing
I stand on the nest and watch you weeping
Till the bodies fall into the deepening sea and there lie sleeping
And that’s where I’ll be stealing.

I smiled and laughed
Till the black mast
Fell below the sea
I whimpered and moaned
With those overthrown
Till they lay with me

And I took my place once more at the forefront of man’s destiny.








I crept and waddled and watched and bustled my way to the front of the crew.
I stood behind some and fell behind few; I had come here to see.
I pushed and shoved and elbowed my way to the front, shuffled over and tried to find my pew
I sat with my heart in my mouth, beating doubly in my chest and wondered were the culprit I?

It seemed I had sat in the stalls or in the balcony, way out in front
But it seems I had not sat at all just fell into the orchestras’ well.
But I remembered that I had sat, adjusted my clothes, my underwear, my hat.
As a man should do, are we not gentlemen and so I took tea and sat.








Paying court; To the girl with the blue eyes and the thin lipped smile, the girl that knew.
As most girls do, the thoughts of men, or think that they do. And I so I tried to find her,  
But it seems I had known a Girl with no thought of love, no turtle dove, cuddled
Close, no heavenly host, called to her, but she loved as love must befuddled
Drew her breath deeply but not freely, Took air, perspiring, muddled
Thoughts spinning in her head, amazed, this pale eyed temptress, The girl that knew.
As most girls do, emotions that drift, or think they do. And so found herself alone,
And weeping, a girl that did not know that they could love found that they could.
She murmured words of love and shook sand from her pelt, howled to the moon.
She stood tall on her haunches, praying , baying, to the moon goddess, one of hers.
Baleful eyes pale and moonstruck, seemed star struck with love  a mother with her curs.






Not the focus of her attention, her pale imitation, a pale shape creeps from the crepuscular woods
He slinks into the shadows of the night paying court to this matron, with his smell warmth and lust
She stalls and smells the night air
Little of care, for all stalks the night air
She sidles and smells the night air
Nothing there, In the dark and silent dream that is the night air.
She bridles and hush’s as the night drips onto her
She has cares; for children that whisper in their sleep on the night air.
Bovine, equine, feline and canine and warm fur
A sleep comes upon them all, a pale imitation of life, and a pale shadow creeps into the light.
And smothers the light of day languishing in his power and majesty sending chills unto the living
He waits in the darkness and shadows.














A child mutters unknown words and the time has come to die
Utters words of fortune and Questions your reasons why.

My dear, my love, child, why do you cry?

I shook myself awake
From my bed of dreams
And warmth
I pulled the duvet over
Took to my feet and felt
The chill

And so I stood, took my bow,  and then knew everything, everything about what I was witnessing,
She looked at him and he looked at she, both knew nothing of how its going to be.
I walked downwards, right down the stairs And I saw everything even the killing thing
He slapped her face and she bloodied drew the knife for all of us to see.
A joyous muse, my heart sang,  witnessing the killing, witnessing the killing and I knew everything.
He looked up at her, she down at him, she was so lucky that she had set him free.
I watched with glee for all I could see, to jail the police said as I sat, as I sat listening.

I heard your excuse I hear your plea, please madam judge don’t let that happen to me
She stood in the dock and sat on the chair,  and told everything, the things I’d been witnessing,
Told how she had murdered he, in a fit of rage it was not her fault she should be set free.
Not the judge, not the jury, but I knew everything and shed knowledge of my fury.

I remember the blade, I remember the fury. I now have to thank the jury.
A just verdict, a wrong righted,  a sacred trust bighted.  And just penury.


















These children are mine sayeth the lady
Though the money I earn is a little shady
I look after them through the day
And at night none can say.
Little darlings,
Wont come to no harm, I keep them apart,
Little darlings, are always in my heart.
Sleeping and dreaming and held apart,
They’re just kids and held in my heart.  

Through sunlight’s bright blast
Or twilights last gleaming
They will be a sowing
And I’ll be a reaping
Through the strongest gale
Or mornings glittering hail
They will be a sowing
And I’ll be a reaping.



I have heard your thoughts ideas and whims
I have heard your excuses , you hacked off a limb,
Because he was bad, she was a devil, and I have never heard so much drivel.
She was a monster, he was a slave, you never thought of the love that they gave.
I saw you had it hard and it must have been so bad
It was trouble, never ever had you been so sad
She was a *****, with an eternal itch, a witch that was not worth forgiving.
She was a dragon, he was a monster,  it was no longer a life worth living
She pulled me down, he dragged me down into a cesspit of hope.
And off they loped into the night.















'
Publicly he seemed alright, not the ***** that he really was. She was so cool en vogue, en vie,
She pulled the love from this heart like a harvester, reaping all that he could sow, all that she was due.
She meditates on her  betrayal and justifies it to herself and thinks so few, so very soulless few
Would not, and she is more, so very much more and then lifts the knife and delivers his due.
In the early hue of evenings last breath, he drew his and she smiled, just his due.






Sorry tales; I know
Tales no one should know
Tales that diffidently show
The differences, the shocks
All the stops and blocks
That love mocks
In its immortal way
Tarnished and bloodied
It soldiers on, unhurried.









I looked for the heartbroken, the tarnished, the burned; and found them all
For there were so many. Loves that went good and bad; those that hurt  and those that fall
I looked for the unforgiving and hopeless and found them all, some happy in their own way,
The traitors of love I looked also for and found hopeless and alone, shriven but hearty in their own way.
I looked to the martyrs of love, those that have loved deeply and have lost,  for many do







And I was one that did. I knew love as pure as a mountain stream,
Unsullied, clean and precious, but no love is as true as the perfect love
No thing is just as wondrous and perfect as it may  perfectly seem,
Chaste, virginal, and all just yours, lest it be a gift from angels above.

And I loped off into the night
Full of sweat and blood,
Flushed with heaven above
And hell below
Both knew my hollow soul











And through sunlight’s bright blast trampling daemons I came, shamed and hollow
Risen from this earth, cursed to death, in twilights last gleaming, brazen but sullied
The seeds of doom are sown  by such as I  and they were sown deep and fertilised with blood
And reaped by those that know,  reaped by hands that touch, lips that kiss and know,
hunger and want, lust and lie, eyes that darken and hooded, draw lust from liars,
Build from truth funeral pyres,  and fires for the ****** and yet I remain and sullied
Smirk with each passing glance or circumstance at the great and good, the unwashed
The hooded and deep, the shallow and callow, the wanton and unwanted, the sane
And simple, the masterful and master less, musical and malleable, the strange and straight.

These I trampled under heel with little feeling or thought
The form I took was human, the place I came from; dread
I looked and watched and took note, I spoke and listened
Pay’ed heed,  Culpable and crazed, yet my form remained,
this spectre.
Dying now.
Paid heed.
A rather long poem and the first I have added being a new member. I hope you like it.
Izzy Stoner Jul 2013
I was at a party the other day
I don't usually go to parties
I don't like crowds
I don't like gatherings
I don't like, new people.
But I'm here as a favour to a friend,
And so I stand in this hovel
That looks like the dodgy part of *****
Or the ganglands of Gomorrah,
Pathetically clutching my long empty beer bottle
And breathing in air that's more smoke than oxygen.
Desperately hoping
That if I pretend to be drunk enough
I wont have to meet anybody new.

But as luck would often have it
As luck and I do not get on
My friend beckons me from a darkened corner
Surrounded by people I don't know.
She's confident, enigmatic and wants me to come over.
And because I owe her a favour I cant say no
And so I trudge towards her with all the enthusiasm
Of an arthritic Labrador, dragging my hind legs
Across the sweat stained carpet
Bracing myself for someone new.

And as I place one foot in front of the other
I can practically see the outline of the gallows.
And I notice that the walls really are an especially ugly colour
And that boy surely isn't old enough to be drinking without permission from his mother.
And someone please tell those guys not to put the owners dog in the oven.
And I wonder if I should break up those limb tangled lovers
Because I hear that that one, who's dating that one, gave that one chlamydia
and suddenly the air is too thick
And too hot
But my feet will not stop.
Because I owe my friend a favour.
But this hideous carpet might as well be an ocean
Because believe me, I'm drowning, adrift.
This feels like I've left my stomach
Somewhere four feet behind me
And I've always been so used to listening to my gut.

This is not fear, this is anxiety
The two are so easily confused, but
Unfortunately by now I know the difference
More intimately than many people do.
Fear is a cold steel
Sharp knife, with smooth un-serrated edges
That drives into your chest or your head or your belly
And it takes what it wants from you, and then is wrenched back out
And its painful, but its usually there for a reason.
Fear can be conquered
Don't laugh I've seen it
Fear grapples with the human spirit in the eyes of every
Soldier still fighting
No matter what the battlefield.
Be it desert or office or kitchen or playground.

But anxiety is fears younger cousin
and it is a wire sponge against your chest
Like the ones they use on cleaning dishes.
And it grates at you until you're raw
And scrubs at every inch of skin
There's hardly a moment when you're not itchingly pink
Until it feels as though your ribs are utterly exposed
And every eye is fixed on what you hide within.
But that's not the worst thing about it.
That's not what drives you every second, mad.
I can handle the razor winged moths that make a home in my stomach
The worst, is the irrational nature of this relative of fear.

I should not be afraid to open my mouth
To be seen, and immediately judged
Even though I know in reality
The most important people won't reckon me
On the first impression, first look, first word.
But I still am
I am scared, and that is terrifying.
And I know that this might just pass
It could be teenage angst
My lack of self confidence holding me back.
But whatever it is.
Right now, it is Everest.
So don't you dare tell me just to get over it.

But as I sidle up beside my best friend, I know she doesn't understand
And I hope she never does.
One, Two, Three.
Three people who are new,
Three epinephrine shots of irrational anxiety pumping through my blood.
And she smiles so encouragingly,
All yellow and marmoset eager.
And I take one, two, three deep breaths of smoky air,
And let my mind play marionette to the corners of my mouth,
Tugging them into a smile that's somewhat believable.
And the first word that tumbles out of my mouth is a hideously unimaginative,
“Hey.”
But they don't seem to mind.

This small talk we're making, that for me is colossal
Gradually settles the pinpricks of venom beneath my skin
Into something entirely more manageable.
And by the end of the night
Two of those three people are no longer somebody new.
And I feel as though I've made the progress of a few meters
In climbing my Everest.
But there's still miles and miles to go.  
But the thing to remember...
What I must remember,
No matter what mountain anxiety builds for you,
Be it Atlas or Snowdon,
Be it at a school, or an office or at home,
Every step that we make, on our own or pushed forward by friends
Is another meter or mile, on this arduous road
That will eventually lead to a summit, ten times more beautiful
Than the valley we just left below.
Clarity has claws
Within her pouncing, padding paws
Laps up goat's milk raw
Grapples a teddy bear to songs
Tied to a robe's string
Well, she plays with literally everything-
Her eyes say exactly what she means.

No ****, Clarity is a cat I call to come back
I find myself pleading for her return-
With the promise of a salmon snack,
In exchange for lessons learned,
But I only capture glimpses of her white and black
As she flashes by the doorway,
Always only doing things her own way.

Since her trust is hard-earned,
I coax her cleansing burn.
She climbs up my bare leg
With her razor sharp needles,
First thing in the morning without any warning

Clarity,
Why did I beg you to come near? ! don't tear !
I only wished for your soft vibrations in my ear !
It's so impossible to change your nature
I wasn't bleeding before you were here, but your message is pure

You only come running when you're hungry!

&Would you really eat me if I died?
The way you watch with such wild eyes,
(I'm sad to know I shouldn't be surprised)
Your tapping tail  compromises your position,
Your crystal clear intention
To play with your prey before you ****** and eat them

Clarity,
embodying the way her name hides and smiles, pounces for a scream
as if she were mean!
Sneaks off to surprise her  next unsuspecting victim
-
Tummy full,
Warm purr, a welcome buzz
She comes, she plays with, she eats my ego, she loves, she kneads, she purrs, she leaves, I plead

ah, Clarity

-Hayleo Liz
#hayleoliz
#hayleolizpoetry
Tommy Johnson Dec 2013
Look at yourself
All *****
Blackened with a sour demeanor
Rip the top off

Take a look inside
An endless carousel
See the stars
And be thrown to the next page

Never to come back again
The stories for the next chapter
Clenching to previous excursions
Remnants, recollections of once new beginnings

Once you start you can’t stop
Can't turn and have second thoughts
Once you’re out
You’re gone

Falling to pieces
Smoking, dangling
A mental spasm
A lapse, relapse

Push them away
They speak too loud and bright
A half baked scheme
It’s something to pass the time

Hedges of red
Busted fence posts
Inconspicuously
Punctured shell

To the roots
Vibrations to my brain
Purple furlough
Roofs fall

Pedal till they bleed
Bleed dry to the bone
Till the bone breaks
And the pain grapples me into submission

We ignore the fruits in front
Of us for the mirages
We pretend are real
Putting In hope and taking out lies

Riding the ignorant air of pride

Crawl in desperation to continue

It wouldn’t lie
Stick to the plan
Raise the voice
So they hear and believe

We won’t stop till it’s found
They won’t stop till I’m in the ground
Buried, out to pasture
Fresh fertilizer here

I hear his deceit meshed
Deeply in his voice

Yet I fool myself to
Believe due to my denial of doubts

It won’t let me continue
Smile for no reason

When I think about it
Disorientation follows

Don’t utter another word
The grass is dead on both sides
So let’s make them equally green
Plant the seed
Pack a lunch
As we walk, we remember
The lesson we were taught to never
Tread here
Jesse stillwater Nov 2018
It's telling looking through
the window’s eyes ; 
a room with a paling grey glass view
befogs the clouds reign inside the storm
Often feeling misbegotten regret
for the unfiltered passing glimpses,
whetstone honed and splayed ;
raw hues of a latent life exposed

There's an uncertain hidden shame
in the unheard truth
starving out in the cold;
dwelling in a petrifying silence
of a common hunger
the lonely do ache
  
Merciless hunger pangs
manifest and shake
with an unrelenting bitter taste ;
loneliness grapples and grips
like a silent earth quake
rattling a rib caged heart — writhing
as Autumn bares the trees
  
A jagged ambiguous fault line
ripples through the hollow echo ;
a bolt of lightning caught in a bottle
strikes — silently contained
swallowing the unspoken words
in a greater good

This broken merry-go-round
keeps turning round and round;
the great mandala spinning on
like a worn out hamster-wheel
without a conscious trace
of going anywhere out there

The place you come from
is gone when you leave it —
even if you really never
feel you were from anywhere
but a thousand unmarked mileposts
from out here somewhere adrift;
a pilgrimage towards understanding
why sometimes I don’t know
if I know who I am — or could have been —
waiting on a threadbare prayer

One-day the winds of change
will shapeshift — bye and bye ...

"When the light that's lost within us
reaches the sky"


Jesse Stillwater

November 2018
"When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky"
from:  "Before The Deluge"    written by: Jackson Browne
Pagan Paul Mar 2017
.
Fazzy moams on wivvel crusts
carry jazms on flocked pavs.
Rinkulled witty over sark
unburcoaled plinks of bloo.

Serry nark are they cronking
and fillipas grapples in kloque.
Verx on spappled gurns are they
torting through gattering weems.

Fernol wend the schism klone
Glolling fast in clutty pawk.
Scenty flox drozzle by teas
Nisting on cowt rinnalled dawn.

Yurish casts of nash pigoon
stoz over hinty-hanty bynum.
When in merdeen lemp quimsy
dilly noff flyx and wempwarble.

For loofin under korots mingle
At the imtem tong fallop.
Shoozy bales of cremp deflate
and gwample rooks the plisties.


©Pagan Paul (22/06/16)
.
From my old notebook I found recently :)
Yes there is a story in it!
PPx
.
Sandman Oct 2018
Up above.
Church bells that vibrate with resonance.
Down below.
The solid earth that grapples with the fear of an apocalypse.
Grass that grips and pulls.
Luminous moonlight from my distant dreams pooling from my pores.
This over growth is my home.
Down by the creek,
you'll find me if I am what you seek.
Turning water into wine.
When I close my eyes I know that there is no difference between this land and me.
Break the darkness.
Break the veil.
The green ones with their seeking limbs, filling up the air, filling up the forest deep.
The leaves and twigs that collect in the drifting yellow suns.
As the deer stood high on the cliff a delicate rain of golden tears shed light on solemn hidden faces.
Seeking light on this path of mine.
Dangling dark vines that swing like pendulums collecting lost souls.
Those that do not make it through left to perish,
left to die.
In tomorrow they restart.
High fidelity voices that press insecurity into them like fists in dough.
Repeat.
Repeat.
The voices in their heads.
They're slippin',
trippin'.
Shaking their heads trying settle down the storm of razor blades within.
There is no return from this far off tear filled island.
All that we see.
All that we are
is wandering souls lost in time.
First draft of spoken word poem
Mercury Slo Jan 2013
Shrooming in the last light
Gold ignites the trees
My gaze is the eternal compass
Of broken Time
Truth grapples with my mind
As I photosynthesize in the residues,
The residues of the last light.
mark john junor Nov 2013
the wood floor a sea
of contradictions
wake there with a disassembled
sense of last night
the fragments of a womans kiss
lay there pink lipstick clinging to its vestiges
shards of a rain swept street
and the quiet of a november thunderstorm
pools of darkness uninterrupted by the wind
pieces of a man laughing without humor
this wood floor holds the key
but to discover truth in the
littered expanse of bottles
benith the layers of dust lain down
by the years
the wood floor becomes a trap
a puzzle prison
the mind grapples with
dj Mar 2013
a shadow geist
out of the passing of time
reaches in me
grapples my heartstrings
tugs me away like a
like a stranded coastliner
and as it goes, I go,

and as you watch
in the darkness of interstellar space
you dim
to all but a faint sparkle
undifferentiated from other stars
but I won't confuse or lose you
I'll remember you

Even if I don't
I'll make something up in
place of the memory of you

I can't help but feel sorry
where am I now
Lucy Power Apr 2012
The only legacy of maturity is insensitivity
I will die old will think nothing of it.
The young tend sodium springs
All the while watched by the barren.
Muted observers to life labours conceiving gasp
Unwilling to interpret.
Bald cries to heaven go souls dug with grapples stuck.
Silence takes precedence in the right seat
Unlawful is the wrong
Red is the left
Old knows all is dark.
We run water to rid false colour
Run it until we are dry
Run it until we are black.
Moomin May 2020
There are Angels among us
Metaphorical Angels
They have no wings to fly
No superhuman powers to call upon
And no ability to remain unseen
They dance to the tune of human need
Become a crescendo in this dark time
She leaves her little one asleep at dawn
With aching heart and weary eyes
For even Angels tire out
She enters Hell where monsters roam
Little creatures with verocious appetite
Leaving lungs and lamenting in their path
She stands her ground and grapples fear
For even angels are in need of courage
She gathers the sweat and blood and tears of strangers
And soothes them to life or death
Yet while she suffocates in misery and mask
Selfishness abounds outside
And those restrained insist on fun
They gather together in revelry
Kissing flesh and adoring sun
She sees them on the nightly news
While she strokes her daughters brow
And comforts her with unfulfillable promises
Yet though they have the right to be free
They make her burden heavy and sad
With more victims for her ordeal
Yes, they have the right to take the loaded gun
To play roulette with their stubborn lives
Yet when the game involves warheads and virus
They invite death for others too
Who did not choose to enter the deadly casino
For even angels die!
Dedicated to our wonderful nurses
K Balachandran Nov 2012
What keeps their ball still rolling?
her innuendos he grapples with,
his enthusiasm she can't fathom,
*ambiguity does the trick!
1221

Some we see no more, Tenements of Wonder
Occupy to us though perhaps to them
Simpler are the Days than the Supposition
Leave us to presume

That oblique Belief which we call Conjecture
Grapples with a Theme stubborn as Sublime
Able as the Dust to equip its feature
Adequate as Drums
To enlist the Tomb.
thymos Jan 2017
they wanted
they didn't know
how
if
if it matters
but what else
if not
if not

else if but not wanted
matters not how
not knowing knowing if
if what else unknowing
not wanted but else wanted
if wanted
but how wanted
if only how wanted
L B Oct 2017
Caught in the tangled, death of weeds
I hear the shots ring out
It has begun--
between the fading day of sky and hollow
crackling ice beneath my feet

Again, resounding shots above my head
with baying hounds
and threat of voices blazoning the prey
I do as I have always done--
make a run for it….
and always, in the past
I seemed to get away

My soul is sinking, this time
along with boots in ******* mud
-soaked panic-sweat
clambering up a bank in naked peril
numb with cold
Heaving breaths billow
onto frigid air
Stumbling sluggish
Moments cling
Inertia--
grapples for an edge...

With all my body's strength
exhausted longing
I heave myself back...

Fear floods out
like birth
into the lake of waking

A long time there
I lay
paralyzed, dumbfounded
My father used to take us with him trap-shooting in the open fields of Hatfield, Massachusetts.  We would huddle in the car and wait for it to end, but this day, I was exploring along the edge of woods before they started, and got caught out....

This is also about sleep-paralysis-- both terrifying!
Dost thou look back on what hath been,
  As some divinely gifted man,
  Whose life in low estate began
And on a simple village green;

Who breaks his birth's invidious bar,
  And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
  And ******* the blows of circumstance,
And grapples with his evil star;

Who makes by force his merit known
  And lives to clutch the golden keys,
  To mould a mighty state's decrees,
And shape the whisper of the throne;

And moving up from high to higher,
  Becomes on Fortune's crowning *****
  The pillar of a people's hope,
The centre of a world's desire;

Yet feels, as in a pensive dream,
  When all his active powers are still,
  A distant dearness in the hill,
A secret sweetness in the stream,

The limit of his narrower fate,
  While yet beside its vocal springs
  He play'd at counsellors and kings,
With one that was his earliest mate;

Who ploughs with pain his native lea
  And reaps the labour of his hands,
  Or in the furrow musing stands;
'Does my old friend remember me?'
Amitav Radiance Apr 2015
Fantasy grapples with reality
Distorted and mangled ideas
Waiting to infuse the drudgery
Into the freshness of fantasy
Churning viciousness into potion
Gifting death to the believers
Let the imagination become stronger
To make fantasy bolder than reality
tread Apr 2013
the haaaannnggg in hangover grapples
my chest like another sad defeat. some
created battlefield felt my angel control
nothing, control nothing. I cry at constant
implication, and the choice is yours again.
you, with your busy life, pick my heart like
a puppeteer having not yet noticed the strings.
I pull in all directions and wonder why I do
this to myself; why I look for pegs to stick the
strings together, hand you a puppeteer's hand-
book and tell you my world is always ending
whenever you're around.
you grimace a little
every moment I speak.
the depths beyond light 
 of dark primordial fears
ensnared in a trap of
  winding dangerous paths
    'tween passion and fire,
horizons like ink clouded seas
  of menacing madness and
    drunkenness' sanity midst
    psychobabble's inquisitions
rushing rampant to devour
  an overgrown hypothesis
    of imagination's luxuriance
   and anesthetics' coherency,
taming perpetual motion
   of  windswept emotions
lingering in shadows of
  moonbows after resolute
  mind bending storms of
   teeming reigns &
     elusive transcendence
  amid skillfully evasive grapples
       beyond liberated rationality
Ryan Jakes Jul 2014
Hanging from the rockface
fingers chalked, knuckles white
breathing in the view.
Feeling the rush, hearing the roar
gulls circle above, as you run below,
small against the landscape
kicking up sand and laughter
begging to join me up here
pleading to play with grapples and knots
no fear of falling, no fear at all,
there is no danger in danger when you're 6
Not when your Dad is Spiderman.
Mercury Chap Apr 2015
Dark waters kissing my feet
Calling my name as if it was a dream
All the surroundings simply bleak
Despair surrounds the valley so serene
Still the beauty cannot attract
As much as at ruins of castles, remained intact,
Flooding water clashing against its walls
Still the trembling castle stands tall.

Spiritless winds leave trails on my hair
My hair flying only till the winds blow
Then the unsettling silence dons to dare
As the whispering winds vanquish their flow.

I seek for silence
But now it's uncomfortable
I have nature but whispering violence
Which sadly grapples
The misery and mysteries of this incomplete ruin.
Broken dreams,
Wrecked souls,
Isolated scene.
S D S May 2013
Fear spreads like a chill
It ripples over my spirit
The way the autumn wind makes my body quiver

Fear infects what heals me
Sleep turns into torment
It's sweet embrace offers shallow solace

Fear makes rest strenuous
Nightmares find my weaknesses
My soul is shredded instead of sewn

Fear caresses my madness
If I take the sweet ******
I risk finding the dwelling of my terror

Fear grapples with need
I am addicted to sleep
With more ferocity than nicotine or alcohol

Fear is strong at night
The darkness feeds it
The infinite space gives its vastness advantage
Sarah Lane Jul 2017
Memories are like fireflies in the dark of her loss
Where love grapples to know bounds only the spirit can cross.
I experienced the intangible breath of her soul
As it escaped and created this invisible hole.
Her small, fleeting life showed me that I can't always hold on
But precious things must be cherished even after they're gone.
A short poem about my dog, Tehya, who passed away suddenly at the age of 4.
Raj Arumugam Jul 2011
you ask why I linger here long
and do not return to the centers of power
and human endeavor…
it’s all but a life of conditioning and structures…

if you ask me,
human enterprise and human life
are tiresome…and mediocre…
it is a life of basics and self-interests
and finger-pointing
and it is all partial and focused
that grapples with ******* of the parts
but misses the whole…
and one never sees the hubris within;
the errors, it seems, are always elsewhere…
but see, there is no change
without the change in oneself
and so it is that I linger here long
to observe and to see within myself
to see within, and so understand…
for within this chaos of one
within one
there is always but a pointing to the externals
and so the world goes on, and has always been
a world of groups built on mutual lies
so one can feel special and chosen and blessed
and recipient of Highest Revelations
within the group
and feel *O so right

and feel O so safe
and feel O so true
there is always but a feeling – but not the thing…
there is but conditioning and a building
and that structure is added to on and on…
and so I linger amongst these mountains
and streams and trees and the open
and I observe these with no preconceptions
and linger in that which comes of no future or past
and I observe myself, my mind, my thoughts
and what it is that is called ‘I’
and so I linger here long…
poem based on a painting of the same title by Ma Lin (China, Song Dynasty)
PK Wakefield Apr 2011
with cords electric, you've strung me stinging, with them, me. your mouth
is an apple. your mouth is a fragrant cavern.
in which is my my mouth. mingling. from them springs a mountain

of wind. your hands are, on your wrists, pale spiders. on me slung. your web
of cool scuttling love. on my belly.
you go supple. into palms. they are a colour. your colour. the colour of death

just before you live. you are strenuous. a boundless taught moment. of unugly caffeine. i am a noise.
and you are a colour. you said it in me. big and tiny. in my tiny bigness.

and in the backyard. by the sleeping pile of forests. you draw the hammer
of your guns. and i wilt.
sprouting. effortlessly. infinitely. eating the gilt purse of your pinkest tiny.

and we are like wind. who grapples with leaves. and they touch like
lovers. we are like that.
like health. like sickness. freshly shearing. every molecule of our bodies

onto the indigo eaves of eve. quickly, carnivorously, slaughtering light.
let's then just be.
in quiet. and symmetry.
cords electric. strummed with fallen night.
A poet is an ordinary human being
But he always thinks of others’ well being
He often grapples with the problem of rhyming
And aims to post his poem with great timing

A poet usually writes with great passion
And he is a  person of great emotion
He may have certain personal blemishes
But he tries to write with beautiful flourishes

A poet promptly responds to what happens around
Her knowledge of the world is very sound
She lives with the quite common man
But thinks like a superman and supra human

A poet has great social responsibility
He tries to present the reality
He may suffer from vanity
But he is never devoid of humanity
loisa fenichell Feb 2015
i.

Kathy tells me about god in the bathroom stall.
She tells me about the time when he told her
that we’re really all just suffering together.
“I was at Harry’s basement party,
drunk leaning against a wall, standing by myself,” she says.  

She says she can taste the suffering the most when she’s standing in church,
eating one of those **** communion wafers.
I laugh without knowing; I’ve yet to eat a communion wafer.

ii.

When Kathy gets really drunk
she grapples at my hand
and forces it to her skin.
She says my hand sobers her up
more than water does. When I touch her forearm
it is as though I am touching a dead infant.

When I touch skin I am thinking about standing outside
in air that could only be so cold in the summer,
my body all bare, my body standing outside
of a loud and lit up house
with me whispering,  “please don’t touch me, just let me shiver,
just let me faint here peacefully.”

When I think of skin I think of my grandmother and her wrinkles,
of generations of wrinkles.
Looking into the bathroom mirror
I see the body of my grandmother and the face of my mother.
I am desperate for a toilet.

iii.

Kathy knows about the days when all I do is eat.
She knows about how much I like peanut butter,
about how my skin sags from my ankles,
hangs around my wrists. But still
she holds me when I must *****.
g clair Dec 2015
I believe
our human nature
grapples with
Creator, Lord,
pushing our plans
seeking our visions
arguing that which
can't be ignored.

If only we
could break the cycle
learn the truth
of who we are
In God's image
our Creator
made each one
a shining star!

Reflecting on
my attitudes
I'm less than
of what I want to be
I think it time
to realign
with Him
who said He'd set me free!

I believe
my human nature
grappled with
Creator, Lord,
Sought his plan
caught his vision
sin released and soon restored.

"Ye shall know the truth and the truth will set you free."  John 8:32
Ottar Mar 2013
Blossoms, beaten down and stems broken,
Signs of a colourful spring taken lightly, a token,
It is like winter got hands and feet, shredded,
the only symbol of its' leaving, the dreaded
first flowers of Spring.

Dark clouds on every horizon, selfish discoloured ground, that thirsts
for only water from snow and rain, all the water, even tears, that burst
from eyes won't be enough to quench or thaw the frozen earth,
which grapples with the promise of every year, each season will re-birth,
in its' place and Time.

This year or next year the weather may not be as we all expect,
frankly the weather outside, already has been wrecked,
life has internal storms too, that rip and pull, that demand more,
stand tall, face into the wind, brace yourself against the roar,
you are stronger Now.
Spring   Time   Now.  (did you catch that)
L Curley Dec 2012
Tumble into dream, you’ll sleep easier now,
You bid the empty room.
Slipping away, if I ever grasped you,
Except in my shame and your appetites.
Tumbling in circles as you ease to sleep
But still my trick begs your deliverance
Twisting my ear

Your breathing levels and my trick grapples,
For a detail missed, an overlooked sign
Sweating, shivering in my own contrivance
Lost to me and nothing to you
We do not touch

My trick does not leave me as I open the door,
The grating of your laugh and the dancing in your eyes
It narrows the darkness into the thinnest strip,
I am once more in the light,
The synthetic stripes
OnwardFlame Feb 2016
Fake plastic beads endow my wrist
Mascara-less lashes, lamp crown on my head
One of the tallest girls in the room.

I've got so much going for me
I've got the world at my finger tips
But my heart aches and whispers your name
Still today.

I thought, lets all be real cool
Like, drink that whiskey up
Fill up our tombs
You can't respond back to that text message picture
I thought we might bond over how I look
But you chose not to reply.

Technology is an angel and a demon
Appearing like vignettes on my shoulders
Too proud to seek out
But falling asleep in false lashes on my bed
Reminds me of all the times I waited in lingerie
And the Betrayer chose NYC, instead.

"I wouldn't have it any other way."
The Betrayer said, his grin must have been filled
With diamonds and mice
Building mines within those rigged white teeth
Blue eyes so dangerous, I drown myself any time
I ask for him to lick my blood
But I'll be in New York City so soon
Perhaps we will have those intense
Fleeting moments
Of laughing in the streets, holding each other
Laughing like Goose & Duck
So very in love
Tie me up and cut me up just like you use to
But its me that does the leaving in the end
But you predicted we had this 3 more times
In our future
Maybe I need to spice up the pain I've felt in Chicago.

*******.
I'd never been told such a thing till
Peter Pan with his ringlets of flowers
And lemon orange filled lies covered in dust
Pointed it out, just like all of the thousands of times
He made me feel insignificant.

Its amazing how another human being can have the power
To do such a thing
I drink coffee in bed this morning
My face becomes my business card
Going on dates with interesting
But the wrong men
For now, I look down at my invisible clock
In order to represent the urgency of time
But the mundane invisible quality to it all
My God, I miss Philadelphia.

What an easier time that all was
As I bebopped around the corners of the city
There were only so many places to go,
Only so many people to see
My little apartment now belongs to another element
Of the harmful and heartbreaking past
Will I ever fully recover?

A gluten for punishment
I get so caught up in the pain, the heartbreak
Imaginative, paranoid, sensitive
Its what makes me a true artist
Many exclaim
But I take apart the pieces
The confetti filled feelings
Examine them, order a slice of pie to go
And I know I've gotta dance in the forest like fire
Even if we didn't get to that take.

I want so much more
Than you could
Than any of you could ever
Ever did
Give me.
But just like that I remember the big sweaters
My hair black, that Halloween show
I feel like I have spent my life sad about some man.

But I have these moments
Where I think, surely he is going through the same
If not much worse
And I do think thats true
As Peter Pan scrapes and grapples past the memories of me
Moments of wanting to be good he shows
But he will always choose
He always did
The option that makes me feel the most alone.

So I let him.
As other women around me are less strong
Less brave with their supposed convictions
I don't judge, but I recognize
The cave of lost love is a maze
At some points in life you might be brave enough
To leap in and leap out
But Peter Pan,
You have found yourself a spot
Gutted it, stuffed it with Winnie The Poo & Ninja Turtle
Colored it with silly string and batches of *****
And its me now that has to walk out
Without looking back
At the world I can shake hands with
But not dwell.
betterdays Mar 2014
we are,
but the little pebbles
nestled
in the sand of time's
slow flowing river.

it is merely,
the disparate nature
of our minute size
in opposition
to the immensity
of the ponderous
river's drift,
that creates
the grind of pebble,
one to another.

causing,
the eroding
of our
singular thoughts.
it is only
the gentle tap-clacking
of another's desire
to know,
and be known.

that causes,
the acceptence
of the rasp and rub
of external catechisms.

causing,
rejuvenation
in the questing
of kindred souls.

that causes
the revelation
of differing paradigmal,
sways and drifts,
some sympathetic,
some callously
indifferent.

causing,
an ebb and flow
of treatise
and dissertation.
as we abraid
and hone
each other's
sensory disposition,
begetting,
spectrumunul emotions
from elanic bliss
to yearning,
dolorous sorrow.

that causes,
introspective despair
that grapples
against difinitive delight.

we the pebbles,
caught within
this mental current,
cannot visualise
the infinitesimal alterations wrought by time.

yet,
others remark
upon the changes,
that is the way
of the waters path,
as time flows,
unrepentant
into the basin
of life's sea.
we must to survive,
simply concede
our pretentions
and comply
to the  power inherit
in the water's
flow
I wish to give tjis poem, agian....it is one of mybearlier pieces. ...and  was written during a time in which  ded poet , wrote and encouraged  my writing.....I  feel it is a fitting memorial ...to him as a person who struggled with aspects of his life....yet gave of himself in a beautiful and passionate  way ... He will be missed.....vale my friend....
There are two kinds
of people in this world.
There is me,
and there is you.  
Everyone I like is me.
Everyone I loathe is you.

I am black
or I am white,
but whichever I am,
you're the other.

All of me grapples
with all of your intentions.
All of me wishes
you'd just go away.

You have no place here
with me.
Your ugliness repels me.
My righteousness makes you shriek.

I see you all around,
with your wretched
nails scraping against
the glass through which I look.

And as I, in a fit of violence,
lash out at your torturous hand,
The mirror breaks
and there is just me.
Nicki Mngadi Dec 2016
Involuntary   gags of apologies escape my mouth
And feeds their easily bruised egos
These apologies swaddle beneath my clenched fists
These apologies rip open my jaws and serve them for dinner
Well I am so
Sorry for being black
Sorry for  being woman
Sorry for being strong

Sorry is the noose that still grapples me in my sleep when watching my unborn daughters and nieces arrive shackled
But I have decided evicted sorry and told him he has no place in my mouth or in my mind
so I unsorry
Unsorry for being black
Unsorry for being woman
Unsorry  for being sorry

UnApologetic now resides
A piece in need of more work.. _But bottom-line I am done apologizing for who I am
Meghan O'Neill Apr 2014
I see you
Standing there.
She flanks your side
Like a dog
Like the ***** that she is
She's practically swinging
From your arm
And you don't even notice her
Or at least you pretend not to.
I'm not nearly so bold
As to stand by you
Let you make me look stout
Compared to your wondrous physique
I grapple for your attention
With subtle glances
Feeling blessed if I catch your eye
Even just once.
She grapples for your attention
With her words
With her body.
She demands to be noticed
So you notice her
But I'm too **** afraid to be assertive.
You tie my stomach in knots
And the thought of you
Plucks at my heart strings
Like your long lean fingers
Across your violin.
Sometimes I can feel your gaze linger
And I know that her greedy eyes
Burn holes in my head.
Her passive-aggresive "hello"
Is bittersweet.
I'm only just beginning to realize
That the way she flanks you
Like a dog
And swings from your arm.
She puts herself below you.
Instead of noticing,
You trip over her presence
Whilst she trips over her words.
And when she speaks new languages
To try and impress you
Plays new instruments
To try and obsess you
She is not a threat to me.
Because I'm just now noticing
The subtle glances in my direction
How you always turn
To make sure I'm laughing
When you make a joke
How the fact that you
Stood just barely to close
When there was a world of open space
Was hardly an accident.
And when you did
I felt your fingers
Brush across the back of my hand
Like that of a ghost
Barely there.
And so now
I am certain.
I see you
Standing there.
She flanks your side
Like a dog
Like the ***** that she is
She's practically swinging
From your arm
And you don't even notice her
Because you're too busy
Admiring something
Far finer.

— The End —