"gratified" poems
Gratified and mutilated
upon the river I came
I bathed in the water
sopping,sponged and soaked
cleaner than clean
scrubbed to white bone
bliss of cleanliness
of purity
in this one moment,
Head under the water
deeper and yet deeper
blissfully clean
I let go...
Jul 25, 2013
Jul 25, 2013 at 9:21 AM UTC
This is America for Petes sake
Black lives don’t matter here
They say they’re being treated unfair
But they’re the one’s drinking up all the welfare
And we even pay for their health care
Poor black folk shouting black lives matter
But they don’t matter
The only thing that matters is the fat cats getting fatter
Build a school or a jail?
In a place like Baltimore, those black kids are already bound to fail
Let’s not forget from whence we hail
We came from abroad to build this house
This was never meant to be a game of cat and mouse
They don’t know their power, so they will never see their hour
Cause you see white people are only safe when those animals scared
White people are only safe when white people are feared
When black people are teared, and on their face is smeared the blood of their ancestors, on the altar that is prepared
The altar that was broken down when we ended Jim Crow
Since then look how low our country did go
But at last at last now again we can make America great
Now again we can end any debate , about what it means to be free
Cause when Trump is in charge I’ll tell you, you won’t tell me
When Trump is President you'll put your hand over your heart for the anthem, not take a knee
When Trump is President, You’ll be satisfied , you’ll lower your fist and you’ll be
You’ll be gratified, you’ll shut your mouth and watch your people die
You’ll watch them bleed like Alton Sterling,
You’ll stand there you’ll cry
And then you’ll wonder why,
why does the color of your skin decide whether or not you win
As you kneel before me thinking about your next of kin,
ready to feel these bullets in your body as your reality sets in
This country was never your own
We brought you here as slaves, you call out for a savior but
Abraham Lincoln is dead so you can put down the phone
Martin Luther King is dead so you can put down the phone
Malcom X is dead, you see,now you’re all alone
We’ve infiltrated your culture and now that seed has grown
As we watch you destroy each other and continue to postpone anything that looks like freedom
Cause you see freedom isnt free
We gained ours in 1776
Your ancestors were still in chains but here today you celebrate with me
Thinking that you’re free
But you will never be free
Harriet Tubman freed a thousand slaves
And she could've freed a thousand more but they were cheering for Trump in his rallies
Because they can’t grasp what it means to be free
And that mere truth is the key
So we won’t say their names
We won’t feel their pains
Cause this is the United States of America , and white is right, we still hold the reigns
Jul 22, 2016
Jul 22, 2016 at 12:13 AM UTC
Feeling unhappy;
that I'm not good enough
Unconvinced and in despair,
Disbelief in my own
act and decisions
I am doing the best I could
to meet the expectations;
thus I am frustrated
Why am I putting
a lot of pressure on myself
just to seek attention?
I am trying hard
until gratified
Why am I still unfulfilled?
In fact, I am scared
I fear that I may fail
and may not reach satisfaction
It feeds my self-doubt
perhaps I am good-for-nothing
Feb 22, 2017
Feb 22, 2017 at 12:10 PM UTC
Is burrowing a web
weaving a collection,
accumulating an anthology
For a far gone day
Stash them away
set them aside with a
what, when, why
rather than right
now ambitious zeal
discoverable.
findability.
Its the nature of the undertaking.
My minds an unavoidable reciprocal
Gratified by wasting time,
It’s just there filling space
Tucked away for a rainy day
In every nook and cranny
Tickling the fancy.
Affording a kind of intellectual gusto
that's borderline deplorable
accumulatively downright trifling.
Nonetheless,
even if it's unnecessary
I'll never get my fill
paper to hand typing away
uncovering all of life's mysteries
Oct 14, 2017
Oct 14, 2017 at 10:09 AM UTC
What is it men in women do require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.
What is it women do in men require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.
The look of love alarms
Because ’tis fill’d with fire;
But the look of soft deceit
Shall Win the lover’s hire.
Soft Deceit & Idleness,
These are Beauty’s sweetest dress.
He who binds to himself a joy
Dot the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.
6.3k
Underneath the leaves of life,
Green on the prodigious tree,
In a trance of grief
Stand the fallen man and wife:
Far away the single stag
Banished to a lonely crag
Gazes placid out to sea,
And from thickets round about
Breeding animals look in
On Duality,
And the birds fly in and out
Of the world of man.
Down in order from the ridge,
Bayonets glittering in the sun,
Soldiers who will judge
Wind towards the little bridge:
Even politicians speak
Truths of value to the weak,
Necessary acts are done
By the ill and the unjust;
But the Judgment and the Smile,
Though these two-in-one
See creation as they must,
None shall reconcile.
Bordering our middle earth
Kingdoms of the Short and Tall,
Rivals for our faith,
Stir up envy from our birth:
So the giant who storms the sky
In an angry wish to die
Wakes the hero in us all,
While the tiny with their power
To divide and hide and flee,
When our fortunes fall
Tempt to a belief in our
Immortality.
Lovers running each to each
Feel such timid dreams catch fire
Blazing as they touch,
Learn what love alone can teach:
Happy on a tousled bed
Praise Blake's acumen who said:
"One thing only we require
Of each other; we must see
In another's lineaments
Gratified desire";
This is our humanity;
Nothing else contents.
Nowhere else could I have known
Than, beloved, in your eyes
What we have to learn,
That we love ourselves alone:
All our terrors burned away
We can learn at last to say:
"All our knowledge comes to this,
That existence is enough,
That in savage solitude
Or the play of love
Every living creature is
Woman, Man, and Child."
5.9k
The glitter of strobe
gratuitous gaiety
platitudes
and sanctimonious guile
******* cocktails
on the menu
an ingratiating mask
a gratified grin
Contorted vocal chords
lots of laughter
no time for irony
look at me.
Oct 3, 2014
Oct 3, 2014 at 8:02 AM UTC
Pocket watch, I tick well.
The streets are lizardly crevices
Sheer-sided, with holes where to hide.
It is best to meet in a cul-de-sac,
A palace of velvet
With windows of mirrors.
There one is safe,
There are no family photographs,
No rings through the nose, no cries.
Bright fish hooks, the smiles of women
Gulp at my bulk
And I, in my snazzy blacks,
Mill a litter of ******* like jellyfish.
To nourish
The cellos of moans I eat eggs --
Eggs and fish, the essentials,
The aphrodisiac squid.
My mouth sags,
The mouth of Christ
When my engine reaches the end of it.
The tattle of my
Gold joints, my way of turning
******* to ripples of silver
Rolls out a carpet, a hush.
And there is no end, no end of it.
I shall never grow old. New oysters
Shriek in the sea and I
Glitter like Fontainebleu
Gratified,
All the fall of water an eye
Over whose pool I tenderly
Lean and see me.
3.7k
(A Stir of Fear)
A deep sigh seemed to have done some good.
Looking at her, anticipating, expecting...
Waiting for friends to arrive
In a place unknown to us both....
So lovely in her silence,
While going through a moment of anxiety.
It creates within me, a STIR OF FEAR...
Must I leave her? I must teach her, to be on her own,
Now...now? But how? Oh, how it breaks me...
There she stands, tall, in her black shirt,
Walking shorts, rubber shoes, backpack and
Electric guitar hanging on her shoulders...
Her hair, gathered in a bun at the back....
So naive, simply, effortlessly beautiful.
How do you let go of your eldest,
First granddaughter...soon to be sixteen,
When you are fully aware of the perils
That surround the outside world,
Even in broad daylight?
Aware of her innocence, her beauty, and
Most importantly,
The elements that could jeopardize her safety .....
Do I wait for her?
Do I watch her while with her friends?
Let her know, I mistrust everyone around her?
Almost told her I would wait for her outside...
It wasn't mine, it was against everyone's,
But it was her choice that I had to respect.
So, I left her there in her friend's house...
Dark street, dark alley, dark-colored gate,
Dark house, dark garden lights, everything
Was dark to my eyesight that very moment...
There was no peaceful moment, while at home.
The rocking chair at the veranda was a refuge...
My ever-faithful friend, kept me company...
There, I rocked myself, slowly, endlessly,
With the hope of my fears disappearing...
Thinking of what somebody once told me:
"There is nothing to fear, but fear itself..."
It had been a long day, a long night as well...
My bed time...but first, I gratified myself....
Took a glimpse inside the kids' room,
Where my eldest granddaughter,
Too tired to go straight to
Their house next door,
Was sound asleep,
Comfortable and warm
Safe from harm,
Here in my house.
And yet....
There are questions still running in my mind:
She has her parents, why do I worry so much?
How much longer can I protect her?
How much longer must I shelter her?
How do I deal with my next equally lovely
Granddaughter, also long-haired, tall,
Also with her own guitar and backpack,
When it is her time to go to a friend's house?
Will I still be around when it is time for the
Three younger girls to visit their friends, too?
Oh, God!
The ordeal of first times never ends.
(For Ashleigh)
Sally
Copyright 2014
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 2:44 AM UTC
Too lazy to decipher scrawl,
she took to typing.
But graphite gratified,
thunderbolts struck her empty.
Nostalgic for
the soothing scratch of pencil
as a child cloistered,
shuffled between states,
who translated her life
to pass the days.
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 8:38 PM UTC
Johnny can't join
his daddy has no car
Michael can't join
they don't like his shoes
Ahmed can't join
he has a funny name
Bobby can't join
supports the wrong team
"What's going on?"
bellows the red-faced teacher
"You can't treat each other like this!
"Have you ever been excluded?
"Yes?
"And how
"did it make you feel?"
He ushers them in, muttering
though somewhat gratified
by the shame in their eyes
Then herds them through
to assembly
where the guest of honour
is the minister
who proceeds to explain
to the obediently seated rows
that if they don't see things his way
they will be eternally,
terrifyingly
and agonisingly excluded
from the great big party in the sky
And the teacher hangs his head
in baffled complicity,
defeated.
Jan 15, 2012
Jan 15, 2012 at 2:56 PM UTC
Bill played piano down by the bar,
moldy old show tunes
gray-haired folks listened to,
in youth they'd played over...and over.
He once told me he was terminal,
diagnosed with months left,
and had just one request
of his own to be met
before accepting eternal rest -
peace in the kiss
of a handsome young man
who's powder blue eyes
might make him feel young again.
I thought he would weep,
and heart aching, obliged,
gratified by the smile,
sweet joy it seemed to bring him...
'till Sarah stuffed a dollar
in the tumbler of tips
he kept perched on the edge
of the piano he played -
he'd won their wager
he could get the
straight kid to kiss him.
Sarah cooked in the kitchen
and I always wondered
what sort of mother
named her son -
Sarah Vaughn -
then heard the sparrow sing
on the radio, laughing
because the one I knew
squawked like a crow
and dressed
in wigs and woman's clothes
when work was finally done.
The coincidence seemed
a delicious, karmic prank,
payment for some past-life indiscretion.
Michael studied flamboyance,
raised to high art in sweeps of his hand,
head tossed back, as if to keep pace
with legs was annoyance.
Adolescent innocence ended
when I realized the only other
guy employed there
who was straight like me -
was really a she -
chest wrapped real tight.
May 1, 2010
May 1, 2010 at 9:38 PM UTC
The alarm clock rings
and once again
the rooster sings
the morning new.
Slumbering flowers
lift their petals to drink
the drops of dew.
Reliable Sun
vanquishes the darkness
as he lightens the sky.
I see an honored guest
is in the garden,
his tiny nametag reads... butterfly.
But on the other side of town
someone struggles with
addiction.
Habits grab hard,
break will powers in two.
The will becomes won't
and the power is all through.
Satiated,
temporaneously satisfied.
only till the next time the habit has to be gratified.
The victim moves on trying to reassemble his day
Avoid
a crooked roaded relapse,
along the way.
Oh ghost of the host why must repitition repeat the most
and feel so good in its continuation?
Why must familiarity breed the need
for more familiar feelings?
To the point of killing control, sealing a fate,
dealing defeat,
stifle healing.
If your out there guardian soul, spirit helper, what's your roll, your goal?
Guiding with helping hand or let stand the habitualized
habit man.
Isn't there a self preservation station within?
A gland or impulse control button to switch from sin to win?
Even Edgar Allan Poe stubbed his toe on a ten step program trying to get in the door.
Ill-begotten and craven, drunken and unshaven cried the raven...never more.
Guiding spirit it ends here!
No more slave to the crave
or impulse picking from the addiction tree.
The need to repeat and repeat
the pattern becomes a self fulfilling prophesy.
Back to normalacy, complacency,
it's a moderation that one seeks.
To enjoy the ****** of bells, hallalulah wails,
a babies dimpled cheeks.
Can you do that Spirit helper, please.
Let sing the bodies vibration.
No more internal damnation.
No more self flagellation.
Allow to draw power from these words.
Think of this all as an intervention!
Jun 25, 2018
Jun 25, 2018 at 6:52 PM UTC
Blue and green we're the colors in between
All the things I've said, are all the things you've seen
White and grey we can still a stormy day
And all the things we fear we can't find the time to say.
Colour me terrified, colour me proud
Colour me anxious to say it out loud,
Colour me gratified, colour me fine
Colour me happy as long as you're mine.
Sand and slate oh you were worth the wait
All the lies I've lived have led me to your face.
Sea and sky, break all the rules or live a lie
Teach me all you know, my eyes are open wide.
Colour me terrified, colour me proud
Colour me anxious to say it out loud,
Colour me gratified, colour me fine
Colour me happy as long as you're mine.
May 1, 2020
May 1, 2020 at 10:03 AM UTC
Dear David:
We are deeply gratified that you gave us the opportunity
to read your poems. Notice that we say “opportunity”
rather than “submission,” for truly you graced us with works
of such enduring power, so sublime, so transcendent,
that our humble words scarce can adequately praise
the sacred privilege of reading them.
Seldom, no, never has human experience been so distilled,
so purified, so exalted, yet so exposed
in all its paradox, its shades and sunbursts,
shouts and silences, the hiding places redolent of inner light,
as in these timeless works.
A calm breeze from the desert’s edge at dusk,
the chatter of a mockingbird at dawn,
the rumble and crash of a hidden waterfall,
the laughter of a child unseen in a cool wood’s shade,
emanate so intensely from the shapes of these letters
that our faith in the power of language to evoke reality
has been nourished and restored to its proper place.
However, we regret to inform you
that your poems do not meet our needs at this time,
which are for relevant poems for the upcoming
theme issue on Hammer Toes.
We hope you will consider us for future opportunities.
Sincerely,
The editors of Foot Fetish Quarterly
Oct 14, 2016
Oct 14, 2016 at 4:28 PM UTC
By: Wileh Kama
I wish you were
Addictive to me
Than you are
To Facebook
The dawn breakers birds sing
And you wake up
Excitingly full of Indulgence
From overnight's expectations
You log onto Facebook
Foremost thing you do
Then you log off from Facebook
All before me
You forget me
During the day
Even when hunger strikes
Or when you are in the toilet
On the bus at work in the church
You log onto Facebook
Gratified from the overwhelmed messages
Updates statuses notifications
Furthermore disgusted winching
Over internet outage low data storage
You log off from Facebook or don't
Always Facebook is in your little mind
That makes your world go round
But you forget me
The last thing you do
Before you close your eyes
Regardless of tiredness
Even before you want to die
Craving like an addict
For the last hale of ****
Like a dog faithful to its master
You log onto Facebook
Check Facebook its Facebook
At times you forget to log off
And sleep all over Facebook
All after and without me
I wish you were
Addictive to me
Than you are
To Facebook
Date: 20140624
Jun 23, 2014
Jun 23, 2014 at 7:56 PM UTC
Humble beginnings
To the bitter ends
Frantic boot heels
Optical illusions
The **** of a joke
Last but not least
Whatsoever
Then again
Telegram a trigger word
Dangle from an umbilical chord
Eat the placenta
As the deadlines fluctuate
And the ambivalence
Is sealed in a canopic jar
It's experimental
Mental experiences
It's elemental
exemplary mentality
It's explicit
To solicit
The illicit
And go ballistic
-Tommy Johnson
They're so generous
To call me and my work sui generis
I'm just inter-being
To learn from ignorance
By my own volition
To achieve total consciousness
"Of all the nerve you sure got a lot of some of it"
Coming from oblivion
Ideas composing
The appreciation
Imagination turn into materialization
Expand and contract
The sensation of feeling
We crave and we cling
Becoming, we're born
A phase, we age
Sickness and death
Cessation, ratify or deny
Die gratified
These are the type of things we discussed in the Agora, all those times ago
-Tommy Johnson
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 6:55 PM UTC
I
My five-five-fingers of my hands
Zestfully lived In serenity.
The three thrill fingers of my right hand:
Thumb, index finger and middle finger
Stoutly lived civilly and gleefully
Amongst her BROTHERS:
They rested gleefully upon the placid,
SHARP-SABLE-POINTED-DART.
II
Sharp sable pointed-dart;
Perched in the midst of the three thrill fingers
And laid rest upon the hungry,
****** DUSKY-SHEET, which sprawled
Bear flat on the glossy desk.
The glossy desk accompanying the earth
The earth accompanying its depth.
III
The other two fingers of my right hand:
Ring finger and little finger
Calmly leisure, plopped on the hungry,
****** dusky-sheet
And lent ears to the Sharp-sable-pointed-dart,
Sharp-sable-pointed-dart,
Muttering vignettes of yesterday
Muttering vignettes of today
Muttering vegnettes of tomorrow.
Upon the glossy desk
My five fingers of my left hand too
Laid rest, and eyeballed the sharp-sable-pointed-dart,
Muttering deep thoughts.
IV
Look,
All you who waded through lines:
All you who unearth the heart
Of this earth, hunting for treasures
Pore over my ten fingers.
My ten fingers,
As pure as a full ****** moon.
I have dunked deep my five fingers
Of my right hand with my progenitors
In a bowl of sweet dishes
And nibbled singed YAMS amidst
The thriving vegetables.
V
But my forefinger of my left hand
Never been raised above
To curse the heavens
Never been raised up to pinpoint
My progenitors' homeland
Never had it tasted any depravity
And never will it be licked
Or bit by the savage butchers of Meat
Who loved to fatten themselves on ******
And gratified their heart with
Juicy cup of blood and gore.
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 2, 2016 at 4:34 AM UTC
Silhouettes in moonlit mazes
your tears are complex superstructures.
Superclusters wrinkle I, negative energy,
tunneling through chasms forbidden;
you and I float.
Comes a sound, depth charged sleeper cell,
a bloop, a mystery, an unsweep,
a whistle, a Julia, a train, a slow down.
Heard by 350,000 zombies.
You and I sleep.
A child derails a train, safe to say,
that the world has its trapdoors.
Its a mystery, they say, but what do they know?
About us and our death.
You and I disorient.
Your two ******* hide a heart,
A mother board center of circulation.
Your body’s iterative delusion
Graces mine. And dissolves me.
You and I disintegrate.
We need to hack the heart,
With absurdity and farce and slipstream:
Into subspecies, we, simians,
We are grateful, gratified.
You and I evaporate
Oct 4, 2012
Oct 4, 2012 at 12:22 AM UTC
Another sleepless night
Thinking of words to say gently good bye
We talked long hours last night
Result is - I won't be your shining armor knight
I am tired of hide and seek
I am strong, but in this game am weak
You will grant me lunch, meeting
Teach me Chinese while eating
Not good enough to satisfied
My desire to be with you, gratified
Instead of making love
You punched my face,
heart with boxing glove
On the WeChat you have send me
Flower with cat's pose
It turned out to be stem
Full of thorns, not rose
Go ahead roam Internet,
streets, bars searching for love
You won't find it
It just has flown away
Under wings of white dove
Despite of all I said, I love you still
Love you forever and always will
I do anything for you, I say
Love you until my dying day
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 9:49 PM UTC
Glittery, jittery raindrops.
An old, long lost friend turned cold.
Beckoning to move faster, and rush
Until out of the wet, and onto the damp cotton jump-seat
Faked bliss, but still happiness edges nearer
And nearer.
Little green bells of our lady of artistic inspiration
Observation and fresh vegetable
Graveyard maintenance.
The mundane.
Frog-legs dance on their tip toes.
Buttery biscuits and the sound of gagging from the stall--
Instantly gratified.
Small child-stares, and alone in a fantastic universe.
Melodies cease, imagination deflates
The mundane.
Sticky leaves stuck on black and white cats.
Voracious, they ravage the tall grass.
Passive-aggressive sunshine sprinkles now, and burns later.
Fortifying iced drinks, and pinkish, blueish, purplish
Does the sun go down?
May 23, 2013
May 23, 2013 at 3:40 PM UTC
Rocking my snap back, blowing up like a bellow back, juggling bars like it were a hacky sack. Life tries it’s best to give me set backs, but I just sit back and get back up for a comeback. Underdog from the underground, not here to blunder around for I want to be glory bound. Bound for glory, can’t keep me downed man for this is my heroes story. Story of my life, story that almost ended with a knife. Had enough of being left astray, for I no longer was going let myself be treated like an ashtray. Going into the fray, going in but this time I promise I won’t lose my way. Weighed my options, weighted the choices, and now they come to flourishing motion. I only listen to my own notions, and I will sacrifice anything to succeed even if I end up like the borthans. Death stares through the stars, but I won’t be taken by no Death Star. Starting ground up, for you gotta do what ever it takes to get to the top. Toppled the haters and the fakers, for my bars are like eating a snickers. Keep yawl satisfied and I’m so grateful that my effort has been gratified. Bonified dignified undenied modified undefined went in applied and rallied from a moral guide to tear apart the diseased hide. Government conspiracy, government deemed freedom of speech as heresy. And here I see the flaws, and here I came out of the depths with my claws. Clawed for my dream, dream of attaining cream. Escaped the depths of the Demi-gorgan pit, because it’s all about survival of those who are more fit. Fit to be a decency, but because I’m different I’m deemed a discrepancy. So I’m going in like a ghost doing recon call me Tom Clancy, exposing all these ******* fallacies. Falling down an icy slope, and for the longest time we couldn’t open up because we was introduced to dope which was anything but dope. Dopamine filling my being, neurotransmitters firing so fast that I attain this happy feeling. False perceptions to stimulants, false ideals gotta use discretion’s before I end up in a addiction predicament. Moving fast, moving slow, the ride won’t last, so I always gotta have me mo. Self medicate self evaporate self ********** which leads to self hate and broken fate.Too long since I noticed anything but myself, feel like a ***** villain man so should I arrest my self. I just long for rest myself, and maybe it’s time for someone else to assess myself. Maybe it’s time to visit the mental asylum
Feb 22, 2018
Feb 22, 2018 at 2:45 AM UTC
If you should sail for Trebizond, or die,
Or cry another name in your first sleep,
Or see me board a train, and fail to sigh,
Appropriately, I'd clutch my breast and weep.
And you, if I should wander through the door,
Or sin, or seek a nunnery, or save
My lips and give my cheek, would tread the floor
And aptly mention poison and the grave.
Therefore the mooning world is gratified,
Quoting how prettily we sigh and swear;
And you and I, correctly side by side,
Shall live as lovers when our bones are bare
And though we lie forever enemies,
Shall rank with Abelard and Heloise.
1.6k
There I slouched,
hand barely supporting my head,
gazing wistfully at the sunshine, a midst study of the intercepts of ****** circles and lines.
Her condescending baby voice, wafted through the classroom like a stale stench.
Then you,
yes you,
starting pressing the calculator buttons so hard for one moment I thought you'd break it.
I pressed my hand lightly on yours and you met my gaze for a moment,
so in my supposedly light bulb epiphany,
I asked you for a spare pencil.
Your eyes lit up like my terrible idea,
and trouble was being spelled in your flecks of gold.
So, your hand reached in and very slowly lay
pencil,
after pencil,
until it covered the space between us on the gratified desk.
"Fourteen pencils and you can have them all" you said,
before that patronizing squint swung in our direction
And the shouting began.
Sep 13, 2013
Sep 13, 2013 at 1:45 PM UTC