"guesswork" poems
It was not a heart, beating.
That muted boom, that clangor
Far off, not blood in the ears
Drumming up and fever
To impose on the evening.
The noise came from outside:
A metal detonating
Native, evidently, to
These stilled suburbs nobody
Startled at it, though the sound
Shook the ground with its pounding.
It took a root at my coming
Till the thudding shource, exposed,
Counfounded in wept guesswork:
Framed in windows of Main Street's
Silver factory, immense
Hammers hoisted, wheels turning,
Stalled, let fall their vertical
Tonnage of metal and wood;
Stunned in marrow. Men in white
Undershirts circled, tending
Without stop those greased machines,
Tending, without stop, the blunt
Indefatigable fact.
8k
The storm on the eastern coast will descend
into a grey day bringing showers
and thunderstorms
filling your picnic basket as you go about
finding shelter under trees and shrubs
gone on holiday to the south of france.
bring your brollies
raincoats and gumboots just in case
you day darkens into a cyclone
and your lover leaves you
abandoned with the sunrise
emerging in your life
take care as you meander through
the floods as the gates open
and your emotions spill out
in poetic metaphors
all over the page
******* readers into the whirlpool
of hidden symbols and mechanisms
that can choke you out
as you watch the weather swish by
without you noticing.
never be deceived by the weathermans wares
at times he may play god
with your days diary entries
but all he can do really
is work like a fortune-teller
using guesswork as a device.
Author Notes
One giant metaphor for what happens in your life if you believe in the weatherman!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 2:54 AM UTC
Maybe if my therapist was a Tyrannosaurus Rex
I would feel more comfortable speaking out loud,
Knowing that he wouldn't understand a word I'm saying, anyway
"I wish someone had given me an instruction manual for myself... When I was 5 my mom was concerned because I had no friends and it didn't bother me at all...
It would have been nice to know about my self-destruct button...
One day, when I was 16, I forgot to put on my bullet-proof vest and a beautiful boy (who had my heart on a keychain) shot me straight through the skull. No mercy... Is there a mirror around so I can see if there's still a hole there?
(I'd point to a picture) ... He hit me once.
... When I was 12, two girls who were supposed to be my friends held my head underwater in the swimming pool. And the adults just sat there and watched from the sidewalk as I struggled for air...
You know, it would have been nice if someone could've explained the functions I was designed to perform...
Because at this point
It's all guesswork-- am I mentally unstable?"
And the T-Rex would look up from his book, glasses shoved against his nose
And he would say,
"You've just spent the last 45 minutes talking to a dinosaur."
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 1:51 AM UTC
it hangs sullen from ropes made of judgment, discord is tangled in every breath
guesswork at the outcome, uncertainty the only thing that is certain
trials and hearings hold the lives of others in the hands of men, bent on working some out
society, as a rule, ***** at extending compassion
they cut off the hands that feed the monstrous system
and the eyes of stereotype crinkle, bemused and complacence smiles sly
true justice is a shy thing, skittish and absent
standing on the sidelines, it's a hopeless mess!
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 12:48 AM UTC
and often nights? i -
i’ll have no trouble
it’s the screens that
do me in.
the fallen angel
the lithesome, spent glow
of do-overs
it just
does me in.
i am too possessed
by mercurial vapor
a dead self
at 2 and 3 and 4am
egging on, asking
“keep looking? it’s
somewhere in the archives.
it has to be.”
i promised, i promised
i wouldn’t, i promised
or I’d spend months
years, decades of life
living in the guesswork
the in-betweens
lying in the pathways
between the thought
and the reflex.
i could scroll a whole
lifetime away
in wanting.
it’s the screens that
do me in.
Oct 20, 2015
Oct 20, 2015 at 2:05 PM UTC
Strife is the commanding officer, because it has the very basics of its own underling under its very control.
(Which is the even more basic facts towards being in such specific details, that is "shame" itself.)
Then there's the very such direct component pieces that make up the perfect ingredients for shame itself....
Doubt. And...guilt.
Strife has NO SUCH MAIN INGREDIENT!
Mostly because... It's a commanding officer of an underling...you obviously do.
Nothing more to say or even have the very such capable guesswork for such speculating results, such as this...
Apr 2, 2021
Apr 2, 2021 at 9:02 PM UTC
Misplaced feelings of lust and aggression.
A fresh new take on an old depression.
Watch as we make mistakes on purpose.
Hear us proclaim our own lives as worthless.
Misjudged values and dusty pedestals stacked chest-high with the best nonfacts - cracked down the middle.
None of this was ever about you;
just a made-up answer to an unknown riddle.
May 15, 2016
May 15, 2016 at 2:27 AM UTC
Lit this slash pile one week ago,
a small pile as far as slashing and burning goes
Since then it’s melted,
rained, and snowed
Unusual and erratic behavior for January
and February in this country
Country that the Salish would’ve known
to move out of before winter set in.
Shouldn’t be anything other
than frozen and buried in snow
but nothing acts now in the way
it used to, and no one can predict
what’s coming, yet we keep reporting
our guesswork like we know something,
still playing make-believe with our
ideas about control, specifically about
how we’d like to be in it—
maybe because we like the idea of
stability so much and wish we had it
despite our tireless irony.
And here is this little steam-pot,
this natural wonder of vitality and perseverance,
issuing one more quiet reminder
of how little we know of our actions
or the cycles they’ve started.
Feb 6, 2024
Feb 6, 2024 at 1:14 PM UTC
underneath the nylon blanket I got the
impression that your hands were
these beautiful, shadowy, cecropia moths
reticent with their intentions, while they sat
idly on your ribcage before seeking out warmer
bases. My back, my thigh, my hipbone that *wasn't
connected*, you whispered.
You smell like cologne and beer; warm and perfumey,
faintly sweet. I wonder if I'm still tipsy, that was over an hour ago,
over an hour ago when I had to focus on my words
to make sure they came out in pieces and not viscous liquids
thick and sugary. I imagined gems hanging from my lips,
gems hanging from my lips and letters bubbling past
them.
you keep pulling down my shirt like a curtain, derisive of your
own actions, only to find that you have yet to prove yourself
and rock my thigh into yours which was perhaps too zealous.
Too zealous, I think, nonetheless quickened by your thumb
brushing the underwire of my bra. I laugh because we are far
too juvenile. Here I am protecting the sanctity found in patience
and yet you've evaded the rules.
all this touching and we haven't even kissed, I say, which wasn't really an invitation, but then we are and i am breathing all of you
in sweet staccato breaths, tugging at your skin and still doing the
guesswork, still trying to pin down your wings like a true lepidopterist
all the while knowing that butterflies on cork-boards are usually
dead.
Mar 13, 2016
Mar 13, 2016 at 4:33 PM UTC
What Happens After Death?
Bathing daily as I do,
Listening to the radio,
Emergencies, catastrophes,
Boats sinking or aflame or both:
What happens after death’s end breath?
‘The poisoned lung… the old, the young…
The fire set on purpose,
One hundred fifty-nine lives lost’
Through living skin I take it in:
Corrupted ethics, trials. Why?
August weather’s all but frosty.
I, with plethora of food in fridge,
Them there rigid,
Stench of rot.
I, desk full of paper, notes;
Money to buy more.
Stuff stuffed into each shelf and drawer;
The closet door can hardly close for all those clothes,
And I, asking ‘bout death and after.
Am I daft to wonder, wander into guesswork’s trap?
Or have I found a craft to cope,
Yoga’s science and art of hope?
For something must exist - a consciousness
Not here, but in a sphere somewhere.
It isn’t logical
That something can become a nil –
Something that has had a pulse.
What else makes sense?
This senseless chaos I sense is not chaos
But some inner justice
Somewhere, somehow in the universes
of creation!
In a sudden quickening of thinking
In the probabilities of speculation
Here I sit in bath’s ablution, asking questions
About what happens after death?
What Happens After Death? 8.9.2016
Birth, Death & In Between II;
Arlene Corwin
arlenecorwinpoetry.com/duanespoetree.com/Youtube
Aug 9, 2016
Aug 9, 2016 at 2:38 PM UTC
What a lovely walk I'm on
as long as I manage not to fall
down these pits and
cracks in the path.
And I, too, would give you the round
path of my love, without end,
but instead I can only offer that of time,
shattered and not endless,
though grand and
sweet just the same.
If my hand and my will were one and the same
I would reweave the strands of fate
and bring you to me in your sleep, in your light,
and here on a lazy day our minds would
play and delight and create.
My will however is only in my feet, so far,
with their certainty and their guesswork,
their endurance, their finding
and their leaving behind.
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 5:11 PM UTC
Where there was once plenty
Lines are now full
The shelves are empty
but who are the fools?
It's all guesswork
At best
How far does the mind stretch
An invisible force is the source
Or are people the flaws
Can't quite quantify the unknown
When pushed
Have we not grown
Panic sets in
Now technically we're four
meals away from anarchy
Mar 14, 2020
Mar 14, 2020 at 11:37 AM UTC
Above all
I thank the stars
For the gift of wayfinding.
Above it all
I gaze higher still
Or to the sunlit valleys below
To find my way.
The gift of terrifying awe as Orion's belt peers through the trees, bringing South.
The gift of sure confidence as I point the Dippers out to others, bringing North.
The gift of guesswork as we discover behind which peak the sun will rise, bringing East.
The gift of inevitable hush that descends along with her, bringing West.
The gift of heavy elements
Composing all
And my body
And these eyes
That were also made for
Reading maps,
Reading signs,
Reading animal sigils.
Above all
I thank the stars
For teaching me
To be less blind
And to find My Self
In the world.
Nov 3, 2017
Nov 3, 2017 at 8:20 PM UTC
You wanna know my fear?
My greatest fear is unpredictability.
i cant stand not knowing whats next.
I dont like guesswork.
This originated from my father.
(its funny how he keeps coming up among all the shenanigans in my art)
I remember my leg being pulled, my body flinging out of my bed.
No fortune teller could have predicted that.
Or the time i was forced to stay awake
all night long.
For years, his unpredictability haunted me.
Made me realize.
Made me rationalize.
Made me afraid of myself.
I pictured the man in the mirror....
gone.
I took the knife.
twiddled with it around.
And saw an asylum.
with my name.
etched in the corners.
My fear arose.
Bringing oblivion to my tears.
I see his face
brings my fears
to
life
once
again
liberate me.
from the worlds unpredictability
Apr 1, 2016
Apr 1, 2016 at 12:09 AM UTC
like the contents
of a purse
my sorrows
shift
a few
are darkly
touched
some are
chosen
one I think
for a baby’s
lampless
mouth
Jul 2, 2012
Jul 2, 2012 at 3:47 PM UTC
Suddenly my life isn't all that it was meant to be.
No good doings and no Hell that I've come back from.
And a plane flies, people asking why it has to be like this.
It's just another day.
Take the guesswork out and you will know what you've been dealt.
Her lipstick falls off.
A shimmering substance,
A tear falls, your powdery limbs & and ******* melt,
the perfume spoiling is a sickening way to lure and rock your mind full of distant graves and more distant roots,whispering ,
screaming but after your eyelashes kiss.
Lips I feel lighter notes and sweeter songs are due best to avoid, awards jangle from the greying clips and scraps below your softer feathers.
Oh?
Is this cashmere, a feeling lost to below the old world?
Pray-chance tell me it is,
the knife and my pool of blood underneath my heart,
just above the parking lot.
In the bar,
my eyes
kiss pool cues.
In time I'll walk away.
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 10:13 AM UTC
They always say a relationship isn’t always 50/50
Sometimes it’s 20/80 or 70/30
But together it will always make up for 100%
Does that ring a bell?
I don’t feel like that 100% is there anymore
Don’t even know if it has ever been there
It feels like I’m charging an old phone whose battery isn’t at full capacity any longer
As if it’s 110 vs. -10
And I’m sure you feel the same way
I’m sure you feel like I am not bringing enough to the table either
As if, together-
we are overloading the battery
Each of us thinking we are charging with the right cable
Charging it for the right amount
Or in the assumption of the battery knowing when it is full
But the battery doesn’t know
We both don’t know
It’s a constant guesswork of where we are on that scale of zero to a hundred
The odds are so small of us both picking the right amount.
And yes, it has happened before-
but that only means the odds of it happening again are getting smaller
I am terribly afraid.
I don’t want to switch batteries.
But maybe, for you-
It’d be better.
Oct 7, 2024
Oct 7, 2024 at 12:13 PM UTC