"hamstrung" poems
.
*Light hits my retina
through the prism of a tear,
distorted faces pass
with images fragmented
inside out
and the smell of tallow
as a candle splutters,
falters and winks out
for the wick collapses cruel
like a hamstrung dancer.
The tear exits stage left
and rolls down the wings
of a thoughtless cheek,
teeters on the brink of catastrophe
and falls upon a blank page,
reviewing its brief life
as a lazy metaphor,
so I look at the remaining solitary candle
and grieve for the lost tear,
as an understudy takes its place.*
© Pagan Paul (28/05/19)
May 28, 2019
May 28, 2019 at 7:34 AM UTC
So you've got a grudge and a roll of dollar bills stuffed in your pocket
staring through other people's lives and loves with those hungry eyes,
and wading through the refuse you've piled about yourself.
So you go burning bridges and murdering saints, weeping oil and restitution
movin and groovin and trying oh so hard to impress those ghosts,
those shades shackled to your heart trailing behind you like hamstrung legs.
So you go on wishing you were Dante and stumbling over Elliot,
stuck in a loop, stuck in the past, or is it the past that's stuck in you?
So you blame the world, blame the stars, blame the very beauty that it hurts
you to see, hurts you to love, but more than anything you blame me.
Well that's too bad, that you don't want to see, too bad that you don't want
to be stuck inside of me, torn apart and inside out, just too **** bad
that you don't wanna be sad when the sun rises and shows me who you really are.
Now let me tell you something boy, and I'll be extremely concise, as forward
as I can: It's time to stop running like a hunted thing in the night,
time to turn, to change and fight.
But you've got that grudge, and those dollar bills, and you wanna find some pretty,
broken thing to spend it on; yeah to find some hopeless eyes to rub your
empty heart on, or maybe some sad hippie girl to get your conscience on.
Dec 2, 2013
Dec 2, 2013 at 9:26 PM UTC
Ebola
Aids
These are now but minor things
There is a cure for these
But
Islamic State
The pandemic is here
Here in your small peaceful American townships
Creeping insidiously into our English villages
And we know not when the disease will strike
Soon, all to soon you will be looking over your shoulder
"Is my Muslim friend of many years
one of them"?
You don't know and I don't know
And so suspicion invaded our minds
Where now is the peace we were promised
Seventy years ago?
Where now can our children, grandchildren walk in safety?
Governments are hamstrung
After all it's against a person's human rights
To arrest and gaol them on suspicion alone
But what about our human rights?
Should we not be free to walk our streets in safety?
The disease is spreading
But the political antidote provides no permanent cure
The good people of the world now must make their voices heard
Jun 7, 2015
Jun 7, 2015 at 9:04 AM UTC
Caught between the frost
And the mire of mediocrity
We're just passengers on failure's final ferry
We're courageous, yet hamstrung
By demons and daydreams
I've learned the cold makes these thin bones ache
And all this foreboding has drained
The little strength that I've managed
To collect from season to broken season
I tucked the past in an overcoat
Before I stepped out on the porch
Hobbling despite the crutches that I carry
Am I a witness to winter?
Or a simpleton of madness?
I loved you more than every "God **** muttered under icy breath
But I'm still struggling
Fighting against the weight of it
Simply...caught
Caught between the frost
And the mire of mediocrity
Mar 24, 2017
Mar 24, 2017 at 3:24 PM UTC
MOTECUHZOMA
I stand here, lords, a humbled man, to bow
Before divine arbitrament with you.
Tell me the damage of my botchery,
And do not let my title tie your tongue.
Unfold his ballot, and unveil my doom.
TLACAELEL
Great Speaker of the state of Mexico,
It is my solemn duty to report
That, by the power vested to my role
In this most sacred trial by tournament,
Your bounty due unto this king shall be . . .
[Opens the second wager.]
Three turkey ***** of prime and grade-A stock.
MOTECUHZOMA
You staked your kingdom on three gobbling birds?
Why did you shy to wager higher, man?
HUNGRY PRINCE
My father always warned me, never bet
For more than what you know you might receive.
MOTECUHZOMA
But- grinning simpleton- what will you do
With burlap sacks of poultry for a prize?
HUNGRY PRINCE
Why, I’ll farm out a new triumvirate.
The old one closed from lack of membership.
MOTECUHZOMA
Not hamstrung by a certain turkey’s qualms?
HUNGRY PRINCE
But poachered by the greater gobbler.
MOTECUHZOMA
So you shall never gain my kingdom now.
HUNGRY PRINCE
And you can never keep your kingdom now.
MOTECUHZOMA
That fails to follow. Who could rival me?
HUNGRY PRINCE
You’ll follow my allusion soon enough,
Once your own subjects fail to follow you.
MOTECUHZOMA
Fool! What I banked on was your fantasy.
HUNGRY PRINCE
Friend, what you staked on was my prophecy,
And what I prophesied, the gods confirm
By our ill-tilting trial in this field.
I have foretold your empire shall be lost,
And lost it shall be, to my heart’s dismay.
And therefore, farewell Mexico! Or else,
Farewell, Motecuhzoma. I’m afraid
One must be sacrificed to speed the other.
MOTECUHZOMA
Why know you not, straw man, I am the empire.
My doctrines are her laws; her braves, my brawn.
It is my veins her riches run through, sir,
And when she prays, it is my vows she breathes.
HUNGRY PRINCE
But when she suffers, you repose and dream,
And when she starves, her rumblings go unheard,
As you crack crab shells at the groaning board.
A pretty study, then, in symbiosis.
MOTECUHZOMA
Why bandy taunts with this malingerer?
Let’s penitently tender sacrifice,
And leave this dreamer to his reveries.
It seems such visions reign these days.
Oct 14, 2016
Oct 14, 2016 at 3:59 PM UTC
Vane glorious and absolutistic,
though I defiantly,
cavalierly, and blithely attest
Yukon bet your (laugh-in) sweet bippy
mine acidic breast
houses anarchic, anti-poetic ballistic,
barbaric, and bubonic
cannibalistic demons within thy
safely guarded Pandora chest
atomic cesium clock
timed to trigger avast
burst of anxiety, frenzy, and
(What me worry
Alfred E. Neuman) blast
ting mental quietude at most
inappropriate, inconvenient,
inopportune, out classed
adrenaline rush, nausea,
palpitating heart, vertigo
besieging, corrupting,
endeavoring fractured arrant
cleft daemonic gripping
hellishly psychic chant
rendering unto sieze ****
a choking vise grip extant
yule hiss sieze indomitable
banshee fully controlling grant
diabolic, dogmatic, and dynamic,
anguished corporeal ache
easily, egregiously, and emblematically,
exemplified historically
graphic fatalistic, and ecstatic coup,
(koo), when I caused furious frantic flight,
and/or fight betake
king angst causing just desserts
for Marie Antoinette,
who got her humble pie cake,
thence dispensing with formalities,
where a joshing drake
(named Gill O. Teen)
also known (solely known
to mine selfish source error ways)
alias i.e. as; the Lewis (loose)
lunatic, heady harvester,
and decapitation Deacon trumpeting,
trouncing, and triumphing tranquility
for fifty three Tuesdays,
thence sea king punishing psychotic
pre pound payment
basking in glory (re: gory us)
amidship crashing quays
music to mine ears hearing plaintive neighs
high pitched straining
vocal chord hamstrung keys
regaling oceanographic
lambent hagiographic essays
and keeping at bathos bays.
Jun 24, 2018
Jun 24, 2018 at 11:45 PM UTC
My Love, where have you gone? Where is the jewel that shone so brightly in your heart when we were young? I was away from you for years, campaigning across mountains and deserts, called by duty to my sardharan. Though never did I forsake you, nor our love. And now at last that I have come back, laden with the riches of far lands and strange peoples, enough to provide our family for ten lifetimes, you have grown cold. What happened in those years? Why won't you embrace me the way you once did, with such passion? It was that fire that drove me through war and death and sickness, those memories of our life before. Why does my own daughter fear me now? The day I returned you wept and she ran into the house as if from a ghost. When I embrace her now she cringes, as if expecting a whip. Our own Fatima, why should she be so afraid? I chased butterflies with her when she was but able to walk. Why should she now stiffen when I touch her? And where is your family? Mine were long dead when we were wed but yours loved and cherished our union, always some cousin or aunt was around to talk or invite us to dinner with them. Why won't you speak to me? I was nobody when I left for the war, but now I am returned, a deghan in the service of our lord, one of his trusted bodyguards, the commander of a hundred lancers and yet, my stallion Hafez was hamstrung in our field last night! They left him in misery for me to find this morning. My Love, what has happened to our home?
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 3:07 AM UTC
I say it’s cozy - you say it’s cluttered.
I say it’s comfy, you say it’s crowded.
Two hundred miles from what we knew and loved
Those miles have somehow slipped between us.
You say this place must be bewitched
You put down things, they walk away.
I say your mind is occupied-
You’re not living in the moment.
Hamstrung by a phone line waiting for connection
Someone in India has a hand in our lives
And decides who we can talk to,
Limited now to only each other.
The sun gave a hint of blisters to come,
Then cooled by an unexpected deluge
That turned cardboard cartons to sagging mush
And soaked us as we tried to save them.
They said it rained just ten times a year
But our record for the first two weeks:
Two monsoon pours and 4 more others
While thunder and sheet lightning filled the heavens.
The sky lights up like strobes on crack
While thunder rumbles in the distance
Overture to monster downpour
Dried and gone before the sunrise.
No Welcome Wagon rang our bell
No casseroles appeared
Nothing more than a random wave
To welcome us to this new life.
They said there’s no humidity
So the heat is not so bad
My gauge shows that glass half full
And we’ve been lied to once again.
We put our rubber plants outside
They were quickly cooked to mush.
We salvaged only two leaves each Small reward for major effort.
Who can live in such a place
The natives always say it’s lovely.
But nothing we were told is true
And somehow we must find a way.
ljm
Mar 3, 2019
Mar 3, 2019 at 3:23 PM UTC
lekki, and
thus said leki...
former: slightly.
and latter: medicine....
medicine: or pills...
that's half a summary
of leftovers...
strutting toward
a hamstrung plagiarism
worths' worth of
kindergarten blah blah...
if ever the case
was ever the rheumatic catchphrase
or said: gyroid stubble...
the five o'clock tanning...
yep, lekki meaning a slightness,
meaning a gargantuan woo...
a slightness,
and that's half of ascribed Loci...
leki means medicine,
a plural circumstance...
letki meaning
paper-weight...
lekki hark and stutter...
Loci... or lost jarring toward
insinuated lightness,
as said: personified lightness,
unbearable to the suitor Kundera.
oh the stutter.
Nov 24, 2016
Nov 24, 2016 at 9:45 PM UTC
Like a corpse,
it took her a decade to bloom,
but he only stayed 48,
and then he said they could never be together.
He left her empty,
maimed,
her heart worn out,
like an old, unwanted punching bag,
emotionally hamstrung.
Missing limbs,
she felt empty,
forever soul searching.
He said he had to go,
the deuce threat!
"ruler of Olympus had ordered it",
rendered him powerless,
left him "half" the man he was.
But...
When did Zeus become a harlot?
Oct 30, 2015
Oct 30, 2015 at 11:40 AM UTC
who are we?
we do not fight
we do not fight
except when this
returns in waves
you
feeling
unprioritized
unloved
scared
me
feeling
insufficient
hamstrung
lost
you are
my only
one
i spoke of you
around the globe
through the stars
and back
you made a
home for me
warm and bright
no strings attached
we never fought
we do not fight
but this one
these fears
never seem to
fade
what will it make of us?
Nov 16, 2017
Nov 16, 2017 at 6:16 PM UTC
paying pawns to play the kings game is for the poor
Im not playing it that way any more
my monetary weakness has me hamstrung for sure
but its not like I havent made stronger moves before
checkmate is an uncomfortable place to be
sitting waiting for their brave knights on contracts to come and get me
but as impossible as it may seem
I will extract myself from this trap they have me in
even if it kills me
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 10:32 AM UTC
Sometimes, my words end up lost in translation
I feel as though I'm speaking
To a room full of bystanders
None of whom care what spills forth
From this cotton mouth
It's like there are two of me
One to speak the words
And another to think the thoughts
Neither are in communication
Neither know who the hell I am
Scatter-brained is a loose term
Loosely held together by patience
And carelessly painted grey mornings
My head collects the words
And the same head rejects the connotations
I can't open my lips for all this trembling
I've never been one to placate nerves
Or to weave brilliance out of inhibitions
I just ransack the audience's hopes
And sprinkle them with pessimistic hail
Some might believe I may be hamstrung
By a heel only Achilles might covet
And a frailty in how I read between the lines
If I fail to impress, will I just forget?
Or scar myself with phantoms of things unsaid?
Undoubtedly, there are places for people
Like me, of my ilk, of my stature
Not that I've ever stumbled into such a place
Or climbed the ladders that they set
In front of feet that prefer the ground
May 10, 2017
May 10, 2017 at 1:15 PM UTC