"happenstances" poems
Why should I care you're there,
Or anywhere.
It was you who interrupted the night;
I watched you stare down the fire,
Scrape your initials in the ashes.
If it weren't for family,
The confusion and strained dialogue,
Like appearances,
I wouldn't see you at all.
Stay you do, everywhere.
So I tell a joke or two, one line quips,
And you were smiling,
While you're there,
Where I should no longer care.
What would be the aftermath of such a collision?
One wreck towed off.
It doesn't bother me in the least,
Our complimentary pauses
At the four way stops,
Or roadside memorials,
With faded yellow ribbons and thirsty flowers
Pinned to a styrofoam cross.
There is no rest, and little peace.
Jul 20, 2018
Jul 20, 2018 at 9:07 AM UTC
Totalitarian menace
refined, tailored pants
bleed malignance and
fear.
What stalks the passage,
normally?
Tear off my clothes, with subordinate cruelty
and tortured fiefdom from the sun
invading damp alleyways
and musty cement corridors
abet you enthroned
on that sidewalk stump.
I curb,
the habit
blindly happenstances about
yore salty ruins
we yodel, indiscriminately.
Jun 1, 2011
Jun 1, 2011 at 2:22 PM UTC
Miracles lay behind decimals
In this domain of imminent decay
They tread drearily
Coming and going
But hardly making a difference at all
Dwindling happenstances
Going unperceived by untrained eyes
Ephemeral, glowing thoughts
That transcend into dull, mere materiality
But they don't really matter at all.
Dec 1, 2013
Dec 1, 2013 at 9:59 PM UTC
The way in which we cower away
From desolate words
Yet we dream of bottling them up
To wear as perfume
We carry with us to ports and piers
Where the wind and water waltz
And take our hands in a line dance
Where fire can never touch the surface
So, it lives deep in our hearts
These are the ways I dream of our
unconventional circumstances
Wishing them into happenstances
That could possibly bloom into purposeful love
but I fix clocks, and no matter how hard I try,
I can't change time
...Don't forgive me, just don't forget me...
Jan 1, 2022
Jan 1, 2022 at 5:38 AM UTC
Forbidden fruit hung on the tree in such a fashion that I could not grab it.
I watched the forest fever grow hot near you. Untastable, you hung just so.
Just so.
High on the branch but low to the ground, like an earthbound deity, you swung humbly.
I watched you.
Three thousand happenstances, coordinating dizzily, dropped you in my lap.
How could I not lap you up?
You tasted me
on your way down.
Sifting through me filtered, your poison seeps out my pores.
Last week of ripeness go slow,
I cannot get the taste off my tongue
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 7:44 PM UTC
The conservative element in DC
Has something else as priority.
It sure is not you, nor is it me.
It’s a much more powerful constituency:
Those who pull strings do not care
Unless you are a multi-millionaire
And contribute to their greedy cause
Like some kind of Santa Claus.
They keep on doing what they’re doing
******** who they were ********
I would explain it all if I could
But sometimes words do no good.
Behind all the gobbledy ****
Someone is not playing by the book.
Winning with lies is what they are trying
To make the true facts look like lying.
They keep you so confused that you
You believe what they want you to,
So you won’t see behind their wiles
To bring their larcenous ***** to trial.
Dignifying public rumors of buggery
You look away from skullduggery.
A few insignificant happenstances
Eclipse treasonous circumstances.
You ***** about gays and abortion
While conservatives commit extortion
And persecution in Jesus’ name.
To them it’s all a ratings game.
If you don’t care what people feel
You lose all track of what is real.
You turn into a tool for deception;
A dupe of sleight-of-hand misdirection.
As long as things are as they are
We’ll get run over by the clown car
Which is the Congress currently seated.
And as long as they remain undefeated
The rules will leave the deck stacked.
Nobody in DC will have our backs.
Why should they care about our whim
When the way it is benefits them?
We need one item, one bill rules
Or we end up the same beaten fools.
We need campaign funding to be equal
Or each election becomes a sequel
To what happened with Gore and Bush
When backdoor politics bit us in the ****
The only way change will ever come around
Is to take the loopholes from these clowns.
Dec 11, 2015
Dec 11, 2015 at 11:07 PM UTC
"The fireflies are out tonight" he remarked, plodding barefoot behind her. Dusk fell over the stoic faces of skyscrapers that lined the three blocks ahead of them. "First I've seen this season", she replied in a near whisper, moon-eyed and gazing at something over the space where the park was.
//stop//
Her ears emerged from beneath the water she'd grown accustomed to the temperature with her laps up and down, trying to wash away the earlier happenstances of the day. It was warm beneath the surface, but the breeze made her feel brittle.
//Stop//
"...or was it more of a situation entirely different?" the boy questioned. She stared blankly at his awaiting gaze. How long had she been under? she had no idea. She'd gotten lost in thought and, as usual forgotten to count her laps. It just figured. It was like her to drift off like that. She shrugged to herself and closed her eyes as she leaned back into the water, once again drowning out the dull sounds of obscure questions that dripped out of his mouth. She closed her eyes as she swung her legs up to the wall and exhaled as she pushed back and drifted once again to the other side of the pool.
//stop//
She was dripping wet and a man was escorting her to a new room. It smelled of grease and cigarettes. The lighting was bad.
//stop//
All dry now, except her hair. She was warmer though. She exited her current surroundings through the only door. There, to the left of the desk on the floor. She quickly skipped over and slipped them on.
//stop//
Her hair was almost completely dry and she couldn't stand still. He was cleaning in his boxers by the kitchen sink. She'd pulled up the rug in front of the makeshift TV computer screen and she danced in front of the window, happy he couldn't see.
//stop//
it's late. much later. she wanted to go upstairs but she was having a hard time trying to care. Maybe the girl she used to know would help her out with a little artificial sweetener to fight off the sleep. She could at least see.
STOP.
C.e.m. 6.11.15
Jun 17, 2015
Jun 17, 2015 at 9:25 PM UTC
Only been around for nineteen short years
But I've witnessed too many
Friends lives cut short by ****** garden shears
Little boys and girls
Who's legs have been severed at the knee
Been taken for a whirl
Around the block without eyes to see
The guilt I feel isn't natural
I just walk the Earth
I see dead people I once knew
Taken for the lone ride in the big black hearse
Something isn't right
When the wrong path is taken for granted
Didn't know the meaning of the fight
Or the truth behind the disbanded
Beautifully departed
Like the angels with the glowing wings
The one's who fell to the dirt
Coughing and spitting up horrible things
No one seems to care
When you're on the inside looking out
It's just the one's I can't bear
Because I've always been the outsider looking in
What I'm trying to explain
Is that the words I'm speaking
Have fought pain and been stained
By the happenstances of this big blue mystery
Why is it that the kids who go usually know?
Drowned and pummeled with the incendiary
Devices that cause your mind to go up in flames
Up in flames, up in smoke and no one wants to take the blame
Feb 27, 2012
Feb 27, 2012 at 1:16 PM UTC
Only been around for nineteen short years
But I've witnessed too many
Friends lives cut short by ****** garden shears
Little boys and girls
Who's legs have been severed at the knee
Been taken for a whirl
Around the block without eyes to see
The guilt I feel isn't natural
I just walk the Earth
I see dead people I once knew
Taken for the lone ride in the big black hearse
Something isn't right
When the wrong path is taken for granted
Didn't know the meaning of the fight
Or the truth behind the disbanded
Beautifully departed
Like the angels with the glowing wings
The one's who fell to the dirt
Coughing and spitting up horrible things
No one seems to care
When you're on the inside looking out
It's just the one's I can't bear
Because I've always been the outsider looking in
What I'm trying to explain
Is that the words I'm speaking
Have fought pain and been stained
By the happenstances of this big blue mystery
Why is it that the kids who go usually know?
Drowned and pummeled with the incendiary
Devices that cause your mind to go up in flames
Up in flames, up in smoke and no one wants to take the blame
Feb 27, 2012
Feb 27, 2012 at 1:16 PM UTC
You’ve held my hand, across grass, sand, all
And now, I could write with happenstances about sun shine
But, you held my heart across spring to fall.
With bricks & mortar from independence I should build a wall,
Put the reasons I should forget, all in a line.
(Be that as it may) You’ve held my hand, across grass, sand, all,
Clutching my pencil, fiddling, fumbling, I stall.
Maybe my dull sense will away, and I’ll be fine
But, you held my- heart, across spring to fall.
For now I’ll give up! I’m lacing boots in the hall,
I can’t go anywhere! Every encircling finds me at this pine
See, you held my hand across grass, sand, all.
In the moon, the shape of your eyes, by the shore, o enthralls
Pushing to the page, supplies unprepared, stories won’t even be mine.
And still, you held my heart across spring to fall.
Throwing pages, crossing out, crossing, erasing evidence of this thrall
I want them to pull close like curled embers, in a new design
You’ve held my hand across grass, sand, all
But, you held my heart across spring to fall.
May 24, 2010
May 24, 2010 at 4:02 PM UTC
I've settled to you
Inside and sheltered
Uncomfortably bound
Like a piece of the puzzle
Like a shoe that doesn't fit
So wrong yet too right
You think of us
So obsolete
from my delusion
But i still question
Why would we even have met
Between the differences
and change
Of happenstances
How could this even exist
and after all desist
Through the absent air?
what was it so unfair
that we had to let down
and fear
of being overgrown
or is this a chapter
one step away
to relieve
to stay
and believe that
love has a replay.
Sep 12, 2013
Sep 12, 2013 at 9:28 PM UTC
and noticing that much
is enough to remind me that
all of this only amounts
to meteoric chances and happenstances,
so even the worst of it will come to its end—
and maybe that just has to do
with the optimistic sap in me.
But even then, you greet me
“Good morning,” and I hear you,
and you sound like you're of the Sun
touching through the barricades of Woodbury,
where the undead ******* can't touch us.
And you buffer the cold of the wind
and the wet of the rain
when the kindling is too soaked
to start a fire big enough
to counter the draft
coming from under the doors,
or dry our jackets by the fireplace.
Which probably sounds like naivety,
but even after Woodbury rots from the inside out,
and we lose the car and our last can of beets
somewhere during our escape, and the rest of the way,
we're joking about the way things were
before they got worse, while hypothesizing
about the fall of man, epidemics and expiration dates
to forget the endless hills aching our feet, I could tell you:
“Sure, I mean, there are ten-thousand ways
the world can go to **** (and it probably has,)
and I might not live to one-hundred-three,
but if the world's gonna burn on me now,
it's always better watching with you.”
Mar 22, 2017
Mar 22, 2017 at 9:56 PM UTC
A tale of love
Brian Odongo.
Countable times in history
Two separate lives become one story
Such as was between Jacob and Rachel
A tale more beautiful than a fable
A tale not as a result of fate
But a plan in divine date
A tale of two hearts
That cannot be torn to parts
Even by ink it can only be faintly described
But in their hearts it is masterfully inscribed
A tale that lives for generations
And defies all common expectations
Such is my tale with this fair Lady
Fairest than the beautiful daisy
The only beloved daughter of her father
And the joy of the family when they gather
She is of rare charm and mind
“A virtuous woman who can find? "
Her heart is most pure
Her smile every pain cure
Seasons before us seem so long
But each day will be filled with a love song
Then all the rounds and bends of time
Will be far much worth than countless dimes
Not every step forward will be simple
But happenstances will not our love dwindle
For our tale of love is not just a normal ritual
But this tale that we coauthor is forever habitual
And if life be long and youth turn to old age
We will make more beautiful every page
And this by divine grace shall be our tale
That even time will not turn stale
Jan 8, 2018
Jan 8, 2018 at 3:36 AM UTC
I am,
yet one never complete for
much ado has been said
when the span of the world
ends when the sky-reaching flowers
plummet inward, breaking shoals
of fettered clouds dusting themselves
of the ether.
I am
never a lie nor the truth beset
by trivial happenstances; there is always
a sound heard from a body's eventual fall
into sleep's threshold—
the dreams are all imagined realness
and tomorrow detests, all the
muses by the river gone harmoniously
escaping the hands of standstill time.
oh, let red
or blue define the Sun and moon,
lunar harlequin bleeding white
all the gemini! pounded against the harsh blackening wall of eyes sealed shut
and far away, i go, to where no sound
lengthens, flames to reach with
its flumine hands a furtive life congealed,
singing where no hymn shatters,
returning to the Earth with words—
a made man.
Oct 30, 2015
Oct 30, 2015 at 11:50 PM UTC
Journey…by Jessie 11/05
Entangled emotions, ball of string
End, connected to the beginning
Knots throughout
Super highway of events; create the maze of discombobulating
Weaving in and out of it’s self; until there is no trace of either end
One day I will attempt to unravel this sphere of confusion
This mass of braded calamities and happenstances
Then I will lay the line with all of its imperfections and knotted recollections
Straight and true as any crimp line can look
Attempting to move forward… I walk the line back
One step at a time
Two steps in
I look at the line
My eyes follow the thin strand as it leads away
Sharpen clarity no more as it fades into the distance
Paralyzed to move
Fearful of what transgressions may be found
Quickened pulse, courage summoned
One more step to truth
One more step to reconciliation
One more step to peace
Hardest journey taken
Deep within one’s self
Recoiled line, remembers shape
Journey never done
Feb 10, 2018
Feb 10, 2018 at 2:28 PM UTC
Even though you are young, and I am older. You somehow control my emotions it’s funny because it took me being twice your age to obtain the courage you have, even though you are not much older than my son there is a difference in you. The warmth of your body is breathtaking and the firmness of your hands is chilling, everything about you is new to me, your logic is rational in your mind; if you love someone make them your everything, I’ve somehow not made you my everything. The part of me you ignite is a side I have hidden from even myself “I don’t know who she is” but she only surfaces when you’re around. Why can’t she be free, maybe because I’m not like you, you see I make it seem as though you are so eager because of your age, but truthfully I am ashamed to admit it is because of your courage something that at even my age I haven’t fully grasped until now. Love is not about money, *** control, emotions, or even feelings: it’s about what you know, there were a million men on the island but I found you, I don’t believe in happenstances. I met you because I lost myself, and you helped me find her. Underneath the covers of my insecurities hiding she was. It took every part of you to make me believe in love again, I've loved with you, I've cried with you, I’ve dreamed with you, I’ve bursted with you. But, most of all I’ve been with YOU.
Sep 24, 2018
Sep 24, 2018 at 8:04 PM UTC
If I pooled my existence into a neat, little timeline
Pointing out specific places where my life had changed for the better
Showing-off people who have influenced me and made me who I am today with little red flags
If I decided to catalog my life so far on a long, thin, black bar
You would be at the center
At the beginning, and at the end
And in all places, all spaces
All times, memories, triumphs, losses, and happenstances
The black line would be red as a crimson bow
And your name would be leading the way to my future like a pillar of fire
Without you, that line would be stark and stripped and plain
You've made me who I am today
You've been there every step of the way
And I can only hope I haven't been too big of a pain
I love you
Because you've been my saving grace.
Dec 9, 2014
Dec 9, 2014 at 11:44 PM UTC
our bodies are worn out
of transitions yet we cannot complain, because with this,
our supplications are temporal
or forever, it is much to our liking. numeral once more
are the aches of toil
and soon enough, there will be
a spark to put an end to this
darkness of living our lives. we cannot complain anymore. our soul cuts itself in our movements yet we go unaware of it, barefaced with pride over the things we own, things we want and do not need - we remain to be the culprit to our own soul's demise and what do we do to fend of their emphases? we cling onto things without thinking their affectations, and we blame the pressing happenstances of our deprivations - bereft of soul's spruce, lights flay over our homes to illuminate what is touchable, what is frantic upon sensorial matters. we dwarf ourselves down to the size of our own shallow ponds and like fish struggling to subsist, we flame in the water and drown in potamic navigations of our tired limbs. we search for meaning yet we resign to what circumstances allow to pass through our structures. our soul is famished over the drought of our landscapes - we resign to its surrender because we are frightened to smallness by the weight of the duties we neglect to ourselves.
this mortal flame is close to dying
and there is no enkindling it
to its full glare.
what have we done!
Sep 18, 2015
Sep 18, 2015 at 6:32 AM UTC
I know of a fire,
I know of a life
I know of a stirring, flooded through with light
I know of a weapon forged beyond question of might
I know of a will irrevocable with the stillness of MidNight
I know of the roots in the forests without trees
Webs that span the wide wetness of empty seas
I know of desires that are built on expected fears
And the cruel joys that then bring a person to tears
Those wretched happenstances that cannot be seen by seers
It is a simple life with a complicated weaving
A small cup with bitterness teeming
It is an odd duck of beautiful feathers shimmering
The laughter shows sharp teeth and you can just imagine that bite
A glaring light the truth of which we can only just perceive, but from which, alas, we may not hide.
But let me choose to set aside the eerie,
For my purpose was not to sound so dreary,
So said I that life is a Gemini feed,
It finds me unable to quite resist the switch
I spoke of fire undying, fire eternal was given to me.
I spoke of light undimmed, the sun was bequeathed to me.
I wanted to tread the halls of Olympus, the earth was created for me.
That I should never want for aught, take the very beat of mine heart for the flow of your blood.
For the thoughts that are my planets revolve around the mind of your sun.
But now all my thoughts are centred on you,
Ask me for the moon
Don't leave so soon
I know that fire, that life, that weapon,
I got them all from you.
There are no paths I wouldn't walk for you
Jun 22, 2018
Jun 22, 2018 at 4:57 AM UTC
This land we inhabit
Staking our fences
The lens through which we see the world
From behind windows and hedges
Spectators of passers-by
Random sidewalk happenstances
We live vicariously through
What lives on the outside of our plots
Our parcels, our lots, our allotments and our storylines
Where branching out will always be
Punished by pruning and
Shielding off of stretching out
The ground beneath our feet too fixed and stable
To switch
When plots thicken
It does nothing
But hold us in place
Mar 20, 2021
Mar 20, 2021 at 5:35 PM UTC