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Dawnstar Aug 2018
Down in the valley of the fleeting stream
Parched Sudanese tongues crying to you
Below, below, the sacred Nile
Pestilence took my sweetheart

She was dark, now she is blue
Like the cataracts dividing the stream
And the tearducts dividing my eyes
Below, below, the sacred Nile

Torn in our tumult
From the bleak savan'
Starve like we all her cherrious face
Now forever blemished

Therefore let us dine on hardtack
Suffer for the things of the marble world
Below, below, the sacred Nile
Where we'll go and prosper

Go receive heaven's reward
Long, long, the vaporous mile
Fast along the toiling road
To the land of reward, we go

I compared her to a flower
Fair a fragrance as ever conceived
To think her smile is a nest for ants
Below, below, the sacred Nile

Change these feelings about me!
I am eager to see her again
But I won't obey the winds
Below, below, the sacred Nile
As far as fragrance is concerned.
A song.
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
Dreams of a Child
Created: Jan 23, 2011 5:44 AM
Finished: Jan 30, 2011 4:23 AM
Posted here  Jan 2014
Warning:
a very, very long poem, but within , I promise,
there is a precise stanza about, for you.  
Take it as my gift.
Let me know which you took home to play.

~~~~~~~


Some poets care not
for the
discipline of rules,
laws of punctuation.

Why bother brother,
with putting poems
in antiquated jailhouses,
prisons of vertical bars,
or afford the reader,
the courtesy of horizontal lines?

Question and quotations marks
these day refuted,
as a Catcher In The Rye
conspiracy symbology of big lies,,
political interventionism,
to the creative, most natural
right to be crude.  

Inconvenient impositions,
symbolic flailings, of an
over regulated civilization
in the throes of declination

Punkuation is but a
societal annoyance to
today's creative geniuses,
periods, commas,
nothing more than
a pause to think -
who needs 'em?
when we want to stink
up the atmosphere with vitriols
of half truths and inhuman
but oh so gleeful,
concentrated disparagement
of any person worthy of
nationwide late night mocking merriment.

Such free spirits, vivid animations,
within me do not reign,
though upon occasion,
boy got permission slips  
for breaking bad by invention
of an occasional new word.

New words, white truffles
vocabulic incantations,
my own cupcake creations,
meant to burr, or purr,
their tasty meanings, always,
were readily apparent.

Sometimes we rhyme,
sometimes  we can't;
doth not a reading of a
poetic periodic table
of rants, chants
love poems, and paeans
to a shhhh! pretend,
overarching, poesy ego
require some minimalist format?

How I envy you,
kind observer,
possessor of literary powers
untoward and untold,
delicate touches of a fingertip
rule and rue
poetic invention.

You can zoom away or in
for a closer examination
of unscripted revelations,
incinerate them like an
yesterday's newspaper,
thus demonstrate contempt for
less-than-historic ruminations,
as time has done before.

Witness the crumbled ruins of Ozymandias,
king of kings,
and how the critic's machinations
with a dash of tabasco time,
his works, now museum pieces,
in the Tate Modern's room of
Laughable Human Aspirations.

Don't panic, sigh or groan,
kind observer,
infection inflictions,
content of discontentment,  
ancient whinings that the publisher
long ago listed as discontinued,
will not herein unfold.

What has all these mumbled asides
to do with the Dreams of a Child?

Apologies prolific I distribute
for this long winded profligate prologue;
and even for prior invasions
of your contemplative fantasias,
but my intention certain:
**** out the weak chaff eaters,
feigners of faux interest,
who stanzas ago deserted us,
this confessional lore.

These prior lines conceived
to mislead and deceive,
to refer and deter
send away, the hangers-on
who litter our lives,
with whimpered falsehoods.


So, we begin anew:

Today's lecture entitled
Dreams of a Child
were formatted on a silver disc;
this communication's originations,
seedlings of block
roman black letters
on background of cleansing white,
re things that jar me in the night.

Easy slights that waken
from a fitful, pitted rest,
mental paintings
natured in gem colors,
tourmaline auras,
and vibratto hues
of blue zircons.  .  

I have never lain upon the couch,
in the inner holy of holies,
where one whispers
to the Father Confessor
an original composition,
subject, title and inspiration
of said unique origination,
decidedly of one's own choosing,
roots of the essay's telling,
harvested in the root garden
of one's dreams,
where grow herbs,
spicy ones,
flavors of childhood.

The lush and wooded smells
of a forest of childhood scars,
and it's concomitant
putrefying, fruited rot,
awoke and brokered
a stilted, tremulous sleep.

Went to bed a a man
of modest success,
of modest scenes,
a bond trader, who trades
exactly that:
his word, his bond,
his blessing to his
deal constructions,
all of which, ended with an
irrevocable cri of "Done!"

Yet like you,
I am oft undone.

Dreams.

In truth, not dreams, but
spectral moments of
our lives relived,
a melange of ancient lyrics,
taunts of childhood abusers and
peer humilators
who could
teach the CIA
torture techniques
of WORD boarding, par excellent.

Angelic faces of human ****
that birthed in me a holy duality,
anger and a,
love of words,
my vaccination serum.

Granted a love of
human kindness
from teachers who cherished their
high and mighty tight
to publicly humiliate,
knowing full well
that human laws could not
attempt to have them
justly incarcerated.

Where, where were
the supervisors
who let me be spit upon
in the back seat of a
Fifty's station wagon,
by the brothers of
a sainted dead shepherd?

I am still eight,
sitting on a stoop in the
modest side of town,
towel in hand, so handy,
to wipe the tears shed
for cause,
for the car-pool of suburban boys
who "forgot" to pick me up for
Sunday swim night.  

In high school,
in the back row,
I silently ******
the juice of a Sarte lemon and
essayed a term paper,
upon multiple mirrored
reflections of a man
called Camus.

As another self styled, only living
teenage expert
on "alien nations"
received with pride and trepidation,
a sentence of Ninety Eight,
on my term paper,
but the pedantic predators
deemed it an accident
for I, was  inscribed in their
Upper East Side
Coda of Prejudice,
as merely,
"just" a
man of USDA,
B grade quality intellect.  

Hand me downs
I did not get
as I was the
younger, sole brother,
but worn lint lines
of humiliation
when and where my pants
were "let down"
to accommodate growth spurts
were my growing marks of Cain.

Those growth lines
were economic reality signs,
and were rich fodder for
childhood monsters,
Scions of Income Superiority
who lived in ranch homes in
two car, color tv garage slums,
wearing band new Levis.

In the Sixties,
time of my unsilent spring
wore a cross of
teenage hood,
my hair,
worn long,
Jesus style

Worn with labor pride,
for it was
Made in the USA,
I was a most conventional
revolutionary.

In the parochial jail
of educated guesses,
where society's lesson plans
of all that was bad
were O so well taught,
I was apart, ahead,
of Our Crowd,
but not too, radically.  

But a spiteful
Principal of No Principle,
deemed my locks a
disruptive influence,
so to exorcise my rebel streak,
so to crucify his "Jesus Freak,"
so to exercise his diminutive spirit
a pompous uber man,
he had me shorn
like a sheep,
thrice
in just one day,

He loved his full employment
of his pharoic entitlement,
The Educator's Power of Abuse,

I was so denuded
of human strength,
the Italian barbers of the
East 86th Street subway station,
wept for me,
their cri du coeur,
Angels in Heaven did hear
and from God
did dare demand
an explanation!

He roared in manner celestial,
"Is he not my child too,
and if he be treated
in style *******,
it is purposed and willful."

Pornographic compilations of
slaps across a child's face,
I've got plenty
of and in My Space,
should you care to
add your own,
down under,
got plenty of room
for all comers    

In a Facebook world,
I pride, not pretend,
that having fewer "friends"  
is my honest and true
reflection of who I am, and,
life lessons learned -
quality, not quantity.  

Victims of discrimination
can be most discriminating
in matters of
human games, associations.  
****** or word,
lack of taking care
is not heart healthy.

Tried to forgive
the despotic progenitors,
of some of that which
is good within me
that, irony of ironies,
they can claim the title,
creator;

Tried to give them
what I had gotten -
from the happy malcontented  
evil spreaders,

That grace, grace is
the only methodology,
an inestimable but
valuable lost leader,
the only way
to survive on
this planet of
hardtack and
caste striation.  

Though still quick to anger
at the cutters and denigrators
I am quick still to
confess my own failings, and forgive those
of plain and honest folk.

Unfortunately, kind observer,
you had to share my brunt,
syllabic Iwo Jima battles
of a decaying verbal moonscape
to reach the denouement,
for now we have,
mostly arrived

Most likely you too
have long ago
deserted me like
so many others,
no matter,
this modulated breath
was born and released
from my heaving chest and
as I knew it,
know this:

My Absaloms
where ever you be,
presumably and hopefully in hell,
I give you thanks
and a mini bar drink
of absolution.
a tin medal of appreciation,
for the
Marked Improvement
you inadvertently nurtured
in this restless,
voyagered soul.

My ancient enemies
till now, be advised,
forgive and forget
was and has not  
fully formed
in my penitential template,

Unlike your natural capacity
for cruelty and mean
birthed unto you
in your third rate
genetic melange,
forgiveness is taught
in a Master Class
at a famous school of Ethical Drama,
that I did not attend

Though resident in
a better place,
my root garden,
the bitter herbs you planted
still grow but,
are welcome in sweet brotherhood,
until the selah days
of just one flavor.

Though the universe's expansion
is of a pace such that
time and space definitions
will stretch and warp
and need be
refined, replaced,
the governing principle here.
need not be rephrased.  

For goodness
from evil
doth come
and should your
evil spectres
once more try
for resurrection
in my benighted
dream world.
you will find the doors
locked and barred,
upon them a sign
not verbose,

**Done.
Whew.
Geno Cattouse Feb 2013
Sprang forth with no branches or leaves. Small roots.
Bore mangoes, papayas,guava and bananas. Hybrid, mid limb grafting.
The trunk is a figment but it stands non less. You see
my family tree never was and always will be.
A roadside shade with low hanging fruit.

Was never planted.It was a deposit from the bowels of an exotic bird
of the jungles that sampled at leisure the offerings of the rain forests.
The Hardtack and marmalade came on ships with the kings business
Mixed with the Nigerian Fu-Fu  ,the Aztec maize the Mayan legumes.
and all points of the compass.

Old Joe Denegri, The Blancaneaux , The Cattouse, The Melado, The Pinks
The Flowers,The Orozco and more. And boundless from the ***** of opportunity.
Piecemeal and untethered. But it is the tree that I must cling to.
However rough the bark.

The sap runs heavy and slow in the humid Belizean heat.To meet the earth.
Cool breezes blow a haunting disharmony. A sweet unity in chaos.
The soil is rich,pungent and forgiving.  Soon, A bell tolls  in the distance.
The Sea mists my dreams.

A stairway of coconut fronds to azure skies.
Nighttime smells like creation.
The still slackened pace.
The small rat race.
Tempest in a teapot.
Urban-rural.

Coolie gal.
Creole boy.
New Chinese.
Old African.
Ubiquitous Espania.
Garinagu. Mosquito coast.
Children of Mennon.
Old Basque faces.
Things we call races left with small traces
of what?

My tree, her tree, histree.
I am you and you are me.
I see me in your face and you see me.
We are  and will continue to be.
Blended.
a hybrid. An orchid wild.
mark john junor Jun 2013
true to the soul of your years
rough fabric hewn from
a life filled with bitter days
and desperately lonely nights

her worn eyes look thru me
as the candle flickers with nightbrezze
dances light shadows across walls
and amplifies the emptiness
and the window to the world outside reveals
little but the skies wheeling silently overhead
and a trail out of the wilderness
away from her glass cage

hollow hearted she is bent over the page
beads of sweat pepper her brow
her lips flicker with silent phrases
as she labors thru each crafted word
weaving her barefooted form out of the
crisp white page
showing her carefully posing her hands
in the gestures of birds in flight

while her words are in broken french
her soul is fluent with all the seasons
that one finds on the harsh streets
and in the hallways of institutions for bent thinkers

as darkness breaks the soiled sunlight
and the shards sharp and swift
it sheds all premise of innocence

the light is unclean
it breeds children of shadow in the mind
that run laughing thru the memory's
tearing at the fabric of her image
scrawling obscene words on the walls of sanity
and breaking the dusty windows along the road
between your today and all your yesterdays
the essence of its cage bound in place by shadow
know its child of misgivings
see its motherless harlot of fears
and sour the milk of reason with its poison eye
leaving me hungry of the thirsty floor
leaving me angry on the grieving hardtack

like so many who hide themselves away from harm
she became trapped in her illusions
and now spends her days trying in thought alone
to break free
i pity her
as much as i fear a monster like her
your ****** moments fade your smile from my mind
Geno Cattouse Jun 2013
2.9
Hard a starboard. Lash.yourselves down boys
Were coming about to fire broadside.
All hands.

A rag tag crew.on
Hardtack and tea going about business , down to the sea.
David Jones's

Beyond the crows nest.
Ship Ahoy.
The yardarm as pendulum and there.

Ahab in his element.
Fathoms deep.
forward to world's end

Bring up the long glass. sea spray and salty breezes
Sun weathered skin, looking for world's end
around the bend in the horizon

It ends and falls away
the rest to the imagining
2.9 miles out.The deep blue
gives way to the churning horizon.
2.9 miles to world's end.

3 sheets to the wind or
To Poseidon's palace.
My uncle  was a merchant ****** from the age of 16 until he was presumed Lost at sea
2.9 or Poseidon's . Or some remote corner of the world off the horizon.
D Lowell Wilder Feb 2017
The day we roared with infinite jest the
larder packed tight with provisions burst.
So much canned meats, tinned, pemmican
hardtack we had stored knowing our
journey north would be sufficiently trying
that sustenance would prove difficult.

The slog.  The slacking day when you rolled
off the sled, creviced.  Your voice booming blue
crystalline as we see, no escape.  Trapped and
the cans I hurl into the hole.

Hours I read to you lipped, curled into a
snail, a shell, a crocus of yellow
a dread of
finishing the story and saying to you there is
no
more.  So you cannot tell, when the pages have ended
I make up confabulate truth and fiction
embellish.  
Pretend the story line marches
forward decades and we are in the Amazon;
You’ve discovered
that the water
that seemed
guileless is crocodile filled.
They bite hard and
you can imagine.

All primary colors on the
floes, all glacial movement, slow to melt, fast to burn through
the colors of our arctic rainbow.
I had primed the lamp the last night, before that dawn, before
the ride in which you fell.  
The wick trimmed and each
consequential action of the day I placed
hanks of hair
neatly side by side into banks of snow.  
Under my cracked tongue is
a bump that rolls
mole like cyst.  

Partner of my travels to this cold realm, your self shelved.
Below:  Did you hear me whisper?  Asking why today
have I become.  
The whispered promise of holding
upright against the dark.  I thought.
It would be magnificent.  

Not even fanfare.  Or aurora borealis.  Or flight.
Yes dreams of flying.  
Yes dreams of ahah so it is after all.
I thought I would recognize the moment of unleashing.  
What makes the special now?
If I whisper Abandon I might hear you echo in the ice.  I might see your
boot, attached to.  A glove alone, unpaired.

The story they lived, the story they tell is one of each husky,
one by one, no longer.  Starvation and then there are none.
But we are in the Amazon, and it is a scorching hot day and there is
much to be explored until you fall into the river and get bit.

I take it all back.  
You laugh because I add flying monkeys which is
us pretending that we’ve explored
this terrain which looks like a bed
in a room and a chart.  
They cannot
stop your bleed, and so we begin again.
Abrupt loss.
Dawnstar Apr 2019
Down in the valley of the fleeting stream,
Parched Syrian tongues are crying aloud,
Below, below, the sacred river
Where war took away my sweetheart.

She was bright, now she is blue,
Like the cataracts dividing the stream,
And the tearducts dividing my eyes,
Below, below, the sacred river
Where war took away my sweetheart,

Torn in our tumult
From the bleak parade,
Starve we all like her delicate face,
Now forever blemished.

Therefore let us dine on hardtack!
Suffer for the things of the marble world;
Fast along the toiling road,
To the land of reward, we go.

I compared her to a flower:
The fairest fragrance ever conceived;
To think her smile is a nest for ants,
Below, below, the sacred river
Where death took away my sweetheart.

Alone I sit, I weep,
        My face is clenched by nightingales;
A country stained by grief,
        At night, I hear their biting wails
From ill-wrought molten blades,
        Alike to man and woman;
How can I reason fate away
        By crying o'er her *****?

Change these feelings about me!
I am eager to see her again,
But I won't obey the winds
Above, above the sacred river—
As far as the fragrance is concerned.

No more mourning in silence!
Turn your plowshares into swords,
Let the weak say, "I am strong";
We may yet have the final word,
Before the vanguard departs this world.
Third Eye Candy Jun 2018
With his father’s eyes like two myopic raisins
Mounted on Corinthian columns in the utility closet
Of his mind palace; he came upon the wilderness
With a pouch of hardtack and a smartphone.
His leather boots repelling a light rain
Foreshadowing an odyssey that lay ahead
Like a jewel lodged in the appendix
Of a Cyclops snorting a meridian of crystal ****...
Scored for the price of a golden fleece.
He summoned his imaginary plan
And set foot upon an uncharted expanse.
His home behind him.

With his father’s eyes whistling to a silhouette
Of a lost boy and a mop.
Devon Brock Nov 2019
Weathermen are pushing the storm.
Nobody noteworthy died today.
Eight to twelve on the Twins.
Havoc on the plains and cancellations
pending. No travel advised.
The schools flaked out before
the first wind blew, and the office
is gutted parental.
Milks are shoveled in carts,
pricey waters too. Croutons
got hoarded like hardtack,
and only the lettuce remains,
only the lettuce, the leeks,
and a few fibrous cereal grains.
Unless you're Ken,
you'll ken where I'm at.

flat line green screen
and it don't seem
that way
I'm
skipping about gaily
on a warm July day,

no one warns you
that it's coming
to get you,

it just drops out from the blue.

Flashback to a tin shack
eating hardtack,
the menu is limited
we make do and
make stew,

unless you are
Ken,
you'll ken what I mean.

— The End —