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Coop Lee Jun 2014
to the young privateer.
the captain kidd & his bought n’ taut gang of holy bluffs.
they bribe and imbibe and swoon on the dock-way looking for a quest or two or three
to dream and bury their doubloons in island guts like little mysteries. little sundowns
over a rixdollar indian ocean.
let them take a turn.
destined to mutate from private to pirate, the kidd, like blackened rotten wood.
******* frigates.

the ship:
with her bob and sway. she is, the adventure.
& her song is calling out for a rapturous few,
for men ready to die on the highwater mark by glory or fire or dead glorious sun.
so they put her brass and bough to seafaring days,
the sweet galleon, barely wet, yet
completely riffed to voyage.
she is
from the shores of london. built. designed to kick 14 knots under a full sail blast.
& she will bite.

she’s in calm waters.
the kidd savvy toothed and butterscotched, he awaits the big show,
engorged to set forth the play like wily ocean dervish &
they do.
they do proceed with benefactors coined and crunched on postulations of pirate death &
pirate gold. reclaimed honor as they say. the hunt for pirate teeth.

& with official pass and parchment, high-throne approved,
king ***** III stamp & sealed,
this voyage is.
this voyage is and forever was, hereby charted, to recover said stolen goods.
to reclaim thy warrior vanity &/or vengeance.
to noble this **** with pinched loaf, like now.
set sail. now.
1696.

“**** them navy yachts at greenwich, the thames be ours, boys.”
slap *** and flick thumb toward those armada sons,
& as tribute
smoke balsam herbs on the starboard side for the mother she and the father be.
but for this slight,
this dishonorable silly ****,
one third of adventure’s men are pressed into service of the crown.

[continue.]

the adventuresome few, petty crew and crows.
steal the heart and mother-meat of a french ship. steal everything onboard.
steal the ship itself.
& on her way to new york, new boon, pure and entered into the new world.  
there are new men bought in the american port,
good men and odd men of long criminal legacy.
a small black vicious quartermaster. he’ll do.
a murderous preacher gripped by stars and celestial patterns. he speaks spanish. he’ll do.
another type of holy man and a wild drinker too, embattled by demons on the port side. sure.
plus the dock-boys destined to **** for fruits of exploration.
this is the way of the son of a gun.

the boatmen jockeyed. she is
the adventure
prancing the vertebrae of atlantic and beyond. cape of good hope, she
breathes easy out here on the wide tide and float.
out here on the vast blue this. she
evolves
out here. loves out here.

pirates.
the hunt for pirates or the lack thereof. she leaks.
she rasps into the years on. and on.
the kaleidoscope hallucinations of sun and moon, sun and moon, and moon and sun
forever.
the strait of bab-el-mandeb.
& there
she plunges into darkness, into the stars seen from and through a periscope formed
by ancient hominid lineage.
seen but untouched,
in dreams. the kidd, reluctantly lime, admits to his madness.
madagascar.

malaria and cholera and hell break the boat by the throat.
& thrash.
to be organic is to be ruled by a shadow, or entropy.
the mouth of a red sea.
one third of the men will die here.
simply as insects crushed and brushed off deck and into to her great spate of agua,
the mother gush.
her earth.
body.
father,
hear his whispers in the mirage.
the ancient mariner, the ancient holy ghost riming down there.

in destitution.
in a rough and soggy life squeezed and making men weird or violent or both be ******.
the kidd goes cold to hot sweating noxious.
turns pirate himself
out of sheer hunger.
out of sheer need to eat.
sets the boys like dogs upon a frigate of east india company men,
or french *****. either/or/or/either/or.
he & the boys are in a madness swirl of sun and heavy guts.
cuts to spill blood
or gold. this tender bit.
lip bit
& tested.

captain kidd fractures the skull of a deckhand named moore,
for bad attitude and giggles. moore gets death.
chisel on the deck.
& to think we are all troubled by some primal trauma.
some dumb thing called death, that is.
men starving, men dying, men falling in the vast black that is that eternal void.
dream of women and riches in the meantime.
fortunes.
1698.

savage kidd, cool kidd, cool spit
off the edge. to think of the once soulful idea of these paradise days
& trip.
savage to cool.
the two divine modes of a survived man.
a ghoul man, or aging man.
& to keep control of his crew kidd sets them upon the quedagh merchant;
a 400 ton armenian hulk chalk full of gold, silver, satins, and muslin. ‘tis *****.
renames her: the adventure prize.

madness quenched for now.
charmed for now
& on the horizon are fragrant times. blissful distance.
but robert culliford,
with his mocha frigate. this man, this suave pirate lord, his vengeance act.
he had stolen kidd’s ship years back, &
the captain opts to cut his throat.
take the mocha.
keep calm & carry on.
to paradise.
to dream of her cool warm beaches and fruit forever, peacefully thinking.
so that night they two drink together in good health, and in the morning
most of the men defect to this other man, this other ship, culliford.
other dream,
other captain of true buccaneer effect.
act 3:

13 remain in the galley firm.
this is the house adventure.
& she is burnt alive three days later for rot and ill repair.
but she was fun,
& a *****.
a stitch of old woodwork given-in
& crackling with the eyes of her crew seen in fire.

kidd steps the pond to caribbean times with the adventure prize, toad toxins
& high on the jungled shore.
he trades that colossus, flips her for a sloop and seven little chests of gold.
little bellies.
the island-gut doubloons to bury.
dream, remember?

but the men-of-war are after him now. the privateers & hunters & devil’s dogs.
the men he once was.
men of marked death.
& he is now some pirate, some forthright bandit
settled to **** or be killed.
some sad kid.

first: buries that treasure up the coast of america.
oak island rig.
cherry rocks of the maine bank and *****-trapped pit.
the hunted.
they catch him on an inlet ****, and sail back
to london to be tried for crimes against the crown.
the high court of admirality.
1701.

they hoist and gibbet his body with worn chains above the river.
not for piracy, but for ******.
the ****** of that strange deckhand moore and his giggle.
kidd’s bones
suspended there for three or more years at the mouth of the thames,
as warning
to the perverse travails of a criminal lifestyle on the highwater pond.
Shofi Ahmed Oct 2018
Jumping in the blue
water lilies reflection
in the pond up in the sky.
Lo, the punter sun peeps into
the rose dew down on earth.
Floating just on a navel-high!

The broad daylight pictures
the heavenly blue smile
painting on its highwater mark.
Million and one primula flower
kissing this elfin column.
Not up in the wild blue yonder
nor down on the ground.
Just on a navel high!
Brianne Rose Jun 2017
Show no mercy,Show no fear,
Always protect the ones you hold dear,
Come Sunshine, Rain, or Hell's Highwater,
I'll always be there,
No matter if the situations calm or if it's dire,
For you'll only be playing with fire,
'Cause until I am dead,
**"Tis' Off with your head!"
Another based off the Wonderland Theme, I have a total of 3, and this is the Second in the series.
Josh Bass Mar 2015
A tiny army
armed with tiny knives
slowly cut away at me
They cut away my skin
leaving behind wrinkles
they cut away memories
and tastebuds,
hair, color, and sensations
Every day steady chip, chipping
away on me.
The bravest move I make
is to get up every morning
The hot water of the shower
hitting my spine is the jolt
I need, to keep the army away
Steady now, hold together,
here they come again.
Shofi Ahmed Oct 2018
Adam touches down
in heaven upon the high.
But his highwater mark
wasn’t solely one way.

He could hear the jingle
upon the high resonates
beneath the ground!

He could see the cloud
forms on the top
and rains down to the ground.

Bow down on the earth
and rise high.
Lo, the golden spiral too,
curves downward
before spiking high up.
Ken Pepiton Apr 2019
the history and indoctrination of infantry

infant re
cruits

de rim u derimu, I count (old high irish)

gityeirishup, er shut yer leprechaun trap,

clap three times, spit wit the wind.

reason countable

you are trained to focus, aim,

miss, aim, miss, aim miss, come let's
cipher this thang out,
raison d'etre,
and all...
aims,
though misses all
count for nothing,
valenced by
one heartfelt hit t' knock the lie right.

old man re
crew recurrent reason to let this be re
al, always, already re
pulsing
pulsing
pulsing

aim, loose... spit wit'thwind...

---- war seen from after his jet died--
---- vicarious warriors can't match
---- the missing memories.

Prisoners enobled warriors endurent
indoctrined to prevail

"did I train well enough to do my job?"

Win the war. Right, that was your job,
all along.

What?...

no will to win a war without a reason
not willing to question
reason

authority doctrines in undated
rulebooks only lawyers
can read, that's a rule.

sacrifice and suffering un
common valor *** common
virtue

how do you win?

-- my guess, really

love my enemies. As good a way to die
as any I've tried.

-----
war stories on youtube. imagine that and
sure as hellen highwater was easy

I gotta call armchair-back o' the arm
bullshistory,
as I wipe a smeared memory

bullsss'it... RTOs don't walk point,
not back when you had
the radio, or said y'did,
nor did ye rereguard, when you
have the radio, Pr'ck 25
(like a cell phone
weighing 25 pounds, with a 5 mile range,
and no data. One to a team, as we

squellch squellch out) Nah, the guy's

lying, but it will hurt his kid's feelings,
if I say so,

or
he could believe his own hero myth,

I do.

---- nah, war stories are all we remember
ever after, happy as helen highwater was
to find you after fifty years
on facebook.
***
FTA, it don't mean nuthin'

it was so
silly, this is not the way it's supposed
to be, we

were the redcoats.
We were hanging Johnny Tremain Ngyuen,

wasting the last crawling,

man,

the first starlight scope flash
bright green white

FNG popped a flare.

--- when do we call ******* ---

For the price of a baseball cap, a fool
can claim honor other fools died for.

Silly little war. Eighteen thousand
eleven bravos of aver
age age
Twenty-two.

Ooh ooh, like Pappa Doc 22 voodoo
doopy doo doopy doo
Duvalier, Ton Ton M'coo

hey. okeh

we got you. You thought crazy,
now you can stop.

--- there was a war and nobody won.
--- safe. passed madness has passed on.
--- see what good you may imagine done.
--- work that out, without making enemies.

April Fool. Why has this day always been about me?
Ask yourself. There exist

degrees of foolishness, none fashionable beyond
twenty-two.

footnote: https://www.uswings.com/about-us-wings/vietnam-war-facts/
Who has a guess why facebook would refuse a link to this page. ***** about it.

Census Stats and “I Served in Vietnam” Wanabees
1,713,823 of those who served in Vietnam were still alive as of August, 1995 (census figures).
During that same Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served was: 9,492,958.
As of the current Census taken during August, 2000, the surviving U.S. Vietnam Veteran population estimate is: 1,002,511. This is hard to believe, losing nearly 711,000 between ’95 and ’00. That’s 390 per day. During this Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served in-country is: 13,853,027. By this census, FOUR OUT OF FIVE WHO CLAIM TO BE VIETNAM VETS ARE NOT. This makes calculations of those alive, even in 2017, difficult to maintain.
April 1, I found me listening to oral histories on Vietnam and ,,, got a bit ... ******
daniela Aug 2016
when you wanna go home, where do you wanna go?

the worst thing about growing up is learning
that you can always leave home but you can’t always go back.
the thing about roots is that unless you want to die,
you can't ever pull them out completely.
we are always going to be from somewhere.
we are always going to be from here.

when you move out of your childhood home,
will your mother clean out all your **** and make it
into the home office that she always wanted
or will she keep it like a time-capsule, so preserved that 20 years from now
you will come to the same posters staring down at you?
what dream is she still holding on to?
does she remember, did she give it up for you?

sometimes i think i am the last five things i gave up on,
a mausoleum to my mistakes.
i am bad asking forgiveness.
i don’t really believe in god, but for some reason or another
i write a lot about it him.
maybe it’s always easier to blame someone else.
because if god exists, i think he’s on autopilot.
see, god is good at letting go of things.
i know this because what else could it mean
when his disciples told me to find someone new to pray to?

all i remember of my baptism is white dresses and pinched shoes
and my cries echoed off stuccoed walls of the church.
my father has a rosary hanging on his bedside table,
he always likes to say that you’ve got to
believe in something.

and i know i don’t always make myself easy to love.
i keep saying “i’m sorry” so what does it mean anymore?
if you say something too many times, the meaning starts disappearing.
i guess that’s why i never told you that i love you,
but that feels like an excuse, too.
love called in sick again, i keep telling you that you’ve gotta get better friends.
they only love you when everything’s going wrong.
you can’t love somebody just because they love you.

love is mumbling you feel so good into the side of her neck.
love is promises. love wants to believe you.
she is beautiful like sunday, not friday. she is holy.
she is beautiful like sunday and tuesday and all the days in between,
like three weekends and six day work weeks
like ***** and soda pop
like sleeping in every sunday and staying up every saturday.
she is alternately the wild fire and the burnt shell of the forest,
the calm and the storm, the curse and the cure.
the hell and the highwater.
you want to learn to swim and learn to drown in her.
love is love is love is in love with you
but she wishes she wasn’t.
love is an unfinished symphony,
all the lullabies you’d sing for me, the clank of car keys.
there is no silence in leaving, there is no silence in believing.
there is nothing that feels better than never coming back.
there is nothing that feels worse than never coming back.

i’ve been too many people to call you home.
long time, no poem. i've been reusing a stanza of this in a lot of work so you'll probably see it again ;-)
The old man hunched over, slow to move,
Decided that this day, a honest day's labor,
Was just the ticket in order to have a day,
Productive and so lasting as the day was long.

He stretched and felt every muscle and bone,
Cry out to him in momentary pain and hurt,
But struggled, still, to dress himself alone,
In order to have a breakfast of eggs and toast.

The dinted coffee *** rattled on the stove,
The blinds were open to let in the light,
He put his breakfast on his plate of tin,
And commenced to eat in solitary fashion.

"Today's the day we build the wall,"
"You know, the one to keep the neighbor out,"
Because the neighbor was a persistant pest,
With constant hellos and meddling talk.

The old man bathed himself in silence,
Preferred to keep his thoughts secretly hidden,
Did not care for the company of idle fools,
Who didn't know what honest labor could do.

So, off to the work shed for his tools to begin,
The wall between the neighbor and him,
Walked to the place where walls are built,
Between the pastures of a neighboring farm.

The cold air felt like needles on his face,
The snow crunched repeatedly beneath his boots,
Wind hurtling gushs of shivering air,
With numbness in his toes he forged along.

Perhaps, a wall is something that builds itself,
Or maybe takes a long, long time to construct,
But determined in his quest for total privacy,
He must have felt a mission was his daily call.

"I'll build this wall, come hell and highwater,"
Despite the time of year being such a challenge,
Yet, when he knelt to gather his thoughts to begin,
He told himself tomorrow would be just as good.

Then, back he tredged to the house he had,
Where the fireplace roared and comfort awaited,
So, he could sip his tea and eat his evening meal,
While planning for tomorrow's daily labor.
Qualyxian Quest Aug 2021
Highwater Risin'
Of this there is no doubt
We never really understand
What this brief life is about

I think of you, Posterity
I remember Jonathan Swift
I remember ugh! the vertigo
Thank you kindly for the lift

The man at the Book of Kells
He said: meant to be
Please keep her calm
Please protect our 3

        South China Sea
Lora Lee May 2016
Bring me forth
          from that nightflow
magnet for I
    have heard the calls
of my guardians
they have beckoned
                 me into a visionary stupor
pulled my head from the
           quicksand's mulch
my daily chores whirling
                         from my hands
             they are spinning me around
like a an electric charged
                   whirlpool of light
all objects caught up in
its path
             be they leaves
                              or rocks
or household appliances
and I am casting to hell
and highwater
            all of those warnings
as sacred adorations
nick into my solitude
I fling my demons to the skies
          release them to their
                              own salvation
I do not wish them before
                            my eyes
as I work my own deliverance
of beatitudes
   my own song of songs
spun into the glowing
Let them sputter and trip
over their words
           My inner hearing closes
upon their petty phrases as
they mouth them out of sync
             The path opens up before me
               as riverflow
                       in one graceful arc
Here I fight in my own
               siege of Orléans
No point in stopping me
because the vestige of
flickering truth is turning
into the solid molecules
                    of freedom's spark
right before
             your very eyes
One of my favorite paintings https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?hspart=iba&hsimp;=yhs-1&type;=rmnt_5129_CRW_IL&p;=painting+Joan+of+arc
Qualyxian Quest Jul 2019
asleep in the afternoon
    home far from Stockholm
                  Europa Report!
Qualyxian Quest Feb 2021
no one knows beginnings
no one knows each ends
whales are still a-swimming
islands form for friends

so fear ye not, my brothers
and sisters sympathize
our destiny is hidden
even from the wise

the journey is unknowing
falling, breaking free
then let us quest like sailors
upon a cosmic sea

perhaps we will meet monsters
perhaps a Sacred Queen
or maybe none of the above
and all that's in between

I yearn to die a lover
and live unto the end
my heart aflame with Traveller's Tales
and aliens my friends!
Kurt Philip Behm May 2021
Love,
in the end
—betrays us all

(Dreamsleep: May, 2021)
Chandy Oct 2021
Awoken in a bed
Deprived of mobility
Only a brain
Hell on highwater
Thoughts become prominent
The only muscle that remains
After years of disregard
I now know the pain
Negligence, forgetfulness
Spiraled into a death march
Bathed in a trail of tears
I desire the right to die
But is it right to die?
Living, but hardly
Surviving, as a burden
Physically broken
Only time will tell when the mind goes too
Give it three--maybe two weeks
Until the brink falls into the drink
And all things fade away as I blink
Qualyxian Quest May 2019
American despair in the air
     Highwater, Highwater Everywhere
              ugliness living there...

                            Oh, Ishmael!
Ken Pepiton Aug 2022
Engulging dull gen-e-rational
curses from the last of the old to die
for the lie,
nessecito - guard the secret truth,

divide the knowing, good and evil.
Teach the children,
organize the engineered future, according,
tying, linking, thinking wedominionate, ping

CR disappears, as an action in reaction to ping
before the end of the line, on the first iteration
of my magnificent word processing machine,

****, woncha remember with me, not so long
ago - there were few, total few, zero
who had the where withal to do, what most
10 year old smartphones can do in a city.

Or along a trade route, major arteries of commerce.
Wireless Fidelity, High Fi- taken to the future
by virtue of infinite differentiating
-ping to correspond
My fingerprints differentiate me, for what that's
worth
appraise the role of one of my kind, with such skills
in 1858.

Infinite progress, with no regress for consideration,
who do we think we are,
who do we act as if we are,… my link to a living

line of my innerbeing, who I am from core to crust.

We, mortal readers and writers of thoughts,
code mode, readers,
- entertained by comparizoned boundaries
- bottom line, profundo mundus, mental
- novelty threat to global trade
- imbalence valence slipping
- on rolling ares, arrest that man
- he waxeth strange
odd
random reason, aitia cause and accused,
silly simple some, greedy grand plan for us,
this we
of me and thee, one with words, one with minds,
one with many
rediscoveries, little things, one must ignor, or else.

Nor must one image, to imagine, words alone
bein' in and of a current opinion, as to how why

is so seldom right, at first glance. Pain is a principle

price we learn to pay, in tolerable increments,
no pain, zero pain, is as if
- nowhere man, and the fool on the hill,
- were figments of shared imagination, to a few
- who remain from the
you cease reading, and this ends with you
hanging

from a thought with no words to hold it, long enough
to pierce the depths of difference

so slight,
least heat, zappa child reflection from an outlier edge
point to living in a living desert, see
we learn to live gently, walking soft. Stepping gen-tle

Knowing my time, and the ether-real or not network
tying strings to my fingers, reminding me of knacks
I was given, so when I came into my full potential,

I might function in my role. A bit of this we, of me and the
other people.

Sure, I left a trail, my neesings are frost on the deep,
see, a trail through a trial,
a time in a covideonic mind, unimaginable, a week ago.

If you were in that number, 3.2 billions, in 1962;
then you were included in the transition to now,
without your will being considered, the cultural
norms were fully functional,
once more, order rose from the chaos of industrial

excessive progress toward the wardening of all
mankind, wombed and un, and otherwise minded.

All settled then,
we keeps some accords confidential.

Scoff the co-inspiring reasons for fear.
Abhor evil,
live free/

you get the idea, I get the glory, in the story/

confidential assurance, you know what I mean?
What is the watch word?

be very sure/ steady solid seeming grounds
for contesting truth,
with reasons war uses to this very day,

to lead the innocent to rage.

Who, in ever, has lived as we live,
if you can read this line,
you are empowe'ded with tehkne, knowledge
harnessed and put to the yoke, thro
ugh
the exageration station into all in all.

Meandering rivers of white space where
edges promise what feels like falling, every time.
--------- eight line bit
bytes of bets you once imagined making

I bet the whole world laughs at me, and then
I said nothing.

It was very funny. At the time.

What do you think happened?
Did they die?

Did the audience disappear as soon as we looked out.

Standing out, salient aspects of personal being,
recollected for resorting
to old ways, where good is, yet, even, smooth,

as silk from the looms in distant lands, with dragons.
and mist
and mountains only fools wish to climb.

-- Well, here we are, in the middle of wars
and rumors of wars and proven plagues and famines
feedback from the whole life plan, we paid into
from the gitgo,

gone to reason with America, at Guantanamo.
Gone to wrestle with an ancient will to rule the world.

Meet me in the middle. Infinite Jest. I did read,
Proust and James Joyce, I did not read, but judged,

from a time in flux, filtered through the new
world order,

We, the Americans, become the other people.
The innocent standers by the mainstreet at Disneyland.

Gnost-algia, Anacin hammering on my medial frontal
shell

controlling nada, zilch, meandering along old synaptic
trails trial runs to the edge,

imagine we imagined we jumped the snake river,
wearing our Occulus, in June, of '22.

Who can forget an Imax experience, really,
when you remember your first flight

in the right seat,
sitting on my Daddy's  lap, I was that little.

  

The first flight above clouds.

Look at now,
look at this, us, as readers reading type
set as
thought, really, only code appearing in letting
lines letting lines form rhetted fibers, combed and
curled in natural twists, to reaffirm the function,

give us skin for skin/ made for shade, where
water is for us, to live
and have our being.
------------

Ignoring the cost, the man of leisure, the gentled
old man, the quitter, the walker away from the course,
settles all final bets.
For nobody bet on my horse, but me.
Of course, I had no horse, and that all stands to reason.

I am at the end of an era of errors, compensated for,
with vegetation, once the idea life had was
manifested as a sea of green, when seen from on high,

valleys, gentled, settled valleys filled to form the soil,

when the mankind mind is made up to know,
come hell or highwater,
who can hide the truth through put in functional code.

If it runs it runs, play the game.
Think, of course, when in the course of Human Events.

We are all involved. Me, as one among the 3.2 billions
alive in 1962 who brought forth fruit.

Multiple interests converged, in time. Each with its own
reason to be considered, cosmical influent.

Story wise, since ever when the fewest variables
variegation currency worth valuation
-came to our attention,
that is the point

to the order in which organized systems developed,
occurrence…
- living in knowledgement, state of sci
- =
the birth of the wombed man who did become,
science und wissen und kennen-wise, become
mother of all mankind.

Mito-mom, we say. She is as Eve, or Pandora
or Lilith or

Objection Orientation, east is where the sun is
in the morning.

I am thinking, in my easy chair. As comfortable
as can be.
At the moment, instantly in prayer, are we as ware
as we were
once, we knew for the first time, in our reality, we

who and whom, with all this room for individuation.

Consider modern ants, consider the meta-ant,
and the eco-system that has developed it,

the global transport, spreading the functional
universal aspects of earth's will to function
as one point within the scope of mortal minds

where we become the last staged event.

And we all get together, to close the show.
Re reading Wonderworks. Living in the library.
Qualyxian Quest May 2019
astrobiological care
highwater everywhere
       aliens aware?
david badgerow Mar 2020
i'm just a silly boy
in a punk rock tshirt
at a local swamp show
shorts cut highwater
above the knee i'm
trying to not smoke
cigarettes anymore
or do as much coke
& that's not working
& i'm trying to convince
this girl to roll my bones
& that's not working
so i told her i live my life
without a harness or
a safety net & i told her
i play piano mostly jazz
i told her about the tiger lillies
back home that bloom & grow
the size of a fat man's head
told her to shut off her phone
& i told her how twilight mutes
the soft bell of the sky on
the coast if she's willing to get
beach-sand ***** & i told her
about the skeletal driftwood
borne by the tide like a ballerina in flight

but i didn't tell her about the scars
in my eyes or on my heart
i didn't say anything about
where i got the shirt & she didn't ask
& i didn't tell her i'm gonna
write her into a poem
Qualyxian Quest Dec 2022
In Thailand I touched a Tyger
In London William Blake
Denver, Colorado
Lady of the Lake

I am puzzled by predation
Doesn't God ******' care?
Titanaboa
Highwater Everywhere

The prey runs to the predator
At the end of American Cosmic
I am you and you are me
Thich Nhat Hanh's Buddhist logic

I read of Korean shamans
Women in the mountains
I listen to Bob Dylan
Yon cool and crystal fountain

I'm quite good at waiting
Not as good at action
Come the kairotic moment
To give me godly traction

Trappist 1 in Baltimore
In Toledo my Uncle Jack
Viva Tel Aviv!
Please help para Iraq

             A Comeback!
Qualyxian Quest Jun 2019
marriage of despair
       contempt without care
                 Highwater Everywhere
Qualyxian Quest Feb 2023
The Batman, not Vengeance
He lights the glowing flare
Leads the people out
Highwater Everywhere

Martinez explains the Tucker
Gordon remains true
A flicker of hope in Gotham
Bella Real in view

New pizza place in my town
Think I'm gonna try it
Tomatoes, onions, pineapple
Souped up 72

Learning as I go
Forward looking steps
Soon Wizards vs. Bucks
The Greek Freak scores a few

                       GMU!
Jester Sep 2019
Pictures hung on the wall
they laid in a photo album
stuck in a wallet
uploaded to a computer

We had the memories of yesterday, looking back we were young, we were wild and reckless.

One for all and all for one and through fire and fury, through hell and highwater, we fought back to back.

Weddings and funerals of the days gone by, but we've got the pictures to prove we have the scars, yet the older we get brighter those black and whites seem.

Every night if it's a nightmare in technicolor, I glance to the past and know that you too have those nightmares and then I remember I'm not alone and sleep becomes easier.

Five years turned to twenty-five turned to fifty and old age consumed us, and we burned like stars in the night sky.

We lost touch but we keep the pictures alive and well so we know who we were.

And no one can take that away.
Qualyxian Quest Aug 2021
I have some nihilism in me
Some American despair

Is there anyone who knows?
Is there anyone who care?

Highwater keeps on risin'
Highwater Everywhere

Don't remember Ginger Rogers
Don't remember Fred Astaire

If I get the Cubs and Bulls
You can have the Chicago Bears

                  Play fair.
Qualyxian Quest Jul 2023
Little pieces of hope
In a world of vast despair
Small steps only
Highwater Everywhere

She's gentle, kind, caring
A diamond in the rough
Jesus wasn't humble
No, no. He was tough.

America is Ignorance
But I like Johnny Cash
Bodies in the furnace
Humans turned to ash

Stockholm was so pretty
Scifi Gamla Stan
Charming Uppsala Cathedral
A little garlic naan

                         Tak
Qualyxian Quest Jun 2023
Old John Joseph
Was a man with 2 first names
Corey running past me
Walnut Heights remains

Flickering in my memory
Toy room, garden, bar
Walnut Heights, Ohio
Exoplanet star

African American religion
Soul - it's in the air
I told Jesus
Highwater Everywhere

Now I read of Nollywood
Morrocan mint tea
Jerrod Pope, Ernest Thomas
Sacromentally

                      Si.
Qualyxian Quest Aug 2022
I like universities
But just to walk around
Play a little basketball
Remember Dr. Young

Saw Dylan at Mason
Saw Springsteen too
Highwater Everywhere
She's the One is sung

Miso soup and salad
Sugar free candy
Diet Lemonade
O'Reilly he got hung

Buried so deep
Jimmy Reed indeed
Downbound Train
Din Tai Fung

           7221
Qualyxian Quest Sep 2020
Highwater Risin'
President who doesn't care
Highwater Everywhere!
Qualyxian Quest Aug 2021
I am not a systematic thinker
My poems contradict
I make raids, little Sallys
Rhymes like lickety split

I also try to have some fun
And express my deep despair
Trump was/is the Abyss
Highwater Everywhere

Does anybody dare?
Does anybody care?
Is anybody really alive
Out there?
Qualyxian Quest Jun 2021
No escape from the ambiguous
Please look on with care

Sometimes I wait
Sometimes I do and dare

Silence. Silence
Holding in the air

She is Ginger Rogers
You are Fred Astair

    Highwater Everywhere
Qualyxian Quest May 2019
so much internal emotion
may I touch the eternal ocean?

the Pacific near Seattle’s Space Needle
the Atlantic as I watch St. Aug’s people

Kowloon Bay in bustling Hong Kong
Stockholm’s Baltic where we wander along

And now Highwater on far Enceladus
What will future exoplanets have taught us?

Water means possible life
Could my grandson have an alien wife?

Yes, Bob - time itself a mysterious ocean
I pray courage and a sailor’s devotion

Cast off from the comforts of shore.
Discoveries before Nevermore!
Qualyxian Quest Jul 2021
Who doesn't know despair?
Just take a look around

Highwater Everywhere
Far more lost than found

2037. 5099.
Never been to heaven. What will future find?

She was long, long, long in my mind.
Qualyxian Quest Apr 2023
Most writers are failures
Will not be remembered
Nashville in the Night
Susan Soul Septembered

Slowly guacamole
Despair, nitnoy Hope
Highwater Everywhere
Romero, Francis Pope

Religion is not true
The temple is profane
South Side of Chicago
Bullet in the brain

        Salamanca, Spain
Never been to Mexico
Guadalupe green
Have been to Chicago
Have read Things Not Seen

My son soon turns 11
I bought him a soccer game
Gandalf. Gandalf.
Serves the Secret Flame

I'm almost 55
I too know despair
American elections
Highwater Everywhere

Chips with mild salsa
Vegetarian burritos
My mother buried, buried
In her hometown Toledo

               Go Rockets!
Qualyxian Quest Jun 2021
It's the emotion that brings forth the poems
The pain and the despair
Family separation
Highwater Everywhere
Night is coming again
I feel it in the air
Darkness, Desolation
Touching Spirit Bear
Qualyxian Quest Jul 2019
weaponized American despair
            ignorance that don’t ******’ care
                                Highwater Everywhere
Qualyxian Quest Oct 2019
look up, look up
        Highwater Everywhere
                             Alive out there!
Qualyxian Quest Apr 2021
Wanhope tonight
American despair

I hope my children happy
Highwater Everywhere

Mortality is madness
Might be huntin' bear

I love being a father
Books and love to share

            Silent Prayer.
Qualyxian Quest May 2021
Confidence comes so rarely
When it does I'm grateful
Help me with the agony
Help with the despair

Ishmael a sailor
Alyosha listening
Cordelia loyal true
Highwater Everywhere

           God! Her hair!
Qualyxian Quest Jan 2023
Gotta love those medieval philosophers
Alchemy, winding streets
Cistercians, Inquisitions
Fire to the feet

Sometimes I stare at fire
Carolina Inn
She's the object of my desire
Where would we begin?

America is the Swirl
Highwater Everywhere
Tom Joad not the Pearl
County Fair! County Fair!

The Irish church in ruins
Will I get to Istanbul?
Late night pub in Boston
The wearing of the wool

                 1137

— The End —