"industrial" poems
Photography,
Photo journalistic,
Everyday, realistic.
Commercial, architecture, landscape, artistic,
Industrial, fashion, ethnographic, pornographic.
Big Brother, fallace, stealer of souls, vouyer.
News seller, instant gratifier, man pleaser, woman abuser.
Barthes, Sontag, Cindy Sherman,
Virginia Woolf, Warhol. Weegie, Francesca Woodman,
Leibovitz, Adams, Arbus, Tina Modotti,
Nan, Evans, Hoffer and even the Paparazzi.
Cheap ***** digital manipulator, image poser,
Center fold, coupons, Jackie O and Marilyn Monroe.
Where did they go:
Lifeless paper product, painter's picture mess,
C-type, digital archival,
Sepia, black and white, hard drive retrival.
Image addict,
Image taker,
Image maker,
image seller,
image buyer.
Newspaper, magazine, graphics and ads,
TV, dreams, even the trash.
Billboards, subways, phones and buses:
Utopia:
Surreal, crop, stretched and air brushes.
Modern ideal.
Surface manipulator.
Brain conditioner.
Consent manufacturer.
Oh Photography,
I got you in my eye.
A few thousand dollars,
A BFA, A critical scholar.
Or maybe a nerd,
Just boys with toys.
Telephoto genitals, with motor drive action.
Studio lights, umbrella traction.
Oh Photography,
You proprietor of obscene.
Detailed, de-sensitized.
Court ordered, jury analyzed.
Click, image, copy, edit, paste, print or post.
Myfacespace, twitter, flicker,
An internet media overdose.
Pry, spy, your friend's friend's acquaintances.
Parties, picnics, reunions and shows.
Visits, vacation, style, shoes and clothes.
Pics, photos, images, jpegs and giffs.
Snap shot, portrait, panoramic, Kodak kiss.
Exacerbate:
Divorce, break-ups, jealousy, envy, love and fears.
Devour and captivate society for years.
Slaves to Western and Capitalist desires,
Destruction of Earth with psychological, monetary empires.
Jan 11, 2010
Jan 11, 2010 at 7:05 AM UTC
I have always liked,
Defiant Africans,
Nelson, Patrice, Kenyatta,
Martin Luther King,
Groovy black men,
******* with attitude,
But they intimidate me,
Black men.
Freedom fighters,
Bar room brawlers,
And I rise from sleep,
Sheened in sweat,
Running away,
Scribbling my number,
On scraps of paper,
On foreheads and trousers,
On outstretched palms,
And I’m breathing heavily,
Feeling stained,
Because,
That one there,
The white man in Navy uniform,
With hair on his *****
I know him,
-conquistador-
He smells of garlic and grease,
And my black friends call me,
****** ***** *****
Will he take the lion tooth offered,
Will he make the tribal dance?
-I can teach him to love the earth,
Teach him to plant his feet in, deep-
I ********** from sleep, supported
By thick, colonial, muscle.
I am forging steel,
Industrial iron,
I am engineering a white lover
Beneath the sheets, whilst
Apologising to freedom fighters,
Who call me ****** ***** *****
Jul 20, 2012
Jul 20, 2012 at 4:55 PM UTC
Industrial love,
western manufacturers,
they **** us over.
Aug 4, 2012
Aug 4, 2012 at 12:44 AM UTC
(Quote by Spike Milligan)
One very wise man sat and said
That, long before this world is dead
This planet’s problems won’t be solved
By reasoning which, though now evolved,
has got us, where we now do sit,
Afloat neck deep in mankind’s ****
There’s SARs, Ebola, AIDs, Bird flu
And in the woodwork, West Nile too,
Each replicating viral spat
To mutate, (at the drop of a hat),
To complicate enviro’s stew
Of global degredation’s brew.
Urban spread and over stocking
**** deforestation’s shocking,
Depletion of aquatic life
Intrinsically creating strife,
Industrial pollution’s goo
Ozone depletion... ALL FOR YOU!
*Environmental degradation
Means the world’s a weaker place,
Susceptible to malady
Wide spread across the human race.
Those animals in corn fed stalls
Who never get to see the sun
Or graze green grass where honey bees
Are vanquished by varroha’s fun.
Too late to save the Hector’s dolphin
Conservation’s lost it’s tools,
Rastafarian hootchie smokers,
Save the whales to **** the fools.
Governments sell the carbon credits
Everybody smells a rat
Restorations for the birds
And social conscience creamed the cat.
****** greenies own the airwaves
No one gives a flying ****
That good artesian water’s poisoned
By good farmer’s leached out muck.
CO2 in global warming
Sings it’s song of fast decline
Glacial retreat a-roaring
Bass relief in blood *****
I guess the little children’s future
Most depends on lady luck,
Humankind in mass denial
Most don’t give a flying ****
Marshalg
In retreat to Taranaki’s green haven in the gales of the equinox.
21 September 2011
Sep 21, 2011
Sep 21, 2011 at 2:09 AM UTC
Every time people start to rise up, a whole buncha problematic mess gets thrown around regarding VIOLENCE.
So, what is "violence" really?... It's the use of force. Plain and simple.
What makes folks uncomfortable (who are otherwise comfortable in this system) is that UPRISING IS A SOMETIMES VIOLENT (read: forceful) REACTION TO SYSTEMATIC VIOLENCE: Yes, just like the Hunger Games...
Thus, there are many types of violence...
The fact that we are paying taxes that are funding the genocide and ****** of people of color (here and abroad) is violence.
People with guns (former slave patrols and overseers, now cops) who come from outside our community and treat our folks as criminals on the daily is violence.
Capitalism, i.e. wage/property/ecology-based exploitation in the name of profit is violence.
The fact that LA County spends more $$ than anywhere in the world on prisons and police is violence.
The fact that the US locks up more of its own people than any other country on record is violence.
US aiding/funding the genocide of Palestinians at the hands of Israel is genocidal violence.
From Congress, to the boardrooms, to the classrooms, from the gaze, to the unwanted touching, to the **** to the pay, Patriarchy everyday, is violence.
A few people jacking some **** at Walmart or breaking a window is really minimal violence in comparison.
A couple people throwing **** at armed cops is not serious violence.
The idea of owning property that other must rent to live is violent.
Systemic, chronic, global insecurity in the form of material poverty is violence.
Wage slavery is violence.
Gentrification is violence.
The War On Youth, i.e. the School-to-Prison pipeline, and, thus the War-on-Drugs with its attending 76% recidivism rate in the prison-industrial complex, whose populations are disproportionately black males, is violence.
The fact that people can't go to the doctor and dentist, or eat food every day is violence.
Deportations are violence.
Homophobia is violence.
The world's largest global military that vaporizes people without due process in dozens of countries violating their biophysical and national sovereignty is violence.
The United States government sanctioning the ****** of non-white, but especially Muslim bodies across the world... is violence.
So, when you condemn violence, do you mean resistance?
Because there is a whole lot of violence you should be condemning instead.
Adapted from Emilio Lacques-Zapien
Dec 31, 2014
Dec 31, 2014 at 11:14 AM UTC
And the circles that I use to cover with makeup
have gotten so dark that not even "industrial strength" concealer covers them up anymore.
it doesn't even make a dent.
Oct 24, 2014
Oct 24, 2014 at 1:41 AM UTC
(Quote by Spike Milligan)
One very wise man sat and said
That, long before this world is dead
This planet’s problems won’t be solved
By reasoning which, though now evolved,
has got us, where we now do sit,
Afloat neck deep in mankind’s ****
There’s SARs, Ebola, AIDs, Bird flu
And in the woodwork, West Nile too,
Each replicating viral spat
To mutate, (at the drop of a hat),
To complicate enviro’s stew
Of global degredation’s brew.
Urban spread and over stocking
**** deforestation’s shocking,
Depletion of aquatic life
Intrinsically creating strife,
Industrial pollution’s goo
Ozone depletion... ALL FOR YOU!
Environmental degradation
Means the world’s a weaker place,
Susceptible to malady
Wide spread across the human race.
Those animals in corn fed stalls
Who never get to see the sun
Or graze green grass where honey bees
Are vanquished by varroha’s fun.
Too late to save the Hector’s dolphin
Conservation’s lost it’s tools,
Rastafarian hootchie smokers,
Save the whales to **** the fools.
Governments sell the carbon credits
Everybody smells a rat
Restorations for the birds
And social conscience creamed the cat.
****** greenies own the airwaves
No one gives a flying ****
That good artesian water’s poisoned
By good farmer’s leached out muck.
CO2 in global warming
Sings it’s song of fast decline
Glacial retreat a-roaring
Bass relief in blood *****
I guess the little children’s future
Most depends on lady luck,
Humankind in mass denial
Most don’t give a flying ****
Marshalg
In retreat to Taranaki’s green haven in the gales of the equinox.
21 September 2011
Jun 25, 2013
Jun 25, 2013 at 3:14 AM UTC
The last knight had died ungallantly
He folded in a disappointed silence
As did the age he stood for.
So long to the bygone era.
The romanticism of a stoic ideal
Remained to mark his passing,
Like an obituary in the paper
That people glance at for a brief moment
Before continueing with the idleness of their day.
The muddied sky of an industrial world
Stretched over a land like a blanket of shame
To destroy the traditions of a knight
Who once fought for the people who turned to destroy him.
May 21, 2015
May 21, 2015 at 8:26 PM UTC
I love a good debate,
[science mixed with illusion]
and this year was no exception:
the debate on the best shapes for a kite
from design implementation, inception and execution
some sturdy string and industrial-strength glue
the machinations of whether to use plywood or bamboo
and of course built by your own fair hand
such was the intensity of discussion it continued
with an after-lunch stroll on the beach, where the uncles
drew their prize-winning geometry
with a primitive stick
in the sand
a question on the mathematics of aerodynamics aside
its currently a battle of the cyclic quadrilaterals
and documented film of it successfully tested and tried;
years of perfection honed by the skills of Fatherhood
to know instinctively the difference
between the brilliance of genius
and the borderline
just plain good
If nothing else has come from this
I now
know
[so as not to lose]
K = p/q over 2
or
K = ab – sin Ø
[are the formulas to use]
Dec 28, 2012
Dec 28, 2012 at 3:56 PM UTC
Bilang na ang aking maliligayang araw.
dalawa na lang. Kung isasama yung pangakong panlilibre ng lomi
ng mga kasamahan sa pabrika sa unang restday matapos ang endo-
tatlo. At ganito pala ang feeling ng may taning.
Para kang nasa nilulumot na aquarium na walang oxygen
at goldfish kang kasama ng dalawang golden arowana.
Hindi ka makahinga.
Sa a kinse, matuloy man o hindi ang balitang super-bagyo
Tapos na ang limang buwang kontrata.
Matatapos na rin ba ang hindi naumpisahang pagsinta?
Tulad ng paghahanap ng mga skater sa kanilang skate park,
matatagpuan ko rin ba ang lakas loob at habambuhay na hindi na?
Kaya naman kaninang tanghalian, wala akong kwentong maihain sa iyo.
Parang habambuhay ko ngang uubusin yung inorder kong BBQ
kanin at RC.
Paano ko ba sasabihing baka isa na ito sa huling dalawang tanghalian na sabay tayong kakain?
Paano ko ba sasabihin na sa maraming pagkakataon na sabay tayong kumakain,
nagtitipid ako at hindi naman talaga ako nagugutom.
Gusto lang kita makasama kasi parang gusto na kita.
Pero tulad ng inililihim kong pagtatapos ng aking kontrata
Hindi mo alam.
Hindi mo alam na ikaw ang dahilan kung bakit masarap ang simoy ng hangin sa loob ng pabrika
kahit wala naman talagang bintana at inuubong industrial fan lang ang meron tayo.
Hindi mo alam kung anong kapanatagang nararamdaman ko
tuwing sinasabihan mo akong mag-iingat ako
tuwing uwian kahit ang totoo, hindi natin kakilala ang kaligtasan
at kapanatagan sa pabrikang walang fire exit
at benefits.
Yun talaga yun, hindi mo alam.
Pero alam mo naman sigurong salot talaga ang kontraktwalisasyon?
At maramot talaga sa mga lovestory nating mga below-minimum-wage-earners
at contractual workers ang sistema ng paggawa sa Pilipinas.
Sa mga susunod na bukas, ikaw naman ang mag-e-endo.
Baka mapunta ka sa Savemore na tadtad din ng kontraktwal.
At masnatch ang numero mo at hindi na kita matatawagan.
At ako, baka sa hirap humanap ng trabaho maisangla ko ang aking telepono.
At isang monumentong singlaki ng Mall of Asia ang itatayo sa pagitan nating dalawa.
Kasalanan ito ni Ernesto Hererra.
Aug 2, 2015
Aug 2, 2015 at 12:53 PM UTC
Ultra Violet magnetic field of high voltage adrenaline showers the streets like speeding sports cars.
It's a rare occurrence of unregulated foreign madness.
I felt my inner chambers open and through them I explored my city in a new fashion.
Pulsating skies and electronica vibes.
Golden halos fall all around and the people, all friendly faces, liberated from their steel rooms.
I can hear the cries in the air.
A step closer, a heart willing to beat louder. A flower courageous enough to grow within the industrial tombs of the living dead. A divine light is what is lighting their way out of miserable decay.
- C.Ek
Aug 2, 2015
Aug 2, 2015 at 8:17 PM UTC
*She was way too tough for me.
no it's more I was not hard enough for her.
The old ***** brick houses
of Englands industrial north
caught between industrial revolution
and social unrest .
I was just a youth back then.
The big war fading from memory.
I stopped at my friend's back yard
it was a hot summer back then.
His souped up bike was gleaming
like a prize racehorse.
She pulled a flask of *****
and took a long pull
her bright red hair
like glowing coal
her eyes as black as darkness
she was hard pretty.
Her mini skirt flashing
her shaply legs.
a stray dog big and hard
just like her.
jumped up and licked her face.
she Laughed
they were like two
kindred spirits
like sisters by nature
wild and drifting and free.
She had *** with me
the first time I met her
and told me I was not
rough enough for her.
I just was a bit scared
of telling her
I wanted out of it.
The kick-started bike roared
like the steel lion it was.
She squealed in delight.
then the stray dog peed
on the concrete.
she lifted her skirts
like the hard ***** she was
and peed next to it.
she jumped on the back
of his bike and they
went off at full speed.
To test his bike out
at the racetrack.
I hear they shacked up together.
and we're very happy.
I dated a nerdy young woman
quiet and conservative
who became a librarian.
We got married
four years later.
had two kids
and a housetrained dog.
She never once told me
I was not rough enough in bed.*
Apr 1, 2016
Apr 1, 2016 at 3:49 PM UTC
So much depends
on a yellow
Bulldozer
Caked with mud
Beside thoughts
of payday
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 4:03 PM UTC
And the fish swim in the lake
and do not even own clothing.
– Ezra Pound
How would they style themselves for the net,
the little fishes of the lake?
Not robes of purity, Ezra,
but sequins cut from trash,
brands bright as lures,
fashioned to catch the eye, a glint of sun.
Would the big ones strap on knockoff fins
to flex in shark cosplay near the shore,
snapping reels in the reeds,
captioned #greatwhitevibes #apexpredator?
Would carp veil themselves in algae,
funeral couture,
posting stories of their grief in green?
Would they admire the fishery tags:
industrial piercings they can’t remove,
or the hook-slit scars from catch-and-release,
each one a verified badge,
proof they were trending once, briefly,
before sinking out of frame?
Would they tilt to the water’s glass,
checking which gill looks slimmer,
tails arched like influencers at golden hour,
the shimmer hiding shame,
the shame we taught them to wear?
Sep 14, 2025
Sep 14, 2025 at 2:34 PM UTC
The place was dangerous as hell; we had no business being there. It was a complex, composed of four immense structures, looming on the bluffs between Lake Michigan and a ghost town. I'm not sure which side of the fence brought forth more eeriness - the sight of four massive industrial skeletons was indeed an eerie one, but within the village that must endure it's haunting presence persists a dwindling heartbeat... and together they produced a heightened effect of slow decay - and that was what drew me in.
The place was magnificent day or night.
By day, we'd explore the groundworks while the light allowed us to admire the massive machinery, which by then had accumulated copious amounts of corrosion. All those dead giants, never to function again. In the spring time, beams of light would penetrate the ceiling above, caving in from years of stress sans stress tests. Even when the light was not shining through, one could make out where the beams have been because in their wake they left a trail of life. Up to that point in my life I thought that was the most beautiful scene I had ever seen - a thousand tons of old machinery, and a stubborn sunbeam poking through, incubating it's au natural industrialized chia pet.
By night, we would ascend to the rooftops of these four story horror stories and gaze up at the stars. Sometimes, when our ***** were feeling particularly swelled, we'd venture across the rooftops as if in some post-apocalyptic videogame. And sometimes when we were feeling a bit rebellious and artistic, we'd bring along some cans of spray paint and redecorate to our desire. Oh, and another reason the place reeked of death was surely due to it being a glue factory... wherein horses were killed in order to gain access to their foot-stuff. I was told by an unfortunate local that they'd bury the unwanted horse parts in big pits back behind the place... this man had told me that he fell into one while wandering around back there - nearly died trying to get out.
We knew the place was soon to be leveled, but we did not know when. Eventually I ended up moving out of state for a while, and alas, upon my return my childhood fascination was no more. shrugs... So it goes.
Sep 5, 2012
Sep 5, 2012 at 4:18 AM UTC
You’ve got your ragtime, got the blues
Got country, rock, dubstep, each a different hue
Hip-hop, rap, Americana, funk
Disco, electronica, they all go bump
Indie, groove, folk and heavy metal
Screamo, emo, punk, they’re for the rebels
Pop, classical, tribal, thrash
Dark wave, bluegrass, techno, acid
Garage, roots, acoustic, dance
Alternative, jazz, ******** trance
Afrobeat, christian, reggae, jam
Honkey-tonk, surf, ska, big-band
Ambient, industrial, club, tin pan alley
But who’s ever heard of plow music?
Jul 18, 2012
Jul 18, 2012 at 10:51 PM UTC
Dragonfly o Dragonfly
framed against a lazy summer sky,
you'll hover and ponder out yonder,
like an acrobat you fly.
You'll dance and dart, hover and peer,
Touching, stalking, feathered walking.
On pond shadows dark and near,
onto sunbeams sparkling clear.
Casting imaged reflections,
on a mirrored surface of life's crystal pond.
Where ever-diminishing dainty rippled circles,
disappear onto a distant misty shore beyond.
You'll ponder and peep,
through dark secrets your pond might keep,
captured images of animals & bees,
scented flowers & soft young trees.
About political boundary bursts,
and agonizing desert thirsts.
While strife-torn agony song is being sung,
at the scorching heat of the searing Sun.
Witnessing a climate change,
Industrial, Oil, Air & Waste pollution.
With no workable cleanup program in site,
to warrant a solution.
Our planet's resources stretched,
to its limits by human misery & industry untold.
Life's habitats are disappearing,
the beginning of Earth end is nearing.
It is inevitable that soon, to soon,
after million a year, on life's crystal ponds so clear.
You'll too succumb to man's industrious endevours,
and for eternity disappear.
Andreas Strauss.16 June 2007
Nov 24, 2015
Nov 24, 2015 at 4:16 AM UTC
I come from South of the border,
just South of Portland with a little West bend
not from the hills of the academic and domestic
Wake up at 1P, M in the morning
ash under my nails smelling errl in my nose hairs
"Hey do you think I could *** a smoke, bro?"
Sure my man I got a spare so don't fret, but I'm not a bro, though"
"For real?"
**** man, I run into you every day do I really have to do this every day?
Life like the industrial companies lining my streets
press and press and I press and I do it all again
but every step might not go forward, I keep
sayin I don't have the reserve to go on like this,
this shit's burnin me before progress,
can I just make a little bit?
"No," says me, "but maybe you can next time."
Can I get out of bed at least?
"You know the rules," says me, "get to the car and the engine's running."
But man there's a lot of broken glass down there,
painful, diamond shards trailing in with the past down there.
Is this fair?
Okay, don't answer that.
Not raised by a meth-head, thank god, but neglected,
but kept safe in a home offering protection
Mother's broke and mi papi es a ghost
left to my lonesome devilish devices
look it's a **** **** with vicious collection
of debt and death-draw bridged in prevention by vices
smoke till I choke, kid, smoke while I toast
"I became someone so why couldn't you, too?"
**** kid, I just want to see the weekend,
Just want to see tomorrow,
Just want to wake up sometime
Jan 10, 2015
Jan 10, 2015 at 10:39 PM UTC
**On 2nd Dec 1984
Occurred
World’s worst industrial disaster,
“The Bhopal gas tragedy”
Leaving thousands dead,
Children orphaned and many people with disabilities for life.
Following day,
Cries of help were heard
Amongst the dead,
Lay few children alive
Shone bright, a ray of hope,
Miraculously the deadly effects
Of the gas they could cope.
Taken under the caring wings of an NGO,
With Medical aid administered
And the vital support to grow.
Amongst the children
There was a girl named Ganga
And a boy named Ravi,
together with other such children,
they grew up,
Finding solace in each other’s
Company.
When reached teenage,
the girls had to be moved in a women’s hostel.
Distanced made them closer to each other,
And, the love grew stronger.
Ganga always dreamt of riding pillion on a bike with Ravi .
Ravi, the crazy boy,
sold his house (compensation by govt.)
And fulfilled her desire,
Often they went for long rides.
In the following years,
The love bloomed,
And
With blessings and love,
their marriage was solemnised
By the NGO.
All the women from the hostel
Joined the wedding ceremony,
Bollywood songs were played loudly,
The Haldi, Sangeet and Mehendi
ceremony made it more lively
On the wedding day,
Ganga attired in traditional weaves
And bridal make up,
A beautiful bride she looked
The hostel warden and her spouse
did her “Kanyadan”.
Fortunate was I to bear
the testimony of the union,
As I stayed in the working women’s hostel then.
Ganga moved in to her house
with Ravi to welcome a life anew.**
Dec 11, 2017
Dec 11, 2017 at 12:28 AM UTC
THE SAXOPHONE STORY
BY RAJ NANDY
The Saxophone is perhaps the most expressive
instrument next to the human voice.
Was made by Adolphe Sax, a Belgian, through
a deliberate choice!
He wanted to offset the tonal disparity, -
Between the string, wind, and brass instruments,
with musical clarity !
He felt that the strings ones were overpowered
by the wind instruments.
While the wind instruments got overblown by
the brass ones instead !
Now what would happen if the best qualities
of these three instruments types,
Could in a fusion blend and coalesces into a single
instrument type ?
So finally at the age of 20 years, in March Eighteen
Hundred and Thirty Four,
Adolphe Sax created a magical instrument for the
World to hear and adore!
It had the power of the brass, the flexibility of the
strings, and the woodwind’s variety and tone;
Which got christened after Adolphe Sax as the
SAXOPHONE !
Adolphe’s famous composer friend Hector Berlioz
in Paris City,
Gave this new instrument wide publicity!
In 1844 the Sax was presented in the Industrial
Exhibition at Paris;
And subsequently got patented on 20 March 1846.
It soon got adopted by the Bands of the French Army.
Making other instrument makers to become green
with envy!
The Sax was 80 years old when it became part of the
musical instruments of the Jazz Band.
A small bore mouth piece was created to suite the
varying tonal qualities required by Jazz.
Initially, 14 different sizes of Sax was created by
Adolphe.
Today only five types are in use for us to hear and
see;
The Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass and the Baritone
Saxophone.
They now form a part of our Jazz music's backbone!
- By Raj Nandy
FOOT NOTES :
Adolphe Sax (1814-1894) , son of famous musical instrument maker
Charles Joseph Sax of Belgium. Woodwind Instruments = Flute, Clarinet, Bassoon etc. Brass Instruments = Trumpet, Tuba, Cornet etc. String Instruments = Violin, Guitar, Harp, Banjo etc. The Saxophone today has become the very backbone of Jazz Music!
** ALL COPY RIGHTS ARE RESERVED BY: - RAJ NANDY **
Apr 10, 2016
Apr 10, 2016 at 11:06 AM UTC
We are manufactured landscapes,
constructed through naming nouns –
we celebrate difference.
We are compelled into being one or the other,
like a nail or a hammer.
We reference nature through motherhood,
voluptuous in her national pride narrative,
her lips red pucker supple metaphors like her fertile ground,
her belly always pregnant
ready to plant desire in discourse.
We forget her industrial miscarriages,
her toxic tar-sulfur consumption,
her global half-bred garbage in words left unsaid,
her ***** laundry in patriarchal hands.
We forget her midwives,
her toiling underpaid workers
who support generations of waste
who spit up truth in plastic mouthfuls,
who regurgitate material narratives
to celebrate flesh in mythic wholeness.
When will the nation, earth and world step from its subject of motherly pedestal and name its androgynous existence, its forgotten lifelines?
Apr 27, 2011
Apr 27, 2011 at 12:38 PM UTC
Okay
Let us take a moment
And break this down
If you don't believe
In global warming
By now
You're probably not
Going to come round
But perhaps
We could take a step back
To when pollution was indeed
A matter of fact
Such as
The black factory smoke
And runoff waste
That fills our water ways
Coal soot that fills our lungs and skies
Sewage that fills our bays
Poisonous smog
Settling over our industrial cities
Toxic chemicals giving birth
Have you no empathy nor pity
"As our"
Emissions are ever choking
Scorching the earth
Can we start over
Sure it's no big deal
Can we at least agree
That pollution is real?
Jun 2, 2017
Jun 2, 2017 at 7:33 AM UTC
It’s possible to speak too much to remember what your words mean.
And so is the two-fold danger faced by writers.
Danger is to pace a hole in the floor.
Danger is to stand until you can’t move anymore
like when shallow waves **** your feet into the sand.
So I try not to stand when I write.
I keep a narrow tack
without too many big words
which pedants use to dig great holes in the ground
–moats to keep others out–
or make you think they think big.
But anyone who reads knows about Icarus
and anyone with aims must beware:
to shoot directly upwards is to strike your own head
when like fate the arrow
returns to source.
You’re only as good as your mind,
your characters only as strong as you are.
—at least, this is true in so far as you know.
True in so far as they speak.
For to test them you must torque them
and twist at their cores,
and make opposing forces meet–
but only
as hard as you can.
This makes writing a hill slick with oil.
Insecure. Potential energy.
Potential failure
seated
in all of that grime
that cakes your toes like grease that coats
the teeth of great industrial gears.
So I try not to stand when I write.
But whether the better take comes when you plunge
and you slide and dissolve like so much ice,
I must say I don’t know,
the thought
seems nice.
But the same
It seems like those who let go
Are the ones
with the least to say.
I can't decide
either which way.
All I know about writing is
most sentences are punctuated wrongly.
The period is certain,
but writing is undecided.
It is the figuring-out, a quest-bound troop
that moves with all its own fanfare.
Question marks curl up—
invisible smoke on a summer coal fire:
heat twisting the air like irons in stoke
giving sign of the transformations there withheld.
For fire mediates matter,
so writing stands ever-between.
But I’ve spoken too much and I don’t know what these words mean.
And so I fold like there’s danger in writing,
while danger is imagined like borders on a continent.
Danger is thinking
I'm dangerous enough to keep silent.
Like shallow waves,
given way to sand.
So avoid letting voids form
where the mind dismisses confrontation to more capable smiths.
Writing is –at best– an attempt.
Even with shallow structures
in rhythmic din,
the silent breaks by force of pen,
and all because of the simple fact
that quiet refuses to bend.
All I can hope is my writing upholds these unknowns
while I try not to stand.
But you ask about writing?
Apr 29, 2018
Apr 29, 2018 at 4:28 PM UTC
She's high fashion on a budget,
capturing the world from her own angles.
Watercolor stains on anything she touches,
but vibrancy is not for her.
Her voice is the texture of heavy-duty paper,
and something about her seems littered in floral,
But she is too industrial for that to make sense,
as the city breaths her in and out.
Jan 16, 2019
Jan 16, 2019 at 10:59 PM UTC