"infants" poems
(for Christopher Isherwood)
Seated after breakfast
In this white-tiled cabin
Arabs call the House where
Everybody goes,
Even melancholics
Raise a cheer to Mrs.
Nature for the primal
Pleasure She bestows.
*** is but a dream to
Seventy-and-over,
But a joy proposed un-
-til we start to shave:
Mouth-delight depends on
Virtue in the cook, but
This She guarantees from
Cradle unto grave.
Lifted off the *****
Infants from their mothers
Hear their first impartial
Words of worldly praise:
Hence, to start the morning
With a satisfactory
Dump is a good omen
All our adult days.
Revelation came to
Luther in a privy
(Crosswords have been solved there)
Rodin was no fool
When he cast his Thinker,
Cogitating deeply,
Crouched in the position
Of a man at stool.
All the arts derive from
This ur-act of making,
Private to the artist:
Makers' lives are spent
Striving in their chosen
Medium to produce a
De-narcissus-ized en-
During excrement.
Freud did not invent the
Constipated miser:
Banks have letter boxes
Built in their façade
Marked For Night Deposits,
Stocks are firm or liquid,
Currencies of nations
Either soft or hard.
Global Mother, keep our
Bowels of compassion
Open through our lifetime,
Purge our minds as well:
Grant us a king ending,
Not a second childhood,
Petulant, weak-sphinctered,
In a cheap hotel.
Keep us in our station:
When we get pound-notish,
When we seem about to
Take up Higher Thought,
Send us some deflating
Image like the pained ex-
-pression on a Major
Prophet taken short.
(Orthodoxy ought to
Bless our modern plumbing:
Swift and St. Augustine
Lived in centuries
When a stench of sewage
Made a strong debating
Point for Manichees.)
Mind and Body run on
Different timetables:
Not until our morning
Visit here can we
Leave the dead concerns of
Yesterday behind us,
Face with all our courage
What is now to be.
13.9k
men like ***** and so
do infants. then again, I
think everyone does.
Jul 26, 2013
Jul 26, 2013 at 3:05 AM UTC
Where did the innocence go?
Doves turned to ravens,
Juicesboxes turned to bottles,
Toxic beverages leaving poisoned bodies to roam these streets,
Possessing personalities of ********
Suckers turned to joints,
The high replaced the feeling of love,
Which could propel you to places beyond any hallucination,
Virgins mimicked, giggled at,
Wide eyed stares penetrate their skin as they stroll on streets,
Whispers fill rooms as their sealed bodies strut,
Jealous viewers stand, shattered,
With no purity to share with their loved ones.
Thinking their assets can be displayed for the public to adjudicate,
Maybe we're to young to know about love,
We're young, yes we are.
But what good is a young nation,
With poisoned , broken youth.
What good is a nation with no future leaders.
So I'm asking, where did the innocence go?
Tell me so I can know.
So I can replace the demons that lurk in these infants,
With the innocence that should gleam,
From their flesh.
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 2:00 PM UTC
Just the thought of them makes your jawbone ache:
those turkey dinners, those holidays with
the air around the woodstove baked to a stupor,
and Aunt Lil's tablecloth stained by her girlhood's gravy.
A doggy wordless wisdom whimpers from
your uncles' collected eyes; their very jokes
creak with genetic sorrow, a strain
of common heritage that hurts the gut.
Sheer boredom and fascination! A spidering
of chromosomes webs even the infants in
and holds us fast around the spread
of rotting food, of too-sweet pie.
The cousins buzz, the nephews crawl;
to love one's self is to love them all.
9.7k
There’s a gun upon my bed
Not the kind made of metal
A vivid tattoo color
Above my lover’s
Secret devil
And that gun is like a demon
Aimed toward her pleasure zone
Urging hunters to take a shot
And take the trophy
Home
I see blood upon the doorstep
I smell ****** in her fold
I fear ghosts will haunt her body
In the bullets I have sown
I hear hungry infants crying
The ones she gave away
And the ******** she is hiding
Are my regrets from yesterday
I feel the gun blazing
As she ***** my breath away
I’m a hostage to her body
In the mayhem
She purveys
In the middle of the night
I’ll make my escape
Run, run, run
Run away
I’ve got to run
In the middle of the night
When her back is turned
Run, run, run
Run away
I’ve got to run
There’s a gun upon my bed
It belongs to my baby
Burned deep inside her
On a night she went
Crazy
And every time I think
I’ll flee
Her dangerous painted gun
She draws it against me
And I feel myself succumb
I see blood upon the doorstep
I smell ****** in her fold
I fear ghosts will haunt her body
In the bullets I have sown
I hear hungry infants crying
The ones she gave away
And the ******** she is hiding
Are my regrets from yesterday
Save me from her gun
She’ll never let me go
Save me from drowning
In her young and wanton soul
I’ve got to run
But there’s a gun
My baby won’t let me go.
May 25, 2014
May 25, 2014 at 6:03 AM UTC
Among the mountains and oceans we claimed,
Environments we no longer know,
Starvation from the knowledge lacked.
Strange men of unknown origin push us away
With feathered spears and their spirits
Flying above us like the angels we seek.
The spread of our culture like margarine
Angers the earth it's ancestors tread on;
War and thievery. Disease and infection
Was wildfire in a land containing no such
Immunities to the harshness.
First cities died as infants, stillborns
Of history and freedom, yet
They survived in their determination.
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 10:16 AM UTC
Went down, slippery cold stairs
Spiraling down, words on walls,
The paper sheets?
Heard the music down there...
Down... Down...
I've heard it before;
Down... Down... Rumble down...
An underground celebration,
So I went - down.
(the cave)
Infants were there, dark rooms,
Bathing in the boiling red wine,
Laughing madly in the fumes,
The ceiling and walls were moist and dripping.
These babies, visages of chimera,
Evil grins cutting their faces,
Evil smiles, gruesome masks
and cigars in their hands, claws...
-Stop!!!
This I will unleash,
One day, whiskey, liqours,
Yeah.
Beers, drinks... rumbling.
Calm dark surface of the lake
At night
And the carnival nearby,
Mile away or so...
you can hear their sounds,
muted slightly;
faint lights of torches,
at the other side of lake.
Weird tribesmen
Praising the summer solstice
With howls, maracas,
Tiny bells, dance,
Fire.
-But listen to me now!
Now, when you hear me,
Look here, look closely.
Put your hand in me,
Can't you feel I'm almost boiling?
I'm no mud, I'm a clear water,
Almost as a spring!
Swift and clear - and hot.
and dark.
Jan 4, 2018
Jan 4, 2018 at 6:43 PM UTC
I wander thro’ each charter’d street.
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow
A mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every Man.
In every Infants cry of fear.
In every voice; in every ban.
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear
How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackening Church appalls.
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls
But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse
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A hymn to paired planethood: Venus hits Pluto
as death, in cold orbit, collides with biology
smashing to fragments: demonic astrology
(more a black hole than a love-star, it’s true though).
Cynical cure for Eve’s womanly grievance
Concupiscent consequence: lust’s bitter fruit –
ah the thought… changing Sin into mere inconvenience.
Margaret sang her seductive refrain
about weeding the garden and progress and light.
Her sisters should view her with scornful disdain
but instead have adopted her murderous rite.
With sang-froid she promoted her racist eugenics
(as if she had never herself been a fetus),
condemning her heirs to postmodern polemics
while nurturing ardent desires to defeat us.
Suppressing the lives that she flushed down the drain
she would liberate Death – and resistance was vain.
As a midwife to modern life (though on the “anti” side)
Old Matron Margie racked up quite a legacy
singing the praises of sanctioned infanticide
calling the shots for the coming sick century.
Planning, quite calmly, to “cleanse” certain races
her zeal was empowered by murderous graces.
She labored to bring us such pearls of subduction:
“dilation and curettage”, “women’s autonomy”
“viable fetus”, “procedure”, a “suction”
Hippocrates retches to hear the taxonomy;
words that turn Life into mere reproduction.
She enters the realms of the ****** and the motherless
roundly condemned by her feminine otherness.
Man’s first protection: the God-given womb
which no infant should have to regard as their tomb.
Dismembered dark cherubs, assembling, greet her
as demons (in scrubs) holding baby-parts meet her.
Long may she burn with the medical cynics
this mother of Moloch, this founder of clinics.
Convenience is king when abortion’s the Queen
and the profits swell big with each nubile teen…
yet the fruit of such carnage remains to be seen.
I send her this song as a funeral wreath
and a card inked in blood. You may read what is there:
“To the Matrix Supreme of our culture of death
from the souls of the infants you slew on the earth.
May your torment increase with the children you bear.”
Sep 10, 2015
Sep 10, 2015 at 9:09 PM UTC
We came,
like young infants
stumbling head-long into hedonistic existence
Feeling air beneath our feet in the weed-smelling rooms,
hiding behind cushions and blankets and exchanging knowing looks
on starry nights.
We ran,
down green hills on hot, sunny days
and burned our hands on shed roofs
and the ends of rolled cigarettes.
We drank,
berry cider in the dark,
dancing drunkenly outside bars,
sharing secrets behind closed doors
and open whiskey bottles.
We needed,
no one but each other
and each other's mothers -
Some opening their arms to us
to swaddle us like newborns,
Others dismissing us with a wave of a hand
We spent,
the last year of our school lives
immersed in each other,
some more than others.
We cried,
like shell-shocked soldiers
behind locked bedroom doors
and into smashed-up mobile phones.
We returned,
to those dark evenings,
to drink ***** on hilltops and smoke endlessly,
laughing at everything ******
We were glowing stars.
We loved,
and those immature jokes hit our shields
and not our bones.
And now our lives have changed
and all those heady evenings spent
hiding beer from Bulgarians
are behind us all.
We are alone,
in this world.
Some moreso than others,
But we are alive.
We are still us.
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 3:03 PM UTC
I know you are part of my destiny
So I haven't cried as much over our separation
True, I did cry an ocean of tears
But not so many to drown the grounds I stand upon
I said words of frustration
And whispered cries of surrender and desertion
But I am open to emotions and those words allowed release
-But- what I suggested in heated state of mind was just that
Suggestions, not proclamations nor plans
You know I tend to submerge myself in evil waters
In order to rise from them with strength even greater
Those shouts you may or may not have heard were the waters I was wading
And now, I am back to the heavens with a heart more unbreakable
Refreshed and replenished with the purity of home air
I remain sure of the decision I made that day
Don't worry, I am still certain of my true love for you
No- More certain of everything
I guess it took all those months to realise it
I needed to break down in strengthening
To lead the way to the point of exhaustion
Because now, it's your turn to stand ahead
As I deep down predicted, my words did not gain action
Although reactions were clearly achieved
Though words were controlled and questions avoided
Your eyes that trick you, are as always unable to deceive me
I guess what I am trying to express
Is my undying true love for you
My heart is unbroken, despite what I said
Still holding you within, still cradling our infants to come
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 2:07 PM UTC
some greedy little bitter man has put together a picture-perfect person and out of pure laziness and malignant attempts at control he pays off a psychopath to make it happen but we’re just a little body, flesh and bones come between them and their paychecks so why not make it easier? they made a factory out of our garden and nothing grows in factories it’s manufactured, easy as one two three four five six, we’re all sitting on an assembly line waiting for some alcoholic man to shout at some pimply-faced twenty-something “FASTER! FASTER!” so it begins! press of a button, we’re created, step one: your parents were given the baby books, kids! infants, they’re all the same anyways. they’re not individuals yet, they haven’t been encoded so relax, parents. want them turn out like you? sure, do what your parents did, worked out well, eh? been occupying this factory your whole life, then? well anyways, step two: they spend less time with you because you’ve been in this world for three years so it’s time you get out on your own…. step three: they gotta YELL and scream and children aren’t supposed to touch things or say things or scrape their knees because that’s more work for the adults, and they work all day, just like they were programmed for, good little machines 'cause they forgot what it’s like to be a baby or an animal or a plant or a God but also the resentment, a child wants to live but how ridiculous? there’s no life in industry… all about the money baby step four: you buy your education because it builds your character because money says power but when did meaningless power equal respect? I don't know but they force you into reading the same old instruction pamphlets left in the break room at the plant for the past century or so and five: your turn to work for fourty years in this polluted place because it’s hard to break free from twenty-three years of moulding into a cookie cutter you never did fit, that’s why it hurts so much when they try to push you through, your muffin-top is sliced right off and you’re contorted to fit the view of perfect sugary sweetness but just to make sure you're ready they coat you with vanilla icing to cover up your imperfections, perfect, now step six, and this one is the doozy, and because you’re **** broke: go back to mom and dad’s and grab those baby books and again and again and again the cycle repeats and repeats and repeats….
Dec 12, 2011
Dec 12, 2011 at 9:03 PM UTC
Blaze of a rubble-car a man in faded jeans shouts, hurls a bottle -- smash -- a thousand shards of
broken glass shine orange on crowded street.
Shouts, cries, infants sobbing loud---sirens, car alarms, a man ***** back his hand,
holding a brick---the crack of a driver's-side window breaking. Wild yells---everyone is
sprinting. Fire & wailing.
Sunny afternoon---birds sing in treetops; a woman under shade on sunlit grass in brown rags & an
old hijab sobs over a slab of concrete, decorated with flowers
and a photograph
with a golden frame.
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 11:00 AM UTC
Brought forth from a darkness so secure, baby boy relentless in the pursuit of education gazed upon the egg shell walls and sterile environment.
Breathing as if it were natural.
A construction of steel and concrete was the new cocoon , the window was an eye to a neoteric world. Bright white lights shone from within and a dull foreboding cloud loomed beyond the glass for the child to appreciate.
Mother exhausted collapsed sighing. She is the antidote to all that is evil, she is the mother to the world. A usually stick-thin figure now distended but leisurely relaxing.
Nursing her son as if it were natural.
Swooning nurses swaddle infants, the original factory workers. Substantial days grafting, workhorses prancing throughout aseptic halls.
The heroines of our world.
A tribe appears from dust clouds, over the dunes, panting, half-alive. Heavenly Ethiope arriving in time for the world to begin. Tumescent in her ecclesiastic luminescence bearing a King destined to travel great distances primed for expulsion from the cimmerian safety of the womb.
The seas of the earth accumulate before the small band of tall-standing creatures of exquisite anthropomorphism. Creatures from across the great unexplored continent at the centre of our world gathered in frenzied crowds. The Elephants marched in earth shattering herds, the lions of the Savannah put aside their differences and sat amongst the wild dogs of Ethiopia and the grévy's zebra, the dibatag stood and eagerly waited. Shrews, mice, gazelle, otters, cheetahs and giraffes all surrounded the tribe. Taking a silent vow and allowing stewardship to be passed along to a new generation.
Every mother is the mother of the earth. Her earth, the personal concept of earth that only she may understand.
Both children are connected by the planet they learn to walk upon. Connected by a thousand generations but connected nonetheless. They are one and the same. Each bought into a world in which they have no knowledge, each merely a slate eager to be scrawled upon by the elders of this fine rock.
Jan 12, 2013
Jan 12, 2013 at 9:53 PM UTC
Donald Trump's presidency
Is one of the greatest achievements in art I have ever experienced
And Trump is a true artist
He takes words from the page
Like corruption, disenfranchisement, xenophobia
And brings them to life
Highlighting fear and paranoia so clearly
Contrasting the blacks and whites
Emphasizing anger
While reminding us we're mere infants
In the digital age
And warning us of our seniority
And capitalism's
We all like to think life has meaning
Until we hit an animal with our car
Then that's just the way things are
And I'm staring at an absurdist painting
Of a child driving a car
Through a herd of sheep
As I watch a heist film
Where the robbers turn their guns over
To the mentally unstable guy in the group
Trump is a national artist
Placing riots on the map
And drawing infernos on the Internet
His art forces an opinion
Everybody has something to say about him
And it's all true
Even the pages he ripped from his own cabinet
Tried to villainize him in their script
But he was already an anti-hero
The humor is that the mud slung onto him
Is dirt kicked up from his own tires
I guess if you surround yourself with hateful people
You're surrounding yourself with people who probably hate you
Trump's art is deeply conflicting
He reminds me of the people who want me to live in shame
Yet he embodies the individuality that separates me from that shame
His insecurities remind me of myself
High school is the White House in the eyes of a kid
And I had secrets I wanted to share
But felt I couldn't
I learned things
That changed my entire perspective
And didn't think people would understand
Afraid of being assaulted for my indiscretions
I hid behind a boisterous personality
And a nonchalant attitude
Trump's art evokes sympathy and hatred that feels so strong
When he holds a mirror defining our worst qualities
To a man viscerally opposed to his own reflection
The confliction of emotions
Is the hallmark of great art
We are all artists
The lines we write or the strokes we brush
Are in our actions
And Trump's canvas displays
A life filled with accomplishment
Inspiring me to live my own life
But I still wake up in cold sweats
From the American dream
That anybody can be president
Sep 29, 2017
Sep 29, 2017 at 6:39 AM UTC
they took my man off the street
the other day
he wore an L.A. Rams sweatshirt with
the sleeves cut
off
and under that
an army shirt
private first class
and he wore a green beret
walked very straight
he was black in brown walking shorts
hair dyed blonde
he never bothered anybody
he stole a few babies
and ran off cackling
but he always returned the infants
unharmed
he slept in the back of the
Love Parlor
the girls let him.
compassion is found in
strange places.
one day I didn't see him
then another.
I asked around.
my taxes are going to go up
again. the state's got to
house and feed
him. the cops took him
in. no
good.
4.3k
En robe de parade.
Samain
Like a skien of loose silk blown against a wall
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,
And she is dying piece-meal
of a sort of emotional anaemia.
And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.
In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
She would like some one to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I
will commit that indiscretion.
4.3k
Look around,
You will find all eyes down;
some expressionless,
some desperate,
and few smiling!
Both tiny and fatty thumbs
yearning for a rest,
after typing those texts.
Some consulting the Doc
for having a smartphone thumb
and some for lacking vitamin D!
Posts wanting more and more likes.
Kilograms of followers on Instagram!
Swapping stories on Whatsapp!
Unopened notebooks
when you have a Facebook!
Television screens consigned to oblivion
when you have a Youtube!
Discovering the veiled world,
missing the real scenes around.
Emoticons spreading fake feelings,
Stupefying infants swiping through the screens,
Kids imploring to their parents-
To drag out the patterns.
What is more satisfying?
Hitting play button on the screen or
Hitting a six on the field?
Carting products online or
Shopping on a girls day out?
Dribbling a basket ball or
Dragging down the newsfeed?
Watching daily soaps without a dish or
Helping your mother out to wash the dish?
Sharing the snaps of poverty and hunger or
Reaching out to them with eager?
A game of candy crush or
Gifting a candy to your crush?
I feel like whooping out to myself
and to people around;
To raise their heads and
Look around!
Jul 18, 2017
Jul 18, 2017 at 11:22 AM UTC
The man in galoshes with the world on his back,
strolls along the broken track.
Weather beaten,
Fighting the rain.
It's lashing him.
He's tied to the kerb.
Anchored only by the weighty boots on his feet.
He's out there fair weather or foul.
Desperate to keep his public happy,
With a timely siren,
the arrival of an infants birth.
He is the performer up the garden path.
At least the rain's outside again.
So is he poor sod.
The postman, nearly demi-god,
or nearly dead.
He's tramping through the rain and the snow.
He had to let you know,
you know.
The latest news and hot reviews,
a little bit of useless information.
There's nothing better than a letter,
unless it's from the revenue.
Our fair weather friend he has so many uses.
A warrior, he fights wild dogs.
He's churning up the grass,
his only means of escape.
He's wearing an orange hat,
it's curled up at the edges.
He uses it to fight the rain.
The orange hat so luminous,
he's looking rather fruity.
He's forlorn and in pieces,
because he's getting washed away,
He has one every morning in his place,
each and every day.
Stacks and stacks of bits of paper,
Life and death wrapped up in his sack.
(C) Livvi
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 10:43 AM UTC
I think that I shall never see
A thing as odd as eight baby
Eight baby from a single mother
Makes me roll my eyes- oh brother
Oh sister oh brother oh sister oh yeah
Mother looked like a Guernsey cow
Is there milk enough- I don't see how?
Eight colic'd infants wailing in the night-
Draw back, draw back- go fly a kite
Eight fitful babies screaming in duress-
Moved far away left no forwarding address
Eight poopy babies dragging two pound diapers
Went to the car wash and used the windshield wipers
Eight teething babies wrangling on the bed-
Picked up a gun and blew off her head.
Mar 10, 2010
Mar 10, 2010 at 9:49 AM UTC
On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.
On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.
4.1k
The last one thinks of, yet the most
Important ‒ the blind use it to feel
Bumps in the pavement, and the
Deaf are tapped on the shoulder
To get their attention.
Because of texture and good company,
The absence of smell and taste don’t
Ruin a good meal.
As infants we survive by being
Touched ‒ love is given by both
Parents, whose skin is recognized
As the warmth it provides.
When we grow ‒ the pubescent years
And beyond ‒ girls still whisper, kiss
And touch each other as signs of
Affection.
Boys grow up touch-deprived ‒ what
Makes them different? ‒ Male fears
That men don’t touch because that’s
A sign of being queer? Likely.
Sure, guys touch ‒ slaps on the ****
Playing sports, the snapping of
Towels in the shower room ‒ nothing
Gay about that!
Or is this sudden lack of tactile affect
A sign of maleness? If so, we wouldn’t
Shake hands ‒ or high-five or hug our
Brothers and best friends.
Consider the massage ‒ visiting the
Parlor run by Asian ladies, which for
A 20-spot more brings a ******* ‒
But answer an ad for online service
From a guy, and NOPE, not me!
Not unless of course the wife
Doesn’t put out no more or is
Sick ‒ then any excuse works.
But, that doesn’t mean I’m….
No, dude, it doesn’t, but any
Port in a storm ‒ we all know
What sailors do when at sea for
Months, or do we?
Maybe it’s just American men
Who are hung up ‒ The French
And Italians don’t seem to be
Paranoid, and Russian men are
Said to kiss each other on the lips!
So, maybe our psyches could use
A tune-up ‒ a lesson from a wise
And happy soccer player/philosopher ‒
“If it feels good, and doesn’t hurt
Anybody, do it!”
© Lewis Bosworth, 12/2016
Dec 13, 2016
Dec 13, 2016 at 1:39 PM UTC