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Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
preliminary explanation

before i really begin the project i have a few scatterings
of thought that made me do this, without real planning,
a different sort of impromptu that poetry's good at,
less Dionysian spur-of-the-moment with an already
completed poem entwined to a perfect ensō,
as quick as the decapitation of Mary Boleyn with the
executioner fooling her which side the swing would
be cast by taking of his hard-soled-shoes -
i mean this in an Apollonian sense - i know, sharp contrasts
at first, but the need to fuse them - i said these are
preliminary explanations, the rest will not be as haphazardly
composed, after all, i see the triangle i'm interested it
but drawing a triangle without Pythagorean explanation
i'm just writing Δ - i'll unravel what my project is
about, just give me this opportunity to blah blah for a
while like someone from an existential novel;
what beckoned me was the dichotomy of styles,
i mean, **** me, you can read poetry while in an awkward
yoga position, you can read it standing up, sitting down,
eating or whatever you want - obviously on the throne
of thrones taking a **** is preferred - the point being
what's called serious literature is so condensed for
economic reasons, font small, never-ending paragraphs,
you need an easy-chair and a bottle of cognac to get
through a chapter sometimes - or at least freshly mowed
grass in a park in summer - it's really uncomfortable because
of that, and the fact that poets hardly wish upon you
to be myopic - just look at the spacing on the page,
constantly refreshing, open-plan condos, eye-to-eye -
but it's not about that... the different styles of writing,
prose and the novel, the historical essay / encyclopedia
or a work of philosophy - what style of writing can
be best evolutionary and undermine each? only poetry.
poetry is a ballerina mandible entity, plastic skeletons,
but that's beside the point, when journalism writes history
so vehemently... the study of history writes it nonchalantly,
it's the truth, journalism is bombastic, sensationalist
every but what courting history involves -
a journalist will write about the death of a 100 people
more vehemently than a historian writing about the Holocaust...
or am i missing something? i never understood this dichotomy
of prose - it's most apparent between journalism and history...
as far as i am concerned, the most pleasurable style of
prose is involved in the history of philosophy, or learning per se,
but i'll now reveal to you the project at hand -
it's a collage... the parameters?

the subject of the collage

it weighs 1614 grams, or 3 lb. and 8 7/8ths oz.,
it's a single volume edition, published by Pimlico,
it's slightly larger than an A5 format,
3/4 inches more in length, and ~1 centimetre in
width more, it has a depth of 1 and 3/4 inches in depth,
a bicep iron-pumping session with it in bed -
i was lying with this behemoth of a book
in bed soothing out a semi-delirium state
listening to Ola Gjeilo's *northern lights

and flicking through the appendix, and i started thinking,
no would read this giant fully, would they?
the reason it's a one volume edition is because
the only place you'd read such an edition would
be in a library, at a desk, and you'd be taking snippets
out from it, quotes, authentic references points
for an essay, esp. if you were a history student,
such books aren't exactly built for leisure, as my arms
could testify... after the appendix i started flicking
through as to what point of interest would spur me
onto this audacious (and perhaps auspicious)
act of renegading against writing a novel (in the moment,
in the moment, i can't imagine myself rereading plot-lines
after a day or two, adding to it - that's a collage too,
but of a different kind - and no, i won't be plagiarising
as such, after all i'll be citing parallel, but utilising
poetry as the driving revision dynamic compared
to the chronologically stale prose of history) - i'll be
extracting key points that are already referenced and not
using the style of the author - the book in question?
Europe: a history by Norman Davies prof. emeritus
at U.C.L. - the point of entry that made me mad enough
to condense this 1335 page book (excluding the index)?

point of incision

Voltaire (or the man suspected of Guy Fawkes-likes spreading
of volatility in others) -
un polonais - c'est un charmeur; deux polonais - une
bagarre; trois polonais, eh bien, c'est la question polonaise

(one pole - a charmer, two poles - a brawl, three poles -
the polish question) - mind you, the subtler and gentler
precursor of the Jewish question, because the Frenchman
mused, and not a German, or a Russian brute...
and i can testify, two Polish immigrants in a pub,
one senior, the other minor, one with 22 years under
his belt of the integration purpose, one with 12 years,
the minor says to the senior about how Poles bring
the village life to cities, brutish drunkards and what not,
it was almost a brawl, prior to the senior was charming
a Lithuanian girl, before the minor's emphasis on
such a choice of conversation turned into idiotic Lithuanian
nostalgia about the disintegration of the Polish-Lithuanian
commonwealth, primarily due to the Polish nobility.

10,000 b.c.

looking that far back i don't know why you even
bother to celebrate the weekend -
i mean, 10,000 years back Denmark was
still attached to Sweden,
England was attached to France,
and there was a weird looking Aquatic landmass
that would become a myth of Atlantis
in the Chronicles of Norwich,
speedy ******* Gonzales with the equivalent
of south america detaching itself from Africa...
mind you, i'm sure the Carpathian ranges are
mountains. they're noted here are hills or uplands,
by categorising them as such i'm surprised
the majority of Carpathian elevations as scolded
bald rocky faced, a hill i imagine to have some
vegetation on it, not mountain goats with rock and roof
for a blacksmith in a population of one hundred...
at this point Darwinism really becomes a disorientating
pinpoint of whatever history takes your fancy,
Europe - mother of Minos, lord of Crete,
progenitrix / ******* and the leather curtains
of Zeus's harem (jealous? no, just the sarcasm
dominates the immortal museum of attachable
****** to suit the perfect elephant **** of depth
the gods sided with, by choice, excusing the Suez
duct tightening of a prostate gland... to ease the pain
upon ******* rather than *******); mentioned by Homer
the Blind tooth-fairy, the Europe and the bull,
Europoeus and the swan, same father of wisdom to mind,
on the shores of Loch Lomond -
attributes a lover to the bull, Moschus of Syracuse,
who said earring Plato cured him of where the ****
should not enter even if it shines a welcome
in the disguise of Dionysius... revisionists bound to Pompeii
named Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens Veronese
and Claude Lorrain revived the bulging bull's *******
and her mm hmm mm, too gracious my kind, hehee...
Phonecians from Tyre and Io - so too the Sibyl of ****** -
and unlike the great river civilisations of the Nile,
the Ganges, soon to be the Danubian civilisations
and gorged-out-eyes-that-once-sore-colour-but-lost-sight-of-
colours-­after-seeing-the-murk-of-the-Thames...
soon the seas overcame civilisations of the rivers,
as Cadmus, brother of the thus stated harlot said:
i bring you orbe pererrato - hieroglyphics of the cage,
but not an owl or a hawk inside it -
so let's perfect speaking to an encoding by first
rummaging into learning how to procure the perfect
forms of counting - i say left, you say I, i say right
you say II, left right left right, what do you say?
VI. bravo! the Hellenic world just crossed the Aegean
and civilisation bore twins within the cult of a lunar-mother,
Islam of Romulus and Remus, a she-wolf
a canine of the night - according to another -
tremulae sinuantur flamine vestes - or so the myth goes -
a cherished phantom of what became the fabled story
of sole Odysseus with his ears open and the remnant
sailor's ears waxed shut - as if the bankers of this world,
revelling in culprit universal fancy than nonetheless
bred the particular oddities - lest we forget,
the once bountiful call of the sirens to the oceanic
is but a fraction of what today's sirens claim to be song,
a fraction of it remains in this world, the onomatopoeia
of the once maddening song, the crude *******
arrangement of vowels bound to the jealous god's
déjà vu of the compounding second H.

from myth to perpetuating a modern sentiment

you can jump from 10,000 b.c. to the Munich Crisis
of 1938 - 9 with a snap of the fingers,
imitating quantum phenomenons like gesticulating
a game of mime with Chinese whispers necessary,
if Europe is a nymph, Naples her azure eyes,
Warsaw her heart, Sebastopol and Azoff,
Petersburg, Mitau, Odessa - these the thorns
in her feet - Paris the head, London the starched collar,
and Rome - the sepulchre
.
or... die handbuch der europaischen geschichte
notably from Charlemagne (the Illiterate)
to the Greek colonels (as apart from Constantine to
Thomas More in eight volumes, via Cambridge mid
1930s)... these and some other books of urgency
e.g. Eugene Weber's H. A. L. Fisher's, Sr. Walter Ralegh,
Jacob Bronowski... elsewhere excavated noun-obscurities
like gattopardo and konarmya had their
circas extended like shelved vegetables in modern
supermarket isles, for one reason or another...
prado, sonata sovkino also... some also mention
Thomas Carlyle (i'd make it sound like carried-away isle,
but never mind); so in this intro much theory,
how to sound politically correct, verifiable to suit
a coercion for a status quo... Europe as a modern idea,
replacing Imperum Romanun came Christendom,
ugly Venetian Pirates at Constantinople,
Barbarossa making it in pickled herring juice
in a barrel to Jerusalem... once called the pinkish-***-fluff
of Saxony, now called the pickled cucumber,
drowning in his armour in some river or Brosphorus...
alchemists, Luther and Copernicus were invited on
the same occasion as the bow-tie was invented,
apparently it was a marriage made for the Noir cinema,
beats me - hence the new concept of Europe,
reviving the idea of Imperium Romanun
meant, somehow including Judea in the Euro
championship of footie gladiator ***** whipped
narcissists, rejecting the already banished Carthage
(Libya / Tunisia by Cato's standards) and encouraging
the Huns, the Goths and the even more distant Slavs and
Vikings to accept not so much the crucifix as
the revised spine of the serpent but as the geometry of
human limbs, well, not so much that, but forgetting
Norse myths of the one-eyed and the runic alphabet
and settling for ah be'h c'eh d'ah.
dissident frenche stink abbe, charles castel de st pierre
(1658 - 1743) aand this work projet d'une paix perpetuelle
(1713) versus Питер Великий who just said:
never mind the city, the Winter Palace... i have aborted
fetus pickles in my bedroom, lava lamps i call them.
the last remaining reference to Christianity?
Nietzsche was late, the public was certain,
it was the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713, with public reference
to the republica christiana / commonwealth was last made.
to Edmund Burke: well, i too wish no exile
upon any European on his continent of birth,
but invigorate a Muslim to give birth on it
and you invigorate an exile nonetheless:
Ezra expatriate Pound / sorry, if born in eastern
europe a ***** Romanian immigrant, pristine
expatriate in western Europe, fascist radio has
my tongue and *****, so let's play a game:
Russian roulette for the Chinese cos there's
a billion of them, and no one would really mind
a missing Chow Mein... chu shoo'ah shaolin moo'n'kah!
or a cappuccino whenever you'd like to watch
classic Italian pornographic cinema with dubbing
with nuns involved... Willaim Blake and his
stark naked prophesy, pope pius II (treatise 1458)
even though Transylvania, Tharce and Hungary
shared the same phonetic encoding with diacritical
distinctions like any Frenchman, German,
or Pole at the Siege of Vienna (1683)
to counter the antagonising Ottoman - i swear historians
do this one purpose, juggle dates and head-of-state figures
prior to entering a chronology - they must first try out
a ******* carousel before playing with the toy-train...
broadcasting to a defeated Germany public, T. S. Eliot
(1945) ****** import to into Western Germany
and talk of the failing moral fabric, China laughing
after the ***** intricacies of warfare of trade,
what was once wool we wished to be silk...
instead of silk we received vegetarian wool, namely
hemp, and Amsterdam is to blame... nuke 'em!
that's how it sounds, how a historian approaches
writing a history from the annals, from circa and
circumstance and actual history, foremost the abbreviations,
the fishing hook standards, the parameters,
the limits, and then the mathematics of history,
one thing culminating into another... contra Lenin
N. S. Trubetskoy, P. N. Savitsky, G. Vernadsky
Russian at the perks of the Urals - steppe Tartar shamans
or salon pranced pretty **** boys? where to put
the intoxicant and where to put the mascara... hmm,
god knows, or by 21st calculations, a meteor;
they say the history of nations is a history of women,
then at least the history of individuation
and of men who succumb to its proliferation
is astoundingly misogynistic.
Seton-Watson, among the the tombstones too reminded
of remarkable esteem and accomplishment
with only one gravedigger to claim as father...
as many death ears as on two giraffe skeletons
stood Guizot, men of many letter and few fortunes,
or v. v., incubators of cousin ***** and none the kippah
before the arrogant saintly diminished to
a justly cause of recession, ha ha,
by nature's grace, and with true advent of her progression
as guard-worthy pre- to each pro-
and suggested courteous of the ****** fibre,
oh hey, the advent of masqueraded woofing,
a Venetian high-brow, and jealousy out of a forgotten
spirit of adventure that once was bound
to hunting and foraging... forever lost to write  history of
a king dubbed Louis the XIV...
crucibles and distastes for the state to be pleased,
once removed from Paris, forever to Angevin womb
accustomed once more, at Versailles released -
as cake be sown so too the aristocratic swan necks
for worth of mock and scorn - and the dampening rain
rattle the blood-thirst of the St. Bartholomew's Day
slaughter, to date, the rebirth of Burgundy,
of Anjou, and with the dead king presiding, to be
of no worth in judging himself a king before god or pauper...
saluer Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville!
that i might too in stead rattle a few bones prior to burial
with the jaw that will laugh and chatter least
had it been to my kingly-stead a birth so lowly.
then at least in satisfactory temperament i procure a
judgement of the noble like of a *****
for an hour's worth of pistons and jarring tongues...
as if from a nobleman then indeed as if from a *****,
for who sold Europe and said: Arabia, if not the
Frenchman, the Englishman, the Spaniard?
the former colonial conquests served you not enough?
i imagine the reinstatement of Israel like
the Frankish states under Philippe-August...
precursors to a cathedral dubbed Urban the 2nd's..
there were only Norwegian motives in the Ukraine
and the black sea... Israel to me is like plagiarism
of the Frankish states of the middle-east, with Europe
slightly... oom'pah loom'pah mongolian harmonica.
some said Rudyard Kipling poems,
some said Mr. Kipling's afternoon tea cakes -
whichever made it first on Coronation St.
some also say the Teutonic barbecues -
it was a matter of example to feed them hog
and cannibalise the peasants for ourselves,
a Prussian standard worth an army standard of
rigour - Ave Maria - letztre abendessen nahrung -
mein besitzen, wenn in die Aden, i'd be the last
talking carcass...
gottes ist der orient!
gottes ist der okzident!
nord - und sudliches gelande
ruht im frieden seiner hande.

germany's lebensraum, inferiority and classification,
inferior slavs and jews, genetics and why my
hatred of Darwinism is persistent, you need
an explanatory noting to make it auto-suggestive
for Queen & Country? diseased elements,
Jewish Bolshevism, Polish patriotism,
Soviets, Teutons, the grand alliances of 1918
or 1945? Wilsonian testimony of national self-determi
I never stop thinking of you,
you always fill up my head.
And not just with thoughts,
but inspiration instead.
This feeling you give,
is something I seek.
It's just so relieving,
anytime you speak.
I love how you sing,
about anything that moves you.
Leaving nothing out,
whether it maddens or soothes you.
Your soul just emits,
an intoxicant that calms me.
And when we touch,
this mood just embalms me.
It binds me tight,
locked in your sweet release.
Then time slows down,
til the silence has ceased.
But during that moment,
I've begun to beleive.
That your voice,
is really,
the only one I need.
vircapio gale Aug 2012
ok, so this is the upswell
of wheeling free without wheels--
you taste the unknown on the wind
and endless vigor vibrates in your bones.

sidewalks, dumpsters, fields for beds,
star-gaze drowsy thinkings, underfed

but overzealous of an openness we'd never seen, we'd never see again! the planet turning magical in unexpected
ways of wanderjest--
consummate rest of freedom undenied, joyful celebrants of every day!

the strangers sudden friends stop
to gather in the journey up 'til then--
tales of kindness or of danger
sharing in some facet part

integral, shining, random and forgot--
we each diverge in thanks
or so it's been with me
despite mass fear of ****** sprees
we help each other's spirit's free

some begin and end with sore feet soothed,
the destination moved;
others with a steath-pipe harshly clean:
ember throat-smack numbs the breath
and giddy paranoia settles in
as 'the white house' sailing by perverse
-ly urban planning plotted bums who smile missing ob
-ligatory chili dogs in crowded bl
-are full to frighten morning parking lot we pitched
our tent and woke to soaking feet and sleeping bags submerged in runoff corner-lake

another time we simply waited at a truck stop,
piles of the rigs just running ready there
and one for us, he said he'd bring us north,
and more, he told us of his brothels,
his debt-collecting days, the cokehead legs he shot
for honesty, he said, and sang us poems (he wrote)
of foreign women loved, some with pictures,
pickled eggs and cooler-hotdogs stale,
my first menthol cigarette: inhale and fall
into an understanding outlaws have
of skipping all the weigh-stations, of
friendship gleaned by chance, ephemerality
in strength of truth to last:
he took our picture on the exit ramp,
gave us hugs and left us waiting there,
more than just an ex-**** trucker,
hired gun for pushing coke, but a human
sentimental in a context undefined
like justice in the sense of kindness to rewind

the rain... a joyful merciless accord
of being in the storm of open-ended
waywards torn in being home and on the road
life untenable in farther reaches worn of ages never understood

but standing in a trailer whipped with highway gusts of water-gratitude
though slipping in the bouncing hay and horse manure fertileness
we joke eternal swinging backpacks soaked and knocking spin on balance play

meeting lovers simply known as such
for nights or only one, talking into dawn
at random campus dormroom sheltering
when sober, high, tempted into impulse act
afraid or pleasant easy unknown facts
just passing by she offered for the night
his first intoxicant beyond the ***
surrounded puffing passing groaning
in the rooms above below i'm listening
smirking at the undeserving joy i swallow in her eager kiss
to throb the floating line of destiny in endless acts of freedom's light

though a ride can be a head-ache too...
piled beer cans on the floor,
clanking with each swerving,
the driver even stopping for a ****,
thankful? to be riding, not walking,
but observing when we're there, the ground, this time, i bend to kiss

Sam was the most generous:
he brought me to his home, his father took me sailing, swimming with the family
serving food on lakehouse dock and later
reading with the kids, dinner bonding
then such sleeping    deep    peace
and in the morning, after breakfast
on my way with lunchbag tastes of kindness never lost

there are many more
tucked away in word-gifts, also
blueberries to pick along the roadside, more
than i'd ever seen or thought to see
cows to sleep by, horses randy for an audience to claim the pasture for

the offer is a type of gift you question to refuse,
not to lose your wits
some are quiet, kind,
most are liberal in ways they couldn't ever elsewhere be:
snapshot saints in momentary boons of spontaneity and love.
some cross lines.
so, grateful i'm ok, but never worried otherwise. i run the 'risk' it's called,
and run it still: i ask the random for assistance,
in upturned eyes discern the weather
as in ancient times the host and guest stood cultural across
in making kin of unnamed walking in,
gifting company for company along the way
trusting always in the limned choices traveled, with a existential grin
Tehreem Aug 2016
Sinister fluid of words
You pour drop by drop
Oh my darling!
The poison I seek
I drink to live
Sips of temptation
Lure me to you
Wine of madness
From the chalice
Of your sparkly lips
Oh benevolent Devil! Your Juliet is insane.
She is living you.
Lunar Luvnotes Mar 2016
The beaten path is hardest to go alone but it makes one stronger. One never wants to admit to oneself that misery is the predecessor to change, ushering it like the pilot ushers the plane down upon the runway.  This is a new destination you'd never have known. That is why we go up and then down, otherwise you wouldn't care for clouds. They'd be like stop signs posted on every street of every town you can't escape from. Don't you think whales like to take a dip in our atmosphere with the same exhilaration we dive down into their ocean? Marine life has it's trials, it all seems so buoyant and peacful, but its another jungle down there. Beautiful until you live it and predators lurk every corner and algae field. Everyone eating the next guy, if its your residence, it is no vacation. Its not so simple just cuz they've not got rent to pay and corrupt politics. Babies on the way while no financial burden make most species crazy. Try being a single mother just trying to keep your kids well enough hidden just to go off to find good eats for them. They have very emotional lives out there, full of pain and suffering. If whales could get drunk, mermaids would charge and set up breweries. But the ocean would dilute any profits, and two tons of blubber each would call demand too high and so whales throw themselves into our world just to escape. They could gulp the air so low key, surfacing like submarines, instead they splash mountains with their ferve, the same way we get down, tossing cares across dance floors. And we wonder why when  they take a breath, they reach for the sky, they just want to be free, where nothing of their world can touch them. And we wonder why when it's not enough, they just give up, just like us. Massive escapists desensitizing to the joys in the depths of their waters. We wonder why we find them so sad layed up on our beaches, you see it in their despondent eye. They just want to die in that memory of exhiliration. One. Last. Time. But they're not happy. Cuz they were always chasing a high that fleetingly springed them from all worry. They lay knowing its the last time and they wonder what's gonna become of them when its all over. They just figure what lays on the otherside, or even nothing has got to be better. Maybe they're right,  or maybe all the off kilter chemicals got the better of them. Full moons got them all emotional just like us, gravity pulling all their painful memories to the surface, pulling them up out of the ocean all hopeless. Shoot maybe some of them dont even mean it, they were just so tired of the krill or baby seal murda life, or sharks poaching their babies and needed longer and longer til oneday they got too sleepy and the tide snuck down too low. Like when I pass out in the shower when it's hot enough, I swear I was about to get out..then, ****. Maybe that's why they're so ******* sad. They didn't mean for it to be over, they just got caught up in that feeling. I bet the old ones though go on purpose, just to spite the sharks that took their babies out they'd rather rot in the sea breeze they loved. Or maybe they're so depressed at the loss of their child they just want it to be over. They carry their babies in their bellies just like us, I bet they get depressed like us or the smarter dogs. Being a whale, or any sober creature can be very hard, but at least if you're not running from it, you might see through the storm for the beauty of its strength, releasing fear to just stand in awe of it. You can learn to cope with pain in at least better measure to sprinting in laps, without intention, you're just on the track, even if its as vast as the pacific, adriatic, atlantic, doesnt matter all the waters you cross, they all just ran back into themselves. See, the whale can only cope, no emotional escape route, so no matter what comes, whale is miles wiser. Their calls sound a little sad but so hauntingly beautiful. Do not beach yourself humans, in your little ways everyday. Stop feeding this disbelief in yourself. You were given this brain to choose to overcome this pain, to communicate in new ways. If you get tired of something just cuz you're used to it, you've done fell off your rock, you slipped to drown in your own riptide, to get pummeled to death. Or as my Papa woulda said, you're not playing with a full deck. You drown in intoxicant, whatever your vice, liquor, uppers, downers, shopping, food, flirting, ******* to numb life's beating. You're running from sobriety, from reality, from those people you don't love anymore cuz they can't jive with your illusions. You'll look for every reason why your psyches not the problem. If you'd not only accept but seek the need to heal,  you wouldn't need constant change of scenery just to feel something, to feel snippets of sanity, mini vacations from your daily miseries. New people, places and substances are just so exhilarating, cuz you can't handle yourself. If you could, each listed above would be blessings of oneness, not necessity. Running is only blocking your life from mattering as much as it should. You squander potential wandering in circles inside yourself. I smoked **** habitually since I was twelve, it didn't really hurt me right, just my dump trucked loads of brain cells? Wrong! Sobriety is the hardest but most rewarding excursion so far. I delight everyday in the opportunities I can receive just cuz I can think so clearly. I have an occasional shot or glass of wine with coworkers and think God I feel good. Then go home and think and plot, how can I attain that joy without consuming a dollar, compromising my body?  How can I be so at home in my skin that I don't need that just to feel like this?  I'll let you know if I ever figure it out. It's the big ******* mystery, isn't it. I THINK my point is,  we would never know what's so good to be cherished if we always had it made. They call it a beautiful struggle, and i really think they're onto God with that one. Wherever your feet lay, next time you look down at them in dismay, remember your pain is the best teacher you never had to pay.  It makes you great, it makes you an epic ******* trilogy of the past present and future.  You'll get through this day, I promise you. Whatever it proves to be to you, I pray oneday you hold the kingdom. Oneday you'll praise yourself for holding on. Oneday you'll stop running. You'll just wake up and feel at home inside yourself how the wise whale makes peace with the ocean. Tempering the binges to the surface. As above so below. You just have to find the thrill within the hand you're dealt and make yourself better for it.
When Katie gets drunk, she dances and rants about nature. This whole scenario got real complex real quick. I just picture the whale telling the other whale,  yea man I don't surface like that,  I don't hit it hard like I used to. It just doesn't do it for me anymore, I've just learned it's not worth it. Sorry i speak in circles I clearly need to learn the art of editing. But that seems daunting so fuuuuck it. To everyone in pain,  if u ever wanna talk I'm not gonna lie I **** at keeping in touch but say hi and I'll say hi and I'll remember at least to pray for u
Erin Suurkoivu Sep 2016
The honey in the lion sounds like a delicious thing––
a gentle balm capable of subduing
the cruellest of monsters.

According to the stars and tattooed,
you fancied yourself king of the jungle––
lazy in hot African afternoons.

Golden and tawn with sleepy sun-gold eyes,
shaggy mane, muzzle red with
the blood of a gazelle.

Did you think me such easy prey?
Or was I so much fermented honey,
only a sweet intoxicant.

Sun warmth seeps from jungles of cold concrete.
I mistook your gargoyle wings
for those of a guardian angel’s.

I overlooked your rough skin, your
crooked hawk nose and your skinny ribs,
and assigned fine things in you that didn’t exist.

So duped, I acquiesced to your slimy kiss.
Your mouth a neglected cemetery,
teeth a row of mossy tombstones.

Vampire. Incubus. Your seduction like grotesque death.
You named me tempest in a teacup,
but I was the eye of the storm.

Until the night the eye was eradicated,
and the storm blew in,
striking me dumb with your sound and fury.

But no spattered blood and no spreading bruise
to be found in the pattern of the kaleidoscope.
No cause for alarm.

Today I am lost in a picture show,
a beautiful world coloured by nostalgic past.
Women’s lips the vivid red print of a velvet valentine.

Head in the Clouds, I fantasize about a certain scene.
Because you think violence is ****––
retaliation – ******* in my dream.

Give me an eye for my eye,
for all the eyes you plucked, from women and breadwinners.
Give me blood running down your back, sweet as honey.
The Honey in the Lion, available on Amazon.
K Balachandran Jul 2013
A forest adventure-we didn't plan it that way at all,
the call of the wild prompted us, is all I can now guess
hand in hand in to the woods we ventured like two possessed,
magical, it felt, we soon disappeared, from the eyes of curious intruders.

erogenous scent of damp earth, after the first sprinkling of monsoon clouds,
pepped up our interest in hunting mushrooms
popping up everywhere, like fragments of white clouds descended,
we pulled out, egg shaped mushrooms that came in to our view
the frenzy we fell in to,  possessed us in total,
after all we we are also young and hot blooded,

We competed like hounds in hot pursuit,
ran, collided with each other, fell down,
with a gentle thud, upon each other.
She did lay flat, face down on my chest,
I smelt,musk on her neck a slow intoxicant
and mushrooms hidden in her both armpits,
which I pursued and found out,we were getting hot,
in pursuit of each other's secrets.
the world, we had forgotten completely for long!!

We didn't see evening light melt and
darkness spread stealthily over the woods
that engages the robust body of the night,
from the rendezvous, of these secret lovers,
we sneaked out and saw lighted torches,
approach us from all four directions.

they zeroed in on us,"Who goes there?"
a harsh voice asked,
"This, do you know, is the holy grove,
of mother goddess, strictly  watched
for not to be get desecrated
by people who seek some sort of adventure,
such an act never goes unpunished,
we'll search you and find what you did"

We held out mushrooms before them,
and I saw each face turning  a lotus!
"where did you get this,? Oh! so much!,
Those are so rare and any one is able to pluck it,
only if mother goddess is pleased"

And then we realized this,
in that forbidden sacred wood,
between us a miracle has happened!
that pleased the mother goddess
of the woods,  the blessed presence,
aren't we then  the chosen ones?







,
Braxton Reid Oct 2015
Transfixed
A burning soul in the pale
A goal that howls
A voice saying don't fail

Intoxicated
By the flame inside
By my obsession
By my *
desire
D A W N Jun 2019
i kissed you
and the faint taste of alcohol
lingered
on the tip of your tongue
it reminded me
of when we
danced
recklessly
endlessly
breathlessly
under the influence
of liquor.
of such a vile that is
strong and bitter
that matches my soul  
nobody could handle except me.
but when i devoured your lips,
soft and mild
bittersweet like
champagne mixed with strawberries
under a starry night
i
savored
every moment.
never have i ever
seized
something
that could be addictive
and destructive at the
same time.
with lust and liquor
stirred on the same glass
there's bound to be some trouble
and i admired your bravery.
i watched "pretty woman" for the 3rd time this week n im adding it to my list of fav movies. the champagne scene inspired me to write this :))
K Balachandran Sep 2012
Splashed fine red wine,
I can't do without tasting;
the blush on your cheeks-all of it!
MANY ingenious lovely things are gone
That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,
protected from the circle of the moon
That pitches common things about.  There stood
Amid the ornamental bronze and stone
An ancient image made of olive wood --
And gone are phidias' famous ivories
And all the golden grasshoppers and bees.
We too had many pretty toys when young:
A law indifferent to blame or praise,
To bribe or threat; habits that made old wrong
Melt down, as it were wax in the sun's rays;
Public opinion ripening for so long
We thought it would outlive all future days.
O what fine thought we had because we thought
That the worst rogues and rascals had died out.
All teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned,
And a great army but a showy thing;
What matter that no cannon had been turned
Into a ploughshare? Parliament and king
Thought that unless a little powder burned
The trumpeters might burst with trumpeting
And yet it lack all glory; and perchance
The guardsmen's drowsy chargers would not prance.
Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare
Rides upon sleep:  a drunken soldiery
Can leave the mother, murdered at her door,
To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free;
The night can sweat with terror as before
We pieced our thoughts into philosophy,
And planned to bring the world under a rule,
Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.
He who can read the signs nor sink unmanned
Into the half-deceit of some intoxicant
From shallow wits; who knows no work can stand,
Whether health, wealth or peace of mind were spent
On master-work of intellect or hand,
No honour leave its mighty monument,
Has but one comfort left:  all triumph would
But break upon his ghostly solitude.
But is there any comfort to be found?
Man is in love and loves what vanishes,
What more is there to say? That country round
None dared admit, if Such a thought were his,
Incendiary or bigot could be found
To burn that stump on the Acropolis,
Or break in bits the famous ivories
Or traffic in the grasshoppers or bees.
When Loie Fuller's Chinese dancers enwound
A shining web, a floating ribbon of cloth,
It seemed that a dragon of air
Had fallen among dancers, had whirled them round
Or hurried them off on its own furious path;
So the platonic Year
Whirls out new right and wrong,
Whirls in the old instead;
All men are dancers and their tread
Goes to the barbarous clangour of a gong.
III
Some moralist or mythological poet
Compares the solitary soul to a swan;
I am satisfied with that,
Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it,
Before that brief gleam of its life be gone,
An image of its state;
The wings half spread for flight,
The breast ****** out in pride
Whether to play, or to ride
Those winds that clamour of approaching night.
A man in his own secret meditation
Is lost amid the labyrinth that he has made
In art or politics;
Some platonist affirms that in the station
Where we should cast off body and trade
The ancient habit sticks,
And that if our works could
But vanish with our breath
That were a lucky death,
For triumph can but mar our solitude.
The swan has leaped into the desolate heaven:
That image can bring wildness, bring a rage
To end all things, to end
What my laborious life imagined, even
The half-imagined, the half-written page;
O but we dreamed to mend
Whatever mischief seemed
To afflict mankind, but now
That winds of winter blow
Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.
We, who seven yeats ago
Talked of honour and of truth,
Shriek with pleasure if we show
The weasel's twist, the weasel's tooth.
Come let us mock at the great
That had such burdens on the mind
And toiled so hard and late
To leave some monument behind,
Nor thought of the levelling wind.
Come let us mock at the wise;
With all those calendars whereon
They fixed old aching eyes,
They never saw how seasons run,
And now but gape at the sun.
Come let us mock at the good
That fancied goodness might be gay,
And sick of solitude
Might proclaim a holiday:
Wind shrieked -- and where are they?
Mock mockers after that
That would not lift a hand maybe
To help good, wise or great
To bar that foul storm out, for we
Traffic in mockery.
Violence upon the roads:  violence of horses;
Some few have handsome riders, are garlanded
On delicate sensitive ear or tossing mane,
But wearied running round and round in their courses
All break and vanish, and evil gathers head:
Herodias' daughters have returned again,
A sudden blast of dusty wind and after
Thunder of feet, tumult of images,
Their purpose in the labyrinth of the wind;
And should some crazy hand dare touch a daughter
All turn with amorous cries, or angry cries,
According to the wind, for all are blind.
But now wind drops, dust settles; thereupon
There lurches past, his great eyes without thought
Under the shadow of stupid straw-pale locks,
That insolent fiend Robert Artisson
To whom the love-lorn Lady Kyteler brought
Bronzed peacock feathers, red combs of her *****.
K Balachandran Jul 2012
If I had an apple
i would have eaten it with her,
sitting close by,
looking eye to eye,
under the umbrella shade
of a tree, near a corn field,
with the view of a lone hill,
at the far, far end.

An ****** experience
it would have been for us,
turned on by her eyes
a bite I would take from the apple,
then, it's her turn
as soon as she does that
I would ****** it from her, once again,
tasting her saliva on it
would electrify my tongue,
and evoke distant animal past.

Green corns sway desirous
in the playful naughtiness of the wind,
slowly proximity works, as the worst intoxicant.
By and by nature's prompt,
gets in to our blood streams.

She would get bold, sensing
that lonely spot's intent,
slowly remove her jacket first
then one by one, the rest,
standing before me naked,
sensuality  personified.

I am an illogically crazy wind,
swooping, over the water: her.
I'd repeatedly blow over her,
till she uncontrollably erupts


she has eaten from my apple,
I've tasted hers;
without deceit or evil, we indulge,
and partake the gifts we within hold.
natalie Jun 2014
Your bedroom is a carefully preserved time capsule,
a tribute to a fondly remembered time long past.
Though I have visited this small square room less than
feels right since our once tight-knit group dissolved, it is
kept as pristine as a display about a foregone era in a dark
and cluttered museum.  The walls still stand wearily in that
same stubborn shade between periwinkle and robin's egg,
the only difference is one unfamiliar poster-the rest have
hung steadfast in the same positions since you moved into this
bedroom from the one next door many years prior.  In the
corner across from your bed, rests the desk you have
used to hold some of your most valued items for as long as
we have traversed the undulating cycle between friendship
and acquaintanceship, including the now-empty terrarium that
bravely contained a wooly tarantula.  Your closet, still noticeably
bare, informs me, through a smattering of neon yellow t-shirts,
that you are still employed for the same landscaper. As we pass a
meticulously re-rolled cigar between us, two old and distant
friends, my vision drifts towards the dresser under the plain
windows, which overlook your claustrophobic backyard.  It is,
surely, an Ikea affair, for though it has the coloring of mahogany,
the wood has the unmistakable sheen of faux; but what compels me
to gaze at this dresser is not its questionable quality but the years
of graffiti scrawled across its drawers and walls in the sort of thick
black marker that might give one lightheadedness if uncapped for
too long.  I realize, suddenly, that this dresser is our monolith.

I express to you my incredulity that you have kept this dresser,
of all things, for so long, as a wry grin splits my mouth in halves.
Too many memories, you say, a melancholy tone suddenly echoing
through the small bedroom.  My grin fades, and I look closely,
recalling in a bright flash a multitude of intoxicant-fueled evenings-
you were always in that black pleather computer chair, while
always I sat on the bed, squished between or beside the
on-again-off-again couple.  The exact words inscribed upon this
Ikea monolith, I realize, are no longer of importance, for they
are largely insensitive, pejorative, and crude.  These words are
the spirit of a fading adolescence wasted in suburban bedrooms
and backyards, or in city basements and roofs, spawned by
countless cases of the cheapest beers available, by handles of
off-brand *****, by bags of substances in every shape and
size imaginable.  I am staring at a proclamation of a girl's
promiscuity on this very monolith when you exclaim that you
would give anything to have a time machine, to go back to those
days, that they were the happiest days of your life.  Though
outwardly I smile and offer a noncommittal expression of
sentimentality, inwardly I frown, struck by a wave of pity.  

Halfway between twenty and thirty, I am no longer the shy,
hasty, or withdrawn teenager who spent hours cooped up in
a stagnant bedroom, ****** and bored. I can suddenly perceive
exactly how little you, my old friend, have changed, and I am
ashamed of my inability to say so.  But that couple imploded
years ago in a neon display, temporarily destroying all that
surrounded them; all of the satellites that orbited our group
have moved out of our gravitational field, some going off
to college, some getting good jobs, some moving to big
cities, some starting bands.  Graduations or birthdays
might bring us together for a few hours of drunken
reminiscence, we all know, somewhere, that we have
grown apart, while you hide in this bedroom,
a lonely hermit.

This room is not a time capsule;
it is a tomb, and the Ikea monolith might as well be your
headstone.
Pagan Paul Nov 2017
.
He lays in peaceful repose upon a sheet of satin,
she moves up to his body and curls into him,
placing her head upon his unmoving chest,
unconditional grief shown in mute sadness.
She recalls his voice filled with love and affection,
his familiar scent now gone, cold and musty,
as deaths sweet perfume hangs heavy
like a drape of choking intoxicant trance.
Moments stretch blandly into minutes of ache,
the minutes career into hours of silent vigil.
And with her head upon his unmoving chest
she exhales and whimpers her final sigh,
a last breath and she submissively slips away.
Hoping, perchance, once more to hear
her masters voice.



© Pagan Paul (25/11/17)
.
Gabrielle Magana Apr 2014
They say falling in love is not easy, but all it takes is a shot glass glance, and no sooner than later you’ll look at her profile in the dim light, and you’re in love.

Everything then becomes crimsoned, not because you are in a pub,
but rather because it is the shade of passion,
love.
And no sooner than now, you are dreaming of throwing your hands beneath her dress,
and thinking of mouthing, “I love you” from your eyes, to hers.

But no, she does not walk up to you, and you feel that the stereotypical misconception of a woman never making the first move, is true.

This is a man’s work, you tell yourself, dubiously forgetting what too lies between your legs, is nothing that of a man.

You’re intoxicant now, perhaps from the four Pabsts you've downed because you’re cheap and cool,
and you are incoherently waltzing
on over to her, and of course she smiles,
either because you look like an idiot,
or because she is charmed.

You cup your hands on her face.
The skin is soft, she says nothing,
but feels warm.

This is not love. You’re just drunk.
I wish I was who you think of, when drunk.
CH Gorrie Sep 2012
Starlit nights bring a sense of tininess.
The vast soot-stained cloak of the sky,
pierced with so many tiny scintillating
spots of vim opalescent flares, is a heavy
intoxicant. It contains a thing most panache.
A girlish teetotaler beside me says,
"We're like those stars, distantly inflamed,
lost in a void of what we cannot know."

She is most apt in her contrivance.
I wish to be castellated, terraced
with Byzantine buttresses and towers-tops.
I want a portcullis for my portico that is
made mostly out of gold, an inner bailey
where the stars can sleep and the wine may flow.
I want the wine most metaphysical,
the type that flows and churns, perning
inside the inner sanctum of the mind.
JM Romig Nov 2021
A moderately sized planet,
afloat in a distant spiral galaxy
orbiting an unremarkable star,
has taken the Tardigrazian nations by storm.
For thousands of their star cycles,
they have been capturing the imaginations
of countless people watching from their pods
both Planetside and Satellite alike,
brought together by the light
of the Blue Bead –

The little exoplanet and that defied all reason
and persisted at all cost,
despite itself,
possibly to spite itself.
Millions of lightyears away from our humble empire.

This tiny little dot
and the two-legged folk walking upon it
became something of a cultural phenomenon.
We have become the cheerleaders
for a people likely long passed.
We used to believe they might outlive their star
Go on to visit other planets -
meet their neighbors, like we did.

But recent transmissions from our probes
spell a tragic end on the horizon
for our distant friends,
whom we’ve seen climb down from trees,
invent tools, and writing, and cities, and more
but they never stopped at a reasonable spot.

No amount self-inflicted suffering
they brought in the name
of that momentum would stop them.
Progress, and the comfort that comes with it,
being not unlike an intoxicant for these people.
Addicts will always justify the means.

Their world has rapidly grown warmer
in the time we’ve been observing them.
Soon it will be outside the narrow window
in which they can reasonably survive.

We watched, screaming at our screens,
"The fuel - it’s the fuel causing the rise!!"
They’d gone this long, burning the dead
and expected no consequence.
It's not their fault they’re so short-sighted
It's how they evolved.
A mere hundred years or so,
that’s the lifetime of these feeble creatures
Hardly enough to gain wisdom,
let alone pass it down.

Nevertheless, they lived, they loved,
and they thrived.
Surpassing even the most generous
of our expectations.
Against all odds, they learned, and they grew.
Eventually, we did see the brightest of them
realize their jeopardy and speak the truth.
Just in time, they would unite as they did
so many times before
…or so we thought.

Instead, they fought more.
Even on the edge of extinction,
they dig their trenches,
and they pick their sides.
The great imaginations
that helped them build the world
now affixing them in rigid fictions
of their own making
Unable to see beyond
these preconceived limitations.

It feels, now more than ever,
as though we’re seeing the
final seasons of the Blue Bead.
The fall of a beloved people.
Who will never know
the billions of lives they’ve touched
in the brief time we’ve gotten
to share with them.

But then, they have surprised us
countless times before.
Perhaps they will again.
Wk kortas Mar 2021
The first leg of our troika was removed easily enough;

Courage is a mercurial thing, waxing and waning

As frequently as the tides--or, perhaps more accurately,

It is like the doomed cell hosting a virus,

Left a barren husk of its former self once the germ

Has gone about its business and moved on.

In any case, he has happily cast off the burden of leadership

So often and unwisely fixed upon our martial heroes,

Content to appear at parades and other events of state,

Answering the roar of the mob in an almost authentic manner

(Though just barely perceptibly less so each year),

Living testament to the notion

That it is easier to be lionized than to live as the lion.




I had convinced myself that a two-headed regime

Would be perfectly workable,

That I could be the yin to the yang

Of my erstwhile alloy colleague

(The intoxicant of power

So dulling my senses that I could believe such nonsense),

The contemplative man of thought acting as a counterweight

To the fiery man of action, the man of the blade.

I had somehow presupposed

(Such was the vastness of my delusion)

That my old brother-in-arms would defer

To the appeal of painstaking analysis and meticulous planning;

It was if I had forgotten that, provided with the genie-like largesse

Of the acquisition of anything he desired, he’d asked for a heart,

As if there wasn’t enough sturm und drang taking place

In that miniature steam boiler of a chest!

While I had buried myself in charts and task-force reports,

He had enmeshed himself in consolidating power.

When his yeomen, huge-hatted and well-armed

Came to my suite of offices to place me under arrest,

I was, at my core, not particularly surprised.




To parrot the line of so many of those who have shared a fate

Much worse than my own,

I am well treated by my caretakers-***-captors;

My living quarters are comfortable enough,

And I can read, write, and research at my leisure,

Provided I don’t attempt to transmit any of it

To the outside world. 

Beyond the boundaries of this small compound,

I am a non-person; neither my name nor image

Has appeared in the pages of the Daily Ozmapolitan

For several years now, and it is whispered

(With the full knowledge and abetment of the current elite)

That I am, in fact, gravely ill if not dead.

I could, I suppose, rage against my confinement,

Shout my grievances and pronouncements against autocracy

To the heavens, but my cottage and the outbuildings

Lie in a thickly forested place, and it has not escaped my notice

That all of these structures are built entirely from wood.

No matter, then; I am the victim, first and last,

Of my own foolishness, my own inability

To resist the nectar of power, the ambrosia of command.

I, of all people, believing the road could run both ways!
watch gray inking night
turn to amber
like a special ink upon
some mysterious blotting paper
and the same state as previous
of profound emotional turmoil
thunders within my heart
what cause is this
that has so overwhelmed me
what sorcery is it that binds me to tears
that blink through wet stained eyelashes
and wash upon my face in tumbling droplets
form a recreation of heightened moments
of my consciousness the weightlessness of inner thought
It makes me know the winds speech
realise the attempted elimination of identity
and I try desperately to hide
from the gargoyles that now stalk me through the streets
and smell their black breath hanging in the air
like some kind of numbing intoxicant mist
and I try to resolve the enigma that is the core of my being
that which contains the esoteric voice of the wind
in rapacious resoundements of remembrance
that cannot be recalled to mind
lara May 2018
what a pity

spent the last few years idling in a thin sense of self;
amid outstretched pores looking to photosynthesize more eccentric disposition
even though i know you know my woes consecrate through the spirit, through the veins
what i have shown you is thicker than blood–better count your blessings

so HA! neglect wont erase the ways ive molded your mind
its a gift, to
ditch reason for compassion
to breathe vanity
to breathe immortal sorrow…

my most absurd suggestion yet, now listen closely:
when the tips of my fingers freeze over, let sleeping mountains lie
do hate, but dont devour it;
holy holy holy holy hold the past like a knife
apologies for my insincerity but you must understand…
****, what is left of me?

trembling and then the blade clutters aloof, to and fro and to
i cower from the vision of my wicked phantom,
skin stretched tight over my bones–yet do what He says, for
He makes ruin a honey-like intoxicant
omega three, anti-this anti-that, acronyms galore,
each a little dose of layers of
Him, unraveling atop my fragility
I stare at the sea
calm quiet gray
warn its apparent calm
its whisper
invades my mind
I perceive its smell
intoxicant

I feel the sea
I know the black
of its abyss
the fury of its wrath
the cry of its anger
I see the myriad colors of its soul
it slips inside me

I listen to the sea
it confides its mute secrets
to those who can feel it
ubiquitously divided
between the shadow and the light
empathetically
connected with the depth
and the surface

I envy the sea
strong decided transparent
selfishly
stretched himself
to its pleasure
Pied Piper
tormentor and muse
greedy and shameless

I stare at the sea
personification of life
illusive chimera
of fullness
unattainable
..... unattainable!
ERR Nov 2010
Life stories are the purest form of expression
They are your interpretation of your existence
Your lens; your skewed perspective of the world
No one can take your memories from you
You can only choose to share them
I choose to collect them
Recently I came across a hurting man
Howling about lost possessions, wrapped in material mourning
Thirty years of age half his life spent in a cage
He carried the marks of his imprisonment on his neck and torso
Symbolic scribbling coupled with raised traces of injury and survival
The beauty of his anecdotal being represented
He showed me a photograph, a gorgeous girl of nine
He fought for the privilege to make her acquaintance
Her face he wore on his heart, where she dwelled
“Daddy’s Little Girl”
For thirty brief years these eyes had seen much
A walking burden, society had no vacancy nor sympathy
Money made from paving, though once upon a time
This figure provided every intoxicant imaginable
We bonded over mutual encounters with death
He narrated a story where seven men made an attempt to end him
They beat him repeatedly, punished him publicly
Like Jesus
His arm broke cleanly from a bat, but the seven hadn’t finished
They ran a van straight for this man attempting paralysis
He moved at a critical moment
This driver he later met
Alone, metallic tool of death in hand and vengeance flaring
He returned the favor, blasted the knee of the newly handicapped
Half joking, I asked if he had ever been apprehended
Half joking, he replied no and searched me for a wire
Next, he shared another instance where he should have left us
Riding a motorcycle over a hundred miles per hour
Carelessly on a quiet stretch of road, headed for fateful arbor
He ejected himself; the new bike totaled his helmet scarred
His hand shattered and held by screws like mine
In his words I saw myself
Despite his fortune at enduring such a wreckage relatively unharmed
He lamented his survival at the expense of prized possession
This criminal on the brink with Italian flag in ink
One who never learned to appreciate
Small, thin, bald and distinguished by goatee
Upset over the misplacement of a baseball cap
He made my friend aware of her beauty, assured her he was unworthy
I shook his hand and promised never to forget
Here he lies immortalized
NuurSeraph Nov 2014
Such intense pleasure grows out of the Soul potted in phase shift Soil.
The Heavens watered her petals to bloom, flowers of everlasting peaceful serene.

I am drawn into calming bliss, basking in her intoxicant solution of fragrance ~ wafting in the wisp-ers of wind, rising my eyes to the heart of her mind.

*My humble Soul shudders ~
K Balachandran Nov 2013
Winter canters  from a distance, irresistible she is,
                                    I'd roll in my tranquil bed with her,
              then, her embraces would  become an intoxicant,
                    making me dive in to the lake  of stupor she creates
                                              for me to swim with her.
Daniel Kenneth Oct 2012
Its funny how blind a man could be
What love can do to our perception
Ruining our objectivity
Worse than any intoxicant ever could dream of
How we come to ignore all of the flaws
In the person we love
How we turn a blind eye
To their evil inside
Our judgement clouded
We think they are perfect
And so, to us
They become perfect
The embodiment of our highest values
The answer to our hearts highest prayers
Its funny what love can do
Because its almost always a lie
K Balachandran Feb 2012
Growing up in a farm
is rolling in sticky, soft, sensuous, mud
and imbibing
wisdom of nature
beyond words,
a preternatural ritual;
a farm has full of voices
heard and unheard
but mind has ears that record
and replay to one's soul,
i am still at a loss to explain
how it works,
it's another unuttered secret of life.

change in the  tune of rain,
cloud formation, wind speed
and flow of water;
each has distinct meaning
translated to changes in one's life.
more than counted as  rich or poor
plenty of things that make every moment,
enjoyable were the crux of happiness in the farm life.

plants grew whispering secrets
bore fruits and after a period,  died out,
in between one observes
waves that rise and fall
cycles of nature.
that's how, i suppose
i had a ripened sense
of complexities of life, fairly early,
it brought one pain too.

Growing up in a farmstead
is like playing an orchestra of many pieces, all alone
sitting in the lap of mother nature.

i never viewed my father as a  farmer
i saw him sitting on a chair reading Homer
or discussing Tolstoy or Shakespeare
as much as he cared for his crops,
he  really was a student of mother nature
farming was his way of life.
a magician who transformed,
complexities he observed in nature
in to practical possibilities.
"a true farmer is a versatile genius."
i remember those words,
he told us  in a voice of what seemed,
coming from the  elements of nature:
"we are all basically farmers, never forget
and above that human beings"

we grew up with cattle, chicken and farm animals
i was just a child, then, i thought i didn't fully get
what he meant, but later my dad's truth
slowly revealed itself to us,
unfolding through days and nights of our lives.

crop of rice fully ripened was a lovely sight
and the banana plantation, cornucopia
that made heart a peacock that sees dark clouds.
when pepper vines laden with red berries
turned black gold,
walking along the vegetable patches,
i felt what it was to be a farmer.
in  the attic, full of dry ginger bags , air was an intoxicant,
milking cows and grazing farm animals
taught a rare kinship with all life.

when poverty looked with deep set eyes
from fields and pathways to  farms
i understood the spirit of my father's words;
why one should be a human  first.
men and woman and malnourished children
working half naked in splashing, scorching sun,
reaped rice to the accompaniment of songs.
i too used to sing those songs,
and remembered those words
my father wanted us to remember;
i am a farmer,
a child of nature
but a human first
who feels the pain
of those who toil for a living.

O
I feel the black breath settle on my neck

A black sun communicates with me

There is an imaginative power at its source

It is like the purple stain on a drawn wine cork

My vision is occupied by it, it twinkles and crackles

I see a scent hang in the air, an anesthetising intoxicant

Numbing, cold, like watching gargoyles in the street

I know the winds speech it has an oneiric vocabulary

That drifts among the scarlet stained scent

Swirling through my crystallized thought

Causing a pristine vacillation in my mind

That echoes like a vacant cobalt night  

Disturbing the fundamental enigma

That is the centre of my being

I close my eyes
K Balachandran Mar 2014
Inside, the cave claimed them as hers,
a silence strangely suspicious of itself
holding back the urge to explode, whispered:
"Love at your age is dangerous, handle with care,
see its blade gleaming with desires
make sure, you don't hurt each other"

A wing moved, a swishing sound heard
they held breath for a moment,
felt the nostrils fill the strong stench
of droppings of colonies of bats.
But the love pair going higher on the rungs
found it nothing, but an olfactory diversion pleasant
a trigger to get closer, snuggle, deeply inhale
each other's many secret scents, little known before.

Outside the cave light prowled
like a jealous lover jilted by the beloved,
resenting darkness that dances with silence
inflaming  the atmosphere, dense in desire,
--a love intoxicant discovered by him and his girl,

Standing on tip toe, she rubbed her lips to his
match stick and matchbox spoke in tones of hiss
fire emits in maiden's first kiss, he remembered
what was said, on his way to a narcotic stupor
he forgot all the rest, the bats, liquid darkness
the trouble they had sneaking out of houses,
duping the thousand eyes of an Indian village,
in  vigil to keep a ******'s maidenhead intact.
Intoxicant madness,
Chaos in their eyes,
Breathing fire breath,
Burning all the lies

Intoxicant madness,
Fear is by their side,
Say hello to me, old friend,
I bet you've missed me, its been a long time

Watching from the corner,
pretending to belong in there,
But its ones like I that see,
through your wall of..

standing in the corner
believing you should be there,
but its the ones like  you that see,
through the wall

we know that you
derick gibbs Apr 2014
Http://www.Merriam-Webster.com/Dictionary/Quadriplegic
Quadriplegic: one affected with paralysis of both arms and both legs

Or... BEAST!

**When moonlight isn't enough to lubricate the darkest corners
of a hopeless heart...
When the air is heavy
and still
and a lonely heart is crying out
IMUPDREAMIN'
When another bottle won't do... or medicine cabinet remedies
Poetry is a righteous intoxicant
Love is still a filthy word lying around in the condition I'm in
Your lungs will get the best of you
The air is thin
Too noisy to breathe
There isn't enough oxygen in a pointless relationship
for a weak heart to respire;
I've got an incurable condition
on so many levels
Love's bubble boy
I may suffocate if exposed to what would be considered
a fair amount, or any joy whatsoever
Something about my cells. Consequently this is my cell in here;
I'm a prisoner in my thick skin
When moonlight is a memory
and the sun has risen for the good of a concrete rose...
When the air is toxic
and stings
and an infected heart is dying out
IMUPDREAMIN'
When I've burned through the bag ...
when I'd already reached my ceiling
I write poems about the feeling
reaching out to love again
Bubble be ******
PJ Poesy Mar 2016
Whistling through right ear, gusting through left
Echo cracks on augural bone; it pings
Cymbol's sound on gray matter case-hardened dings
But to detect life's ignorance, measuring oblivion's theft
Lift sums of intoxicant veils, that foggy heft

Pay no attention to whispers, as you would shouts
Know calmed speakers indicate truth
For shouters and whisperers be so uncouth
Those speaking plainly give evidence no doubt
For reality's validity needs repose to rule out

Guilty we are of attainment and forfeiture
Life lessons learned or not
And more composed freethought forgot
As always this burden lies on enterpreter
When judging please regard radius of curvature
LJW Sep 2015
Tobacco, the first intoxicant wrapping me in a gauze of sultry skip days,
Wine, beer, swimming pools with bikinis, suntans, tropicana oil,
Kansas heat on concrete. Lawrence, Ks, KU, art and black, red ochre conti crayons,

Life drawings of nudes on platforms, fat, poor,
glamorous models, how i wanted to be one of them
stripping myself in front of you all,
my young beautiful naked body
you'll never see that again.

Fresh grass and lemonade,
Volvos driving across our country
55mph...80 was faster.

One night stands
led to terror.

Hurting men forever.

Barns and Nobels stealing book
coffee was new
young at 25.

Walking the street in Kansas City,
Warwick street with it's three story walk up
trimmed colonial white
1995.

Tea, herbs, kale with sesame,
Health food shops on corners
young women of 23 starting their biz.
We could do it our own way back then.

Abortion, adoption, college graduation,
law school, med school, drop out,
write.
the greatest intoxicant known to man
does not come in the form of a substance
it is not alcohol, nor ******, nor *******
it cannot be smoked, or shot up
it costs nothing
and any man can attain it
it ruins more lives than all others combined
kills more, addicts more, slowly wastes more into despair
unstoppable, claiming more each day
the greatest drug is blind rage
against which no war can be won
so that man need not fear any drink, smoke, powder, or pill
simply the horror of their own anger
for man holds no greater addiction
than to his own intoxicating rage
Al-Farouk Mar 2017
Writing is a call to
Chosen few.
Writing is a choice to
Choosing oneself.
Writing is a monument
That discovers you.
Writing is an antique
Forever you preserve.
Writing is a cliché
That is never endless.
Writing is an intoxicant
That you always inject.
Writing is love
That you have to caress.
Writing is joy
That you earn I say.
Writing is death
That yourself you slay.
Writing is me
That me farouq I breath.
♡♡♡♡♡♡
Owen Phillips May 2013
Love's the base line
Let us be and what would we lack?
Love's no elixir nor intoxicant
Love's the pure undifferentiated state of joy
Love's where we go when we let go of ourselves
And we let go of our games and our desires
And our pasts and our futures and our fates and destinies
Love is tasting good food and chewing till it's paste and sitting back and smiling feeling it energize every cell
Loves hoping everybody wins the poetry slam
Because what good would it be to be in it for yourself
For one person
Against the universe?
None of us are opposed in love,
We are the unbroken chain
But every link is not connected to just
The link in front and the link behind
It is connected to every link at once
It is connected to every link ever forged with the blacksmith's love
The chain doesn't draw a line between us,
It wraps around us and ties us together
Oh love is all I knew before this poem
And love is the effortlessness of every word
Because only Nothing could be easier than love
And love is to BE nothing
Because who could resist such loving completion?
Nothing is the soul of the universe
And anything at all is Nothing but Love
Love is finishing my speech and sitting down because I'd rather hear yours
A voracious world indeed they say. And it will be all black, white or grey; but I wouldn't dare to dream a rainbow in one lifetime. How many are there anyway? In one life time? Three? Four?
Maybe a couple more if you have swallowed hundred galleon liters of freedom in one breath; and are on a roller coaster that goes chasing all the sunshine the only star can offer to shine.

One lifetime- how long is it really? Not long enough to imagine yourself as a majestic monolith, standing tall among the great Stone Age. Yet, this heart demands to dream, even if some dreams can be shady. There are still many people left in this world who have a desire for darkness to envelop them and show them how shattered pieces flow in the stream of blood and tears.


Oblivion serves as a savior to those who fear to know the secret, to swallow the truth. The truth is that all the days are consuming us. It is a lunatic who is eating up our seconds and whispering to the howling wind- 'it's time to go'. And sometimes, it stabs you with a frail cold voice; 'there is no time at all'. There is indeed a tragic flaw somewhere within the starlight and the constellations of stardust. For if it wasn't for time, life wouldn't be against us, it would be with us. Alas, we are just outnumbered with the help of passing days and seconds becomes our last breath, our last definition of living.


See, love isn't lascivious and neither is life. It stands on its own meaning, nothing more, and nothing less. Love is part of life and life gave itself to its contagious intoxicant and blended to become one. Thus, sometimes you wouldn't know how to differentiate from the greater good. Evil isn't it? You ask, 'Where the dark dreamscapes went to?' There are many that solely fathom darkness. There are souls who don't surround themselves with such secrets. They are familiar with death even though they are alive. They die while living. A malevolent disease some would say. It is truly not always about the angels.

Sometimes is about the survivors. The dreamers who are warriors; they shed blood within them and sell dreams in the corner of their bizarre mind. A short life and the survivors say- it still a good life my friend.
They fought those combats in the same battle each day, to the extent that the war itself became void. Then suddenly, they remember, the sky above- looks up and a pinch of star dust falls upon their eyes. Hope revealed itself and once again they believed in something. Something can be anything. It can be vague as these words or as mysterious as death. Nonetheless that was all they needed to bring back a meaning to a moment.

Conclusion; A life tucked into a bottle of stolen stars- usually named as days by those simply breathing. The living, the dead, the survivors, the warriors, the dreamers and the ones that despise life itself- they have one thing in common. They all believe that the stars hold a reason. A reason that tells them that there might be one more day. One more day to believe in all the constellations of secrets in this universe. One more day to dance with the fallen poetry that sings from one tree to another. One more day to be under the shadow of the branches and let the wind rearrange the twigs onto the bodies that is so afraid to live. The chances are that the rainbows will not shine on your death bed, not all the stars would remember your name and the trails you have left will remain hidden. But those who dared to breathe in pain and still believed in love, those will be remembered deeply if not widely. And that is one life for you- merely a constellation of days.
A poetic prose.

— The End —