"irradiated" poems
Brother, our young summers held us in a long chain like the phalanx of bronzed soldiers forward flung,
And the lion was skinned and hung out to dry like the sunned-fur of the beach at Marathon.
Brother, help me to dream again.
Brother, our yellowed days shook us like serried Hoplites of an atomic age,
Shoulder to shoulder, friction rubbed, all ranks split from the fissioned-flanks.
Brother, help me to dream again.
Storm-footed Titans of heat, dust, and irradiated wind pry from a ruptured Tartarus,
The flanks are an open pulse; the scorch-song thirsts for its sea-cooling to stone.
Brother, the lion lives that wears your skull around its mane.
Brother, dream of me again, of Persian arrows and lances,
And my fallen eyes instead of yours pouring in
With a sea of lavender water and mists
And summers of once-were.
Jun 8, 2019
Jun 8, 2019 at 8:59 PM UTC
Gunboats ahoy there’s pirates about
Speeding from Somali’s shore,
A fast flimsy boat and some black skinny men
With grenade launchers, cannon and more.
They’re coming to capture the tankers
They’re coming to capture the crew
They’re coming to take you hostage
Because fat cats will pay cash for you.
It’s happening more every day now
Ships are held to ransom for gold,
This contagion is out of hand now
The Somalian pirates are becoming so bold.
Hard men in the west prepare crackdowns
Gunboats sail for the Gulf as we speak,
With instructions to shoot to **** now
And make eradication of pirates complete!
But you ask, why is this happening?
Why does a man, a pirate become?
What instigates this crazy morphosis
From fisherman to pirate with gun?
Somalia has no Government to speak of,
It collapsed and went long ago.
No law or army in place here,
Life is dangerous, chaotic and low.
Some fat cats made use of the vacuum
They ditched toxic waste in the sea
They irradiated the coastline region
Making this a poisoned place to be.
The coast folk were dying in thousands
Sick mothers lost babies and kids
Black illness spread madly in villages
Then blind panic and pain hit the skids.
Some fat cats made use of the vacuum
They trawled the coastline clean
Somalia’s fishermen were destitute
The catch went from vast to lean.
The villagers were starving and hopeless
And what was pain became death.
The leaders appealed for salvation
But those with the means, had turned deaf.
Who would take this problem on now?
Who would make these ******** pay?
Most turned around and shunned them,
The world had turned and looked away.
So hit transgressors where they’re vulnerable.
Strike in sea lanes where it’s free.
Hit them near the Horn of Africa.
Attack with blades of piracy.
Hooray for the small man’s justice.
Hooray for his skinny, black shanks,
Please God help their quest for deliverance
For the West has arrived with their tanks.
Now I ask you, in all fairness
To stand back and view the scene,
Where the richest and most powerful
are doing something that's obscene
For not only are they poisoning
The most vulnerable race on earth
But compounding it with genocide,
And I add, for what it's worth,
The West, in righteous arrogance,
are crushing poorest fellow man
In his struggle for survival
Against their mammoth, global hand.
Marshalg
@theGate
Mangere Bridge
25 April 2009
Jan 19, 2010
Jan 19, 2010 at 7:33 PM UTC
I
Whispering winds whip the lake's eastern shore.
The towers above stand still,
gazing upon the infinite individuals below,
within the concrete maze; this city speaks to me.
It utters thousand of voices simultaneously.
Some unfamiliar to me,
all keep the labyrinth in mind.
Each voice different,
each voice similar in its journey
to conquer the labyrinth.
I too share the same goal,
but in the labyrinth, most don't know what I know.
II
The river twines around towers
creating the famous "loop."
The river's end irradiated for man,
until we flipped the flow in
labyrinth's past to avert windy shores.
The once river's end, now a beginning.
The labyrinth's bourgeois lie due north,
It's extravagance exemplified by magnificent miles
where whimsy wanderers flaunt status
and to the west and south,
an eternal siren's call resonates for all voices to listen;
urban decay haunts the once prosperous.
III
For only collectively can the labrinth be tamed
and imminent ends for those unworthy.
The lake, the river, its towers and people
shall never be neglected.
For only collectively can the labyrinth be tamed
and this labyrinth is all that I know;
this labyrinth is Chicago.
Apr 26, 2015
Apr 26, 2015 at 1:38 AM UTC
invisible isotopes
gently rain down
onto the chins
of infants
we whisk
them
away with
soft kisses
tiny
irradiated
dust flakes
float onto
boutonniereless
lapels
we brush them
off with fresh
carnations
Oak leaves
blown from
denuding limbs
by soft puffs of
radioactive
plumes
are shaken
from our
door mats
green grass
sprinkled with
Strontium 90
is mowed
and mixed
into our
compost piles
the pristine
waters
of March
are laced with
uranium
tainted
iodine
it coolly
slakes
our
piqued
thirst
the rouge rose
gilded with
a golden plush
of soft plutonium
is plucked
to adorn late
evening
dinner tables
and exchanged
by sweethearts
as amorous
gestures
of resignation
between
condemned
lovers
Oakland
3/28/11
jbm
Nov 5, 2011
Nov 5, 2011 at 9:27 PM UTC
tastes like v8 on a good day
today it tasted like a kiss from a goddess whose entire essence irradiated mango
needless to say
I was thirsty
May 15, 2015
May 15, 2015 at 11:47 PM UTC
perfunctory actions
zombie habits
sheep normalcy
blindly following the cud chewers
lemmings fall to their deaths
slowly
genetically engineered crops
dusted with pharmaceutical poison
laced with irradiated petroleum pesticides
fed to the babies of the poor –
wealthy voyeurs eagerly tune-in
as the impoverished masses rot
for viewing pleasure
leisurely strolling across manicured lawns
those in power scoff at the growing spectacle
unaware that the cake is stale
and the masses smell blood –
hurriedly, accountants shuffle tax rates
mix those with interest credit
season it with mortgage fees
and serve it on wall street
place mats
taking stock of stock market gains
gamblers do double gainers off high rises
adding to the flesh being consumed by the under class
under classed –
underclassmen, underpaid, stretch under ware elastic
as waistlines expand with the debt ceiling
both symbolizing the slow decline of
the American dream
screaming into the sewer
fewer eyes look back as disease dulls the iris
loss of the inner shine
glowing reflection of living organisms
fading as the day
slips into the blue-black –
night falls on a nation of imbeciles
brain dead patients
broken by depression and weight-loss scams
hearts crying out for care
personal and compassionate
instead are met with sterile robotics
and sanitary “C” students dressed in white
fearful of lawsuits
and spiders
they prescribe to symptoms
without knowing insurance number 87319A23-S1
is a human being, just like them
also living in fear
of the same establishment –
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 1:33 PM UTC
I sit holding my aching head in calloused hands
experiencing ‘forlorn’
a worn soul aged beyond the calendar
dreary eyes look upon the state of humanity
irradiated babies trading rabies with deviants
live on pay per view
seeing the shape of famous faces
manipulated flesh blankly posed
only desperate oculars show the truth
darting frantically form mirror to mirror
attempting to validate existence through reflection
but not like the monks in Tibet
regret fills bent cheekbones
spackled with Botox and raspberry jam
thinning peak aligns with the occasional grey strand
and I sit wishing only to see people love themselves
Mar 7, 2014
Mar 7, 2014 at 2:53 PM UTC
The Pill
Called up big Pharma,
Sad and depressed,
I told them straight out:
Dudes, I need a new karma.
*NO problem they cheerfully replied,
(later I wondered, which pill they were on)
We custom make, haute couture, drug-design,
Mood enhancers, in little canisters,
You need only supply the cash and the system vascular!
Your soul's desire?
To be a better wilder, rambler,
Or a life calmer, better anchored?*
I know what I want, exactly,
A pill that removes
Specific words
From the frontal lobe temple
Verbal storage center.
*NO problem! (so cheery it was kinda scary)
Which words would you like to have
Exorcised, annihilated, irradiated, confiscated?*
I list from below, from side to side,
Let not one be denied,
Bury them all in nether-lands,
Swamp them under mountains of
Granite and sand,
Banish them from my lexicon.
How much do you charge?
But one dollar per word.
The list I emailed complete,
Herein I reprint.
Scars Pain Wound Strain Torture Anguish
Disfigure Damage Mar Mutilate Maim Blemish Deface Damage Ruin Distress
Afflict Trouble Wound Torment Agonize Sad Suffer Sting Throb
Torture Torment Despair Suffer Distress Hurt Vex Trouble
Ache Hurt Misery Woe Bitterness Misery Agony Bitter
Heartache Afflict Hurt Cut Loathing Shatter Broken
Alone Bleed Struggle Self-destruct Monster
Nightmare Cornered Darkness Horror
Loner Confused Goodbye Suicide
Slash Cut Desolate Submerge
Dissipate Dead Stinking
Enough.
Awaiting my concoction sweet,
When an answer they begat,
A response forthcoming, indeed was snubbing!
**Dear Sir/Madam,
We regret to inform you that we are unable to manufacture
Said item. Removal of these words would be a violation of
Federal Poetry Laws.
Sadly yours,
Big Pharma
P.S. Are you the author of "Yo! Yo! Warning: the government is reading your poetry! (Metadata Mining This Site) on HP?"**
P.P.S. Please do not contact us anymore.
Jul 16, 2013
Jul 16, 2013 at 1:53 PM UTC
APEIROPHOBIA: [n.] the fear of infinity or infinite things.
—
you are love at the end of the world, something spelled without a glottal plea
the stars on my crown hang heavy tonight and i’ve barely slept for an hour but my mind drifts off to weary constellations and i sometimes wonder if we were aligned at all
you, vague hurt, you, toothache in the middle of a birthday party
you, a love like no other
and running without wolves to guide our journey, the forest scratches every inch of bare skin and i would cry out if you hadn’t done the same to me in your restless tossing and turning, there is love in your eyes but no love in the blood you make me bleed
there is still something left to be said. but my mouth is dry and full of sand, kiss it and catch a fly on the wall, smear ointment on its wings and maybe i’ll tell you about how i feel
and it isn’t a good one, it isn’t a love i towed beyond fathoms of seawater and across miles of irradiated coastlines, it isn’t me, count the distance and end up with infinity in one sitting, infinity with end, infinity to beg you of love
beg me of a message unclear, home sweet home
it’s better than nothing. the woozy way i walk into the ocean with a pocket full of rocks and a mind full of bitter sloshing around, is better than nothing, love
it’s better than everything love
because it’s something i still wish to keep, wish on a nebulae cluster that doesn’t exist the second you force yourself to breathe out, screams
no comforting the choir, i’ll drape mine around your bruised shoulders and shake both of them softly until i’ve killed half the universe with my hubris, until we’ve killed off every erstwhile incandescence just to look a little off-kilter, early morning, i’ve never felt better despite never finding out what repose meant
the sky is red at sunrise and then what
and then we, and then we
feel fine
you are love at the end of the world, and i am ready to struggle for survival. invite me into your rose-tinted apocalypse and allow me to decide a fate which was never mine to rewrite
it’s nothing
it’s better than nothing love
Feb 28, 2022
Feb 28, 2022 at 2:07 PM UTC
She sat beneath the high-noon blinds
The light too garish - spilling bleach
Not the soft song that falls behind
Far-off horizons of aural beach
No, this was hill-light - mountain-light
It was harsh, abstract, Cézanne
Cutting deep into each crevice - dust-mites
Irradiated at dawn
Overlooking every balcony
Of barking mutt - of barbeque
She craved for an epiphany
To change how she perceived the view
To find some meaning in the pools
The bars - the plastic awnings
She muttered, “I am such a fool”
Then took a drag and kept on longing.
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 4:10 AM UTC
the power of mundane
decayed our irradiated hearts
to Lead
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 2:56 PM UTC
It is usually best to avoid
crushing hopelessness, to swerve
and defer disaster, but even so
the world is well and truly ****** up.
Seek solutions to this conundrum.
Try to avoid curiosity, a pernicious
strain of insanity that conjures up
irrational fears of orangutangs
with meat cleavers, lethally ascetic
Tibetan monks, bathroom carpets
of abandoned razors or Big Macs
rife with E. Coli.
Avoid metaphysical musings that lead
to questions of coleslaw, vegan
water parks, the Team Quadraplegic
Gymnastics squad and the horrors
of the Hilary Clinton Naked Network.
Seek refuge in the present tense to
escape the interrogation of mirrors,
the crafted answer, dacryphilia,
remedial rage, landslides of therapy
and memorizing each month's horoscope.
Consider that mercy is on back order from God.
Remember the best lines of an unread book.
Nap on a battlefield; haggle over imaginary debts.
Set fire to the umbrellas of passing strangers.
Stop to watch the loudness and burn the recovered dead.
Call up new magic for a dying world.
Find beauty in the irradiated glow of burning cities.
Try not to bounce existential checks or notice
the crumbling of distant walls, ruined outhouses,
and the immense bleakness of forever and ever.
Take up training small rodents and lighting holy fires.
Ignore the broken stars, long dead and beyond grief.
Discover the pleasure in erasure, enjoy the biology
of strangeness. Walk many miles without a map
beneath innumerable ladders carefully detouring
around immense flocks of rabid cassowaries.
Throttle the recalcitrant blue sky's silent throat.
Listen to the melody of car wrecks and smashed guitars.
Abandon assumed corpses to dreams of endless cold.
Appreciate futures you cannot believe in but never visit them.
Learn to diagram sentences in Esperanto then speak with toads.
Ignore the slot machine odds against your deepest desires.
Hide beneath the ravenous trees from time's famished maw.
Seek sanctuary in toothy optimism and complete amnesia.
Follow these impossible instructions to the letter
and you will become non-valent, invisible, immune
and no longer notice the world is ****** up
beyond redemption. Go on, give it a try.
~mce
Dec 5, 2015
Dec 5, 2015 at 10:53 AM UTC
If you're ever part of secret government testing
or your irradiated with cosmic power
or you fall into a vat of mysteriously glowing chemicals
you don't get superpowers
you're not bulletproof
your spidey senses won't tingle
you won't be nine feet tall and made of stone
you won't move things with your mind
or tear your shirt when you get mad
no blades to snikt from your knuckles
no eye lasers
no supersonic screams
you'll get sick
lose all your hair
cough up blood
liver will fail
yellow skin
sunken eyes
Eventually you won't wake up
and maybe your girlfriend will cry.
Aug 8, 2010
Aug 8, 2010 at 8:46 PM UTC
Irradiated
State of mind
Nuclear vision
Conscious to
Subconscious
Transition
Not all
Good
Ideas
Are
So
Nov 17, 2014
Nov 17, 2014 at 11:29 PM UTC
What to do..
What to do,
This silence of blue hues.
The soundless color intercedes,
and blocks my field of view.
Lonely eyes inverted and blind.
A coating worn so lightly.
Irradiated silence...
It seems to shine so brightly.
Slumbered in solitude, caged in sky.
For months I've been away.
I hear them bellow, a promise of yellow,
yet, regrettably I'll stay.
Submerged and drowning slowly.
Drip by drip inhaled.
Oxygen deprived,
and word wrapped stake impaled.
I'll trip and stumble my way out.
Eventually unleashed.
For now my silenced eyes take lead,
as I slip away from me.
Oct 26, 2015
Oct 26, 2015 at 5:40 PM UTC
In the hour of Twilight, let us burn,
Let us burn with passion
As our blood boils and our hearts turn,
As we melt in one-another, morbidly…
…in a romantic fashion.
Flesh pressed against flesh, I do remember;
The secret lips of a demon so tender,
And our bodies on top of a mound,
Twi lively corpses besottingly…
…carving a new wound.
And let them be irradiated by our macabre ardour.
Jan 21, 2017
Jan 21, 2017 at 4:59 PM UTC
“A promise to be kept was a deception or was it axiom,
Now on earth with apathetic grand valley of loneliness,
In now the wild blue or the irradiated sunshine glows,
Through the woods finis the river and away from agony,
I am elated at my conquest deeds of early crusades?
I’ve yearned to venture into realms of the fissure,
I have been blessed by angels in my conquest passed,
How to achieve great deeds in man’s demeanor's,
One never knows what eyes will see on distant shores,
Of foreign shores could only envision cathedra afore,
Quite gained by a noble woman of power representation,
Eclipse those that conquer uncharted land sea and air,
Greater than this achievement I have never envisage,
Than you came into my life with what bringing a promise,
So now I am that which is clutched to the promise,
As that of a nest in the branches clutched to sapling branches,
And so I shall vow to accept this promise for all perpetuity”
By Andrew Guzaldo © 1/29/2018
Dec 29, 2018
Dec 29, 2018 at 10:41 PM UTC
The word of God
Is neon now-
It screams odious
Love to the silent
Collection of limbs
Beneath it.
Iridescence
Falls in irradiated
Waves, reaches the
Sedate, the wanderers
Of Asphalt Nightmares,
At last.
They can hardly hear it
Over the mumble of voices.
They shift, leave by way
Of saturated, naked streets
Steeped
In weariness.
The new God is
Neon- but all the same
Unheard; It's violent lights
Looking to the morally
Righteous; finds
No one.
Feb 23, 2021
Feb 23, 2021 at 2:40 PM UTC
Do ya ever feel like a shipwreck adrift in the water
Pieces of ya scattered like a lamb after the slaughter,
a mere shadow of your former sweet innocence
barely bobbing above the big sonar rinse?
Can't believe what ya read
nor believe what your supposed to believe.
Can't help wonderin' bout the agenda
Definitley can't pretend not to.
I suppose ya just have to go a bit numb
Drift on the wave and play kinda dumb.
CCTV surveillance, so called necessity,
oh **** big brother's watching ya ***
Google is god and god is dead
Oh **** the'll crucify me for what I've just said.
Street lights ain't just street lights anymore
they're stickin' cameras in 'um expecting us to eat crow.
We'll all be robots that's the plan
punch ya in, download, scan.
Chips in your brain, chips in your nose
they'll go with us wherever we goes.
The grammar's all wrong. It's the prediction text.
No need for fingers. it's all effortless.
We're losing our common sense and our low-fi cities.
I'm losing my mind and I dont even feel ******
They're cuttin' down trees 'cause they're blockin' our signies
and burnin' and lootin' 'cause they've got some agendies.
We're loosing our birds, they're falling out of the sky.
Would connecting the dots lead us to the wyfry?
Losing's all right once ya get the hang of it.
Be fine in the mornin' and get back in the swing of it.
Turn on the screen, see what's new,
choke on our Krispies 'cause we forgot to chew.
Ah who cares our thoughts ain't our own.
It's all covered and programmed by our phone
Yea
It's all fun and games when there's nobody home,
dinner's sprayed and modified to the bone.
God knows what's in the water, the vaccination.
No worries we're all sci-fried and on vacation.
Ah yea they've got us all pegged and amplified,
can't sleep anymore, we're all irradiated and wyfried.
Wyfry, shake, scramble, grill an' bake
uhuh it's the burnin' down of the human race.
ah yea it's the slow fry and burn at the stake.
Oct 17, 2020
Oct 17, 2020 at 10:19 AM UTC
A garden trowel in a patch of irradiated weeds
An odometer in an endless maze of MickeyD's
An encyclopedia in a pawn shop full of tweakers
A love song on a boombox with broken speakers
May I present several examples of useless things with nothing to do
Now if you think those're bad, you should see what I'm like...
*
Apr 9, 2021
Apr 9, 2021 at 10:10 PM UTC
I come to a bulwark
of quiet flesh, beating
to a hum of worldly
duress. And cling, bare-handed,
to stiff ledges, bone tablets as steps.
And look upon irradiated, insular eyes,
bathing blue-bleached irises
in wasteful drowned drops,
and find light-toothed ducts
emitting serrated levitations
of a tender sort of might.
There are women who stride
along on spherical streets,
and men who talk
to a range of idle watchers
and lonely listeners in a
dreamlike commotion
beyond.
Spurred whistles flow through
lunar clipped doors, and curtains are
drawn closely to naked blades
and are grafted as reborn skin
and contort into a breathless maze.
And the blaze blows wispy ash plumes
that tremble down my legs.
And scald the rest, my bare, bare form, pressed
inward, into another,
into fast entwining, shaking hips.
To tongue-bound kisses from red tile lips.
Nov 26, 2013
Nov 26, 2013 at 2:00 AM UTC
I have resented you for many lifetimes
Your smile
Irradiated my darkened room
Filled the vacuum
In abundance
Your presence was an impermanent antidote
To this..... state
You were just a mere mortal
With this unfathomable effect on me
I have resented you for many lifetimes
The way you took permanent residence in my heart
The way you carved your name into my bones
The way you departed... this life
To leave me... like so
Perpetually chasing your ghost
Until I become one.
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 5:06 PM UTC
The stars look down,
upon the irradiated land
this old car
sunbeams recycled through copper veins
painting the concrete fields orange and blue.
We find our patch of earth.
You grab my hand,
Threading your fingers deep
Our bodies clouds
Floating upon the sinking calm
of late summer.
Dec 17, 2015
Dec 17, 2015 at 12:28 AM UTC