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Astrid Ember Apr 2015
Well you see,
my skin melted
into a lot of things
last summer. Even my
bones mixed with a
few.

The fact that everything
became a liquid river
passing around my ankles
didn't help.
Time became a
cloud that a giant
walks through on his
way to get food.

My stomach and head
got a little sea-sick on
this voyage. Their ears
never really popped from
this altitude.
My body shivered from
the OD.
My skin burned and
melted with him.
Trees grabbed my
hair, leaves stained my
cheeks.

I had rotten skin
for bones and cracked
ribcages for flesh.
The rivers were
fire and the fish
rocks of ice.
A beast by my side
through hellfire.
Her eyes were marbles.
Her flesh cracked glass.
Her hands were iseicles.
Ripped tendons looking like
dreads hanging from her
head.

But this is only how she
looked in Neverland.
In my geometry class
you never would of guessed
she bent time around her
fingers, squished it into liquid,
painted her nails with it.

Everything is liquid with
her.
She could turn you into
fine wine or a **** stain
on the pants of a scared
kindergartner.

Walking into her house
the walls are mallible
black fur.
They'll nick your change
out of your pockets.
One time it ******
her dad into it.
She said he hasn't
emerged in 5 days.
"He's changed." She says.
"He said it's a way
to Neverland but, mom
says he comes home smelling
like Narnia." She whispered.

They had eyes. The walls.
I could hear them
churning. Black liquid that
gurgled and popped like
an exploding guinea pig
in the microwave.
The fur moved like legs
on a centipede.

Everything got mixed
up and colors stopped looking
the same.

I stayed over at her
house one night,
and I swear to
God faries came.

They called my
beast a pirate.
Said she's been
off duty too
long.
They thought I
was asleep.
In the morning
we walked out
her door and we
fell into the sky.
We fell through
time.
The world became
white and black.

We landed in the
ocean, emerging
through the sand.
She became a
new kind of being.
Her eyes were 8-*****.
Hair, blue fire,
and her skin was
moving black smoke.

She said I looked like
something she could
get addicted to.

One night I found
my hand melted in
her hair,
my hip bones
became Lego pieces stuck
to hers.
Fingers mashed in
places they couldn't
be seen.
Her eyes kept answering
my question of "should
I keep going" with
"**** yes". Her mouth
stretched smoke that
you could lose your mind
in.
Her body a maze
that I couldn't wait
to figure out.
We grew gills
and kept
breathing each other
in.

She said it was
a solstice one night
as we got lost in
seaweed.
I asked her what
that meant.
Before I knew
it, the ocean
****** us up
and the sky
spit us out and
we fell with the
rain. We were hail
being delivered with
drumrolling thunder
and lightning.

We didn't return
to "Earthly" beings.
We stayed in the
flooded streets, gills
still only needing
the other.

She said
she had to return
to Neverland,
but she wasn't sure
if I could go.

We'd find out soon
enough.
Just how,
do we get there?
She pointed to a sky
scraper.
Her see through
fingers found my skin.
She said my eyes looked
like black holes, my skin
had the milkyway trapped
beneath it.

Hopping from rain drop
to rain drop we got to
the top of that building.

We had to wait until
sunrise.
She told me the grass
is smooth like
the seaweed where
we're going.

That my blood would
look like northern
lights.
My mundane mind
wouldn't exist, I
wouldn't feel dead
anymore.
She said we'd be like
Bonnie and Clyde.

When the sun peeked
at our side of the earth
she told me
I might not pass through.
She said that might
be her case too.

She said we'd find Neverland
if we jumped off of that
building.
But all we found was our
bones infused in the concrete.
I was a tad bit high when I wrote this one too.
al Oct 2013
WHEN I WRITE ABOUT YOU
I WANT TO WRITE IN ALL CAPS
BECAUSE YOU ARE MOMENTOUS
AND EXCITING
AND WORTH SO MUCH MORE
THAN LOWERCASE LETTERS.

YOU ARE THE SUN BEAMING AT NOON
NOT LIGHTLY ON THE FACE
OF DAFFODILS AND CHERRY TREES
BUT SCREAMING THROUGH WINDOW BLINDS
OF TEENS TOO BEATEN DOWN
TO CLIMB OUT OF BED.

YOU ARE FUZZY CHRISTMAS SOCKS
AND HEAVY QUILT BLANKETS
NOT BECAUSE OF YOUR WARMTH AND SINCERITY
BUT BECAUSE OF THE WAY
YOU ENGULF EVERYTHING YOU TOUCH
AND MAKE THEM A PART OF
A SEA OF COMFORT AND REMEMBRANCE.

YOU ARE 3 AM EPIPHANIES
YOU ARE THE END OF A STORY MADE OF PROMISES AND BUMPY PLOT LINES
YOU ARE A BOUNCE CASTLE AT A KID'S BIRTHDAY PARTY.

YOU ARE CREAM CHEESE BROWNIES,
STARS SPRINKLED IN THE SKY,
THE FINGERTIPS OF A KINDERGARTNER IN THE WINTER
TOO STUBBORN TO WEAR GLOVES.
YOU ARE EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD
ANYONE COULD HAVE ASKED YOU TO BE
BUT YOU ARE MOST DEFINITELY NOT
LOWERCASE LETTERS.
Zachary Feb 2014
ha
you know that is nothing old school about this love
im a kindergartner when i'm in your hug
you shrug, you get smug, you speak ****
leave me, lost the game, ego just popped like dig dug
fingers crossed i am no one to trust
i teach women to lust
than i let their brain think its smarter then us huh
funny i joke
wishful thinking cost's
and im broke
Poemasabi Jun 2013
Twenty is a number of perspective
To a kindergartner it is old
not "really old" like thirty
but still old.
To a man in his nineties
it might seem young, a long-ago-young
a time through which many of his friends,
Americans abroad,
didn't make it through.
Twenty dollars is a lot to a man
in an old coat
sitting on a bench in DuPont Circle
being handed a bag from CVS
containing a toothbrush
some soap and
new socks.
To a woman standing in line
at a Starbucks
glancing out the window to admire
her new Range Rover....
Twenty dollars is nothing
pocket change
she'll spend it here in this line
over the course of the day.
And what of me?
Of my perspective?
Twenty is measured in years
Hard ones
Not quite as hard ones (face it, it's never easy)
Years filled with laughter and watery eyes
Of jubilation and anguish
But years through which I can not imagine another path that I could have taken
to get here
to this point
this moment
with you.
A poem for my wife.
jerard gartlin May 2010
in the warmth of winter's afterglow
that humid calm before the storm
our bodies felt the lightning form
& in your eyes a spark absorbed...
i kissed you with the timing of
a kindergartner finding love
& the timid hands
of past romance
that never measured up...
so you became the frightening thunder
& i became the windy breeze
you battled with the lightning's wonder
i fiddled with the spinning leaves
you roared across the blinding tundra
i whistled while spreading seeds...
calm returns with a violent burst
i'm climbing clouds & counting birds
& measuring the mountain's curves
just to watch you mouth the words
my starving ears have never heard.... .. .
Cadence Musick May 2014
im a bag of meat scraps.
you know, that **** they throw to the pigs,
so it becomes a sick scene of hog eating hog
animistic cannibalism
i'm the girl with cobwebs in her hair
and the bruises on her ankles that she claims
she got from "falling down the stairs"
the kindergartner whose valentine box is empty
and starts to expect a life without love.
all the things that go wrong in the world, all the mutations, and outcasts,
i become them all.
i am a breathing mistake
and i am what the artists paint.
i and you and we
are beautiful
dye Oct 2015
(inspired by Petersen Vargas’s “fourteen boys”)

1
here’s to the boy who
i unknowingly married
when i was a kindergartner
only for him to unknowingly divorce me
inside a moving train
thirteen years later

2
here’s to the boy whose
once-euphoric image
instantly floated away from me
as the heavy riffs
of an underrated rock band
ignited a crowd surf
that only moved from east to west

3
here’s to the boy who
had the courage to ask me why
i was good at spelling
but never had the guts to ask
me if I liked him back

4
here’s to the boy
whose memories never ceased to haunt me.
from the questions about cigarettes to the questions about bra sizes,
from the diary entries to serial poems,
from us not happening to us never happening.

5
here’s to the boy who
treated me as an eyepiece
when all i ever wanted
was to be
his favorite specimen

6
here’s to the boy who
i turned into a melancholic four-chord song
when he proved to me that
white roses and love letters
don’t work well as bribes

7
here’s to the boy
who decided to sum up
three years of
our one-sided,
on-off
relationship
by responding “when?”
the night
i finally had the sanity
to tell him,
“don’t cry. i loved you so much.”

8
here’s to the boy
whose hand i held
for it was about to
be sliced thin  
by my razor-edged ribs

9
here’s to the boy who
i wish i met in another Earth

10
here’s to the boy who
hugged me
backstage
and threw tomatoes
at me
frontstage

11
here’s to the boy who
is two-dimensional,
but is a million times human
than the people i know

12
here’s to the boy who
plucked the right strings
when i began humming
an unfamiliar tune

13
here’s to the boy who
collects broken hearts
for his own pleasure,
but was very disappointed
when he wasn’t able to break mine

14
here’s to the boy who
left me alone on a boat
so he could swim his way
towards a luxury cruise ship

15
here’s to the boy who
knows too much
about me
but too little
about her

16
here’s to the boy
whose sighs inflated my lungs,
and who later on taught me how to build sandcastles
out of his cigarette ashes so he could eventually
blow them down with his exhales.
(not because he likes to destroy what i’ve built,
but because he always enjoyed
the sight of me basking
in the powdery white-gray ruins)  

17
here’s to the boy who
convinced me why
i shouldn’t procreate

18
here’s to the boy
whose brain i wanted to unspool
so i could crochet a beanie
out of his to-die-for fibers

19
here’s to the boy
whose outward boffs
made me wish
he was my creator,
and whose own silence
drowned
out his pulse
last September

20
here’s to the boy
who made me wish
i had a ****, bigger than his,
so i could show him more ways
to squander masculinity

21
here’s to the boy who
told all his stories to me,
and who hated math so much
but was better at it than me

22
here’s to the boy who
i broke off midsentence
when he thought Richard Linklater
was directing both of our lives

23
here’s to the boy
who lavished me with his
words and inspired me
to come up with
this spin-off

24
here’s to the boy who
was vindictive enough
he didn’t entertain the thought
of depriving me of a body

25
here’s to the boy who
thought he had a slot
on this poem
02/22/15
ATL Sep 2019
poetry is dumb to me
as it sits beneath this ache-
this ache that becomes my body.

i’m a ***** in an alley,
as bold and as beautiful as a newborn child;

throwing pennies at the feet of
****** addicts and billionaires.

i don’t know why i love searching for food in waste bins full of burnt-out cigarettes,

or why electricity is  
always running
underneath every scabrous sheen of skin-
i’m starting to think that hearts and brains are cliche.

when i was young
my cliche
started quaking
at regular intervals

i wished it to be a water balloon
so i could drop it on the sidewalk
like a kindergartner.

now it reeks of chemicals-

i’m soaked in ethanol
probing all the people that pucker at the smell.
yoking
Niko Walsh Mar 2014
Although I wish they were,
Your eyes were not made
To drink in my presence
Like a kindergartner with a juice box.

Your hands were not created
To touch away the pain I feel
After a day that crashed around me
Has taken away my hope.

And even though ours fit together,
Your lips were not crafted
To press against mine
In a spur of the moment thought.

And you were not invented
To love me.
this won a contest so i guess it's ok
Eloisa Apr 2020
And then there’s something tantamount to this sunbeam in these bleary times—
the wildflowers, which grow everywhere in their own paradise;
a kindergartner running by herself even a few feet away from her friends, picking dandelions,
still with a sunny smile.
The ray of light shining through the window of isolation rooms as a sign of hope from heaven.
Sparks will still flow within our hands.
To still feel the everlasting warmth of sunshine.
The light we needed to surpass this cloudy shadow of our current circumstance.
xmxrgxncy Jan 2017
isn't it just hilarious how I don't even know how mentally old I am like not in a haha i'm a kindergartner type way but more of a i still haven't found myself type way like the fact that i need a kind of alone version of hide and seek to find myself but i'm still not done counting off yet and i don't know when i will be because things keep changing and flurrying around my head like lost and gone and happy without me and happy before me and four years and seventeen hundred miles and razors and flowers and drip drip drip i don't know where i'm going i don't know where i'm steering and i told myself i wouldn't panic i won't panic I WONT PANIC I WONT PANIC but i do anyways and the culmination of all of this is just the beginning the beginning of the end and i can't even see past my own breath and even that escapes me and i just wish you were here you with your hugs and you with your whispers and you with your comfort but you three aren't and i'm stuck in the middle of a mud puddle a mile long and i don't think it's ever going to go away so maybe i should just resign myself to sinking
Trefild Nov 2023
a[ɛ]m I going psychotic in my dA̲[ɛ]mn mind
or ma[ɛ]nkind is on a deranged ride
[in fact, I prefer the word "humankind", but it doesn't fit with the rhyme pattern]
on an armored train? like that power-cray
North Korean son of a bo[ɑ]mb afraid
of his own tubby shade
on a reckless ride that's
go[ʌ]nna take
the highly developed kind back
fro[ʌ]m the age
of reason to the uncivilized past's
darksome days
["dark somedays"]
(probably the latter)
————————————————————————————————
should be in a mental asylum watched over (why?)
off my "meds" like some iron-grip jE̲rkwad
[the meds were mostly video games]
in power striking a wA̲r up
an indescribable U̲rge to wreak destruction & ******
[mostly lyrically]
as if I were a horse-riding enforcer of the Apo[ɑ]calypse or a
jihadist supporter of the IslA̲mist new order
heading to a spot with the public galO̲re to
turn up at; I'm highly avE̲rse to
autocracy, but tyrant-like to[—]ward a kindergartner-like verser
half-a## writers, conformers, & allies of usurpers
better put on something fire-sound or go underground
like the Camorra or Johaness Arnesson, fO̲r I
["for I" is supposed to be read/pronounced as "fora"]
[Camorra is a part of the underworld]
[Johannes Arnesson (Owl Vision) makes underground type of electronic music]
am, like when a living victim's hide's being bU̲rned to
muscles by a hob O̲r a cutting blowpipe, a fierce torcher
["torture"]
and if there were, like Ivan the Fourth, a
terrible tsar & a murker, like a hitman satisfying hit orders
[the reign of Ivan the Terrible is infamous for, inter alia, tortures]
for me to take my pick like a **** 𝑓𝑜[ɔ]𝑡𝑘𝑎
["pic."]
I'd, like the wight-like equine rider
direct my sight on the former (scythe); you hardly can stI̲r up
[Death, the pale one of the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse]
a spark, I've come to the taiga & stI̲rred up
a violent inferno; while in the wilds, I've discerned a
couple of male old-timers encircled
by some guards & cam workers; a fire fiend, for the
restless mind is like a flamethrower
which this corruption-plagued world su—
—pplies with fuel like a "Flying J" servo
don't get this wrong, I can't be bothered re[eɪ]
which kai is fave by which state, but I'm afraid
autocracy is, in the China vein, on the rise today (on the rice)
but, for the sake of a fighter plane
laying f#cking waste to a ride or train
with an autocratic ******* aboard
what is a singular someO̲ne that ain't
a well-savvy hacktivist nor
a sick gunfighter, like Max Payne
to do when the disbalance between a civil society
and a regime in some abysmal auto[ɑ]cracy
is so grave there's nothing safe
and rock-solid, like a tungsten *****
to do to undermine this state
of affairs? apply the cre[i]do of yours
to whatever at which you are versed
that's why I'm engaged in my anti-autocratic rhyme crusade
[previously to this one: "punishment of an autocrat"; "надвигался 2022-ой" ➔]
[➔ "a couple of words for dictators" & anti-authoritarian fragments ➔]
[➔ of some other rhyme pieces published by me]
I might lO̲O̲k to be an evil-minded skate
now, but, seizing the opportunity
like some viced ***** gained
a role O̲f a rU̲ler with
an unchecked political might & aimed
at establishing a tight-grip reign inside the state
there's something I'd like to say
I hhhooock... thooo... spit on tyrants' graves
and graves of their compliant aides
without the slightest shame, I, like a crane for construction, raze
["raise"]
their heads—tones by a mace from the knightly age
bet taphophiles ain't gonna like the way
in which I behave; ones who're enviro-cray
better get fire squa[ɑ]ds awake like a rite that takes
place after someone's life has waned
wholly (a wake), 'cause I get mY̲ hands laid
on a pulverizer with spirits of wine & spray
it on those scheissers' grave—yards, then make
'em go, like the face of someone laughing so wildly they
are about to split their sides, ablaze
and I've barely gotten underway
lyrics-wise, I'm gonna give a harsh time
to a power-blinded, nazissistic go[ɑ]bshite
a sort of tea party which you'll no[ɑ]t like
'cause there's a billypo[ɑ]t rife with steaming splo[ɑ]sh I've
got in the pipeline, like oil, & will be pleased to slo[ɑ]sh right
into your filthy mug, swine, so here's a piece of a[ɑ]dvice
better get equipped with some wipes
and something chilling, much like
a horror game when you sit without lights
and in earphones in the middle o[ʌ]f night
it may seem now as if I'm a kitchen cart guy
and you're at an eating spo[ɑ]t (why?)
'cause you're about to get served
scuzz, I'ma strike
a lyrical skewer through your mouth & your stern
just like a swine
————————————————————————————————
it is night-time, like the pre-enlightenment E̲[i]poch, but I'm
["knight time"]
like a ballista sho[ɑ]t flyi[—]ng
the target's way, in the open air & quite away
like an anthracite aflame/ablaze
["(a) vay" (Malagasy) - "(a) glowing coal"]
nearby the gates of your sublime estate
a mite ashamed to say this, but I might be ta'en
for the Russian state or the "Hamas" brigade (why?)
these premises are like Ukraine
or Israel, respectively, inasmuch as they
are gonna be violated sI̲m. to a victim of a ******; finna
penetrate your villa like the agent Fisher
[Sam Fisher from the "Splintel Cell" videogame series]
which is gonna be made much quicker
than you, a[ɛ]nxious geezer, would make a lady stimu—lated I̲nto
the ****** state; your security system & lights are way
like a surgeon who's armless, they no longer o[ɑ]perate (ha-ha)
'cause I have an EMP device in play; the weather, by the way
is trash, raining, just like Hussein in his presiding days (trash, reigning)
but your cap-cladded daw[ɑ]gs remain
outside despite that & an adage Russians say
that a dog keeper that is mindful ain't
gonna let his dogs be outside at the time it rains
or when some other weather that's bad becomes the case
but thA̲t's, un—like the sign that's made
of metal & acts A̲s an
indication that it's a co[ɑ]p you face
not a bother; like a register that has an
["buzzer", in the sense of "police badge"]
abundant range
of info about a vile regime's pieces of crap having
rank slides, such as their addies, mug sho[ɑ]ts, & names
a specialist, the black-cladded
["special list"]
crusader from the Norsefire-tyrannized UK
in the Guy Fawkes mask strapped with
[V from "V For Vendetta"]
a blowgun with darts, like the pirate claimed
the title of an assassin
[Edward Kenway from "Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag"]
by which I sedate those diletta[ɑ]nte[—]s ordained
to guard your place as I slyly make my go[ɑ]ddamn way
forth like a farcE̲U̲r coming out
of behind the stage
lock pick the door of your house
then walk inside like a pro[ɑ]mena[eɪ]de (walking site)
while touring around
the pretty so[ɑ]lid place
of yours, I encoun—
—ter your do[ɑ]xy draped
with a corse[—]let-like towel
not far away from the room in which you shower, bathe
with her bo[ɑ]dy shape, to one whose mind's unchaste
she's like a va—cant front seat to one whose sight's debased
hard not to try & take; but, given the time & place, I try to stay
away from these broad thoughts like an ex-****-bawd (thots)
besides your inviting bae
like a ship-parking space nearby a pirate-obliging place
["inviting bay"]
I descry your maid nearby the kitchen-dinette; they
both get tranquilized, like someO̲ne who came
for a massage, & chained to pillars of a ba[ɑ]lustrade
with their gobs sealed with parcel tape
arrived a mite hungry, so I knife a slice
off of an icebox pie I came bY̲ inside
the fridge of yours, then eat it sE̲rved on
your high-cost plate
using your silver fork &
your table knife engraved
with a rhomb grid adornment
(some would think you're a perfectionist, like me when I undertake)
(rhyming like an Eastern person)
["ramen"]
(but, in accordance with what my mindset says)
(it's more likely you're just pretty corny)
(like rappers whose lines display their consumerism-governed brains)
(and whose body of rhymes is shaped in an unenticing way)
once the meal's finished, like a rival/fighter slain
in a "Mortal Ko[ɑ]mbat" fray, I leave your tableware defiled, same
as that pious place, in which ***** Riot made
a protest performance
pU̲t on, like that unashamed
co[ɑ]cky, a la desert soldiers
["khaki"]
autocratic swine that reigns in the north-east mo[ɑ]bster state
some high-octane tunes fro[ʌ]m a play—
—list of mine, then start to make your hideaway
[it's supposed that the EMP effect has gone by this time, so electronics are able to function]
look like it faced the wildest rave where mustered skates
who have, like a wrE̲cking ball
a disorganizing trait
towards stuff that's ta[ɛ]ngible
and are prone to territory-marking, same
as what's done by a[ɛ]nimals
or bY̲ street ga[ɛ]ngs
quite an effortful
jo[ɑ]b awaits your unlucky maid
or whoever you're gonna choose to invite & pay
in order to neutralize the may—hem caused by my stay
————————————————————————————————
such a misfortune you, A̲##hole
are away from your glorious castle
which is, like a brutal ******
that you are, looking nO̲[ɑ]t so
["nutso"]
glorious now if you look insI̲de, *** (ha-ha)
you stupid ****̲teball, ***** you, li̲ke bolts
"spit on autocrats' graves" by TREF1LD (TRFLD) is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (to view a copy of this license, visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0)
Careena Jun 2018
When the room was clear and stage was dark
I felt a pang inside my heart
As I looked to where you used to be
I sighed a familiar sigh

The sigh that knows your name
But does not need to utter the syllables
Because even if it is not said
It knows that I sigh for you
I cry for you
I'd lie for you
But I hide from you
Every song I sing, I sing for you
Every love song, in soprano
Serenades in smoky rooms
With low voices whispering in your ear
Soothing you into a trance
If you come closer, you can hear
My yearning voice for you
You can almost feel
My light touch across you dance

I compare stories of every love 
I have ever heard
To our tale, in my mind
Like a kindergartner trying to cut out a picture
Based on a pattern held with stubby hands
I line the edges up just right and see what fits into us

Oh, I look around and hope you are there
To notice me
To think of me
To dream as I do
As if I were the only girl you had ever loved
The only girl you are capable of loving
The only girl you want
But what can I give you?

I've waited a long time
And I'm pretty sure I'd wait again
Because I'm your fool
A jester 
That's performing only for your applause
For you to admire from the first row
To clap your hands and shout "Bravo!"
Circa 2015
Jazmin Ortiz May 2017
They say a mother’s love is the best love,
But what’s the best love when she doesn’t show you love?
Because when you make a mistake she doesn’t want a thing to do with you.
That’s when you seek love in other things,
Drugs, alcohol, boys, people that don’t want you.
You slowly change into a person that you know she won’t like,
You start lying to her and to yourself
Because no matter what, you are still that little kindergartner
swinging on the swing set with a juice pouch in her hands
Pony tails in hair while you giggle about something silly.
But now when you giggle, you are too high to know what you giggling about.
Instead of having a juice pouch in your hands, you have shot of *****.
You start smiling less and start crying more
You aren’t the person you were meant to be,
You are the person you promised you’d never be…
Blue Flask Oct 2018
It’s a blank white slate with the entirety of human achievement inside of it
A way to talk to billions, to drown myself in enough entertainment to make me sick
It’s an echo chamber
It’s an echo chamber
Each night I scream into these walls
Beating myself into a vagus nerve induced frenzy
Slap these thighs and pull out wiry hair
Snap my fingers, my rough knuckles dancing as blows rain down
Like so many rainy days locked away
Seething meat blasted into oblivion
Because you have to do it don’t you?
Despite all the words
All the reassurances that you aren’t a liar
You want to do it
You want to think you want to do it
You are so confused
Cut the meat
Punch the beef
It’s an echo chamber
With occasional melodies belting out from underneath the door frame
Little moments when you collapse
No beauty in the death of the ugly ways
A cracked ceramic mask
Made by a kindergartner
Because I never learned how to paint my face
I never learned any language other than man
It’s not a matter of how I feel
It’s a matter of can I always feel this way
It’s a matter of whether or not I’m still riding on the echoes of a voice that only brings to mind the haziest of memories
It’s a matter of who looks back at me in this prison, this room
Who will greet me in my nightmares tonight?
Who will look back at me in the mirror?
When did those stop being two sides of the same coin?
I pound and beat and mash pale flesh against the steamed surface
Please, take me out of this two way hell
This two time place
v V v May 2023
A kindergartner in his bed
a man outside his room,
his face against the foggy glass
a stormy night… no moon.
A lightning flash within the dark
the boy sits up and cries,
the hooded man with dripping nose
looks straight into his eyes.

When morning comes his mother’s there
her eyes are mean and wild
“You ***’d your bed, again!” she said,
“you stupid little child!
You’re much too old for rubber pants
but what else can I do?
Now put them on and go to school
I hope they laugh at you!”

Some fifty winters later and
the figure still appears,
where once a hooded human
now a demon in my mirror.
He’s not afraid of being seen,
the man I am now knows
his presence here is absolute,
I live the life I chose.

He comes to see me every day
when noontime hour is near,
a surging angst from deep within
my fifty years of fear.
My closest friend since way back when
my mother said I lied,
I could have said I was afraid
but never even tried.

She wouldn’t have believed me anyway….

I met my demon as a child
at midnight in the rain,
I swear I saw him smile at me
from through the window pane,
with water dripping from his nose
and eyes like burning coal,
a flash of light revealed his greed
and then he took my soul
First post in a long while.. An early poem that still defines me, but I now view my demon more curiously than fearful.
(alternately titled: ma bell heave hubble
telecommunications gone south).

Best sung courtesy rotten dull liver:red worst
after words which, I gotta quench mine thirst
whereby think Botox lips zipped and pursed
hence impossible linkedin mission Mary Jane
and Buster Brown kisser **** it result socked
hermetically resigned, resealed and cursed.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Atheistic credo fuels (fossil)
jeremiad ordaining undevout
finds me cybersurfing phishing
for poetic effort to tout
March sixth tooth house sand twenty two
presents reasonable rhyming lit writ scout
herewith risk averse longfellow
on his figurative er... route
along information superhighway.

Netizen (generic and garden variety) Cain
not, nor able to don virtualtourist Lausanne
guise, nor Kiev hen twitter among Ukraine
literati earlier today (aforementioned date)
afflicting me courtesy GMO webbed strain
iambic phantom metered node hissing drain
analogous to evaporating Lake Pontchartrain.

Cuz unwitting byte size complicit accessory ghost
haunts micro electronic components machine most
culpable, feasible, n invisible Internet Protocol host
laryngeal mucous phlegm wreaks (think) burnt toast
esophageal acid reflux analogous metaphor, I post
downplaying feeling any reason to rhyme or boast
spun words masterly sharecropped along east coast.

CHORUS:

verse one:

Now, I gotta cure dem rascally misbehavin
data packets between computer blues,
cuz internet fixation yaw truly craven
lobbying scattershot spewing colorful hell raisin
lingo (awk curse) strung expletive epithets
extraordinary Luddite across cyberspace will lose.

verse two:

Hence dial up local kindergartner to troubleshoot
while he/she whistles Mozart's The Magic Flute
or visit nearest zoo to hire nasty, and shortish brute
critical electronic hardware, cuz aye got absolute
zero ability and even less legal tender slangy loot
thus Internet loper feel handicapped as deaf mute
unable to hear auld Donald trumpeting slo vac toot.
Ideal to peruse the vast treasure trove
of lecture material
pertaining to aforementioned title
on the webbed wide world
especially gratifying to watch and listen
as various and sundry
noteworthy knowledgeable instructors
present material regarding
as topic yours truly
(Oh Henry) hankers to master
configuring networks and hosts
nsync with helpful visual aids linkedin with
purporting to master said concepts
easy as kindergartner to learn.

Young impressionable twittering
snapchatting reddit minds
analogous to sponge;
they absorb technical information
without experiencing intimidation,
which panicky reaction, I attest
impedes induces blackened
barbed pangs within mine breast
causing my heart to pound loudly
testing heart (violently wracking ribs)

inducing near bursting of chest
severely incapacitating formerly rapt pupil
to become distressed
reducing means of communication
to grunts and groans expressed,
whereby attempt to grow knowledge
ain't no funfest
as ye accurately guessed
trying to understand
mind boggling concepts

necessitates giving noggin
much needed and frequent headrest
perhaps overwhelming
sixty plus shades of gray matter
subsequently mine surviving kin
get told cause of death courtesy coroner
visa vis aneurysm discovered
after autopsy and inquest
which constitutes (dead serious)
no small subject to jest.

Despite (surgeon general's warning)
regarding unwise to teach oneself,
(and perhaps miraculously enough
become bonafide, certified and deified
as network engineer)
forthwith unnamed old codger
of these words, the person in question
thinking about aspiring to become
a sexagenarian geek
maybe ill advised
to gain technological smarts
even an itty bit
tis best to remain ignorant
and sustain dumbfounded bliss

Truth be told acquiring insight
to feel connected and integrated
with uber generational breed,
(would most definitely
give me a virtual lyft) yes indeed
allowing, providing, and enabling
he/him to experience traveling
as a gender binary male
(no offense intended toward
individuals who consider themselves
linkedin with lgbtqia umbrella
(hopefully my car won't
get vandalized nor keyed)
after I send this reasonable rhyme
thru cyberspace at lightspeed.

Though gung-**
to master intricacies of subnetting,
specifically accessing an excellent
powerfully pointed website
hosting Jeremy's IT Lab
Free CCNA | Network Devices | Day 1 |
CCNA 200-301 Complete Course
a mental impasse deters
that eureka moment.
Mine defense weapon
     of choice comprises
     standing stock
     (lock, and barrel)
     still like a statue, who
would not budge if
     someone yelled "BOO"
cuz fighting back,

     he did not eschew
on account of, his being puny
     like one Ninja Turtle moo
tint, and quiet as Hebrew
service, which cowardly
     behavior admittedly learned
     early in said life,
     (no matter such much ado

about nothing smart
     ting emotional, physical,
     and/or spiritual issue
     destructive coping method),
     **** not true
lee healthy, and really wanted
     to tell bullies "eff u"
while smacking brutish and nasty

     short haired gentile or Jew,
neither response employed,
     since "scared lad" knew
no confidence to
     put up hazardous dukes,
     and land "scape
     goat head kid"
     matter of fact contributed

     to setting moss psyche askew,
which trademark docile withdrawn
     modus operandi did Matthew
Scott Harris, (this
     wordsmith) more harm
     than (Sherry Jones),
     his first goo goo
doll (me, her close in age beau

     kindergartner - same as him
     more'n fifty plus years ague),
she lived near,
     this present crotchety
     ole Scrooge, when cute
     as a button little boy,
     he considered (second residence
     after parents relocated

     from Cincinnati, O hi you),
to a corner house -
     adjacent to Daily's
     Family motley
     cutting (insults) crue

     on Lantern Lane
     (within the neighborhood
     of Apple Valley, Pennsylvania)
     unsure if this poe whet
     tick sketch I drew
clear as mud in your view.
About four plus weeks after
frazzling fiasco from friggin fraudsters
white knight still mourns swindled money
Lynne Costello Senior Civil Investigator
(assistant to Philadelphia attorney general)
unable to recoup forfeited funds.

While holed up in castle keep,
(albeit fetchodit fuming father
cursing out blimey scamming creep),
I replay nightmarish scenario
that disallows me to sleep
inconsolable tears yours truly doth weep.

Though secular humanist,
nevertheless yours truly (me)
beseeches a higher power
something in the order of

voltages ranging from
115,000 to 230,000 VAC
Voltage Alternating Current
or Extra-High voltages ranging
from 345,000 to 765,000 VAC.

Courtesy malefactor left me bereft
cyber criminal shrewdly,
meticulously, hucksterish antagonistic
online criminal with deft
once again revisiting series of theft
designed warp and weft
traitor to the cause of honesty
wove webbed, whirled wide net
pounced (visualize yourself analogous
recipient of lionize) de León.

I implicate myself aside from bogeyman
being submissive at financial havoc
fake Macbook Pro wizard
posturing as legitimate
Apple computer technician did wreak
more than laptop malfunction, he did tweak.

Any number of "red flags"
clear as day in retrospect
stand out like a sore thumb
with self reproach
and attendant emasculation
"how could I be so dumb,"
not ready to concede desperation
to scrounge around
for every little monetary crumb
when "Que Sera, Sera
(Whatever Will Be, Will Be)."

Resultant severe emotional grip
courtesy financial fallout
fantasy thought arise
regarding being cursed with
purchasing winning Mega-million
and powerball ticket,
hence the following fantasy.

Lucky lottery winner
…and the super powerball
and mega millions jackpot winner is…
from Schwenksville, Pennsylvania.

No way.

This must be some off-season
April fool and/or Halloween trick or treat.

Yea right.

In my dreams.

A voice inside urges
“take another look.”

Yet upon frenziedly staring
(for what seems like an eternity)
at the matching numbers
(per tickets for both
record breaking sweepstakes)
no denying that every numeral
exactly the same as those randomly drawn.

I don’t know whether to cry or scream.

But, if held at pen point and forced
to splutter out how such winnings
would be managed (from mine mouth
to God's ears) such fantasy will be elaborated
within literary exercise
(just for the purposes of this writing contest),
I now let finger flit to and fro,
hither and yon across qwerty keyboard.

Though a pauper, no ambition
could goad me to live like a king.

The immediate step would be
to seek professional top-notch guidance
from a sterling gold reputable investment banker.

He or she to be a staunch advocate
of wise management
sans such substantial windfall.

Consent to be given for a chunk
to be divested into high yield
money market funds with a modicum of risk.

Other dollops off currency denouement
elected to be doled into
on demand personal funding accounts.

A suitable proportion thence hedged
toward monies for thee spouse and
two darling daughters.

Said wife would be awarded ample chunk
to meet her present
and future financial needs and/or wants.

Since she tends to be tempted
to spend any cash on her purse (son)
plus pose (on bended knee) plaintive pleas
for this husband to drain his meager resources,
a ceiling limit incorporated
within said deposited arrangement.

Each progeny (both charming young women)
established with academic, catastrophic, exotic…
healthy portfolios.

Upon reaching age of twenty-one
release of full access to aforementioned bonds,
dormant fiduciary interest bearing,
known, noteworthy
Yankee Doodle dandy legal tender.

Even though total claim to do as they wish
with apportioned denominational millions.

A caveat will include disallowing banal,
flagrantly haphazardly spent (even though
exercising a spending spree not illegal),
the contractual obligation affixing
each offspring will witness the forfeiture
from fathers’ instantaneous famed fortune.

Self imposed restrictions viz electronic mechanisms
(probably at least one computer software application
(probably dashed off by kindergartner during recess)
will bar this fanciful papa
to blithely act frivolously,
yet a predetermined
monthly allotment made accessible.

No spending spree will occur sans yours truly
until bulwark of allocation, dedication, gratification…
securely settled analogous
to digital electronic gatekeepers,
which strategy (affording truckload of dollars
to appease capitalistic cravings)
still replete with common cents paid out
to select charities and non-profit organizations.

These agencies to focus on animal welfare
of genus and species besides **** sapiens,
eco-friendly.

Environmental utilities, educationally
non-discriminatory colleges/universities,
and other copasetic, democratic, ecologic,
holistic, non-partisan opportunistic
politically welcome think tanks.
(alternately titled: ma bell heave hubble
vehicular repairs (prohibitive)
finds me bleary eyed stupefied
and countenance grizzled with prickly stubble
collapsed amidst virtual rubble).

Best sung courtesy rotten dull liver:red worst
after words which, I gotta quench mine thirst
whereby think Botox lips zipped and pursed
hence impossible linkedin mission Mary Jane
and Buster Brown kisser **** it result socked
hermetically resigned, resealed and cursed.

Atheistic credo fuels (fossil)
jeremiad ordaining undevout
finds me cybersurfing phishing
for poetic effort to tout
March seventeenth tooth house sand twenty two
presents reasonable rhyming lit writ scout
herewith risk averse longfellow
on his figurative er... route
along information superhighway.

Netizen (generic and garden variety) Cain
not, nor able to don virtualtourist Lausanne
guise, nor Kiev hen twitter among Ukraine
literati earlier today (aforementioned date)
afflicting me courtesy GMO webbed strain
iambic phantom metered node hissing drain
analogous to evaporating Lake Pontchartrain.

Cuz unwitting byte size complicit accessory ghost
haunts micro electronic components machine most
culpable, feasible, n invisible Internet Protocol host
laryngeal mucous phlegm wreaks (think) burnt toast
esophageal acid reflux analogous metaphor, I post
downplaying feeling any reason to rhyme or boast
spun words masterly sharecropped along east coast.

Now, I gotta cure dem rascally misbehavin
data packets between computer blues,
cuz internet fixation yaw truly craven
lobbying scattershot spewing colorful hell raisin
lingo (awk curse) strung expletive epithets
extraordinary Luddite across cyberspace will lose.

Hence dial up local kindergartner to troubleshoot
while he/she whistles Mozart's The Magic Flute
or visit nearest zoo to hire nasty, and shortish brute
critical electronic hardware, cuz aye got absolute
zero ability and even less legal tender slangy loot
thus Internet loper feel handicapped as deaf mute
unable to hear auld Donald trumpeting slo vac toot.

Boot just mebbe yen know someone
relative within close proximity
hook ken rank as wheel guardian angel bringing glee
answering urgent need helping desperado
(plus the missus) to purchase reliable mode to drive free
and clear to contend livingsocial and prithee
restore my wavering faith in humanity
thus, aye pray to thee on wounded knee.
While merrily bobbing along
the boulevard of broken dreams,
which in truth measured
no more than a furlong
think envisioning myself top banana
analogous to bull headed Donkey Kong,
I felt on top of my game,
which constituted ping pong
but severely lacking

tragedy, suspense, romance, et cetera
subsequently fat/slim chance
to warrant ghost writer,
nevertheless unlikely to realize production
courtesy the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike
despite existential nihilism
grist for the paperback writer mill
recounting my life and hard times
devoid of hero or heroine unsung.

Yours truly a figurative magnet,
where racketeers come out of wood work
swooping birds of prey
pouncing like the dickens
I don't know what hit me
before being bloodied
and knocked senseless
seeing stars though hour broad daylight.
(in more ways than one).

That execrable, despicable ******...
unnamed miscreant unknown
(though only his pseudonym
iterated in many another previous poem),
no doubt laughed all the way to the bank
courtesy mine stolen funds drank
libation, while his loosed tongue
probably retold plucking cold cash
(as I play devil's advocate)
out the hands some poor sucker,

who genuinely believed fabrication
that Citizen Bank tellers
blatantly colluded against victim,
deluded him courtesy
purring voice of perpetrator
the former talk of the town,
an imbecile, whereat the latter
a practiced slyboots
pulling the wool over rapt prey
complicit in his own financial downfall

now seeking altruistic,
holistic and unrealistic benefactor(s),
I attest blatantly
showed myself laughing stock
to be ernest and frank
and brought down quite a few notches
regarding respectability bemoaning
relinquishing funds viz obvious prank.

The webbed wide world
could not give a rats ****
regarding major bone head fiasco
that found father fêted
in tragedy of his making a farce
even a kindergartner could easily parse
as rotten to the core
only has himself to thank,
where once abundant bucks now sparse

The severe punishing hell
found yours truly listing
with suicidal ideation
inner voices beckoned
though none could hear
deafening rebel yell
raging against the machinations
of cut throat venal
conniving smart aleck

requisitioning easy moolah
total eclipsed son,
whose papa scores of years ago
circa nineteen seventy six or thereabouts
(after he got laid off
from General Electric)
also experienced fiends,
who took Boyce Harris to the cleaners
and left him hanging out to dry.

— The End —