"lapse" poems
That workaholic lady who's always on call,
keeping up with the market fall.
That newly married lady with chunky red bangles,
returning to her father's big castles.
That person who's scared to get lapse,
so stays active on the google maps.
That person who swings like a kid at the back door,
Or the one who perform calisthenics on an empty floor.
That next door girl with a red lipstick,
flicking her shinny hair & gossiping with her clique,
That dreamer gazing outside the window,
That overworked soul dozing on his elbow.
That 21st century kid,
listening to Eminem & playing video games.
Or That 90’s kid,
listening to Jenga Boys & playing outdoor games.
That banker with a big fat stomach,
filled with his beautiful wife’s love.
That lady who eats like a thief,
in her big fat bag hiding a beef.
That old man who can’t stand Bombay's winding turns.
That granny spotting & criticing every fashion trends.
That man who has Raju Rastogi’s concerns,
thinking & chanting for earns & returns.
Those kids who believe their job is to fill the voids in a battlefield,
in the still crowd surpassing like electrons into a magnetic field.
That lady sitting under cold seat like a glacial,
than standing with 7kgs in a crowded central,
& tryna stay sane listening to George Michael.
That geek who switchs from Linkedin to Arjun Reddy,
when the masses flee into the scenery.
That trader crunching numbers so rapidly,
when the stock prices go down hourly.
That person on the last seat,
diagressing from work & gazing around,
soaking in her pashmina, with a career newfound.
Jul 23, 2018
Jul 23, 2018 at 1:35 AM UTC
( i )
I lucked out
on table 4 last night
window seat
baseboard heat
with intimate passages
from Ginsberg
in his purest
and most evident form
Cover-all Carl was draped
in his usual garb
(turning pages
of yesterday's news)
animating, culturing, bantering
on the fate of the
Greek barber
(in an accent of which
I'm not so sure)
His cronies
looked on
(with a twisted conviction)
countering
with their own tales
of ingovernance and woe
*did you know that Panasonic
lost 5 billion last quarter?*
The evening moved
in time lapse...
with painted winds,
streaming lights
and a host of
high school girls
running cold
Maleah passed
on her late shift
(checking the pile and trough),
patronized the boys
and called it a night
( ii )
The bald man
is back at it again
bickering at the till
(something about
a cold free coffee
or 99 cents
or the coloured guy
behind him who got it hot)
a kind Filipino
is trying to get it done
(at 8 bucks per)
losing her cool
and shedding a quiet tear
Wonder what the Purewals
or Haitians or Cossacks
would have to say
about this grim public reminder,
wonder what
this sad f*ck
will do tonight...
without his
bus pass
or sling sack
or broken Turkish stems
Jan 7, 2017
Jan 7, 2017 at 2:37 PM UTC
Gentlemen of Courage and Ladies of Excellence,
Toast to stolen prayers with rarer player’s hands;
Soft in defiant laughter,
when drinking their wine from the bowels of brines
Sing along the Ballads of Heritage with Melodies of Exception;
Boast, not a breathe,
though sullen heirs ghost to fairer wearer’s air(s) of land—
A settlement of Rapture and Resurrection, arid, amid dirt and sand
and King and thy Kingdom sprout flowering tomb, and rosebud temple reach to the sky during the showers of spring
Devours the crescent Moon
in big pink petals of bloom;
A garden so fertile
it could look pretty in wartime—
with Gardeners of Courage and Laborers of Excellence;
(Lapse, not into digressions of Being and Essence
but hands in the soil and planting the actions of kingdom come,
patient building of Spring Reign sure
as the flame, the architect of rising Sun is
(Daughters and Sons of kingdom came,
the soldier in a land been conquered and named; abandoned
for the greenness of hope.
)May it never come, Be All The Same; (
be gentle, though whispering wind)
Seeds of Nextyear and the spores of Awhile,
carried by the Wasps and the Clouds
To the Gentlemen of Excellence and Ladies of Courage,
illuminated, eyes from the flora of stars faraway forest floor of foreign
fears,
as the hungry Owls of Time prepare a final feast—
Consume the years between Here and Now;
Watching from blank perch, among
the Trees of Afterall; a place beyond expectance.
Sing the branches of experience, to wake
in Siren’s cipher; inelegant forms
of waking,
ugly sleep on rocks of seabed; once was aboard a marooned skyline—
Those Who Are Will Be
again, again a serf in a wave of Time’s refraction. Neverending neverbeginning;
Those Gentlemen of Courage and Ladies of Excellence,
on the Day That Is, arrays of seers sayers doers displayers
optimists and pessimists, toast to them
and their rarer player’s hands,
Boast they, not a breathe, though sullen heirs ghost
to fairer wearer’s air and land;
Laugh and howl and dine, they drink their wine
from disemboweled gourds
of their own divine—
Warped, in jowls of hungry fix,
no feast they fear, for they prey to the Owls of Time.
Apr 30, 2018
Apr 30, 2018 at 5:28 PM UTC
In person body language for the quickest returns
and obvious signs of disinterest and distress
Telephones for voices; plain, animated, or faking it
Letters for gesture, or a classic long slow catch up
And texting...
I know you got it
I may even know you read it
What's your excuse for delay?
Perhaps a brain lapse, perhaps some monotonous busyness
Perhaps I'm now an ignored fad, maybe you got better plans
Yet, could it be, our collective muscle memory pines for saying things by other means?
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 11:28 PM UTC
Sacred fires burning bright
Purging the flesh of my being
Becoming one with the light
Scorching the cells of my mortal body
4 Illuminate
3 the masses
4 Self-immolate
3 to ashes
1 break
3 conciousness
4 cosmic I lapse
3 death cleanses
8 dissipate into the nether
4 essence of life
3 extinguished
4 the chains that bind
3 relinquished
1 Pain
3 Surging through
4 Serenity
3 Gleaming blaze
I, long to be cosmic,
dissipate into illumination
To, become the nether -
to lapse in lost
consciousness
Then I shoot off in space and time,
soaring through illusions
Light years from reality,
distant pixels
8 Obsessing through the tesseract,
6 scouring past illusions
7 beyond spatiality,
4 distant pixels
Drifting, no sense or feel
Flames of color, figments of my creation
Drift in-to the surreal,
Chasing fractals defragments my cognition
Dreaming in discordance
Life confined in simulation
A glitch in the matrix
Lies conceived through my perception
Breathe
I, long to be spectral,
fluctuate right through this oscilation
To, attain the ether -
planetary
cognizance
Then I shoot off in space and time,
soaring through illusions
Light years from reality,
distant pixels
Obsessing through the tesseract,
scouring past illusions
beyond spatiality,
distant pixels
Drifting, no sense or feel
Flash of colors, figments of my creation
Drift in-to the surreal,
Chasing fractals defragments my cognition
Dreaming in discordance
Life confined in simulation
A glitch in the matrix
Lies conceived through my perception
Breathe
Jul 12, 2015
Jul 12, 2015 at 5:46 PM UTC
We are mesmerized as the purple twilight darkens the day to night
So serene as the sun radiates its last beams of light
The holes in my heart that once reminded me of the sandy shore
Have now been washed away by your love forevermore
Lay down with me on the colorful coral beds all aglow
Lets hide out from the world in the soundless surface below
Alluring tongue brings forth this lustrous pearl of mine
The sea calls out but has no hold in my lapse of time
You drink in the cool dark depths of me
And then you permeate in your very own sodden sea
Oct 28, 2011
Oct 28, 2011 at 5:38 PM UTC
"Wait a year, they said, wait a year and things will get better. They think one single lapse of a human’s concept of collected time can change anything. A year she waited, she listened; she had to. But the year came, and the year then went, and nothing had changed. The girl was left with nothing. There was a hole, a chasm, never to be filled and never to be touched. There was nothing left and soon she could not find words, syllables, even sound."
A year ago, this is what I expected. Funny how a character I created much darker than I, actually reflected the shadows of my soul. I never realized she was me, the darker me, the hidden me, the me I was after I lost Him.
The depression is real. Its is apart of me. The swirling vortex I'm so afraid of I have to accept. But it doesn't mean I cannot smile. The turbulent tremors of my aching heart will forever be apart of me, but they do not control me. I control me.
Control. That is something I thought I lacked, but I realize it is my strength. Without my strength, the dark wonderlands of my heart would have taken me already, to a place that would be darker than imagined.
I didn't want the world to see me, because I didn't think they'd understand. And when it came to him, I was right. He didn't understand why I couldn't just **** it up and smile, why my outlook wasn't so positive, why I was looking at the world so darkly.
Its a dark world, darling, if he knew me, he'd know its actually optimism most days. But no, all he saw was the darkness and how I could not overcome it and it broke me from him, like a rock from a shore.
I felt like a rock with him, not a season, that is until I met more people who could understand, who could see my face behind these broken eyes. It murdered my never-ending love for him, because I could finally see I could do better, I could be happier.
Bipolar 2.
That's me, but it doesn't control me.
Not anymore.
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 1:44 PM UTC
One fleeting chance to catch you between trapezes
Yet my head was bowed, my thoughts immersed
In another dream of another life that i longed to live
A moments lapse careers you to that downward spiral
Through all those safety nets, all those webs we wove
Once so secure borne from our labour, love and toil
Exposed now like a promise of night through a civil dawn
As you fall through each of my declarations of trust
You blow out the candles and knock out the lights
Of celebrations and occasions now shattered like glass
Blackness descending through this never blinking eye
As those moments and time perpetually relive yet resist
The blood still refusing to flow freely through my veins
As i sit and wait for this evening coffee to run cold
That i may embrace the sanctuary of night once more
For I was one that could never dream in the dark
No more than one who could ever make amends
Between those two trapezes that signaled our end
Mar 7, 2017
Mar 7, 2017 at 5:54 PM UTC
Consider the sea’s listless chime:
Time’s self it is, made audible,—
The murmur of the earth’s own shell.
Secret continuance sublime
Is the sea’s end: our sight may pass
No furlong further. Since time was,
This sound hath told the lapse of time.
No quiet, which is death’s,—it hath
The mournfulness of ancient life,
Enduring always at dull strife.
As the world’s heart of rest and wrath,
Its painful pulse is in the sands.
Last utterly, the whole sky stands,
Gray and not known, along its path.
Listen alone beside the sea,
Listen alone among the woods;
Those voices of twin solitudes
Shall have one sound alike to thee:
Hark where the murmurs of thronged men
Surge and sink back and surge again,—
Still the one voice of wave and tree.
Gather a shell from the strown beach
And listen at its lips: they sigh
The same desire and mystery,
The echo of the whole sea’s speech.
And all mankind is thus at heart
Not anything but what thou art:
And Earth, Sea, Man, are all in each.
7k
I definitely won’t make any apologies for saying this
and if anyone isn't careful she’ll leave them in a ditch.
But don't get me wrong, I am not referring to any woman by that name
only to the powers of deception that are played within the devil's game.
When you consider how much trouble she has caused;
without a moment’s lapse or of one repentant paused,
in human affairs over the years since the advent of man;
it’s a wonder that she hasn’t yet been flushed in the pan.
In case you might just be wondering what I’m talking about
Maya is the female equivalent of Satan who is a **** lout,
and who plays around deceiving anyone that ignores the Truth
which has been ingrained in our mind and heart since our youth.
In fact anything that is Divine, noble, good and of inestimable worth
Maya will try to turn it around into a thing seeming of much less birth.
She thus plays around with our emotions causing one to doubt and fear
where the reality of a situation would be to have faith and some cheer.
Her main battle is waged within a vulnerable human heart and mind
especially when an individual is undergoing difficulties of any kind.
She is also the one who arouses anger, jealousy, lust, greed and pride,
being full of all those traits herself and more she projects them outside.
We must try and be aware of the extent of her subtle delusion
and escape any entanglement in the net of her worldly illusion;
that so many people are now caught up in without their real knowing
not realising that Love and Truth are the things most worth showing.
______________________________
Jan 4, 2014
Jan 4, 2014 at 2:18 AM UTC
Cold damp skin,
Midnight clouds deepen within,
raindrops brew unto me as i whip out
a tasteless, tarry, smoky cigar.
Feeling the pain of nights rain,
Train horn rings through my veins and I pierce
my cold lips to the plastic casing of my fresh cigar to
continue keeping me feeling alive.
Opening tunes of musical melodies, bringing me a nostalgic time lapse of pain and pleasure.
Thinking of my life as it passes me by,
a bitter, strong taste of smoke hits my tongue, but i blow out the tar filled air out through my warm mouth.
It continues to rain, when i always feel the pain.
Living life as a misfit, unwanted, unloved and always forgotten.
As my dart vanishes into the air, i look through the dark park across the street and remember last nights nostalgic memories of us dancing together to someone else's house party while the live band plays symphonies and rings unending beats into my hair.
Sep 13, 2021
Sep 13, 2021 at 12:22 AM UTC
Was there even a cause too lost,
Ever a cause that was lost too long,
Or that showed with the lapse of time to vain
For the generous tears of youth and song?
5.2k
pruning fingers from a cold dead hand to gain twenty index
to power point a disjoint nexus, amongst ill guests
to better frame the nameless tool,
thumb-less apes could truck with -
in bands of frantic lack-wits
hording alabaster thumb-tacks
to pin jokes, they don't get.
a lapse in queens, the hard Chess...
an hour glass
with a grain of sand left -
wearing a jet pack, to delay the turn next
that checks your king.
or telekinesis, ghost-grips the silicon
in free fall... on pause to stave off
a game lost.
pruning fingers from another world of empty reach, i grasp -
at long last;
the short girl with the long red hair -
has two eyes, on task...scanning my true intent
with deep shy, heavy lids; a bright green
fixed on my nervous
laughter.
smitten; then, a Pabst
Blue Ribbon
kiss.
and sweet
disaster.
Oct 26, 2011
Oct 26, 2011 at 11:51 PM UTC
It's mortifying...
The dilemma, the time lapse, the wait, the clock.
The abstract that I so blatantly describe in my other writings.
Time cannot be paused, stopped...
The abstraction is so formulated into one diverse piece, the creation of such is appealing, yet reformative.
Inconsequential, to the matter of science, myth, philosophy, conduct, and everything that exists beyond our mind.
I hold onto this creation, because the conclusion of the matter holds many intellectual debates that cannot be won or answered.
It is forbidden, it's lost.
The question of right and wrong holds many definitions that are inexplicable to the concept of reality itself, when the utter illusion holds the introspection that philosophers like myself, cannot give a precise answer to.
Time will let us be.
It's a quiet storm, and I've never felt like this before.
Sometimes I think, you're just too good for me.
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 4:48 PM UTC
wanna twist and shout
fist and clout
the silent wrestle
a lapse of consciousness
bereft of science
and hard as metal
black and blue
***** girl, ***** pronoun game
strewing the fate in a storm
of words strung like wire
what do you want?
don’t call me like a woman
and don’t call me one either
you don’t got any other way
to communicate
it’s blame it on anything you don’t got
close the chapter and the verse
with a love curse
an empty ball and chain
because it’s all you and no me
Apr 5, 2018
Apr 5, 2018 at 6:58 PM UTC
am I you
what am I without you
its not your fault
don’t cry for me
don’t confuse me
I love you
don’t leave me
don’t have *** like it's
nothing
don’t look at her naked body
with the same eyes that you
looked upon mine
don’t let me breathe a life saving breath
while you’re
in
her
let me wallow in saturated agony
let me be in pain
let me feel the extent of my own emotions
and eventually
for a bee that carries three times its weight isn’t meant to last
let me go into that valley of death
that idyll
that probable hell
where I may but suffer the more,
take me there.
give me a smallest crumb more
let me lick your fingers
I must see if I could still summon that sweet syrup love
that burns as it exits
my bellybutton
let it then lapse away
so I may forget
and when he finds his way
back to my dirt trail I'll never stop walking
I will pick him up and nourish his soul with my own
so his stomach fills
and he is more whole
and I am more hole
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 5:13 PM UTC
If I skip a heartbeat .. I would end up dead
You're tht one heartbeat I neva wanna skip.
I keep waiting for you , thinking about you
When the sun has painted the sky in pale tint of orange
Though I'm stuck in dis time lapse... I cud skip a heartbeat for you ...
Destiny conspired against us .. to separate us forever
Miles and miles I have walked ...searching for you
Evry thudder of my heart echoes wid your memories ...Coz I cud skip a heartbeat for you ....
I loved you to the point of zenith nd the pain as well tht you gave me
I hope to tranquil this pain of mine ..hence I cud skip a heartbeat for you ...
I'll always be waiting for you , coz hope is the only rule tht the human race has thrived on
Our destinies will collide again , once again the universe would conspire for you to be mine ...
and that day again ...I promise I'll skip a heartbeat for you ....
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 8:11 AM UTC
There came quiet
the colors of your cinnamon skin,
its taste, persimmon
spread in red syllables
and quicksilver spills
in the folds of this tickled silence,
Laden with prophesy
the white thought of love
leaps through the tamarack pastures,
suet to the shadows of dahlias, flesh
you say, is water
and its symmetry, a penetrating
sound of pure ebullience,
Love, in the pale baton of light
you coax from cognac eyes,
open my veins to every thorn in the garden,
rumors of rain,
say nothing and endure,
Spread over panes of glass
where butterflies drown
in the sweat of our charms
and moths drop from the true color of lunacy,
cold depths lapse softly into my flesh,
I hurt, in that quiet shatter of light,
and from moth-eaten thighs
you soak the ****** of earth
with velvet tears and lavender,
spread its dark balsam to quell the quick faith
with sighs, as reluctantly,
the soul speaks what the body has written,
and gives-in to its asylum....
Jan 20, 2013
Jan 20, 2013 at 1:20 PM UTC
You're not a waste in time.
For, You've gone fare to get
Here in this moment in time,
Here is just lifetimes somewhere other
and infinities to someone else.
Feb 11, 2015
Feb 11, 2015 at 5:07 PM UTC
Every valley drinks,
Every dell and hollow:
Where the kind rain sinks and sinks,
Green of Spring will follow.
Yet a lapse of weeks
Buds will burst their edges,
Strip their wool-coats, glue-coats, streaks,
In the woods and hedges;
Weave a bower of love
For birds to meet each other,
Weave a canopy above
Nest and egg and mother.
But for fattening rain
We should have no flowers,
Never a bud or leaf again
But for soaking showers;
Never a mated bird
In the rocking tree-tops,
Never indeed a flock or herd
To graze upon the lea-crops.
Lambs so woolly white,
Sheep the sun-bright leas on,
They could have no grass to bite
But for rain in season.
We should find no moss
In the shadiest places,
Find no waving meadow-grass
Pied with broad-eyed daisies;
But miles of barren sand,
With never a son or daughter,
Not a lily on the land,
Or lily on the water.
3.8k
My mind has traveled off the earth axises
Into a space with no cyber traffic
Often infinite a flow of constant access
No code needed, only a spoken dialect
Google the word Violet, does that word remind you of violence?
Or maybe the total opposite, peace like the strings of a violin
please take this moment and wire it, store these words into a space in your brain.
So that later you can admire them
2am is the time of the minds brilliance, yet the body become tiresome
Eyes drift off as I begin to type again, lacking in composition, my current actions are nonexistent, because when you read this I will have lapse time.
You will have time traveled to this state and this current line.
Nov 22, 2016
Nov 22, 2016 at 12:11 AM UTC
You took me to the park
And we sat on the swings
We talked for hours
And I didn't even realize the lapse in time.
You're proud of me, I think.
Proud to be with me, I think, while you take pictures of me to show.
I laugh and smile, and self conscientiously act, the usual first date second date I don't know what even.
My interests, my problems. Your advice, your plans.
In sync.
I don't know where to go from here,
I just hope it keeps on going.
Jun 22, 2014
Jun 22, 2014 at 12:26 AM UTC
PRAYER IS A TEAM SPORT
[In the voice of your favourite over-excited rugby commentator.]
We're inside the final quarter. We've seen a bone-cruncher of a contest today and there's no sign of a let up, the pray-ers gather for the next engagement, positioning themselves with practiced confidence, skillfully supporting each other, ready for the push. You can see every knee and each hand bears the marks from this long muddied pray, red and brown staining every inch of their entwined limbs; - arms and hands holding fast.
Front row.
Second row.
Back row.
Digging in for the big push.
The opposition has played an intelligent game, taking advantage of any lapse in concentration, any sign of tiredness, looking for any weakness to exploit. The pray-ers know they can't afford any slips now, they need to keep up the pressure, maintain their advance deep in the opposition's half. Every yard of gained ground needs to be defended.
The pray-ers' Coach looks on - look at his smile! You can see the pride he has for his team, he's schooled them on every tactic of the opposition and now that training, that practice has paid dividends. This is a team of pray-ers that so clearly know each other well, supporting each other every step of the way. You can see their coordinated pray, their sustained effort and the sheer pleasure they feel when they are praying together.
The pray-ers drive on. The sound of their groans and deep breaths merge into one. There's a rhythm to it, a cadence as together they push and PUSH.
The opposition's footing is slipping, the pray-ers' momentum gains pace and, YES! the resistance collapses. Oh, that must have hurt!
But there's no time for complacency, the pray-ers re-form their line looking for the next opening, the next opportunity to push forward.
This is a joy to see. The Coach shouts his encouragement - this was never going to be an easy struggle; you can't dismiss the opposition - they are a seasoned though sometimes disorganised team and they can take you by surprise. But as we've seen here today, the Coach knows that if his team of pray-ers keep to the plan and pray to their strengths, the opposition are surely in for a hiding. The pray-ers will triumph and they will take the winners' crown.
- Now back to the action.
Feb 4, 2019
Feb 4, 2019 at 2:14 AM UTC
Spark kissed tinder
burst into flames
As men gathered in tight knots
Stitched up a street riot
Wood warmed and glowed
Militant revolution minds
The embers hummed with ashes
As city streets burned
Tyres and tubes were rolled
home brew guzzled
Fuelled the fires further
more streets burned
Water cannons hissed
As men aflame with anger
Lit fireplaces up alleyways
With burning brain torches
Taking the political fireplaces
To the palace of no return.
As soon as the government
Dissolved into a carpet bombing
puddle
The big bear
licked its paws.
Author Notes
The Revolution continues after a lapse of two months. Most politics start around a fireplace fuelled by alcohol and hate. Once lit the fireplace chatter
moves into the street and spread rapidly.
The Bear anticipates a breakdown of law and order and amasses its troops along the border.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
Jun 23, 2014
Jun 23, 2014 at 9:48 PM UTC
Look at yourself
All *****
Blackened with a sour demeanor
Rip the top off
Take a look inside
An endless carousel
See the stars
And be thrown to the next page
Never to come back again
The stories for the next chapter
Clenching to previous excursions
Remnants, recollections of once new beginnings
Once you start you can’t stop
Can't turn and have second thoughts
Once you’re out
You’re gone
Falling to pieces
Smoking, dangling
A mental spasm
A lapse, relapse
Push them away
They speak too loud and bright
A half baked scheme
It’s something to pass the time
Hedges of red
Busted fence posts
Inconspicuously
Punctured shell
To the roots
Vibrations to my brain
Purple furlough
Roofs fall
Pedal till they bleed
Bleed dry to the bone
Till the bone breaks
And the pain grapples me into submission
We ignore the fruits in front
Of us for the mirages
We pretend are real
Putting In hope and taking out lies
Riding the ignorant air of pride
Crawl in desperation to continue
It wouldn’t lie
Stick to the plan
Raise the voice
So they hear and believe
We won’t stop till it’s found
They won’t stop till I’m in the ground
Buried, out to pasture
Fresh fertilizer here
I hear his deceit meshed
Deeply in his voice
Yet I fool myself to
Believe due to my denial of doubts
It won’t let me continue
Smile for no reason
When I think about it
Disorientation follows
Don’t utter another word
The grass is dead on both sides
So let’s make them equally green
Plant the seed
Pack a lunch
As we walk, we remember
The lesson we were taught to never
Tread here
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 12:52 PM UTC