"literate" poems
It's elementary, my dear
This bittersweet affection that I feel
From one boy to the next I grew
Ladder rungs of broken hearts
First grade
Blonde hair and disarming smile
Recess games and hallway passes
A note in a diary and minutes spent giggling
Never talking, always watching
Fourth grade
Glasses frame of brown hair and thin shoulders
Curious enigma to come and go
A bit more literate diary entrees
One year of crossed legs and shy smiles
Fifth grade
A growing tree of lean muscle and blue eyes
Short brown hair and a charming grin
Side by side on a rubber track
Gray skies and sweet goodbyes
A bright dance floor and a shattered heart
Miserable nights and heartbreak songs
Seventh grade
Long dark hair and chocolate eyes
This spring has brought a strange surprise
Wiry muscle and soft cheeks
Once admired, then adored
An ongoing thrum of sweet affection
Sidelong glances and gym class stares
New discoveries and quiet realization
Girl can love girl
Tenth grade
A firecracker packed with mysterious boys
And an enigmatic girl
A bomb in the summer sky
Spelling new names, new faces, new hearts
A whisper of 'I love you' at long last returned
Names carved on my ribs and pulling my lips
A tightened chest never felt so good
Sep 11, 2014
Sep 11, 2014 at 9:53 PM UTC
Bluto, the world’s strongest man, could tear bread loaf-sized pieces off a steel-belted tractor tire with his bare hands.
But he could not lift a single smithereen of his sensitive Piscean heart when Lily, the luscious, leggy Leo trapeze artist, left him for steely-eyed Arien Karl, the literate and literary lion tamer.
Horoscopic Circus, Act II
She was a Cancer Dragon. Like catnip to the Piscean Tiger, whose feline DNA was his Achilles heel. Especially when she wore heels. And nylons. The end is nylon, he thought. I love you she said. I love you more he affirmed. And firm he soon became. Then being the ringmaster, she opened her mouth and incinerated him -- as only dragons can….
Jun 10, 2015
Jun 10, 2015 at 1:53 PM UTC
extra long vintage convertible car.
notice my big shoe size,
do I know what that really means?
extra little lies on top of giant whoppers.
the number of figures on their W-2,
and my measurements and cup-size, please.
please treasure
their perspicacious needs.
what’s with the obsession with size?
won’t sleep with them on the first date,
they are shocked, just shocked,
when informed on the dotted line
that a hundred dinners won’t turn me into their
personal come-when-called *****
at nineteen, by now,
I should know better,
do as I’m told
what’s this obsession with hurry up, immediate satisfaction?
and patting my head like i’m their favorite pet,
mansplaining me how the world works,
cause at nineteen I don’t know ****
just listen to the know-not-a-damn thing
arrogance of knowing it all impress themselves
what’s this need to be superior but a huge (size) coverup?
yeah yeah, get me a better class of men,
like my literate professors who will improve my grade
for use of the insights of my mouth on their poetic gestures.
I can wait, till I find a right sized human being,
in every which way,
especially
if he shows me the true love poems writ
for other girls,
then I may even trust him,
sooner
than never
Jul 21, 2018
Jul 21, 2018 at 4:30 PM UTC
If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.
7.5k
Poetry has to rhyme
No it doesn’t
That lie is just a crime
It’s meant to fixate
To inflate
The curious mind
The literate kind
Words in a verse
The gold in the purse
Of a creative person
Poetry has to rhyme
No it doesn’t
Your wrong this time
Its meant to uplift
To drift
Into a person thoughts
A charm of sorts
Letters in a line
All beautiful and fine
To read everyday
Oct 5, 2019
Oct 5, 2019 at 4:39 PM UTC
so someone remarks and thus a poem commissioned...
*a better world, a wish no one can turn a back to...
a literacy of mine own, a bridge too far...
but such a lie too glorious to ignore...
blessed be the wisher for he gave this day
water and wine to a lapsed Jew who reincarnates
the containership of body and soul from the Star of David,*
it,
burr~etched upon his chest, and embraces lost tourists
who unfated unfazed stumble
upon the guide dog of his verbal chicanery and funny bone,
smiling for as long as it takes to cross that last bridge,
nearer our god, you than me..
Apr 24, 2018
Apr 24, 2018 at 11:07 AM UTC
I am literate in daydreams
and letting my imagination rule my head
I am literate in music
where rationale can be abandoned.
I am literate in procrastination,
pushing away my mind-defying.
I am literate in heartbreak
which has been already over-endured.
I am literate in lazy weekends
spent with my sister and a remote.
I am literate in creating;
not masterpieces, but heart and soul pieces.
I am literate in ramen noodle and green tea afternoons
in sweatpants and sneakers with no makeup on.
I am literate in moment-capturing
and finding the right words to explain.
I am literate in thunderstorms
and dancing in between water droplets.
I am literate in heart confessions
over acoustic guitars and games of solitaire.
I am literate in wanting
and taking away from what I already have.
I am literate in wanderlust
and a wholehearted need to escape.
I am literate in color-coordination and clothing arranging
and bringing out all my best.
I am literate in kissing with desperation
and wanting to have it be effortless.
I am literate in wasting my time
in my head, in my heart, and in the clouds.
I am literate in everything mentioned
and so much that I can’t even say.
Apr 1, 2013
Apr 1, 2013 at 10:26 PM UTC
(for John and Teckla Clark)
Ours yet not ours, being set apart
As a shrine to friendship,
Empty and silent most of the year,
This room awaits from you
What you alone, as visitor, can bring,
A weekend of personal life.
In a house backed by orderly woods,
Facing a tractored sugar-beet country,
Your working hosts engaged to their stint,
You are unlike to encounter
Dragons or romance: were drama a craving,
You would not have come.
Books we do have for almost any
Literate mood, and notepaper, envelopes,
For a writing one (to "borrow" stamps
Is the mark of ill-breeding):
Between lunch and tea, perhaps a drive;
After dinner, music or gossip.
Should you have troubles (pets will die
Lovers are always behaving badly)
And confession helps, we will hear it,
Examine and give our counsel:
If to mention them hurts too much,
We shall not be nosey.
Easy at first, the language of friendship
Is, as we soon discover,
Very difficult to speak well, a tongue
With no cognates, no resemblance
To the galimatias of nursery and bedroom,
Court rhyme or shepherd's prose,
And, unless spoken often, soon goes rusty.
Distance and duties divide us,
But absence will not seem an evil
If it make our re-meeting
A real occasion. Come when you can:
Your room will be ready.
In Tum-Tum's reign a tin of biscuits
On the bedside table provided
For nocturnal munching. Now weapons have changed,
And the fashion of appetites:
There, for sunbathers who count their calories,
A bottle of mineral water.
Felicissima notte! May you fall at once
Into a cordial dream, assured
That whoever slept in this bed before
Was also someone we like,
That within the circle of our affection
Also you have no double.
4k
The Pen
The pick up the pen;
The put it down again
(That sunken feeling, nemesis or friend?)
The pen. The Pen.
The pacing, the pressing up against
The period. Stop stopping
Again. Pick it up to put it down.
Pointless. Pshaw.
Please.
Please me simplicity. C’mon!
C’mon pen lemme pick it up
And put something down.
I’ll plagiarize the flow for a few words of my own.
I’m looking for inspiration from the great beyond.
My muse is missing.
I know the medium is a constraint.
I know inside
The set of symbols paints
Me into a corner. The parameters
Of my pen’s head worn out. I’m ****** The metaphors
Pressed. The pen is second-guessed.
A literate piece of poetic license,
The defense mechanism
Against the prison I impose.
Me, myself, and I inside
The pen pining for a purpose.
The nexus of picking it up and putting it down
Is perplexing me, is vexing
Me like a sticky keyboard key.
So, I’m putting it all down
With the pen.
The pen.
The picking it up: who cares?
The putting it down: pensive prohibition.
The picking up; what I left out.
The putting it down: polygraph precision.
The picking up where I left off:
The putting it down: priority, what’s left of me.
The picking it up, when I don’t even know
Why I bother?
The putting it down: passion
The putting it down: plea of let me be.
The putting it down periscope; I’m diving under
The pressure’s mounting; I’m down for the counting on my muse
To bring me back
From that inky black abyss once again
My personal sonar is
Probing the depths, of what lies
hidden within
the pen.
Aug 1, 2016
Aug 1, 2016 at 7:46 AM UTC
You want to judge the book;
Or you are curious and keen.
Gibingly you ask about microbes.
With Naked eyes unseen.
Fourteen hundred is the age.
Yet you can scratch your head.
I know it is not going to help.
Because you're alive yet dead.
You think you're very literate.
Yes it speaks about microbes. ***
But are you literate enough?
Then there were no microscopes.
They discover and boastfully talk.
As if they've created, never they stop.
Compare themselves with God.
But their origins are in ***** drop.
Dec 4, 2014
Dec 4, 2014 at 9:48 PM UTC
aboriginal
pre-literate
innocent and forever renewed
(as if flash flashing
back and forth to heaven)
one hundred trillion cells of me
notice i am noticing them
i send them
all my love
grounding
i am walking tree
with fibrous light as root
grounding
i am sitting stone
galaxy within galaxies
infinitum spinning
my body
the dance of the universe
do you tell me i am anything less?
do you tell yourself
you are anything less?
Jun 25, 2017
Jun 25, 2017 at 10:09 PM UTC
Once long ago there was a small clan named Kah,
that lived in a cave up a draw, Who at that time,
had yet to discover even fire.
One among them, call him Shire was slightly
brighter than the rest, which is not saying much.
Bah the self appointed leader was a big strong man,
a hunter among men, a good provider.
But a fool in all other matters.
One day Bah returned to the cave with a large green
rock. A rock only different from all other rocks, by it's color.
Bah convinced most of the clan that this one rock was so
special that they all should worship it, get on their knees
and even pray to it, adorn it with bits of meat.
Shire too was a hunter, crafty and skilled, but also a thinker.
In the rock he saw no difference, to him a rock was a rock
and nothing more, although he did admire it's color.
"It's only a ROCK." He told the others and "nothing more!"
The clan was overcome by anger, how dare this one among
them not believe as they did? That night and the next Shire
got no meat, nor any pleasure from the women. Yet still he
pointed out his belief, that the green rock was no different
than any other and he refused to worship it.
The clan turned their collective backs to him, treating
him as if he did not live. Even his wife and children.
Still Shire did not relent, so sure was he in his own belief.
In a rage of Holy Righteous Indignation, Bah picked up the
green rock and smashed it into Shire's head, caving in his
skull. Where upon the green rock broke into many pieces.
As Shire lay bleeding, dying, he picked up a piece of the
shattered green rock and said, "See brothers and sisters,
it is only a rock, and not a very good rock at that."
Bah kneeled down beside his old friend and he too picked
up bits of the broken rock. Then said to his brother, "I am
sorry I killed you friend."
To which Shire's last words were, "I forgive you."
The clan was so inspired by these events that a new
religion was founded, in place of the rock, the dented
skull of Shire became their new thing to worship.
Many years later, one literate among them carved on
the rock alter under the sacred skull,
"He died for our sins".
And so among them grew a legend,
Shire became a God to his people.
Later still, another professed scholar calling
himself a Priest, carved a commanded message
in the face of the rock alter.
**** not a Brother in the cave,
before the eyes of our God Shire.
(Out side however is just fine.")
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 2:45 PM UTC
From the kindness of my parents
I suppose it was that I held
that belief about suffering
imagining that if only
it could come to the attention
of any person with normal
feelings certainly anyone
literate who might have gone
to college they would comprehend
pain when it went on before them
and would do something about it
whenever they saw it happen
in the time of pain the present
they would try to stop the bleeding
for example with their own hands
but it escapes their attention
or there may be reasons for it
the victims under the blankets
the meat counters the maimed children
the animals the animals
staring from the end of the world
2.7k
**Lacking of life now
I lol on my fine divan**
*Laziness often
lacks the power of rapture
as in sofa or bedsprings*
**Labour of love her
for large obese lobster me**
*Mermaids capture me
a symphony of sea-sick
rasping tongues lick our lumps*
**Little old lady
typing the language of love**
*A real cyber date
computer romance limits
operational life's love*
**Laughing over lines
of disco **** pure *******
*Lewd obscene language
grasping lemon or lime highs
to count Hollywood star shootings*
**A full length of life
the longing off, lay proceeds**
*Lady of the Lake
lunging our lisps sound depths
we are - breathing harmony*
**The land of Lincoln
legion of Lucifer's Lord**
*landscaping of lawns,
losing our liberty's law,
leaving on lights, blinding*
**Lots of Laughs or 'lol'
populist abbreviation**
*language often less,
leftovers of literate
gone to libraries of late*
May 18, 2010
May 18, 2010 at 12:38 PM UTC
She stayed up quite late many nights
Pricking her fingers raw sometimes
Telling herself that it did indeed matter.
She would thread a ribbon with such care that it seemed as if the ribbon was her own life
And each stitch with such precision!
Lined with words, with nouns, the adjectives kept together just perfect
Yet no one would wear her sorry stories
No, no one read the tear-stained woven fabrics
In such brilliant hues that even a cardinal would be jealous.
Scarlet after all is such a lovely color.
Nov 10, 2012
Nov 10, 2012 at 8:23 PM UTC
I condemn the ignorant.
I persecute and judge
The hapless swagsters
With their pants dragging across the pavement.
Their style,
their style I can judge.
Their ignorance, I have no right.
I took a look at the world.
Wrenching my heart.
Making my head fuzzy
With eyes aching from what they have seen.
My ears throb with the pitched wringing
Of constant technology
And controlled ignorance.
Most of all it is my legs.
My legs move awkwardly
As they struggle to support my weight.
They struggle to keep me standing against the gravity
Of a world that does not seem worth walking through.
Jumbled sentences,
no political views,
no future in mind,
hatred of any and all religion.
Yet they are so open.
So open and accepting to those
Which religion,
Politics
And the future have so swiftly rejected.
I look at the lies
And personal gain
Of politics.
It is disgusting.
I look at the future
And see nothing but horror
And the downfall of society.
I look at religion
And am ashamed to be called a Christian.
The world has become ignorant.
It is the blind leading the blind
As those with money and power
Do all in their ability to control everyone else.
I see the beauty of religious faith
Turned into a monstrous topic
People like to avoid
So they don’t have to think
Of the revolting people
Who are full of sin,
Parading around, destroying others
In the name of the Lord.
I look around and it hurts.
I look around and I collapse to the ground.
My legs have spent so long supporting me,
As if walking would bring me somewhere
Where we are literate and confident.
But as I look around and see the horror
And the misshapen beings swaying to and fro
As they themselves begin to realize that they, too
Want to sit down and wallow in their garbage.
Nothing but Fish in an unkempt tank,
Swimming in our own, endless s**t.
I begin to envy those I condemn.
Those who I purse my lips, raise an eyebrow and scoff at.
Those who I dismiss so easily in their ignorance,
For not seeing the world as it is.
Until I realize that I am not so smart.
Until I realize that their ignorance is the greatest genius of all.
Ignorance, as they say, is bliss.
Bliss I could only lie at the feet and kiss
In envy and want as I lose hope
In that I am just as ignorant as the rest.
I try to forget what I have seen,
What I have heard,
And how hard my legs have worked.
But I lay down and kiss.
I accept the bliss that comes with not knowing.
I forget the lies,
Manipulation
And cruelty of the world,
And even if it’s just for a little bit,
I bathe in the glory of ignorance.
May 31, 2013
May 31, 2013 at 4:26 AM UTC
*we won't die for ideals we once held dear, we'll now simply die for the numbers we can simply keep, but when it comes to ourselves, we'll die to simply keep a mistook numbering in order to readdress the ideals that are no longer appreciated in our numbering a loss of a tiger's roar, and more the microscopic ant digestion auditory exploding into a h-bomb for man to imitate by number but no essential authority: since once mammoth the authority killed man, now some sub-insect (virus) can **** man.*
if there's a group of people
who are assumed to be possessed,
then there's a group of people
who are dis-possessed,
and there's always the middle
interval mediating sales and
necessary priesthood
the two polars never mediate,
once the priesthood used to
cradle the illiterate ones,
now the priesthood uses the literacy
of the once illiterate ones
now literate, consecrating them
with something apart from holy water,
selective reading they testified
to be as calm as a lake, but turbulent
as a river the salmon swam against
the current to spawn:
the once illiterate ones now literate
are taught a second illiteracy:
watch the television, read the best-sellers..
this second illiteracy is worse
than the original one... half of us will
be water and fat... and half of us epileptic zombies
enslaved by a television... i preferred the first
illiteracy... at least we died for love...
this second illiteracy is worth a jackal's
cry and a ******* of paedophiles.
Feb 1, 2016
Feb 1, 2016 at 9:13 PM UTC
The fire knows nothing but burning,
we know breathing that way, naturally done for
our own sake.
We old still know sake and grant mean true immaterial things.
Sake and granted we take to mean
my good, your good, good sake grant me take me con
mentis sans carne
by golly.
Dada-esque wire spoke far writing ease
e everything e-literate e-mail
---
the boinin' in d'boozum, dat be da ting, da ting con sum in all ya'lifes.
be knowin' dat, be knowin' a-dam lie.
Jah know y'know, don' be sayin' no y'don'
Be happy. Jah know haps be hap'nin' allatime. *** sum, take wha's granted,
take all fo' free.
You got nothin' t'boin, nothin' to oin, be a bird brain seein' stars fo'
no. birds be sleepin' when stars be seen so birds consider nothin', sidereally.
Hmmm. Quit?
Walk away, say, I got nought to say I ought t' say.
No way.
Temporary tempt-test-u-us sitchee-ations,
suffer it so. It don' hurt t'say no f'now so
How'd that that shiny critter know my game? How'd it know,
I think
thisaway and it is gone, forever. (which has begun, btw)
-----
The biosphere is regaining consciousness, Capitan.
Shall we continue burning?
What's the bullocks count?
Aug 17, 2018
Aug 17, 2018 at 1:33 PM UTC
there are times
when the meaning
of a word
is asked
one that
has been read
and regurgitated
used regularly
correctly adopted
as part of
an apparent
well-read
or pretentious
vocabulary
however upon
being asked
its meaning
there is only
a blank
vacuous
addled
unable to provide
a succinct
or even literate
definition
to save face
to re-establish
the hubris
of this
abashed lexicologist
analogous alternatives
will be offered
oversimplified
synonyms
carrying a little
less gravitas
a layman's explanation
to maintain
position on his
self-congratulatory
podium
Oct 13, 2022
Oct 13, 2022 at 11:42 AM UTC
O LOVE! O LOVE! WHY ARE YOU EVER DEVOID OF LOGIC?
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; [email protected])
Mankind in its pathetic folly entice you in a dint of stupor
Knowing not your true colour and texture
Endeavoring to achieve glory in your mastery
With the so limited human capacity
In grey faith that you are a cradle of bliss
But O love! Why are you ever crooked?
Young men and women in strength of their sinews
Toil day and night in ******* of humanity
Praying and whining incantations with the hope for optimal love
Ornamenting their bodies with diamond and bronze
Fibre and silk ornamented to helm of providence
In the foolish quest for love equillibria
But in full stretch of your vice, you impish love
You catapult all away to the shifted goal posts
O love! O love! Why are you ever ruthless?
You hate the learned but you favour the strong
You hate professors but you favour the soldiers
You hate the rich but you favour the agile
You hate the lawyers but you favour the footballers
You hate the pastors but you favour the ruffian
You hate the whites but you favour the Negroes
You hate the groomed but you love the ragamuffin
You hate the chaste but you favour the mistress
O love! O love! Why are you ever illogical?
Love, I revere you for wickedness and irrationality
In all of your history you scored sum *** laude
In the duo as blend of your domain, Look;
You never dwell in a genuine companionship
You like where the couth will interject;
Amidst fornication between married and single ones
Amidst adultery in the triangle of foul compassion
Amidst miscegenation between black and white
Amidst infatuation between the whole and the lame
Amidst conjugal appetite between the old and the young
Amidst concupiscence between house master and houshelp
Amidst immorality of married master over the wallowing servant
Amidst libidos between literate teacher unto the peasant pupil
Amidst disordered passion among the sly lesbians
Amidst impious ********** among the suave gays
O love! O love! You are the most wicked force!
Love I am told; your colour is red
You may be red or you may not be red
But all in all, you deserve poetical veneration
For your herculean ability to bend the most wise;
In your force you made sagacious Shakespeare to bend
In your force you made Princes Diana to bend and bend
Bending downwardly stooping for Afawoyed the moor,
In your stupefying dint you made Napoleon de Bonaparte
To bend and bend downwardly stooping for Josephine
Josephine a famed she-Casanova in the gone Paris
Among the then humanity and the then animality,
In your impairing machinery you set sons on their fathers
In the roman empire of Antony and Ceaser
In the scramble for Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen
Beauty of her aquiline nose heavily hovered perhaps
In the eyes of the Roman beholders
The father and the son only to sent the empire
To the love forlorn smithereens!
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 5:08 AM UTC
In a steady, illiterate static
this room is my study.
And you are my book.
Legs spread 'cross my lap
hands firmly upon my frame.
I lean in to see the words.
Your soft lips graze mine
like branded cattle in a glen.
Wet and cold we sit there.
Then your tongue begins flickering
beguiling like the serpent of Eden.
How could I resist but to bite?
I kiss you sweetly
and you kiss me back.
Minutes pass in the study.
My tongue examines your mouth
like a cartographer mapping a new world.
Each slick and slope is wholly new to me.
Teeth clink like crystal glasses
during a wedding day toast.
Eyes shut tight make the black of mourning.
The noises dribbling from our mouths sound akin
to a murderer tromping through the forest mud.
Shovel dragging hard. ...Plop...Plop...Plop...
Our hands run over each other's bodies
open-palmed like a child examining the globe.
I want to feel you from pole to pole.
I pull back and run my fingers through your hair.
Your color is rushed with red and you wipe saliva from your lips.
Your smile is without flaws, and you taste like ambrosia.
I love being literate.
Mar 9, 2012
Mar 9, 2012 at 9:00 PM UTC
sometimes i wish i was literate
so i could see the writing on the wall
they say ignorance is bliss, but
nasty surprises don't hold much awe
i may feel stronger than before
but that feeling promptly subsides
when familiar pain strikes again
and salty streams bore from my eyes
a short romance has met its demise
but these reservoirs won't be as deep
nor will the mourning be as drawn out
just another valuable lesson which i will solemnly reap
Jun 30, 2015
Jun 30, 2015 at 10:15 AM UTC