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Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
Dreams of a Child
Created: Jan 23, 2011 5:44 AM
Finished: Jan 30, 2011 4:23 AM
Posted here  Jan 2014
Warning:
a very, very long poem, but within , I promise,
there is a precise stanza about, for you.  
Take it as my gift.
Let me know which you took home to play.

~~~~~~~


Some poets care not
for the
discipline of rules,
laws of punctuation.

Why bother brother,
with putting poems
in antiquated jailhouses,
prisons of vertical bars,
or afford the reader,
the courtesy of horizontal lines?

Question and quotations marks
these day refuted,
as a Catcher In The Rye
conspiracy symbology of big lies,,
political interventionism,
to the creative, most natural
right to be crude.  

Inconvenient impositions,
symbolic flailings, of an
over regulated civilization
in the throes of declination

Punkuation is but a
societal annoyance to
today's creative geniuses,
periods, commas,
nothing more than
a pause to think -
who needs 'em?
when we want to stink
up the atmosphere with vitriols
of half truths and inhuman
but oh so gleeful,
concentrated disparagement
of any person worthy of
nationwide late night mocking merriment.

Such free spirits, vivid animations,
within me do not reign,
though upon occasion,
boy got permission slips  
for breaking bad by invention
of an occasional new word.

New words, white truffles
vocabulic incantations,
my own cupcake creations,
meant to burr, or purr,
their tasty meanings, always,
were readily apparent.

Sometimes we rhyme,
sometimes  we can't;
doth not a reading of a
poetic periodic table
of rants, chants
love poems, and paeans
to a shhhh! pretend,
overarching, poesy ego
require some minimalist format?

How I envy you,
kind observer,
possessor of literary powers
untoward and untold,
delicate touches of a fingertip
rule and rue
poetic invention.

You can zoom away or in
for a closer examination
of unscripted revelations,
incinerate them like an
yesterday's newspaper,
thus demonstrate contempt for
less-than-historic ruminations,
as time has done before.

Witness the crumbled ruins of Ozymandias,
king of kings,
and how the critic's machinations
with a dash of tabasco time,
his works, now museum pieces,
in the Tate Modern's room of
Laughable Human Aspirations.

Don't panic, sigh or groan,
kind observer,
infection inflictions,
content of discontentment,  
ancient whinings that the publisher
long ago listed as discontinued,
will not herein unfold.

What has all these mumbled asides
to do with the Dreams of a Child?

Apologies prolific I distribute
for this long winded profligate prologue;
and even for prior invasions
of your contemplative fantasias,
but my intention certain:
**** out the weak chaff eaters,
feigners of faux interest,
who stanzas ago deserted us,
this confessional lore.

These prior lines conceived
to mislead and deceive,
to refer and deter
send away, the hangers-on
who litter our lives,
with whimpered falsehoods.


So, we begin anew:

Today's lecture entitled
Dreams of a Child
were formatted on a silver disc;
this communication's originations,
seedlings of block
roman black letters
on background of cleansing white,
re things that jar me in the night.

Easy slights that waken
from a fitful, pitted rest,
mental paintings
natured in gem colors,
tourmaline auras,
and vibratto hues
of blue zircons.  .  

I have never lain upon the couch,
in the inner holy of holies,
where one whispers
to the Father Confessor
an original composition,
subject, title and inspiration
of said unique origination,
decidedly of one's own choosing,
roots of the essay's telling,
harvested in the root garden
of one's dreams,
where grow herbs,
spicy ones,
flavors of childhood.

The lush and wooded smells
of a forest of childhood scars,
and it's concomitant
putrefying, fruited rot,
awoke and brokered
a stilted, tremulous sleep.

Went to bed a a man
of modest success,
of modest scenes,
a bond trader, who trades
exactly that:
his word, his bond,
his blessing to his
deal constructions,
all of which, ended with an
irrevocable cri of "Done!"

Yet like you,
I am oft undone.

Dreams.

In truth, not dreams, but
spectral moments of
our lives relived,
a melange of ancient lyrics,
taunts of childhood abusers and
peer humilators
who could
teach the CIA
torture techniques
of WORD boarding, par excellent.

Angelic faces of human ****
that birthed in me a holy duality,
anger and a,
love of words,
my vaccination serum.

Granted a love of
human kindness
from teachers who cherished their
high and mighty tight
to publicly humiliate,
knowing full well
that human laws could not
attempt to have them
justly incarcerated.

Where, where were
the supervisors
who let me be spit upon
in the back seat of a
Fifty's station wagon,
by the brothers of
a sainted dead shepherd?

I am still eight,
sitting on a stoop in the
modest side of town,
towel in hand, so handy,
to wipe the tears shed
for cause,
for the car-pool of suburban boys
who "forgot" to pick me up for
Sunday swim night.  

In high school,
in the back row,
I silently ******
the juice of a Sarte lemon and
essayed a term paper,
upon multiple mirrored
reflections of a man
called Camus.

As another self styled, only living
teenage expert
on "alien nations"
received with pride and trepidation,
a sentence of Ninety Eight,
on my term paper,
but the pedantic predators
deemed it an accident
for I, was  inscribed in their
Upper East Side
Coda of Prejudice,
as merely,
"just" a
man of USDA,
B grade quality intellect.  

Hand me downs
I did not get
as I was the
younger, sole brother,
but worn lint lines
of humiliation
when and where my pants
were "let down"
to accommodate growth spurts
were my growing marks of Cain.

Those growth lines
were economic reality signs,
and were rich fodder for
childhood monsters,
Scions of Income Superiority
who lived in ranch homes in
two car, color tv garage slums,
wearing band new Levis.

In the Sixties,
time of my unsilent spring
wore a cross of
teenage hood,
my hair,
worn long,
Jesus style

Worn with labor pride,
for it was
Made in the USA,
I was a most conventional
revolutionary.

In the parochial jail
of educated guesses,
where society's lesson plans
of all that was bad
were O so well taught,
I was apart, ahead,
of Our Crowd,
but not too, radically.  

But a spiteful
Principal of No Principle,
deemed my locks a
disruptive influence,
so to exorcise my rebel streak,
so to crucify his "Jesus Freak,"
so to exercise his diminutive spirit
a pompous uber man,
he had me shorn
like a sheep,
thrice
in just one day,

He loved his full employment
of his pharoic entitlement,
The Educator's Power of Abuse,

I was so denuded
of human strength,
the Italian barbers of the
East 86th Street subway station,
wept for me,
their cri du coeur,
Angels in Heaven did hear
and from God
did dare demand
an explanation!

He roared in manner celestial,
"Is he not my child too,
and if he be treated
in style *******,
it is purposed and willful."

Pornographic compilations of
slaps across a child's face,
I've got plenty
of and in My Space,
should you care to
add your own,
down under,
got plenty of room
for all comers    

In a Facebook world,
I pride, not pretend,
that having fewer "friends"  
is my honest and true
reflection of who I am, and,
life lessons learned -
quality, not quantity.  

Victims of discrimination
can be most discriminating
in matters of
human games, associations.  
****** or word,
lack of taking care
is not heart healthy.

Tried to forgive
the despotic progenitors,
of some of that which
is good within me
that, irony of ironies,
they can claim the title,
creator;

Tried to give them
what I had gotten -
from the happy malcontented  
evil spreaders,

That grace, grace is
the only methodology,
an inestimable but
valuable lost leader,
the only way
to survive on
this planet of
hardtack and
caste striation.  

Though still quick to anger
at the cutters and denigrators
I am quick still to
confess my own failings, and forgive those
of plain and honest folk.

Unfortunately, kind observer,
you had to share my brunt,
syllabic Iwo Jima battles
of a decaying verbal moonscape
to reach the denouement,
for now we have,
mostly arrived

Most likely you too
have long ago
deserted me like
so many others,
no matter,
this modulated breath
was born and released
from my heaving chest and
as I knew it,
know this:

My Absaloms
where ever you be,
presumably and hopefully in hell,
I give you thanks
and a mini bar drink
of absolution.
a tin medal of appreciation,
for the
Marked Improvement
you inadvertently nurtured
in this restless,
voyagered soul.

My ancient enemies
till now, be advised,
forgive and forget
was and has not  
fully formed
in my penitential template,

Unlike your natural capacity
for cruelty and mean
birthed unto you
in your third rate
genetic melange,
forgiveness is taught
in a Master Class
at a famous school of Ethical Drama,
that I did not attend

Though resident in
a better place,
my root garden,
the bitter herbs you planted
still grow but,
are welcome in sweet brotherhood,
until the selah days
of just one flavor.

Though the universe's expansion
is of a pace such that
time and space definitions
will stretch and warp
and need be
refined, replaced,
the governing principle here.
need not be rephrased.  

For goodness
from evil
doth come
and should your
evil spectres
once more try
for resurrection
in my benighted
dream world.
you will find the doors
locked and barred,
upon them a sign
not verbose,

**Done.
Whew.
Anna Jordan Apr 2010
we shall not love you
the people cry
we shall not worship
or adore you
and the Gods of Olympus sigh
and though famine punish
and surplus grant
the people do not let up their chant.

Old Zeus grown weary through graying age
as young as the day his father, slayed
yet older in mind and wiser still
has had enough of humanities fill.
And thunderbolts he throws from his clouded sky
and below the people cry
"We shall not go quietly into the night!"
"We deny you and so we'll fight!"

And Aphrodite, her beauty now common place
a million mimicry's in plastic-made face
paints war paint on cheek and brow
and shouts with a dangerous frown
"Raise your blades at me with dread!"
"With Eos rise you'll all be dead!"

But plain Athena stays her hand
and looks down on the rabid band
with helmet and spear, in moonbeams clad
she shakes her head, expression sad
"Leave them be, my sister,"
"Do not let rise your anger."

But fair villain Beauty ran
and clutched at another man
"Ares!" cried the Goddess, "Act for me!"
and bloodthirsty God, he got to his feet
and with chariot of fire and wheels of bones
and Discord and Malice singing their songs
he rushed to do the bidding
to a conflict that needed winning.

But Apollo's chariot drew close
and blocked his path with the sun
"No, Brother, do not go."
"This is not a war to be won."

And below Demeter drew back her hand
and crops and rivers dried to sand
and Persephone never rose from her tomb
to usher new life from springtimes womb
and Hades fickle laugh with Hermes nervous snicker
Artemis let wane the moon and stars flicker.

And darkness shut out a world malcontented
left in darkness as the people lamented
and Eos stayed abed for years at a time
Prometheus fires wouldn't burn, the cities were slime
and those that once were men
were transformed once then again...
and from the darkness there rose
things with sightless eyes, creatures predisposed
to live in blackness and filth by Fates three
and banished were they to the depth of the sea.

And there they live still, in the Challenger Deep
and further below even more of them sleep
the creatures that once molested the God's door
the myth, if that, of monsters called Noctor.
©2010 as per A.M.J. All rights reserved. The above cannot be reproduced, in full or in part, without expressed written permission of the author.
Anders Thompson Mar 2017
or varicose veins
to those doctors definitists with or without them
me i call mine “disconcerting” and “homely” they are not
the result of poor diet
lack of exercise a weak heart
or a passive cardiovascular system
but of heritage and pedigree and
a genetic lottery i did not win
up the inside of my thighs crawl pale distorted crags
and newborn ruddy lightning
a bloodied patchwork of stretch marks that drag
themselves up to the cradle of my pelvis
and wrap clumsy arms around my hips
my legs await the distortion and corruption of time
yet at seventeen have already begun their heady work
long twisting and sickly a grotesque lace
of my veins pushes through bland mole speckled skin
to emerge disgusting and putrid
like the terrors of children’s nightmares
terrifying not for tooth and nail
but the rotten repulsive pelt
my mental soliloquy before my audience (the mirror)
is a series of silent pleas and malcontented muttering
would that i were slimmer there thinner here
more graceful and pleasing to the idle eye
smooth skinned and dewy eyed
not thick and tired and slow
a little more color and vigor to sallow white skin
more beauty more beauty more beauty more beauty more beauty
i tell myself my self conscious vanity my self disgust
is a product of patriarchy and objectification
that i am and always will be a mind not a body
that if i let myself be this way i am shallow
and conceited and vain and no amount of arguing with myself
will decrease my superficial nature if i care about appearances
dressing up is a way of making myself externally attractive
and hiding the internal eternal abyss
the eyeliner attempts
are only a way to draw eyes to mine because i want them to look
into these innervated wastelands and see something attractive
but i am falling into that abyss of shallow
existence and slipping into a weak and meaningless soul
that can be washed away in the flood of the masses
read jung and freud tear through sun tzu and nietzsche and forget
about the poor player who struts and frets their hours upon the stage of life
who wanted to be pretty
wanted to know beauty
wanted to dig into themselves
and come up with fistfuls of worth
Micah Rion Jul 2015
For breakfast, I brought my self-loathing undisguised by bruised, hollow eyes and disquieted moaning,
all crunched up into the contours of your hard edges,
like thin-veined broken and browned, misused leaves orphaned from its parent.

My desperate limbs always reaching, wretched, to shoddy fill into the gaps that your self-confidence casual posture had formed on the floor;
empty-air spaces and pervasive shadow caverns I have claimed without verbal invite, promise or asylum.
No self-confidence to speak from, anguish and primal, seeking shelter;
pain entwined with pain making easy comfort in forgetting.

A soul disquieted;
there are pieces stripped straight down, pinned together in different places, unspun and uneven smears of paste that don't ease closed the obvious imperfections.
A harmful machination unexplained, fitted negligently back together,
the design with no catalyst to begin, untended and purposefully without purpose.
No comprehensible enrichment, selfish perversity plodding culmination,
almost complete.
Build, re-build; conspiracy laced with nonchalance; twisted person alchemy.

Any or Each of Many becoming
the godhead of a shallow, malcontented deception,
rudiment contortions to mangle, punish, ruin
an altruistic heart; a beaten wooden phoenix shaped from past wrongdoings and misery.
More burning away, combustion of reclaiming, bones and sinew steeped in the truth of the universe.

Unjustified and never the differentiation my heart once blamed, not good nor bad.
We, two souls alike in circumstance, circumference, cylindrical,
watching the world make more of us, clutching bird-like shoulders merged through a pale waning.
Existent time-limited victims of disappointed alliances,
made in the land entrenched in the business of making monsters who make monsters.
a madwoman's bra fit entirely a flaw as
a greenbrier there she needn't to true but
to her on this roof by the stream then on
the way with her wickedness in boots
as she reverberates mountains upon her
stockings and lively spirit exhibited by taut
*** and misnomer of any malcontented rap
a rap in speed and dire circumstances
JB Claywell Dec 2016
Dear Magenta,

I hope this letter finds you in better spirits than I.  It has only been three days since I was allowed pen and ink. I have spent the last two days trying to decide what it was that I wanted to convey in this message.
Once I decided, I spent most of today locked in my room beginning and destroying this letter.
The floor is littered with scraps of paper, upended preludes.

There is so much to tell you; beginning is near impossible. We will do our best, I suppose.

I want you to know foremost that I have never hated you. I want you to know that I only wanted to see our project to it’s inevitable end. I wanted to be done with you, I wanted you to leave me to my own devices for a while, I wanted to be able to refresh myself and renew my spirit. You, my antagonist, should have allowed it. Alas, you’ve always seemed to be ignorant of my need, or to have other plans altogether.

It is a clever ruse that you have put together. You would speak to me of my own betterment. You would tell me that you were only trying to strengthen my resolve, to make me somehow improved. And how I believed you! How I wanted it to be unfeigned!  And, I do wish ever so that your efforts were pure. But, where you see me, you see a buffoon, no doubt!

What a folly you have made.

I am aware of you now. My eyes are open and my mind fairly screams with indignation.

I need you to know that I will not bend to your supplanted misgivings. You will not continue as you have these recent months. My confidence is returning and no anxiousness shall impede it.

I know now, and have always known, that I am capable, and intelligent. You may find me unconventional, perhaps even unsavory, but I know that my intentions are pure and my efforts are honest and more importantly, well received!

Now, you must also know that I know what to expect! When the time comes and you are confronted with my malcontented behaviors; you will project a moue and cry foul.  I can almost see it in my mind’s eye!

And, honestly, I’m looking forward to it.  But, please do try to maintain a level of composure that is redolent of your years on this planet.

With an unfortunate level of superciliousness,

Obsidian


-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications
Not a poem.

The first in a series of weird letters to no one in particular.
Noelle Dec 2016
Pin ******, repeatedly, dance across the newly frayed skin, once more.
Just once.
Just twice.
Third time is the charm when your own cells ebb like malcontented waves, withering at my touch. Grasping vainly for some clarification of my recent actions, I return empty handed, again. When the world is muted, spinning faster than I could have thought possible my sullen, achy mind is quiet at last. No more pondering, no more desolate thoughts creeping, seething through my veins, only gasoline.

All the violence makes my body tired, while my mind falls back into a state of decay, decrepit, unruly, intrusive thoughts that have an equal or greater reaction than the last. Everlong is the circle in which I manage my pitiful party of one. Opaque is the blood that blooms from within me, ***** like I am. Grotesque like the soul it inhabits. Nothing hurts when your head is brimming, boiling over with vehemence, nothing hurts when you can't feel your hands as they shake. Nor can I feel how abandoned, betrayed, or how heavy my heart feels when I can't swallow my own saliva. When my eyes refuse to focus, when I'm just a shell of a human, when I am no longer coherent, that is my greatest peace.

— The End —