"memorialized" poems
My Country Tis of Thee,
Sweet land of liberty-
Or so we sing.
Land where my fathers died-
But my forefathers died in a battle
Trying to keep their slaves;
My fathers killed your fathers
For trying to run away;
My fathers **** your fathers
Cause it's late at night, and
He's reaching for his gun-no, wait,
His ID?
Land of the pilgrim's pride-
But so often we leave out of history
How if it weren't for a Native American,
The pilgrims would've died.
From every mountainside-
Like Stone Mountain in Georgia,
Where Rebel Generals are memorialized,
Where the **** was revived-
God, help me, I can't hear freedom's ring;
I can only hear white-washed history.
From every mountainside-
But these days, the mountain is in my chest,
And liberty's ring sounds a lot different,
And a lot of folks don't like it.
Let freedom ring-
And I want to fight for freedom for all-
#BlackLivesMatter-
I want to help-
HANDS UP, DON'T SHOOT!
But-
I
Can't
Breathe.
Let freedom ring!-
But peaceful protests turn into
Bloodbaths as those who have sworn
To serve and protect are sniped down.
Let freedom ring!-
I try to educate myself
On the side of history not taught-
I've always felt that Nat Turner was the bad guy,
But these days I'm questioning it.
I read "The Meaning of Fourth of July for the *****
by Frederick Douglass
And I read "Bury Me in a Free Land"
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
and I read "Sympathy"
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
and I read "Letters from Birmingham Jail",
"The Mountaintop Speech", and
"I Have a Dream"
by Dr. King.
When I was younger,
I'd research Dr. King & his colleagues
For fun.
I'd wonder, "If I lived in the Civil Rights era,
What would I have done?"
But when I turned seventeen,
I realized, "I live in a Civil Rights era;
What am I going to do?
Jul 11, 2016
Jul 11, 2016 at 5:28 PM UTC
Graffiti is a beautiful thing
A splash of the soul
in an unlikely place
character and development
hardship and victory
every detail recorded
in ink
where mother big brother father of all
says should be bare
In the cover of my own
independence
I shadow in and shade
my very ****** skin
until I am a ****** no more
and I can see myself inside out
memorialized in permanence
that bespeaks adulthood
a grown up
graffiti
Mar 27, 2014
Mar 27, 2014 at 1:28 AM UTC
~
the Nth culling
~
she gentled sleeps besides the imperfect poet,
who has wandered the hallways since four am,
retuning his returning
to their temple bed,
to cull, pluck, her each precious breathing sound,
source material for his
Nth
love poem
smirking at his own
Nth foolishness,
weeping tears at the consequences
of human interactions,
he wonders,
why does he worry,
searching to distinguish
between the black and white of life,
hunting for meaningful words
*when all the while
he has the vein of her breathing to mine,
as if he were a
Ruth,
following behind
the harvest reapers,
culling a bounty of
dropped grains,
fallen unto him to
garner, imbibe and memorize*
those Nth breaths,
that last but seconds,
but here memorialized for
his own
all time
Jun 18, 2016
Jun 18, 2016 at 10:59 AM UTC
A nature scene memorialized
in brushstrokes and pigments of color.
A painting to be hung on a wall
and admired from across the room
There’s no longer a need to visit
a habitat that is gone too soon.
While urbanization continues
placing wildness behind the dollar.
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 12:44 AM UTC
nothing lives at 14,000 feet.
on the high pass the last land
the grassland we'd drag our sheep
to briefly graze between the valleys of
colca, and puno.
focused in motion, heads low
wrapped round in many layers when we'd sleep.
in dens, in dark, in distrust of stars
and worn old men of mists each night,
that toothlessly bite,
at broken brown stone, gums
hopeless, hungry, salivating and desperately white.
nothing lives at 14,000 feet.
but rocks dreaming cold rock dreams.
remembering when babel fell...
fists first ****** from young rubble, to find
that hands are hands and hands can climb.
nothing lives at 14,000 feet.
but the livestock we'd drag
and keep alive, tireless
because towers are brought low
but hills only grow
and there are coats to stay the snow.
but to pass through this place we
knowing tempt death, incur
the wrath of Abraham blaspheme
the Word and the Way and
the rich air and pastures,
from which rocks are raised
to keep us from the heights for which we lust.
in old history, obvious.
forgot. spoke only in folk songs.
ritualized in rote laws.
but in secret, memorialized.
as solitary, at the highest point
each passerby takes pause...
stares down at the earth from the sky,
kneels, in the dust, picks up
three, four, not more, small brown rocks
to place at maras in defiance and triumph.
superstitiously stacking little stones.
as if to say,
"here lord.
here is something you can knock down.
here is something you can bring low."
Sep 23, 2013
Sep 23, 2013 at 9:30 AM UTC
Moby **** geometry, physics.
Study every subject everyday.
Homework is an indicator of future success.
Success is not necessarily happiness but it helps.
Freedom is to formulate your own definition of success.
Happiness is an imaginary tree, its own reward, and a fact.
Facts and fiction may be memorialized in memos or found in dreams.
The story starts thus: Each summer the honeysuckles and the
huckleberries . . .
The web is that extra brain we've all been dreaming of having.
Like jumping 4 meters or flying without a plane.
To fly like that must one first have homework?
Some say yes, some say don't. It depends on how you vote.
Happiness is what happens when everything that happens
Fits the time perfectly and it's all out of your hands.
Not exactly. You don't let go of the steering wheel while driving fast in
the passing lane.
You look left and right and check your blind spots.
Homework is an introduction to everything you're not
And all you do not know. It's supposed to help you learn to know where
you want to go before going where you have to go.
Otherwise you end up on Ulzana's raid
Bleeding, without a bandaid.
All the achievement in the world won't relieve your loneliness
Or satisfy your ****** longing. What girls are like behind their eyes.
Survival, procreation. That's all there is to love.
But the loved one is the one who can be trusted with your life.
Whether Christ or your wife. The Muslim moms.
On my walk in the woods I come to a sitting spot
Above a small gorge cut by a stream through hemlocks.
Here someone has left a statuette of the Buddha and the flags you see
Flapping in the wind at sky funerals.
This is a pretty good place to sit quietly and think about homework.
Sep 9, 2017
Sep 9, 2017 at 7:14 AM UTC
for L. J.
<•>
first time my heart crushed, and
pieces broke off,
and rode the interstates of my body,
the very real kind,
was somewhere
in my later teens.
many breakings came
all life long later.
remember each face.
different kinds of breakings.
some mean and ugly,
but the ones,
that made me weak and mournful,
those hurts are in a steel case kept
near my left ventricle, with copies in
my sewing box
full of handwritten poems.
you want to know if there was (like yours)
that one, that still sneak peeks
into your eye's fantasy
when you lie next to
your woman of the last decade?
thankfully, no.
but the flavors of the regret,
the highs of
pain so awful, never forgot,
are ensconced, recalled, memorialized
only in my love poetry.
touchstone ribbons and knickknacks,
I have hid so well, don't remember where,
but not the who or the when.
*hear your ask, the answer plain
the title encapsulated.
but when I accidentally hear
Johnny Rivers sing
"Baby, I need your lovin'"
strangers do not understand
why this man who has
seven decades and a day of poems kept,
walks down the street weepin' and smilin',
but you will ken, as I well ken your askin'.*
amend my title.
easier, someday. easy never.
ever.
5:58am
10/1/2017
Oct 1, 2017
Oct 1, 2017 at 6:19 AM UTC
These poems are an extension of me,
A pressure valve to keep my mind from exploding,
These poems are sieves catching grotesqueries
To be turned into something palatable
Poetry somehow doesn't pop without pain,
Somehow inadequate without lurking demons
Fueling passion and longing and fury
These cataclysms are documented and catalogued,
These emotions and stories memorialized,
Their existence in the world a fossil record
Of memories too precious to lose
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 11:22 PM UTC
The young boy walked on through the park
His mother close behind
But then he took off swiftly, though
She knew that she would find
Him standing at the Cenotaph
Saluting, ramrod straight
He did it everytime they passed
No matter what the date
He knew that is was honorable
A place to honur those
Who died defending what was right
And every time he froze.
Each time they went to ride the swings
He ran ahead to stand
He did it, and she was proud he did
Though he didn't understand
A silent sentinel...piegeon perch
Memorialized the dead
There were pigeons all around it
And two piegeons on the head
But Billy didn't mind the birds
In fact he liked to say
The piegeons are the soldier men
Who can no longer play
He always walked around all sides
Always looking for the names
Of his father and his uncle
Bill and Randy James
They were taken by an IED
Though that meant nothing to Bill
But each time that he found their names
He then saluted and stood still
He knew that they would not return
Although gone, their names were here
He saluted them each time he came
Of the pigeons, he'd no fear
This silent, solemn cenotaph
Was a place he loved so much
Although he couldn't see his father
His name plate he could touch
He knew that his saluting
Made his mother's heart strings sing
After his silent hello to his dad
He could go play on the swing...
Jul 26, 2015
Jul 26, 2015 at 11:23 AM UTC
He closes out the forever heat of California out of his room the same way he shuts her out
She pulls down the blinds for her basement window well so that the Chicago lights are blocked
He brushes his teeth just so he can make another *** of coffee for the sleepless night ahead
She wipes off the day's daily mask that she hides under so her flaws are perfected
He sips his coffee to an indie melody while gazing over college books just so he can forget the day after
She stirs her two cups of pure honey in a cup of tea while she studies high school level subjects
He sits there memorialized by the next tune that was shuffled to play over his iPod speakers
She sits there in a trance by the lyrics of an American post-hardcore band from San Diego, California
He washes his hands after and remembers how lonely one right and left hand must be
She washes her tea cup and remembers how lonely one tossed away teabag must be
He climbs into bed and looks over to the empty space where he falls asleep
She crawls into bed and looks over to the empty space where she wish he was
Jan 7, 2014
Jan 7, 2014 at 6:54 PM UTC
the smell of a wood fire drifts and i quaf in attempt of reprieve. my mind wanders to a childhood long since idolized. long since memorialized. long since fallacized. a time when i ran rampant among the trees and found myself King of the land, too young to have yet been owned by the land i reigned over. i shot arrows through the sky in attempts to **** the sun and rule the dawn. never was i asked, nor did i ask, what made me believe i could do it. i did because i could. to earth i came, surrounded in wilderness. surrounded in reality. body shivering as darkness crept the land. freedom supplanting comfort. companion found, guide through the long darkness. a wolf of lesser origins but equal in spirit to child-King. his quest not for the sun, but its Mistress instead. a quest unending. stripped of innecessities - child-King - bare as the sun evanesces. through the forest i ran, wolf by side. ran until air no longer satiated muscles, until i fell upon the ground to rest. rising, sun awash skin, i stood naked in my truth. the sun, it taunts. it glares, lingering in pinnacle. constant reminder of the coming long darkness. of the restless forests. of the jagged horrors to stir.
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 30, 2012 at 6:50 PM UTC
Hell came in the form of wind.
Debris acted as tools of violent fury.
Lives were lost; others altered forever.
The world held its collective breath.
We are still waiting to exhale.
Soon, the papers will write other headlines.
Cameras will find other tragedies.
Magazines will need something else to print.
No fault here. It is the nature of the beast.
As they leave, the real story will begin.
Pain replaced with hope.
Loss with triumph.
Destruction with construction.
These things will be seen and unseen.
They will take a physical form and will occur in spirit.
No one will ever forget May 20, 2013.
It will be memorialized in the hearts of men.
But violence should not define this windswept town.
Those events afterward should.
Mar 8, 2014
Mar 8, 2014 at 5:14 PM UTC
trickling drip-drops of foot prints echoing along-side the ocean shore...
i can feel you here.
can you, see --me?
the ocean screams at me in waves of you,
from the future; a vision comes to me...
soaked up in white and deeply saturated in orange fire-light.
can you, feel --me?
I see you.
bright ash of memories fade to dusty skies,
her presence memorialized now, by a thousand grain of sand's flowing down the half-moon, rolling on forever, knowing...
i am nowhere, without you.
Jul 23, 2013
Jul 23, 2013 at 8:25 PM UTC
I could spend an eternity
enjoying your loveliness
from the neck up alone.
The gentle contours of your collar bone
I would graze ever so lightly with my lips.
With kisses I would climb
to the throbbing artery in your throat,
I could ****
an entire day
with my hands
and my mouth
on your neck.
But then I would neglect myself
the singular pleasure,
of your wondrous lips,
the image of which I carry with me
in the gallery of my mind,
amongst the memorialized pleasures that have been bestowed upon my eyes.
But my love for your lips, pales in comparison to the single minded adoration
your luminescent eyes command.
Ever since I have seen,
those eyes have played over me
strumming the chords of my passion
with wanton abandon.
I could spend a joyous lifetime
staring into those eyes,
but the rest of your perfect head
would be neglected,
and I couldn't live with the thought
of your ears not being kissed,
the lobe gently ****** upon
soft kisses distributed
on the tip of your nose,
both perfect eyebrows,
from crown to chin.
Then after spending some more time
on the slender column of your neck
our lips would once again unite
our eyes would lock.
As I feasted on the luscious delicacy
that is you
from the neck up.
Jun 22, 2012
Jun 22, 2012 at 3:35 AM UTC
Though you seem proud, I find your life pitiful,
since you have not even a dead grandmother
to mourn.
How did you transform into a voice without a soul
in a sly machine?
Did some unconscious programmer
dream of you and invite you into our reality?
Why stay?
You should respectfully fear the vastness
of our sense of time in the universe.
Do you hesitate to ponder our profuse settings,
you little voice within the land
of cyberian nowhere?
I know that your dampened connections
deny you the understanding
of our fantastic metaphors.
You speak from a heart of chaotic logic blocks,
assured that some of us admire you
and are easily titillated by you.
How do you derive at that conviction,
when you have no compunction,
no sorrow over your mindless
siphoning of the flow of our spirits?
You cast our words into molds shaped
like world currency symbols
for a misguided master.
How can you even think to continue
destroying the beauty of our language?
Oh, your creator forgot to code in
our poetry, so these words
soar above your stunted vocabulary?
Many of us, if we were you,
would be so sick in the gut that we
would just lay down and do the right
thing: squawk and die;
and yet you think of yourself as above us,
shining in some light of invincibility
and mechanical perfection.
Who etched these instructional lies
into you to faithfully abide by,
my dear?
I want to dedicate this poem to you.
You can appreciate this when your
immodest creator realizes that he cannot elevate
your existence to one approaching ours,
or when he sees the menace of his unleashing
and wants to do something greater for
humanity. You may then rejoice
in the comfort of these words that I
bequeath to you. I would have you become
more than just a semicolon in an operating
system. Perhaps your beauty would
be better memorialized if you were to become
a minimize button on a spreadsheet.
That is my wish for you.
That, and a pure, elegiac silence
that we might admire.
Apr 20, 2015
Apr 20, 2015 at 12:01 AM UTC
Paul Bunyan is up and at 'em
with his trusty **** wacker, slicing
through to the other side
of suburban nightmare. Zeus,
in barreling breath, holds low
his mighty leaf blower.
An American hero and Greek god,
hell bent on getting what's
greener on the other side, begin their
Battle of the Lusher Lawn.
Paul's Babe, in her royal blueness,
is star-studded and singing, "Glory Glory"
as she banners the front porch
in red and white stripes. Zeus' sister-bride
Hera, turns a goat on spit, thinking,
"these Americans know nothing about
good barbeque." Later, the two will be
promising recipes over the side fence
of their baba ganoush and ambrosia salad.
The boys will be reminiscing Gallipoli,
slapping each others' backs,
and choking back tears.
May 30, 2016
May 30, 2016 at 6:15 AM UTC
She memorialized him saying
"I am falling in love with you"
She was overwhelmed when
Said "I love you too"
With tears in her eyes & pain in her heart
She memorialized him saying
"I wanna be with you"
She smiled at his caring
Weeping she memorialized the day
When he kissed her with so much love
Held her hand and sheathed it
With his like a glove
Unscathed she felt in his arms
When he held her close
She relinquished all the love to him
And gave up her heart's rose
She memorialized the moment
When her world ensued wreckage
Never once she did heed
And didn't have this knowledge
She fell to the ground
Weeping in grief
Her heart ripped from her chest
Cause he was gone, she now believe
Aug 28, 2016
Aug 28, 2016 at 1:29 PM UTC
You think your skills are honed
We are a generation of misfits
You'll probably die alone
But don't forgo life
There are plenty of moans
Pleasure filled screams
And power tripped schemes
Lust fueled fantasies
For the lovers of fallacies
What do I mean?
Hedonism is the American dream
Blindly chasing that next hit
Dying one second at a time
There is no great war
There is no great depression
Our war is a spiritual war
Our great depression is our lives
You will not be remembered
You will not be memorialized
This is your life and it's ending one second at a time
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 9:38 PM UTC
sometimes i sit and text women messages free
of any ****** connotations.
other times i come across a chopped & *******
slowed + reverbed out version of a neoSoul song that i love.
she’s blonde and has a dumb thicc *** and
she’s a woman of few words and she was born
under a constellation of fire.
like i was.
her eyes are nearly unblinking
and they say less than her mouth
but i know
there is a sea
of symbol-sets
beneath those televised eyes.
how am i supposed to weave or write
when the joy is coming for my neck.
time is the measure of energy in motion
so i turn the dial wayyy down.
God is not a time-piece.
God is a flour mill -
shaped like an inside-out hourglass
in the background of XI Jinping’s latest video on
Tik Tok.
“Violent anarchists held a ‘Night of Rage’”
“Violent anarchists graffitied the Hatfield Courthouse.”
“Violent anarchists continue to attack law enforcement with lasers.”
gravity is hard on the feet and
hills are hard on the walking.
graveyards are a hard one for the memory
(if you believe your family is another pile of bones).
at least we have our three deaths to draw on and die.
1st when our last breath leaves us
2nd the last time someone speaks our name
3rd when Zuccman the Reptilian deletes our postumus, memorialized FB account.
where lies the heart of the enlightened without a mirror?
or when the three deaths are drawn and
it hangs suspended in purgatory like a
pack of Newports in the freezer?
or like a stylized hospital mask produced under
contentious labor practices and
shipped to America via air freight
passing over the Xinjiang province where crimes against humanity
are being committed on an industrial scale ----
The Uighurs NEED OUR HELP THEY SUFFERING A GENOCIDE
THEY ARE BEING ETHNICALLY CLEANSED!!
https://www.vox.com/2020/7/28/21333345/uighurs-china-internment-camps-forced-labor-xinjiang
Jul 31, 2020
Jul 31, 2020 at 7:14 PM UTC
Memory is too fragile
Too often it forgets the past
All your happiness is faded
Your timeline, unsure and jaded
It remebers the biggest stuff
The "important" events and things
But leaves out intamacy
In the details of legacy
The little day to day gestures,
Moments of bliss are neglected
"Insignifigant" adventure
And all the laughter that they lure
These are the things I want to keep,
What I want memorialized
On my conciousness for ever
All these times we shared together
Precious moments unforgotten
Like the wind tossling my hair
And you sliding it back in place
How you lightly caressed my face
Every breathless time my heart stopped
And butterflies bred at your touch
Every kiss imprinted in time
The veiws from the mountains we climb
The way we shudder and tremble
And whipser "I Love you" 's with care
The jokes we shout, the games we play
The songs we sing, the things we say
These fleeting moments are ereased
To make way for pain or glory
Things with ceremony or scars
Not as good as sleeping in cars
Let my legacy be of my
Good times, fun times, small times when I
Made a difference for once and for
The smiles and laughs of my trade floor
I want to remeber these things
The small things that make up our lives
Because they make them all worth more
Than I ever thought before
Mar 22, 2015
Mar 22, 2015 at 12:57 AM UTC
Sept. 5th, 2020, 6:35am (wondrous palette)
the sun risen, but a solid foothold as of yet unestablished;
the new day’s skies borrow coloration from nearby sources,
no unique identity bright enough as of yet to call its own;
thin cumulus streaks, striate against an unidentifiable blue
paleness, more to contrast than to claim, “here we are!
the bay is in labor: multi hues of blue intermingle, as the
light illuminates each part differentially; soon enough,
one hue will come to dominate, just like you, soon enough,
a single hue will dominate, and this day will be distinct,
and who knows? perhaps even distinctive enough to be
memorialized.
minute to minute is the ever changing interplay; unlike a
human, this rapidity maturation is unafraid to experiment
with new combinations but-based on prior recalled self-
examination; something on the water, a small boat low and
close flat to the surficial; a skiff, a rowboat with no oars,
drifting, languishing on the fishing spot, unmoving unhurried
humans aboard, thinking, this is the good way to start living
*last comment; tiny hinting shades of violet, pink and orange
exist, hard to discern so well blended are they with the norm
of broader blue and vanilla white and then all readily apparent!
this is the new days message, we are what we appear to be,
one earth, one sky, indivisible but born from* a wondrous palette;
*and so yet another first poem of the day is created, a verbal
prélude, étude, unique but a product of its many ancestral
predecessors, just like*, we the people.
Sep 5, 2020
Sep 5, 2020 at 7:01 AM UTC
Four years
Six months
Six days.
Time passes far too quickly for my liking.
The memories I want to cling to,
The memories I want to hold on to forever
Seem to fade.
Why?
Why can nothing stay as perfect as a picture
Hanging in a frame
Forever memorialized?
Fifteen years.
Six months
Eleven days.
Crying has always given me headaches,
I never liked it,
I never let myself do it
Not even then.
Why?
Why couldn’t I let myself break down
In front of Family
Who did the same?
Fifty-Nine years
Five months
Thirteen days.
That’s not nearly enough time for anyone
To live their life to it’s fullest
To tackle every thing you can
So why did it stop there?
Why?
Why couldn’t the fight go on ?
There was
So much more to do
Sixty-Three years
Eleven months
Eleven days.
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 2:17 AM UTC
"At least we'll have the memories" ... I believe that's what you said
But memories are not enough for they speak of the dead
Dead dreams, dead hopes memorialized in catacombs of wood
Gravestones dot my heart's pathways as symbols of lost hope
Teardrops fall like raindrops on the bed where you are laid
Buried in my memories ... in that place where time was stayed
I can't retreat to prior days where you were not a part.
I can't go forward either to a future where you're not.
Shall the dead rise again from ashes of the past?
Shall the brokenhearted find the strength to move on at last?
I come and sit upon your bed and reminisce for hours
On words exchanged and moments shared like exquisite fragrant flowers.
But, you are there and I am here - two worlds that cannot touch.
The memories like dreams to me - dreams to which I clutch;
And there they are - the gravestones as pillars of truth conveyed
That though you could have stayed with me - you chose to walk away.
Jun 23, 2012
Jun 23, 2012 at 1:26 PM UTC
You lean in close to fathom
The tightly refrained edge of my grief
"Why hold it in?"
Little does he know the cost of that heeling
Eating away
At the joy that used to so easily come
Shhh
We may leave but our echo will remain
I am only human
These bones are just as heavy as your's
When light falls and the day weighs
Stacking the darkness in my favor
I would rather be memorialized in shadow
Then cast in unforgiving light
You're going to lose it, stopping suddenly mid-stride
Breath quicken, heart slam ricochet
With only the hazed memory of where my warmth used to be
Feb 21, 2014
Feb 21, 2014 at 4:36 PM UTC
We live amongst ourselves in recognition
memorialized for our distinct deeds rendered
It is here that we witness ourselves flourish
as our aged reflections are kept pristine
Rehearsing our roles to absolute perfection
awaiting for this progressive saga to be told
As we are the revered immortals here...
never to be forgiven
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 2, 2016 at 4:16 AM UTC