"merchants" poems
who lit the candles
placed so eloquently
behind purple rock?
that sculpted radiance
and chapel grace
wound in a chosen
defined way
down the spiral
stone stairs
street cars dawdle
alongside
the packer slew
biding merchants
shuffle their wares
as the front man
and pock face
sing their sullen
holy blues
cut jazz echoes
over the accompanying
gabble and drone
incense and haze
pour from
a lower trap door
sack fish, truffles
and splendid crafts shine
inside the stained glass fronts
a wide mouth snapper
with a bloated tongue
greets the
morning tide
(not camera shy
in the least!)
the fish traps
and beaneries
bring life
to the flourishing causeway
hula hoops
and circle ballers
join the
cobaine stage
favoured rogues
and mac jacks
speak easy
of the big daddy
beth’s triple by pass
taking firm hold on
tricky ****
and the nutcracker
maze ways,
taggers and
lost tunnels
of cu chi
strike a
nerving blow
a poised finger man
belts out his tune
(with a sniff sock
and iterating glare)
his nosey neighbors
cut artisan bread
(with a white wine
and jelly spread)
midwives push forward
for an afternoon
toddle and stroll
Jan 19, 2018
Jan 19, 2018 at 11:12 AM UTC
there’s a barnacle scar
deeply ingrained
on the basalt stack
at mark thirty two
whispering summer winds
scented oil
cotton and roe
drift
as waves brush
and shape
the sandstone shore
the briny air
and lost erratic
set a tone to this
pollyanna portrait
it's andrews undulations
and gifted benches
its concessions
and traces of the barry burn
its sculpted driftwood
and sanko lines
make this picture
almost perfect
children play
as venom spews
from the caterwaul pair
those odd looking mates
casting smiles
with arrested despair
settling shots
swiping bugs
dipping and darting
as photo men
and muscles
and long neck seabirds
make their turn
the hunched hoody
and his sorted sidekick
get their fill
(of moss and rubble ~ chubby and kelp)
nice to meet your acquaintance
the pho man would say
an odd drop
and ironic turn
from those horrific corners
of timeless desperation
down by cannon bridge
harbor seals
and carriage horse
are fronted by
raven shade
jolly tides pause
in quiet bays
(with curious looters
and *** pickers)
sand merchants
and field totems
all streamed by the light
cirrus strands
blanket the
outer edge
hovering craft
and shimmering willows
bolt the evening frame
blood orange
and tethered
with a filtered glare
bottle-nose dolphins
and seabirds
(and shifting tides)
are all settling in
for the long night stay
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017 at 11:21 PM UTC
Willets cull the seawall
snapper on the grill
rock ***** swoon
in shallow lagoons
long boats pass
under quiet
palm shade
Plovers dance and flutter
handrails frayed and torn
graffiti spots
at lovers rock
frigate-birds fall
from a high
noon sun
Thatched roof on a mud wall
fish flags settle score
anchors arch
in front line march
pillar cracks form
under rust brown scars
Elegant tern and grebe
watchmen fall in cue
children play
on crested waves
whimbrels and notchers
perch above Tentaciones
Striped pelícanos
the bandits of the sea!
merchants grow
in steady flow
siblings jostle
in a tide cooled sand
Heerman gull and boobie
durango smoke in yurt
boiler shrimp
and puffer blimp
castle buckets and scrapers
under a dusk light cheroot
Six pulls on a lead line
painted toes in sand
shearwater run
in a rainbow sun
the portly mexicano
flaunts his tacos
and wares
Rooster house for swordfish
bamboo shoots and sails
broken shells
and ocean swells
rise
on the
perfect
La Ropa bay
Apr 14, 2017
Apr 14, 2017 at 2:22 PM UTC
Bricks and mortar, steel and boards,
Phone poles lined with power cords, on
Pothole streets, where engines roar,
'Neath smoggy skies, where jet planes soar,
Where penny merchants peddle wares,
And news reports pretend they care,
Where vagrants sleep, and children stare,
And people work for lives not theirs,
That's life in the jungle, adrift in the herd,
Where terrestrial beasts envy free flying birds
Where the pundits stand polished, and speak empty words,
And the artists paint portraits, while posted on curbs,
Where the men push carts, full of empty cans,
And the women spend paychecks, for spray-on tans,
Where the truckers drive loads, 'cross a thousand mile span,
To appease the great gods of supply and demand,
Asphalt and tarmac, girders and glass,
Terrarium trees in cemented sod grass,
Ripe with the stench of exhaust fumes and gas,
As the choir lines up for the 10 o'clock mass,
While the brokers all scream, at a packed stock exchange,
As the veterans in wheelchairs sit begging for change,
That's life in the jungle, it's just a big game,
But remember you're playing, lest you go insane.
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 11:01 PM UTC
why do we always inspire the young who idolise and idealise, make the middle-aged merchants and are spoken of by the old as necessary memories by way of rekindling their own memories of youth not travelled upon the paths of the various arts?
modern world decided
to depict the **** perfect family
as a form of ******
now we're told the perfect
family is within reach of
our genetic understanding of things
and how easily synthesised,
how easily synthesised and
rarely analysed to be mutually
bored before the television
content and silent...
raising a family these days almost
feels like committing an act of ******
Mar 6, 2016
Mar 6, 2016 at 7:07 PM UTC
When shall we learn, what should be clear as day,
We cannot choose what we are free to love?
Although the mouse we banished yesterday
Is an enraged rhinoceros today,
Our value is more threatened than we know:
Shabby objections to our present day
Go snooping round its outskirts; night and day
Faces, orations, battles, bait our will
As questionable forms and noises will;
Whole phyla of resentments every day
Give status to the wild men of the world
Who rule the absent-minded and this world.
We are created from and with the world
To suffer with and from it day by day:
Whether we meet in a majestic world
Of solid measurements or a dream world
Of swans and gold, we are required to love
All homeless objects that require a world.
Our claim to own our bodies and our world
Is our catastrophe. What can we know
But panic and caprice until we know
Our dreadful appetite demands a world
Whose order, origin, and purpose will
Be fluent satisfaction of our will?
Drift, Autumn, drift; fall, colours, where you will:
Bald melancholia minces through the world.
Regret, cold oceans, the lymphatic will
Caught in reflection on the right to will:
While violent dogs excite their dying day
To bacchic fury; snarl, though, as they will,
Their teeth are not a triumph for the will
But utter hesitation. What we love
Ourselves for is our power not to love,
To shrink to nothing or explode at will,
To ruin and remember that we know
What ruins and hyaenas cannot know.
If in this dark now I less often know
That spiral staircase where the haunted will
Hunts for its stolen luggage, who should know
Better than you, beloved, how I know
What gives security to any world.
Or in whose mirror I begin to know
The chaos of the heart as merchants know
Their coins and cities, genius its own day?
For through our lively traffic all the day,
In my own person I am forced to know
How much must be forgotten out of love,
How much must be forgiven, even love.
Dear flesh, dear mind, dear spirit, O dear love,
In the depths of myself blind monsters know
Your presence and are angry, dreading Love
That asks its image for more than love;
The hot rampageous horses of my will,
Catching the scent of Heaven, whinny: Love
Gives no excuse to evil done for love,
Neither in you, nor me, nor armies, nor the world
Of words and wheels, nor any other world.
Dear fellow-creature, praise our God of Love
That we are so admonished, that no day
Of conscious trial be a wasted day.
Or else we make a scarecrow of the day,
Loose ends and jumble of our common world,
And stuff and nonsense of our own free will;
Or else our changing flesh may never know
There must be sorrow if there can be love.
5.1k
Something about her
the way she sips her beer
as if it’s tea, and she’s in a kimono
peering out into a storm
as the wind rattles the ***
and snakes through the silk
she undulates, sliding her finger
over the rim, then sips
I know the real storm
broods inside her frail frame
but she says little. mostly listens
and it drives me utterly insane
she should scream or bang on walls
she should throw ashtrays into tvs
but instead, she simply nods
her glazed eyes as still as pearls
She’s like a cherry blossom descending
towards the muddy trail below
she will be trampled by hooves
of merchants and thieves
and I am the charcoal cloud, aching
as I feel her falling farther from me…
Mar 14, 2015
Mar 14, 2015 at 2:28 PM UTC
Tepid damp and lukewarm night,
Build your camp by rivers bright;
Sable black and and somber grey,
Silt the river's arms away.
Island tenements rent for cheap,
Bakèd bricks in plinths lie deep;
Stores of merchants and their wives,
Sheltered from the thund'rous tides.
Glance on that maternal shrine,
Softly angled toward the Rhine;
See the men with flowing beards,
Seldom entertaining fears.
Moon illumes a stony pose,
Sun sustains a garden rose;
Temple pillars bathed in or,
Leave mute shadows on the floor.
Olifant horns begin to sound,
Tribesmen fall upon the town;
Riding with the northern gust,
Trampling the homes to dust.
Yet, as gateside rocks abound,
From the ashes, rises now,
Where that city met disgrace,
A mighty fortress in its place.
Jan 21, 2018
Jan 21, 2018 at 2:40 PM UTC
We thought we had the vampires done,
Cornered as we raised the stakes.
The fiends were caught against the font,
An end to this for all our sakes.
How foolish to believe
That the stake would push itself,
How blinded must we be
To think we'd help ourselves.
We fell back in confusion
As their eyes lit stars of blue,
Our fiery brand burned red in fear
But the flames sputtered out on cue.
We faced the devils in their line
But they withstood our empty threats,
And took us off one by one;
It was time to pay our debts.
They laughed at our misfortune.
And gave us back our forks,
They pointed at our dampened brand
And sent us back to work.
They drank from tattooed necks
And supped from elder veins,
And bled the middle dry
And fed upon their brains.
They tore up all our rights
And placed death upon a throne,
Who drove out justice in the night
While Liber's throat did moan.
They sold us all as slaves
To merchants draped in skin,
Cut from children's backs
As the devils slowed their spin.
So now we work until we drop,
Exhausted in our penury.
We're fed from blood banks on each street
While we think that we're still free.
The vampires grin within their church
And play at pious once a while,
And watch with glee as all they cut
Divides us up in our denial.
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 2:17 PM UTC
I don't know what to think
when i'm staring in your eyes
more akin to speak
in blind lullabies.
than logistify
my heightened
surmise
in flight
to somewhere nice
if only for tonight
come with me this night
ignite
the cindered fires
of our desires
and incite
the throws of light
in **** obscurity
moaning through the sincerity
of our oddities
gleaming in the rarity
of our academy of lust
all or bust
entrust the accounting
of blaspheme
to the enemies
of poverty
and shove me
all the way down your throat
fill you
instill you
with the hope
of a million
grinning in **********
of the tangled mental merchants
of pretty lights and custom curtains
drawn at first light
dispersing
amongst cursing pedestrians
prior to ***********
of forceful ************
with an another human
lightened strikes the truant
in 9 months of fluent
agony
just imagining little Timmy
has me scavenging for a shimmy
to escape
its social ****
to a blind ape
still patting his head
don't be mislead
by ***** carriers
pack your own barriers
and prepare for the scarier
side of a mans mind
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 11:05 PM UTC
I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon, lo! upsprang the aboriginal name!
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient;
I see that the word of my city is that word up there,
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb, with tall and wonderful spires,
Rich, hemm’d thick all around with sailships and steamships—an island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,
Numberless crowded streets—high growths of iron, slender, strong, light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies;
Tide swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown,
The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining islands, the heights, the villas,
The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters, the ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers well-model’d;
The down-town streets, the jobbers’ houses of business—the houses of business of the ship-merchants, and money-brokers—the river-streets;
Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week;
The carts hauling goods—the manly race of drivers of horses—the brown-faced sailors;
The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing clouds aloft;
The winter snows, the sleigh-bells—the broken ice in the river, passing along, up or down, with the flood tide or ebb-tide;
The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form’d, beautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes;
Trottoirs throng’d—vehicles—Broadway—the women—the shops and shows,
The parades, processions, bugles playing, flags flying, drums beating;
A million people—manners free and superb—open voices—hospitality—the most courageous and friendly young men;
The free city! no slaves! no owners of slaves!
The beautiful city, the city of hurried and sparkling waters! the city of spires and masts!
The city nested in bays! my city!
The city of such women, I am mad to be with them! I will return after death to be with them!
The city of such young men, I swear I cannot live happy, without I often go talk, walk, eat, drink, sleep, with them!
4.2k
Passing through mid-century
these jazz oneironauts reached Apollonian heights
while society drifted into Dionysian drunkenness
the merchants caught on too soon
The most beautiful parts of humanity
enamored to serve the ugliest:
The merchant class, the bourgeoisie
Buddha’s undeserving in charge
If only in past centuries
those noble princesses embraced
even more lowly patronages
all this potential today could be staved off
Saved from the drive to be commodified
People stopped buying jazz as it reached its height
No more smiles to appease the whites
Jazz for the few
the noble, the individual in the know
Until this too becomes the simulacrum
The Ornette Coleman on the bookshelf
to signify your snootiness
your refinement from wealth
Aging Dads in thousand dollar sweaters
kicking out their 22 year old kids
for being ****** addled hipsters
meanwhile Bird on Verve is nodding out
and Dad’s girlfriend pops a Percocet
to deal with all the stress
Jan 15, 2022
Jan 15, 2022 at 10:50 AM UTC
A quaint little bazaar
In the heart of the town
Tells a story
Of a thousand moments
Dal Bazaar as they call it
Or "Curry Market" for others who don't know.
I have fragments of memorable memories
Deep within my mind
The smell
The intoxicating smell of spices
Blended with the quiescent yet cacophonous lives
Of Merchants and Beggars
Of Buyers and Sellers
Of Bullions and a single calloused rupia
In the hands of the old *****
The sunlight baking
Bags of turmeric.
Suspending the scent
In the minds of men.
Capering clouds of black and grey
And the sudden squall
Stirring the monotony
Of the customary.
The pirouette of rain
The one that excites the plainest of the plain
Painting the whitewash with shades of grey
The chalky walls
Dust
Moist corriander
And the relief of earth
Conciliating
So rewarding
For the ruins of the bare sun.
This flashback into my soul
Where all my senses seem to be so awake.
The feel of the wooden veranda
Scent so inexpressible
My eyes devouring the sunset
Tasting the heavens
Hearing it all.
Feeling it all.
Oh the plight of poets
The ritual to end a poem.
Painful.
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 3:33 AM UTC
The Seashore Gathering
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
On the seashores of endless worlds, earth's children converge.
The infinite sky is motionless, the restless waters boisterous.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children gather to dance with joyous cries and pirouettes.
They build sand castles and play with hollow shells.
They weave boats out of withered leaves and laughingly float them out over the vast deep.
Earth's children play gaily on the seashores of endless worlds.
They do not know, yet, how to cast nets or swim.
Divers fish for pearls and merchants sail their ships, while earth's children skip, gather pebbles and scatter them again.
They are unaware of hidden treasures, nor do they know how to cast nets, yet.
The sea surges with laughter, smiling palely on the seashore.
Death-dealing waves sing the children meaningless songs, like a mother lullabying her baby's cradle.
The sea plays with the children, smiling palely on the seashore.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children meet.
Tempests roam pathless skies, ships lie wrecked in uncharted waters, death wanders abroad, and still the children play.
On the seashores of endless worlds there is a great gathering of earth's children.
Originally published by The Chained Muse. My translation is based on an untitled text in Bangla (Bengali) first published in 1912 and known as "60" due to its numerical placement. Tagore made history by becoming the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature the following year. Keywords/Tags: seashore, gathering, children, sky, sea, water, dance, sand castles, shells, boats, play, nets, swim, fish, pearls, ships, waves, songs, mother, lullaby, baby, cradle, tempests, death
Mar 30, 2020
Mar 30, 2020 at 11:03 PM UTC
The stately oak stands solemn and quiet
Alongside the bucolic covered bridge
Its branches hanging downward as if tired
Leaves falling slowly into the current
Of the rain swollen Watauga River
The shadow of the tree clinging starkly
Onto the weathered century-old planks
Speaking of a time not so far removed
When bridge and tree was the gathering place
For a day's respite from a hard week's toil
Farmers, merchants, wives and children gathered
With picnic baskets filled with fried chicken
The women chatting in their new bonnets
The children wearing last year's Sunday best
While the men make bets like Roman soldiers
The low mound where the tree's roots are anchored
Bare earth beneath the lowest hanging limb
A crude stool of newly cut pine upright
While waiting for the next unwilling guest
Courthouse clock chimes the hour of Golgotha
r 14Jan14
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 12:40 PM UTC
The weak inherit the Earth
The meek inherit their lead
Unaware of their life's worth
Until after they're dead
We are hopelessly trampled by a bullet stampede
Inflicted upon us for the wealthy man's greed
They sell us death as a commodity
While we can only mourn solemnly
They are arms dealers
We are harm feelers
They are life stealers
When we can't find healers
For the fatal wounds that end our lives so abruptly
And the man with the gun has no need to trust me
He has placed his faith in Ares
His humanity he failed to carry
He sold it urgently to feel secure
But then his thoughts became impure
For whatever reason he cast a death sentence
He felt injustice and wanted to get vengeance
But to the merchants of wrath
He is just math
Numbers on a graph
They must minimize
With blatant lies
Businessmen will try to create a need for their product
But engendering fear for profit seems like misconduct
Because as the bullets are raining
And the militants are training
Their money is stacking
While terrorists are attacking
Their nature seems callous
When they rely on our malice
They see us as a body count
They see us as simple trout
Swimming upstream to die
So they can eat us
Convincing us we'll fly
With minds of a fetus
The bullet burns as it punctures our civilization
It fuels our bitter spiteful incubation
We sit in the chamber
As they utilize our anger
The rich get richer
We don't see the picture
When gunshots scatter crowds
And the echoes scatter our thoughts
They want the volume to be loud
So we'll forget what we're taught
That our lives are the price of a gun and a bullet
Our paranoid lives become hard to live to the fullest
Oct 3, 2017
Oct 3, 2017 at 6:34 AM UTC
Mary, Mary let go of that sheep
It has bleat too loudly as we lay asleep
Feet in one steady direction
Out from the pen its throes
Mary, Mary the meadows are fresh
Though they are green only for so long
The dogs have slung them over their heads
Strung out from wayward beds
The clueless drunk shepherd that was your father
Waiting at the neck of foreign spirits
Sheathed it like a monkey peeling bananas
For a fat buck a glass, what's it to him?
Poor little sheep, shivers from the whipping air
Clouds gone too soon
For the rich merchants
With hanging gold in their mouths
Mary, Mary, poor little sheep
Jumped over the fence
Probably too hurt to walk alone
Thorns and rocks ahead
But they must have been better than the cold in his head
Aug 2, 2015
Aug 2, 2015 at 8:51 AM UTC
O' Warped Tour
On the hot blacktop we stand
In front of your various stages
The beautiful bands grace us with their angelic,
or if they prefer, demonic, voices.
O' Warped Tour
The people we meet
Girls in bikinis
Boys with ****** noses
Teenagers sitting on shoulders
O' Warped Tour
Mosh pits in the front
Singing in the back
Crowd surfing
To running circle pits
O' Warped Tour
With your merchants
And band autographs
With your cigarette smoke
And crazy teens
With your summer days
And loud music
We never want to leave
O' Warped Tour
We love you
May 24, 2013
May 24, 2013 at 12:53 PM UTC
A firework
Of brightest colours
Dances slow
Beneath the stars
Torches and candles
Iron braziers' light
Glowing warm
In blue midnight
Gowns of silk
Fineries of all kind
Whirling in solemnity
"A dance, do you mind?"
A thousand miles from sorrow
High society indeed
La crème de la crème
The very best of breed
Extravagance never is
Too extra for those ladies fair
Gossiping girls, all of them
"Oh, look, this lady's hair!..."
Gentlemen bowing
Talking with hushed voices
Trading, socializing
Polite merchants' noises
"This daughter of mine,
She might well catch your eye..."
This just a market of brides n' grooms
An exchange, !!one truth for a hundred lies!!
Gossip girls and merchants noble
Less n' less real knights and dames
Nobility used to mean heroes, and protection
But long extinct, those once bright flames
The only light there, now,
Comes from a stake pile in the debris
Burning bright, but in truth all hollow
This great bonfire of vanities
Jul 14, 2021
Jul 14, 2021 at 8:35 AM UTC
Discordant
yet innately harmonious
a cacophony of noise
shrouding my body
the harsh
empowering light
battering from above
the oppressive
heat and humidity
caressing my body as I walk
Barefoot on the open gravel
Shouts are heard
from countless merchants
from the shops and bazaars
the honking of horns
the ringing of bells
from bikes
and motor rickshas
people bustle around
performing a dizzying range of tasks
yet all working
to a common goal
to survive
Yet amidst the chaos
Children run through the streets
weaving between countless giants
to sate their desire for fun
and exercise their fragile innocence
unmarred by the horrors of the world.
India...
A beautiful mess
of livelihood and dreams of success
a true cultural experience for the senses
While it may not seem the most appealing at first
I don't know how else to stress
an amazing experience for all who enter nonetheless
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 7:57 PM UTC
I'm sorting pictures in the archive box.
Shelved for that day that I kept putting off.
The job's to cull and have less stuff to store,
but spiders lurk and snakes are sliding out.
The photo shouts in raw dismemberment.
A howling wind, the prowl of packs of wolves.
I stare at trembling splinters held so close.
Her daytime Self looks like a sweet old dame.
I hear again the creak as floorboards pause;
my breath is held lest I miss steps that halt,
outside my door in seconds held at bay.
I see the handle
slowly...
lower..
down.
Her strides are swift and next, her perfume's here.
With broken breath, she yields to clawing drives
and throws my bedclothes off like spider webs.
My youth she steals as night groans on and on.
For merchants took her bloom on stormy sea.
I clutch my knife and picture stabbing her;
But I've no strength to do the deed - I'm five.
Her mouth is pushed on lips zipped up and cold.
The bed is torn in tangled bits of knots.
My legs are jammed together- ripped apart.
My pillow's wet as aunty takes her cut.
Dec 3, 2022
Dec 3, 2022 at 8:36 PM UTC
Up to the North
Down to the South
Keep the ships feeding
The big Mersey's mouth
14 big docks
And 19 big stops
Dad's got big hands
He works at the 'Brock'
He's seen Alexandra
And Nelson too
He passes the Princes
On the way to the 'Loo
Jump off at the Sandon
For a bevvy with Joe
Saturday's half day
To the match he will go
The merchants at Toxteth
Are rubbing their hands
There's money in shipping
And at Seaforth Sands
Jump off at Pier Head
If yer wearing a shirt
Stay on till Herculaneum
To get covered in dirt
The EMUs keeping rolling
From morning til night
Our dockers umbrella
What a beautiful sight
copyright/all rights reserved Joe Fogg 2011
Oct 7, 2011
Oct 7, 2011 at 3:13 PM UTC
Eventually Rising
Like all the Rest
I'm tired
Alone with everyone else
Although this misery
is like water on my Soul umbrella
I can hear the sound of victory
careening beyond oppression like Ella
There is something more
there is a force
ebbing and waxing the hour
of the instant and within it
a porous
Avenue for Advancement for
All, and One!
The buzzards may circle
pecking order, and peace
Only the rancor resource the feast
Why does conservation fail,
nature of the beast
or shale we sell
Gears without the grease
Landlopers versus Land Merchants
and
Machines versus human beings
and
Change versus Stay the Same
and
Monopoly
and
Monotony
and
Unipolarity
and
Is ... IS
it
All worth bile?
Did you learn Private Pyle!?
Yes Sir, General Science!
Sure!
Can't breathe a heartbeat
can't take a stand from a seat
and when the end is near
I promise you has no fear
Glass Rock and Stone!
Sure!
may hold money but not a home
Mother and Father Earth is our biome
billionaires and paupers rot together
yet alone!
Break
Who beholds the opulent eye?
Tell me who makes it out alive?
Believers in death will die
Those who weary tarry on
All the rest
eventually rise
Nov 20, 2015
Nov 20, 2015 at 7:51 PM UTC
pigeons perch themselves preening
on marble fauns ambivalent to their
perch, while dark skinned men prowl;
seeking tourists (Americans) to sell
cheap novelty items, over priced, yet
bought to drive away the insistent
merchants; ignorant to the realization:
if you remain silent and don’t make eye
contact you will not forfeit your money...
merchants who ruin the peace and awe
of grand feats of sculpture—I know they
are human (on a base level)—craving
money to make a living, yet there are
many (more respectable) professions…
their presence crowds the already
crowded (streets and) piazzas—aggregates
of language babble—old women and men
meandering along waiting to die—hoping
it is true: the slower you move the faster
time flows—if not: to hell with relativity!
(should have put chips on more than one table)
can math really explain all?—or
is life more than abstract objects?
while the din of crowds palpitates my heart
making way for anxious calculations,
C— and I hurry pass to find some area
to give the artefacts the respect they deserve
Apr 9, 2013
Apr 9, 2013 at 1:08 PM UTC
~
*I work in the clouds
Building a world out of hype
I could be a beekeeper
A prison guard
Reverse pop idol
Extinguishers, all
Hackers ferry contemporaries
Around the diseased city
Merchants of transference
Polymorphing
Paths and angles
Pieces of eight
They could be brutal war fantasies
White noise translations of the snow
Cathedral nights in the deli
Ghost recordings from an opera house
Each with its own price tag
All the pretty girls
Thick with mascara
Go to plasticity
Drink chloroform
100 aspects of subterranea
So long as they come home
With a credit problem
Money devotion
It's what transferred us
Into numbered silhouettes
Slavishly pouring our blood into the sea*
~
Aug 24, 2022
Aug 24, 2022 at 5:12 PM UTC