"miscast" poems
By: Cedric McClester
Time goes by fast
But memories that last
Are like snap-shots of the past
That we view in contrast
To the here and now
And so we make a vow
To apply the breaks
And avoid our past mistakes
Time goes by fast
And nothing ever lasts
For those who are miscast
Or the errant iconoclast
In the rear view mirror
Things become much clearer
To the standard bearer
Who see them much nearer
Than they were before
When it was easier to ignore
The intricate designs
Of the various warning signs
Time goes by fast
And nothing ever lasts
For those who are miscast
Or the errant iconoclast
Seconds minutes hours
With all it’s magical powers
We observe like blooming flowers
That time finally devours
And as slowly we retreat
To our thoughts so bitter sweet
Not acquiescing to defeat
That occasionally we meet
So we long for yesteryear
Cuz we’re far away from there
And the veil is very shear
Between there and here
Time goes by fast
And nothing ever lasts
For those who are miscast
Or the errant iconoclast
Time goes by fast
But memories that last
Are like snap-shots of the past
That we view in contrast
To the here and now
And so we make a vow
To apply the breaks
And avoid our past mistakes
Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2016. All rights reserved.
Sep 15, 2016
Sep 15, 2016 at 10:32 AM UTC
I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to feel the impact of your absence
To see that you were taken by a substance
I'm sorry I was never there
Not once to wash away your fears
Nor tuck you in at night
Take away the fright
But the death I found lying sweetly in your eyes
Dug craters in my skin cells
Soft and precious little dents
I had to clean the blood away
Couldn't stand to see you there
So I scrapped and scrubbed
Until the thought of you had passed
But in this role, I was sickeningly miscast
And nothing could have stopped you
Not a single plead nor shriek
You left as fast as you had come
Without a cry nor squeak
And I could swear I saw you in the mirror
Walking hand in hand with death
But you did not look behind you
Not even at your ****
I'm sorry I didn't make it to the funeral
And I'm sorry I barely cried
I'm sorry that I let your sister see you while you died
I'm sorry that I blame you for my suffering
And that I'm still recovering
But most importantly
I'm sorry that I didn't save you
I'm sorry that it was too late
And I'm sorry I couldn't save you from the pain that drove you to your fate
That I couldn't take away your misery
Couldn't take away the evil
That you had to look for happiness inside a little needle
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 8:13 AM UTC
You cringeworthy, evil pismire;
Your father did surely miss-sire
This personification of flatulence,
The embodiment of self importance
Overflowing with abject peccancy
Devoid of any sign of respectability
Replete with gross odoriferousness
Horribly and infamously unscrupulous.
You have reveled in misrepresentation
And tried to elevate your calumniation
Disinformation and deception exists
As capitalistic dissembling persists.
You’ve collected an evil government
Built mostly of human excrement
And have such a lack of veracity
That you speak in constant mendacity.
Sycophantic eructations of dogmatic bile
Issue from your unsympathetic smile
And your inauthentic glad-handed gropes
As if we all of us are unbright gullible dopes
That buy your fabrications completely
While you pilfer and prevaricate indiscreetly.
You are a Vaudevillian villain miscast as star,
But most of us know exactly what you are.
Deceit, deception, dishonesty; a tragedy
But not for you, for us and our country.
Distortion, evasion and fabrication the rules;
You despair of any other kinds of tools.
Falsehoods, fictions and forgery are your tricks.
You demand we build with straw-less bricks
Your erections that are planned to be palaces
Filled with your giant golden carved phalluses.
Those monuments, inanotomically correct,
Established to celebrate and somehow protect
A mountebank on the way to an overseas bank
Claiming to eradicate the scoria he creates
That decades of privation will not quite alleviate.
But you, the Great Prevaricator, will always blame
Other players in your sick, unconstitutional game
Instead of admitting your complicity and guilt
About the disgusting, putrid swamp you built.
Jun 13, 2018
Jun 13, 2018 at 2:32 PM UTC
Invested in you
I find our better angels give ground
******* by our egalitarian feelings for each other
Trumpeted by Gabriel’s miscast players
Bedeviled, we take what are yours, mine, and ours
Accumulated wealth protected from predators
Gives in to charitable impulse
Gives out, a gated community against colored encroachment
My bias against the opposition
Dissolves in your arms
We resolve to devote our energy
Toward getting off on the best footing available
Place where we care and don’t simultaneously
Then make fun of our foibles laughing at each other
The same way black and white grays as we mature color blind
Loggerheads whipsawed and dovetailed
Until we forget why we ever came together in the first place
Then remember this location, this smell, this touch, this taste
Karass, storm's eye, held center, Kane's rosebud cathected
Aug 31, 2013
Aug 31, 2013 at 12:55 AM UTC
I pull myself together long enough to put myself together
to altogether get there all alone
I pick myself apart at the party hoping they pick me for the part
nearly departed at the afterparty
upon a platter of platitudes they cast me as myself
I was miscast if you ask me
would have bought a locket if I wanted a cameo
Sep 27, 2014
Sep 27, 2014 at 2:22 AM UTC
Colour coded wonder drugs
For the replacement
Of Love and it's joyous thugs
Out of the woodwork comes my moral obligations
Black and white
Never more than an understudy
'Watching time go by
I hope you see the end of this song
Gradients so plainly tight
Miscast by mothers
The theory of the other
Watching, time goes by
Drinking and praying
Black and white
Shades and gradients
Of things I tried
Nov 28, 2016
Nov 28, 2016 at 6:02 PM UTC
our choices leave us little room to spare
as day and night in sequence go by fast
no decent case of dignity to wear
and vision that suggests more cause to fear
in the cold present than in the dim past
our choices leave us little room to spare
for reprehension at the sullen year
that it has been the truth is all miscast
no decent case of dignity to wear
we're all frustrated all thrown in despair
all fearful we will hear the final blast
our choices leave us little room to spare
for any of the goods that we should bear
since our great goal will never be surpassed
no decent case of dignity to wear
when we confront the enemy or dare
the final gate that victory's the last
our choices leave us little room to spare
no decent case of dignity to wear
Jul 22, 2012
Jul 22, 2012 at 1:39 PM UTC
By: Cedric McClester
Time goes by fast
But memories that last
Are like snap-shots of the past
That we view in contrast
To the here and now
And so we make a vow
To apply the breaks
And avoid our past mistakes
Time goes by fast
And nothing ever lasts
For those who are miscast
Or the errant iconoclast
In the rear view mirror
Things become much clearer
To the standard bearer
Who sees them much nearer
Than they were before
When it was easier to ignore
The intricate designs
Of the various warning signs
Time goes by fast
And nothing ever lasts
For those who are miscast
Or the errant iconoclast
Seconds minutes hours
With all it’s magical powers
We observe like blooming flowers
That time finally devours
And as slowly we retreat
To our thoughts so bitter sweet
Not acquiescing to defeat
That occasionally we meet
So we long for yesteryear
Cuz we’re far away from there
And the veil is very shear
Between there and here
Time goes by fast
And nothing ever lasts
For those who are miscast
Or the errant iconoclast
Time goes by fast
But memories that last
Are like snap-shots of the past
That we view in contrast
To the here and now
And so we make a vow
To apply the breaks
And avoid our past mistakes
Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2016. All rights reserved.
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 8:46 PM UTC
I wouldn't be alarmed
if you should go;
I've never been afraid
of mice you know.
I wouldn't watch you
take your leave;
I've never been the type
to sit and grieve.
I won't shed tears
now that you've gone;
we were miscast
and never got along.
I'll clean and wash
just as before;
prepare my meals
shut every ******* door.
With closed curtains
I'll cherish privacy;
I'll be a glad recluse,
if by chance, I need to be.
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 4:20 PM UTC
You’ll never convince me
You’re afraid of my wrath
When what I know is
You’re afraid of choosing
Our predestined path
Always wanting but afraid of more
Always denying what you refuse to see
You fear yourself; the awesome power
Of what you might still yet be . . .
Not me, my man, not me.
Who makes you
Keep paying the cost
That sends you running back
Like a **********
Cutting her loss
Forever cursed by your thirst
Wanting that elusive something
You continue you seek . . .
Hard climbing unable to find
The perfect peak
You believe your voice
Will find what you seek
Why then do you sing
with tears of sorrow
Running down your cheek
You still convince your mirror
As you’ve done before
By breathing substance
Into shadows
That follow you
Like a dedicated *****
Who dances circles ‘round your past
Who wrote the script with you miscast
Lord Robert . . . . I think not
Court Jester better fits the plot
You assume you’d offered me something new
Like an exotic spice added to your secret stew
How much of that stew is a repetition
Spoonfuls of hope you spoon fed me too?
Circling around yourself
A dance you’ve done before
Giving substance to shadows
Always wanting but afraid
To accept more . . .
Soon you know I must leave
To save myself . . .
I can’t afford to keep looking behind
I didn’t set out to crucify your mind
Words from me to you were given a voice
Call it heaven’s intervention
Spiked with loving intention
Believe me, I wasn't left a choice
Grow some wings
Dare to fly . . .
'Cuz the saddest word
Your soul keeps hearing
Is your repeating
The word 'Goodbye'
May 17, 2014
May 17, 2014 at 11:10 PM UTC
I have a garden in my head
Of emotions that need to be pruned
There’s a memory for everything
But I need to make more room
I got to tell you something
And it’s about my life
It’s changed like I never knew
But it’s something I like
I don’t have the dread
And I know what to do
I get up every day
With what I’ve been through
A doctor told me some news
But I shrugged it out of view
I’m not supposed to worry
Maybe God will see me through
I wonder about him a lot
And what he thinks of me
Everybody has their opinion
About their own personal deity
I was walking in the mall
And a pretty girl tried to sell me
She said, “Take it, take it!”
But I told her, “Nothings free”
It wasn’t so much that I said no
But that I didn’t lose my train of thought
When a smile shines so bright
Sometimes you can easily be bought
How can I wander amongst the minstrels
And the ladies in waiting to capture my heart
When I no longer live in their world
And cannot play the expected part?
There’s something I got to tell you
I’m tired of being miscast
The person you thought you knew
Hs become a stranger to his past
If you want to talk
Then let me know
But don’t bring your desire
Because I let mine go
May 17, 2012
May 17, 2012 at 12:26 PM UTC
There was a tale of three.
A he, a she, and a me.
He had eyes,
Projector screens,
Reflecting the films you play in your head.
She, a Hollywood queen,
Hair as gold as her heart,
A sucker for romance,
Caught by his flashbulb smile.
Me, the screenwriter,
Knowing the business enough
To recognize the mechanics
Behind the greatest actor
In the world.
Award winning half truths
That I could swear were written by me
Find their other halves
Written in starlight
Shooting from the mouth of he,
The lifetime achievement of
She
Limited to their happily ever after.
Me, playing back over footage
Replaying the scene unfolding between them,
Trying to hear a romantic score,
But rather being bored
By the actor's lazy gestures,
Me, being deafened by the silence
Of this pantomime.
She, while skilled at book work,
Had simply been miscast
By he, who had not yet planned his end scene.
There is a temptation within Me,
To write myself into her part,
But I know,
This show is not about me.
She was not the wrong actress,
Just simply playing a part
Diverting from action.
She froze the plot,
So they existed as pictures,
Perfect in pixels,
Worth a thousand words,
Only no one would ever speak them,
Potential untapped.
I gaze at the screen,
Drifting to sleep in boredom
Being woken at any sign
of the screen going
Dark,
Only to have their starlight,
Lull me back
Into the writer's dream.
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 3:05 PM UTC
I can’t find the words to describe how you make me
Feel
I can only find the memories that don’t seem
Real
I chased you for more years than I’d like to
Admit
During those times I felt like absolute
****
You made me feel better and you made me feel
Worse
Sometimes I wish time would
Reverse
But I can’t and it
Won’t
I should say something to you but I
Don’t
I’m writing this simply to try and put this in the
Past
Maybe I will be able to move on at long
Last
I’m sorry that it didn’t
Work
I’m sorry I was such a *******
****
I always made you regret the things that you
Did
But I can’t ever let things go, God
Forbid
But, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still in
Love
You were my gracious
Dove
So with this last piece I am
Writing
This is goodbye to all the emotional
Fighting
Goodbye to the nights I wished I was somewhere besides
There
Now I would trade the worlds worth just to go back and
Stare
At the wonderful sight that is
Yourself
But now I have to place trust in
Myself
I must go and find the lost piece of my
Soul
Though I’m sure that is what you
Stole
Perhaps I will never love so deeply
Again
Perhaps I was modeled after a
Sin
But now I must say goodbye and
Farewell
To the girl I thought anything I could
Tell
Now I don’t recognize you when you enter a
Room
You’ll find happiness in someone else I
Presume
But know, if late at night as you stumble in your
Thoughts
You may find this and connect the
Dots
That I am still mindlessly wandering
About
While it seems you have your whole life planned
Out
Perhaps you weren’t as perfect as my mind
Portrayed
Yet whenever I sit and think under a great tree in the
Shade
I still think of when you first kissed
Me
And how I finally felt
Free
From the pain I felt
Inside
The pain so apparent it couldn’t
Hide
So with this final goodbye I will let you die in the
Past
Where we were both apart of a play yet
Miscast
Goodbye my love
Goodbye my sweet dove
Jun 1, 2015
Jun 1, 2015 at 6:12 PM UTC
planning a future
your not here and the atmosphere is anything but delicate
thoughts roam around the air in a gentle breeze
distance is between us yet i feel your soul as it breathes
an uneasy feeling of the past
scars on my fingers for holding on tightly
yet the rope collapsed
this is present day
2018
and you are not here with me
as i stand and take a look of what surrounds me
the future as i thought it not as clear as it seems
to live life is to be free
seeking into the past
into the role i was perhaps miscast
actions were drastically misshaped
a setback for love got me off the right track
the future is a present to the unknown past
Apr 30, 2018
Apr 30, 2018 at 10:35 PM UTC
Eyes slowly closing
I'm off again
dozing,
relief from the day.
I wish I got paid for it,then I'd be fit for it,a bit of a kip,a slip into dreamland and slipping away from the cares of the day.
Lay here beside me and let me be your guide,let me show you the paths that I walk in my sleep.
How deep and refreshing a touch of regressing can be,
come let me show you,
let us explore then I'll know you
and you will also know me.
Shutting down
shutting down,I move my thoughts back to town,
down on the high road a travellers abode waits for me.
I see
long shadows in doorways,
short people take rest from the long days,
it all pays to be
a dreamer like me.
Where the sun lifts the lids and looks into my eyes, and I explain how I'm trying to hide in the pictures that float through my brain.
Where,
when the night finally looks in and I'm back in the game,taking one more miscast name, I shall call it my own
and the eyes slowly close as I once again doze
as I'm dozing my life far away.
Oct 25, 2013
Oct 25, 2013 at 6:55 AM UTC
Gather round me children
Listen to my words
It's not about, the where and when
But armor, you should gird
Youth is indestructible
That's what the young will think
Souls and hearts not corruptible
By sins, deeds, flesh, and drink
Forever is the stain of the past
Kept in all the memories
Some misshapen and miscast
Arrayed in mental armories
Don't let your love be bitter bled
Do better than I, my daughter, son
Do the things that I have said
And not the things I've done
Dec 7, 2016
Dec 7, 2016 at 10:31 AM UTC
I don't want to live an inevitable life
Grazing my hand along the borders
Inside the box of my comfort zone
Under perceived superior orders
I was given a voice with wings to fly
Yet, I hover underneath a lid
Of expectation and norms
I used to believe in such a myth
I'm not good enough and never will be
I became susceptible to that truth
But it was only a different opinion
From someone who wasn't my muse
Creative artistic expression
Sparks the fire behind my eyes
A flame that burns at the core of me
With those who try to dim my light
They try to put me out with lies
Until I become ashes and doubts
Be practical and realistic, they say
I asked, is being myself not allowed?
I let those voices get to me
Residing in my heart's cracks
They were the first to break me
From spewing unwanted facts
What is fact and what is fictional?
As though you decide my fate
My dreams only happen inside me
And stayed there as I grabbed the bait
I should want that mundane future
A tried and true pre-written path
In order to support the ones I love
I play a character so miscast
Because to live that kind of life
I neglect what I want the most
To endlessly create, knowing I'm free
Without the limits I grew up to know
Mar 21, 2020
Mar 21, 2020 at 10:51 PM UTC
In the quiet whispers of my heart's soft plea,
"I loved you," a tender refrain set free.
Yet, amid the verses of our love's sweet song,
Your affections danced with another, strong.
A delicate waltz, emotions entwined,
In prose, our story, intricate, defined.
A bittersweet tale on life's tender stage,
Where love, a script, turned a poignant page.
In the garden of feelings, diverse and vast,
My love lingered in shadows, a love miscast.
While your heart found solace in her embrace,
A poetic prose unfolded, a delicate grace.
Through the echoes of joy and heartache's art,
A symphony of emotions played its part.
In love's prose, we wove a tale untold,
A dance of hearts, a story to behold.
Nov 26, 2023
Nov 26, 2023 at 1:47 AM UTC
To when our kiss of love will be the last
I pray to know it last, then whisper too.
Before you rose, in love were I miscast
As darkest crane that none in flocks imbue.
Until in April dreams you perched my nest
From out your Venus star and into mine.
You found in worth my plumes that withered best
As shone by pending brides, of lusts repine.
Ah! Yes, you weathered each love's fabled storms
That I sent well to guard the voiced behest
For deep, I yearned that teach of heart's reforms
That last you made and spoke within my chest.
I'll gift these all, if moments near the end
But now I love, and yours shall I attend.
Jan 27, 2019
Jan 27, 2019 at 12:08 AM UTC