Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
st64 Sep 2013
collector of iron and all things metal
carried without slightest lament
by
beautiful brown-and-white nag with overflowing mane
clip-clops up and down
every road there is
and even beyond



1.
little doubt exists
of fine ingenuity
of said collector
who wastes no moment nor chance
to scour every luck’s platform
with sharp intuition and assiduous eyes
          an old stove with absent racks
          a precious copper geyser gutted with no fittings
          pine-planks discarded due to skew-cuts
          aluminium pipes abandoned with twisted ends
          old screws with rusty whorls from an recently bucket-kicked geezer’s garage
          parts of a car . . . an ****** gearbox and ancient exhausts
heaps of junk and piles of crap clang on cart
a veritable dump in some eyes but those of
the cool collector who takes all the sweepings in gracious stride
cast-off penalties and chaffs of society’s unwanted

2.
once a week on Saturdays
these wares are parked near the parking lot
for all to approach
to see
a fine spread of legend and lore
     bric-à-brac and books to browse
so many things of interest
     magazines and manuals with miscellany-topics under the sun
     hipflasks of silver and clear-cut carafes
     unused greeting-cards with dressed-up paper-dolls
     rare literature well-thumbed with care
and things you’d sure chuck out
mechanical entrails and shiny things
yet
quite a spectacle to behold
costing a joke but for you
a fraction of today's ha'penny

3.
nobody knows why the quiet collector takes the time of day
to re-inforce that fixture-presence
a kindly soul with half-smile always flirting round the lips
and greets with old-century warmth o'er book-edge, markedly a poem-spine
walking closer to peep curiosity around
relaxed eyes let one be
          no compulsive sales-talk
          no eager-****** hopping
just sitting back in deep hiker’s green fold-up chair
easy posture and half-drooped eyes with soft drink close at hand

4.
the collector really watches all who pass
     who go by on their daily trails with rituals oft unchanged
     who fuss ever-plaintive over facetious deets like school-tasks
as they return their books long overdue while whistling smasher-hit tunes (never to be heard)
     who rush to catch an ever-noisy taxi with their own raucous guards
     who help heaving housewives cursing under breath climb on board
as their groceries groan and nearly drop from overladen plastic bags
     who ignore for now with studious intent the hobos on the pavement there
     who beg lost coins for empty-belly from the tattered purses in bosoms
while others cry out impatient at peripheral nuisances
     who act as indiscreet ‘car-guards’ ostensibly guarding cars, even with folk in it

yes, he watches
and observes with keen eyes yet never obvious
even those who saunter by
with pondering glance and walking stick
even as years have graciously touched their brow
he sees them *tut-tut
the ******* on the wall
like stray-dogs in a pound

5.
once in an often while
this collector who loves a rediscovered hypothesis
to explore the myriad facets of humanity
does an odd turn now and then
when walking to the toilet at the local library
which has parked itself adjacent to this lot
drops a twenty-buck note near the side
and soon joyful sees the utter surprise
when tired high-school kids with sullen backpacks
do a double-take
espy their luck . . . whoo-hoo, look!
their gloomy cloaks of learning plain melts
they take off sure-footed and lighter of heart
and repair to the fish-and-chips shop
they share their vinegary ***** in a finger-licking circle
and amity strong-cemented in a cool memory
that they’d recall with fondness many years later
at their 20th school-reunion
and as grand-dads visiting a dying pal

pangs of hunger satisfied
and
not only by them


next time
that note will be dropped in the park nearby
where effete winos sleep their lives away
     who ken much and give not a care
     a kind long not recognised
educated derelicts debate on war-merits and erstwhile musicians play melodic arpeggios
sitting in the gentle arbour-shade of mutual acceptance
with chess-mad players
working out strategy in rapt blade-moves
which belie and scorn the forgotten titles to their name
along with Ph.D to boot

6.
when night-time hails - all grows still again
and settles, though just for a nibble of time
it’s pack-up time
the listening collector hears the owl-hoot’s call
and knows the time has come to rest a bit
     for when the morrow dawns
     all neatly packaged in a brand-new gift called day
it’s back on the road again
to observe once more
with trusted nag in tow
clip-clop . . . clip-CLOP

7.
and the collector is the one
the housewives invite with alacrity to Xmas-lunch
the taxi-drivers offer gifts of goodwill
the school-kids give their chips and last treats
the vagrants seek out to share a ciggie and sympa-chat
the grown men visit for esoteric slim-tomes and philosophical advice
the shopkeepers welcome reassuring presence of

yes, this quiet collector
is the inadvertent guest
to shores of the lonely
the too-busy and life-ridden folk
who seek a sweet smile
just once in a while
in a world
where compassion is not justified by its deep-touches of poverty





no fruitless labour
in one who sees little detriment
but senses the full value of
every item’s moment in vanilla-time
while trying always
to catch
the finest one can be



supreme harvest, indeed
yes :)
love . . . love . . . love . . .





S T, 1 September
Happy Spring Day!
And . . . er . . . catch some sun-rays . . . while ye can :)



Sub – entry : 'empty chairs'

Songwriter: Don McLean


I feel the trembling tingle of a sleepless night
Creep through my fingers and the moon is bright
Beams of blue come flickering through my window pane
Like gypsy moths that dance around a candle flame

And I wonder if you know
That I never understood
That although you said you'd go
Until you did I never thought you would

Moonlight used to bathe the contours of your face
While chestnut hair fell all around the pillow case
And the fragrance of your flowers rest beneath my head
A sympathy bouquet left with the love that's dead

And I wonder if you know
That I never understood
That although you said you'd go
Until you did I never thought you would

Never thought the words you said were true
Never thought you said just what you meant
Never knew how much I needed you
Never thought you'd leave, until you went

Morning comes and morning goes with no regret
And evening brings the memories I can't forget
Empty rooms that echo as I climb the stairs
And empty clothes that drape and fall on empty chairs

And I wonder if you know
That I never understood
That although you said you'd go
Until you did I never thought you would



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwzHlyVRc9o
A neighbor of mine in the village
  Likes to tell how one spring
When she was a ******* the farm, she did
  A childlike thing.

One day she asked her father
  To give her a garden plot
To plant and tend and reap herself,
  And he said, “Why not?”

In casting about for a corner

Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood,
  And he said, “Just it.”

And he said, “That ought to make you
  An ideal one-girl farm,
And give you a chance to put some strength
  On your slim-jim arm.”

It was not enough of a garden,
  Her father said, to plough;
So she had to work it all by hand,


She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow
  Along a stretch of road;
But she always ran away and left
  Her not-nice load.

And hid from anyone passing.
  And then she begged the seed.
She says she thinks she planted one
  Of all things but ****.

A hill each of potatoes,

Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn,
  And even fruit trees

And yes, she has long mistrusted
  That a cider apple tree
In bearing there to-day is hers,
  Or at least may be.

Her crop was a miscellany
  When all was said and done,
A little bit of everything,


Now when she sees in the village
  How village things go,
Just when it seems to come in right,
  She says, “I know!

It’s as when I was a farmer——”
  Oh, never by way of advice!
And she never sins by telling the tale
  To the same person twice.
Sep 2018
When to grab I'm not sure
Not when Time is tariff
Barely making of Future's contour
Space and fate in Miscellany

But perhaps I Must grab,
for that remaining Flickering seconds--
before Regret stabs my back
of once-in-a-blue-moon's Wasted Opportunity
Opportunity is given at the right time-- grab it.
Ashley Williams Jun 2014
A harrowed frenzy
Ghosting through halls,
Memorizing nonsensical miscellany.
Exhaustion reigns supreme.
Mary McCray Apr 2015
(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 26, 2015)

The tendency to want to finish a given unit of a task or an item. Strong effects on the consumption of food in particular.

The small bag of corn chips, the can of soup,
the box tray of pasta, studies of portion

marking progress through existence.
Units move from your hands to your body

whatever the form of consumption
like track loops, pudding trays and poems--

they all have their metrics, even nostalgic
collages hiding behind miscellany.

Even improvisation has its forms; every mess
and message has its borders like nuclear meltdowns

moving in waves to the California coast,
Nepalese earthquakes and the avalanche of Ever

through years of tremorfications.
The corner diatribist can always tell you

there's a horrific endlessness to it all
and many, many happy ends.
Nepal earthquake, an avalanche on Mount Everest....looks of earth talking today.
Donall Dempsey Dec 2018
SUCH A SUNNY DAY

the objects
in his pocket

have lost
their identity

their significance
to anyone but him

a hairy comb
photo of an unknown

woman
who can she be

a torn-in-two
train ticket

chewing gum
much masticated

yet put back
in his blazer's breast pocket

small change
a penny and a sixpence and

a button
from the cuff

no clue as to who
he had been

before the water claimed him
as its own

the disgust and fascination
of those

passersby who continue
to pass by

it such
a sunny day

for death to
intrude this way

the miscellany of objects
ownerless now

the waters of the Liffey
calm and unmoved
S E L Dec 2013
mix
mixed stirrings
hard to place this constant ire rising from ashes of a fire not quite, yet felt
stir into that melting *** the sum of miscellany unknowns
all wrought from the unsweet gifts of quotidian sighs
no need to wrap the present, baby, for it's already here
twinkling in the birth of every moment
we hardly know it nor acknowledge
so busy wrenching pain from secret places the darkness loves to keep

yesterday brought unsought smiles of outer space dust
then space in pushed into the blue spit bubble of crayfish folly
and fear frozen into place on cauldroned cheeks
as tendons pulled fury tight on a cocky bounty's cry

I want to carry that sweet loading joy
which scorches my receptiveness in astringent non reciprocation
I die to please that spangled energy so much
which holds back its cagey kernel, far from my prying hands
I kneel to take in out of the blue blessings
which fall slapdash on this preoccupied trajectory, forever waiting in sozzled hope
I take the package you flash and cast heavy
which leave sweltering whiplines across my insides
all fine, all just a fine melange

beneath your magic fontanelle lies a sunken cache
there are painfully few privy to that miracle
I live in hope of neither looping nor taking
but just to be happy to bear witness to the shiny array of your gem stock

you are like none other, inimitable and hard gemstone (inside)
a mix of purity stirred in crazy, along with star shine and fire sparks
*my angel with honey eyes
Arbela falls into the hands of the castes of the Etréstles of Kalavrita, plummeting like lightning and surpassing the scorched farmhouses of extraterrestrial Mosul, into its intrinsic compartments. On the other hand, there was the power of Maceo, his Syrian, Mesopotamian, Medean, Parthian, *****, Tibarian, Hyrcanian, Albanian, and Sacesanian troops were immediately found, they were scattered like Leviathans disturbed by themselves and their debased Titans, in all execrations not specified of this avalanche, so that they are carried by their leading dean, and donated to their physiognomy as limpid preys of misfortune to be foretold for them in the exile of their bravery. Later, once embedded in the crevices of its stenches, they would search in the foolish emanations of the Phosphorus (Morning Star of Venus), showering it with the glories of the morning and its distractions, exchanging the decomposed inert matter towards the Achaemenides, incontinent to be bordered with all the fascinating dawn. Those commanded by Maceo; the commander of Darío, brought a heart to be transplanted from a wise Dervish who had set out to install it after conquering the epic feat, and its conjecture. They believed they were seducing their attached lords who supported their disconsolate ones, but they brought through the substratum of character that moves the incessant squeaks in the bitterness of the hemlock sheathed in the Xiphos, toasting towards the twilight to mark the retreat between lights.

Etréstles saw a lost proscription on the battlefield, expelling it from the divine heaven of Arbela. By the conferred Vernarth is adhered to in this round by caressing Alikanto by the right gibbous of his steed Kanti, this would cause them to cross in the same line, and give a split oppressive kinetic curve for the hyper spearmen to vibrate with the spin of twist their contracted masses, adding field at the tips of the sky to the despondencies and the static Persians. Thus they fought together close to the infantry, in a famous order, plagiarizing the movement and linking the ribs of the Syntagma's ranks from left to right, to fluctuate in the forces of their graceful Falangists with anxiety. By observing this Alexander Magnus, he redoubled his heavy cavalry and also challenged such a concert in the maneuvers executed by Etréstles, calling it "Diabolical Office", since they traveled inseparably in the Runes of circulatory movement and in the cardiac system or Kardiá, reimplanting it in the spin of turn back of the infantry and the cavalry, but with the entire mass of their blue lapis lazuli horses…, wheezing from their nostrils!

Auriga says: "Your venereal milestones come to disturb the new beings, they come to occupy your organisms with arrows on their bodies deterred by the magical quiver of Artemis, with new incarnations and manly gallantries"

Etréstles jumps from Kanti, and represses some militias that were surrounded, and manages to see Vernarth, to the sound of the noise of his transmission reloaded on the intimidated enemy. At times, he would hold on to one of his executioners to resist the pain in his ribs. As he clenched his sword vigorously and resisted the suffering that paled in his face but increasing the size of his arms and legs, to unleash the great booming voice of Sheol, which led him into the great stupor of the resigned Persians, then a whole is clarified in the miscellany it was of the fervor and pain of the expelled souls, to witness the amount of their independence consumed.

The lightened atmosphere of emptiness in the tunnel of the Profitis Ilias was felt at the top of the surface, where the entrance acroteria of the Hexagonal Progeny stood and trembled. Majestic gravitational waves struggled here inverted, seeping from the volcanic base of Patmos in vertices of physical fields and elementary particles, very similar to the caves of Gethsemane, in the suggested stop of phylogenetic mechanics and the establishment of phonetics, all embedded and propelled by the particles impacting on them, causing mass opposition in the internal void of the duct covered by the Iaspis saddles, propelling unions in progressive waves and in viscous fields, very dense when generated by the Christi Arms and the Souls of Trouvere. These elementary particles of God were submerged in excited basilisks of composite particles in the dynamics of energeia, preexisting already cited and adopted by Vernarth in his last parapsychological regression where he collided in the Higgs Ipso facto field. In the areas W and Z, rather in the W of Wonthelimar and Z of Zefian as patterns of lights without mass in their vectors that were attracted by the tidal wave of their matter, where the viscosity is perhaps, the confusing darkness of the fossil material, mutating by atomic energy from the starvation of the Febo Shemesh, or false Sun of Leviathan in its collapsed asthenia. It was captive of a viscous moraine that collided with each other, exciting occupations of the empty field, already typecast in the Higgs boson, and in the Wonthelimar photons that it had to spare, to be prone to the binomial W and Z, in the energized tangent of the shallow elementary bodies transformed into particles with mass. The interaction of the particles resembled the quantum field of the Garden of Gethsemane, with asymmetric and rocky spellings, which supremely became immanent in the trinitarian energy that absorbed them in their arrest, concatenating the converted tendency of the Higgs field into a physical structure. quantum symmetric, therefore in a perfect trinitarian triangulation of elementary particles, activating equidistant from their uniformity to each other, in all the spinning spins, and in the three ataxic angles of Zefian instability on the way to its fourth Bolt. The static yearned for the tendency that propagated in a fourth Angle, but this time in the Hexagonal Progeny, on its six sides receiving the two equilateral triangles, subtended by non-massive forces, that is; weak in the charge of a photon, but if it had to cross the field junctions that were suitable for listening to the physics of God. We have to understand that all dogma gathers interactions with the Diaisthisi or foreshadowing field, that it recovers the mass of all this, or that ventures the idleness of some silent particles that make up its weight, and it's mass globality related to its material existence, sponsored by the proton in a cubic meter if it is accelerated. The underlying field here on Patmos will be one of superior physics from the Higgs or God Boson, for the granting of mass and weight in the empty wind tunnel at Profitis Ilias, resisting the necessary ineffective light from the apocryphal Phoebus Shemesh of Sheol (Hades and Erebo), to constrain the symmetrical balance of magmatic basality of intraterrestrial energy, providing the supernumerary of it, converted into Light for the reborn world of the Apocalypse. The carrier elementality of the Patmos particle, in its context of quantum physics, will be listed as the Apud Secundus Finale theory, to generate interactions in space-time, which reduce physicality and delay when attending to its credibility, in the face of supra-abnormal events and carriers of their hyperactive dogmatic apathy, under the understanding that the graph of their brain activity is a genius of quantum physics, provided with massless energy, which vertiginously adheres to the protons of their consolidated physical force, turning it into an inert atomic kinetic element, and in a dynamic one of physical solidity. For all the solidities of the wasteland of the Apud of Gethsemane, this will not be consecrated as a mystery, rather it will aspire the just act of immense mercy of the body compacted in the emotion of feeling gravitated, and accelerated, transfiguring itself into an atomic elemental impulse, which crystallizes Creative Faith, that is, the Vernarthian Duoverse! The Boson is massive, all the matter that is conducive to it will be poured by the verticality standard in creation, theoretically predicting in the tree of physics, whose conduit hyper live between the root and its foliage, and will consulate the effect of its origin. , for greater challenges of your divine experience.

Song of the Libyan Sibyl (bis): “the candles will ignite, the Iridescent eyes of the Mashiach will sparkle in the probable mortuary settlement of Vernarth in the oasis of Siwa:“ Oh my warm breath of Libya that flatters my cheeks, and my shoulders that they rustle in the light of Zeus's callused cerebral coexistence. I sing for you my Didaskein; treating or teaching the bewildered flock that confuses the messages that were born B.C., not having a reminiscence of Irradiation in the mastery of the continuous shift, as it does not contravene latent ignorance, but does find it satisfied and effulgent ...!
Codex XV - Apud Secundus finale
Nat Lipstadt May 2017
~
from the anthology of the unwritten,
from the tombs of the stillborn,
where carcasses of idled titles and orphaned stanzas
do not compete for proof of life,  
and
nameless birth certificates unissued,
yellowing and wasting midst
crumbling aleph bet spawn

here
comes a poem of concession
comes a poem of summation
of a life lived, knotted poorly, not well,
worse cursed as vanilla inadequate

the satisfaction in the writing,
the gleeful breaking of the sac,
the gushing relief giving way to
the childbirth of a new moon-poem,
arrested, wrested

a single plague affliction,
the cancer of weakness,
means Pharaoh wins

the cancer of weakness
no cure, no pharmaceutical poultice,
spreads insidious; one day - pain in the remote,
your big toe, then
next you can only street stagger
begging forgiveness and the kindness of strangers
hoping for the accidental cure of touch,
the miscellany lottery ticket probability of low chance

the visible mark you leave,
a weak indentation upon a pillow,
it is the dented head, cut deep by the shadow,
shake it out and you're a disappeared one,
nothing to show,  
did someone once sleep here?

you were once upon a time
binary
a 1
now a 0 -
flip flop bottom top,
listening to Frank's "That's Life"^

my litany too long;
woeful work this business of flailing,
posting a tired-out self help love poem
ain't no cure for the falling-out-of-love
black and blue, self-inflicted bruising blues,
the wrists ache
the bones don't freak
but squeal, somebody's squeezing me

the alarm clock, a death knell,
everyone saying don't worry  
you got a proven record,
the boss's eyes twinkling
"but what have you done for me lately?"

funny

Death says
Hey, aren't you the boss?
Who shall over rule thy Dominion?
What have thy done to yourself lately?

Answer: never end a poem with a question mark @
3:06am
^"I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate
A poet, a pawn and a king
I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing
Each time I find myself flat on my face
I pick myself up and get back in the race
That's life (that's life) I tell ya, I can't deny it
I thought of quitting, baby
But my heart just ain't gonna buy it
And if I didn't think it was worth one single try
I'd jump…"

A lyric from "That's Life", Frank Sinatra
Out of deep sorrow for the loss of my muse
The machine stops to recapture its stasis
Stolen by the unrequited idea of this mirage,
The scarlet tic toc craves pristine amuse

The pump of the sweet amorous concoction
Tastes **** to the disused forlorn tongue
Maybe the machine leeks this viscous fluid
To purchase desire at the body’s auction

This nature’s request for the suitable mate
While the soul of the failure still remains,
Cranks the contraption most vital gears
As a mismatched tic toc at hearts gate

The betrayal of knowing the truth and never
Ever leaving the past wholly shatters me
The Sunlover wants to bloom when the light
Shines darker than the doubt of forever

That is the heart’s betrayal

Viewing the sunrise through my wasted eyes
unfold as the tears of my broken dreams,
I remember the beauty of my dear beloved
The ultimate ambush to my lonely skies

The hangover of rejection lingers for eternity.
The addictive touch of tenderness I want
While the robot engines cannot cope with it,
The tired heart goes for failed shot infinity

What is this web which I was woven into?
Falling for eight, then nine, bonus ten
Tic toc the clock; pump, pumped the blood
Wild need, whispers required to ensue

And whilst I dig the grave where I shall lend
Haunting me is the ever burning question
Will ever the craving for love be truly done?
Hope is said to never falter, to never end

That is the heart’s betrayal

The never ending brush of desire swirls
A portrait of novel passion; her soft
Features, angelic voice, immaculate lips
And this issue prevails with all the girls

In the mind’s museum, they become a bust
Of hard intangible romantic interests
And as a collection vice, the gallery will not
Stop letting in more miscellany of lust

Appreciating the astral beauty, bemusing  
In the details, worshipping personality,
Requiring such unity to expel the loneliness
This hearts motives forever bruising

The interest in a woman thus take shape
To form the most ethereal phantom
A ghost that results in dreams of icy mist
A myth of warmth, fleeting escape

That is the heart’s betrayal

Once betrothed to be my suitable mate,
Wishes my dream fairy granted me
Far and wide we would venture, brave souls
Only in my fantasy, this surreal bate

Thus, the later ultimatum comes unexpected
When company the moment yearns
This muse’s portrait matures into sorrow
We were genuinely never connected

The cold from this epiphany ardently churns
The blood that petrifies the machine
“She is not the right one,” an echo of misery
Even if elusive, she hurts me; it burns

Passion may come and go, a scar of flare
A tempest of feelings of the unruly kind
The spark is a mystery to solve, misguided
The hurt of a hollow kinship and despair

One day the soul its mate will find, the heart
Will have a home to call in the light
But now the frozen pump in darkness lingers
Waiting the mistake of love to depart

It all goes back to the beginning

And that is the heart’s betrayal
The last poem of my original anthology had to be its namesake. My nature was to love, get rejected, love, lose that person, love again, be rejected, and on and on in an uncontrollable and destructive cycle. It had to stop, so I had to finally understand what was happening to me and translate those impetuses into words. To do so was to acknowledge all the pain and distress of loss and rejection, and for a long time, I just could not do it. Poetry helped me open up and learn about myself. So, this was actually one of the first poems I ever wrote. The sense of cyclicity that flows through and ends the poem makes rereading the whole collection a new experience. All the pieces inside of it have something to do with how the heart, in all its emotional saliences, controls people's every thought, even when we think we are in control. We can love, hate, fear, yearn, and at the same time, not want it to happen. Nonetheless, the heart will betrayal our countenance, our adamancy, our will to resist within different degrees. So, to feature all these ideas sprinkled throughout the anthology into one poem was the best way to end it.
Onoma Oct 2014
...Portend for the life of you--cast your
eyes as far from you, as what you could
not see coming otherwise.
A living through and through...of what
came first--word or sound, sound or word?
These spaces...spendthrift pages that are
but doorways to their impending figure,
wind coiling at its corners...coiling at its
corners.
As a thing grows into itself invisibly...
as so you fall the falling curtain--with no
audience at one side, nor actors upon the
other.
Irrevocably you are, that you are--sun
halved, golden bowls burning--of good and
evil--a miscellany saint's evocation...that
you are, irrevocably you are...amaranthine.
Gesticulating beyond time, times, and half
time...a procession of one whose sojourn
repeats upon itself.
A heaven ago...hell now...a hell ago--
heaven now, change knows all your names--
and because you withstood all it can ever
be, it holds them steadfastly.
Amaranthine...irrevocably you are...that
you are.
You, the faces of disambiguation--whose
seal you smile to open...with full marks
for bravery.
david mungoshi Nov 2015
You always say
that I always may
declare creation
in those speech-act moments
when words become action
Thus see me breathe life
into hitherto stiff fancies
See me empowered by verbal magic
that conjures up fanciful shapes
in the image of my inclinations
So I say let there be beauty and wonder
a swallow swishing crazily past
and a lonely dove cooing for its mate
Let there be rustics exuding the rich smells of life
from newly-turned earth with neat furrows and fat worms
wood smoke and freshly-cut grass in musty he-goat odour
Variety is the spice of life the sages from long ago said
So let there be good-time girls and pompous pimps too
and petty thieves and flashy conmen in loud clothes
Let the world sizzle with a menu of a la carte activities -
sooty greasy grime and lurid crime to shock good people
In simple terms let the world be a poem teeming with life
and let its people know their roles in the scheme of things
Let them play their parts to perfection
while I try out a miscellany of diction and imagery
to capture and portray the wonder of another complex day
final version
i.

The year's first falling
leaf against his nose:
does my dog think back
to the Autumn before?
He must, for he is so happy.

                  ii.

It is so obvious to me:
this tall pile of leaves
belongs to the wind, not
to my red rake and black
plastic bag flapping (empty)
at my feet.

                 iii.

A boy (and his dog) in
the woods, walking on leaves
as thick as memories;
so glad to be alive
although not yet knowing
(what that means).
Ian Beckett Aug 2015
On a given day
Something can come along
That steals our hearts away,
Beyond our control. It can be any
Old thing, a song that was playing
When we first made out with the
Woman who sleeps beside us
After all these years. It could
Be a child eating ice cream
Who reminds us of when
We were their age, the
Faded black and white
Photograph of when
Our parents were
Still in love with
Each other, but
This miscellany
With no home
Fades and soon
Disappears, and
Returns to those
Dark places, that
We had hidden
Them before
And

We know
That there are
Deep wells, dug in
Our hearts, where
Birds fly, calling
Us again
Inspired by chapter 13 of Pinball by Haruki Murakami.
Sentient street,
As we walk through the gates of sentience,
Like a child,I quirked my head,
Left~right and back with innocence,
To glimpse at their seemly slums;a nimble haul of dread,
Tucked me,as I gander the miscellany artistry,
The winsome combs on their chambers,
By builders and framers,
For all;but the aesthetics I knew belonged to the affluent,
An erudition I needed not to imbibe as a student,

Oblivious of myself;I spotted their melancholic eyes in their inscriptions,
And read the histories and encryptions,
The stares they gave tremored my heart,
And tore the arteries apart,
My soul wept for their bereavement but tears was deficit in my eyes,

As I march to the yard of his repose;I said"A journey we shall all embark"
Gawking at the annexation of other chambers,as grief berserks,
I got there,

I stood meters afar and stared,
As the priest blessed the yard;And prayed for his soul,
Conferring him into the bossom of his maker,
And instructing the digger afterwards;to dump him into the hole,
His folks quaker,
And bade him their farewell with flowers,
In their last hour,

But as they fetch sands and stones to wrap him,
In their faces I saw grim,
When the diggers spat and slapped;his coffin with stones and shovels,
For this has been their long awaited muscle,
And in deligence;they deliver,
"This journey I will embark too"I said,
As I stood in my shiver,
And withdrew and left in mopes.


Sentient Street
©Historian E.Lexano
Paige Serbin Oct 2014
i have too many things.  these things keep me here.  for how would i move my amniotic items, who would want these things, who could need and buy my broken miscellany?  rather these things be burned.  but i couldn't throw that away, it was a gift.  how better to show ungratefulness in the faces of the fantastic people who once wanted things for me.  and the structure of these things, created by people; the destruction in the smolder makes me sick.  i think of teddy bears rotting in a dump.  baby birds from islands far away, across the planet, in the most isolated areas on earth, are still found with plastic trash in their downy bodies.  no, i couldn't throw these things away.  i am an empty space among things.  i am this amount of money, i am this collection of sculpted granite, plastic, glass elephants.  i am made of candle wax and useless, synthetic material, all new.  my utility stretches the length of the unused rulers in my several drawers.  these things make me.  i am this much, and not much more.  engulfed by these things in a sac, here i am, curled up in my small breathing room, darkened.  and ibuprofen taken in fours.  i wake up with headaches that won't go away with coffee, water, peace, exercise, ingenuity, grace, forgiveness.  they will not go away.  after sleeping ten, twelve hours, they will not go away.  i cannot forgive them.  no bids on eBay.  so the truth comes out:  nobody buys me.  i used to get so angry.  i would throw things, see.  i destroyed things that were beautiful and hurt the people who wanted me.  and now nobody wants my things, though they must all go away.  i must destroy them all again, to make more space for the waning disposition in the back of my brain.  the gray matter, that's what matters.  that's what creates me, and it controls how i create.  i cannot travel outside of my mind meat.  i cannot create to make up for these things i destroyed, and i cannot be forgiven.  i am this much.  an inch or two of room for me to exist.  and is the soul made out of dust and rubber?  if so, it must be sold.  given away, maybe.  it is a part of these things, though i do not know where i would go if i were freed of this caveman accumulation.  perhaps to dresden, i speak the language.  to know and not be known.  the strangers are much more strange to me when they have never known small-town america, and have never even conceived of this hollow, cluttered room.  so stuffed to the point of utter uselessness.  ah, so the utilitarians might say that i am not even human, i suppose.  my cup has not been imbued with all the functionality of humanity, and remains half empty.  half human, stretching out a day-by-day half life, getting longer by the foot.  and what of these books?  mostly read, and some looked at, a few skimmed, a few only here for a once in a lifetime reference (perhaps for a school project or a stint of curiosity long since vanished from my gray matter), several collections of my childhood fancy.  mystery and adventure.  this mantle of knick knacks and paraphernalia hails from my past and the pasts before mine.  with such an archive, i may accurately be considered a historian (with or without the halitosis…i couldn't tell you for lack of third party noses).  lately i haven't spoken in my sleep, though i couldn't say for certainly; there's no one there to talk to.  these things are tinted white and gray in the fashion of the silent film.  they act out the motions and emotions from their conceptions in my peripheral vision, sensational ****** expressions and dramatic gestures from the old south. waking and sleeping, they breathe in opposing time with me.  these things, they bury me.
Please forgive for any repetitions of lines in my writings. I think up lines and concepts and write around them, it's just how I do it, so sometimes there is going to be overlap. I'm not a professional, so I'm not too concerned about it.
A Haya Dec 2015
Writing stories; blowing soul into descriptions
burying a luminous seed into her "ebony hair"
and "towering physique"...
like Michelangelo setting a Dying Slave free
by carving marble, such a benevolent artist


Writing stories; piping a miscellany of twisted
tragedies, Elysian epiphanies, and hearty hearths
out of our minds...
not as if we are celestial Gods; no, but as if wisdom
tapped on our skulls, and whispered a symphony


Writing stories; braiding windswept trails into
hacking hearts, mellow minds, and aching heels
bolted onto a crossroad...
to bequeath them, you (and ourselves) a fifth
path, a dire escape into a less knotted universe
Dante Rocío Jun 2020
I live in some way on the edge of the world of the senses. I prolong my life with books, minute thrillances in the honourable existing through consciousness, Poetry, and I live from feelings, reflections. I barely spend time with my peers, I go to the city only when it is necessary, I don't know how to use Snapchat, Tik Tok, I don't listen to pop music, and since I don't have Facebook, you may not even consider me real. I don't engage in news, top trends or political issues. To put it in a nut shell, I am quite secluded from the global civilization.

However, something grave has recently been ignited and only two days ago did I realize what kind of slander is really happening in the country I currently am. Repressions against those who love/act differently. For what we feel, who we are with, that one wears pink or rainbow, that they are not what tradition or the wont of others expect. I saw the proud "LGBT FREE ZONE" boards on the photos. Joyful cleaning of the streets after pride marches, as if the plague of Albert Camus had passed there. Seeing non-heterosexual people as ****, like pariahs in India. That a student of one of my teachers cannot even give a new person their email due to fear. And a large part of Poland is even fine with it. To put it short, in humanitarian terms, we went back to the Victorian era or the Spanish conquests in a sense.

I do not know anything about politics. Sometimes I do not even remember who is the Prime Minister of Poland. And for many who are reading it now and don't know me, I can be nobody. But I know that I am in a way a pilgrim here and a heraldry of freedom for the world, now or later. And I have to do, give something from myself, because although words sometimes fail to express so much, at times, like dreams, they are the only thing we have left. So I write, I do what I can. Because someone has to say something more specifically.

In 2015, Chris Pueyo, a Spanish student from Madrid, published his poetic novel "El Chico de las Estrellas" ("The Star Boy") where he wrote his autobiography through his eyes and those of the third person. Without shame, he described his loves, ups and downs, the harassment from the hands  of the world surrounding him, and all the tears and his own blades of guilt and glory he had experienced and born, mainly because of his homosexual orientation, also to support others like him. So far no one has translated it into any other language and it is stuck in Spain and the countries of the South America. But I will change that. I've decided to be the first to do it. Although I'm not after any studies nor am I more than 18 years old. But I do it wonderfully, I have determination and love for the language as a person. And I have a goal. At first I thought it was because of my admiration for Chris's work and my desire to simply show it, but now I know that's not the point.

I'm doing this for You. Because in this country we lack books that free love from definitions, frames, books that discourse about our bodies or passion with their due admiration, truth and purity. So know that from now on I dedicate my work to You. To those to whom are clipped wings, words and hopes, to those who hide and want to love madly and without boundaries. To the colourful girls from my class who are not afraid to be all the shades of the rainbow with piercing and who supported me in difficult moments. To the aforementioned student of my singing teacher. I'm almost halfway through the book, I'm still waiting for an answer from the next publishers. I won't rest till I publish it for You and other personalities, even if, like J.K. Rowling, I have to go to 12 of them, because maybe those people are afraid of publishing it.

Less than a year ago I didn't know anything about LGBTQ+, I still haven't experienced any romantic perturbations in my life or ever fallen in love with any human. But thanks to the work of writers like Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Becky Albertalli, Chris Pueyo, many fanfics, articles or my own questions, I have seen how beautifully infinite, complex and simple love is, that there is nothing in it against the nature. I study God in the world, the Bible or the Koran, and I’m telling tell you that even there, in the depth of the verses, there is no absurd condemnation! I have gone through the issues of  defamed *** or nakedness into taboo and I’m saying to you: it is not unclean, forbidden, it is simply a corporeal act of devotion, our naked body is pride, not shame! Gender equality is not only the equality of man and woman, but of every person with the rest of the society. I have never experienced any serious harassment, pressure in the matter of my objects of affection, I admit it, but I do know what it's like when society wants to nail you to your biological age, body, gender, name and other ephemeral content on your ID card. Literally existential ****, in blood-stained handcuffs.

The main part of my being is The Poet. To be more precise, a "non-writing” one - poems are only a necessary medium to save my Poetry from the time, and the real one are my gestures, the doe eyes that the sky is clad in, thoughts, breath and feelings. So my task here is not forming rhymes and things into empty beauty yet bearing myself again and again in intimacy and metaphors more literal than the prose, between the verses. It is not a job, yet, for me, the most honourable identity. The path to my Home in the tears, grass, the Sacrality of Life, Myself. For this is My Love, Lover. I’m not joking. This is why I know such love and devotion though I’ve never been with any human in an intimate relationship. This doesn’t have ***, borders. Ergo I’ve never gave myself any name of my orientation, I don’t know what it would be and I don’t need to name it. I’m also a revolutionist at heart, I adore the vocal expression of the rebellion, therefore this is why I’m here. And I hope that I will be given the honour of being seen as one of You. Because this is pride. In the pride month.

I’m giving to You support greater than the word “YES” does it. My stance. And, finally, my poems. I dedicate them to You too, written partially especially due to the events taking place right now. I’m giving to Your hands my confessions entitled “And Who Are You To Be?” and “Of Feminine Touch, Of Masculine Sight”.

Don’t you ever let any being constrict your incalescent beauty of wonder. Don’t you ever let anyone claim you to be only a part of scheme, your job or any other miscellany in the bin. Just like You, I am the greatest wonder the history could have ever seen. Each one of us, on our own.

And one more thing, in reference to “The Star Boy”:
In this dead world, where dreams come
barefoot and unkempt to Nowhere,
let’s dance, like Lady Madrid,
with anarchy in the hair.
This time I'm not writing in poems or any literary style. I'm giving a discourse I want to share with all the LGBTQ+ people and many others who might need it, even if it seems to be little to some. Yet I gave something from myself. This is my English version of it since the original one was in Polish due to all that macabre taking place in Poland right now the most. I invite all the eager to read it and keep it in their heart.
I am with You. Wish you all the greatness. Hope I did well.
Lori Nov 2018
she climbed her golden throne and sat with power clinging at the tips of her fingers and anger pouring out of her sight. She took a breathe and you could see from the way she was moving that she was an embodiment of strength and that the roses that covered her kingdom were just beautiful thorns hidden behind a diversity of colors. And she was a reflection of those roses, fierce but hidden behind her miscellany of beauty.
She was beautiful but she was even more strong
betterdays Aug 2017
three bags,
two large
one small

two boxes,
of assorted
miscellany

photos of
one and all

two calendars
two clocks
one for the bedside
one for the wall

quilt and favoured pillow
one petite eletric recliner

assorted toiletries,
mostly pretty soaps

decorative pillows
nine in all...

this is what we moved
from place to place
gathering up the fraying
edges of a life unravelling
moving her one rung
closer to the divide

melancholy  thoughts
meloncholy thoughts

these are the small pieces
of a life lived large and hard

tears gathered in linen
as new friends  are lost
uncertain the path before
sadness at the cause

brave hearted she  is
at yet more loss....
brave hearted she is
at what lies before
we had cause... to move my mother, due to illness from her low assistance care facility to an high care pallitive centre...as she settled into the new room..she said ...only one more move now...
Nadia Jul 2019
Tucked away from company,
the bag of shame,
where we dump the
ever-replenishing
bowl of misfit stuff
with its leaning tower of
letters and unsolicited magazines,
artwork, small treasures,
confiscated things, and
bits and pieces we might need -
amassed together awaiting
removal or repairs,
a new home of their own,
or to join the drawer of miscellany
and its collection of
eternally optimistic maybes,
better safe than sorries -
really, there’s no need for worries,
it can't hurt to keep it all

Tucked away from every day,
wrapped up in layers of redirection
- no need for locks, secret rooms -
hidden away in plain view
to be exhumed by scent or sight,
by feelings of fright or contentment,
memories of true and untrue
tangle together
really, it's better they do,
it can hurt to keep it all

NCL July 2019
Donall Dempsey Dec 2019
SUCH A SUNNY DAY

the objects
in his pocket

have lost
their identity

their significance
to anyone but him

a hairy comb
photo of an unknown

woman
who can she be

a torn-in-two
train ticket

chewing gum
much masticated

yet put back
in his blazer's breast pocket

small change
a penny and a sixpence and

a button
from the cuff

no clue as to who
he had been

before the water claimed him
as its own

the disgust and fascination
of those

passersby who continue
to pass by

it such
a sunny day

for death to
intrude this way

the miscellany of objects
ownerless now

the waters of the Liffey
calm and unmoved
***

I was just coming up to O'Connell Bridge and the bus got snarled in traffic. It was a beautiful beautiful sunny day and as I gazed idly out of the window a body, sodden and shapeless but still all too human was being winched out of the river. So we were forced to witness this before the bus finally made it to the bridge. It was startling and cut like an emotional knife through the fabric of the perfect day.
My girlfriend at the time told of a friend of hers who had sometime last year thrown herself into the Liffey so that added an extra dimension to the horror. Everyone who had met her on that last day said she seemed so happy and were amazed that she had done so because "...it was such a sunny day." She only had a comb and a button and small change in her pocket...all she owned. A human life shrunk to so little.
Maritza Torres Mar 2017
Outside of the destruction this illness has beholden me to,
I find myself wondering,

is there is a part of me still left?

Outside the seemingly endless strings of purchases
of books,
trinkets,
miscellany items,
that I found absolutely necessary at the time to own,

Outside the relationships where mania
seductively shrouded itself as love,

Outside the serendipitous misadventures,

Outside the compulsive longing to be ******
and disposed of because I viewed myself as an empty vessel to be
filled-in,

Outside the reckless dive into drugs,

is there a part of me still left?

Outside
I look after the storm,
and within my total being,
I ask myself
which I,
is I?
Donall Dempsey Dec 2023
SUCH A SUNNY DAY

the objects
in his pocket

have lost
their identity

their significance
to anyone but him

a hairy comb
photo of an unknown

woman
who can she be

a torn-in-two
train ticket

chewing gum
much masticated

yet put back
in his blazer's breast pocket

small change
a penny and a sixpence and

a button
from the cuff

no clue as to who
he had been

before the water claimed him
as its own

the disgust and fascination
of those

passersby who continue
to pass by

it such
a sunny day

for death to
intrude this way

the miscellany of objects
ownerless now

the waters of the Liffey
calm and unmoved

*

I was just coming up to O'Connell Bridge and the bus got snarled in traffic. It was a beautiful beautiful sunny day and as I gazed idly out of the window a body, sodden and shapeless but still all too human was being winched out of the river. So we were forced to witness this before the bus finally made it to the bridge. It was startling and cut like an emotional knife through the fabric of the perfect day.

My girlfriend at the time told of a friend of hers who had sometime last year thrown herself into the Liffey so that added an extra dimension to the horror. Everyone who had met her on that last day said she seemed so happy and were amazed that she had done so because "...it was such a sunny day." She only had a comb and a button and small change in her pocket...all she owned. A human life shrunk to so little.
Arlene Corwin May 2020
What else can one say, but …  

    When This Is Over

When this is over
You’ll still have your character
To deal with.
Times will alter,
But there never is an after.
That’s to say, there is,
But business
Is the thing: merely continuing:
Busyness and nothing more.

And there you are,
Left with character,
Its strength and flaw,
To grow, evolve, refine, define
Through change and understanding,
Standing under with humility,
God, destiny, not pining
From mistakes, goals missed
And all the things ones’s pis_ed away from ignorance.

We’ve talents, gifts
To sift through, filter out;
Finding what we’re all about
To work and use
Amusing us and fusing them
To worlds around,
To bond and bind societies;
Bid welcome to the mishy-mashy miscellany,


Watch the mind: it’s shifty, tricky;
Thus, the one security
Is to be found in in purity!
Work on it!

When This Is Over 5.17.2020 Definitely Didactic II; Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin
Donall Dempsey Dec 2020
SUCH A SUNNY DAY

the objects
in his pocket

have lost
their identity

their significance
to anyone but him

a hairy comb
photo of an unknown

woman
who can she be

a torn-in-two
train ticket

chewing gum
much masticated

yet put back
in his blazer's breast pocket

small change
a penny and a sixpence and

a button
from the cuff

no clue as to who
he had been

before the water claimed him
as its own

the disgust and fascination
of those

passersby who continue
to pass by

it such
a sunny day

for death to
intrude this way

the miscellany of objects
ownerless now

the waters of the Liffey
calm and unmoved



***


I was just coming up to O'Connell Bridge and the bus got snarled in traffic. It was a beautiful beautiful sunny day and as I gazed idly out of the window a body, sodden and shapeless but still all too human was being winched out of the river. So we were forced to witness this before the bus finally made it to the bridge. It was startling and cut like an emotional knife through the fabric of the perfect day.

My girlfriend at the time told of a friend of hers who had sometime last year thrown herself into the Liffey so that added an extra dimension to the horror. Everyone who had met her on that last day said she seemed so happy and were amazed that she had done so because "...it was such a sunny day." She only had a comb and a button and small change in her pocket...all she owned. A human life shrunk to so little.

— The End —