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Dane Johnson Dec 2011
Rabbit tracks in the snow
padded foot, here we go:

Found beside a lake,
far away for you to seek.

Festivities of the fastidious,
i was all but oblivious.

Promising frostiness,
the air, alit and aglow.

Bombarding me
quietly
with parallelism,
banging noiselessly
off the fire
of the morning sunshine.

Mollified, the world
stirs in its lack of commotion.

Meek blunders of the fortnight,
i wish to forego.

My star,
faded from the sky.
You are
what brings me high.
I will
be with you,
upon
the epoch of
tomorrow’s
morn, come nigh.
Anais Vionet May 2022
My suitemate Sunny is from Nebraska. She’s 5’9,” and has cinnamon brown hair that’s half messy-bob, just long enough that she can twist it up with a pearl-studded comb, and half mohawk. She has the long, slanky elegance of someone who’s spent most of her 18 years outdoors.

She’s a cowgirl. There’s a well-worn sage-nova cowgirl hat hanging on her dorm wall and she has her own horse - a red-roan quarter-horse named Valentine - at home, of course. Her best friend growing up was a Sioux girl named Wachiwi who shared her love of barrel racing and lived on a nearby reservation.

Wachiwi was the first person Sunny came out to, at 10. Sunny was 13 when she came out to her family. “I like girls,” Sunny declared defiantly, out of the blue, one night after dinner, “not boys.” Her younger brother had snickered, her older brother rolled his head and said, “Oh, lord.” Her two little sisters seemed unconcerned. Her dad, after a moment’s thought, responded by asking her if she had taken the kitchen scraps out to the chickens yet.

Sunny grew up on a ranch and there was a rigid structure to her days. She would get up early and do ranch chores (muck out horse stalls, feed the chickens, gather eggs and set out hay) then study - but her first love was World of Warcraft.

Sunny was homeschooled and her stories of how that was accomplished are epic. For instance, they had three satellite internet services which she would have to switch between, throughout the day, like a gambler hoping to get lucky and every other Saturday they drove three hours to exchange books at the library. Whatever they did though, it worked. She’s unholy smart - like someone made a deal with the devil smart.

Sunny describes Nebraska as “basic, cliche and poor.”
“Wow,” Leong says, “you really paint a picture.”
“We all inhabited different worlds,” Sunny says, shruggingly, “Lisa’s from skyscraper clouds, Anais a palace, Leong a dystopian communist hellscape..”
“I wouldn’t say a palace,” I demur. “WHAT,” Leong screeches, throwing popcorn at Sunny.
“Stop!” Sunny says, raising both hands to ward-off further snack assaults.
“I just mean, if you were to go live in Nebraska - you’d have to go in on those terms - expecting something basic, unimaginative and poor, periodt.
“I couldn’t wait to excape.” she says, definitively, “I was thirsty.”

Everything about Sunny is deliberate, she looks you in the eye. Like a madwoman let out of the attic, she takes perverse joy in being fiercely blunt, raw and outspoken. She has a drive that can’t be mollified - she’s making her life over and you better not get in her way. The girl cracks me up - I could stand to be more like her.

Sunny’s joining my world this June for most of summer vacation. “Maybe you could show me Nebraska one day.” I say. “Maybe.. someday..” she says trailing off with a far off look, “but I wouldn’t do that to you, you’d go CrAzY in three days.”

“I’ll own that,” I say, wiping away fake tears.
.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Mollify: "to reduce in intensity."

Slang:
Slanky = both slinky and lanky
Periodt = an absolute period - the last word - end of discussion.
Excape = future tense of escape
Thirsty = desperate for something
Cliche = unimaginative
T E Pyrus Sep 2015
i love those
spacey rooms
where basketballs
echo like
an irregular
beating heart;

i love those
little rooms
with huge windows
and careful white
walls, that try
to make up
for narrow floorspace
with ventilated dreams;

i love those
vast rooms
with wooden floors,
and a mirror
that covers
an entire wall
along the length,
beside the
ballet bar,
and alternating
false pillars of
hollow wood
along the
lonely wall
that faces the mirror
so that music
echoes and
reverberates
to outweigh
the ghost footsteps
in pale satin
ballet shoes
that dance alone
through the night
in a resolute stupor,
occasionally peeking
through the
now-shut door,
awaiting the
gracefully grayed
shining eyes,
the off-white shawl
with tiny red
tulips like
summer theater,
and a walking stick
to waltz delicately in
at the break
of 8 o’clock tea.

i love those
cozy rooms
with an exquisite
mahogany coffee table
and a crystal swan
centerpiece,
the patterns on
the couch in a
range of shades
of coral to match
the snugly sized,
maroon, artificial
velvet cushions,
and a gray
stone fireplace
for when it snows,
a dimmed lamp
on the mantelpiece
beside the
mollified and dozing
black cat,
and the water-colour
painting on the wall
of a waterfall
with surreal
strokes of yellow,
lilac and rose,
a tiny framed
photograph of
a redheaded
young lady
with a green scarf,
her lover’s arm
around her shoulder,
their smiles, warm
enough to melt
the blowing blizzard
from the north;

i love those
overly spacious rooms
that come with
white carpets,
and white walls,
and white bedsheets,
and a brimming itinerary,
the glass window
that covers the wall
facing the miniature
open-kitchen,
a bright blue
coffee cup with
a tiny yellow
handprint rests
on the glass
center table,
and the faded
sound of pouring
rain and sleep
deprived keyboard taps,
the blankets in
the morning
smell of half-familiar
moisturizer;

i love those
smallish rooms
with a twin sized
bed in a corner
by the world map
on the wall,
the light gray
t-shirt from
the previous day’s
excursion with
uninteresting people
lies comfortably
on the chair,
a fumbling trigonometric
ratio beside the doodle
of a scratched out
name on the notebook
beside the headphones
on the floor,
an old piece of
ruled paper
sticks out from
in between the
yellowing pages
of the old dictionary,
that lies idle
amongst the
bizarrely ordered,
rewritten pages
with the ingredients
for that story,
with an old orange
crayon scribble saying
my brother
told me today
that dragons ar real,
and the dark
blue curtains
flutter only slightly
in the midsummer
night’s breeze
through the open
window, and the sound
of a far-fetched ‘perhaps’
in a psychedelic dream
that this was
the night when
the dragons
would return…
Ken Pepiton Oct 2018
Here is the rub. Riddles we never got. Oh, my.

Serving to illustrate my point of departure from the mean norm.
the rub is the cause of the pain, not its purpose.

Pain is not for punishing, whatever that means to you.
Pain is for correction, for your own good, ditto the meaning part.

The rub is where touch goes too deep, applies too much braking,
the humdrumconundrum setting on life's pace (get the app) in the age of Google.

For more time than Google or its finders could agree, with me, to believe,
I have been waiting for this moment to arrive. There are places where that rubs.

Fiction, that does lubricate real ification, doesn't it.
I never noticed, until now. That's why liars prosper, maybe.

Jah, I saw it comin' on my back, in a safe place, two days before leaving Bien Hoa, Spring
1969. The White Album, Koss EPS6's, tight, no sound, dark, I wandered homeward.

Not all war stories are lies, some are parables, some are prophecies.

I waited until now was firm in every mind involved,
then launched the grand old party line to God almighty, in my mind

Radioman manifested from the dreams and events that seemed as dreams seem,
upon that time, when I lay waiting, near Bien Hoa.

Look homeward? Where? I have no memory, I've been Bourne Borked, why me?
Was I the hero of the story I was in? I must have been, I am alive and I am old.

And there, the acid message burned through my sckull and I played something
like Russian Roulette, with a character named Ken Kingman, who grinned like a devil.

All this in my mind. Where were we then, we Googled men? We friends on the grid?
Flesh and bone, muscle and blood, for God and country, do or die, don't ask why?

Airborne, All the way, ah, we sang that cadence in our dreams, even after we got the joke.
But we was always only me, we are imaginary, in my mind, extensive, albeit, still mine.

I didn't know.

No, you could not have known, that was just me, the meek little me speaks,
peeking beneath the banner over me. You never crossed my mind.

The show runner speaks up and has nothing more to say, we run on, fo' a long time,
lemme tell ye gotamighty gonna cut chadown. Run on, fo' a long

The point. Fret not. Been there done that entered the vernacular on my watch, I saw this.
I'm ready. You ever been slammed, honest t'God slammed to the ground, breathless?

breathing brings us to the center. Home is where your heart is. That's a riddle, BTW.
Where a thought is first thought seems to establish its eventual trajectory, don't you think?

We be comin' to some real that normal can fix on, soon, waitin's what we do til then.
No pain.  No rub, no, friction fiction uses warm a weary mind as to what might be.

When ye think a bout it. Something in the way we thought must 'ave mollified it, the rub,
above, with **** we let slip by. The aitch's do that. Aitch sounds. 'ushin' ohmmmm.
Here is where my hope, dear reader, lies.
AJ Dec 2013
I think I actually try not to be toxic
Try not to be tragic
Try not to be destructive,
Along with its sub category
Self-destructive.

I just do not excel
In trying to feel mollified.
Though I've tried.

I like to drink the waters of insanity.
I can't steer from temptation,
Especially not if it's harmful.
It'll get me killed one day,
I'm sure of it.

After all, Jack and Jill fell down the hill,
And now Jack's in a box
Six feet under.
Samuel Nov 2017
Where has she gone?
All the others are in line,
Mother bear knows.
Three there,
Two here,
One down,
But she is missing.

An inquiry goes through
Over channels
Fierce and loud
Because one isn’t lining up
And it’s that one.

“Tariq is down, hold on” she says
Fervidly praying, breathing heavy
And there she is.
Anywhere but where she should be.
So easy to find, far too easy.

Swearing, scolding
No time for kindness,
Lost, another child lost
And another may be lost,
The most precious one here.

Scathing scoldings go ignored
Too naive, too proud
A child hoping to **** death
Though she calls that barbaric.
Reformed, remade, reborn
But never killed.

And there’s another,
Another cub but not hers
Carelessly walking on,
Not aware of the foe in his midst.
Of her child, the fool.

But she notices, thank God,
But she freezes up, **** God.
Frozen, still, just as feared.
No gun in hand
Shaking, shivering,
Breathing so hard.

“Don’t hesitate,”
The cry goes through
But this too is ignored.
A gun in hand at last
But unused, unfired
Shakily held with weak grip.

Yet a shot rings out.
Another notch for the rifle
And another cub protected,
The most precious one.

He’s fallen and she’s fallen
Him in death, her in shock,
And again the cry is made
“Don’t hesitate”,
And again it fails.
For she’s truly a cub,
Naive child hoping, praying
Failing.

The mother rushes out
Cursing and pushing away curses
“We need her, Morrison” she says.
“I need her,” she does not.
Out from hiding,
Rushing, running, and, yes,
Praying.

Still so shaken,
Still too still.
She is grabbed,
Pulled, tugged,
Yanked up to her feet
And dragged away,
Hastily hidden.

Harsh words hurriedly spoken
As she is ****** down.
Not in anger but in fear
And tears flow
And the words stop.
Scowling the bear sits,
Fearing even now in the den.

Quiet falls
Deafening, painful.
Jack shut off,
Others mollified,
And she does not speak.
Only watches,
Watching, eyeing on hatefully,
Glaring as Mother carves another.
One more life, one more line
And she doesn’t understand.
Only judges quick and fast,
Ever the idealist.

And that stings more than death’s threat.
mikecccc Oct 2016
it's interesting
to see a burning heart
ignored
passion and dedication
should get
something
shouldn't it
maybe
maybe they stopped paying
the person
who was suppose
to care about such things.
Michael Marchese Feb 2019
It is true
When they say
You're not you
When you're hungry
It ruins your day
When your belly is empty
Of plentiful joy
Then the slightest disturbance
Can leave you annoyed
And in dealing with others
Be flippant and curt
And in making progress,
Listless and inert
It reverts you to primacy,
Primitive need
And converts sharing, caring
To hording and greed
And will lead you to do
What you wouldn't dare deign
To consider permissible
Ways to attain
Your next meal
When you hear
Only your stomach rumbles
Succumbing to them
Just as the
Cookie crumbles
Until irrepressible
Monsters emerge
To devour whatever in sight
Can encourage
You to
Once again
Crack a mollified smile
Until the resurgence
Beguiles the bile
And after a while
Elapses, redaction
For while it grasps
At your brief satisfaction
You think only of
What remains
You can ration
As later-on's pangs
Boomerang
Right back atch'ya
The moment the flavor
Can no more be savored
And cravings enslave you again
To the anger
Mark Lecuona Feb 2012
We awaken with our heart in the hands of another
Our love is what everyone dreams about
It's how a true love affair should be
Now is the time to leave behind all doubt

But where is the mystery that so many cultivate?
We never hold back the true love we feel
Some may say we are revealing too much
But how can we share the joy that is so real?

Why must I wonder about these things?
Must we be afraid to open ourselves so?
It seems the secret to a true love affair
Is to always let our love flow

I'm not looking to live a life of clues
Wondering about who you are and what you do
I want a life of harmony and absolute belief
In the love of another and knowing it is true

Our insecurities will provide enough mystery
Even in the face of words of assurance
We will always harbor the fear of loss and pain
There is no need to cultivate games of adolescence

There will be mystery enough as we age
The years will add depth to us along the way
We will look forward to the growth in one another
As long as we allow each other to bloom each day

An ambience exists of free flowing love
Our doubts and fears are washed away
To be mollified, tempered and subdued
So that our true feelings never run astray

I will risk everything to remain open to you
Even though we live with little hint of wonder
I don't want to guess who you are or what you want
Only the assurance that no man will tear us asunder
Brent Kincaid Nov 2016
His mother was suicidal
His father was patricidal
His siblings all fratricidal
They fractured his parietal.
His acumen was impractical
While his mien was didactical
His morals were retractible
And his religion was heretical.

He longed to be a celebrity
And wished for its celerity
To skip the serendipity
And fork over his luminosity.
But it seems that synchronicity
Paired up with idiosyncrasy
In a natural form of complicity
And waylaid him with complicity.

He moaned that he was qualified
And not the least bit mollified
To be so soundly criticized
That they could not recognize
By those who were so glassy eyed
A plenipotentiary, very wise
Who appears before their very eyes
Who they would gladly plagiarize
Even while they ostracize.

He can’t achieve equanimity
When so many hold their enmity
And treat him so outrageously
In ignoring his magnanimity.
After all, is there anyone living
Who is so astoundingly forgiving
Than he by the simple act of giving
And letting them go on living?
brandon nagley Jul 2015
We shalt Noel ourn favorite aria
A chorale of valiant rendezvous,

Overcome by ourn setting sun
Enchanted by ourn moon,

Fixated and elevated, by flying bolide's in the empyrean
Statue's of us to be built, with ourn amour' as its coliseum,

Dozy by ourn ardor spree, worn out from long heartfelt night
Covering eachother with balm, mollified by ourn spice...

The birds to maketh their fly-by, the bugs to creep on foot
The sand beneathe ourn locked feet, touched by the soot....

Her head on mine chest, as this she Whisper's ( I loveth thee mine rey)

I whisper back (I loveth thee more, reina of mine heart's display)




As tis
The passer-byers witnessed two angels lost in the moment
Forgetting the world ever existed...

Looking into eachother's extraterrestrial pupil's!!!!!
Rey is king in Spanish and reina is queen in Spanish... So you know ():
NeroameeAlucard Jan 2015
Sometimes I sit back
on my bed with an RHCP track
playing blocking out the world
then the voices kick in
"Why aren't you looking for someone?"
"Do you want to be alone forever or do you think that's a wise endeavor?"
I respond back that my confidence is gone out behind the shack stabbed in the back with a macabre machete the size of a horses ***.
that every time I get comfortable with someone now I flinch, waiting for my heart to get stomped out or chipped away
that's why I said for the time being alone I'll stay.

My head and my heart seem out of sync I think it's clear that I'm trying to focus on myself and trying to accumulate both mental and financial wealth and improving my physical health but my heart sees none of this it just wants to be cuddled and mollified and it's mortifying to me to fight this internal war constantly because I want to be free from my feelings and my past because every time I say they're gone they keep roaring back
Devyani Mahajan Aug 2014
Both of them were perfect for me
'You're beautifully insane'
'You're insanely beautiful'
I chose the one whose existence mollified this feeling of ugliness seeping into me
Ryan P Kinney Oct 2019
Lords Temple Basement Men
The first Book of The Word
In Nonsense we Trust

Assembled from pre-existing works by John Burroughs, Ryan P. Kinney, Jack McGuane, Cee Williams, Don Lee, Susan Grimm, Joe Roarty, Russ Vidrick, Dianne Boresnik, Mitch James, Tanya Pilumeli, Julie Ursem Marchand, Vicki Acquah, Terry Provost, Adam Brodsky, Lennart Lundh, Raymond McNiece, Hannah Williams, MaxWell Shell, Tim Richards, Ayla Atash, RC (Bob Wilson), Chuck Joy, Katie Daley, Solomon Dixon, Mary Weems, and Gordon Downie
Mostly taken as quotes during live poetry readings. Some stolen from other sources.
Additional content from predictive text by JM Romig, Linkin Park “Powerless,” “Saga of the Swamp Thing” vol. 1, T.S. Eliot, Amalgam Mythos, Kurt Vonnegut, Kevin Smith, John A. Kinney Jr., and Psalms (chap.):13
Added original content by Ryan P. Kinney, Eli Williams, and Kadie Good

“Lords Temple Basement Men,” it says on the door in a badly photocopied sign, replaced freshly each week. The original was built from torn up pieces of bootleg band vinyl stickers left plastered all over the windows of some teenager, surely passed into decaying adulthood long ago.

They gather in the bottom of an abandoned house in the heart of mostly warehouses. Something, someone long ago forgot to bull doze in the wake of morbid industrialization and the zeal to just get more men more jobs while giving them no life, no place to live. They built in their own obsolescence.

A Man stands outside; half catcalling, half showman barker; daring, tempting, bribing people to worship with him. In paint stained torn jeans, long shaggy hair with the bald spot landing pad directly in the center of his head, and shoes barely hanging together on his feet, he bellows out The Word. Somewhere between slam poetry performance and theology lesson, he entices and seduces people to enter. Here, they do not call him Father, or Brother, just person:  Man.  “Hey, Man,” is how they great him.

"God not only loves a sinner, he prefers them.”
“Come to my parish. Sinners only”
“The lostness of the found, the blindness of the seeing, the spirituality of the atheist, the silence of the spoken.”
“The Covenant of the Sacred Heart.”

People enter a crooked doorway. The Man pulls the peeling door behind them, scrapping the ground as he does so, and leads his flock down the concrete stairs to the basement. Some newbie looks nervously into the stairwell.
From the rear, a maternal voice coos,
“You will be used to the treatments.
Don't worry about it.”
They come to a dingy dirt gravel floor and spread out; filling the space like gas expanding into a cylinder.

The Man steps upon his usual milk crate to open the service. He intones the Capitalist Mantra,
“God Save the Queen
Long live the King
Hail to the Chief
The Lord of all Lies”

And the people chant, “I will not kiss you. I will not bow. I will not bow. I will not be moved.
I love the idea of what I have to be”

The maternal voice steps up to explain their purpose here,
“This is a strange, mad religious service. Everything is out of place, nothing and no one seems to fit together. We all gather here, but no one seems to-gether. This is less a sermon and more a discussion where the gospel is debated. The Word is critiqued, modified, discussed, and changes between its members at each meeting. At any time for no reason, people can interrupt The Man to deny, confirm, suggest, or challenge his statements. The group then decides on the next bit of gospel to be made up on the spot or if what has already been said is still the current phase of perspective. There is no central thought or plan, just a plan for thoughts. We, people, call this Faith. Our membership makes up a multitude. There are Baptists, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Agnostics, Atheists, Satanists, Buddhists, Capitalists, hippies, goth kids, Starbuck’s sipping bloggers, just plain weird kids in the back working on their latest D&D campaign. Dual Spirituality is a possibility. In fact, it is encouraged. Multiple realities are possible. Poly-spirituality is acceptable. The only interconnecting philosophy among us is, ‘Anything is possible at any time for any reason’.”

The People are ready to receive The Holy Spirit and his unique brand of performance poetry,

“In the beginning, there was only The Word, a word. And then more. Which were collected into a story; The Story. And from The Story came creation.
And then came the questions. And The Question was man. Who are we? What are we? Why? Who am I?”

The Man explains,
“The whole point of The Word is to make up new ones. To defy God’s Word by creating ourselves.”

The first interrupter asks, “How do you say No to God.”

The Man answers,
“You don’t like The Question. You are The Question.
We are relearning how to get lost, hoping to return to the birth of The Word.
Worship yourself and serve only humanity.
No one made you.
You created yourself.
It’s all the same story. The Story of I.”

“We are a beautiful blasphemy to God’s word (because we question).”

“How do you say No?
You don’t.
By understanding there is no such thing as,
No, I can’t. Only I won’t.
It was.
It is.”

A torn up, steel-studded, leather clad punk responds,
“we see others as they are
we see ourselves at every age
and all at once”

And the Man once again responds,
“All that we can think. All that we can imagine. All that we can write, paint, create, feel. All of this is real; somewhere. Depends on which universal perspective you are tuned to. Don’t like the current program playing. Change the channel.”

The professor sitting on the floor, shoeless, begins to riff,
“Yes, this is like that piece about imagination being the genesis of other worlds. About how imagination, all thought, is really tapping multiple frequencies from other universes. Our imaginative creations spawn, tap into, and play back all alternate universes in a non-linear time sense. Cause and effect are not in sequence. All that we think, all that we can come up with creates new worlds, but also accesses those already in effect and plays them. We create worlds that already existed by the time we come up with them in our imagination. They were already there and human minds are organic quantum analog receiving-broadcasting devices. We randomly switch channels with nonlinear frequency, simultaneously, and with varying signal strengths of each universe. We receive, but also feedback into a greater signal. So, we unknowingly create these universes, while also being fed from our own creations. Never, in order. We are the Father and the Son. Our own creators and creations. Our words are the genesis of all the other worlds, but also speak the gospel of the programs already in progress. All that we can imagine is as real as we can conjure.”

A black goddess queen asks, “Then, what do you call God?”

The Man retorts,
“You don't need his name, because you remember the man.
The idea of a memory of a man.
Perhaps the idea is better, stronger, more important than the man.
The idea of a man.
Sometimes, people are the absence of themselves.
And the absence of man is God.”

The semanticist-******* unzips its mask and chimes in, “When you name something you separate it and take ownership of it. We never name ourselves. So I ask you, what is your name? What do you own?”

A tie-dyed burnout rallies a battle cry protest chant,
“Who's the Boss?”
“You.”
“Who's God?”
“You.”
“Who are you?”
“I am (me).”

Another voice screams from the crowd, "I'm a monster, I admit it."

Like a rolling wave, the chatter once soft, “I’m a monster” becomes a chant. Faster and faster the adrenaline rises up, the voices rise up, thunderous shouting fills the room, threatening to burst through the walls and escape into the sky. No longer fearing what others might think they raise their fists and beat their chests, unleashing the monster they tried so hard to hide. Shrieks and guttural instinctual roars, animalistic crawling and seething anger, move through the crowd like a pack of wolves ripping apart a coyote.
The screaming voices spill out,
“God has left long ago and has taken no pity on the lonely wanderer.”
“We are not Abraham or Jesus. We are forgotten.”
“We are the forgotten demons pushed out of Heaven.”
“Or maybe we never belonged there in the first place.”

The maternal voice returns, feeling the scorch of the unrequited emotion, seeks to soothe, “Thus mollified she goes, harsh words forgiven, down highways in the dark by demons driven.”

The Man, the original instigator, adds more fuel to the fire,
“And what drive does she possess that we do not?  To seek out, to be blind to the trapping of the darkness within this corridor? We must look and see how we too can move past the shame and blame of others.  To move past the trappings of our own guilt.  To take within ourselves, our demons, true, but take and guide and build the new.  A new life that we can’t ignore, and when we fall, we feel the scorn.  We feel the bad faith and lies that keep us entangled in the want-to-be-with, the fear to be-without. But we also have a fear to be, to exist in the place of a true “self” and live out our dreams. Though time keeps happening, we remain stagnant, we remain in the place of an inauthentic being, a being-for, not a being-with.  We must seek to be-with.  To be-with our demons, our past, and our temptations toward the dark, toward the place in which the I becomes.  To be. To exist. In this.  That is the place where the divine can breathe.  Though we must remember to always embrace change, for everything is temporary, including our own pain.”

Having spent all his feeling and words carelessly and frivolously, The Man abruptly closes this meeting with the usual send off,
“The Word has evolved, my friends.”
T Zanahary Mar 2016
There's smoke on the horizon
beneath an open sea
closing on grainy visions.
In an obscured sky
twin moons merge briefly,
illuminating barren features beneath silver linings
losing brilliance. Imagine
darkness
skirting collisions, spinning
into its quickened cycle, spiraling
radiating some misunderstood energies
thought of as kindness, or kinship.

Veils obscure absent eyes milky white
delicately placed off center to attract attention
      awa  y
to the edges of presen(ts)ce.
Fractures eke out mollified dreams
better left for a different when,
still spied through corner glances
and brief glimpses of a time forgotten.
Stare out through rolling hills,
drifting between currents and canyons
hiding prospects and perspectives
shrinking, shifting topics to
silence,
hours
spent on roads throughout country
we'll never truly see. Hundreds
of miles, with nothing in between.

Let's lay
beneath blankets of estranged forethought
fathers speaking in lost refrains
brothers and sisters spinning in circles
for atten(ua)tion?
attunement?
spinning, bare feet striking
new grounds
leaving paths for those to follow,
what we would have called ours
if not for lost vocabulary.

Between pillars of salt and smoke
we continue along a path founded by ancestors,
tasting our sacred fruits
soured by the lives which watered them,
stains now set to patters,
repeated until they become tradition,
crossing into teachings to which
we kneel
masked by some layer of proper posturing
predictively programmed to provoke
passe (prisms) precautions,
an effect of visual innocence
tarnished, no longer
do we know who hides behind the pierced cowl,
stilled face, lifeless and radiant,
forgotten in sight.

mute, we tell tall tales
of monster's sacrifices,
humanity a frail barrier.
Vapid thoughts dissipate
as leather lungs propagate vacuous words,
bruised rose petals whisper an attempt
at appeasement
lost in the shivers of the wind, briefly
caught only by chance and it's simple
to pretend they never came.

There's smoke on the horizon,
signals rise to prominence
once communication's faltered.
Hollow, revert to body language,
broken and distorted, the veil falls
as we look upon ourselfs from breaths away.
In our eyes a slotted face falls close,
unrecognizable, yet our own
clearly cloaked in cold sun and decorative scars,
an odious inverse to delicacy.
Animals trapped in the same cage
finding comfort in the fury of escape attempts,
pitted against on another
we find solace in our embrace,
teeth bared from true recognition
it was never passion,
only instinct.
Anais Vionet May 18
I’m enjoying spending time with my mom - we have an intimacy braided like rope. I forgot how funny she is. At the same time, we’ve been softcore arguing for days.

She wants me to accomplish something this summer - to pad my med-school resume - do anything but relax. But I refuse. If I’m going to complete a master's degree next summer, then I’m going to have fun this summer. Periodt. I’m not an automaton for her to wind. Her stress radiates, as I play Animal Crossing on the couch.

I reach up towards her forehead, “Is there an off button?” I ask.
“Go away,” she chuckles, blocking my hand.
Before I turn away, I add, “You’re the most fun when you’re not giving advice or saying the wrong things..”
“Or breathing incorrectly?” She finished my sentence.
“Exactly,” I laughed, “then you’re practically perfect.”

The boys - Peter (my BF) and Step (my stepfather) - sit or stand, uninvolved, outside the action, like we’re in some other dimension - they try and look at anything but us when we’re wrangling.

Poetry time!

The phantoms of my discontent
are held at bay, by leisure,
are mollified by pleasure.

Am I crazy to set boundaries?
Am I lazy, cause I won’t let her chivvy me?
I’ve got my own voice; I’ll make my own choices.
We have the same goals - but I’m in control.

For every plan I’ve got, she has a hundred caveats.
Sure, I’ve done nothing, while she’s done it all.
I’m her little rocket that she doesn’t want to stall.
But she needs to understand, I’ve left the launching pad.
.
.
songs for this…
Mama by Spice Girls
Hey Mama by Kanye West
Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now by Nikki Blonsky, Marissa Jaret Winokur, Ricki Lake, Motion Picture Cast of Hairspray
.
periodt ← slang for absolute period
BLT Merriam Webster word of the day challenge: Caveat: a warning or qualifying explanation to be remembered
The sun had set on the mountain top
Before we could get away,
I hadn’t wanted to drive by night
But rather the light of day,
The sky was filled with a ghostly glow
The last few rays of the sun,
When I drove out to the open road,
Our journey had just begun.

I’d promised that I would get her there
I wasn’t going to renege,
She must have asked me a dozen times,
Was even beginning to beg,
I said, ‘They’re going to be waiting there
No matter how late we are,
They won’t be starting without you, girl,
For you are the principle star.’

That calmed her down, she was mollified,
Though she’d been upset for days,
She worried that she’d be there too late,
She’d said, in a blank dismay,
She thought it was such an honour to
Be picked as the chosen one,
‘I’ve never been picked for anything,
Before,’ was the song she sung.

We nosed down into the valley as
The darkness turned to grim,
With only the beam of the headlights
Like a tunnel we were in,
‘It seems to be taking a lifetime,’
Was the only thing she said,
‘I know, but the end of a lifetime is
The time that you are dead.’

She’d paid especial attention to
The dress she had to wear,
Had glossed her lips and had rouged her cheeks
And had tidied up her hair,
I paid her the best of compliments
That I knew she wanted to hear,
And told her that I was proud of her,
On this special night of the year.

We finally came to a grove of trees
And we turned our headlights in,
Throwing fantastic shadows as our
Wheels began to spin,
We stopped just under a giant oak
And I said, ‘We’re here at last.
You’re certain you want to go through with it?’
She said, ‘It will be a blast!’

Then shapes came out of the grove of trees
Wearing hoods and capes of black,
They gathered around the car, and stood
And stared, on that forest track,
When Emily went to join them they
Stood back to let her pass,
And led her into a clearing where
She lay down, on the grass.

It was then they began their chanting
Like a choir in a church,
Rising and falling, lilting, it was fine
And yet a dirge,
For then a man danced into the ring
Who wore the head of a goat,
From under his cape he drew a knife,
Leant down, and cut her throat.

David Lewis Paget
EK Feb 2018
Every thought, every sight, every idea is built by WORDS,
You see a LEAF in color GREEN,
Feel HAPPY, CONFUSED, or MOLLIFIED.
But music is not so limited--
it is just sound, just pure emotion.
It does not go FEAR! CAUTION! WAITING!
but somehow, it's ***-Plulum-AaaRRUM speaks those thoughts far more clearly.
It filters between the lines of language like light through a cracked-open door
it drips from heaven,
unchecked.
I have been to my heart doctor
she noticed I had been smoking and banged a delicate
fist on the table and her stethoscope danced over her
firm *******,  she was furious,
did not listen to my lame excuses that a cigarette  
was given to me the day before and polite as I'm
couldn't say no. She was not mollified.
What do I know perhaps she is worried by her son?
who doesn't want to be a doctor.?
The tests I had shown no avers affect, she calmed
down and I gave her a copy of my latest book:
“alternative poetry and political opinions.”
I promised to not smoke again and gave her my latest book.
TMReed Nov 2019
Buried inside—we blameless pets
rove mollified through worlds of kind.
Rough n’ tumbles polish curtsies
for a tempered pair, spotless n' blind.

Never to slip, never to falter,
ever, we pets, sturdy in hollow.
Leap in rhyme, step with reason
‘to splitting morrow—grit n' swallow.
Rationale empties in practice.
Ken Pepiton Jan 18
Earth children bathed in flickering snow hush
after sign-off and test pattern calibration check.
- speed of thought through time
- in mindtimespace
- 2024
Tele OS 5G first electric story tool
in the village, Starlink,
Go ye, carry knowledge everywhere
be a mini hero bearer of all the news
first chromebook, first literate old man,
taken as a child to missionary school, first
to return with a kind of talk to the world tool,
that runs directly from the sun,
if you can believe it, or not,
it is known, the evil colony gospel
by Jon. Edwards and Dr. Livingstone.
is mollified with Google Translate and Bard.

I venture a guess, that few boomers
ever took a leap of faith on acid,
to envision a future
something like rurally electrified now moieties
of the connected and the unconnected.

The trips that fostered the lost hope vision,
left me plenty of free time to redeem,
late in my excursion through the foam.

Discovering how small a hermits bubble is,
the hermit learned to expand his knowns,
using the secrets only readers learn,
accepting assisting intel inhalable,

he did, and lived to be this old,
with tools for creative play,
granting me ink in the pool,
and endless emptiness to fill with worthy
seed con carne machined psipsyscienitious-
ness, withstanding all natural disasters,
as stars sidereally impressed the ancients.
This is accounted time and word redeemed.

The story that proves life ain't fair.
Death and ignorance never had a chance.

Iyobe did not know the sweet influence,
the persuasion of Pleiades,
when asked, yet he knew
in his intuitive truth detector, why

the inquisitor might assume he did.

Because the entity asking Job about stars,
had never seen them with mortal eyes.

Sing the stories told us all,
remind us what the pioneers did,

won the west, from godless heathern, hmm.

Certainly the pioneers was essential as pawns
for taking territory,
for staking claims in God's ineffable name,

as was taught good and proper by priests,
mostly Jesuit from the same bread of Jesus
eaten, never mind.

But, 2024, ask why the way and the truth
in life, would, or could hate enough
to imagine a real, in this reality hell,

to which one is tricked
by loving one's adversary.
Ask why
teach that, the ultimate judge
holds a grudge, especially for wild kids.

Teach that war is the lie,
and any heroic conquest in Jesus name,
any lifting up of hate to win with,
is blaming truth for lies you chose to believe.

Toes, untrodden, step forward, the subtilty,
greater than that of any beast, acknowledges

poets often guess they picked the winner,
then their enemies eat them alive.
Day dream, meandering where war is working over time, seeding seconds of pure peace of mind, drifting in substantial hope of ever being nowish.
(This atheist imagining, envisioning,
and adopting a religious stance
asper extra-marital prance
sing unsheathing ma lil lance.)

if wand whoosh,
     a mollified Genie could wave
     abracadabra spellbinding mine fate, aye
would rejoice beholding,
     an African Queen to stave
     more precious then
     fine spun gold (for Josephine) to buy

time against tortured Golgotha kepi
     mein kempf wracking fate, thence pave
     ving a stairway to heaven
     after this ivory pawn doth die
cleansing, exorcising, and flushing
     infidelity kindling lover misbehave
     yore (ah Jove) many
     full lush blue moons ago,

     when verboten fruit
     yours truly didst deaf fie
temptation no amount
     renouncing sin spent kneeling, this knave
     scrutinizing engravure etched with blessed
     "Jesus, bare naked Amazon Mary
     and Joseph" motif guy
interweaved by pointed

     finger of Goddess Sheba almighty
     beckoned deft fiat halting joist
     lowered nondescript plain rigid casket
     swallowed by grave
temporally ushered whirled wide
     webbed rebirth where I
received life anew breathless composure
     dousing errant fellow

     guilt honestly iterated, jackanapes
     kneaded licentious maligned narcissistic
     opprobrious philandering questing re: deprave
transgressions, whereat this gentile Jew did lie
     unclothed satisfying prurient crave
ving vitiating marital covenant, now my
     soul asylum anointed, via sedulous, glorious,
    
     and fabulous Nubian enchantress deign nigh
ying celibacy decreeing
     expurgating ****** crave
     ving, hence thy status as Zen eternal
     ****** (corny punster)

     as acceptable punishment bequeathed
     by said deliquescent, iridescent,
     and opalescent dreamt up
     "FAKE" pitch black Negroid hallucination
     from over active imagination
     me didst truly ply.
Ken Pepiton Jul 6
If life had made up a mind,
in the neighborhood I formed from
communally, we might all notice, we'ld agree,
we might not be the first to say, we know.

But you know, life, or the active agents of it,
makes up our minds willingness to look, see if it

might be meaningful when seen another way.

The flipside of freedom to choose, what may
be taught
to children, and what must not,
under any circumstances, be allowed known,

before a child has reached the bloom of youth,
the useful strength age, draft age,
pulled into the slipstream
of easy will
to prove worth, true grit, traction,
hobnail boots, true secret weapon, stick
and stay, and make it pay, the exploitation
unwinding wars perfected reasonings,
to the victors go the spoils, boys,

discomplication has begun, the unraveling
of ever, once again, the stories tell, the tale,
told in tapestry since Carol King, at least,

during the era of top-forty aimed at boomers,
the largest cohort of like-minded consumers,
ever propagated using pride of new knowing,
to push the value proposition
in Alcoa over Kaiser.

What local tax-base funded schools,
were required to do, in Massachusetts,
as Brahmin first intention to mass convert,
depended on a deluder, and a deceiver,
to do the work,
first make believe God can hate you,
for knowing what Eve knew, some how.

Original disconnection from the wisdom,
sin leaves no mark, but in the faith abused,

to aim, and miss, leaves no stain, aim right…

use the logic words prove, knowing one
is not enough, each can mean so many-
possible provables, using patience, truths as
developed the rules for inclusion in the deme,
the select few among the many called, whom we
deem among the elect, to whom much is given,

from whom much is required, as noblesse oblige,
indeed, duty to God and Nation, County, if you will,

Natural words twist across old sores
from bully brothers, mollified by battle buddies,
those who bore the brunt,
those Bonus Expeditions,
those dust bowl pawns,
those road builders, and bridge builders,
that made the old days look real good
on television… Dizzy Dean,
and ***** Mays, and that one year,
there in the story that took us through
the Sixties, right up to 2024, the summer
any boomer alive in 1954 remembers,
Maris versus Mantle, and the tub scene in ******…
make up the mind that remembers Beatle Wigs,
And Whammo everything, every fad we had,
let that mind never really
recover after the exposure to war, from inside…
that few,
those boys, men, now,
this wedom, tuned to my signal, thinking, dams

break, eventually, all the dams doing damage,
to the original intention allowing letters to work,
break free and wild,
as magi slowly brought back wit,
the bit of branching used
to make us think once
more an old idea, we
think slow, like a all day sucker…
make an image, I, mage of my own eyes,
Lo', I see, and say, hey, you, can you see,

does that flag,
still hold the dowery,
those stars in field of blue
above the BEIC stripes of red,
on a background as white as this?

This vast empty white space,
white wall between us now, you
and we the instigating impulsive wills

to know, sublime, beyond simple,
serious knots to learn to tie,

turbans telling Sikhs, the ontology,
why we are we, the chosen ones, and

the others, those we, must imagine,
have another reason for being, as we

have crossbred, or so it seems, as we
continue using old war reasoning schema

constantly trying to find the art official.

Riches and ease of existing, does, in fact,
lead to slavery, the will is made subject
to the feeding power, always, the owner
owns the user's fees, this is only right, see

first come, first served,
woe be the Juans who come late,

get one shot,
blow it, and you blow it for as long as
the will you failed to do was yours as

in the holy scriptures, all versions, common
thread, the planet we became on,

common, clean enough to make use,
we use raw letter A formt secret intent
to think, we used to say, no word wasted,
to the t we cross and the I we dot. or don’t/
recall each inflection in the fashion shown
courtly, while
in judgment found being wanting,
will to make a way to reimagine, a we to
think the original intention taught to you, for your
attention paid, intently, learning, we who read,

know more than they who can, but don't.

Some learn late, some never learn.
Fools make children laugh, who pays the fools?

If I die before you read this, did the words feel flat?

I trow not, letting this mind found made up, be
just right, among unnaturally neighborly bears,
some thing lingers from first intentions,
it truly can be imagined, just so.

After all the amendments needed.
To undo the original malintentions,

tie your hopes to those whose riches came
from ancient forms of diversion during deciding

the fate of the functioning laboring classes.

This is now the zone f-
from Gol'ilocks, original intent.

fsure, strue, suptyou
step on a crack, breaks yo momma back.
Reasoning was never taught where I went to learn political correctness.

Are there no fifty year olds who want to be President?
amit chaudhari Oct 2019
The vicious lava gushed like fire as it spewed from a mountain’s vent
When the fury mollified, carved on you was god’s word we call the covenant

Sierra you were at times, a rock, pebble or a boulder
Lofty palaces with all their pride perched atop your shoulder

Cultures shared their thoughts with you and profound markings did you bear
Reposing their trust and narrating to progeny the glorious days that were once there

A lost soul wandering fearfully in the lands with no one by his side
Yearningly he looked up to you and wisely did you guide

You instill courage even in the puniest beings, for as the fable goes
When faced with the mighty Goliath, pebbles were all that David chose

People happily etched you when life was conceived by a womb
Also, when they departed you solemnly marked their tomb

They cut you, polished your contours to take pride in their arrows and spear
Used you mercilessly on the battle field but finally they also lost their dear

Exquisite carvings you did give to them to adorn their courts, parapet and ledge
The sculptor humbly said that you were always there and that he simply chipped the edge

But spiritually you were mocked as lifeless and this is for all to see
It is only when God graced your idol did mankind bow to thee

Through the ages you stood with contempt on the royal yard sniding at the aisle
In the end, your conceit lay scattered in dust as sands of time cut your profile

For it is early that one must realize and for one’s sins atone
As time and tide are known to have callous hearts of stone
We purchased 2020 Hyundai Elantra
at Enterprise Car Rental
1207 West Ridge Pike
Conshohocken, Pennsylvania 19428
April thirteenth two thousand twenty three
witnessed greatest amount of money
I spent at one time.

The following day April 14th, 2023
(after my automotive troubles
seemed so far away),
when important business concluded at:
Pennsylvania Department of Transportation -
Photo License Center,
1700 Markley Street,
Norristown, Pennsylvania 19401.

Before somnolent vestige
completely vanished, and vanquished
post retentive grogginess dissipated
ipso facto after awakening
from dream state come true
and opening eyelids
Delilah gifted with melanin
swiftly tailored uber vestil ******
hit with hair brained scheme
to generate goldenlocks

worth gobs of green
freshly minted legal tender
despite fallout being upbraided
bald brazenness occurred
to emasculate Johnny comb lately
he experienced brush with immortality
until he almost got scalped
saved by skin of his teeth
unbeknownst to lass (see) how keen

her intended prey nicknamed Samson
worthwhile fitness expense
disciplined, coaxed, and buffed physique
to chisel, mold sculpt, et cetera
his body to become lean
said kingly chess mate pledged troth
to ebony queen,
she wedded near likeness of the boss
(doppelganger) Bruce Springsteen.

Additionally while slumbering,
I experienced close encounters
of the third kind
manifested as following visitation
linkedin and included chance encounter
with a rock-ribbed mountain of a man
(whose shaved noggin glistened)
simply known as thee ebullient B.T.,
one strapping muscular dynamic
colorful preacher

of health and positive welfare,
who strongly encouraged me
(combination aging long haired
pencil necked geek, harried styled
white tarnished knight,
teenage mutant ninja turtle,
and wunderkind wily wordsmith)
to pay him a visit
at the following LA Fitness site
2961 Swede Road,
East Norriton, Pennsylvania 19401.

Aforementioned stranger in a strange land
athletic built endowed fellow
with smooth glistening ebony skin
talked (courtesy booming inspirational voice)
an evangelical blue streak regarding
the merits of communication
heavily peppered with brotherly/sisterly love
with powerful salted spiritual undertones.

Impossible mission during wakeful state
to recreate, rehabilitate, rejuvenate,
rekindle, and resuscitate a likeness
courtesy figment of my imagination
said boisterous, gregarious, illustrious,
and rambunctious well sculpted
specimen of **** sapiens
as hinted at above.

Though no Hercules
(in fact just the antonym),
mine alter ego exaggerated,
intimated, and outlined,
a mollified Genie could blithely wave
magic wand abracadabra
spellbinding mine fate, aye
would rejoice beholding,
an African Queen to quash
celibacy, cuz declaration of consummation

stemming premature *******
more precious then
fine spun gold (for Josephine) to buy
time against tortured Golgotha kepi
mein kampf wracking fate, thence pave
ving a stairway to heaven
after this ivory pawn doth die
cleansing, exorcising, and flushing
infidelity kindling lover,
which prurient waywardness

found me to misbehave
ah bon Jove vee errant fellow
(wanted dead or alive),  
I das scribe many blue moons ago,
when verboten fruit
yours truly didst deaf fie
temptation no amount
renouncing, repenting, rerouting
travesty, mockery, and effrontery
regarding egregious transgression
excising emotional affliction

spent kneeling on wounded knee,
this besotted knave
scrutinizing indelible engravure
etched with blessed
"Jesus, bare naked Amazon Mary
and Joseph" motif guy
interweaved by pointed
finger of Goddess Sheba almighty
beckoned deft fiat halting joist
lowered nondescript plain rigid casket

swallowed by grave
temporally ushered whirled wide
webbed rebirth where I
received life anew breathless composure
dousing errant fellow
guilt honestly iterated, jackanapes
kneaded licentious maligned narcissistic
opprobrious philandering questing re: deprave
transgressions, whereat
this gentile Jew did lie
unclothed satisfying prurient flava flave

vitiating marital covenant, now my
soul asylum anointed,
via misdirected, misguided, and misjudged
sedulous, poisonous, opprobrious,
nevertheless glorious, and fabulous
Nubian enchantress deign nigh
ying celibacy decreeing
expurgating ****** crave
ving, hence thy status as Zen eternal
****** (corny punster) mocker

as acceptable punishment bequeathed
by said deliquescent, iridescent,
and opalescent dreamt up
"FAKE" pitch black
kickstarting Negroid hallucination
from over active imagination
me didst truly ply
avariciousness as Holden Caulfield
protagonist catcher in the rye.
Hospital workers

It has been another busy day a lot of driving
the destination is yet another hospital that smells of despair.
Busy fat auxiliary nurse, you can hear the friction of sweaty thighs
and the smell of their vaginas.
I’m not surprised the canteen sell mostly sweet cakes and drinks
and low paid, they have no other chances.
The doctors are mostly good at their trade, but some of them
would be happier as car mechanics, if it hadn´t been
for pushy mothers wanting a son with a title.
They are jolly, the nurses on a sugar high, I think.
I sit in the waiting room, the endless waiting for more tests.
My doctor is female, she talks to me softly, but there is steel
in her voice, telling me what to do and eat.
After a shouting match I lost, I gave her one of my books.
Mollified, she forgave my outburst. Yes, she is an angel.
TIM ANDREWS Oct 2020
Man
Who am I?
A man of principle
Who would not wish anyone to come to harm
Least of all through his own acts, words or deeds.
Or am I a predatory sloth
Waiting in the shadows
For another unsuspecting female
To walk by
Whereupon, I would slither out
And try to entice her into the darkness
To share some loathsome activity
Under the heading of Art?
Am I the merry idiot whose sharp asides
Are the very essence of wit
Or am I thinking, planning, scheming
An unacceptable attack on the virtue
Of young virgins attracted by my fame
And yet mollified by my illness.
Yes, who is this man who is desperate to shed his clothes
In order to reveal the real him
The naked babe in the cot
Before sin permeated his disgusting mind
I speak of him now in the third person
Even I cannot own him.
Who is he?
Nothing.
A battery operated *** doll
Drugged out of his mind
Who can hardly speak or walk in a straight line
Let alone stand tall and *****.
I have told you who he is.
Now, you tell me
Who am I?
2020
poetryaccident Feb 2019
The abuse is normalized
when the numbness settles in
another turn around the clock
the same no matter what
repetition is the master's trick
the surest way to ease a mind
subdue the urge to flee
when the tone is misery

the harsh word is mollified
even as the wound is struck
by the promise of emptiness
once the storm has reduced
while the clouds circle round
never fully leaving the sky
casting grays across the earth
without a rainbow ever seen

colors reduced to red and black
splashed with blue to illustrate
that the bruises manifest
from a palette of imp's delight
mixed to black without recourse
to the balm others source
from the lack of injury
or is it something angels keep?

still the outcome is embraced
just another tortured day
until the cycle is expired
by the stain of bloodshed
this is the hope above all else
a wish that lives in the heart
the fondness of the beyond
when life is fully lost.

© 2019. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20190205.
The poem “Fully Lost” is a generalized look at abuse, both actual and perceived.  The abuser can be a person, a society, or just the person’s psyche.
Walter Alter Aug 2023
wishing he had sung his prayers last night
from both ends to the middle
fell to the ground in supplication
plastic Jesus hold my head
a round of applause for once
or even just a soft murmur
from those in your employ
my interrogator professor Zworykin
said quietly we want information
I knew I was up **** creek
without an assault rifle
with various blunt objects
aimed at what was left of my head
initiations with disfigurement
so give me a melodic answer he encouraged
yah well the Third ***** fell from bad music
I regurgitated like a vampire in reverse
furthermore the swelling is an obstacle
I added for emphasis I mean evidence
Zworykin was neither mollified
nor inclined to use less aftershave
a great ****** of a situation
which is a poem in itself
I got in a few imaginary hits
before he called in the hockey franchise
fine fellows who sang as they worked
that's how we laugh the day away
in the merry merry Land of Oz
always a help to morale in the trenches
men this is a spit shine day went Zworky
cracking walnuts with his hydraulics
stand ***** and do your regimentation proud
they wavered then cheered then wavered
when the going gets tough as it will
look for a bar with a jukebox
as does your present prostrate narrator
to whom they ultimately allocated
a very private security consultant
good lord not another eccentric botanist
endorphin soaked and bling speckled
with his blemish free goats
and his tunnel vision paparazzi
hi I'm Joe Product family friend
half con half circus half fury
I screamed my one line in the play
traffic fines double in poet zones

From "Pageant of Naked Mischief" available on Amazon
TIM ANDREWS Apr 2021
Who am I?
A man of principle
Who would not wish anyone to come to harm
Least of all through his own acts, words or deeds.
Or am I a predatory sloth
Waiting in the shadows
For another unsuspecting female
To walk by
Whereupon, I would slither out
And try to entice her into the darkness
To share some loathsome activity
Under the heading of Art?
Am I the merry idiot whose sharp asides
Are the very essence of wit
Or am I thinking, planning, scheming
An unacceptable attack on the virtue
Of young virgins attracted by my fame
And yet mollified by my illness.
Yes, who is this man who is desperate to shed his clothes
In order to reveal the real him
The naked babe in the cot
Before sin permeated his disgusting mind
So perverted that even his wife cannot bear
Even the tiniest suspicion of a caress?
I speak of him now in the third person
Even I cannot own him.
Who is he?
Nothing.
A battery operated *** doll
Drugged out of his mind
Who can hardly speak or walk in a straight line
Let alone stand tall and *****.
I have told you who he is.
Now, you tell me
Who am I?
2020

— The End —