Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
Dreams of a Child
Created: Jan 23, 2011 5:44 AM
Finished: Jan 30, 2011 4:23 AM
Posted here  Jan 2014
Warning:
a very, very long poem, but within , I promise,
there is a precise stanza about, for you.  
Take it as my gift.
Let me know which you took home to play.

~~~~~~~


Some poets care not
for the
discipline of rules,
laws of punctuation.

Why bother brother,
with putting poems
in antiquated jailhouses,
prisons of vertical bars,
or afford the reader,
the courtesy of horizontal lines?

Question and quotations marks
these day refuted,
as a Catcher In The Rye
conspiracy symbology of big lies,,
political interventionism,
to the creative, most natural
right to be crude.  

Inconvenient impositions,
symbolic flailings, of an
over regulated civilization
in the throes of declination

Punkuation is but a
societal annoyance to
today's creative geniuses,
periods, commas,
nothing more than
a pause to think -
who needs 'em?
when we want to stink
up the atmosphere with vitriols
of half truths and inhuman
but oh so gleeful,
concentrated disparagement
of any person worthy of
nationwide late night mocking merriment.

Such free spirits, vivid animations,
within me do not reign,
though upon occasion,
boy got permission slips  
for breaking bad by invention
of an occasional new word.

New words, white truffles
vocabulic incantations,
my own cupcake creations,
meant to burr, or purr,
their tasty meanings, always,
were readily apparent.

Sometimes we rhyme,
sometimes  we can't;
doth not a reading of a
poetic periodic table
of rants, chants
love poems, and paeans
to a shhhh! pretend,
overarching, poesy ego
require some minimalist format?

How I envy you,
kind observer,
possessor of literary powers
untoward and untold,
delicate touches of a fingertip
rule and rue
poetic invention.

You can zoom away or in
for a closer examination
of unscripted revelations,
incinerate them like an
yesterday's newspaper,
thus demonstrate contempt for
less-than-historic ruminations,
as time has done before.

Witness the crumbled ruins of Ozymandias,
king of kings,
and how the critic's machinations
with a dash of tabasco time,
his works, now museum pieces,
in the Tate Modern's room of
Laughable Human Aspirations.

Don't panic, sigh or groan,
kind observer,
infection inflictions,
content of discontentment,  
ancient whinings that the publisher
long ago listed as discontinued,
will not herein unfold.

What has all these mumbled asides
to do with the Dreams of a Child?

Apologies prolific I distribute
for this long winded profligate prologue;
and even for prior invasions
of your contemplative fantasias,
but my intention certain:
**** out the weak chaff eaters,
feigners of faux interest,
who stanzas ago deserted us,
this confessional lore.

These prior lines conceived
to mislead and deceive,
to refer and deter
send away, the hangers-on
who litter our lives,
with whimpered falsehoods.


So, we begin anew:

Today's lecture entitled
Dreams of a Child
were formatted on a silver disc;
this communication's originations,
seedlings of block
roman black letters
on background of cleansing white,
re things that jar me in the night.

Easy slights that waken
from a fitful, pitted rest,
mental paintings
natured in gem colors,
tourmaline auras,
and vibratto hues
of blue zircons.  .  

I have never lain upon the couch,
in the inner holy of holies,
where one whispers
to the Father Confessor
an original composition,
subject, title and inspiration
of said unique origination,
decidedly of one's own choosing,
roots of the essay's telling,
harvested in the root garden
of one's dreams,
where grow herbs,
spicy ones,
flavors of childhood.

The lush and wooded smells
of a forest of childhood scars,
and it's concomitant
putrefying, fruited rot,
awoke and brokered
a stilted, tremulous sleep.

Went to bed a a man
of modest success,
of modest scenes,
a bond trader, who trades
exactly that:
his word, his bond,
his blessing to his
deal constructions,
all of which, ended with an
irrevocable cri of "Done!"

Yet like you,
I am oft undone.

Dreams.

In truth, not dreams, but
spectral moments of
our lives relived,
a melange of ancient lyrics,
taunts of childhood abusers and
peer humilators
who could
teach the CIA
torture techniques
of WORD boarding, par excellent.

Angelic faces of human ****
that birthed in me a holy duality,
anger and a,
love of words,
my vaccination serum.

Granted a love of
human kindness
from teachers who cherished their
high and mighty tight
to publicly humiliate,
knowing full well
that human laws could not
attempt to have them
justly incarcerated.

Where, where were
the supervisors
who let me be spit upon
in the back seat of a
Fifty's station wagon,
by the brothers of
a sainted dead shepherd?

I am still eight,
sitting on a stoop in the
modest side of town,
towel in hand, so handy,
to wipe the tears shed
for cause,
for the car-pool of suburban boys
who "forgot" to pick me up for
Sunday swim night.  

In high school,
in the back row,
I silently ******
the juice of a Sarte lemon and
essayed a term paper,
upon multiple mirrored
reflections of a man
called Camus.

As another self styled, only living
teenage expert
on "alien nations"
received with pride and trepidation,
a sentence of Ninety Eight,
on my term paper,
but the pedantic predators
deemed it an accident
for I, was  inscribed in their
Upper East Side
Coda of Prejudice,
as merely,
"just" a
man of USDA,
B grade quality intellect.  

Hand me downs
I did not get
as I was the
younger, sole brother,
but worn lint lines
of humiliation
when and where my pants
were "let down"
to accommodate growth spurts
were my growing marks of Cain.

Those growth lines
were economic reality signs,
and were rich fodder for
childhood monsters,
Scions of Income Superiority
who lived in ranch homes in
two car, color tv garage slums,
wearing band new Levis.

In the Sixties,
time of my unsilent spring
wore a cross of
teenage hood,
my hair,
worn long,
Jesus style

Worn with labor pride,
for it was
Made in the USA,
I was a most conventional
revolutionary.

In the parochial jail
of educated guesses,
where society's lesson plans
of all that was bad
were O so well taught,
I was apart, ahead,
of Our Crowd,
but not too, radically.  

But a spiteful
Principal of No Principle,
deemed my locks a
disruptive influence,
so to exorcise my rebel streak,
so to crucify his "Jesus Freak,"
so to exercise his diminutive spirit
a pompous uber man,
he had me shorn
like a sheep,
thrice
in just one day,

He loved his full employment
of his pharoic entitlement,
The Educator's Power of Abuse,

I was so denuded
of human strength,
the Italian barbers of the
East 86th Street subway station,
wept for me,
their cri du coeur,
Angels in Heaven did hear
and from God
did dare demand
an explanation!

He roared in manner celestial,
"Is he not my child too,
and if he be treated
in style *******,
it is purposed and willful."

Pornographic compilations of
slaps across a child's face,
I've got plenty
of and in My Space,
should you care to
add your own,
down under,
got plenty of room
for all comers    

In a Facebook world,
I pride, not pretend,
that having fewer "friends"  
is my honest and true
reflection of who I am, and,
life lessons learned -
quality, not quantity.  

Victims of discrimination
can be most discriminating
in matters of
human games, associations.  
****** or word,
lack of taking care
is not heart healthy.

Tried to forgive
the despotic progenitors,
of some of that which
is good within me
that, irony of ironies,
they can claim the title,
creator;

Tried to give them
what I had gotten -
from the happy malcontented  
evil spreaders,

That grace, grace is
the only methodology,
an inestimable but
valuable lost leader,
the only way
to survive on
this planet of
hardtack and
caste striation.  

Though still quick to anger
at the cutters and denigrators
I am quick still to
confess my own failings, and forgive those
of plain and honest folk.

Unfortunately, kind observer,
you had to share my brunt,
syllabic Iwo Jima battles
of a decaying verbal moonscape
to reach the denouement,
for now we have,
mostly arrived

Most likely you too
have long ago
deserted me like
so many others,
no matter,
this modulated breath
was born and released
from my heaving chest and
as I knew it,
know this:

My Absaloms
where ever you be,
presumably and hopefully in hell,
I give you thanks
and a mini bar drink
of absolution.
a tin medal of appreciation,
for the
Marked Improvement
you inadvertently nurtured
in this restless,
voyagered soul.

My ancient enemies
till now, be advised,
forgive and forget
was and has not  
fully formed
in my penitential template,

Unlike your natural capacity
for cruelty and mean
birthed unto you
in your third rate
genetic melange,
forgiveness is taught
in a Master Class
at a famous school of Ethical Drama,
that I did not attend

Though resident in
a better place,
my root garden,
the bitter herbs you planted
still grow but,
are welcome in sweet brotherhood,
until the selah days
of just one flavor.

Though the universe's expansion
is of a pace such that
time and space definitions
will stretch and warp
and need be
refined, replaced,
the governing principle here.
need not be rephrased.  

For goodness
from evil
doth come
and should your
evil spectres
once more try
for resurrection
in my benighted
dream world.
you will find the doors
locked and barred,
upon them a sign
not verbose,

**Done.
Whew.
Ash Oct 2020
The fox
runs alongside the astronaut,
who looks at a picture frame.
Around the fox’s neck, a white bandana.
There, on the spooky
moon, his only company is the fox colored aluminum.

The aluminum
fur of the fox
blends into the moonscape. The ship is empty aside from them and the spooky
remanence of the rest of the crew. As the lone astronaut
works to return home, his only comfort being the bandana
and the picture frame.

The frame
that holds a photo of a woman, standing before the ship of aluminum.
Tied around her hair, the bandana
which has since been given to the fox.
The memories it brings ever haunting the astronaut
making the moon ever more spooky.

The spooky
feeling is not eased by the frame
as the remains of passed astronauts
are trapped in this aluminum
ship, the lone survivors being the man and the fox.
He keeps his thoughts on the bandana.

Her bandana,
given to him on a dark and spooky
day, which he then gave to the fox
so he may pretend the woman in the frame
isn’t millions of miles away from them. A fox of aluminum
and a lonely astronaut.

The astronaut
chooses to focus on returning to the woman without her bandana.
He works tirelessly to get the aluminum
rocket ship off the spooky
and desolate moon, and back to earth, to see the woman in the frame.
By his side on this barren rock, looking up at him, stands the fox.

The astronaut refuses to let the spooky
atmosphere deter him from his goal of returning the bandana to the woman in the frame,
ever thankful for the company of the aluminum fox.
A sestina made with words randomly given to me by a friend.
Stanley Mungai Jun 2012
I see a flash
A sight to behold
The work of an immortal sculptor
Walking straight in elegant pride
Worth of a princess of the sun
Firmly transfixed in her twelve
Moving into the emptiness of an invalid society
Her innocence screaming
In an unchallenged clarity

And only twelve moons
The framework of her modeling salivates
Wolves in men
Who’s been exposed to the virus
Emerging from the bush land of their desires
To seek their vengeance in a fanatical hatred
And poor me the princess
With the *** lunacy roaming the streets,
Sanity of abstinence is the greatest challenge.

Swung from poverty to adolescence
A pendulum of fates
Hunger at home for the family
And her homestead a moonscape of desolation
The two hundred shillings does the trick
She trades out her innocence
And virginity too; a girls pride
And alongside the legal tender
Comes the virus
The minute monster
Savoring a society of huge minds.

There is the tuberculosis
In a hospital ward
Full of undug graves and shrines unnamed.
Drawn into the vacuum of her fate
Eyes wide open in dismal finality
The princess
Lie in freeze frame of death
A pyramid of events
Molded out of her last several terrible seconds
Lamentation for the society
A dull eulogy for our girls.
*AIDS! The parasite feeding on the rotten end of our Morality.*
Stanley Mungai Feb 2012
I see a flash
A sight to behold
The work of an immortal sculptor
Walking straight in elegant pride
Worth of a princess of the sun
Firmly transfixed in her twelve
Moving into the emptiness of an Invalid society
Her innocence screaming
In an unchallenged clarity

And only twelve moons
The framework of her modelling salivates
Wolves in men
Who's been exposed to the virus
Emerging from the bushland of their desires
To seek their vengeance in a fanatical hatred
And poor me the Princess
With the *** Lunacy roaming the streets
Sanity of abstinence is the greatest challenge.

Swung from poverty to adolescence
A pendulum of fates
Hunger at home for the family
And her homestead a moonscape of desolation.
The two Hundred shillings does the trick
She trades out her innocence
And virginity too- a girl's pride
And alongside the legal tender comes the virus
The minute Monster
Savoring a society of huge minds.

There is the tuberculosis
In a hospital ward
Full of undug graves and shrines unnamed
Drawn into the vacuum of her fate
Eyes wide open in dismal finality
The princess
Lie in freeze frame of death
A pyramid of events
Molded out of her last several terrible seconds
Lamentation for the society
A dull eulogy
For our girls.
Nat Lipstadt May 2016
~~~*

this old man's tiddlywink, land-locked words,
runted, blunted instruments,
needy for release, the balm of salvation,
woods, neither silvered or exacting,
more a spit stain polish for a dulled, tarnished brass spittoon,
smoothed 'cept for the brute brunted bunting
of christ-crossing railroad tie lines,
all across his roughened terrain'd face,
a black and a white Degas
pen and ink etched illustration
of howling agitation.

the concrete moonscape
racked upon his soul and face,
mapped remembrances of variegated Judas kisses
each left in a pockmarked hidey place,
tired principles bent, bent from sacrificing oneself,
a rockstar burnt offering,
to any deity that promises illusions that time,
can be healed, all its cursed residues & sins sealed,
in locked antechambers, fully furnished rooms,
rentable for perpetuity if so desired,
but irony dictums diktat says you've locked yourself in,
in circular spaces where every angle stab-states:

yo, there are no unpainted corners for escape,
no day of atonement on your petite universe's calendar,
nor a host of worthy words that can e're suffice,
so howling makes perfect sense

inventory the wasted errors accumulated, accentuated,
uncovered by the howling of only "I'd known better,"
his accountants all jolly rip roar laugh,
when you beg them to ******~reduce jail time of
ancient leaden bulletpoints from the taxes future payable,
they profess there is no statue of limitation from any authority's press
for dues owed arising from your own imitations,
they mock me by howling in poe-ing unison,
"nevermore, nevermore...forevermore"

the contradiction of those criss#crossed fine lines,
each pointing in no direction, a trap of inaction,
fie, fie, on the double dealing hand you have dealt yourself
in the game of liar's poker, where all the face cards curse with smiles,
pretend portents portrait paintings of only rosy outcomes,
each a one way sign,  each pointing to a different,
magnetic compass course in a world
where all polarity confused, reversed,
so wayward, the only direction home

before Rembrandt's self-portrait @  Met Musée, he worships,
the painter's hipster jaunty hat pouty-pointy stating,
"what me worry,"
but the cracked crevices, whisper even louder,
"nothing left to lose,"
in the gallery, all stare, misunderstanding why,
why you weep profuse in perfect recognition at the
mirroring witness testifying, from whose pixels you cannot be protected,
each agitated paint pore shouts words of 
"j'accuse, j'accuse"
in a dulcet howling harmony

words lip locked, no exit, traffic jammed inside squirrelly cheeks,
scabs form, mortar and pestle a pus paste of
jumbled sounds and tongued blood,
a delicacy of swoosh and swish spit,
ugly kept behind prison bars of yellowed teeth,
a vile concoction of glorious bile of new combinations,
destined to die unuttered,
the howling all internal, becomes silence,
and yet, here,
here lies buried proof positive,
"even silence finds a tongue,"^
even words, unspoken,
yet, mind-reader read quietly,
permits the howling agitation exorcise and surcease,
rein to escape
inspired by David Hare's  play about Oscar Wilde,
The Judas Kiss

^John Clare (English Poet, 1793 - 1864)

composed April 30 ~ May 15, 2016

this will likely be my last poem for awhile
Kagey Sage Feb 2016
Oh I just wanna get out of this cattle call to life
Go into the store filled pastures that used to be the wolf’s woods
so I can be the sheep

and the peddlers wear the skin of my sacred spirit animal
Oh, oh
The peddlers wear the skin of my sacred spirit animal
Oh, oh

Once, I dreamed I was running from a killer
in a faux artisan grocery store
Just when I thought I was beat
a wolf pup came, spurred me on
and distracted my would be murderer

and the peddlers wear the skin of my sacred spirit animal
Oh, oh
The peddlers wear the skin of my sacred spirit animal
Oh, oh

In 1600 and something
they turned her woods to a moonscape
They fenced in the chickens, and when a wolf ate one
they put up a poster
saying she ate their child

and the peddlers wear the skin of my sacred spirit animal
Oh, oh
The peddlers wear the skin of my sacred spirit animal
Tiffany Case Apr 2011
Born at the age of sixteen
To again experience the cusp of noon sun
At the bottom of orangeade syrup
Indelible on your tongue, permanent
In a mid-summer twilight
At the touch of sweat skin and wet ears
On maple arms and black foot night
Singing to the will o’ the wisp
(Leather bound a thought
They will read it, perhaps pay
And take pleasure in your hymn
As verse of summer knows the animus
Which lightens the load of e’ryone)

Ineffable are his hands on terra cotta walls
A hot whisper in the ear and cotton lips
Which press the skin on beachy nocturne
To the ocean, the unforgiving expanse
That vomits all my woes
Which I throw back into it
To again experience the cusp of heat
And boiling blood and salty extravagance
The emotion at an apogee
That makes the world a rumination of wonder
(Not to live without fault
But to thrive in its decadence)

The heat of twilight cakes my legs in shorts
On yellow sunspots, glowing in his amber eyes
Soon, to appear on the cusp of gothic moor
During the late ombre effect of dusky sky
When its nighttime cataract reveals, the moon
A pitted moonscape
The moor is silent and whispers to its dwellers
If I were to find him there, in the fresco
Etched into the crystal caverns of night
Would he respond in the marsh
With the crickets between the reeds
Or the owl on the ground mole
As the whispers of naiads?
Donald Durham Mar 2018
you are all infinite
you, my children of the night
pagan wanderers on destinies lips
patrons of the streets, lonely, empty, wanting
I seen a generation fall
I seen a generation crumble
and be reborn.
You my midnight sorcerers on deaths hitlist
listless and searching
I seen the dance of a power divide
Ego denied, angry id, broken steps
steps
steps
steps
we walk steps in the open,
we talked talks of confession to the night
it held us, comforted us
We the unwanted zombies
of unheard promises and dysfunctional rational
you are all beautiful
undaunted by the lines
the crooked lines, cut mishapen, disater mishappen
Cheers to my world, my surrounding reality
scared and scarred by tomorrow
tomorrow
tomorrow
tomorrow
My vagabond lies, my homeless truths
You, my enormous, analytical algorythms of disobedience
of disorder, of chaos
Musicians playing perpetual reqiuems
Jazz of the dead, jazz of the wanderer, jazz of the beautiful
Show your hand, yell your claim
stake your play.
concrete mazes, blinding buildings, urban solitute
I have found you, I have seen you,
you poets of denial, poets of disaster
Prose of temptation
Words of lament
Speak to me my children of the perpetual night
My children of music, of poetry, of paintings telling me the broken down minds, the sacrificed
economy of love
I am lost in these streets
I am at home in the unknown
I am nothing but a dream, denied
We are together
all together, here, here and now
Lost together
Crowded solitude
Lets be solidified as one
You, my children are emptied of being full
full of unknown, full of yourselves and filled with *****
Drunken stories of lullabies lost
Pour me another, make it a double. doubled down truth
hit me
Cigarette stained finger tips
Plucked tense strings,
Strings so tense you could feel their vibration
We sit, listening, ears pointed at God,
Waiting to be lulled into compliance
I have seen your cigarette stained
Finger tips
Pluck strings of lament and prophecy
Sing me into your future
Oh beautiful melody
Oh wandering progressions
Telling tales of my transgressions
Oh trusty chords
Lovers speak only lies,
With cigarette gently sleeping between exhausted lips
Let us lie here
Here in this desolate desert moonscape
Forlorn homeless shelter
New antiqued flashood of home
I have seen us staring
Staring into the void,
Into the fullness of emptiness
These are not just dreams
Fevered and sweating out the ingested fungus
They are the dystopian dreams of
Every young adult novel
Of every science fiction, battered, back pocket edition
Dog eared, notes in the margins, yellowed with love, book.
They are the lost bibles of us,
Of our current histories and our future stories.
My friends
Gathered, exuberant, broken and shattered
Passing time on the the stools of inebriation
Come forth and be counted
The artist hang burnt offering from crimson skies
Sacrifices of the soul
Sacrifices of humanity
Exercises of humility
Stand here before me and and be chastised
A public flogging, a private shaming
A social satired informal gathering
Gaining peer reviewed synthetically blended praise
The dab hazed hipsters
Losing time,
faking time,
Cutting lines, sparking fires inside
Burn
Burn
Burn
Lose me in the iridescent, fill me in with acrylic
Wash me out with acid and cry-
Cry over me, cry with me
I am nothing, and we are everything.
This is still a work in progress, I am very proud of it and it does need some editing, so if any one would like to lend me their red pen skills, I'd be much appreciated. Also, like I said it's not done. I desire for this poem to run about 15 minutes.
wes parham Dec 2016
Seventeen years old and troubled, I took walks in the woods to sort out my mind.  There were miles of it behind the old neighborhood.
I could meditate on thoughts and walk down paths, off paths, for miles if I wished.  My forest grew in semi-rural suburbia of my hometown, just a thirty minute drive east from Atlanta.
I'd like to think it grows there still...  

   One could walk a mile or two through untamed, mostly coniferous, forest but suddenly step out onto a clearing of uninterrupted rock, desolate and pocked like the surface of the moon.  A moonscape bounded by trees.  An anomalous break in the journey of green.  A massive plane of granite lies, apparently, beneath much of our state.  The woods in my area had this unique feature...  Patches where the granite was exposed to the surface.  Some were the size of a small city park.  Others were the size of multiple football fields.  Those accessible by bicycle were especially fun.  They would be explored thoroughly as I jostled and bounced my mountain-bike over the irregular surfaces.  Others lay deep in the woods.  I would walk as much as I could or just lie on the solidness of that ground and look at clouds.

   As pressures in my heart and mind increased, I would come to these woods angry and frustrated.  Pent-up emotions had few outlets.  Poetry was there, a kind of constant companion of the day,  but sometimes I just needed to run.
   Something felt primal and therapeutic about it.  One day, in a lot of frustration and anger, I made up this stupid game.   It was simple.
1: Run.  Immediately.  North.
2: Don't stop. Don't stop.  Don't stop.  Unless stopped involuntarily.

   I leapt off the trail and ran.  Though I felt despairing, the freedom was liberating.  Constantly, there were split-second decisions to make...  Over or under?  Left or right? More often than not, it just had to be "through" and, in my determination and stupid teen nihilism, I plowed through lots of tangles and thorns, scratching up my ankles in the process.  I didn't care and, stupidly, welcomed the blood until a stronger patch of thorns held fast to my ankle. My running speed slammed me to the ground.  I think I laughed, then, like a ******* crazy person.  I saw myself and felt foolish.  I laughed at the sad sight of this broody kid, breathless and bleeding on the forest floor, who actually had life pretty good.  My troubles aren't even worth recalling, they were that trivial, even in the moment.  I picked myself up as if I were happily helping a friend.  I was feeling pretty good and helped him walk, carefully, back south again.
This is a memory piece about an odd time.  ******* ADOLESCENCE. Ha.
“Come 'n see ‘em
Come 'n see ‘em”
Comes a shout
made Whispered by years.
Weaseled through shoulders
as I do, to meet
an Equilibrium.
“See wot I caught boys”
From deepest London, “great dark sea boys.”
Curiosity baited and displayed.
come see a show of inversion.

Now, my monsters.
We are more than fascinated
by all their fingers and their unwritten skin.
Clean-shaven faces cleared of rings and pins
there are no chain links in their ears.
We palm read faces here
lifeline scars and portholes
like a moonscape hung with silvers
creased by the visiting sun
and those pink fleshy penholders
never received any Iodine.

So they lie, just like sardines
in line, below water-jars.
Naturally packaged, for you
in business suits of scales.
Stops at the neck
where the knife comes in
as a sweet partition
where the eyes are set.
Above the hook
so they can’t even see it.
Look, look, at the consumables

How disappointing.
They lose the beauty of their shoals.
One jigsaw piece, I’ve seen before
which gasps and gasps.
Poured on the rocks
As we look down
on the equilibrium.
They look up
at our differences.
Satsih Verma Apr 2017
A streak of sin was
always there, when I looked
at you in brief encounters.

Cathartic.
I would not kiss the
eyes of a viper.

The giver was insane.
A bane of togetherness.You
were getting pheromones all the time.

Parenting was difficult.
Now as the holy month starts.
You were always near the moon.

In golden sunset,
I will prepare my elegy.
The flames were always green.

With the relapse of grief,
drums sounded loud.
A Deco Oct 2014
where and when justice is done
all the sun has faded and grey moonscape
reflects faint shadows
is more or less
the 15th time
i have thought of you today
i welcome it
i want it
i wish it more
you are my world and i wish to keep
all the important moments
with you
i want to whisper the things i
worried about previously
they are real and you can keep them
i never bother to lock my doors anymore
you can keep anything i have of value
you've stolen me
caught me
and i am happy
happy you are with me now and later
in all the world i only fear
losing you
but this is where and when justice is done
lawyers and judges do their job well
not to say they can keep me from you
or they are an enemy
they do their job well
and there is power in ink
dark spotted conversations fire starter
lint form a dryer
all goes up so quickly and the damage is all but irreversible
in short don't burn me but keep our fire
our love won't fall into birthday candle blow out
it will be a lighthouse
keeping our warships in the harbor
sailing out together
always winding up
back in port
keep these promises and may they be wind in your sails
yours forever and always
Rachael Netznik Apr 2014
The gentle breeze became her escape.
She would close her eyes, picture her spirit whipping away with the wind.
Her fears left her presence under the moonscape.
Nature was her only assured friend.

By Rachael Netznik
Caroline Shank Sep 2022
Write what I know?  I am pocked with
chunks of broken moments.
Bits fall to the ground, trip me.
The terrain of my youth is a
moonscape.  I know what I know in
the craters of this place.

Born on the darkside and thirsty, I was
cold.  I found the sun later when I
was tumbled out the door of my
Mother’s leaking house.  Her screams
had become tentacles of maniacal
music.  Or do not call it music for
if you heard it you would not dance.

I am old now.  The view from my landing
is filled with sunlight and children,
“There are children in the leaves,
laughing excitedly”.   (Eliot)
I am paused in this imagination on
occasion.

When she is quiet,
I sweep her under the porch
where she lies drunk and unlaughing.
I do not let her out.  Yet she
steers me.  Her corpse loud
in her ***** nightdress.  

The terrain of my old age is pitted
with the debris of this haunting.  She
unsings me, makes me lie in
craters from which I climb up
daily only to tumble back down,
to have to begin again
from the bottom each new **** day.

But I sing as I crawl. And
she does not like the sound of that

Caroline Shank
Satsih Verma Feb 2017
Like wounded tiger,
going for last innings.
Like Orpheus listening
to water, without looking back.

Will not entrance you
any more, under the moonscape,
getting light from
the nightingale.

Finding the passage of
sunrise, I will wait for you
to come last time-
for a goodbye.

Trembling like aspen
leaf, to steal your aura
in moonless night, when Milky Way
will spread the diamonds.
Josh Mitchell Jun 2018
The moon rose behind
the mountains, like
a runway.

The stars up ahead
looked pretty, from
far away.



With little vision in my eyes,
and face half-under messy water,
those lonely shores now rippled with life,
moonlight flash on pier.

Scratched ghosts of headland through seafoam,
bruise-coloured & careful, and I alone,
seeing faces in old raindrop night-time
moonscape storm had come.

All with black language of love and luck,
started war with that woman, since we changed.
Despite remem’bring tattoos and smiles at dusk,
in my dreams you fade.

Island ferry siren naked,
waves of black and brown, pulling it inward,
vibrating great shadows of formless bay,
and consuming it.

Through the spiral of shiv’ring moonlight
magic, cheap birds lost their names in the moonlight,
reworking old songs they half-memorised,
breathing us goodnight.

But have you heard their songs lately?
Are they kissing, working on new poetry?
What will they remember in three-month’s time?
And who will be there when it all falls down?

Well does that matter anymore?
This poet’s a fool, he thought he changed; It’s
just new kind’s of ****, new moonlight on pier,
hold me, anyway.

The rust-red banks of old love soon
crashed under cigarettes of rippling tide,
as horror covered whole stretch of sky,
midnight scene, & I.
Dear Ghostly Boy. 4
Satsih Verma Dec 2016
In moonscape, a flower
remedy, enters the white
smoke of your eyes. An open―
house shuts.

The coal writes its name on
blue skin. We were slaves of our
own deeds. I want to go back to
my ancestors, to learn the clock.

Unheard the suicide of
a viper, eating its own venom.
The fat people will come in line―
to pay homage.

White caps and black caps in
thick silence, drink the empty glasses,
cutting the meat of the books―
and reading again the sky.
Kelly Sims Jun 2019
-Relax
-Calm,be calm young one

I heard the strangers voice, and having no frame of  reference with which to originate myself within my surroundings, I readily took heed to these soothing words. Only to soon find my senses entirely overwhelmed as my mind and my body caught up to each other at the same moment. Feeling the most unusually bizarre sensation of having been just previously located fully within my mind. Panic set in as I found myself naked on some distant planet who's surface was composed disproportionately of foose; extremely fine grained sand. The only feature that stood out in any way was the stump of an obviously dead tree. The stranger ,who I realised was actually seated crossed legged and floating some 6 - 8 feet above the barren surface of the desolate moonscape. He continued to re-insure me of my safety and I was in no danger. I had started to hyperventilate and grew ever so close to losing my vision .When the stranger reminded me that breathing was not necessary in the journey we were  sharing and was he was going stay with me to ensure my trust guarantee, my return to my  body I had  known prior to this remarkable experience.
Farah Taskin Jan 2022
The sunny satellite
guarded
our home planet
throughout
the night
Like a crystal
ball
in
the clean
space
The moonlit
night
has ended
but
the plump and
mustard
moon
hasn't waned
in the violet
firmament
The moonscape of the morn
beautifies
the noiseless
dawn
Matt Sol Jan 2019
I got, I got the time
Hanging over my head.
Random lefts and rights,
Im gone, im going nowhere.
Stop signs and no ways
Filled with lead like a moonscape.
From the live wire
Into the great escape.
John F McCullagh Jan 2019
The battlefield was a moonscape; craters here and there.
They were grateful to find cover, what with snipers everywhere.
Jack and his buddies hunkered down despite the cold and wet .
Time to share a cigarette and give voice to their regrets.

Jimmy  left a girl back home he'd planned to make his wife.
Arthur came from money; once home he's set for life.
There was this one small problem; the foe still in the field.
Human flesh cannot resist the penetrating steel.

Jack imagined being home, once the war was through.
His girl was not some beauty Queen, but at least her heart was true.
All around their sinecure the guns, like thunder, roared.
Jack felt the terror clutch his throat, and he'd been scared before.

That was where we found them, in that cratered pit.
At least they all died quickly, slaughtered by a lucky hit.
Our Sarge would add their dog tags to others he had found.
Western Union made a nice  profit here upon this battleground.
Three G.I's  fighting outside Metz long for the lives they had back home
Andrew Rymill Jul 2018
...It always seems...
            that we come to
               beginning at the end…


I disagree
              we are at a table.

Technically at a table
      but more al fresco
                              than inside...

I do not  agree  
                      with your
                                   misuse  of metaphor.

What a surprise...
                       To  understand inside
                                                       on must understand outside...


No you miss-understand!
          Please stop drinking
          you are a waterfall in reverse
pouring liqueur down
          the pettiness of your throat.
Oh! you spilled again…..

… Gin...i think its more
           likely libation
than your crocodile tears
           splashing like thorns on our salty dinner table...

You treat our wedlock
like pinata
and keep on swinging  

<lifting a glass of sherry>
...the mermaids are singing
the crickets are  chirping
can i  join in the luminous tunes
under moonscape & street lamps...
  i  am not sure if the
narrator or the voice
  of our disconnect,
is just a  ***** or an effaced  harpy ...

Monologuing  are we?

    That was always your problem….

No i was hoping for a liqueur
& well-lit soliloquy
unfortunately
you hearing is
too good & your plates is
too clean.
Never trust a skinny noun
for a lover...

                                              Your using the wrong fork….

No fears,
           as my empty
            overturned glasses
                               tremble around us
                               like our nonexistent children.
          Impossibilities
                 that  haunt the spaces of our words
                 like overcooked spaghetti  
...here too our invisible similes
at our
        evening repast...

                                        No worries
                                                        I was written that way
                                                                                         and you are a miserable lush.

indeed….
not on the menu
but our relationship
is a taco
with not enough lettuce…



I would say there are
                              losts of green words
                              missing  between us
                                                 and echo of your ego
                                                  swims in the whiskey.

the beauty of a glass  
             is its final emptiness;
the difference between          
lust and lush is just  one letter.
              you my dear  
             never lets the letters
            of your alphabets
free to flap

to the porch lights
                  
              except for a price...


It   might  just be the
                             spaces between
                                                   stars and ignorance of moths.
Your ignorance
                        always steals the narrative
                                                                  in my fortune cookie.


  no desert tonight i guess.
i hate this  mistaken table …..

Misspoken...you mean
miserable table!!!

your reflection my dear
will always reflect
            in waxy wood rings….
           returning to where
we first met
making one
            want to drink
            deeply the forgetful draught
                                          from the Styx
                                          my cold little-sphinx.
you wave to me
i feel the air sing
i am sheltered from the rain
the one with flooded fields
merging river, ditch and farmlands
here upon my rock
ark upon the muddied sea
you dazzle in your green leaves
swaying overhead
you filter heaven

i watch
quiet dying embers
others gone to blankets
saying my farewells
you paint a night sky
silent weaving fingers
branches on the moonscape
waving me goodbye

i recall
frozen winter landscape
sea of white enamel
your branches etch the sky
there you stand my sentinel
my memory can cling to you
on that horizon
anchoring the seasons

sky
Jaycub J Jan 2019
As I drift
Shore to shore
In the madness
Of human experience
I see sometimes
The moonscape
And the shells
Beneath the water
My heart sings
To the clouds
Passing by
I, too, am like you
Adrift and
Sometimes still.
Satsih Verma Aug 2018
World wanted
to know, how I am.
I say, ask my poems.

Let's run through the skin
of new heists I was
fighting my own demons.
Racial silhouette
against the backdrop of moonscape
was becoming visible.

You stand in queue
to get the food for thought and home for homeless,
trying to use my poems as activism.

Inviting new-fascists to come
and walk death houses.

Stuck in a cleft stick today,
you search yourself intensely.

Where was my nightingale
in this jungle of raw wounds?

— The End —