"morass" poems
for leather accrues
The miracle of the streets
The scents & smogs &
pollens of existence
Shiny blackness
so totally naked she was
Totally un-hung-up
We looked around
lights now on
Top see our fellow travellers
~~~
I am troubled
Immeasurably
By your eyes
I am struck
By the feather
of your soft
Reply
The sound of glass
Speaks quick
Disdain
And conceals
What your eyes fight
To explain
~~~
She looked so sad in sleep
Like a friendly hand
just out of reach
A candle stranded on
a beach
While the sun sinks low
an H-bomb in reverse
~~~
Everything human
is leaving
her face
Soon she will disappear
into the calm
vegetable
morass
Stay!
My Wild Love!
~~~
I get my best ideas when the
telephone rings & rings. It’s no fun
To feel like a fool-when your
baby’s gone. A new ax to my head:
Possession. I create my own sword
of Damascus. I’ve done nothing w/time.
A little tot prancing the boards playing
w/Revolution. When out there the
World awaits & abounds w/heavy gangs
of murderers & real madmen. Hanging
from windows as if to say: I’m bold-
do you love me? Just for tonight.
A One Night Stand. A dog howls & whines
at the glass sliding door (why can’t I
be in there?) A cat yowls. A car engine
revs & races against the grain- dry
rasping carbon protest. I put the book
down- & begin my own book.
Love for the fat girl.
When will SHE get here?
~~~
In the gloom
In the shady living room
where we lived & died
& laughed & cried
& the pride of our relationship
took hold that summer
What a trip
To hold your hand
& tell the cops
you’re not 16
no runaway
The wino left a little in
the old blue desert
bottle
Cattle skulls
the cliche of rats
who skim the trees
in search of fat
Hip children invade the grounds
& sleep in the wet grass
’til the dogs rush out
I’m going South!
40.3k
Hourglass cage holding me like a love,
Hold me closer, tell me of forever.
Sing to me of time, not my lack thereof,
Just lie to me with soft lips so clever.
The sands sub sole sink as the skies expand,
Stretching higher and higher as I shrink.
People are slipping through my open hands.
My tears are now sands that run when I blink --
They replenish but cannot save the past
Slipping away like my grip on the glass.
Each grain like a timer I can't outlast,
I place all my faith in falling morass.
Grasping memories, hands, hourglass walls,
I hang above the darkness like a doll...
'til I simply fall.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 11:50 PM UTC
Going in Circles
seems like I've been here before
is it deja vu or really something more
when I feel I have left my comfort zone
here I am again in the looking glass
is it me or just a figment of mind
searching everywhere trying to find
the road that leads me from the garden path
nothing changes only time will pass
the lady that has stolen my heart
she has a smile that sets her apart
but she only comes to me in my dreams
such an unsettling confusing morass
now here I am I have come back to begin
going in circles in a heart wrenching spin
one more time around the trap in my head
have I reached my life's impasse
round and round and nobody knows
I wonder if my pain truly shows
going in circles will this ever end
one last swallow to empty my wineglass
Gomer LePoet....
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 6:40 PM UTC
Sweetly reaching for my hand
A rattlesnake curls up in yours.
Smiling oh-so-carefully
To hide your poison pellet
Delivered with a kiss.
Platitudes and honeyed words
With fishhook barbs inside them.
Lies disguised as candy bars
Offered out with sticky fingers
Mostly crossed behind your back.
Promising that all is peaceful
And there’s no danger to be seen.
Alarms and sirens drown those words
And say my world is burning here,
And sinking in a morass there.
If only words were scimitars
To slash a way to truthfulness
And cut the evil from the hearts
That proclaim love for one and all
And secretly deliver hate.
ljm
Feb 28, 2017
Feb 28, 2017 at 12:33 AM UTC
~for r a/k/a rrr a/k/a woody~
“I will always remember you”
raise you hand if honesty
yet lives inside your muscle
memory of brain, of heart,
there is no one here who hasn’t
uttered them fool lying words
with difficulty we struggle to up
raise faces and places, moments
and images no longer mirrored
within the frontmost places of
our recollection, that searing then,
itself scorched, lichen+moss covered,
our greatest pains, pleasures sworn
allegiances to these razored inflection
points, now scoured by rusty hazes,
and we wonder what has become
of us, what we valued so to savor
as forever memories, their names
gray lady shrouded, and there is
no internet site to aid in self-recovery,
for our selfish selves have been altered,
time, new loves, guilt and other stuff
intersect with mind’s eyes and no mas-
more synapses paths instant linkages
I know you will vociferously argue but
it is almost physical, our shame at losing
them and ourselves, in the morass that
time digs daily deeper for what grieves
us is that losing as the end rushes to close
our story, makes us pick up pen and finger
scratch as best we can inside the lines on
our faces that are/had proofs, witnesses,
that once, we were there at the places,
whose names are no longer mapped any
where, so deep, no archivist’s submersible dare
fathom those fathom’s darkest we would need
to explore without the possibility that we
might implode if we sunk so far to rip apart sea
forests we knowingly, secret-planted to coverup
her memory, the words spoken, the oaths
and promises, we swore, for instance, simply
by saying, “I will always remember you”
p.s. and my self-shaming so great, that my
asking for forgiveness is buried so fast, it
may, not ever been real, just another fiction
Jul 6th, 8:36 AM,
Jul 7, 2023
Jul 7, 2023 at 6:42 AM UTC
i am a buoy of flesh and bones
my soul is cast iron steel
my heart a brass bell
i float and bob atop the morass
of flailing humanity
steeped in fathoms of angst and guilt,
tried and tired from terrible currents
of an endless midnight swim
waves of time rain over my head
through the roar of crashing surf,
and rushing rising tides,
my solemn ring pierces
the misty din to alert
attentive ears
Duke Ellington:
Ring Dem Bells
Charlie Parker
Miles Davis:
Sippin At Bells
jbm
Nantucket, MA
8/90
Jun 2, 2013
Jun 2, 2013 at 10:27 PM UTC
“while resembling you
looking at it with my heart
I’m discomforted
by the weight of tear-like dew
on wild carnation flowers”
“beyond measuring
the thousand fathoms depth
may the sea weeds
keep growing to be so deep
I’ll be merely a caretaker”
“you only dip
into shallow waters
in my morass
my body is totally submerged
in the ways of burning love”
“clouded
by affairs of the heart
I am lost
hello! Why doesn’t someone
ask how I am?”
Murasaki Shikibu
Mar 29, 2014
Mar 29, 2014 at 3:23 PM UTC
Flickering candle light, braving wanton winds,
adds an unexpected melancholic twist;
a losing battle against formidable odds ends.
Though meant to make us feel romantic
even at the worst imaginable end chapter of it,
a doomed love that made moon beams burn,
itself bogged in morass, caused volcanic burst
in callous minds that walk backwards in time
who did everything to stop us dead in our tracks.
I am not blind not to see the quivering,
drops of tear, in your once much adored eyes,
I won't see any more after crossing this point of no return.
Doesn't this look like the perfect **** they had,
a story, in the middle brought to a deliberate end;
we can't stop it anyway, except acting out our parts
that we didn't see us doing til this moment.
All we could do is this, give a loving burial
to this doomed love, let romance be the theme ,
in candle light we'll quietly cremate it, may the remains of it,
ashes wind scatter,be the salt of the earth, for ever.
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 8:31 AM UTC
Hidden in the grey morass out there amidst your workforce
Are Pearls in a lattice work of intricate disguise.
Gems of enlightenment and soldiers of conscience
Who battle with adversities’ regressive, shut eyes.
Clad in the rigging of everyday costume
Hidden to all but the discerning few,
Seeing the gold of the extra steps taken,
And observing initiatives made there for you.
Gold in the form of an everyday worker
One who excels far above average way,
Unrewarded and unacknowledged
Responsibly shouldering this all in his day.
Towering over the mass mediocrity
Holding the strands of a mess of loose ends,
Always dependable, doggedly purposeful
Easily marked as definitive friend.
Driven by his own hard volition
In striving for that extra won mile,
True champion of mans’ Endeavour
Unheralded in his own low profile.
The movers and the shakers all
Fly their flags of self acclaim
But the Pearls of the Unobvious
Shall be this nations’ future fame.
Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
24 November 2010
Nov 23, 2010
Nov 23, 2010 at 2:44 PM UTC
I climb the hill: from end to end
Of all the landscape underneath,
I find no place that does not breathe
Some gracious memory of my friend;
No gray old grange, or lonely fold,
Or low morass and whispering reed,
Or simple stile from mead to mead,
Or sheepwalk up the windy wold;
Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw
That hears the latest linnet trill,
Nor quarry trench'd along the hill
And haunted by the wrangling daw;
Nor runlet tinkling from the rock;
Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves
To left and right thro' meadowy curves,
That feed the mothers of the flock;
But each has pleased a kindred eye,
And each reflects a kindlier day;
And, leaving these, to pass away,
I think once more he seems to die.
1.6k
Splash out a moist printing impression,
Chiseling an angry replica god of clay.
Electric rhythm masticates waste in two.
Captured decay inspired death of poison desire.
Feel morass young essence that makes a masterpiece.
Dazzling black illusions above nefarious comedy,
Evoke dead wood to open an abstract symbol.
Those surreal senses draw a brazen icon to life.
Feb 2, 2011
Feb 2, 2011 at 10:13 PM UTC
Our band is few, but true and tried,
Our leader frank and bold;
The British soldier trembles
When Marion's name is told.
Our fortress is the good greenwood,
Our tent the cypress-tree;
We know the forest round us,
As ****** know the sea.
We know its walls of thorny vines,
Its glades of reedy grass,
Its safe and silent islands
Within the dark morass.
Wo to the English soldiery
That little dread us near!
On them shall light at midnight
A strange and sudden fear:
When waking to their tents on fire
They grasp their arms in vain,
And they who stand to face us
Are beat to earth again;
And they who fly in terror deem
A mighty host behind,
And hear the ***** of thousands
Upon the hollow wind.
Then sweet the hour that brings release
From danger and from toil:
We talk the battle over,
And share the battle's spoil.
The woodland rings with laugh and shout,
As if a hunt were up,
And woodland flowers are gathered
To crown the soldier's cup.
With merry songs we mock the wind
That in the pine-top grieves,
And slumber long and sweetly
On beds of oaken leaves.
Well knows the fair and friendly moon
The band that Marion leads--
The glitter of their rifles,
The scampering of their steeds.
'Tis life to guide the fiery barb
Across the moonlight plain;
'Tis life to feel the night-wind
That lifts his tossing mane.
A moment in the British camp--
A moment--and away
Back to the pathless forest,
Before the peep of day.
Grave men there are by broad Santee,
Grave men with hoary hairs,
Their hearts are all with Marion,
For Marion are their prayers.
And lovely ladies greet our band
With kindliest welcoming,
With smiles like those of summer,
And tears like those of spring.
For them we wear these trusty arms,
And lay them down no more
Till we have driven the Briton,
For ever, from our shore.
1.4k
I go around in circles
around myself
having lost my destination
I am stuck in my mind's morass
so icky and gooey that
every time I try to find my way back home
Laistrygonians and Cyclops
will always pop up on my mind.
Feb 9, 2016
Feb 9, 2016 at 5:46 PM UTC
She'll receive a reception of disdain
In a month her freezing winds shall arrive
The thermometer taking a big dive
We'll be captive to her very cold refrain
Winter's unwelcome vetch o'er our land mass
The countryside touched by her iciness
For she is a very bitter gelid lass
We'll stay inside to shelter from her lash
No warming sunlight rays within our sight
Many hours of her severe frigid morass
Everything yokes in a nasty sash
The season of winter shall not delight
Nov 17, 2013
Nov 17, 2013 at 6:15 PM UTC
A reflection on birthdays, friends departing this world, and surveying ones life
~~~
this one poem is not lurking,(1)
turmoiled bursting,
shaking, quaking,
release aching
write it in droplets,
my chest speak squeaks,
each thought, a stanza,
each moment, a bonanza
of the doled, muddled mix
of tremblings on this my extravaganza,
renaissance day of birth
upon this earth
sixty five calendars,
this space,
so gulf and so narrow, (2)
for what profit this man
for himself, others?
a Judgement Day of sorts,
where the man~poet is efficiently
prosecutor, defender,
judge and jury,
as is he not,
his one true
peer?
let his biases be betrayed,
his fault lines be paraded,
let his deeds be the unlawful legal coda
by which he is remanded
if found guilty of a ledger imbalanced,
more sins than glory,
only one sentence permitted,
life imprisonment
even the NYC weather
clued in and deity cooperative,
wakes me up to this advisory:
Overcast.
Slight chance of a rain shower.
High near 65F.
High near 65.
what portent this oracle,
a warning guide to this morass
of a contradictory, crevassed man
full of mea culpa poetic messes,
his old is his high...
or are these just winking,
birthday instructions from
an observer on high?
this space of years, this life,
so gulf and so narrow,
engulfed, yet so sparse is his barrow,
his first minutes of the day
a lean inventory taking,
for better or worse
as he overcasts a full review,
plus a bonus (!)
a forward progress prognosis
there is a fresh formed
Cain mileage marker upon his brow,
a check-mark scar,
resultant of his self-checkup
upon the tree rings of his tiring body
weeping only because a mistrial is declared
and no verdict returned
and he rises for coffee,
promising himself someday an honest resolution
before...
these the acts of
sixty five calendars,
of this, his-space,
so gulf and so narrow,
subjected to a now daily interrogatory:
*for what profit this man,
his actions, his loved words,
for himself, to others,
to this world?*
October 1, 2015
~~~
(1)
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1417203/there-is-a-poem-lurking/
~~~
(2)
*but I can't stop
for each hour of the last 72
has witnessed a new poem
in-between
minute one and minute sixty five
written for you,
writing for life,
writing of this moment,*
this space so gulf and so narrow
*in and between
the unity of
us*
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1413760/for-ernesto-l-gonzales-aka-the-dedpoet-the-in-between/
~~~
Oct 2, 2015
Oct 2, 2015 at 5:09 PM UTC
Sifting through throngs of ordinary people
Feeling the sweat run down your spine,
Knowing that somewhere, lost in the nowhere
Penniless thoughts are sweeping your mind.
Whispering breezes caress the deep valleys
Towering aspens reach for the sky
Loveliness stretches across the whole landscape
And ordinary people live life as they die.
The everyday actions of ordinary souls
Which gather like old leaves in piles at your feet,
They billow and flow like windblown confetti
And lay there like derelict snow in the street.
The passion and pain that flow through the lifeway
The highs and the lows that paint in your mind
Magnificent portraits of colour and texture
That render your eyesight effectively blind.
You scream at the hollowness, vacantly pulsing
Thrash at the emptiness shimmering there,
Long for the avalanche of substance returning
Long for the touch of her long golden hair.
Swim through the morass of ordinary people
Wade through the ordinary thoughts that live there
Making the most of the moments of lightness
Through quivering lips you discard despair.
Dancing in puddles and splashing through gutters
Cascading on through in a frivolous way,
Tossing your mane with a smile built on vapour
Dispelling your cares like windblown hay.
To gasp for air in the turquoise downtime
****** out your palms apon your knees,
Feel your chest convulse with effort
These flooding tensions gush to ease.
Whispering nothings are echoing softly
Silkily wafting from this side to there
Imparting the message that life is worth living
And crimson & scarlet diffuse in the air.
This ordinary day has done it’s thing now
Temperate airs have cooled to chill,
Vistas fade into the distance
Starlings flock upon the hill.
Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
18 January 2008
Oct 23, 2009
Oct 23, 2009 at 3:57 PM UTC
Twisting
Slithering
A never-ending chaotic morass
Winding through
No sooner does the light of dawn bleed over the horizon
Than the shadowy form of dread
Eclipses and quenches the fledgling beam
Waging a constant battle
Darkness always seemingly victorious
or...
Ba da da ba
Juxtapose the extremities
Daddy-o
The slicker downs a bottle of rye
Hits the open road in a beat up coupe
Off to see that daring young man
On the flying trapezoid
Zoom - zap - yowza
Upside
Downside
Thru the water
Ellipsis!!
Awakening
Comes
Slowly
But
Inevitably
Like
the inexorable process
Of
continental d r i f t
Self-awareness
Dawns upon the unsuspecting soul
Crashing down
Edifice of substance
No more.
Nov 18, 2010
Nov 18, 2010 at 10:46 AM UTC
The path I am in
Is not what it is meant to be
The destination I rejoice about
Is not where I wanted to be
The fib I live
Is what suffocates me
Whenever I forget it
Either of you come to remind me
What you see me
Is just a fake me
A me stuck in morass
Sinking with the weight of a lie
I faked myself
Pushed myself in an illusion
I can’t live where I want to be
But got my life where I don’t want to be
With fake promises
Celebrating fake happiness
Pretending fake contentment
This is just a fake me.
Dec 15, 2013
Dec 15, 2013 at 2:55 PM UTC
forbear to throw more weight upon the ***
since longer journey we must soon begin
the copper coin that the lone guide shall spin
no better guide through the hardest impasse
since at the end there may be but rough grass
and all our commons could turn out most thin
still none of that our better hope's to win
leaving our enemies in the morass
the hardest victory is still the first
when no experience is on our side
but suffering so all we know is pain
so we must say this has to be the worst
in largest part just to protect our pride
but also to account for your huge gain
Feb 24, 2010
Feb 24, 2010 at 3:45 AM UTC
Surely there is more possessed
than a soft smile
and knowing eyes,
and any soul is counted blessed
to know your wiles
and what else resides
in the honeyed morass that makes you you.
Yet, there seems no way, with wit and tact,
to express what I think
of an amorous call
while not being drawn to the obvious fact
that you make my drink
and really, that is all.
Another usual in the daily milieu.
Another world perhaps rejoices
in a time, a place, a pair who see
the flowing multitude of choice
beyond coffee and tea.
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 9:43 PM UTC
Complicated and lovely
Graceful and *****
Love and all its tragedy
Drags the innocent into uncertainty
Pretty flower, prim and proper
Had to do what everyone told her
It was his time to return
And she had no time to mourn
She was already gone
And he had to wait for the sun
Married away was the sweet flower
Lost in blue was the Great
Locked away happily in a tower
She never thought of her lover’s fate
He built a fortress with all his power
Built his way to the top with a compelling name
Yet she never saw his tragic effort
She never noticed his fabulous fame
Wrapped in a web the author was
Watching all the tragic souls
Lost in a whirl of their own morass
The lies all lined with gold
Angels eat their cake
Going along with all the mendacities
Turning eyes to the shade
The innocent in the midst of uncertainty
Love in the worst form
Beautiful and torn
Wrong and adorned
Pure enough to mourn
Never amounts to success
Love is sinking
Lost in a dream
Like boats against the current
Borne back ceaselessly
Back into the past
Jan 30, 2017
Jan 30, 2017 at 10:40 PM UTC
To where now?
It's not like I'm at a fork.
More of a spoon in the road.
Collecting stagnant fluid.
Rotting.
Plotting events hidden behind unseen horizons.
Skylines I'll never see.
I keep squinted eye poised on pathless route.
I fumble with maps drawn in crayon.
I keep ear to wind in earnest hope.
Hope of hints.
Hope of tracks in morass moss.
Some indication of somewhere to be.
Some plod, or plot, or spot.
Carved in my image.
Calling me home.
Dec 19, 2011
Dec 19, 2011 at 12:19 PM UTC
I saw a meteor scream across the dark,
a chemical green flash above the park.
Breathless, I sought another--just one more?--
no, that was it--all quiet as before.
Thus left alone, with nothing but the smack
of waves necking with rocks behind my back,
I sank into the cool, slow-breathing grass
and shut my eyes to the star-strewn morass.
*Oh, your name is a raft,
and my mind is a lake,
and all the night I sailed that craft,
meteors trailing in my wake.*
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 5:24 PM UTC
The world is a dark and complicated morass,
Wherein countless lost children pass
In and out of the shadows and greet each other with a smile or a nod.
Isolated, lonely little hearts playing
With complex emotions in a word staying
Abreast of all the troubling events for better or worse.
Light and laughter dwells but a moment
In tender unions just before fears foment
A cascade of ****** worries filling up the eternal halls.
Then a single flame at first finds another
Huddling in the dark over scraps Mother
Left for kindling a fire in the depths of destitution.
At first the two but soon three and more
Shelter the faltering fire taking hold for
Reviving communion among the distanced souls.
As more join a bonfire starts and talking
Not just of pleasantries you hear while walking,
But of sincere connection between scared children discovering they can conquer the dark.
Some children still pass in the dark hall,
Knowing not the darkness nor how small
They really are in the scope of the full extent of the world.
But every once in a while, more often as it grows,
A child stops and really sees what the others chose
In banding about a fire fueled by the scraps of a difficult time.
Jun 10, 2021
Jun 10, 2021 at 8:01 AM UTC
somewhere beyond
my ego...
lies the poet
who writes for,
the love of the sound,
of pen scribbling thoughts
upon fine lined paper.
the writer,
who devles into
the murk of the
morass of thoughts
rowing across the swamps
of the disordered mind.
the scribe,
who takes photographs
with words
deftly framing light and shade to produce
thought provoking images
so good, yet,
so hard to define.
the racounter,
who can spin a tall tale
on the edge of a dusty dime.
the truthseeker, soothsayer
not afraid to speak,
even when speaking
is condsidered a crime.
the jonguleur,
who plays with words
of six syllables or more, keeping them flowing, creating rhythm and rhyme.
somewhere...the earth mother lies
distilling truth into jots
and tittles
and sowing them into
lines...
somewhere...beyond
my ego...somewhere
Feb 8, 2015
Feb 8, 2015 at 6:17 AM UTC