"mortgaged" poems
ghosts of slumber parties past.
just a haunted betamax & a stack of oreo sandwiches.
sisters braiding eachother’s hair far past the witching hour,
contemplating life without supervision.
blue house. yellow lawn.
silverback gorilla in one garage.
two garage: empty.
three garage: a woman entombed in exhaust.
[her bloated tongue]
a gang of bmx boys pizza-fed and friday-high,
hopped up on mountain dew and trading card collectible rituals ‘n rhythmics.
they conjure a demon just to **** and dismember it.
for funsies.
for keepsies.
a fang for the shrine at the foot of the old oak tree.
history on the skin, long history, long thoughts, long in the nod like a calm dead frog.
bubbled, boiled, toiled, and troubled.
the woods aren’t haunted.
you are haunted.
you are the conduit through which the darkness displays its vivid colors.
[treefort aflame]
the seasons furrow/
/ the leaves fall.
little plots of land etched out – subdivision and sprawl.
on the avenue, heaven
& hell made tame and tangible.
built, re-built, and refurbished – a lawn and a lantern.
a mortgaged glory of sparkle and decay.
[dead cat is a new cat is the old cat ran away]
pictograms of morning light display on mom’s face
as she instructs us on the gusts of love [scrambed eggs]
& teaches us the truth of nettles sprung
from violent pine.
[toast with raspberry jam]
the television.
the microwave.
the blender beverages.
hymnals of an electric kingdom.
one mom dances, the other expires.
[restless armless girls in orange sunsets]
girl with a gun at the edge of her lawn and selling lemonade.
girl in an old wicker chair.
save her horror story for another day.
boy with a bent frame bicycle limps his way home
from one end of the avenue to the other.
his pockets full of sparkly rocks found in the lime quarry pit.
one boy in a long line of lost planets.
the driveway.
the refrigerator.
the hum of a saturday night commercial-free cassette.
where’s dad?
the glow of an eerie crystal
(continued…)
Oct 20, 2015
Oct 20, 2015 at 6:18 AM UTC
our promised land is mortgaged
waters poisoned
your daughters legs are spread
mass culture ready to eat her out.
she buys it all-
the gossip rags, fake tans, cherry-flavored condoms.
she aches for it and it takes her gladly
leaving behind only a faint scent of perfume.
blood nails and *********** lips and artificial **** carry on.
girls lose their virginity only because it's trendy
and people obsess over the human interest
pieces on the nightly news.
i lash out with coffee breath
and short nails and unkept hair
and no religion
as my mother sits me down and
asks me not to step on any toes.
Dec 1, 2010
Dec 1, 2010 at 9:54 AM UTC
I **** the mood in a sour June,
opulent misery, scorched Earth,
exchanging platitudes with old faces,
full of ******** full of hot air.
Both sides of the fence
at war with themselves,
feigning inner peace and profit
across the beer garden table.
I talk of hangmen and floods,
child brides and dressing gowns,
my hometown under the mythic spell
of collective memory loss.
We have forgotten our place
in the comfort of our urban sprawl;
sirens caterwaul past the high-rise,
past the vacant church with locked doors
and the homeless on the street.
A commonplace emergency,
young male suicides, women *****
in the safety of their homes,
taught a kindness through physical force,
the way the gun drops to civilians
in countries saved through the filter
of television screens; of dust and distance.
I sit and write and think of ****
of old loves, anxieties-
they call me crazy all the while
for not committing to the scene.
Now Afghanistan is a blueprint,
extended diagram of steady-state destruction,
a conspiracy of white man dreams,
farmlands bruised by machines of war,
by the Big Black Boot,
the feeling we have been here before.
All the while, the illusion persists,
car parks filled with smoke, professional escapists
with their 9% lager, bags of tobacco,
and the megalomania of art.
I **** the mood of a whitewashed June,
advertised freedom, a mortgaged Earth,
exchanging currency for a chance of peace,
the zen garden smoker, the looted mind.
Both sides of the fence are collecting bones,
at war with themselves, whilst my eyes are red
and my philosophies, ******
They call me crazy for dreaming of escape,
whilst never leaving the confines of home.
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 9:09 AM UTC
I see your hand waver, now you're faced with a ghost,
not the raw, killer features that were nailed to a post.
Just an old, dying cowboy, trying hard to play host.
There's a chair if you've mercy, and a story...come close.
The liquor of youth lights a fire in you, son.
Puts that flame in your eyes and the heat in your lungs.
I wore that expression, before your thread was spun,
so let me unload, you can shoot when I'm done.
Growing sore in my saddle as the nag became lame,
I sold off my shooters, then re-mortgaged my name.
But tease out the creases, we're exactly the same;
two felons of fortune, wanting someone to blame.
See, I never got settled, didn't take me a wife.
Sailed a ship in a bottle, on the edge of a knife.
I put stock in misfortune and invested in strife,
took diminished returns, paid no interest to life.
But corralling cattle won't hold them for long,
they're born to roam free where they know they belong.
Soon the lipstick and whiskey begins to taste wrong,
as the backroom piano sighs its monotone song.
By a tangerine sunset I scraped off my boots
and considered an orchard as it set down its roots.
As a buzzing of insects idly nurtured its fruits,
I was deafened by silence. My own garden was mute.
So I clutched at the earth as I fell to the floor,
to ask for forgiveness, as you darkened my door.
Seems redemption's eloped, like a gold digging *****
Just a name on a tombstone, for a few dollars more.
Quite an end would be fitting for a fool so innate,
who has squandered his years until the hour is late.
Son, unholster your weapon and wipe off the slate,
I beg execution, swift vengeance, But wait...
Did I catch my reflection as it fell from your face?
Like a hound in a heatwave, too tired to give chase?
Son, the trail that you're riding is easy replaced.
You can stand in the sunlight, or come sit in my place.
Jan 30, 2015
Jan 30, 2015 at 9:54 AM UTC
1706
When we have ceased to care
The Gift is given
For which we gave the Earth
And mortgaged Heaven
But so declined in worth
’Tis ignominy now
To look upon—
2.7k
Somewhere between a bicycle
and a seat at a daydream...
I had to make money
so I mortgaged
my woods, my sea, my music
Words--
left
Regaled only with rust
my 1938 Columbia
bike
(sold for a crib)
to an antique dealer
Fat-tires, red-faded fenders
Baskets saddled on wheel
for towel and lunch
Key chain dangling
jingling against jar
of cool ginger ale
Look back at the baskets-filled
afternoons at the park
I was a poet
The road
laid itself bare
For my bike
and I
scrolling through leaves
like words that fell
like hair across shoulders
that I sang to no one
the audience--
air
I know that now
I was not really…
nor ready
I once was a poet
___
This poem was based on a black and white photo of Harry Bertschmann as a young artist,
posed proudly by his magnificent work. First two lines of my poem were my immediate reaction to his painting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/nyregion/the-struggling-artist-at-86.html
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 7:06 PM UTC
All the world's a *********
And all the lads and ladettes mere defecators,
Gratifying oozing exits and entrances;
And one man perforce enacts too many roles,
His acts being seven deaths. D'abord, the baby,
******** and ******* on his mummy's frock.
Then, the errant truant with his rucksack
And pock-marked wanker's face, creeping like death
Foul-trouser'dly to school. Next a teenager,
Panting like mad dog, with an oozing pustule
Dripping oe'r his girlfriend's pubics. Then a hoodie,
Full of strange oaths, and dressed up like a freak,
Lacking in honour, decency, and up for aggro,
Seeking the respect of loathsome peers
Even on the street corner. And then the adult
With bulging beer belly, and ample burgers stuff'd,
With eyes dulled by unfulfilled promises,
Mortgaged to the hilt, and indebted to Visa,
And so he wastes his life. The sixth age dawns
Before he knows it, bald futility,
With ****** in pocket, five quid a pill,
His youthful hopes well fuck'd, the world too much
For his ignorance, and his vain butch rantings
Reverting soon to teenage curses, coughs
And tobacco'd wheezings. Last we see him,
Ending a pointless and useless existence,
Clutching to his piss-stained Zimmer frame,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans pension fund.
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 4:54 PM UTC
What if we all woke up tomorrow a timezone at a time
We found no armies were fighting and laughter filled the day
A Muslim drinking coffee, playing chess with his friend the Jew
Christians praying quietly whilst bhudists chant their tune
Politicians talking, instead of scoring points
Feeding those in hunger without plying for their oil
Monsanto going organic, the GM food all gone
No
So what if one tomorrow that all came to pass
A utopia of selflesness, mankind's left its rotten past
Well no time soon, or in my life are we likely to get there
We wake each day to see what our fellow men have wrecked
So close your eyes really tight, try to see its worth
Of helping not destroying our over mortgaged Earth
I hope I'm not the only one who wants a world of peace
Without the hurt the pain the fear that only MAN creates
Jun 15, 2013
Jun 15, 2013 at 9:34 AM UTC
So, now I have confessed that he is thine,
And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,
Myself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine
Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still.
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
For thou art covetous, and he is kind,
He learned but surety-like to write for me
Under that bond that him as fist doth bind.
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
Thou usurer, that putt’st forth all to use,
And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake;
So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me;
He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.
1.3k
It was
One of our
Childhood habits
To crumple
The wax melting in front of St.Antony
And make new candles.
The tapers of
Thresya whose house got mortgaged, and
Selina whose wedding never got fixed, and
Anthappan who mourned his lack of offspring, and
Thankamma whose chickens died of infectious bronchitis
Stood and liquefied for us in those days.
Math test, pimple,
Cancer, wedding,
Death, visa, love,
Lost hundred rupee note,
Why, even missed periods,
Hair graying too early,
All these daily deliquesced for us
Day after day.
What did the new candle
We lighted in those days
Melt for?
We cannot see a thing
In its light now!
Nov 16, 2013
Nov 16, 2013 at 1:54 PM UTC
I see no industry but can hear the buzzing of the Captains in decline,
the sign reads,
'work in progress'
I guess that sign is old.
No one told me that the rich would rule the land while bands of beggars roam with hands outstretched,
I guess I would have thought that sounded too far fetched,like some fairy tale being played out in a studio,like three goats gruff being stuffed into the *** and the troll got all the sauce,
of course we must be satisfied by crumbs that fall from fat men and their fatter waistlines but their were times when all this wasn't so.
Equality you know was not a dream although it seems so now,the fatted calf was carved up long ago and served by servants to the masters,greedy ********
Now the factories have gone,heavy industry that once shone British might and steelworks blinding in the night have disappeared,our future has been mortgaged and our unborn sons are deep in debt,for this we get a bill each year and each year we owe more and more,the door is shut,tomorrow if it comes will find each one of us picking up more and more breadcrumbs which once we fed to garden birds and no words that could be written down or said aloud can make of me an English man feel proud of that.
Can any one of you please put a penny in this old mans hat?
The captains very deftly have packed their trunks and they've all left me in the ruins of today,no job,no pay,tomorrow came and I found out to late that tomorrow is today.
Mar 13, 2014
Mar 13, 2014 at 3:42 AM UTC
No joy, no truth,
no ancient meaning behind the vinyl
not even the bricks are real
at least they're mortgaged and insured
like I wish the smiles were
and the plastic greetings
microwaved handshakes
TV dinner parties
polished homecoming basket ball courts
Cadillac joyrides
safe *** party buses
PlayStations
and all the white-sailed friendships sailing on the seven petty seas
electronic knives in hand
prepared to stab unwary backs
and eyes of subtle greens and blacks
hardly blinking, surviving digital attacks
No joy, no truth
in the craters of this suburban war
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 2:02 AM UTC
Oh tell me where has England's glory gone,
Lost golden days of beef and lukewarm beer?
Now it's polenta in a gastro-pub,
Chilean Chardonnay, Tequila Slammers.
Her Empire proudly pink on schoolroom maps;
India, Afric, source of plundered loot galore.
All gone, all gone, black faces back in charge
And black drug pushers stalk old London's streets.
Fat huntsmen dressed in pink, all banished now,
Their yelping foxhounds ripping prey apart,
Celebrating sick English country ways
Before returning to their mortgaged homes.
City yobbos yelling down their mobiles,
Fatcats slurping up their creamy profits;
All the public cares about is football
And the *** lives of the media's darlings.
So where has England's honour gone today?
Up the American military ****
Our government showing its smug disdain
For what decent people care and think.
We've sold out to baseball caps and burgers,
And imported TV shows for the mentally ********
A visitor attraction for obese rich yanks to drawl
"We're real glad we saved these Limey's ***** in two wars".
Nov 19, 2014
Nov 19, 2014 at 6:08 AM UTC
grand those fortunes
which still pour,
grains of purest sugar
from sores in sacks where it's kept
they never bother the floors -
hillocks at times swept
for country club dues,
or spent on jaguars
the youngsters will drive -
it refills from endless supply,
now out of ransomed dreams
a rabble may dare,
repaid in their knees
and knuckles worn bare
bleeding tremolite lungs of old men
lending respectability to old names,
ensuring children's safe distance
from wizened brown limbs
of people forefathers traded,
broken black bodies hidden
in mounds of white wealth,
heathen souls saved at the altar,
naked but for irons they wore
lives mortgaged for
their good Christian deaths
all for sweetness
of more.
Nov 6, 2010
Nov 6, 2010 at 6:29 PM UTC
What of these final evening thoughts
That really wants me to forgive myself
For what conspired throughout the day
Where, I just couldn’t do it anymore
Become a ball breaker,
I always dreamt of an early retirement .
my unfilled bucket lists
The Harley bike I never rode out into the country
Images of it parked near a tree by the lakeside
Like so, I became one with my thoughts
Loud: clapping sound only startle us
Once again, there are those mirrors that surround us.
Watching: and that one obstacle
The monthly mortgaged bill
May 17, 2017
May 17, 2017 at 7:17 PM UTC
The car horns toll the knell of parting day,
The toxic fumes creep slowly o’er the park,
The traffic homeward plods its weary way,
And leaves the world to joggers and the dark.
Now fades the shimmering lakescape on the sight,
And to the air the dusk its stillness brings,
Save where mosquitoes wheel in droning flight,
Ross River virus loaded in their stings;
Save that from yonder television tower
The besieged magnate to his “mates” complains
The A.B.T. has exercised its power,
Sent him packing without ill-gotten gains.
Beneath those tiled roofs, that mortgaged shade,
Where heaves the serf in many an exhausted heap,
Each of the dole queue mortally afraid,
Whose forefathers once rode upon the sheep.
The wheezy cough of beery-breathing morn,
They swallow Berocca for their straw-filled heads,
The clock’s shrill clarion, or their arguing spawn,
Once more shall rouse them from beloved beds.
For they no more have savings in their banks,
Both busy partners toil to meet their ends;
No children run to lisp their heartfelt thanks,
They clamour for Air Jordans like their friends.
Oft did their annual jaunt to Bali yield,
Their furrows smoothed by oily massage strokes;
How jocund were their Customs trolleys wheeled!
Their cases bowed by extra grog and smokes!
Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,
Their media-fed dreams have learned to stray;
The Holy Grail of the Lotto life
Has taken free out of the word Freeway.
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 2:59 AM UTC
It started out
as a cheap hotel
in the wrong part of town,
then became
a **********
(run by dames
on hard times),
then it was closed down
by the cops
as a house of ill-repute,
then it became run down
in a bright side of town,
then estate agents
bought it up
and did it up
and someone
bought it
(or mortgaged it),
and the estate agent guy
said, it was once owned
by an upmarket couple
to the new buyers,
******* liars).
May 14, 2016
May 14, 2016 at 8:14 AM UTC
By living alone i am escaping a haunted house. to leave is to be spat out undigested, a bone picked clean of meat but spared the marrow. it was always me who refused to be easily swallowed. it was always you who hated that.
We both know this haunting didn’t seep out from the walls, it was set in every room. (you made sure of that.) in such a space, articles of comfort are more unpleasant than bare walls - far worse than nothingness, they are marks of you. it is true you have built a home. but it is not my home.
Your haunting is pristine, white walls and tasteful furniture. beautiful but unwilling to be dwelt in. in polished mirrors, everyone is dirt. at least a gutted, rotting place could have been somewhere someone like me was loved, some long time ago. even claimed by mould and time such a house is less of a haunting than any space shared with you. at least i can imagine those crumbling walls as having once been the pillars of a life. at least among them i am clean.
if you are a leech, i am water, part of blood but never enough, you consume more than i alone can give you. you consume more than i would part with, even if i could.
if a home with you is a haunting, a house alone is a half dug grave.
but at least theres work left to do.
at least i wont be rotting alongside you.
Mar 2, 2021
Mar 2, 2021 at 8:50 PM UTC
They are bleeding my soul.
Each day is a new leech.
They call it reality,
I'd rather have dreams.
They have taxed our hope,
And mortgaged faith,
They have banned Love
In the interests of public safety.
They are bleeding my soul,
For 'my own good'.
Happiness is an extravagance,
We're in a recession you know.
They're taking colour next,
Monochrome will calm us all.
Then will come sound,
A single drone will be enough.
They are going to take the light tomorrow,
There's no funding for it,
Plus who needs light
When there are no colours to see.
I remember the night they took my dreams,
But I won't for long,
Memories are to be rationed.
I think.
They are bleeding my soul,
And You,
You are my transfusion.
You will drench me in colour,
And play me symphonies
As we remember
And dream.
Mar 22, 2013
Mar 22, 2013 at 10:15 PM UTC
songs driven me into a new spell
I loved them
until the very last bell
I mortgaged my passionate flute
in their tunes
that lute with my evergreen root
the treasures of my thesaurus
an anguish of salty sea
unforgotten dreams of pleasure
now i guess after miles of stress
an overflowed heart
yet longing in the silence of dark
.
@Musfiq us shaleheen
Nov 19, 2017
Nov 19, 2017 at 12:19 PM UTC
Sad reflections from
donated dreams.
Charity's
fallen embers.
Like a high UV index
they burn right into
your skin.
Freckling
your thoughts with a bit of compromise.
Close your eyes
to the possibility
inertia
has made itself at home.
You'll feel it, feel it
right to the bone.
But you crossed that bridge
long ago.
In the time of
tranquil misgivings.
You gave consent to
sin by offering up
your sons and daughters.
Drowning them
in the shallow end of dissipated water.
Sing hymns
all you like.
Piety
is not for sale.
And the angel light
that hits the wall
is not in the shape of Mary.
Evil always figures into
these things.
Don't you know? Heat rises. Blood falls.
So burn your prayers
on a stick. Roast them
in the campfire. You'll never turn
to God until you lie
dying. Broken and heaving.
Asking for forgiveness.
Which a man of cloth
will grant.
Such a charmed life to leave.
Only it's a cheat.
A spoonful
of circumvention.
Making you feel
warm and clever
as you bleed out. Regrettably,
your vacuous heart
sailed off on the Greta Garbo
and mortgaged
your future for such marquee.
Banking on the
here and now.
From this there can be no redemption.
Mar 11, 2020
Mar 11, 2020 at 8:26 PM UTC
A picture of a blazing inferno,
flames frozen in time,
is as I burn for you,
forever this house on fire.
If ever the wood should
wither to ash and ember,
I would bathe in the soot,
I would burn to remember.
Sep 10, 2017
Sep 10, 2017 at 10:40 AM UTC
The building had to be as it was
Before, when it first was built,
So the Inspector said to me,
I was mortgaged up to the hilt,
We’d already changed some minor things
They’d stand, he said, in the way,
We couldn’t move in till they were changed
Reversed, to our mute dismay.
He ******* the permit into his hat
And clamped it down on his head,
‘Where are we going to sleep tonight?’
‘That’s not my fault,’ he said.
He’d locked us out of our only home
With it only half rebuilt,
Then driven off as he sneered and coughed,
‘Are you trying to feed me guilt?’
We’d lodged our plans seven months before
To rebuild a nest of rooms,
The Council never got round to it
So they left us mired in gloom,
We couldn’t wait for their paperwork
So we just got on, and ‘did’,
We toiled by night in the after light,
In the day, just lay and hid.
Then when the paperwork finally came
It covered a room too short,
They charged full odds for their office clods
But for plans, their worth was nought.
Back he came on a day of shame
To demand we tear it down,
That extra room that had fed our gloom
So I said, ‘You go to town!’
I handed over a hefty pick
And I said, ‘It’s up to you.
I wouldn’t touch it myself,’ I said,
‘But you do what you must do.’
I didn’t tell him of Cranston Leigh,
The ghost of that room out there,
I should have said, but then Cranston’s dead
So the end result was fair.
He laid about him with pick and axe
And he tumbled half a wall,
Before first hearing the screech from Hell
That was Cranston’s warning call.
I saw the Inspector’s hair rise up
Like an early crop of rye,
And that was even before the ghost
Screeched out, ‘You’re gonna die!’
I’ll never forget the scene that night
The Inspector burst in flames,
While Cranston, from the unholy dead
Leapt in and out of our drains,
That room still stands, it’s unfinished still
The Inspector will not call,
We left a poster of Cranston Leigh
As a Welcome, out on the wall.
David Lewis Paget
Sep 13, 2015
Sep 13, 2015 at 10:21 AM UTC
I don't mind,I confess that the life that I live is one helluva mess but it's mine,just
don't mess with me and we'll get on real fine,
time was and that was a time when I bigged it up down on the front line,strutting my stuff,getting enough of it,working it bit by bit,so why do I feel like ****
I guess it's the hormones,outstanding debts and unpaid loans and you'd better believe that PayPal is no no pal of mine.
I can see that I could float free from this strife,under the tube train,end of my life but the world is rife with people like that,people who flatten themselves against the brick wall,people who don't care whether or not they rise or they fall,it's all
******** to me,but
I want to be free,not a tree,not a mouse ,not a mortgaged to the arsehiole of eternity house,
I want to be me.
Feb 21, 2014
Feb 21, 2014 at 8:12 PM UTC