"muddied" poems
Endless stains of blood
On white t-shirts
On nights that scatter blue trees over black earth
Alight by shooting stars
The mother tells her child
Unwilling to unlock the truth
The truth those stars
Don't grant your wishes
They grab them
With scarred scratching hands.
Alight,
The damp stitches in the soil
Cemetery symmetrical to hospital
Those shooting stars circling
Like a vulture
Speeds towards dead carcasses
Still, the murdering star will not cease
To break bones
That have already broken
To take lives
That have already been taken
To burn
What is already charred
Today
smells like burnt muddied skin
feels like gnawing on your own fingers for feast
sounds like tired, howling machines
spurring and sputtering, never-ending their onwards trek
Swallowing distances and with it, nameless faces
countless places
Today the earthquakes of death
Don't make the land shake anymore
For it has learned to cope
With the desolate cemeteries filled with mute bones
Today burns like gasoline
Looks like intestines decorating destroyed doorways
Today it rains curdled crimson
Tell me shooting star
If the child liked jam on his toast
Did he snore?
Did he like math? Or english?
Shooting star doesn't know and neither the bombs.
As bodies fall from trees
like rotten plums.
The world was born in blood
And has not ceased to suckle its wounds
Endless blood thirst, Endless war
But not endless skin to bleed.
Oct 15, 2017
Oct 15, 2017 at 2:41 AM UTC
Life is colourful
But not in the way I'd like,
Its shades keep changing
From lemon to blue to burgundy,
Feels like I'm living
In a constant state of melancholy.
Tried hard not to stare
At the melody that kept swirling
In front of my eyes
And through my ears,
Sometimes I forgot breathing.
And it trapped me into the deep
Clawed hard to come up from beneath,
But it was hard to hold on
The walls were too steep.
Never thought I'd wish
For a colourless life of black and white,
Of boring creatures and ordinary sight..
Never thought I'd be the one
To want my seeds to sow,
To want my roots to dig deep and grow.
Maybe flowing with the wind
Is not for me,
Free-falling is not the same as flying,
Peter should leave me alone now,
I don't want to end up dying.
Thought I almost saw
Heaven from where I was,
But it lay barren
With no gates or guards,
Or even angels or gods,
Either the books or my mind are lying,
It is overrated to wish for dying.
But I made it through
Somehow I swam back ashore,
Fought the muddied waters that blinded me,
Somehow I found my door.
And to sanity I return,
With lessons and scars that still burn
It's good to look ahead with clarity,
It's good to be back to reality.
Jul 6, 2017
Jul 6, 2017 at 9:48 PM UTC
The last knight had died ungallantly
He folded in a disappointed silence
As did the age he stood for.
So long to the bygone era.
The romanticism of a stoic ideal
Remained to mark his passing,
Like an obituary in the paper
That people glance at for a brief moment
Before continueing with the idleness of their day.
The muddied sky of an industrial world
Stretched over a land like a blanket of shame
To destroy the traditions of a knight
Who once fought for the people who turned to destroy him.
May 21, 2015
May 21, 2015 at 8:26 PM UTC
Impressionist colors rising out of chocolate brown,
stretching chartreuse necks upwards.
Intertwining vines clutching each other in a desperate rhapsody of life,
all waiting to display their Creators’ palette of pure color.
Orchid and yellow chalices hold the morning dew
as all are christened in jeweled morning light.
With blue and white snow you carpet the ground
blanketing hillsides with hope of Monet.
Orange tongues of fire licking up towards the sun
while jade blades battle as new growth crowds in.
Blossoms hang full with a living harvest of yellow,
awaiting transport to another.
Stalks of dried grasses stirred by the August wind,
dancing to the rhythm of the warm stirring breeze.
Summer now ebbing away in aged colors muted with brown,
returning to the muddied ground once again.
Aug 20, 2012
Aug 20, 2012 at 11:29 PM UTC
MIST CREEPING SLOWLY
The morning found
only blood & feathers.
The fox leaving
only Death
& its presence
& the gossip of the frightened chickens.
My uncle swearing
‘til the sky was blue
(early morning clouds that the sun shone through) .
An embarrassed ****
like a mad alarm clock
crying like a cartoon “cock-a-doodle-do! ”
My uncle dispatching him
with a quick kick.
“Oh yeah, and where the hell were you? ”
I take in the scene of the massacre
& whisper:
“I sure wouldn’t like to be a chicken! ”
* * *
All that next week
my uncle stalked the chicken coup
waiting for the fox
who was clever enough
not to turn up
until the eight day
driven by his hunger & his nature
she stared into my uncle’s cold metallic sight
& the evil acrid smell of a cartridge caught in flight
as both it & the fox(shot through the head)
fell dead
at my uncle’s muddied boot.
My gentle uncle delirious with Death
the frosted air
stained with his breath.
His voice almost transformed
into an animalistic hoot:
“Hey boy, betcha didn’t know I
could shoot! ”
The good side of the fox’s face
seemed to still laugh
at the very idea of Death.
I whimpered:
“I sure wouldn’t like to be a fox! ”
The countryside
brutal & Biblical
demanding
a life for a life
Yet all I could see
was Death...Death.
Priest-like...
I knelt & whispered
a quick act of contrition
to the fox’s carcase.
My uncle probably thought
I was barmy.
That night in celebration
my uncle wrung a chicken’s neck
(the chicken’s name was Patricia)
& I declined the clean
white breast
still haunted
by the chicken & the fox’s
death.
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 7:14 PM UTC
In this park there are birds atop ice cakes
stiff mittened kids, cold nosed and half froze
they slide on paths of glass, toward home.
A small stream cuts through this place,
black water humming with coots and ducks.
Long toothed icicles waiting to impale the earth.
Beneath our feet, we crack and shatter tiny frozen ponds,
revealing muddied blades of grass, green as in summer.
A myriad of birds in the sun, come to puff and quiver,
but soon the mountain clouds will come to shroud
the day, the sky so cold, a frost in grey and silver.
Feb 27, 2018
Feb 27, 2018 at 8:54 PM UTC
I can name you
The exact date
On which he was shot:
June 28, 1914.
Who killed him?
Gavrilo Princip,
Member of the Bosnian Nationalist
Movement: The Black
Hand.
Suddenly this montage
Of bullet chambers
And dead wars
Shift -
Hands. You. Me.
Your fingers,
Which I long to hold.
Your voice,
Which I long to hear.
Which I have forgotten -
Sometimes it is hard
To trace the annals
Of history. Our
****** pawprints
Make the trail of
Arms and hatred
Harder to keep straight
Than sin and so
We walk backwards.
****** trail of footsteps
Perhaps stepped
Into
By a meandering
Mao, or ******
Or Tojo. Muddied further
By the presence
Of an Alger
Hiss -
Your voice
Is a whisper,
It sings to me in
Secrets - I do not
Know you but I
Am in love,
You are beautiful and
I don't know why
But there's a
War. In my heart.
A war of attrition. Subtraction
Of causes. And the Archduke,
Well the Archduke
Is glad to see you.
Hear his dates blur
Into yours -
History tests,
And love notes
Crumpled away folded
And stored
In the same junk
Folder.
I imagine his hands
To have folded
Quite slowly,
Searching for something
To latch onto.
Like mine.
Empty palms flickering
Amidst a trail of
Blood and dust -
Oh, and yeah
The history lessons
Of course.
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 2:12 PM UTC
#
You have brought back these feelings
Resurfaced those fears
Of the fire inside
that had so many tears
A weak flame that was dying
Alive once again
Has now muddied the line
between lover and friend
That's how it goes for me
I don't know about you
The words passing might be
in that moment were true
They kept traveling on
Possibly a comet
As my feelings grow strong
Expectations not met
Once again feel a fool
Even though it's not true
And my heart gave to you
Time again I will do
But this time not the same
It's because you weren't here
Could not reach out and touch
So our bodies weren't shared
Just the words that were said
And the sound of your voice
Resurrect from the dead
Could not stop; Had no choice
Seems like that's how it is
In your lasso I'm snared
All it takes is one tug
And again I will care
Pilot light to a stove
A slight twist and it strikes
You've invaded my heart
Bursting flame will ignite
But if carelessly handled
It's me who gets burned
Walked all over and trampled
Same dolt who won't learn
I have built up the walls
But we're both trapped inside
The tight space is so small
There's nowhere I can hide
Face-to-face with you now
It begins and it ends
I'll get through it somehow
Are we lovers or friends?
#
Dec 3, 2018
Dec 3, 2018 at 8:56 PM UTC
PRAYER IS A TEAM SPORT
[In the voice of your favourite over-excited rugby commentator.]
We're inside the final quarter. We've seen a bone-cruncher of a contest today and there's no sign of a let up, the pray-ers gather for the next engagement, positioning themselves with practiced confidence, skillfully supporting each other, ready for the push. You can see every knee and each hand bears the marks from this long muddied pray, red and brown staining every inch of their entwined limbs; - arms and hands holding fast.
Front row.
Second row.
Back row.
Digging in for the big push.
The opposition has played an intelligent game, taking advantage of any lapse in concentration, any sign of tiredness, looking for any weakness to exploit. The pray-ers know they can't afford any slips now, they need to keep up the pressure, maintain their advance deep in the opposition's half. Every yard of gained ground needs to be defended.
The pray-ers' Coach looks on - look at his smile! You can see the pride he has for his team, he's schooled them on every tactic of the opposition and now that training, that practice has paid dividends. This is a team of pray-ers that so clearly know each other well, supporting each other every step of the way. You can see their coordinated pray, their sustained effort and the sheer pleasure they feel when they are praying together.
The pray-ers drive on. The sound of their groans and deep breaths merge into one. There's a rhythm to it, a cadence as together they push and PUSH.
The opposition's footing is slipping, the pray-ers' momentum gains pace and, YES! the resistance collapses. Oh, that must have hurt!
But there's no time for complacency, the pray-ers re-form their line looking for the next opening, the next opportunity to push forward.
This is a joy to see. The Coach shouts his encouragement - this was never going to be an easy struggle; you can't dismiss the opposition - they are a seasoned though sometimes disorganised team and they can take you by surprise. But as we've seen here today, the Coach knows that if his team of pray-ers keep to the plan and pray to their strengths, the opposition are surely in for a hiding. The pray-ers will triumph and they will take the winners' crown.
- Now back to the action.
Feb 4, 2019
Feb 4, 2019 at 2:14 AM UTC
We stalked hawthorn hedgerows,
Backyards our battlefields,
Wielding wooden swords,
Dustbin-lids, for our shields.
We scouted railway cuttings,
Long abandoned and disused,
Where friendship’s blended alloys,
Were cast, forged and fused.
We patrolled village streets,
Marched along muddied lanes,
Proudly defending ‘our land’,
From raiding, heathen, Danes’.
We boldly challenged Vikings’,
Beneath a Sixties-summer-sun,
Bonding loyalty, faith and trust,
That will never, come undone.
Those days will not return,
Memories-mismatched-truth,
Recalling the fallen heroes,
Fighting follies of our youth.
Protecting imagined Kingdoms,
Lost in time, for evermore,
Boy soldiers standing guard,
In Castles built from straw.
Oct 3, 2010
Oct 3, 2010 at 2:06 PM UTC
The casket was coming up, swaying and wobbling
Like a novice skater’s layover spin,
The workings proceeding apace,
The stillness of the August heat
Punctuated by disinterested growl of the backhoe,
The occasional out-of-place jocularity by the excavators
The creaky jingle of the chains holding the muddied box
As it proceeded skyward in its clumsy poor-man’s Resurrection.
The affair was being observed by an elderly couple,
Old enough to be of no particular age.
Their car had Carolina plates,
But their inflections, their casually-tossed idioms
They noted that ruefully The grass needs mowed)
Marked them as natives.
They’d returned (Last time, most likely,
The wife uttered mournfully)
To take their son with them; he’d drowned when was five? six?
(The years will do that to a body, apparently)
In Kinzua Creek some half-century ago,
Back when little boys weren’t under a mandate
To be safe from themselves, as it were.
He was our boy! We’ve never forgotten him!
The old man said, the words snapping off
In a manner that spoke of something else altogether,
How the whistle at the Montmorenci
Went off at three and eleven for second shift,
And your *** had better be there,
As those were good jobs that didn’t wait for bereavement leave,
Because there was always someone
Just itching to take your spot on the line,
And anyway life went on,
At least in the sense that television screens went all to snow
And tires went flat and fuses blew
And eventually a dead child
Is not always in the forefront of your thoughts,
Only tiptoeing in when the Press ran a picture
Of the Montmorenci Area Class of whenever,
Or there was an item about some other family
Who opened their front door
To a grim sheriff’s deputy with his hat in his hand.
Eventually, after some time
And in defiance of both the odds and gravity,
The casket was settled into the back
Of the undertaker’s huge old black Caddy,
And the couple cane-toddled back to their car,
Following out the through the old spider-like gates
And onto the main road.
The brief procession fading from sight,
Until there was nothing left to see
Save the hillsides covered in old growth pine.
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 11:00 AM UTC
*
Cast among the downpour,
gates beneath dark clouds are left open
The creek is rising, drowning underbrush,
darkening tree trunks,
moving swiftly the discarded,
Collecting at the walls of this place,
as stone and mortar slowly crumble
From a desperate vantage point
overlooking nature’s angry powers
I see a shape, a floating aura,
eyelet gown of gold stitch, woven ribbon dreams
Mahogany hair flowing, eyes captivating,
drifting atop muddied raging waters,
directing the flow with blown kiss persuasion
Suddenly swept away, barely a breath remains,
swallowing life in surrendering gulps
Flailing intoxicated waves, undertow’s grasp,
when a hand reaches, fingers interlock
Glazing blue skies whisper in sunlit reflections,
ocean breezes soothe washed out tides,
as a sand dollar wishes on a seashell
And now upon this beach I lie safely within soft arms,
tasting her mimosa lips, warm and sweet
I drink in her flavor neath palm tree shadows,
cool in the heat, but hot of her skin
My heart hears the glistening, tingling my senses,
awashing me in desires impossible to imagine,
as I happily drown in her*
Aug 30, 2016
Aug 30, 2016 at 7:03 PM UTC
The Breakfast Fairies (a humorous treatise)
Summoned for to break the fast
of sleep-and-dreams that can no longer last,
As the clock to noon draws nigh,
I happily paddle off to the cabinet
Where the cereals that I CHOSE,
Since I am now a grownup,
faithfully await, calm and in repose.
The refrigerator, in nearby proximity,
sources a Stony-field yogurt,,
A yogurt that I CHOSE,
light and sweet with processed fruit,
due to the miracle of Aspartame.
Distracted, back to the kitchen for
Some multi-grain slices to hail and toast,
Which I prefer dry (no butter)
and ready for anointing with oils of
Strawberry jelly.
To the table return ready to sound
The horn of plenty,
When I see the ****
Breakfast Fairies have struck yet again!
Cousins first to those that reside in nearby dishwasher*
The nefarious fairies guard my health
tho nobody asked them too!
My Crispix, with its malty sweetness,
And the ***** aftertaste of sprayed-on "enriched vitamins,"
has been smothered neath layers of
Granola, with cranberries and nuts,
Contaminated with a hint of cinnamon.
My processed yogurt,
vanished, without a trace,
replaced by their bacterial cousins from Thrace,
which is in Greece,
who, tho white, taste like plain yogurt sourpusses,
Even when littered with blueberries,
Nothing can replace the taste of my
Artificial Sweetener!
Dry toast has been sheeted and shined neath
A tribute of fattening butter,
rationalized by a commonality,
"Everything is better with butter..."
The last indignity is that my coffee,
Not the light brown I cherish
When kissed by whole milk,
Now muddled and muddied by skim milk, so named,
Cause they skim off all the taste.
Because they are fairies,
With fluttering wings,
Hasty retreat they beat,
But I know where they hide.
The next time it be for the morning meal,
I will eat it in bed,
far from their kitchen hiding places,
And celebrate my heroics with original
Frosted Flakes and milk,
And extra sugar just for spite!
The bedroom fairies, living under the pillow,
Emerge to beg in iambic pentameter,
Won't get nary a bite,
Until they they return the poems they stole
From my midnight dreams.
Jun 1, 2013
Jun 1, 2013 at 12:08 PM UTC
I
Shine on you little, dismal light
Shine on, Shine on, Shine on
Your light is but a speck in a sheet
A dot in a yellowed text book
So many like you
So little time
To become what we want
Noticeable
Your light must shine
Outshine the rest
It must shine like the sun, little light
The sun is beautiful, the brightest light of all
It is the life-giver and day-bringer
Give life, Bring day
Don't spark in the night
The dark does not foster
The shining light you will give
And you will give
Little Light
II
Shine on, little light
There are so many just like you
The sheet you stain is stained by many
The blanket of the sky
Shine as bright as you can
Before the sun bleaches you out
You must shine and touch a soul
Fill a heart with your little light
Shine, Shine, Shine!
III
Glow on me, little light
Glow a dense, fuzzy ivory
Bring your warm white to the heart of my grey
A jungle of dampness
Clean clay muddied and wet
To fade away into a drear
Eroded into black
Glow so the white revives
And purity cleanses the walkways
The haze is hard to break through
But you can do it
Little Light
IV
Shine and Glow
Glow and Shine
Whine and Row
Bow Divine
Swine and Sow
Go drink Wine
Fine hand Sew
Grow a vine
Grind and blow
*** and Mine
Mine is low
So is Nine
So Shine on, Oh
Shine Shine Shine
Shine on So
The world can't lie
V
Little, little light
So harsh on so little
You are beautiful
Beautifully insignificant
I write to you in prayer
Little Light
Bring peace and tranquil
Tranquilize the blackness in my heart
Touch my soul in the way only a little light may
So small
So pure
With a divine life I can never understand
A force so powerful it can be seen so far away
Stain my sky
Bleach my night
Do not leave me be
There are so many like you, but it takes many little lights
To make something special
You are a speck on my safety blanket
When I despair
I look to you
And suddenly
I'm okay
So shine on, little light
Shine on, Shine on, Shine on
Mar 14, 2016
Mar 14, 2016 at 3:01 PM UTC
Tamed not
I cannot believe in this beating so much
Let rot
We need to calculate this, we’re *******
You Lady Laz-
No, you my Plath
With your heart in reverse
Your hand on mine
On the relation gears
Your lover and his shadow’s near
You cruel shrew
You insatiable cage of bones
******* like a goddess at daybreak
I do love you.
This, my confessional
This, my pornographic revival
Eat me
**** the air out of my
Thin second coming
**** the miracle marrow
Of my bones, make a soup
Say a spell, yell, melt.
A mouth like a witch
Hands for my itch
Bit chiseled by bit
Us, lower in an atmosphere
Hidden from the house on the hill
Hands full of placebo-sex-pills
Tiny wrists shaking in fear
Tamed not
The muddied housewife
The war plot
The trapped door trigger shot
God is love
Love is biochemical
Love is the bathroom stall
Holes everywhere
In the walls
In everyone
In the suspension
I cannot believe
In at all
Mar 27, 2011
Mar 27, 2011 at 10:52 AM UTC
a river runs through a ghostly town
soaked clay red with the blood of the earth,
the land is marked with tire tracks like an addict's elbow crease
sweating oil and electrical wire,
fields tilled with the claws of a paper beast
sprout telephone poles and generations of debt
amongst indigo coffee beans,
rotting tin roofs striped with rust
creak folklore in the pouring rain,
muddied palms clinging to trust on mala beads
are stung with poisoned ink leaked from shrines golden and winking,
an ornate temple carves god sharp into a clouded sky
its steeple piercing his hands
shards of bone spilling ash onto upturned foreheads,
sun scorches unsuspecting soil and it cries exhaust fumes,
the sputtering song of a motorbike is answered
by the howl of a stray mutt in an alleyway
reverberating pleas to a clenched fist,
an unremitting flame sweeps ruin
across leaf barren trees
wind choking on smoke coughing up skeletons,
and the planet heaves
and the planet heaves
weezing on humanity's delirious daydreams
Jul 21, 2015
Jul 21, 2015 at 2:11 PM UTC
the two-by-fours
we carved into a cabin
for smoking pipe tobacco
and living in the mountains
are now muddied
and strewn over the hill
with so many shotgun shells
and ceramic victims in tow;
are now collected
by sassed out teenagers
finding fuel to feed
cancer with smoke
and smoke with memory --
which they will regurgitate
to build their cabin
to smoke pipe tobacco
to live in the mountains,
until it burns down
as all things must.
May 1, 2013
May 1, 2013 at 5:56 PM UTC
It is true that
The hyacinth flowers on the hill
Will be trampled and muddied
By the calloused, bare feet of all who tread there
Until they are dead and rotted
But I ask you to find a place
Where the streams flow rapidly,
Harsh and unforgiving,
Dangerous enough so that no man will dare cross,
No hand may pluck you from the ground
And grow there.
Next to the water of the stream,
In the midst of all else good and holy,
Safe from the reaches of men,
You will grow,
Bright purple and untarnished,
Stunning in your own right
And I will walk the dead hill,
I will try and brave the harsh waters,
If only to see you with my own eyes.
Aug 10, 2018
Aug 10, 2018 at 5:36 PM UTC
Life’s an upward struggle, and it makes it so much rougher
when the ladder you find yourself climbing is beset by lonely weather.
When every other rung is off doing other things,
the solitude and altitude bring to mind desolation
and the emptiness that brings.
No matter the genius emanating from ivory minds,
the smartest man among us often finds
that brilliance unfiltered clogs up the system,
when others must consume the lonely perfume
of conceits kept alone,
while the common thoughts stay collected
like so many sheep in a pen that’s separated
from self-same lonely thoughts,
that genius oft encounters,
left only amongst the happiness
that fills up life’s happy coffers.
So it goes that lofty ideals become frostbitten
by snowcapped mountains of emptiness.
Others seek the heights together only during pleasant weather,
while those who trounce through snow-packed trails
must brave the climes alone tempted only by fate,
to descend to summits more frequent
than the peaks of accomplishment.
Gangrenous lips cannot utter
the chilled revelations of those left above too long.
So it is left to those below,
not inferior from the altitude,
just more likely acclimated to the difficult, dull journey
of those who spare pristine slopes
for the sullied, muddied slush on the tourist trails below.
Sep 21, 2012
Sep 21, 2012 at 2:49 AM UTC
Darkness, it's so mysterious
A sign of the abyss
We can't penetrate it with our eyes
We will never no what's beneath
It can be a color called black
Which people will wear
It's for grieving and for sadness
And for protection too
They won't come near, if they fear
The emotional abyss
The one that in srounded by our
Dark outfit
It can be a hiding place
For those who always fear
With no lights they can't come near.
It gives us a place of freedom
But it frees our enemies too
We can't see them coming,
The monsters under the bed.
As they hide within
Their darkened mist
In the dark abyss.
It can be the unknown,
A shade of mystery.
We are all left in the dark
When we think of this shade.
We can't see, we can't know
Whatever lies beneath,
Is unknown to us humans
As it wiggles in the deep.
It can be evil
The sign of tainted good
The color white muddied,
By the darkened sins.
It shows us when to hide
Since the monsters come at night
It is the spookist of colors
The one that shows us death.
But it can be beauty too,
A protective guard over us.
A shroud of mystery
To keep the others guessing.
It lets us be alone
When we truly wish.
It hides us from our enemies
And keeps the small ones safe
After all when its night
And we all wish to sleep
We plunge our selves into darkness
And welcome the abyss.
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 1:33 AM UTC
In Farmington the misfit suffers the jukebox and dances to an unknown song. He dances on the pool table. He wears black—black skull cap, black
duster, black shirt, black slacks, black boots. He's in Farmington and
the women here drink Bud Light. He dances slow. It's similar to a dance
you've seen before. You have that friend that climbs on couches after a few and half staggers, half sways. The women here watch him with unhappy eyes and hands stained blue from the textile mill. He seems to mouth the words although he clearly doesn't know the song. They, the women, dig their elbows into the bar. Pocked and graffiti'd, the bar soaks up spilled beer and ash and nail polish. Behind the bar a sign reads: Free Beer Tomorrow. And for some reason, you must admit, this sign's effect never dulls. The Misfit pantomimes a dance with a pool cue. His face is severe, serious. He's in Farmington dancing with a pool cue on a pool table to a song he doesn't know like a drunk friend of yours and the women are watching. Next, he does something amazing. He removes his cap. He's got shocks of bleached hair and burn scars run like rivulets between the patches. He tosses the cap toward the bar. One lucky woman catches it and summons herself to the pool table. You want them to have a bit of dialogue here, to say something oblique and innocent. Instead the lucky woman dances at the man's feet. He surrenders a smile and he's got small tracts of bleached hair and burn scars and he's in all black and he's dancing. The lucky woman, she's in a canary yellow patch dress. Her dance, although clumsy, still mesmerizes you. It's without ego, without shame. She is a child. She is the light in the room. She is, in this moment, the world entire. He pulls her onto the table. It's time to appoint the Misfit and the lucky woman names, you think. His name shall be Joshua. Her name shall be Anna. Palms together, her head resting on his chest, they sway. The smoke and the tracers of light meld and Joshua and Anna's outlines become muddied. Their bodies merge and they are both yellow and black and covered in burn scars and bleached hair and the women are still watching. As the song starts to fade, someone—maybe it's you—drops a few coins in the jukebox and it begins again.
Dec 22, 2016
Dec 22, 2016 at 12:13 PM UTC
Accepted clarity
Muddied only
By half-truths
Perceived as real
A contrived conscience
With volume control
Lowered by convenience
And narcissistic survival
The retail outlet
Of self-patted shoulders
Selling in real time
One's own significance
Safety in numbers
A comfort of thought
The inclusive community
Of light
Through fractured prisms
Individuality
Sought in the scope
Of a petri dish
Hopefully,
There be an artisan
Peering through the lens
An expert in restoration
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 7:21 AM UTC
the tessellated tile floor of my existence,
once alabaster white
has sullied under the steps
of a muddied life
spent wading in the river bank
attempting to coalesce
a series of seemingly random events
into a fabricated web
spun of the finest thread.
only to find the ephemeral now
a fractious flowing river
so violent and cold
from the melting spring snow,
whitewater breaks
against primordial stone
like titan thunder atop olympus,
rattling our bones
because legends follow entropy
but chronos begets chaos in mythology.
Mar 17, 2016
Mar 17, 2016 at 3:24 PM UTC
There lies a desert void of life
There lies a desert void of water and void of food
There lies a desert void of all good things
In this desert lies death
In this desert lies air more dry than dead bones
And in this desert lies pain more than can be imagined
For I wander throughout said desert
Seemingly with my lonesome
With no one to turn
And with nowhere to go
So I sit on a rock and wait
Then a promise of water comes to me from Above
But when the driest of days come over the horizon
And the hottest of times comes to my face
I almost give up, leaving the promise
And then I feel like I have moved on from that promise
But I cannot leave what came from Above
Oh me of little faith!
So I wander seemingly alone in this desert
For days upon days, weeks upon weeks
For months upon months, even years upon years
Longing for even a drop of water to satisfy my thirsty soul
But here in the dry desert the water is unfound
For all of the water has evaporated into the dry desert air
But on the horizon I see what I’ve longed for
I see what looks to be a spring
Bringing water to the dry desert ground
To satisfy the thirst of this dead dry country
And as I approach this great gorge of water
I am killed with the realization that no water lies here
For I have been tricked
By the images in my head
And the physical needs of my body
I have been deceived
The green and lush never truly existed in this dead dry desert
Only this mysterious mirage in my misunderstood mind
So still I search across these dry dead lands
For the water that might bring life back to my tired soul
But time and time again
The mirages ****** my hope for satisfaction
But soon enough I know I will find the promise
And reach the flowing waters to satisfy my soul
One day, I find myself a well
A well that may be full of water
Water that may wet my thirsty tongue
But when I look into that deep well
I see a crack in its basic foundation
And no clean water lies in this broken cistern
So I drop my bucket into that deep broken well
Hoping for a mere drink of water
But in the bucket comes muddied, dirtied water
And when I pour that water into my thirsty mouth
My thirst is not satisfied, it is only magnified
And I am more thirsty than I have been ever before
So I take another drink
But this broken cistern holds water that cannot satisfy
Water that may merely increase my thirst
That will only bring forth the day of my death
For my mouth is as dry as this desert sand
And I will die here in this dry desert of death
I am like dead dry bones in the valley of death
With no flesh or breath to give me life
But then when I find the water that gives life
Flesh will come about my bones
And He will breathe breath into my lungs
Then for the first time, I will have true life
I wander on never finding the water I require
But then I stand and look heavenward
And I hear my weary voice cry out “My bones are dried up!
All hope is lost, and I am cut off!”
So I stand in the dry dying desert
Alone with nothing and no one to hope in
Then His glorious voice responds; “I will raise you from your graves
I will put My Spirit in you, for I am the Lord your God
I am with you to the end of the ages
For My Son, your God reigns with me
And our Name is Immanuel
For I am with you."
And I fall to my knees
For there lies a cistern unbroken
I look deep into this well and see a promise unforsaken
For the well is filled with sweet satisfying water
And I drink never to thirst again
For He is the Living Water, and I am satisfied in Him
Nov 5, 2015
Nov 5, 2015 at 1:41 PM UTC
Remembering feels like a finger dipping
Into a puddle at the back of my head
Our memories are still water
Cold, muddied, stepped in
They fill the dimples in the asphalt
Of my mind
If remembering is a water sport
Then I am an old fisherman
Trudging my boots from bay to bay
Fishing line gripped in pruned hand
Looking through the small pools
Finding goldfish in a city of pavement
Feb 1, 2023
Feb 1, 2023 at 11:54 PM UTC