"muddling" poems
The world is losing
Gravity,
But no one can escape,
We're hurtling on our petrie dish
In a gel that seals our fate;
Gravitating
Towards black holes;
They're closer than you think.
In China
There's a wall of dust,
Seen clear from outer space;
Our living waters die
In a legacy of disgrace.
We're citizens
Wearing masks;
We should hide our faces,
But we're running daily tasks.
We're fossils burning
Fossil fuels
Found in cremation gas.
The amphibians
Are on the fringe;
Whales can't sound,
They run aground.
It's an environmental slaughter.
Our world has lost
Some gravity.
We need to plant our feet,
But charnel fires
And greenhouse gas
Have hastened our retreat.
Migrating birds lose sense of time,
Confused by the lights.
The morning dove coos at night,
The nightingale at dawn;
We're like
New turtles muddling,
Under lost starlight.
We must grasp
The gravity
Of burning
Burning light.
Jul 23, 2014
Jul 23, 2014 at 10:19 AM UTC
You brothers, who are mine,
Poor people, near and far,
Longing for every star,
Dream of relief from pain,
You, stumbling dumb
At night, as pale stars break,
Lift your thin hands for some
Hope, and suffer, and wake,
Poor muddling commonplace,
You sailors who must live
Unstarred by hopelessness,
We share a single face.
Give me my welcome back.
5.3k
~for the one who will know it was written for her~
muddy verb and adjective,
muddling and muddled
have you ever seen a pas de deux/deluxe,
one dancer, proscriptive,
and her partner, prescriptive?
the stage, of course,
exactly the width of your head,
from ear to shining ear
this couple o’muses dance en concert,
though their very natures are anti-logarithmic,
the value of their exponential activity is a
descriptive nomenclature
I am overly abstruse this Saturday morn,
mushing mathematics and ballet, verbal word games
as is my wont wanted,
everyone sleeping while I rise at 6am,
doing ablutions, seeking absolution,
pulling weeds from our respective gardens,
answering old friends I have yet to meet,
to whom I answer,
“still here, though long time no see,”
which is of course hysterical funny, inherently contradictory,
as the brain grasps well my
Red and Dead Sea brain cells, a splitting motif
muddling and muddled,
proscribed from getting on transport,
to deliver to you the proper healing prescriptive,
as if I had in my possess to diagnosis and correctly assess
even though one of my many passport names,
a requirement, to visit,
this inter-netting ether, that both combines and separates,
permits me safe passage,
over the historical lineage of borderlines of land and sea,
to deliver this message,
to you
woman
*I am here, waiting patiently, though long time
no see
like ever,
absentia, dementia,
both self-censure:
here, then, my cadenza,
dedicated solely soulfully for you,
as the sabbath sun rises over the East River,
saying, laughing unto me,
“still here, though long time no see,”
for though I cannot look upon her,
my sun, my sun, my son,
yet she, as well,
is everywhere-inside of me,
warmly illuminating
my muddled mind*
Mar 23, 2019
Mar 23, 2019 at 7:57 AM UTC
The world is losing
Gravity,
But no one can escape,
We're hurtling on our petrie dish
In a gel that seals our fate;
Gravitating
Towards black holes;
They're closer than you think.
In China
There's a wall of dust,
Seen clear from outer space;
Our living waters die
In a legacy of disgrace.
We're citizens
Wearing masks;
We should hide our faces,
But we're running daily tasks.
We're fossils burning
Fossil fuels
Found in cremation gas.
The amphibians
Are on the fringe;
Whales can't sound,
They run aground.
It's an environmental slaughter.
Our world has lost
Some gravity.
We need to plant our feet,
But charnel fires
And greenhouse gas
Have hastened our retreat.
Migrating birds lose sense of time,
Confused by the lights.
The mourning dove coos at night,
The nightingale at dawn;
We're like
New turtles muddling,
Under lost starlight.
We must grasp
The gravity
Of burning
Burning light.
Apr 21, 2016
Apr 21, 2016 at 10:41 AM UTC
~
*The disruptor,
whether digital or analog,
strikes the bell,
bioengineered automaton
—a manufactured life form
given little agency or dimension,
mnemonic to the finitude of life,
and subtle muddling of humankind's
supposed moral transcendence.*
~
May 2, 2021
May 2, 2021 at 10:59 PM UTC
When is your birthday
I only wonder when so I can wish you the best--
each year you may not ask me to show up at your door,
but I will gladly surprise you with a cupcake and a smile.
Maybe a card that randomly says way too many things;
muddling the message that I really was trying to say, you are special.
Not only today is your day, but today is more your day than anyone else--
That while I celebrate when you came to life,
I also celebrate your struggles and I celebrate your victories.
Cheering, screaming, and chanting for the public to know, today, is yours!
I will gladly burn down any building with the candles from your cupcake--
Because you are getting older, but **** it, it's tradition.
I have to pack that cupcake with 24 candles,
even though they stopped looking good at 16,
I could have gotten smaller ones, but I keep buying the same pack every year.
No matter who you are, I will bring the cupcakes--
just accept that while I attempt to ****** you with diabetes
I'll also be showing you to the whole world around us,
so don't be shy, because it'll only give me more ideas for next year.
Apr 18, 2015
Apr 18, 2015 at 2:48 AM UTC
Are your goals incentive
To get you through your life
Is the end result a good one
Can you share it with your wife
Is it worth all of the struggling
To put up with the muddling
Of folks you just abhore
Of folks you'd soon ignore
Are your children on the sidelines
While you work away your years
Are they just collateral damage
As you work on through your fears
Do you ever think you'r losing them
That you may just be abusing them
Those children there
Show them you really care
Is it time to take a back seat
As you ride upon lifes train
Time to hand over the driving
Or are you to proud to abstain
Do you want to end up all alone
Go and throw the dog a bone
You're almost there
Nobody really cares
Take a step and join them
They're the ones you should support
Give up all the overtime
Or you'll end up in court
A lonely, hopeless businessman
Who always does the best he can
All alone
There's nobody left at home
Share your time with work and family
As you make your way along
Don't forget to hear the music
Don't forget to sing the songs
It happens so **** easily
You only need to look at me
I stepped back
After a heart attack
Get priorities in order
don't forget just how to play
Don't put it on a bucket list
Go out and start today
The earlier you leave the race
The longer you'll be in this space
Come on...begin
The water's fine...now please jump in.
Jul 10, 2013
Jul 10, 2013 at 11:30 AM UTC
You enchanted the moon, didn't you?
Maybe you promised her a star or two?
She hunts me with Orion's bow, pacing behind shadowed cloud,
My celestial stalker ridin' low, wanly wrapped in misty shroud.
She whispers stark, yet soft as a breeze-blown tune,
Press on, my pet. You've done so well, we'll sleep again soon.
But we've a fortnight to go if we're to come full circle by month's end.
So many dreams still to sow...To reap those lupine howls once again.
Serenity to insanity, delirious depravity to moon-magicked majesty,
A cosmic clockwork cycle muddling my mind with lunar gravity.
She pushes me to frenetic furies then pulls me to solstice solace,
She masters tides in her caprice, what hope has a malcontent apprentice?
Apr 4, 2021
Apr 4, 2021 at 10:13 AM UTC
If this vast azure emptiness can prove
An aghast endless vacuum measure
Take it for granted, research process sure
It will fuel your thought resources, true.
Mining specks and dots in deep space treasures
Boundless designs shine assigning pleasures
Unfurl within mind in gaseous beams
Overflowing the banks of conscious streams
Filling the utmost sanctum with soft skills
Milling vacuum with colorful quills
Calming the pulses with embracing lulls
Warming all lives with fundamental pulls
Creating a sense of duo, I and you
Love and dislikes and points of view.
Feeling satiety in charity
Finding synergy in activity.
Minting amity in society
keeps you young aged muddling in daring dreams
Deeply engage you cuddling realms supreme.
So what? if this vast thought mine be blanked out
Will the ghost mute vacuum follow suit?
If sense aides guide a slow downward exit
And mind bids the fairy lids to close it
Will the sun bewail, bemoan and eclipse?
Or will the same smile prevail on red-lips?
If souls sunset in seamless sea of mind
Will lights spill out; team up to stay behind?
To form anew a fresh long microwave
To indent a start with a soul suave
A new spectrum to perceive the forces
For the soul that constantly resources
That differently formats transceiver courses
The energy that cannot be destroyed
But that which can be candidly portrayed
On a vast emptiness fluidly stolid
On a continuum vividly solid
On a clean canvas without dimensions
In a brave new world that cannot mention
A name which is beyond comprehension
A frame that doesn't fall on known convention.
Jan 16, 2019
Jan 16, 2019 at 2:30 PM UTC
Shrugging your words
You left, racing away on your bike
While your curfew chased you down the road
Gone in the blink of an
Eye,
And often I wonder
Why?
Semi-tragic chords
Mixed with your words
Build harsh, dissonant sounds…
Words that often assured me
In times of doubt and misfortune,
Such that plagues me now,
Muddling my words…
No entiendo
Your intentions
No entiendo
Nov 11, 2012
Nov 11, 2012 at 6:45 PM UTC
it had better be
the best
of me
want to go out
kickin’ & screamin’
with words that rip
those ***** bandages
holding us together,
rip’em with more than the
merest passing ounce of
a simplistic
ouch
poetry,
a sun reflector of
the daily of living, you’re up,
then floor crawling,
not for the first time,
and most likely,
you
never saw the sucker-
sunburn-(pow)-punch
hitting you from behind
the muddling of memories,
them, that can weep and sweep
you into comfort, sustained,
by the knowing at that exact
moment, I,
gave you
the best of me
no joke;
yeah I’m young(ish),
partied hard, fell hard-in love.
only to be busted opened up,
like too many else…nothing
there to write home about,
but to write a poem that
survives in someone else’s
heart, that would be miraculous,
as grand as the grand things
and truly great people I know,
but hello, poets,
this promise, for real
but David Foster, et.al,
said all this better,
and so melodiously
~~~
“And I think I've gone this far
Because of you
Could be no other love but ours
Will do
No one will ever touch me more
And I only hope that in return
No matter how much we have to learn
I saved the best of me for you”
Aug 31, 2024
Aug 31, 2024 at 12:53 PM UTC
Attires of a closer regime,
Closed in on the muddling assets
of a light,
Flickering.
On a dead end street,
Through a meandering
There’s an eventful animus.
Past eleven,
P.M.
“To lobby is to redeem,
Apparently(!)
For I sin and repeatedly sin.”
Only by 1 and only through one
Single flock of wind-blown sediment,
man acknowledges life and
It’s dreadful stripe,
Laid upon a landscape;
Full of faux images of random schemes.
Well, there the ongoingness goes
Of moments that are no way chronologic
Where one plaster over another
Seems like a perfect match.
When the clock strikes to 3
A.M
Merely a sigh passes along,
Yet another minute,
On the cold street
The light knows no acuity at all.
It means for another tick,
Yet does not wait for the tock;
Tick-tock(!)
Tick-tock.
There lies 3 hour worth concurrence,
Confronted for each tock, for half a minute,
But only the seconds pass.
And with each skip that matters,
and only that matters nevertheless,
The clock goes back to
Eleven
P.M.
There(!) the gutter calls for another drink,
For another trace
On another strike.
However mournfully,
Escort of a humanly maze,
The muddling sort,
Births confusion.
The attires seem gone by now.
The heaves; quite impeccable,
The path adopts another protest,
For a much tackled breathing
Time overlaps,dreamily,
On a spectrum,
Laying as a single faceted imposture;
Mocking a postering of shed upon the pavement.
For another street that seemingly differs;
where the marching will always depend
(Regardless)
Solely on the counts of seconds
By the potency of motives
That merges as to defy
The years accounted
On the flesh and bone.
Now there goes another strike,
Audible over the plane
And
It carries on as
“To lobby is to redeem
For I sin
And sin
And sin
On a 3-hour worth strike,
Starting at 11
P.M,
Over another man’s bearing.”
Jul 31, 2019
Jul 31, 2019 at 1:51 PM UTC
Muddy Muddy Monday
Cold air
Cold glare
Lurking on a window that shields our felt insecurity
Summertime we all come to
We all come together then unravel apart
I am a man for a short bit then I quit
And retire
Retire to regimented round the clock lonesome longing of money and a schedule, scheduled schooling of sorrow
Growing up I,
I'm utterly useless
I’m painfully plain
This become the real repetition
The depiction and depression in the U.S. Of A
It's simple
And simply it's dull and sad it's melancholy at its finest
And this carnivorous cancer grows calculatedly sneaking steadily and processing with prowess
And Lexus lingers after Lexus near our neighborhood of suburban sadness,
Sorrowful slumps stuck in sand
Succumbing to ******* the life out of myself muddling through murky days
And this depressive digression into normal no-thing-ness that does not know nothing
But private school privilege pressuring me till I press my heart and it pops
Mundane money Monday murdering my mind mother and might
Monday each day
Becoming Monday
My mothering Monday
My absent adolescence
Oct 5, 2015
Oct 5, 2015 at 10:55 PM UTC
Even the best mothers muddle
Some are just more subtle
Than the others who stew up
Emotional storms with every cup
Of tea they poor and sip
Not a loving word drips from the lip
How dare they conceive
There are those who believe
There should be a test
To have the job that's the best
My mother McNaughton
Has never forgotten
What it means
To love all fourteen
Of her tumultuous brood
For she is shrewd
And knows what it takes to be
For she is keen to see
A muddling mother
Must be an advocate lover
No matter what
A kiss or a kick in the ****
To let her children know
Which way they should go
The is no need for insurrection
Or for the pursuit of perfection
Just love and cuddle
It is okay mother to muddle
Jul 28, 2013
Jul 28, 2013 at 10:30 AM UTC
River boats float along,
up and down
from side to side,
Putney to
Rotherhithe
all this
stems from the Thames
the arterial tree
for the sailor in me the Thames will do
on a flat bottomed barge
muddling through to
St Katherine's and Tobacco dock, to
Tower bridge and make a stop
Ferries and Wherries and
waterways
days on the Thames
making friends
with the mudlarks, the spivs
the preachers, the sharks
all parts of the stem
a branch of the tree
life is for me from
the Thames to the sea.
Jul 28, 2016
Jul 28, 2016 at 1:20 AM UTC
I ask myself, "What is lacking?"
as vanity chokes the answer,
Forced to admit that I am perfect,
Perfect for myself and only in mine eyes.
I see now,
See clear as beautiful Narcissus.
While virtue pools around me,
I stare back into my limpid eyes.
A ripple tears across the surface,
Muddling what a moment ago was so clear.
Imperfection in the smallest of measures.
Oh how I hold that moment dear.
Apr 8, 2012
Apr 8, 2012 at 4:00 AM UTC
Aleksandr Pushkin
The Poet
1827
While still Apollo isn’t demanding
Bard at the sacred sacrifice,
Through troubles of the worldly muddling
He wretchedly and blindly shuffles;
His holly lyre is quite silent;
His soul’s in the sleeping, soft,
And mid the dwarves of the world-giant,
He, perhaps, is the shortest dwarf.
But when a word of god’s commands,
Touches his ear, always attentive,
It starts – the heart of the Bard native –
As a waked eagle ever starts.
He’s sad in earthly frolics, idle,
Avoids folks’ gossips, always spread,
At feet of the all-peoples’ idol
He does not bend his proud head;
He runs – the wild, severe, stunned,
Full of confusion, full of noise –
To the deserted waters’ shores,
To woods, widespread and humming loud…
Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, November 13, 2003
Oct 19, 2018
Oct 19, 2018 at 5:39 PM UTC
I would crush the guilty like ants under my boot
I would build monuments of their sins and watch evil legacies tailspin
I have had enough of their moral muddling and murderous marauding
No more innocent blood will be shed, not on my world
War will be a fable told to children before bedtime
Those with hate in their hearts would have them forcefully removed
Those that have worked and toiled in pain will be given rest and reparation
Empathy will be the currency most desired and dispensed
I would seat the deserving upon crystal thrones and indulge their hope
I would slit the throats of those that speak violence and scatter their flesh
I have no desire for solace until all have received their karmic doses
Fear is an instrument of weakness, a **** fit for vermin, not my society
I'll make a great scale within my mind and weigh deeds done
Good people deserve more than the flimsy vestiges of past charity
They will see my face and recognize that swift justice is the only solution
They will see an acceptance of death if corruption overtakes my spirit
I would raise the slaves and groom them into kings
I would turn their ancestors’ sweat into red wine and diamond rings
I would lift their chins up to the limitless sky
To infinite empires waiting to be built
This world?
This galaxy?
Ha!
The entire universe will be a reflection of my design
Jun 6, 2016
Jun 6, 2016 at 7:50 PM UTC
everything's gone to hell but
i'm still clinging on to the hope
that i will wake up one morning,
finally feeling at peace,
and turn everything around.
but, until then, i'm muddling
through the storms and
crawling through the barbed
wires and that's okay with
me because i know this, like
everything else, will pass.
in time.
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 3:33 AM UTC
They burn in my bones.
They course through my veins.
They eat at my stomach.
Each and every one of my fears.
This is my life now,
All shrouded in panic.
Picking away at what sanity is left.
Muddling my brain.
Sharpening my reactions.
Piercing through my eyes.
Each and every one of my fears.
My world is nothing
Except a whole lot of confusion,
As to why the world isn't collapsed.
Dec 30, 2014
Dec 30, 2014 at 9:50 PM UTC
Sometimes, I look at you and I can't speak.
Once in a while, it's because I'm marveling
At what a work of art you are.
Now and again, it's because
I want to hold your hand.
Occasionally, it's because I want
To feel your arm around me.
And once or twice, it's because
I want to kiss you.
Mostly though, it's because
I start to feel like I'm dying.
There's something that stabs into me,
Twisting my heart
And muddling my mind.
That's usually due to a couple of things.
One: I miss you more than I can explain.
Or two: you forgot about me.
Sometimes it's both.
I know you never really forget about me,
But it feels that way.
We're sitting five feet apart
And you don't look my way once.
I challenge myself not to look at you for a minute,
Then two or three, four or five.
Because every time I glance your way,
You're laughing at something someone else said.
Another person made you smile.
You're so wrapped up in other people
That I slip your mind.
And that's totally normal.
It's to be expected.
I know it's weird,
And it's probably wrong,
But I think about you all the time.
I wonder what you're doing
And how you feel.
I hope that you're doing okay,
And that you're thinking about me.
Sometimes when I get upset
I want to see you so badly.
Want to talk to you,
Hear you say my name.
Hear you say that it'll be okay.
That always helps.
To feel your hand on my shoulder
Or even better,
To find myself wrapped in a hug.
You have the power to make things better.
You matter to me a lot,
And I know you so well.
There's always a joke to be made,
Or a smile to be shared between us.
Those times are the best.
But then, sometimes
I look at you and I can't speak.
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 4:59 PM UTC
I'm interlacing with Lehman
again what does
that mean I
don't know but maybe
the answer connects Dean
with Ella and
him with us in Film
on TV through VR
singing Broadway Medleys
in a cool Grandfather's wobble
in a crystal Voice
like Mom's clarion call
a silver thread
running through our dull
tapestry I'm mixing
metaphors
muddling music
weaving songs before work
before heatmaps
Seurat R packages
multicolored modality
in higher dimension
again what does
that mean I
don't know but maybe
we just keep interlacing
May 23, 2016
May 23, 2016 at 9:52 PM UTC
We left on the excuse of
Wanting to listen
To
"Just one song".
But when we arrived at the place
That kept us from the outside
We decided to go ahead and drive
And I've never had a smile so big
I was actually scared
My face might rip
And I could die
Or we could drive off a cliff
Or smoke a laced spliff
It makes no difference to me
As long as you're around
Even if that means muddling through
The week
In our seperate towns
Until one of us can come down
For the weekend.
And we're too loud
But it's only because we're used
To trying to bridge the distance
With a vocalized insistence
That we'll find a way back
Even if it's back roads and red eyes and runny noses
I know how it goes
And I've chosen to stay
When I would usually take the easy way
I'd be out and gone
But we're leaving together
And with you
I try to do less wrong.
Last night
one more song
Turned into a vulnerable
Sob
And awkward consolation
Turned to snot on my shoulder
And the comfort of
Human warmth.
I would address how we should go forward
But I know it doesn't matter
I'll see you again
And you'll catch my spinning head
And I'll hug you
And hug you
And never get enough
Sweet thing,
You're the good stuff.
12.20.14 cem
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 11:25 AM UTC
Dyslexia, mixed messages
Everything so confusing
Susceptible to misusing;
A 'B' becomes a 'D' instantaneously
And screws things up simultaneously.
A short trip from insanity to inanity.
Fiscal confuses with physical
Turning laudable into laughable
So quickly eyes can't disguise
Whether one means the skies
Or perhaps one means this guy's.
If read, confusion and contusion
Seem like quibbling over siblings
But things like read and read
Only different when they're said
Take un-signalled turns in the head
And instead come out backward,
Which should be spelled backword.
Muddling and confuddling resides
Issuing thundering broadsides,
Rendering and sundering any
Blundering inadept ineptitudes
Like some kind of garbled beatitudes.
Some take hostile attitudes.
Wheedling and wheeling away
Beetling and saying it wrong;
Maybe a song can be written
And some tongues can be bitten,
Taken aback by words taken back,
As the Raven said "Never more!"
Dec 24, 2016
Dec 24, 2016 at 4:18 AM UTC
Deathline, trapped, burdened, crashed, crushed
Locked up for hours muddling thoughts of escape
The sun, the bright freezing sky, dark blue churned up ocean topped with white caps
like moving whipped cream
I dream, from my claustrophobic place
Pressure cooked, mind squished, must I say this again and again
Finish. Burden lifted, fantasy of floating away
must stay, mind locked into treadmill, rolling out producing
breathing stale air, mind in a tunnel, through muddy darkness
Dec 9, 2013
Dec 9, 2013 at 2:07 PM UTC