"mundanity" poems
The deeps of darkness have been raised
As if their being was kindled.
The warm night of peace is at an end.
The devil is he that rages unchecked this night, and there are none to withstand him.
The shield wall breaks, the cavalry routed, and the meanest defence stands alone.
What shall become of these men?
Death surely, for the miracles of poetry give lie to no truth. The curses of old are set in concrete.
Death has gained his presence here. He smells victory. For the living in their mundanity see only their existence.
This existence that means nothing in the tomes of the greater good.
There is no life, only sorrow.
There is no victory, only decimation.
Only the naive think thus.
Victory is not that of arms and steel.
Nor of land or gold or tales of which bards sing
Victory is in the fight that was fought.
For they that wage the good war, and fight the good fight, all is victory.
Defeat is beyond question. Life is not of consequence.
The act alone reigns supreme.
This isn't joy. This isn't glory.
For victory chooses not the last man to stand, but the last to fall in defiance. Victory belongs to the departed. The victorious dead.
And such as it is. It shall end now.
And it's end alone worthy of song .
For all who bear witness to it.
We die, we do not flee.
Mar 23, 2016
Mar 23, 2016 at 2:32 AM UTC
"You're the Ariel to my Prospero"
He says grinning
with dagger pearl teeth
that could nibble my ear
or easily rip out my heart.
Ignorant of his mundanity
He does not know of those
who came before.
Names are relative.
"You're the Puck to my Oberon"
"You're the Tink to my Peter Pan"
Heard 'em all.
Plight of the Manic Pixie
Not Dream Girl.
Charming Sassy Childish
girl.
Sidekick Extraordinaire.
But lower than Robin to his Batman.
Messenger, Trickster, Mischief Maker.
Companion.
Adventurer.
with a temper ten times his size.
A power unnamed. Unused.
Never Enough.
Never enough
to Want to challenge her master.
ProsperoOberonPeter
I will drink the poison for you.
I will sink the ship.
I will find the ****** flower
and enchant the Fairy queen.
Follow orders, then twist them.
With some glittler and a devilish smile.
Crazy Tiny
girl.
Too pixie to hold on to
Catch me Boy!
Alreadycaughtnoneedtocatch.
Little ****** Manic Pixie
Yearning for a kiss
a touch
a word.
When you're a manic pixie
there's no trio
no male sidekick to choose
over
the hero.
But the hero gets the girl.
Manic Pixies live to serve.
Not dignified or wise enough for Royal Athena.
Not ruthless enough for the Dangerous Diana.
Without the darkness of the Morrigan.
Virginity isn't a choice.
It's part of the job description.
Could I be your ladybird?
Feb 1, 2014
Feb 1, 2014 at 11:46 AM UTC
I'm really sick.
Like ***** is going to come out of my mouth--
an eruption of **** from my ears is due.
I've laid too long dormant
and one by one the hot spots of my petty jealousy,
indignation, and
mistrust are at boiling points:
The Ring of Fire, they call it.
Yellowstone
I'm the ********* Yellowstone caldera.
The great rim,
****** up and blister scarred,
knock-kneed from falling out of bed in nightmares,
weird from the predisposition to volcanic shittiness
(not in a romantic way)
but none the less active,
or reactive.
This vexation is as old as grinding plates.
This repulsion is as old as the poisoning of Aristotle
My head is the Spartan scythe
because I'm a new sign in an old world.
I use old signs to poison this newly dug well between us
But not well can I keep this message
banner
******* billboard to myself.
So let me just wrap the code from ear to ear,
in plain text where you can see
the cypher: **** your red dress.
You see,
those blisters are the gravity between White Dwarves
pulling at skin, and earth, and ending thrown halfway across the universe.
I knew I'd seen you before,
there at the edge of the Oort Cloud
where we tell people we just met:
I stopped eating
I was hurt once
I was ugly too
and no one was really listening.
You and the rest of our red dresses meant too little.
But still then why do you whine over the hungry, and hurt, and ugly
and spit in my face for being there at the Edge,
and for loving the thrill in listlessness,
the passion in mundanity?
And that ******** about the shallowness of victims?
You didn’t learn a thing
traveling and trusting and falling out of beds.
Your drunken honesty is your sober lack of layers.
This isn’t a far reach of space,
your torn dress and cork heels won't work here.
Don’t bring that littleness here,
you're the only one not really listening now.
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 12:25 AM UTC
Trill of beak into birch. Dawn spooks
the graveyard into silence. A heart
hardens at God’s withered finger reaching
but not reached for. I trim the hedges
and the whir of weed-eater disturbs
a nest of yellow jackets into tornado,
dust devil, of translucent wings and sting.
I walk among the dead three times a week.
I am learning their language. They relearn
the mundanity of white noise above
and quietly forget, quietly forgive.
This hill is the crest on a wave of coffins,
each one a boat through the world below.
Submerged in a bloodshot morning
I listen to a woodpecker in its throes
of building a home out of the depths of bark.
In the chill, the soft fog rolling, it pecks
and it knocks. The doors to these lives
long closed, I hush. I do not believe God
will visit these grounds to reclaim his clay:
I plant flowers in it between the plots,
each name engraved of marble a blank stare.
The flash of red flushes from budding branches
and I return to work. No one answers.
I relearn the dead’s language, their silence,
relearn every day how to repair stillness.
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 12:38 PM UTC
They say it's the distance that kills the flame
Puff sizzle and pop
The dying ember of love screaming its last breath
To the stars
The moon
Heavens ears are muted
These wailing screeching tryst
Happen daily
Yearly
The product of love that laid to close
Curdling like sour milk in the jealous heart
Burning like rancid acid
Chinese water torture to the brain
Maddening mundanity to fill the void of meaning
Like monkeys their minds seek to dull it's own screams
Love left rotting
Stinking in the distance that dragged it further spreading the filth
But the distance isn't the deceiver at least one can see the evidence of betrayal
Before it sneaks behind
And stabs them with their own thoughts
Confuse them with their own feelings
And drag them under to feast on their own flesh
No distance doesn't ******
It is the heart that deceives
It is the heart that renders false reality
Blinds the eyes to its own pain
And tricks the tongue to speak
Where it has no place
It is the heart that is its own martyr
The godly victim
Whom's motive is selfish
To **** what wounds it
But it's justice is the death of itself
And these sheets held love
Whispered melting
Scalding devotions
Held the iron hot to brand itself the dutiful
But in obligation left once more
Leaving blood fresh
The heart murdered once more
Dec 30, 2013
Dec 30, 2013 at 1:08 AM UTC
It is the mundanity of the act,
of envisioning your hand gently wrapped around the copper kettle.
Obstinately gripping the pen, while you wring a sheet of paper dry for the right words.
You, cupping my face as if you were holding something precious.
As if I might slip through your fingers.
It is this devastating simplicity that obliterates every shard of my being.
A brick wall, left at the mercy of a gleaming sledgehammer
that is determined to turn everything to dust.
I see your hands everywhere.
In the haze of steam and shower curtains,
the lines dragged in velvet throw pillows,
the cloudy smudges left on a glass of water.
They run faint paths through my hair, their touch ghosts against my eyelid.
If I stare long enough,
your palm is right there, pressing into mine.
Silver cuts through the air and delivers a redundant blow.
The dust scatters once more.
You did not leave a hole
the way everyone said you were bound to.
Empty space cannot exist without everything that surrounds it, yields to it, forgives it,
validates its gaping hollowness.
Empty space is a needle and thread on the dresser, a sellotape dispenser on the desk, a container of soup left on the doorstep with a get-well-soon scribbled on the lid.
Empty space is where you can see remnants of what once was whole.
The faith and conviction that bit by bit, you will put your fragmented pieces back together again.
The nothing you left was so thick and suffocating
that it permeated every room,
filled my lungs to bursting capacity and left me gasping for more.
Its sickly, bitter fragrance danced relentlessly in my nostrils,
as though my suffering was the sweetest symphony ever heard.
It waltzed until I could feel it rising in my throat and leaking from my eyes,
twirled until my head spun.
The nothing you left insisted on making its presence known my every waking moment
and then gleefully romped its way into my nightmares.
It was so quiet, though.
A resigned quiet, like that of the ****** swinging in the gallows,
when everybody holds their breath to watch the pendulum sway.
The crossbeam glistens with last night’s rain and
they trudge back home, muttering to themselves as the dust settles beneath their feet.
I sink into sheets creased by your fingers and watch it sway.
Aug 21, 2021
Aug 21, 2021 at 6:45 AM UTC
The audacity
that you would write a ***** a love letter
That you would in so many words announce your affections for a **********
Thay you would pour out your heart
to a harlot
But here in hand i have it
written in blood turned tan from time travel
caligraphy cornerstones that mark the foundation for forgiveness
lithography laden with agony for the cause of love
It's as if even now, i can watch your quill
as it traipses across parchment
fabricated from your very own lamb's skin
still marred with scars
rough and red
tears at it's edges
and holes torn by gashes
the audacity of that "I love you"
scrawled in the crucifix cursive of the creator of the earth and its
universe
unfurled to cut the mundanity with meaning
The audacity...
I am wordless.
My soul is far from speechless.
Apr 30, 2012
Apr 30, 2012 at 2:02 PM UTC
Oh, where the fair sun's light glistens the sand,
and the crystal waves of the sea so blue,
A paradise, caressed by nature grand,
my freedom, whom I have loved before you!
Its calm mountains of beauty incarnate
to a thousand fortunes I would relish!
Trysts with knowledge, ideas passionate,
with life, liberty, shall I not cherish?
But when you, oh darling of my vision,
are ****** to the hell of mundanity,
I cling to light that darkens my mission,
drowned in the abyss of iniquity!
Dreams, awakened and fulfilled at life's cost,
Memories, future of bliss, all is lost!
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 2:21 AM UTC
I see you in colors no one else can see
As if the light had split and lay you down for me -
painfully so -
arrogantly pursuing a spectrum so elaborate...
golden and gleaming...
God, do i try to keep up:
I see you as the red green blue black that resides under our protective layer of peach
Crimson cheeks and crimson thoughts
Ivy trailing hair of such unexplainality
mundanity fails to carry your weight -
But green seemed so innocently subtle to contain those veins
that stick out like a spill against ivory eyelids
sheltering yet more purple, bronze, a bouquet of vessels -- -
oh, god-ridden terracotta of your tips
red just doesn't cut it for me and blue leaves a sticky trail in the tongue when you're just so
unashamedly golden, apricotted, sparks of whatever next that i find in your eyes
colours i couldn't mix
no matter how hard i tried.
Feb 21, 2015
Feb 21, 2015 at 4:22 PM UTC
A couple hours from now, as we are toasting a farewell to a neoteric past, a new year will emerge from the ashes of 2017. Like a phoenix, it will rise again, and sing sweet songs of new beginnings and manifest hope for a better year. We wait for this day in anticipation praying the months to follow will be anything but a repetition of a life once lived. We convince ourselves that we will be more productive, that we will be more active, and that THIS is the year that will change our lives. So we set New Years resolutions, we mark our calendars with exciting new adventures, we establish new goals and reimagine our old dreams hoping that in this new year, we can accomplish them all. But, for many eager and willing people, months will go by without any true transformation. And as the year draws closer to its end, they are again transfixed by old habits and excuses. Their excitement and determination will have faded into the mundanity of reality setting them back to where they were before. For a new year can’t be the driving force for change. A new year shouldn’t be the starting point for innovation. Because refinement shouldn’t be pushed to a certain date and time. And if someone really wants to revolutionize their life, why wait?
Dec 31, 2017
Dec 31, 2017 at 7:42 PM UTC
November dazzles
In its mundanity.
The month between the
Russet autumn and blue winter.
Skeletal leaves
on the lyre are strung
In azure frosts
in emerald forests
and encrusted with rubies.
Novembers reclines in its throne.
In a minute,
a minute or so
It will slip to salt
and December's long
bequeathed chorus will begin
And so I will savour
these few shining seconds
a little longer.
Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 6:04 AM UTC
In the midst of cotton fields,
the blood stained parched mud.
The footprints deeply imprinted,
did they walk with a future unheard,
A scene from a western entertainment.
The reality however frightened,
with thoughts of ancient past,
and you wonder how and why?!!
Why the instances of violent thrill?
To belittle the powerless under your control.
Why the question of untouchable and discontent?
The question to freedom pertained throughout,
by many great souls over a period of time?
The cheap skill all around,
once and forever for granted,
the then degradation of human mind,
continues to speed up phony mundanity.
In the lost time with unknown souls,
wishing for a priceless touch,
a brush with the everlasting feel,
of forgotten past,to play the note of enrichment,
With a love so pure found in a fantasy.
And there she walks away
with a whipped back into her glorious world reluctantly,
looking for a bright Sunday morning.
Jan 16, 2015
Jan 16, 2015 at 2:26 AM UTC
He was an exister
Was bestowed the breath of mundanity
Never questioned
His parents
His teachers
Grew up to be a lawyer
Not to bring justice
But to be a lawyer
Because he never questioned
His parents
His teachers
And then he retired
He had saved all of his earnings
Not because he needed to
But because he never questioned
His parents
His teachers
Society
Finally he had retired
At last, he could live
But before he could
He took his last breath of mundanity
He died
Jun 24, 2015
Jun 24, 2015 at 12:51 PM UTC
when you ask me if I'm bored
of listening to your terrible stories,
it makes me think about
what boredom means to me
and why it’s beauty that I find
in apparent mundanity.
you color my life in every tone of grey -
in a nourishing and poetic, underrated way.
GREY - the soul of every color in the world;
Invisible and aligned - right between extremes -
like all well designed things are known to be.
Or maybe because grey
feels like routine,
and you’re the everyday
that's to come and that has been.
you're where I set my bar for normal;
you're my Sunday night pajama informal.
You’re my common sense, and my reality check,
my perspective lens, my goodnight peck.
and even your grim phone voice
and plot less stories on sleepless nights
are part of the palette I've come to adore,
painting magic in monochrome.
Nov 30, 2018
Nov 30, 2018 at 2:43 AM UTC
With eyes wide open I take a step
A pounding heart beats in my chest
Fear clashes with tenacity
I fear more a life of mundanity
I must find the strength that's within
A deep breath and so it begins
Today marks the start of my journey
I embark because I am worthy
And....so are you.
Aug 2, 2018
Aug 2, 2018 at 8:37 AM UTC
A worn out segment sliced from the cake of life
Raging candles burned down to nothing, wax
Parting company, blazing wick no longer cares
Hot and fiery, flames deny their existence
Forgetting the meaning of life as they fade away
Burning episode....they’d waited all their lives
For, dissolved, quick and painful, heat searing
Cake sliced open to spill its contents, only
To be munched and mulched into oesophablivion
Short and sweet, guaranteed to be swallowed
With no regard for the time and toil of preparation
Of melting moments, whisking wildly, meeting
New partners, shaking hands magnificently to
Encourage the flavours to follow through...as if
They should know who they are, what they’re for
Is life a cake or a gateau coated in whipped double
Cream? Next to my lips the cream melts splendidly
A cake connoisseur I’m not, neither do I eat the same
Slice, mundanity slipping away with each mouthful, no
Point in rubbing salt into the wounds, cram in the
Fullness that is living, bloated out with your cake
.......and eat it!
Jan 29, 2013
Jan 29, 2013 at 7:18 AM UTC
Stolen the shawl from the shoulders of night
Slipping away with the dawn
Folding down the duvet, the new day
Stretching glossy nailed sentinels to
Rub the sleep from lashes of tell tale
Dreams that took mundanity into
Fine wine and rich red realms
Fresh out of tactics to ring in favours
The sheets depart my limbs and
Water connects skin on skin
Fluffy spurs washed away clean
Spun out of secret doors into the unknown
Shoving me, nudging me, reminding me
I’m heading to reality
Tipping my head toward the warm air
The continuing whirring of its mechanism
Vibrates my follicles and lends me in the
Direction of humanity, the peacock
Plume doused and preened into shape
I begin the trawl of closet colour
Of mood matching, of image portrayal
Set for the external clock to tick
I trust myself that wheels upon tarmac
Will hold me to my destination
Releasing me safe and sound to the
Jaws of business, its never ending
Narcissism purchasing my daily bread
Released from the bind **** of
Incongruence, sheltering under the
Safe shell of my emerging reality
It comforts my bones, grazing me with
Honesty and genuine intuition that
Hope isn’t baron or depleted
Grandeur awaits me and I am true
To my facing stare.....reflecting
Jul 20, 2012
Jul 20, 2012 at 6:15 PM UTC
There is a burning sensation right behind the optic nerves of my eyeballs
I have reached 52th and Amsterdam, I am still blocks away from the Cathedral
I told the woman not to wear heels, impractical as they are,
I hope God is noticing the bleeding callouses on her feet.
I can’t walk inside the Cathedral,
for me I am already in it,
this city as an honest temple of man,
in all it’s raw scarring and beauty.
Months go by.
I am nowhere near the apartment off 70th and Amsterdam
There is still a burning behind the optic nerves of my eyeballs
It is frustrating. I have
been recording a song for hours
trying to replicate the static of the waves near the ocean bay
trying to somehow enunciate my words
while still being the right pitch
it is hard
and I am pleasing no one.
And so now I write a poem about it,
listing away all the curious mundanity
of all of it.
Jan 26, 2012
Jan 26, 2012 at 11:37 PM UTC
My darling girl
with a smile so bright.
I would've handed you the bricks
to build up your walls
So it hurts less when you fall.
I would've held your hand
and made it okay
So we could see that bright smile again someday.
I would've kept you safe.
But I have not lived
and this mundanity would've killed you
Faster than your noose.
Sep 7, 2012
Sep 7, 2012 at 4:11 PM UTC
Nothing has meaning.
Everything is pointless,
an inane transient cloud.
A single breath of smoke.
Think of all the blood and tears
that you pour into your work.
What do you actually gain
from any of your labouring?
Generations flourish then fade
each one replacing another that passes,
leaving no sign they were ever there,
only the dirt that fell from their feet.
The dawn sun drags itself into the sky
then falls back down as dusk comes,
repeating its dreary cycle over and over
with the same numbing certainty.
The wind gusts towards the south
then changes and rushes north,
mindlessly blowing one way then another,
constant in its confused and erratic pursuits.
Every drop of water ends in the ocean
but the seas are never satiated and so
the rivers and streams keep flowing,
repeating their tedious cycles again.
Every aspect of life inspires apathy
and is filled with indescribable monotony.
Each dull thing bores the eyes blind
and deafens the ears with mundanity.
All that has once been will be again.
Every single thing that takes place
is merely an imitation of another.
There is nothing original on earth.
Some people might claim or insist
that they have something new to offer,
but you can guarantee that all it will be
is a rehashed and repackaged cliché.
All that man achieves will pass away
and the supposedly great things
that will be accomplished in the future,
will also fade into nothingness.
Jul 11, 2016
Jul 11, 2016 at 3:41 PM UTC
The low slung summer sun, hung asunder
under the thunder we plunder and blunder
Is it any wonder we paint with these numbers
The portrait of a scene, plastered in the retina
broken hearted because that day was terrible
The first bright day, after months of misery
every storm lost in collective recent history
Five O'clock rung violent in warehouse silence
the casual commute home seemed so timeless
Turn through Hyson Green past a Halal shop
through the lonely back roads to Radford's top
Stopped by the garages when the wind had turned
to see a classic hometown scene almost adjourned
What happened never should have happened that way
As the memories linger they feel like a tragic screenplay
Man say to man, give me everything you have
man say man, how could you possibly say that
Sky say to clouds, let the sun shiver
crook say to poet, I need your **** liver
Poet say to God, lord when will I be free?
god say to poet, please stop bothering me
Beast say to boy, I'll count to three
boy say to beast, that I'd like to see
So man pulled a knife and waved it in the air
and man looked away, in absolute despair
Knife said to man, hey poke me in there
and man penetrated man with incredible flair
Muscle say to flesh, this doesn't feel right
eyes say to brain, this is a terrible sight
Knife say to body, do you feel that huh?
nervous system shocked replied, nu-uh
Skin say to vessels, you need to stop bleeding
Vessels say to brain I think we need healing
Brain say to body, we're going down heavy
Death say to life, we've broken that levee
Man said to knife, you've had enough fun
knife said to man, we've only just begun
I looked away petrified and pulling at my head
for when I looked back at the scene,
it was me lying dead.
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 3:19 PM UTC
- for R. you're not reading this, alas & in any case you wouldn't care-
Another sunset,
the clouds stained
Warhol red, passion pink
interspersed with yellow
cider streaks
of dying sunlight
birds ****
leaves, mumbling, rustle
a snail crawls
it should be a full moon
tonight
one of the last
August moons
I'm thinking
of how that summer
in college
it was too hard to breathe
for the heat & pollution
yet how I made it
up that hill every time
birds cease to ****
leaves to rustle
a snail still crawls
August Moon rises
& I think
of werewolves
& how anyone could
be this under the right conditions
faceless office workers
doing time
ripping off shirts
wildly in the night
to howl
in ****** of mundanity
I know how you cope,
like me, you have your poetry
& I have free time
to read it
as often as I want
& to think
of your genius
breaking up minutes
into diamonds
that I keep in my heart
under lock & key
a danger, imminent
Aug 29, 2015
Aug 29, 2015 at 3:54 PM UTC
From dawn until dusk
To the sweat, dripping musk;
From attacks of musth
To that One Golden month.
Rising solid in the dawn--
As the bronzed Ego of Purpose--
Mustering self-esteem's brawn
Cools my trademark Nervose Verbose
But do appointments, notes,
Lectures, hecklers, and Beckers,
Distract the mind that dotes?
The Heart Desperate for Nectar?
Hah! such defensive thoughts....
Fallacies of Neuroses.
Just polishing my doubts,
Vainly "pleasing" my unease.
Monday's mundanity
Fails my lie of character--
Left with Insanity
Railing lines under pressure
And then, faces--balance blurs
Into downed neurons
Where not nobody cares to
"Think about the children!"
Feb 13, 2014
Feb 13, 2014 at 4:58 PM UTC
remember?
you left a mark, blood, scars, a touch
all over just every where
i grew older and younger carrying holding these things you had me hold and i drank them all in and they were a part of me, me
your photographs are so pretty so very truly lovely and the black and white
the black and white always did **** me i loved the nostalgia you see because nothing makes me cry
like that citrus sharp twinge of the old, the fading, the forever gone and lingering inside, outside infused in the rain pouring itself inside me. the decades haunt me, will always haunt me, travelling like happiness inside a musty ruin
the hollow needles of desire they pierce the sunshine mundanity of my everyday, everyday has these little holes now and they look like you and anything
anything that looks like you is just too much too very much it makes the sunshine melt into clouds and burn brighter. at the same time
at the same time is what confounds compels rivets and other lovely words me. how?
How can this be joy, joy so overwheleming while it leaves me ravenous and aching so deep i can taste the shadows of your soul in mine
i remember
i remember too much and too little and these absurd oxymorons can be the title of everything of me of you and that space between, the space was magic when i was a wind breadth away from your finger tips; the space a gaping hole now so black that i'd need another language, an epithet to make it real
rainbows and butterflies and sexhappy peanut butter.
Jun 26, 2012
Jun 26, 2012 at 9:02 PM UTC