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Terry Collett Jun 2012
They what?
said Gran
they said we weren’t

to run around the rain shelter
you replied
did they now?

Well if you want to run  
around the rain shelter
my dears you run around

and up Gran got
and trotted around
to the couple

on the other side
of the circular
rain shelter

and words were said
and niceties exchanged
and the couple

got up and left
but Granddad had sat
where he was

staring out at
the grey mist
over the sea

the exchanging
of niceties was not for him
he preferred the colour

of the seaside town flowers
in a nearby bed
or the smell of the salty sea

and when you
and your sister
and Gran returned

to where he was sitting
he said
Sorted it then

and Gran said
Of course
and Granddad said

Good and looked at
the white hair
of his wife

and the grey/blue eyes
that stared fixedly at him
and her plump short stature

and added
I knew you’d see them off
you’ve got more bite

than the bleeding dog at home
and Gran laughed
and you

and your sister
went off to run around
the rain shelter

the grey mist
distorting the sea
and deserted beach

but not the sound
of gulls or sea
rushing on the shore

or of Gran standing
in front of the couple
hands on hips

a string of words
and angry sounds
coming from her lips.
Jade Feb 2013
"good morning"
a distracted nod
the door opens

"have a nice day"
a preoccupied glance
the elevator closes

"have a nice weekend"
an abstracted smile
the register clatters

oh the niceties of the ersatz existence
yet another day in paradise
Julian Apr 2020
Floating above the rifts of apperception I glaze over the gaudy faucets of imagined vector thrusts in hibernation by the lucubration of space-time materialized crystal in the somber beats of fetched farrago of choice slices in delicate hums of hemmed balance rantipole only in ethereal importance but otherwise supersolid above the sprauncy vagrancy of dilettantism. We shout a clarion virtuosity so that the conclamation of neovitalism conjures upon a spell of lapse and regress a motive for further crystallization of epidemiology into harmony with syndicated admonition sleek in design and parceled into renown by feats of completion rather than slugabed gregarious fountains of wasted ingenuity bleeding from the vacuum of an empty hearth in a hospitable dwelling otherwise cleared of imperfection. Right now, I levitate with transcendence with an approximated eidetic memory that is the surgical vibrancy of renewal rather than the chameleons of hidden talents buried by the walls of Jericho sounding tocsins of alarm that the anointed favor of choice destruction is only an encircled rapture of rhapsodies of confluence found in axiomatic truths ribbed with the futtocks of seaworthy but cauponate recidivism into the donnybrooks of apocryphal revelation preceding the whimsical fall of cascading permanence just as gravity so ordained it. We breathe the life of the ethereal numinous spirit of isangelous repute because we navigate the exquisite cobweb of reconciliation to surpass all understanding in peace what would be a miscegenated carcass of war otherwise apart from the incidental apartheid of the drones of causality ignoring the antecedent reality too much to register fathomed streaks of preventive endeavor because of the scars of a scrappy schlep of the rampicks of ecbolic servitude to moth-eaten star-crossed lovers of the mean menagerie of gutless succor renowned only in tepid rejections of harbingers bequeathed in succession but ignored because of the procession of “Billie Jean” politics.

   The citadel aflame with controversy buttresses carnality by witless contaminants of hidebound scaldabancos of ineffable destitution so craven in eisoptrophobia for their hypostasized indolent fatuousness of capitulation that they are but a minor punctuation in the largesse of centuries to favor audacity in candor over the prevarications of catastrophe to dented human pride against humane dictates of theodicy in fatalism that predestination experimented with its own vaulted verve to find permanent solutions engraved in the agrapha of time to solidify the redintegrated truth of God’s divine stewardship above the quisquilous deism of former regnant centuries of blench and blandishment. We revolt at the specter of rot only when the effluvia of disgust elevates the visceral reality above the utilitarianism of recycled prim nuisances of noisome lineage that yet balk because they are bereft of attention but not a vacant talent and therefore should the subsidies of man surpass the ignorance of appearances he will shrug of the demur of the scrimshank and sharpen his scrivello in the service of redemption found through cultivated prowess of gardens beneath where rivers flow above a cubic centurion of embattled visages of the heavens becoming the rampart for the vestigial clarity of Secret Masters to foresee the bypass that heals decadence and rebukes the formalism of puritan endeavor to sweat with exhaustive patience over the gossamer intertesselations of a ripe reality rather than a groveled fragmentary world shattered too much by exigent metanoia to mount the crenellated catchpole of vigilant enmity towards the stew of listlessness found in epigone and farce more than in organic fortunes. We flip the upheaval of society to squander our proportionate degrees of wealth on the necessity created by dire quandary which enamors by interrogations of pulchritude the verisimilitude of participle ivory dalliance of etched canvasses of simultagnosia for the librations of the liberated rings of betrothed liberation despite profound lurches of the mistetches of ignorance presiding dismally over the hulked disdain of glamborge rather than resselenque.

     The winter is a poor porcine glut of ciconine swelters because the prickly obtuse recoil of the delopes of caution find their permeable balance with a sort of photographic photosynthesis that braves the dearth of reprieve for the reprisal of nostalgic deeds found in the docimasy of riveted reflections because the preordination of God is the superlative champion of the witeless grandeval protectorate of infinite concepts guarded from the parvanimity even of the most strident minds squabbling over the braseros and battues of history as though those funereal stains of lachrymose regret outweigh the traditions of vaunted human progress because they are finicky about importunate pleas of subsidiary injustice rather than fulminations of the modern rebuttal to the disclaimers of an uneven history that shepherds the doubts of nihilism into ripe fruition at the expense of very expensive moral rot for the codlings of urbacity and mendaciloquence used to foment that tribalism of totemic justice. We see in Penuel the wrestling match of specters and heroic giants documented on the ageless pages and we notice the ironic twinges of struggle that kneaded the propriety of gentilian privilege that ultimately fostered an insurrection against chosen bravado among those that sear with zeal beyond the yordim afflictions of yobbery because the Jewish heart is stronger than any calamity even if it departs from the reverence of the colporteurs of the integrated syncretism of the attempted monolith that beseeches polyphiloprogenitive growth in mindset rather than in testy abeyance of forbearance because of known scrutinies into the tropology of wilted facts remanded by curious historicity that crumples without disdain when we memorialize the erasure of scepsis by modern standards of thaumaturgy.

    The minauderies of growth are a repositioned tacit allegiance to the untold fanfare and hearsay immunized against the broach of facetious levity to buoy discordant hearts above fumatoriums of relentless ignorance because coherent masterwork can be cobbled without such lapidary toil and toll on sincere affectations of wizened brevity. The seismic precautions for the forefathers of incidental convergences between expectancy and crystallized history are an ironic intortion of priorities because the heralds and tribunes matched the peerless foresight with the gerrymandered figments of apartheid between the imaginary and the real so that the delicate synchrony of events could unfurl a riveting carapace from the shells of protection even in amiable squalor for its impenitent attrition on the volleys of sensible rumor becoming fashioned in covert bedazzled errors in judgment leading to the triumph of the eventual civilization over the futtocks of the burial of the former trekleador of zenkidu belonging to provincial cadasters found so tucked in the hedges that discernment of frikmag would be an indelible scourge on the biognosy of the diagnosed endeavors that elapsed into remediated circumstances that brave the depths of deontological violation for the breadth of apportioned loaves and two swanky fish earning a place among the miracles of transcendent liberation from articles of decree imperious by sardonic disdain becoming nullified by the histrionics of a delicately staged orchestra that cements human achievement.

       We relish the frescades of a ruffled autumnal reminder of flourish above pothers of the screed of admonition swamped by nostalgic backtracks in the séance with ultimatum of design and the impregnated and carnal lusts of a world pitched in darkness with guarded lambent lights fomenting a perjury against tact for the deliverance of freedom in tacit agreement with owleries that every bonanza be tithed in their favor regardless of hibernation of spoilsports or their subsidiary remarks on indelible quills of invented manufactured realities we crave with desperation rather than cower from in requited nescience urging us to depart from affairs and stagnate the loyalty of fealty above the limber of utility mobilized above levities for solemn remarks and rejoinders. Promulgated above the robotic rubble of staffage haywire in wiredrawn contemplative resonance of tremulous subterfuge vestigial but immediate to the yardsticks of reprehensible malarkey, is the barnstorm for erratic dimples sauntered by the saunas of shelter above the chaos of ruined ginnels for the gimcracks of auxiliary duty to service, is the glorification of the sultry intimations of legions of remonstrance in guarded decorum about sunken atrocities lapsed in memorial to the incumbent brunt of sockdolagers of justice returning revenants from the bridewell of historical internment. The symphily of orchestras to cineaste symposiasts of surquedry in impudence beyond the brays of betrayal is the aborning mythos of regimented perceptions of a world that when magnified by minutiae appears starkly contrast to the gapped gubbertushed reality of the average patron of the arts to such an extreme gulf of receptive understanding that the qualia are dovetailed only in the swink of careful kisswonks to certify certitude itself when all the fragments coalesce into subjoined harmony to the substructures of inherent conscientiousness. The miracles at work that are vesicles and vessels for the swage of imprint above the loyalty of the imprinted tribunes of the fluminous is how hidden protrusions can emerge so victorious over popularized glazes on the pastures of a farmed culture itching for timmynoggies of innovation but only finding the etched remarks of pristine imagos of heroism dwindling in motivation to surpass the imaginative leaps accustomed to a newfangled laziness that bedazzles the guzzle of crowds but not the discrimination of the crowded morass of incompletion found in mosaics missing enigmatic philters of intoxicated love for the profound. So to be intermediary as a custodian for artistry we must cozen the wheedled imaginations not of the relic but the archaeologist that discovered the embedded prisms of attentive scrutiny for glinting sunshine inherent in troves of surpassed excellence beyond parochial sympatric blandishment of donnism rather than a resselenque that floats above demeanor to usher the cosseted age of treasure above the glib brocards and florews of past success.

      Immanent to the provisions of God as decreed from a syncretic reconnaissance of the pitiable gulfs that separate boundless divine love from the clavigerous potential for scrappy sympatric affiliation to **** through the barnstorms of internal comestions of conflated priorities we are ourselves prismatic in the indulgence of a tasty life sprinkled with zest rather than tempered with the vengeance of retorted animosity that we knead the pottery of ironclad resistance to a metallic conduit of pruned fulminations of unguided intuition so that the natural accord supersedes the goad of materialism for the sustenance of antiquity beyond its heyday for vital gains against the tauricide of panic and frenzy. The linchpin of all realistic attempts at the sympatric symphily of civilization is a guided remorse through the torment of affliction that sizzles without anteric barbs as it measures through engrenage how to pilot the vehicles of prosperity through the minefields of contingency that invisibly bequeath new hurdles and inestimable obstacles that collude surreptitiously to fulminate measured controversy against the backbites of restrained equipoise created by polities of the macadamized fabric of a welded smithy of a universe that with ubiquity proclaims above the senseless the harvest of conjugal repartee in sensible pride against militant bastions of incidental prejudice for a careen against the flyndresques of danger and the flyndrigs of glaikery alike for a humane spurt of enlightenment to tower peerlessly in supervision of entelechy created by esemplastic unity in apolaustic purpose. We cannot be puritans engaged in a pilgrimage to a palimpsest of priggishness because the daring elements of adventurism are necessary ingredients to catalyze the supply-chain of the innate gluttony of ego-seeking endless balance with a natural sustained biognosy that prizes biocentric harmony above bibliognost scepsis so that the enthused can flock with liberty divorced from libertinism. The ultimatum is a war between hedonism wed with donnism against eumoirety and self-restraint and this battle will be waged on the indolence of a future of cordslave tethers to interrogation of privy conceptualism hamshackled by the gradgrinds into the neat nexility of precise conformity that blacklists the samizdat because the genizah profoundly twists the already jumbled jengadangle and provides a junediggle of procession and ceremony rather than pomp without substantial grit embedded in the showmanship of a reality in need of a fourth-wall.

        It is ironic how we bewrayed our stewardship of the planet as a plenipotentiary sentience waged against the vesicles of instinct but more fundamental to this tattered but pregnant psalm is that the stronghold of our future is the tenacity of filial duty to enthrone the household with husbandry and restraint as an emolument to divine justice that sparkles opalescent in its own redacted notions of gravity imperfect in the taradiddles of science but refined by the eclat of the combustible syncopation of a reiterative trope of realism combined with surrealist caprice to henpeck affectionate violation above inviolable screeds of blood sport rather than conjugal affections afforded to the brood and the feast of the flocks that rein supreme over all things but exert inclement justice over the cattle and chattel of civilization itself. The minkumpf against the sacrilege of a prioritized kosher is to abhor the suffering rather than embrace the penitence of perceived but specious sacrifice which is an ornery thorn on the stained conscience of the yobbery of both the apikoros and the obedient because to attenuate all suffering even of instinctual beings we anneal our hearts to a glorified compassion that supersedes the relegated relics of pushful genuflection by succedaneum of sacrifice waged against the docile whangams of otiose theodicy. The filibusters against the regnant complexity of regalia that is a sprauncy poivrade with terpsichorean flairs to transmute the intimations of hibernated perfidy into finicky transmissions for the riometers that accord orbific merit in a lackluster time enchant the rollicking audience of this auditorium of the prevenance of the conquered universe bracing for the camorra of the insipid entreaty of defalcated casuistry—the prominent exchequer in hoodwinked political agitprop that forges ironclad allegiances to flimsy facades of the verisimilitude of dignity with recalcitrant but incondite bruits of venom militant against secular apostasy—that the fitful arrivistes that swim in dire dearth will be welcomed into the reconciliation of all time with a tempered lurid glint of revelation bounded by sunken albatross of hype unbounded with a peace insurmountable in prestige rewarded only with the highest reservations.


    On 3-1-2020 when I penned my philosophy—even at a slowpoke margin of crafty precision above rapid empirical faucets of folly—I was entirely selfsame with the autotelic engravings of the smoldering aboriginal talents within that many can swing through by tenacity for enormous plaudit but a flagrant majority will apprehend with flippant scollardical tenets of rebuke and remain honest in their appraisal only in meek resignation of parvanimity.
Consider the postulates of rarefaction whittled into a vehement zeal against the prostitution of our species to the anteric cycles of residual molds of dingy spectacle mired by the tyrannical towers of supercilious squirms of revamped novelty rather than enhanced by the freebooters of dirigisme that borrow from time the behest of philandered flairs divorced from the cadges of secular instinct and enthroned by the qualms of engineered virtuosity that is stark, barren but peerless in its outstretched clamor for luxuriant sprees against the silentium of grandeval asylum incurred by the flippant filigrees of recalcitrant modernism endangered by the irredentism of the future upon the whimsy of the present-minded momentary glare of rapture.  This impending architecture of nimble but subservient endeavor is a pinprick rejoinder against the wernaggles of prepossessed fountains of configured animosity against the stapled heed of a modality of trayned invictive invectives against the plodding course of fustilugianation that swerves in apathy of autopilot junediggle to emanate the surrender of epigone to the raktendure of the synaesthesis of the attuned perception of all superimposed minutiae delegated by calculated design into a synclastic focus on veiled caprice that is vaulted above the choppy and sketchy verdure of remiss perception to stellar continuities rather than mundane knickpoints of stodged blurs that magnify syncretic qualia into baseline congruity rather than staid torpefied resignation of the visage of thunder without the pangs of the widely vituperated lightning that bequeaths all certain notions but flouts the tortious saboteurs of the prim trucage of brittle fundamentalism.

     As the flawed paragon of a picaresque youth punctuated by vibrant plumage of self-wrought tropophilous usucaption of remote groomed frontiers of desolate luxury but buoyant morale into the ballasts of a nimble usufruct that hikkles yet still against still-framed thilloire--fatuous in endearment only to the polity of the waterdrip of craven but gravid disingenuous flickers of lambent cloaks of perfidy—that earned its birthright by meditative fruition rather than prodigal tallespin of indolent frapplanks of a vicarious personage rather than an autotelic haecceity showcases the folly of heterodyne inclinations meeting an impasse of accidental dislodgement. The interregnum between the spurts and sprees of luxuriance is a staid pause between continuities of afforded parlance becoming stapled demographic solidarity affixed to a strident gallop of effortful pushes against the tenacity of the slumberous wicked hibernation of vetust magpiety without hieratical internment because youthful industry beats hackneyed bludgeons of wiseacres of a stilted manufacture of steamy nostalgia for lickerish moments that dignify but undermine moral virtues but splash anointed and sometimes disjointed favor upon the congeners to a rabid escapade of a heedless love frowning on the girdles of the prim balderdash of heralded jolts dim on levity and puffed with elusive contextualized control of libidinous serrated defilement because the crotaline **** outmantles the sweedled limber of exploitable folly. The cosseted reality of wheedled gourmands of continuous perception rather than the Gaussian blur of the protean invention of stitches in time that obscure rather than magnify the supernal levity inherent to most artistry is a linchpin of lenient gravitas that levies the lavaderos of ripe perception into annealment.
Excuse the bravado of the gait of winnowed forks in a bronteum for heralds of megaloscopy fastened to the macroscian reality of indelible filigrees of countermanded controversy becoming its best behest in the sempiternal flowering of burgeoned demonstration rather than illustrious overhang of drab slabs of manufacture rather than organism that should be interposed between the constellated concepts of both apperception and the aggrieved counselors to obtuse obsessions that are an improper tutelary for a designated reprisal of the once profane now immediately gratified by ramshackle tenets of a guarded sublimation of the tenets of post-modernism into a sustained force of the internalized tabernacle of haecceity shepherded into exuberance by the manumission of spirit from the ******* of purblind scalds of defamation that incurs the penalty of flippant privation. The refuge the Lord provides is not contingent upon the vagaries of deliberation nor the calculus of oversight but the remontant amaranthine glower of a listed deed becoming an eternal reminder that a dismantled and disjointed world fathoming only remorse rather than the trudge of gentility against the headwinds of brunt asperity will always flout the successor rather than atone for the failure of the imponent condition that constellates around rudimentary drivel grubbing the momentary out of avarice for allotted merchandise rather than glommed magnets to amoeba sentiments for the kisswonk of ulterior motive beyond dungeons of desperation that lurk ghoulishly with spectral frights at the disfigurement of morale created by errors askew rather than a contagion of righteous valor.

   Ask the heedful servant if the captaincy of reneged commitment owes homage to dutiful instruction or whether it is a balking corpse of necrosis accorded to the omphalism of brutish carnal repose in times of sedentary silt siphoned in spelunked rijuice for preordination is a predominant specter for a world scared scurrilous and skittish in a diatribe against the very notion of tribal screeds embedded in the sedimentary heft of traditionalism above the pother of vacillation commended to the apikoros but counterfeit fiat system of a ruddy governance without a supreme magistrate. Now lets venture into the territory of visagists as we envision the swanky subversion of impoverished and nebbich visions of oligochrome that fixates on belabored but dead notions of rigid propriety and levitate above those concerns with a querulous transcendence that never wernaggles about the profaned irrelevance of burlesque tropes of sidereal friction but instead memorializes the thermolysis of permeable endeavor above staid countenances of imposture that lurk in the shadowy penumbra of the connivance of persona above the archetype of the tutelary guardian spirit that through windlass and sometimes deliberation affixes nobility to even the pedestrian in order to assize its proper proportions to granular ironies expounded into megalography transformative by the very rivets of its supersensible existence and cohabitation with histrinkage among human taboos.

   The handiwork of a permeable race prone to exacerbated proclamations of prerogatives bulldozed by the rapid percolation of insoluble quandaries to the gripes of the feast of foofaraw sometimes shelters our otherwise regnant concern about the plenipotentiary God that observes all latent affairs without the paramours that conflate vivid carnality with appeased luxury and superimposes a crafty system of seismic shifts in rantipole dances with numinous flux rather than dissipated militant suppression of the fracklings of dissolute pollution which swirk in their dastardly desperado endeavors to corral the entire monoliths that guard each province into a winnowed rumble of rubble by tarnish of Tyre rather than by the upstart rejoinders of Canaan. Every creature which has the capacity to perceive language is afforded benedictions by the overhailing force of the hypaethral heights of superlative ingenuity founded in the bolted speculation of the endearment of all to tropological seesaws embattled against the hearsay of nyejays that contaminates the telmatology of the ecosystem of revivalism rather than buries the leaden debts of the disjointed revenants of past prominence into recycled irrelevance for posterity rather than for anything but a machination of a clockwork apple rigged for a rotten worm to swindle the sweet delicate tempests of unforeseen disaster to perjuries against financial solidarity.

The spinsters of sardonic drollery underscore the imminence of an incondite cutthroat collapse blackguarded by the hucksters of incontinence grubbing every fetched noisome notion and congealing a bonnyclabber of desiccated mildew that proves vestigial when the victors of time earn their joyous serenade to the pinnacle of the totem of jaundice slits in wavy endeavors for the participles of sejungible syntax of the ephorized furor to outlast the draksteng of droned dereliction manned by half-baked spies of ulterior recitals for imprinted vicissitude in supremacy in synquest for frizzlounges rather than the pedestrian circulatory system of careworn polity. We vaporize the petty hatred of sympatric regelation that neuters the virulence of motivated impediments to the draconian surge of asperity that sinks temporal haplessness as a regaled blasphemy that crowns only the ringed betrothal to spumid serrated halts in slick superstition that is a buggery to the idea of insectivores devouring the erratic chantage of germane germs that pauperize rather than even blind the deafened to be a crutch to vehicular homicide. Melismatic sennet is a dirigible of immense herculean sinew without the traces of vestibulary retches of kisswonked grisly tepid intimidations of eccedentesiasts by the radioglare of wizened corrugations in thanatism that exhort the avatars of narquiddity over the natural departure of revenant souls back to their temporary hostility to crass lifeless decarnate immediacy that slinks with foibles magnified by vertiginous heights of scollardical reputes rigged by the rijuice of the plackiques of meaningless spoils for swashbuckler bonanza borrowed from serrated vengeance exacted in prominence to provide false avenues of extenuation to malefaction that is confidant to the panopticon of exemplary dimples meager in the largesse of the composite realism of a sizable imprint on megalography that outlasts impertinent excuses for dangerous trout swimming against the mobilized selachostomous frizz of sharks gathering to avenge disclosure with insolence and gravid atrocity of incisive surgical evisceration of attempted depositions that falter by innumerable facets of countenance that belie ultimate realism and the perdurable construction of a sturdy hive of bibliognost revelry.

     Even with the blaring sennet of majesty inundating my piecemeal perception with the marstions of flarium that is an efficacy in a flaccid world of otiose pretenses limpid only in folly but contraplex in ironic skewbald skerries of grubbed destination that is the terminus of karezza despite the maledictions of vehement guarded betrayals that conjure up lurid noisome virility against the gamines and gallywows that populate interstellar fictions of virtu rather than mundane pragmatica that astound with the resselenque of contaminated skeumorphs of latent fracture belonging to a skeletonized ossified reification of farce above historicity in seemly seamless countenance with overwrought princely stature deserving integrity to ripples through sparkling opalescence. The vapid insularity of the self-contained mythos of appeased groundlings is based on the rhizic and rhizogenic fracklings destitute in predicative flares to swelter above stratospheres of the illimitable into the dwelling of the highest serenity inherent to the pacification of truth to neglect its egregious errors of mistetches of a ripened pachyderm of bravery in times of austerity and now a reclaimed notion of sempiternal charades swimming above the punitive draksteng of dranger that is enlarged by acclimated attempts at foiled raltention hikkling against its own superior forces of galvanized preterition to elide over screwball insanity of derangement in this virtual paradise of inhabited souls belonging to former times congregating on the pasture of the evanescence of now for all eternity having the optative condition of incarnation above the ferules of the stagnant brevity of oversight in heavenly realms by postulate but not confirmed by regal logic.

     The troponder of the flickered lambent niceties of polity is a countenance that piggybacks on simpered jostles of negligent engrenage to appease sworn enmities among beatific havens for certitude swarmed by the fisticuffs of darbied bridewells of desiccated drainage traversing the distant disdain for the gravel of cemented slits of stilted pragmatica that is a gavel of atrocious estoppel mediated by heroic heresiarchs against pitiable betrayal for forceful remedies in acclimated servitude to the groans and groaks of a life of remorse and dearth rather than the glut of luxuriance in forbearance to its own intorted mirrored ironies that etch infinity with every scrawled rejoinder to austere ploys of checkered rumbles of threat and exigency posed by the clairvoyant hypocrites who benefit greatly by the design of the omphalism above the frays and brays of corporate dogmatism slowly outmoded by vibrant plumages of heteronormative originality beyond petty chantage. A hesitation overcomes the bluster of bravado as the restive earnest concerns of tribulation beset the minauderies of divine affection to reaffirm the teachings of the Gospel so that future generations genuflect beneath the altar of the ultimate stroke of sociogenesis and the blood ransom of suffering that promoted the human latitude and liberty against incarcerated throngs of virtue over caesaraproprism accorded to genuflection beneath denarii rather than absolution by tether to the eternal vine of sensation of the supersensible entelechy of all valiant insurrections against defective polities and renewed policies.

     We thus seek a transdimensional bridge between the morphean virtu of rudimentary alchemy of propitiation divulged by leverage and the teeming rambunctiousness of fiduciary tribes to the ultimate duty of man to consummate the future of eternity even in slowpoke mannerisms that sidle through rigors of entelechy and assize the masterwork of tutelage above the circumforaneous entrenchment of glut above the mastery of the subtle subaudition that beleaguers an adept conflagration of harnessed human ignorance staid in the incarceration of exotic virtues of freewheeling sapience never vulnerary to hospitable concerns that entrenches the verisimilitude of a refracted justice to reign over the stultification of a primitivism inherent to man and not man alone.
Used some neologisms
Robert Ronnow Aug 2015
           Your past, your romantic past, is a shadow. Like all towns, Port Angeles was a combination of rain and clouds, sun and mist, with a chamber of commerce, barrooms and boards of directors, the known and unknown. No one of course is completely unknown. I was known for my tragic love life. She had found another man, a backwoods man, living on the land but not above a night on the town, who according to her would wipe snot on his pants, a statement of poverty or thrift or anger against the niceties of society. All of us heated our hovels with wood but only the rich burned hardwoods, me and probably this guy were softwood gatherers.

            There were few aspects to my life. First, I can remember a nook in the kitchen of the house I shared with a beautiful faceless woman who wore a ring in her nose where I wrote and watched flocks of unidentified birds comb a tree for seeds. This particular day the sky was blue with clean pillowy cumulus clouds floating toward Puget Sound. I believe all the poems written in that nook have been forgotten by their author.

            Nights, for entertainment, I would wander the aisles of the supermarket, admiring everything and buying nothing. I had no money. The fluorescent lighting, clean straight neat shelving and floors, warmth and the fact I could identify nobody attracted me. I lived on cream cheese and honey sandwiches eating them leaning against the kitchen sink. Thinking go back to New York City which is what I ultimately did. Drove cross country nonstop three days and three nights seeing and feeling nothing.

           I populated P.A. during the Reagan recession inherited from Carter. I'm unclear how presidents affect your life but good or bad, democrat or whig, alive or dead you've got to get a job, which I did. I supervised the living arrangements of developmentally disabled adults in what I thought were humorous contexts that gave no offense. They were beautiful and incorrigible having regular *** without protection. Normally harmless they'd sometimes have altercations with their neighbors. I balanced the checkbooks, paid the bills. Supposedly teaching living skills, I had few of my own as evidenced by my sleeping on the floor, I had no bed. One mature woman colleague judged me a short-timer living a useless fantasy about big cities. Still lost in my own history, still didn't know the calculus.

            I had a dog, Shade, black lab, leftover from my near-marriage until she realized I had no economic prospects, no interest in further *** or her logger boyfriend, and a complete inability to translate or imagine nesting and gestation. My homework comes to me in daily disconnected increments. Shade lived in my gray van, a Dodge slant six, which I could never afford to fix. Once the driveshaft disconnected from the rear axle and I tied it on with rope. Drove 60 miles on a knot. Shade was hyper and sad, both. He smelled bad but was a good dog with a lonely heart. When my wife who wasn't a wife finally found a boyfriend who wouldn't wipe snot on his pant leg they took Shade to British Columbia where I believe he runs free on a vast estate by the sea. I once beat Shade like a slave because he attacked a small dog out of frustration and loneliness and until I had kids and started saying and doing things just as bad to humans it was the lowest meanest moment of my life. The farmer who saw it will never forget or forgive it.

            Having confessed all this there's just one last fact to tell. The mountains were cold, the waters clear, deep snow and shadows.
www.ronnowpoetry.com
ryn Jul 2014
A thousand things that run amok in my mind
Issues of present time that seem unkind
But if closely examined, this whirlwind of thoughts
Glimpses of rainbows, unicorns and gold-filled pots

Embedded within this maelstrom of uncertainty
Promise of niceties, of peace and serenity
Picturesque views of limitless artistry
Bring forth such joy and love and tranquility

Like a book of thoughts offering surrealistic images
A barrage of scenarios as I flip through the pages
Images that spoke of untold alternate endings
That is borne out of the heart's delicate beginnings

Engulfed in a blissful torrent of emotions
Caught submissive, in the riptide of affection
Frame by frame I could play, pause and repeat
Document joy and sadness, victory and defeat

Stories told that could happen in another plane
Series of eventual outcomes that I wish to gain
Wondering the things each other is doing
What is seen and what is heard, in this world you're living

Possibility of walking beside hand in hand
Dancing close, eyes in lock in a strange foreign land
Drive up into town to watch a romantic show
Sharing a milkshake or playing in the snow

Standing at your doorstep, an unannounced surprise
Bearing sunflowers and chocolates, for my beautiful prize
Running through a field, in love with frenzied craze
Lying on a mat, eyes locked in a deep, loving gaze

Two kissing silhouettes with a sunset backdrop
A scene, frozen in time that I don't want to stop
Marooned on an island, all deserted and bare
We bask in the sun and at the stars we stare

Sitting across of each other so close
In a cafe, whispering love and jousting toes
Being in love and intimate in a hot steamy shower
Sharing a Parisian landscape atop a well renowned tower

Snuggling close, sighing in the arms of my lover
Kissing through the night letting the heart take over
Cupping your cheeks, tasting the lips so sweet
Wake up sweet darling, good morning I would greet

Ferry you to work, plant a kiss that'll melt your knees
Be at the bay, together we look out into the seas
Talk on the phone and missing you right after
Texting endlessly, professing eternal love for each other

Such thoughts are brought by dreams and wishful thinking
Ideals that me give hope even when my boat is sinking
But I'll never ever stop wishing it'll all come true
Because my dreams were conjured for it was meant that I find you
See daily thy not occupies nourished the seeming child mind;
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Madeline Dec 2011
things i love
   (such as)
books and rain, knowing snow
will come again
have nothing to do
             (i'm afraid)
with you.

count the paint stains on my finger-breadth
one for every year of my life, or
       one for every color of my heart?
  paint my words into tapestries of canvas-strewn
truth.
                
things i love
     (such as)
leaves in autumn, breezes in spring
  walking my dog in the midewestern rain
have nothing to do
   (think what you will)
with you.

things i love
     (such as)
a golden haired boy
   particular small niceties from strangers
thinking
writing poems in margins
      dancing by myself
holding the world in my always-steady hands
have nothing to do
     (cry me a river)
with you.









so there.
Ayad Gharbawi Dec 2009
I HAVE A RENDEZVOUZ WITH DEATH



Ayad Gharbawi

To the many needing comfort, needing advice, needing passions sincere, to whom do they turn to?

To whom can they turn to?

The days unmask the increasing emptiness between all of us, and the need for revolt is always there. The urge to be solitary as a reflection of one’s disgust with the hollowness of human beings, is always an attraction for some.
The urge to speak one’s mind to all people, to shatter the idiotic niceties and protocol that separates all of us and represses our genuine needs and desires and ardent wishes in life, is always an attraction for some.

The need to transcend the humdrum of our lives daily is there, and yet we feel that somehow little can be truthfully done. That is such a prevalent feeling – that as an individual I can do very little to change my life, so one submits to apathy wearying.

The society of individuals increasingly down cast and alone while at the same time people may increase their social contacts – but, there are no positive results to be gained therefrom, for the ‘human’ is crumbling as a sovereign entity into frightened fragments, self-doubt and confusion.

Ask yourselves, what is the net emotional result of all your socialising? For when the certain hour arrives and you witness that accusatory feeling of ‘What have I done?’ your horrifying reply will be that you have done nothing to fulfil your needs and desires and passions.

The hour does ask you: ‘What do you feel at the end of it all?’ and your emotions search vainly for meaning and fulfilment, for in essence there never existed any meaning and fulfilment in your lives in the first place.

Your life style, your socialising has merely succeeded to varying degrees and extents in covering up your real needs and desires.
Thus, in essence, you are merely ignoring, avoiding and repressing your true feelings; the ‘successful’ day is when you do not feel the urge to express your needs; in other words you have successfully been able to distract yourself from your real self.
However, ones innate needs and desires return to haunt us because they are our essence existentially.

Repression of one’s needs and desires and hopes results in disastrous consequences of the self. We are not being true to our selves. We are masks, we are afraid of ourselves because if we were to face ourselves, then that would entail changing our lifestyles and our frame of mind.

The humans around you are not ‘real’.

They are not what they are pretending to be.

The humans around you are living in sorrow hidden by niceties and good manners and protocol and a million other worthless distraction. The humans around you are losing their humanity, their creativity, their needs and passions while they go about the routines of their various lives predictable.

Man is dying in himself, willingly wistfully to accept his/her resignation from life; echoes of Seeger’s poem, ‘Rendezvous’ can hardly be ignored:


‘But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town
When spring trips north again this year
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.’


           Ayad Gharbawi -
Ekym Reyotem Jan 2019
Throughout the course of this life, I, just like you, have made my fair share of mistakes. To compensate for this & also out of a fear of letting others down or causing pain or suffering to anyone other than myself, over the years I have tried to hone to almost perfection, the habit of seeing down the line when it comes to the decisions I make and the chances I take.
But alas, no one is perfect, especially not I.

Although I was compelled to grow up long ago, I feel as though I am still a young man, a young man with old values. Values like honor, loyalty, dignity and a wonderful sense of shame. A trait which I feel compliments the first three aforementioned values quite well.
Traits far removed from the gooey 'Quick’mix’d Battered' personalities we find ourselves standing shoulder to shoulder with in the oven of today’s irreversible societal meltdown. Everyone seems to have forgotten to teach their off-spring of that which makes life worth living & keeps the world turning. Which is of course, living for others just as much as we live for ourselves. Unfortunately, due to the selfish pace of today, rarely is anyone noticed for their gestures towards humanity. The reason for this phenomenon, being of course; Man Kinds evolution into the Narcissistic Vampire he is today. And as a result of this, not only do our efforts towards one another merely go unnoticed & unappreciated, it's far worse than that, courtesy is no longer even recognized for what it is, is rarely reciprocated, and has thus been phased out completely. And as a result of this; Man Kinds new triumphant mutation, 'The All-consuming Ego', is free to simply **** the meaning out of all that was once so valuable to the fabric of human society, while arrogantly presuming to be deserving of it all anyways, regardless of it's contribution to anyone or any thing.
Now the ego acts as a new type of biological O rgan,
an invisible 'Iron Lung'. Processing the very niceties that once separated us from the beasts, as if they were just like any other natural resource. But there is a difference & that difference is that these are human resources and in my opinion are just as valuable as the air we breathe, and just as nourishing as the sweet waters we drink. Manners are things to be noticed, cherished and savored. They are decency's. Gifts, that when given & returned, should impart on us the feeling of being recognized for our own decency and our own efforts towards our fellow man.
However, since Man has placed his Ego at the forefront, where once stood the Human Heart, 'It' now sits at the receiving window of human courtesies, absorbing and indifferent. So instead, it all goes unnoticed, unrecognized and underappreciated just like a gulp of air and is simply exhaled without a second thought, or a shred of gratitude as to how precious it really was.

If you were able to ask a fish, to name one thing which It considered to be both the most obvious aspect of his environment and also the thing most essential to the survival of its species, the last thing it will mention is the water.
Ask a man today the same question, but replace the words “his environment” with “humanity” and the last thing He will mention is another human being.

But I digress…

You'll have to excuse me. I am after-all a true romantic in every sense of the word and I have always been quite partial to dramatic effect.
I consider myself a realist, a term all too often confused with having a negative outlook. I beg to differ. In a world gone mad, I just prefer to keep my eyes wide open and my head in the game, as opposed to having it shoved all the way up my own a$$ like most. And although the world may not be so pretty out here, at least it’s real, as am I.
Allow me to make something abundantly clear, I never have been, nor will I ever be, anyone special.
And being aware of these facts is still far better than pretending that both of them are anything other than just that, facts.
I find no comfort in self-congratulation, delusions, or deliberate oblivious ignorance.
I am what I am.

What more can I say?
Another year come and gone and just like the rest of the world, it seems things for me too have only grown worse.
I am full of regret, all old, and none new. And for the exceptions of my Daughter and the Almighty Himself, I apologize for nothing and to no one else. After a lifetime of experiences and lessons learned, all that I am truly certain of, is that I am still here. And unfortunately, so are most of you.
And I am also still standing. Upright, with both feet planted firmly in reality and God willing, that is exactly how I intend to remain. There is not one ****** thing in this world which I have any control over and everything I have ever wanted, I have never gotten, and everything I have ever had, has been taken from me.
And yet here I remain, standing till the day I die. And when that day comes, the depth of the grave will have to be dug twice as deep, so as to bury me upright & on my feet.
Immovable-
White Eagle May 2018
I used to hate your healthy avocados...until I had one
Not that your coffee tasted superior to my tea
But what's taste when you season mine with gun powder?
Yes, In case you did not detect
There is a lot of hate in this one
Call me aggressive and spiteful
Whilst holding your rifle
They say hate begets hate begets hate begets hate
So for you to understand
I put aside my ignorance and try to walk in your shoes

OK, let's start:

A lot of trees
Beautiful sky, delightful breeze
A rich land where tenants are a many and they shun the proprietor
I know I promised to be nice
But let's face it for that white picket fence, someone had to pay the price.

Start again:

Sunny coasts
Bacon, eggs on toast
Walk the dog in the park, life is not all that hectic here.
To make it clear, running out of coffee is my basic fear.

Flat stomachs
In fact, six packs!
Cupboard full of knick-knacks
and plenty of time to kick back and relax
Never-ending supply of niceties

Calm waters
Long walks along the harbor
and perhaps a tall pint of lager at the pub

Throw some juicy ones on the barbie mate!
Who cares if 6.2 mil in Somalia are starving mate?
You say to me:
"survival of the fittest, Darwin mate"
"It's so difficult to fit in" I say; so tiring MATE
Did I say that right?
I'm Mohammad, as James in a play called "Aussie Catch Up"
and I don't know how to play that part

What else can I say? they gave me a voice (although in English)
between the self deprecating migrant and the middle eastern rag head, the gave me a choice

And by the way my boss tried to anglicize my name
Said Sebastian had a nice ‘ring’ to it
Well go ahead, march to your colonial tune and have me sing to it

Oh healthy avocados, you're too ripe for my liking
Maybe I'm just used to a bit of rawness in my diet
To be honest
I have a heavy heart, a dark one
Maybe to reconcile, you should take a step
a very very very very very very long one
tread Apr 2013
It wasnt long before the baluster flapped somewhere in the distance and Icarus knew how old he had been on the day of his birth. For whatever reason, the snow capped cappuccinos he had willfully destroyed in a heated debate on fiscal policy had him beginning again. Why was there always a beginning where there was an end? Fur traders used to circumnavigate the Hudson's Bay of his humanity when he was young, sharing drinks and fire water whiskey like it was all an H2O ready for the soul search. Sadly, many ended up in Hitlers concentration camps weeks after the **** invasion of Poland, about a month or so before the fall of the Roman Empire. Beginning with a last breath, Icarus strode off the plank with a new-found confidence unnatural in his niceties of long past. It was as if 1 minute and 35 seconds was enough to dish a clamouring populace onto the dinner table before the fat step-father gleefully orders
everyone to 'dig in, everyone!'

Cancelling everyone's appointment with Dr. Pardon meant the gaining of a key participatory certificate in El Dorado, and the gold lingering in dusty sun-beams was sifted for the taking. Some got rich, the rest got miserable. The rest used to imagine the gold, staring at ivory towers and lottery tickets, apple cores lording over old public servant applications near the city hall drain pipes as the modern world collapsed into a flash-mob image of Ronald Reagan.

Icarus was a sliver of duskish light flittering a top distant windowsills, all cupped in an intentional light because happiness was as possible as sadness. Not that considering either would make you either.

Icarus slept as his wings incinerated at the first glimpse of the solar system. He now believed every single proverb the old ***** slumbers had whispered their children as they woke to find themselves adults.

In the beginning he found the beginning beginning again. It made him feel however you wish. Both were just as possible. Both were just as much a jazz configuration as a smooth and easy guitar rift.

Ahha!
JA Doetsch Jul 2012
I arrived at the church at 5:30.
It took me a bit to find the place

  there were only a couple half-inflated baloons
  to mark the occasion.
  Those, and a small sign with an arrow, which led
  
      down some stairs and into a cafeteria.  An
      older lady greeted me.  She had a calm smile
      on her face.  The kind that comes with age, that
      says that you've been there, done that.

"Are you here to give?"

           Of course.  Why else would I be here?

  "Yeah"

She leads me to a table that has a number of tall dividers
set up on it to prevent people from peeking at someone
else's personal life.  Like I care if you've had syphilis in
the last year...well I might if it weren't all men in here.

I start filling out the form.
No, I don't have an STD
No, I haven't spent a time totaling more than 5 years in the UK before 1996
No, I don't use drugs
No, I haven't had a fever in the last 24 hours
No
  No
    No
  No
No

I do admit that I have been out of the country recently.

I hand my sheet to another lady.  "Where did you travel to?"

    "Japan, mostly Tokyo and a few places just outside"

    "Carol, could you check Japan on the list?"

She turns to me.  "I'm almost certain that's OK, but I have to check".  Another contented smile.

I sit down to be interviewed, we go over the questions once more.

    "Alright, I just need a small sample before we begin"

She takes the sample with a small contraption that
fits over my finger and jabs a small hole.  She runs
a quick test with the blood, letting a droplet fall
in a test tube filled with a blue liquid.  

The droplet sinks to the bottom.  She checks a box.

Apparently we're good to go.

  I'm given an empty blood bag and a number of rubber-banded vials
and pointed towards a circle of beds in the middle of the room.

I walk up and a portly gentleman takes my bag and asks me
which arm I'd like it in.

"Right"

I pause.  

I want to be able to check my phone while I'm doing this.

"Actually, let's do left"

He gives a grin.  "Here, hold both your arms out"

I comply.  I immediately notice that my right arm
has a very accessible vein.  We're doing the right arm.

Oh well.

   "Let's go with the Right"

I smile and sit on the plastic seat

He swabs my arm with that wonderful orange/yellow dye
and gives me a stress-ball to squeeze, to help the process go
quicker.  He comes back with the needle.

I look away as I feel the uncomfortable breach of my skin.
It's a small pinch followed by a dull sensation, my body
telling me "That isn't supposed to be there, get it out".

         I hate needles.

I feel a light sweat break and my breathing quickens
ever so slightly.  It's ok because the hard part is over
I squeeze the stress ball every few seconds and I chat
with the man.

His name is Nick, and he's been doing this for a few years.  
He used to work in a restaurant, and then he worked for a
flooring company.  
He remarks
    on the fake grouting that the floor in this room has.  

You  can tell that he loves his job, that he's satisfied with life.

He comments on the t-shirt that I will receive for doing this

(because who would do it if they didn't get a t-shirt, right?)

He says it looks like a blueberry snowcone and tells me a
rather entertaining story from his youth about blueberry
snowcones.  

I pipe in with my memories of the Tropical Sno  shop we had
when I was a kid.  

The bag is filled, the needle is removed.  A bandaid is placed,
and then my arm is wrapped with a smily-face bandage.

I give him a left-hand shake and go sit at the refreshments table

I drink a Pepsi.  I hate trail mix.

After about 10min or so, I get in my car and drive home.
I put on the blueberry snow-cone colored t-shirt and sit
down to read a book.  I think about the people working
at the blood drive, and I think about how happy they
seemed.

I wonder to myself what the difference is between someone
who gives blood and someone who gives time.  I have friends
that travel the world for the Peace Corps, living in third world
countries with no running water, no niceties.  I think of friends
who could sit in blistering heat, helping to build a house for
someone they don't even know.  I think of myself, who thinks
that donating money to the Leukemia foundation and donating
blood to the Red Cross is somehow equivalent to donating sweat
and an able body.

I should really do more
maybe then I'll earn that smile
that those folks wear so proudly
William A Poppen May 2013
Perhaps they expect a pool
offerings of rare coffee
from Ethiopia

Instead of
a view of hydrangea
plus pale ale in mugs

Conversation entails
irrelevant niceties
of trivial events

Smiles exchanged
chairs rearranged
subtlety reigns

Another chance
to touch humanity
willfully aborted
Sarah Mulqueen Sep 2015
As the tears stream down her solemn face
The curtains fall
The mask drops
She waits
As her 'friends' disappear
Robert Ronnow Aug 2015
Zero.
By which nothing is divided.
No zero
no negative
no opposite
no hope
no Adam, no apple, no marriage, no morning.
No mirror
no knowledge
no God, no soul, no ear lobe, no Iliad, no Odyssey.
No universe
no black hole
no zodiac
no hero
no mission, no omission, no fission, no fusion.
No beanstalk
no tractor
no yellow
no 7:30, no wind, no window, no owl, no one.

In 773, at Al-Mansur's behest, translations were made of the Siddhantas, Indian astronomical treatises dating as far back as 425 B.C.; these versions may have been the vehicles through which the "Arabic" numerals and the zero were brought from India into China and then to the Islamic countries. In 813 the Persian mathematician Khwarizmi used the Hindu numerals in his astronomical tables; about 825 he issued a treatise known in its Latin form as Algoritmi de numero Indorum, Khwarizmi on Numerals of the Indians. After him, in 976, Muhammed ibn Ahmad in his "Keys to the Sciences," remarked that if in a calculation no number appears in the place of tens, a little circle should be used "to keep the rows." This circle the Arabs called sifr. That was the earliest mention of the name sifr that eventually became zero. Italian zefiro already meant "west wind" from Latin and Greek zephyrus. This may have influenced the spelling when transcribing Arabic sifr. The Italian mathematician Fibonacci (c. 1170-1250), who grew up in North Africa and is credited with introducing the decimal system in Europe, used the term zephyrum. This became zefiro in Italian, which was contracted to zero in Venetian.  --Wikipedia

After my father's appointment by his homeland as a state official in the customs house of Bugia for the Pisan merchants who thronged to it, he took charge; and in view of its future usefulness and convenience, had me in my boyhood come to him and there wanted me to devote myself to and be instructed in the study of calculation for some days. There, following my introduction, as a consequence of marvelous instruction in the art, to the nine digits of the Hindus, the knowledge of the art very much appealed to me before all others, and for it I realized that all its aspects were studied in Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily, and Provence, with their varying methods; and at these places thereafter, while on business, I pursued my study in depth and learned the give-and-take of disputation. But all this even, and the algorism, as well as the art of Pythagoras, I considered as almost a mistake in respect to the method of the Hindus (Modus Indorum). Therefore, embracing more stringently that method of the Hindus, and taking stricter pains in its study, while adding certain things from my own understanding and inserting also certain things from the niceties of Euclid's geometric art, I have striven to compose this book in its entirety as understandably as I could, dividing it into fifteen chapters. Almost everything which I have introduced I have displayed with exact proof, in order that those further seeking this knowledge, with its pre-eminent method, might be instructed, and further, in order that the Latin people might not be discovered to be without it, as they have been up to now. If I have perchance omitted anything more or less proper or necessary, I beg indulgence, since there is no one who is blameless and utterly provident in all things. The nine Indian figures are: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. With these nine figures, and with the sign 0 . . . any number may be written.   --Fibonacci, Leonardo of Pisa
--Wikipedia, "0 (Number)"
--Fibonacci, Leonardo of Pisa, The Autobiography of Leonardo Pisano, trans. Richard E. Grimm, Fibonacci Quarterly, Vol. 11, 1973

www.ronnowpoetry.com
lena May 2018
You've ruined smiles for me
Twisted them, beyond definition
Curves of lips ***** up my spine
Ghosting the air over my arms
Like an arctic breeze
Whispered air of whispers
Which curses the smiles
That I follow following me
Simpering smiles and snide smiles
Curtains over gritted teeth
And the false niceties that are
The fastest path to achieving what they want
Not what they need, they don't need smiles
Nobody needs the smiles anymore
Don't smile, unless you wish
To be mistrusted by the many
I cannot smile in the street
The price, a sneer or slap
So I cast my eyes down to the cobbles
And watch the rain wash away
The years' and years' worth of salt
Don't smile at me, please
It makes my throat sting
Harmony Nov 2017
I saw you in the corner of the room.
I don’t know what to choose,
My eyes are locked on you.

I know it can't be best,
But my hair is all a mess
When you run your fingers through.
You kiss me sweetly twice and then you leave,
So I come up with niceties about the things
That frighten me when you leave me.
This is not the way that it should work,
You hardly work
To work it out
Just work with me
We’ll talk it out or

hardly

speak.
Robby Dec 2019
Person 1:
So how was your long weekend?
Me:
Uhmmm great

Person 2:
Did you have a great holiday?
Me:
Yeah of course

Me:
Why do I lie to everyone?
Me:
It’s what we do so they don’t know we’re miserable just like everyone else is

*sigh
Anna Jun 2013
Here, have a cookie
Or really anything
Sweet.
To make up for my lack
Of niceties.
Joshua Haines Sep 2014
Hands, plural to make us one
Near the end of August the heat told me to stop
It's vicious, wanting you
No milder than the jaws of winter

And every person not you cuts
On the street, our wounded lips
Before October and on silver screens
Your face projected on everything

You wanted the cinema, I thought
So I spoke fumbled niceties at your door
But the camera was stuck in my eye

And the words I scripted shifted into your mouth
The breaths I take, the breaths I shout
Your smile corroded in the rain
Your endless longing,
My endless shame

It keeps me in this thought
That what I feel has no name
But the credits crept up with the dregs of December
Money is noisy, and I liked your quietudes

But the snow will blanket my blood-buoyant bright
And I will drown into night
To lay by you until dawn
To lay by you until you are gone
Michael Mar 2019
When I was stationed at Enoggera, as a young platoon sergeant with 9 RAR, a Merino ram was offered, and accepted, as the Battalion mascot. The diggers called him Stan. The brigade RSM of the time was outraged because he viewed our adoption of Stan as a direct and improper play on his surname, which was Lamb. And, of course, he being as bald as a coot the diggers called him Curly. As I recall, Stan was a lively, ill disciplined beast with little respect for the niceties of service life, hence:

When Stan-the-Ram met Curly Lamb a fracas did ensue.
For Curly stood beside the road just outside B.H.Q.;
His Sam Brown belt so shiny, his pace-stick 'neath one arm,
The RSM of our brigade was used to war's alarm.

But Stan, although a raw recruit and barely chewing grass,
Unimpressed by Curly, charged and knocked him on his ****.
"It's contact rear" cried Curly, as he struggled to his feet,
Turned about with arms akimbo his assailant for to meet.

Meanwhile Stan's poor handler looked ready to desert
'cos Stan-the-Ram whilst in his care had Curly eating dirt.
I guess he felt embarrassed, which was natural, wouldn't you?
If involved in such a fracas outside of BHQ.

Your questions are but natural and in answer I can swear,
As these events unfolded I was marching off the square.
Having Just dismissed defaulters I was feeling rather mean
But my despondency was lifted by that ****** glorious scene.

And in the mess that evening rang out laughter clear and loud,
For I'd told them all my story and of Stan we felt quite proud.
There was Sutherland and Massingham, and Peter Cowan too
And Tim Daly called **** Gordon from his room, well, wouldn't you?

And when **** heard my story he poured port into a glass,
And we drank a toast to Stanly putting Curly on his ****.
9RAR, Soldiering, service life,
Louise May 2022
While I return and slow down
to the classics;
the film analog cameras,
vinyl records,
typewriters,
silent movies,
worn-out pocketbooks,
and other novelties
of the old world charm...

I also enjoy the convenience
of the contemporary;
my phone's one-click camera,
spotify premium,
notes app,
netflix,
kindle,
and other niceties
that the here and now has to offer...

And while I rev back
to the retro and vintage,
I also race forward
to the excitement and danger
brought about by the internet,
of chatting with a familiar stranger.
of exchanging laughters in electronic.
of feeling emotions from a vague, distant, technical, difficult source.

Oh, the thrill and tragedy of technology!
New age romance
Brandon Mar 2012
The funny thing about life is
You try and try to be a good person
A good neighbor
In a good mood
With only good things to say
But then life intervenes
With the landlord screaming
About uncollected bills
That shouldn’t exist in the first place
Of bosses ranting
That you’re lucky to be working for them
When they’re running the company into the ground
And your only compensation is a poor paycheck
That you take home to your family
So that you can afford to stay under your roof
For another day longer
And put some food on the table
For another night longer
And let’s not forget about the conservatives
Screaming at the top of their lungs
That we’ve lost our way
And that only they can save us
By bringing us back to how it used to be
News flash grenade explosion
We are the way we are
Because we were the way we were
For far too long

And then the conservatives parading
Their hidden agendas like they’re liberals
Pay more taxes than the government is worth
A system that’s failing to support it’s own weight
Should have it’s leg kicked out from beneath it
To quicken the fall and rise of sovereignty
Every day is a new day
And it’s how you deal with the obstacles
Placed in front of you that matters
But the matter of banging your head
On the brick wall
Trying to placate the niceties that we were
Brought up to hold so dear to our hearts
Gets out of control
I’ll grab the sledgehammer
And bash the wall down
I’ll walk around the wall
And find my own path
The one least occupied
By the masses
Zulu Samperfas Jun 2013
I had run about, and my feet hurt,
all I could think of, is let me make it end today
and I did it, signing off with a secretary, as she left with her friends

I carried the small burden of a year of persecution
the worst job I ever had,
and he was there, in the cement quad,
talking, saying goodbye

What horrible things he had said to me this year
I wasn't even suited for this profession since I was so anxious
in his presence, since he is all knowing
And when it was too much, I cried, and of course
I shouldn't do that, but that made things ten times
more offensive, I felt like I had a target on me
so I made up a labor attorney I had in my corner
and when he was on the attack, I brought her up
and he fell silent and was more careful

And I saw who he'd promoted, as chief rooster of the English department
since it is a hen house, and he gets too lonely just as a vice principal
that he has meddle and control and pick and decide and ogle
and pretend he's not and revel in so many women in one room,
and he has power over us all

And just that day, he strolled through a Paris City Park
Tree lined, in Spring, with dappled shade on the ground from tall
trees, and metal fences, and people sitting on benches
having fascinating and illuminating intellectual conversations
and well employed and turned out people
strolling along, perhaps some even dressed in nineteenth century clothes
everything in two dimensions,
He the gentleman, her the lady, an impressionist painting
colorful and imprecise, more a dream than reality
of the good life, and harmony, all with a slight Sienna tint, in two D
it was, in reality,  in the gum stained quad in the blazing sun
and she was married to someone else
but she had that perfect English teacher look, blonde
and bland, with giant blue eyes and a bun,
and a dress that cut just below the knee
and blew gently in the hot breeze, flaring out and revealing nothing
but the middle class acceptability of the fabric
and I dashed, really ran by holding my charger, to the computer I turned in
and through the scene, tore a wave of three D, and the Sienna tone
had a trail cut through it of true digital color
and he said "wow," as a vision from the 21st century ripped into his world
and I imagined her boring me to death
making my favorite literature as lifeless and dull
as a computer manual, or a endless apartment lease,
and together this lady and gentleman, they were totally in sync and ready
to frighten another generation of students away from reading
forever...

Later he stood and he saw me
speed walking away from this world
and he gazed at me, waiting for me
to pause, for there to be a bit of nostalgia
and warm good will between us as we exchanged
niceties that were only the tips of a much deeper affection
and respect between us, and I saw him preparing for this
and my pace didn't slacken
and I felt like he was again in two D on a film screen, I, a steadi cam
smoothly floating past, taking in every detail, in slow motion
And I looked at him as more of an object, not a person,
because I couldn't bear all the feelings and thoughts and anxieties so I left him in two D,
watching him I said "bye"
and I couldn't hear what he said because the camera moved
past very quickly and all the sound was muted,
distorted, impossible to understand except to know
it was sound like what you hear underwater

and it was only later, five blocks away, that I burst into
frustrated, pained, angry tears, and I felt again, three dimensional
and alive and hurting and the sound around me boomed back, in all it's chaotic detail,
cars and people and the radio and my own human pain and I realized
I made it
Josh Harrison Oct 2012
through graceless steps and cleavaged twirls,
girls shared repost with other girls,
and the upper lips of the ladies curled,
as the married men all swooned.

they got bored all too readily,
so drunk their liquid steadily,
synthetically coloured blue and green,
she'd seen the latest advert.

and the boys in their polo shirts,
drunk and high on testosterone,
they took pictures on their camera phones,
and called each other gay.

the male claws began to itch,
for the feeling of **** and the feeling of ****,
and the dancefloor was badly lit,
so they knew they had a chance.

sweaty hands and fluorescent teeth,
moved through crowds to find their niche,
and the necessity for niceties,
was shortly overruled.

uninvited gropes from behind,
on bellies of those who looked like they might,
be easily persuaded to bed that night,
without heavy rhetoric.

then came the bartering stage,
those awkward five minutes in which to arrange,
the consummating details, the exchanging of names,
the reality of night.

there were many things to factor in,
tales of lost friends still waiting,
I said we'd share a taxi home,
and she can't walk alone.

and after the barter is all complete,
the scorned pick fights in the street,
the end draws near finally,
so the masses all go home.

some walked home solemnly,
whilst others share the company,
of people they'd knew they'd never see,
after the night is through.
maybella snow Jun 2013
its polite to say
         "how are you?"
                  and it's presumed
that you're "okay" or "good, thanks"
     so thats what i say
for convenience
"how are you?"
         "i'm good, thank-you"

                         but
what i want to say is;
                        "alive, unfortunately"

...
Nevermore Aug 2014
To be alone
Is to be complete

They say
No man is an island,
But isn't everyone?

We're all stranded on islands of self-interest
Connected to others
Through flimsy bridges of temporary alliances
Mutual interests and gain

The more connected we are
The more isolated we become
Pictures and blog posts
Nothing more than facades

Anomie is the word of the decade

The individualistic
The self-sufficient
Is reviled
For refusing to play the game
To participate
In the masquerade
To jump through the hoops
Of social niceties

Somehow
To sit and squirm
Through ******* contests and gossip
To flap and flutter
In the howling gales of hysteria and contrived laughter
Is preferred over
Sitting alone
Revelations and epiphanies
Splayed out before oneself
Playing solitaire with one's reflections
In peace

Baby showers and mixers
Celebrated
The impenetrable silence
Of one's hermitage
Eschewed

The people-pleaser
Preferred
Over the lone wolf
The team player
Over the independent agent

I suppose
In an age of open doors
A locked one
Raises a few eyebrows
They'd knock and rattle
Then bang and kick and shout
Before leaving in a huff

Authenticity is now the rarest commodity
Valued over saffron and platinum
So people settle instead
For knockoffs

Alcohol-plied sincerity is better than nothing
A China-made Rolex still looks better --
Flashier, if nothing else --
Than a Timex

No man is an island,
They say,
Smirking
Frowning
Clucking with disapproval
Peering behind perfectly schooled masks
Nary a hair out of place
Looking at me
In all my artless imperfection
Paper, pen, and cigarettes for company

Well
Which of us here
Is truly alone?
Yes, I am aware that I just compared myself to North Korea.
Wk kortas Aug 2018
You’ll find them in all such establishments,
(Be they graceful small-town former Victorian homes,
Or cinderblock edifices mindful of some campus multi-faith center)
Sitting in the basement, cheek-to-jowl
With moldering burial records and banking statements,
Yellowed newspaper clippings, faded prayer cards
Small squared-off boxes hastily tabbed together,
Ostensibly temporary containers which have acquired
An unintended and wholly unwelcome permanence.
The whys and wherefores of their subterranean placement
A mixed bag of foible and outright foolishness:
Unresolvable squabbles concerning possession and burial,
Families that skipped out on the bill, leaving mom behind,
Cases of outright not giving a good-*******.
And so they remain, in lieu of repatriation and redemption,
To sit for something akin to perpetuity in some cases
(Members of the profession resolute in their respect
For the dignity of life,
Though their sincerity enjoys less unanimity)
While others wait for mass burial
Once legal niceties have been satisfied,
While still others, in care of firms not so scrupulous
About crossing their t’s and dotting their i’s,
Are flung, albeit somewhat surreptitiously, out the back door,
The remains to take flight if the grass is dry and the wind is brisk,
Otherwise to be left to the vagaries
Of curious birds and creped soles.
Melodramatika Sep 2014
I was disappointed when the electricity came back.
The magic of flicking a switch and Lo! There is light! was doubly
triply
exponentially
more magic than it had ever been.
To watch television, to cook on the stove, to turn on a heater - magic, marvellous, miraculous.
Yet I was disappointed.

That's the end of the apocalypse camping, I thought, sadly. I will miss these days.

Do you appreciate the wonder of a switch that makes all the luxuries you consider necessities work?
Do you understand the glory that is a tap that turns on and  provides clean drinking water? Or even more glorious, that allows your toilet to flush?

Appreciate these things. They are not little, they are significant.
Without them life is different.
Have you ever walked to a well and returned with water, to drink, to clean yourself with, to wash your clothes?
Do you know how much water it takes to wash clothes, or how HEAVY water is?

I spent a mere two weeks without electricity, and perhaps
another week with no running water
and each day was consumed with those tasks
I normally considered arduous
but which took so little effort, I came to realise,
when compared to a more third world lifestyle.

"I want a drink of water - I shall turn on a tap."
versus
"I want a drink of water. Are the water bottles full? Has the water truck been yet? Or must I walk to the well? Where is a clean vessel? There are none, and no hot water to wash them in."

Without a thought I turned on switches, ran water from the tap, and consumed all the niceties of a life so **** rich
in luxury I took for granted.

Two short weeks without taught me to appreciate what I have.
Some days, now, I forget to marvel
at my easy, privileged life, but I make myself remember
apocalypse camping,
which was challenging and difficult, but satisfying in a way my life no longer is.

I miss those days, I value their lessons.

I would mutter and complain at carrying water back to my house, at cooking over the open fire - this was my life for two weeks.
Not forever, not always,
two weeks only.

Appreciate what you have, for many live a life without, and your own life, already so wealthy,
will be richer for your gratitude.
Graff1980 Jan 2015
To speak without any editing
Edging towards the ending
To talk without a purpose
Proposing nothing new
Just spewing modern niceties
As modern nice people do

To speak with no intention
Yet live by your words
I wonder do you have to yell
Or will the whispers be heard

To speak
Tongues touching syllables
Tasting the virility of what language is
Links to the past and present
But push us to a future
Were we have no clue
Of what we will do

To speak as I do
As I choose to
Be sociable with you
Let it all hang down and out
Let us speak to figure it out
Let us speak until breath
Becomes non-syllabic death
And we can speak no more
Julia Brennan Jun 2015
Today entails a small bit of
day drinking
I'm clad in a string bikini
and a chilled beer bottle
pressed to my lips.
It feels fantastic
to get a little drunk
at 2 in the afternoon

And yet, it also kind of
numbs the Pain,
the Pain of feeling
like a complete failure
or vapid
or inadequate
in life, love, and green

I'm dwelling on my
most personal desires:
a sweaty yoga practice,
deep beats pounding through my Body,
ironing white dress shirts,
the feeling that I am a piece of art:
you can look but you do not touch Me

Niceties tend to fly out the window
when the tiniest bit of liquor
enters My Temple.
Completely aware of
my role as
sugar, spice, everything nice;
its a balancing act
between the good and bad
coursing through my veins

There is nothing nobler
than being Good,
but sometimes it is
Oh. So. Good
to be Bad
Empire Mar 2019
I’ve always hated
That I wasn’t perfect
I writhed in agony
Hating myself for what I am
Human

My family wasn’t perfect
My friends weren’t perfect
I wasn’t perfect
Nothing was perfect

But constantly I was confronted
With this image
This abstract concept
Of what I was supposed to be
And it was always
A model of perfection
The perfect life
The perfect lie
And I believed it

They always had good intentions
To give me my “best life”
But no one lives like that
We have so many flaws
Our best life cannot be
A perfect life
But no one told me

They made it look
Like they all could do it
But all I was seeing
Were masks and games
To hide their imperfection
So I learned to hide mine
Behind smiles and niceties

But all the while
I was dying
From the
Lies of perfection
Joseph S C Pope Feb 2013
I want to see where nice words are used on young ladies.
                      ****** Rome of rude-bred heights from the balcony of the city of dynamite.  The villagers sacrifice their seven pounds of worry, and sleep like children in caves of textile reactors. Souls packed in coins and gasoline sin are sold hot at the bazaar on a University campus in America. What the **** do these lambs do in societal gardens? What the hell do pets know watching letters drizzle from the clouds? Parcel dreams scattered on foster children--I want to know where all our words for niceties went when we paid the women to be young.
                                                                      Devils make knees slick
                                                                   barbwire anacondas bless our country
                                                   write a laugh--write a song--and we will all work it out

                       We--used as a rapier to categorize the salt in vigorous blood flow--the bells, the bells of centuries worth of midnights. I--the edited cobble in roads that precipitation breaks in stride. Hearing the  rambles of lucky men in the next room, but I know young ladies don't kiss and tell to friends they find effeminate, they rupture and explode. And laugh. And laugh. And laugh. And laugh with squeaky voices as true as poetry. Now they mumble till they are paid.
                                       But you--are no *******, just an empty glass with chunks of broken accents skipping deadlines in life, for new deadlines in life. Abstract puzzle pieces resemble therapy that burns the interrupted wick in--you.  
   But as for--them--they--or others--delirium commercializes whispers aching the back of their tonsils till there is no relief, but coin to pay for more coin that will pay for more coin. Relief is in another language they refuse to learn because they are arrogant.

Cats scowl at one in the morning for attention, nails anchored in carpet, the rest of us are tired by the week of spending. They want more, more, more--till the gates in your eyes open.
Qweyku Aug 2019
An ancient river
an old London chapel
& our last summer rays
of such an august Sun
      
The promise of niceties...
laughter, drinks, ice cream
& perhaps a softly stolen kiss

Fill my hand with yours.

If you please;
a pleasant walk with you
up on Tower Hill

© Qwey.ku
Who knows?

— The End —