"pageantry" poems
Gold crown of Olympus, hair crown and
Skin gown. First we throw our bodies at
One another. Heaping piles of human soup.
Bold maneuvers, hands and mouths and
Boy meets girl lying down, on top, intertwined.
Skittish moves on a tryst. Wet fingers of freshly
Tendered infinite decibel pleasure screams.
Streamers above a long rooting movement.
Overture of Aphrodite. Sparkling, glitter woman,
Legs pressed tightly to the chest,
Loose appendages intertwined. Intersticed dactyls
In rapture, soothing. Bodies build to one heart's beat.
Two muses fused together. If I wasn't afraid I'd wake you up
I'd slip on my shoes and make a tropical fruit fondue.
Stage two:
Ice cream lover's delight. Opus to brown sugar.
To swimming again, a pursed lurking of lips
In the academy of the pastoral commonwealth.
We eat at our stations of the sublime. Today which was
A day of discord- you nursed me back to the land of the living.
Stage three:
***
Stage four.
***
Stage five:
As we earn our pageantry to take
Stride on this Earth, and string a
Great bow of eager success among all of us,
You, me, them. While I continue to
Gaze at you. If not dinner, perhaps a
Cup of tea instead.
May 17, 2014
May 17, 2014 at 4:35 AM UTC
The Atlanta Falcons , defender of the city in a sport of the passionate ! A longtime cold weather tradition of the Peanut State with youth , high school and university alike ......Memories that conjure Van Brocklin , Nobis , Humphrey , Van Note , Bartkowski and Ryan . Fall is for dark green numbered fields , pageantry , struggle as tactician , athlete and opponent mired in battle , bestowing honor , emotion , and pride in the warriors of yesteryear , locked in the spirit of competition , sportsmanship and Georgia folklore !...
Sep 20, 2015
Sep 20, 2015 at 12:42 PM UTC
you left your blueish dress
twisted by the pool’s edge
like a cold monument
to every single misstep
and my heart is overwhelmed
with visions of a dancing grave
via crucis in the morning
carry me to our palisade
while these tiny arcs of light
leave my eyes, breaking easily
and your voice keeps me awake
i believe that i need this
you were wrong
i am nothing
but one more familiar face
amid the pageantry
Sep 9, 2019
Sep 9, 2019 at 2:42 PM UTC
*Elusive moon beckons dark currents,
sand's sparkling pageantry
drifts out midst frothing tide,
submerging lover's imprints 'neath
the realm of alluring seascape illusions*
Jul 29, 2015
Jul 29, 2015 at 9:50 AM UTC
Like a drug taken for a quarter century, this writing doesn't help like it use to...
See,
I'm starting to feel like it's working against me
Holding me here in pain and misery
Cleverly disguised as creativity
I use to lie and say it was a way to get rid of all this negativity
But I've spilled so much blood and tears onto stationary
...and not even purely metaphorically...
I should be completely empty
Hell, I think I might be
I think it's moved onto draining my energy
Can I still call this writing therapy?
Is it healthy or does it keep me from a new me?
Holding tightly but in spite of me
Hiding a different side of a complex personality
A new level of maturity
Is it actually helping any?
Today it's hard to say, but maybe
Unfortunately, it's something I'm good at, a skill I enjoy and I don't have many
So I've begun to notice I look at it differently
It was suppose to help me let go of the painful unpleasantry held in many a memory
But it woke a part of my ego that I didn't know would grip so tightly
It might have been a mistake to rely on it so heavily
It's no longer moving along the story
No cautionary tales to learn from because they never become history
It becomes a bookmark that I don't use properly
I never move it to the page I left off on and now, I must admit openly, I'm doing it purposely
I keep the worst of me right next to me, close as a frienemy
All because I notice I DON'T write when I'm happy
And I like to write so I dance around emotions strategically
I don't know if it's anything worth saying but writing is calling and drawing me in closely
A ghostly presence that when I look closely I see my identity
It hasn't always been but is now a big part of me
But does it want all of me?
Can't say either way with any certainty
No AH-HA moment, no clarity, only a death grip on disparity
So I recklessly walk the line of happy and tragedy
Like a DUI test on the side of the freeway, drunken pageantry
Eyes closed usually
No thought of mine or anyone else's safety
Dangerously close to calamity
And I just worry
©2024
Jan 3, 2024
Jan 3, 2024 at 6:32 PM UTC
A patriotic fervor producing fealty
A noble cause compelling loyalty
Paired with a callous indignity
Brash enlistee plunges toward destiny
Honor's badge worn with impunity
Duty's moniker embossed with magnanimity
Insatiable bloodlust quelshing all insecurity
Unbridled ego clamoring a garrulous enmity
Toward the villains who shattered blithe serenity
First skirmish, pageantry displaced by gravity
Mettle varnished with aura of invincibility
First battle, fallen comrades question mortality
Successive battles, severed limbs, caustic wounds challenge credulity
Fragile mind being conditioned to atrocity
War's heavy mantle now shorn of indemnity
Threatening mind's sanity, hearth's perpetuity
Once faceless foes now scream their humanity
Once noble leaders brim with insincerity
Supportive countrymen now fickle, distant entity
Cheering press now rank with duplicity
Only solace, hardened comrades equanimity
Jul 25, 2012
Jul 25, 2012 at 6:03 PM UTC
Look at all the parrots--
Parroting the words
Of all the other parrots--
Of all the other birds--
Parroting profusely
All the same refrains--
Parroting the constant patter
In their parrot brains--
Parroting the preaching
From the pulpit to the pews--
Parroting their parents'
And their parents' parents' views--
Parroting their leaders
And their pompous platitudes--
Parroting their peers'
Pretentious attitudes--
Parroting the patriarchs'
Proselytizing that'll
Put your teeth on edge
With their pathetic prattle--
Parroting the poppycock
Of trite pontifications--
Parroting pernicious
And sly manipulations--
Parroting the pretty birds
Whose pageantry and glory
Appeal to their prurient tastes
In each pathetic story--
Parroting the songsters
With parasitic pleasure
And counting out the rhythm
Of every pitiful measure--
Parroting the powerful
Whose ploys are so profuse,
Leaving the powerless
Pummeled with abuse--
Parroting with passion
Presumptuous prophesies
With putative contrition,
"Humbly" on their knees--
Parroting themselves--
Together all in sync--
How they love to parrot
So they don't have to think!
- by Bob B
Oct 30, 2016
Oct 30, 2016 at 8:10 AM UTC
how the years go sailing past! they go by in a blink!
one day i pause and grasp the thought, t'is later than i think.
i bury friends and family and start to realize,
i’m mortal after all, my friend ... and everybody dies.
i take an inventory of life's sorrows and it's joys
rememb'ring most the happy times and all my little "toys"
i think of goals accomplished and my failures just as well.
i think of things i can't unsay and doubts i cannot quell.
mortality, that bane of man, seems but another's fate
and miss my own life's pageantry, with naught but empty plate.
how strange my life should end one day. the final scene must play.
i take each breath for granted and don't cherish every day.
so... "happy birthday to myself!
i’m fifty-two anon !
what happened to my days of youth!? i missed them. now they're gone!
Oct 14, 2017
Oct 14, 2017 at 1:39 AM UTC
"He's young now." I look into the mirror. "He'll grow on you."
"He's learning. Unwise in his few years, low in confidence."
I ponder..." Will he always be so...scrappy?"
Here stands a young man, looking in the mirror. Still baffled at the reflection he sees.
There goes a woman, his mother, still determined to have a youngest daughter.
People say "He's changing, look in the mirror...see for yourself."
What I see is a scared young man....
scared to live, scared to take up space, scared to make a sound in the noise of society's never ending chaos.
She's trying...she says. To understand. To support. To move on. She knows not her faults nor the effect her words have on you...she only knows that one day her daughter stopped wearing dresses, cut her hair, and left a life of pink and pageantry behind.
No, she doesn't know what she does, but she can see the light in your eyes began to dim when she calls you her little girl.
His father....slowly decaying, pushes the ideas of a son out of his mind. Refuses to see the beard and changing physique in front of him, clings desperately like a moth to a flame to his little girl who he swears never grew a day past the age of five.
Back when things were simple. Back when there wasn't so much **** change. Back when things mattered less about pronouns and more about peace of mind and reputation.
When I grow up, I want to be the change that I wish I saw in all of you. I want to embrace who I love with open arms, decide that I'd **** for the man I see in the mirror. Let all those who disapprove be ******
Because if I couldn't protect the light in that little girls eyes so many years ago, I'll be **** sure that the man I become is one who will protect mine.
Jul 26, 2023
Jul 26, 2023 at 8:05 PM UTC
Betrayal of a nation
By its own generations
Pageantry that slackens
Sliding into morbidity
Obesity of the spirit
Swells of needless waste
In the name of wealth
Sacriledge
Oozing farce
Finger puppets
Only to be played
Imagined wars, sciences
A lavishness blithely unaware
Of its inner decay
Decadence
Sweet taste of poison
Thus falls Babylon
By her own hand
Feb 12, 2010
Feb 12, 2010 at 9:12 PM UTC
Milton! I think thy spirit hath passed away
From these white cliffs and high-embattled towers;
This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours
Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey,
And the age changed unto a mimic play
Wherein we waste our else too-crowded hours:
For all our pomp and pageantry and powers
We are but fit to delve the common clay,
Seeing this little isle on which we stand,
This England, this sea-lion of the sea,
By ignorant demagogues is held in fee,
Who love her not: Dear God! is this the land
Which bare a triple empire in her hand
When Cromwell spake the word Democracy!
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The sun rises up over the Kentucky hills
The horses in the pasture are slowly strolling around
But today is different
Today is the Kentucky Derby
The quietness of the morning will soon turn to excitement
The pageantry will unfold; the hats, the costumes
The mint juleps and the red roses
The sounding of the trumpets
And the singing of My Old Kentucky Home
Many know nothing about horse racing
The Kentucky Derby horses; they can maybe name a few
We’re proud people in Kentucky; the Kentucky Derby is ours
Come on down to Louisville it’s the Run for the Roses
With open arms we will welcome you
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 7:39 AM UTC
Doing unto others
as we do with ourselves,
we manipulate
and conceal.
Power -- poorly understood,
absent autognosia --
seeks gratification
and little else.
Bewitching
and unscrupulous
hypnotic pageantry
holding sway.
A visceral magick
used cavalierly
by vampires
on the hunt.
Rapt in the Promise
of continuity,
the world
watches on.
Feb 12, 2015
Feb 12, 2015 at 1:21 AM UTC
I'm not the only me I see when I see me looking back at me
Bewildered by the impossibility of a blind visionary with the foresight to look past me to find me
I got caught staring so intently I lost sight of the true me completely
You see such savagery and think it must have been nurtured from infancy
While true, I had it in check, hidden away in the captivity of a long forgotten memory
But it still remembered me, waited patiently, predicting my return with a whimsical accuracy
It heard me frantically trying to find the glass to break in case of emergency
Not to set it free but to once again embrace what was scary, what might be the reality of the actual me
Instantly I handed over the key, didn't even keep a copy for me
Knowing exactly what I was doing and what it'd do to me mentally
It was always going to happen this way eventually
Finding solace in it's monotony, no more uncertainty
Both wake up and go to bed with the same angry energy
Done with the pleasantry and all the pageantry projected outwardly to seem more neighborly
Just so the world could be more comfortable with me when I pass through their snooty, gated community
While it pays no mind to what's being done to my psyche
This self destructive entity wasn't only the part of my reality I was told to bury
It is the entirety of my history, sad and happy, comedy and tragedy
I was it and it was me, the merger went so smoothly I believed it was absolutely meant to be, probably
Fighting myself got messy and wasn't necessarily a necessity
In the end there was no surprise who's hand was raised in victory
I already knew the part of me that held superiority but everyone else said it'd turn out differently
Like they got some kind of decoder key
Of course it didn't and they don't, thankfully I was welcomed back too once again become my own worst enemy
It ain't good company but I personally accept that personality and it's starting to warm up to me finally
It's been a strange journey, be thankful I didn't ask you to join me
©2023
Nov 1, 2023
Nov 1, 2023 at 12:22 AM UTC
22
All these my banners be.
I sow my pageantry
In May—
It rises train by train—
Then sleeps in state again—
My chancel—all the plain
Today.
To lose—if one can find again—
To miss—if one shall meet—
The Burglar cannot rob—then—
The Broker cannot cheat.
So build the hillocks gaily
Thou little ***** of mine
Leaving nooks for Daisy
And for Columbine—
You and I the secret
Of the Crocus know—
Let us chant it softly—
“There is no more snow!”
To him who keeps an Orchis’ heart—
The swamps are pink with June.
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As a dear friend you care for me
Sure as the air I breathe
To love me anymore than this
Not sure if I believe
Each day anew the Sun will rise
But nighttime hides away
Thus, your love and affection
If here, will never stay
Was given Cinderella's ball
Before midnight's last strike
Must scurry from the pageantry
Else, face a certain fright
Extravagance would disappear
Revealing to the Prince
Her true self in the deepest way
The pains that made her wince
Afraid once she was vulnerable
Find out was all a lie
A ****** that would pierce through her heart
With certainty she'd die
Truth though, if given that moment
Each flaw the Prince could see
Each one a part of Cinderella;
Part of her beauty
Suddenly, she understood
She did not have to hide
What was closed off long time ago
And buried deep inside
Still with some fear, her heart she gave
And with a lightning strike
Fulfilled with happiness and love
And stepped into the light
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Dec 10, 2018
Dec 10, 2018 at 10:41 AM UTC
Lightly colored with painted kisses, humming harmonious hymns:
The vital branches of our tree, such strength, unblighted!
Your charity sustains me, the manna of my muse,
Do you feel my fingertips as they glide across your cheek,
My palm on your chin, your eyes upturned they settle and seize my attention.
Stay not your caress, though in between us there may be a veil.
Serpents in the short grass will not strike you as you pass,
I've paid them for your safe passage, come to me, I crave only your touch.
Here, let us only touch each other,
No more is needed now, but skin, and silence,
Let the wind carry away all pains and past sorrows.
With your touch my agonies dissolve
like a sweet treat in a moist mouth.
With confidence I shrug off past limitations,
Celebrations are even now being held in the core of my being.
Your smiling spirit sends sympathetic vibrations when I am away.
Restored are the comforts of past days,
Eiderdown and slow burning sage,
Before I knew your words were ever for me
I fell deeply in love with your melodies.
If I could, in my deepest passion prove the power of your touch
It would mean so much if you could understand.
Like an assembled host of mighty magicians focused in concert
Your hands work epic miracles, of soothing and creation.
In the course of my rambles
I have stumbled
On sigils and symbols
That have granted me a second sight
And from you I see waves of light,
In mingled colours sharply detailed patterns
Of magnificent artistry,
An aura of delightful pageantry
That reveals your unparraleled self to me.
Entrusted with the formula for happiness,
I share this willingly with the hope you'll see,
All I need to wake each day,
is the nearest hope that we shall spend a moment together,
So in touching, we may impart the many words left unsaid,
The truths that would shatter our lips should we utter them.
Sep 25, 2012
Sep 25, 2012 at 2:39 PM UTC
Dedicated To My Loving Daughter SUZANNA CHRISTY
On her 12th Birthday (08/09/2015)
Days rolled on; moments of time trotted; Waters changed shapes;
She walked with His Grace; smiled with His Mercy; grown with His Love.
Eleven nautical miles she hath crossed; might be twisted with ebbs and tides;
Yet His provident Arms have carried her in tender and glorious ways.
I see her seated on the banks of the stately throne with scepter of innocence,
My heart is thrilled with her mother’s heart of her child-like majesty
Envisaged across the firmament with the rainbow colours within.
Each of the rainbow shade dappled with Heaven’s Glory to glow.
I have drawn her in the sky of my fancy with figures of speech in colours,
She hath become a poem in my kingdom of poetry in pageantry.
We’ve been dreaming of her splendor glowing in His Presence
And pray unto Him no blemish shall taint her soul till the day.
My heart perceived sweet smiles on her lips translated from her within:
Every smile is His Blessing showered on her heart - gratitude to HIM.
We planted a garden and ‘ve grown the seed of godliness to grow like His Son,
Our hearts rejoice in the growth of the seed beside the sweet flow of His Love.
She hath grown through lightning, storms, showers and withstood with His Grace,
She’s been God’s Gift’ conferred on us late but in His time mystifying to mankind.
It hath been His Eternal episode that she ought to be in our arms crawl.
And God’s Gift is in His Image to grow in His Shade and fly under His Wings.
We are instruments to lead her in the way of Eternity, and her soul is precious to Him.
All have souls and all have Eternity, and have to choose His Son hung on the Cross;
Yet earthly affinity hath no role to play in His Kingdom, for He is Spirit,
And all His children ought to have His Image ever to reign in His Glory.
We perceive Truth of Eternity on her child-like countenance each day.
She hath stepped on the twelfth way of life and hath years to walk through.
Our prayer unto Him is His Providence be showered on her soul till the time.
She hath awakened us to share the Truth of Eternity in my simple verse.
Sep 15, 2015
Sep 15, 2015 at 5:24 AM UTC
I, round the brae of Howth in chalky light,
Lamented my lot more spent in sport than play.
There, land appeared disinterested and sight
Was a teary well. Cold was the shivering day,
And my frame, a ghost of shadow, was erased,
It receded like the fog. Just then, overhead
I saw brave birds engaged, a raptor traced
A mourning dove’s faltering flight, how it fed
Its own shining sense of purpose, for not
Wanton sport or lordly state do falcons
So hunt, nor did the bird in peril belabour
His reason, rather he tried avoiding those talons.
A question answered itself within my breadth,
Survival resides in a pageantry of death.
Aug 10, 2012
Aug 10, 2012 at 2:00 PM UTC
Stop reading, I tell you;
there is no resolution coming.
Only laments and curiosities,
incursions into the soulless depths of mesonoxian thunder,
maybe a note on the desirability of warm socks,
but no satisfaction.
Don't expect a mournful awakening,
nor deliberate (or otherwise) profundity.
-disregarding the note on warm socks, of course-
I have given you warning, and if you continue,
the burden of exploration falls on you,
for consideration is the ferry to insight,
of which this text is built strictly without.
The boatman may ask that you pay with your wisdom
and refuse those that have no treasures to offer.
Would that not be the most desirable life?
Where we live to learn and when we have,
the boatman ferries us into the undying waters?
And those refused must wander and wonder
why they were excluded, where wisdom is birthed,
realizing that they are exactly as intelligent as they work to become,
to which the boatman might say, "Welcome aboard. Tell me more."
Allegorically speaking, this notion is nonsense.
Metaphorically speaking, completely absurd.
Practically, it's practically insane,
though actively, it is inanely preferred.
Alternative to apathy and pageantry,
wherein the boatman has empathy for those without wealth.
There is no true truth, only real observation,
so stop trusting my judgment and go create it yourself
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 4:18 PM UTC
_They spoke to me of evenfall and dayspring, the solstice and the equinox. They sang of eras, epochs, and eons. On indigo nights, they whispered in the owl light of alchemy and enchantment, wreathing my cot with an iridescence which illuminated my dreams and begentled my slumber.
At Hallowtide, they scribed lyrical pathways in the air and sculpted rainbow arcs. They celebrated the vernal majesty of April and October's autumnal reprise with moonglade pageantry and sunset flourishes. They conjured blackberry winters and gypsy summers, and laughed at my amazement, as if to say: ‘Told you so!’
As the years departed my second decade and encroached alarmingly upon my third, I began to question why they had chosen me; why we walked together apart and apart together. I wondered where the magic ended and I began, and I realised with the bone-breaking chill of the unwelcome inevitable, just how lost I would be without it._
Sep 17, 2019
Sep 17, 2019 at 4:12 PM UTC
I, round the brae of Howth in chalky light,
Lamented my lot more spent in sport than play.
There, land appeared disinterested and sight
Was a teary well. Cold was the shivering day,
And my frame, a ghost of shadow, was erased,
It receded like the fog. Just then, overhead
I saw brave birds engaged, a raptor traced
A mourning dove’s faltering flight, how it fed
Its own shining sense of purpose, for not
Wanton sport or lordly state do falcons
So hunt, nor did the bird in peril belabour
His reason, rather he tried avoiding those talons.
A question answered itself within my breadth,
Survival resides in a pageantry of death.
Dec 19, 2013
Dec 19, 2013 at 10:40 AM UTC
Before the storm, the river had all but given up,
the guttural roar of wind and deluge
rattled all souls, except her
and in the aftermath she swelled
and bore delicious weight again
and my eye-contact
with the pageantry of the green headed drake
told all the muddy truths:
to underestimate is to lose
Nov 28, 2021
Nov 28, 2021 at 9:09 AM UTC
Pulsating honor doth corroded hearts impound
A blustery breeze echoes cries from each, preceding battleground
A recurring, eager parade of reporters, gawkers freely roam distant mound
Below, fatigued, tidy mass of steeled infantry; to death's throes bound
Neighing horses conditioned to mayhem the pageantry doth confound
On opposite ridges, mounted turrets prepared hell's fury to expound
On signal, a synchronized, concussive chorus doth its dark melody propound
Scraps of metal shards initiate; commencing another, toilsome round
After lengthy barrage, wits collected a more lethal volley to stound
Familiar, urgent order to charge christens hallowed ground
With youthful ardor a wide-eyed bugler doth the bridled expanse unbound
Shrieking rancor from recoiling rifles; a familiar anthem doth resound
Recurring cacophonous medley, weathered nerves drowned
Once more, a mass of flesh surges into the abyss with mortal hopes crowned
Anon, shattered limbs; gory wounds misery's cache compound
Jul 20, 2012
Jul 20, 2012 at 9:59 AM UTC
Berthed and tailed in Almighty,
Tea showed its mite as an entity
In daily life with its novelty
In reality tea is in plenty
Producers and users make it tasty
To sip in habitual punctuality
Its beauty lies in its utility
Take it hot, not to be hasty
For a break in work, it has its sanctity
In extreme hot or cold, it is naughty
Its quantity goes well with quality
It has limited warranty and guaranty
No pantry without tea
Kudos to tea’s entreaty
For its welcome treat in any treaty
Oh! Behold its entry and pageantry
Mar 1, 2015
Mar 1, 2015 at 9:56 PM UTC