"pedestals" poems
It’s all you’ve ever seen
in a midnight’s dream
the zero sum games
and exorcised demons
asinine plunges
on tunkwa brides
phantom fingers cradling
the ragged red dress
shadow hands
clasp at the floodgates
lava fields boil
through scorched amber veins
needles pierce
the look out
where flames dance wildly
over boneyard grounds
deep red pedestals
behind bleeding walls
empty halls and doorways
throughout the sinful nest
bulging eyes and blood rush
in a dark crimson sky
a funeral, before I die
Dec 10, 2016
Dec 10, 2016 at 2:14 PM UTC
We perpetuate heartbreak culture,
teaching girls the man who holds her loves her despite the bruises,
or it was her fault; she looked older.
We fetishes shoulders,
prize youth from the young in return for pre-chewed gum,
swallowing down the same tired ideals from those who still wield them like flags,
waving their patriotism on poles of bone before a throne of medieval ********
They chant mantras with beer stained breath about how 'our' country 'bested' the rest,
but what about the brutality?
The blood split on foreign soil in return for prehistoric oil?
Our land is deemed pure so long as the violence on our hands never reaches our shores,
but the ocean is red and staining our sands.
How can you have pride in a country who's sole identity is based off having the worlds largest navy?
Congratulations. You bombed your way through countless continents, collecting cultures to gather dust on pedestals and alters
We sin on Sundays, drink till we're ****** then wave at the seven deadly's (they don't apply to us here).
We teach preschoolers nationalism before they can walk,
indoctrinate our children before they can talk.
George killed the dragon.
Hood gave to the poor.
we all jumped on the bandwagon before we realised the princess had no choice and the rich still ruled.
There was no voice in the tale for those whose wail could be ignored.
What about those without lines in the script?
Those kicked to the curb, then kicked from it?
Our pavements have no room for nonconformists,
they're tailored to for same mind, same mindless wanderer,
squandering on the lasted polyesters even though that mouth on the street hasn't eaten in over a week.
'God save the Queen' from the vermin;
the homeless have been tossed out of the trash.
Why help them when you could save your cash by turning a blind?
After all, out of sight, out of mind.
Welcome to England, we hope you like what you find
Because we’re not changing it.
May 22, 2018
May 22, 2018 at 5:02 PM UTC
#*'Twas a time I deemed thee love;
the echoes lacked contraire
Sea moon shadows dance across
this isle of despair
Entwined flesh eyes doth ne'er perceive,
outside the mortal's scope
No sole charter giveth passage
through salty waves unknown
'Tis what I think to see thee there
on pedestals of gold
Forevermore you place thyself
on stalwart shores alone
Unfurl thy sails for distant lands;
the lighthouse shines once more
Praying to gods that long lost ship
will find its way to port.*#
May 4, 2018
May 4, 2018 at 11:58 AM UTC
.
How do we mend wavering pedestals...
When the ground beneath is parched dry.
Stemming off loose foundations that time had weathered wry.
How do we mend broken gazes...
When watchful eyes which were meant to see,
are blinded by the onslaught of half-truths and fallacy.
How do we mend burnt bridges...
When we never look back to trace heavy missteps.
We fail to admit to consciously springing obvious traps.
How do I mend ailing hearts...
When familiar corridors seem warped to a bend.
When my own is struggling and perpetually on the mend.
May 26, 2016
May 26, 2016 at 3:59 PM UTC
Here you were thinking
Woww life is really great
When you have people that love you
When you have people that cherish you
When you have people that adore you
But what if, just what if thats all just in your mind
What if you made up this fantasy in your head
About everything you've ever wanted
And everything you've ever craved for
And told yourself that it exists
What if you play scenarios that happen in one way and interpret it in three ways
Multiplying the actual meaning of the scenarios
What if you give credit to a person for being themselves but themselves is a liar
What if no matter if that liar is a liar you're happy with it
As the fantasy in your head is unwilling to let go of the part that liar plays
But what if there's more than one liar
What if they're all liars
What if they've only told you what they wanted you to hear because you have high expectations of them
And they know this and you know this
So technically it's not their fault for being on the pedestals you've placed them on
It's not their fault that you're unwilling to accept the garbage of this world
It's not their fault that you keep fantasizing about a happy life with any and everyone that can adore you
What if, just what if you can actually find that someday?
What if you never find that
You're tired of actively searching for people to give you what you can give them
You're tired of being this woman that expects
And expects
And expects
Should you or could you maintain this fantasy without completely
And utterly falling apart
From shame, from pain from torment
Or should you just let it all go and just..
Just ....
-fir.m
Jan 24, 2021
Jan 24, 2021 at 5:44 AM UTC
I sat by his bedside the day my father died.
The cancer that had riddled his body and soul now had complete control.
He fought kicking and screaming
the night the men in white came to take him on his final journey
like a great wildebeest struggling to get up on its front legs after being taken down by young lions. The way so many had said he
probably would since he fought his way tooth & nail throughout his life from the very beginning.
That night I sat on a chair at the foot of his bed staring out the huge ceiling to floor window of the medical centre at the many worlds hidden beneath thousands of rows of stationary lights and fluid winding rows of transient lights in-between and thought how the light of this window is just one of many thousands.
At that moment it seemed more like just one tiny speck in the vast star fields worlds above this city of light.
My father had spent most of his life just a short six-mile drive from here under the scattered lights of his hometown.
He turned to me and asked,
“That’s a big city. Where are we?"
Dementia had claimed his mind ten or more years earlier. It
slowly wound its way around his brain like a cocky snake
handler being choked by a boa constrictor unawares.
It seemed like it all caught up to his body. But it was good to see much of the bitterness and bad blood between us dissipated over the past decade.
On that night compassion ruled the day.
I could not say it then but it has been many years, where it seems compassion has forged with objectivity.
In a lucid moment he looked around the hospital room
bewildered as if he were a little boy who just woke up from a bad dream and asked,
“How did this ever happen?"
If only I could have told him.
Sometimes the truth cannot be spoken or heard. All I could do then was sit by his bed and lean in close to his ear and sing softly his favourite hymns.
By morning his lifeless
dilapidated body laid in the fetal position. His once ravenous mouth now forever frozen looked like a knothole in a twisted cedar tree.
All I can do now is hang my head and think of how weak and frail we humans truly are.
Like compassion forged with objectivity, weakness and frailty forges with fleeting moments of strength. We forge heroes out of these moments to tower above
the pedestals the former is made of to somehow minimize the pain of this often denied truth.
Feb 16, 2017
Feb 16, 2017 at 11:40 AM UTC
I do not want the sainthood you assign to those
who have never let you down
I want the ***** gritty scabs that come from falling
off of pedestals and landing in the mud
I am in no need of your righteous tongue
I am in need of your caring shoulder
of your love
of your grace moving through me as you kiss my thigh
Mar 26, 2017
Mar 26, 2017 at 2:24 AM UTC
I hurt with the pleasure of carving knives
plunged into blood-lusting hands.
Standing in the storm of stab wounds
and searching for Gods dressed in human
to give me mental medicine
for wounds that they must trust me to see.
I am the glass-tongued mediator.
I am the vortex that turns worlds to ink-soaked scenery
and words to black noise.
They gurgle out blandishments like they're true! And to them,
I'm a glass door to better days;
they put their famished hands
onto my handle and tug for good luck.
I open and warble out what they want to hear;
a fortune teller who cries courtesies and fills her glass ball
with a concoction of
tears and liquid caution.
I don't want to lose them.
But I choke on their
distorted, glazed looks,
I stuff my throat with gauze,
my chest fills with blood
as they throw their clocks into the garbage
and raise me on glass pedestals
and drool praises as I cry for me
and for them and
for us
and for-
Useless. I am useless.
Wasteful. I am wasteful.
Broken. I am and should be broken.
Did anyone ever realize? How would they
when I am so selfishly unselfish?
Jul 16, 2018
Jul 16, 2018 at 8:18 PM UTC
Sweet girl
I feel i must tell you that the worst is not over
But you are cold and steely
Churning and relentless
even in mosaic bits.
And you will slip silently into places you have not want nor have been.
You will at some points be nothing but a reflection of your own pain.
And you may hide from mirrors and even food will lose its taste
And comfort
And you will fade and think a
Hundred million times
I am broken
I am less than ...
Because falling into the abyss is a cold fighting wait
So cold you may not be but numbing ache
So cold you will lose yourself to sharp words
Stripping you right off your hollow bones
And you will lose all your hope and love and life
And laughter will be scorched right out of you by scornful looks
And you will be torn through by hands so gentle as to have loved you once.
And over and over you will let them .
If only for the hope of the touch of something warmer
Every bit torn exposing more vacancy inside where something important used to hide.
Sweet girl
I feel i must tell you
Do not forget then
That the woman standing on frigid waters
Edge cursing and red
Is not but twisted picture angry sister of all that's loved you
Of your mother
And your friends
While she holds your head just above bleak motionless surface
Only long enough to paint you worthless
In the words she sings you in
remember then, sweet girl the legs your mother had born you in
Legs made of stone and electric grace
pedestals made to carry you to safe distance at swift pace
’pedestals
To lift you to your highest self
Even under the incredible weight of this disappointment and pain the nothing ringing out of everything of this disdain weighing inside you
You will be strong enough to walk the distance
Brave enough to endure
Until you
Are caught unexpected not by the sharp demise you hear echo in your mind
but by the soft sweet echo of someone who loves you more than you can imagine
You will be aching and breathless and born again
In love with your persistence and patience and paint yourself courageous brighter than anyone ever said
Because you proved it when every time you died you lived.
No death nor hate or pain of disdain can hold you down no yearning heart not or wanting can stand you still you will sing yourself creator of your universe
You will love all that brokenness all those anxious moments and scars for what they are because it takes every scrap of things to build yourself up.
When you finally see yourself
You will find you burn so deep and bold and wider still
than the bits of the girl that died inside
Sweet girl
I feel i must tell you
The fall you have taken will be the longest you have lived.
At all angles there is wind
That hurts
But sweet girl do not flinch
You will be the strongest then
You have ever been.
The strongest yet you have ever seen.
Aug 5, 2016
Aug 5, 2016 at 8:44 AM UTC
vase.
your fingers;
so delicate
and fragile;
cool to the touch
as i allow
my fingertips
to trail down
the surface
of your smooth skin;
almost like porcelain
to the touch,
you calmed me,
just being in the same vicinity as you
made me suddenly feel
overcome with a sense
of serenity,
of peace
and because of this,
i couldn't get enough of you;
i had never in my life
seen anything i regarded
as remotely close to
as beautiful as you were,
causing me to place you
on the highest of pedestals,
an insurmountable target
with which i used
to compare
every other person;
and none of them did;
the way
you complemented a room
made me have to compliment you
for i have not once
come across something
so pure,
an untainted piece of art
that i fear
will leave my life
sooner than i'd like,
for,
by a stroke
of awful luck,
you'd been dropped
many a time
by undeserving people
that didn't recognize
the priceless masterpiece
they once had
to call their own,
leaving you
to pick up the shattered pieces of yourself
and put them all back together
and while there are scars,
permanent indents and grooves
endlessly reminiscing previous pain,
i am not deterred in my quest
to show the whole world
what a magnificent specimen you are.
and because of this,
i vow to cradle you,
to protect you,
and to love you;
and i'll hope, every week,
that you like the flowers
i got for you to hold
(they glimmer well
with the hint of your eyes)
when the light
from the early morning sun
illuminates every corner
of those daisies,
and more importantly,
the beautiful vaselike angel
caressing them
as if she's the only thing
keeping them from
the rest of the world;
the parts of reality
that don't notice,
that don't realize
the significance
and the simple beauty
inside of both of them;
which is why, darling
i understand
with your broken past
you fear falling apart
but i promise
to keep you safe
after all,
you're my work of heart.
Dec 8, 2013
Dec 8, 2013 at 4:08 PM UTC
*In their blind bid
To become westernized,
They lost touch with reality
Created shadows of themselves
Despised their own intrinsic values
Embraced a twisted dress sense
Of fallen pants and revealed underpants
Idolized everything they're not
The good, the bad, the ugly
They birthed dual personalities
Picked up foreign accents
On ****** home-based passports
The American Dream, they call it,
As they wear winter jackets
In scorching African sun
All in the name of fashion
Trading our simple hues
For complex shades unknown
Bleaching skin and hair
Trading natural black for artificial white
Unaware the very gods they adore
Are tanning theirs to look darker
Insecurity drives them mad
Inferiority complex overtakes them
As they ban mother tongues in offsprings
Placing exotic tongues on pedestals
At the expense of our cultural future.
This is not an attempt at poetry
This is wake up call to Africa
Be bold, be proud, be black!
You are BEAUTIFUL!!
You are AFRICAN!!!*
© Raphael Uzor
Sep 11, 2014
Sep 11, 2014 at 5:43 PM UTC
Idols standing druidly atop their golden pedestals
accepting praise and payment raise for work far from incredible
teach the people wrong not right
watch how they will fight not grow
minstrels MC massive shows where minds do suffer massive blows
basking in catastrophe
giving what life asks of me
watching brothers slack increase as skill is proclaimed long deceased
staying humble always have
brothers walking wider roads
demons rise i stare and laugh
ill be the tool the wiser chose
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 6:47 PM UTC
If you knew I love you, would your heart change its beat?
If you knew how many nights I have stayed awake thinking of you, would you think of me too?
If you knew how many times I reread the words "I will always hold you close to my heart, no matter what.", would you reread mine too?
If you knew I cry over the fact that you're gone, would you come back?
If you knew that I put you up on one of my highest pedestals, would you rethink yours?
If you knew I hear those five words in my head constantly, would you hear them too?
If you knew how many times I have longed for your embrace, would you say you long for mine too?
Our last days with each other were magical and filled with love for me, were they for you too?
That move star hug, oh you know which one. The one where you were strutting down the senior walk out line filled with people and you just stopped about 6 yards away from me. Looked me straight in the eyes and opened your loving arms, not caring about your long time buddies on the side screaming your name. I booked it down that line of loud, sweaty, standing in shock teenagers and collapsed in your arms. You picked me up, spun me around, and with tears in your eyes you whispered those five words that changed my life forever... "I will always love you.". Do you remember now?
At your graduation party I was a goner. My mother came and talked to yours while I went down and said my final goodbyes. "It's never goodbye Big Sean." You whispered in my ear as I gave you a final hug. My mother was behind me when you said that. And when we got back in the car the first thing she said was "That boy loves you, I can see it in his eyes." finally it seamed like I wasn't dreaming and someone else noticed it too. They way you look at me rather than everyone else, even your girlfriend.
So do you see why my heart aches for you to come back, to love me?
If you knew I love you, would your heart change its beat?
If you knew how many nights I have stayed awake thinking of you, would you think of me too?
If you knew how many times I reread the words "I will always hold you close to my heart, no matter what.", would you reread mine too?
If you knew I cry over the fact that you're gone, would you come back?
If you knew that I put you up on one of my highest pedestals, would you rethink yours?
If you knew I hear those five words in my head constantly, would you hear them too?
If you knew how many times I have longed for your embrace, would you say you long for mine too?
Please say you'll do...
Dec 2, 2013
Dec 2, 2013 at 10:06 PM UTC
As I never cared for shiny objects.
until I felt I lost mine,
Illumination,
What feels like in a sudden,
There are so many from them,
Those people,
covered in gold and diamonds,
shining away from their high pedestals,
Stunning, ... captivating,...
I sat there in silence,
admiring from afar,
and once in a while when they come down from their higher ground,
I follow them around, --
I follow them around, ...
My existence is a wish of theirs,
wispy and feeble,...
...
There is a beggar on the ground,
begging for a second chance,
trampled and forgotten,
I don't know her,
I don't know her story,
As much as I know these sparkles,
they can't be the same kind...
Boring and uninteresting,...
So I scold at her,
ignored her,
as mine and me alone gasp for my care,...
Too easy...
Because it was too easy...
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 12:56 PM UTC
Often, the shallows are a good place to be,
Once out of there, no going back, not ever,
Once noticed, return is virtually impossible,
And all pedestals are shaky, no roots: none!
Ensure buoyancy, for one must sink or swim,
So much expected, so much demanded,
One may think shallows are unkind, a waste,
They are safe, though, friendly, pleasant,
Conducive company encouraging creation.
Once out of them, away from safe shores,
New challenges arise, new horizons, all new,
Making one desperate not to fail, not to sink,
One must swim, swim for your life; swim hard,
For it hurts to disappoint, it hurts so much.
Without the grassy bank and sandy bottom,
Creation is difficult, beware the sharks: teeth,
Scoot around the crocs, teeth snapping: biting,
Desiring your tender unsuspecting flesh!
See the glory-hogs wallowing, laughing at you,
Howling with derision; they know nothing,
Stupid hacks, every one of them, frolicking,
Performing in the deep, dark, dangerous-depths,
Unaware their blood will soon feed others,
The swirling waters running red: eventually.
Safer here with golden fish and humble toads,
Prometheus swims here as well as anywhere,
Savour the shallows, dance with creativity,
If you must leave, identity switch required,
Even then, watch sharks and crocs: teeth biting,
Often, the shallows are a good place to be.
©Paul Chafer 2014
May 22, 2014
May 22, 2014 at 8:19 AM UTC
There is a weird
And not so wonderful fetish
Particularly British
Common
Amongst commoners
In the United Kingdom
Although the aristocracy
And royalty
Are seen by all
With eyes to see
To have behaved
Abominally
Tortured and twisted
Enslaved, enchained
***** re-shaped
With bloodstained hands
The entire planet
Sending ordinary
More innocent
English men
To do their ***** work
Their dastardly
Disastrous deeds
As slaves of knaves
Through common British eyes
These horrible people
Are placed high upon
Holy pedestals
Romanticized
Idealized, Idolized
Canonized
Perhaps there's some
Vicarious thrill
Exercising
Enforcing
Power and evil will?
But the hand no pleasure gets
When, through rubbing, wets itself!
Sean Hunt
Windermere January 1st 2016
Jan 1, 2016
Jan 1, 2016 at 3:19 PM UTC
Breathe in
Cucumber Melon lotion
Breathe Out
Cigarette Smoke
Sit down
with your empty eyes
and drink
from that full cup of joe
Been There
Done that
Fell off pedestals
Slipped into slums
Re-arranged the seats of life
and got sick of surface girls
Nest Egg cracked
Ceilings fell
and
Humptey Dumptey
they say...
he never got well
May 11, 2010
May 11, 2010 at 6:47 AM UTC
Everyone assumes that
Us elite students in top schools
Are hardworking,
Morally upright people.
That we breeze through our work
And live life with a bright smile.
That's what they think.
They don't see
Our late nights, rushing assignments.
Copying each others' work hurriedly in the morning.
Feelings of inferiority, anger and jealousy consume us daily.
We're nothing more
Than ordinary people
Put on high pedestals.
Apr 8, 2014
Apr 8, 2014 at 9:55 AM UTC
back in the day
rocks could talk
often
they where
casual, petty and small-minded
just like us
divinities platitudes
every word a drop of manna
its magic
wow magic
so out of conceit
we made them gods
deferred to their credibility
and like idiot children
paid attention to their great allegories
a provident sea of wisdom
from the skeletons of time
we carved their faces from stones
put them on pedestals
and gave them names
the great know it alls
urns of heaven
those oracles of old
and so ensued
the epic cycle of talking statues
and thats how decisions where made
back in the day
the statues are strangely mute now
sunken shadows into earths bowels
and the age of reason
has been transplanted
by the age of
*what the ****
a new
hobbled world soul
of darkened consciousness
to cope with tentacles of complexity
and a forest of trials
where depth of thought has been replaced
and decisions are made by
the exalted
ennie meenie minee moe
method
an abstruse form of ritual magic
so from now on
all arguments will be settled
by me
sticking my tongue out
Nov 12, 2017
Nov 12, 2017 at 3:16 PM UTC
All things dull and normal
All people look the same
All things are but formal
With quite forgettable names
Each ear another one to lie to
Each mouth another one to feed
We're all but a statistic
And a very ugly one indeed
All things dull and normal
All people look the same
All things are but formal
With quite forgettable names
Hypocrites in their pedestals
As the sloths complain
The truth is hypothetical
And the self-righteous disdain
All things dull and normal
All people look the same
All things are but formal
With quite forgettable names
The sky scraping towers
The roads of traffic and rush
Beauty is only in the papers
And the tip of the artist's brush
All things dull and normal
All people look the same
All things are but formal
With quite forgettable names
Cold hearts shame the winter
Causing more damage than flood
We are but the earth's splinter
And we hunger for blood
All things dull and normal
All people look the same
All things are but formal
With quite forgettable names
Tomorrow is but a conjecture
Today is what we're worth
Will our children even have a future?
Or have we aborted them by birth?
All things dull and normal
All people look the same
All things are but formal
With quite forgettable names
We have guts for feeling
We have eyes to see
But indifference is more appealing
I hope it's just me
All things dull and normal
All people look the same
All things are but formal
With quite forgettable names
Sep 3, 2012
Sep 3, 2012 at 4:59 AM UTC
In this age of 3D Entertainment
and surround sound speakers;
of high definition and films extra features,
electronic mail and internet dating.
Where tectonics fail yet can be shown on
paper graphs and charts and diagram art.
These decades of speed and cynicism.
Where digits reign as idols flop
from pedestals and into bars.
Where your wildest dreams lie not
in your heart but in your favourite shop.
In this land of greed and want
and discord of the highest scale.
Is it peace and virtue that won
you the right to work from home;
eating breakfast in bed, worrying
only if jokes are stale?
Is it fine that your success
has led others to fail?
In this game of snakes and ladders
who populates the pit?
Those who were unfortunate
enough to be born into it.
Mar 20, 2014
Mar 20, 2014 at 6:36 PM UTC
I got your **** right here darlin’
My jaw is the hardest workin’ part of my body
And it never ceases to ***** chomp
Like premature bear trap
I mean lover,
I’ll sing you songs under the covers while you sleep
And wake you up
While standing over you lookin’ possessed like a bad horror film
The light from outside blinds you and blacks out my front
And maybe you won’t ever talk to me again
Been known to do that
Scare people off
With everything I do
This aint neediness love,
I just get so excited when you talk to me
Like a kid ready to run his mouth about his day
Me?
I’ll ***** talk your head off
And dance naked in the daylight before I leave
Make you coffee and eggs in the morning because
I can never sleep
Two eggs over easy, a sausage, and some hash browns
I call it my *********** continental
Please laugh for me one more time before I go
Thought there’d be more humor in my breakfast
That’s when you tell me that you can never be with somebody who can never take life seriously
Woman,
I’ll take you so seriously
Like the clap and the ***** we might’a traded
I don’t put people on pedestals because
I like things I can actually reach
Actually hold at night while they fall asleep
Let’s make a baby
Name him Norman
You know I am serious
About the name
not the baby
I’m not a father figure even though my figure aint good for much
Got it in sad clown college
It’s the one people go to when they want to make people laugh
Not because they want people to be happy
But because it’s the only way to get anyone to like them
Just when you tell your friends later
About that one time that I was your lover
Remember
I never wanted to be anywhere close to the best you had
I only wanted to be your favorite
The guy who can make you laugh and moan at the same time
And pluck your heartstring like a frustrated lullaby
The only guy who can actually make your breakfast *****
And then write you poetry
Jul 30, 2011
Jul 30, 2011 at 11:51 AM UTC
Everywhere, you don't need to choose to acknowledge it
Creating a subsequent opulence of
unanswered questions fulfilled,
pedestals gazed upon;
Securely sit our ideas of the world.
Non-conjunct actions leave words to be all that there is.
Influence gone, static amidst the change,
Stagnancy.
Sep 4, 2012
Sep 4, 2012 at 2:42 AM UTC