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trf Dec 2016
Crackling. Rocking. Crackling. Creaking and oscillating, a century old **Mahogany Wood seceded to the paSsage of time.
Particles of sand, confounded by the Peninsula’s chaotic, blasting breeze now revealed a shade of burnt tar.
   Outside of the second floor Maissonette, sways the rocking chair once warmed by Grandpa.
A Tactless, impatient, rhythmic Requiem Bashes near the wiNdow pane as the sunset falls Under the frame.  
                                                        ­    Empty Folklore presides like the Residue of a once lambent effigy…                                               SwOosh. Hush!
           Cocktails were a Preamble to lunch like diabetes to Nephropathy.
Corrosive Rhetoric seeped in to expose the ego of a Sommelier.
     A smile would Parachute down when you needed it like Nicotine to remind that no Precedent had been set, just an Anomaly.
                     Cutthroat beginnings, this was no Analog man.
        In grade school his Cosmos found Zion and “The world to come”.
        This baby’s Cradle, abandoned High atop a mountain was blown by a Chinook towards the Atlantic.
                “I was found swallowed in a stained Table cloth by Balkan children on a treasure hunt, with no Guarantee and no resignatIon. "
                     The boTtle narrates these chronicles and a smile parachutes down when you need it like nicotine.
                                          Dionysus Crafted his accounts while most Garnered his spiels with Snide.                               As they witnessed dream remembrance; he thought his memory was Presumably accurate, and although his tales were triFling to the gathering audience, they became his Heliocentric history.
            Calling me a young Galleon and handing me a map, Grandpa scanned his hand across the vast land
       guaranteeing trEasure would be found if I had no resignation.
               This Asinine assertion to my teenage sister Symbolized the Barring of her unheeding imagination by time and then a smile parachuted down just when she needed it like nicotine.


_TRF
In the bathroom of a pizza parlor there was an elongated, framed b&w; picture of the periodical table of elements. I took a picture of it and my flash glared in the middle which I thought looked neat so I manipulated the image so it was skewed and a little blurry and the above elements were the only ones that I could actually see from the photo. Credit to Breaking Bad.
Mitchell Sep 2013
Around the time
I entered the place I was
Already sweating like a *******.

Fiends poured from crooked parking meters - all unpaid and blinking red.
Angular threats were shooting from the eyes of dead gangsters - wives all mad.
Laughters entrails spilled out onto the rotten wooden blanks
Like Jimi Hendrix's gun-shots of Vietnam lore.

At noon the church doors will open and
There, the wind will freeze like water to ice;
Memories menace psychedelic post-war like;
Upstairs toward the 4th floor, the blast-furnace blasts away.

My eyes were pink. The music was loud.
When I heard my name, I said, "no, I don't believe it."
There was a knife floating from the ceiling and
I swore
God whispered "Run" into my ear.

A squeal
From the corner of the bathroom.
There, I witnessed a kitten reading a piece of newspaper.
Times like these I imagine an imagination indifferent,
Only to shudder as I enter the freezing winter of space.

Blame is there for all who wish to take it.

Back at the table,
I tried to reform the face of my date.
She smiled and frowned and sighed and grimaced
All the same time.
I wondered what love felt like, then
Entered a new space of hazing music, malnourished.

Hubert came through the window,
With a 8 inch bowie knife and a grin.
I chuckled and he did too.
I asked, "Where you headed?"

"To the kitchen. There are beasts in there that need killing and I'm the man to do it."

Nodding, I went back to my
Dusty periodical, silently hoping he would
Execute one of the hares or bison I
Kept near the garbage disposal and dish soap.

A vibration.
A musical note.
Echoes through eternity.
In there faces float still, poised, perfect.
A baby is born,
An old man dies,
Lovers intertwine.

The end.

Instead of sleeping, I stayed awake.
Sleep frightens me.
Dreams are sometimes to good to wake up from.
When will be the day I can stay in one?

When there was glory,
There was man.

When there was faith,
There was God.

When there was death,
There was life.

Eating up the trough, far past the fill-up,
Cooking up any excuse the twisted mind can come up with.

Eavesdropping love songs to tormented poetry readings.

A foggy night in San Francisco
Leaves a clue so slight to the hand that pens.

The raps burn against the metal, rusted window panes twanging with cheap celebrity.
Here, the brown line runs, as the Mississippi purrs chasing atonement.

New York City is still burning.

There was the sense that something was wrong when I entered the other room.
I'd heard of it. Someone had told me about it, but I couldn't recall who.
On the street, the wind was like cold milk and the smell of candles was stinking up the street.
It was somebody's birthday and it was morning and there was no escaping the day.

At noon, I was still in bed, trying to fend off the sun. Impossible
To do, I got up and braced myself for the sinking put-put of my feet against wood floors.
There in the hell that was upon me, the warden sunk his teeth into a miniature grapefruit.
Surprised by his choice and subtle nerve of health,
I saw then he was a large volkswagen sized man with teeth the size of sharks.

I was away for too long. This was here. Here was this place. I was here now, for good.
To leave would be to go to the same place, all over again.
Instead of throwing away the future, I ****** the present into oblivion.
Eyes bug-out backing up the bartender in a noon-day brawl and instead of calling the cops,
We called the bald gimp Jerry K. because his father used to be in the military and
Taught him a couple things when he was seven and half.
The man died that night in the alley by a knife and few hearty laughs.

Waking to sleep the day away.
Burning money to see what color it'll make.
Fending of friends with solitude and *****.
Shoot pool to drool and stay cool.
A ladies a lady until proven otherwise.
Candid scenes pass, though the flames engulf the lazy, littered
Streets with sleeping hobo's sick for the one's who don't
Have time to be; hard work must be done for our good country.

I stained my mind the other day. Saw
Seven virgins all spinning like circus china in a window
Too hard to see through. Their silhouettes were something to be
Haunted by and because past loves always seem to haunt me,
I bought one and took it home quickly.

She stands in the corner spinning, as I type away, grinning.  

After I rearranged her face
She started to cry. I watched her eyes as they turned from blue, to violet,
To sunken ships of hurt not let go.
I tried to show her where the desert was not dried up,
But she would not take my hand. It hung there like a bobbing kite and
Because the ocean can never run out, the bout we thought
Would break us, only made us cackle like the downtown girls we know.

After some convincing, I took her to a french breakfast spot rather than the desert.
A few spotted chinese women sat next to us with an abnormally large golden retriever.
"I've never seen such a beast before, " I giggled, "They must ride that ******* home."
"Don't be gross," she scowled, "It's an animal with feelings."
I told her I got a triple bacon egg-sandwich and she started to weep lightly into the
Broken hem of her beige linen vest. Something told me I should nip this in the ****, but
Just then, my sandwich came. I handed her a napkin then began to eat. She finished her
Coffee in one gulp and picked up her leather and left. Eating alone, I watched the golden
Giant eat bits of hot dog the smaller of the two chinese women had hid in her shoe.

Why think of the ending when the beginning was where it started?

Smart they are. **** she can be. Aye, here I am again.

Aye.

Here we all are again.
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2018
a short poem

<•>

kept women

my words are all kept women;
an old fashioned term
that has no currency today
but true for me

they but be the heart of my hearts,
when they leave my employ
keep them well, these yeowomen,
good fellows all,
for they will always be your
one true reciprocating lovers

keep ‘em

please

<•>

lie

how many gray April Saturdays are inventoried,
that we be bequeathed yet another this dull day of the 7th of the 4th month,
of errands and tax preparation and poem initiative-nationhood

the city backyard is a dulled green, energy ****** by one three too many nor’easters in March that  “Sherman-through-the-south”
came marching double time,
leaving the leaves, airport-delayed
and the spring poem planting, struggling

buy milk, lie and get a refund, do stuff and
don’t forfeit forget to
do laundry and
lie

write the longest short poem in history
that green-shots nature won’t provide,
so Me absinthe wills into existence

<•>

this English Woman

tomfoolery’d me continuously,
nature comes to her on knave-bended knees begging for
a verbal sword tap upon each shoulder for a knighting of a periodical glorious poem.  

She provides.

Does woman live in a glen, upon the wetlands,
walk moors
in moons grasp,
or upon a table way in the back of the pub, drinking pints of imagination?

man will die disconnected for so many “reasons”
but if his passing precedes an answering to where,
wherever she locale composes,
man will haunt her residential terrain  happily

<•>

Seven Hours

the clock implies that the body sleet-slept, probed deep-dark for seven hours.
disbelieving, then recalling the dues Frodo-Friday eve paid:
three and half hours with two thousand others at the Opera,
hours of Placido Domingo,
extracts from the body
emotional  countenance,
homage to artistry exemplary;

the pharmacist denies having this drug among the sleep aids
so to the opera must return to earn my occasion occasional dreamland refreshment

a well worthy trade: innervation trust rest from enervation must

<•>

idiosyncratic

all my idiot life wanted to be
syncratic
unique something special different

then I realized that’s what
everyone wants and we are all idioticsyncratic

so much trying, exhausting life,
it’s wonderfully human and classically

idiotic

<•>

* Postfaces*

Postfaces are used in literary works so that non-pertinent information appears at the end, to not confuse the reader.

this very short poem was born, birthed, on a salty grey Saturday, April Seventh, Two Thousand and Eighteen,
precisely between
Eight and Nine O’clock Eastern Standard Time

The opera was Luisa Miller at the Metropolitan Opera,
Lincoln Center, New York City.  

Everything Everybody is a factual fiction of your imagination.
Short Poems are copyright, copied write from the tissue of a man who is epistemologically incapacitated in a life incapable of writing a short poem, post facing forward.

(Too **** bad for you).
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2018
i guess the "algorithms" simply stated:
TOO MANY INSTANCES
OF FREE SPEECH
HAVE NOT BEEN ADDRESSED
BY A DIALECTICAL
INVESTIGATION...
NO SUITABLE PARAMETERS
NO SUITABLE PARAMETERS
TO ENGAGE WITH A NON-A.I.
DATA PROVIDER.
2004 / 2005 / 2006...
can't remember,
the glorious years of...
enjoying a 50+km bike ride...
gone... fizzled out...
derelict...
                  ******* cultural
warfare...
                digging metaphysical
trenches...
do people even know
that we're engaging in metaphysical
warfare?
dead? sure... dead as dead...
and death to boot...
    i wish this ******* was
transcendent...
but this crap will haunt us
when we're dead...
it's like being trapped in a mirror,
when you can actually see
your (albeit) faint
reflection in glass...
this **** becomes physical
in the afterlife...
and... you know what
the Polacks say of Napoleon?
why didn't Napoleon **** anyone?
well... no one bothered
to give him a gun.
   next time you see me...
i'll be spitting ***,
  and singing Rammstein's
hallelujah...
      while dreaming of Zeppelins...
water-canons, and other methods
of crowd-control...
   arm in arm with drinking
in public, and the passing police car...
m'eh... **** happens...
    let's test the grounds,
let's see if an isolated term can cause
offense...
                      ...
   *****! *****! *****! *****!
*****! *****! *****! *****!
    *****! *****! *****! *****!
*****! *****! *****! *****!

drunk, "trolls"?
                      no...
                       we're not sunny...
****... funny...
             i don't even know whether
we're trolls...
                    we're we are...
      which is... well...
that Old Testament confusing pronoun
of that...
there's a liter of *** waiting for me...
so... so...
                we're we are...
why didn't the transgender peeps
signal:
          the most obvious and perfected
pronoun usage:
            the third person,
the "non-existent" yet somehow present
entity, like a god of
   that?
                                   or it?
   do i really have to confuse the arithmetic
of pronoun sensibility?
can't i just call the supposed
transitioning periodical as, that...
rather than they?!

   it's not exactly a Siamese instance...
so...
you calling me ******?
i can't count or something?

            glorious time to be alive...
seeing English dog-tail waggle themselves
out of this sort of *******...
because this is *******...
         they closed the asylums,
let in a jimmy savile...
and the let all the crazies out...
who, apparently, were given advice
to forget the pipe bomb,
and bomb the **** out of
the grammar of the English language...

it's like...
watching a rugby match,
mingling with the prime minister's Q.T.
on a Wednesday...
politics and sports combined...
that's genius!

                 another dozen asylum cases passed
by the home office for ex-Jihadi
"refugees" fleeing Syria,
re-settling in England?!

    gentlemen... quasi-ladies, ladies,
pseudo-men... applause!
quiet simply...        applause!
Hal Loyd Denton Sep 2012
Yes those familiar moorings of life have been effectively vacated your home the homes of family and
Friends slipping down to the sea of eternity leaving earths moorings passing all knowing and familiar
Objects blown into this unknown sea the mixed emotions of fear and in trepidation but then from the
Unknown horizon a knowledge understanding undergirds your feet possibly the same last words of
Steven Jobs a man of his talent and experience not easily moved to give a Radom response but in the
Presence of his very children and everything he loved on earth he looked beyond them as earthly eyes
Closed heavenly ones opened and he said wow three times how many times did you say wow Joe I know
Everyone is comforted differently but for me it came this way I received a religious periodical and in it
Was a couple being given advice and training for their upcoming wedding it went on to say Pastor Joe
Told them this and then he told them they needed to this and then pastor Joe used and example this
Way each time I heard your name more peace flowed into my heart I think I even got something from
Hearing Joe Bindens name Joe I tell you I can’t understand it just some year’s back Joe Binden used to
Set on these senate subcommittee meetings he always handled the situation very well now it’s like he is
A whole deferent person Joe they always used to say if something happened to the president we will
Be left with him to run our nation oh don’t say it’s so Joe well it must be great being where everything
Is run right here is what people don’t know if they prayed like they used to the very fabric of our nation
Would change the government can’t do it I don’t care what Obama thinks or wants it to do God alone
Promises he will bless if we honor him Joe with immortal power he overrides all trouble to build up his
People we could go back to less anxiety less unemployment want to straighten out banking and wall
Street pray as a God fearing nation he knows those people it was mind blowing when everything first
Blew the lid off then the government intervention they have a job but it wasn’t that one those guys
Are slipperier than any mere man can address let God come on the scene see what results would occur
Then they do the country disgracefully then turn around and reward themselves and leave the American
People holding the mess that still reeks I think if we checked not even Bible history but just history
You would find how great God has handled messes that were inextricable it’s all going the way of the
Lawless we or our government representatives are like the blind trying to fight the sighted it will
Continue unless we turn back to our great benefactor Joe you and I know there is no greater sight
Than seeing a family heading off to church and the wonderful rewards that it offers first in this life and
Then in the next the word says if you know to do good and don’t it’s a sin Joe in this case it is in its own
Way it is treason to yourself and to our nation the word says that if a nation forgets God it will be turned
Into hell if this isn’t hell I don’t know what is Joe you had to hear it life time democrats are voting
Republican they see their Party consumed by madness to spend it would have nice if something beside
A mountain of debt was created that looms over us like a vulture if you’re a debtor your are its slave
We need old Abe in a different sense to set us free this truth as the bible says truth will set you free
God can use any man to be that answer if we lift him up in prayer telling God we have come to our
Senses and know that no human answer will change the deadly course were on make your choice before
You vote futility at the polls make your vote for God who rescues and saves its our countries only chance
Rest in peace beloved Joe
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2023
met my maker

not for the first time,
two acquaintances periodical,
two boon craftsmen, artisansals,
bs-gab-talking about who is surely
the better poet, glinting, side-splitting,
raucous laughter in our dueling self-mockery


neither takes the other too serious,
but of each other, we take endless,
never satisfied, insufficient, each needier
for the rapper inside and repartee, adoring
our jiving unique camaraderie, all-the-while,
knowing our balance unequal, but not caring


for as equals we meet, to revel and reflect,
revealing things of each other that only we
know, meant not for sharing ever, for these
webbed strands binding, at same time, release,
permitting a tough honesty tally, truth not a concept,
unnecessary, for how could we ever hide our love mutuel


we sitting bestride and beside, in ye old, weather-beat-down
chairs Adirondack, having come hewn from trees centuries old,
now overlooking the Bay, we eyeing a solitary fisherman whom,
we both knowingly aware, metaphor for that day that will come
to collect me away to a new locale, where we will yet still needle
each other, with mercy unforgiving, not for our misdeeds, for never


is forgivenessasked for or given, not taboo, but
holy unnecessary for such is the way the between the
designer and the artifact, the poet and the poem, the craft
and the object, gardener and her fruits, a cellular understanding
that comprehends the interlocking necessity of our natures, that our
shared endings, are a duelity, both finale and gateway to our next poem!





https://hellopoetry.com/poem/462537/how-i-observed-the-day-of-atonement/
10:57 AM THU JUN 29
@you-know-where

the bay has an Algonquin name, and Adirondack  is derived from an Iroquois word meaning “eater of tree bark,” a derisive term bestowed by them upon a neighboring Algonquin tribe.
James Davis Aug 2013
Countless night pondering on the first star to rise and the last one to fall
I become submerged in a feeling of shame
Am I your timely muse or your periodical man?
If I sneak through a back door to see you, should you use a vail to cover your face as we leave through the front door?
Momma told me, love is blind but what exactly is love at first sight?
I lust for loyalty as I swim a riptide of cherry wine and surf on memories of us
But still I move the weight of our love, and just see the outline of what was
The best is overshadowed by the worst of me; an eclipse of truth
Ken Sheetz Jul 2010
Some period periodical
Trying to eliminate those free radicals.
She asked me the color of my eyes
I said blue, laughed then walked away.
All the hang ups
Old room mates
Late night calls asking the wrong name
Only to hang up at hello
Its alright
Its never anyone i want to talk to
Those people know not to call
Connor Apr 2015
Driving off on the side roads precarious and dense
with firs holy beneath the florid specter of roseate afternoon,
purified with rainfall on the montane bladed rocks
holding together cliff face edges of highways.
I'm present with my black coffee humming while
folk plays on the radio and my sweater from the
consignment shop is still captured in spellbinding redolence
from the girl of my dreams. Nearby, a hidden path boasts a cliff commanding flowing pacific waters pronounced with gold
among mountains obscured in shadow.
Companions cross the valleys reciting sutras and tracing fingers through this blessed land, treasuring the trees, firesmoke ascending from beyond assembling woods thick and overgrown.
Doe and rabbit bounding from rocky terraces alert and surviving instinctively while riverside cabin homes hide a while yet from the long driveways and cozy mailboxes hand-painted or made of wind-bent tin cans.  
I'm flourishing slowly and with periodical decay in this garden growing while I grow and life is beauty and spasm devils as am I, this I know.

We're matches momentarily lit in the weary hands of stars
to guide them in the darkness.
My hair will gray from death we jest
and I will live before I rest.
~
December 2024
HP Poet: CJ Sutherland
Age: 63
Country: USA


Question 1: A warm welcome to the HP Spotlight, CJ. Please tell us about your background?

CJ Sutherland: "My parents both college graduates from St. Paul’s Minnesota. 4 days after they were married in a Catholic Church, they ran away to California. Mother, age 22, started having babies one after the other, a total of 5 children. As a young child, I thought my mother was dead, anytime I mentioned her, I would get a shove, a kick, a shaking of the head from my siblings.

Dad remarried; a make up artist with Warner Bros. Studios. She was unable to love another person‘s children. She was a mean wicked stepmother. She had one child, together they had two children. His, Hers and Theirs. The move from Burbank to the San Fernando Valley Tarzana was considered country. We had a ranch style house, a guest house, swimming pool with the slide and diving board and a pool house barn chicken coup for 200 chickens.

Age 10, a lady screamed at the house: "You can’t keep my children from me." My stepmother threatened to call the police. Looking out the window, holding my elder sister‘s hand, I said who is that? In a small, trembling voice, my sister said mom. We had a very tumultuous childhood to say the least, but it shaped who we were, and who we would become. I had a lot of questions. For a short period of time we were able to see mom and it was evident she was not well. One day she was gone, no explanation. She was dying of terminal cancer, but we didn’t know that yet. She stopped all treatment and became a homeless person in downtown LA Skid Row.

Age 19, her mother (grandmother) was dying and tasked me to find her daughter, my mom. I searched every alley, soup kitchen with an old photograph grandma gave me looking for mom. For months nothing. The last place a Thrift Store/ woman’s shelter where females could get feminine products, I found her. She came home with me for 2 days then told me she had to go back. She was in a hospice care with some Catholic nuns who told me she was dying; throat cancer; 46 years old. We had her back in our lives 3 months before she passed away. I struggled with all that happened, but life goes on.

All of us siblings excelled in school. We all maintained a 4.0 grade average. We all had aspirations to achieve careers. I was on a fast track to Medical School. I graduated high school age 15, started Jr. college and completed occupational courses for certification medical billing and coding specialist. So I can pay for college, I married at age 16, had a child at 19 and divorce at 21. My first husband was 5 years older, yet he was still a child. I swore off men.

Love at first sight. I am at husband number two. He told me he loved me after a week. He asked me to marry him. I told him he was flipping nuts. “I don’t even know you!” Looking in his eyes I knew he was serious. He had not met my child yet. If he could not love her as his own child as much as I loved him, I would not continue the cycle of the wicked step parent. Over the year they bonded. Two weeks before the year was up, he was down on bended knee. We have been married 39 years and together for 42.

I finally was accepted to USC. My dreams of becoming a doctor, we’re so close, 2 weeks before starting school. My husband‘s work moved him 5 hours away. Decision: divorce husband, become a doctor or stay married and change my dreams. We’ve had many adventures along the way, moving further up northern California, getting away from the rat race."



Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?

CJ Sutherland: "I started keeping journals at the age of 12. I’m currently on my 98th journal. Effectively I’ve captured my entire life and those around me in the moment. Life inspires me. My father invented the 5 cent word game. Pick a new Dictionary word, it must be 3 or more syllables and use it correctly all day long.
When you achieve that, you get 5 cents. We all had a 5 cent jar. Looking at all of those nickels was a testament to education. It was more than the money, it was improving our lexicon."



Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).

CJ Sutherland: "I hear a word or phrase on talk radio or music lyrics, I quickly have to write it down because it triggered a thought, a poem, a rough draft. I have pen and paper around the house when these moments strike to capture before they’re gone. While I’m on my daily walks at the park, I speak into the phone to capture inspiration. Then I put them in draft format. Currently, I have 51 poems in draft format, in different stages of completion. BLT's Webster’s word of the day challenge can be easily inserted at this point with the perfect word."


Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?

CJ Sutherland: "Poetry is not something I do, it’s who I am. My ultimate goal is to compile a book of poetry. I would like to have at least one poem of every type of genre to broaden my horizon. I am published in 3 anthologies. I am a Poet Laureate with the International Poet Society. I was up for poet of the year three consecutive years. Florida hosts a week symposium with open mic to read your poetry, as well as classes on every aspect of poetry imaginable. I’ve received many accolades trophies, ribbons, coins, all in the quest for perfection. I too realize a certain amount of this was a scam when Poetry Books such as “up-and-coming poets”, “who’s who in poetry“ would feature me on the front page. Look beyond vanity and begin to see the light. While they are published books for purchase, they are meant to sucker the poet into buying several copies for their family and friends.

The poetry site crashed several years ago and I lost about 300 poems. I have been on other poetry sites whose purpose is for winning contests and publication in periodical and magazines. It’s a lot of work. Even with all of these accolades, this recognition is more precious to my heart. While somebody could read a poem and decide they think they know what it means and find it worthy, but to be able to know the back history from the poet and why they wrote that particular poem I find much more enriching. I wish everybody would fill out their bio or at least write foot notes why they wrote that particular piece of work."



Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?

CJ Sutherland: "My favorite American poets:
1) Walt Whitman; Song of Myself.
2) Emily Dickinson; Because I Could Not Stop for Death.
3) Robert Frost; The Road Not Taken.
4) EE Cummings; I Carry Your Heart and To Be Nobody, But You.

British poets:
1) Alfred Tennyson.
2) William Wordsworth.
3) Elizabeth Bennett Browning.
These are just off the top of my head.

While at the University I took classes in American and British literature, thinking it would be easy. It was harder than my medical studies. I loved the backstory of how the poet became who they are today."



Question 6: What other interests do you have?

CJ Sutherland: "With so many kids we made Christmas gifts. I started crocheting at the age of 12; the yarn given to me by the little old ladies at the church. My first blanket was 276 granny squares. I wish Sean one stitch to granny stitch. I’ve been crocheting for 51 years. I can see anything and make it without a pattern. I have two grandsons who moved into their own homes with their wives, they are both getting blankets for their new homes. So far, I’ve made four lap throws for watching TV. Each of these blankets take 3 to 4 days. I’m pretty fast.

I’ve done a lot of other things quilting, embroidery, canning. I make candle and soaps, and I’m on my way to be coming an herbalist. I cook every day from scratch. It’s a lot harder to make food for two people than it is for me to make dinner for 20 people. Bread making is my new passion. The art of artisan bread it’s definitely challenging. Jams and jellies are great gifts. I even make my own laundry soap for 2 cents a load. My creativity blends itself in many genres, whatever suits my fancy."



Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much CJ, we truly appreciate you giving us the opportunity to get to know the person behind the poet! We are thrilled to include you in this ongoing series!”

CJ Sutherland: "Thank you to Carlo for featuring me as the 22nd recipient of HP Spotlight. I hope everybody gets a chance to share their story. There are so many kind poets on this site I am lucky to call friends, I hope everybody checks out the different challenges such as BLT's Webster word of the day challenge."




Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed coming to know CJ a little bit better. I most certainly did. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez

We will post Spotlight #23 in January!
~
Jackie Nov 2012
i find myself using this red string as an excuse, a muse, something to abuse. i used to pull it tight around my wrists and lose it in rosy verticals. it hurt until the pull choked and made it numb, numb until it wasn’t there and if it isn’t there than it isn’t a problem. it’s once in a while, it’s periodical. i snapped back lying on my floor without a pulse, stood up and threw away the rusty blades. sabbatical.

i found myself using this red string as an excuse, a muse, something to abuse. when you choose to bruise cause you have nothing left to lose. the soldier who made it out with everything intact except for what’s in his head, but that blood runs clear so they ignore it instead.

i almost used this red string as a noose. but now i’m playing double-dutch, catching fishing lines and throwing beams of orange and blues. sing me a song, porcelain. you taught me how to swim.
dex Oct 2015
Were you silent the day he left?
He'll crush you, but at least you'll feel something...
                  at least you'll feel something...

I've come to the conclusion that nobody's actually in control anyway.
We all want to be, but none of us are.
And if you think about it,
The comparison of people to mirrors and windows,
Well...
We aren't either.
We are opaque and non-reflective,
And what you see from the outside
Rarely scratches the surface of what's inside.
And I saw the moon in shades of red tonight,
And stupidly mistook the color as blushing.
But then the realization struck that it was fury;
The moon was furious with the sun
For his constant indecision,
For his periodical love for her,
For the ease with which he would change his mind...
The thunderstorms are continual these days,
And I know it's cliché,
But it really does rain all the time.
The rolling sighs of the water against the windowpanes inside my mind
Have become a habitual dance
With footwork as intricate as any fire and ice rose,
Any tango or waltz,
And nothing has really felt like this before,
               but at least I feel something...
At least you'll feel something...

I just want to feel alive again.
Make me feel alive.
Can you even hear my screams?
I know six feet under is too deep to ask,
But could you try to listen?
Can you hear the divorce that didn't happen because of us kids?
Can you hear the bitter resentment in every exchange?
Can you hear your fingers combing through my hair in my dreams? Your lips on my forehead? Your heartbeat underneath my hand?
Can you hear the anger he spits at us everyday?
“I didn't want you two to grow up in a broken home.”
But we have. Just not in the traditional sense.
Can you hear the sound of ***** pouring over ice?
Can you hear the television so loud I have to close my door to think?
Can you hear the mascara stains on every pillow in the house?
Can you hear the distance between each member of this "happy family"?
Can you hear the regret?
Can you hear the bitterness?
Can you hear the frustration?
Can you hear the solitude?

Can you hear it?
Of course not.
I've learned by now that no one hears a silent goodbye.
Olivia Kent Sep 2013
Will be done!

As if eternal punishment.
For sins not been committed.
Bereft of love in darkest place.
Get donations of love as the sages said.
From time to time in checkered history.
Spread across the pages of a dated tea stained periodical.
Written in love letters in pure poetry.
Poetic justice all for me.
The poet man for he can't see.
Was predicted by the seers many moons ago.
Told by those soothsayers.
Forsooth that I shall die alone.
In a vendetta of being on my own.
One unlawful utterance you gave to me.
You gave it as the perfect gift.
You whispered I love you as you got on the bus.
Stranded betwixt the angel, the devil or the deep blue sea.
By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2016
you know that citation i told you
about, mad matt - forks in the road;
i get more feeling from tina turner's
thunder-dome song than
i might get from a human
rights tribunal over cold coffee
and the 8 years i spent in isolation,
in a free, democratic, society -
prison within a prison
(better still had i been a norwegian terrorist
i'd get a savvy ivory plated toilet seat
to sit and sow *** goosebumps against!);
what a domesticity this has spawned,
i'd send all the homeless to
commit a petty crime to get shelter...
i would; i'd tell them to get a knife
and coolly sit with a would-be
victim slightly cutting them
but not killing them... and repeat...
and repeat... tie them with akimbo
and hold a knife to their neck...
just for a roof over their head...
no squalor no rat infestation -
i'd make all homeless people
fake crime... just for a roof...
                                   i'm surprised they
haven't already...
                                    hello! i say... hello?
hey man you know i'm really o.k.?!
the pen in my hand will tell you the same...
but when i'm writing poetry don't give me no crap;
'cos the smallest thing might make me snap:
you stupid dumb **** god-**** mother-******!
ah you know, song lyrics when the Canterbury Tales
make it to quiz shows and leave the cobweb covered
libraries of former educational audits that universities
are, no longer training monks or free-thinkers:
just little ***** eager to deface their former
presence in boarding schools with binges of what
it was to be in schools with periodical reality-checks
never angling chequers of nod and conformity -
universities aren't about being educated these days,
it's about an alcoholic allowance for pretty clubbing
antics - i've never wasted as much time as i ever
did in my life - i got taught to be bored of
menial tasks - when, within the framework of
human population, people are expected to
learn the joy of menial labour akin to having the
leisurely capacity to craft thought to no conclusion
worth investigating other than as a barrier
to accept the menial concordance with
what others utilise thought toward: a lack of
risk-assessment risking life or limb to climb a
transverse in the highlands -
perhaps an insect-like life for the former,
but then again an insect-like thinking for the latter -
how two anonymous timings
and how two anonymous spacings
occupy what we demand to be relative
when it's actually "relative",
between people, space is anonymous with regards
to time, and likewise time is anonymous with
regards to space... not necessarily non-existent,
i'm not going into ******* atheism
of non-existence over certain uncomfortable
truths... i'm stating a lesser hurt,
anonymity -
a mountain-climber walks into a supermarket...
indeed... a man walks into a bar joke series...
it's not that space disqualifies the chance
existence of time... the mediating
connection is that of anonymity, best
prescribed by people having different roles
in what society allows them to express
a hunger for whatever the hunger later invokes...
hope you don't hunger what
is translated as a chance meeting with
that zoological species known as paparazzi.
Olivia Kent Sep 2013
It's an eternal punishment.
Bereft of love in darkest place.
Got donation of love as the ancient sages said I would.
Only from time to time.
In a checkered history.
As queen on a chessboard.
Always being taken out.
My love spread across the pages of a dated tea stained periodical.
Written in love letters in pure poetry.
I cannot measure up to her.
Poetic justice.
That's for me
Was predicted by the seers.
Forsooth, that I shall die alone.
In a vendetta of being on my own.
Once unlawful utterance he gave to me.
I love you said he.
In him I placed belief.
In loves space I leave behind a wreath!
By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Talia Jun 2018
Six was the fall
climb and reach for it
motivated by your all
you let me go, into the pit
into the void
how could I have let this happen, the periodical sin
to let you avoid
a lot more than my skin

six minus all
it's pretty hard to recall
when I was a slave to your orders
manifesting disorders
using me
for your sick desires
you weren't the key
but you flaunted it, spread around like wildfire

here you made me crawl
as I followed your every demand
shattered me in the rainfall
scattered the shards with your very own hand
if I knew it would turn out like this,
on that very special day near the end of autumn
I would've declined that kiss
and it'd be not him.
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2016
to be honest, you should have got to me when i was 21,
back in 2007,
i don't say this lightly, but i figure, these days,
the unbearable lightness of being is all i having going
for me - the silent waters merge with enough
tectonic force to forge canyons -
i didn't suddenly, spontaneously succumb to
madness, genetic idiocy wasn't passed down to me,
the only mental illness that you could have ascribed
me with was world war ii, the memory of seeing SS
men in black uniforms in my town of birth...
i'm not one of those people that slither into a leech pucker
**** on stereotypes, i loath the idea that
all of Eastern Europe is considered slave trade,
******* or construction workers...
but i'm neither here or there...
yes the Cartesian unit of i am when access creates
the aeroplane lag of sound compared to seeing a plane...
the **** is 20 miles behind,
                          these days
no one presupposes thought first, thought comes last,
and the ability to think as a pleasure akin
to golf is long lost... i used to possess the medium
with which i tantalised myself with a pauper's
idea of life: thinking... i actually loved it...
then the pain came, and i was forced into the macabre...
but hate is so exhausting, esp. when you see
no trial for retribution... i'm just scared i won't be
able to provide for my parents... when i go out on
my numerous periodical walks at night looking for *****
i'm sorta saying: well, if they won't care, i won't care either...
i'm about to do a Moses, i know where i can find
a fresh source of water... and i'll eat grass if it comes to it...
oddly enough the horse herbivores manage,
i'll manage too! i don't have any feminine company for
support... Frankenstein mode... go!
i'll become a ravenous creature who forgot the basic comforts...
and i'll relish this hope of having accomplished it...
either that or the liberation through death...
and let me tell you, consistency helps, when thinking
of death as in synonymous thinking about morality:
things gain a lucidity, a clarity that adds just simplicity
to the debate that you'd never have thought would be
appropriate to later see an opera in an overcrowded
place... i'm not writing this as a fetish of suicides,
i'm writing about the reality of: how when thinking about
death on a recurrent basis you simplify life...
or how you extract the essentials from life,
or how you treat life's nibble offerings as entire meals...
i'm in no position to want death,
                        i'm just in a position to feed off it...
as a toddler in a hospital i was bottle-fed
by a nurse who made the rubber ****** incision
a bit too big for me to almost choke to death
while being fed... i told you, i'm the intellectual
version of Rasputin... hence my unconscious
aversion to women... perpetuated... shame really...
lovely form... could have... wait a minute... why
are my ***** tickling with goosebumps as if i possess
feminine arousal? don't know...
and all the joy in the world concentrated
by possessing two *****...
                                             say that's cricket,
or football... whichever, the Coliseum lives on.
so like i said: blood sizzling on the brain,
being diagnosed as schizophrenic - again, a good metaphor
for being bilingual...
                                         they looked and they looked...
while i too was searching, good joke i've conjured:
what do you get when you invest in grammatically
categorising words when writing philosophy?
the (a) subconscious and the (b) unconscious -
i say... wait for the trans-generational Syrians!
they'll be a fun to watch... they'll be talking about someone
descending in Damascus with a two angel entourage
asking everyone to perform dodgy ******* positioning...
*******! on the carpets! Aladdin pronto! now!
well, the reason that philosophy books haven't
adjusted to utilising grammar means that grammatical
words are the equivalent of the subconscious,
the unconscious part comes from actually adhering
to trust, the trust the majority of people invest in when
structuring sentences... say the word noun
and up pops Aristotle and says proper names...
well nouns are actually names, seagull chestnut tree,
anatomy baritone megaton p - or p.i. or *** or he,
or 3.14 ha ha. but using grammatical words to basically
shove and recycle configurations is crucial...
but like i said, you should have reached me back in 2007,
when i was 21 and husband material...
i only drank on weekends (and not everyday),
i had a budding social life (now my very social active
is bound to a relationship with the merchants occupied with
selling liquid amber) -
i had my problems, sure, but i never expected
to be practising Christianity, given the equivalent of
Cain a life of forgotten ordeals...
              like i never expected to walk into a church,
hear singing, reality checking that i heard singing
with an iPod, so i did hear singing,
                            being alone in the church,
then, all of a sudden, random stars starter roving the
night skies... not Rottweiler comets, stars...
      all over the ******* place... sometimes
in     .                .    formation, usually just single stars,
once in a         .
                      .     .
           formation...
hence my aversion to western society... oh right, i'm
the mad one? hallelujah!
                                             so back when i was 21
i could have had it... the established norm of a
respectable life of a roofer, or any kind of labourer,
and honest to god... i would  have loved it,
had my career in chemistry not taken off
to become a laboratory technician in a company or
a school... i wish i had that chance to live the simplest
of lives (which doesn't mean i'd like a second chance
of stabbing at it by reliving some fake identity thieving
form of reincarnation, if i lived in a country with
1 billion i might believe that lie...
given i live in desperate country, i'll give that idea a pass)...
but practising Christianity in its purest form
is ******* hard, i knew i shouldn't have cried
ALL THE WAY THROUGH that Mel Gibson film...
i did, the spoken Aramaic got to me... i swear to god
i cried the whole way through,
              you can travel to Essex, Romford and ask
if anyone remembers a teenager crying all the way through
the movie, given the fact that a few people joined in...
and using that as example, the plight of the
African-Americans? i don't get it... if they started speaking
about their plight in Swahili i might get it,
but they're just N.W.A. to me, and given that i don't
come from a post-colonial background, i simply don't get it,
oh sure, i'm using the language... but that's about it...
i use the English language like a telescope,
unlike Newton who designed the **** thing...
verily impersonal; as is the annoying fact... who in the world
invented this antagonist concept? last time i
checked there was no Antibuddha...
                                               buddy bud bud...
Sensimilia... poach the roaches... yep, jar of pickled mushrooms.
why the haphazard arrangement?
                                  i started loathing fruits since 2007,
can't eat them... resorted to only eating vegetables -
Yorkshire collie or prudish Scottish Lass?
                                          whichever,
reinventing onomatopoeia,
                                  recapturing the polymath idea of
sounds, and what sound would i get if i touched a
rainbow? Bob Marley reggae?              just asking...
  this is an idea in how to write an aversion but a new
version of the onomatopoeia....
                                it's a game that's predicated on
a hide & seek format,
                                  i might be shouting into a cave
for an echo,
                        i might be woodpecker knuckling a
knock on tree... the disguise of sounds comes with
the randomness of quick digressive changes...
          just an elaboration of what came about in
                 Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich... the sad part?
me, clarinet and being ****** into a solo heist of the heights.
William Crowe II Sep 2014
The lights of passing cars dance
On the darkened ceiling—
The only light in a pitch-black room
Is periodical and flickers away
Like a monarch butterfly
On honeymoon with a new lover.

The sickly smell of lilacs hangs
In the still air—
A remnant from the incense,
A reminder of previous activities,
The scent sticking to the walls
Like cobwebs, to the ceiling like ice sickles.

The sound of the television in the other room
Intrudes through the cracked door—
It is a ghost that talks hurriedly
Of things that no one should care about;
It finds its way into my ears
Where it holes itself up like a chipmunk in hibernation.

The hours pass away like relatives or lilac bushes
At the start of the new winter—
I lie awake haunted by the television,
The rancid smell of dead flowers,
The light of busy cars,
And this horrible poem.

This poem bleeds out of my pen as though it
Had a heart, and I stabbed the heart—
As though its blue pulsing ink veins like vines
Had been cut; the ghost of the words won’t
Let me sleep, so I may as well
Stay up.

The sun peeks over the horizon like a newborn baby
Peeking out of the womb—
She spreads her rosy fingers and her rosy lips
And her grin creeps into the dark room,
I can hear the rooster crow; I can feel the moon find his way back
Into the cave.
The young boy was raised in the sun like a raisin.
Detached shrouds were his comforters,
As were periodical mental lapses of living in the upper boundary of Amazement.
Up there, he would be able to see Caeli.
Teachers warned him to focus on reality,
At conferences his parents saw he was failing.

But it was as if he didn't exist,
His presence was fading in the back of the crowd.
He was there, but not there,
On a aloof voyage sailing the ship he designed.

I believe the reason he almost drowned
Was because he thought he could explore the depths of Atlantis.
No one could find him.
He returned after the horizon bloomed.

And still to this day he lives a life of clouds and sunsets.
You might just be able to find him,
I know I have.

(c) 2014 Brandon Antonio Smith


(Originally written 11/18/10
Revised 9/23/14)
Eriko Aug 2015
the periodical gnashing of teeth
and withered frail skin
splotched and wrinkly like
dry sheets of crinkled paper
the shuffle of feet
cannot able to cast feat
what once made
that old man smile
shiny brims
and rounded spectacles
the smell of old leather books
clinging in pockets of old folds
the memories tucked away
preciously like rubies and stones
and ivory casts whisking time away
like sail boats speeding down
a storming tidal wave,
the grittiness of sugar
and flour and pumpkin pie
the smell of hardened green wood
this old lady walks down the
flower path
a noon a day
an evening to so say
carrying within her the year of age
and fairy tale visions
once in possible divisions
such prior to her olden age
wisdom welled deep
her days a flashing by
keep on dreaming
she still prevails
so to fight
living her very
last days
in utter
bliss
Sherrie Dotson May 2013
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."
Turned another way is:
"A lie for a lie, a truth for a truth."

"Something for nothing."
Always means:
"Nothing is free."

I feel for people who will never know how to feel.
I love the people who will never learn to love.
I learn from the people who will never learn.
I hear for the people who will never hear, speak for the people who will never speak, and live for the people who will never live.

I am the soul of mankind.

(This poem was written for a poetry class at my college.  It and 4 others were published in the college periodical, thus ensuring that I passed the class.)
Olivia Kent Sep 2015
In a cupboard somehow lives a silent heart that does not beat.
Somehow it still lives.
No warming blood, no veins to pulse through.
The silent heart is scarlet, not cyanotic blue.
Not executed,but shocking.
It half lives, wrapped up in a faded page, torn from a periodical, the paper keeping it warm.
Locked away for reigniting.
One day.

One day, the lights will switch on.
It fears emotions that are long gone.
Full of sinews, cuddled in old news.
Heart in recovery, just having a snooze.
Lub- dub, give it a rub, help it to stay alive.
This heart's a survivor.
Long may it live.
(c)Livvi
Tony Anderson Mar 2019
Lord I can here you calling
Through I know I've been stalling
This world has a mighty grip on me
No matter how I tried
This world kept me tied
To the things that once ment so much to me

Lord of my life come free me
Break the bonds reclaim me
As the periodical child that I be

Lord of my life set me straight
Plant my feet guide my ways
So me to the glory make me see
cmp Jan 2023
another gracious moment in purgatory above ground
where periodical sufferance and inevitable death
reflect indiscriminate open window of opportunity
though prior to bonafide fate of erratic life silence
what's problematic be that toward realm of resolve
all's destined to leave behind worldly humility
mon-nor-ruse
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2017
it really never remains in the hands of shakespeare, that's for schoolchildren ridiculed by rubrics of language arithmetics, the placebos of their day & age, transmuted into the current state of affairs... no, poetry properly recognised is what it always was, and i know mine will never be... i concede the inability to capture the hogmanay spirits (my new year always began with the ushering in of autumn anyway) - and that people will always congregate above all else, in pauper or kingly attire over a song like robert burn's auld lang syne than some pompous recitation of hamlet, and if i can be the person who peers into this vase of irritability made consummate in periodical fashion, i will be the first, if not the last, to make due, of the verses written for song, and verses written for the long: forgot. seems to me, that shakespeare is no match, however much his genius is ornamented with countless revisions and reinterpretations, for a single effort overshadows the man, and auld lang syne does just that: it credits the work, but by popular consensus, discredits the man, as is well known, that shakespeare "didn't exist"... which is what happens, when you leverage a perfection in a work, like a god's undertaking, who left no signature, with only his work being respected, the man behind it is left abandoned, history speaks nought of him, the work remains, but only as a remnants of a man... which is why it's hard to contend, for a verse of communal warmth that auld lang syne imbues... you will not find a crowd's worth of shakespearean recitations, no king nor pauper alike in the graft of song upon the harsh paved streets as the bell-tower strikes the hour count to pass midnight past eve into the day of: welcoming the end of yesteryear; for all the actors that have spoken, the people speak first, foremost, and they don't speak shakespeare first, they speak robert burns first; and no word of truth or lie, could ever turn into song, even if written by shakespeare or not... oh this mindless craft, from greece of said, to scotch of sang, there is barely a room for effort in mindlessly avoiding the two: make amends, take to choosing either plot, but choose either, than the meddling middle-man amends of the crude antics of keeping to rhyme!

i love 'em, esp. the natives born,
the jingle and the jive -
i love them because i love
their stale - their dublin burnt
amber of a pint's worth
of guinness - and yes:
i'm not a real shamrock fan,
neither are ye -
  hibernian can become siberia
for all i care...
  but i love them with a hint
of tease -
   their catholicism is like
greek orthodoxy -
  they have to stress their
irish in the plotline -
odd to see the nuance though,
that the transgender movement
accelerated into commotion
when the unearthing of
the *nag hammadi
library happened
in 1945... suddenly every single
******* word is sacred...
    r. d. laing in his **** of paradise,
oh ****: bird of paradise
knew - turn the one inside out,
then turn the other inside out,
and attempt to meet in the middle -
what a, strange "coincidence"!
i'll have to r.e.m. this *******,
just to be sure...
  love the irish, but coming from
a ******* catholic background myself,
and not buying into the jesus
myth i'm starting to:
   i'll luv ya, as long as aye tease ya;
and so it was, a stalemate over
a pint of dublin's finest
                           charcoal amber lure.
noah wide dee ya when,
where, why or how then
thine ark of in sight fullness, pen
(viz uber taurus), men
sans quirky physiological ken
focus a ford did afore hen
chosen poetic themed word den.

this tire less un escort head
eureka moment (regarding
figurative crash test
dummy awakening) drove home
this aye opening
****** tin, peculiar, pated preserve.

this contemplative bore
ring emotive, five and fifty four
year old cannot pinpoint bon jour
if thee essential addle brain lesser more

of mine heard from a thread
reputable broadcast, read
an article of con fey head
door ration online or elsewhere bred

such as storied pay
periodical. nor can i lay
vouchsafe these myopic gray
brown eyes bore awareness fey
via watching an expose.

though lack of identifying you
might think bistro, milieu, venue,
et cetera, one comment true
lee can be averred with certainty.

sometime within a small crick
number of years ago, a kick
a** super ***** crowned cow lick
a phenomenal humungous slick
cranium tried to play cheap trick.

subsequently, this beastie boy
experienced a numb skull syndrome.

while linkedin to this zone
seize **** sal lad frosted stone
er flakey state, this acute up pone
hirsute, oblate spheroid hone
betook chrome dome grown.

spongiform territory
noodle could now know
wing lee hone a vaster tract.

Even a poe Pud'n Head Wilson
like myself understand ably
venerated woke full perception!

ma mind took laser like focus,
which brought notice, viz
enlargement of sacred brain power,
and hence spurred the above title.

once me noggin came
to this hyper awareness frame
(some unknown small game
number of years gone by), name
ming deliberate scrutiny cherished tame
intelligent pod wither ya find me vain.

visual cognition alerted - holy cow
my curiosity how
circumference of ancillary now
anatomical accouterment pow
wore lee atop shoulders without doubt tow
er became larger since taking vow
visual stock (of said) most vital wow

constituent body part. aye aint
got any hard data (hmm... maybe
Cambridge Analytica might know
a tidbit or two) pertaining to this
indisputable cognizance, where

expanding cerebral gray matter
iz concerned. only via circumspection
(more so refined since the recent
forced quantum leap into muddled,
molly coddled, middle age),

this distinct heady revelation
vied to be capitalized, gratified,
and limned into some semblance
of cogency.
Some Person Jan 2015
I always see it from someone else's shoes
I don't think people are out to actively **** me off
I notify them of my displeasing,
and if they take it in a manner that is mature,
then I can continue to talk to them as adults;
Else, I ignore their requests
and act like a stereotypical chick with
answers you'd find in a ****** periodical
I want people to respect my opinions and
points of view as much as I respect theirs;
I'm always willing to change my mind when
confronted with evidence and understanding,
and I would expect the same of them
Does that make me so different from the rest of humanity?
This is pulled and edited from a conversation with a friend; the words are mostly hers, with some edits and sort of conclusions/suggestions built in by me.
Alphonso Forbes Jan 2017
Drowning myself in prescribed medication to rid myself of this loved love sickness.
The inner affliction that targets and attaches to you like adhesive needs dilution.
I require a solution to my methodical madness and periodical sadness of withdrawal from your absence.
Take me to the hospital. Split me down the middle and remove my emotions so you can know how it feels to cry an ocean after someone who infected you says "I don't love you"
-Alphonso.
preservationman Jul 2021
Love can be a maybe with perhaps
It’s a periodical of words drawn by couples
Then again maybe love not at all
Words upon caring or uncertainty words
But are couples truly listening to what the other partner is saying?
How do they compliment each other?
Yet, I believe each couple must have a feeling in what love means
Love comes in days, months and weeks throughout the years
Romance if truth in preserver
Hearts enter like a portal
At times, love can become a violent storm going through the stimulation like a black hole
But it is no illusion
Do couples see what the stars in the sky are saying?
However, is there a twinkle within the love between couples?
Hearts should be stirring perfection into admiration
Love becomes the scale between Desire and Cherish
The finale within the kiss
Not a wish
Distinguished
Periodical love
Hearts enchanted
It takes follow through
But requires pursue
Love advice
That is what keeps love together with a mixture of honey, sugar and spice
Extraction to the nice
Newsweek love, the yearly affair, hearts centered for the next level surrounding love
You read on now enchant on
Love is endless
As couples are priceless
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2022
the 502 bad gateway hacks are down below; my my... today was a surprising struggle...

and i'm drinking this wine... seeing faces in clouds,
demoniac courtesy,
peep show at best...
         i'm done with sensibilities, esp. English
sensibility,
     it must have been fun in the 20th century,
in the late 19th century to be this English,
this sensible, this egalitarian...
              these days? not, so, much...
                     i'm here for the pandemonium...
i'm here for the circus,
i'll be the crying crown: like i told my Valentine...
Vaughan Williams...
Templar Chants... i cry at beauty...
i don't cry because i'm sad...
               i'm done with the literal and the objectively
sensible... it's time... it's time to double down
and re-explore the subjectivism of the foundations
of existentialism, from Kierkegaard upwards...
sure, Russia might be tickling Ukraine into a war...
but what does a ****** care for Ukraine
after the Khmelnytsky Uprising?
      coincidentally there was that Swedish Deluge...
the Ottomans were tickling...
see... i gather... the English are a people that
were last invaded by the Normans some 1000 years ago...
sure... they were plagued by Danish enclaves
of ransom paid with violence...
    but for the most part? as all island living folk are...
solipsistic... far removed from
continental plights...
"my" people didn't live in such harmony
as to have the luxury to think up the steam-train...
panacea... oh right...
Lex Fleming and penicillin...
     oh sure... we had Copernicus... but then he was
stolen by the Germans...******* mutes...
overshadowed by Galileo...
but if you're fighting all the ****** time...
you're not going to have the luxury to invent cricket...
or football for that matter...
the English have had so much free time on
their hands... now that multiculturalism has
turned a corner and people are showing up:
"fresh off the boat"... Africans with translators...
i was an "illegal" in 1997... i was deported...
my life was churned up-side down...
i remember watching the 1998 world cup final
with my great-grandmother in a dark room...
i remember watching the opening ceremony:
two eyes akin to two pebbles of coal
on fire...
i came back in 1998... well... i felt real sore
with rejection... look what i brought with me...
the entire world...
now, what? you're doubling down your
standards?!
they can... but... back then... i couldn't?!
you ever spend your childhood in a house with
20+ migrant men...
do you think i was *****?
are we talking about Pakistanis or Slavs?
exactly...
               harsh... but precise...
oh my my... this wine is fine... most graciously...
you can never go wrong with an Argentinian red...
"beautiful view"... yeah...
it's not cheap... but... i'll still do what
the Catalonians do...
having mingled with the Aztecs / Mayans...
i'm going to drink a KALI-MOTXO...
X = CH...
                     i'm going to **** into the wine...
then i'll drip drip some coca into it...
cola... Jacob...

               two bottles of wine: i'd call that a safeguard
of the night...how illuminat8ng...
the moonlight turning up unexpected
like quicksilver, like a constellation of stars...
imagining oneself naked when being
startled by one's shadow....

ah... liebste kalt, am meisten nacht...
  ich trinken zu sie!

     und ohne zeppelins!
           sich verbeugen...  Fräulein Albion!

why must have i fallen in love this late in
life...
   how terrible... how terrible i feel being
in love... with all that must pass...
over my head & down the drain...
   i'd much prefer appreciating torture...
being allowed access to bone...
to muscle to sinew strain...
              to an excess...
not this heart *******... this salt sprinkled on
a mollusk... this petty heart...
that i wished to remain a pebble...
a heart that could be summarised by
skidding from a throw across the lake...
imitating "drowning"...

i don't want to love...
i hate loving someone... it makes me weak...
it drains my parameters and focuses
them on a claustrophobia...
i don't want to love...
i'd much prefer a toothache than
a love-affair...
that's how much i despise love...
because i always give more than is offered
in return...

****... i think i'm going to comb my beard
pretending that i'm playing a violin...

maybe.. i'll just brush my teeth, look in the mirror,
pretend to see myself...
then again... perhaps i'll just want to see
a reflection of my hand...
perhaps i'll just want... to see my shadow...
when i fall in love: i fall bad....

when i ought to be in a brothel...
i'm dropping a bouquet of flowers round her
house.... in the middle of the night,
getting thrown off my bicycle on
the last turn... like i told her:
some people never go mad...
  what horrible lives they must lead...
no... not LED: LEED... even i don't know why
there's an A invoked...
but that's what happens...
trying to be the Afghanistan of Ancient Rome...
you don't apply diacritical distinctions...
you get a  while bunch of dyslexics...

i abhor being in love...
it drains me... physically... mentally...
i was quiet alright minding my own business...
but like they say... a female drought...
periodical... 10 years or so...
then... all of a sudden... 20 ******* appear!
wow... i have a choice?!
and the one i choose is throwing
knives right left and centre....
other women in her vicinity are trying to
discourage me from making further attempts
with her... well... d'uh... i love a challenge...
but how does that work...
we're doing a shift and there she is...
swiping left to right right to left
on TINDER... sorry... what's a dating app?

i love ****-ups... you know.... there's that
megalomania of saviour in me that's insomniac...
oh... but **** me...
when this desire comes crashing down...
it'll be like Kevin Spacey being accused
of "cis-normative" ****** practices...
   i'm really, really going adore myself then...

right now... i'm a teenager stupid...
i don't know whether up is up or whether up is down...
i'm literally at my wits' end...
i might as well be deaf, blind... dumb...
no... sorry... what are you saying?!
you're actually saying something?!

the pupil of my eye has extended into the night...
if an eye can be allowed to yawn,
rather than blink... i've ate a star or two...
while my green iris sacrificed the girth of
this planet... for the seas to emerge...
shuffle the continents...

    this is going to be one terrible mistake
after another... i don't think i can allow this love
to become lame, domesticated,
sterile... i want the wildness of this mistake
to remain... retake me...
yes... i don't want to domesticate these feelings...
even if i don't bag her by sleeping
with her... i want to feel for her what i feel
for all the prostitutes i slept with...
an impossible weight i impossibly managed
to nonetheless lift...

title: butterfly seller
body:
some pseudonym,
Nabokov: FF;

title: seismic
body:
sort of shift;
tragedy down
the supplied
borrowing of
itch.
fear of TH through to PH;
esp. Hellenic.

Mateuš Conrad Feb 2019
mein, kin?
         i ascribe meit,
zu                  es?
    wenig-sachsen
        insel-sein-volk...
    
if the "angli-saxon"
periodical
of the native
will attempt its
         racism...

i... will... reply...
with... min egen!
     de timme...
          sitä aika...
                     de tid...
an uair...
                    
dragon:
     dragan,
        draig
      dragon,
             drachen,
drage,
       drake,
       lohikäärme....
smok...
               draakon...
     drakonas...
    дракон...
           sárkány...
drak...

                 my tongue,
your lib.
and remains of
the                      -berty...

von die volk...
         ein,
            und ein...
                    die ein als alles.
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2020
.there's a reason why i don't care... i don't care because... classfic.fm played me... all it felt fathomable of prokofiev... but it never... ever... played me...

concerning the mythology of the candle:
in the age of electric insomnia -
prometheus edison -
                          a journalistic sabbath:
never to come -
                  i sometimes do and would...
prefer a return to a more archaic form
of illumination -
for the simple reason...
                 some per se i have yet to conquer
with the mind and unravel into
a narrative...

              the current war: i don't remember
the last time i watched a movie from
beginning to end...
no synopsis, though:

        the depiction of thomas edison...
by cabbagepatch...
        hardly a need to make empathy
out of... the exploits...
throughout the film i was...
rooting for george westinghouse:
not being of tesla...
michael shannon alone does the persuading...

the innovative genius of
19th century h'america...
          well... all the criticism of communism...
the soviet genius of the 20th century...
and in all honesty: most of the soviet
rust and golems would work just fine...

the motto: if it ain't broke: don't fix it...
i try... i fail:
       nothing brings me closer to anything
worth minding...
but there are some besides...

why do intelligent people appreciate
classical music:
      me? so so... i'm only as intelligent
as... facing a criminal...
or a psychopath... there's no point claiming
intelligent in an in vitro scenario...
with an i.q. score...
if you can't be fooled by a psychopath...
you're smart: by my standard of inquiry...

if i were allowed to explore:
what edison was able to explore...
       tame the lobotomy of what-ifs...
it really doesn't matter...
when all that was recognised was...
working on "something else":
the movie picture...
                       so much alien and
discouraging scenes from a competition...
to have improved the lot of man...
while at the same time...
to have had to... do the beggar's lot...
the kneeling the arm-wrestling
the vanity projects exploding with
custard-pie foam...

           the terrible affairs of men of will:
i'm so hardly bothered by these words
that i do not even wish to utter them...
intelligent people and classical music...
sorry... i did my part...
it ends with the 19th century...
i had to return to a more basic vision...
medieval music: folk music...
something for a wedding a solistice a...
pan phantasmagorical advent
of fruit flies and ferries...
nothing to liken me to a civilised man:
an opera or a tux...
   to listen to classical music is sometimes...
a bit like... how Magritte painted...
standing... wearing a suit...

in between edison and the electric-chair...
but... the actors swayed me...
the gambler came on top...
    all it was: was distance...
so much for edison and the DC for
j. p. morgan and manhattan...
            when... Iowa needed to be lit...
how many years passed
since the man who held the flint...
and the bundle of dried wood...
and cried: fire! fire i made!
made: rather than discovered...

         on the topic of...
it takes a lot less electricity to cool things...
than it takes to heat them...
electricity used to cool things
is much more efficient than when it is used
to heat them...
lucky for anyone i have a smart
meter...
   i sometimes glance at it...
i have an electric stove...
     i turn it on... the meter shoots up
into the exponential! when compared
to having a fridge-freezer and a freezer
working overtime throughout the day...

electricity is... when used to heat things?
terribly inefficient...
when... compared to how elecricity
is used to cool: and sustain freezing things...
i guess you can't cheat:
fire as the ire eye of the soul -
               to freeze something...
is not akin to burning something...

      never mind: i'm not looking for details...
god forbid i find something that
someone else would want to champion
and merit for themselves...
than: as cheap as pebbles: words...
when given the property of: disguise...

mind you: seeing jordan peterson
playing with a remote car: toy-thingy-m'ah-jig...
not fun... watching robert deniro
escape catatonia was more fun...
because i'm not a fan of the 12th rule:
it's not like it was ever a given...
to somehow always manage to stroke
a freelance cat on the street...
sometimes you do... sometimes you don't...
imagine the rule: the cat decides
whether you'll moses the full dozen
with authority...

otherwise... finding a reinvention
of a chicken korma...
        i had 5 ripe mangos sitting on a table...
2 ripe bananas and a ripe pineapple...
i ate one of the ripe mangos...
           those 2 ripe bananas: with polka
dots of being over-ripe will turn out
to be a breakfast tomorrow...
i will marinade some chicken in piri-piri...
and gloat... when grilling the pineapple...
2 mangos will go toward
tomorrow "chutney"... well... a salsa...
red onions, mint... a pepper and a chilli...

but the other 2 mangos?
went into a reinvention of a curry...
who said you were ever to inquire
of tomatoes for the ****...
         of a curry sauce?
     - and it's not even the usual litany
of spices...
        'what's the difference between
the blue indians of bengal...
and the red indians of minnesotta?
was it simply their culinary antics
that "spared" them...
or... well... "too boot"...
their fancy scribbles: to capture sounds...
like photographs...

oh ****... almost "forgot"...
have a gnostic at my fingertips...
and she's like...
god... the embodiment...
of dutch velders from:
    missed the zombie franchise...
missed the vampire franchise...
missed the: soul-load-of-french-kissing:
eats the **** like an oyster...
franchise...
and she's there: gnostic mother...
part-time typo part-time
of revel: in anything you don't
desire... sort of... mr. seance says:
best this avenue be kept...
crypto i.e. cryptic...

   my socks stink... i light a candle...
i labour myself to trace...
paris... circa 2004 - 2007...
and the first time... the only time...
the last time...
and jim morisson's grave...
like he were: best kept entomped
like some leonard lenin at the red sq....
pwetty mummy for all to...
beside the...         "hindu" state
of the original giza shovel nicked:
dismemberment...
and that oops: where the gradening fork...
broke... a knee and rib and ankle...

who would have thought that so
much could happen in the world...
and the only point of reference was:
not that heidegger: da-sein: being-there...
but... doubling on the already
abstract: dasein: with
a... imploded: "hier"...
like here is some new junction...

  i like my days spent in playing
chess with rudimentary concerns / concepts
of chess when... bricks are stacked...
i also like...
looking at the clouds...
forcing myself to see:
a "nothing": without blinking...
looking back at me...
having donned... a men-yoroi...
because: i'm so ****** up like that...
that i think *** is a tier below
a good meal and a beer...
the best excused pleasure...
the best... substituted... of all demands...

if you can counter...
recreating a turkey korma...
with a mango...
and no almods...
spices: turmeric...
        korma paste... ****...
i don't even remember what goes
into a garam masala:
probably a schnitzel worth of bullets...
GINGER... no garlic...
    ground cumin... nigella seeds...
    chuck stock and coco milk...
point though: you make the sauce
from pulp of mangoes...
and that's what saved
the blue indians from the fate
of red indians of h'america...
and the coppernecks of...
in the vicinity of cuneiform...

          how a concept of vowels...
the elements...
a, e, i, o, u:
      coupled with... an inanimate
thing rattled will not wake
an animate creed...
an animate will wake an animate creed...
even if... the inanimate lot
is bypassed...
a creaking stair... the boiling
of water...
                           दएअठ (death rides...
by rattling... the... "riddle")
                    ऋइदलए
                             ­        no... sorry...
no english "orthography" of liTTle
******: or maNNer...
                 nigh-err-ger-mania-via-nigh...
ger-non-mania... grrrrrr...
  savvy?
    you want myopia hydra
not savvy 'vat saucy fat and:
***** joins the bridge march... sort of...
"whoops"?
and the blue indians survived...
since... they had food that...
would always undermine...
the basic principles of european:
nomad-esque: borrowed from the semite:
desire for exploration...
camel-**** flinging and no need
for a niqab donning...
parsley sage... rosemary and thyme...
the saltz the pepperz...
   the... gorge on the gorgon -lic...
horderaddish! ****-oids!
does it become...
   simon, McLean, garfunfel and...
               timothy goodweather?
              or that other... **** up best of ours...
jazz-***** buckley like...
nina simone was the lesser...
ella... cosine: she never had the moonwalk
in 'er... just those... bloat...
and a signature ******* that would
always come... after the kiss...
yeah... i know the curse of my...
skinz and... the curiosity of... dermatology...
belzeebub took a **** on my face...
once upon the pride of glasgow...
not when...
i took to liking my face to be a metaphor
for... what die krupps did or could
havve done... to the pasture lands
surrounding Ypres...

what is all of comedy...
  when there's... canned laughter...
to invite: the solo-project "audience"
in... then again...
what is... and isn't... dry martini...
the office... ricky / rocky gyrating
when there... isn't any... canned laughter...
it's not like everyone
was born with a lee evans level
of genius! then again:
my scrutiny of comic genius
is equal to that of a pleb...
******... self-depreciating humor...
conel jackson...
of no use point of reference / conjunction...
laurel & hardy...
mel bison... mel gibson...
lethal weapon 1...
      slapstick funny was once...
but when comedy had to turn the tide...
and become... ridicule prone antics...
intelligent...
no one likes smart funny...
because... everyone just loves...
any funny!

  of which... i am... none.
oh yes.... when there was once... a once
upon a time of slapstick humour...
and... begotten nod... not...
ushered... the canned android brigade...
slapstick humour was replaced with...
crass... circulating the jerusalem
periodical of jews reclaiming
their homeland... like the polacks might
and... should one hope...
for... inviting the russians:
origins in siberia...

to tell a cheap joke...
glass someone in the face...
to tell a doubly cheap joke...
censor a word...
then uncesor it...
then censor it...
and: cheap: gob shyte and
a litTTle: BMW: black man's wagon...
pops into the mind like...
pope's a pedohpile kingpin...
al paccio is no paccino...
cuppa... cedric?
   ****... almost forgot...
           çedric... one does... forget...
one's favoured quit: of a collected
nuance... and time...
i **** to say an english hello!
wave! tired: **** y'ah'ah'ha'ha *******
rhyming couplets: Ipswich no sooner?
no sooner no sober: i hope... ah ha...
ha...               ha...
where's the canned laughter?
who's treating lee evans like...
madeleine mc'cann...
    and... frau fritzl...
christopher hitchens is... dead: ist: tod...
but... this burden breather is still...
the fairy godmother for... all those...
hopes... of pigs that dream about not
having to oink to clarify bacon...
   of god and... *******-eating remains of
jihadi ******* clover: of the bataclan...
if i... i die...
so much for... lucid dreaming...
beside the already available...
lucidity... of "others" attempting to barrage
their way into your...
simulation of solipsism life: life earned...
life earned ******* worth of:
the grim.. grimmace...
   lobotomy dyslexia hybrid mongol...
such... worship for...
delving into: all the choir singing!
that they get to! mispell: misspelled!
    happy hunters... loaded with loot and rap...
like i'm white... and classical...
is all... me and pagan music...
yoddle jazz... yoddle pop sheer...
                      like i said... no name...

watching horror movies is...
a coping mechanism...
the knives are blunt...
i sharpen them when i...
and i don't want to use them...
what i want to use...
is nostalgia...
a tool of regret...
and regret is the fathomable
tool of memory and of cinema...
michael faraday!

   what's the indefinite... and inconvenient...
truth... between...
sarcasm... and ridicule?
                      who's playing that sort
of toy and who's... the lesser nostalgia
prone loop?

so much has happened in
the life of the algebra prone  "X"...
but Y... and Z... also happened...
the open glads of...
the... prior to Cain and the "chair":
the nomad prone...
mother... agape: superior...
Siberia the "new" Africa...
         you... starve among the ravenous
wolves...
leave us... oysters....
to crave: demands...
                    and... leisuring...
        a cusp for... none of them...
that these words leave you:
made to fathom... clicking mimic clicking...
that better chiming...
is all that is ever... required...
this... reap of the fierce:
and that time entombing:
                      i too grieve:
for whatever... was... not... told.

  ju: ******* tel aviv sprinter!
elohim and ethiopia woodoo.
Charles Sturies Sep 2019
I don't know if anyone
looks that qualified
I ko know
that rough parts of my
poetry might qualify.
and an occasional charity card
is worth saving
just in case I become famous
and go back on life for fun
and the used wrappers
let me know that latest paper back is right for ***
and the rest of the stuff
insane for men
even Ken can old daycare apartment with
and add in a pocket full of miracles
too.
the parse water have
you fine for periodical
come in clear too
and warm

— The End —