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12:24PM, January 21, 2017. Saturday.
This feeling is like the sweat beads
Dripping down my back
On a sweltering afternoon.
I lay here in remorse,
Feeling and experiencing
Like life awakening from a coma
You were never aware you fell into.

Speaking of falling, have I mentioned that I am?
Questioning the permanency of a foolproof plan
And no one knows who or what
I'm talking about
Not a single thought in their minds
As to what the gears
Behind my eyes are creating.

A concept of solipsism,
The revolution of somnambulism;
It's why we all want to take
A psychology class but confuse
It with philosophy and end up taking both anyway.

I feel like the cotton candy at a carnival,
So many pick and choose the pink or blue
The black and blue on my ankles and chest
Hands gripped around my neck;
Sorting through what particular part of me
Makes it worth sticking through.

They want to taste what it's like
To break me down
But the second I hit the tongue,
I dissolve. I melt away,
And they are satiated,
Left forgetting me and the craving urge forevermore.

When the pen seeps through the paper
I expect to be reminded of how
Every little tear ******* burns my eyes.
They say it's because of dehydration,
The less water you drink the more salty
Your tears become.
But you'd figure after so long,
Your body would become used to the pain.
Then again, that could apply to
Most of the pain this fragmented coffin of a figure
Endures pathetically.

Am I pitiful?
Because even after years
Fighting, struggling, suffering,
Working to better myself any chance I get,
I still feel selfish for crying out.
I've lost too many people
And sometimes I wonder how
Someone so strong could become
So fragile, withered,
Wracked with debilitating illness
That they can barely stifle a single breath.

Sometimes I wonder how in a matter
Of a month, someone could go from
Talking, though strained, walking, though barely,
To completely immobile, paper-thin, codependent
Then ripped away at the seams
From those who are still now learning
Just what exactly death is.

And here you are, standing over their corpse,
Crying in silence so no one detects
The vulnerability seeping out of your pores.
Your hand is stroking their hair again,
But they're cold, stiff, devoid of any sense of future.
No light, no twitch, no remnants of the soul
You'd connected with, the one you'd spoken to
Just the day before.
They don't open their eyes then,
And the more you stare at their chest,
Thinking every couple of seconds that
You swore you saw it rise just that little bit.
You soon enough come to the abrupt realization
That there is such a thing as a permanent marker
Because I'm forever stained with the memory they've
Abandoned me with.
And I don't blame them for leaving,
I don't blame the one who took them.
The time comes and it's inevitable,
And with that notion comes the irrationality
Of being afraid of the one thing we know for certain
Will always happen to each and every one of us.
Not a doubt. No cheating death.

And so begins the process
Of desperately clinging onto the memory
Of someone you never got the chance
To properly meet in the first place.

They tell me they're better off
But not a single **** one of them looks at peace.
Not a single one looks asleep,
And not a single person can fit the lie
Into my head that they went peacefully.
That they never suffered.
That they weren't terrified
Of the door being closed on them.
That they weren't afraid to die.

I know the story, I knew the hope.
I knew the fight.
And they say it's "always darkest just before the dawn",
But I've been walking through this tunnel
So long now that I have familiarized myself
With every single **** crack in the stone,
Every patch of moss,
Fathomed obsessions over every fiber;
Unable to see the stars
While everyone else is at the planetarium.

I've been traveling for so long,
Believing this fact of hope and drive,
That I'm now starting to recognize
That this, this right here, is all a glitch.
This tunnel has no end.
And as a matter of fact, I have yet
To see any flicker of light at the farthest point
To which my eyes can see.
The only small, hopeful, good days experienced
Feel like thousand-year-old stories carved into the cave walls,
Or a smidgen of a hole in the ceiling.
And it hurts.

My feet burn from walking.
Even in my sleep, my soles meet
The cold stone floors, strolling, wandering,
Unable to stop.

I hear the trickling of water now,
Like a small babbling stream
Abandoned in this cave.
Just like me.
But now, sometimes I fear the rush.
Because I know, soon enough,
The water will overflow again,
And I will drown
Because nobody had the time or devotion,
Dedication,
To teach me how to swim.

I feel like I've lived a thousand years onwards.
Occasionally, I lay back and close my eyes,
Feel the chill of the stone wrap itself over my body
As my body temperature drops gradually
Just to listen to the stream lull me.
I'm still trying to figure out if it's because
The stream often symbolizes the foreshadowing
of the Undertaker, and I am accepting defeat;
Or if this is simply the only way that I can
not only drown not just my thoughts,
But myself.

So, I keep falling, in more ways than one
In search of that permanency,
Or at least substitution.
I crave people, because
This cave is so lonely,
And autophobia eats me alive
As people drop like flies.
So, I guess selfishness isn't a lie, after all.

Couple years past, still in a ditch.
Like this is some section to uplift,
More like a fork in the road
Or an alternate ending
When the main character isn't defeated.
But somehow, over time,
I've obtained the process of how
Moss is a life form, perhaps parasitic,
But thriving in the smallest
And most desolate crevices.

So, I've formulated a plan on how
To make rope out of this fiber.
And if this ladder fails me now,
I will come crashing back down
And break my spine.
Hopefully, if it ever were to heal,
Maybe I'll be able to conjure up
The strength of a better backbone
Because these demons glow in the dark,
And I've gotta gather up the guts
To turn on the lights once and for all.

- C.B.C.
Cecil Beau Calcifer
wow this is long, i cried while writing this in my journal cool. sorry, a lot of emotion here in this one. friggin intense
Submissiveness:
       give into man. silence yourself. his word is final. rush to his beck and call when he is angered. we are wrong. man is dominant, and woman is soft. if man is the bone, we are the gushy cartilage cushioning his fall. body dominated and composed of bone, but we are the organs that keep the body functioning. forever being transplanted, while our men are broken. submit.

Purity:
       save yourself for man. wait for him with all your white so you are not tainted. innocence upheld. it is all for him, only him. wait for him to take it all, whenever he desires. be pure.

Domesticity:
        the home calls our name. it is our calling. our knees bound to scrubbing, hands tied to kneading because our family needs us. we are to be the slaves of our homes just as we were to the white man. permanency of pressing collars that are not our own. domestic labor.

Piety:
        we come from the rib of adam. without the presence of man we, ourselves would not exist. for this reason, we worship. we worship to reiterate our purity, to maintain our sanity when others challenge our virtues of womanhood. the lord is our shepherd. we uphold our lord. besides our husbands, he is all that we shall want.

womanhood.
the cult of "true womanhood". it's 2014 and i see so many of these traits still in women, in young ladies that surround me. i am not these things. i cannot be. it is not in my will. it is 2014 and i rather cease breathing then let a man other than my god or my father have dominion over my life. i am mine before i am anyone else's. i will not submit. i am disgusted by the settling, the submitting, the striving to not upset. i am mine before i am anyone else's. for these reasons, i am a woman.
m lang Mar 2022
it’s confusing to me
and maybe this is where
the grooming,
psychological abusing
comes from.
i’m used and discarded,
tossed into the recycling bin
until i’m reused again.
and again.
every time making me
a little weaker
than the time before.
a little less able to refuse.
a little easier to bend,
to break.
the lack of permanency
in the place i long for,
the place in which
i never got to stay for long,
only to be hauled away and
returned upon further notice.
3-30-22
mk Aug 2015
shuffling feet & carry-on suitcases
walking through countries
temporarily nameless, faceless, homeless
in the middle of nowhere
cut off from society
people who, for the time being,
don’t really belong anywhere
a mixture of nationalities & cultures
thousands of different languages,
different races,
different colors
just passing through the terminal
one country to another
some with a final destination in mind
others finding meaning in the journey itself
a lack of permanency
a lack of belonging

i must admit
there’s just something about airports
which *makes me feel very much at home
// but these places & these faces are getting old, so i'm going home //
Alin Dec 2014
We never met but when I think about you that sudden heavenly fragrance fills my air
Covers uncongealed irregular volumes of minimal fluid
Teases me to the level of my nose so that I can smell a forgotten reality.

Is that maybe the ability of your sobriety trespassing through my impenetrable doors
immaterializing the burden of the heaviness of my lost lamented selves to an all equally valid lucidity?
  
You came so close recently
while I was doing shopping on a gloomy rainy afternoon
creating a **** twist at an ending of my mouth line revealing
a sudden dreamy smile which had the inspiration to give birth to an orange flash of joy.

A joy that clears away the opaque broken colorless paint to a crystalline transparency
so that
so that I can see
the truth of me through your poetry.

We witness and observe at rest now
All of our indubitable aura
of equivalent authenticity
Hanging in balance
Subtly floating
Flowing the airy
In the suit of colorful wild flowers of an unknown prairie
and only this way
I can relate to each of me
without being afraid of losing the permanency
of you or of me.
Inspired by my reads of all poems here that reflects human condition as if  of me or a new home for me :)
Christina C May 2015
forgetting the traces of who i knew you to be and scraping off the dried blood
along my legs
and my wrists and picking the scabs of almost healed wounds
from when you slid your precious knife of prose across my skin
which carved our initials inside of a heart but skin doesn't last like bark does
and when we carved our poem into the concrete it dried only over my name
and our love is forever carved
into the sidewalk
along my hands.
As a stone falconer, I look for honey where many detest,
I sombrely harvest stones for my food as others bask in orchards
I now salute Adolf ******, not for his adulthood life,
I bow unto him for his youthful love of his fatherland,
In his life of youthful days, dreaming and dreaming
In his struggles of meine Kempf, to wash Germany clean,
And plant social democracy free from the stench of Jews,
His love-hate of Karl Marx redolent of missing link,
In all the humanity where education is made a luxury
And dearest reserve of the rich, the few and powers that be,
Your excellent mental growth defied formality of the times,
You surpassed the schooled and the institutionalized of the time,
Phenomenally accumulating haphazard knowledge and prowess
Of the garrulous leader as beckoned the fashion of politics by then,
Only the best outfit to beguile politics of Europe in the then time,
In your humanity there is both glorious failure and doomsday success
Whence your life failures are fountains of intellectual glory,
You yearned to wash the Jews off a reeking perfume
To offload your fatherland off the burden of exotic poverty,
A normal dream for a normal son, in whatsoever the world,
****** the son of Europe you made your father proud,
No inch of land on earth messes to play with Europe,
Your respect for African military muscle sent a right Signal,
Down in the land of the Negroes to fight for freedom
From the rotten yoke of colonialism that had putrefied
The necks and shoulders of African nationalism,
Hail you ****** in realm of the living dead
History of we the living is a protégé of your soul,
Carry your neck high above all the dead for your role,
Germany is now great and highly spirited above cosmetics,
You were born insignificant but you died significantly,
Eva Braun the lady of your head falling in your arm,
A true man you measured as you died on the nuptial night,
You gave the mantra of historical permanency
On which Europe’s future is embedded in your song
Of need for the breathing space for sons of the Aryan nation,
I admire your spirit towards preservation of your fatherland,
There are million of those that hate you in the day under the light,
But they slavishly worship you in the night with their dim lit candles
Their faces deeply buried in the Meine Kempf, no effort can fickle ‘em
In their voracity for the oeuvre of your soul, the Fuhrer of Germany,
Blessed be Germany the land of your matrix,
Let it sire and sire several like you, now and future
For the spirit of duty with which you were imbued
The sole natural resources menacingly missing
Among the poor countries of the world
Hence their misery in the captivity of poverty,
You are a lesson, a school, and benchmark
For the brave and the cowards but only the bigots
Can refuse to swallow the superb historicity
You gave to the world of your time and beyond.
You nursed and bred Einstein the child of your arm,
In your early Jostle on the verge of nuclear technology ,
While others in the deep slumber snored in crudeness
Of their culture and colonial bliss, totally impairing the vision,
You amassed national wealth in the hands of the *****,
You thinned corruption from the state machinery of Germany,
You combated communism with mighty of a born fighter,
You fought poverty and condemned syphilis away from Aryan race,
In your pure love of Germany your fatherland, pride of your heart,
Or show me normal a man who yearns to breed a weakling nation
And I will take you from the perforated shadow of Leo Tolstoy
And shed you under the umbra of Shakespeare the bard,
To catechize you truly on pearls of morality
Bound in King Lear, that only the weak
None but the weak  who attract the attack.
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2016
A Woman's Reflection on Her Reflection (Valence and Value)

one poem, written by two authors


~~~

Ever the analyst,
A mirror functions as surface to
Parse the fleeting constant
Of youth's beauty.

From genetic gift
Of symmetry and bone,
To technological tampering,
Until the equation is solved,
As experience and character
Models and maps the result.

The answer, a reflection,
Of individual valence and value

(written by S.D., a woman)

~~~

(written by N.L., a man)

unbidden and unannounced, a
"not fully formed poem,
but a simple reflection"
inbound missile arrives inbox,
armed with silent power,
the lethality of the
Holy Unexpected

the man reflects
on her mirror-on-the-wall's
fulsome reply,
parsing the words of a
woman's reflection,
while gazing on her own

every human's momentary glass notation,
but an instance of summation,
a human poem, whose editing,
unceasing

a comma here,
a period inserted,
an eye shadowed, an eyebrow tweezed,
a eye dark circle line added,
to tree-mark time's authorship

all  these
but a person's
excerpted extraction,
notarized,
then auto-erased and revised,
as out of date,  
instantaneously compromised

but,

it is upon  the conceptual,
valence and value,
more that the man reflects perpetual,
less on transitory morphing changes of
exterior mortality

while overlooking her
glassine realization from behind,
he concludes:

every reflection,
no matter how oft the snapshot,
the unfleeting constancy
of the combining of the

princes of principles,
valence and value

that he witnesses,
in the calming pool
of her eyes,
(those borrowed windows into her soul's well,)
so well reflect
her unchanging greater finery,

her character

this reflection,
metamorphosis transformed.
into a planetary permanency poem,
high placed in his the firmament
of their conjoined sky
Valence,
as used in psychology, especially in discussing emotions, means the intrinsic attractiveness (positive valence) of an event, object, or situation.

In chemistry, the valence or valency of an element is a measure of its combining power with other atoms when it forms chemical compounds or molecules.

you decide.

hers, two six sixteen,
his, two seven sixteen,
in the wee hours
ahmo Jul 2015
I'm not too inclined to write.
Because my roots lie deep in soil
unmended
and highly offended by such
apathetic precipitation. Approximating that
any hint of hope
was barren.

So a love life-
one, call her wife.
She austerely abided by permanency
despite omnipresent strife.
There was simply no life.
Nothing.
Not an attempt to stick it out
past
imaginary doubt.
All when you were
all my life was about?

Days of
ferris wheels
and
tickled squeals
bring on such sweet strength.
But I can't say anything
blunted the light
more than your shadow.

I digress.

It's always been a battle
My blind past,
they say,
shows only decay.

If green is still visible,
on a day chemically dismal
remember
that still
I'm not inclined to write.
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2015
for lovejunkie...amidst this parliament of words,
I am selfish,
but not always blind...

~~~


from our bed, I see witnesses,
a small stand of trees,
no parliament these,
but a scattering of
oak~men and birch~women,
who shade and defend us,
a few good marines on duty,
standing between us and
our beloved but ever
dangerous tempestuous changeling child,
the one we call,
with well-mixed trepidation and affection,
the sea change

this small stand,
throws all caution to the wind,
remnants of a once great army
upon my forested isle,
these proud stragglers,
refuse to desert their
human worshipers and century renters,
giving them aid and comfort,
from the sum of
sun, wind and the
ever encroachment of waves,
who would and
will
own all
eventually

they look out,
this stand of trees,
facing away,
lookouts for us,
watchmen of the day
and still on duty,
even when the day's nethered nemesis
returns

this stand of trees,
they look back as well, upon me,
even as I catalogue them,
distinct even now in the tomb of midnight dark,
facing me simultaneously,
self-appointed witnesses
to a man's thinking
of his:

binding and unbundling,
the tumult of the fusion
of the pros and cons
at the intersection of
love and memories

where ancient needs and memories
clash to rehash past victories and Waterloo,
all the while, the cries of the
perpetuity of future desires,
incessant demanders of
fresh refreshments of love,
shout out
"more, more,"
ever so softly

perhaps this is why they stay...

voyeurs,
to be amused by selfish humans,
denying their very built-in natures,
addicted to the elusiveness of romance,
wearing pretend masques of self-blindness
to the devil-may-care,
unpredictable seasonality of loves
comings and goings

and yet how clear recalled the
unconcealed passion and gleeful gratitude
when we tuck a beloved's locks from
their eyes, to the safety of the
crook of their ears

the stand of trees,
strong tall, plain big,
compare and contrast
to the infinite smallness
of merest seconds
of loving tenderness
etched upon the firmament permanency
of the
mind's eyes

perhaps this is why they stay...

perhaps this is why we cannot renounce
our never wreaking addiction to love
and its cocktail of
torments and fulfillment

trees - perhaps,
they better understand our frailty
than we do,
do trees love humans so much in return
for all this love we give them?

we chop in hurry fury down,
only to repent and replant tenderest of seedlings,
like human love,
we chop in hurry fury down,
only to repent and replant tenderest of seedlings

for are we not all selfish, all blind,
all needy, all defenseless,
all cautiously defensive,
so much
and then again,
not so much
not so blind or selfish,
that we cannot use our word tools
to grant ourselves,
we aching creatures,
grant ourselves
a few small chances,
to pry open both
recollections of our heart's delight
and the seeds
for its
renewal

perhaps we are all witnesses?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"but oh if fate threw caution to the wind
giving
this parliament of trees their hearts' delight
how wondrous to these eyes would those boughs be
smashing through that firmament, that light."

"and oh if fate threw caution to the wind
granting
this aching creature just one wish,
i'd be content with much less than your kiss...

for i am selfish, but not always blind;"

**from "wish I may wish I might"
by lovejunkie
You can see my stand,
beside my name,
protecting and surrounding
our little cottage

read lovejunkie on HP!
Why?
for he is among the very few who craft and hew their words
with care and great love...and who writes of the
elements
of love in beauteous ways I can only vague recall, and never hope to ever replicate..

amidst this parliament of words,
I am selfish,
but not always blind...

June 21 2015
2:00am
Yue Wang Yitkbel Nov 2019
I

When we are still combating the problem of evil
With our vicious guns and metals of empathy
An invisible enemy much more clever and stealthy
Has been sneaking behind us
Suffocating us with the suddenly plenty
On this battlefield of seeking

We seem to be caught in between
Two grotesque foes, but are we really?
The gloomy autumn sky is covered with change
Perhaps we judged too early, unclearly-
The red leaves fallen with grace of leisure
Have obscured their countenance, and we see
Only a tattered fool holding a scythe of nothing
And a soldier looming with righteous perfection
Yet, perhaps behind their foliage masks
The fool has his brow raised with love and longing
Cherishing his tool for harvesting
While the soldier with his bullets ever ready
Smirks with an air of violence
Perhaps we have failed to distinguish
The unwanted, cleverly disguised humble friend
From the well dressed yet poisoned with greed, foe

II

Where I come from we used to send
The youth not to the land of plenty and above us
But to help the poor, those who after hard work
On the land, lie beneath a clear sky full of stars
Unwounded by the pale light polluting the cities
With nothing but the vast dome of possibility
The moon and specks lighting up nothing
But a heart full of hopes, love, and dream

Now we climb and climb
Till the new sprouts are already at the peak
Or they are struggling under the shadow
Of the giant trees
Unable to find higher climes
Or
Unable to break free from this lack of oxygen
Of the giant canopy of already achieved greatness

III

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Was not supposed to be experienced by us
In a couple of generations, in a couple of decades

And the speed of the waves of boom and bust
Of our stability and the longevity of great things
Is only getting faster and faster
In this ocean of constant rise and falling
In this new age
We lift up the logs above us so quickly
And then let them drown so rapidly
We are more like volcanic rocks
With so many holes floating, to ask to be filled
And when fulfilled, drown as we fill, purposeless
And empty

IV

Youth in both poverty and idleness craves for unrest
But those on top should never be opposed with
Proud antagonism
With cries of illusive victory the restless rush towards
The king who tied himself to the top rung of
The wheel fortunae
Who is yet unaware where his inertia leads
Till his destined demise as it turns
To lift up the newly rich
And the new enemy
The vicious cycle of wanting to be above all
When the unwanted truth is glad humility

V

The oak trees stable at its roots, undefeated
Sends us in leaves and birds chirping
A warning to heed that we are losing our depth
In our growth and rooting
For we have rarely seen the valley empty
Yet with all the space to fill with everything
And now live and dream on a slopeless plain
Some with it all and unable to hold anything
Some struggling to breathe under the shades
We are all waning, waning
For our fingers had never dug through the earth of life
With the desperation of the fear of being swarmed
By the dark clouds of timely locusts
Yet,
These wizened words are being scoffed
For being too connected to the past

Are we proposing to cut off the rope
Connecting us to the very beginning
Just so we could get faster to the end
To the depth of this pit
Where no traveler would truly return
Without the past guiding
And we will fall again and again
Ever repeating

VI

I was filled with guilt and despair
That while people are still with next to nothing
With no luxury and sometimes not even family
That when others try to bring them necessities
I can sit in cozy idleness writing poetry
Yet filled with nothing but shame and the empty
In a world less and less occupied with reading
Why I must be a poet sole and wholehearted

And when the missionaries
Send the doves through the screen
Asking for awareness and money
To support these bodies with nothing
I was suddenly filled with hopeless shame and pain
For only one thought echoed from the words said to me
"They have very little material things, yet they seem to be really happy"
And that was the way it used to be
That the suffered and now living with peace
Seems to recall with loving longing
With great sorrow and gladness, I ask you
Is it really monstrous to say they are in a better place than we
They have the most important things
Love, hopes, and dreams
And the nothing waiting to and could be
Filled with anything
While our shaded and sheltered youth
While we hold our cups full
Filled with useless glamorous materials of our own
Or
Constantly poured out for others to keep
Wailing for something more
And lasting

Conclusion:

At the core of our ever-hungry souls
We only really needed one thing:
To be filled with something.

Hopefully more permanently,
But nothing of materialism, or even rationalism
Last more than
A mirage of permanency
Even the century tree of sunset dunes
Eventually sets as whispering dust into the sand
And even the wisest man fades away
Into the senile body whose soul
Has already bid farewell
To this temporary land

I sought and sought
And only found that  
The Word is true
Only Love transcends time and space
The embrace between two condensed hearts
Of pure longing could exert
The gravity
And gravitational time dilation
Of such self-forgetful density
That would wrap entire fabrics of reality
Around us, immersing us, with brief
Merciful revelations and trials
Of the unfathomable
Eternity.
Terror of Good, Emptiness of Plenty
By: Yitkbel Yue Xing ****
First Draft Completed: October 29, 2019 5:36PM
---
A mix of existential crisis, fundamental theology, rock music, and whatever little Taoism that's in my mind and blood.

Thanks to Lawrence Hall for proofreading! :)
stéphane noir Jan 2017
learn to settle in.
no matter what the situation
no matter how bleak it may appear,
settle in.

you expect permanacy.
after all these years of change
you still sit back and
on a subconscious level, anyways,
expect permanency.

it's not going to happen.

so.
knowing that its not going to happen,
you can settle in and wait for the change.
you never get too comfortable at all.
and whenever there's a change,
and there's a big upraor about it,
you can join and and sing
"RA RA RA"
and
"i can't believe this is happening !"
......
and to yourself,
[again.]


settle in and
maybe shut the hell up about everything being
so miserable all the time.
chill out.
it'll pass.
the sleepless saint. &
sw. yukta shwara (sp)
Lacey Clark Sep 2023
On my journey to my grandmother’s, the landscape holds my attention with subtleties.
Muted hues of soft lavender, pale brown, and ashy green painted outside the dashboard. Everything peeking out from a gentle coat of dust.
Yellow weeds and thistles dot the golden hills.

This corner of the country feels like a cherished family heirloom. The color palette resonates with my only sense of familiarity. Maybe it is my fixation on the colors themselves that buffer any sense of grief I carry towards instability.  None of us in my family have claimed permanency in structure. Yet, my grandmother’s home is a sanctuary.
this house has recently been demolished
I walk the gauntlet every day
As do those who have no place
Of permanency, somewhere they
Can call their private place
Self esteem and confidence
fills them with a state of grace
Their position, is not justified
For the rest to look on down
They don't look for your approval
Just don't kick them while they're down
Just think about logistics
One month's pay is just how close
Most are to not surviving
With no where left, homelessness
Is just where you'll be arriving
A person is a person
With a fundamental right,
To fair treatment and respect
And a place to spend the night
Being poor is not a career path
That someone picks in school
But, people who have nothing
Still respect the golden rule
I'll bet you half a dollar
That you really do not know
That they live and work along you
And their difference doesn't show.
Orville Feb 2012
How fain doth thine memories remain
Lo! shouldst thou endure the infinite repetitions of these haunting facades that The Abyss glares its gaze upon thine fragile life
The tired clingeth to the images fused to the permanency of thine recollections
Chiseled to the marble of the mind for the mason himself to gazeth upon its work


For betwixt a battered heart and a fickle mind lyeth the remnant of the resentments of life
Mary K Jul 2016
The sky opens up
And the clouds of my mind rain down
Pour on the dreams of tomorrow
Until they're soggy, ruined things
Bleeding into one another until all that's left is a mess
A jumble of black ink.
Broken memories of a time before
Are swept into the flood
And the river of me flows rapidly
Until the sharp stones are worn smooth
And I'm left with little of what I once had.
Until my emotions build a raft
Of good times and bad
Of uncertain hope for the future
Void of fickle ink that can blotch
And written instead with permanent marker in its place.
Because the good times are now
But surely there are more to come
So I forge paddles out of thin webs of happiness
And begin to fight the current
To start moving back upstream.
And the webs weave into permanency
Until the future irons itself out
And the past replays over and over
And they both meet in the present
So a golden light shines on it all.
I can breathe without the fear of drowning at last.
just home from a panic! at the disco concert when I wrote this
Esther Jan 2017
Maybe, fold those fingers
into the openings of mine
because i am obsessed with
the unnecessary filling of all open spaces

And hopefully sing all the lyrics wrong
in case i mess up like i always do
fumbling synonyms out through
the air that rushes from my bitter tongue to my teeth

Please press those palms against my flaming ears
to boom the sounds inside me
so that my mind can listen
to its own screaming

i will need - to
i will require - to
i will ask - to

Help me out of bed each morning
because with each sleep
i gain another universal weight
in each of my limbs

Always, Always, Always
answer to the suffering
with the full knowledge
of my next reaction

Never question the ache
for the sake of the peace
i bring in the silencing of answers

Forever
i will repeat forever until
you
are caught in the permanency of
Forever


in the end,
I
this is not a poem about love
Leah Rae Sep 2015
Permanency can go **** itself.    
Remember when you were fifteen
When you were all yellow teeth and bad poetry.
You were in love with death back then.
Thought she was some beauty -
Some backless dress
Some lipstick stain

Now she's stretched in front of you like a black, endless void.
All broken fingers.
All self blame.
All midnight drives to ditches only deep enough to call shallow graves.

She's like walking across a dried up lake bed.
Moments before the water returns.
Drown.

He's never going to see me get married

Sometimes I think about suffocating myself.
Thumb to index finger
Crushing larynx
Straddling my own chest.
Break it open.
Imagine me carcass roadside
Ribs crushed, pulled apart, what kind of cage doesn't know how to hold things together.
There will be blood on the sidewalk.

He's never going to meet my children.

Now you're nineteen
And you are all bad spelling and coffee stains
When the body experiences trauma sometimes all it needs to process is to shake hard enough -
enough though.
What is. Enough.

Just endless vibrating.
Breath in throat.
I can't.
I can't.

Breathe.

Tomorrow they are pulling his plug at 1 o clock.
Like plans for brunch.

Expect to not be able to keep this meal down.
You will return to it.
Over and over.
Like a dog to its own *****.
This *****
Artificially awake
Lydia
apples 20 years have passed
oranges i want a do over
manhole cover coins
savage glares across the 4 wheeled property lines
young moms not giving a ****, that's alright
kiss of sun hidden from
anxious from blue oak , it's ridges pluming in the dappled twist
and floundering wave, wiggling wave of oak leaves green as frogs.
ponytail suzy, *** from galaxy sci-fi
i brought up a cup while it was empty there,
but so distracted by my own trembling effort,
every hair a furry hood, every fatty fixture of my face a rebounding basset hound
tennis shoes up to my neck, dumb naked in my greenery,
already old somehow, the window closing,
the permanency of parks, like a stilletto in a limosine,
green fixture of my white blinded attempt to see tomorrow,
tourist .
thoughts of Sylvia
, my gaping awe at the feminine,
and its green garden.

-cbrander
igc Jul 2021
There’s something about the bleeding of
a pen through paper and on to
the other side
It gives me
a sense of permanency
Trying hard to stay put
it bleeds for its home

A mother hoping so much
to hold on. Leaves a
mark on their children
A tattoo of trauma
Leaves a mark on your
children

A love so sweet it’s tattoo
permanent mark my skin
with your presence on my
shoulder; permanent
A hope so sweet, I hope it’s
permanent

Bleed through my skin, leave a
splotch like pen to a paper
marking home reminding
you of its permanence
James M Boyer Feb 2011
Like petals from the flower bloomed
her smile wades
as eyes consume
the personification of beauty...
of which every angel longs
but could never hope to be
because their wings are over encumbered
by the burden of our wrongs.

Shadows cast upon the face
of the ever-blazing sun
top rung being...
of the evolution sprung...
proof of natural selection
is the breath that leaves her lungs.

hour glassed and figurine(d)
are the angles of her curves
parabolas that round just right,
i wish they'd never end,
penned in shape with permanency
nerves twist and wined to lips
that trade kiss with me like currency.

Her soul peers out through her iris
desirous to capture this moment.

because this moment will last forever...
universally content
lips bent & crease at both corners
when i rest my hands upon her hips.
and treat each passing glance as the priceless...
the priceless gift of knowing bliss.
Written February 4th, 2011- From Through Our Hands We Speak From The Heart
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2014
for Joel Frye

whose bear roar will n'ere be diminished,
for one who  has the good sense to laugh at himself,
is destined to live in the permanency of the place where memories smile and our
hearts store our affection unlimited,
for this earth, better for him

Deities and Muses!
you are herby responsible to guarantee this quality will never be lost from him and his residence, his near and dear, or else!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

in my mind a thorny paw
is irritating my most private
mirror-revealed thoughts,
asking me to fulfill obligations

oft have I writ of our chosen crew,
daily do we cement bonds,
with winks and nods and
meet away from the
glare of likes and reads

we exchanges vows
with stronger than the strongest words
for
there in not a single letter,
A's, B's or
even C's
that give us pause, no terror,
we bend them to our will


Betterdays wrote:
"i am a word written down.. any word, any word.
i am undeniable, desirable often incomplete
always open always waiting
for some one.........just like you ...
to open your heart let me in
to recognize a new start
to have a play, a scribble,
doodle, pen jive. to become
alive.... to thrive, just begin with a single letter.....then another,
go on be brave.............grant me liberty......"

the alphabet,
is the grantor of freedom,
for the component integers,
sum of the words
is greater than any all of us...

your words, her words, my words,
all of the crew's speak spokes
a language common but peculiar,
we transpose and borrow,
transgress and combinate,
all the better for interaction
that allows the *******
to the places we want revealed,
indirectly, we shine the light on our
recesses and are unafraid for it,
indeed we are better for it...

these poems are the streams and
wellsprings you know well,
lay your body upon these verbal waters
and float forever, though deep,
they are the fluids of your soul,
permanent poetic nourishment
and your claim upon them
all the greater for having three years plus,
added to and lived their pleasures...


for did you yourself not write your place is where

"The ocean's pulse, the ebb and flow
of constant waves' re-nourishment
bespeaks to me of life, although
an undercurrent message sent
in whispered sighs of Gaia's breath
upon the shoreline where I sit
relates a tale of bounteous wealth;
the wind, the rain - that we exist
at all is purely by the grace
of Nature's cycles. Also heard,
a gentle, soft, disturbing voice
reminding me without a word:
when we have come and we have gone
the ocean's pulse continues on"

perhaps you forgot!
you are part and parcel
of that ocean's pulse,
waves of letters forming and reformed,
your simple words above
re-nourishing me constant and even,
perhaps,

*
their author?
Love, last night you walked
Into my room and peeled off  your skin
For me, a sigh still clinging to your throat,
Waiting for the forceful
Expulsion of your exhale.

Peel it for me.

You hung your fears on my pleas,
Whispering the words I mouthed to you,
Mouthing them back onto me.
Lights off this is you
At your finest.

I love you, at your most nervous.

Last night you wrote on my skin
With your tongue, the words still cool
On my warm body.
Only the tips of your fingers remain,
Scrawling your name on my back as if you
Could tattoo the permanency of love with touch.
Hudson Everett Jul 2013
Etched into the flesh
With the permanency of a tattoo
But it tells another story
Like the medals of bravery soldiers dare not speak of the horrors they survived to earn
You carry them always
They commemorate the struggle
They are dark shooting stars forming constellations of wishes that were never granted
But carry them without shame, without self doubt, without self pity
They are not random marks, but battle scars from the wars that most will never see
You did not deserve them, but you’ve earned a right, the place reserved for veterans, the unspeakable survivors who can share their stories only with each other, often more with glances of emotion than words
Take pride that you have overcome the overwhelming, that you’ve weathered the worst storms and you have come to where you are, wearing scars
They say war is hell and no one really wins but you held back demons who clawed at things much deeper than just skin
Remember for the fallen, they must not have died in vain
Live on in their memory, take victories in their name
Carlo C Gomez Jan 2021
"I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor.
That's my dream. It's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering,
along the edge of a straight razor … and surviving."
–  Col. Kurtz, Apocalypse Now
~

Remember
the golden age, Wally ***?
And the songs
my mother taught me?

We sang about what was.
Or might never be.

Like permanency.
Distinction comes
out of stiff and frozen silences.
Take it with
a spoonful of disdain.
Take it in the eye.
Actors are like breakfast cereals.
They're obvious
and according to taste.
I stopped needing them
long ago.

Beautiful
Tallulah.
Beautiful,
"less to this than
meets the eye"
Tallulah,
dismiss me,
that I may be free
to find Tennessee.

Open windows
and closing doors.
Always a breeze,
but never a way out.
Right on cue
the cards shuffle.

Butter and cotton *****,
tricks of the trade.
I mumble to be heard.
I am legend
to disciples
of the Method.

I wear my friends to bed,
burn them like newspaper.
They call me "Bud"
—cigarettes at dawn
after devouring the night.
And now my song ebbs,
as the stylus hits the leadout groove.

Tomorrow, I'll be better.
Today, I'm just me.
Ella Snyder Jul 2013
When I write, I can’t cry.
When I cry, I can’t write.
I have ended up weeping as I am stranded between a rock and a pen.
I want a blood transfusion.
The red for the black.
I want ink to spill from me when they splinter my skin with their scalpeled words.
I want it to fountain from me when I trip on my own sentences and shoelaces, skinning my knee.
And I want it to bleed the permanency of black, when you take my stained glass heart and hold it dripping in your hand.
With your stained finger tips like midnight freeing the mocking birds and scarlet poppies to burst forth from me like water through the cracks of a crumbling levy.
From my observations
the poets language
leans towards
repetitions.

Poems are a colourful
diversity
of syllabic phonems
****** in a virtual permanency  
An Ink dried up; drifting away
un-catchable in the totality.

The mean-ing-ness!

Wisdom wandering around
the hot *** of poetry's
boiling brew.

The Talent is an attractor
Turning Disharmonious to the
Love Beat.
A Credo from the misty monsoons and the full moon's
                                   'la lingua pool'
borrowed, beaten,
chewed and eaten.
Some would say: "Some
words you could just eat!"
They're so sweet~To the beat. . .!

Poets love certain
words whether
they are good or not.

Words or them!

The words:
whimiscal
lame
green
vigorous
transcendental
blackness
blue sea **** love
Honeysuckles
To be.
I see. . .
more than randomly repeated
ohNoe May 2014
A Compilation Of Romantical Tidbits
From The Tomes Of Marcus


Perhaps somewhere along time's vista
as I stroll down the lane
twixt the cherry blossom snow
and the baby blue blanket of sky,
a crystal miracle
will flutter down
on the fragranted breeze
to alight on my honored shoulder,
blow a kiss in my ear
and say “today is your day,
what do you wish?
I shall grant reality
to whatever desire is most special.”
there would be sining,
elven voices mingling in the air.
there would be dancing,
a wild run midst the night skies.
I would pluck stars from their heavenly roosts
and place them like flowers in hair
to wink at me from inside your sparkle,
try vainly to outshine you
and finally bow to the Queen of their own.


memories
and memorabilia
substitute for your presence
as mementos embrace me
with their hint of your essence.
they fill me with silly fanciful notions
of lazy afternoons
and the coursing of unbridled passion
almost furious in its urgency
promising ecstasy and rhapsody
and calm in its permanency
whispering this is rapture and sincerity.


I see images of a rose,
love on the vine.

an erstwhile poet
dancing in his orbit
around the center of his universe --
you, the inspiration for each verse.

want to dive into your ocean
and ride the waves of emotion.
there's no worry I'll drown
for weightless is love's crown.

I yearn for the touch of your words
to fall like silken snowflakes about my head,
burst into flames once heard
and set my paper soul burnng in their stead.

there's so much to share:
a sweet kiss;
a gentle caress.
flattery may get you everywhere.


they say sweets that pass the lips
stay forever on the hips.
so sweetness gathered from twixt the hips
should spend eternity on the lips.
the nectar makes me giddy
like honeymoon champagne
and forever intoxicates me --
love's fine wine thrills my brain.


LOVE is a big word
woven from a million smaller 'luvs'.
I luv being with you,
it adds dimensions to my personality
and makes ego insignificant.
I luv the way you smile,
how your eyes reflect the joy of the soul
and the soft glow you radiate
flares brighter.
I luv the rush of color
it brings your gently drawn cheeks.
and I luv your lilting laugh,
a simple sound that melts me
and absorbs me into its echo.
when you wish to laugh
laugh with me,
it moves me along
in a soothing warm cascade.
when you want to smile
smile on me,
it removes obstacles
and lights my way.
when you need to cry
cry into me,
I'll soak up your tears
and return truth,
fantasy
and support.

listen to me.
I sound just like
some foolish romantic,
young and in love.
guess I am
from time to time.
wish I could be that way
every second, every day.
Pritika Jan 2015
Certain moments leave us in the room of curiosity where the existing tends to take snail's pace. The clock abandons its race. It looks as if time took a nap. And in such gravity, our body reacts in the most oblivious of ways. It is almost analogous to a body in space. Involuntary and Indecisive in its movements. While we want to say a million things, our gut takes over by muting us. All the feelings that revolve around a hundred thousand thoughts come out in form of a salt water composition. Metaphorically, our eyes do the talk by reflecting a whole gush of diverse sentiments.
The strangest  part enters the scene like a temporary protagonist when there comes a choice between happiness or sadness. If we choose the former, there is no way we can avoid the latter. It takes us a while to process the fact that these two emotions are each other's Ying and Yang. They never come alone.
All this befuddlement lands us into a directionless vehicle.
To satisfy oneself is the greatest accomplishment. In a state like this, we never forgo this belief. Our soul tries to console our mind repeatedly. It tries to salvage us from the impossible questions of our own. Such invisible restrictive force is met with either frustration or fascination. There is no chain that binds us, yet we feel grounded. We feel over-ready to imagine but our minds capture us in the box of boggle. Time has such manipulation on us that we're hypnotised to feel it's power. Not in aspects where it proves its presence but in aspects where it threatens us with its nothingness.
Such junctures of timelessness are highly uncertain in their permanency. They exist and then one moment cease to do so. And when they denounce, we come back to our lives of consciousness and mortality.
Inspired by- The Theory Of Everything
Brianna Patricia Mar 2017
Its permanency etched  
In the unopened letters sitting on his dresser
In the watermarks staining his sister's pillow case
In the creased brow of his stoic brother restraining a tear
In the deep blue circles surrounding his daughter's eyes
As she tosses and turns in a restless slumber

Its permanency etched
In the inscription on a piece of stone
In the prayers to an unfamiliar God
In the weeping eyes of a best friend
As they comfort his beloved, groveling blindly through the darkness unable to locate the missing piece to the gaping void in her heart
Pritika Dec 2014
Will someone ever understand me?
As simple as it sounds, the word ‘understanding’ is an uncanny term. To expect understanding from others is like a screaming paradox that uninvitingly and inevitably gives its RSVP. Definition of understanding varies from person to person. While some term ‘compatibility’ as basic understanding, others think understanding as a means to gain affirmation. Both interpretations sound alike but in fact very much like bibliophile and bibliomaniac. It gets peculiar as we proceed.
Why in this world do we need affirmation?
It’s profoundly queer to ask for acceptance. Do we really need ‘approval’ for our existence? We’re not illegal. Illegal things require approval. Drugs require consent. We don’t need to prove why we should be accepted. Giving heed to such a peculiarity is equivalent to symbolising yourselves as illegitimate. You have a birth certificate. You’re a registered citizen of a country and you have a house to live. You go to school/college/ work. You’re normal. Believe me, you’re not a felon.
Why don’t people fulfil our expectation?
Major Irony Alert. Expectations being fulfilled is, I believe, one of those rare miraculous occurring in our lives. When people get it, they find the solace hard to digest. Just when they are faintly ready to accept it, they change the course the things by doing deeds to blindly adhere to the balance of sad and happy. And when the ruination has been already done, they crave for it. Dear fellow beings of earth, stop expecting. It’s purely a hypothesis. The permanency of the damage expectations leave behind needs no explanation. It’s one of the most obvious and self-explanatory dictum on this planet.
People around me crave for being accepted. Girlfriends incessantly complain about their boyfriends not understanding them and vice versa. Parents lament over the ignorance their children. Children whine about the gap between them and their parents. People spend humungous cash to buy endurance. The reasons for such acts, I don’t reckon.
There’s an old African belief that hovers around the truth of being singularities. I find it deeply humbling. Why ask for plurality when the sole purpose for our creation was to be singular and fulfilling.  
The purpose for this entry is to some extent not defined to what I believe. It is not meant to mould you. It is meant to be analysed by you. Critique it. Make your own moulds. It’s just what the existing needs.
Joshua Penrod Jun 2017
There is a longing somewhere deep deep within me
Deeper than the hurt
Deeper than the pain
Deeper than my depravity
Deeper than my darkness
Deeper than my own human will
That longs to sing out
That longs to shout
That longs to cry
That longs to long to long
To hold onto something permanent
That longs for an anchor in this ever-screaming sea
That longs for a line tied around my waste as I seemingly cascade down this sheer mountain side
That longs for a compass in the evil dense of my thoughts
That longs for a glimmer of a door in a windowless room
That longs for a hidden key in the floorboards of my captors dungeon
That longs for a drink of something wet and not dry
That longs for something more stable than the stilts to which my feet are tied
That longs for something more steady than the sways and swifts of the tower to which I have been hoisted
In all of these things and more I am a survivor
In all of these things and more I am a witness to they’re in-permanency
In all of these things and more I am a survivor
Only because of the revelation of something to which I can cling to
in tragedy, that is convinced it must continue to move

"The Longing" -JP
Sometimes there is a longing for something stable, something sure. That screams so deep inside me. So much so, that I just can't quite express it well enough
Jon Shierling Mar 2014
Unlike some in this world, Simon was not afraid of loneliness, had no need to feel needed, in fact had often wondered how these two women had come burning out of the desert into his private world. He had been a solitary man most of his life, wandering or running from something he wasn't sure. What he was sure of was that he loved these two people whom God or Allah or whomever had placed in his path one day in Tangiers.

He had read the book by Mitchener titled "The Drifters" when he was young, and remembered it now as Ta'ra wept in front of him. Torremolinos was on the other side of the Iberian sure, but the irony of the similarities seemed so poignant that he couldn't ignore it. He put out his hand to this woman, who had travelled so far and for so long she was afraid of what permanency could mean. She made as if to slap him again, and stopped.

"Please. I don't want it to be like this". A bare whisper.

She touched his hand. A hand girls had once thought smooth and soft. No longer.

"I'm afraid."
"I know."

Sitting back down, she picked up the orphaned guitar, and gazing out over Alfalma, she again sang her childhood lullaby. “Çevrem, etrafım şen mutlu iken. Ben yine hüzünlüyüm”.

A girl in France uses a razor against herself in the bathroom between classes, an orphan in Delhi does what he can to provide for his sister, two wanderers find some sort of peace on a balcony in Portugal, and a broken ex-soldier writes about them in America. Where we began, does not have to be where we end, and the lives we touch may never be known to us. But that doesn't mean that who we are, and the joys or the sufferings, are meaningless. We are human, and to be human is to be searching.....
Yue Wang Yitkbel Nov 2019
At the core of our ever-hungry souls
We only really needed one thing:
To be filled with something.

Hopefully more permanently,
But nothing of materialism, or even rationalism
Last more than
A mirage of permanency
Even the century tree of sunset dunes
Eventually sets as whispering dust into the sand
And even the wisest man fades away
Into the senile body whose soul
Has already bid farewell
To this temporary land

I sought and sought
And only found that  
The Word is true
Only Love transcends time and space
The embrace between two condensed hearts
Of pure longing could exert
The gravity
And gravitational time dilation
Of such self-forgetful density
That would wrap entire fabrics of reality
Around us, immersing us, with brief
Merciful revelations and trials
Of the unfathomable
Eternity
Conclusion of:
Terror of Good, Emptiness of Plenty
By: Yitkbel Yue Xing ****
First Draft Completed: October 29, 2019 5:36PM
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3384509/terror-of-good-emptiness-of-plenty/

— The End —