"piloted" poems
I wait for this weird blue box to land on my yard,
piloted by an alien who invites me to travel far
because I feel so lonely and depressed on Earth
that I make dreams out of my scars
Oct 5, 2020
Oct 5, 2020 at 1:33 AM UTC
Some of the first mecha featured in manga
& anime were super robots [スーパーロボット _sūpā robotto_],
ultimate, sometimes transforming into weapons
w/ superpowers. They are often one of a kind
products of an ancient civilization, aliens or
mad genius, are usually piloted by Japanese teenagers
& often powered by mystical or exotic energy sources;
Getter Rays, Photonic Energy, Ide, Spiral Power &c.
Sometimes they are formed from
a combination of a few weaker robots;
their abilities described as "quasi-magical";
w/ Miss America becoming less & less
a beauty pageant, it's only a matter of time
before Medusa inherits the mantle;
the revived gods of the ancient world
crossing the rainbow bridge to do battle w/
high-tech monster robots; AI meaning nothing to a flying fist;
Apotheosis, from Greek ἀποθέωσις from ἀποθεοῦν,
apotheoun "to deify"; in Latin deificatio "make divine";
also called divinization & deification;
is the glorification of a subject to divine level;
The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief in art where it refers to a genre;
Defecation is the final act of digestion,
by which organisms eliminate solid, semisolid,
or liquid waste material from the digestive tract via the ****
Humans expel feces w/ a frequency varying
from a few times daily to a few times weekly;
Waves of muscular contraction known as peristalsis
in the walls of the colon move ***** matter
through the digestive tract towards the ******
Undigested food may also be expelled this way,
in a process called _egestion_
Open defecation, the practice of defecating outside
w/out using a toilet of any kind,
is still widespread in some countries,
for example in India, home of the
heroic deities of Hinduism that evolved
from the Vedic era 2nd millennium BCE
through the medieval era, 1st millennium CE
Sep 9, 2018
Sep 9, 2018 at 10:09 PM UTC
I saw him at work;
When he would visit the mangal
With a ***** over his shoulder.
He rolled up his pant legs and walked
Through the tidal wash. Once he had picked a tree,
He hacked for three days to cut
The mud and the mangrove
Free from the surrounding forest.
He piloted his self-made island into the lagoon.
Shortly, he became mangrove crazy,
A disease he called Rhizophoria
In the notebook he had taken along.
With mud lobsters and tree for his only company,
Of course he had mangrove on the brain.
His life became an ellipsis—
The two centers were the tree and himself.
From tubular mangrove branches, propagules fattened,
And seeds nested inside them;
He would scribble notes with delirium as they fell
Plumply into the lagoon
And were pulled away by the warm current.
Each time the tree condensed its salt
Into a sacrificial leaf,
He would sadly add a tick
To the tally of the dead he kept in his book.
He once wrote:
‘The salt is burning my eyes.’
Late afternoons, with beer in our hands,
We would watch him from the beach,
Five hundred yards away.
Eventually, his mangrove island drifted ashore—
He lay by the suberic roots
With a crust of salt along his cheek.
May 4, 2010
May 4, 2010 at 9:45 PM UTC
on your first moment of being alive
you’ll wonder why god’s in the sky
and how the ***** of your soul
can’t grab hold of the air
to steer you to die
and on your last day you’ll attest
that the plane in your chest
can take the air from your crumpling house
and fly you to god’s bed in the clouds
the clouds will spray and dazzle
with lightning purely designed to unravel
all the twine lashed around your heart
that keeps it form flying out into the dark
of some columbonimbus forest
where the pine trees are black
and you’re only a tourist
through the trillions of droplets of static
don’t panic
you won’t become static
if your being is healthy and your course erratic
through the eclectic college of higher thought
and liar’s losses where
what you said you’d ever do
is who you are and it is you
flowing through your floating soul
far away from your crumpling home
and what you said you’d never do
is who you are and it is you
and it’s flowing through your dying blood
tainted brown with air and mud
and who you are is how you fly with
wings of soul and ***** of lung
piloted by how you die
with tar and drink and merrier things
than you’ve ever known in a crumpling home
because flight is happy and death is euphoric
and falling is a trap sprung by calling for nothing
but concern and disdain will slash at your face
like raindrops cushioning a pilotless plane
Nov 7, 2012
Nov 7, 2012 at 4:33 PM UTC
There is no driver - go anywhere for a fiver
Pod - cars troll Milton Keynes by no means
seen piloted in four years time - where's mine?
Then they come together in the land of never - never
The sat-nav tells us where we're going
ready to alight when it's finally slowing
what will they think of next? Send a text
with your suggestion - normality's in regression
No one is to blame when there's an accident
nothing is seen to describe an incident
however, at least no one can go on strike
and I won't be reduced to travel by bike
The atmosphere is electric, technology hectic
it was bad enough when we decided to go metric!
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 2:20 PM UTC
I wish I was with you, under the canopy of your covered patio...
above parked subaru station wagons
next to aspens and pines, thick with pollen
and lazy concrete carrying joggers and cars and speeding bicycles piloted by the hormone-drunken youths of another sophomore summer
I'd forget, if I was with you
content to sleep in the morning sun and make love on the red porch of your red house....
Nov 12, 2013
Nov 12, 2013 at 12:37 AM UTC
Random mortar shells in the afternoon.
Sparkling, steel jacketed rain drops,
Glinting rainbows of reflected sunlight.
Plastic explosive seat cushions upon which passers-by,
Rest their weary bones.
C-4 candy bars, nuclear toothpaste,
****** for dessert.
Orphanage flambe', hospital hash, blood pudding.
Human burgers sizzling on a smart bomb bar-b-que grill.
Finger food, toe jam, baby-back ribs.
Bureaucratic double talkers,
Sugar coated body counts,
Colateral stew.
Really deplorable, awfully sorry,
But it was their own faults trying to put on raincoats.
They declined our invitation to the cook-out.
Bad luck to open an umbrella in the house.
Remotely piloted funeral processions.
Radar guided hearses.
Televised in real time.
Precision, surgical,
neutralized, deterrent, disarmed,
Deactivated, stand down, eliminate.
Living pawns on a battlefield checkerboard.
Strategic, defensive,
Dominate, annihilate,
Acceptable loss, public opinion pole.
Listen to the tinkling of sabre blades,
Rattling windchimes,
In the warm breeze of the shockwave,
Accompanied by the drumbeat of detonation and concussion.
Rock...
...and heads will roll.
Holy, blessed,
Patriotic, brave,
Courageous, dedicated,
Heroic, dutiful,
Self sacrificing...
******
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 10:28 AM UTC
5:30 a.m:
Been awake for an hour, can't sleep, can't relax the brain. Came up with this. Just something to do at this tme of the morning.
I don't know how many times, never counted them, when investigating a motor vehicle accident, a participating driver said to me: "I wouldn't have hit that parked car if that "little brown dog" hadn't run out in front of me!", or "I had to swerve to keep from hitting that "little brown dog!" If in a tree-lined neighborhood, substitute a squirrel. Squirrels add more crediblity, simply because their reputation for running out in front of moving vehicles at the 'last second" is universal.
Why do squirrels do that? I don't know. I don't know anyone that knows. I don't know anyone who knows anyone that knows! It is truly, one of "natures mysteries." And, it's hard to prove that it didn't happen, for these little beasts always seem to disappear, never to be seen again.
Why a "little brown dog?" Dogs come in different colors, different sizes, but in vehicle accidents, it's always the small, "little brown dog".. It makes no difference that the blood alcohol level in the driver may be two to three times over the limit, or talking on their cell phone, it's always the fault of the creature with the furry little ****
This will probably generate some comments on collisions with deer, moose, perhaps a rhinocerous, but that's a different level. I interviewed one driver who claimed the bright lights from a UFO blinded him moments before he "ran into the ditch", then sped off into "nether space." That UFO was probably piloted by a "little brown dog" and a squirrel.
01-24-2016
Jan 26, 2016
Jan 26, 2016 at 2:49 PM UTC
The color of a slightly tipsy tongue peeling my resolve from my own is that of a winter morning
-- clear and concise in its purpose,
Sending signals to my brain, which, in response,
Transmits slight shivers down my spinal cord,
Raising the fine hairs
Along my smooth skin
--the same relaxed, whispy, ***** that covers tense, terse, and trembling muscles.
The sound of a shirt being pushed
Out of the way;
The sound of pants already crumpled,
Settled,
On the carpet my mother cleans.
That sound that represents
Everything I've ever wanted from nothing
But can not accurately depict
Anything I've wanted from one thing in particular.
Because you are special and
You make me want
And
You make my body tense and
My words short and
My lips loose.
Loose so as to open and receive your secrets given
In
False
Drunkeness
--to allow your breath to absolutely fill
My lungs
As you drag me down beneath the surface
And into the dark.
We are not blind.
Our nerves spark in the darkness,
The area devoid of any light source
save for those that arise from the
friction of skin against skin
and mind against mind,
Ideas crashing and banging together
As they
Escape
From our mouths
During our futile resistance to anything logical
Or rational,
Our selves piloted by the thought of
Unfathomable numbers and equations
That led to this moment
When our bodies feel everything
And our minds feel
Nothing.
We are naked before the eye of the God neither of us believe in.
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 3:51 PM UTC
some cast lines into swift rivers
or vast seas of uncertainty
while others throw nets toward
rich stores of earthly treasure
ships piloted by the heart,
steer in fruitless pursuit
of elusive schools of love
a doughty fool forever waits
to harpoon longshot luck
a happenstance filled fate
Godly men cast nets
among flocks of people,
for they alone produce the
bountiful yields of bursting nets
for sons of Jonah and Ahab
a fruitless watch is foretold
self love’s only triumph
is a loveless end
remain a solitary fisher
gliding by on birch bark canoe
minding a compass of faith
Taj Mahal
Fishin Blues
jbm
NYC
4/9/89
Jun 2, 2013
Jun 2, 2013 at 10:40 PM UTC
He was last spotted
With his gnarled hands
making love to his pockets
maybe bearing a child
half palm
half cotton
Every so often
he’d flail the lint
from his fingernails
serrated from his spleen,
knot them up
into steely ***** of yarn
and batter the window
of his sister’s room
His knuckles may have suffered
some trauma
but it’s likely now
they speak in scars
with windbag bones
that don’t shut up
He isn’t a looker
His nose is large
and barbed
like wire
with currents
that breathe in pollen
he’s allergic to
He got inked last March
on his eighteenth
shrouding his flaxen leg hairs
in ****** red roses,
a wide mouthed skull
with an inverted cross
bludgeoning its left temple,
and the words
“Here’s to your destiny”
in all caps
He has a mop
of tow colored hair
and narrow eyes
either a robin’s egg
or air force blue
that I once piloted
He’s a well padded
five feet and nine inches
But I picture him
far rounder
You’ll never see him
well kempt
he smells of minced cattle
and marijuana
He could dissolve you
into laughter
even on unlit nights
when the moon
goes to the cleaners
and the stars
swish around
in the Laundromat
with your knickers
His grin was cloying
like syrup
until his teeth stuck together
in a wonted pout
Don’t keep your eyes peeled
You won’t find his face
on a milk carton
This boy isn’t really missing
He’s out there somewhere
studying chemistry
or law
But he isn’t here
to give me hell
anymore
So I picture his calf,
his immutable tattoo
whispering
“Here’s to your destiny”
and hope I still have one
Jun 6, 2015
Jun 6, 2015 at 1:18 AM UTC
piloted
plough tills the plot
overturns one season
for one of greater potential profit
Oct 26, 2022
Oct 26, 2022 at 10:31 AM UTC
a mother duck piloted
her ducklings across the creek
as they were unfamiliar
with its flowing course
Mar 25, 2013
Mar 25, 2013 at 6:05 PM UTC
Suddenly the world stood still
Erupting goose bumps chill
Piloted by those who terrorize
Twin Towers they'd jeapardize
Emotions of shock, disbelief
Mourning, moaning and grief
Bombed by aircraft killing all
Extraordinary sorrow ... pall
Resultant heroes came to call
Eleviating pain where they could
Lifting to safety as they should
Everyone who could be saved
Venom's evil could not be staved
Even would we wish it to be so
Numbers trapped perished tho'
They will be forgotten not ever ...
Honored in tribute, remembered forever.
© Carmela M. Patterson, All rights reserved.
Nov 1, 2014
Nov 1, 2014 at 11:25 PM UTC
I piloted that gleaming star
into the hissing sea
and search lights probed the inky depths
but could not rescue me.
I reached for something solid, grasped it tight
and whispered truths,
but it floated down the trench
to where my eyes no longer looked.
I couldn't hold my breath that long,
I tried to give my life,
but rose up to the top again
and then my death you took.
Alive and well I held you near,
but in my dreams I saw
the horror, chaos, maladies
I knew so well before.
Did I reach the 9th and do I now ascend?
Or the devil in ice himself did I mistakenly befriend?
Am I to dare to crawl on land?
Or should I wriggle back
to the sea in which my shining ship
was overcome crack by crack?
Beware the sun
says the moon out of spite
and I'm left to ask the stars
which of these lights is meant for me,
the bright glare or the gleam?
How far does agency extend,
and tell me, does it matter then
what I might choose or think myself
if all is writ in plan?
I hope, I hope, and still I'm pulled,
I know not whether to stand.
For now I lie wrought near in two
on the eternally wet sand.
Sep 3, 2010
Sep 3, 2010 at 3:28 PM UTC
I never knew until now,
Dear Dad, though
I listened to the stories you told,
Of War that re-ignited after the one supposed,
To end all wars, or so it was proclaimed.
You went abroad, your Varsity
Stalled, dreams put aside,
Long before I was born,
Before you met my mother or I was named.
Instead, you wanted to fly,
High above the Bay of Bengal
And the Andaman Sea,
Above the carnage, or so you said.
And that must have seemed a way to save
That sanity
You needed to take you through,
To come back and marry a beloved girl.
I watch the newsreels now,
They are old, with time and victory ingrained.
I can see you flying that high,
Himalayan peaks shining in your eyes,
Cold death above and horror below.
You told me stories, I recall,
Too young for me to imagine.
Now too old for me to hear them all.
You never piloted again
Except in your nightmares.
On a road between moon and sun
In your own history you flew
The infamous, undying path
Of The Burma Run.
Aug 17, 2018
Aug 17, 2018 at 12:05 AM UTC
It’s been three years.
As I drag myself from the wreckage of yet another crash
Lungs full of smoke and skin seared with burns
I can’t help but think of that day
Three years ago
When we stopped playing hide-and-seek
Each of us circling the same gorgeous little two-seater
Each of us refusing to believe we were not alone in the hangar—
When we finally climbed into the cockpit
Admitted that we wanted to fly this thing
And started preparing for takeoff.
It hummed to life like it had been waiting for us
To put our hands to the controls
Like it was not a machine to be flown
But a connection and extension of our very minds
How it leapt down the runway and soared into the sky!
How glorious the flight through clear blue skies!
How terrible the storm that hit.
Enveloped by black clouds
Tossed to and fro by the wind
We wrestled with the elements
And then my controls locked up.
A moment of panic—
“This thing can’t fly without two pilots!”
A desperate grab for the handle by my feet
One last look at my copilot
Then a sharp tug, a violent flinging into darkness.
I don’t know how you piloted out of that storm
How you got that thing out of the sky
But when I tracked you to the landing site
(After months frozen to my ejection seat
Numb and unable to move)
I could see it was in bad shape
Beyond repair? I didn’t think so
But I arrived just in time to see you walk away
Your helmet, left in the dust by a bent and twisted wing
The last reminder of you.
They say you’ve taken wing again
A new copilot at the controls
(I catch glimpses of a tiny speck high overhead sometimes)
And after three years I can naught but wish you well
But, burned and ****** from my last disaster
I cannot help but sit here on the ground
And dream of the sky.
Mar 18, 2016
Mar 18, 2016 at 12:24 AM UTC
i.
I crumble
chalk
on the black
paint
of a water
holding
its breath
in a single
fish
its glass eye
of evolution
and the sound
of god
making light
of his angels
unfolding
as they are
hospital beds to guide
a piloted
exhaustion-
flight reminds the dead. the solo
moan
of a bird
lands
on the shoulder
of a widow
as the twice devalued coin
of looking, looks
on.
ii.
I wish
I could dream
away
my name, the bad
mornings spent cheating
on her sadness
her sadness a jewel
madly
in the mouth
of a thief
some redundant
angel
chewing
the root
of its own
absence.
Jul 16, 2012
Jul 16, 2012 at 3:26 PM UTC
snowman-flesh flutters across the threshold
melting into the Jack-o-Lantern-Welcome-Mat
disappearing faster than its supposed to;
the door closes by an auto-piloted-hand
while the other tugs at tangled earbud chords
the little white knobs are dislodged, interrupting
that song she has listened to 14 times today
because when she falls in love with a song,
she falls into each note and memorizes
every single breath.
Jan 7, 2015
Jan 7, 2015 at 11:00 PM UTC
did the common fish
bear witness to your dive
from cliff conformity
through that raging hole
in the sea
carved by uncertainty
and fear?
did the strident lark
hear your resolve
ringing with resonant refrain
from the ivory sill
up yonder?
did the hapless beggar
see her tears
in your eyes
dripping with empathy
at her demise?
did the orphaned child
smile with glee
unbridled
when the toy
he so craved
arrived suddenly on a star
piloted by you?
did you leave
a blissful byte or two
in the memory
of another?
lift a soul
in plight
like a buoyant kite,
with a gust of kindness?
or were you so consumed
chasin' hell
that you missed
the heaven
in earth's purest pleasures....
~ P
(#ChasinHell)
1/27/2015
Jan 29, 2015
Jan 29, 2015 at 11:50 AM UTC
A rattling machine gun aborts it's brainchild
Throughout my vacancy cerebral cortex mausoleum;
I'm just a jar of butterflies sitting on a log cabin stove
Burning
Churning a purging urchin out of turbulent ordeals;
Good thoughts hang along with trench coats
So it seems I'm jaded;
Catered to crushed normalcy
I despise my dormancy till my retinas are faded;
Seep into the cerulean belt
that watched over every soul dead;
Morph into a cloud
then graduate to a thunderhead;
Pouring my tears to a headache cacophony
Everyone is alerted;
So when I'm a surfacing tropical depression
I'm a ominous weapon
Here to annihilate the surfers;
Everyone is a brick in the wall
Covering the light of enlightenment;
I heard someone fell from that wall
And I'm that ******* that piloted it;
Drunken kamikaze;
With homage enough to honor honesty;
So I'm just here armor free;
Numbing the trauma center to give air to all
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 4:33 PM UTC
Death wanders in every way but aimlessly with a bag of "welcome homes" for the souls who make it through life without getting trapped.
Wheels turnin on pure momentum can roll for miles piloted by a corpse,
whos to say one couldnt win a race?
Even if he finishes first what could a cold a corpse want with victory?
Souls cant be bought back with fortune and fame,
death doesnt want it and the devils got enough of it.
A corpse who earns the title "winner" will still sit and wither until the dust that brought him life finds the place of its donation,
till his soul has told itsself "it was worth it" enough times he believes it,
the thing is a corpse who crosses the finish line first wont be seen as a corpse, people will pump artificial life into their veins with their words of endearment. The corpse, Now piloted by some rogue fascination of himself will come to see the world as his himself,
dead,
but victorious,
pumped full of artificial life and tinged with good intentions,
blanketed with fear and wrapped in the cold embrace of purgatory.
The problem with artificial life is that its no less temporary or tangible than the proposed "real life",
in fact in many ways its much sweeter,
but also more ignorant,
after all ignorance is bliss.
Artificial life can be taken as easily as any other and death tends to follow up the first meeting to make sure things are ending smoothly.
Hes got a quota and hes not about to fall short because of somethin as petty as a second chance.
Death was a victor once too,
now he shambles here and there, or floats or appears,
who knows,
maybe one of the corpses piled near hollywood has seen his grand entrance, but they might be hard to pick out.
I dont know if talking to them would grant you much knowledge on something like that though
perhaps its better to stop and ask a tumbleweed what theyre running from,
or running to,
they might have a more accurate idea of where the finish line is.
All ive ever learned from a death is that life doesnt stop when you die and you wont die just once,
and when a corpse wins a race he cant wear the ribbon.
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 3:34 AM UTC
"Hello," she said.
It was dark
and the concrete below our feet
was a plateau of acerbic teeth
snapping at us,
compelling us to stay in the ring of light
cast by a streetlamp.
Fear of the unknown keeping us right where we were
together.
Lesser of two evils.
I miss you now.
I didn't then.
In the orange tint of the streetlamp
in the cold.
It was impossible to miss you
so stuck in our ways
our daily comings and goings
our morning
"do-you-want-coffee?"
ritual, two mugs already down
before the question is finished being asked.
I couldn't see.
I couldn't - wouldn't -
look ahead. Into the dark.
Teeth gnashed as we waited for the words to stop.
I looked up at the sky,
somehow seeking comfort in the stars but
now I'm not sure if they were there.
One lone helicopter
piloted, I'm sure, buy someone.
But not a star,
not what I needed.
And I was invisible to them.
Not to you though.
And your words shuddered through my skin
to lodge, like a vicious choking noise
in my bones.
And I miss you now.
But I didn't then.
And when you left,
I couldn't follow,
for fear of the dark.
For fear of the unknown.
Aug 27, 2014
Aug 27, 2014 at 5:24 AM UTC
I really don't know what to write to right
This Is my way to let it out, just to right
I'll just talk about the luggage I carry on this flight
This light piloted by life
Me and my ex stay in fights
She left me I guess she had her rights
So lost a year of tears I cry out a night
Want her to be happy without me in her sights
Tried to run to my second love
I cud explain but it's tough
Stupid to think I have one but my problems are rough
Needless to say she went up in a puff
She got a man now yea just my luck
Emotions slapped around like a hockey puck
A old friend asked me to prom to get a tux
Talking to her brings up old feeling aww shucks
I think I like her now this *****
Want to kiss her don't know how she feels I'm stuck
Harder to control my heart than a wild buck
A girl I like really likes me
Want to go for it but I'm not ready
Sad to be single but stressful to go steady
I don't know if I'm ready
I don't know if I'm ready
I tried suicide seven times this week
And all it did is show me that I'm weak
Those that inherit the earth are the meek
I barley eat
Don't sleep
I'm a freak
deep down under the sheets
I'm a freak
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 2:04 PM UTC