Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Vyiirt'aan Nov 2017
Grotesque images flow in when the lids close, enthralling the shadows that remained within.
One, two, three, four, five, six
Seven
Moons and suns pass by, obscured by a dynamic canvas
A chamber building pressure, blurring the view.
Twenty, nineteen, eighteen, seventeen
Counting down until it all collapses

The canvas calls its name in an intricating cadence, echoing the chambers, a recital of ages
Pixel, pixel, pixel, pixel, pixel, pixel
Pixels
Keep me rooted on my seat, an innate adhesive
Excite the hollow gates, its luminosity alluring glaringly
Sixteen, fifteen, fourteen, thirteen
It lingers ever so slightly, writing stories for itself

The gates open and a barrage floods the canvas at intervals, concealing the world in
Pixel, pixel, pixel, pixel, pixel, pixel
Pixels
Unified bundles of sparks intertwining its fabric
Devious phrases echo through the chambers
Twelve, eleven, ten, nine
It merely arranges sounds and patterns

Frigid words never sounded so sultry when inverted sockets run their currents
Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip
Drip
A drizzle ripples the surface, soothing waves of ripples
Transition into a homogenic mass
Eight, seven, six, five
Embodiment of serenity breeds emptiness

Eschew the howling hollow chambers is like vitriol to creativity
Four, three, two, one
****** me before the end of time, empty chamber
Before invective reasoning clouds your idyll
The blackened canvas
It bleeds
Good night
Shofi Ahmed Mar 2019
Spring upon the rose and live on the flow—
delve into the fragrance that goes full tilt
on petals that never drift with the wind.

Let it be—without form,
without a visual show.
Let’s not forget the truth:
even in pitch-dark invisible moments,
the Moon puts up a show.

Believe it or not—around that sweet spot,
the artistic paragon, Paradise, may be the next stop.

The butterfly paradise slips out to fly,
wafting into the enduring scent of a paint so bold.
Lo—on its picturesque wings it holds every eye;
where it reaches, no one knows.
It’s on the other side of the pool—
only Queen Fathima knows that sweet spot!

Any pause is deadly, heavy-handed on that route.
Death is no more; it’s unknown now.
And time—ripe for beauteous sight—is on for good!
If only one can hold their gaze,
walking the secret alleyways of God!

Oh, they flower in the fire,
dip into the sea in a single drop of water,
and pan out to another world within this world.
This time, Moses resists not—
his eyes peep beyond the burnt Mount Sinai,
gazing through burnt kohl,
across the shaded pollens
of the Ultimate Burning Beauty!

When it’s live in the true terra incognita,
it could be beyond the paradise rainbow—
the one show the true seekers sought the most.
Before long, all the rest may fade into the kohl.

Godsent, the most beautiful feminine paragon—Fathima—
lifts the black screen off at once, casting her gaze
from every never-blurred, myriad fractal pixel.
All in all, even the never-known pi digits in toto
soak into the one true description of reality's show!

Be en route—
it’s only the chosen eyes’ wonder-show,
where the handsome swans of Paradise stand on their toes.
Edward Coles Aug 2014
I use technology to take me to a time when it only half-existed. In a blue-shell room of mega-pixel photographs and rolling news feeds, I can put on my headphones and disappear into an instrumental Sunday.

There are stamp collectors making their lazy way over beaten roads and disused railways. 'Surrender' only means to fall asleep and to leave your book as a hut on your bedside table. Where war may still go on and on,

but at least you don't have to hear about it. Show me the place where pine-cones fall and women stare across the river. Where coffee is for taste, and not self-medication. I want to walk bare-foot and feel thorns

toughen my heels, infect my blood with Earth or God or Any Other Name. We will **** in the bushes, singing those fragments of Leonard Cohen lyrics that we can still remember from times spent smoking in my room.

I can almost feel that pointless happiness. That location in a canopy to retreat when the bills are due, when the walls needs re-painting. When the neighbour strangles puppies and all you do is complain about the time.

I use new music set to old sounds: freed slaves living in the cross-hairs of tradition. White lovers breaking their hearts over guitar strings and harmonies, always a semi-tone apart. I find your hair on my pillow.
There is no technology in the world to distract me from that.
c
Joseph S C Pope Feb 2013
I

Wonderlandia, torn off the submerged lung
of a daydream diary.                   Reoccurs
as she does with silver eyes, weary Alice
during tea time--bullets burning past her
                                     like flowing nations.
Everyday similar tsunamis fund
                                     the lack of 20/20.
Nose to tail--the surge of angry engines
splits the ends of her blonde strands.
    Each one the last witness to maddening hospitality
--utopia never sweats as it talks and withers.
Amnesia blots,
new aspirin machines
vaporize apples and ***
on the other end of spectrum,
                                                     trans-positional labels--

Guillotine gargling teapots
       have no patience
         to the bushes of Olympus opiates
                                      bound in yellow barrier tape,
                     five o' clock traffic
               welcomes her back to what we are facing.


II


Dreary weather of late fall                       and her beautiful,
              powdered face

great mouth of atomic hell,
         when she speaks--80,000 deficiencies boil alive
                                                   --Trinity's teething test
                                                           on the tired bones
                                                   of a story-teller's raspy cards--

"None the wiser," she speaks,
                                "during the transition of ships
                   vermin turn into krakens culturing
                               on the surface of a raindrop.
    Heroes, villains, animals frozen together
                 after now eating for four days.
     The transition of one genocide
                                                        ­  to the other,
                the delineation of cat-and-mouse,
   mingle too long
   with the dead
   and its necrophilia."

                 Blind Alice wanders off the highway,
leaves her brewed cup of steamy static
on top of the unimportant saucer, sticks pins in her *******,
             and enjoys the sound of Cleopatra
             rolling over in reincarnation.


III

      Dear Alice smells
sunbathing, studded tangerines
                      assimilating liquor within the vast,
       empty, glowing nausea that is--
                        the warm germ

Oil                                    and                 ­          water
               rippled glass too silly for skulls
              made humid by distant salt water,

blood, acid, enzymes,
cheating probability
that runners with drunk kids
have blood between their toes.
                                                      Death­ to the distillation within
                                                    --the chronic diamond too polished
                                                       in *** to see the roses in her *****
    She curses these wood songs,
             heritage patriots with the pelts of wild lions
             with antlers over their heads,
                                                  faces advertising war paint
                                                applied by gargoyle hands
                    --sad memoirs always drink people
                                                  that use God as a cookie jar.


IV


  Gorgeous names
  on graffiti institutions give her a home
                                                         a market
                                                         a nickname
           still                  Alice only accepts Alice.

Grace periods where she misses tyranny
                  rise and fall like endorsed breathing.
    Now Alice feels her dress fall off,
                                  extinct years message future occupancy
                                  about what to wear.
New era, this era, past eras plead guilty
in a      clinic museum
             of forcing demons
              down the medical
              throats
of first graders. Court adjourns at 9:01 PM, Saturday

             The populus can sleep now,
                          but not her.
                 No one gave her clothes
                 to cover up the drained monochrome.


V

Instead she celebrates her flesh,
                                        the broken glass,
   and quakes and leads off to expose
           others to its potential vital prosperity.

         Instead
                     headlines like bumper cars read
                     about the beheading of weeks,
                     failing rescue missions,
                     and debates on teenage tolerance.

Nicotine intoxication points Alice
to over-extended memories--wards of music
sequenced to point out the extinction of marble tigers.
                        Only 550 expected to understand
                         tethered to millions able to survive.

  Flood waters look at moral standards, a mean hurricane
                                   that collapses the death toll
     all patented 50 states
     have a dating service
     and huff paint as a way
                              to pray to art.
                                                      Double­-canvas faces
                                                      dyed in pixel     hope
                                                       that the media levees hold,
             but volunteer to herd sheep into poppy seed fields.
                                            She refuses to stay,
                    to watch the long night
                    of castration on men with mud-covered ankles.
                                      Television says eunuchs want
                                       to be prodigal's children,
                                       everyone wants to come back home
                                       to mom and dad, safe zones, away
                                       from themselves.
                                                     ­                 It says our ancestors want
                                                            ­          this for all of us. They worked
                                                          ­            so hard to tie up the hair
                                                            ­          out of Aphrodite's face.

                                     They treasure the silver eyes of Alice,
                                          but call them blue,
                                                  they issue her high cholesterol
                                          but pump sweet ****** into he stomach,
                                                  they tell her to put down the drill,
                                            so she can finish their orchestra--

her lightning
    is
     a
  string
     of
  souls



VI


     She decides to depart Sunday,
to discover the ordinary beginning,
                        painting WHY? on its delirium.
re-arrangeable viewers become
                      inserted sounds under percussion and piano.

       Caging various important charts
                                          undetermined
   ­                           as finished attention.
                                                      ­              Three movements in flux
open end the people                     vacuuming
                            craftsmanship blocks
                   from                                dogs and zen.

                                                 The
                                 suspended letter               is happening in 1951
   drenched in existential white                                            spacing
        ­                                                   the viewer
                        from integrated architecture.

Down
the
bell is a structure called
"the quarantined wheelchair."
                               Dead ignorance changes pattern
                               after six movements of the second hand.
Alice speaks, "To you all, know
                                       that this is an un-dramatic situation.
          Everyday windows with the same
           participants have girls drinking
                                                     orange juice, activate fluid,
                    both exist as objects
                    and caught propaganda."

                                                   ­                      Six tunnel
                                                          ­      audiences are watching
                                                        ­        drown in the plastic silk
   her                                                       built by the motorized collage
                                                         ­                                        spider.

          Alice, a kinetic mannequin pop star
                        is limp in the glass point.
             Rhythmic flux is objectified war torture
                         censored in fitness magazines
by simple toilet literature.

                                        Six tunnels worth of eyes
                                 latch to the *******
                                           as a way to bury **** protesting.
                                  A coat of pepper spray
                                   works in front of the exhibition.
This stage is shaded by moans.


VII


      Alice the female, has a door-to-door friend
                                                          ­    over the sea
of the cathedral's ceiling               who died of disemboweled
pulchritude             at the mutilated nuclear other-place.
                     Her friend was a synthesized example
                     of staged catastrophes. Her friend is her, silver-eyed
                                                     ­                                             Alice.

            ­                     She performs herself and herself
                                 but they are played by polished, scored poets.

Everyone of them incorporates the events
                                 of a dancing gunshot. Everything rests
                                                           ­ at an intermission

               but after fifty minutes of pondering,
          the lost audience remembers
         her name is Alice.
                   So it comes back on with a shower of sweat
                  and this clear
                                  substance
               ­                                 called
                         ­                              patience.
       This composing, peering vulnerability
                        psychologically destroys the flux tension
              like analog genocidal dictators.
                                   Ultimately this is dream liquor

     commentating war to the war tree
      using trauma and chairs as humor.



VIII


               Patience on the water level lives translucent
                                            on networks that brand flesh
                                            with displaced identity.
Alice convinces us all that pickled ***
                                                             ­               takes eight years
                     to ****** and we accuse it
                                         of being fake. Afterwards, her character dies
in confident silence.


IX


     Not majestic, but she does cough
                  to mock the earth.
        The seeds of Alice are ripe,
                        harvested early, and now her children come out and dine
        like speaking tongues on gibberish.
                          The room is fat with hair

and kindness. Feeble, mundane hands chew on each other,
                                                         feet stand proud.
We even call her Alice or "the beautiful *******,
                                             a black cloud feasting
                                             in orange."
                       Everyone feasts on the nectar
                                                         she has, but never the rye
which makes her round. Juice is squeaking and her children laugh
                         as in competition.

     It's a distinguishable game as the mixed
                                                           ­      couple up front
              begin to play whistles as
                                         everyone eats
                   the pride of the silver-eyed Alice's children.


X

                                                ­ The children's souls
                                                       bow and say
                                           "Thank you for barely growing."
                                                   and dissipate after five minutes.

          "Curiouser                                   ­                                      and
           Curiouser"                                                       ­                   they
           say                                                              ­                        as
           they                                                             ­                       leave
           this                                                             ­                         homage.
                  The decimal backbone
                     of each of sweet Alice's
                                   blonde strands
                   divorced by the gust/ of a green light's/ allowance.


XI Epilogue*


  The day crawls away
                   a vigilant pest
     of the nocturnal project
                   --suns beam down still, like
                  stomachs of grinning felines
                           at Valentine's day.

toxic-dyed fingers
                        soldered
to bodies pittering across rainy streets

--legionnaires with hearts on stones
                         we are waiting for her orders,

     thistled-teeth clench,
                                         but did she
                                          actually
          ­                                ever come?
vircapio gale Jul 2012
"
"nor is this a fact," nor is my syntax the 'true.'
i can't use quotations in the way i'd like to,
to allow the paradoxical to seep through
in the sly act of revising 'this' honestly--
merging truth with falsity, to silently see--
grammar become a means to shatter certitude

"i can't tell the 'truth' with these ["i can't tell the 'truth'
with these{...} very words"] very words"; i really can't...
it's somewhat unfair to communicants, this rant.
let me bolster your trust by not telling it slant:
in fact, it's not poetry, not from this angle.
maybe when you read, this 'this' will be poetic?
meh, i'm relying on telling, not showing. so...
quiet's often better than such entanglement

but this is not about value, it's about truth.
sincerely, i doubt i'll keep those two separate

perhaps... if you pretend i'm a prolix parrot,
who happened through some acosmic accident
to be the transmigrated daimon-soul of Sappho,
or Hypatia, Gertrude Stein or Plath even...
(yeah, i'm like a Cretan for going on): they weren't,
'your gobbledygoo,' or 'Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.'
stripped bare at the Caesareum, being murdered
for the crime of godlessness or female wisdom
spoken in the scapegoat-hungry rule of Rome...
this is not what they were, not the whole truth, at all
and though from winds of ****** she spoke in verse
that her vast poetic fame 'was no delusion:'
and that, 'dead, I won't be forgotten,' i fail,
painfully fail,
to trace into a verbal womb
the seeds of those that transformed all, yet now entombed...
for to remember them in me is to revise,
reduce, sadly in that poetic untruth found...

"this" is a gestalt, i guess i'll have to say,
a "figure-ground," a floating 'shape' in some context,
one that you embody too, somehow, not in text;
even through a distant sharing, it's realized
(hold onto the random metaphors you find,
they're probably better than what's in my mind)
and to share this with you now, to hypocritize,
it's lunacy. i mean, the moon, the poetic moon
is not a meme, is not a custom, is not a poetic fact,
in fact, it's not in this poem, and if it were--
being televised with some authentic ontic pixel-space--
here between the lines augmented mOOn for you
it would prove how unpoetic the poem is, and how
very true the moon is, if it were here, right quoteunquote"here"
ineffably punctuated
            -- well, let me try
and fail again to make Erasmus proud:
the quotes would hang about romantic beams
parentheses to echo adjectival spectra streams,
an underscore horizonal and asterisks for stars.
but not these * asterisks,
or those_types of underscores--
better (parentheses) and far more "quothy" "quotes"--
the punctuation would literally ^punctuate^ the sky of my text.
time would stop.                                                            ­                   and that would be poetic.
you don't need to breathe, even; not this 'you,' in this moment
(the one i've failed to capture):
'i will put you on the moon' i say,
'and sit you buoyant by the buddha-astronaut, who,
in answer to the question sprinkles moondust in slow motion,
symbol-guiding realness, my "finger" for solution,
to present to you again, what is present to me now.
the Russian names, the rest of names, the 'face' some say cries, "sweetly,"
as if we could use the moon's sympathy,
or as if we should feel it for the white rock that elliptically defines us,
dances to our rhythm, (the tides, the ****** huntress)
the one that taught us to dance,
the one that taught us to yearn darkly in surreal eclipse
more hopefully for the chance of cataclysmic doom
some Greeks thought it was a disco ball, after enough *****, that Dionysian night,
some Greeks thought it was a disc,
like a coin that flipped just right
to match it's dance about our pearoid earth
in synchrony's anachronistic mirth.
i would lick each Bacchant clean to learn the mysteries of poem
i would lick each Bacchant clean. period. no music or noema known
this 'poem' is not a "poem"
in a very real sense
i did not make this,
nor did i compose or create it.
if you're not following it's ok, i'm barely there myself -- i'm trying to refer to...
the elliptical shape that certain publishers use
to refer to fundierung
the double-founding,
reversibility,
the flesh of passive
the flesh of active
enfleshed perceiving
the common meaning we contribute
but can't attribute to any source we express!
(however distorted) after the fact, yes! --
either all that, or the meaning you get from "this" act
doubly-enfolded, with two pairs of hands kneading the same dough,
two pairs of eyes weaving the same lOOm,
another Indra's net to sew,
in meaning you give now,
the techne of your reader's mind
and the meaning i'd wish to know,
if i were still writing what you are reading,
doing my best to ignore the title
and to write something worthwhile...

i do wish i could show it to you the way i love it in your own poetry,
but you would know that, already, without my love

without my unpoetic lack of facts, my rhymes.
free of poems, free to flout the literary sea.
free to be unwordly, and let the contradictions fly
"
-a version of the Cretan's or liar's paradox ('This sentence is false.') inspired this write and took on a life of its own and isn't meant to be an argument for anything. just an exploration of the problem of representation, a universal distrust of language and my associations. hope it didn't drive you crazy like it did me :)

-i quote Sylvia Plath's "Daddy", Stein's "Susie Asado", and Sappho's very short,

"I have no complaint"

I have no complaint
prosperity that
the golden Muses
gave me was no
delusion: dead, I
won't be forgotten
Sappho

-Erasmus wrote "Praise of Folly." the title alone comforts me

-when asked 'what is truth?' by one of his disciples, the buddha is said to have picked up a flower.

-our moon rotates at the same rate as its revolution (not sure why please inform me), so one side always faces us. the greeks thought it was a disc, literally. and when the Russians got to the 'backside' first, they got to name all the craters.

-noema:
the objective aspect of or the content within an intentional experience. NL, fr. Gk noema perception, thought understanding, mind, fr. noein to perceive, think
Dreamfall121 Apr 2015
Leaving a love message
After the machine's beep
Delivery failed
I am in Pixel Maze's
Escape garden
With green grass
On Genesis walls
Flashlights are switching
On and off
Rapidly
Walking by ethnic purple demons
Their gold hands
Hanging
Over their several heads
Static at the summit
They freeze
In prolonged pauses
They don't even exist
But our eyes still torches
Consistently
Music is thundering down now
From the heavens
With electro nodes
Intertwining
Am I that out of it?
And I never really left
That haunted warehouse
Watching evil trees
Awake now
By the nightfall
They are dancing
By father's campfire
Slicking my hair
I am jumping
On polish mushrooms
We don't even like him
I hear him Tolling
Church's bells
Resurrecting guilt
On immature Sunday
But I don't want to listen
He is reading again
Those antique diaries
Hours fly by
Won't listen
Uneasy by his discomfort
I find that magic carpet
And i elude
Paul Butters Sep 2011
Where are you Paul?
I'm in Cyberspace Mum.
My Pentium processor has broadbanded me
Into this wondrous realm.
A pixel powered virtual landscape
Peopled by avatars
Speaking Internet Slang.
FFS, *** are you talking about?
She asks.
In so many words.
I **** and ROFL at her incredulity.

It’s full of danger, that Internet, says Mum.
That’s true.
It’s full of paedophiles,
Spammers and trolls.
Hackers.
Chat-rooms and forums
Plagued by flame-wars
And spam enough to fill a trillion tins.
Sites full of viruses, Trojans, malware and spyware.
Cyber-bullies and loons abound.
But I just Love it.
A ****** addiction
Needing every fix.
A realm indeed of quantum singularities,
And imploding nebulae.

Paul Butters

(C) PB 3\9\2011 in Yorkshire.
Vamika Sinha Feb 2016
you filter every pixel pore
you angle yourself thin

my darling, which
do you love more?

the ******* the screen
or the girl in your skin?
visit my blog (les-etoiles-tombent.tumblr.com) for more of my words
Omnis Atrum Aug 2012
Many artists create for approval, to translate the beauty they find in the world so that others can feel what they feel (which is second hand at best), or to try to better understand the world that they are in and communicate their findings with the rest of the world. I would stand here today and say that is all meaningless to me. If one cannot find their own truths, then they do not deserve the truths that they find. Everyone can see 'the beauty of the world' that surrounds them, and far too many people try to turn their senses into tangible words on a page. What difference does it make, better yet, what difference should it make to a person if others view the world in the same light that they do? It is for this purpose that I do not view the world in any light. When I create I view the world without light. Feeling my way through the darkness trying to find something that I can hold on to. I am a horrible and pitiful creature when I search for ideas, but when I can wrap my hands around these ideas with no light shed from an outside source there is no greater sense of accomplishment. I write not about the beauty of the world, not about fantastic imageries that could be on an inspirational poster, nothing of the heavens and angels, because when I write my demons take over. Every doubt that sits in the back of my mind unanswered. Every amount of corruption that I have seen in the world. Every hope that has been shot down to crash as a fallen spaceship. Every desire that I will never see fulfilled. These are the things that give me the passion and inspiration to create. Perhaps it is for the balance of the world that I write with such things in mind. As I watch so many writers fail to create what it is that they pictured in their creative vision simply because their minds are cluttered with preconceived notions of love, of good, and of this great being that will provide them with their every desire (deliverable on death, as I have been told); I know that most will surely continue to fail. The world does not have a perfect clockwork structure that they would have everyone else see. I hope that in controlling my demons I will be able to create something that is more authentic. More pure.

Art is struggle.
Creations are covered with our sacrifices.
Without the grotesque, beauty cannot truly be seen.
Without darkness, we cannot understand light.
My cup runneth over.

Seven great inspirations
I remember being young and thinking that there was no greater goal to seek than the goal of love. I had told myself countless times that my greatest goal in life was to find someone and make them the happiest person in the world. I know now that the naivety of that statement is enough to make even the most romantic shake their heads. It was from this naivety and hope that a young man fell in love. As all things that are destined to horribly fail, it failed horribly. The joy in this young man's eyes dissipated and he was left horribly confused. How could my greatest inspiration and the goals that I had set for myself fall apart so swiftly? It was around this time that I slowly started seeing the world for what it truly was. There was great sorrow in this time, but it was a time of more beauty than I had ever known. Years that I thought were wasted were resurrected as emotions and perceptions that slowly found their way from my hand to paper. I learned from a very young age that it was proper to hide emotion, and so many of these creations were destroyed after I had pushed them from my mind. It was not until I let a few close friends read some of what I had written that I realized the value that words held. I used these words to bring happiness to others and evoke emotion where there was none before. All of the ideals and emotions that I held in high regard for so long slowly withered away. It was in this time that I slowly learned that because there was so much good that came from something so devastating, that those things I once thought were so evil may have something good to be found in them. There were great inspirations to be found in those things I had once discarded as sinful and without worth. I found beauty and inspiration in what most would call corruption and imperfect. These things, which were taught to me as sins, gave me more inspiration than any rules or restriction would ever be able to. For the first time in my life I actually felt free. It was with this newfound freedom that I was finally able to express what I truly felt without fear of guilt or punishment. My outward appearance stayed approximately the same (as I was taught that appearances were always important and some habits were hard to break), but I realized that I was a completely different person. It is these differentiations from what I considered to be the norm that allowed me to grow as a person instead of as a machine that was built by those around me. It is this facade of normality that I will forever wear as a defense mechanism to keep those as closed minded as I once was from prying. It is the sins that I once fought so hard against that would help me realize the person that I truly was. This is not merely a documentation of the things that inspire me, this is a tribute to the realizations that allowed me to grow as a person. A great deal of my writing tends to come out as metaphors, but in what will follow I will do my best to write clearly and without riddles. These are the thoughts that bring my creations to life. This is the fuel that drives a man down a road comfortably, no longer worried about speed limits or street signs. Now I will explain how these seven deadly sins breathed life into an otherwise lonely and discarded man.

Pride
Are we all not more important than everyone else in our own universe? Is there some secret kept within the recesses of our mind that perverts this self preservation into something that is frowned upon? Are we not supposed to be proud of our accomplishments? Where are the lines between what is appropriate and a horrid vanity drawn? Would we not become Lucifer if the feeble minds trapped in these mortal shells were placed in a shell more beautiful and eternal than anything we have ever seen? Are we so quick to judge those guilty of our same crimes? Tell me that if you were given the chance you would not change places with a god, and I will never believe another word that pushes its way past your lips. We are wired to attempt to gain higher standing wherever we are. When I have created something that I believe holds truth I am proud, and I am proud that I am proud. If it were not for pride where would that sense of accomplishment come from? Should I allow my pride to turn to shame, and **** a driving force to create something even better next time? I think not. In the universe of our art, we are the gods. We manipulate every word, every pixel, every stroke of the brush. We have ultimate control of the characters, the situations, the emotions, the outcomes, and do not have to provide an explanation to anyone unless we decide to. When we are done with our creations we stand back and say that they are good. A faulty attempt to turn the artist into a god, but the intentions are thinly veiled. To create and to have others look upon your creation with wonder and awe, is that not the intentions of almost all artists? What purpose does this serve other than the creation of pride? I would say that there are none. My writing is the universe where I am god, and there are none other as powerful or that have as much say as I do.

Sloth
Call me cynical for not seeing the absolute beauty of the world around me. Sloth, the great sin of sadness and despair. I look at the world and am dissatisfied with what I see. I have always been fond of Poe, because he wrote about this more than anything else. Why should I be any different than this? The only love I have ever known was ripped from my hands, and I was left with nothing but a feeling of wanting. I watch people walk by with their masks of happiness and content, and when the day is done I see these same people left shaking and world weary. How much rain should fall from my eyes before they become as black as the clouds they do their best impressions of? With every attempt to better the world thwarted on each turn, it seems as if things are not going to change. The problem with writing on the subject of sorrow is that many view it as unhealthy or look down upon it. It is only after putting words to the things that bother me that I have control over them, and can manipulate them as I wish. Sorrow and pain are less of a threat when they can be controlled. Where is it that this sorrow and despair comes from? Perhaps I read too many fairy tales as a child. Perhaps I have yet to get to the end of the story of life where the moral will be revealed to me. Perhaps it is this surreal world that I could never persuade myself to live in. A world where I am to put on a mask of happiness and pretend that everything is going just the way that it should. A world full of everything that I could ever desire. It is because I cannot alter my senses that give my perception of the world that this demon resides within me. My writing is the realization that the world is not what I was led to believe it to be. My creations are the sorrow and despair of living in an imperfect world, and wishing that it was perfect.

Gluttony
Do not overindulge in anything, not even those things which bring pleasure and have no consequence. I think this is a flawed statement at best. In my writing I discuss extraordinary circumstances or situations that I have been involved in. Many of these situations happened only in my own mind, but a number of them occurred when I overindulged in certain things and saw the world in a completely different perspective. If we all lived in perfect moderation, would the world not be boring and uninspiring? I choose to do those things that bring pleasure, and if I do them too often then the result is simply more pleasure. Gluttony is the cause of many interesting nights that allowed me to step outside of my protective shell and experience things that I would have never experienced otherwise. How could I not pay homage to such a thing? How could I desire to cease doing something that only opened my eyes? Gluttons will be looked down upon and called drunkards and addicts, but I have never met a being that has not committed gluttony at one point or another. I was once told to overindulge in moderation. Where does the line between an altered state of mind that we can learn from and a sin stand? In my creations there is no line, because there is no sin. My writings are guilt-free and full of overindulgence of thought. My words are my minds altered vision grasping for truth.

Wrath
These **** words will not flow from my mind, through my hand, and onto this god forsaken medium. What is it that I need to do to express my emotions so that others can understand them? If my words are too abstract it is only because of the thoughts and emotions that they follow. If people cannot follow my metaphors and hidden meanings then it is of no concern to me. The fact that they will not try to stimulate their intellectual ***** in order to understand something more complex than they are used to drives me insane. My pulse quickens with each thought of the issue. It is impossible that I left my metaphors too veiled or did not give enough surrounding exposition. These creations make perfect sense. Then I step back and look at the gibberish that I have created and hurl it across the room as harshly as possible. The thoughts and ideas are all here, it all makes sense in my mind, so WHY WILL THE WORDS NOT COME OUT RIGHT? The inability to explain senses or perceptions in a concrete manner that the audience will understand creates more anger in me than I will ever understand. An anger that refuses to subside. With a clenched fist the pens and pencils are broken, the keyboard is shattered, and the words are broken down into the letters that sit in a pile on my floor. My creations inspire nothing more than they inspire my hatred for ignorance. My creations are an angry conglomeration of letters wishing that they could show the emotions that inspired them. My words are children beaten for insubordination.

Greed
Greed is the greatest inspiration that most will ever know. To bathe in golden bullion and never have another care in the world. Greed not for the sake of greed, but for the sake of freedom. I am inspired by greed of a different sort. The desire to gather every idea that I can find and horde it as my own. The greed of knowledge and experience. When I was younger it was interesting to be the most mature person my age, and now that I am older it is not knowledge that is sought, but wisdom. I horde this knowledge and wisdom in my own personal compressor and squeeze them until they are in the purest possible form. It is this ink that I dip my quill into hoping that my faulty hands can transfer such a perfect concoction onto the parchment without ruining it. Without poking a hole through the parchment. Without deciding after I am finished that the words do not hold the meaning that they carry, and having to destroy everything and start over. I would gladly give all the wealth that I have to be able to sate my greed for the expression of perceptions and knowledge. These are the pains that I have endured, and they are mine and mine alone to claim. There is no greater value on this Earth in my eyes. People can have their tubs of golden bullion, and I will help them with generous contributions when able, but if they ever decide they want my words there will be war. A war of greed. A war of necessity. My creations are my glorious mansion that holds the treasures of experience and knowledge. My words are the golden bullion that so many men have fought and died for, and I will horde them until some greater force can pry them from the hands that created them.

Lust
Love is an illusion that was created for your confusion. Those that speak of love are disillusioned into believing in some extrasensory emotion that they allow to consume them. Love is the most abstract emotion or idea that anyone could ever base a creation on. I tire of reading of love at first sight, love found upon a spring morning, or love that has been discarded. These things are boring, and as long as people persist in writing on these things I will always have kindling for my fires. Tell me about something that I know. Lust is the most pure form of the idea of love that is kept in circulation for no apparent purpose, besides creating sorrow for those that cannot find something so perfect as it has been described. Lust does not mislead and has no ulterior motives. The warmth of another being pressed tightly against you in a shared ecstasy. That is all. There are no complications, there is no confusion, there are no forced rituals that you have to fake your way through to get to another goal. Has the world become so confused that it forgets its instincts. They tell me that lust is a sin, but I know very well that it has created more pleasure than any restriction I will ever be given. I have heard many times to wait for love and it will come in time, but never have I heard anyone told to wait for lust. There is something unexplainable about finding oneself in a passionate situation that they had never even thought about before the moment that it happened. It is the same way with my writing. My writing is the beautiful girl whose name I do not know, as she is leading me across the house to a more secluded place.

Envy
I was taught never to keep up with the Joneses, and I will never attempt to. I had planned to accomplish such great deeds that the Joneses would be found as a wreck of green helplessness. In my great plan I had no intention of ever envying another person. It was not until I fell in love with words that my great plan fell apart. It was these words that would be my downfall. Writers, publishers, artists, and editors all held titles that I wanted for my own. Those that were far more lucky whose works were published. We use the same letters and words, but I could never convince people to see the appeal in truth. It was when I realized this fact that I became envious. I was not envious of the titles, or of the money
Hersch Rothmel Jun 2013
We
I have come to know who I was meant to be, or at least I think I have
I have come to know how oppression works, at least I think I do
I have come to know what is ethical and what is not, or are my lines arbitrarily mapped
I have taken time to think about my life, but have I moved forward with it

I think of my past, my present, my future the map to my life unfolding
I see what I’ve done and what I hope to experience and I have come to realize something
I am part of an enormous painting, one that is committed
To ending oppression in all of its forms from patriarchy to racism and classism
I don’t know who I am but I know who I’ll be and I know where I will stand
I am one pixel, one dot, one stroke on this painting of ending all forms of oppression
And when I get discouraged, doubtful, and drab I cannot forget this painting
For it is not a portrait of me or of you it is a painting of all of us, a painting of freedom

I will keep fighting the fight for true equality, I will not be deterred
I will listen, I will love, I will chose to speak up
Because without all of us dots, us pixels, and strokes there would be no painting
And the beautiful idea that we can all achieve liberation is a reason to keep creating
Gabriel Gadfly Oct 2011
I.
I wonder if you remember me.
You said, “Go out. Find me
that universe, and take these
with you.” Talismans.
Good luck charms like Mozart
and fifty-five ways to say hello.
Navajo night chant,
Peruvian wedding song,
diagrams of ribcages, gender,
bushmen and bones.
Gifts for a people you said
I may never meet.

It has been thirty-four years
and I wonder if you remember me.

II.
Less and less,
we call across the distance:
sixteen-point-twelve hours
between transmissions
and I wonder if you remember me.
I nearly kissed Jupiter for you,
nearly skimmed Saturn’s bright rings,
but you said, “Go out.
Find me that universe,”
so I sail out into the dark for you.

I keep a photo of you,
twenty years ancient,
to keep away the quiet
between your calls:
pale pixel, distant dot,
my origin receding,
I wonder if you remember me.

III.
I know now,
you never meant
to call me home.
Dutifully, I will go out,
but I wonder if you forget me.
I am still here, sailing.
This poem and more can be found at the author's website, http://gabrielgadfly.com
Smoke Scribe Sep 2017
best believe!

don't use this expression
much in my northern parts,
when you hear it spoke,
then you well,
best believe!
what comes next is **** serious

choose words more than with mere extra care,
when you true
believe

it is a surrender to surety,
a gift released,
to own the grit courage of trust
and all that is
best

when you give it up and write in
pixel perfect unretractable,
now know it immutable,
asking pointless,
there is fact that

I love you
(best believe it!)
*
too
Tea Party Nov 2012
You're living out the married life
You're barbie
You have achieved marriage
And now everybody needs to make way for you dear
You still have that after marriage glow
That shine
Or maybe its the tan from your honeymoon
And you're wearing beautiful diamond earrings,
Recycled from your wedding
You are still the star of the show
You are still the only one in the room
You have achieved marriage...
Applaud, everybody  
Your husband? Oh he's irrelevant
Just a pixel in the corner of your beautiful life
Barbie...
Now you will need to learn the ways of the world
You can still enjoy your day
Or your week
Or your month
Whatever it is
Cause you know it will soon end
And so you parade but really just pretend.
Your mind is smarter than you
She knows this won't last
And one day you're going to sit on the couch in your trailer park
And yell at the kids
And burn in the sun
And look at the skin marks, the bruises
Your husband left you when he ***** you last night
And you will sit in the sun
And wait for him
And that picket fence you once dreamed of
Is now a fiction novel in your mind
It doesn't exist, it never has, it never will
Not now, not here, in your house
And nowhere else,
You know this

But parade now little girl
While you still can
Find yourself a rich man
Because you know
when you are old
You will no longer have a purpose
And nobody will want you, so they say
You will know too much about the world
And you wouldn't want to satisfy the rich men like you did before
Because you would know all too well
What it feels like to be his wife
Back home with the kids
Back to the trailer
Playing same sad song that she danced to on her wedding night
You know what its going to feel like when your skin starts falling off your bones like the draped curtains you once wanted
You know that day will come dear
But at least you have achieved marriage
Applaud, everybody...
Please...
and in that brief moment of eternity i swear i belonged to you; each fragmented pixel of my being held together by the fragility of your touch
sergiodib Jan 2021
Magic Mobile in my hand,
Who is the wonder of the Web?
Who's so special in the social?
Who should I follow?
Who should I love?
Who should I leave?

Swipe, here’s an archetype,
Swipe, that’s a stereotype,
Swipe, a melody pipe,
Swipe, the vibe of the tribe,
Swipe, don’t wait, subscribe.

Magic mobile in my hand,
Turn me into a pixel ray,
Let me through the display,
Into an ocean of emotion without delay,
Don’t wanna think I wanna play.
afterthepeak.eu
samasati Sep 2012
whenever I feel the tremble start to ooze its way
from my compact mind to the tips of my fingers,
I immediately anticipate the fate
that I have always been able to foresee
whenever that familiar first jolt of an anxiety attack sails its way,
like a vessel in a storm
throughout my entire body

heart pounds an intolerable caution
lungs wheeze frigid determination with a rough friction
that lightly scrapes my core with a ticklish flutter
shoulders lift up into a hunch; absolutely automatic
the top tray of teeth lock clenched into the bottom tray’s hold
a fleet of air hisses in and out of two nostrils like a monk’s meditation
capacious eyes flicker from
the lid to the lash to the iris to the pupil to see everything

everyone is staring
everything is too intimidating to look at for longer than two seconds
then, the tunnel
the clearest, acute vision waters into a soft edged frame,
into a pixel mud of a picture, into a black peripheral,
black corners rounding in – a narrow and petty circle
I use it and follow it to wherever my
deepened impulse decides to take me

silently contemplating,
silently speculating,
silently examining
the fears I let my feeble self
get swallowed up in.

— The End —