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hand slaps shoulder knee rhythmically that’s called hamming the bone sitting on a street curb singing making up lyrics i got a transitor sister loves cossack named jake he rides Cherokee chopper all he’s ever known is hate he’s going down underground where a man can be a man wrestle alligators live off the land ebb flow i don’t know racing chasing hair-pin turning at 150 miles per hour downshift to 3rd spread the word sweet sour naked flower touching skin deep within defies all sin with a grin speed speed speed all i need i’m getting off coming on you tawny scrawny bow-legged pigeon-toed knock-kneed Don Juan Ponce de Leon Aly Khan all wrapped up into one going to have ******* good time good time tonight i feel like an orphan mom and dad seem so far away tonight i feel like an orphan you make me feel this way hand slaps shoulder knee rhythmically hand bone hand bone

Odyseuss drifts job to job construction worker office assistant waiter whatever he does not understand how road to recognition works continues showing portfolio to art dealers but they react indifferently he does not know how to attain notice in art world begins to suspect there is no god watching over souls instead he imagines infinite force juggling light darkness creation destruction love hate Mom and Dad insist he can earn respectable income if only he will learn commodity futures like cousin Chris Mom says you can work down at the exchange and paint on the side a part of Odysseus wants desperately to please his parents he considers perhaps Mom is right for the time being maybe build up nest egg it seems like sensible plan he wonders why Dad and Mom never speak about money how to save manage they treat the subject as forbidden topic Odysseus has no idea what Dad or Mom earn or investment strategies Odysseus is about to make serious mistake the decision to get job working at commodity exchange needs deeper examination why is he giving in to his parents what attracts him to commodities trading is it Chris’s achievement and the money? does Odysseus honestly see himself as a winning trader or does it simply look like big party with lots of rich men pretty young girls is that where he wants to be why is he giving up on his dream to be a great artist does it seem too impossible to reach who makes him think that? is he going to give up on his true self? he halfheartedly follows his parent’s advice begins working as runner at Chicago Mercantile Exchange several friends including Calexpress disloyalty for entering straight world commodity markets are not exactly straight in 1978 clearing firms pay adequately hours are 8 AM to 2 PM over course of next 6 months Odysseus runs orders out to various trading pits cousin Chris rarely acknowledges Odysseus maybe Chris feels need to protect his image of success perhaps in front of his business associates Chris is embarrassed by Odysseus’s menial rank and goof-off attitude maybe Chris senses what a terrible mistake Odysseus has made

Chicago suffers harsh winter in February Roman Polanski skips bail in California flees to France in April President Carter postpones production of neutron bomb which kills people with radiation leaving buildings intact in October Yankees win World Series defeating Dodgers in November Jim Jones leads mass-****** suicide killing 918 people in Jonestown Guyana in December in San Francisco Dianne Feinstein succeeds murdered Mayor George Moscone in Chicago John Wayne Gacy is arrested

darkness descends upon Odysseus his heart is not into commodity business more accurately he hates it he loathes battleship gray color of greed envy he resents prevailing overcast of misogyny he meets many pretty girls yet most of them are only interested in catching a trader it is rumored numerous high rolling traders hire young girls for sole purpose of morning ******* remainder of day girls are free to mingle run trivial errands commodity traders typically trash females it is primitive hierarchy Odysseus bounces from one clearing firm to another then moves to Chicago Options Exchange then Chicago Board of Trade on foyer wall just outside trading floor hangs bronze plaque commemorating all men who served in World War 2 Uncle Karl’s name is on that plaque Daddy Pat bought his son seat hoping to set him up after war Uncle Karl’s new wife wanted to break away from Chicago persuaded him to sell seat move to California Uncle Karl bought car wash outside Los Angeles with Daddy Pat’s support Mom and Dad encourage assure Odysseus commodities business is right choice they promise to buy him full seat on exchange if he continues to learn markets they feel certain he can be saved from his artistic notions the markets are soaring in profits cousin Chris is riding waves a number of Chris’s friends are sons of parents who belong to same clubs dine at same restaurants as Mom and Dad Odysseus is not alpha-male like Chris Odysseus is a dreamer painter poet writer explorer experimenter unlike Chris who has connections Odysseus starts out as runner then gets job holding deck for yuppie brokers in Treasury Dollar trading pit Odysseus holds buy orders between index and middle fingers sell orders in last 2 fingers arranged by time stamp price size in other hand holds nervous pencil he stands step below boss in circular pit in room size of football field full of raised pits everything is traded cattle hogs pork bellies all currencies gold numbers flash change instantaneously in columns on three high walls fourth wall is glass with seats behind for spectators thousands of people rush around delivering orders on telephones flashing hand signals shouting offers quantities every moment every day calls come in frantically from all around world space is organized chaos sometimes not so organized fortunes switch hands in nano-seconds it is global fiscal battleground rallies to up side or breaks to down side send room into hollering pushing shoving hysteria central banks financial institutions kingpin mobsters with political clout daring entrepreneurs old thieves suburban rich kids beautiful people pretty young females abound big guns **** in same air stand next to low-ranking runners everyone flirts sweats sneezes knows inside they are each expendable Odysseus is spellbound by sheer force magnitude he feels immaterial only grip is his success with girls it is not conscious talent he grins girls grin back Chris’s trader friends recognize Odysseus’s ability they push him to introduce girls to them it is way for Odysseus to level playing field he has no money or high opinion of himself he simply knows how to hook up with girls

1979 January Steelers defeat Cowboys at Super Bowl Brenda Ann Spencer kills 2 faculty wounds 8 students responds to incident “i don't like Mondays” in February Khomeini seizes power in Iran in March Voyager space-probe photographs Jupiter’s rings a nuclear power plant accident occurs at Three Mile Island Pennsylvania in May Margaret Thatcher is elected Prime Minister in England in Chicago American Airlines flight 191 crashes killing 273 people in November Iran hostage crisis begins 90 hostages 53 of whom are American in December Soviet Union invades Afghanistan 1980 in November Ronald Reagan defeats Jimmy Carter one year since Iran hostage crisis began

he meets good-looking younger girl named Monica on subway heading home from work he has seen her running orders on trading floor she is tall slender with long dark brown hair in ponytail pointed nose wide mouth innocent face she confides her estranged father is famous Chicago mobster Odysseus recognizes his name they talk about how much they dislike markets arrant disparity of wealth between traders and themselves Odysseus says i hate feeling of being so disposable worthless Monica replies yeah me too he tells her if i was a girl i’d ******* myself to several handsome generous traders Monica acknowledges that’s an interesting idea but who? how? which traders? do you know? he answers yeah i know exactly who and how Monica says if you’re serious i’m in i have a girlfriend named Larissa who might also be interested i’ll call Larissa tonight following day Monica approaches Odysseus at work agrees to meet at his place after markets close that afternoon Monica and Larissa show up eager to learn more about Odysseus’s scheme Larissa is petite built like a gymnast giggly light brown hair younger than Monica he lays it all out for them cousin Chris and his buddies the money ******* both girls are quite lovely he suggests they rehearse with him he will coach them on situations settings techniques girls consent for 4 weeks every afternoon they meet at Odysseus’s place get naked play out different scenarios he shows girls how to pose demure at first then display themselves skillfully fingers delicately pulling open ***** spreading wide apart buns working hidden muscles he directs each to take up numerous positions tasks techniques then has them switch places he teaches them timing starting slow gradually building up rhythms stirring into passionate frenzy having two mouths four hands creates novel sets of possibilities one girl attends his front while other excites his rear he positions them side-by-side so he can penetrate any of all four holes he stacks them one on top of the other many other variations after reaching ****** several times making sure to reciprocally satisfy their eager needs Odysseus dismisses girls until following day finally after month of practice Monica and Larissa feel confident proficient primed Odysseus arranges for girls to meet with 2 traders through Chris most traders have nicknames Twist who is hosting event is notoriously wild insatiable on opening night Odysseus behaves like concerned father Larissa and Monica each bring several dresses and pairs of shoes Odysseus helps them choose suggests Monica ease up on make-up he styles Larissa’s hair instructs Monica to call him when they arrive again when they leave he requests they return directly to his place Monica wears hair pulled back in French twist pearl earrings sleek little black dress black stiletto heels she stands several inches above Odysseus Larissa wears braided pigtails pink low-scooped leotard brown plaid wool kilt just above knees brown suede cowboy boots he kisses each on lips then pats their butts warns them to be careful mindful Monica winks Larissa giggles more than an hour passes as Odysseus sits wondering why he has not heard from girls suddenly reality hits he does not want to be commodities trader and certainly not a **** this is not how he wants to be known or remembered Odysseus wants to be a painter and writer Monica and Larissa are good sweet girls whom he has misguided he calls Twist’s place Twist answers Odysseus asks to speak with Monica when she comes to phone he questions are you all right Monica answers yes we’re fine we’re having a fantastic time why are you calling what’s wrong he explains you were suppose to call me when you arrived i began to worry i think maybe this whole arrangement is a bad idea i want you to call it off and come back home i don’t want either of you to become prostitutes i love you both and don’t want to be associated with dishonoring you Monica says it’s a little late to call it off but we’ll see you when we’re done kissy kiss bye Odys another hour passes then another he frets wondering what they are doing after 4 hours as he is about to call Twist’s house again doorbell rings Monica and Larissa both giggling beaming Odysseus can spot they have a coke buzz Monica announces you should be proud of us Odys we got each of them off 2 times we left them stone-numb and tapped out the girls open their purses each slaps 5 hundred dollar bills unto table Monica says this is your cut Odys we both got a thousand for ourselves he replies i can’t touch that money we need to sit down and talk Monica demands no talking Odys take off your clothes he insists i’m serious Monica i’m never going to send you out again Larissa claims there’s no turning back for me i had too much fun Monica  pleads come on Odys we’ll be good we promise now take off your clothes Twist and his buddy never attended to our needs i’m ***** as hell Larissa where’s that little bottle of dust Twisty handed you

Chicago Monday night December 8 1980 Cal and Odysseus sit at North End they're on 4th round feeling buzz the place is lively adorned with holiday decorations Cal says you’ve changed Odysseus questions what do you mean? how? Cal says the commodity markets and your cousin and his friends they’ve changed you when was the last time you painted Odys? are you dealing coke Odysseus looks Cal in the eyes answers they’re so ******* rich Cal you can’t believe it one drives a black Corvette Stingray another a ******* Delorean anything they want they buy girls cars clothes condos boats yeah i’m dealing coke to Chris’s friends it’s my only leverage remember the Columbian dude Armando we met at tittie bar? i score from him and keep it clean Chris’s buddies pay up for the quality i don’t remember my last painting maybe the black painting i never finished after breaking up with Reiko Lee a girl falls off bar stool crashing to floor at other end of bar Cal says Odys, you better play it careful you’re messing with the devil got any blow on you suddenly bar grows quiet someone turns up TV volume they watch overhead as news anchorman speaks slow solemn camera pans splattered puddle of blood pieces of broken glass on steps to Dakota Building Cal looks to Odysseus John Lennon has been murdered Cal waits for Odysseus to say something tear rolls down cheek Cal glances away stares down at floor they drink in silence
Kristo Frost Mar 2013
how could You know
as You are walking down the sidewalk
           around a corner       wherever You want
that the world is not assembling itself
atom by sticky atom
from the blueprints
piled in piles (like so many piles of newspaper)
in (the rooms in) the back rooms of Your mind
particles rushing and streaming, fluttering
together with the ebb of Your consciousness?
-
the World blurs fuzzily into shape
before snapping
(snappily)
into focus

just as You enter the room
blending pixilated reality smoothly
into an orchestrated Existence
-
the next time You      reach
for the doorknob on
the door to
the waiting room
-
give
pause
listen            
carefully
-
can’t You hear the anxious atoms
           scraping
sliding
           shoving past each other?
-
they                jockey
       jumping into
the eye of
       the image of
the woman on
       the screen of
the television in
       the corner of
the ceiling where
       it hangs
-
she wants to know
why we divide
Them              from Us
-
so clearly
so readily
-
she wants to know
why our countries
are bordered
-
by an indifference to equality
by a contempt for disillusionment
-
A dispute broke out between two
atoms on the table this morning;
a tiny china teapot was broken.
-
how would You know?
people are no more
then elaborate pieces of Your own mind
now once You hang up the phone
e v a p o r a t e d  
                        into no more than
                                           an afterthought
                                                    ­     of empty space
                                                           ­         -
                                             the smell of burnt matches
                             -                                      -
                You think that
everything You imagine is beautiful
                    even death
                             -
               but in an ugly way
-                            -
the man on the
                                edge
of the third chair
from the door
has no face
(none of Them do)
all of Them don’t
(have faces)
-
until They speak or You look Them in the eye
-
until They do something       Wrong
which is why They look                  down
when They walk down the sidewalk
-
They are afraid
-
to live
  as a tree
    in the park
-
where a pillar of
angry
           energy
                       falling
failing
           the
                       pessimistic
sky
might strike
Them
(older than You
yet born
just this moment)
making the ground
around
Them steam
with the sweat
of a silent room
waiting
for the
            door to
                        swing open
                                      and tell
                                                   him
                             -               -
                she’s going to be all right
              it was close there for a while
                        but she’s strong
                      she pulled through
                                      -
                              in the end
-                                     -
the pressure
of the years
of the rings
(which promise to
grow tighter
as time leaves us)
is heated
squeezed
left sitting in
flesh
turned to char
ash and smoke gently
cradling a tiny newborn
diamond
-
perfect           (silence)
-
broken
down the middle-
                      aged
                             flawed
-                                -
You should be perfect by now
You should have a face by now
-
speak           look Yourself in the eye
-
see Your own          Face
stop looking                down
when You walk down the sidewalk
-
don’t be afraid
-
to live
  as a tree
    in the park
-          -
They say don’t talk             to strangers
and You’re a strange one            indeed
how can You see the glamour
where Others            cannot
see that laughing quietly to themselves
can (You) set the expressions on their faces
to joy
     to pain
           to fear
                to apathy
                     to peace?
                              -
              yeah, she likes him
                and she likes him
                        to know
               that she likes him
                              -
                      in the end
-                             -
she wants to know
why our countries
are bordered
-
to keep Them      out
and Us       in
-                                   -
           this is Mine                  and that is Yours
-                                   -
You see
what You want to see (without)
-
(knowing what You want)
the sticker
       on the bumper
              of the car
                     rolling past reads:
                           “jesus is coming,
                                  hide the ****”
-                                          -
in its green lettering
and its largely silent voice
-
if You listen             carefully
You can almost hear Them
-                  -
              giggling
                ­   -                       -
              please do not think about green elephants
-                                          -
(a student just snuck in
and sat down as
the professor was writing
on the board)
-                                       -
             please do not feed the green elephants
-                                       -
I
Myself
have a strong suspicion
that Your mind is
as You read this
(hidden in a carefully cupped notebook)
spilling
black ink particles into
existence
on the very next          page
-                              -
             ­       You write that
You imagine everything is beautiful
                    except for death
                                 -
                   it is an ugly thing
                                    -
               yet still the chisel gouges
                  -               -
  “i whistle a catcall
at my blushing bride”
      llac ot eltsihw i”
  “edis ym ot god ym
                  -        -
        through the crumbling protests
         of the reluctant stone
                               -    -
                     ­               each new line
                                    tampers with space
                                    holds suspect time
                                    postpones the end
                                    and evades death
-                                  -
You breathe
               You write
You sing
                You live
                       -
You casually craft causality
         -             -
         yet craft on
         surely You are not yet done
         You may never be
         at this rate but
         but
         STOP
-        -
the World reblurs then blows away
listen closely here I say
all things must come to end one day
-                                       -
You
Yourself

have tasted the                     hunger
                        of Greed
seen the                                 wealth
                       of Hatred
heard the                               stories
          ­             of Genocide
felt the                                    loss
                     ­  of War
and smelled the                    decay
                       of Truth
-                      -
                      this        ­     is Mine
                                 what’s Mine, is Yours...
This poem was originally inspired by the Russell's Teapot analogy.
Marielle indicates: “Your luminosity, Copernicus vibrating in Giordano Bruno, expresses hypotheses that they revive to Quentinnais from the third hour, from here now I am hospitalized and without light to line the end where I will put my feet evasive. Raymond Bragasse is here where I met him, and I saw him with his holy rosary on his necklace, and on Andrés Panguiette's claw. That you grumble, they excommunicate my sentences, which are that of the rooster that becomes gentle in a Corso, Sardinian or Roman Praetorian, in the leap I relegate to San Gabriel, with its magical art that excites the retentiveness of Saint George. Under what science do they moderate me by joining you, or what century will intuit us with its own splendor, whose obscurantism under his revolution mutes anyone in the darkness of the cave of Dionysius. The divinity postpones itself, to leave its daily chores where souls fly daily ..., they do not stop leaving with their spoils after the fairies that fly to purgatory. But many have passed over me, and I was wondering where to find you, I never thought that I should fly over a swarm of wasps to reach your divine lair, full of regulatory darkness for those who live against the light, and of an Elizabethan garment that dismisses my ring, where Its natural original magic is isolated from our semi-alive body, with brittle Egyptian suns that redoubled where I had to wait for you at the Pentecost bench. What retarding essence dries up who does not show any vital or symbolic avital sign, where the rough cyclicality does not allow me to chastise my hair in any vanity for you. Oh that Moral spellings referring to my commendation, if it is not apostasy! What else would I dare to speak, through the sky flying away from the lunar books of Vivencia, where it is sent from its orbit towards the cosmos free of all and of all with Wonthelimar free of me, confined of Marielle. I know that I am analogous **** of the Libri Dei Viventi, perhaps sackcloths or coats have to be spun in Parnassus, to gird myself to myself, and not Marielle cloistered in her solitude, who does not receive the Vivendi torpor of her paradisiac sacrilege when seducing a supposed daughter of Hecate, fortunately, I have to guess with a swarm, and stay in the nets of your cave. With the stanza that is invested in rhetorical values, I go crazy for love to which I am conjured, but from Marielle now or in hundreds of years that pester on my sackcloth, which will never be used for the liturgy with you, if I revive in the crisis of resurrection in the arms of Saint George in the stained glass window in Avignon, and in his forearm that passes through the worst emotional crypts of my author.

As I have to contest hostile votes that are netted in the puritanism of those who only wear sackcloth in the unstitched Mausoleums of Quentinnais, and in the strident leaves that move elected in his advent, where the subclavian of Luzbel stands. Unanimous I have to dare by asininity ...! Moderating threads of horror and silver light, which revives us in the beasts and in their perches, ad libitum in the lattices where it emerges from the conspiracy of our tragedy. Oh, what an impetuous incarnation of the anti-Christian verb has to express itself in your incarnations of light and restless shadow, in the apse of the discanted in Avignon, and in the acroteria shadow, suffering from cowardice by not wanting to see me angelic, universal predisposition, just to know fit and what to say with your soul lineage and twin life, who only knows how to love you. Our reincarnations are rescued, now that we go to Patmos intimidated, in the sound of shining the veiled Vernarth, reprimanded in his acquiescent morality under his own law and his glasses, born from his rib that ends in the exception of a foul dialogue. It is premature for me to say what I do not have to write, but the particles slowly fall through the beam of their adjective essences, reshaping exterminated historiographies that want to make green, in colloquia that draw the eyes of whoever wants to blind the profane cult, absorbed in sallow particles in four sciences and elements… What unresolved probe and mass can strike your heart poured into you Wonthelimar? You know when we get to Profitis I will go holding your hand in the morning, to adore you and kneel down, we will deal with why we lost ourselves, and why the sun has not stained me with so much fury, carrying me burned in tongues of its consumptive and guttural infinity. After taking the hand of dawn, I will sue the impossible quagmire and its Áullos Kósmos, weakened by theoretical openness, lacking unity, but not far from my vanistory, nor from the sessile fluff of my hair, waiting for you with your stormy return to hold me. Ayia Lavra will declare war on the eighth cemetery of Messolonghi, with solidity and sanctity that frees my chains in a single trident, paling in the rust of it, methodological treatise, and where the determination of veracity is annihilated.

Because I have to go to heaven when I want to offer myself to you, without any century that has received me with fewer wounds than those I had yesterday in its indolent septicemia, with miracles and incense burners that burn in imprecate, and provide a pagan theology of human filth. , not portraying biblical when your plurality dressed as a secular thirteenth, by referrals or Greco-Gallic that arise from the love that has no end or beginning in the autonomy of an incorruptible being, and even less when you wear sweets in its lavender lex. Genius Loci, or amplified reality, rather your idea of sticking with me when I have not been, and of attracting me when the future in the portal is made in the perfect symmetry of him, or whoever looms excited in his cabal. The body is no longer inscrutable, overworking with poetry to constrict my torn voice, running at great speed to seize the cosmetic that paints our faces, Selene and her luster aggravate punctuality and the status of science in creation. I have read volume VIII, and I saw that tears flowed by where I never thought ... !, for exchanges that marginalize an established authority, nor with more childish will I undone the garments of his self-description. Mime or jester in front of me in my catalog of the tragic actress with the anemic volume of her, pointing out uprisings in new waves, on seas that did not have them ..., loaded in new skeptical allegorical clouds, on truths that were already understood in the jealous name. It is incumbent on us to navigate with lamps that have to guide us through dark Ptolemaic hexahedra or henbane crusts, which do not manage to go over the sentry boxes of a divine gesture. How to dare to a final gesture of inflaming with you in factions and premises beyond an apocalypse, or of a Penelope that is gestated in a god, or becomes unknowable of a prevailing divine plan.

Charged with our dissidence, we will go far from the unknown burdens, that scripts are annexed in the new birth of our fiefdom and in their great expectation. Now four elytra have been born on my back, who hope to reveal to you the categories of the deleterious vanquished, reduced to only two Ptolemic emetics ..., you and I in a final judgment, which we already know well about, about the seventh eras that await us in the Southern Sporades, and in his final judgment in the eighth. O Jerusalem, I deprive my oldest sin by conceiving, but rather by confessing it with you. What insurgent dualism will make me get rid of myself and be reborn indestructible in its dizzying relish where the multi-chained temptation of redemption runs towards you? Wonthelimar…, I'm here, in this thunder slip writing for you. I have distanced my head united to yours so that it is not destroyed, for all thoughts, where although you are my diluted kingdom, I will beg You to leave me in the growing vertical anticipated flight from my body, but later in my consciousness which is what which will pre-exist with his Roman staff intertwining with his lusters, and in the syntagmas of Vernarth, which come from the Sporades of Patmos. As I honor and glorify Him in the southern part of him, my dear sackcloth has warmed away from my myopic eyes, already feeling your face breath on me, I will be able to vindicate narrated stories after we part before God!
Marielle Sporades
K Balachandran Jan 2014
She labors to smile,
irony draws lines
on her embittered face,
thick dark iron bars,
temporarily cage pain;
yet the risk
the two run is toxic.
soon they 'd have to face it,
unmistakable indications reveal,

her velvet voice over the phone,
conjured up an image,
drastically different,
a sadness now faintly asks
his permission to spread quickly,
confused he postpones, buying time.

guilt, a shaggy, smelly, hound
suspicion, its dominant trait,
lurks sniffing around,
the table they mutely sit,
like prisoners of unburied past
convoluting the plot,
by playing ***** tricks.
the air thickens
chocking both,
the haunt leers, licks its paws in glee
what is its intention?

"You look more or less
like him, my former lover-
I try to erase from memory
by every which way possible,
sorry about that, but i can't help it,
he traded in pain of many kinds
ingeniously, nothing else he did"
she shoots from the hip.
memory of an evil genius
was quickly resurrected by him
from the assortment of stereotypes,
vision of caravans transporting
gun powder kegs of bad memories, flashed
he had a match stick handy.
soon, everything exploded to culminate;
darkness devoured all,  breaking limits.
caravans slog towards horizon, one after other still.
Francie Lynch Feb 2015
You won't like
Your colonoscopy,
I know,
I've not liked mine.
It's invasive,
You're contorted,
And the Prep
Is too unkind.
Yet,
One needs
A **** snoop
In the
Intestine.
It postpones
Eternity,
That makes it
Worth your time.
From roses to **** in two hours!
Kristo Frost Sep 2014
maybe (Big Maybe) your life has numbers in the title.

inked, digits trace the shadow of her hair

if you forgot...

how could You know
as You are walking down the sidewalk
           around a corner   --   wherever You want
that the World is not assembling itself
atom by (jigsaw) atom
from the blueprints (and stencils)
piled in piles (like so many piles of newspaper)
in (the rooms in) the back rooms of Your mind
particles rushing and streaming (fluttering)
together with (the ebb of) Your consciousness?

the World blurs fuzzily into shape
before snapping
snappily
into focus

just as You enter the room
blending concentrated reality smoothly
into some orchestrated Existence

the next time You          reach
for the doorknob on
the door to
the wait-, the waiting room

give,
pause

listen,         
carefully

can’t You hear the anxious atoms
           brushing
jostling
           shoving past one another?

Numbers, pixels, they                  jockey

       squinting through
the eye of
       the image of
the woman on
       the screen of
the television in
       the corner of
the ceiling where
       it hangs

she wants to know
why You divide
Them              from Us

so clearly
so readily

she wants to know
why Your countries
are bordered

by an indifference to equality
by a contempt for disillusionment

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!:
An extraneous dispute broke out between two
atoms on the table this morning;
a tiny china teapot was broken.

not that You care, but...
how would You know?

people are no more
then elaborate pieces of Your own mind
now once You hang up the phone
e v a p o r a t e d  
                        into no more than
                                           an afterthought
                                                    ­     of empty space

                                             the smell of burnt matches

                You think that
everything You imagine is beautiful
                    even death

               but in an ugly way

the man on the
                                edge
of the third chair
from the door
has no face
(none of Them do)
all of Them don’t
(have faces)

until They speak or You look Them in the eye

until They do something       Wrong
which is why They look                  down
when They walk down the sidewalk

They are afraid
You Made them Afraid

to live
  as a tree
    in the park

where a pillar of
angry
           energy
                       falling
failing
           the
                       pessimistic
sky
might strike
Them
(older than You
yet born
in this moment)
making the ground
around
Them steam
with the sweat
of a silent room
waiting
for the
            door to
                        swing open
                                      and tell
                                                   him

                she’s going to be all right
              it was close there for a while
                        but she’s strong
                      she pulled through

                              in the end

the pressure
of the years
of the rings
(which promise to
grow tighter
as time leaves us)
is heated
squeezed
left sitting in
flesh
turned to char
ash and smoke gently
cradling a tiny newborn

                                          diamond


perfect           (silence)

broken
down the middle-
                      aged
                             flawed

You should be perfect by now
You should have a face by now

speak           look Yourself in the eye

see Your own          Face
stop looking                down
when You walk down the sidewalk

it's Your painting,
don’t be afraid

to live
  as a tree
    in the park
  
They say don’t talk             to strangers
and You’re a strange one            indeed
how can You see the glamour
where Others            cannot
see that, laughing quietly to Yourself,
(You) can set the expressions on their faces
to joy
     to pain
           to fear
                to apathy
                     to peace?

               yeah, she likes him
                and she likes him
                    to know that
                    she likes him

                      in the end

she wants to know
why Your countries
are bordered

to keep Them      out
and Us       in

           this is Mine                  and that is Yours

You see
what You want to see (without)

(knowing what You want)
the sticker
       on the bumper
              of the car
                     rolling past whispers:
                            jesus is coming,
                                  better hide the ****

the tone is green, jealous

if You listen             carefully
You can almost hear, someone's

             giggling

             please do not think about green elephants

(a student just snuck in
and sat down as
the professor was writing
on the board)

             please do not feed the green elephants

I
Myself
have a strong suspicion
that Your mind is
as You read this
(hidden in a carefully cupped notebook)
spilling
black ink particles
across
existence
running
onto the very next          page

                    You write that
You imagine everything is beautiful
                   except for death

                   it is an ugly thing

              yet still the chisel gouges

    i whistle a catcall
at my blushing bride
      llac ot eltsihw i
   edis ym ot god ym

        through the crumbling protests
               of the reluctant stone

                                    each new line
                                    tampers with space
                                    holds suspect time
                                    postpones the end
                                    and evades death

You breathe
               You write
You sing
                You live

You casually craft causality

         yet craft on
         surely You are not yet done
         You may never be
         at this rate but
         but
         STOP

the World reblurs then blows away
listen closely here I say
all Things must come to End one day

You
Yourself

have tasted the                      Hunger
                        of Greed
seen the                                 Zeal
                       of Hatred
heard the                               Stories
                       of Genocide
felt the                                   Loss
                      ­ of War
and smelled the                    Decay
                       of Truth

                      this             is Mine
                                 what’s Mine, is Yours...
This is a major revision to the original, which was written in 2012 after getting off a night shift at the hospital.  I will probably never be done revising this, because practically every time I read it I change something.  

As it is very much in the spirit of the piece to involve You the reader, any and all revision proposals will be given serious consideration, although creative license is of course reserved.
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2014
The unexpected snow, disruptive,
in ways more burdensome,
than mere fender benders and
swapping travelogue commutation miseries

ah, the tv reporters regale
with snow tales, human fails,
but where do you hear
of the children
burnt once by fire
then again, now,
again!
burnt by snow.

here, hear, listen here

technology moves forward,
grafting new shells of skin
on burnt children,
but tonite you're cozy thinking
of your valentine's heart,
not of the little ones,
whose hearts are unprotected,
by what we take so for granted

beneath our protective gloves and coats, scarfs and boots,
our prophylactic human skin,
theirs, fire ravaged,
now re-hazardous,
by southern snows burning

these children hurt,
unexpectedly,
cannot play in the snow that came so
unexpectedly,
lest it burn them worse*

"in the children's burn unit, postponed all surgeries except 'emergency'.  Two days of outpatient clinic patients forced to reschedule,. That then, postpones their surgeries, second step grafting, etc. Our vents ran smoothly I heard via the generators, unlike last outage. We had to ambulance each individual patient.

I dread going in tomorrow but small comfort,
it will be warmer than my cold home."

Life first, poetry second
burnt too oft by the supposed caregiver, but not of that now, but later for surety, will I **** them
Mitch Nihilist Aug 2015
Dear God, I’m an unbeliever,
if there was a higher power
i don’t think you’d let me leave her,
with the pain and despair I’m finding
you’d think the power you held would
allow you to come out from hiding
being the veil of what you claim to be
and the honesty extends beyond me
I’m not speaking with any selfishness
only with selflessness to guide me
away from your declarations of
mandations that mould foundations
for nations that struggle under your hand,
it’s all part of “God’s plan” only if
the blueprints call to stand and watch
everyone crumble beneath the cries
to higher powers while the darkness pours
and showers, soaking sanity and the ignorance
of humanity.

Dear God, I’m an unbeliever
I’m writing to an entity,
a supposed supreme deity
foreshadowing naive spontaneity
for those who have no one else,
I hate writing with the topic of self,
but the constant lack of health
brings not an illness
but a stillness in progress,
I’ll pick up the gun **** it,
I'll fill my body with pills
and begin to rock it,
and will there be a hand to halt?
nay, only a finger to point fault.
any god, any being wouldn’t let sadness
flow through a spineless body,
whether a monotheistic mantra
moralizes a mental mantle or
a polytheistic point towards a
pleasant prefixed phase of
past problems postpones
present’s purity,
I’m writing to a transparent
inexistent foster parent
letting me cross the road
without looking both ways,
so, dear god, if you see this
let me count my life in years, not days.
One of my favourite pieces ever written. If from a theological standpoint, you disagree, please appreciate the heart and soul I put into it. Enjoy!
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2019
First Line: The Most Popular Words on HP

those  selected below, are copied from the current top line of the Words section on HP,  which I believe, represent the most often used/“popular” words on the site.

love      time      heart      life      eyes      feel      day      
mind      night      things      left      find      long

when  I find love next time, and the next time,
the heart that has powered this life,
will avoid the trapping eyes that initialize the
first feel, the first contact, those things that are
the mind seducers, whether,
one, if by day
two, if by night

which is it?
love is blind, but we all dream of love at first sight!

which’s why, I’ve left the world of find,
long ago, deciding that love will find me in its own
peculiar time, way, method, until that occurs,
dreaming of that happenstance will inspire
a poem of the day, each day,
until time postpones either my
heart or mind, my senses, or the search is concluded,
which will most likely be through my jewels,

my very own words
i yield damages—

"On a marble bench, dreaming:
    I can never hold arms of war
   but i can cradle the artillery
      of love."

some excerpts of boyhood.
some lines written so long ago as
a distant dove hovers, postpones
the herding word,

yet so near to me as a crouched dark
clenched in corner, knowing all the bends and turns of the road.

if i am braver than all — imperative
enough to toss the fear out of night,
or to wring broad daylight of birds,
why must it decree me?

remembering it rearing all the stillness
flown in the wind, the storm of my
younger self crossing Earths in all sides,

treading the tightwire something still
i am the wind and the peril knows my name, making wounds real again.
Sarah Wilson Apr 2010
all i have left are frayed nerves,
a flattened frame from being the doormat,
fingers worn to bone from writing it all out,
and a bunch of angsty poems.

but here's another angsty poem
from pitiful, insignifigant me.
i'll shout this one from the rooftop
and make you see me for who i am.
**** and vinegar and revenge,
sugar and spice and nothing nice.

this is all i have to give, so listen hard.
listen hard because i will never be
this honest again when i say,
oh my god, just tell me you don't care
about me and just want to
use me and get it over with because
i am sick of this *******.

you can tell me you care over
and over again until you are
blue in the face and it's not going
to matter because your actions say
otherwise and words are cheap.

and while you're at it, would you mind,
would you really ******* mind, if i
understood your motives? i was doing
just fine, i really was, i was getting along.
building my walls, brick by cemented brick.

but one word halts construction.
one phrase postpones completion.
and i'm doing it the same way
all over again.

i'm sick of giving myself to something
only to have it snatched away from me.
i'm sick of being the friend who's always there
only have no one be there for me when i need them.
i'm sick of being taken advantage of, i'm sick of...
i'm sick of being second rate.

i'm just sick.

words are cheap and talk is cheaper.
and that is all i've got from you.
actions are worth so, so much more.
straighten up, or i'm out.
thanks.
...and we both need to stop before both of us crash into rockbottom headfirst again.
seasons are in a annual transitional mode
bright shades of summer now fast disappear
making way for autumns colors to explode

upon the tree branches mellow tones appear
russets deep browns and liquid amber tones  
bright shades of summer now fast disappear

a time for recess where growth postpones
the waste of warmer days drifting around
russets deep browns and liquid amber tones

in the mornings lingering mists abound
gone are summer's brilliant azure tinges
the waste of warmer days drifting around

as months roll by winter's white impinges
a change of shade sits upon the land
gone are summer's brilliant azure tinges

the cycle of color patterns are never bland
a change of shade sits upon the land
seasons are in an annual transitional mode  
making way for autumn's hues to explode
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2024
~for all the old poets,
especially one so denominated, my old faithful friend…~
<>

the
THEY,
emboldened and italicized,

are whispering and whimpering,
even
whining
that I’ve gone
wimpy,
lost possess of mine
facilities and faculties,
no longer able and capable
to command, demand, in hand,
import
a decent poem
from & in the English language(s) to
purport,

lost my edges,
hide behind the hedges
of inconsequential ancestral
and incestual rhymes,

these
THEY
do oft appear as voices in my
now emptied and unemployed head,
but familiarity breeds contemporary
contretemps of contempt,
for they are remiss,
in dismiss when the eyelids
flutter,
the noble temporal lobes
mutter,
’tis thy~thyme ole man,
for spillage of your

FPOTD
(first poem of the day)
thus kneecapping the cancer
of a restless dark hour period
where failures and faults,
of lines
crossed and uncrossed,
bear you to pieces,
bare your lifetime
laundry list
of pulsing, palpable,
fulminating and always ruminating faults
of which penance cannot be bought
by the bags of pennies and sordid assorted coins
that THEY
will find in the back bottom of thine closets,
along with the manuscripts
of the discarded and forlorn,
unloved and unpublished poems that you chose
to have buried with you,

lest you think that
eternal rest
will best
them voices,
they will accompany you
to permafrost of forever dark,
their once and future demise,
a travesty of
justice…

enough.

lists of to do’s;
the exercise of delaying death
for one more day,
by trodding on the treadmill
that postpones the inevitable
that can
always tun longer and faster
and cannot be outdone, outrun,
but
this poem
disgorged and disbanded,
it’s bytes,
will not bite mark me
in the forever future
their bytes are alive now,
free to be chomped and well chewed,
and once fully digested,
be return to our Mother
Earth

where some disclaimed poems
go to be buried
within it’s eternity
seasons are in an annual transitional mode
bright shades of summer now fast disappear
making way for autumn hues to explode

upon the tree branches mellow tones appear
russets deep browns and liquid amber tones
bright shades of summer now fast disappear

a time of recess where growth postpones
the waste of warmer days drifting around
russets deep browns and liquid amber tones

in the mornings lingering mists abound
gone are summer's brilliant blue tinges
the waste of warmer days drifting around

as months roll by winter's white impinges
a change in shade sits upon the land
gone are summer's brilliant blue tinges

the cycle of color patterns are never bland
a change of shade sits upon the land
seasons are in an annual transitional mode
making way for autumn hues to explode
Jack Jan 2018
Fighting his fight,
Try as he might,
Beaten black and blue,
All because of you.

Life rotting him to his core,
All his body painfully sore,
His losing battle he fought,
Without help of any sort.

He shakes, struggling to cope,
Losing all his youthful hope,
Our silent warrior, making no fuss,
Postpones his fighting just to save us.
Why can't you save anyone? this is based on a close friend of mine who regularly suffers in silence. He is not alone and he will no longer have to  fight on his own. Stay safe and protect your people. JY x
Wk kortas Oct 2017
There is, I admit, no small attraction in the possession
Of the wand--but invariably that becomes obsession,
For magic bewitches all it touches, and woe to the man
Who, having discerned its methods and secrets, believes he can
Employ it yet stay unfettered and unscathed, without effect,
(As if the mere claim of enchantment would not make one suspect
Both the man and his motives), all sweet fruit without bitter rind.
Such men may find the verdict of peers and gods to be unkind,
(There exists no single point in time we fail to comprehend
That no simple act of wizardry postpones our mortal end)
For who among us remains impervious to Nature’s whims
Or time’s ravages--our concentration wanes, the eyesight dims,
Our hands shake, every bit as unsteady as our convictions.
So we carry on, with our exceptions and contradictions
Expertly hidden, in the hopes that, at least for a short while,
We can offset, through the employment of parlor tricks and guile,
The diminution of our gifts, fading of our faculties.
So, as we reach our denouement, what have our abilities
Brought us in the end, save the knowledge that our reputations,
No matter how great, serve as no match for our limitations?
Cana Feb 2023
They're gathering
Theses shadowed dwellers
from places that hurt the eye, to peer into

They twist and writhe in my throat,
stabbing their sharpness into my brain
merciless, unfeeling.

What banishes such indomitable spirits?
sleep? postpones their march
Marty Mar 2018
Oh rounded feet, which way shall thy lead the heart tonight. Shall it be the coldest of colds that brings forth a river of red. Shall it be the warmth of swaddling arms that nurture the soul. In thine ears the raven brings forth the darkest answers and final peace.  Freeing the soul from the broken glass that pierces the bottom of the feet. The darkness brings forth a gentle breeze from flying soil, ending thy pain with a long nights sleep.  Yet the arms reach out, pulling back the *****. A tiny glimmer of light teases the heart and cracks the eye. Thy strong beast doest deliver a mighty blow. From heavens window, and upon a strong shoulder the wounded heart swooshes away. Even for a moment the love prevails and postpones the suns final farewell. The end of the day ticks closer, yet its further away. Oh my friend shall i stay?
Devon Brock Jul 2019
Blind slouched friar on a slow mule
that through ford and thicket sure-hooved
loafs on to a deaf peasant shack whose eyes
crackle afire in a sprectrum unseen to the seeing
and the friar feels the heat in his fingertips
reads the braille of himself in the scars
on the mumbling one's tools, hovel blunted,
dull, splintered hatchets and soft hammers
that never found a brick to stack against the wind.
The blind one in the deaf one finds
one full moment where a bread and a hot sip
of slack water postpones the ever-fording.
leechyna Feb 2022
Others crave for money dust
She craves for the ultimate touch from him
She is ready to pay the price
But he never needed all this
He only wanted the usual gal
Who used to ask where to *** and when to see🤤

Maybe he never ordered premium type
Now he only postpones days🥲🥲😮‍💨

— The End —