"prattle" poems
Oh Language, where hast thou hid thyself?
Thy once-bright spires decline to dust.
The calm, well-reasoned flow of wisdom
a bygone memory. I’ll not trust
these tween-to-twenty-something’s prattle;
endless babble of self-absorption
centered in pleasure-maximizing:
narcissistic thought-abortion.
Dude—they’re SO not app’ed for language
used by dad ten years ago.
I’m totally DONE with their, like, verbiage
They’re all: Smartphone Teenage Show.
It’s just, like, TALKING—without words
in language ghettos; texting proud . . .
Their lack of precision offends my brain—
They ought to be ashamed (out loud).
Vygotsky’s vaunted Z.P.D,
and Bakhtin’s heteroglossic crack
along with Roland Barthe’s pet parrot
Are SO like totally talking smack.
Oct 4, 2015
Oct 4, 2015 at 3:00 PM UTC
Star wars pen
Not again
Will you leave me alone
I count the sheep
I need to sleep
Its only 3 am
I hear you shout
I hear you beg
Is this in my head
Super whacky
Almost tacky
Awesome prattle said
Liberated empty head
Drain like a kitchen sink
You **** my words
A whole lot more
You really make me think
No more games
I care no more
Cause I went and brought you
I have no clue
What I will do
When I put your pen to paper
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 3:36 AM UTC
December 2005; January
2006, Summer that year.
2008 round the middle - no not the crash.
2009, yes the muddle.
Tell me about how May 2010
was axed by December 2010.
Palm, palm, date palm, ash cloud.
February, April, August 2011 and
that dreaded December.
last grasp of the kite string,
off goes the dreamed of high
far far away the anchor moorings
when transmission stopped, all white
noise since then, empty
prattle chatter of the key board,
two millennia and counting thirteen, fourteen,
fifteen, march, October, March!
January 2016. A new landing.
Jan 14, 2016
Jan 14, 2016 at 4:09 PM UTC
The picturesque glow from the full moon enkindles youthful swooning and yearning; orotund voices rising above prattle conversation yield celestial affirmations in conjunction with analogous, supernal relations
Full acceptance of the shimmering stars sacrosanct messages coruscating through the sky - fulsome oracular expressions instilling mesmerizing past-life recollections.
Dec 6, 2014
Dec 6, 2014 at 10:56 AM UTC
What is home without our daughter?
What then of all those folk we meet?
When her dimpled smile no longer
Brightens the coming of our feet?
Days drag onward, long nights grow drear
As time so coldly marches on;
And how we miss her golden cheer!
When now those carefree days are gone.
Things we prize are quick to vanish,
Fond hearts we love to pass away;—
And how soon, e'en in life's sorrow
Yearn we for noisy hours to stay.
Eyes grow sad, fades life's brief glow,
For golden days longtime have passed,
And it breaks mother's heart to know—
Gay childhood's day is o'er at last.
Many folk bemoan their trifles,
Trivial things to pass away,
But a daughter lost to childhood
Breaks the heart from day to day.
Laid away tired broken toys;
Her babyish prattle, antics past;
Upon these times we miss her noise.
She has turned a woman at last.
~Hilda~
Nov 9, 2012
Nov 9, 2012 at 4:38 PM UTC
453
Love—thou art high—
I cannot climb thee—
But, were it Two—
Who know but we—
Taking turns—at the Chimborazo—
Ducal—at last—stand up by thee—
Love—thou are deep—
I cannot cross thee—
But, were there Two
Instead of One—
Rower, and Yacht—some sovereign Summer—
Who knows—but we’d reach the Sun?
Love—thou are Veiled—
A few—behold thee—
Smile—and alter—and prattle—and die—
Bliss—were an Oddity—without thee—
Nicknamed by God—
Eternity—
3.7k
The Pansies curtsied deeply, in their flouncy purple dress,
To the yellow Jonquils; and then only to impress.
And Amaryllis hides her newly naked-lady stem,
But her bouffant clothing opens, at each thrill of puffing wind.
The Bluebell always bows her head, when saying any grace,
Though Iris has Apollo's tears, fresh on her upturned face;
While Daffodil has sunshine, in her ringing petticoats-
Poor Honeysuckle is quite gone; all eaten up by goats.
Jun 28, 2010
Jun 28, 2010 at 6:42 AM UTC
The world is indeed flat.
When we fell
from the star
into the box,
shades of amber colored the walls.
People were like sheep,
following the flock.
In their stupid
uniforms
until they crashed
face first into the side
dazed disoriented dizzy.
We followed them and
the box
became smaller.
We started walking
like them,
talking
like them.
And our prattle
echoed
and
hopped,
bleating
from corner to corner.
Apr 14, 2014
Apr 14, 2014 at 6:46 PM UTC
You mumblers and raspers
Of resp'rat'ry rattle:
Open your throats!
Forsake ye! the gaspers,
You quoters of cattle
And prattle of goats!
Or lay ye with horses
Whose tongue ne'er divorces
Those ivory choppers,
Those sibilant stoppers;
You lispers: beware,
Whether stallion or mare,
While you nibble your oats!
Stop your speech-stumbling!
Go suckle an udder
You dizzy, damp calfs!
Restrain your talk-tumbling,
And swallow your stutter
Nor utter foul laughs!
You outspoken nags
Mimic bolt-broken stags
As you bleed allegations
Down paths of my patience
And clatter your antlers;
What heavy-hoofed ranters
For no one's behalf!
Apr 1, 2014
Apr 1, 2014 at 5:06 PM UTC
All so very busy now I see
--
Drown the hurt
Drown the fear
--
Your love is WAY too temporary
To mean a thing!
---
Still you prattle on and on
----
Way to busy for me
---
Drown the hurt
Drown the fear
---
Your love is way too temporary
Way too full of shame
-----
So very busy now for me
--
The simple stranger you might see
The one who might see you there
May 15, 2013
May 15, 2013 at 9:14 PM UTC
Look at all the parrots--
Parroting the words
Of all the other parrots--
Of all the other birds--
Parroting profusely
All the same refrains--
Parroting the constant patter
In their parrot brains--
Parroting the preaching
From the pulpit to the pews--
Parroting their parents'
And their parents' parents' views--
Parroting their leaders
And their pompous platitudes--
Parroting their peers'
Pretentious attitudes--
Parroting the patriarchs'
Proselytizing that'll
Put your teeth on edge
With their pathetic prattle--
Parroting the poppycock
Of trite pontifications--
Parroting pernicious
And sly manipulations--
Parroting the pretty birds
Whose pageantry and glory
Appeal to their prurient tastes
In each pathetic story--
Parroting the songsters
With parasitic pleasure
And counting out the rhythm
Of every pitiful measure--
Parroting the powerful
Whose ploys are so profuse,
Leaving the powerless
Pummeled with abuse--
Parroting with passion
Presumptuous prophesies
With putative contrition,
"Humbly" on their knees--
Parroting themselves--
Together all in sync--
How they love to parrot
So they don't have to think!
- by Bob B
Oct 30, 2016
Oct 30, 2016 at 8:10 AM UTC
Sun of autumn, thin and shy
And fruit drops off the trees,
Blue silence fills the peace
Of a tardy afternoon’s sky.
Death knells forged of metal,
And a white beast hits the mire.
Brown lasses uncouth choir
Dies in leaves’ drifting prattle.
Brow of God dreams of hues,
Senses madness’ gentle wings.
Round the hill wield in rings
Black decay and shaded views.
Rest and wine in sunset’s gleam,
Sad guitars drizzle into night,
And to the mellow lamp inside
You turn in as in a dream.
2.7k
...and there’s no one there to hear it,
does it make a sound?
________________________
My poetry performed—
before a crowd of johnny-jump-ups
Their faces toward me in unison—
they listen
Intense, motionless energy
Velvet applause of purple and
Yellow yelling!
Encore
of performing in the perfume
with a troop of lilacs
They will remember me
While I— await their return to May
through billowing miles
of drowsing sachet
breathing euphorias
between the lingerie of clouds
What happens after ecstasy?
Grieving in life’s presence?
Loss of mind to self-possession?
_________________
...and when my sense of smell gives out
I will hold on for a while
to the walker of hearing
trying not to stumble past
the song of thrush
beyond me in the blurring leaves
once so clearly—
crinkled, shiny, and infant green….
_____________
As a child I held on to nothing
for dear life
I could cup a storm in my hands!
Could run with the rhythm of a horse!
I could fly in my mind’s eye
if the ferns I used were only wings!
If I pretended hard enough
I could eat my own home-baked mud pies!
If only I could be—
more than a fledgling of eight
so earthbound, clumsy
_____________
But while the lilacs were out of town
thunder met the flash
and gutted summer!
I ran for dear life!
from the amazing distance of its echoes
pelted by its gentle gift
Snagged by growing things—
the clinging prattle
of their momentous tendrils....
______________
Lovers run off the path
past water lilies
along the swollen veins to the river
toward a grave and pounding heart
The Ancient Flood was jealous....
Now when the wind softens
and rain is tossed
last, and only from the leaves
may their encore be cupped in the hands
of some passer-by
Remembering—
that either because of a trifling wind
or the weight of time...
a tree fell here
clubbing the river’s bank senseless
Sep 10, 2016
Sep 10, 2016 at 1:44 PM UTC
treacherously torrid and torrential torrents of totally tangential tumultuous tortuous ; tyrannically torturous adjunct viably salient seethe.
procrastinating pandemic plenipotentiary prosthesis ; prosaically pragmatic parenthetical predication predilection premise prognostication
panoramic tableau preternatural propensity proclivity prestidigitation gesticulation :
gyration guidon ; ghastly gruesome grotesque hideously horrible horrendous heinous
grotty gnarly
diabolically maniacal dementia brusque macabre abrupt
awful
amalgamated anathema analysis agnate aggregate aberrance
somatalogy virtuoso cognate obduracy
worse
rudiment ebullience , confluence effluent effusion affluent , prolific profusity opulence , cogent fecund secular secund , recondite redolence abstrusely obstreperous mesomerism resonance resilience
protractive perpetude futurity
blither blandishing blabber burnishing boresome blahs
lithe blithe jabber prattle chatter tithe
morose morsel moribundness
stolid stoic
stalwart bastion bulwark
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 5:45 PM UTC
I thought when I'd turn to moss,
- when i had left myself to root.
When I had laid me down at last,
Than I'd not miss you endlessly.
I did not know I'd find my soul
dancing lithely in a flame.
A spanish dancer I've become
flickering my reds and blues.
I jump from wick to match to ash
and dance my saraband, contritely.
Yet I thought that when I sighed so lastly
undone would neatly fold away
like origami boutonniere
I'd be pressed between your book
something that you'd heave to shelf
and only gather dust and time.
Regrets, it seems, don't like
to die. So
I'm left haunted by my haunting.
And had I known before I wept
that remonstration without intention
was leaving all the notes unsung
by leaving catching in my voice.
I am singing in the mountains, madly
about what does not skip in the fields
and what does not drip from the sapling...
For love does neither frolic gayly
as much endures beyond repentance.
and I am left, on pebble shores
forever with my sharp withholdings
Stubbornly I held onto them,
Now they cut my like small diamonds.
I am glass and they are listless
wasted, mindless, pointless prattle.
Remind me fresh our penalties for
All the love we do not spend.
Sahn
7/01/2014
Jul 1, 2014
Jul 1, 2014 at 11:14 PM UTC
Until I turned nineteen,
I never considered where I had been.
I couldn't be seen.
As I have never been on the scene.
Every morrow, I called out to my aunt
To express my love,
and welcome a cup of tea
That is dear to me.
"I hailed to thee,
Aunty, tea."
When she delays a little,
I became a prattle.
A mature lady smiles and places a cup of tea
What a great human is she!
As I had to traverse to another city,
I had to shift to a hostel that had no tea
Not a day did I receive
A mere cup of tea.
Every morrow, every eve,
All I yearn about is only her and I.
Like a mother, the love she showered.
Like a roe,
Neither did I apprehend
Nor did I reciprocate.
Here my mind does thoroughly replicate.
.... TEA....
Every morrow, every eve
I buy tea,
Just by paying the fee
which I used to get for free.
Not lovingly calling Aunty tea
But,
To an unrelated shopkeeper
Asking, 'Bhaiyah Tea'.
Apr 25, 2023
Apr 25, 2023 at 6:25 AM UTC
A lot of the kids I went to school
were so **** sure of themselves
they would prattle on about
how macro economics was their passion
or how a major in accounting
is their dream
and there's nothing wrong with that
but would your would be passion
be your passion if you were homeless?
if you were terminal
I'm talking like
one year left on the clock
is your passion what you'd still be pursuing?
so you have a passion?
then go out and get it
Mar 18, 2013
Mar 18, 2013 at 1:34 PM UTC
Unremitting prattle doesn't scratch the surface of message-deliverance.
Mar 22, 2015
Mar 22, 2015 at 12:10 AM UTC
1.
The old lady sits on the garden bench, a fixture,
from the days so far, colonial times to be precise,
thickly painted green, coat after coat,that covers up age,
after the incessant lashing of copious monsoon rains,this evening
the bench has a secret gleam, as if it's age has been washed away for ever.
2.
Her hair, resplendent silver;the children playing on the sand bed
in the open space in front of her bench, stand wondering:
far removed from realities familiar,she seemed,"Is she real?"
The old lady plays with a child that ran to her and embraced,
curious to touch her hair, happily it springs on to her lap,
her starched Sari gets crumpled,to it'smother
the old lady softly says"Don't bother children need space,
freedom and care, love his smile, don't want to see it wither"
3.
She looks at the flowerbed and smiles to herself,
as if she remembered her own dreams a day too far.
The old garden bench, senses a magic,with a start it wakes up
from it's slumber and begins to prattle,"Yes, it's really her,
remember the passion filled kisses she exchanged with her sweetheart,
when darkness came stealthily,like a crafty lover out to rob hearts,
right here on my lap, at a time love was a scent wafting low in the air
Where has he gone? I now wonder,a lot of monsoon clouds
burst up on me limitless quantities of water,after that"
4.
A wind so strong, like the hands of time ruffled
the leaves of the giant banyan tree,that stood sentinel,
leaves started a cheerful dance, reminiscent of the play of life*
Perhaps the night the death waiting on the wings is little disappointed.
Dec 1, 2015
Dec 1, 2015 at 8:12 AM UTC
I can remember a time
being warm felt so nice.
Then my heart turned to stone-
and my soul turned to ice.
My spirit's stripped away
as my blood runs cold.
My body cast aside
to grow weary and old.
The man you see before you-
is but a hollow shell.
The essence that it housed
already ****** to hell.
With nothing left to live for-
With no reason left to pray-
This soulless, hollow, empty shell-
still stalls another day.
So while you live your lives-
of gossip and senseless prattle,
remember everyone you meet
Is fighting a harder battle.
Jun 25, 2010
Jun 25, 2010 at 5:21 PM UTC
stone ground mustard Venus burns. She's not concerned that constant falling
and orbits, elliptical - are the same thing.
Her eyes are deaf. My eyes adapt to the pattern
that rattles the chain of events.
my Spartan theories dangle in dubiousness.
I find a trap, and call it Seattle... for i see cattle -
grazing a state of mind; north, north west of what God meant.
washing tons of pocket lint by hand.
chewing their cud
in the dark. meanwhile - outside the ranch...
My eyes refract. ***** and un-twink in the black lacquer that came -
with the oblique miracle. they sustain things that would sunder a doll-eyed bovine
to ever breach The Fence.
my hardened arteries jangle like numinous. I pine and snap ruinous barbs from Death's
prattle... for i see battle, razing the Grace of Time
more at war, than at our best. more -
bereft of what Reason defends.
tossing guns at bullets
by telekinesis.
[ undefined ]
i come from where i've never been. you were there. and ewe were there; fleeced and bleating
in the snow that fell as soon as shearing ceased. i recall, you were never there. but remember
passing you by... shilling an ocean roar you swore you'd plucked from a Seashell -
salvaged from the divine dry sockets of Poseidon's skull.
you were hawking your unawares. i played a flute made of question marks and glass drum skins.
i went where my stride was inclined, and never where i went to.
i never arrived by approaching the destination. only by always being somewhere else
till i got there. i came from where i'd never been and -
ain't been Nowhere since.
but i'm sure i pass
through There
ever since.
Aug 6, 2013
Aug 6, 2013 at 3:12 PM UTC
That's
Nonsense!
That's
beans!
babble!
bunkum!
bogus!
baloney!
blither!
blather!
blah blah!
********
balderdash!
blarney!
********
That's
crapola!
claptrap!
codswallop!
That's
drivel!
That's
fiddlesticks!
flapdoodle!
frippery!
folderol!
That's
guff
garbage
gibberish!
gobbledygook!
That's
horse hockey!
hocus-pocus!
hokum!
hogwash!
humbug!
hooey!
humdrum!
That's
jibber-jabber!
jive!
jazz!
That's
malarkey!
mumbo-jumbo!
monkeyshines!
That's
Nuts!
That's
poppycock!
piffle!
prattle!
That, sir, is
******* and
RIGMAROLE!
That's
trash
tripe
and
twaddle
That, sir, is
NONSENSE!
Mar 14, 2015
Mar 14, 2015 at 7:09 PM UTC
Life is the prattle of an old lady.
She squawks either too loudly
or makes you crane to hear.
as she sits rocking,
her senile nonsense numbs your intelligence
until you sit bleary-
gaping at the air
like the fattest fish in the aquarium.
your every comment drowns
in the mush
of her tapioca voice.
you sit uncomfortably in her fishbowl world of
cottage cheese,
faded floral print- lace doilies
and contemplate your deft superiority
as her denture clicks gnaw on your sanity.
as soon as you think
a vague plotline surfaces in her mumbling
a new great aunt’s third cousin’s baby
weaves its way into the conversation,
and you are hopelessly thrown
like a reused dryer sheet
back into the colored load.
occasionally you attempt to establish a connection
between you and the venerable wrinkled smile
but she mishears and begins another
disconnected strain
featuring Bobby, the lad turned soldier.
but
just
as soon as you gain confidence
that you know how to handle this doddery senior-
she slams you with a small token
of sage advice
that shatters your naïve sphere
with its mind-wrenching validity.
Nov 21, 2013
Nov 21, 2013 at 9:10 PM UTC
Taunt, firm, ***** and pleasing fair
and warm amidst the cool night air.
A drop of breast milk is expressed
to please the one who loves it best.
He who waits with undisguised pleasure
to **** upon it at his leisure.
Relax, this is no **** spawned prattle
Just baby Rob and his Two A.M. bottle.
Apr 19, 2014
Apr 19, 2014 at 6:45 AM UTC
”Tell me about love.”
I can define it,
I can recommend books,
I can list the symptoms and effects,
I can prattle off agape, philios, storge and eros.
I can recite a poem, or a sonnet by Shakespeare,
but
I
can’t
describe
it.
“Tell me about loss.”
I can see it,
I can observe it,
I can sympathize with it,
I can parrot motivational phrases,
I can list coping mechanisms and techniques,
but
I
can’t
mean
it.
“Tell me about life.”
I live it,
I know of it,
I can speak of its origins,
I can tell stories of its endings,
I can watch it go by, try to find meaning in it,
but
I
can’t
embrace
it.
Nov 27, 2014
Nov 27, 2014 at 7:36 PM UTC