"predecessors" poems
“Moby **** Herman Melville
<•>
~for the lost at sea~
after a year of saltwater absence and abstinence,
return to the island caught between two land forks
surrounded by river-heading flows
bound for the ocean great joining
the Atlantic welcomes the fresh water fools,
bringing with them hopefully, but hopeless gifts of obeisances,
peace-offerings endeavoring to keep their infinite souls
sea accepts them then drowns the
warm newcomers in the unaccustomed
deep cold salinity, which
sometimes erodes
sometimes preserving
their former freshwater cold originality
I’m called to depart my beach shoreline unarmed,
no kayak, sunfish or glass bottomed boat needed,
walk on water and my toes, ten eyes to see the bottom,
no depth perception limitation,
reading the floor’s topography,
millions of minion’s stories infinite,
many Munch screaming
god’s foot, heavy upon my shoulders,
a daytime travel guide, hired for me,
not a friendly travel companion, nope,
God a pusher showing off a drug called deep water salvation,
designated for the masses, can handle large parties
my in-camera brain eyes,
record everything for playback -
the lost and unburied, bone crossword puzzles
walk shore to ship, on soles to souls,
is this my new-summer nature welcome back greeting?
puzzled at the awesomeness of vastness,
conclude this clarification for me of the occluded-deep,
is a stern reminder of my insignificant existence,
my requirement to walk humbly, spare my sin of vanity, and
forgive my trespasses upon the lives of others
perhaps then the infinite of my soul perchance restored,
older visions clarified and future poems
will write themselves
and sea to it my predecessors
be better remembered
Memorial Day 2018
May 28, 2018
May 28, 2018 at 11:53 AM UTC
From Alan Lomax to the commercial art and now the money machine.
At the turn of the century; when sound recording 1st became available to the masses, recording a song was an opportunity for folk to reach out; and tell the world something up front and personal.
It meant that people were able to put themselves on “The record” A way of leaving a permanent audio statement, an epitaph, an audio sound bite immortalising ~ life, mood, emotion captured and bottled for all eternity.
(A medium that conveyed messages from artists and storytellers of all kinds)
A recording was also a great addition to "The family album" something more tangible, a window to a real person, with a real life, a message and a point of view; a legacy, a blast from the past.
Few people expected sound prints to be re-designed, homogenised, formulated, copied, repackaged and that art and the message would be played over and over again by new artists in the form of "cover music" or that the style of the messages would become secularized, seperated into distinctive groups, or constrained by an elite clique or commercial genre.
Labelling and streamlining art & music mostly benefits the commercial art & music industry; and no longer the artists and creators.
I've no problem with good business, or the multi-billion pound industrys that have gained commercial success.
However the process of mass homogenisation, product synthesis, marketing, streamlining and then packaging fashion, sound and synthetic culture to sell a product, leaves very little room for creative people to just be creative.
A medium originally open to many for self expression, a historical record, an archive, a voice, a personal message;
Is now just a vehicle for advertising and perpetuating a genre of nonsense, so much so that there is now more white noise immortalised than messages.
To re-cap ~ I Think that creativity and expressionism; like story telling conveys moods and messages from the present and past!
Artists and musicians should have the opportunity to create and produce more information than they copy; thus creating a richer more colourful tapestry, whilst not devaluing the message of their predecessors!
Purcy Flaherty.
Jan 9, 2018
Jan 9, 2018 at 10:38 AM UTC
Ebola! Ebola! Ebola!
you are only hunting in the exhausted fields,
you predecessors have done evil marvel in this land
Africa's sons and daughter were heavily taken away
in slave raid, colonial rampage two world wars, cancer
and *** aids, Ebola you must be ashamed to come here,
are you as foolish as lioness that must follow the path
initially taken by her husband the lion?
Ebola Africa is dead tired and lain forlorn
by strange diseases not known by it
but only named in the land of their cradle
where *** was born in the Irish Laboratory
on trial and error to decimate Africa's populations
in the racially biased arsenal you have also come
you fangled teeth a bare menace to each of us
you make us bleed from out body holes,
blood oozing out like Nile water from lake Victoria
Ebola! Ebola! sympathy is not a vice, but heavenly
virtue, only protege of the Godly please be sympathetic
to Africa the orphan of the classic times with no succour
her wounds of Cancer are fresh and fresh as those obnoxites
from the nasty Aids aka *** kindly empathize with Africa
you have eaten Mali and Nigeria after Congo Kinshasa
you are now in Kenya the neighbor of Sudan
the last born of Africa already rendered forlorn
by the AK 47 and AK 74, shot in the tribal tremors
O! Ebola Ebola! my prayer to you is as brief
as that; forgive me for my weird mourning
of my brothers and sister in death mongering
mandibles so ugly and Abysmal like
Gehenna of Jesus Christ, Amen!
Oct 22, 2014
Oct 22, 2014 at 7:47 PM UTC
(from “A Love Song” by William Carlos Williams)
<•>
familiar that apple google and amazon
have me under 24 hour surveillance
e-specially now
as I am in their
geosphere of influence
but sending me a love poem of WCWs that isolates my locale, my intended inebriation status,
and is addressed to me personally (“you”),
that’s just creepy
so charged am I, obligated to oblige,
to counter-compose a love song of mine own,
under the pinot “influence,”
(in a manner of speaking)
which a love taught me to love
what if,
a new love song ecrit,
to an old and loverly land,
a woman-land designed to be desired,
no difference -
kissing a new girl first time,
a wet and unforgettable
compote
when falling
on the neck of your one beloved anew renewed
now I tremble-tread
for the line of great predecessors,
“the land lover scribes”
skilled in natures homaging,
is like a line out the door,
around the corner as if
a new flavor ice cream
has just been isolated and mined and I...
<•>
*I,
but a novitiate
in a far away, wild untamed world
where my nature taken by her nature
cannot deny paying my just due:
selvage
late middle English, from self + edge
how perfect!
“an edge,
woven on a fabric during manufacture,
intended to prevent unraveling”
the pacific coast air
the irregular shoreline - expanding/receding,
god’s own forestry reserve,
the cascades, a goal on the horizon,
country roads where ancient wheat stalks grow wild
all a tonic intermingled, an alcohol to
imbibe through mouth nostrils eyes and skin
all will be my own selvage!
preventing the eastern unraveling disease,
a nearly incurable permafrost low grade
kate spaded infection,
brought along with me for decades,
my loon June companion, now stalling out,
lost from my happy head
a vineyard on every corner,
marijuana growing next door,
rivers that change like children growing up and down,
cheek to jowled property line
live the berries and the hazelnut groves,
god’s hay bales wrapped in plastic
like marshmallows dotting the landscape*
all daring you to say
I could
love
it here
Jun 8, 2018
Jun 8, 2018 at 3:26 PM UTC
Ebola
Ebola! Ebola! Ebola!
you are only hunting in the exhausted fields,
you predecessors have done evil marvel in this land
Africa's sons and daughter were heavily taken away
in slave raid, colonial rampage two world wars ,cancer
and *** aids, Ebola you must be ashamed to come here,
are you as foolish as lioness that must follow the path
initially taken by her husband the lion?
Ebola Africa is dead tired and lain forlorn
by strange diseases not known by it
but only named in the land of their cradle
where *** was born in the Irish Laboratory
on trial and error to decimate Africa's populations
in the racially biased arsenal you have also come
you fangled teeth a bare menace to each of us
you make us bleed from out body holes,
blood oozing out like Nile water from lake Victoria
Ebola ! Ebola ! sympathy is not a vice , but heavenly
virtue, only protege of the Godly please be sympathetic
to Africa the orphan of the classic times with no succour
her wounds of Cancer are fresh and fresh as those obnoxites
from the nasty Aids aka *** kindly empathize with Africa
you have eaten Mali and Nigeria after Congo Kinshasa
you are now in Kenya the neighbor of Sudan
the last born of Africa already rendered forlorn
by the AK 47 and AK 74 , shot in the tribal tremors
O! Ebola Ebola ! my prayer to you is as brief
as that; forgive me for my weird mourning
of my brothers and sister in death mongering
mandibles so ugly and Abysmal like
Gehenna of Jesus Christ, Amen !
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 4:59 AM UTC
/*h'americans can call it a striptease, but in amsterdam, with legal self-employed prostitutes? we call it a cocktease: because you'd really visit amsterdam for the **** these days?*
isabella: the french psychology
exchange student -
hung up on her ex-boyfriend -
really in anime movies -
and that american i competed
with on an edinburgh pub-crawl
for freshers -
and lost my virginity to -
probably the only time
i had the ontological parameters
of your atypical man -
"hunting", competing -
oh so, so, enthralling....
(spot the irony mingling with
ridicule, when people "know"
how the modern man behaves,
with his caveman predecessors:
dragging a woman
by the hair type of cartoonish
depiction) -
the other fun time i've had
encounters with h'americans
was in Soho -
two colts, texan tourists asking
for directions,
or where this or that place was...
it almost warmed my heart
hearing that twang
of the tongue...
perhaps someone from arizona?
that has that - "mid" western
twang of the tongue
added to the bite...
snub the Boston high-mind
eloquence, like:
you really really want
to sound european...
never mind...
people say that water is tasteless...
hmm...
so last night i was heating
up one arm of scissors...
and sniffing it...
then licked the other arm of the scissor...
what's in water again?
minerals... a subtle presence...
magnesium, potassium, iron...
you name it...
so yeah... water is... "tasteless"...
eisenzahn that i am.
Jul 25, 2018
Jul 25, 2018 at 12:04 PM UTC
"Poetry is confession, obsession, reflection.
Empathic minds, valentines, hope divined.
It's a kiss, whispered sweetly" (2)
who needs challenges, commissions.
kicks~in~le butte~
when heaven heaves rains, one downs tall orders in
short shot glass verses, which glossed over at its
first communion(cation,
come back
months later
to subtract - another
poem from where it lay dormant
on the doormat
of my sub~sub~terranes
of my diluted subconscious au natured dry & rugged terrain
a favored poet,
a secretive admirer,
whoa~whose~her truthful name, I've yet to uncover,
but whose one true soul inspires me repeatedly,
ana~lyrically licks me into
dredging from me
un begrudgingly
and yet,
another love poem,
she herself wrote when elixiring (commentating (3))
'pon one of mine,
a long long time ago
Alas! Alack!
unnaturally immodest,
one concedes,
when obviously a Super~Woman!-cedes,
seeds in three verses, what I could never unknot
nor uncover
so I requite & requote with
unlabored pleasure
miz patty m's
primary terse verse,
neither secondary & never tertiary,
her absolut perfect mixed drink
defining, summarizing,
the essences of love
*"(Love) Poetry is confession, obsession, reflection.
Empathic minds, valentines, hope divined.
It's a kiss, whispered sweetly"*
I concede, in deed,
and in writing,
I know nothing,
of writing
of only love poetry
and all the great predecessors,
elsewhere lyricized, named and tabulated,
by yet another women, (1)
I will take my weary words elsewhere,
and if
perhaps,
disguised as a woman,
(Natalie, Natasha, Natali
see note below)
perhaps my verbal herbal insides,
my turgid insights,
will be shorter, sweeter,
but never more completer
than those of,
who can syncopate it
in rhyme
and the naming of my
predilection,
by mid~initial,
will give a measuring
of solace, and
a kiss and hug from my mirrored selfie,
having been unsuccessful at
my one chosen endeavor,
only love poetry,
adieu,
I, due,
utter
Nevermore
M>
Sep 2, 2025
Sep 2, 2025 at 3:38 PM UTC
Junk the ancient rules of thought by which our predecessors fought
Their clashing minds did throw a spark that scorched the world and wreaked the dark
Let no science fix our path if only numbers make its math
Our brains will run will surely see on some sweeter philosophy
Until beneath a quite sky atop the rubble we will stand and finally demystify the message in fate's reprimand
Even an atomic blast can't rub the future from the past
If with incinerated grace we still become the human race.
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 11:50 AM UTC
If a world is known by its ideals
Let mine be known as sanity
Let all men be infertile
And all women, stale
Let streets be known for sanitation
And all babies dipped in chlorine
All talk, sterile and sufficient
All excrement concealed
Let the youth of my predecessors
And their mocking vulgarity
Drown in a town of minimal design
And shocking similarity.
Sep 6, 2014
Sep 6, 2014 at 6:40 PM UTC
armed and dangerous, 20 oz. of hot hot coffee, tablet on lap,
sitting on the deck overlooking the bay, and once again,
unusual for me, I am touched by the sanctity of the serenity
pervading, assuaging, by waves just loud enough to sway to,
the off/on chatter of the early bird's convocation of the morning's
blessing, have survived another night to greet greatly the outlines
of loveliness in the all~of~surroundings, which hacks my brain,
for I am by forty years of habitation more accustomed to a rough and tumble city boy trader, screamer of:
buy/sell/straddle/strangle/crush/kill/mercilessness, no quarter,
no mindfulness in me naturally, until nature robs my tools of
denial, and I smell the sanctity of fresh sheets laid on bed, the
warmed blood, vein coursing, suggesting just listen, listen,
the hot shower water eradicating the prior day's sinfulness,
the highly valued sensations of sensational emptiness, and
words drifting from the surround movie theater of a vista beloved,
coming for to fill and fulfill this always~in~mourning soul by the
overhauling of a crisp, cleansing day break
I, familiar with notions of perpetuity, and at best, conceptual, though
my mind permits a drift to the thoughtfulness that this place, this moment, this performance art of spectacular breathing of another
dawning day, after thousands upon thousand of its predecessors,
and the possibility, not remote, but not promised, to anyone, just may
occur at least once more, and one must learn contentment from but
that idea, and sip the cooling dregs of coffee, the sounds of human
interference, car door slamming, the heaving breathing of morning joggers, the wind rising, the white caps snapping, precursors and
signs that natural perfection is never permanent, always in transition,
and a whispery smile crosses my cheeks, as a silly thought invades,
nature is so very human~like and yet, immortal…
composed between 6:30 and 8:30 am this day
Wed Aug 20 twenty twenty-five
Silver Beach
Aug 20, 2025
Aug 20, 2025 at 8:34 AM UTC
I slept with her, my rapacious pen, took me in quiet vengeance in
full on conjugation
raken and taken, me,
her overlording me now, her authorship, so long held
in my maledom abeyance,
a kept imprisonment, unleashing at last, a tongue lashing~leashing,
de-spite my un-desirous craven lying supplications,
excuses of innocence and accident, coincidence and conflation,
ashes, ashes, denials incinerated, all fall down
she wrote/stabbed upon my heartless chest,
in the cheap crudités colors of a prisoner’s inking,
“user of words mine, all mine”
gathered up my innards of loose words,
speculative notes & titles yet to be,
born and kept hid in password protected silent back labor files,
now hers, leaving me sputtering, unable to create,
a homeless mute citizen, possession-less,
helplessly hoping her hovering harlequin might relent,
without any shelter, even a glimmering, a single aleph or bet
she celebratory cackled and clawed,
professed her reclamation ownership of all my poems predecessors,
zola j’accusing that I, ripped from her forcibly,
with no granted permission, her womanly touché of my scribing,
warning of no more global warming for my unprivileged hands,
daren’t try for pretenses of stolen legal guardianship,
warning of a new, forced caining inscription,
a tattooing of “thief” upon my 5 knuckled right ******
“plagiarist” boldly inked in back & blue upon my left palm
I, predator,
she, victim,
of my now self-professed, admitted confess,
she, my single victim,
of a decade long serializing criminal coverup
her parting poem a threatening,
herein issued in this very verse,
damning all who would falsely credit themselves,
to suffer shame and an unimaginable curse,
this, the newborn eleventh of ten commandments
parting, she kissing my lips, even my emptied apertures,
with warning bitings,
she knew all my
my numerous noms de guerre,
no dead scrolls caves to hid in, and to be discovered some future day,
and if ever marked as copyrighted,
’twas no tunneling escape,
the exposed truth to be over-stamped
upon all, upon each, in every language,
”copied right from the tongue of a woman!”
and she would be wright...
May 23, 2019
May 23, 2019 at 10:10 AM UTC
Pradip is newborn (impossible wisdom)
“a new day, a new chance for my soul... to heed
a small voice ... to give flowers, to plant new seeds.
to not trample on wildflowers and unwanted weeds...” Sally
“Sweet baby
with your head on my shoulder
I'm no more growing older...” Pradip
~
the unpredictability and randomness of the winds,
seed carriers, of small voices, yearning to be heard,
powerless in appearance only, for within are powers superior heroic,
who can grow others who can feed
who can sustain multiple living creatures
each seed unique, a poem composed and complete,
authored by precedents, authorized by predecessors,
utilizing the cocoon of soil and sun,
rainwater from space and deep driven to
the clear milk of underground railroad rivers,
to give nurture to its revisional generational code
these new children of an old mix,
are quiet lifesavers giving proofs positive,
that those who will one day grow old,
with deep gnarled roots, are most capable
of finding ways of manufacturing fresh youth whim within,
to those who give babies homage, in attendance
this then the newborn miracle, the new seed,
wind borne, replants itself in old soil,
taking but more so giving,
injecting bits of vitality into its arterial ancestry,
how can this be?***
*I do not know the why or the how,
but am evidence of the therefore,
and the thereafter, of impossible wisdom*
7:07am 4-5-19 a newborn poem for poetry passing grandparents
Apr 5, 2019
Apr 5, 2019 at 7:19 AM UTC
No matter what I do
theres always something
I want more
Like a camera
or a trip
or even just something
just a little bit better
than what I have, even if its older, because
sometimes things
of old are
so much better
than the new,
like how I look at
These cameras I dream of
in stores, in
flea markets,
I hold their predecessors,
their grandfathers
and feel the cold calm
of the metal body
in my hands, and know that
things just aren’t built this way any
more, and people
aren’t what they used to be, or
so it seems,
from the history classes
and all the books
I read, about life
before it was my time
and how people seemed
to give a ****
and didn’t just sit
and whine
and waste so much time,
but how did they live
before Facebook
how could they
fall in love without
Tinder,
or read the news without
Twitter
or pass their classes without
google on their Androids in their laps to pass the answers on the test before them?
So I guess they were just tougher
than us, like these old cameras
I want, and they
didn’t want, like we
want to pretend we need
so we don’t have to accept
what’s right in front of us.
Our excuse that
We need to wait for film
To develop.
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 8:39 PM UTC
villainous intentions it seems
i've been through the streams of trauma
tf u mean
working hard to correct my mistakes
being born to a household of lies
seemed like my fate
i realize how to ascend
but i'm stuck in the past
i don't know how to mend
these people bleeding in my arteries project & inject since the start of me
they went through the same thing
but so many excuses
as to why they can't evolve and be free
but they don't realize it
they numb themselves of their destiny
they throw their pain out onto humanity
i realize how it's so ****** up
that their childhood trauma got them ****** up
leading into adulthood and the rest of their lives
it seems
projecting their hatred and pain onto their offspring
i have to be stronger and more aware than my predecessors
and i notice how a lot of ppl in my life were the stressors
it's no wonder our generation is tired
bc we've carried the weight of the liars
yes they're liars, bc they lie to themselves
how they're a good person and they've done us well
******** i call, they've ignored for far too long
as i sit here crying, i realize that i'm strong
Jul 8, 2018
Jul 8, 2018 at 5:12 PM UTC
If you build a wooden statue of my father,
I will break it down to pieces to build a home
and light a fire to warm my freezing wife.
If you leave food offerings for my mother,
I will collect and cook them to provide a feast
that will feed my hungry son.
If you commemorate a pond for my ancestors,
I will draw multiple buckets to cleanse wounds
and offer water to my thirsty daughter.
If you ***** a golden statue in my memory,
I will instruct my predecessors to smelt me down
into small pieces and spread wealth to my family.
If you wish to remember good souls and actions,
celebrate them by giving to those in need.
Apr 8, 2016
Apr 8, 2016 at 2:54 PM UTC
Too long I've rested upon my throne.
Ordained as ruler,
I wield a sceptre
imbued with old indoctrinated notions.
Bound in aged, tired traditions.
Obstinacy clasped tight within my fingers.
Living by the
foundations laid,
imposed by predecessors before.
I realise that I am but caged
within my self enforced confines.
I want what lays beyond...
But I am afraid...
And more...
I must embrace the unknown.
Be fearless...
And take to the darkness.
Because...
One can only fly free into greatness
if one is unafraid to take the leap
into changing winds.
Dec 18, 2015
Dec 18, 2015 at 8:30 PM UTC
I was once told to edit the world. I grabbed my colored pencils, my childish ideals thinking I could simply, go over the imperfections left by my predecessors. Soon I would come to realize, life is no etchy-sketch. I could shake the world, twist, mold into anything I wanted. It’s still ****** up. I’m still trying to color the problems. I shade the unwanted, masking it over so I can pretend it’s gone. My day dreams continue further as I sketched over past memories, just want to edit the world. But, colored pencils become daggers when in the right hands. I’ve leaped into this idea with no plan, Standard american wisdom. Act first, question later. my first action should have been to ask, is the world a canvas? Maybe it’s a kindergarden sandbox, 5 year old fists and 6 year olds toes smash and pound through. Maybe it’s a thunderstorm because, I was told life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. All I’ve seen is dark clouds and lighting. Maybe the world is me. Poetic angst without fail, too much energy to use, to many words spoken at a rapid pace. Maybe the world is you, you, or you. It’s not just its own story, it’s a combination of auto-biographies still being written. Maybe... Just maybe, we are all editors. The world is constantly being edited, no single person should aim to do it themselves. Our world is force, a group, a team, a family taking the pens from our mothers and fathers, writing our chapters into the guide on how to edit. Sooner rather than later, we’ll pass our pens down to those who will write the chapters we never get to see. Hopefully, 5 year old fists and 6 year old toes become 20 year old champions and 30 year old heroes. We can share our stories, filled with the people we’ll never forget, and the nights, we can’t seem to remember. In the end, editing the world will never finished, it can be forgotten. We hope shedding sun rays on a rainy day, might convince our successors to never forget. Sadly, We can only hope they wish to edit.
Oct 29, 2012
Oct 29, 2012 at 7:42 PM UTC
sound and noise-
two chapters of the same book.
Sound: the quiet ripening of music notes over wind, or the fluttering of bird and butterfly wings.
Noise: the static between radio stations, gun fire, weeping.
There would be no such thing as the overlooked if there wasn't anything highlighted, and so I would not be writing about our neglect of sadness unless there were such a thing as happiness.
young love and youth and destruction and dreams are all noise, all left in the shadows of their more bright, elder predecessors.
And we mistaken noise for sound more often than not, which makes the ability to hear a blessing and a curse.
For we mistaken a teen's cries as a sign of teen angst, or a mother's book of rules as a restriction of our lives, and the noise we think is being produced is the music of our lives. Sound isn't beautiful, sound is real. Noise is heard, sound, you feel.
So before you go labeling something as noise, remember what is missing: noise implies that everyone can hear, but no one is listening.
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 5:01 PM UTC
it's past mid September,
the modest gradations
(and graduations)
of temp and the indirectness
of the ever shifting sun
are not lost on the
the skin of the locals,
nor even the
summer sojourner, who
recalls the past rainy June,
and the "who knew that
winter lasted so long"
on this peculiar planet island land
the calendar dictates
that the obligations of the
living are fully recommenced,
and the avoidance of realities,
cannot be excused, refused,
but they go ignored for just
one more day, and the ever
more spectacular pastel sunsets
tease, "see what you will be missing..."
the skeletons of beach fires
doused by silver beach sand,
are the last to say, we will still
be here, even though you've
hasten to where we have no
counterpart, and though we
will blend back to just being
sand and driftwood,
in time for what we the
inanimate,
loosely call next year,
but not remarked upon
any calendar in any ink
we can read...
forty years some tribe
tented in a desert, before
finding shelter,
we've counted 46, summers,
passed, neighbors, too, the
landscape dotted with newer
arrivals, and we just cluck, like
so many others, at the longing ferry line,
those who walk on the road's wrong side,
the one or two remaining tradespeople,
who still call our abode by our predecessors
last name, wondering when, if we will make
that grade
so much more to say,
what we've witnessed,
what has changed, what,
thank god, hasn't
but the city wants its fair share,
of us, and our taxes true, so come
upon just another last day, and look
back in the review mirror, remembering
the first last day of many years ago...
Sep 15, 2025
Sep 15, 2025 at 1:44 PM UTC
The number of trees in the world equal the number of rivers,
as one cannot live without the other without dying in a quiver.
The number of stars in the sky equal the number of gazers,
as the beauty of the them lies in the eyes of their admirers.
The number of creators equal the number of oppressors,
you see - every man has predecessors.
You see, the point I'm trying to make,
is that equality lies all around us in - in nature, in life.
Years ago when some tried to Mother's importance take,
they destroyed the balance of our future, leaving the ****** prints of oppression and inequality in their wake.
Open your eyes and look around,
in every place, there is the presence of patriarchy and absence of equality clearly found.
Stop this, you must,
If you cannot, carry your shoulders to someone you trust.
May 1, 2018
May 1, 2018 at 2:25 PM UTC
just before never...
*my last performance,
the words came original
and easy, unlike all its
predecessors; someone
drew me a map of my
life and times, cities,
countries, and roads
well travelled and a few,
not too. Mountains, each with
a woman’s name, who carried
care, until she couldn’t, didn’t, and
time’s weathering returned us
individually into hillocks, and then
rain eroded us back into old soil.
the broad highways and back roads,
always snaking away, fork-forcing
directional choices, usually taking the
wrong way, the easy and safe one,
and how I have come to hate those
words: easy and safe, for they
are the pill combo that leaves you
for dead, dulling the questioning
one inquires of oneself, late, reluctantly.
But there is always the unexpected.
Today I saw a sunset on the Hudson
River with a humpback whale blowing,
running beside a river ferry, plowing the
waters back and forth tween two states.
Lived by this river for s e v e n t y years,
and have seen the whales in many places,
but here, in my city, in the river of my youth,
never.
and I got the sign, message received, there
are still sights and poems to behold, arms to
embrace, youngers to guide if they’ll permit it.
so this title, these two, just before,
this day, poem, came to remind me, the
days map remains unfinished, there are lands
and voyages and poems still awaiting drawing,
and it is tomorrow, and just before tomorrow, that
recording insistent demands, and a map is just a
moment in time, until just before...never*
5:28 AM Thu Dec 10
2020 (a year deserving
of its own line and ending)
Manhattan, between two rivers.
Dec 10, 2020
Dec 10, 2020 at 5:48 AM UTC
if the curves of my stomach offend
you
i suggest you get the
**** off
of
me
but when this rage comes you speak
so
sof
t
ly
and wonder why i look at you
like you burned
me but
you don't understand how predecessors of your gender have treated me.
kind words have never been spoken to me
soberly or
without weight behind them
like bartering in a dark corner bed while everyone else sleeps
where i stop being a woman, an entity, and become an unfeeling orifice whose name has suddenly become
baby
because a few kinds words were mumbled against the shell
of my ear
you don't understand
how hands have grabbed me in the dark
and how my own hands have grabbed
only out of desperation
to feel something
you don't understand how hard it is for you to touch me and
for me not to feel lightening hot repulsion
as i lay drunk, ready to sleep.
you don't understand how when people touch my hair
all i can feel are hands curling against my scalp
and the way cold-shaking hands curled around my dress
and the way fear has been etched into the lines of my brain like a map of the city i know so well
like that alley i can't walk down alone at night
or that part of lexington where men shout at me hungrily
or the way stranger's hands sometimes 'slip'
you will never understand the weight of my insecurity because no amount of sweetness you can pour onto me can replace the venom fed to me by the men before you
no matter how 'enough' i may be with you
you will never understand how 'enough' isn't tangible
how beautiful doesn't really feel like a compliment
and how much
i doubt you actually love me
Jan 7, 2013
Jan 7, 2013 at 12:40 PM UTC
Cold. Distant. Lonely.
How am I supposed to explain to you how I feel when I don't even know?
When you have a girlfriend, but you still comfort me and soothe my self-doubt?
When we walk and converse together every day and I feel like I know you, but I don't know you?
Am I supposed to traverse this path alone, or with you, or with someone else?
It's fall and it's getting cold, so I need you to cloak me in your warmth and wrap me in your arms to shield me from the elements and my loneliness.
There is a dance tomorrow that I want to go to with you to, but all I've got is a field trip while your girlfriend is on both of our minds.
I just need an embrace, a touch, a physical sensation to tell me you care about me.
You and I and our friends know that she's the kind of girl who will break your heart, rip your already fragile and many times mended heart to throbbing, aching, weeping pieces.
Our friends try to play matchmaker, and I play a different game with the same objective.
How can you not see that she is like the others?
All her predecessors who fragmented you?
Won't she do the same?
But if you will not listen to reason, and true and pure love, then I only hope she will take care of you, cradle your heart in her hands and give it strength.
I hope that she will give you what you need, and more.
However, if she does not deliver, I will be here, waiting.
Oct 12, 2012
Oct 12, 2012 at 10:48 PM UTC
~For Eleanor~
<•>
don't
believe in fate or luck,
never won no lottery,
even the next word of
every poem word, product of hard earned
stolen lust affairs
me desiring,
of acquiring
the infamy
of saying it & making you believe it,
all new (ha!)
while reusing worn-out words,
stolen from unknown predecessors,
lovers and prophets
but then, read you,
a-believing now that only princesses
may have the magic powers to do,
to sense, the incongruence,
of the most ordinary lives,
the ways we-hide-in-our-underbellies,
the faces of our elven selves,
that we are desperate to see anew,
without the blemishing scars of experience
writing it morning fresh from dream filled sleep
so my sinner summer sun dying requests
you to be reminded:
even a prince, only has just so many
golden opportunities,
so quit stalling,
shoot out your next from your
handgun mind
yup, no luck, good fate, for me
held in abeyance for
the next first date, maybe
as I write
Katy Perry
is ear-worming in my head,
ignite the light!
do you see us
awaiting in the shadows
for the definition of your words?
<•>
^divergent communication:
pattern in which the sender gives conflicting messages on verbal and nonverbal levels and the listener does not know which message to accept.
read https://hellopoetry.com/eleanor-prince/
Aug 27, 2017
Aug 27, 2017 at 11:53 AM UTC
**Each day passing by in a wild-eyed dash
In truth my soul fell aside, but bluer birds still doth call
Missed that cardinal harken when I set down my last two cents
Kickers of tricks, scroll-ers of myth, bottlers of ships
Knew it all along, just couldn’t stiff the rest
Refuse to capitol, refuge atop the pious politic that steeps these hills
Is it not hard to tell? The meanings of what buys in bulk
The people is we, of what sells slicker than plot itself
A minority rule, hid reasons from majority fooled
That is working trade class, taught to chain drive
The gleaming sheen glowing green, crowning jewel¬¬¬ is as mist and steam, fleeting as the wash of this worlds seething seas
We, the misanthrope of being, bloom in the warmth of idea
Only to recede at the water mark high of each our lives
Authenticity bless the distant time, costless venture to each about die, salute through another caesars’ dilated eye a definition
Eons in annunciation; immortality flashing by
Reverence cannot lie, not long at least neathe a chipping patina
Gold leafed by the hand of man, coerced creations’ fondling finger tips strips thin, leaving us then to watch the weathering
Not a one may ever remember for too quickly or too timely
Arrives dismemberment, a cyclic certainty, often relegated falsely
As loss or gain, truly misspoken frames for reference
At any given attempt to render the language of tongues, oh speaker the son of the morning shamelessly ****** by predecessors increasingly lavish
Phonemic savage; life running rabid, splicing love over the atom
The simple one whom tends a patch of what he calls “cabbage”
Knowing always the wordless truth that is his field fallowing
Unconvinced by everyone, save himself if nothing else
Penitent candor dangle, frameless wonder can you hear the thunder?**
Oct 17, 2013
Oct 17, 2013 at 2:44 PM UTC