"prehistoric" poems
Many people write a "bucket list" of things they want to do before they die. Now in my 80th year, I don't have the time or the energy to do things that others might aim for, but I have during my life visited many places, seen many things, and enjoyed many experiences that I would have been sorry to miss. There have also been some events that I would have preferred not to experience, but which have enriched my life in different ways, and which I remember with a kind of sad affection.
Some of these are very personal to me, and would not be interesting to most people, but read the note if you wonder why I chose them.
Here then is what I might call
My Reverse Bucket List
Towns and cities – architecture & atmosphere
Barcelona, Spain
Venice, Italy
Oxford, England
Jerusalem, Israel
Luxor, Egypt
Varanasi, India
Hiroshima, Japan
Pompeii, Italy
Other locations
Galápagos islands, Ecuador
Great Barrier Reef, Australia
North Woolwich, London
Churches
St Paul's Cathedral, London
Sagrada Familia, Barcelona
Coventry Cathedral
Córdoba Cathedral, Spain
Blue Mosque, Istanbul
Other structures
Taj Mahal, Agra
Auschwitz concentration camp, Poland
Royal Festival Hall, London
London underground system (because it was the first, and I rode it for a long time). Also the more splendid underground railways of Mexico City and Moscow.
Avebury Ring, Wiltshire, England (the largest prehistoric stone circle in the world, and much more primitive than Stonehenge)
Bayeux Tapestry
"Angel of the North" statue, Gateshead, England
"Christ the Redeemer" statue, Rio, Brazil
Events
Messiah at Royal Festival Hall, Feb 1959, with the girl later to be my wife
St John's night, Spain, early 1990s (?)
Death and funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, Aug 1997
Oberammergau passion play, 2010
Destruction of World Trade Centre, Sept 2001
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 9:16 AM UTC
Here in the desert
it's been raining
on and off
for days
making the succulents and cacti
glisten with wetness
their thick skin sparkles
and catches nature's ironic eye
flowers and plants shine
so much better in the half-grey
Here in the prehistoric depths
Of rocky whitewash and silt
flash floods rush through
flushing out all guilt
And inside
a raging storm commences
and I feel so blessed
to be a part of this celebration
my lungs expanding in my chest
I breathe in deep
that fresh purity of air
let it cleanse right through me
from my toes up to my hair
It rushes in my body
taking no prisoners in its force
flows through every vein
cleansing poisons in its course
its power flows into me
washing out this stubborn pain
Turning the confusion
into clarity again
From inside subconscious thoughts
realization thunders
rinsing from my mind
the emotional strain
and replacing it with euphoric wonders
Come, my raging desert tempest
Bathe me
penetrate me with wet
restore and purify
my being
take over and disinfect
let me feel my own strength
until it pours out from my cells
into the space inside my heart
where love and lust still dwell
My tears mingle with the sweet drops
as I fling arms open to the sky
releasing strikes of lightening
for every word I cry
as I summon, pray for lightness
mixed with the sturdiness of earth
Let joy rise up and bubble
within my being
as rebirth
Apr 13, 2016
Apr 13, 2016 at 11:02 AM UTC
We perpetuate heartbreak culture,
teaching girls the man who holds her loves her despite the bruises,
or it was her fault; she looked older.
We fetishes shoulders,
prize youth from the young in return for pre-chewed gum,
swallowing down the same tired ideals from those who still wield them like flags,
waving their patriotism on poles of bone before a throne of medieval ********
They chant mantras with beer stained breath about how 'our' country 'bested' the rest,
but what about the brutality?
The blood split on foreign soil in return for prehistoric oil?
Our land is deemed pure so long as the violence on our hands never reaches our shores,
but the ocean is red and staining our sands.
How can you have pride in a country who's sole identity is based off having the worlds largest navy?
Congratulations. You bombed your way through countless continents, collecting cultures to gather dust on pedestals and alters
We sin on Sundays, drink till we're ****** then wave at the seven deadly's (they don't apply to us here).
We teach preschoolers nationalism before they can walk,
indoctrinate our children before they can talk.
George killed the dragon.
Hood gave to the poor.
we all jumped on the bandwagon before we realised the princess had no choice and the rich still ruled.
There was no voice in the tale for those whose wail could be ignored.
What about those without lines in the script?
Those kicked to the curb, then kicked from it?
Our pavements have no room for nonconformists,
they're tailored to for same mind, same mindless wanderer,
squandering on the lasted polyesters even though that mouth on the street hasn't eaten in over a week.
'God save the Queen' from the vermin;
the homeless have been tossed out of the trash.
Why help them when you could save your cash by turning a blind?
After all, out of sight, out of mind.
Welcome to England, we hope you like what you find
Because we’re not changing it.
May 22, 2018
May 22, 2018 at 5:02 PM UTC
To Paint a Water Lily
A green level of lily leaves
Roofs the pond's chamber and paves
The flies' furious arena: study
These, the two minds of this lady.
First observe the air's dragonfly
That eats meat, that bullets by
Or stands in space to take aim;
Others as dangerous comb the hum
Under the trees. There are battle-shouts
And death-cries everywhere hereabouts
But inaudible, so the eyes praise
To see the colours of these flies
Rainbow their arcs, spark, or settle
Cooling like beads of molten metal
Through the spectrum. Think what worse
is the pond-bed's matter of course;
Prehistoric bedragoned times
Crawl that darkness with Latin names,
Have evolved no improvements there,
Jaws for heads, the set stare,
Ignorant of age as of hour—
Now paint the long-necked lily-flower
Which, deep in both worlds, can be still
As a painting, trembling hardly at all
Though the dragonfly alight,
Whatever horror nudge her root.
9.8k
The sea was once our prehistoric home.
O how we adapted to its dark currents,
to its India-ink infinities,
chasing seaweed, driftwood and coral,
before belly-flopping onto dry ground.
Now, the sea threatens our ancestral home,
the sea that falls from the angry skies
with their charcoal-smudged infinities.
A swelling flood, chasing red alert,
destroying houses and lives; raining grief.
Once sea-bound creatures now drown at home,
ill-adapted to meet the flood's malevolent intent:
to purge the Earth of all who cannot resist
the rushing, rising mountains of waters,
before proclaiming its final conquest of India's ancient lands.
Now, only prayer will be our home, built on deepest despair.
Now, only God's omnipotent infinities
circle the mud-brown rapids of sludge
choking all who helplessly cross their path.
Only God can make Kerala and Tamil live again, as one, on dry, holy ground.
Aug 29, 2018
Aug 29, 2018 at 11:41 PM UTC
A sprinkle of blue sparkle
off the lapis lazuli sky.
A throw of stars
from the full moon night.
We will take in abundance
while rowing the waves
once in the River Nile.
Hear! The crave of oars
breaching the shore.
Reaching out and close
to the pyramid foundation.
That’s scientia is pure rigid
yet so open loose.
One dozen milky ways
can hover in rhythm
over this stony knot!
That doesn’t mean
the Mintaka stars will give
up their shares at all
They will sit on the top.
Without the pyramid moving
a step from the true north.
Between this relative sublunary
and over the moon mural
if and when one spaces up.
The silent Moon takes a pause
humming the prehistoric lullabies.
With a patch of the blue sky
and a starry sprinkle from the night.
Maybe then we will take a break in
behind the closed doors of the great pyramid!
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 9:40 AM UTC
So tired yet so awake
I sit at the edge of an ellipsis
crimping the charred innards of my tattered soul
to make a masterpiece of gore
and internal war.
over the years of self loathing
I finally love myself
but getting ****** up feels ****** perfect
and watching this world unfold anew with each hit
or shot
rocks my mind
unkind but exemplary in it's own fortitude
to prevail my own veils
aside they're cast and fumbled with
as thick smiles seed
and the pace is set for the evening
I can't help but think that leaving
could do me good
but who backs out before the last shot?
who leaves before the deafening toll of midnight?
Cinderella's umbrella of security
and purity
is at jeopardy
and with great haste she wastes away the good looks
for late night *****
and nicotine
forgetting to clean
her closet of supreme validity on
the functioning teen
trying not to be mean,
but completely obscene in gestures
with the barbie's manufacturers groping for caspers
in the utopian disasters of the girl they forged
many decades back, but lost track
of the track that played that summer night
in the moonlight of immaculate humor and love
above all the oozing essence that manifested
now tested, for virtual ******
your cerebellum will tellem the positive
credo
that we all know is hooked on the days drift wood with
byzantine benzodiazapines to guide her haunted spirit
till
the cracks turn to crevasses and prehistoric protons mate with electrons
in the vat that is abrewing to plot the lies
watch the skies fade to grey as it may
be about time for the ecliptic rhymes to find
reconciliation
in the bladed grains of mortality and sigh
for being high in this lowered juncture
of subsisting future
buys you time to mull over such a daydream
as your last breath
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 7:51 AM UTC
oh you must be emo
i mean the way your music screams and screeches
oh you must be a preppy little *****
i mean the way you one direction blares
oh you must be old too
i mean the way you prehistoric music plays
oh you must be a jesus freak
i mean the way your gospel music is sung
well does music really define you
i mean i knew a person
she was happy
she was a tomboy
she was young
you knew her to be a christian yes
but her music was a variety
you'd think her crazy
you'd call her music taste bi polar
oh well you must hate all gay people
i mean you go to church on sundays
oh well you know t'v is in color right
i mean the stuff you watch doesn't even have sound or words
oh well you must be happy never thought about depression huh
i mean your hair is blonde clothes are pink and you're head cheerleader
oh well you must only own long sleeves and take anti depressants
i mean you are always so quiet and never stand up for your self
but that girl who goes to church
she doesn't feel accepted at church because shes gay
but that girl who watches black and white t.v.
it was her moms favorite movie
but that pretty blonde cheerleader
her dads a drunk and beats her and her mom
but that girl painted black
shes really nice once you get to know her
if only you knew her secret
if only you knew her mother
if only you lifted up her skirt and looked at her thighs
if only you got to know her
never let a persons music or look describe them
why don't you go try to talk to them
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 11:08 AM UTC
Upon the loss of the dinosaurs, so plentiful,
Back in the land before time when life wasn’t so dull,
Tall trees, blue skies, green grasses, deep dark water,
Nature as it was meant to be, with volcanoes that couldn’t be hotter.
This was the world you lived in before it came to an end.
A meteor? A flood? Maybe. But obviously it was something you could not mend.
Velociraptor, T-Rex, Triceratops, you’re all gone.
A species once so valiant, nobody stood in their way, not one.
Shaping some of the animals we have today, dinosaurs are like, square one.
From a 40ft menace to a lone iguana, isn’t evolution fun?
The highlight of the prehistoric era,
If you think I’m awkward because of my enthusiasm for dinos, then call me Michael Cera.
Like a bad ending to a good movie,
Your demise was something that nobody wanted to see.
The world would be a better place with a dinosaur here and there.
Some people wouldn’t be a fan, but does it sound like I care?
I think every single dinosaur is badass,
Even the herbivores that only eat grass.
If you’re the type of person that’s glad dinosaurs are dead,
Then I wish it was YOU that was hit by the meteor instead.
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 8:56 PM UTC
"Applebee" was your name for me, the old one
gone away with the old me.
She stood there, waving to all new lovers.
Never belonged with the times, so unlike a standing tree.
She had no story to tell and was spinning .
An unripe apple, green and hard,
forever to stay hidden under 100 years.
With the appearance of seasoned hands, I
softened; you'd always be there.
You'd say, "Applebee"
I'd say "Willow, willow, willow..."
to reply, to show how I knew I'd slip into a game I'd lose.
Don't hear me, because I feel that we are prehistoric, waiting for our Mother to take us back.
I know we'll never stop, there will be more times like ours.
But I also know we are done whenever we begin.
Gods are forgotten in another hundred years,
but you alone , are different.
You
were just an immortal, neither holy, nor sinner
creature for a angel,
Oak and green pine for a willow,
An elder for a lover,
A beautiful and miserable secret kept between a generational pair
like us.
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 2:18 AM UTC
One is seemingly more impressed
by the less endowed or blessed
when somewhat incapacitated
and borderline inebriated;
the monstrous unconscious
disregards the likelihood
of fathomless undergarments
in other dubious departments.
Disregard the random blotches
or the involuntary discharges
instead revel in model tonsils
and almond shaped parcels
the comets of multi-notches
like a strange attraction
for disheveled carpets.
The blossoms of toxins
a libation ensemble
almost near horizontal
each movement a bent nozzle
like a prehistoric Narwhal
dancing like a jackhammer
with the elegance of a cement mixer
a broken leaking fissure
seeping vapid glamour
and indecipherable grammar.
The paraphrased clichés
and communiques of praise
like lost prophets put on display
caught in the ricochet of overplay
making an exit with the grace
of a stumbling ballet
down a poorly-lit
nightclub passageway.
Ultimately this can only lead to
the face-plant moment-of-tomorrow
the flooded memory of the-night-before
feeling utterly spent
hungover and hollow
with ill conceived consent.
The: Oh. My. God!
The: ***** is still here,
what do I say?
Hoping inexorably
they would just get up
and silently fade away.
Beer Goggles:
remember to drink sensibly,
or run the risk of
nasty STD's
or unwanted pregnancy
or breathless infidelity
or reckless insincerity
or if you're really lucky,
just another
session in therapy.
Jul 11, 2014
Jul 11, 2014 at 9:17 AM UTC
Tis I am just a man, a boy if thou want to sayest, a foolish lad; who hast hurt his blessing of a queen.
Tis I am just a man, a sinner, a prehistoric bringer; of sorrows
Where bird's dont sing.
O' wretched man I am; overlooking this perfect flower, she's arrayed as a petal neath the tropical hours.
O' im just the rain that brings the flood of many woes.
I wish, O' how I wish, I couldst pour all contentment and merriment into her lonesome soul.
Tis she's the rainbow, I the dusky storm. O' how her glow maketh mine day's liveable; O' how her voice is opulent galore.
If only she knew, she is mine better, mine best; mine breath of yellow dew.
Though I've not shown her the worth that she is; mine trials and tribulations hast become
mine abyss.
Though I shalt get through
This passage of gloom.
With God All is possible;
Even being set free from this tomb.
Tis I am just a man, a boy if thou want to sayest, a foolish lad.
Who if couldst wouldst start all afresh; re-giving mine love, and to get all mine best.
How a simpleton ive been;
To not seest heaven's eastern gem, glimmer her perfect wing's, for mine foolishness, these word's shalt I sing.
(Goes into song form, words "I love you jane, please forgive me" sung in spanish, greek, cebuano, tagalog/filipino).......
(Spanish)
Te amo jane,
por favor perdoname.
(Greek)
Se 'agapó Jane,
Se parakaló synchóresé me.
(Cebuano)
ako nahigugma kanimo Jane,
palihug pasayloa ako.
(Tagalog/filipino)
Mahal kita jane,
patawarin mo ako.
©Brandon nagley
©lonesome poets poetry
©earl Jane nagley dedication (agapi mou dedicated)
Feb 25, 2017
Feb 25, 2017 at 6:54 PM UTC
Look behind, a shadow follows, morning till night,
at sun down, it transforms and waits, no curtains needed,
look around at night, see that mysterious bushfire,
some happened beyond time, heaven is your imagination speaking,
I stand on a flow that never stops and put all my hopes in love,
there is nothing that doesn't change, I stand where
many others before me stood, I forget that, but events repeat,
I stand naked on a rock with prehistoric markings,
my shrink will associate it with my desire to go back,
my loved ones whisper in to my ear, "Hallucinations all,
will be alright after a deep sleep, you're tired, mind a dark forest"
why overburden oneself with memories beyond time?
Reasons are fading darkness, when looking beyond the mind,
all you now pass through is a dream, seen in sleep, one sleep to the next,
How many galaxies are to be hopped in this intergalactic travel?
Aug 19, 2013
Aug 19, 2013 at 1:00 PM UTC
I saw a gigantic tree.
Uprooted and on its side.
The great roots forming a mane for the snarling ringed face on the stump.
But the fallen beast is taken, it’s husk a Home.
A vibrancy of weevils, ladybugs, frog hoppers, Cockchaffers that’s skittering, scattered like a smashed ant farm.
Around its base were prehistoric ferns,
Curled and scaled like sand lizards’ tales.
Reminiscing the demise of the tyrannosaur.
When dust clouds darkened the sun which warmed their claws.
The skittering skinks, slow worms and other small lizards, who need far less to survive, then feasted upon the monsters’ flesh and found a home in its bone structured palace.
As whale sinks,
Distorted into a globster of its former self,
It hits the sea bed hard in oil-Black darkness.
The hagfish burrow, starved for millennia.
Brutally tearing at the befallen banquet.
Mouths used to scraps choking on steak.
Getting their guts knitted as they squirm over each other to grasp some sashimi.
Dripping saliva as if we’re sweat in the ruckus.
Yeti crab pinch, as do isopods
But get only mucus insulting their jaws.
And they thought they helped to cut up the portions.
Soon all that is left is a skeleton.
Hanging in a museum for future generations to see.
Once again, dust gathers, from bombed out sand.
Erupting in the air as giants hit the ground.
We may soon again see darkness fall.
As the rayiys is skinned.
But no tears are shed.
We all cheer none the less.
Aug 2, 2018
Aug 2, 2018 at 6:07 AM UTC
The airplane
is not one of God's creatures
but it might be serving
a heavenly purpose
by making the world seem
a bit smaller
And though
it is not an actual
time machine an airplane
can take you from
a place as primitive as
prehistoric times
to another place
as advanced as
modern civilization
in a matter of hours
or even minutes
But to take an airplane
almost anywhere
you usually have to go
to an airport
where you usually
spend an hour, and often
hours and hours,
going nowhere
other than the parking lot
or the rental place or the bus
station or the taxi stand
and the check in line and
the security line and the
food line and the bathroom
line and the shuttle line
and the gate line and the line
to take your seat and the line
to take off and then the airplane
usually has to land at another
airport where, unless you
took a direct flight,
you usually have to spend
an hour, and often
hours and hours,
going nowhere
Aug 4, 2013
Aug 4, 2013 at 7:09 PM UTC
Caves of Altamira
on the northern coast of Spain
paleolithic drawings can be found
the old stone age of cavemen
in a cave high above the ground
in Mount Vispieres high above the plain
the name Altamira given for high views
that prehistoric man could paint
was such confusing news
it was assumed they were not bright
they had no artistic skills
then came that discovery
high up in those hills
bison horse deer and boar
painted plainly on the wall
18 thousand years ago
painted oils copied in the museum hall
even the Dan wrote a tune
to praise these artists skills
they were stars before Hollywood
high on those Spanish hills
Gomer Lepoet...
May 9, 2013
May 9, 2013 at 1:21 PM UTC
Skilled in the art of bloodshed
A rogue of the ancient clan
a sinister viper striking silently with a deadly hand
The sound of his blade in the distance
Is your only chance of escape
Before the Ancient Assassin comes to sever your life away
Nothing to live for, nowhere is safe
Stick to the light if you wish to escape
Fear not the weapon but the hand that wields it
Beware the shadows if you value your life
Silent and deadly he strikes in the darkness
Beware the shadows and you may survive
Once the proudest warrior in the clan of the Black Sand
A master of the prehistoric art of hit man
Black he feels inside, no beauty left in life
Vengeance and destruction - his last will and command
Nothing to live for, nowhere is safe
Stick to the light if you wish to escape
Far from the shadows, stay in the light
For when darkness surrounds you, you will surely die.
Fear not the weapon but the hand that wields it
Beware the shadows if you value your life
Silent and deadly he strikes in the darkness
Beware the shadows and you may survive
May 11, 2015
May 11, 2015 at 5:31 PM UTC
I think I'm going blind.
I'm under the impression you've disappeared.
That you're gone for good.
That you've eliminated yourself from my retinas in order to escape my mile wide stare.
That you've constructed homes under tombstones hoping I'd mistake you for
A box of under-appreciated skeletal remains
Because all you've ever wanted is to be dead to me.
Like you wanted my eyes to forget about their day job and resort to conceptualized adultery
Because God forbid I commit to an honest day's pay.
I've never intentionally visualized imaginary fabrications.
But the truth is, my eyes do everything but tell the truth.
1. My eyes write monotonous picture books with your face plastered on every single page
Just to recreate your physical beauty time and time again
So the world knows your look tops my mind's best seller list.
2. My eyes climb mountain tops and skinny dip in stormy seas
Because sometimes crazy is the only way I can get you to look at me.
3. My eyes fly hot air balloons carried by the echoes of your soft spoken sentences
As if exhaust pipes could spew such sweet nothings into the night sky.
4. My eyes invade foreign lands with every intention of burning down
Prehistoric villages and discovering your secret hideaway because I too
Want to know how it feels to savagely destroy former sacred territory.
5. My eyes struggle out of bed every morning. Not even
Three shots of espresso can perk my eyes up enough
To allow the radiation you still give off enter my pores.
I think I'm going blind.
Or maybe I just can't see straight.
Or be straight up with you and tell you how it takes every part of me
To not gauge my own eyes out for betraying the rest of my body.
It takes every part of me to admit my misjudgments spawned the downfall of it all.
Because I told you I saw the two of us trekking through unfamiliar lands
With each stride another step towards our destiny.
Because I told you I saw something in your eyes
That gave mine the ability to smile.
Because I told you I saw us redefining what infinity
Looks like to the senseless visionary.
But my eyes don't tell the truth.
I'm going blind.
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 12:05 PM UTC
The sea cast a gift ashore
one stormy sullen day
and the barren rocky coast
was suddenly recast
as a natural history museum.
A whale.
A real whale, just lying there
shining on the shale
In another time,
we'd have known how to react.
This astonishing bounty
would have been quickly stripped
Bones for building
baleen for support
blubber and oil for fuel.
But now it lay
surrounded by detritus
made of better stuff.
The truth was,
we didn't really need it,
couldn't really use it,
like being presented with
Casablanca on VHS.
A sign appeared:
"Quad bike rides, £2",
red paint on rainsoaked cardboard.
I wasn't tempted.
Children poked it with sticks
in a desultory way,
stricken, intrigued, ashamed,
and utterly dwarfed.
The weeks passed
as we coughed in embarrassment
not knowing what to do,
until finally
someone brought a digger down
and discretely buried the beast.
By now, it will be a perfect skeleton
a prehistoric wonder
an artefact from unjaded days
when nature could still astonish,
trampled by unknowing tourists
as they dream of sunnier beaches.
Jan 1, 2012
Jan 1, 2012 at 3:06 PM UTC
In the floodgates
of forever
I see you standing,
arms out, so ready
the multiple layers
of silky delicious
that we have created
until now
swirling about us,
a storm of veils
beckoning like sea waifs
and I am opening up
like never before
my heart practically
out of my chest
until it is
flying forth,
a mythical
winged creature,
prehistoric birdling
and you,
with your strong arms
your third eyelight
turned on
catch it
hold it
nuzzle it
until the rest of me
can reach you
bursting forward
through swathes
of time
turbulence a mere
snippet
and we meld
and merge like oceans
hearts lit up
in electrical surge
time and place not existing
We are the sea.
We are the Earth.
We are the desert velvet
We are the wonder
in the hallways
of our arteries
We are the bloodflow
heartflow
of the universe within us
We reign the
ever changing existence
that keeps us whole
allowing room to breathe
to bloom in mystical
wild gardens
yet binding
through realms
of our light's
endless expansion
our souls embracing
as we dream future visions
upon our tongues
and as I gaze upon you
our eyes a magnet
you ignite my glow,
the king of my citadel
festooned with
flowerbuds
for your
queen
Dec 27, 2017
Dec 27, 2017 at 4:32 PM UTC
I have this creeping ache on the edges of my bones
like the way crystal forms,
slowly.
Like the way prehistoric bugs that live in caves die every day.
I think I forgot to close my eyes and woke up blind.
I live my days hoping to grow inwards until my bones
start the delicate tearing of my skin and
water fills my lungs.
I have longed for this to happen ever since i was 7 and
I heard drowning was the closest you can get to
euphoria.
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 5:46 PM UTC
My visit to Jurassic Park
What a shock
And my how those fences spark
And be careful
Of those prehistoric sharks
If you go wading in the sea
Don't expect to live past 3
And raptors roam
Across the forest floor
I wonder what else the park
Has in store?
Brachiosaurus eating leafs
From a tree
What a beautiful creature
It seems to be!
But stay away
From those long legs
They can stomp you into
The ground
Like little pegs
Well I enjoyed my trip
To Jurassic Park
I did not dare go out
In the dark
I stayed in
The park's Atomic shelter
Better than running around
That park helter-skelter
Better safe than sorry I always say
I left that park
And lived to see another day
Jul 29, 2015
Jul 29, 2015 at 3:35 PM UTC
I wish to peer at Paris, under-dressed and ***** in all of its neoclassical splendor.
For that, there are things I would give up.
I wish to see a prehistoric forest, verdant, overgrown and jumbled.
Before evergreen mysteries I would be ever humbled.
For that, there are things I would give up.
I wish to see Rhodian gardens and from them, smell the flowering fig and taste succulent honey suckle.
I wish to glimpse zaftig temptresses dancing twenty thick amidst courtyards of ancient Persian palaces.
For that, there are things I would give up.
I wish to be blessed into an inenarrable life on an unalike mysterious planet.
I wish for an Atlas resembling and proportionate soul.
For that, there are things I would give up.
I've demanded an even temperament from my unruly emotions.
I've settled for continuous disbelief at the loquacious ignobleness of humanity.
For change, there are things I would give up.
I've sequestered my innocent dreams and bloomed monetary means.
I've avoided death narrowly, my fingers gripping, fear will always transfix, while barreling down 36'.
I've inhaled profits and installed transformation.
For change, there are things I would give up.
I've burned my midnight oil, taken offensive slander, and burned bridges with gratuitous candor.
I've witnessed coal falsify a beautiful gloaming sky.
I've had gasoline dreams filled and fuming with intensity, all drowning under an ocean of oil.
I've envisioned bleached beaches to hide stained soil.
These are moments I would give up.
There are things I've realized outside my reality, outside my internal soliloquy and physical tactility.
I've come to understand my words are nothing more than symbols on a closed door.
Jul 26, 2010
Jul 26, 2010 at 11:54 PM UTC
Like Oedipus I am losing my sight.
LIke Judas I have done my wrong.
Their punishment is over;
the shame and disgrace of it
are all used up.
But as for me,
look into my face
and you will know that crimes dropped upon me
as from a high building
and although I cannot speak of them
or explain the degrading details
I have remembered much
about Judas -
about Judas, the old and the famous -
that you overlooked.
The story of his life
is the story of mine.
I have one glass eye.
My nerves push against its painted surface
but the other one
waiting for judgement
continues to see . . .
Of course
the New Testament is very small.
Its mouth opens four times -
as out-of-date as a prehistoric monster,
yet somehow man-made
held together by pullies
like the stone jaw of a back-hoe.
It gouges out the Judaic ground,
taking its own backyard
like a ****** daughter.
And furthermore how did Judas come into it -
that Judas Iscariot,
belonging to the tribe of Reuben?
He should have tried to lift him up there!
His neck like an iron pole,
hard as Newcastle,
his heart as stiff as beeswax,
his legs swollen and unmarked,
his other limbs still growing.
All of it heavy!
That dead weight that would have been his fault
. He should have known!
In the first place who builds up such ugliness?
I think of this man saying . . .
Look! Here's the price to do it
plus the cost of the raw materials
and if it took him three or four days
to do it, then, they'd understand.
They figured it weighed enough
to support a man. They said,
fifteen stone is the approximate weight
of a thief.
Its ugliness is a matter of custom.
If there was a mistake made
then the Crucifix was constructed wrong . . .
not from the quality of the pine,
not from hanging a mirror,
not from dropping the studding or the drill
but from having an inspriation.
But Judas was not a genius
or under the auspices of an inspiration.
I don't know whether it was gold or silver.
I don't know why he betrayed him
other than his motives,
other than the avaricious and dishonest man.
And then there were the forbidden crimes,
those that were expressly foretold,
and then overlooked
and then forgotten
except by me . . .
Judas had a mother
just as I had a mother.
Oh! Honor and relish the facts!
Do not think of the intense sensation
I have as I tell you this
but think only . . .
Judas had a mother.
His mother had a dream.
Because of this dream
he was altogether managed by fate
and thus he ***** her.
As a crime we hear little of this.
Also he sold his God.
2.6k
The moment you were brought out from the hospital room
and I saw your soul open its eyes for the first time and
the drums of your heart start its beat
all my troubles, all my cares, all my worries fell apart
and at that moment I decided
that I would teach you to live.
You were born in the age
where to write is vintage
to think is ancient
and to love is prehistoric
but I will rewrite history for you
and make sure that you live in the past
before buildings that block out the sky
before someone decided to take time’s hands and spin them ‘til they whipped like a tornado
before people had to start paying for oxygen
because the air had become too polluted with chemicals and greed and so-called innovation but in reality every nation was just trying to be one cent richer than the other.
You were born in the age where
books are only found in museums
and flowers are only found pressed in between those books
but I will make sure you grow up with a garden of words and wildflowers
I will teach you to treasure every letter, every seed, every fern
because there's no better remedy to anything
than a good old paperback and a fistful of freshly picked lavenders.
I will teach you to walk
in a world that tells you to run, to glide, to ride
the latest, the fastest,
I will teach you to walk
not to be late for school, but to be early enough
to see the city opening its eyes
to see the machines hum to life
because there’s nothing more beautiful than beginnings
and to see the morning sun push and pull
push and pull
push and pull you away from the strobe lights
away from the stench of loneliness and lost time
I will teach you to walk so that you will be forced
to slow down, breathe, and think
because it seems to me that your generation hasn’t heard of that word before.
You were born in the age
where people look at themselves as gods
but I will teach you to see beauty
without mirrors and empty words
I will teach you the wonders of the heart
I want you to know how it feels like to watch something grow
I want you to know the joy of licking a homemade ice cream cone
but I also want you to know failure
to know how it feels like to struggle and strive
to know the pain of losing someone
because no matter what those empty advertisements and
neon screens tell you
life isn’t a dream, and the pain
shakes you and
aches you and
breaks you
reminding you that
you are alive and there is still so much to learn and
there are a million other things I want you to learn
but most importantly
and I swear to you
I’m not leaving this earth
until you learn how to live.
Sep 12, 2013
Sep 12, 2013 at 6:00 AM UTC