"prompted" poems
1
Backwater nymph,
queen of serpentine black tresses
flaunting its coconut oil gleam;
envy of leggy girls from the Western ghat mountains,
and lissome maidens from the plains,
who can never eat as much fish, even if they wish.
Wearing hibiscus flowers,
on coiffure like hood of a king cobra,
your coral lips silently speak
of hot peppery kisses,
waiting for me at shaded corners.
Your sultry body in me arouses desires,
that could only be whispered in your ears.
2
On a coconut lagoon when we met,
for the first time and spoke,
non stop, as if we knew each other life long,
I heard music in your words.
Oh! in the tongue you spoke,
I heard the cadence of a nightingale
ecstatic, on its wings above the clouds,
love had prompted us to fly above the storms.
Your gleaming coal black eyes,
like silver hooks, tug at my heart strings,
that makes music, only I can hear,
you are a free flying lark,
above Kerala's lush coconut coast,
that extends from sea shore to the mountains.
3
**When we relished steaming brown rice,
mixed with clarified butter,
with spicy tuna curry, tasting so dainty,
cooked in bubbling sweet coconut milk,
my eyes like two crazy butterflies
circled your face, a blossomed Champak*.
Mashed cassava and roasted squid,
melted on our tongues,
in a perfect culinary language
any one would understand without effort.
4
Your lips had cinnamon scent,
spice land's boons,
when we kissed we touched heaven
of scents and spicy tastes.
When our eyes fell on each other,
near the ancient synagogue,
the hay days of which is over,
a long jasmine garland coiling your hair,
marked you different,
from the the ladies of your neighborhood,
surrounding you.
How well you did pretend
that you have never seen my face before!
You have mastered love's cunning,
and all the wily tricks to cheat
the enemies of our fiery love
my Freudian mind perfectly understood.
Just imagine the brouhaha we would invite,
when we elope, in the last boat,
to Alappuzha, stealthily at midnight.*
May 1, 2013
May 1, 2013 at 1:33 PM UTC
think of all the people you've ever met,
and all the conversations that have ever left an impact on you.
think of all the thoughts that those words prompted in you,
and all the actions they led to,
which went and touched more people than you can count.
innumerable words and thoughts,
little cosmic representations of the
souls of people touching us
every.single.day.
your life is forever and inexplicably interconnected with a million others.
Jul 10, 2015
Jul 10, 2015 at 7:34 AM UTC
We were standing still, you armored in my arms.
The stage in front of us was brightly lit
but the faces around us I could not see;
we danced while the world revolving around us changed.
I whispered song lyrics in your ear and
your body language prompted me to hold you closer.
So, I did.
For a moment I was sure you were in bed with me
because the air around me smelled of you.
Lost in your fragrance,
I didn’t notice the scene around us change.
Even in a new setting the only person
my eyes could adjust to was you.
Beautiful Woman.
You turned to face me and lay your head gently on my chest.
All while I wore a coy smile.
I felt your hand on the back of my neck
as you raised to the tip of your toes to kiss me.
Just before our lips met, I woke up.
You make me nervous, even when I dream.
Oct 3, 2018
Oct 3, 2018 at 3:23 PM UTC
Excuses, excuses - they'll come in a flood,
When you realize your actions have pushed me away.
Imagine! That I once considered you blood!
But I've had quite enough of the games that you play.
The switch came in stages, a gradual thing,
I first didn't notice; it wasn't too clear.
My perspective grew sharper with distance between,
Felt your backhanded words as they pin-pricked my ears.
You thought I wouldn't notice, would let it slip by,
Never gave me much credit, and that was your fault.
Wrapped your insults in jokes, like arsenic on rye,
And you thought all this time that you wouldn't be caught.
I don't know where you get it - this self-righteous act,
It's not as endearing as you think it to be.
You might take what you want, and then leave it at that,
But I'm telling you now: you'll get no more from me.
I don't know what has prompted you picking this fight.
They're pathetic, yet hurtful, these things that you say.
And I don't know where you think you've gotten the right
To take it out on me when you don't get your way.
For years, it's been happening - don't know how I missed
All the ways you controlled me; I answered to you.
Always did what you wanted, I'm realizing this;
The extent of the selfishness you put me through.
But it changed not too long ago, didn't it, dear?
Oh yes, I grew a spine, and things started to change.
And, oh, you didn't like what you started to hear.
My defying your wants nearly made you deranged.
People grow and they change; it's especially true
For me ever since I was finally free.
So how sad to discover it's not true for you,
You're the same as you were, and as you'll always be.
That's the person you are, who you've been since we met
And it never caused issues until days of late.
The things that you've said are things you will regret,
Because I have no room for your envy-fueled hate.
You've become quite the mean one - I'm sorry, it's true.
You're no longer the person to whom I could turn.
It's a shame (it's a **** shame), but yes, we are through.
And it will not be me who is nursing the burn.
Maybe one day you'll change, and we might reunite.
I'm not getting my hopes up - there's danger in that.
Until then, I hope you learn to treat people right,
Because no one desires to stand by a brat.
Maybe I am the first to address how you are,
But I won't be the last, and this, I can assure.
Your poignant self-righteousness won't get you far,
And I'm sorry - for your case, there isn't a cure.
So remember me now; you'll remember me then,
When you lose all those who used to stand at your side.
You'll remember the disrespect you showed your friend,
For alas, she won't be there, holding you as you cry.
Feb 4, 2013
Feb 4, 2013 at 9:41 PM UTC
She tends her cactus garden,
beads of perspiration,
works with a maniacal absorption.
One of many visitors she receives
yet looking at each other's eyes
dawned this quick realization;
similar maniacal obsession and passion.
A tornado she was, self created,
in her swirl uprooted
many huge trees, even tombstones
by the sheer force unleashed,
with her poetic flourish.
Love of a crazy woman
with effervescent creative surge,
is a magical portion
brewed by a witch ,
in her forbidden rituals, night after dark night.
Injured by conjugal lust, unrequited
prompted to walk the garden path
holding hands of lovers, one after the other,
who took her to wilderness, deeper and deeper
and at the end to a blind alley,
life was a tribal dance,
from where return was impossible.
She never had to apologize to her mate,
who for all the world to see, remained with her
till he went behind the curtain.
Imagine a life, a walk
through a cactus garden,where sharp thorns would nip,
searing pain and bleeding has its moments of exhilaration.
Life pulsated wildly for her on such notions,
(There were many who walked with her for each adventure)
They met, poetry flowed like wine,
she had a rare warmth seen in women of such creative combinations,
she feared nothing, but her truth made many squirm.
Midnight dances of her and her friends gypsy bunch,
attained such fame.But all ended in a great betrayal,
she was deep down a naive woman,
craving for love, to immerse in it.
On occasions she would change identities
at will, she was one but many
there wasn't any one like her before or after.
They would walk through the witch's cactus patch,
somnambulists reciting poems,
when they are together, in private,
cactus spine criss- crossed his skin
her nail wrote poems on the back
of the lover of the moment,
each one bled like soldiers in combat.
One monsoon night brought
everything to an end,
the cactus garden was trampled by
big grey wolves, the journey
met with an abrupt end.
What is she, cactus herself,
vampire, witch, lover indefatigable,
with the heart of a lion?
Erotomaniacal poetic surge,
yet a fantasy in flesh and blood?
**They buried her
in a cactus garden away from town
not even ten people arrived to mourn,
not even all her lovers, had time that afternoon.
Her songs of pain, pierced hearts and they
still shed tears,
cactus garden, it was---
the metaphor perfected by her life and death.**
Jun 6, 2013
Jun 6, 2013 at 12:44 PM UTC
I hate myself
No really, I mean it.
I know you don't believe me for how often that I say it
But I'm stuck with my thoughts who claim it.
They tell me I'm not good enough
Too stupid to think
Go ahead grab another drink
and forget who you are cos you know you won't get very far
With this disease that has consumed you.
But this can't be diagnosed
And there's no cure to be found
So go on and tell yourself just how weak you are
Cos it's all in your head
When you say you want to be dead.
They call it self-loathing, and it's the greatest fear I've know
The darkest spots my mind takes me to
Why are all the artists the sad ones?
We feel your pain and then create
While carrying the burden of our own.
I shouldn't have said anything
No one listens to an artist for they have nothing to say
A poet rambles while general discourse fill the spaces
And I am left alone in my head
With the original thought that prompted this piece
I wished I was dead.
Aug 26, 2016
Aug 26, 2016 at 1:14 PM UTC
I bend to scoop the sand into my palm,
clutching tightly,
the tiny grains warm within my grasp.
The ocean is calm,
gently nudging my toes as though reminding me of its presence,
begging to be noticed.
It is persistent.
I look back to my fist,
prompted by the renewed emptiness inside,
capturing a glimpse of the last grains of sand
as they trickle from between my fingers.
They lay to rest at my feet;
before, behind, or beside me - I could not be sure.
I never did find out, nor did I care.
They were never mine to hold.
Dec 12, 2013
Dec 12, 2013 at 1:04 AM UTC
The words are a playground,
no bell to call me in.
And wander I must
past fences, over grasses verdant
finding trees that take words
and split them like branches.
I eat the apples
leaving some of me behind along the way.
I am a constant poet.
If every morning that began with words in mind prompted a new poem, then I'd be a constant poet. Like this morning, would have been a bit about gerunds and how you just shouldn't gerundize some nouns because it isn't right. And then some are right but not because the connotation of the word or context remains the same. Take pan and paning, for example. One is breakfast and the other in film. But anyway, if I'm allowed to not make sense often then perhaps I am a constant poet. I asked the question, "Why is the expression take a **** Taking isn't what we do..." Perhaps the language affords us many luxuries of interpretation that forgive literal correctness and rules. Like writing a paragraph of prose for Hello Poetry. But maybe we are here because we question the limits and take the license and more. The words become a playground, not a chore. Yes that's it! My morning meandering leads to a single poetic thought.
The words are a playground,
no bell to call me in.
And wander I must
past fences, over grasses verdant
finding trees that take words
and split them like branches.
I eat the apples
leaving some of me behind along the way.
I am a constant poet.
Jul 19, 2015
Jul 19, 2015 at 12:11 PM UTC
1010
Up Life’s Hill with my my little Bundle
If I prove it steep—
If a Discouragement withhold me—
If my newest step
Older feel than the Hope that prompted—
Spotless be from blame
Heart that proposed as Heart that accepted
Homelessness, for Home—
4.6k
at the end of a relentless enquiry
she was found sleeping in a cemetery;
as love prompted,from the dna of memories,
he resurrected the lost love in his poetry.
Mar 20, 2015
Mar 20, 2015 at 7:43 AM UTC
Three days, is what the HR rep said, somewhat sheepishly,
As if she was fully aware that boxing up one’s grief
In a span of a few dozen hours
Is a matter of wishful thinking
And certainly she sympathizes
(Indeed, as she speaks,
She spreads her hands in such a way
As you half expect doves to come forth in full flight)
Empathy being their stock in trade,
But the law and the handbook say three days,
And then you need to have your head
******* back on and looking forward.
Eventually, the mail brings fewer envelopes
Marked with embossed flowers
And subdued and tasteful stamps,
The usual flow of solicitous inquiries,
Pre-stamped and pre-sorted,
Inquiring as to your credit needs,
The condition of your windows and siding,
Resumes apace, and more than once,
In fits of inappropriate black humor and frustration,
You scribble, in bold thick strokes of a marker,
The addressee no longer resides at this location.
You return to nine-to-five,
Though your ghosts keep their own hours,
Stopping by to visit on their own schedule alone,
Prompted by the tiniest of things:
The dog scampering to its feet in a hurry,
As if someone was at the door,
The discovery of a long-unused pitching wedge
Standing expectantly in the back of the closet,
A song from long ago which was beloved
When you lived in the pairing mandated by Noah
Before you entered the shadow world of ones and nones.
Sometimes you give into the giddy madness,
And rise to waltz around the room,
Careening about unsteadily, clumsily
As you have yet to completely master
The difference in weight shift and distribution
That is required of a solo act.
The timing of these visitations
Often disrupts your schedule and sleep patterns,
And you think that perhaps tomorrow you’ll call in.
Nov 28, 2017
Nov 28, 2017 at 10:38 AM UTC
A forest adventure-we didn't plan it that way at all,
the call of the wild prompted us, is all I can now guess
hand in hand in to the woods we ventured like two possessed,
magical, it felt, we soon disappeared, from the eyes of curious intruders.
erogenous scent of damp earth, after the first sprinkling of monsoon clouds,
pepped up our interest in hunting mushrooms
popping up everywhere, like fragments of white clouds descended,
we pulled out, egg shaped mushrooms that came in to our view
the frenzy we fell in to, possessed us in total,
after all we we are also young and hot blooded,
We competed like hounds in hot pursuit,
ran, collided with each other, fell down,
with a gentle thud, upon each other.
She did lay flat, face down on my chest,
I smelt,musk on her neck a slow intoxicant
and mushrooms hidden in her both armpits,
which I pursued and found out,we were getting hot,
in pursuit of each other's secrets.
the world, we had forgotten completely for long!!
We didn't see evening light melt and
darkness spread stealthily over the woods
that engages the robust body of the night,
from the rendezvous, of these secret lovers,
we sneaked out and saw lighted torches,
approach us from all four directions.
they zeroed in on us,"Who goes there?"
a harsh voice asked,
"This, do you know, is the holy grove,
of mother goddess, strictly watched
for not to be get desecrated
by people who seek some sort of adventure,
such an act never goes unpunished,
we'll search you and find what you did"
We held out mushrooms before them,
and I saw each face turning a lotus!
"where did you get this,? Oh! so much!,
Those are so rare and any one is able to pluck it,
only if mother goddess is pleased"
And then we realized this,
in that forbidden sacred wood,
between us a miracle has happened!
that pleased the mother goddess
of the woods, the blessed presence,
aren't we then the chosen ones?
,
Jul 13, 2013
Jul 13, 2013 at 6:44 PM UTC
It was a out-of-town trip
that prompted me to tape
a two inch bar of black
over a band of color.
So that's what hate does.
It's a maddening, saddening
sort of oppression,
this sort of silencing
It's a whisper-born fear,
half-irrational, half-necessary.
I'm a scared boy again, and
I'm standing in the school yard.
And here's what I learned today:
Anyone, everyone is an threat,
and protect your heart with hate.
I could be a revolutionary, but I'm
just an unwilling soldier.
I'm living life in safe-houses,
traveling only by the safest routes,
because I love differently.
Oct 3, 2012
Oct 3, 2012 at 1:34 AM UTC
Their lies are prompted
from teleprompters
and executed flaw-fully
from taxpayer's helicopters.
They say we're protecting
foreign daughters
while filtering profits
to desert clad marauders.
Blank faced public
fear conversing religion and politics
while passively electing
lunatics with trigger switches.
Arm the rebels
they bite the hand that feeds
the middle east burns
while America ******* bleeds.
The white, blue and red
camo helmets on their heads
farm fed frat boys
equipped with jackets of lead.
We watched Saddam crumble
his statue beaten with shoes
but the same war we already fought
the puppets now will choose.
Fight the good fight
support the troops.
Drone strikes by twilight
**** the troops.
An Army of one
Sempter Fi
Do or Die
I won't shed a single tear when you come back in a casket
covered in a flag you valued more than your life.
Our heroes are our welfare
stop blaming single mothers
plastic bags tied around throats
water boarding dissent, it smothers.
**** the Medal of Honor
I'm tearing up your portrait Obama.
How many can benefit from free tuition?
But we give it to those trained to slaughter.
Our priority is the police state
Nazis pretending to tote freedom.
We sip our Americanos
And retain nothing from the newspaper we are reading.
**By Evan Ponter
@evanponter**
Sep 17, 2014
Sep 17, 2014 at 11:34 PM UTC
Holocaust Poem: "On The Slaughter"
by Chaim Nachman Bialik
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Merciful heavens, have pity on me!
If there is a God approachable by men
as yet I have not found him—
Pray for me!
For my heart is dead,
prayers languish upon my tongue;
my right hand has lost its strength
and my hope has wilted, undone.
How long? Oh, when will this nightmare end?
How long? Hangman, traitor,
here’s my neck—
rise up now, rise and slaughter!
Behead me like a dog—your arm controls the axe
and the whole world is a scaffold to me
although we—the chosen few—
were once recipients of the Pacts.
Executioner, my blood’s a paltry prize—
strike my skull and the blood of innocents will rain
drenching your pristine uniform again and again,
staining your raiment forever.
If there is Justice—quick, let her appear!
But after I’ve been blotted out, should she reveal her face,
let her false scales be overturned forever
and the heavens reek with the stench of her disgrace.
You too arrogant men, with your brutal injustice,
suckled on blood, unweaned of violence:
cursed be the warrior who cries "Vengeance!" on a maiden;
such cruelty was never contemplated, even by Satan.
Let innocents’ blood drench the abyss!
Let innocents’ blood seep down into the congealing darkness,
eat it away and undermine
earth's rotting foundations.
Al Hashechita ("On the Slaughter") was written by Chaim Nachman Bialik in response to the ****** Kishniev pogrom of 1903, which was instigated by agents of the Czar who wanted to divert social unrest and political anger from the Czar to the Jewish minority. The Hebrew word schechita (also transliterated shechita, shechitah, shekhitah, shehita) denotes the ritual kosher slaughtering of animals for food. The juxtapositioning of kosher slaughter with the slaughter of Jews makes the poem all the more powerful and ghastly. Such anti-Semitic incidents prompted a massive wave of Eastern European emigration that brought millions of Jews to the West. Unfortunately, there have been many similar slaughters in human history and the poem remains chillingly relevant to the more recent ones in Israel/Palestine, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo. Keywords/Tags: Holocaust, poem, Bialik, translation, slaughter, massacre, God, prayer, executioner, hangman, blood, innocents, justice, false, scales, injustice
Mar 12, 2020
Mar 12, 2020 at 4:00 AM UTC
You ease up unknowingly
while unaware I would be
offended by the careless
behavior prompted by the
urgency that has built up
from the condition while
pent up under the roof
of a haughty, predominant,
governess who wears a
grey locket about the neck
which contains a clean
substance never to be
touched by boyish hands.
I watch the wild in your
eyes brought on by
rigid over socialization
ingrained by a poorly
populated, secluded,
pseudo coalition.
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 12:28 AM UTC
hill
ant hill
an ant hill
a perfect ant hill
a perfect ant hill it was
a perfect anthill erected
a perfect ant hill erected at will
by ants and ants and army of disciplined ants.
ants of many kinds, sizes and colors erected an ant hill
the design was grand, nice to look at like a cathedral,functional.
we love the ants for being so versatile,co-operative and creative
Do ants possess minds, ability to think,organize, put decisions in to actions?Or do they just have an instinct,prompted by nature, how do they receive it?Even if we are yet to find out such secrets,many of us are skeptics."All this is like the crawling leaches, inscribing letters on smooth surfaces, inadvertently" they vehemently argue.And there remains the million dollar question,seeking answer:even tiny ants,could make millions of their ilk do amazing things, why oh! why, the most intelligent of living things, at least replicate the feats the community of ants, at a scale, proportionate ?If these disciplined insects, in spite of their small brains could be a great example, why can't human's be like them, behave more responsibly , take charge of their own destiny, construct, not destroy. Every ant hill in silence, asks us many questions, we walk past pretending that we heard nothing, that could disturb our peace.
Apr 11, 2016
Apr 11, 2016 at 8:31 AM UTC
*Your kiss effected an explosion,
catapulting bats hanging from the tree of my memories,
warm full lips, exuded the flavor of banana flowers,
in time of ******* out nectar, from it
I imbibed the heady feeling,
it garrulously spoke about my idyllic childhood in the village
and on your inner environment too,
that prompted your kiss, so fervid, full of longing.*
Jan 10, 2014
Jan 10, 2014 at 3:53 AM UTC
*to further my point, as an eager reader in
a catholic school, reading about
the gnostic heretics, wondering
with my theology tutor upon the question
asked: don't you think the gnostic heretics
influenced mohammad on the sly?
i mean, they too believed a phantom walked
among men, and a phantom was crucified?*
my confirmation didn't take place
in a cathedral, as was due course for all of
us in being schooled, by a bishop
in brentwood cathedral,
i opted out... my confirmation came
in a russian orthodox cathedral,
in st. petersburg, when i watched
people standing for a scrap of iconoclasm,
with the priest mumbling
toward a golden altar, as typical in
the tradition, buttocks towards the people
or as in the western tradition
reciting in latin, before the nationalists
came and spoke the gospel in each
designated tongue so people understood,
a bit like having your back turned
against the people - speaking in latin -
and when i sat i the church
to listen to the choir singing,
some lesser ecclesiastical prompted me
to stand up, and pay respect to the golden
altar... he told me to stand up!
what cheek... what barbarism... only
in russia... i had to stop being bewildered
by the beauty of song and listen to
a priest knock-down-ginger on a palette of
gold... THEN i was confirmed...
donkey's ******** to this **** i'm leaving!
mind the fact that i've seen the greatest
degradation of mysticism take place...
the tetragrammaton was being defiled all along...
in catholic bureaucracy it has been there all along,
the idiots reminded me of it...
you're born: first name, baptismal name, surname...
you're educated: confirmation name...
that takes four spaces of consideration...
so by catholic definition of sharpening pencils,
folding pieces of paper, filing the folded pieces
of paper, bending paper-clips i'm god...
but only in writing... first name, baptismal name,
confirmation name, surname...
a bit like a clone... a clone indeed in writing...
same d.n.a., same bone mandibles of the jaw...
but experience-wise... un-original to the ****
not even a clone... not able to experience major
historical figures... a soul in a twin body by itself...
a twin without twinning, segregated by ulterior
if not auxiliary motives... clone on paper...
clone by experience? i don't think so... impossible...
too many inter-actants along the way
can't possibly replicate thinking in a clone...
different mr. john smith... NEXT!
Feb 4, 2016
Feb 4, 2016 at 2:18 AM UTC
When I found my sacred place, I was content in the fact I would be undisturbed. The open grounds of the church sprawled out in front me and I ran. Green lush trees of the Abbey surrounded me and I was lost in my mind. Not in the way where I was terrified of the thoughts, but in the way that I couldn’t help staring at the pictures in my head this landscape prompted. It was quiet, except for the frequent screams of murders of crows. I was quiet and content, then I found out it would all be gone.
Jan 25, 2015
Jan 25, 2015 at 10:35 PM UTC
No one born too far from Niedersachsen, said Oma,
ever quite captures their sing-song intonation.
Characterized by subtleties, like an umlauted vowel,
all non-native imitations sound inevitably as ******
as would a cry of “ello, guv’nah!” in a London coffee shop.
Her Plattdeutsch instincts neutered
by decades abroad, married to a son of Milwaukee,
her permanent, dormant longing for Salzgitter awakes only
to trigger hunger pangs of irreconcilable nostalgia
at the passing whiff of a Germantown bakery.
She taught me the word “sehnsucht” over lukewarm coffee
and a pause in our conversation: a compound word
that no well-intentioned English translation
could render faithfully.
It isn’t the same as just longing, she sighed— longing is curable.
Sehnsucht holds the fragments
of an imperfect world and laments
that they are patternless. How the soul
yearns vaguely for a home
remembered only in the residual ache
of incomplete childhood fancies;
futile as the ruins
of an ancient, annihilated people.
How life’s staccato joys soothe
a heart sore from the world,
yet the existential hunger, gnawing
from the malnourished stomach
of the bruised human psyche, remains—
insatiable, eternal.
Long enough ago, a reasonably-priced bus ride away
from the red-roofed apartment in which she babbled her first words,
a kindly old man in a pharmacy asked her
about her peculiar, exotic accent. Once inevitably prompted
with the question of where she was from, she responded only
that she was a tourist off the beaten track.
And when I pointed out, to my immediate regret,
that she gets the same question back here in Ohio,
I realized then that, not once, has she ever referred to the way
the people of her pined-for hometown spoke
as though she had ever belonged to it.
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 2:21 PM UTC
I only have one photo of Grandad
from his years of service in the Great War,
and in it he’s wearing a leopard-skin leotard.
My paternal grandfather, Grandad,
was brought up in Brockley, South-East London
In his teens he was conscripted
and became a gunner sergeant in the Royal Field Artillery.
I still have his stirrups and his French/English phrase book
which includes useful words, like dysentery,
(think of the movie, ‘War Horse’, and you’re almost there).
He fought in the mud in France and put a lot of horses out of their misery.
Apparently, he enjoyed the stage – a song and a dance,
and almost went professional after a string
of successful nights at the local Roxy,
all of which makes me want to have known him better,
but he died in my teens.
He laughed a lot, loved his vegetable garden
and had a collection of handy-sized, hard-back books
giving details of how various circuits and wiring worked.
I recall his bear of an armchair
and how it was in easy reach
of a slim stack of shallow drawers
from which he would take slender tools or small curios
and sit and explain their significance to my bemused child self.
I have the brown photo somewhere -
it’s not one I’d like to frame as it raises too many questions for me.
Like – is that bloke next to grandad meant to be Robinson Crusoe?
Like – what prompted grandad to ‘black up’ from head to toe – is he Man Friday?
And now, I stare at the photo handed to me by my friend of his grandfather, complete with rifle and medals,
and again I silently ask my grandad – why?
Jun 19, 2022
Jun 19, 2022 at 3:11 PM UTC
I presse not to the Quire, nor dare I greet
The holy Place with my unhallow’d feet:
My unwasht Muse pollutes not things Divine,
Nor mingles her prophaner notes with thine;
Here, humbly at the Porch, she listning stayes,
And with glad eares ***** in thy Sacred Layes.
So, devout Penitents of old were wont,
Some without doore, and some beneath the Font,
To stand and heare the Churches Liturgies,
Yet not assist the solemne Exercise.
Sufficeth her, that she a Lay-place gaine,
To trim thy Vestments, or but beare thy traine:
Though nor in Tune, nor Wing, She reach thy Larke,
Her Lyricke feet may dance before the Arke.
Who knowes, but that Her wandring eyes, that run
Now hunting Glow-wormes, may adore the Sun.
A pure Flame may, shot by Almighty Power
Into my brest, the earthy flame devoure:
My Eyes, in Penitentiall dew may steepe
That bryne, which they for sensuall love did weepe:
So (though ‘gainst Natures course) fire may be quencht
With fire, and water be with water drencht.
Perhaps, my restlesse Soule, tyr’d with pursuit
Of mortall beautie, seeking without fruit
Contentment there; which hath not, when enjoy’d,
Quencht all her thirst, nor satisfi’d, though cloy’d;
Weary of her vaine search below, above
In the first Faire may find th’ immortall Love.
Prompted by thy Example then, no more
In moulds of Clay will I my God adore;
But teare those Idols from my Heart, and Write
What his blest Sp’rit, not fond Love, shall endite.
Then, I no more shall court the Verdant Bay,
But the dry leavelesse Trunk on Golgotha:
And rather strive to gaine from thence one Thorne,
Then all the flourishing Wreathes by Laureats worne.
2.3k
It was a out-of-town trip
that prompted me to tape
a two inch bar of black
over a band of color.
So that's what hate does.
It's a maddening, saddening
sort of oppression,
this sort of silencing
It's a whisper-born fear,
half-irrational, half-necessary.
I'm a scared boy again, and
I'm standing in the school yard.
And here's what I learned today:
Anyone, everyone is an threat,
and protect your heart with hate.
I could be a revolutionary, but I am
an unwilling soldier.
I'm living life in safe-houses,
traveling only by the safest routes,
hiding my colors, red to violet.
I do not want to fight
a battle I believe is common sense.
But if I want to be free,
I have to arm myself.
I remove the tape.
Oct 6, 2012
Oct 6, 2012 at 2:19 PM UTC