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Aveline Mitchell May 2015
He spoke precisely, with pinpoint accuracy, stressing each syllable perfectly, pronouncing every letter as needed. It seemed as though the dictionary flowed from his tongue. It frightened people, it intrigued others. He stood with broad shoulders and recited 18th century poetry and spoke with such confidence, never second-guessing, never pausing. The first time he laid his eyes upon her, language in all sense of the word was void from his body. His tongue shriveled up and died before he could even think to move it. His shoulders slumped. Only then did he know that he needed her.
Jack Ghaven Nov 2014
My mental health
Is far from sane
Books on the shelf
For days of rain
But I lose track of days
Caught up in the haze
Of the days that I miss
Far from my old bliss
Filling my days with pain
And so I sit in the rain
Waiting for puddles to grow
Into mirrors with my reflection
But even as I stare I'll never know
The reason for my mind's infection
Wishing puddles were lakes
So I could jump in and drown
Escape all the heartaches
See no sights and hear no sound
But the music in my head
Softly, sweetly pronouncing me dead
Rain tends to be a fixation for me for some reason or another.  I think it's because it can be used to portray so many different emotions and feelings.
James Earl Mar 2013
Can the depths of knowledge partake with you,
who bow to the Laws of Death?
Weak are thee from the clay of the profane.
Bite thy tongue from pronouncing, that which is sacred.
For I know whom govern the Holy Throne,
I know the foundation upon which the 12 kingdoms stand,
for my hand is as the shadow of righteousness and wrath which reigns over the Nations of Justice.
For it is I, that deliver you by the balance of understanding.
Greater is thy breath then the manifold winds and mighty is the wings of the Cherubim that arise in the breath of thy creation.
Safana Dec 2021
Be always be...
Someone with a
childish tongue
pronouncing light-
Blue diamond words
With courage and zeal
In the daylight
and the night
In the sunshine
and night shade
No matter how much
Hard the bone
is to break
ASB Sep 2014
she has a list of all her stupid insecurities.
not an actual list, not written down,
but there are numbers of things
that she worries about, when she looks
into the mirror or talks to strangers or
hears her voice on recording or gets
dressed in the morning or enters a room
or talks or walks or before she falls asleep.

there is a list of things I do not love about her,
and there are two things on that list:
1) she is more than I can resist, and
2) I'll never have her.

so while she is off worrying about her weight,
about the way her hair looks,
about whether or not her nose is too big
and does her shirt match those shoes
and is she interesting, funny, charming enough
and does her age show, and is she pronouncing
that word correctly,

I am worrying about how I love her,
love her,
love her.
Xander Duncan Feb 2015
He is a book that was recommended to me just after I passed the shelf on which he was displayed
When I said I hadn’t been reading much lately
Life gave me a chapter full of pictures to begin with
And told me that one page at a time is still progress
In fact, one page at a time is the only way to make progress
He’s a well-read book with new words for every reader
And instead of leaving paper cuts on my hands he leaves ink stains
There are golden letters on his spine that I’ve taken to tracing absentmindedly every time I re-read a phrase
And dog eared pages that I’m not sure I have the authority unfold
He’s captivating
And quickly becoming my favorite story
He is English as a second language and still teaching me more about my tongue than I ever knew
Translating fears into excitement and confusion into intrigue
I didn’t know my skin was cryptic until he decided to decode me
But now I’m fascinated with hunting for the hieroglyphics in his neurons
Listening to tales spun by our own curiosity
Story time trumps bed time whenever possible
And when we decide that language itself is sometimes a ****** up means of communication
We try for morse code heartbeats and braille necklines and bizarre entanglements of hands
And when we decide that sometimes language itself is the best thing in the world
We talk the hours of the clock down to ticking hands and hourglass sand
Or get distracted and I’ll decide that I could travel the world in one night using the roadmaps in his veins
Where I’ll get lost and ask for directions and go through the same streets again anyway
Because I didn’t see everything the first time around and I really enjoy the journey
He is a pronoun that sounds good between my teeth and tastes like learning how to whisper before you learn how to speak
One of those words that I was never sure I was pronouncing right because I learned it by reading alone and deciphering based on context and roots
But he’s also one of those words where once you learn it you start hearing it all the time
And you swear that the whole world acquired this new term with you at once
He is nostalgia in a new experience
Nostalgia-- roots meaning home, or to return home, and a pain or sickness
He’s a homesickness that draws me to him every night
And he is a wanderlust that draws me away from the home I’ve known
Convincing me that comfort zones need exploring the same way tropical zones do
He is an encyclopedia on staying warm in Michigan winters
An atlas from desert countries
And a topographical map that makes me think
I could learn to like geography
Or cartography because he knows that the best way to record new terrain is to explore it first
And I’m content to be a notebook full of scribbles detailing the peaks and valleys and abandoned alleys
And arrhythmic patterns of wind set to traverse through tracheas, reaching lungs only when necessary
He’s the breath I forgot to take when a cliffhanger was resolved
And I don’t always know if I’m a page-turner or just a bookmark within one
But he’s a genre that’s meant to be read under the covers with a booklight until the sun comes up and reminds you that time isn’t as frozen as you hoped it was
And even when I don’t know if we’re on the same page
He tells me that there’s a reason that books have more than one
And I’ve never been good at guessing how stories are going to end
But I'd like to spend some more time reading
PK Wakefield May 2012
a miracle is the smoothest purr
of night's frail wrists
producing hands
pronouncing digits
adeptly who flutter
with pale and sharp
colours
              coiled in
                               a
warm limpsey
wind
          that shakes the boughs
          of a long tree
          straight
          and titanic
Jasmyn 'Ladi J' Sep 2013
"Your heart is a place that hides how you feel
But it can be hard to express how you feel
Your mind can erase what your heart feels
I jus want love from you
All I want is for somebody to walk up behind me
I want somebody to walk up behind me
And kiss me on my neck and breathe on my neck "
I want you to trust me w/ ur heart
Not only love me physically mentally and spiritually
Love me from behind so hard it's imprinted in the forefront of my mind
You say you got love for me but I wanna feel it...hear it...be it
Encompassed in a warp of me and you
Grant me the opportunity to pay off the debt I feel I owe you
See I mindlessly pay to stare at you
Even when I'm not around you I stare at the memories I have of you
No decoder to this mental vault
I know the code
Common realities of time spent w/ you
Moving towards life long memories
I want you to trust me w/ your heart
Hold it in my hands....gently caress it
No cutting it with an eyetooth
Standing in a booth pronouncing "Hey you...Im in love w/ you!"
Hopefully one day I'll be able to say it
But it gets caught in the back of my tongue as the words form cuz I don't wanna be rejected...
Reflected off a thought of the worst
Cuz I jus don't understand why you won't tell me how you feel
I mean s**t jus say it cuz these thoughts I have are beating so ******* my brain like a bass drum
Giving lyrics like...
"I want somebody to walk up behind me and kiss me in my neck and breath on my neck"
Giving lyrics as long as a ******' rap sheet
Oh and it's explicit up here so please don't let your children in
I just want to walk freely along a market and pick up your emotions
Read the nutritional content
I just want to go on a shopping spree with your being
Everything is up for grabs cuz you trust me
So jus endow my eardrums w/ what I know is there
Help me understand
Help my comprehension cuz I'm starting to get apprehensive
Sensitive about my ish...
All I want is for you to trust me w/ your heart
Don't be afraid to be loved cuz that's all I wanna do
You are my friend... my confidant
Closing the door to your past seems to be your problem when all I wanna do is close it and open up a new one
I know it's hard cuz it's hard for me too
But it's harder for me to continue like this
Hey I must be a *******....
JP Goss Jan 2015
Even the diviner was bemused by these channels, lost in my palm
Amidst the faults and erosions the like as November
Where, banal, it caught these skipping stones, day-to-day, arranged
For the radical saccades to pass, engross, my attention through the magic,
I now stare at Delphi, what binds the assumed catches
Bound, itself, to shy
To shy away from their centers.

But, now and then, my eyes will sojourn from my wanton ways
Through terraces of an empty map,
Where, by degrees, are shown their invisibilities in place of illustrations
Accoutered as décor, but fact, hastening a spider’s game:
Fixed in a drawer, renewed, splayed, drawn at constant.

These pickings, righteous, at a nail and toying on a salty lip,
Quiver, from the rector, day and night, pronouncing
Idle me, idolatry, standing at spreading concourse,
Till, evermore, my stumbling thoughts lose themselves
In my hand.

The hand.
The palm.
Lost channels flood themselves silt-rich waters boatful and boastful
Take on the name of fjord and trinity,
At which I stand, beside myself, and him, beside himself
More engrossed by far-flung ecstasies,
Quite-clear those instabilities, reaching for liquor—mid-shelf.

I could, perhaps, blind myself to the valleys—simple marked sleight of hand
But, travail those four peaks and their straining caps of snow
Unknown, it is but the larger picture, sewn to sinew runs of hair.

Too much, I plead for direction or sign, getting lost in mirrors or rhyme
These new utterances in the back of my throat, where, precisely,
Is the seat of pride,
Each a reckless trail back to the temples of uncharted weathered skin
—The vaguenesses that she enthralled, as to what I am read
Thinking nothing at all and, he, the friend of ever
Under the same stars to the north, south, in every direction.
So helpless, cold shaking and pensions of the moon, anon,
I read as the distance, empty candescences that thirst to know
Exactly what they should have known, where clairvoyance falls short
Steps, like quite brushstrokes: one at a time, wide, unending.
jonchius Sep 2015
entering year 2000
rewinding vhs tape
installing napster client
anticipating victorious gore
bursting dot-com bubble
blocking tomorrow's nostalgia
commemorating festival tragedy
examining supersonic concorde
watching election coverage
recounting inconvenient truths
puzzling interface design
booing nuc-u-lar president

rising black monolith
editing non-linear encyclopedia
feeling inaugurally bushed
reliving century's dawn
unchanging state flag
processing royal massacre
escaping insane asylum
sensing impending collapse
perusing city guide
collapsing contemporary structures
initiating quixotic peacekeeping
ignoring conscription threats

entering year 2002
reporting unfortunate pearl
relaxing shotgun porch
exploding roadside bombs
addressing thousand followers
hugging financial meltdown
writing resembling skylines
shocking archipelagic bursts
processing theatrical disaster
tightening homeland security

entering year 2003
proliferating elegant telegnosis
rejecting freedom fries
blazing wartime trails
toppling dictatorial statue
unfurling "mission accomplished"
handling continental blackout
ejecting coronal masses

entering year 2004
flashing multiple sobriquets
populating dorm-roomy website
high-grossing aramaic movie
generating tunnel vision
rushing national anthem
parading goth athletes
letting games begin
accepting soviet passports
continuing obscure flumadiddle
lunar-eclipsing world series
two-terming republican regime
declining personality cult
glowing orange revolution
eroding periglacial drumlins
inundating lacustrine basins
exciting geomorphological processes
enduring tumultuous tsunami

entering year 2005
blasting "galvanize" repeatedly
unforgiving cyclonic scenario
printing controversial drawing
sketching cartoon prophet
overturning hurricane alphabet
rigging medal count
preparing new horizons
rejecting flash sites

entering year 2006
setting plutonian destination
synchronizing new horizons
sighting stellar foison
maintaining feudal system
emerging microblogging service
reading ancient tweets
rotating golden statue
mounting social debt
protesting planetary demotion
forecasting catastrophic recession
executing "innocent" dictator

entering year 2007
declining share prices
building ruby railroad
lifting presidential term-limits
perpetuating oil-rich dictatorships
falling interstate bridge
slugging giant bonds
clothing blackwater mercenaries
disappearing internet personalities
unforgiving writers strike

entering year 2008
stealing variable thunders
relaxing domain names
letting games continue
exploding sunrise propane
requesting birth certificate
electing another suit
disappointing orthodox republicans
microblogging maximal meltdown

entering year 2009
inaugurating new president
encountering bear markets
cackling risible laughter
dying pop king
deleting neolithic internet

entering year 2010
collapsing presidential palace
prospering cinematic avatar
pronouncing eyjafjallajökull effortlessly
"kettling riot police
flaming cop cruiser"
blasting text-based vuvuzelas
leaking diplomatic cables
fading pre-twitter memories
self-immolating street vendor

entering year 2011
"enervating nine-point quake
propagating harbor wave
inundating nuclear plant
irradiating unclear fates"
raging mid-eastern spring
throwing body asea
locating trojan asteroid
penetrating financial throughfare
resonating oral amplifier
blazing verdant material

entering year 2012
rising chubby dictator
gentrifying weird twitter
exploding next month
intriguing "fake" passport
proliferating single-hued avatars
surging sandy cyclone
inhabiting alternate universe
manipulating another election
rigging people's ballots
perpetuating manipulated world
fulfilling megalomaniac urges
surviving previous apocalypse
surviving another baktun

entering year 2013
descending rogue meteor
encoding festival weekend
obfuscating's very own
approving snow den
searching yaya island
soaking wet veld

entering year 2014
missing plane geometry?
annexing peninsular territory
printing powdered medication
forecasting meteoric boomtime
prevailing monochromatic identity
avoiding aviation accidents
determining auspicious date
revising deactivation plans
reliving years 2000-2014
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2014
transducer -
a device that receives a signal in the form of one type of energy and converts it to a signal in another form: A microphone is a transducer that converts acoustic energy into electrical impulses

~~~~~~~~~
so many names,
none of them, kind,
none of them, nice words

The A, The B, The C word.

she would laugh and mock a spite and spittle filled man's
feeble curses and flit off to
charge her battery, steal electric life,
from a new outlet, another male body.

now a queen bee, regaling me,
her private audience,
with takes and tales,
of newly arrived
used up worker-boys,
her pleasure sources,
discards after a
singed single discharging/recharging

why come back to me,
what perversity,
did I supply?

she was elegant,
not stupid mean,
she was royal, imaginative,
her conception of a life well lived
was freedom from responsible,
self servicing,
the only motive

the negative pole, was I,
her cruelties energy, supplied
she was a transducer,
she was a re-former,
making her hate into her positivity

the original sin, mine,
hardly original, a cheating a beating,
plot of a rerun, rerun

the fist of being her
first
and then,
her last,
and now her only,
was
her curse returned,
sevenfold unending

her vocabulary was her deeds,
and her stories,
raw rut, well writ,
notated with selfies,
to insure my eyes agonists,
lest I cover my ears

I am your Transducer
she boasted,
pronouncing it languidly,
completing its proclamation
with the venom of a shotgun

I am your
Transsssssss-ducer!

I am a woman more sinned against than sinning,^
I am a woman more avenged by revenging,
I have taken your energy,
learned your cruelty,
and it has transformed me.
^rephrasing of Shakespeare's Kng Lear's "“I am a man more sinned against than sinning”


when you have no inspiration, then
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/find-your-word/
like "transducer " from which was wove an imaginary tale

Postscript inspired by Anubis-the-Philosomancer, measurerer of the science of romance.


The science of emotion
should be easily connoted by calculus.

The tides that do ebb and flow,
do we not with prcision know,
the exact time and duration of the
pull of the moon's gravitation,
was  child play even for the ancients.

But can anyone chart,
the human heart,
of a woman scorned?
Nehemiah Swaim Feb 2019
Overwhelmed I can’t be by you, why my dream girl gotta be spiteful? Why you deny me like a average guy who.. who need be no apology the way you comma’d me, I really mean you split me like clapping for syllables I’m pronouncing, and sounding out ways I could say I want you, but we halt like stutters, our past gives us hiccups so we chose ignorance as our water. Yet you teach me like a scholar , so I guess I should call her..

I’m lost in candy cane paradise, where my thoughts are real and there’s no need for advice..

I cover my eyes to dream again, like the wind doesn’t blow away my friends, but they pass like a breeze colder than winter trends. Send me mixed messages, like a dream catchers intentions, while my roof stares down at me questioning when I’ll think for myself again.

I’m lost in candy cane paradise, where my dreams are real and there’s no turning back the night...

but I dream and dream like you, want to be something better than the world designed you, like destiny’s pitch was more than silhouettes made of you, and you can be who you aspire to, just don’t let the rainfall drown the roots that hold you. So hold on for dear life, so the sunshine can bring life to you, bring you out of the seasons that bind you, and when the time comes the world will fall in awe of the colors that make up you.

Lost in candy cane paradise, where self love is a lost cause and affirmations mean it all..
I wrote this with intention of giving imagery of  trying to love by comparing it to a child trying to learn to speak. As I wrote on it turned from thinking towards realizations of growing up and learning of yourself to experiencing people learning themselves as you watch.
PROLOGUE:

“’We must stop this brain working for twenty years.’” So said Mussolini’s Grand Inquisitor, his official Fascist prosecutor addressing the judge in Antonio Gramsci’s 1928 trial; so said the Il Duce’s Torquemada, ending his peroration with this infamous demand.’”  Gramsci, Antonio: Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Introduction, translation from Italian and publishing by Quintin ***** & Geoffrey Nowell Smith, International Publishers, New York, 1971.

BE IT RESOLVED: Whereas, I introduce this book with a nod of deep respect to Antonio Gramsci--an obscure but increasingly pertinent political scientist it would behoove us all to read and study today, I dedicate the book itself to my great grandfather and key family patriarch, Pietro Buonaiuto (1865-1940) of Moschiano, in the province of Avellino, in the region of Campania, southern Italy.

Let it be recognized that Pete Buonaiuto may not have had Tony Gramsci’s brain, but he certainly exhibited an extreme case of what his son--my paternal grandfather, Francesco Buonaiuto--termed: Testaduro. Literally, it means Hardhead, but connotes something far beyond the merely stubborn. We’re talking way out there in the unknown, beyond that inexplicable void where hotheaded hardheads regurgitate their next move, more a function of indigestion than thought. Given any situation, a Testaduro would rather bring acid reflux and bile to the mix than exercise even a skosh of gray muscle matter.  But there’s more. It gets worse.

To truly comprehend the densely-packed granite that is the Testaduro mind, we must now sub-focus our attention on the truly obdurate, extreme examples of what my paternal grandmother—Vicenza di Maria Buonaiuto—they called her Jennie--would describe as reflexive cutta-dey-noze-a-offa-to-spite-a-dey-face-a types. I reference the truly defiant, or T.D.—obviously short for both truly defiant and Testaduro. T.D.’s—a breed apart--smiling and sneering, laughing and, finally, begging their regime-appointed torture apparatchik (a career-choice getting a great deal of attention from the certificate mills--the junior colleges and vocational specialty institutes) mocking their Guantanamo-trained torturer: “Is that what you call punishment?  Is that all you ******* got?”

If, to assist comprehension, you require a literary frame of context, might I suggest you compare the Buonaiuto mind to Paul Lazzaro, Vonnegut’s superbly drawn Italian-American WWII soldier-lunatic with a passion for revenge, who kept a list of people who ****** with him, people he would have killed someday for a thousand dollars.

Go with me, Reader, go back with me to Vonnegut’s Slaughter-House-Five: “Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time . . .”
It is long past the Tralfamadorian abduction and his friendship with Stony Stevenson. Billy is back in Germany, one of three dingbat American G.I.s roaming around beyond enemy lines.  Another of the three is Private Lazzaro, a former car thief and undeniable psychopath from Cicero, Illinois.

Paul Lazzaro:  “Anybody touches me, he better **** me, or I’m gonna have him killed. Revenge is the sweetest thing there is. People **** with me, and Jesus Christ are they ever ******* sorry. I laugh like hell. I don’t care if it’s a guy or a dame. If the President of the United States ****** around with me, I’d fix him good. Revenge is the sweetest thing in life. And nobody ever got it from Lazzaro who didn’t have it coming.  Anybody who ***** with me? I’m gonna have him shot after the war, after he gets home, a big ******* hero with dames climbing all over him. He’ll settle down. A couple of years ‘ll go by, and then one day a knock at the door. He’ll answer the door and there’ll be a stranger out there. The stranger’ll ask him if he’s so and so. When he says he is, the stranger’ll say, ‘Paul Lazzaro sent me.’ And then he’ll pull out a gun and shoot his pecker off. The stranger’ll let him think a couple seconds about who Paul Lazzaro is and what life’s gonna be like without a pecker. Then he’ll shoot him once in the gut and walk away. Nobody ***** with Paul Lazzaro!”

(ENTER AUTHOR. HE SPEAKS: “Hey, Numb-nuts! Yes, you, my Reader. Do you want to get ****** into reading that Vonnegut blurb over and over again for the rest of the afternoon, or can I get you back into my manuscript?  That Paul Lazzaro thing was just my way of trying to give you a frame of reference, not to have you ******* drift off, walking away from me, your hand held tightly in nicotine-stained fingers. So it goes, you Ja-Bone. It was for comparison purposes.  Get it?  But, if you insist, go ahead and compare a Buonaiuto—any Buonaiuto--with the character, Paul Lazzaro. No comparison, but if you want a need a number—you quantitative ****--multiply the seating capacity of the Roman Coliseum by the gross tonnage of sheet pane glass that crystalized into small fixed puddles of glazed smoke, falling with the steel, toppling down into rubble on 9/11/2001. That’s right: multiply the number of Coliseum seats times a big, double mound of rubble, that double-smoking pile of concrete and rebar and human cadavers, formerly known as “The Twin Towers, World Trade Center, Lower Manhattan, NYC.  It’s a big number, Numb-nuts! And it illustrates the adamantine resistance demonstrated by the Buonaiuto strain of the Testaduro virus. Shall we return to my book?)

The truth is Italian-Americans were never overzealous about WWII in the first place. Italians in America, and other places like Argentina, Canada, and Australia were never quite sure whom they were supposed to be rooting for. But that’s another story. It was during that war in 1944, however, that my father--John Felix Buonaiuto, a U.S. Army sergeant and recent Anzio combat vet decided to visit Moschiano, courtesy of a weekend pass from 5th Army Command, Naples.  In a rough-hewn, one-room hut, my father sat before a lukewarm stone fireplace with the white-haired Carmine Buonaiuto, listening to that ancient one, spouting straight **** about his grandfather—Pietro Buonaiuto--my great-grandfather’s past. Ironically, I myself, thirty yeas later, while also serving in the United States Army, found out in the same way, in the same rough-hewn, one-room hut, in front of the same lukewarm fireplace, listening to the same Carmine Buonaiuto, by now the old man and the sea all by himself. That’s how I discovered the family secret in Moschiano. It was 1972 and I was assigned to a NATO Cold War stay-behind operation. The operation, code-named GLADIO—had a really cool shield with a sword, the fasces and other symbols of its legacy and purpose. GLADIO was a clandestine anti-communist agency in Italy in the 1970s, with one specific target:  Il Brigate Rosso, the Red Brigades.  This was in my early 20s. I was back from Vietnam, and after a short stint as an FBI confidential informant targeting campus radicals at the University of Miami, I was back in uniform again. By the way, my FBI gig had a really cool codename also: COINTELPRO, which I thought at the time had something to do with tapping coin operated telephones. Years later, I found out COINTELPRO stood for counter-intelligence program.  I must have had a weakness for insignias, shields and codenames, because there I was, back in uniform, assigned to Army Intelligence, NATO, Italy, “OPERATION GLADIO.“

By the way, Buonaiuto is pronounced:

Bwone-eye-you-toe . . . you ignorant ****!

Oh yes, prepare yourself for insult, Kemosabe! I refuse to soft soap what ensues.  After all, you’re the one on trial here this time, not Gramsci and certainly not me. Capeesh?

Let’s also take a moment, to pay linguistic reverence to the language of Seneca, Ovid & Virgil. I refer, of course, to Latin. Latin is called: THE MOTHER TONGUE. Which is also what we used to call both Mary Delvecchio--kneeling down in the weeds off Atlantic Avenue--& Esther Talayumptewa --another budding, Hopi Corn Maiden like my mother—pulling trains behind the creosote bush up on Black Mesa.  But those are other stories.

LATIN: Attention must be paid!

Take the English word obdurate, for example—used in my opening paragraph, the phrase truly obdurate: {obdurate, ME, fr. L. obduratus, pp. of obdurare to harden, fr. Ob-against + durus hard –More at DURING}.

Getting hard? Of course you are. Our favorite characters are the intransigent: those who refuse to bend. Who, therefore, must be broken: Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke comes to mind. Or Paul Newman again as Fast Eddie, that cocky kid who needed his wings clipped and his thumbs broken. Or Paul Newman once more, playing Eddie Felson again; Fast Eddie now slower, a shark grown old, deliberative now, no longer cute, dimples replaced with an insidious sneer, still fighting and hustling but in shrewder, more subtle ways. (Credit: Scorsese’s brilliant homage The Color of Money.)

The Color of Money (1986) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0090863 Internet MovieDatabase Rating: 7/10 - ‎47,702 votes. Paul Newman and Helen Shaver; still photo: Tom Cruise in The Color of Money (1986) Still of Paul Newman in The Color of Money (1986). Full Cast & Crew - ‎Awards - ‎Trivia - ‎Plot Summary

Perhaps it was the Roman Catholic Church I rebelled against.  The Catholic Church: certainly a key factor for any Italian-American, a stinger, a real burr under the saddle, biting, setting off insurrection again and again. No. Worse: prompting Revolt! And who could blame us? Catholicism had that spooky Latin & Incense going for it, but who wouldn’t rise up and face that Kraken? The Pope and his College of Cardinals? A Vatican freak show—a red shoe, twinkle-toe, institutional anachronism; the Curia, ferreting out the good, targeting anything that felt even half-way good, classifying, pronouncing verboten, even what by any stretch of the imagination, would be deemed to be merely kind of pleasant, slamming down that peccadillo rubber-stamp. Sin: was there ever a better drug? Sin? Revolution, **** yeah!  Anyone with an ounce of self-respect would have gone to the barricades.

But I digress.
Kay P Oct 2015
My lips weren’t made for kissing.
I fear they’ve forgotten how, most times
It’s been years
since I practiced
speaking the language
of bodies
of heated palms and parted lips
of skin on skin

Would you be willing to relearn with me?
Spend long nights with
our heads bowed over foreign text books
I promise to add
my knowledge to yours
if you promise to stroke
my spine
to whisper and gasp this language
as it comes back to me

I’ve never pulled an all-nighter
to study a subject
but I swear
that to learn this language
I’ll meet with you
every night
like there’s an exam the next day

I’ll spend hours on each sound
whole days on single words
mouthing my way
until I’ve memorized
that week’s vocabulary
then go just a bit longer,
never hurts to be sure,
just in case I’ve missed something

I’ll use my tongue as a highlighter
brightening spots
I never want to forget
with color that rises
from beneath your skin
and revisit them often
to make sure
they stick in my memory

And when we need to run through the lists
we can press our lips
together
(to make sure we’re
pronouncing it right)
We may even
have to keep it up
for hours
to get the whole list right
until we’re perfectly in sync.

Everyone knows it takes years
to learn a new language
but I’d sacrifice decades
to be fluent
in you.
October 7th, 2015
Deana Luna Dec 2012
My heart beats so quickly when you say my name.
Perhaps its because I am still in awe that your lips are uttering it.
It sounds better rolling off your tongue than it does mine.
Deana
You care for each syllable as if it were your own child--
slowly nudging each one forward to help it grow and blossom
Deana
Hard consonant melts into warm caramel from your hot breath,
The vowels making an 'ah' shape like the ones you make in my bed.
So softly, you whisper in my ear and build my heart up to the sky--
I'm floating in my own name; floating in your smooth voice.
Deana
Pronouncing it with such care that I am at once startled and soothed.
Deana
Never stop saying my name.
Deana
Deana
*Deana
jg Apr 2017
I find myself at the perfumery store once again, looking at the man behind the cash register with desperate eyes asking for your perfume, pronouncing it's brand name as if it were a lost essence of you...

I find myself with the container inches away from my nose, and with my mind in a trance where i'm fulfilled brusquely with memories of you that reach out for me and pull me out of the lonely darkness surrounding me.
Barton D Smock Apr 2014
I read some poems badly and in bad light, here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR3w2eHYE5Q



from 12.9.13


messianic allure

my brother is the safe environment I’ve created for the history of my lord. political awareness, I mean, I mean, is a darkness. my eyeglasses tell me you’ve been to see a train station. do animals wait? several impatient years later, two blindfolded mouth-breathers walk cheek to cheek in an Ohio fog that combs forward worms the length of a screen name on craigslist. I am nearly pronouncing krokodil until my tongue disappears so I can pronounce it correctly for my mother’s not frostbit ear. as for the two, they are mistaken by the disembodied poetics of local policing as the trophy nose of an odd-for-these-parts moose. any re-enactment is my father the victim of a spirited birth.
spysgrandson Dec 2012
thirty years
since Mark gunned you down
thirty years, passed
like a long sleepless night
that ends with taunting morning light
no brilliant sunrise grandly pronouncing
a glorious new dawn of man
although that would have been your plan
with your entreaties to give peace a chance
and imagine, imagine, imagine

now I kneel in this rain gray park
like a reject from some holy ark
a pilgrim in doleful disappointed pose
after seeing what your earthly brothers chose
was not to imagine a world of peace and love
but to wear reality like a cast iron glove
making mockery of your martyred chants
proceeding like a billion scurrying ants
deaf to your childlike pleas

across the soaked soil where your ashes lay
yesterday and today…and tomorrow
I feel the soggy sorrow
that you would have felt
if you could still see
all the rage of humanity
written on the 30th anniversary of the ****** of John Lennon--tomorrow makes 32 years since Mark Chapman murdered John
Quentin Briscoe Aug 2013
I want to touch you with my words..
I want to spill myself in verbs...
Creating one sound
About one Noun..
I want these emotions to be heard...
Thought about then felt..
Translated then yelled
I want me to be memories..
Recited scriptures on the tips of your tongue..
I want this to be Fun...
Me explained in dictionaries..
You reviled in song...
I sing of you in rhythm..
This verse...
one untitled song
And you will love it's tune..
Adding power to these feelings
I adverb my love inside...
To many adjectives to describe..
The sight inside my eyes...
I want to create us memories..
Dreams that fall ideas..
Let my words surround you...
Releasing all your fears..
Touching you with every syllable
Accenting every R..
Pronouncing all my Ps and Qs
Our details will be the fuse..
Light the match with your sweet lips
Lets us burn in pages
But our memories and dreams
Are now Ideas
Words thought without a Fear...
Okaybro Dec 2014
This is for amir sofi

Because it took me a total of 30 seconds after he walked on stage to think
"where is he from"
because i'm probably still pronouncing his name wrong
Because he is a brown boy in a mistakenly white america
Amir i am sorry
I share a well known thought process when it comes to you
i think
"I wonder where his family lives"
"I wonder if they are all together"
"I wonder how he got here"
"I wonder what he believes in"
"I wonder if he is a citizen"
As if it is any of my ******* business whether or not you pay taxes
I am 17 years old, I don't really care about taxes
and i don't think they should determine your amount of freedom
So why is it when you walk on stage my biggest concern is your citizenship to this country.
Amir there is something we need to understand
I will not stand here to wallow in self pity about how i am not progressive enough
I will not let you stand there and listen to a poem about my underdeveloped thought process
We need to be proactive lets make a plan
how about we
Paint everybody brown We can assemble a street team, some very enthusiastic people with paint brushes who want to change the world
Oh Oh how about we assassinate the president that always seems to get a point across. wait, that would be counter productive
this president is a step for us
Oh i got it! petition to make every american constantly where a blindfold
you can't judge skin you can't see
petition to paint the white house purple!
Thats it!  Here me out!
You're a brown boy in a country managed by a black man in a white house.
This doesn't sound very balanced, people are being represented but you are not all people amir
I just think the place where our countries biggest decisions are made should be a color not designated to a certain race.
And i kinda like the color purple
Alright that's step one
Whats next?
More paint?
Making all of the skittles in the package one color so people don't have a chance to pick their favorites.
I heard you amir
to many people of color spend their lives painting things white
don't change your last name for me i will adapt
we will all adapt
you to the long and challenging process of acceptance from southern man
and us to the to changing our hearts to embracing every color
Thank you Amir for your patience
I am so sorry about your calluses
thank you for what you have become amir
I appreciate you amir
KnudsonK Jul 2013
The rocking chair at the top of the stairs,I sat on her lap and said my prayers.
I was getting down, her arms tightened their embrace.
Then she quickly wiped her tear stained face.
I jumped down and spun around. She tried to speak but  out came no sound.
I rose up on my tippy toes to kiss her cheek,” good night.”
She looked at me in my eyes... softly said,
“Everything will be alright.”

I guess I’d known -
since my first breath...
,That I would find her-
in her death.
But how could I have ever guessed-
This would be the night...
I was to become unblessed.

“Accidental overdose,” is how the paper read...
“She was found by her youngest daughter” is what the police had said.
What the news had failed to report, we’d  been through this,
the month before.After she ran county corner.
I wonder what it felt like....
what went through his head-
He had just run against her-
now he was
pronouncing her dead.

Even the at the age  of nine...the thought as I read it, came to mind.
I wondered why they decided to hide, any mention of  those days and nights,when I remained right by her side,I prayed so hard and how I cried.
It was on the 10th day she opened her eyes. I thought my prayers had saved her life.
And I never told her how that filled me with  pride....
You See-
she was furious that she hadn’t died.

  Two weeks later -
 they let her come home.
I race to our place to have her all to my own.
I wanted to tell her I'd never tell a soul,about the secret that I know.
It was safe with me... I wouldn't say a word, about that day and what I heard.

I imagined she hold me, riddled with guilt-
And rid my mind from the horror  the thought of loosing her felt.
  I cried out to her as I flung  open the door. She stood there this person I’d never seen before.

She looked at me with eyes cold stone. Her sneer of  that chilled me to the bone.
The words were just sounds in an evil tone. She whipped me until  my cries turned to moans.
When she was done  she hissed “get out of my sight.
And I did ' til she called me to her rocking chair that night.
A week and two days later... Seemed longer then.
Since then that’s who my mom has been.

It plays over and over....in my mind.

So,She killed herself one night....

And I've relived her death a million times.
nani Mar 2014
The thought of someone else pronouncing your name,
all the o's and a's,
makes me sick to my stomach.
When did I fall this hard and sudden?

They say the past is in the past;
try saying that while reading his drafts.
Dusting memories brings people back,
particles are kisses, smiles and a track.

It brings no good,
it grants you a cold.
That 'cold' is nostalgia,
it swallows you whole.

They're out of your life,
by choice and by will,
they're not a priority,
don't torture yourself.

I know your soul's in pieces,
while hearing his soothing voice,
it used to be full of 'i love yous',
and promises he broke.

Don't torment yourself,
and search for old pictures,
don't wonder if how he says her name,
sounds as pretty as yours did.

Don't bring back his laugh,
and over-think your actions that night.
It's all over now,
try to sleep well, don't cry.

Quit writing about him,
it's better, I swear.
He didn't promise you forever,
so don't take yourself there.
heart break and nostalgia combined is always the end of me.
Jessie Meredith Jul 2013
I

We sit on a tailgate pointed toward
the hills, where life ripples down the slopes
gathers in pools of the creek and begins again
to climb up the peaks and tree trunks on the
other side. It colors the breaths we take
green.
Children run here, learn their legs, as stalks
graze their shoulders and block their
view. They get dizzy as rows rush by.
We rein in our bovine friends here, watch
them jump and kick, see them call in
spring

II

We walk between rows of highly stacked cement and exhale smog that drifts
upwards to
join the cloud of soot.
We walk among so many abrasive shoulders. We get
hung up on abrasive personalities.
A gray wave in a black sea we’re vapidly
drifting. Legs move quickly to stay afloat.
swimming. Swimming always. Swimming further.

III

We sit for pictures with clogged eyes and stuffed chests
We coo at portraits of masks and dummies
We write books for laughs and money and friends
We read a little to find the romance and sorrow
and lay cold on the slab while our own pages turn.

IV

We pass out of porcelain faces with their tightly
drawn eyes that cast gazes over shoulders, homes
of last night’s kisses. We pass out of the electrical
current of youth
numbed and still alive
with eyes that look like stained glass windows of the
Church of Holy Suffering.


V

We wait for Sunday night to turn the dial to the Blues. We keep throwing something for an animal to pick up and return.  We string beads and sell them for redemption.

VI

We think of our friends. They’re draped in a future,
warmed with hot blood rushing through their veins,
slamming fists to tables, pronouncing their minds.
ripping off dresses, sharing their madness.
tossing paint to canvas, showing their hearts.
asking questions to startle, proving their love.

VII

We think of our parents.
dead and gone, dead to us, dead by self-proclamation -
Is their blood cold and still in their withered veins?
Have they their fill of slamming fists and ripped dresses and tossed paint and startling questions?

VIII

We are sad.
spysgrandson Dec 2013
thirty years
since Mark gunned you down
thirty years, passed
like a long sleepless night
that ends with taunting morning light
no brilliant sunrise grandly pronouncing
a glorious new dawn of man
although that would have been your plan
with your entreaties to give peace a chance
and imagine, imagine, imagine

now I kneel in this rain gray park
like a reject from some holy ark
a pilgrim in doleful disappointed pose
after seeing what your earthly brothers chose
was not to imagine a world of peace and love
but to wear reality like a cast iron glove
making mockery of your martyred chants
proceeding like a billion scurrying ants
deaf to your childlike pleas

across the soaked soil where your ashes lay
yesterday and today…and tomorrow
I feel the soggy sorrow
that you would have felt
if you could still see
all the rage of humanity
written on the 30th anniversary of the ****** of John Lennon--today makes 33 years since Mark Chapman murdered John
spysgrandson Dec 2015
thirty-five years
since Mark gunned you down
thirty-five years, passed
like a long sleepless night
that ends with taunting morning light
no brilliant sunrise grandly pronouncing
a glorious new dawn of man
although that would have been your plan
with your entreaties to give peace a chance
and imagine, imagine, imagine

now I kneel in this rain gray park
like a reject from some holy ark
a pilgrim in doleful disappointed pose
after seeing what your earthly brothers chose
was not to imagine a world of peace and love
but to wear reality like a cast iron glove
making mockery of your martyred chants
proceeding like a billion scurrying ants
deaf to your childlike pleas

across the soaked soil where your ashes lay
yesterday and today…and tomorrow
I feel the soggy sorrow
that you would have felt
if you could still see
all the rage of humanity
written on the 30th anniversary of the ****** of John Lennon--today makes 35 years since Mark Chapman murdered John
Sin Sep 2018
I am difficult to understand
In English
In Spanish.

No se como escribir.
but I try.

I talk funny
Pero intento.

Hay muchas cosas que nunca van a poder entender
And maybe it's because I am terrible at pronouncing.

There are so many things people will never understand
Y a lo mejor es por que nunca aprendi como hablar formalmente.

Soy terrible pronunciando las palabras
And maybe it is because I never learned to speak formally.

My mom says I never speak in one language
Siempre hablo en dos lenguajes.

Mi ama dice que nunca puedo hablar en solo un idioma
I mix things up or forget words, so I just replace them.

Mezclo las palabras o se me olvidan, entonces las reemplazo
I always speak in two languages.

soy una mezcla de los que me vieron crecer, y de el lugar en cual yo creci.

I am a mix of those who saw me grow up, and the setting in which I grew up.

una guerra entre lo que soy y lo que quieren que sea.
Always a war inbetween who I am and who they want me to be.
pero nunca satisfaciendo a los dos.

but never satisfying both.
Third Mate Third Jun 2014
a book listener,
earbud'd, her literary tastes
sensately incessant,
to head-hear me speak,
iPad down, iPhone paused,
a 10~30 second ritual
while I grrrrin and bear it

a precious jeweled day,
sun providing a great moderation,
76 degrees Fahrenheit,
a steady breeze, 10~15 mph,
a human cooler
she blanket cosseted,
me relieved,
just a memory now,
a sworn oath to do a three mile morning
hike in the nature reserve

overcome with gratitude for that,
and a perfection blessing of a day,
in normal voice, I let the guard take a weekend day off,
pronouncing I love you vey much
at this very moment of poetry inscribing...

so she stops, unbuds, buttons pushed,
and says what dud, duh,
what was it that you said?

nothing unimportant, says me
(why spoil her twice, thinking)

No I insist!

so I repeat my grace laudatory

and she says, I
just wanted to hear it
twice....

and i wonder what else she hears
when I am being disregarded....

I guess this,
a love poem
of sorts,
though confused,
cause I been used,
well and proper
and quite like it,
I think....a little devilry
a spice to a relationship repast,
don't you worry,
I'll get her back
but where, when, how...

Mmmmmm....
Into, up to
I find secrets
Then you sift through
Unwind leaflets

Writer's tales,
Tailored truth
Liars framers
Seed and roots

Cutting sutured
Secured and subtle
Stapled reason
Duly muddled

Out of downing
Seeking heaven
Love pronouncing
Lively set in

Joyous trust,
Oh brightest heart
Last together
Rifts apart

Language laughter
After hunger
Hanging rising
Rhyming wonder

Out of nothing
Trifled trinkets
Search the wording
Finding secrets
helena ferpin Dec 2012
Last night you said you loved me
And your eyes had the same expression of a homeless dog
But we know that pronouncing every letter of "I love you"
What you really meant was "love me, love me"
Words caused by the need of a warm body by your side at bed
And by the possible passion inside your chest - or your *****.

What I forgot to tell you is that my chest - or my ***** -
Has the same need of a warm body on my bed.
Maybe I - in all the human fragments inside me -
Have the need of having somebody.
Somebody, someone, some you.
What I forgot to mention is that
Perhaps that someone is you.
Kiprotich vinny Nov 2018
Sojourners from the mama's womb,
Travellers from the papa's testicles,
Candidates of birth and eventually death,
Death is sweet as encrypted in the euology,

Death must come  any day or some day,
Don't rush to the grave just because yu have no more light, or perhaps your heart has been broken by a cheat,
Cheats and death are not relatives.
They have different genotypes,

At tymes darkness accompanies light,
And sometimes darkness persist,
You loose what you have nurtured,
You feel the world has been turned upside down.

But before you take the step of pronouncing yourself no more,
Think about this, we are all candidates of death,
Wait and pause after all we are destined to die.
Be careful, be sensible, in kiswahili we say kujipanga my fren.
Martin Narrod Feb 2014
which were the center of the Earth.
A rill, a gentle excite that rolled from side to side
touching the verdant moors and bridging the tepid winds
through the mirthy wood.
          
                                                                                                   She

afluntered, pivoting in circles,
pronouncing an aubade for a throng

anthropolatrating agelasts.

Her palms and dactyls outstretched. A chilliad had passed, still her astereognosis never produced the fields and trunks before her. Amending the acronycal light an aeolistic caitiff arose, piercing the crowd, rising to her circumference. This clapperdudgeon and callet woman rang out in a cacophony of sharp jabbering, then another blellum arrived, then another carker, soon they were all cloffin at the pyre.

                       Her lips

                                                       instantly wet, her mouth broke its pursed chastity, and among the meek she suddenly was overcome with an incredible basorexia.

And so she began, bussing left to right, osculating
the buffoons and bavians.
Some cullion tried their way

                                                                             towards & towards

   and then disappeared in a comestion, another dratchell roused himself, sudorous and covered in culch. The concilliabule was dwaible now, those who weren't prying for her kisses were dwaling about frantically croodling, mooing, even barking. This wild frenzied lot of basiation and baisements. Beazing in the dying sun she began to crose and cough. Her blood and spit, her saliva became estiferous and unstable, she began to eroteme herself, her healthy figure was now ectomorphic. Her thoughts were unsettling, she began to fantasize her own decollation. Some sauntering madman with a sleek leather overcoat and an enormous hatchet hunching over her. It overcame her, this auto deicidal ideology in addition, the sweet kir began to wear off, and all she could feel was lackluster, emptiness, indifference. Eventually her acrasia overcame her and in her accidia and overbearing mania she took her own life. Her head slipped from her shoulders and rolled casually past her body, her knees collapsing before her feet, before her torso. And the abderian men and women cackled,

just sat and stared

her life, her love, all gone and              disappeared.

— The End —