"psyches" poems
Leaves, sticks, and seeds make up this six foot stalk.
Oh, how she blooms before the flashing lights!
Leaving men and women with a stunned gawk.
Oh, you cause the seeds of your kind at night,
to dream of heights they won't reach; how sadly
try the delusional. But in all kin,
is imprinted least a scar on their psyches.
Sacrificial offer in porcelain
is ritually performed by some daily.
If not for fame, glory, or money, then
to mirror fashion people's ideal beauty.
A cyclic mental disease that won't end.
Shhh.. Here she comes! The first, but not the least.
An appetizer for the famine feast!
Jul 17, 2018
Jul 17, 2018 at 2:59 PM UTC
Above the caldera at Yellowstone,
a brittle soil-rock crust
caps a lake of liquid fire
with only fumaroles and roiling geysers
to slake its upward ******
A single heedless step is enough
to breech that mantle's fragile seal -
spelling death by fire
to any hapless soul
who fails to guard his steps.
Fragile calderas also roil
buried in dark crevices of our psyches -
brewed of failures, slights and fears
dissolved in fiery pools
of self-consuming misery.
To dress and salve our wounded souls
we plant fertile gardens of reconciliation
with beauty, trust and charity
and kneel to gods of grace and solace.
But a despot’s practiced eye
knows how to tap our fragile crusts,
releasing acrid lava flows
from pools where fear and rage reign hot,
and reason has no district.
Friends and siblings - my flesh and kin,
this world is ours to lose or save
so let us seal well our Sacred Calderas
from bitter foes that stalk us from within.
July, 2006, revised December, 2014, 2015 and 2018
Robert Charles Howard
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 12:40 AM UTC
I know the toothless women
Who crumple on the streets
The rain bleeds through their cardboard,
The cold drips through their feet
I know the dying children
With anaesthetic arms
The angels crowd around them
With time that burns their palms
I've hugged the brainwashed gangsters
With money drenched in blood
I've heard their broken weeping
While digging up the mud
I've seen the starving faces
Of the tired girls at home
The broken, hectic psyches
That eat them to the bone
I know the burning poets
With a desperate thirst for life
The need for finding soulmates
That pierces like a knife
There's weary public servants
Who risk their lives for good
And prove compassion every day
Yet stay misunderstood
Human love is buried
Beneath the plastic weight
Of angry allegations
And a world that feeds off hate
These people may be messy,
But they're beautiful and real
With hidden dreams and secrets
And ability to feel
We have a place to run to
With lights of peach and gold
Where all the weight is lifted
And all our tales are told
We live in total freedom
So safe beneath the moon
And though it seems ambitious
Our dreams will save us soon
Aug 28, 2018
Aug 28, 2018 at 12:15 PM UTC
Some are born balanced
On a precipice and remain
Tethered for the rest of their days
Overlooking barely there
Mental images
Fragments of a lucid dream
Of a conjured up past life
Once etched on skin
But no longer there
They speak of
Violent reinvention
And escape
While the hollow speaks
And catapults into spaces
Better left unknown
Psyches wrapped in denial
Running the gamut of habitual sins
Perpetuating legacies of pain
With hands that carry
The burdens of forefathers
Tiptoeing
In the twilight of dreams
Willing for the heavens
To send a spring that blooms
Hearts whose pounding
Reverberates endlessly
inside of ears
Eyes that get darker as they close
Meet with ours
A look
A sigh
Ascertaining a mutual recognition
Of the familiar
Shadows that plague.
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 1:39 PM UTC
In pubs with bar flies.
Kronenburg, Becks, Carling, Stella Artois and Fosters,
Dancing in our blood,
Utterly inured; we are endured by all:
The solipsism most profound.
And when Johnnie, Jack and Jameson join,
The sentimental and the morbid
Are conjoined.
And ****
In the custody of beer halls,
The shadows that draw, fade,
And calls – e’en Death’s! -- are put on hold!
No time; instead, before the last, another pint.
For in this hallowed inn,
Drinking what’s in the glass,
And espousing the glow within,
Cares regress.
No woes,
Or loaded psyches,
For when the pressure builds,
The best: a jet of yellow bliss,
Relieves the pain,
On Armitage Shanks' porcelain.
Sep 29, 2017
Sep 29, 2017 at 6:50 PM UTC
As I open my eyes I see you laying there peaceful
I feel our psyches intertwined
I'm Memorised by us
I nudge you to feel your comforting embrace
And as planned you embrace me and fall into slumber soon
I'm awake but caught in a drowsy state of bliss and worry
I shouldn't be here with you
I don't belong to you
My focus upon you once again
I resist not to embracing you again
A comfort I'm willing to get lost in and never to return from
You embrace me once again
I close my eyes and we lay peacefully until the dawn
Aug 30, 2014
Aug 30, 2014 at 12:26 PM UTC
The last one thinks of, yet the most
Important ‒ the blind use it to feel
Bumps in the pavement, and the
Deaf are tapped on the shoulder
To get their attention.
Because of texture and good company,
The absence of smell and taste don’t
Ruin a good meal.
As infants we survive by being
Touched ‒ love is given by both
Parents, whose skin is recognized
As the warmth it provides.
When we grow ‒ the pubescent years
And beyond ‒ girls still whisper, kiss
And touch each other as signs of
Affection.
Boys grow up touch-deprived ‒ what
Makes them different? ‒ Male fears
That men don’t touch because that’s
A sign of being queer? Likely.
Sure, guys touch ‒ slaps on the ****
Playing sports, the snapping of
Towels in the shower room ‒ nothing
Gay about that!
Or is this sudden lack of tactile affect
A sign of maleness? If so, we wouldn’t
Shake hands ‒ or high-five or hug our
Brothers and best friends.
Consider the massage ‒ visiting the
Parlor run by Asian ladies, which for
A 20-spot more brings a ******* ‒
But answer an ad for online service
From a guy, and NOPE, not me!
Not unless of course the wife
Doesn’t put out no more or is
Sick ‒ then any excuse works.
But, that doesn’t mean I’m….
No, dude, it doesn’t, but any
Port in a storm ‒ we all know
What sailors do when at sea for
Months, or do we?
Maybe it’s just American men
Who are hung up ‒ The French
And Italians don’t seem to be
Paranoid, and Russian men are
Said to kiss each other on the lips!
So, maybe our psyches could use
A tune-up ‒ a lesson from a wise
And happy soccer player/philosopher ‒
“If it feels good, and doesn’t hurt
Anybody, do it!”
© Lewis Bosworth, 12/2016
Dec 13, 2016
Dec 13, 2016 at 1:39 PM UTC
Above the caldera at Yellowstone,
a brittle soil-rock crust
caps a lake of liquid fire
with only fumaroles and roiling geysers
to stay its upward ******
One errant step is all it takes
to breach that mantle's fragile seal -
spelling death by fire
to any hapless wanderer
who fails to guard his path.
Fragile calderas also roil
buried in darkest hollows of our psyches -
brewed of failures, slights and fears
dissolved in molten pools
of self-consuming misery.
To dress and salve our wounds
we sow gardens of reconciliation within
with beauty, trust and reason
and bow to gods of grace and solace.
But a despot’s studied eye
knows just how to tap our fragile crusts,
releasing acrid lava flows
from pools where fear and rage reign hot
and reason has no district.
Sisters and brothers of our flesh I pray
we find a holy and transforming alchemy
to convert our heat to light
and shield our sacred calderas
from enemies that stalk us from within.
July, 2006, revised December, 2014, 2015 and 2018
Robert Charles Howard
Oct 4, 2018
Oct 4, 2018 at 12:30 PM UTC
She never noticed
books of poetry.
Her life was busy
with empathy
for those troubled
from pains scratched
on psyches from
neglect, abuse
or sacraments to fallen Gods.
She seldom heard music
except when,
heartsick from lost love,
she wallowed in vain misery
or during her youth when
hit parades blasted from
solid state radios
in dashboards, or from
jukeboxes flashing
come hither.
She thought little of flowers
nor paused to note scents,
shades or grace on
stems of green. Her head
was busy with
important matters,
day-to-day grinding
away on work or play.
Now alone,
she absorbs whiteness from
clouds, motion from birds,
or fragrance from flowers
with senses dulled by
age, injury or illness.
She sifts through her
day looking for
fresh tranquility.
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 3:30 PM UTC
Why do we feel so compelled
to stratify ourselves above the natural World?
What it is that justifies
our Cult of Humanity?
Do we seriously believe
that our gradient of experience
is so much wider and more rich
than are those of dogs, or cats,
or fish, or bats, or lice, or ants,
or spiders, or birds, or trees, or flowers?
Wherefrom do we think
the notions of faeries, nymphs, sprites, and our Gods arose,
if not for the Natural world
as well as the traits of our psychology
made anthropomorphic?
Who are we
to suppose such things
just because we are us:
be this not the same sort of exclusionary cultism
whence are born sexism and racism
and ethnocentrism?
Anthropocentrism?
Who are we to belittle
any one thing on this God-given plane of Reality?
Are we really that caught up in ourselves
that we forget whence we've come?
All is but Energy
All merely is.
We are a part of that,
as it is a part of us.
All
is a holistic system
not a stratified hierarchy of experience:
that concept is artificial.
Is it so hard for us to see?
Is it so difficult for us to be humble about this?
Is it such a blow to our such delicate psyches
that we cannot concede such universal harmony?
Or is it that it is beneficial for some
for the many to remain deaf and blind
to this wonderful, liberating truth?
I think we all know the answer,
we just forget to look for it
and if we find it,
we become too distracted to embody it.
I know we're better than that.
I know we know better.
Do you?
Jun 8, 2014
Jun 8, 2014 at 8:46 PM UTC
An agglomeration of accomplishments
Trophies enameled with false hope
And worth their weight in insignificance
They keeping piling up endlessly
Scatter them around this ice-cold structure we call home
So we can marvel at the sight of them
In our blissful illusion
Let the realism invade our psyches
To claim it’s rightful place.
Tethered to this pedestal
The highest I have ever seen
It is a long way down this precipitous slope
I want to descend
Then smash it to smithereens
Finger nails peeling off
As I scratch away at the wall
To tear it down so I can flee
Out
Of this womb of perpetuated cloistered existence.
Dec 22, 2013
Dec 22, 2013 at 4:46 AM UTC
Spells of chieftain splendor
Bespeaking of loyal grandeur
Now the eye clearly sees without fear
At dusk!
The ancient kingdom of Assur?
A flight in time and space from afar?
Was that ingenious creativity of flair?
Still bids indubitable eternal mystery!
Are clothes on man an anecdote of utter hypocrisy?
Is sarcastic humor a precursor of hidden sinister?
The animals hereof show their ******
Undertone tinges of impeccant simplicity
Stirring poignant Achilles' heel character
As an infant suckling the breast of saccharine nature;
Lo! And behold…
Sage mortals envisage a grotesque quest for a promising stage,
Regnant and dignified?
The new-age psyches’ beatify and feebly beg
"Reform, in fact, is, rather softly, on the win”
The lighthouse flashing against the sleet-blurred fig twig
As every sacred notion becomes an unwavering origin certain,
With no remorse that mankind can now ascertain
The bewildering incarnation of science in religion!
Like a single lily among lilies in a dark dungeon
Great spirits now encounter violent opposition
“Un-awakened Children silently screaming with pessimism”
Hiding within the smooth sacred mask of personality
Yet the fear of “the unknown” silently plays a drowsier symphony
Calling back the violent rays to illuminate a peaceable destiny
Were illusionary realities conform to the whims of a veiled deity,
This goddess!
A mystifying inferno doing its own radiance faster
What a fuss!
So light-footed as love yet so heavy-footed as war
As if to justify the whirling gloom of despair
Like the bleakness of the morning cuckooing rooster
Or the dog which barks at his own image in a pond;
“What startling veneration”
Mortals without remorse still aspire to find
The misplaced diamonds and daffs upon the beamish ground.
Muhumuza Kenneth Ezra.
May 25, 2010
May 25, 2010 at 3:46 AM UTC
I thought Religion was supposed to make One more compassionate, but it seems that so many religious people are only compassionate towards others of that same religious group.
Of course, this isn't always the case,
and I commend those who defy this trend,
but still I sit in awe
of those who look down at others from their religious standpoint
rather than looking inwards at themselves.
Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist,
Christian, Pagan, Atheist, Agnostic:
it doesn't seem to matter:
everyone favors their own in-group:
what if humanity was your in-group?
Why is that such a strain for our psyches?
People are people.
Get over it,
get over yourself.
Compassion cannot be selective.
Jul 20, 2014
Jul 20, 2014 at 1:58 PM UTC
i've heard of my harshness
my entire life, the way
that my words dig tiny
holes in hurt feelings and
infest psyches with
second guesses until
madness consumes the
unfortunate recipient of
my terrible truths
they are only truths after all,
honesty is the best policy
plays on repeat behind
closed eyelids as i think
before i speak
none of this is senseless,
maybe it's that i suffer
from a seemingly sweet face
as an accompaniment to
my realism, or
perhaps you're just too
god **** sensitive
i picture myself taking
sandpaper to my tongue,
spritzing my brain with
lavender extract, and
instead of word *****
i regurgitate daisies
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 3:39 AM UTC
Those who fight,
Surrender
When memories of a tainted past
Collide with fear of the future
Finding themselves wishing
They were oblivious
To certain things
If not everything
To obliterate that which
They are privy to
From their core
For their psyches
To be a blank slate
To be written
And re-written
By their own hand
" To author their own souls"
Feb 18, 2014
Feb 18, 2014 at 2:40 PM UTC
*They both wandered in to the night,
unaware that the other one too,
was in the dark labyrinths prowling,
itching to bury so many lies festering,
painful it felt, not even letting the stars
know that what it meant for their love,
that was a wild red flame creating hopes of permanence.
the stars twinkled above with fervor
night was the marsh, convenient for them to hide
every dead dream deep in to its slush, the past
but they knew this night, they would never walk past,
the stench of dreams forcefully buried would haunt
even if they pretend everything is pushed
too deep in to the mud and they are clean hereafter.
when they came out one by one, unaware of the other
drained and ridden by anxiety-
a pale moon was waiting for them to reappear from the quagmire
on her face was a quizzical look,
the moon has her rays driven deep in to their darkened psyches
yet he thought his secrets weren't exposed,
he sat looking at the melancholy moon,
and sang that song that pleased his love, without fail
it sounded like a ritual for the dead ones, dreams in fetus.
then, she approached on tiptoes as if she is a form of death
out to steal unfortunate lives
they stood face to face, everything was revealed,
the cadaverous moon looked on them both
they were felled as if eaten by past, a sleep that will never let them go.*
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 10:16 PM UTC
Each rain drop seems to burn my skin as it lands
It wouldn't be the same if it didn't.
You see, I listen to indie music just to cheer me up,
because each note played resembles a minor
Though, the rhythm of my soul was a minor part of yours
Unsuitable; like the jeans that covers my chilled skin in the summer
your presence collided with mine like fireflies.
Bright enough to blind me from beauty,
you stole the integrity right from the words that slide through my teeth;
left me in the midsummer euphoria
but was striped enough to not see whats beneath
Not too sure if it's your words that left marks;
must have been that bite of your psyches shark.
Hot sand that seems to burn my feet but still I stand in the residual heat
because there I know my pain is real;
not some story my heart tries to feel
Now that the night approaches, I hold my breath
just so I can deal with the complications I see starting to peel
off your jacket and into the sand;
so others can see the troubles we left abandoned
Oct 22, 2013
Oct 22, 2013 at 5:50 PM UTC
karl marx wrote in 1844 once i have money i am no longer bound by my individuality i am ugly but i can buy for myself the most beautiful women therefore i am not ugly for effect of ugliness its deterrent power is nullified by money did you hear what he said? i am ugly but i can buy the most beautiful woman written over 150 years ago but it’s still true women are commodities slaves provider has too much money used to getting his way wants control yet intended outcome is reversed recipient grows sick of accommodating provider’s demands eventually no *** nobody wins how many gorgeous women are lonely untouched longing? truth is provider is too insecure to allow possibilities experiment ok you be the man ok let’s both be the man woman whatever we live in primitive time karl again if money is bond binding me to human life binding society to me binding me nature man is not money bond of all bonds? can it not dissolve and bind all ties? is it not therefore universal agent of divorce? women get to point where they just expect cheating betrayal beatings i don’t understand how does a person believe that’s how life is explain inversely if you really want a guy treat him like **** this **** has been drilled into us hard-wired ingrained deep down in our psyches even long after you were gone i was still doing stuff trying to please you
Feb 22, 2010
Feb 22, 2010 at 8:37 AM UTC
Twisted recollections
Superficial self-esteem
Boorish charms exceeded
Only by a dream
So cocky is the strut
That often shows the stature
For the nature of the beast
Becomes its hidden disaster
Calculating deeper calamity
To justify split design
Depicting cheaper denominations
Harden psyches face decline
Epithetical clichés inanimately
Falling like all conjectures
But no closer to actuations
Only changes without measure
Jan 7, 2014
Jan 7, 2014 at 3:24 PM UTC
It's a small world
for some girls. They live
in shadow
of the Himalayas,
and other assorted mountainous
peaks. They daydream
of being followed
by the camera eye,
adored for the top heavy
weight they carry with
a grinning bounce. They want
to be a cruise ship,
stacked to the deck.
They want to be
fashioned with torpedoes,
a bombshell to
reckon with. And so they lie
on a table
to become a sculpture in plastic
for a renowned
architect. A mad scientist
in his own right,
experimenting with his creations
on fragile psyches, banking
on insecurities,
giving them a deflated hope
that what God didn't
bless them with,
his derangement will.
It's a mind game.
A mantra to "she who sends up gifts":
if you feel as good as you look,
all is well.
There's no harm in that, right?
Let's ask Pandora...
May 13, 2020
May 13, 2020 at 9:56 AM UTC
Rarer than diamonds, knowledge or hallowed life itself, valued beyond reckoning, two souls lay in the warmth. Their sire's face was awestruck, openly joyous at the miraculous news he had just received. The sheer happiness and tears that happiness had brought forth was almost as unprecedented as the event that caused it. His usually stone like mask almost completely melted as he embraced his wife and for the first time in 200 years, truly laughed. In the comforting softness of their mother’s womb, two consciousnesses peacefully rested, unaware of the joy that their existence had wrought. In this warmth they stirred, feeble minds looking about for something to latch onto; and something they found. Metaphysical tendrils tenuously probed the lowest reaches of the upper dimensions. The twin psyches emitted an aura of precinct, but naive curiosity, 'looking' for some form of contact. Feeling the projection and reception of joy from the warmth surrounding them, they absorbed, discovered an experienced that joy, if only for a moment. As the wandering tendrils of not-thought climbed higher and brighter they came to an open Plane; the middle. Unable to go upward or back, they drifted forward, each in an opposing direction. They 'saw' each other. Timidly and slowly, each danced around the other tendril of thought, assessing and recognising its companion.
Hesitant, wondrous and cheerful, the strings of unstructured consciousness circle closer and closer, until one audaciously brushes against the other. At contact, they each shyly shuffle closer feeling and tasting the other. The tendrils give a faint shiver, grow taut and then still, before glowing. Revelling in their newfound closeness, the twin minds rapidly pulse, imitating a feeling felt but minutes beforehand; crisp, pure and untainted joy. The sensation flares majestically, before dimming to a low hum of contentment. In the material realm, their mother looks at her husband, her face lighting up at what she feels inside her; her children. Diamond tears slowly wash emerald eyes as she is embraced tightly, from both without and within.
Mar 9, 2015
Mar 9, 2015 at 4:49 AM UTC
Cast into the glass
Sharpened tight
Make me torn
Brought back from Heaven
And what makes this good
Repetition Repetition Repetition
Spell-check
Marker scents and elephants
Porridge and the crumbs of Lucifer
Along with types of archetypes of subtitle psyches
Lucifer proud, go away oh you sinners and saints
Too many tools of thoroughly-bred rules
Glass
Dec 28, 2013
Dec 28, 2013 at 10:16 PM UTC
SmAsHeD LiMbs,
aTTacKeD HeArtS,
VoMiTTeD BelLIes.
NuMbeD BrAinS,
FrOZen PsYChEs,
PaRaLyZed BOdiEs,
StRIcKeN MiNdS,
EmPTIeD SoULs!
WhY StILL tHEn,
HoW iN hElL!!
iN SoMe PlaCE,
****** UNknOWn,
wE FeEL UnBrOKeN!?
Dec 7, 2012
Dec 7, 2012 at 4:34 AM UTC