"purveyors" poems
my love brought
me tranquility.
my love bought
me tranquility,
in a Manhattan bodega.
late at night in my city,
everything is for sale
where least expected
in mini marts, local delis,
greek coffee shops, spanish bodegas
pizza parlors, hardware stores,
all selling
salves for late night salvation
purveyors of
differential equations of
differing soulful sustenances,
certain imports that will probably never be
for sale in Walmart after midnight
all, readily available,
twenty four seven
in my miracle Manhattan heaven
My woman,
mapper of the byways
of my ****** landmarks
worn broad~ways,
his-toric foot trails of tears,
lines of laughters,
even a
purported dimple
I call a crevasse.
a sole survivor of
a mother's birthing skill marker,
duly recorded by her upon my visage,
in my miracle Manhattan
She knows, as do
some of youse guys,
that my poetry is
water born(e) and water soluble,
but Peconic Bay always
ain't right handy,
so bring on a
substitute teacher,
a hot bath,
helps me to enunciate
my verbal visitations
my love brought
me tranquility.
my love bought
me tranquility
in a Manhattan bodega.
pour the aromatherapy,
my love brought me
for inspiration into and upon
my liquid writing table,
"Tranquility,"
a summer garden aroma
It soothes
my bad memories,
the herbs salve
accursed ancient wounds
that will never
ever fully heal
or be forgiven
my love brought
me tranquility.
my graces restored,
this poem offered in
grateful appreciation
with unlimited adoration,
something,
maybe even the
very one thing
**that can't be bought,
even,
in my miracle Manhattan**
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 12:44 AM UTC
There is a woman I oft meet
On my journey here to home
Hey Lady!
I feign to shout.
My complexion's dark
But not my Soul.
So when you fright
On my approach
For
Goodness
Sake;
There is no need
To cross the road.
I'll feel that for a millennia,
ME
&
My kin
You so rudely
Robbing me,
Of the
opportunity,
To politely
Commune with you...
“good morning”
Then again,
You could be applying,
Learned street smarts?
Changing lanes,
Avoiding crossing paths.
This
Uptown
Downtown
Topsy-Turvy
Up-side-down
YOU'RE - SO - COOL
Pretending not to see me,
Hiding under your
Beats
Skull candy.
What sweet music
are you channeling?
Tunes contrary to Art?
Con
Artist
Purveyors
of
Catchy wicked things
Said twice?
High definition
'Stereo'
Types?
Shall we dance from a distance
Again tomorrow?
Yes of course!
For I believe,
You too have been deceived.
Hey! Ms. Concept,
R U
Thinking;
The beauty found in this deep Brown,
Predetermines fact that
I'm called
Black?
© Qwey.ku
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 5:15 AM UTC
“Who Am I?”
I am, who I am,
Whoever that is,
Whoever I was,
Whoever I become.
Others try to tell me
Who I am or should be,
I try not to listen to them,
Because in truth,
As to who I really am,
I don’t actually know,
At least for now I’m not,
One hundred percent sure.
Is there a Committie somewhere,
That directs such things?
Purveyors of personalities,
Dispensers’ of intelligence,
Measurers’ of ambition and success?
How to look, how to dress?
What is too fat,
What's too thin?
Perhaps some kind of scale,
To measure up,
Or down too?
Maybe there’s some magic formula,
When Mixed and taken,
Makes us who we “should” be?
But then, according to WHO?
As for all those other people,
Well meaning or not,
How can they possibly know more
About me, than I do?
I am a Work in progress,
Until I fail miserably,
Or until I’m dead,
Please have the decency,
To allow me, to be me,
And the time to find out.
'Cause frankly, all your
Premature pronouncements
Regarding me and who I am,
Is some really boring ****
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 11:20 AM UTC
This town is too small for secrets
The sidewalks are adorned with names and dates
Of couples whose love dissolved twenty years ago
While moss oozes out of the letters.
This town is too small for secrets
Through windows at night
The citizens play out their dollhouse lives
And dysfunction is locked away in grandmother’s armoire.
This town is too small for secrets
Where bars close at seven in the morning and open an hour later
And the tenders are purveyors of free psychiatry
Who put advice in bowls between stale peanuts
And place them on the counter.
This town is too small for secrets
Every hour the two churches compete for the loudest bells
But the protestant one always wins
And the Catholics having mass ignore its pleading voice
But whisper politely in each other’s ears
About the scandalous protestors out on Main.
This town is too small for secrets
With its coffee shops littered with youth
Who deny their wealth through coffee steam
And discuss the state of countries they can’t place on a map
And slowly leach out in to the frigid rain
Back to new cars and million-dollar homes
Where daddy pays the bills.
This town is too small for secrets
The college students drink their scholarships in red plastic cups
And scuttle towards their shared flats
Collapse in to bed too tired to sleep
Stare at the ceiling and wonder why they didn’t transfer
Three semesters ago.
This town is too small for secrets
With its gated communities of retirees
Where the homes are manufactured
And the walls papered with the smiling faces of clean-cut grandchildren
And the rebellious ones packed away
From the neighborhood gossip’s prying eyes.
Nov 30, 2013
Nov 30, 2013 at 7:59 PM UTC
beard-red explorers
pillaging-horror practitioners
tribal-family groups
insurgent-nomadic roots
that
trailed wave-rammers across never-ending spans,
continuously-toilfully matters not the demands
women and men side by each
beastly-feasters no table safe
stand up for yourself or be a weak-waif
in the bloodshot soul-panes, fierce
pagan-purveyors by rites
despised-womanizers
siege-setters
monk-murderers
a blood-spilling bee
treasure trove crash n’carry
Thor had his hammer
every wave-rammer had an oar for every
pair of life-stained hands, the stains
were borrowed and the very life-drained out of others
blood-smitten berserkers, heart-stoppers
and yet
discoverer’s children
wandering wet-wilderness
found a Stormy-Stop, a few
actually, and one be Newfoundland
may-haps they settled in peace.
Apr 20, 2016
Apr 20, 2016 at 9:02 PM UTC
We are the ***** purveyors of other peoples lives
renouncing the living breathing beating heart
in exchange for another photo of craft ale
and home-cooked food with a foot note description
as if it would fill our bellies and sate our hunger.
We are the dark wave tsunami of digital information
waxing lyrical about that holiday in Spanish sunshine
and a rant about car parking attendants and traffic jams
rather than the outstretched palm to jaw caress of realness
instead we line up perspectives of another bottle of wine.
We are the breeders of the optic L'enfant terrible
gorging on the memories of other worlds in 140 characters
snap shots of the life we could have had outside of the screens
the spineless automatons of digitized free love
the could've been, would've been lumbering electronic has-been.
We are the tumultuous storm rising fighting against the unknown power
we unite to save bees and coral reefs
and explore the concepts of actually doing something humanitarian
all we need do is sign the petition before the 11th hour
and be one of the thousand voices saying:
NO. We won't take this any more!
We are the saviours of our time and the rescue merchants of lost dogs
imbibed by Scrabble and Candy Crush weaving the elusive like a band aid
the tapestry of memes and images of cute kitteh's in boxes
chasing the shadows of reality on a stick for kicks
and all the while the moon is out there somewhere shinning her light
glorious silver light etching through the hash tag of cloud formations.
We are no longer what we thought we were. We are each other.
A haemoglobin gelatinous mass of misinformation and forgotten dreams
You are not alone. Even if you wanted to be,
my friend, my sister, my lover, my brother
quoting movies as if it were an inner wisdom speaking in tongues.
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 10:01 AM UTC
Ashes pushed in tight
against the pressure of us;
Our loose breath and words.
We are purveyors,
headcutters, jazzists, brawlers,
writers and killers.
We meet here to live.
We scream and bang instruments.
We come here to die.
Cutting our hair and
writing on the walls, dressing
immaculately.
Trying to keep our
chins above our sweat, rising
an inch a minute.
We come here to be
baptized in this river of
sin, made unholy
before the weekday
pulls us out of tantrum, to
mediocrity.
Sep 12, 2016
Sep 12, 2016 at 1:34 AM UTC
A human habit universal,
our measure of success by possessions to envy.
An infernal curse—commercial purveyors, trinkets
of gold and gem,
shining blinking, fabrics glistening;
the value of thing manipulated by
them insect kings.
By lion's fang and butterfly guise they rule,
a hubris deceiver upon their shoulder
obscuring their likeness to those
serfs upon whom they
cunningly demand servitude, otherwise
be starved, put out, forced to watch their
future falter—sons and daughters
failing in flight, their
wings clipped prior first spanning.
Locust clans spurred to fight over resources, who
sell and buy back nature's bounty once
formed anew into advertisement's subject.
Oceans emptied of fish, forests becoming myth,
uplands turned to wastelands,
abomination fog a spherical prison choking
earth's inhabitants—the marketer's dowry
paid for marriage to a precarious economy.
Royalty made rich at cost of labouring spine,
but worse—
our home and thereby our hope we consign.
By their futile attempt to survive,
the locust instinct to consume,
until all is gone we contrive,
the inevitable a meet with our doom—kings
with stained glass wings to follow soon.
So small are we amidst this vast existence;
the ambitions of men
barely bigger than an insect's significance.
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 6:55 PM UTC
Morbidly we wait
drool drops
Hydration for insects
They gag on the taste
The eyes need illumination
conclusions by way of structure fire
Ash covered and mechanic
These minds crave the edge
purveyors of our time
We breathe easy
glass separates the chaos
Structured and correct
rather observe than interact
When these walls shatter
and we gaze into that abyss once so distant
We finally see the irony of our curiosity
It touches the skin in numbing complexity
A malfunctioning brain spins dizzy
nerves become alien
No control
Still we deny
asking why?
Muscles go slack
eyes glaze for the fun house
Ink filled pages
Tell nights tragedies in the boldest of detail
More looks of longing
coffee over obituary breakfasts
Eyes slightly gleam with glee
victorious in an insect existence
We crave the ***** and the depraved
Even the healthiest of minds stops for the strange
So we wait for the new downfall
Never thinking we could be the ones next observed with primitive pleasure
One billion hungry souls screaming for more
Oct 24, 2016
Oct 24, 2016 at 1:26 PM UTC
Just like everybody else
I was learning for myself
Just what would make me sick
And how the whole world ticks.
Then I quickly ran into collusion
Left me in a state of confusion.
I learned about rationalization
And self-righteous indignation
From purveyors of hypocrisy
Passed off as great philosophy
That labeled some as dross,
Not fit to be the lowest boss.
I watched people get locked out
And ignored when they shouted
The bosses talking about degrees
Driving workers to their knees
Because they couldn’t afford
College room and board
For the four years of beer bashes
And drunken month-long crashes
In Mexican towns full of them
That could go there on a whim
While the children of the working class
Worked hard so their kids could pass
And have a chance to get ahead
Instead of a shoveling until dead.
I was learning this first-hand
That not all of life was grand
If you could not afford to buy.
And banks just passed you by
When you needed a car
Because work was so far
From where you had to stay
In the neighborhoods far away
From the nice neat places
And squeaky clean faces
Of those who inherited wealth
Or were sent to schools
That sent out the fools
That knew how to look nice.
And nobody thought twice
When they weren’t quite as bright
As the people that had to fight
For an opening, then trained
So the rich kid could maintain
In a job he didn’t qualify for
But he had the SAT score
To prove he was intelligent
And had the proper quotient
Whether he could deliver or not.
The rest was all just rot.
And nobody paid attention
Nor would they mention
The kid was a well-trained fool
And what he learned in class
Was how to look good and pass
For a person smarter than
The average working man.
That’s what I learned first-hand
And what I came to understand.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 12:55 AM UTC
The man in the black trench coat
holds a sign
'The end of the world is near'
It isn't.
Its closer than that.
It sits on our shoulders
Mocking our futility
It's breath on our ears
Like a man playing cards
on the body of another.
The man in the camel-hair coat
Is a sign
'the kingdom of God is near'
It is
Come close he implores
And rest on his shoulder
Give up your futility
And hear if you've ears
For you can have life
On the body of another
Nov 15, 2010
Nov 15, 2010 at 1:57 PM UTC
Who are we if not the purveyors of justice
my rifle, my knife, these limbs.
Who are they if not the intruders of peace;
their terror, our lives, death looms.
I am hollowed: rebuilt and refilled.
My scarred face remembers what
I need not. Their faces and fear lie killed;
****** with mandate, bullet hole signature.
The trigger finger -
is not mine, it’s yours.
You **** guerrilla forces, burn
villages and conquer; linger and pause.
Teach them what you had us learn,
cut them from their cage,
and coax them to our ways.
They, purveyors of peace;
you, intruder, enforcing justice.
Apr 17, 2014
Apr 17, 2014 at 9:22 AM UTC
Sketching surveys of desolate dreams,
purveyors of private property plots,
their impatient greed,
ignoring purple spray paint warnings.
Six feet under, resting next to Grandpa's coffin,
live valuable minerals, their rights forgotten,
a farmer of soy beans, wheat and corn,
oil & gas law to Grandpa was foreign,
but he knew why our creek's current flowed north,
upwards, defying gravity or reason, why these men had come.
One time executive cowboy hats descended on the farm,
in pickup trucks, just purchased from an oil lot in Odessa,
Grandpa took aim and raised his Beretta,
their unfit hats lost to the blast, the only harm.
I was only five, when I saw his lengths of protection,
he took me on hunts for deer, boar, quail, dove,
would always aim his rifle, fire and miss,
blamed it on his eye sight, yet hit bullseyes on paper targets.
It took me 20 years to understand why, with swallowed pride,
he purposely missed killing these animals,
cursing his eyesight instead, winning an Oscar for his humble acts,
was he blinding me from death?
There was no vision impairment, I found out in hindsight,
probably the trauma witnessed, as he died with 20/20 eyesight.
Mar 15, 2018
Mar 15, 2018 at 1:59 AM UTC
purveyors of manufactured
kitsch
reminiscent of
plaster wall pool hall pastime bulls
eye
plastered
America’s
got stars
stripes
corncob pipes in
straight
lines and circles within circles
within
I’s
Jasper laid himself down on the plains of canvas in
perpetual concentrics
perpetuating eccentric eclectic economics of
subcutaneous pricetag politics.
bull’s
eyes on the prize of a new American dream
a dream deferred and defined
in straight and curved
lines.
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 9:41 PM UTC
The mothers all cry
For the last baby down.
The protestors try
but there is no one around.
They all yell from the streets
but they can't make a sound.
All you hear are the feet-pounding
hungry war hounds.
I doubt that there's been
a more dangerous foe.
When it's fear we're afraid of
our fear feeds it more.
When you're freedom's at risk
then that freedom must go.
It's a paradoxical, sick, un-winable war.
SO
SALUTE
Hey YOU!
Do you have a problem with that?
I can't HEAR YOU SOLDIER,
fall in or fall flat.
We support what your forefathers said you stood for,
But their words hold no weight anymore.
Now all is so quiet
on the western frontier.
The purveyors of "RIGHT"
a whole two hundred years.
We're the STRONGEST
the PROUDEST
WORLD'S BIGGEST cliche.
But never mind, even Rome
didn't fall in one day.
And still the mothers all cry for the last baby down.
Oct 21, 2015
Oct 21, 2015 at 4:10 AM UTC
“You can never go back,”
someone famous once said
and it’s true.
Wading out from the paddy field, I swim around
to view this piece of the past from the water.
But it has changed. Its name, its appearance.
Fifteen years on
and there is more, more of everything
but less of spirit.
Our memories stay frozen while the world
moves on.
I climb the steep stairs from the lake.
An old woman sits under a Carlsberg umbrella.
I feel foolish, but I have to know.
“Was this once called Christa’s?”
She cackles delightedly through her
betel-ravished gums
and in broken English I think she is
trying to tell me she is Christa.
I walk down the hill
past a stream of local “hello” purveyors,
but they blur behind
the gallery of faces mood-lit in my mind,
people who once meant so much
lost now in time and distance.
You can never go back.
You can only lift the lid of history.
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 12:03 AM UTC
I tell you all
As someone born to politics,
As someone who when he was born
Was told that everything is political;
There is a far larger nefarious thing
Going on behind the curtain, screen.
You are being tapped of all you know
Trapped, in a snare that closes slow
Mar 6, 2024
Mar 6, 2024 at 12:11 AM UTC
By: Cedric McClester
If not for the pills
Doctors once prescribed
The musician Prince
Might still be alive
Along with others who
Sought similar relief
Because their stories too
Ended in grief
If not for the greed
On Big Pharma’s part
The opioid epidemic
Right from the start
Might not have grown
To epic proportions
Because of ignorance
And outright distortions
If not for the relaxed
Government regulations
We might not now
Be at our battle stations
Trying to reverse
What’s sweeping our nation
Because opioids doesn’t
Go on vacation
If not for the prevalence
Of the fentanyl drug
And its purveyors
Who are typically smug
Then we might not have
Gotten mugged
In the way that we have
By this deadly drug
Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2019. All rights reserved.
Nov 18, 2019
Nov 18, 2019 at 8:25 AM UTC
Once there was a nation, which
Boasted of its wealth and size.
In that nation lies became truth,
And truth became known as lies.
Thus, the country corroborated
An expert's wise and salient prediction
That soon the people everywhere
Wouldn't know fact from fiction.
"Science is irrelevant,"
The leaders of the land decreed.
"Clamp down on critical thinking
And we'll maintain control indeed."
The people became MORE baffled,
MORE confused, MORE perplexed,
And wondered what kind of craziness
They were going to encounter next.
The art of political doublespeak
Was praised, encouraged and expanded.
If you called it gobbledygook,
You were severely reprimanded.
Reporters who sought facts were called
"Purveyors of mendacity,"
While those who were irrational
Were "pillars of veracity."
The general rule was answer a question
With a question, or try to deflect
Any queries toward dead ends.
The tactic was called "Misdirect."
The leader was an expert at
Duplicity and subterfuge.
Ruling without intelligence
Can work when a person's ego is HUGE.
Sad it was to see such a land
Change from what it once had been.
Not until people opened their eyes
Would things improve. Not until then.
- by Bob B (3-21-17)
Mar 21, 2017
Mar 21, 2017 at 1:15 PM UTC
*The windswept crackle of Jehovahs machinery
Honey sweet greenery with trolling titmouse
sentries , white contrails drawn onto blue canopy and
brown leaf melodies
Woodpecker percussionist tap the song of dusk
Songs of the rusty red clover valley
and golden sagebrush
Psalms of cardinal chatter and brown thrasher cackle
Bronze raptors circling sun -streaked hillsides flushed
in crepe myrtle , yellowbell and azalea
Where the purveyors of creation live , thrive and belong*...
May 16, 2017
May 16, 2017 at 7:02 PM UTC
*There is an innocence about it
A sensation which slightly glows
And illuminates, the half of it
But does not act out of cluelessness
Or carelessness
No, it's a state of care free thoughtfulness
In which this kind of being exists
It hates the plow
It hates the system
It simply is
It simply lives
It connects itself to many things
And many people
With a genuine and expressive tone
And an innate sweetness inside of it
And when this sensation sleeps
The small corners of the world as they are
In one way or another
Are at peace
And when I am near
It is the same as when I am not
Behaving with steadfastness
And as it listens quietly
It puts me at ease
As I see it now, for what it is, in its innocence
And when given the opportunity to speak
I care for it
And yet, I cannot understand it's simplicity
In sight
It is a twist of hair in the seamless breeze
How it wavers without want or will
It simply is
A mess, yet controlled
And always in its own way, and by its own will
Deep water can be cold and treacherous
But shallow water can break, be seen and is warm
I love the water, but not like this
And not to submerge
That's not for me
Though these purveyors of sensation are incredibly
Unimaginably sweet*
Mar 26, 2017
Mar 26, 2017 at 2:31 AM UTC
I pray this pupil’s prayer,
penitent for desiring
an end to this madness
of clearing away snow,
only to find more, compact,
beneath the loose surface
No two snowflakes alike
each snowflake falls with grace
absorbed by tuition fees,
books, books, books!
O the books pour down
clusters of refurbished
cognitive technicalities
Each unique in its crystal formation
drench my shoes to full with repositories
of Professor gods’ wounded knees and sore egos
do I leggo my Eggo
to feast on academia’s wine
glut on the ambrosia of fine whine?
What privilege to live in Snowflakia
the snowbanks are too high, Sir!
-still I climb, seeking purchase-
It takes too much time!
-yet I wade through the drifts-
of alabastards’ Judas kiss
A Snowflake ingrate nation
in turn taken for madness
I cannot find a flick
to fling away wet sopping masses
of absence from classes
brain drain juices taste like molasses
I revile the texture of their pasty *****
You haven’t a chance in Hell-
-Ye Gods! Mea Culpa!
I am sorry, O Ponderous Purveyors,
for my blasphemous prayers
I will see the glass is
full of wine not molasses,
I will be a good snowflake and fall
into my pre-planned place
Your liquid body will purify the well
I want to fall with grace
so I may rise without disgrace.
~
NM
02/04/19
Mar 22, 2020
Mar 22, 2020 at 10:45 PM UTC
A crown of thorns placed upon the brow of the one for whom they had disdain. A unceremonious adornment for one they mocked as king. With little but mournful cries did he bear the insult and indignity. Little did the oppressors and purveyors of the persecution know that they were simply adding thorns to the Rose of Sharon. For what beautiful Rose does not have thorns.
Jan 13, 2016
Jan 13, 2016 at 10:53 PM UTC
*Nutmeg firma , fractured window abstractions -
of quivering pools , of desire abating thirst
Life giver , abundant wavering ripples finding -
grassy shore , tinseled in gold , copper , bronze -
precious metals , beads of sweat traveling rippled flesh , every -
desperate breath filling life's circuitry till its
conclusive end
Foot trails laced in dandelion , purple wire ,
terra-cotta stone , marble and granite
The birth of monuments riddled o'er the fescue -
expression , Bluebird followers , curt winged
purveyors of decay , August clod bank rows , barbed -
wire orderly plats , distant wavers of unrelenting sun-glow facing -welcome centurion lodges*
Sep 18, 2016
Sep 18, 2016 at 4:13 PM UTC