"pyrrhic" poems
Sag my corpse
in 32 degree weather
through the city of God
where paraplegics dream of running.
“Oh Rhodesian mercenary,”
humble my soul again
like in C(hi)(ca)ongo.
But remember
The revolution starts
on my mama’s bed
at half past six.
So excuse me while I smoke my drink like a Brooklyn Leftist from the 40’s tramples
burning cigarettes on cold pavements where codeine and Sprite
make any Tuesday fabulous because we already suffered from (and for) the goods of mankind.
But before you read me the history of Hatchepsut;
I learned the art of man within the confines of FCC regulations after my ‘Pa threw ******* out the window and made life in the cell not mundane by telephoning philosophical-entendres
that tomorrow never happened.
He too was from the blood of the ancestors whose bodies were charred on as goods—
whose children now char their bodies with the goods of the goddess of Victory—
the official trademark for the lost Exodus—the blood and blue moribund—
sagging pyrrhic victories in 32 degree weather as homage to their charred ghost (fore)fathers
who preyed to the city of God for bread
Jun 10, 2013
Jun 10, 2013 at 8:35 PM UTC
My auspicious and audacious assault augments the annoyance of aged accomplices.
My bodacious broadside of boffolas berates and buffaloes bros beneficently.
A classy crusade Clownishly chiseling and criticizing childishness.
A devilish ********** of dillydallying dullards; devoutly denying dimwits the dulcet dream of defiance.
Excessive, exuberant edification, ebulliently eliminating education-evictees.
A fair-weather frolic in flippancy with furious fools floundering in flawed foppishness.
Gregariously grating glum guys gleefully, growing grander garnishes of gripping gallantry gaily.
Heckling hooligans highlights my heavenly humor.
Irreverently irking irritable, iniquitous idiots in inestimably infuriating and incredible instances.
A jolly, jocular **** joking with jerks.
A kreiger kicking kleptomaniacs in the karyotype. (Cut me some slack, this is 'k', after all.)
A ludicrous, laughing lambaste of lollygagging lunatics, loftily loosing luscious lunacy on lucky losers.
A magnificent masterpiece of malfeasance, a monstrous, malevolent mission of massive misfortune for the minor minors missing no malicious missive.
A noxious, narcissistic niggling of nitwits, niftily nixing the noisome naivete of niggardly nobs.
An offhand, off-color outburst of outlandish observations to outclass the obnoxious overtures of obsequious offal.
A pragmatic prediction of possible platitudes or platypi, a placid parley of pyrotechnic pleasantries provoking Pyrrhic protections by prurient prats.
A quixotic quibble quarreling with a queer quarry.
Ribald ribbing, ruining the robust reality of the repreachful, repugnant, and rapacious with risque ridiculousness.
A silly, slighting slander of sluglike slavishness, succinctly sinking sloppy simpletons sourly.
Tracing the titillating talent of towing tyranny to towering terrors to tactless, togless, terrapins of the times.
Jan 7, 2012
Jan 7, 2012 at 11:25 PM UTC
High on the O2:
Red Rossopomodoro, Wagamama,
and on the bus shelter, Marc Jacobs,
and again higher,
Habitat,
then Metroline moves past.
It's the 113
to Oxford Circus,
and the 13 to Victoria:
Thrilla Lives On,
shouts the slogan,
while National Express has
All Set For Take-Off.
They're gone...
It calms
empties,
nothing much
just the red lidless eyes
of cars
two, three, four dozen pairs
hover
over the asphalt road.
Where...
where am I?
Ahhh, yeah,
in the Oriental Star,
the road seen from a table and stool,
waiting
for food.
Where have I hailed from?
My lover's womb.
No, no
NOT THAT!
The North Star, yes:
A pub on the Finchley Road,
Where Tottenham beat Liverpool 4-1
A pyrrhic victory!
Over a couple of beers.
Warm years, and tears.
A sense of place,
a home, a nest,
Receding in the traffic
Of a busy road,
Waiting on noodles.
Nov 10, 2017
Nov 10, 2017 at 6:15 PM UTC
This air bag is suffocating me.
All i can breathe is the sulfur.
I don't have a witness.
It's a bitter, sweet, sweet, pyrrhic victory.
Lights looking left are lights looking away.
I promise I'll drive into the distance.
Your lights illuminate only exits now.
You can drive around in circles for years and years and never do justice to all of your fears.
A traffic circle.
And the ringing in your ears is the car wreck I'm trying not to escape. This sulfur is suffocating me.
circle, circle, circle, circle, circle, circle, circle, circle, stop.
Feb 11, 2011
Feb 11, 2011 at 12:34 AM UTC
A sonnet's what this is, that much is plain
There really isn't any need to stare
Its introduction's made in this quatrain
Two more will follow, then a rhyming pair
It is iambic, so it goes “dot dash”
Two syllables a foot, five feet a line
The rhythm takes you onward in a flash
The sense of structure's reinforced by rhyme
After the first octet, a change of mood
The sonnet's true intentions are revealed
Its themes are love and essence, nothing crude
Hard hearts begin to melt and ******* to yield
Then closure as it slowly slips away
A soft exit – a pyrrhic fall – spondee.
Oct 21, 2009
Oct 21, 2009 at 12:09 PM UTC
To be imbued with the conviction that empathic listening is a panacea,
by the surreptitious, murmurous harbinger and his mellifluous words,
provoked brooding that my comprehension of his susurrous eloquence was a mondegreen,
when this scintilla of sagacity left a fetching ingenue crestfallen.
By the surreptitious, murmurous harbinger and his mellifluous words!
I adopted a propinquity to this furtive, ephemeral epiphany,
but when this scintilla of sagacity left a fetching ingenue crestfallen,
I discerned this lagniappe beleaguered our dalliance.
I adopted a propinquity to this furtive, ephemeral epiphany.
When she became inured to petrichor I knew my method pyrrhic,
and when I discerned that this lagniappe beleaguered our dalliance,
I vowed to rectify the imbroglio for my quintessential cynosure.
When she became inured to petrichor I knew my method pyrrhic,
and I ruminated that her insouciance was only forbearance.
I vowed to rectify my quintessential cynosure of the imbroglio,
and fabricated a denouement to return her to halcyon incipient.
I ruminated that her insouciance was only forbearance,
until hearing her state our conflation made each a moiety of our own panoply.
She fabricated a denouement to return us to the incipience of halcyon
with ineffable felicity, and I remembered with ebullience my inamorata's words.
Hearing her state our conflation made each a moiety of our own panoply
provoked brooding that my comprehension of her susurrous eloquence was a mondegreen.
With ineffable felicity I found ebullience in my inamorata's words
and was imbued with the conviction that empathic listening is a panacea.
Nov 26, 2013
Nov 26, 2013 at 4:58 AM UTC
A ripened sky splits and bleeds
Mangled reds and blacks;
An instant melts as heat from
Clustered newborn suns --
Blistered from the wounds --
Collects and beams 1600 feet
Earthwards from Fat Man's
Plump and pompous underbelly.
The pure-light pin-prick stopped
The city's pulse for a moment;
Collecting remnants of the
Beating hearts (of artists,
Doctors, students, parents,
Preachers, rats, and peasants)
To plant on rotting soil -
A hellish fungal pustule.
The swelling abscess breathed
But once and burst to
Ripple excess outwards
Soaking up the landscape;
Ingesting miles and spewing
Spores towards septic skies to form
A mass of mushroomed
Might and pyrrhic triumph.
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 11:21 AM UTC
Ingénue, Ingénue
mellifluous intonation;
within my ear
intangible embrocation!
Emollient to my inure
lithe and lilt affections-
A panacea, a talisman
fetching provocation.
Ingénue, Ingénue
Why must you fall
into such fugacious
dalliances?
Becoming and comely
are you
The cynosure of men
dissembling by demure
Ingénue, Ingénue
how easily I imbue
sempiternal scintilla
into naive little you
Lo, during my brooding-
arrive in halcyon gambol,
Dulcet or Saccharine
Is it me or you?
Ingénue, oh Ingénue
an epiphany, so true
a furtive labyrinthine
past the offing of you
None so opulent
cast more than penumbra.
T'would simply be Pyrrhic
to go on, continue.
May 1, 2013
May 1, 2013 at 12:14 PM UTC
You've got a thousand hands
but only one mind.
Correct the clock's time -
anticipation stings the chest
but you can't complete the rest.
Maybe this is futile.
Reptilian-claws scratch for an ounce of denial.
For the sun awakens
when you scream for relief -
it is the only thing that can be done
for the doleful meek.
And the moon hides it's shine
when searching for the divine.
The darkness was meant as a guide.
Slow down your single mind,
and use your thousand hands,
that are untied.
Mar 21, 2013
Mar 21, 2013 at 12:01 AM UTC
We were a beleaguered bard born,
a chief in chatoyant charms charged with
the principle petrichor of passionate paramours;
to drive the dainty dalliances
of incipient ingénues immured in
glamourous gossamer gowns;
lilting, lead lissome lads 'long labyrinthine love;
mischeiviously make mellifluous mondegreens;
sing of such serendipity: surreptitiously susurrous sessions
scintillas of Spring's sempiternal sentiments!
But fetching fugues fade fast, felicity's fated to fly. For
penumbral poets, it portends a pyrrhic pay.
We wander woebegone, waiting wistfully.
Lovers leave lyricists to languish in lonely lassitude.
The halcyon heyday has harbingered
inbroglio in the inured inventor of infatuation.
Why? With what wherewithal?
Often our offerings off us, opposite of, obviously, obtaining, or,
lucidly: lyrical lacers of Love likewise lack its livening lagniappe.
Sep 28, 2012
Sep 28, 2012 at 11:59 AM UTC
Nothing intimidates me more,
Than a woman’s inviting smile,
It pierces right down to the core;
Appealing to everything I adore;
This subtle, suggestive, wile:
Whetting the sense of anticipation,
Igniting fires of the imagination.
Nothing possesses more power,
Than a woman’s determined will;
Disguised as a delicate flower,
Sweetness smothering the sour,
Regardless of the pyrrhic thrill;
Bewitchment in everything but name,
Savouring the illicitness of the game.
No ordinary man has a prayer,
When a woman stakes her claim;
She’ll welcome you into her lair,
Reject her desires if you dare,
Her revenge has legendary fame;
Travelling incognito: deadly intentions,
From this wrath, there are no preventions.
Do not ever, ever, underestimate.
That which cannot be understood:
Avoid the temptation to speculate,
Categorize, classify or evaluate,
The secret mysteries of womanhood;
Whenever tempted by an inviting smile;
Nod politely then turn, and run a mile.
© Paul Chafer 2014
Nov 15, 2013
Nov 15, 2013 at 6:19 AM UTC
As the sun went down,
Her smile after my apology,
. . . Little gift to me.
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 11:02 PM UTC
each hour that I see you here, my heart starts to forget. all the times I could've held out my hand and when that something held me back. something, so minute: like a grain of sand or a sliver of light, that'd pull me into a chasm of remembrance, my hole of thought — my inner turmoil.
I'd remember how you'd embrace me with your hug of deceit and end it with your kisses of retreat. I'd remember how you'd shape the curves and ridges of my heart's making then poke it as if I was your little play toy. how you could toss and turn me just like my insomniac behaviour and get away like a thief in the shadow of the night. I'd remember your love for hate and how you thought I was your game, a taste of pyrrhic victory: your temporary satisfaction.
but as I see you walk through those doors, I remember my one regret:
that I learned to love your soul when you only chained me back.
May 3, 2014
May 3, 2014 at 12:41 PM UTC
when I go
it will be
impossibly late
and I’ll leave you
not multi-talented bars
or pairs of randy ingots
itching to procreate
in a splendid explosion
of golden delight
what I’ll leave you is
a stale-air larder
filled just this once
by dully packaged thoughts
and duller feelings
when I have them
they could only couple
if enlivened with musical prodding
or the sigh effecting benefits
from hands full of mood-altering
pharmaceuticals
so please yourself instead
and don’t
put them to any use
bury them deep
better yet
pile them high on Pyrrhic pyres
where the gathering scorch will send
down leaden puddles
while precious platinum curls rise
up to trickle trickster tears
my greatest possible reward
Sep 3, 2010
Sep 3, 2010 at 8:54 AM UTC
Voice unheard
she tries to remain silent
Words twisted
turned back upon her
She feels compassion
for Pyrrhus
as she may have won the day
but the war,
well...
she has been totally defeated
Nov 2, 2014
Nov 2, 2014 at 9:39 PM UTC
Wake up on the shower floor
Feelings scattered on the tile
With nothing left to cry about
The devils holed up in your head
Have finally reached a reverent lull
Hoping you won't laugh them out
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 10:33 PM UTC
As you read this tee,
I spy into the depth
Of your
Pyrrhic soul
Feb 17, 2013
Feb 17, 2013 at 6:45 PM UTC
Cheers from inside the catacombs of just-alive vagabonds & miscreant self-delusions of sagacious sabotage & pyrrhic moonscapes, brandishing our eternal return
a tabula rasa for respect & character - bottoms up, too. Mona Lisa
Shroud of Turin, ******* on a trunk. Gamble 66
for trays, dealing steam carrots.
Gag reflex to polite televangelists giving viewers auspicious immunity.
Habits cede to Power, acquiesce to Power, love power.
Peculiarity can recognize & organize to displace.
Something suspicious may run amok , antithetical to the divide & conquer trite.
Defeating paragons, i , Plumed Serpent of release & capture beats, borrowing color from a skylark in forever-flight, conjure remedial winds
Guide inimical bows subsumed in a cosmo-prole dew against the fasces of a few.
Apr 7, 2010
Apr 7, 2010 at 10:20 PM UTC
On the evening of August 6th
The body is separated, eviscerated
Stone walls
Lost thralls
A family takes their evening stroll
And finds themselves imprisoned
Their umbilical cord, cut down the half
Microwave oven
Searing monsoon shower
Vagrant feet are shackled
Eyes are blinded with exhaust pipes
The East is not allowed to cry alone
Decay, wail on
Wail on
Contain us
Dear Marcus, free me
From these Pyrrhic victories
Clean this dusky mall
I feel safe under phosphoric lights
Guerillas swing on electric wires
Transatlantic conversations
Acquired on paper
Perverse
Desecrated
Red cloth seizes everything
Stray, running felines
The impassioned, waving flag
Kept in a velvet pocket
Stay here, stay a while
This cold era is a rising draft
The Bermuda Triangle
Quarantined
No more ships crawl along the winded shore
A time capsule
The nation sinks into antiquity
The brink of armageddon
Cusp of oblivion
Crimson hand of eternity
An old, whittled clock
Last minute
Cold Turkey!
God almighty
Peace is never promised
But we may yearn again
Nobody is free
But we are safe for another hour
God almighty
Leases on the lands
Paid in thorns
Nations playing circles
Mr. Versus Mr.
An ever-changing world
Stagnant and tightly oiled
Save this soil
It will cave in silence
The clockmaker sits in the backdrop
Readying her tools
Dec 6, 2018
Dec 6, 2018 at 5:16 PM UTC
The spring’s efflorescence,
the sunshine halcyon,
the withering rose fetching,
the ripple in the lake a talisman,
and the birdsong mellifluous,
is ephemeral,
yet quintessential.
Through wherewithal of it all,
we find ourselves pyrrhic,
because it passes like a scintilla,
but in our hearts, it’s eternal.
Jun 17, 2012
Jun 17, 2012 at 12:27 AM UTC
it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. it was a pyrrhic love, it was a herculean love. how the new life will begin i do not know,
but i know it will come from the lovers,
the loverly trees sprung forth at my
birth.
i can't comb out my eyelashes,
i cannot comb these lice out of my eyelashes
i wish i did not have lice
please give me an excuse not to change my sheets
i miss the girl in my bed
i wish i did not have lice
just say something back to me
Feb 20, 2017
Feb 20, 2017 at 7:34 PM UTC
goodbye poetry
some get none
now to write for a cause and not applause
majoring in alienation
hijack a popular avatar
just for a pyrrhic victory
put everything into the microwave
universal wealth care
***** it all
ensuring that all this isn't for everyone
only the best continue following
gone to get a life
(aka self-inflicted pain experience)
real life just dragged on and on
the same names keep coming back
observing their well-established cliques
like an anthropologist observing chimps
that glorious era
when the streams of consciousness
suffered a drought
maelstrom of ragnarok
took summer off life support
tasty
electoral fraud as a way of life
just shredded all the "yes" votes so nobody would know
looking to buy an extremist audience
and wondering if maybe walmart has one
the carnage has just begun
seething rage into the vault
tabs opened to liveleak videos of beheadings
all that freedom and she says "vanilla, please"
ideas with which everyone agrees
ideas embraced by all
everyone loves megalomania
everyone enjoys violent passion
everyone loves paroxysms
90 percent of you don't actually exist
low intelligence levels in all but four followers
make that five
hail eris hail discord hail chaos
mark all as read
mark all as ******
trapped in a vicious cycle
eating white toasted bread and acting all stable
invisible at last
discovered a way to speak
freely without judgment
discovered a way to avoid
positive feedback
sitting down for lunch with two popes
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 11:52 AM UTC
My soul ached
For his skin and bones
And all the beating somethings in between-
That nothing,
Perhaps not even time,
Could revoke the hormone-driven,
Empty-souled desire I had
For every participle of his being
To deluge me through my core
And past every withering remain
Of sanity or stability
I so feebly clung to.
Jun 24, 2016
Jun 24, 2016 at 5:58 PM UTC
*You won and won
again
Pyrrhic victories
lost your
war*
Nov 29, 2011
Nov 29, 2011 at 7:34 PM UTC
Such artificial nonsense rhyme,
That can turn art into slime,
And make your thoughts not worth a dime,
And words a total waste of time.
Throw away the limiting forms,
Burn all the idiotic norms,
Old-fashioned rules apply to fools,
No one but me plays with my tools!
The new trinity is Me, Myself and I!
I set the rules for every game,
And follow none, just the same,
Anarchy rules all, and that's no lie!
Iambic pentameter? Pyrrhic substitutions?
Who the hell cares about those illusions!
Counting syllables and each line?
Grand, old, pompous idiocy most sublime!
Write a sonnet? I'd rather wear a pink bonnet!
But if I do 15 lines it will be
Why, 'cause I say so, doggone it!
And no idiot ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
I am GOD and rule it blasphemy,
To follow both hard and easy rules,
That can make heads hurt, you'll agree,
Or burn in eternal hell as reactionary fools.
There is more art in a cow's mighty ****
Than in Milton, Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Pope,
If you can't beat them, marginalize them from the start,
Drag them through the mire to raise me up, that is my hope.
From now on all couplets shall triplets be, thus do I decree,
Come to me on bended knee and I will set you free,
Everyone's a poet, welcome to the new reality.
Feb 14, 2019
Feb 14, 2019 at 1:51 PM UTC