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Al-Farouk Jun 2016
Quenched thirst I deserve
I need to quench this thirst
I scatter and scampere to
quench this thirst.
I fumble and scramble
in quenching this thirst.

This thirst I must quench
cooling effect protruding in
inner me.
can the thirst be quenched?
I should quench my thirst
with no time.

I need cascades of quenchful
waters in inner me
to quench my thirst
I deserve this thirst quenched
mother, quenching my thirst its
only what I want.

The thirst is still here
quenching it needs
give me a platter of civilised
waters
I am here to quench
this thirsty thirst.

I need help
in the thirst quenching
please share with me
the holy waters if possible
I would adore to quench
my thirst.

Thirsty thirst like mrrh
elongated thirst
embers of thirst in inner me
I must quench my thirst.
228

Blazing in Gold and quenching in Purple
Leaping like Leopards to the Sky
Then at the feet of the old Horizon
Laying her spotted Face to die
Stooping as low as the Otter’s Window
Touching the Roof and tinting the Barn
Kissing her Bonnet to the Meadow
And the Juggler of Day is gone
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2018
Songs of Oregon: No 5 no general impressions specifically

For the Poets of Oregon, each a unique travel guide

no salt n’ pepper shaker of general impressions for the offering,
for now, ubiquitous generalities means inclusionary which means
likely accidental to be exclusionary,
so specifically,
no ‘all in' clauses

just a few specific eye-sights, hoary words, new birth canals,
to be either eaten, resurrected, van-slaughtered, backyard buried,
all are filed nearby in the seed cabinet or the garage freezer,
or on the C drive of your brain

awaiting ideal planting conditions, and the rest,
a series perhaps,
Songs of Oregon?
Someday

someday, when all the big brief poems are fully formed,
earth ripened, mind fomented; oak barrel aged,
harvest-reading-ready,
green trees shoots busting thrusting through
misleading sandy looking soil,
needy for quenching from
aquifers that are gold geyser plentiful,
a hundred feet deep, needy only for a
“please sir, may I have some more,"
they’l be writ

but for now, these below are,
some easy to be specifics,
reveling and revealed, useful takeaways,
specifics pacifics
for those who might be traversing upon
Lewis and Clark’s Oregon Trail:

them multicolored redneck
full bearded boys
and those of the
vinnie, millennial hipsters and aging ex- hippies, also,
full bearded boys  
are indistinguishable!
many of both wear matching bib jeans,
so be careful who you be calling
a hillbilly in open carry country

the forever refilled coffee mug still exists though the price
is now $2 but the coffee is sustainable (I am evidence)
organic, from a rain forest from Timbuktu,
so it gets planted in your bloodstream and then replaced
in the soil & land,
the loam of the soul
by you

in Milwaukee,
they know how to spell Milwaukee but
not in Portland

don’t be shocked at the town naming,
these borrowers got no  i-magination,
that’s surly lacking in Oregon; mthey’ll steal your
Nor’easter or Indian
town or city’s name
with no shame
or comp-unction,
claiming it’s different cause
they made it organically and
then misspelled it,
correctly

think that pointy poem point well made,
god made only one coast (theirs) and
just forgot to put Shelter Island NY  upon it;
threw it up randomly skyward, landed on some
atlantic backwater body

getting there or anywhere in Oregon traffic
about the same as in NYC traffic, thus
the heavens balance the scales of justice with
dramatic automotive irony

in some counties, the school week is a
four day affair, for the children need to repay
their parents birthing labor, by laboring beside them
in the vineyards, on the tractors, learning from
the book and look of their parents
sun aged faces and hands,
life learning
that man must earn his sustenance
with the sweat of ones own brow
and that word;
week,
can be spelt in contradictory ways
but only one is acceptable
out here

do be careful though Oregonians are very willingly to lam it,
(Willamette) if you ask nicely,
pick up normal looking weird hitchhikers
and drive many a mile
in yours, not theirs, but sure,
“going-the-same-way direction”
if you ask polite with just a smile

and the river salmon have hired their own governmental advisors


like I said,
no general impressions
just a private’s brief recollections
from his first tour of duty
abroad
where he was purple heart medaled shot
through ‘n through with
Oregon kindness

some juicy real specifics to follow eventually
someday
songs of oregon No.5
As mother nature's
Punitive measure
Against a society
In maintaining
The statuesque
That doesn't bother,
Our rivers
Had become subject
To a water thirst,
To the extent
Of projecting
Rocky ribs
Terrifyingly protruded out
For easy count!

But now thanks to
The all-out, terrace making
And reafforestation effort
Of each catchment
Farmers have made a point
And also  to the afforestation
Move of the government
Rivers aside from quenching
Their insatiable thirst
Have resumed
To brim over
With floods
Drinking water
To their hearts' content.

Our forests once stripped of
Their wooded cover
Have started, fast, to recover
From afar they are seen
Robed eye-catching green
From a fry-pan sky
Allowing a shelter
Also busy
Carbon to sequester.

Wild animals
That migrated
Have preferred
Back their way to find.

Now farmers don't have
Deep to dig
To sink a water well
Or find a nearby spring.

Birds are heard chirruping
Be it winter, summer or spring,
While Brooks bubbling.

Buzzing and hovering
From this to that flower
Bees are producing
Organic honey by the hour.

Promising a bumper harvest
Farmer's plots have
Fortunately continued
To resuscitate!
Those leaving
Their denuded abode behind
Away, who preferred
To stay
'We will return back
home soon! '
Is what
They  say.

Happily enough
Mother nature
Affords us a second chance
Imbued with
Environment stewardship
If  we are willing to mend
Our wrong 'Feast today
famine tomorrow! ' stance.

To dispel the spectre
Of climate change
And systematically face
The global challenge
True to the adage
'We have either to
swim together
or sink together! '

Hence in fighting the challenge
Or adapting to the change
Back scratching,
We have to be on the same page.

Indeed, irrigation must
Not slip our mind
For erratic rainfall
A  lasting solution
If we must find.//

Once a famous Ethiopian Poet  Pro.Debebe Seifu Who had passed away had  penned down a picturesque poem lamenting the land degradation, deforestation and change of climate the country was suffering.The bad scenario seemed unrecoverable.Now a days Ethiopia is reversing that sad episode.I have therefore to write a poem on this
#change   #trees   #erosion   #climate   #deforestation   #enviroment   #degeradation   #desertification
Once a famous Ethiopian Poet  Pro.Debebe Seifu, Who had passed away, had  penned down a picturesque poem lamenting the land degradation,deforestation and change of climate the country was suffering.The bad scenario seemed unrecoverable then.Now a days Ethiopia is reversing that sad episode.I have therefore to write a poem on this.
What does it take to feel alive?

The hug of a mother? The pull of a trigger? A new high to desire?

The social networking of this world has lost its true form and art. The mouth is not for lying rather for cleansing.

Honesty is a form of quenching.

You'll never lose the people and things that truly matter, those are the artifacts and tools to feel alive. Life itself.
Amitav Radiance May 2014
Glistening with beads of passion
The curves accentuated with every touch
Every drop of love quenching the thirst
Enraptured souls breathing life in to each other
Creating a surge of emotional waves
Drowning the lovers in the intensity
Emerging from the depths, to alpine moments
Euphoric bodies merge, to be one*






© Amitav (Radiance)
Harley Oliver Oct 2014
half a cup of
a two toned muse
yeilds a quarter of
a sultry pair of cat eyes
& a tragic obsession
with princess serenity
stirred in with a dash of inconsistencies
and every teenage boys dream
under the heat of a mistress gaze
correcting grammar and errors
mixed in with your matching blacks,
& a quarter dozen
of féline decor
with shoes to complement
toss in a diamond ring
throughly wrapped around
your annulus finger &
indulge it with
strange behavior then
top it off with a silky whip
to accommodate
the quenching fluid of
a ******* *****
October 18, 2013
Marshal Gebbie May 2014
Happily self occupied, absorbed in my day now
I ponder the innocence of what I’m about,
Abstractions aside, there’s a sinister dysfunction
In gliding with Mozart and yearning to shout.
To whisper with wisdom in humourless spirit
Enables cognisance that all is not well,
To float with the Angels and dine with the Devil
Moots broaching with whales in a torment of Hell.

Oils on a canvass in broad strokes of muted
Cacophony’s clamour in tympani’s roar,
The contradiction of peaceful demeanour
When pulses ignite in a rage on the floor.

Then......
With impetus found in a midnight sonata
The calm of a full moon’s light on the face
Reason returns in a soothing dissention
Of kindness’s kiss and the luck of good grace.

This man can engender the passions required
To smooth the waters and calm the tides,
Intelligent catalyst found in a teardrop
Wherein lies the nourishment loving provides.
This man can engender the salve and solution,
Can rectify tormenting wrong in the soul,
With warmth in humanity’s lyrical laughter
In quenching the blaze of black anger's role.*

Marshalg
15 May 2014
Sahil Sharma Aug 2018
Book of life brings various mysterious chapters,one such spells my visit to village..
It was so awe aspiring, but no man's clock can be rewinded to bring that timeless age...

I shouted in wilderness like the way toy means to infant's rejoice...
my words couldn't jump over the peaks, bouncing back my voice...

I was panting and cramps got better of me,pushing me to rest on flat limestone...
But enjoying every bit of that pilgrimage and witnessing melodious chirping tone...

I resumed my journey upwards but soon grey clouds triggered the quenching rain...
Closing my eyes,i opened my arm,kids with cherry cheeks called me tenuous insane...

It seemed as if almighty took me to the heaven, being surrounded by the flowery and green hills...
In the east breeze those school kids were skidding down the ***** with their paper windmills..

An aged shepherd was looking for some shelter,not for himself but for his lamb and sheep..
Such care, such love,that's why the wool machine searched the banyan where her master could sleep...

Some urbans haven't travelled to such pictures just because of it's tech- remoteness..
Wish i had my own hut in the vicinity of woods giving utmost peace,but I'm hapless...

Darkness is floating through narrow lane yet eye catches only citylight..
But wish i could dream again in countryside under shiny moonlight..
kirk Oct 2018
I came along to your garden, to see your chillies growing
Unaware of what laid in wait, or what was really showing
There stood a glass a lidded drink, familiarity of knowing
If that's what I think it is, I don't want it overflowing

Do my eyes forsake me, is that a fluid from the body
Is that froth of a good beer, or from a head that's shoddy
Does it look like what it is, a very dodgy toddy!
Ghoulish drinks will turn you green, like Goblins are in Noddy

What the hell you thinking off, with water that's distilled
It smells like the local gents, so it should not be spilled
I don't mind a special brew, but this time I'm not thrilled
Unusual cocktails are okay, but not ones you have filled

Aren't beverages supposed to be, refreshing and thirst quenching ?
You say that it's good to drink, but really it's gut wrenching
An endless supply you may have, but it should be toilet drenching
Don't ever make a wankers drink, by using a fist clenching

You wouldn't want this drink on tap, it defies imagination
It's just the same as a lady, drinking her own *******
It maybe the water of life, but it's just urination
Aqua vitae is not my idea, of a real drink designation

Even just the thought of it, makes me feel sick and hazy
To drink a glass of this stuff, you must be ******* crazy
Well talk about recycling, or are you just bog lazy
Is Harvey Denton related, or do you live in Royston Vasey

People like to drink sometimes, is there something I have missed
You seem to have your own ideas, but with a certain twist
A brand new meaning you have brought, to getting yourself ******
Golden showers are one thing, but that's when your sexually kissed

There's one thing I'd like to know, so what do you say
Why do you think that drinking ****, will keep the germs away
It cant be very good for you, it's an inside body spray
Your just drinking toilet water, hay Jay are you ****** today ?
This is a response my sister sent I thought it to be a worthy mention:

Ha ha ha he he he , a poem about a man that drinks his own wee , I should have guessed I should have known, because when I told you the seed was sown , so very funny, I think it's great , for all the laughs , well done mate
In response to a sardonic essay written in the recent Saturday Nation by Proffessor Ekara Kabaji, wryly  disregarding the position of Kwani in the global literary movement within and without Kenya , I beg to be permitted a leeway  to observe that any literature, orature, music,drama,cyborature,prisnorature,wallorature,streetorature , sculptor  or painting can effortlessly thrive and off course it has been thriving without professors of  literature, but the reverse is not possible as a proffessor of literature cannot be when literature is not there. Facts in support of this position are bare and readily available in the history of world literature, why they may not be seen is perhaps the blurring effects from tor like protuberant irrelevance of professors of literature in a given literary civilization.
A starting point is that literature exists as a people’s subculture, it can be written or not written like the case of orature which survive as an educative and aesthetic value stored in the collective memory of the given people. The people to be pillars of this collectivity of the memory are not differentiated by academic ranking for superlativity of any reason, but they are simply a people of that place, that community, that time, that heritage, that era and that collective experience. Writing it down is an option, but novels and other written matter is not a sine qua non for existence of literature in such situations. This is not a bolekaja of literature as Proffessor Ekara Kabaji would readily put, but it is a stretch towards realism that it is only people’s condition that creates literature. Poverty, slavery, colonialism, ***, marriage, circumcision, migration, or any other conditions experienced as collective experience of the people is stored or even stowed away in the collective memory of the people as their literature. Literature does not come from idealistic imagination of an educated person.
Historical experience of written literature informs us that the good novels, prose, drama and poetry were written before human society had people known as professors of literature. I want you my dear reader and You-Tube audience to reflect on the Cantos of Dante Alighieri in Italy, novels of Geoffrey Chaucer in England, Herman Melville and his Moby **** in Americas, poetry of Omar khwarisim in Persia, Homeric epics of Odyssey in Greece and the Makonde sculptures of Africa and finally link your reflections to Romesh Tulsi who grafted the Indian epic poetry of Ramayana and Mahabharata. At least you must realize that in those days literature was good, full of charm, very aesthetic and superbly entertaining. This leads to a re-justification that, weapon of theory is not useful in literature. University taught theories of literature have helped not in the growth of literature as compared to the role played by folk culture.
Keen observation will lead you dear reader, down to revelations that; professors of literature squarely depend on the thespic work of the people who are not substantially educated to make a living. Let me share with you the story about Dr. Tom Odhiambo who went to University of Witwasterand in South Africa for post graduate studies in literature only to do his Doctoral research on books of David G Maillu. Maillu is a Kenyan writer, he did not finish his second year of secondary school education but he has been successfully writing poetry and prose for the past three decades. His successful romantic work is After 4.30, probably sarcasm against Kenyan office capitalism, while his eclectic, philosophical and scholarly work is the Broken Drum. Maillu has many other works on his name. But the point is that Dr. Odhiambo now teaches at University of Nairobi in the capacity of senior lecturer in Literature. What makes him to put food on the table is the effort of un-educated person in the name of David Maillu. Dr.Odhiambo himself has not written any book we can mention him for, apart from regular literary journalism he is often involved in on the platforms of the Literary discourse in the Kenyan Saturday Nation which are in turn regular Harangues and ripostes among literature teachers at the University of Nairobi, the likes of Dr Siundu, Proffessor wanjala Chris and Evans Mwangi just but to mention by not being oblivious to professors; Indangasi and Shitanda.
No study has yet been done to establish the role of university professors on growth of African literature. One is overdue. Results may be positive role on negative role, myself I contemplate negative role. Especially when I reflect on how the African literati reacted on the publication of Amos Tutuola’s book The Palm Wine Drinkard. The reactions were more disparaging than appreciative. Taban Lo Liyong reacted to this book by calling Amos Tutuola the son of Zinjathropus as well as taking a self styled intellectual responsibility in form of writing a more  schooled version of this book; Taking Wisdom up the Palm Tree. Nigerians of Igbo (Tutuola being a Yoruba) nation cowed from being associated with the book as it had shamefully broken English, broken grammar etc. Wole Soyinka had a blemished stand, but it is only Achebe who came out forthrightly to appreciate the book in its efforts to Africanize English for the purpose of African literature. Courtesy of Igbo wisdom. But in a nutshell, what had happened is that Amos Tutuola had taken a plunge to contribute towards written literature in Africa.
One more contemplated result from the research about professors and African literature can be that apart from their role of criticism, professors write very boring books. A ready point of reference is deliberate and reasonless obscurantism taken Wole Soyinka in all of his books, Soyinka’s books are difficult to understand, sombre, without humour and not capable to entertain an average reader. In fact Wole Soyinka has been writing for himself but not for the people. No common man can quote Soyinka the way Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is quoted. Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart when he had not began his graduate studies. However, he did not escape the obvious mistake of professors to become obscure in the Anthills of the Savanna, the book he wrote when he had become a proffessor. This is on a sharp contrast to entertaining effectiveness, simplicity and thematic diversity of Captain Elechi Amadi, Amadi who studied chemistry but not literature. He does not have a second degree, but his books from the Concubine, The great Ponds, and Sunset in the Biafra and Isibiru are as spellbinding as their counterparts in Russia.
Kenyan scenario has Ngugi wa Thiongio, he displayed eminence in his first two books; Weep not Child and The River Between. These ones he wrote when he was not yet educated, as he was still an undergraduate student at Makerere University. But later on Ngugi became a victim of prosaic socialism, an ideology that warped his literary imagination only to put him in a paradoxical situation as an African communist who works in America as an English teacher at Irvine University. His other outcrops are misuse of Mau Mau as a literary springboard and campaigning for use of Kikuyu dialect of the Gema languages to become literary Lingua Franca in Kenya. Such efforts of Ngugi are only a disservice to Kenyan literature in particular and African literature collectively. Ngugi having been a student of Caribbean literature has failed to borrow from global literary behaviour of Vitian S. Naipaul.  Ngugi’s position also contrasts sharply with Meja Mwangi whose urban folksy literature swollen with diversity in themes has remained spellbinding entertainers.
The world’s literary thirsty has never failed to get palatable quenching from the works of Harriet Bechetor Stowe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Shakespeare, Alice Munro, Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda, John Steinbeck, Garcia Guarbriel Marguez,Salman Rushdie, Lenrie Peters, Cyprian Ekwenzi, Nikolai Gogol,I mean the list is as long as the road from Kaduna to Cape town. Contribution of these writers to global literature has been and is still critical. Literature could not be without them. Surprisingly, most of them are not trained in literature; they don’t have a diploma or a degree in literature, but some have won literature Nobel Prize and other prizes. Alfred Nobel himself the author of a classical novella, The Nemesis, does not have University education in literature. What else can we say apart from acceding to the truth that literature can blossom without professors, the Vis-à-vis an obvious and stark impossibility.
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
The Seven - The Mashup


In memory of my mother who passed away recently, I wrote, or intended to write seven (only six were actually done) new poems themed about her, her passing and some perspective on life and death.  All were read and I am deeply appreciative.  I have consolidated them all here, in order, though not necessarily the order in which they were written. But the order does matter, as it reflects the change in my mood with each passing day.   Perhaps I will write the seventh someday, but not now, not soon.

Thank you all so much for incredibly kind words of sympathy. I am not a dweller, so I set myself a goal to complete this vow, this task, in a week to correspond to the seven days of mourning the immediate family observes after the burial (the shiva, shiva meaning 7).  For seven days, the bereaved family "sits shiva," sitting on low, uncomfortable stools and the comforters come to share their grief, praise the deceased, from mourning till late at night


#1 Shiva

I am confused - what day is it?
Windows tell day or night, a necessary but a condition insufficient.
The days have no distinguishing marks, a video stuck on
Repeat - a single track of recollected tales, prayers add a mild seasoning.

Though brief is this week of pre-sentencing hearings,
If one cannot dice the time into portions,
Then, there can be no pardon,
No early release date, from Phase One.

Rinse grief. Repeat. Seven cycles.
Apply stain-stick at the intersection of
Bloodied hurts and dimming memories,
Strangers secreting, spilling on you secrets unwanted.

This play, saw it many decades ago,
Before there was poetry, children.
A young man of twenty one,
Very afraid, silently, of the newest unknown,
His father, cancer won.

I hated it then. Now experienced, I hate it more.
This semi-catharsis, a tapestry tale wove of faded pasts
Twisting an heirloom blade into an old wound,
the original cast, a new revival, playwright, regrettably, deceased...

First time at bat, hid in a small room, away from this tradition.
Beating my head against a wall privately,
That being my preferred manner of mourning,
Not this Broadway show, twice a day, seven days.

Rituals well intentioned, a time tested method,
nonetheless, jail time for me, a/k/a, the boy, the brother.
Familiarity comforts some. Me? A prison uniform.
I write my own poems, I am not a Borg collective.

Cast as Son, my obligations specific, aged.
My Hamlet doublet, cut/torn, messaging my somber status,
The cuts deepest, invisible, but all see this child
Drowning in eye pools that continuously self-replenish.

I'll do the time, this show the longest running ever,
Did forty years as son-shadow of a father-man,
Tacked another concurrent sentence for his woman,
End Date: Indeterminate...

The low stools will reappear, seven days for me,
Yet my job as poet not fully done, until this be read!
Leave 'em laughing o'er this Official Release from the obligatory,
Read, sit but once, read this poem, this script, this story, and be freed.

#2 Hover^

My Children:

Ancestral homes oft possess,
a unique scent, product of an atomizer, a memorizer

Musty time, the odor of
faded and shadow,
hollow, yet hallowed.

Somewhere along the road,
a residence transforms from home to
shrine-storage unit-hospital room-tomb-records depository.

Dust, expired perfumes,
the sweet odor of crumbling, yellowing books, disinfectant,
stale medicine chests, years of furniture polish, sabbath candles.

It is my smell -
the parfumerie of my history, a customized blend,
a commissioned work in 1964, entitled, more accurately, emitted,
"Her-Story."

Photographs, memories, and paper scraps
my very own Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
Yet the most potent firing pin for historical retrieval,
the molecules of scent.

Soon all will be dismantled, discarded,
just plain dis'ed.

Confused and disenchanted,
my departure orderly but, in a disordered fashion.
unable to seed one last kiss upon your forehead,
nonetheless, surreptitiously enter your neurons
though my entity, away, across the miles-wide Hudson River.

For three days, I will hover invisible,
implanting myself once more,
slapping your mucous membranes,
transversing this pathway, an additive to your cells, nuclei,
where my markers always reside.

Adding one more ingredient to your inner vision,
strengthening the formless structure, my altered state.
This odor, keep close, fresh, no becoming musty too, my scent,
the last of your senses knowing me, a true keepsake.

Hold me close and hold me fast.
This one last magic spell I cast.
This one last magic smell I set fast.
You cannot hold it, but it will cradle you.
You cannot see or touch it, but when contact comes,
You will see me, hold me, as in the days of your youth,
When you loved me best,
And I, you.

^According to the Talmud, the soul hovers over the body for three days after death.  The human soul is somewhat lost and confused between death and before burial, and it stays in the general vicinity of the body, until the body is interred.


#3 Orphan

The funeral will commence at 11:30 am.
Gives me one last review time before the
Final Exam.

Panicked, I discover a whole new chapter
for which I am wholly unprepared,
though its inevitable presence was
assuredly knowable long in advance.

Orphan

It doesn't fit, occur, imagery is of a young child to
soon abandoned, not a late-in-life curmudgeonly poet-boy,
who has been multi-times reincarnated.

I add this title to my list
of proper ways to address me,
titles earned by dint of hard work,
or just unlucky luck.

This new status, orphanhood,
bequeaths no special privileges,
other than, a semi-official
societal permission slip
to feel bereft, lost, and compose poetry.

Know a real orphan, from early, early on,
has never recovered and
never will for it is just impossible.
Just impossible.

So whom am I to make light of
my undesired, unrequested new degree?

I accept it and to my surprise,
It hurts.

# 4 Judgement Day

After you put in some time on this planet,
You kinda know what the world thinks
About you, your rep, what they don't say to your face,

Sure, thingies, time and incidence and circumstance
Can sometimes cause makeovers external,
But each of us know the quality of ourselves,
Self-certification, you can out your internal self,
Better than anybody else.

So I inquire of myself, about myself,
what will you be remembered for, if at all?

Why do I ask, today, now?
Do we not ask ourselves this
On the low down, subconsciously everyday?

Is this a poem?
Most assuredly...
And a trial.
You, the judge the jury and the prosecutor,
The defender, if u can, if u will.

For seven days my mother was adjudged,
Family, friends, hers, her children's,
Almost an 80 years of live, in color, HD, looking back video,
Tales told, memories dug up, old photos explicated,
Who what when where of the details of one women's voyages,
Creations.

I cannot, I will not, do the details here.
Suffice, acts of kindness, faith in people,
Feminist in a strange land, a chance taker,
Gifts of memories, streaming of adoration,
Many strangers are witnesses to me,
This trial a runaway train.

I am outed.  There will be no such verdict for me.
I am outed.  There will be no trial needed, just a
Summary judgement delivered.

Out yourself.
What will you be remembered for, if at all?


#5 Summer Girls In Their Summer Clothes

Oh yes!

The streets of Manhattan, jewel dusted,
Summer girls in their  summer clothes,
Bedeck the streets and make men say, Thank You!
To their creator.

Little black dresses, previously immortalized^,
Seasoning and sauces, halter tops and jeans cutoff,
Give thanks for the tanks, revel in the revelations,
For God created man and women in his/her teasingly bare image.

Yo! Dude!  This is number 5 in the series,
Of sad and somber, re dad and mother, ***?
Have you lost perspective, not read the directive,
You're in mourning, time to be introspective,
Not dis-respective!

My mother was a beautiful women.
Till the day she died.
Yes, physically beautiful at 98.

She, was a poem.
For her exterior was suffused, burnished,
By the spirit residing within her body

I ask myself, why not judge a book by its cover?
Her cover was exquisite, but what gave her a glow,
A radiance, was her modesty, her love of humanity.

What's under our cover?

^ Nat Lipstadt · May 30
The Little Black Dress (and its magic prowess!)

*#6 & 7 Live like you're dying

Perhaps you know the lyric, the song?

Live like your dying.
Dying caught my ear, my eye, can't imagine why.
Con-Textual emendation, Natalino style.

Live like your writing.

Yes, that makes sense...
Embrace with passion each new session
Charge every second stanza with ruminating rhythms,
Cut the wires to the air traffic control sensory tower, go solo,
Pulse each word, beat all into a plowshare, even the anger,
Even the hate, dressed to ****, in words, forgivable...

Grant the mundane, the insane, even the pain of tragedy,
You refuse so hardily to glorify, grant it and
Record it all - a moment,
A royal audience with all
Your writing parts.

No fancy footing, keep it simple.
No jesters in rain puddles,
Let images of clouds of sand
Born and perish  in other's eyes and sighs, let verbal games bedevil other
Wooden puppet princes drinking fairy ales.

Huh?

Write clean and clear,
Let the sheerest wonderment of a new combination,
Be the titillation of the tongue's alliteration,
No head scratching at oblique verbal gestation,
Let words clear speak, each letter a speck,
That gives and grants clarification, sensational.

You, afternoon quenching Coronas, white T shirts,
Sun glazes and later, a summer eve's Sancerre,
Wave gazing on the reality of rusted beach chairs,
Babies sandy naked, washed in waves of Chardonnay,
The traffic-filled word-way highways and bay ways,
Exiting at the Poet's Nook, for exegesis & retrieval.

Write of:
Body shakes and juices, skin-staining tongues,
Taking her, afternoon, unexpectedly, her noises your derring-do!
Broken tear ducts, the Off switch, so busted, write about
Real stuff.

Write not in fear of dying
Angels delivering bad news in vacuum tubes,
Write joyous, psalms of loving life,
Live like your writing,
Write like your living,
So you may die well.
John Leuven Apr 2014
Twirl your tastebuds —
let me taste your
modal schwa
your vellum staining
truth or dare,
let me down
your feather-quill;
your quenching quantum
quaking.
I see you shining there a translucent water drop
Suspended in animation
From the garden where I lay
I watch your silver glow, in total fascination
Moving to and fro
As within my heart, you play

I hear your tinkling laughter, rise above the trees
Softly lilting in my mind
Find myself within a soulful breeze
Your joyous laughter brings
As your joy and mine
Are combined

A quiet calm is set in motion, as you begin to fall
Enchantment ending in a silver splash
Yet, such joy you have brought into this thrall
Into the garden where I lay
Even though you fell
In a flash

Now I see you shining there upon my yearning soil
Suspended in animation
In the garden where I toil
I watch your silver glow, in total fascination
Moving to and fro
Quenching thirst, in adoration
Copyright *Neva Flores @2010
www.changefulstorm.blogspot.com
www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/Changefulstorm
vircapio gale Jul 2012
she is my nihilistic god;

i am a stag leap.
the fainter wind-caress
felt deep in trunks and boulder bed.
i am delight for loosened thorns
that piercing underfoot will spur to run
my naked body's open-air embrace
atop the callus of my seasoned fun,
skirring flora shadow-dancing bright
descending mountainside of noon
in blurrs refracting sightful bones.
i am the sense of
transtemporal glacial moans,

the heartbeat of the soil breath
to puff from feasted log a mycophile's awe
or want for all placental webs in view
for naming earth a seeping sorrows tithe:
my consciousness of things alive.

the stinging lungs atop the path
are emblems of a winging truth
to overcome her nearing death.
i am the lingham of creations' race.
i am the sensate reeling blow by empty blow.
the gravity of light and dark;
gray theopolis of fists and falls.
envelopment of massive meanings filled
in nether-branchings' net
and mediatrix scorn: the wider world absorbs my self as ~ all~
~. .all. . ~
prating some nepenthean law
to sour our poetic hate
and deeply bury seismic seeds she wants to sow, like
ancient clues of metagender fact:
hermaphroditic **** to 'normal' eyes.
icecaps to resize and singing moralize;
a dolphin midwife toning yoni love
for labor certain nuns call "gift"
as crown of pleasure heights
on par with mysteries;
regrowing infant fingertips,
to pi recited over days,
to vaster mindscapes drawn in ways
'beyond the genius of the sea'

why wait for ease of shame?
thin veils of culture lift
and family bonds anew to tow
the peace from out irratic weight of nation rifts;
instantiations burst beyond the tunnel course~
rhythmic doomsday yearnings line the halls of humantime:
prophetic visions of a sea to come,
Utnapishtim keeps himself alive
to garden with his wife a thriving mortal line.
Quetzalcohuatl finds himself *****
to bloodlet savior sexuality,
his heart a morning star, a Mayan Venus shine.

i see the standing trees
entwine slow-love to sky
so i can swing and heave
my universe above the words,
to carry thorns as well as petals, doves.
the vision ends. the new begins
to filter dyad lies through
inter-
corporeal lens.
embodied ivy climbs the tree of death
to rewind love and deepen love,
to bound the loss with goddess wisdom ends and other ends
of ouroboros shedding clear
of limits insight thrives to near.
sunglance peeking is the hovering of me,
steady comfort crosses floating lotus feet.
the softest rock has melded under thee
to join a forest pausing here.
a berry soaks itself of all i am
while nutty chipmunks chirp in whirls;
the clouds are girls you've been,
Nephelae to tease in quenching gowns
the verdant book of men we've known, who leaf
the air to taste another form of fairness lent.
silver is the sun in times of stillness overached.
sifted tensions drift to lie awake, but
drowning in a stream of glowing calm,
i am the woody balm.
the scent of bark unnestled dry
and leaves remembrance when
the breathing stops, the final
fleshing in of nowhere, never then.
you are transcendent of transcending
pure. end, endure and lucid ending live again
in empty worship ringing plenum om.
Earth, holding its breath,
willing the droplets down
into its warm, waiting skin.

Amplified senses
drawing on the palpable air,
willing the heavens to quenching chaos.
© Annilda Esterhuysen. All rights reserved.
K Balachandran Dec 2015
When my soul thirsts for subtle beauty,
a treasured 'poem of plenty' I drink in solitude,
quintessence of all, to my palate, it tastes;
ineffable majesty of the cosmos in my cup!


സൌന്ദര്യപാനം, ആത്മദാഹശമനം

ഉദാത്ത സൌന്ദര്യാനുഭൂതി
കൊതിച്ചെന്മനം ദാഹിക്കവേ,
ഏകനായ്, പ്രിയതരമാമൊരു
"ബഹുസ്വരകവിത"പാനംചെയ് വേന്‍
എന്‍ രസനയിലതു സകല
സൌന്ദര്യച്ചാറായ് മാധുരിപ്പൂ;
വാക്കിതിലടങ്ങാ പ്രപഞ്ച
ഗാംഭീര്യമെന്‍ മധുപാത്രത്തില്‍ !
(Malayalam language version)
A " poem of plenty" could be prescribed
as the panacea for all the ills of human soul
Kelli Williams May 2014
The sensual curved line on the bed
perfect.
The eyes: burning, red, leaking for reason unknown.
Private room for me and you.
Darkness quenching the need to hide the
lustrous actions ensued.
Accept your fate, useless strumpet, unrivaled *****.
Your garden grows quickly out of control.
Weeds in your rose bush, fence weighed down by
inherent overgrowth
of emotion:
fervor, passion.
A kiss.
The last sweetness of
your lips
that will ever be given
or gotten.
Death.
A sweet relief for the world
from you,
Desdemona.
Saumya Sep 2017
The sun shines bright
Causing daylight
The moon shines low
Between those milky clowds below.

You are my sun,
You are the moon.
You are the autumn
That lets me bloom

I love you baby,
Like your stares
I love it
How you stare me there

You smile at me
And I smile back to you
Salivating high
With something due.


Let's make this night,
The one for us
Let's make us know
How deep can we  love.


You shut the door,
As enter in our room
I know my love,
You want our union
To be at its fullest bloom
To be calmer and soothing like moon


You take my hands
And clutch them in your hand
And keep them on your shoulders
Comming closer, closer to me
As much as you can
Like a brave soldier.
Smiling wider as he can.

You look in my eyes
I look in yours.
Your eyes tell more
Than your mouth for sure .

You grab me close,
Closer to you
Putting your tongue inside my mouth.
We lick and ****
We lick and ****
Quenching, quenching
Our wild thirst
Oh how delicious are your lips when they are pink and glimmering wet.

I grab you close
Touch your mouth
By my nose
And turn and sit on your lap
And toes.

I kiss you neck,
With a deep, deep sigh
Nibbling, bitting , tickling
You all over
Asking  
Is this pure delight?

And while you smirked
And bit back my neck,
I put my hand
Inside your pant.

I loved that smirk
I loved that grin,
I loved how you folded your chin.

I squeezed it hard,
Which was so so hard,
And oh! Your ****
Was so huge and stark.

I took off ur pant,
And made you stand,
And  I bent down
To **** your rod, from top to end.
Squeezed your *****
And encircled it with my hands.


You smiled and smirked
Caressed my hair
And relished my worship
Here and there.

And oh, while I was
******* your ****
You unhooked my bra
As you seemed naughitly thirsty.

You asked me to stop
And so did I
You turned me back
Shaked and squeezed
My ***** with pride.

I moaned and moaned
And so did you
You took me in your arms
And ****** my milk jugs
Like a cute baby.
I caressed ur cheeks
And moaned sweetly.

And oh, while you were
******* them so good
You slid your hand
Inside my thing.

And ahhh ahhh my love,
You started rubbing hard
caressing, and kissing deep
My thing.
You smiled and grinned
And so did we
Taking off my pants
Brightened your views.

I blushed and blushed,
And smiled at you
You smirked and grinned
Whispering,
Ahhh baabbby I soo love you!!

You opened your mouth.
Driiped in your saliva
And started licking in
And ferociously outside.

You grabbed my thighs
Putting your wetter tongue deeper deeper inside.
You were busy eating it
Like your favorite pudding.

You relished it all.
I relished it too
I still  smile and giggle alone
Reminiscing how you engulfed it whole.

Your squeezed my *****
With both your hands
Licking licking
Me all over again

I asked you to stop
And so did you.
And while we sighed heavily.
You jumped on my top
******* me hard
And slowly, slowly.
Inserting your ****
In my flower


We moaned and groaned,
And you slid it in.
Kissed my cheeks
And covered my mouth with your palm.

And as your **** was all in me,
It made me yours
And you were mine.
Making us feel so divine.

You pushed  it in
Ahhhh....Ahhhhh
You pulled it out.
Ahhhh.ahhhh
Muuuah... Muuuaaaaahhhh
we relished our oneness
Till we both came
came to numbness.


I hugged you tight
With a big bright smile
You grinned at us
Complementing and chanting
You my  love
Are beautiful than that sky
Prettier that the stars
That sparkle so bright.

I love you now,
will love you forever
My lovely ****** goddess
my forever beautifully hot and  lovely wife!!
This is my first attempt to writing an ****** piece. Please let me know how it was :)
. Thankyou for reading :)
D Conors Jun 2010
...that The Goddess
has hands of ivory white
or black as ebony night,
fingers that glisten
with the intensity of immensity,
of stars,
over-flowing with the seeds of trees,
scattering them in splendorous openness,
across the moist, brown earth,
where they'll grow like grass
and cause the quenching rains to
fall,
from the sky made azure
'neath the endless streams and strands
of Her hair
which is the wind itself.
D. Conors
c. 08 December 1996
Alexandra Eames Sep 2020
...my head back into the pillow.
She quickly straddled me.
She began a gentle rocking motion
with her hips,
with subtle glee.
Her thick, precious long hair,
hung down like curtains of night,
around my lust-flushed face,
until I was in perfect darkness right.
She then began caressing
my nakedness with her feathery-locks,
along my silky, trembling body,
from up my heavenly hips,
my tight, tender, heaving tummy,
my aching, stiff-nippled *******,
my entire being erupting in goosebumps,
chilly and blazing,
spicey and tasty,
aching and burning,
burning,
burning -******!
begging for quenching,
which she does
quickly
and
I'm done.
Celestite Jul 2018
I’m in a bit of a situation
There seem to be weeds blooming all across my face
The weeds are red
They are blooming all aross my cheeks
All across my forehead and chin
and even some buds on my nose
I don’t like the weeds
And neither does anyone else
I’ve tried everything to get them go away
but nothing works, and they’ll always stay
these weeds make me sad
oh so sad
and now my tears just water these weeds
I refuse to show the world these hideous red weeds
i have been taught to hate the unwanted
and to strive for perfection
but perfection is something i’ve never known
so for the moment i cannot make these red weeds disappear
and from now on i’ll stop quenching their thurst with my tears
for now all i can do is love them
love these red weeds that cover my face
and hope that one day i’ll find someone who can love them too.
just a poem about acne, because i’m struggling with it and when i feel sad, i write about it.
Byron May 2013
There once was a man who said you could beat the world with your words. That you could conquer an army with the knowledge of a greater narrative and move the legions of many with the action of one verb. I want to believe who ever can recreate the frameworks our race. The foundational narrative of our moral ethic, the guidelines mankind has been leaning on for millenniums. I want to know a alternative story, with made up words and no respect for a-priori intuition or tradition but a legend of unabiding experience that is unlike any tangent or discourse known. I want to reinvent another codex.  

I saw god as the architect I consoled in the grand tree house, with the grand green house sitting in a curious English archway. The telescope room was laid with bricks and from it I could see all that made me content. I felt the time changing before my eyes. Whether I was in compromise or not was entirely up to the seasons of Zeus.

I am now never afraid of myself, I almost died and I remember it all. I have known fear and still revere the quenching of it's animosity. I am only a swerving flake of inner rind. I am all that is exhausted of my honest dive for humanity. I am me finally, a shell no more! Man is the helplessness of lost spatiality in his own timid surrealism. I have never been satisfied with the explanations no matter how exhaustive! Revisited by the techni-color outlook of the turning millennium craze. The alleviation of all hopes when they turned out a dead end inthemselves, a lost avenue of my childhood.

I guess we all wanted that age-old rampant abuse of youth in ways that were neither aesthetically pleasing or unifying towards our own, best. I was tired of the beautiful sprites I grew up with. I was tired of locking myself in closets at nights and rubbing my face into the it's knotted carpet floor. I'm tired of the songs that advocated joyful frolicking into the drapped daylight. The oddities grow old and the used up phrase are clique now. I lost my mind seeing the years of my language frightened by the sound of my own breath. Grow into yourself. I am done with you anyways. I am done seeing them engulf a titanic drift of colorful intentions; flirting around the grand bonfire of the uncreated experience. I am lost with them. I question more than just our own value and I resign my thoughts on themselves for their own wealth and safety. When you want it said so bad but the forces of those unforeseen, creative hives oscillate and never stop it's steps into the night-legend. Then the world ends and was never in out of tension. I electrify my time and run into the a.m. frantic like a monkey, waving around and jesting my arms. I'm tired of the old music, in with the artifacts who architect the reverberation of my heart.

Your myth has lived into the century and I can see your ideas into the lives of all maniacs and the honest young, the deranged youth. We are amidst a heavy tension, i cry again. I want my mother's words three times a day and more on my weak hours. I am content in the alien maze of my music and want only the childhood campers to love me like a king. They gathered around at night, around the campfire. They initiated the song and dance with gaiety rhythm; that was the nights stars collided into bedtime. The same night I was torn by the dreams of an old horrid man who gave me no name and no rest from tear and horror. What evil is an anonymous the Will that censors awareness and knowledge. If it kills

So what then of the tribal pack psyche we all inherit. In days where beauty was up to chance. Our proximity to a woman was determined by breeding patterns and the realm of funds available for travel and food. What now in these days of the internet? When the whole world is at the tops of our finger tips and even more far away is the understanding we gain of our inability to have the cream of the world. We are in a great exaggeration of ourselves, of our will, and of our determined out-come. We have little but the pessimisme of our predecessors to guide our philosophies application. The translation of dream-world is perfectly out of reach for us and always for our posterity. From here on out we are a new age. A new age whose gates are christened by the ungenuine thugs and malevolent brand names of our civilization. We are faking it till the end. I am scared and drilled by horror and filled more with black premonitions. I wish I had eyes to see myself with a more generous charity but I don't and neither do you. What you see is an age of outward anticipation for the soring ribbons of undone realities.

The artist is the one who has seen the broad fleeting wisp of an out-of-world innuendo. It is the ethereal encounter with a cognitive defect that mimic as a supernatural sensation, this is seen by the artist as true humanity and rightfully so as it brings him to tears.

I always forget that we are always on the cusp. That we are simply a few bruised years away from reveling in the stained, sealed golden sunlight of the age that has came. What we do now is entirely crucial to our ability to be in unending sorrow and remorse. We see our people in a clearer way, for what they where struggling with, for what their reverie finally came to look like, ugly or gleefully self created, their vision of the world will always be our continual source of inspiration.
Jade Massey Dec 2014
Have you heard the story of The Five Elements?
There was Water to replenish the Earth, quenching his thirst.
Fire was jealous, so he had to burn Earth, and this only dried Water up.
Wind had no interest in sides, and he played with Fire's flames, causing them to grow. He made ripples in Water, causing her to come back with waves.
With Water's waves, she put Fire out. Fire and Water are always fussing, like an old married couple.
Wind enjoyed messing with Earth, as well, blowing stuff around and destroying rock - although that took some time.
Earth did not mind any of them. Water gave him life, and also helped him start anew with floods.
Fire also helped Earth, by ridding of the dead and helping the living start over. Wind also helped Earth.
Wind helped spread DNA and helped things begin life.
Spirit had no place where the others were concerned. She was wiser than them all, but she could not destroy, like Fire, Water, and Wind.
She did not hold them all together like Earth. She could not quench thirst like Water, and she could not help start populations like Wind, nor could she rid of the dead like Fire.
Though, Spirit is what helps them keep going. She is the animals, the insects, the plants.
She's the soul and everything of the like.
Without Spirit, Earth would be barren.
Yes, the other Elements would still exist, but there would be no point.
No one is better than another. No, they hold each other together.
Fire may love Water and Water may love Fire.
Earth and Spirit are the eldest and have been around the longest; their love is the strongest.
Wind is not a child, but he has the will of one. Nothing can tie him down.
Their family is not perfect, but there would be nothing without them.
This is the story of the Five Elements.
Alone, they are nothing.
Together, they are stronger.
There was a town beyond the woods,
Ne’er there any water stood,
Alas, a Well, of the purest kind,
The aquifer under, is here described,
Beyond a thousand gallons under
The diamond-esque rubble and sunder.
But one bucket, at but one time,
Kind, the town, taking turns of rhyme,
This essence, used to bathe and cook,
To drink, to create, a cozy nook.
-
The happy town, the gorgeous shire,
The crops grown there as green as Ire,
No law exists, they live but civilly,
A fetching, quiet community,
But always there exists a one,
Who would want power, want this undone,
So it was said regretfully,
Poisoned their Well, emotionless he.
-
Now this village was quite secluded,
No one not there born, ne’er intruded,
Deep in the forest, behind a mountain,
Over a peak, under a cloudy curtain,
It existed in secret and abolition,
And one did seek its demolition,
Knowing the only flaw to here exist,
The essence of life, no man resists.
-
He crept at night, while the guard did sleep,
Promising the pure water to weep,
Dropping the genocide with bucket and crane,
Releasing its Demonic Alchemic Strain,
The Well did hiss as the poison moaned,
Recoiling at this unwanted drone,
The assailant then brought to his steady lips,
A cup and was first to take Devil’s Kiss.
-
On the morrow of the mentioned crime,
Busy bodies awoke to start the day’s time,
Queuing at bucket and awaiting turns,
Each family there a portion yearned,
Not one did from the water strafe,
Each then bathed, then drank, unsafe,
No one could tell different taste,
Water is water, but not today.
-
The plague did start like any disease,
Sore throat, fever, stopped nose, displeased,
The people sought the witchdoctor,
But he from bed, would rise no longer,
He caught ill too, and wouldn’t budge,
Afraid for his life, afraid of this grudge,
He knew this sickness, had heard before,
But told no one, the end was sure.
-
In a week, vomiting and nausea,
Nasal passages sealed, no nostalgia
Brought to memory of any like sickness,
The virus brought about decrepit afflictions,
But slowly and steady, worse and worse,
The people became, some saw the course
But kept silent, to avoid alerting,
The so many children in need of comforting.
-
In two weeks’ time, the pathogen,
Had taken wits of sensible men,
At night, they screamed in somber fright,
Their deepest fears, real now, and bright,
The lutes died out, the bards not singing,
An unfortunate time, but this was only beginning.
-
Fingernails rotting off at the cuticle,
Too much blood for any receptacle,
Leprositic, the fingers came next,
One by one, extremities hexed,
Children lost their legs to run,
From mothers’ faces rotted, undone,
In every other step, heard were bones breaking,
Kneecaps cracked open, shins splintering,
Eyes turned cadaverous, awake, but not seeing,
Cataracts formed, blinded from viral being,
In cradles were witnessed toddlers there suffering,
Their mothers watched with empty sockets, but listening
To the cries impossible to stifle,
The pain too much for these tiny disciples.
The dogs normally to their masters zealous,
Became of them mortally jealous.
They bit the hands that fed them well,
For watering them from the cryptic Well.
Men watched their sons dive right under,
The bridge that harnessed a valley of blunder
Hundreds of feet above sharp rocks and stumps,
Their namesakes leaped, impaled in clumps,
For those lucky enough to still have eyes,
Cried tears of acid for images despised
Sickness was spewed upon the walls,
Entrails adorned the Gathering Halls,
Some had turned to mutilation,
Blood-letting for some, abomination,
Some crazed enough to “cure” themselves,
Clawed throat and stomach til flesh dissolved,
Some rich with elixir tried to embezzle,
Upon some of the poor, tired and grizzled,
Riot broke out amongst the walking dead
Fortune or lack of, irrelevant,
Black pustules broke out that looked Bubonic,
But the cure for that failed, how ironic,
That it rather hastened the steadfast curse,
Faster than iambic verse,
Molecules turned to embryo,
Rising like a great Pharaoh,
They became flesh parasites,
Taking internal organs, slow and precise,
They started with the liver and spleen,
So there lasted hours of wretched screams,
The intestines of some would close and then
Becoming septic, they passed, bile in stem,
A few had throats seeming cauterized,
Friends watched friends closest, strangle alive,
There were in fact, some optimists,
Among them, talk of being “rid of this”,
They too died while clutching life,
Endeavoring their eternal flight,
From noses, there dripped blackened murk,
Thicker than combined oil and dirt,
It then secreted as sweat from all pores,
Fatigue then struck those left to the floor.
Upon broken knees some prayed,
Usually the skin under ribs was flayed,
Trying to understand what went wrong,
Dissecting the dead was not headstrong,
It only furthered viral progression,
The open corpses breathing infection,
The cadavers would move still, the fleshbugs active,
The horror of lifeless movement, corrosive,
The minds of the weak, it pure happenstance,
One found eating dead flesh for a cure, no chance.
All in all, this lingering curiosity,
Provided once good people with animosity,
One man turned good people to hate,
Their neighbors in ways that were irate.
-
The chaos was not anarchy,
For, as I said,
It was civilly,
But verily, I do decree,
That no one knew such misery,
The inhabitants of this village,
Did not suspect innocent visage,
Or perhaps, their cherished Well.
To be culprit behind this hell
So they drank and drank to remedy,
To recompense this malady,
To no avail did blood get thicker,
Alas, they got but sicker and sicker.
-
This hell, the townsfolk then realized,
Wouldn’t end til they all were nullified,
Eliminated they were, eradicated at that,
This pathogenic virus had verily spat
In the faces of the people here,
Decimated they were, not quenching their fear,
Murdered they were by a systematic
Suicidal psychopathic,
Inflamed in the mind of darkness thereafter,
Only satisfied by his own laughter.
Not many, til now, know of this town,
From lowly peasant, to “Godly” Crown.
An explorer found the deserted hamlet,
Body parts and questions then found the hermit,
He had heard of a town like this, he wrote:
“It was a new age Roanoke…”
But the village, not a town to cause commotion,
All that was left of them, a tree scratched, “CROATOAN”.
igc May 2015
Up
I can feel my lungs collapsing with every shallow breath
And I can't decide if it's the holes left behind from
cigarette smoke burns
Or the pieces of me that followed behind you

It's 10:05 and as much as I keep trying to warp the truth
the minutes tick on leaving me stranded in seconds of long lost times

Wishing from fruitless bones
Remembering could have beens that weren't
And chasing endings that never quite were within reach

And I know cigarette fills don't last
But I can ******* time running out
And my bones refuse to give away hints to weather it's a
countdown or liftoff
The essence never quite strong enough to disguise
the bitter after-taste your words left behind with me

It's 4:00 am and as smoke fills my lungs
I vaguely remember being told
the only souls awake at this time are
the lonely and the loved

Now it's been months since I was introduced to this hour but still
all I feel is nothing.

You told me pretty girls don't light their own cigarettes
but that never stopped my lungs from burning
every time you breathed my way

Leaving scars of razor sharp words never spoken
Pushed down to the hollow of my scorching throat
Thirsting for the oasis of the syllables
they were never quite within reach of quenching.

They say cigarettes curve your hunger.
And I guess they're almost right because
so far all this nasty habit has curved is
My appetite for you

Now it Hurts to realize that the attention
I mean cigarettes
You willingly offered were just cleverly disguised poison
Burning away my insecurities only to reintroduce them in misunderstood exhales of passion

All I have left to feel are my lungs gasping for every last breath
Lungs pulsing for every last breath
Lungs shrinking to accommodate every last breath
You took away from me
andy fardell Apr 2013
In control
I see it all from a negative
No coloured mountains
Just shades of black
Dark black shadows
For-filling my curiosity

I know that later
Will bring me the joy
I so seek
Liquid nectar
Quenching to the corners
These heady fumes
Feel the burn in my soul
For I am ready
Here and now be my time
My Drink
My lover
My wine

Such sparkles from the night
As lighten mood believes the good
Enjoy the moment
For last it won't
The quenching finished
Numbed
I'm hurt

The night did fade
As I did too
A morning shaded blue
Turns back to a black in black
No colours view
A head no belonging
Joy fed into the night
Only the shades do hide me
To I melt
A negative
Roberta Day Jul 2014
I crave you
more often than I
crave delicious fruit
I always want my citrus
thirst-quenching juiciness
but I’ll take vitamin D over vitamin C
and save ripened tangerines
for when I’m feeling a little weak
in the knees after squeezing your
blooms—good enough to eat
The prompt was Tangerine, I believe.
Jonny Angel Mar 2014
She has a keen eye,
understands the use of color,
the configurations of Asian furniture,
how candles & art look in a room.

She decorates wearing holey-leggings
& loose fitting embroidered blouses
‘cause she knows
what they do to me.

And she’s constantly
moving things around,
is visiting me in my study,
the place where the futon lies,
where we lay together
& I playfully
remove her loose-fitting attire
to quench my
own decorating ya-ya’s,
this burning heart.
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
Mashup Part III


I mashup me, myself, and thee: Part III

Excerpts from my poems posted after July 16th, 2013,
about poets, poetry
and the process of composition.  
This time, in a disorder all their own,
for my own words,
Did not consult me.
-------------------

When inspiration is imprisoned,
insight,
a crime-of-no-passion victim,
strangled by codification,
clothed in a prison uniform,
where uniform be another word for a
poet's death sentence.
~
If you courage enough to
Call yourself poet, then
It is audacity, not blood,
Warming your extremities,
So foolishly try, always be prepared to fail.

~
Commandeer the words hidden within,
Sort them by rhyme and meter,
Answer the critics,
bend them over to your way,
Write your own poetry,
fearing no ones judgement,
Put your self out there,
I have so many times.
Death, betrayal, disillusionment,
Regular visitors in the upstate prison cell
of my head,
Are all greeted with
new poems of old words,
Sent packing,
but confident in their inevitable return,
I write defensively between their visits,
Best prepared,
a good offense is eloquent literacy.
~
The clouds were magnificent.
No, I cannot write a poem about the cloud colors.
Their shape shifting inexhaustible,
Mine eyes high on their creativity,
I'm just not good enough a poet to tamper with that sky.

~
You who write after midnight
Of razor blades, pills and shotguns,
And not marked two decades even,
on this planet,
You want hard,
Write a poem about a sunset in ways never done before.

The saddest poem ever wrote
Was not yours, where you titillate with daring words
Razors, pills etc.,
The saddest poem ever writ
Was this one,
a meager vanity to capture a
Sunset that keeps trying every day to
Surpass
Supersede
Its previous glorious failure,
Like we should too.
Keep trying
~
I will write about pain,
Arrogantly, as if there is any unused combination of
Letters, vowels and consonants left unspoken, *****,
Having sworn not to, for pain is cumulative.

Asking myself,
Which is greater?

The pain of
creation, inception, origination and birth,
The pain of  
wreck and ruin, destruction and death.

Homework Self-Assignment:
Compare and Contrast

Suddenly, I am expert.

Creating a poem a day is very painful.
A poem that is the sum of
Reflection, research, and purging.

~
Here, surrounded by the gentle breezes of
Long Island Sound and Gardiners Bay,
Sweet and salty flavors
of the Peconic atmosphere,
Words unlocked,
from your eyes to the page fall,
Smudged by joyous tears,
for the muses of the island
Have embraced you yet again and rebirthed
Inspiration,
within their comforting, sheltering grasp.
~
With deep regrets and promises solemn,
Adieu, Adieu my friends, bay and chair,
sunlight extraordinaire,
wait for me!
This poem but my R.S.V.P.
an oath of return sworn,
for I am man, placed here only
to sing the praises of my earthly delights,
my truest friends,
I sing of thy grace,
Grace Before A Meal

~
If not for you:

I would weep more.

I would weep less,
(so many tears of joy!).

My carousel, horse back riding days,
would be over, ended.

I would never make a bed unasked
(but it gives you so much pleasure).

I would live on Frosted Flakes
and microwaved hot dogs

I would die w/o ever seeing
someone weep
after reading my poetry.

For that alone...
~
Let us intimate a Poetic Competition,
Tween an Irish lass,
and a New York Jew,
I shall serve, and you,
You shall return

A contest:
Our tongues, our racquets.
Across the table,
The words, shall birdie fly,
Across the net,
Couplets and haikus
Shall smash and whistle

The winner will be the one
The God of Poetry
Accepts for permanent servitude

And the only lingua Franca
Shall be darts of poetry
In a language our own,
A collective work we will weave,
A blessed unity, a single tongue now,
Lilting, singing, bespoke

~
explicate and deconstruct
our unexamined lives,
help us to extend the boundaries,
record the voyages of our timepieces,
declare us all free and victors,
file away the chains of language
and declare us all poets
~
The reality of this composition
of kisses incessant,
of hugs galore,
tears and thoughts,
is for you, for us,
for now, for whenever,
for our forever, whatever that be,
but that too, limitless,
for this poem will be stored,
incised in our conjoined hearts
and in our genes

~
They say speak to her, she can hear you,
But the evidence is contradictory,
I am not convinced.
When no else is there,
I stroke her head and
whisper in her ear,
"It's ok, time to let go, my mother fair."

You think to yourself alone,
This is not poetry,
This is real,
This is an extraordinary
Daily occurrence,
Life or death warfare.
~
Write clean and clear,
Let the sheerest wonderment
of a new combination,
Be the titillation
of the tongue's alliteration,
No head scratching
at oblique verbal gestation,
Let words clear speak,
each letter a speck,
That gives and grants
clarification, sensational.

You,
afternoon quenching Coronas, wearing white T shirts,
Sun glazes
and later,
a summer eve's Sancerre,
Wave-gazing on the reality
of rusted beach chairs,
Babies sandy naked,
washed in waves of Chardonnay,
The traffic-filled word-way highways and bay ways,
Exiting at the Poet's Nook,
for exegesis & retrieval.

Write of:
Body shakes and juices,
skin-staining tongues,
Taking her, afternoon, unexpectedly,
her noises your derring-do!
Broken
tear ducts,
the Off switch,
so busted,
write about
Real stuff.

~
Lipstadt-Roth, Miriam
née Peiman, 1915~2013,
passed peacefully Sat. July 20th.  
Critic, speaker, writer,  
her fiercest feat, her leading role, creator.      

A near century of memories  
her legacy, memories that  
         linger not, for incised,        
chiseled in the granite of the books, papers,
and poetry
              and the very being of her descendants.            

Her faith in Almighty, unflagging, for He did not    
forsake her in the time of her old age,
when her strength failed.

~
Write not in fear of dying
Angels delivering bad news in vacuum tubes,
Write joyous, psalms of loving life,
Live like your writing,
Write like your living,
**So you may die well.
Amen.
The ~ and demarcates a stanza from a different poem
Rai Aug 2015
You are beautifully etched below my skin line
Every flaw
Every silence felt within my void of emotions
Transparent and naked
Taking a finger you draw my face up to look at the sun that sets
within you
Your eyes are multifaceted and delicious
Like oceans that I want to bathe within
Climbing every wave higher than the last
Breathe taking
thirst quenching
Oh my
I am over my own head here
Whirling between fear and excitement
Lust, love and pain hold me hostage
I am ******* in the fortress of my mind
And I never will care if I am to stay here for eternity
I surrender my power
I breath pure ecstasy and release
In mine minds eye
My muse beckons for beautiful words and a love that is real
So here I have given my all
My everything
When morning comes
The sunrise will be my lover
The swaying grass will stroke my cheek
The warm breeze of summer will caress my silken skin
My heart will be full of another days desire
My life is my love
And my love is my life
I shall create something deep
Something worthy of my self
Every time I give my love to people who can not see my soul and it hurts
Smoke Scribe Mar 2018
my sally my Sally

a wonderful double entendre
for it’s time,
my internal clock chiming

to sally forth and give the due
to where dew in her garden resides,
poetry becoming sweet tears
in all our eyes
when the philipina rain thirst quests our quenching

there is no reason no request for
this sally poem but a tickling thought suggests that a good friday. could be the trigger, or that
pandora bringing me Ave Maria as I compose
when
the due and the dew and the do are a
trinity

the best poems are the un-requested  but the most needed,
the most holy
Johnathan locke May 2015
Inside my tears are falling,
Quenching the fire of my will.
My emotions inside are a turmoil lake,
And only when I'm dieing will they still.

My sorrow fills my thoughts,
Making sadness wherever I see.
Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But only my words will hurt me.
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
One evening with a few friends in a borrowed minivan, we got a flat tire.   Changing the tire was so complicated (like PhD. complicated), we finally had the owner of the van drive over to finish the job while three other men stood and watched.   This poem came out of that night.



I think you become
a grownup
the moment,
the very second,
you realize at
some very, very
early age,
you have
limitations.

Perhaps not quite
a total grownup,
mature like,
but some
irreversible threshold crossed on
a life long voyage,
a descent of no return,
a Checkpoint Charlie crossed.

You will never be all you
want to be.

Some will disagree.

the day of maturation,
they'll claim,
comes on that day,

when clouds
of different shapes
call out your name,
raining saturation
of responsibilities,
(feed your family, son).

you
initial your acceptance
by quenching thirst by
drinking 'free' raindrops.

ain't arguing,
the when exactly,
for this highway-journey has
so many rest stops.

But
when your body
cracks with disappointment,
harvests the bitter knowing
that
can't,
means there will be no defying this truth, now self-evident:

there are somethings
you ain't gonna ever be,
or never be able to do.

here's the rub awful.

the street called
Recognition Rue
is the longest road to
a dead end
you are forced to travel,

and the cruelest part
of this joke is
you rue the day
and the next day
and the very next day,
when, each time,
the Dead End sign
moves along all by itself,
another block or two,
with you following,
behind by a
block or two.

after awhile,
you cease to curse,
satisfied with the certainty of discontent
you and your
bag of tools,
cannot have every,
will always be lacking,
the precise instrument
to do
every job right.

half good is likely
your total best,
so sadly shuffle along
at the bequest of
the little voice insisting, whining,
have to, gotta go...

You
want to jack me up
on a cross of
protestations,
words like learning,
and
promises to teach,
no limitations,
words that overreach
and hint of
lesson recitation.

I can't change a tire
but don't give a ****.

this is not how
I measure my self worth.

the sadness that prevails,
that contaminates my brow,
ain't mastery of survival skills
likely I'll never need again
don't need your
complementation/approbation
of what I can,
or rants
why I can't.

For nothing will ere exceed
the exasperation,
chest ripping
agony of frustration,
that one single poem
worthy of saving
has ever,
nor will yet,
never, will
leave my fingertips.


It is
forever detained
in the prison of my limitations.

now that's worth
acknowledging,
now that's worth asking
now that's worth
answering -

why, why, then,
grown up you,
keeps on trying,
surely sure,
that looking back
regretfully,
is useless,

(and you have heard
the lock click thunderous clap of:
"sorry son,
your presence is...
not needed,
no worries, we won't
ask you to do
when better
surrounds us everywhere").

Answer is:
that it is worth trying,
writing,
a poem about why,
I can't change a tire
and it don't matter,
just so I can say
to myself,

*I'll never be all the way grown up.

— The End —