"railed" poems
No sun this morning. Rather,
Austin struck gray
Thru and thru.
There is a bite to god’s madness--16 years
Of sun before I came--16 years
Of fall, rain, fertile soil raised by
Red star.
You, obscured in morning, take my
Love out my mouth, my messenger in railed
Kisses.
Mar 21, 2017
Mar 21, 2017 at 10:30 PM UTC
तत् त्वम् असि
*for sitar, mridangam, vina, musical spoons,
washboard, Jew’s harp and banjo*
(*the names Swami and Guru-ji can be replaced by
any other mystic names the reader wishes to substitute*)
Swami and Guru-ji went to the river
to wash their souls in the ***** water
filled brass pots while they were at it, singing:
“These are Gods –
worship them, worship them,
these are Gods –
won’t you worship them please”
Guru and Swami-ji flexed contortions
twisted minds and limbs in knots
sold each other secret mantras
to erase akashic records when the body rots
Swami and Guru-ji taught disciples
how to fast and hum and chant;
bound their ***** with priestly garments, saying
“These are Gods – worship them, worship them,
these are Gods – won’t you worship them please”
Guru and Swami-ji swallowed prana
purged their guts, then farted light
launched their chakras into oneness
in the ida and pingala of their third-eye sight
Swami and Guru-ji built a temple
around a monstrous calf of gold
bowed before the six-armed idols chanting
“These are Gods –
worship them, worship them,
these are Gods –
won’t you worship them please”
Guru and Swami-ji studied parchments
by the dim light of a feeble ray
railed and wailed at the sinful heathen
in the filthy Kali-yuga of the dying day
Swami and Guru-ji made ablutions
offered incense and holy foods
ate their share and smoked the profit, humming
“These are Gods – worship them, worship them,
these are Gods – won’t you worship them please”
Guru and Swami’s blissed devotions
entwined their members with the temple belles;
stuck their yonis up their lingams
in the twenty-seventh circle of the seven hells.
Swami and Guru-ji offered puja
wrote it all off as a karmic debt –
forced a shudra to bear the burden, screaming
“These are Gods –
worship them, worship them,
these are Gods –
won’t you worship them please”
Guru and Swami-ji meditated:
pure omniscience in eternal now –
drank fresh ***** from a heifer’s bladder
for they knew that it was soma from a holy cow.
Swami and the Guru merged with Brahman –
then went home to the wife and kids.
Told the servants to polish statues, saying
“These are Gods – worship them, worship them,
these are Gods – won’t you worship them please”
THE MORAL:
(slower solemn rhythm, no banjo or Jew’s harp)
Aaron’s calf is ground to powder,
cast upon the Ganges’ tide.
Every tribe shall taste its poison.
“This is God –worship Him, worship Him –
this is God – let us worship Him now…”
Sep 11, 2015
Sep 11, 2015 at 8:33 AM UTC
we were driving home
taking side roads in a roundabout way.
and you spotted something on the side of the road.
bloodied, broken and (i assumed to be) dead.
you pulled over and we inspected it.
i was rather disgusted, but you picked it up and coddled it 'cause it had fur.
you kept coo'ing at it and asked it what it's name was (expecting no answer)
but it struggled to utter "Love".
we begrudgingly decided to take it home
and made a bed for it and nourished it back to health.
a week later we were drinking Earl Grey by the fireplace,
heard a rumbling
and looked around to see it standing there looking at us.
it was 7' tall and had an expression of awe, wonder, and terror
as if it thought we would ****** it at any second.
each night it had a different face, resembling one of your former playthings.
you never called it the same name twice.
a week later, it couldn't fit through any of the doorways.
we always came home to plaster, paint and drywall scattered everywhere.
i complained.
"Love has broad shoulders", you quipped.
it had grown too much for us.
a week later, i spent the afternoon at the bar and you were shopping.
we rendezvoused back home at 3PM.
only to find a gaping hole where the front door used to be.
everything inside totaled.
precious collections, expensive technology, jewelry...
all gone (or destroyed beyond recognition).
i railed, "Love ruined EVERYTHING!!!"
you seemed to take no note, kept your composure and muttered, "It always does" and just began sweeping.
the next day we got a kitten from the animal shelter,
and were laying in bed with it at night.
i asked, "Do you think Love will ever come back?"
you answered coldly, "It never does".
Jul 16, 2012
Jul 16, 2012 at 1:17 AM UTC
Another Autobiographical Anomaly✍️
My memory, how is it working?
Reconstructing what I will,
But no matter how I will it,
Using tricks or keeping still,
It goes downhill while lurking.
Mostly, I can’t get the date
Or the event - details I railed at,
Smiled or wailed at.
Where I laid the pen just used;
That is NOT amusing.
Histamine.
I read that histamine boosts memory.
Priority.
What do I prioritise with ear, nose, eye?
My husband tells a story
But his story and the history keep changing.
Joke?
Sheer smoke based on illusion in the first place?
He’s an honest man.
Why change the plan or plane?
How to help boost our brain!
Enigma
And for some a stigma.
Diet, food:
The marvel is the wondrous good
It does in spite
Of all the things we don’t do right.
We’re losing neurons constantly
From ages six- or seventy.
Exercise:
Training. Learning.. Instrument.
Being bent on something! Anything!
For just about all/everything is heaven sent.
That’s what I read
And what I think,
And where my intuition and my instinct lead.
Anyway, this poem is just another way to do it.
Renewing bits with any course available,
And one in which a syllable will stick.
The main thing is to get a kick
Out of the rhythmic lyric of our life.
Yes?
Another Autobiographical Anomaly 2.11.2019 Pure Nakedness II; Arlene Nover Corwin
Feb 11, 2019
Feb 11, 2019 at 3:04 PM UTC
A nation mourns the passing of a great man
A most esteemed leader of the South African lands
He railed against white rule all those years ago
His colored brothers and sisters followed his tide changing flow
The world has lost a man who so inspired
His courage and grit are to be admired
The father of freedom in true democracy
He spoke the words for his people's equality
Dec 5, 2013
Dec 5, 2013 at 9:19 PM UTC
Gazing south as if some wise, well worn fisherman,leaning against the wroughted railed pier in all its victorian, gordy, standing, splendor.
Warmed and held by the summer sun as close as shared spoon-cuddled arms.
On thermal air, calls and laughter rise from towelled steaked plots
blinding and shading the razor sharp hungry sea-gulls eye from flakey white flesh in all its golden battered salt-shuck sharpness,
competeing on the nose with hand-held melting creamyness, as they waft and weave gently by.
Below the slatted sound , the magic hypnotic spell of lapping waves lift and tilt me on a day dream of youthful lost love.
To a day we made our sun run in all its lazyness, dimming the enviour moon in its wake and kissing still the hands on the pasty-face black towering clock
As time slipped way and was some where else.
With worn drift wood and tingleling toes you defaced the sand with a graphity the council tryed but couldn't erace.
And there it lies still, benieth the smooth pebbled shore,
kissed each day with salty tears and remembered sighs.
A fearful screaming siren pieces the soft English air, Its doppled blast, chilling, pushing, demanding its screeching way through the brain, to some others pained, tear filled day,
then fades on the breeze.
A sun blushed child frowns through pink Brighton rock lips and eyes as blue as the sea, a secert smile is shared as if in that innocence I knew that one magic day she will run on skipping painted toes and giggles sweet to etch for him in soft blank sand her love on this dreamy day beach.
So off the sea and off the pier I strole, absorbed and lost among the tripping faced crowd,into the sun dipped west and home alone.
Yet knowing you will remain forever mine, held in crystal dimonded grains, whilst around the bitter -sweet changing tides ebb and flow
down
through
the
years.
Feb 25, 2011
Feb 25, 2011 at 1:41 AM UTC
There was a squandering ember that climbed her spinal chord
and lit the deteriorating birchwood on the peach-fuzzed tea lamps.
When those stairwells cramped and swelled with staggered liquid terraces
in the foundational pin-cushion that cradled family after family.
Woe begone chants that railed support beams moaning under elemental abuse.
A litter of ghost kittens coiling underfoot where the rug
used to yawn before the grandfather clock,
now senile and rotting with absent-minded tick-tocks.
Inside her streetcorner, the music was that
monkey hopping to street ***** blue notes on somber ropes.
The air thick with the regal, chunky vibe
of batting eyes, flirty sighs, and bourbon.
Between the buildings again...
embraced with the same warm feeling that
entrances your fingertips, lips, and ears when within a man's arms.
In this city, Love is those two birds on that same powerline
that bowed and ebbed with summer's sweet sigh.
Sep 23, 2011
Sep 23, 2011 at 11:47 PM UTC
When people talk to me
They open up themselves.
Each petal a tale, a memory,
A life.
De-railed by acceptance
They find themselves unfurling to reveal
the worm
Inside their pollen
The speckled taint curled within their seed.
A sign of imperfection
A weakness
Insecurity
To me it adds to their beauty
It makes them seem
complete.
Blossom before me,
And you'll never lose my love.
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 1:16 PM UTC
my wedding photo hints of some foul play
of death, destruction lurking, looming 'round
as four have cracked or burrowed under ground
while two remain who yet have lived to stay
for two by two the years have counted them
who've left this picture someone has condemned
and neither they nor evil can be found
from left to clockwise tragedy has struck
this picture taken in 2004
a blissful wedding day with bliss in store
has seen no bliss yet only jet black luck
for two years is the pattern found within
as if installments paid for unknown sin
and two by two the years have taken more
2006 my brother passed too soon
at thirty this was not his time to go
from one disease a cure does not yet know
and from his loss we still are not immune
as one by one his organs fell asleep
until he too slipped through, we couldn't keep
and he was just a prelude to this show
2008 my grandpa, ninety-five
had lived a healthy, fruitful fulfilled life,
outlived even his loving doting wife
by eight years more the man remained alive
for two years of his grandson was berieved
whose name he often spoke of as he grieved
an old man overwhelmed with burdened strife
2010 the blissful pair had split
whose wedding day this picture to us bore
after six years her joy had been no more
explaining that my throne no longer fit
for i'd become a burden to her cause
and cut off, bleeding freely without gauze
i cannot find the life i had before
2012 my father's heart had failed,
in April he was saved but for a spell
until in May his heart one last time fell
despite all of our efforts as we railed
and as it were, a grandson he'd not see
a son of my wife's flesh enjoined to me
now how this pattern plays i cannot tell
the back row in the picture's marred complete
the front row bears the two that now remain
this pattern of two years i can't explain
but if continues more will see defeat
the clockwise movement left to right is done
now right to left the foreground move will run
2014 promises new stain
the next in line, my mother in two years
and two years after her my aunt is left
then i will be of everyone bereft
an orphan, fate fulfilling all my fears
by this 2016 none may laugh
but one, this silent chilling photograph
completing all my family's great theft
(C)2012, Christos Rigakos
Sep 24, 2012
Sep 24, 2012 at 2:10 PM UTC
The pennies I find are always tails
so I use them to crush her up and snort her,
railed,
sending me flying like the mail
The sun shines bright so I can't tell
if I'm walking the right path
I tuck my fears and emotions past the glass
of my shades, class, first to help
but last to ask
Basking in the rays, enjoying the burn
turn the heat up, make these pennies
hurt from the heat and
remind me every touch of love has a bit of pain
that could melt you down even in the rain
and all happiness is created from
chemicals in the brain that you can change
and no one's different because we're
all strange
but these pennies don't pay bills
they're just cheap thrills
to keep me chill.
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 28, 2013 at 3:27 PM UTC
He’s standing in front of me
Wearing a ten-gallon hat
And I think, take it off
You’re in the city, you look like a prat
But it’s only when you get a talking
That you really begin to understand
He may be an old cowpoke
But he’s really worked the land
Sweating in the midday sun
With a little cowgirl on the side
A smile flashes across his face
A knowing that he can’t hide
Yes I’ve drank in smoky barrooms
I’ve taken a few hotties on the lash
I’ve seen clear mountain mornings
I’ve even railed with Johnny Cash
So don’t judge me by the tatty hat
Or by my faded wrangler jeans
Because looks can be deceptive
When everything’s not as it seems
I’ve seen the world, I’ve been to town
I’ve know the love on a woman’s breath
I don’t mean to bone, but leave me alone
Now while I collect my redundancy cheque.
May 31, 2012
May 31, 2012 at 6:03 AM UTC
The heavens mourned
in my stead love.
They railed and rent
themselves through,
in the deep knell of the thunder,
and the flashing light of the lightning
as it struck in all its fiery promise.
The gods themselves
wept my tears, my love.
Rivers upon rivers
from those fickle immortals,
for where they are,
they were moved.
Because I mourned you
my love,
I mourned you.
I mourned you,
so deep.
But I was too far
from my eyes to weep.
Cut off from my arms
that I could not tear my
clothes.
Closed off from my throat
so the world would never
hear the banshee in my wail.
For as my body mourned,
My soul sought you.
It reached out ,
to Hades Realms
if that was where you went.
It asked
why would you leave us here?
this body of mine and
it's soul.
So I could not weep
and I could not wail.
And so the heavens,
they mourned for me.
Jul 21, 2017
Jul 21, 2017 at 6:18 AM UTC
Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!
Your campaign crowds so chanted.
You took it in and smugly smiled
while they all railed and ranted.
But lock her up for what? I thought.
She's been investigated.
For alleged conflict of interest,
she has been exculpated.
So if such accusations,
when even proved untrue,
provide sufficient grounds for jail.
They'll have to lock up... You!
Feb 20, 2017
Feb 20, 2017 at 8:26 PM UTC
You started as a girl
With wavy blonde hair, worn long (for religion)
And sea green eyes.
You always wore a skirt (also the religion)
And hated it, railed against it every day.
That girl didn't last long,
The quiet girl who wanted out.
You were still a girl after
With short blond hair and green eyes,
But now the skirts were gone
And so was the quiet.
You began to rebel,
But only in small ways.
Hair
And skirts
And secrets never told, except to me.
This girl became a leader,
Strong and proud, MY leader.
Next you were dangerous.
Hiding yourself with
Cuts and the cuts with
Long sleeves and harsh words.
I tried to help, hide, anything at all
But it was hard,
With parents snooping,
Checking my email,
They discovered
The cutting and
Everything else.
I was ordered to talk to you and
In doing so,
Smashed your trust in me.
You never forgave me for that,
The dangerous girl I knew.
Next you were hard and sharp
With dyed hair and
A slash for a smile,
And new-minted bisexuality.
I tried so hard to balance
On the edge of your affection
And my confusion,
To find a way to be "normal".
But why try?
Normal doesn't exist.
I couldn't do it, so I
Gave up and
Flirted back
At, you, the girl I loved.
Now you're a boy
And I worry for you.
Your mother won't speak to you
And your father ignores you
And I had to move
And there are too many things I worry about.
You can take care of yourself.
I know that much to be true.
After all, you cared for me
When I was younger,
And for that I thank you,
The boy you've now become.
Sep 20, 2015
Sep 20, 2015 at 3:58 PM UTC
Now before we get de-railed from the tracks of our bed,
let's prepare our bags for dream station ahead.
My carry-on love, with a you on my side,
Goodnight my sweet, now come along for the ride!
Jan 21, 2012
Jan 21, 2012 at 7:35 AM UTC
The stream of Sunday people
used to separate down High Street,
led by family threads, some to
Bethesda others to St. Pauls.
Some time later they joined a stream again,
swirling, rippling with the gossip of the day.
Their duty done singing hymns, dropping pennies,
offering prayers and sitting through sermons. Amen.
Prominent St. Pauls praised by Pevsner
as Runcorn's most distinctive building,
but Bethesda, older, iron railed,
both cures for souls till their people left.
Now St. Pauls cures patients' bodies,
while Bethesda harbours buses.
Weekday people steam and gossip,
potions purchased, journeys joined.
Nov 7, 2015
Nov 7, 2015 at 2:16 PM UTC
Tear it to shreds little man,
This is all you have left to do.
All other empathic direction taken and blinded like lockjaw,
taken and railed into The rusted side of a wall radiator.
Of course the floors creek,
Of course the walls tear up like paper
Nerves, exploding,to the eye to eye feeling,
The missing aperture,
Four tracks laid down have grown into nails by a stretch of ability;
And a second sun in glasses to tie it all up in.
If you couldn't breathe you would flail around just the same way.
Degrade truth
as all hope-full people should do.
Mar 31, 2010
Mar 31, 2010 at 5:38 PM UTC
We've reached the end of year one
and Trump says he's done more
than any other president
from any time before.
So, what are the accomplishments
of Trump and his intrepid crew?
Well, here now is a partial list
of what they did, or tried to do.
They lied about inaugural crowds
and introduced "Alternative Facts",
inspired a worldwide women's march
to protest Trump's disgusting acts.
Hollowed-out the E.P.A.,
deemed climate change a Chinese hoax.
Paris Accord and regulations
gone, in puff of toxic smoke!
Wrecked the State Department and
Muslims, he said, must be banned.
Insulted NATO and U.N.,
brought shame upon his own homeland.
Attacked the mainstream media.
Railed and ranted of "fake news",
unless it came from Fox and Friends
and others spouting all his views.
Gave praise to Russia - Putin too.
Investigations started.
Comey started digging and
was forcibly departed.
Poked and taunted Kim Jong Un.
International drama!
Obsessed with slagging Hillary
and Barack Obama.
Battled healthcare, N.F.L.
and Planned Parenthood.
Tried to ban transgendered troops.
Claimed that coal is good.
Would not condemn the Neo-Nazis
down in Charlottesville.
Filled his swamp with sycophants
up on Capitol Hill.
Puerto Rico half destroyed.
Paper towels he gave.
Huge cuts to the National Parks,
decreasing land to save.
Claimed that Trump saved Christmas and
gave massive tax cut presents
to the corporate oligarchs
with crumbs tossed to the peasants.
Debt ballooning! Conflict looming!
Divisions far and wide!
G.O.P.'s not stopping Trump.
Have they even tried?
Claims to be a stable genius;
A smart and big success!
What legacy will Donald leave?
What awful, dreadful mess?
These were just some accomplishments
of which I have kept score,
but they just scratch the surface.
I could rant for hours more!
But haven't we all had enough
after Trump's first year?
It feels more like twenty!
Let us hope his end is near.
This was my Year One "trumpoem"
that I wrote for you.
Hope I won't have to write another
after year two!
Jan 14, 2018
Jan 14, 2018 at 3:39 PM UTC
Falling pink petals
Plinking my head
A saxophone serenade
Kind of kind of blue
A solitary birch among many hundreds
Of deciduous trees, its paper
Bark scored with age
White among shadows
And the endless breeze takes me up
Into Tiffany-blue sky
Pollen clumps litter the edges of lawn
Calliope streaming from a mared and seahorsed
Carousel dances in my head
Disobedient canine in exodus
Defiant against the silhouette
Of a circled dog
Line diagonally cutting across
Wah wah wah as the ducks in the pond
Are chased away.
Endless verdant day criss-crossed with
Walking paths and robin’s-egg sky punctuated
With drifting cotton shapes.
Brazen squirrels accustomed to the pleasant
Bustle and hustle
Bat City, unopened, in my lap
Mothers feeding children
Hungry mouths to breast.
Seeking out a lemonade stand
Near Winter Street in spring
A yellow burst of sour notes sing
On my palate
A bargain at a fiver on a day as this
Soundtrack peppered by buskers and
An ***** grinder turning the crank on his street ***** and
Birds and
The woo of occasional sirens.
A mother wheeling her child along
In a stroller
Mohawked, tattooed, pierced lip and
She smiles on by.
Ivied brownstones and balconies railed
With wrought iron
End our stay
On this idyllic day
In month of May.
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 3:13 PM UTC
Be with me when I am merely lines and edges, seeping into myself,
like soap through fingers after being scrubbed raw.
Can I wash my skin so much that it turns to dust and rubble?
Bright pink and raw, water merging with water, salted with emotion, steaming heat.
My mother always reminded me to wash behind my ears,
but a cotton cloth does not have the strength to cleanse mine from what they’ve heard.
Furious lather, scraping bits of skin, thumbs cracked and caked, kisses as bandaids.
Down the drain.
Swirls and rushes, empty tub and words to go down with it.
Wet tile bed, curled around the steamed aluminum, bunched eyes and clenched fists.
A railed curtain shield, droplets of moisture running, clear and red concoction.
Down the drain.
Hot to cold comfort, fingernail paintings, ripped skin and cracked tap.
Drip but not drop, losing but not lost.
Crawl up, out of dangerous waters, hoisting over porcelain obstacles.
Pull the plug from the outside, all fours on linoleum floors.
Down the drain.
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 1:38 PM UTC
#One World Limerick
The notion of nations united
gets the global progressives excited.
Their party of Babel
is Nimrod’s own rabble
(we’re left with the Right uninvited).
Values Clarification Limerick
Many worldlings (whose ways we bemoan)
hope their lives we’ll approve and condone.
But we couldn’t care less
for the views they profess;
we just wish they would leave us alone
Roman Limerick
Our antichrist leaders (so Fabian)
are more Nero, and less like Octavian.
So with Caesars and salad
I’ll dress up my ballad.
(The future’s plebeian or Flavian.)
Kente Pajamas Limerick
A racist obtuse Afro-whiner
Tried to give the right-wing a black shiner
While applauding Obama
He railed at my mama
His manners could be a lot finer . . .
Apocalyptic Limerick
The riddles of John’s Revelation
imply a large-scale devastation.
The end is not too clear
but looks rather nuclear:
a well-deserved A–bomb-in-nation.
Freethinking Limerick
An atheist, weary of fables
Found his intellect turning the tables.
He declared: As a nihilist
held to a higher list,
I’m for erasing the labels.
Mendacious Limerick
Fake propaganda as news
only fools those it’s meant to confuse
there is wrong, there is right
when you’re left in the light
of a nation with little to lose.
Apr 6, 2018
Apr 6, 2018 at 8:18 PM UTC
The phone rang after 2: 00 am.
Taking the steps in pairs
my legs faltered at his door -
paralyzed by denial.
Forcing myself inside,
I saw father's lifeless frame,
wired to synthetic everything -
a cold white line
still against the black.
My grief-racked soul
railed at that liar screen,
knowing his true lifeline
danced with passion -
precision cutting with his lathe,
strumming passing chords
on his Gibson Les Paul.
That morning I knocked a ball
through a neighbor’s glass
I learned what honor meant.
With dad's steady hand
on my shoulder,
I stammered apologies
and learned to glaze a window.
We'd play catch after supper.
or down franks and pop
at Briggs where the Tigers played.
Detroit is flying high this year:
God, how I wish
I could give the old man a call.
September, 2006
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 1:34 AM UTC
bright **** youths you choose
railed against the steel muse
wrestle off your noose
loudly at twilight
it's the carnivorous call
shaking down the halls
fine beastly retreats
feasts of prurient art meat
you're your own real cheat
spaz schism victims
puerile and lurid women
these giant mens' venoms
let heaven patrol
every hole of your bottoms
let bliss be the meter cheated, by the stanzas forgotten
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 2:32 AM UTC