"rationing" poems
Like a captive, I capture rapture wrapping around stakes that matter
Joan of Arc battered
Also tattered but, easily dismissive
Refracted from fractured prominent phrases people play with
Distinctly persuasive and evasive, dressed boyishly attractive, lax stature, dawning armor crafted by absence as if asked about it-
I’m drifted
Protection is principle prerequisite, when fire is lit
I sort of implore your aorta before it’s incinerated to ashes
Dethatched as a habit, with swords or hatchets crafted to singe heartstrings that attached it
While I slash slick Rick as a quick fix,
To fend for pretend pretenses or presumed tricks,
I can’t quit
Cause I hit lips against hash spliffs fashioned with dashes of passion all while rationing fireball cinnamon sips
Martyr to avoidance
I gaze at fabled dazed gossipers galvanizing grips on gritty grapevines while licking warning labels through smoke haze on blurred lines
Capably unstable
Other eyes attending scandal circles able to shout lies and rekindle handed arguments on tables with locked smiles stay boxed in
Avidly amiable
Searching for counterparts when combusted or branded
Toying with matches loses meaning when rules reseed
Those vagabonds claim love is some all end hard bent to mend what the same above can’t comprehend.
Breaking boredom, I pillage pillows with night terrors
And ardent arsonists yearn for flames that churn, turn, liquefy and learn learned thoughts and smoldered feelings
Completely complacent
Melting in one another they are completing each other like two candles tryst true at a wedding day
However later the blaze is severed, smoke sears, and charred black wick stands alone for them.
Aggressive and progressive.
As for me never pleading, fire forever fleets to streets between iron bars I built that cage in deep heat and seep dire dreams once desired
Suppose I’m a skeptic
Roasted or disconnected
Just jaded, just met you
Always over it too soon
Burnt but I’m amused.
I’m useful.
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC
There was death and gore,
During the second world war.
Many people died in extreme violence,
Killed before they could call out to loved ones.
Young men were trained to ****
Often against their morals and will.
So when I see your 1940s weekend -
Your 'war was fun and cosy' pretence,
Your clichéd polyester and fibre glass mockery,
Aiming to re-enact a mostly imagined happy-go-lucky camaraderie -
Forgive me for not joining in,
As I happen to feel it a cardinal sin,
To idealise and romanticise a decade,
Made up of austerity, rationing and air raids.
I've read a little social history,
The 1940s were not idyllic or crime-free,
Just as now, there were heroes and villains,
Among the soldiers and civilians.
Heroism abounded but so did black marketeering,
There were brave sacrifices but also racketeering.
City-wide black-outs were a gift,
To those who would rob and grift.
Your jolly nostalgic tribute is an annual celebration,
Celebrating your own fabrication,
Of a time when the machinations of war and a crazed ideology,
Saw the near extinction of an entire ethnic minority.
I do not wish to be a party pooper,
But don't just step into the fake shoes of a fictional trooper,
Please occasionally remove your rose-tinted glasses,
To remember that beyond your nostalgic narrative of the routines of the masses,
People lived with the daily fear,
Of the likely deaths of people they held dear.
Oct 9, 2018
Oct 9, 2018 at 6:49 PM UTC
If love is a drug
Of course I’m an addict.
And if I fall off the wagon
I want to hit the ground-
I want to fall all the way to hell
Shake hands with the devil
And do the thing
Properly.
What’s the point in rationing something
You know you will always crave
And never have enough of?
I could spend every day with you for the rest of time
And still want more.
So
Knowing that
Why wouldn’t I try
For a few more minutes?
Why wouldn’t I take
Every bit of happiness I can get?
I intend to **** the marrow out of life
And make sure that if I must someday
Starve
I will at least have known what it felt like
To feel whole first.
I want to ache for something I’ve had and lost,
Not worry after something I’ve never known:
If I am going down anyway,
I want to go down
In flames.
Oct 11, 2018
Oct 11, 2018 at 4:08 AM UTC
Any brighter and
streams in the ditches
would look like Cuyahoga River
across Cleveland during the 1960's
There is no fire, only flies
who make bright their bellies
and flash for show like the perverts
in metropolitan inner city parks
Enticed to the flies, like moths
to the ceiling globes,
we gather jars and lids
with air holes hammered hard
No walking as we streak
along gravel roads built after WWII
when rationing was lifted
and road speeds jumped
Flies caught one by one
are smashed on white tees,
luminous signals for drivers
alert to the folly of our play
Our madness endures
until Ball jars become
dim lanterns of joy for us and jail
for the bugs doomed
to die before daybreak
until swept from the garage
floor as we plot our assault
on airborne glimmers along
tonight's roadsides
Aug 19, 2014
Aug 19, 2014 at 8:37 AM UTC
why is it that you only remember kissing?
or fumbling with plastic buttons in dim hallways, or folding his pants alongside your dresses
or laughing, or heading home to a bed you both could call yours.
why is it that the nights you spend crying in the next room- why does that fade?
you remain always dusty. god, all those days and months seperated by borders and waters you spent rationing these precious packages of recollection, closing your eyes and watching from a distance, as a younger, softer you rested her head on a pair of shoulders that were always there, a pair of shoulders that grew arms to hold you with, and a mouth to kiss you with, and fingers that would trace you and taste you and smudge you. now you know everything about love with nothing to show for it. now the safest place is nowhere near you.
you remember reaching out in the middle of the night, you remember why you quit smoking, you remember how he tasted, how he pulled you closer under the covers on cold sunday mornings. you would make room now when you would never make room before. now that it's too late, now that you are not fine. you remember kissing.
Feb 10, 2014
Feb 10, 2014 at 1:32 AM UTC
Despair
Trapped under tons of rock
How did they pass those 17 days,
A brotherhood of men
lost like a child’s shoe in the sand?
Rationing a morsel of food and water
for who knew how long
fate as uncertain as the stale air
and then another seventy days
of darkness and despair.
Freedom
The gradual progress of the drill
and all the careful calculations
before the flimsy cage,
Encapsulated in a tube of rock,
a miracle of engineering,
determination and daring,
birth canal, difficult and painstaking,
a tunnel towards the light of freedom.
Faith
The prayer of a voice
from the depths of the desert,
A scrap of paper
Waved like a banner of life,
A freed miner kneeling,
resisting for a moment
the magnet of family.
to give thanks in faith.
Joy
The raw emotion
ore from the womb of the earth
the intensity of pain and joy
in the faces of the children
as their fathers returned from the tomb;
a world waiting in the glare of hope
a world for once joined in joy.
Oct 21, 2010
Oct 21, 2010 at 2:00 PM UTC
we’re the cool girls of this generation,
the ones with the words ‘i .cannot. give. a. ****
slashed across us in bold red,
the little lies we tell ourselves to go to bed,
instead of spending midnight hours strung on the edge
unable to seek behind or storm ahead.
the ones who fell asleep
to the sound of constant yelling, artillery shelling; bitter bullets exploding
into ugly bruises splattered across still skinny limbs,
shifting stories of anger and frustration, guilt and regret
expressed across inches of innocent skin;
the ones whose clothes were just a little bit frayed on the edges
the wear and tear of secret battles
fought behind sunset alleys,
behind midnight tea stalls
or on bright Sunday afternoons
at the bus stand,
desperately fighting hungry eyes and hungrier hands.
we’re the cool girls of this generation -
the ones with the
*red tips red lips
red ribs red wrists.*
we’re the cool girls of this generation -
the ones that house boys in our hearts and
smoke in our lungs,
the ones who spend way too much time inside their own head,
asking a hundred questions before every step in this game of wizarding chess that
never seems to slow down -
we’re the ones that can be found
wandering insomniac across sulphur-sodden streets,
wisps of distant wishes
settling into the foggy vestiges
of a high mind longing to soar higher.
we’re the cool girls of this generation
the one that are still allowed just the right rationing of
action emotion expression complication communication
while wearing a constant resting not-so-bitch face
head sorting information in a frenzied daze,
heart swinging between your fingers and a suitcase -
the ones with one foot in the present and
other parts traversing through parallel dimensions,
searching for a back up plan if your hearts refuse to allow us home;
the ones whose mouths became graveyards
for all the words that went unsaid,
for all the words to which we came undone,
for all times your eyes asked us questions that we shunned
we’re the cool girls of this generation -
the ones that belong to roads unknown and bodies untouched,
the ones that find stories in shipwrecked planks
that ride stormy oceans only to find homes
or perhaps even build them -
amidst the crumbling sand castles on the sea shore.
because we’re the cool girls of this generation -
the ones with the
*red tips red lips
red ribs red wrists.*
Jan 11, 2016
Jan 11, 2016 at 10:31 AM UTC
6 more cigarettes, she counts,
rationing her existence.
Finding something to need other than sleep is refreshing.
She can hear his voice
through the walls
and she inhales deeply.
She needs the smoke to blacken her lungs
as a small pittance of retribution, reflecting the blackness she holds in her heart.
And, as she exhales,
she lets the smoke burn
her eye
as she watches watches it coil
and curl away.
Someday
she will display her wounds
proudly
as battle scars.
Bur first she must survive, and heal.
5 more to go.
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 8:19 PM UTC
a tree did grow
in Brooklyn. it was June--
our third-- and the summer weather
hadn't turned yet:
school was just out, Prospect Park was never full, and the nights
were still cool.
it was summer in the city before it comes unglued.
i had yet to resent the F train terminal
or its crowds
or its sweat. i hadn't grown bored
of 23rd St. on one end of the day
and Church Avenue on another,
or of the cost of cigarettes
or coffee or of the FOODTOWN sign
at the top of the subway steps.
it was a beautiful month
because it was doomed barely to last
its 30 days.
and there were too so many long hours,
sitting barely shaded
on your stoop,
fending off the landlord's sister and the bugs and waiting
for the fall.
each time i've gone back
since then i've sat
on those slow steps;
that summer it was no different: three months to crown three
years,
moving so timelessly
by
that next month the heat bore down,
not the heat only of the sun and the air but the wet,
***** heat of the city,
steam forever rising from underground, the oil spills
in the gutters beginning to boil.
but still it was New York
and summer. the roaches and rats hadn't yet
eaten all the fireflies.
i grew to love routine
disquiet: the long car rides to Queens,
the Mets games and their pretzel smell and riding back,
inevitably discouraged,
my homemade tank top leaking Magic marker onto my chest;
the trips to the beach at Rockaway, sullen and determined, and their return
to Manhattan, tasting like salt (and you, once,
like blood) and my hair stiff
with brine and feeling the sand in our shoes grit
against the ***** sidewalks;
those quick walks
from Smith&9th Streets,
sipping Mexican Cokes and rationing our time
by cigarettes:
all of July was exhausting,
but familiar by then.
in August the tornado came,
first Brooklyn'd seen in 30 years. we two
slept blissfully through it, woke only
for the aftermath.
we went outside almost giddy, certainly
unbelieving,
holding hands.
and the tree
which had stood outside so
serenly
was uprooted,
having missed the bedroom window
by only a few feet.
[it was June--
cool.
barely shaded
so timelessly
beginning to boil
all the fireflies.]
Nov 19, 2010
Nov 19, 2010 at 11:18 AM UTC
Oh, they don’t know they’re born today,
What do they know of surviving a war?
Suffering blackouts, hardship of rationing,
With never a thought of ‘asking for more’.
They act so tough, never knowing real fear,
Never experiencing terror and dread,
They’d be dancing to a different tune,
If the Luftwaffe still flew overhead.
I tell you, kids of today; know now’t,
Claiming life’s hard: they’re having a laugh,
Let em’ clean grime off a twelve hour shift,
With carbolic soap in an old tin bath?
Talk of going without, they get too much!
We only had skipping ropes, whistles, bells,
Maybe an orange and apple at Christmas,
Along with monkey nuts still in their shells.
If we were lucky, we got a shiny penny,
Truth be told, there was never any shame,
Today they expect brand new bikes,
Plus the latest craze of a video game.
A sign of the times, life always changes,
Rose-tinted memories; forever make hay,
I’ve said it before; I know I’ll say it again,
Oh, they don’t know they’re born today.
© Paul Chafer 2014
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 4:40 PM UTC
rationing myself out
after giving you my everything
to place yourself in the hands of someone
knowing they can ruin you
is the ultimate gesture of trust
and when neglected and unwanted
the plunge of death
when your heart finally gets handed back to you
broken
beating irregularly
scared to even flutter again
how could you be so sweet
and leave me so bitter
now it makes sense
because salt looks a lot like sugar
Aug 18, 2017
Aug 18, 2017 at 2:05 AM UTC
Mina Mina she declares
Life is hopeful
Pink and red.
She instructs me to wash
my hands and listen
to my parrot
She is feminine power
fearless leader
Mina Mina she lies
of no use know
what does she know
of wife beatings? Of
Dumpster scavengers? Of
rationing food? Of
Children in whom no one
Believe?
Mina Mina she is dead.
Feb 17, 2014
Feb 17, 2014 at 5:23 PM UTC
I am not usually frugal but
I hand you guilty slips of the fingers
Niggardly.
It is wartime and I am rationing touch.
I chew the pen you gave me; do I
Taste you?
Do you see my tongue and wish
I would lay it hot to your flesh, burning
Excuses in stealth-sweetened luxury?
Jan 27, 2011
Jan 27, 2011 at 7:39 PM UTC
you asked me long ago why every time we ******
it was 'so passionate'
today it hit me,
as i was reading tropic of cancer for the fourth time
it's because i am passion,
i am passion embodied
your other women,
they may give you something else individually,
but they are not the look in my golden eyes
as we both stand on our knees
and devour each other hungrily
they may be beauty or intelligence or a simply good ****
but they are not passion
i realized that it is not the **** that you crave,
but the characteristics that you lack, you take from us
you need my passion to stay sane and whole
i gave it freely because it is all of me
i have an endless, abundance of passion
a depthless well of fieriness
you pay me in faux love and deep friendship for the dedicated doses
of passion that i put into your soul
your words stick to me because they are my words
i gave them to you with each passionate ****
and you spit them back in just the way i loved
the more i ponder our coup the more i realize
the ******* was for me to unload the heavy burden passion brings
you needed it to fill you and i have a surplus
as each day ends i find more clarity
you are a hollow vessel and your women give you your character
they are all loved and unloved by you
they all give you what you need to feel human
but i must start rationing my passion
i need it for my writings
i need it for my living
i need it for my sanity
perhaps to hone it so that at a simple touch i can ignite sparks
in every beggar, aristocrat, country-man
rather than to fill up your empty chest where love is not welcome
Apr 9, 2014
Apr 9, 2014 at 5:41 PM UTC
smiling in a mirror I see
an elephant in the room\a deserted island .
there are mountains precipices above about me
dangerous
surroundings if I give up
and dark valleys filled with enemies
knowledge is no armory when fitted for a battle of strength
'tis general \
or survival that brings an animal above to see
here
in reality
I am the one
alone so natural like mammal lust and human greed
in all the caves I seek
hiding
away from
rationing my sanity if I did not see a grander destiny
for me
for us.
Feb 2, 2015
Feb 2, 2015 at 4:00 AM UTC
As one wilts
Death engulfs
Seldom of comfort
Rationing the provisions
Of a lackluster reality
Lesions across my eyes
Blind me from the brutality
Dressed in a white tee
Destruction watches
with unimaginable glee
Feb 19, 2014
Feb 19, 2014 at 5:57 AM UTC
remember days before food waste,
scraps for dog, cat maybe
some pig.
sitting until my plate was clear,
hash. tag rationing.
peelings were taken down
the garden by the rhubarb buckets
or
aunt olive made wine from that
with tea dregs.
he came every other day, pig man as
it was acceptable in those days.
when
there was no food waste . mum
darned socks
sbm.
Sep 2, 2016
Sep 2, 2016 at 1:57 AM UTC
the challenge, 12 sentences starting with the same word – green.
:: green road :
green road is where I was born; in winton.
green grocer delivered each tuesday and thursday.
green front doors and hedges line the road, repetitive.
green shooting brake denotes uncle’s arrival, posh we thought,truth came later.
green our neighbour’s face as bombs fell/were pushed; she hid in the outside toilet.
green school knickers; janet next door under her gymslip.
greens up the garden, with spuds & rhubard, runners & plums.
greens for dinner, liver & gravy; poor food, i guess there was rationing.
green her coat with big buttons,darted & half belt she wore while shopping.
green my mittens, shetland hand knitted; a souvenir.
green the scarf that matched, richer now.
green the sky; the storm passes.
sbm.
Dec 13, 2017
Dec 13, 2017 at 12:59 AM UTC
Soon the lie will no longer be profitable and the evil elite won’t be able to hide the extreme environmental changes and chaotic sociological behavior manifestations. When it’s obvious to everyone that things are getting worse, because infrastructure and entire areas of real estate are not being repaired, know that the false powers at be understand there is no need to fix them, because more damage is on the way.
This summer, right now, and getting worse every day, food rationing is increasing because our food chains are being altered with GMO and infected purposely with deadly viruses. This summer, right now, and getting worse every day, water restrictions are extending into more areas because our weather system is a mess, they have ******* with it so much it’s now effecting our vital resources. When our basic needs to sustain life start being taken away from us, the game is over.
Take note, are you profitable to the planetary system being put in place? Do you go along with what the government tells you to do, and how to think? Do you question? Do you support vaccines, same *** marriage, one world religion, one world government etc. etc? If you are not on board with the one world thought that is about to be massively unveiled, when the re-boot starts your purpose will evolve into soylent green (food for other humans-cannibalism).
Once it is obvious, that the bulk of humanity will no longer be profitable via work force labor (because labor is becoming mechanized using robotics) in any form, guess what? You’ll be used for slave support yielding Food, and a section of humanity that is remaining will be harvested. Everyone is familiar with the term hell on earth, well this term was created for this time, and everyone is gonna have seat at this picture show, everyone.
Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Pray for your family, friends, neighbors and countrymen.
Jun 18, 2015
Jun 18, 2015 at 1:53 PM UTC
at long last
the gloves can be removed
with a Republican controlled
house and senate
this fascination with bashing
the B-rockstar
can end –
no longer will the focus be
on misinterpreted short-comings
denying reality to encourage racism
separation nation rationing social stations
only giving the elite
power –
the hour draws near
fog blanket encapsulates
rationality
hiding the sides from each other
brother against other
and everyone is ‘other’ –
gone is the sweet music
with so many wind gusts
leaving behind a dry California
to bake in the congress created c(LIE)mate
catastrophe –
the shadow of hope lingers in the darkest of hearts
leaving behind change
trading empire for magazine subscriptions
holding the gamer paddle
longing for unity –
As I look back over this last election cycle,
one thing is certain
Americans have misplaced anger
aggression without direction
complicating the scene
the burgeoning proletariat
paints freely –
Nov 13, 2014
Nov 13, 2014 at 11:34 AM UTC
scapegoat extraordinaire dollar bill menace
mental patients ******* barrels white bells with tennis
candelabras peanut-butter bread milk intolerance
skateboards pickup trucks brick wall limits- rationing away---
canned vegetables and water sealed containers with dolphin parts
FOR US TO EAT while watching final Jeopardy.
Linked together by the hip double barreled shotguns with no voices
no choices - hear a faint whimper of resistance.
Take down that symbol of hate that history recorded erroneously
until skyscrapers fall once again but now from within and capitol buildings speak a new kind of education.
Your tears are false pride and mimic something you cannot possibly understand because you have been accosted.
You are radical- you are despair- you are mountains crumbling
you are children going hungry from lack thereof-
you are self-inflicted wounds licked by wolves
Jul 11, 2015
Jul 11, 2015 at 12:45 PM UTC
why is it that you only remember kissing?
or fumbling with plastic buttons in dim hallways, or folding his pants alongside your dresses
or laughing, or heading home to a bed you both could call yours.
why is it that the nights you spend crying in the next room- why does that fade?
you remain always dusty. god, all those days and months seperated by borders and waters you spent rationing these precious packages of recollection, closing your eyes and watching from a distance, as a younger, softer you rested her head on a pair of shoulders that were always there, a pair of shoulders that grew arms to hold you with, and a mouth to kiss you with, and fingers that would trace you and taste you and smudge you. now you know everything about love with nothing to show for it. now the safest place is nowhere near you.
you remember reaching out in the middle of the night, you remember why you quit smoking, you remember how he tasted, how he pulled you closer under the covers on cold sunday mornings. you would make room now when you would never make room before. now that it's too late, now that you are not fine. you remember kissing.
Sep 11, 2014
Sep 11, 2014 at 2:23 AM UTC
There’s a war on,
ya morons!
Shortages everywhere!
There’s a shortage of
sanity, of clear thought
here!
Hell, they’re rationing
everything these days!
No one will pay your
******* cab fare either,
so, find your own *********
way out of this ditch!
Stick your sonuvabichin’
thumb out, hike your
skirt up, show those
******** some of the pink
stuff.
That’ll get ‘em,
or maybe it won’t,
who knows,
who cares,
who gives a circus-elephant ****
Not me.
I don’t give a ********* cerebral
hematoma about what happens next.
I just want to get out of here
and see how far I can get before
the radiator blows and my eyebrows
are singed off.
Jesus Christ in a ******* boat!
Ah, **** it!
I’ll see you in the morning.
***
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016
Apr 5, 2016
Apr 5, 2016 at 10:17 PM UTC
~SORRY Girl~
~City of sin~
~Machine~
~Devouring~
~My yen~
~I can never win~
~Sitting in~
~A jail pen~
~Taking the bad~
~Making the good~
~Positive Creation~
~That's what i'm doing~
~falling~
~Like a bowling pen~
~The city's hollering~
~So I find my best friend~
~With time~
~In you I invest in~
~Rationing the time~
~with you in mind~
~ And you the one i'm missing~
~ Please~
~All I need~
~Is dedication~
~ Devotion~
~The future potion~
~Is It real~
~Can you feel~
~HOOK~
Phil Collins
~I can feel it coming in the air tonight~
, ~oh Lord~
~Well, I've been waiting for this moment for all my life~,
~oh Lord~
~I can feel it in the air tonight~,
~oh Lord~
~oh Lord~
~Are time isnt wasting~
~With out a question~
~Hate me today~
~Cause your love i'm testing~
~Remember this'
~Kiss the music note on the wrist~
~Baby doll~
~Don't trip~
~Just sit and listen~
~What's this~
~It's a penition~
~Wet back attack~
~I'm steadily wrenching~
~Rationing the time~
~with you in mind~
~And you the one i'm missing~
~Please~
~All I need ~
~Is dedication~
~Devotion~
~The future potion~
~Is It real~
~Can you feel~
~HOOK~
Phil Collins
~I can feel it coming in the air tonight~,
~oh Lord~
~Well, I've been waiting for this moment for all my life~,
~oh Lord~
~I can feel it in the air tonight~,
~oh Lord~
~oh Lord~
~Are time isnt wasting~
Mar 15, 2016
Mar 15, 2016 at 6:35 AM UTC