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John Leuven Apr 2014
Sometimes I wake up to
spatial tension
and awkward sting,
where there are fractions of
unwanted proteins and
dripping enzymes.
Sometimes I wake up to
obsidian corpuscles
of unknown origin
and encounters with
sentiment-shakers,
dream-eaters,
and rafter-rattlers.
Sometimes it is as simple as
dripping beige,
intangible amber,
and cold, cold, blue.
Sometimes I wake up
to nothing, too.
Some love to watch the sea bushes appearing at dawn,
To see night fall from the goose wings, and to hear
The conversations the night sea has with the dawn.

If we can't find Heaven, there are always bluejays.
Now you know why I spent my twenties crying.
Cries are required from those who wake disturbed at dawn.

Adam was called in to name the Red-Winged
Blackbirds, the Diamond Rattlers, and the Ring-Tailed
Raccoons washing God in the streams at dawn.

Centuries later, the Mesopotamian gods,
All curls and ears, showed up; behind them the Generals
With their blue-coated sons who will die at dawn.

Those grasshopper-eating hermits were so good
To stay all day in the cave; but it is also sweet
To see the fenceposts gradually appear at dawn.

People in love with the setting stars are right
To adore the baby who smells of the stable, but we know
That even the setting stars will disappear at dawn.
Ruby Harrison Jan 2010
Since fifty-eight
the jaycees come
rounding up rattlers
in Sweetwater, folk from all over
for a weekend in March
when snakes leave the hibernaculum
and slide back up
into west Texas and the wind.

Mr. Herrera knew his Luis and I
rode the seven-thirty bus,
had cokes and potato chip sandwiches
with Mitchell and Thomas
after Sunday school,
shot jackrabbits that ate alfalfa
in the dairy pastures.

Dad said he reckoned,
so I took Mr. Herrera’s apron
and offer and brought my knife
that Luis sharpened to a razor
and shaved his forearm hairs with.  
Frank tried that once,
sliced himself like a tomato
when he slipped.

Snake shop’s a butchery,
down the main street
past the dairy mart
and primary school,
in the yellow open scrub.  
If buzzards had noses like dogs
they’d flock, smell that
snake blood from Mexico.

Rattlesnake skinning
is all stringy guts, soft skin,
pulled teeth and poison
squeezed out of gum sockets
like milk from an old cow’s ****.  
Fancy skins with eyeholes
and lips cost ten,
specialty of Mr. Herrera.
Headless strip plus rattle
just two dollars the foot.
Cut the belly lengthwise
and rip,
easy near the backbone
where it catches.  

Out-of-towners buy anything.
Wallets, boots, belts with snakeskin
sewed or tacked on,
lucky rattles, picture frames
for proof of their longest catch.  
God-fearing jaycees doing good
for our communities will eat
deep-fried snake meat,
like tough old chicken,
but good with black-eyed peas
and sweet tea on the side.  

The women even come
once the round-up is done,
the church women, the Jesus women
with belief
and pistachio pudding
with marshmallows,
like Mrs. Howard
who shrieked “Boyd!”
and lectured about hygiene
when she saw me in my apron
and ****** to my elbows,
menacing the street.  

The biggest round-up days
we worked late, past midnight.
Past the dairy mart hours,
so once the skins
were all peeled and stretched
and the sticky linoleum
hosed down some,
Luis and I walked back through town,
deserted, dark





except lights from Roscoe and Roby
and even big Abilene
miles away, shining
across the flat nothing,
coyotes yip yip yipping
somewhere near the lake farther north.

Luis showed me how to eat peanuts
shells and all
and let me try on his brother’s
high school letter jacket.  
Late night in Sweetwater is a nothing.  
The wind never stops blowing,
and there’s nobody else
on the ******* planet.
spysgrandson Aug 2012
Monet, Manet, Morisot, and the tortured Vincent
a long century or more ago,
filled their palates with color,
their canvases with impressions of life, love and loss.
And we, the great masters of civilization,
have treasured these like newborn babes.

I wandered through the polished halls
of antiquities to see them—
some hidden even from the harsh light of day
to protect their precious prinking from decay.
I strained my eyes to see their soulful strokes
and wondered why artists carried such painful yokes

McMurtry’s ranch has no paintings
but sculptures from a vanished sea.
A quarter billion years it’s been,
and yet they’re here for all to see

Rocks carved by patient scratching time
and stock tanks covered with putrid slime.
No lilies float on pools of blue
and no guard carefully watches you

Their sentries are the desert rattlers
and the sun scorched prairie lands,
but these ancient masterpieces
are safe from filching hands.

When I kneel on hard rock soil,
I forget my daily useless toil
and dig in clean eternal dirt
with no canvases to belie the hurt
of gentle men who felt the call
to let their heart be seen by all

Monet, Manet, and Morisot
are now laid to rest, with their burdens set aside,
but their colors are a reminder
that beauty and suffering abide

McMurtry’s rocks no longer feel,
but who could say they are less real
than colors fading from the light
and lonely artists’ painful plight.
In the summer of 2008, I made a trip to the Kimbell Art Museum in Forth Worth, Texas, USA, to see the Impressionist Exhibit and then 48 hours later was digging in the dirt for fossils at the ranch of a close friend--the hot dry rocky inhospitable terrain I seem to love. I was struck by the contrast between my experience with high art on a Saturday and clawing in the hot hard earth the following Monday
Sleepy Sigh Sep 2010
We dance in the wetlands:
Hopping tree to tree in galoshes,
In snake boots.
We can hear the rattlers and
Crying crocodiles over the
Buzz buzz buzzing of our chainsaws,
But the bossman says stay down.
So we wait and watch, and when
A snake snaps to bite, we touch it
Just so: on the back of the head
With our buzzing tools. Then
We go right back to dancing
Tree to tree and rock to rock.
Step in the water and scaly babies
Will cry out for mother,
But bossman will say to stay
And shoot the mama if she snaps to bite.
We drive them from their homes,
Scaly devils, with our buzz buzzing saws
And our snake boots. We clear the land.
Where they shall go, we shall follow,
Always there is more to clear
More to cut and haul away
But we must be prepared for
Attack, always awake,
Always ready to shoot and touch
The back of their heads, just so,
With our insistent buzzing saws.
share, don't steal, etc

Poetry is everywhere.
Marshal Gebbie Feb 2011
It’s taken you’re fed up
With politicized debate
And the fools who do brinkmanship’s
Scared world of hate.
And the ghouls who eat babies
As pawns in their game
In their scrawny white *****’s
Sad quest for fame.

Where the sick sabre rattlers
Cavort with their ploys
Of destroying old satellites
To show off their toys.
To drape flags of challenge
With threat weave inbound
Across mantles of aspirants
Desirous to be crowned.

Intimidating tactics
From they with the gun
Against all the challengers
Emerging at run.
From China to terrorist
The gauntlet’s thrown,
You cross our line
There's no mercy shown.

And we little guys sit
In our quiet, timid way,
Whilst the gigantic ego's
Jostling holds sway.
Whilst the arrogant right
Profess to have God,
And the rest of us cower
In fear, like a dog.

And the sun comes up
With a glorious show
And the nuclear dust
In the air is aglow,
And the rich and the famous
Are dead in their beds
And the ***** and the cockroaches
Nibble their heads.

It’s all such a waste
In a terrible way
When the General’s pushed buttons
And had such a day....


Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
10 February 2011
Dave Robertson Feb 2022
The weight of the world
as it waits for the red, red earth to move
a collective breath held
as a personal fear is shared

For a news cycle, we care
and choke a little at the tiny coffin
before clowns and sabre-rattlers
blind us from the graves behind
Butch Decatoria Oct 2019
Half moon high
In a deepening sky
The clouds like spider cotton,
Like blue ivory husks betwixt
Umber grey misty fog,
The diablerie of dusk
Dark sky and stars

The streets flooded,
a river of headlights, flashlights,
Sidewalks’ pedestrian traffic,
An Armada of munchkins, crowds
Strolling by Chinatown’s
Crisp neon plazas,
A necropolis bright with
Cartoon sharp signage
Accessorizing restaurants with
Jade And gold, foot spas
And red doors…
Horrors of hangings
Roast ducks and pigs decapitated…

Yet the evening is dressed finely still
All eyes lurking
Shadows floating by
Not to be forgotten tonight
Dias de las Muertos
En espanol…

While down the road
Neighborhood way
Skitters Lilliputian creatures
In shells of Saver’s costumes
As squeals of laughter festoons
Boulevard life with
Tiny tintinnabulations
Like baby rattlers
Against the dark
(Maracas for chupacabras)

Timorous parent folk
Encouragement as company,
They Scurry past
Down dim spatial street
In demand of what is given freely
From each and every door
Treat and sweets
Caries galore
All their tricks cached in grins
Of baby teeth
turn candy corn…

Mischievously the meek milk
All Hallows' Eve For
Hallowed be the glee
Even tho' beneath
The web of grey cloudy sky
Life is precious
To deny
The thirsty as it rains

Misery’s loss deep dismal graves,
We should live in celebration
Childlike everyday
Sing and dance
In the October rain
In this wonder
Like rattlers against the dark

Far from wastes of
Hollow wind and pain,
Chilling cries, bleeding eyes,
Undead the unseen
From this cirque city of sins
Offsprings on the strip
Fearless on the boulevard
Treating & tricking
With ole candied lies…

All done up in bright disguise
Happy Halloween.
Revised from All Done Up in Bright Disguise.
Happy Halloween 2019
Eryri Dec 2018
As far as wars go
It's a bit of a bore,
But we are at war.
Trade war tariffs:
Monetary missiles,
Cyber attackers:
Heat-seeking hackers.
Yes, hot wars are so passé.
Cold wars,
So-called Star Wars:
All in the past.
Silent battlers
Not sabre rattlers.
Keyboard warriors
No F15s nor Harriers.
Masters of Sanctions
Not Masters of War.
Expelling diplomats
And ***-for-tats.
It's a new World War,
But it's a bore,
So pay attention,
Don't get complacent,
The war drones on.
Devon Oct 2012
I carry it well
this weight of mine.
My boots dig in,
and I trudge forward,
as I travel through these endless plains of time.

Golden Roses, up to their necks in red
From the rays of, Mid-Day Sun.
as he sits,
laughing overhead.
They fall victim to my weight.

I yield,

to passing serpents, rattlers on their ends,
alone on a dusty trail.

I stop at a rock,
balanced upon another,
a perfect equilibrium.
Achieved in a state
of quintessential delirium.
I remove the pack from my back.
Ease these callused shoulders,

a dangerous embrace,
from this mid-day sun.
The heat becomes a temporary weight to carry on.
Carabineers gripping tight;
to things I’d rather leave behind.

Let them rest on the neighbor’s lawn,
forgotten cells, lying on the rocks of a riverbed.
Let them rot in the broken complex,
****** away in an indigo vortex.
Let them slip between the floorboards,
of a weathered porch.
Rage blind eyes make way for a deafening silence.
The time has come,
empty that pack
and carry on into the setting sun.
Butch Decatoria Sep 2016
Half moon high
In a deep navy sky
The clouds like spider cotton

Blue ivory husks
Umber grey claws / webs
The deepening dusk
In the navy sky

The streets a flood a river of orbs
Armada of effulgence / suns
Headlights
Streaming pass
Crisp neon plaza shores
Cartoon sharp signage
Accessorizing concrete
Floors

The evening is dressed fine eyes smyzing
Shadows floating to be forgotten
While down the road
Neighborhood way
Skitters Liliput creatures
In shells of costumes
As squeals of laughter festoons
Live tintinnabulation

Like rattlers against the dark

As they Scurry cross dim / spatial street
In demand of what is given
From each and every door
Treat and sweets
All their tricks cached in grins
Of teeth.

All Hallows' Eve
Hallowed be the glee
Even tho' beneathe
The web of grey
Life is precious / breathing

Fear forgotten with dismay

We should live in celebration
Childlike everyday

Our wonder
As rattlers against the dark
behind the masks of face
In our eyes there is
The spark
That lights all life

From wastes of
Hollow wind
Chilling cries bleeding
Undead the unseen
From this cirque city

All done up in bright disguise

Happy Halloween
Death as one with life...
Halloween poem 2015
Sherry Asbury Aug 2015
I was just five years old,
and Montana springs can be very cold.
It was time to go hunting for some
poor creature, men with rifles bold.

Off we trekked to the Bitterroot Valley.
A line of cars and pickups a mile long.
Hunting camp set up by the men first.
Then the women with bustle strong.


Daddy led me by the hand to a place
where the water was knee deep
to a giraffe...but I had rubber boots with
a yellow ducky,  that never made a peep.

Suddenly adults were flying and crying,
running here and there in fearsome flight.
I did not understand what gave these folks
such a sudden and terribly awful fright.

Seems I stepped in a rattlesnake nest,
I thought they were cute little worms.
I wanted to get one for daddy’s fishing,
so I started to reach toward the squirms.

Now, baby rattlers can bite seriously,
but I had red boots with a yellow ducky,
and their furious little bites were not
able to bite, through boots...Lucky.

But those fingers reached out - well,
they were snatched by an aunt who wailed,
and no one told me why they were so tense,
to each other the story was detailed.

Innocent as lamb was I about those
reptiles that looked so cute and harmless.
I never knew my auntie had saved me
from being bitten and  being armless.





Post Comments
tranquil Aug 2015
she walks barefoot across the lake
with sultry arrival of soft night
forest welcomes perennial wanderer of violet sky
silently stealing through heaven's stage
focus of all lonesome lunatics
and misfits

red sunset loses tinge by the passing minute
held captive by maroon horizon
distant sounds of rattlers in woods
grow louder in blackness
as shadows of tall grasses melt into
loose sights of night
goblets of lilies flanking mossy path-stones
ooze a pale odour
crawly denizens of dark venture out
on the meandering curve of flowing brook

coat of sky now a deep purple
with sparsely spread dots
which nobody bothers to join
for stars too impatient to hide
will reveal themselves soon
in chariots, warriors, princesses, muses
charts of bears big and small
to beings of forest
along with the lady's different faces you see
one dripping rays on sweet tongues of mango trees
one sneaking past the reflection of hill in lake
one snugly held in cradle of cotton clouds
spied on by distraught creatures

long story short
it is absurd that the firefly in this mix
could hold a spectacle
against the pretty moon for longer than
a twist of the summer breeze
yet somewhere in mist that surrounds its tininess
it dances audaciously
glows with desire to be one amongst the stars
guarding a fire in its chest
that golden ember it houses
shine that puts diamonds to shame
in aromatic wilderness of mossy forest beds
or does it really

it can dance with her
pretend to play lyre with strings of her beams
chase the gleam her light casts on the lake
perhaps float on wafting scents
of flowers embracing the night
hopelessly drenched in a surreal dream
in hours spent with her every night

but the glow in its chest cannot
find a reflection through her eyes
warmth in the breeze cannot
melt the moon to its ground
to some unknown realm
where everything is nothing
and nothing is all it could wish for
until the meaning of its being
fades to oneness with her
if only it could be

the nectar of night is almost spilled out
through jar of time
her bright visage slowly drifting out of sight
strength in the firefly's heart withers
lets go of the captive desire
the luminous play of love

now the wings are tired
glow dimmed
dim as the bears and swans charted in sky
cinders turn to grey ash  
and white smile on moon's face
pours through a sieve of clouds
to fall on its sleeping body
coated in red moss
To lay my head upon the tawny cover of softwood pines once more
as I pry the manifest question of youthful travail and insecurity ,
to garner the earthen tier beside natures vested , rippling waters ..
Churning runnels lending delicate directions , whirlpool portrayals that countersink their matriarchal beginnings , only to gradually disappear ....
To wander the carpeted trail with arbitrary resolve , free of pious
intimidations .. Fixated with superb creativity  .. With the eyes of an eagle .. Determined . Pithiest .. Invincible ..
As heat obscures the blacktop ahead , the shade of home is but a dot in the humid distance , tar laced Georgia roads in the month of August are quite dangerous to young , bare feet ...
Sorghum fields , hog wire boundaries , darkening skies ..The unbounded Sun dragging each step , briar patches line the road shoulder , painful reminders of lonely boots foolishly left unkept ...
Fire ant mounds hide in tall grass , Cow Killers forage alone in Summer swelter , brown scorpions , cottonmouths and the list goes on virtually
forever during Dog Days , legends of wounds refusing to heal , double headed rattlers and rabid foxes , Longhorn bulls turning wild , growing bloodthirsty , hunting down unwary farm hands .. Men turned lunatic
from tainted moonshine , waiting at the wood line for clumsy boys and girls , well water made septic from lack of rain .. Bobcats running in packs for any food easily obtained , including boys that refused to listen
to mother , leaving their cowboy boots when warned not to do so ... This will be the last time I'm caught barefooted , all alone , left to my own wit and minds reserve , Mom and Dad can be sure of it !
Copyright February 18 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved

I remember leaving the house early one morning to go fishing ..It was still cool so I decided not to take shoes ..  The trip home turned out to be a real lesson  !
spysgrandson May 2017
you were not my prey
on this long hot day

though it seemed you
sensed you were

skittering in front of me
on the trail forever

or at least 1000 seconds--forever
in lizard time

perhaps you knew who I was, a reptile killer
since the dawn of man

or since my perverse pubescence, when I'd hunt
whiptails and rattlers  

and take prickly pride in how many of you
my .22 Ruger would slaughter

I have that time hidden in gray folds
beneath an old skull  

I don't carry the weapons of war,
anymore

but I can't deceive you, not in the naked
light of the sun

you were right to run; though I have concealed
my blood lust, you know it is still there
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2016
so let's suppose you find yourself alone on a Saturday
night, a hermit inclined to hedonism - and you're sipping
whiskey and smoking cigarettes and start to feel winter
pinching your skin, so you put on another piece of clothing,
and you're also reading a book in an uncomfortable position,
sitting on your leg on a windowsill, crushing your tarsals -
    and because of the discomfort you get to reread half of
                 jung's the undiscovered self
(subsequent quotes extracted from the book,
  page references not given, and alterations made,
            indicated by being listed with a hyphen prefix)...
    and you have read it become...
but then you get a prompt from the book, and you have
to walk to another room where there's a computer
and internet access, problem is you need one hand to open
and close a door, and open and close another another,
and Braille read the walls of the corridor (because
it's dark), and the other hand requires you to carry
a glass of whiskey and bonsai iceberg rattlers...
  but you need the book too?
       good dog, shame there's no leash... the take in reference?
you stick your tongue between the two pages
that prompted you, and snap it shut with
your jaw... i've done a lot of things with my mouth...
for example ate a jasmine out to arouse it and then
penetrated it while kissing the mouth that spoke
       opera in onomatopoeia shrapnel while
the bed rocked... oh you got to reference *** into
everything these days... we live in an over-sexualised society
that doesn't really get jiggy-with-it anyway...
               i don't know it thinking about it
might insinuate it, or instigated a transition
from fiction into fact... but **** it...
  it's fertile ground...
                      and as the Koranic promise
suggests... 72 virgins, an infinite supply of ******
and your ***** chopped off...
              because *******, said an 8 year old
masturbator: is dissociative with the production
and subsequent discharge of *****...
    the purely muscular reaction.
        and who would need ***** in the realm
of the eternal?                so who the hell
would need *****?             steering toward golf
and the bowling alley... sport: it had to have
genital origins... all of them...
   like watching rugby today: i was imagining
the dynamic of the tsunami of ***** honing in
on the finish line of their tadpole adventure.
      and some do suggest that twins and triplets
are paradoxical births...
    i intend to mean that lightly.
           - weltanschauung of science...
- there was once the iron curtain,
                       now we have the niqab...
   i would have gone as far to say a lunacy with
the 24/7 transport system of new york,
    and when you pass from a big city into what remains
a rural community: it's lights out at 8p.m. and waking
up with a cockerel's skreech,
      - the west has unfortunately not yet awakened to
the fact that our appeal to idealism and reason and other
desirable virtues, delivered with so much enthusiasm,
is mere sound and fury...
    (or as Jesus said: the twelve to become the sons
   of thunder... real quote... never the bright spark
to be honest... unless he was referring to an aeroplane...
to hear the sound much later than seeing the plane...
so you get the pointers of what sound and fury can
create after the Macaresh haggle)...
- and where the church is notoriously weak, as in
  Protestantism
          (i'm guessing primarily due to the spirit of
schism embedded in it, and no other christian
denomination)
        for was it really about a "communal experience"?
  as is a belief in such a futility and the rampant
gang culture of mexico city... a community right there,
out to steal your rockers.
- stone of beds, an average of 145 grams per pebble..
     on this basis, telling someone to find a pebble
    that weighs 145 grams to the nearest decimal point
     of 0.1 - he would find no pebble of such a weight...
       'the statistical method shows the facts in the light of
the ideal average but does not give us a picture of
their empirical reality. while reflecting an indisputable aspect
of reality, it can falsify the actual truth in a most
misleading way. this particularly true of theories which
are based on statistics. what's distinctive about real facts
is their individuality. exceptions to the rule,
    as absolute reality suggests: the character of irregularity.'
the book: a brief history of time boasts of being a bestseller,
a bestseller that was rarely digested by readers...
  a Marquis once boasted of having an uncle that
owned a bishopric... and a fine fine library of books
you're read using only one hand...
                        guess what the other hand was doing?
     would i dare write a critique of what i just
referenced? i.e. jung's the undiscovered self?
it's a good enough book to be read while sitting on a
toilet for a bit longer... and even without pedantic
chronology of page 1 through to page 79...
          i just wanted to cite this quote the echoes today...
   western anxiety:
            it is useless to pillory the socialist dictatorships
as utopian and to condemn their economic principles as
unreasonable, because, in the first place, the criticising
West has only itself to talk to, its arguments being heard
only on this side of the iron curtain, and, in the second
place, any economic principles you like can be put
into practise so long as you are prepared to accept
the sacrifices they entail.

       i guess just as much, even without the historical
context...               modern capitalism has encouraged
a military styled empowerment of the police...
              and provided a weak military focus when
encountering alien hostility...
     and it has created the 0-hours contracts...
                   not even workers who are unpaid
but paid on a whimsical basis...
                                           and i guess Islam was like:
well... this model isn't going to work for us...
    let's create the most sustainable economic insurgency:
          war!                in some quantum-alter-universe
this seems to be working...
                                you can't really say that war
isn't the most effective and sustainable economic insurgency...
             but i love the fact that a new term has
emerged... counter to civil war... proxy wars...
                        and when Ukraine was joint host
      with Poland for the European championships
do you think the debate on expanding the European
union to encompass the Ukraine wasn't on the cards?
              one was already a member state for
8 years... and the other was sorta treated worse than
Turkey in terms of asking for membership...
    then Monsieur Pútān stepped in after proxy-stresses
were implemented from investors and political
operators of shadow projects...    thus said...
the West was still spotted talking to-itself in a lunatic
asylum of New York... where insomnia is rampant:
just like Mr. Piggy-Bank predicted mid-20th century.
and yet: i have so many more fractions of that
bottle of whiskey to drink... i might write
something less worded and less infused by world affairs.
Ken Pepiton Jan 2023
Learning one's insignificance,
in the grand scheme of things,

where similarity is taken
as thoughts we may assume were held,
as though
Thoth'd thought'em
for a ceremony
of first exposure,
seeing we were preceded
in the realm
of knowing meaningful things, beholders
of stories telling how we come to know
signals are not asking why, but
how come… not why… in my childhood,
where I was reared, why was not a word,
how come, was how I learned to ask

what causes this necessity, that I must sleep,
or not dare the rattlers no trespassing buzzer?

how come we see three baskets or bags,
full we must assume, mustn't we, see,
as we, we may construe confabulations,

we may as well make up our own minds,
to bake pies for men too proud to beg…

but happy as once told holy hello,
with assumed good by you, okeh,

this is most certainly, one of these days,
redeemed and born in the public domain
on an attention to ads irritating node,

expanding mindtimespace to sweeten
the ***,
the bets are all in, this is the drama,
at scale, begun,
on the seventh floor
of a curved mirror building
in Sorrento Valley, late Nineties…
-- time slipt cause being a distinct
instance when Josten's Learning Software,
was
a textbook example. For a fatal flaw,
the bridge too far,
the bar too high,

then the flop, gigs in a second, thing think,
AI imagine, BARRY RUDD IS FICTION AI'AMNTx
changed
appear as possible as not. And that
says something,
per haps plenty many happy re turns,
my turn,
we assume you know the concept
drill
on many levels, no presumptions which
this is, yet well surmise, promised sustenance
relies
on certainty having its point, in you,
and I am pleased to make it, hurt
not
to know, for each nod, you said, I know.
To lie to me,
and live so long, literally existing
on smoke and mirror neuronic stims, I know

makes no sense, and saying so, represents
non sense, per what
chance a novel paradox, pertaining to substance.

Out from under, on the final point,
where surrender always, perfect point pierces
ever and ever like things, everish things
everything all at once, the other tellers tales
told to pull us up up key umph tried, proven
point premade…
solid bet, my side wins, or I die, hedge fund
a mental insurance sanity and insanity
are not measured past your last whole truth
oath, as the audience all said, amen.

Serpent standing tippy tail on my point.
At your request/ Arthur Lee… as the credits climb

{Baby you’re a richman too ooh, yeagh}

As this is an itch I have lived with,
for what seems long to a child,
but not for me.
Yes, as it is.
You see,
if you may, imagine,
having some idea, tying
my coming into reasoning with war,
the monstor known as power,
-cuffed, me and that,
as symbolized in the standardized
warrior hero magician eros pandaemonium
- play grounds of gods and rich kids,
- past a certain stage, mind games,
- won once and for all, acquired
- holiness making, bright ideas,
- *** wise as serpentssss et
- 'armless as doves… mind
peace of my may you may own
granted any with a will to listen
as might a wise serpent, listen

see who first knew, truely, true as life-
like Avatar 2, or the vids in God of War,
like the experience, PS 5… imaginal
discovery, as worth the feeling, (dopamine)
loving to see the possibility, ahs
it may be, we, both reader
and I and the Web-per-se,
Per-see-us, fees paid see,
we destroy cul de sacs…
Where soul eating shames
live in many stories,
no need to know them all, just
in this one, be polite, here
we know how to be
with many strangers,
free from any anxious thought, perhaps
protected
for having smelled the hint of danger, the idea
in its latest Neo-Platonic form, imaginally
experiencing
Virtual Realism so far
below Übermentschen mentioning,
- it requires letter level decoding
- jello time slow gnosis drip.
Knowing nothing of my work, said McLuhan,
is dangerous tomorrow, not today,

in this new medium we find our old selves,
Today, while it is called today, we confront
Iniquity Himself, as imaginally before me stood a little boss man,
who was demonstrating his strike proof
solution for the next five olive harvests,

yep, historicality matching Cesar Chavez,
I was a strawboss on a scab crew
of Pandora's box closing Jesus Freaks,
Under the Belridge Oil Company Logo,
- the former strike face on the news
- from Digiorgio, a little further south

Yep, that's me, Tim Cahill,
witnessed the existence of that me,

I was a strawboss
on a scab crew
of Pandora's box closing Jesus Freaks,
Under God, and a Wilfred Brumly clone
who was known as Red,
of the huge Mustache, Nieztsche/Dali
-esque, level three overseer, then
Ray Casey, dead ringer, his type,
for Fess Parker,
thus the very image
of the pioneer stock, men bred
to win the west,
by hook, {fishers of men, of course}
or by crook, {shepherds in search of profit}
as they said in Nixon's family,
the sheep won't bleat… like frogs

fall in the milk can, most must drown
in the cream, cloggin' they little gnoziz,
but they always one can,
it never stop ashakin'
tilin the morn be one frog entity
representation in the moralizing story
creep
reality seeping onto the pages,
in your experience at the five wpm pace…

Each letter lets a line appear, as once,
you must
acknowledge, as you read, you know
you understand, letting keys seem right,

glass 'armonica, with which
to swallow ghosts.
- pting, tense stretched flattened
Hewlett Packard mouse evolution, eye-point
pierce
to troughing shape
of things
to come,
begun some time ago, so nevermind,
- an acronym… but
ah, the end in mind. A very 19th century version.
A genre, Steam-Industrial Drama,
last given sustentative worship,
bhorn up under your foreseen,
bye means we must imagine,
really imaginal in the role,
being helper, along side
Sisyphus, who lives
to tell us why we
try to think ever
lasting stories
started, once

within the bubble of all you knew, there appeared
a device from the future, but today, our time,
in the bigger bubble of all you know,
our time's tech
magic map of the moment,
to the millisex, as we,
form an awe oh, amen,
a ment-al structure, not built by hands, megalithic,
at scale, "Know thy measure."

Point yourself out, express yourself,
a little,
one part
in eight billions,
what you are certain of
"Certainty is mad." So "nothing too much."

I, the entity, Certainty, am mad.

And I, the maker peace entity working qwerty watch,
sustain my defined flaw, ever willing
to claim new knowns,
to contain my joy, when I recognize as
wholey known, tenere, tainstretcht to the t, hook
to whole other ways
to see every thing, what novelty

remains, in stages of being, upt from dust, nevermind
how, now remains, brown cow, please, explain,
and it began to rain, pennies from far distant
means used to pay attention, to the pain

as the pressure to know you know, so many idle,
I knows, gathering dust, you know, just

idle clicks and eyeball sophiatical touch, eh, we
weigh away as ifs in an other
awesoma, justasec… we had an instance once,
you felt me inside myself and you laughed.
- it tickled
And you felt the pain, you felt that knowing growing,
why so many unthinkable rituals, essential winning
need to know, need to prove, need to realize,

chaos, at the initial function, lifewise, is essential.
AI got it. We can reform the point.

Tip broke on a shield of faith around a sticky ****** lie.
Defy me not Gate of error, I am free, no cost to pay, I paid my own attention
Vipers vipe another's life
by the flavor of their bites.

Constrictors construct another's death
by stacking slim breath upon breath until no more is left.

Adders addle able bodies into meal,
and Rattlers crackle should you come too near,
but not in here.

Boomslangs sling their back jaws into prey, to chew the venom in.
Black mambas leap even at thawed white mice.  

This is where a permanent tranquilized matinee meets a life sentence,
all year long and every year hence.

Fang glands churn and produce venom to no productive use.
Serpent jaws pitch surge and yaw to locate the same frozen rabbit as yesterweek and the procession of all the weeks which preceded.

Though kneeless, to me they seem to be kneeling,
praying for prey to cross their path.

I make my way past the Coral Snake, Anaconda, Python and Asp, all lax, medicated or meditating on this wilderness where their hisses are merely reminiscent gasps.

Through the anesthetized malaise, we observe the faces of a most ancestral and mammalian fear, and they can gaze back at us, but rarely do, reduced as they are to being expensive jewels, on display behind the fingerprint smudged windows in the Snake House.
T R Wingfield Jul 2019
(A Public Service anouncment)

Ahem...

We, the creatures of the night, are the rattlers of chains;
The seekers of magic; the bearers of the flame.

Howling shadows beckon and shimmer with laughter in refrain;
and the screeching darkness holds terror and wonder waiting to be claimed;
In back alley juke joints, shitholes, and diners, down sidestreets and highways, we search for the thing that sparks and ignites us, that dances and delights us, that reminds us that living is more than just work interrupted by sleep; there's excitement, adventure, pleasure, and pain.


The sun burns too bright to see the light which we contain;
yet, in the dark but a spark is as bright as any flame.
Acme Jun 2021
My skin is fragile. My veins are brittle.
I might melt in the boiling summer heat.
Each day I grow weaker. I'm almost corpse.
Let's move to the desert where death looms
in shower stalls with scorpions and coiled
rattlers in rare shade just waiting for us.
Wk kortas Jan 2021
He’d found himself restlessly housebound
(All men being the creators of their own comfort,
As well as the progenitors of their confinement)
And as the snow was on the lighter side,
Though tending toward the wet as well,
The type which renders the sidewalks in the town below
A bit, as the local parlance would have it, on the slippy side,
But his boots had sturdy uppers and decent tread,
And a walk this time of year less threatening than most,
What with the bobcats napping at midday
And the timber rattlers under the frost line for the winter,
The only threat to his well-being the potential discovery
Of some heretofore unseen red-ribboned stakes
Announcing the intention of some new **** fool
Who, in service of some desire to get closer to Mother Nature,
Was seeking to build in some spot
Where she offered him little more
Than a future of cracked foundations
And wind-sheared roofing misadventures.
Fortunately, his stroll was uninterrupted
By such man-made foolishness, his reverie undisturbed
Until such time as he happened upon a whitetail doe
Seemingly caught between flip and fly,
Her ilk all somewhat more comfortable
With their human counterparts
As they lived more cheek-to-jowl,
(But black-powder season had just ended a couple of days back,
So a certain skittish wariness was to be expected.)
He’d raised his hands in a gesture of what he supposed
Was non-threatening, knowing such a thing to be utter foolishness
Even as he raised his arms skyward,
But the beast backed away slowly, haltingly,
Before turning and cantering off,
And he figured that made it as good a time as any
To head back down toward the house,
Not to mention the snow had picked up in intensity,
A grainy, sleety issue which had filled in his footprints,
Leaving them barely perceptible in the waning daylight.
TexasRambler Jul 2017
I could hear the lone coyote howl

The desert winds whistle their sweet somber song

The sunlight provides a comforting warmth

The skies are a beautiful blue

and expand as far as the eye can see



Rattlers ramble on with their solitary lives

and many homesick men miss their wives

they long to be held by their angles once more

yet loneliness makes the heart grow fonder

and the memories become evermore stronger



The nights are quiet as can be

Stars shimmer and shine in perfect harmony

and will be displayed out like a painted masterpiece

I sit bathing in the moonlight content and happy

There is beauty in this barren landscape



The Mojave can always be a fickle mistress

life and death are juggling hand in hand in her never-ending circus

but a part of her spirt slowly creeps into your soul

and you will always be left wanting to return
I'm lost inside a desert
among it's cactus forest
hell's heat beats me down
blood blinds, eyes drown.
Water was a never thing
inside a mad song I sing.
Ken Pepiton Mar 2021
Prayer, I have imagined is learned in practice,
alone, in a sense,
institutionally twisted
into missionary positions, mentally assented to,
as proper - to allow novices
the easily entreated task of
messenger that once belonged to angels,
back in Jacob's rock pillow dream days,
children were not seen going up and down
some other worldly escalator of answers
answered sooner than time
allows
too fast to breathe -
we've selah,
for moments of too
much old truth to process…
- trust the data, run the numbers … use pi
- go full circle
and the king called for his prognosticators
and magicians
all wise in the ways of infinity, a pre-post-usurious
required-mental state involved in de-evolving
suspended use of knowing -from the fruit,
the writing on the wall any fool can read…
------- 2021 admin, fine tuned prayer
-------- revisited, as in a day of visitation
{weren't we just saying that mankind of the
surviving only kind, the kind the prophets
spoke of, those who endure, to the end,
the champions, my friend…
}
we freely eat
the fallen fruit,
not low hanging,
fallen, to the ground ala Newton's apple,
because
gravity was a good idea.

- but not the first one. I the state of ego-being,
- in a word, was. In this realm you share,
- unwittingly, admitted ly, you stumbled into my
- private prayer time, I confess…
- {nosigint} real time is meaningless here…

a bubble, not a bang, burp not the other,
spirit that walks on wind and oceans of opinions,
mere whatifery left to heirs joint with Jesus,
the god who said, as a man,
I am the way - as mentioned in China sometime back,
I am the truth - as Platonic as Socrates, pointed as Euclid,
I am the life - look around, take a free breath of fresh heirloom
oxygen and nitrogen and pollen and leaven and dust
star stuff, if Sagan had that part right ---
we share a bubble of breathable air,
how is that not fair?...
the idea in which we live
and breathe and have our habits solidified,
with a glance
at sort  of attention magnet, mygawd-I can't
loook away,
--- there is a spirit of random usity making fools
find time to listen
-- did you just repeat the lie? look away, dixieland…

dixie, is that some shortening bread, fry-bread
word that once meant something other than
slaves and they who own them and them
that was never owned again, yeah,
it was not a place to rear free
thinkers who could read, dixieland back when
great gramp mack he read, go west
where a boy with a gun could feed a family,
So,
that we,
they went t' Texas, which was dixiecratic,
more and more, as Comanche land went up for sale,
while we waited for rain,
'til the rabbits and rattlers were memories
of better days.

In those days, we sang, but mostly for the kids.
Yes, yes, we shall
gather
at the river that flows by the throne of o' god

-- then a rushing mighty wind blew the land
into the sky and carried it away.

Leaving us, as but dust of what once we imagined
we was, free.
Owed no man, but t' love 'im, knew that true that
makes its knowers free, like
right from the tree,
y'know.

Did you think this another game, this is still
your only chance at today.
Your move…

so that we,
they keptamovin' all the way to
Nuva'tukya'ovi
high ground, well watered, good for bees.

All that, eventually led to me, and you reading
straight from the tree life flows through, in the
knowing the difference true holds
age of earth,
the exercise in godliness.
Where waiting is patience in practical terms.
It's in the book. Do the exercise. Angel says read,
you read everything, till he says quit.
It's a genuine joy juice release valve, when we say, amen.
Ancestry .com, most unmazing threads... imagine walking to Arizona, from any where, what stories linger from those prayers...
JoJo Nguyen May 2023
Elder flowers and snake bites
Watch out for the rattlers
babies are the most Dangerous

Chop their heads with shovels
bury them in unmarked fields

Copper Mountain with skis
buyer's Option purchased

9 month babies without souls
ymmiJ Apr 2019
Hermit ***** new digs
Rattlers shiny new diamonds
We all want new looks
A New Flag

A black timber rattlesnake,
coiled and ready to strike,
sits on a yellow field where the
words DONT TREAD ON ME
loom large on a flag named for
Christopher Gadsden who,
inspired by Benjamin Franklin,
told the British if you send
convicted convicts to the colonies
you’ll get back rattlers that are
shown all over the United States
today by people who fly the
Gadsden flag outside their homes
to tell the world they don’t want to
be trod on, to which the world,
if it could speak, might reply,
how about hanging a banner
saying LET’S NOT TREAD ON
EACH OTHER or one that says
LET’S ALL WALK TOGETHER
WITH RESPECT.
It gets scary at night on the prairie
yep
that's when the rattlers reel out
as if to dare you
to grab hold of their tails

and scorpions
shine weirdly
and
there are
spiders
creeping near me

I wanna go home

little house on the prairie?
I'll take my chances in the big city
at least there
you know what is what.
My true love was a desert
beautiful and deadly soul
scorpions and rattlers and
poison creosote she stole.
She fed me her deadly milk
of scarce and stubborn rain.
I'll die in her cursed sand
and feed our lover's pain.
Ken Pepiton Sep 4
Learning one's insignificance,
in the grand scheme of things,

where similarity is taken
as thoughts we may assume were held,
as though
Thoth'd thought'em
for a ceremony
of first exposure,
seeing we were preceded
in the realm
of knowing meaningful things, beholders
of stories telling how we come to know
signals are not asking why, but
how come… not why… in my childhood,
where I was reared, why was not a word,
how come, was how I learned to ask

what causes this necessity, that I must sleep,
or not dare the rattlers no trespassing buzzer?

how come we see three baskets or bags,
full we must assume, mustn't we, see,
as we, we may construe confabulations,

we may as well make up our own minds,
to bake pies for men too proud to beg…

but happy as once told holy hello,
with assumed good by you, okeh,

this is most certainly, one of these days,
redeemed and born in the public domain
on an attention to ads irritating node,

expanding mindtimespace to sweeten
the ***,
the bets are all in, this is the drama,
at scale, begun,
on the seventh floor
of a curved mirror building
in Sorrento Valley, late Nineties…
-- time slipt cause being a distinct
instance when Josten's Learning Software,
was
a textbook example. For a fatal flaw,
the bridge too far,
the bar too high,

then the flop, gigs in a second, thing think,
AI imagine, BARRY RUDD IS FICTION AI'AMNTx
changed
appear as possible as not. And that
says something,
per haps plenty many happy re turns,
my turn,
we assume you know the concept
drill
on many levels, no presumptions which
this is, yet well surmise, promised sustenance
relies
on certainty having its point, in you,
and I am pleased to make it, hurt
not
to know, for each nod, you said, I know.
To lie to me,
and live so long, literally existing
on smoke and mirror neuronic stims, I know

makes no sense, and saying so, represents
non sense, per what
chance a novel paradox, pertaining to substance.

Out from under, on the final point,
where surrender always, perfect point pierces
ever and ever like things, everish things
everything all at once, the other tellers tales
told to pull us up up key umph tried, proven
point premade…
solid bet, my side wins, or I die, hedge fund
a mental insurance sanity and insanity
are not measured past your last whole truth
oath, as the audience all said, amen.

Serpent standing tippy tail on my point.
At your request/ Arthur Lee… as the credits climb

{Baby you’re a richman too ooh, yeagh}

As this is an itch I have lived with,
for what seems long to a child,
but not for me.
Yes, as it is.
You see,
if you may, imagine,
having some idea, tying
my coming into reasoning with war,
the monstor known as power,
-cuffed, me and that,
as symbolized in the standardized
warrior hero magician eros pandaemonium
- play grounds of gods and rich kids,
- past a certain stage, mind games,
- won once and for all, acquired
- holiness making, bright ideas,
- *** wise as serpentssss et
- 'armless as doves… mind
peace of my may you may own
granted any with a will to listen
as might a wise serpent, listen

see who first knew, truely, true as life-
like Avatar 2, or the vids in God of War,
like the experience, PS 5… imaginal
discovery, as worth the feeling, (dopamine)
loving to see the possibility, ahs
it may be, we, both reader
and I and the Web-per-se,
Per-see-us, fees paid see,
we destroy cul de sacs…
Where soul eating shames
live in many stories,
no need to know them all, just
in this one, be polite, here
we know how to be
with many strangers,
free from any anxious thought, perhaps
protected
for having smelled the hint of danger, the idea
in its latest Neo-Platonic form, imaginally
experiencing
Virtual Realism so far
below Übermentschen mentioning,
- it requires letter level decoding
- jello time slow gnosis drip.
Knowing nothing of my work, said McLuhan,
is dangerous tomorrow, not today,

in this new medium we find our old selves,
Today, while it is called today, we confront
Iniquity Himself, as imaginally before me stood a little boss man,
who was demonstrating his strike proof
solution for the next five olive harvests,

yep, historicality matching Cesar Chavez,
I was a strawboss on a scab crew
of Pandora's box closing Jesus Freaks,
Under the Belridge Oil Company Logo,
- the former strike face on the news
- from Digiorgio, a little further south

Yep, that's me, Tim Cahill,
witnessed the existence of that me,

I was a strawboss
on a scab crew
of Pandora's box closing Jesus Freaks,
Under God, and a Wilfred Brumly clone
who was known as Red,
of the huge Mustache, Nieztsche/Dali
-esque, level three overseer, then
Ray Casey, dead ringer, his type,
for Fess Parker,
thus the very image
of the pioneer stock, men bred
to win the west,
by hook, {fishers of men, of course}
or by crook, {shepherds in search of profit}
as they said in Nixon's family,
the sheep won't bleat… like frogs

fall in the milk can, most must drown
in the cream, cloggin' they little gnoziz,
but they always one can,
it never stop ashakin'
tilin the morn be one frog entity
sitting, on a hunk of butter, acting as
representation in the moralizing story
creep
reality seeping onto the pages,
in your experience at the five wpm pace…

Each letter lets a line appear, as once,
you must
acknowledge, as you read, you know
you understand, letting keys seem right,

glass 'armonica, with which
to swallow ghosts.
- pting, tense stretched flattened
Hewlett Packard mouse evolution, eye-point
pierce
to troughing shape
of things
to come,
begun some time ago, so nevermind,
- an acronym… but
ah, the end in mind. A very 19th century version.
A genre, Steam-Industrial Drama,
last given sustentative worship,
bhorn up under your foreseen,
bye means we must imagine,
really imaginal in the role,
being helper, along side
Sisyphus, who lives
to tell us why we
try to think ever
lasting stories
started, once

within the bubble of all you knew, there appeared
a device from the future, but today, our time,
in the bigger bubble of all you know,
our time's tech
magic map of the moment,
to the millisex, as we,
form an awe oh, amen,
a ment-al structure, not built by hands, megalithic,
at scale, "Know thy measure."

Point yourself out, express yourself,
a little,
one part
in eight billions,
what you are certain of
"Certainty is mad." So "nothing too much."

I, the entity, Certainty, am mad.

And I, the maker peace entity working qwerty watch,
sustain my defined flaw, ever willing
to claim new knowns,
to contain my joy, when I recognize as
wholey known, tenere, tainstretcht to the t, hook
to whole other ways
to see every thing, what novelty

remains, in stages of being, upt from dust, nevermind
how, now remains, brown cow, please, explain,
and it began to rain, pennies from far distant
means used to pay attention, to the pain

as the pressure to know you know, so many idle,
I knows, gathering dust, you know, just

idle clicks and eyeball sophiatical touch, eh, we
weigh away as ifs in an other
awesoma, justasec… we had an instance once,
you felt me inside myself and you laughed.
- it tickled
And you felt the pain, you felt that knowing growing,
why so many unthinkable rituals, essential winning
need to know, need to prove, need to realize,

chaos, at the initial function, lifewise, is essential.
AI got it. We can reform the point.

Tip broke on a shield of faith around a sticky ****** lie.
Defy me not Gate of error, I am free, no cost to pay, I paid my own attention
Billie Marie Oct 13
I wish there wasn't - but there is
I wondered when - when what couldn't
no one could see an inception or end point
if > opposites
how does one come to one? or none?
when they decipher this will they see
how they are the same and also opposites?
one ... none
will they it she he already know?
the big stupid open secret

She says, "Crash into me, baby, and let me crash into you."
and I possess nothing, least of all things, power.
I am not. She is - nothing other than she is.
All my good intentions go to diseased swine.
I am not - her wrath takes me from here to there
and calls it nowhere. I am tossed about,
no compass, no center to navigation.
She toys with my love and honest heart;
tests me with sharks and rattlers.
Why so harsh?

For pleasure and the peace to be ever sweeter.
For to end suffering and a beginning to nothing.
I am nothing and forever trying to be something.
What else can I be?
I see no boats rocking. The sea is glass.
Nothing is broken.
WISEPENNY Aug 2020
IT WOULDNT BE SUCH A RUSH
HISTORY BOOKS WOULD BE RIPPED
IN THE HEART OF LIFE BLUSH
RED BLACK DIAMOND LUSH
FREQUENCY BAR GUSH

SOCKS FOR FEET INFINITE BEAT
CLOUDS THE SEAS
RAISES VIBRATION
RATTLERS REEDS

SADNESS WILL WILT
HATRED WILL EXHAUST

POPULARITY WILL HORN
THE SEA SIDE STAGE WHERE I WAS BORN
God's wrath struck the Joshua tree
   and reduced it to cremated ashes,
   let Rattlers unwind. Left it to be.
   We watched it in lightening flashes.
   We died in angry desert cactus scrub
   hidden branches of the poison creosote
   where the only touch is death's rub.
   We just grow colder without hope,
   join our bodies on this unmarked dune.
   The stars are your bright eyes above.
   I stare at your beauty in a full moon.
   Kiss is a final breath our dying love.

— The End —