"recant" poems
Jesus runs in Everglades, Mohammed climbs the roof
The Angels stamp in anger as the Devil stands aloof,
A wandering Pope in la-la land while Jewish hands do writhe
Those apoplectic Muslims glare while Catholics pay the tithe.
Religion, girls, has hit the skids…the game is up on God
With rosaries rotating hard, theologians do nod,
While Mormons rant moronically with frankincense and myrrh
The irreligious bark and howl in Rastafarian fur.
Sectarian’s recant Sanctum’s Shrine the rite of soul is lost
As neophytes are dancing… the High Priest counts the cost,
Theocracy unbalances as Voodoo’s stamp the floor
And the Prophets throw their hands up, fast retreating for the door.
It’s transcendental disbelief that’s nailed it to the Cross
With the Priesthood chasing little boys all credence here is lost.
With sanctity’s monastic plunge the pagans roar and shout
As Shamans scream their incantations…God declares a route!
There is silence in the Temple now, stillness in the pews
As dust lies thick on altars, a nervous clergy holds reviews,
What, once, was good and vibrant here, is now as dead as dust
As the Blood Red Wine evaporates and Holy Bread…to crust.
Marshalg
Feeding the pigeons by the dusty, open door of the very, empty Chapel.
30 November 2013
Nov 29, 2013
Nov 29, 2013 at 2:55 PM UTC
474
They put Us far apart—
As separate as Sea
And Her unsown Peninsula—
We signified “These see”—
They took away our Eyes—
They thwarted Us with Guns—
“I see Thee” each responded straight
Through Telegraphic Signs—
With Dungeons—They devised—
But through their thickest skill—
And their opaquest Adamant—
Our Souls saw—just as well—
They summoned Us to die—
With sweet alacrity
We stood upon our stapled feet—
Condemned—but just—to see—
Permission to recant—
Permission to forget—
We turned our backs upon the Sun
For perjury of that—
Not Either—noticed Death—
Of Paradise—aware—
Each other’s Face—was all the Disc
Each other’s setting—saw—
5.5k
my facebook block list is full to the brim with hatred
misogynists, racists, those who use terms like "feminazi" and "it's not **** if you tell surprise first"
my Facebook block list has family members who bad mouth my mother as if she (and I) can't see it
there is one aunt who keeps a tally of money spent on gifts not asked for
one uncle who sits (joblessly by choice) on a high horse
one cousin who wonders why his mixed bag family doesn't like his confederate flag tattoo
my Facebook block list started with a man who found my phone number and began sending me text messages at night despite my non-response
there are two R names- boys whose crimes send flashbacks up my spine
a good way to earn a spot on my Facebook block list is to be a white apologist
"white people should be allowed to say the n-word!"
"slavery was like a billion years ago"
"white privilege doesn't exist"
another way is to not recant your crimes after you're called out
"she was born a girl"
"who cares, it was just a joke"
"you're not some feminist hero"
my Facebook block list (unlike most of the people on it) is non discriminatory
all types of haters get on it
and once you're on you're probably not getting off
Sep 5, 2013
Sep 5, 2013 at 9:16 PM UTC
i.
Pink doesn’t play into it, that delicate
petal of perfume & flower stuff.
She abhors it.
Red suits her better.
Red for Fridays & red for Aries.
Red for the blood her dagger could draw.
Her seal of wax is no
rosebud adhered to
fine paper.
Warrior, she escaped its letter.
With Roman candles & Roman sandals,
sword, wand & chariot,
defender of her Eden.
Seashells are her votive gifts, the
stars of her Atlantic.
It is within her reign of Camelot.
At the edge of the Earth,
her kingdom dreams.
ii.
Blue maid
a curious ***** in her armour.
But she wouldn’t flinch
if an army of soldiers came crashing in.
They are hunting the witch.
A woman can never have such power.
It is reserved for the patriarchy
to wield at will.
Up it goes.
They can ***** steeples with it.
They are stoking the fires & sharpening
the axe with it.
But threats of torture
don’t make her beg, plead or recant.
She is guilty of nothing.
Even broken on the Catherine Wheel,
Athena still keeps her
bow & quiver intact.
Oct 10, 2016
Oct 10, 2016 at 6:34 AM UTC
#1. What in the world
possessed you
to do that!?@#$%^
My god . . . that was so stupid and careless!
#2. Why? . . .
I trusted my intuition.
My heart believed,
emotional logic compelled me.
Fluid, spontaneous from the gut.
#1. You’re crazy.
I would never
put myself at risk like that.
#2. What risk?
Getting harrassed
by the mind police?
They don't own me.
#1. But they punished you.
#2. No, just a little
desperate flaggelation.
#2. But look at yourself
all boxed up,
stigmatized and branded.
#1. You mean the labels?
Those words they use
to define me?
#2. Yes, you’re a bad person.
#1. No, I’m not.
#2. Yes, you are.
... and they argued til dawn
neither knowing
nature does not declare winners
but admires innovation....
like when Magellan sailed off no edges
when Einstein confounded everyone by sailing in his head
when the Wright Brothers lifted off
when Tesla moved electrons
when Christ embraced the centurions
when Gautama just sat down
when the librarian refused to take Catcher in the Rye off the shelf
when Lenny Bruce swore on stage
when Leary and Alpert left Harvard
when Joan of Arc refused to recant
when Gandhi and friends burned their English wool
when Jung declared a spiritual psyche
when the UFC earned a huge Neilsen
so be your own guru
take kava kava instead of Prozac
barter with your hair stylist
and when someone says
you are wrong
ask them why
there are no dinosaurs
in the Bible.
Dec 5, 2012
Dec 5, 2012 at 9:18 AM UTC
He hands her bouquets
She swats each away to see
Guns firing petals
She cannot recant
The burn of spells cast daily
Ring ‘round the roses
And we all fall down
Iron-hued blood that stained
Empty bellies rouge
It bled everywhere
Darkened slick of sick roses
She won’t let him cry
Flowers from his eyes
Or hanging paper dollies
Says that it’s okay
Says that it’s okay
She can’t spill bone-dry flowers
To drown in the Nile
She swats each bouquet
Why won’t she just let him care?
He’s swatted away
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 2:31 PM UTC
I can't
Believe
I made you go away
I need a Time Wizard so I can recant
So I can retrieve
That guy I was yesterday
Yesterday
Who am I kidding
It's been three years
And
As cliche as this sounds
Every time
I have the slightest thought of
You
My ears tune in to my heartbeats
And they sound sad
Still.
Mar 26, 2012
Mar 26, 2012 at 3:53 PM UTC
some people write birthday cards
but there is no mail delivered where you are
so a poem to wish you the best on this special day
no matter if you are near or far
Happy birthday to my big brother
this day of yours is like no other
for this is the day the world was blessed with your grace
though you were taken too soon from this place
another year passes as we miss you more and more
and will write you birthday poems, till you answer heavens door
where we'll meet with balloons and your million dollar smile
and we'll have a birthday party like we haven't had in a while
we'll toast our glasses to our reunited family
while we recant times passed cannily
but till that time comes brother dear
know that I hold your memory ever so near
along with every cleverly placed dime
that I know you've dropped just for me to find
so in closing, all I wanted to say
was I miss you so much, and
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
Feb 22, 2011
Feb 22, 2011 at 11:00 PM UTC
What is this, is this empathy?
I can feel your pain - it's all about me,
I don't want to be the one in equal pain,
When there is no experience that I have to gain,
From hearing your words, your story,
For the most part, I'd find it boring.
But you recant it with such fervour,
That in protest I dare not murmur,
The urgency in which I want it to halt,
Neither of us are at fault,
You want to connect, to tell me your past,
I'm really just hoping the tale does not last,
It hurts, these feels, I have for you,
Your wounds are old, but for me they are new.
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 9:06 PM UTC
A Lily never lies
unlike a neighbouring plant
where shrub and grub
are given a rub
like lavender to enchant
A Lily never lies
like your eyes
even if you tried
you can’t recant
you send a scent
and as soon as it’s sent
like lavender you replant
Jun 29, 2021
Jun 29, 2021 at 3:14 AM UTC
I have a great story to tell
It all starts with a boy, young and bright
His family was poor, with three other mouths to feed
He never stopped dreaming, and writing, and reading
Until he found himself the words to plant a Dream Seed
Now what is a Dream Seed you ask?
It is conjured from our deepest desires
Our greatest thoughts, our greatest belief
But like a plant, a Dream Seed can wither
From our greatest pain, our greatest grief
Now back to the story
His Seed contained one single dream
To become famous and to be well known
He left that night, a burden to his parents
no more, with only himself roaming alone
He tested challenges of entertainment
Braved through insult and rejection
Why was he never good enough?
Why couldn’t he reach perfection?
A stormy night, he cried to the sky
The rapid winds and frosty rain answered his call
A lone figure brought him inside
And from there, his future was unfold
Read this passage, do it as dramatic as you can
“We never had to do this Emily, we never had to leave”
“I only wanted what I thought was right.”
“Don’t leave, you can’t leave me.”
“Don’t leave me here alone in the night.”
I applaud you, that was superb
He signed within the week and ventured to his dream
The seed blossoming in ways untold
Finally he was famous, finally he was well known
His signature was sliver, and his smile was of gold
Now read this script and get into character
“I am not a creature, I am a man!”
“Why should I take this child? I shall recant!”
“He isn’t mine, throw him in the street!”
“I…I…I-I can’t.”
That wasn’t the line, read the line again
He read it again and perfection was obtained.
But something lurked underneath his satisfied soul
He was changing, was transfiguring
But why? He had reached his goal
Just pretend, don’t worry about the part
He pretended and lied to his heart
It wasn’t just the worry, he was believing
That maybe, just maybe, he had lost
Something through his deceiving
Are you alright? Do you need some water?
He looked everywhere, he knew it was there
He smashed the jar where he kept his seed
He leaped for joy and opened the lid
And cried when he saw the weeds
What does that mean? What weeds?
His dream was now corrupted, his view no longer pure
Could he ever find who he was that day?
When he had one dream and one seed
Where his choice was black or white, not grey?
What happened?
He lived his life, weeping through his parts
Silently, he mourned for his soul
He was not the same, never plant more seeds
His heart too greedy with all the gold
Now I have told you a story, now I must rest
“Excuse me sir, a boy is requesting for you.”
Not now Ari, in the morning perhaps
“But sir, the boy has to tell you something.”
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 10:48 PM UTC
Electric tension crackles across your lips,
tiny bolts from tiny hurricanes raging around the eyes of your pupils.
We sit where two halls meet,
parallel paths on perpendicular lines,
an x marking, a t crossed, the intersection with
our eyes playing a game of red light, green light.
A smile, possibly imposed,
a gold spot where my finger touched the blush
of rose begs rising on the hills of your cheeks,
your shyness fogging your glasses
and your passion hiding in deeper dimples.
A smile, possibly imposing,
building trenches in your face to match the
sharpness of your chin and contrasting the
charm leaking out of the corners of your mouth like faulty boxes,
packages, boxes and bags tied with ribbon in denial,
the fabric timeless tapestries torn and tied around the tree like tinsel.
You touched my hand,
drawing me back on the sketchbook tiles, shading me in
when my mind wandered off to wonder.
It sounded like the moments between the fingers of
impatience and angry clocks.
Tick tock transgressions make me a momentary monarch of mirth before I
falter and realize that you biting your levi lip
to hold the tide back
means that the hurricane is swelling.
You apologize because of secrets you hold in Roman ruins
and for sweetening the cyanide syllables.
You regret these moments, because unlike promises,
you can’t recant.
You stand and storms pass, stomachs settle and
the last jagged bolt streaks
into oblivion.
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 8:37 PM UTC
I want each step to land my foot
tangled heather
ash and soot.
And lead to where the wicked go...
where the darling schoolgirls know
when to turn with redden hue
gasping their intact virtue.
Yet I long my footfall down-
mossy sinfully buoyant ground.
Run to meet him by the stone
kiss him on it's granite bones.
And he'll swing me wide with wonder
pirate, he'll be, ravage. plunder.
I go where all the good girls shant.
all my christian vows recant.
Yes I will meet him by the river
and onward I keep
through the creeping myrtle, creep-
and the sinners sandbox
and painted ladies swings
(where I rest my chastity case)
that's covered in leather and tied up with lace.
Delight
as I watch good girls gasp-
as I swing wide hips, wide.
Thier ****** ******* clasps.
And that night will give birth
to a wretched new way
I am wanton
and crafty
and
unwelcome at tables-where ladies
demure
and insist on "no more!"
and
need polite conversations
to endless relations.
I'll roar down that path
like a thundering herd,
like an air stream that carries the weariest bird.
I'm curved, I'm pillowed.
I'm chest out.
I'm willowed...
I'll have holes in my souls
all four of them dotted.
Or six of them spotted?
Like a cat's lives they'll feed
so that reaper, recedes.
It's this path, though, you see them?
The Glories
majestic.
Twined up the tree trunk
and my heart is arrested.
I'm put in the mind of those
sinewy women
and sin
comes in scent
where that glory blooms nightly
and clasp hold of
these moments
of recklessness tightly.
Sahn 1/12/2015
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 11:42 PM UTC
Stunned in the nucleus
of the microcosm we'd created,
I watched you
as you ceased to be what I knew
or wanted to know.
I waited
as you flew off the handle
of the door you were clutching
forever leaving;
always I shook
as you felt tears
I never cried
on your shoulder
and turned back
to the life you promised
you’d lead.
Promised.
I never wanted
that from you.
I never craved forever aloud
or begged for a guarantee.
I only wished for today
and tonight
and now. Not later.
So leave.
Grasp that handle.
It’s your only anchor to the here and now,
because I know you.
I know the beautiful words that fall
with certainty
won’t be surfacing tomorrow.
I know the blood that pulses
between us
isn’t rhythmic all the time.
We’re unharmonious
in these evolved states.
But we fought ourselves down
to our most basic,
and we could stay if we believed
in the primal integrity of yes.
But we can’t
and we don’t.
So we recant every sound we made together,
every motion that moved us
however briefly.
We implode.
We could've been a supernova,
but this,
this is a blackhole.
Apr 16, 2013
Apr 16, 2013 at 9:05 PM UTC
maturely premature thoughts preexist inside
waiting to explode and marvel
at the symmetry of our meetings,
asymmetrical
incongruities.
unthought veils bearing everything
mysterious. magic rarely happens
when eyes open slowly for the
first time. life hatefully
spiteful, vengefully
insipid, unknowing
uncaring,
who cares, time
lost,
repent,
recant,
re-imagined revisions,
systems breaking human
conditions, connections. see
past the humanity,
inanity and insanity are deliberate
malfunctions- there is beauty
inside every action, movement, and
word.
torrents of half thought forms cascade
over fickle answers,
responses to help your quest. yet
in the same ****** breath you say
‘you’ve thought too much;
imagined
enough-
excuses are all
you need’ while
i cry to you in silence,
you’re missing the beat, the
form, the aspect and motivation
of the intellect that you
so silently yearn
for in your verbal
abuses.
this will only get you so far before
you see as i see
or not at all
Jun 18, 2010
Jun 18, 2010 at 3:45 PM UTC
On every single night, the heavens rise,
and the ages descend when your eyes dance.
You ingratiate the barren night skies,
Like a void star, befallen, left to chance.
Plight yet graceful on the adorned stage
the limitless expectation, recant.
A gift the blessing of the exquisite
soft golden glazed inquest aspiration,
And in them I witness, the perfection.
The spike that pierces, a sinister sole
a driver of unhinged unworthy worlds.
To grace it with an unhinged perfection.
The heavens have come to set, to see you.
and I arise with the night to seek you.
Apr 13, 2013
Apr 13, 2013 at 12:08 AM UTC
Once
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
Once when her kisses were fire incarnate
and left in their imprint bright lipstick, and flame,
when her breath rose and fell over smoldering dunes,
leaving me listlessly sighing her name . . .
Once when her ******* were as pale, as beguiling,
as wan rivers of sand shedding heat like a mist,
when her words would at times softly, mildly rebuke me
all the while as her lips did more wildly insist . . .
Once when the thought of her echoed and whispered
through vast wastelands of need like a Bedouin chant,
I ached for the touch of her lips with such longing
that I vowed all my former vows to recant . . .
Once, only once, something bloomed, of a desiccate seed—
this implausible blossom her wild rains of kisses decreed.
Published by The Lyric, Writer’s Journal, Grassroots Poetry, Tucumcari Literary Journal, Unlikely Stories, Poetry Life & Times. Keywords/Tags: kisses, fire, incarnate, lipstick, dunes, ******* heat, lips, breath, sighs, passion, desire, lust, *** bachelorhood, recanted
Mar 26, 2020
Mar 26, 2020 at 3:14 AM UTC
Of lavender, golden meshes--discerning
Goddess gargantua.
Lamp of fig tree and Roman chorus...waves crest
in a moonlit white as to knit the sultry
gown of your being.
Never once did you recant the definitions of love
and beauty, they stay and fever...dally the same
breath to deliver.
Here and there, wedged in towering hearts
they sway and splay forked flames.
You are signaled blatantly, and in
secret as holds the tolerance of those
you madden.
Venus...crash landing, riveted Xs cringe
and ripple in anticipation--marked and
moving, your children pass the ardent
thorns of beauty...clump, swell and
spill ****** roses.
You'll always seem uncollected, unstable--
your constitution's chasmic rift
claims...those you've landed upon.
They mouth love and beauty, wound and
bisected, their livelong day thrashes
to unify that breath...just to
sigh as if to say they see you.
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 7:31 PM UTC
Gone before tomorrow
Is the fellow who insists
That the day of his retirement
Is the workday he resists.
Where he pulls the plug on having
An excuse to leave his bed,
Which escalates the likelyhood
That , perhaps, he’ll soon be dead.
Because...
To lose the joy of purpose
Is to lose the will to try
And when the spirit of endeavour's gone
The soul begins to die.
So do yourself a favour son
Recant on how you play...
Excorcise retirement
And live another day.
Enjoy the flow of living
With purpose at it’s hub
And magnify the meaningful
Yea brother... that’s the rub!
Marshalg
Magnifying the meaningful@the Bach
Mangere Bridge
24 January 2011
Jan 23, 2011
Jan 23, 2011 at 6:24 PM UTC
You were born in the mist
Of a worldwide ****** war,
Shielded in the town of Oxford
No one would have known,
Who came to light
On a random winter’s day,
And would have studied darkness
To humanity’s bewilderment
And science dismay.
Who could have envisaged
A modest run-of-the-mill boy,
Having troubles reading would pass
From studying clocks and radios
To figure how they work,
To later toy with physics
Identify the laws,
Of a universe beginning
With a silent bang.
A singularity unfolding
Ever-expanding space,
Projecting multiverse odds
Stretching theories of strings,
To unfathomable infinity
Countless possibilities.
I fell upon you by hazard
Listening to your alas robotic voice,
Notions of evanescence and chaos
Information lost forevermore,
In deep mystifying black holes
Only to reach the end,
Of an article explaining
The genius you were recognised
Even when you were wrong.
Sustaining a verity
You humbly would recant,
Thirty years later tell the world
Indeed energy survives and is returned,
To cosmos under a radiation
They now call by your name,
For there are no “eternal prisons”
Not in space nor in your wheelchair.
Your alacrity showed humanity so
By flying in a zero gravity zone,
Defying the physics constraining your body
An endless fervent hope, I dare
Share with you. For one day
To travel space and understand
A theory encompassing all,
Started studying cosmology
All because of you.
Mar 14, 2018
Mar 14, 2018 at 3:56 PM UTC
*This is not the skin
of teeth
or din of bells, frozen in account
the knick-knack tick of keen beetles
clinging to the husk of
unborn eyes
and
this can't be
the dread of dread
or night's opposable moon-
so clever in the labyrinth
Our random angels
swoon.
This
is not the frequency, or -
another hell, without
a mouth
or trip hatch, thick with gaping maw
yawning in the fiendish
sky
and this cannot be
the dread of dread
or night's recant of
afternoon-
so ever in the mist of dreams
Our handsome devils
croon.
this is not the preach and preen
of modern life or modesty
and's not the last word of it's kind
to crack the seedling of
the mind
and this
can ill afford a name
that can be writ
or made to
seem
and
never has it said Itself
and seldom
been a
thing*.
Dec 7, 2012
Dec 7, 2012 at 10:34 PM UTC
Can you feel the winds blowing?
Can you feel the moon pull the tides?
No,
No I really can’t.
I walk down a dirt path through a certain wood, alone,
Wearing courage…and folly, for the Laestryogons
Are of another land, far from here, where Pythos slithers,
But that’s of another matter, another matter completely.
Regardless, recant and reiterate [here you must leave all wariness
Behind, all trace of cowardice must be extinguished.]
Well I relinquish my stronghold over to the others.
It may be insidious to some but I must ask,
Why the stripes, why the stripes?
They did not unify all different types.
The apple is useless after it ripes.
I think I’ll sit and drink tea till the sun sets, and repeat.
And when I’m stretched out, stretched out thin
I will sit and gaze and grin,
At a passing cloud, a squirrel, a tree,
At the warbling from the aviary.
Mar 8, 2012
Mar 8, 2012 at 11:17 PM UTC
I make the perilous trek
To the front of the class.
My palms dampen.
I pray not too look an ***
I feel nauseated from the
Butterflies behind my navel.
As I look out across the faces
My voice turns to gravel.
Raspy words escape.
My voice unable to recant
The terror that shakes my words
As I address my audience.
I realize I have many kindred
Among my audience, but
This does nothing to temper the fear
Of Public Speaking 101
Jul 5, 2011
Jul 5, 2011 at 9:41 PM UTC
Hands trembled but their hearts did not
on that Independence Day.
When they signed the Declaration
many signed their lives away.
Some signers died in prison
or sank in poverty.
Several closed their eyes on life
before final victory.
One man, Clark, of New Jersey
deserves a special nod.
He suffered much for Liberty
at the hands of Howe and God.
His two sons were imprisoned,
floating on the New York tide.
Deprived of food and water
what could they do but die.
The British were true devils
and said they'd be set free.
If their father would come out for King
and recant Libery.
If he betrayed his sacred trust
He might well save his sons.
If he recanted they'd be free-
what would you have done?
His answer echoes down through time,
Their proposal he denied.
Our document was signed in blood and thrones must be defied.
Jul 4, 2013
Jul 4, 2013 at 8:07 AM UTC
Without sinking through the spheres. Hymns betting, still hands crisp under the wings. The wind slumbering, stays in the dark spaces. Eleven invisible pages, over. Any other name- Lux Arabesque, Uuqui Haratas, Preset: 117, and the foil.
The mirrored valley’s strangest flora, sifts the decorated thriving trails. Then it can all become an infinite weave in this world where lazy whistling sand dunes beyond, claim the rights to a juried Spring. Then somehow it may recant this glorious history we’ve only barely known. The potent eyes starved by madness, waxes seas and radio fields, slimming the loops that rip into hinges and dispel a tryst.
Toward Earth’s serene prelude, this pageantry of standard masks make ascending towers just and stately. Then come the planets we’ve always loved: Mars, Neptune, and Jupiter too. Barefoot and staggering through the modern coolness of a colossal spring, aching mental itching grows. Until the fruits have fallen into the cloven shadows. Until buried stones alit with day consecrate these omens and conceive such lucid strings to break these quiet thieves into song.
Then the diary belies this affair. The steins upset the tales where pungent fleshy working minds coalesce. Observe the horses play in their endings, upon the wild mountain rivers where felling human eyes wander amidst these cleaved and sun-drenched desert mounds.
Pt. II
In origins uplifting diets foretell the escaped seams of darkness whose lofty tongues of nature’s prose lift the veiled hours’ wraith. Never pressing bells nor raked by shivers, it occurs swiftly should the marbled rushing master call. Above the sound of narrow whispers, comes the wishing hands to shout.
Feb 12, 2018
Feb 12, 2018 at 2:28 PM UTC