"reclamation" poems
oh darling
it is you who cries too often
and leaves nothing inside herself
it is you who purges
sweat
and blood
and *****
to the gods of self and society
sweat and blood and *****
to void and nothingness
grinning insanity of grief
cries to know and chooses not to
it is pain that you know
and pain that won’t release you
do not forget the heat of what fills your *******
your arms
your genitals
your sweat is burning
your blood is burning
***** burning
it is hell inside
empty your hell to me my love
empty your hot and heavy
loaded words and baggage
neverending flow of **** and ****
neverendingneverending
you are full of fire
and the molten gods of self-sacrifice
refuse to relinquish you
to holy happiness
empty your hell to me my love
I will cool your brow
with lips and hands and water
I will wash you in my love
I will know you with new love
I will fill you with
this serenity
that you can
empty
into
me
cool the fires of fear
and pain and loss and betrayal
with new fires of passion
that are exuberant acts of ecstasy
we are human after all
- only human
and holy holy holy to each other
this is what we are
beings filled with fire
molten images craved
even worshipped
created by gods
to serve as successors
we must stitch ourselves together
and quench this hell with heaven
a reclamation of scars
and scar tissues
we may build our own city
entirely of gold
Dec 30, 2012
Dec 30, 2012 at 9:24 PM UTC
The river forks at big stone eddy
rending currents meandering course,
its silence speaks not with forked tongue
as kismet's swirling eddies abide
as if time immemorial;
a river naturally cleaved
in two separate distinct directions
befallen destiny without a choice
Spinning round and round in big stone eddy,
time just drifting by in the throes
of doubt — high water rising
beyond the bounds of earth
taking drowning souls up to the sky
Choking on a mouthful of unanswered questions,
suffocating on the parting words left unsaid;
distilling life into poetry hew from being —
trickling out like the spilled out sky —
taken down to the empty riverbed
leave lay' til it's all washed away,
in the music of the pourin' down rain
Freedom embodies metaphysical incarnations
riding the prevailing currents it can't control
Gravity-gathered down to the shoreline,
manifest reclamation after the deluge,
from somewhere far above the high-water mark
Swallowed by all the darkness woe betides,
thinking you carry such a weight to hold...
It seems all got a handful of sand to toss
up into the wind to seed the clouds
The totality of eclipsing silence grows
that rent the stillness of a dream
of peace on an eroding shoreline
In an Eddy of Expectations & Disappointment
dark waters will ebb and flow,
imponderable as drowning hope,
leaving it all out there to dry after the rain
believing in your heart —
the best is yet to come
Jesse Stillwater ... November 2018
Nov 24, 2018
Nov 24, 2018 at 12:09 PM UTC
One day I awoke, strangely to find
the person I used to be gone, left behind
Somewhere, somehow, I became someone new
Who was much less like me, and a lot more like you
The changes were subtle, I did not even know
Until people asked me, just where did "you" go?
It appears I gave up being me just to please
the person I once proposed to from my knees
But the strangest thing is, I did not even see
the way you genetically, modified me
I looked like the me, that everyone knew
but instead of myself, to you I was true
And now that I see it, and begin to turn back
you're angry and bitter and start to attack
You think that there's someone else I now see
But don't see how that someone else can be me
I don't like the person, with you I became
It's not all your fault though, I'm partly to blame.
And just as I let you make me not the same
it is I that must choose my old self to reclaim
So from now on my dear our ways we must part
There's no place anymore for you in my heart
I'll put myself first, be alone for a while
Until I can look in the mirror and smile
And see there once more who I used to be
the reclaimed original version of me
Apr 10, 2010
Apr 10, 2010 at 11:45 AM UTC
I slept with her, my rapacious pen, took me in quiet vengeance in
full on conjugation
raken and taken, me,
her overlording me now, her authorship, so long held
in my maledom abeyance,
a kept imprisonment, unleashing at last, a tongue lashing~leashing,
de-spite my un-desirous craven lying supplications,
excuses of innocence and accident, coincidence and conflation,
ashes, ashes, denials incinerated, all fall down
she wrote/stabbed upon my heartless chest,
in the cheap crudités colors of a prisoner’s inking,
“user of words mine, all mine”
gathered up my innards of loose words,
speculative notes & titles yet to be,
born and kept hid in password protected silent back labor files,
now hers, leaving me sputtering, unable to create,
a homeless mute citizen, possession-less,
helplessly hoping her hovering harlequin might relent,
without any shelter, even a glimmering, a single aleph or bet
she celebratory cackled and clawed,
professed her reclamation ownership of all my poems predecessors,
zola j’accusing that I, ripped from her forcibly,
with no granted permission, her womanly touché of my scribing,
warning of no more global warming for my unprivileged hands,
daren’t try for pretenses of stolen legal guardianship,
warning of a new, forced caining inscription,
a tattooing of “thief” upon my 5 knuckled right ******
“plagiarist” boldly inked in back & blue upon my left palm
I, predator,
she, victim,
of my now self-professed, admitted confess,
she, my single victim,
of a decade long serializing criminal coverup
her parting poem a threatening,
herein issued in this very verse,
damning all who would falsely credit themselves,
to suffer shame and an unimaginable curse,
this, the newborn eleventh of ten commandments
parting, she kissing my lips, even my emptied apertures,
with warning bitings,
she knew all my
my numerous noms de guerre,
no dead scrolls caves to hid in, and to be discovered some future day,
and if ever marked as copyrighted,
’twas no tunneling escape,
the exposed truth to be over-stamped
upon all, upon each, in every language,
”copied right from the tongue of a woman!”
and she would be wright...
May 23, 2019
May 23, 2019 at 10:10 AM UTC
Blazing brightly in the night miles below on
Crete. Icarus plummeted. And puzzled.
The Phoenix shattered ablaze and battred
The phoenix Glances to the night sky.
As a bird of prey whizzes by.
Struck to ground.
Thundering sound.
Phoenix pauses beats his wings.
Flaming feathers burn and drift.
Rises slowly from the ashes.
Icarus crumbles in broken waxen wings.
Youthful tragedy. Never to rise.
No reclamation.
Silent hubris.
The dirge preceeds.
Then quietly
Receeds.
Jun 26, 2013
Jun 26, 2013 at 9:15 PM UTC
In seventh grade I watched my friend bleed out
Holding what was left of his leg, he whispered, "This isn't good."
They say that the human body contains eight pints of blood
I counted nine.
When you were born, no one knew.
No one knew how intense the galaxy inside of you was.
How each star would illuminate your eyes,
and how you would illuminate mine.
In tenth grade,
my dad didn't talk to me for three months.
I didn't know who I was for three months.
My light became darkness as his love became emptiness.
Father, love me the way I love you. I pretend not to,
please be the same way as me.
Your heart grew faster than my hands, brother.
I hope someone loves you more than I.
For I am what you are, everything without and within,
forever and without the night.
Mother,
do you feel what I feel? Do you see what I see?
Am I what you imagined, more or less?
Do my words matter? Does my heartbeat pound alone?
Do you love me?
You are what illuminates my eyes, Queen Anne's Lace.
With or without, from your eyes to mine,
silence with noise, electricity moves throughout
yet I am calm. You are what I know,
and all that should be known is that
you deserve to be happy.
In twelfth grade my father tried to stab me.
If he was successful, it wouldn't have been the first time
one of his actions got past the surface level.
It's not your fault, burning rainbow on the water.
Adaptation without reclamation I find you in my translation
as hurt yet elation. Mother.
My kaleidoscope,
so soon,
mirroring colors and shape.
Am I looking at myself?
I don't care if you don't comprehend, the words I say or how I end.
And if you don't understand the words that pass,
your eyes, like your heart, are transparent glass.
Taste throughout, with blood mixed in, the way I beat has always been
to know, to show, to allow what I see now to be seen,
may I know what I let go is what I'll always mean.
Thunderbolts from your mouth, good luck to me because I am shocked.
There is no lock. There is no lock. There is no lock.
I live throughout different years, with evolving eyes without resolving fears.
I've been afraid. I've been lost.
Kaleidoscope.
No longer, no more.
My heart is an open door.
Blood stained pants.
Hands without.
With every word,
every shout.
Apr 28, 2014
Apr 28, 2014 at 6:56 PM UTC
Monroe Ave c. 2018, in my own dream land. K. Daniel's Revelation, cannot reverse what's starting to happen. Darker, more forlorn. No more bar and restaurant patrons, the streets are just a scattered herd of pestilence. No cars, the somnambules own the streets in silence. Honey dripping hipsters, years gone. ***** clothes, hair past their pearls. Asking for boy, asking for O.P.s, asking for girl, asking for crack, asking for methamphetamines. The only noise.
We lost the reclamation of the city our parents left. Escaping dead end cul-de-sacs of basement poverty, we no longer had to drive. Stacked with our friends in tenement commune. We delivered the body we consume in service, catering to a more privileged few. Only responsible for one when long work was done, I ensured my red blood's full of fun. We drank and inebriated with design when allowed more free time. But, darling, I think this town was already gentrified. We changed no thing.
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 11:03 PM UTC
Strumming the untuned strings, he stares drunkenly into the setting sun of yesteryears songs, sung of lost dreams and the birthed ambitions of the dark, dark days to be.
Happily, he tears up in the fortunate tragedies, of the reclamation in his dreams, as he seethes out the damnation of his steeds, galloping gallantly through his being.
All seeing, in the finite fleeting when he sings, of strummed dreams to the rhythms of heart beats lost, embossed on the epitaphs of kings.
Sad songs of dreams once had.
Be glad for that, which does not **** you, only to bestow upon you, the gratitude of the weirding ways, in passionate display for us all to play nice.
Shake these dice and jump aboard this bus of wandering poetry, from the porches of poets singing to the sun.
From the morning Moet, to the afternoon beer run.
we sing of dreams
of better things
we blaspheme
and spin the scenes
of our murdered dreams
and just clean the guilt away
I am so awesome as to be devoid of fault.
I am a god that cracks the asphalt.
I am the angel signing the clause, of deserved harm.
I am the indentured servant sounding the alarm, with the charm of a Trojan horse, forced to adhere to the most righteous path.
The first
The last
Laugh of inevitability
Honing in on the ability to capture the longevity of dream warriors, in the lock of predators, in the employ of a senator, from the center of the heart, to impart on you the fear from thieves caught in the plight of those fraught with the graces of an exterminator, exterminating the pro-creators of your world. Soldiers unraveled in the lavished gavels of real criminals drowning in their own subliminal theories of the self imposed heresies of intention.
Free will
A fragile blessing
I cracked, all so long ago, as i gently bestow my belligerence upon your innocence and **** it all away.
I'm the ******* son
Strumming for the only one.
Once.
Before the lore of the storm.
Born of the swoon of a gun.
More than one.
Once.
As the day faded into night, his strumming turned plucking, as he slightly eased from reprise to silence, in the whisper of nights words, easing him into the blur, of sleep.
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 3:46 PM UTC
To be brown is to
know racism in every shade -
internal,
or
external,
microaggression
or
aggression.
To be brown is
an inquisition,
every time you step foot outside –
*“What are you?”
“What does your name mean?”
“Have you tried that restaurant?”
“Have you been back?
“What religion are you?”
“Say something in your language!”*
To be brown is
the shame
of either
too much
or not enough,
that you try to
press down, ignore,
forget about -
don’t be so sensitive.
To be brown is
an investment,
the way you are always supposed to
rise and rise and rise,
have the opportunities of the west
and the values of the east,
marry a nice brown heterosexual,
go to graduate school,
have a good career,
earn more money than your parents did,
be safe and settled,
provide for your parents,
your parents,
who only pressure you
and push you
because they want you to be
happy.
To be brown is
diaspora,
the way your tongue
trips over the words of native languages
you never grew up speaking
because English was always taught
first
to generations before you,
the way you weren’t born with
any real community,
and even now
most of your friends
are white,
the way
you have to move in the world
hearing your name
mispronounced in every way imaginable,
the way you
scan the room
for any brown face
because you know
a brown person will
understand,
the way you realize
how often you are the only
brown body
in any space,
queer or straight,
the way you really are a
minority.
To be brown is
reclamation,
the way you learn to
find beauty in the brown and the hair
and the body type,
the way you learn to
let yourself feel Anger
at appropriation,
the way you learn to fight
for identity –
correct the mispronunciations
learn the language,
listen to the music,
cook the food,
wear the clothes,
go back to the country
learn the history,
do what you need to do
in your
imperfect
perfect
way,
****
what anyone says.
To be brown
is to be
enough.
Mar 13, 2016
Mar 13, 2016 at 6:26 PM UTC
It was a out-of-town trip
that prompted me to tape
a two inch bar of black
over a band of color.
So that's what hate does.
It's a maddening, saddening
sort of oppression,
this sort of silencing
It's a whisper-born fear,
half-irrational, half-necessary.
I'm a scared boy again, and
I'm standing in the school yard.
And here's what I learned today:
Anyone, everyone is an threat,
and protect your heart with hate.
I could be a revolutionary, but I am
an unwilling soldier.
I'm living life in safe-houses,
traveling only by the safest routes,
hiding my colors, red to violet.
I do not want to fight
a battle I believe is common sense.
But if I want to be free,
I have to arm myself.
I remove the tape.
Oct 6, 2012
Oct 6, 2012 at 2:19 PM UTC
I'm sorry
I can't be a bad boy
for you
I'm not the kind
of reclamation project
that women dream of
reclaiming
It's the attitude you crave
not the mood
I've been manufacturing
this bad boy body
for two months
Who am I fooling?
It's the mind
where the fantasies
and possibilities
take shape
Even though I've flashed
a knife at a bad boy
it doesn't matter
for I wasn't the bad boy
nor am I a rock star
or a pro athlete
or a student
who wears detention
like a badge of honour
I'm a ******* poet
and who wants a holder
of fantasies that have already
been disclosed?
I'm sorry
I'll make it up to you
I'll be the ear you require
when your heart is broken
I'll be the nodder
you require
when you need to make it clear
that all guys are *****
even though it was the *****
you were hypnotized by
in the first place
Bad boy body?
Bad boy language?
It's doesn't mean a ****
for it's all in the mind
Who am I fooling?
You'll be okay
for the sea is teeming
with jellyfish
Aug 1, 2014
Aug 1, 2014 at 6:54 AM UTC
Remains of the summer
sunlight drip out,
entomb'd in raindrops
from the prevailing
gray beclouded skies
Memories of joy
bathed in sunlight
unravel like a wind
frayed kite dancing
above a day at the beach
Soaring seagulls ponder
all thousand feet of kite string
tied to a hidden bliss below —
hurtling through
the shapeless heavens
tethered to refreshed
dreams still lingering
within an untamed
child of the wind
Morning falls
from the trees
in whispers
of golden sorrow
The damp chilled air
smells fresh as the traces
of heaven's cleansing rain —
befallen drop by drop,
each plash counted
from an angel weeping,
splattering the broken silence
all through the night.
An inflamed montage
of leaves surrender
all this unholdable lifeline
we ever know;
blanketing the fields
of autumn's tawny grass —
Sowing a mosaic colored
reclamation reposed
atop a nascent green,
soon enrobed by impending
winter’s pallid slumbering hues
The darkening hush
imbues a shadowing
fugitive peacefulness
bathed in wind river eddies
of autumn’s blessing rains
harlon rivers
Nov 3, 2018
Nov 3, 2018 at 11:28 AM UTC
People always say that love will find its way;
that true love will come to those who wait,
but you should know that things aren't that simple.
You can't just assume that this is a fairytale
and that Prince Charming sweeps the Princess off her feet
or a total babe finds inner beauty in an abomination.
This is reality; not some fantasy where everybody wins,
So get ready for a heavy dosage of it.
I was brought up on the notion that true determination
will always win over the woman you desired,
but boy was I ever so wrong.
There are just some instances that you will fail.
Rejection is key in order to grow, so accept it.
You can't just wallow in depression
while you wait for someone to put the pieces back.
So, you win some, you lose some.
I personally can't tell you how many times I've failed
because to be honest, it's quite a lot,
whether it be by my hand or other forces,
but I can assure you this: I keep getting back up.
As for being broken, I can say that it truly *****
Been there twice and the recovery was not too fun either,
but there are those types of people who use this flaw
to the highest caliber in order to gain love;
a quick act of desperation to acquire this emotion.
Whoever falls for this ruse believes they can save the other,
but here's where it becomes sadistically hilarious:
that person doesn't want to be fixed or saved
because in the end, only you can really fix yourself.
Sure, someone can give you the tools necessary, but
it sure as hell doesn't mean they'll be utilized.
Finally, we get to the ****** of this adventure,
where society equates love to a game of chess,
Always trying to make the right move to win the other over,
to say the right things or make the correct actions
in order to win over the girl/boy's heart.
Who knows if you're staying true to yourself.
As long as you win that beating trophy, it's all that matters.
Get this, love isn't a simple ******* prize.
The growth and process of love is the real prize.
Love isn't just on some linear path.
It is ebb and flow; action reaction.
You cannot force it or becomes meaningless
and you cannot resist or it fades away.
Embrace it, but be humble when it reveals itself
and I'm quite certain you'll have nothing to worry.
In conclusion, this the battle of love
and yet, it only grows worse,
but if I have at least enlightened one person,
then I have succeeded in taking part
in the reclamation of what love used to be:
Simplicity.
Jan 16, 2014
Jan 16, 2014 at 4:33 AM UTC
An unfenced field
of memories awoken ,
frozen pastel flowers
color fast ,
though fading
on borrowed time
A one-way footpath
disappears unencumbered
between the snowdrifts
leading across
the winter stilled
iced up creek bed ,
coursing a path
of least resistance
destiny unknown
Changing tawny petals
scatter like potpourri ,
fallen collateral
in the aftermath
a beautiful dream's
passing light
Pressed and dried
memories buried
under dog-eared
tear-stained pages
black topiaries
that grow in the dark
Redemption unbid
and unwelcome,
earthen mineral rights
surrendered unspent ,
Natural order
decomposing
reclamation ,
chilled to the marrow
A scorned lover’s
bated breathe
bared ink unspoken,
Unbidden laments
eerily betokened
in an unseen
netherworld ,
undeniable , yet
bashfully remarkable
I see the frosty
fogged breath
that repents
in choral dialect ,
speaking in known
tongue , with
the absolvable voice
of a bitter cold wind
wind is the wind .... December 20. 2016
Dec 27, 2016
Dec 27, 2016 at 7:56 PM UTC
My freshman year is a reclamation. a reclamation of how I can't play both patient and doctor. My freshman year was supposed to be the second chance that I thought my dad wanted, my freshman year was where the excuses were not accepted anymore by professors nor by me. All of freshman year I lived with my dad. I tell people, its to save money, it's convenient, it's bonding, while in all honesty living with my dad has been the time I feel the farthest from him, maybe cause we started with a crash start, maybe I just happened just like childhood just like my life. my freshman year was a reclamation, a reclamation that if I'm 5 or 50 miles away from home, my mom has me like gravity. when I come back home it may take some time for her gravitational pull to set in but doesn't take a semester, a school year, a high school, a life, for her to be there, to stay there and to be my foundation, my reclamation.
Apr 3, 2018
Apr 3, 2018 at 3:01 PM UTC
On the edge of my windowsill, I sit
And count the little black and bustling heads
Clustered down below.
There is Life
In the pinnacles of the trees I tower over.
I feel It, breathing coolly down my neck.
I am soon to be reborn,
My countenance now aglow.
This is my precipice.
I will soar down from my mountaintop
Bearing word of reclamation.
I will sow my bones like seeds upon the wind.
Apr 6, 2018
Apr 6, 2018 at 7:00 PM UTC
Tired of day to day insanity
And of settling for living a life by default
A bruised heart digs its way out of human made boundaries
Then sets out
On a determined and uncompromising sojourn of reclamation.
Along the heart's travels, it meets up with a rusty magpie
With a liking for chalky ***** and waltzing
A wire haired pointer with a predisposition for friskiness and extra-marital
And a soft spoken Spanish guitar
With strings strung to tightly with the weight of deep secret longings
And Never Should have been made promises that seemed always in need of repair.
Unaware why their lives have merged at this time
The unlikely quartet move forward with the shadow of certainty always
Just two steps behind them
And perhaps that's as it should be
Jan 17, 2013
Jan 17, 2013 at 1:01 PM UTC
Poverty,
food in the reclamation yard.
Life's tough,
it's hard to be full of energy when
the meter is empty and all you see
are the toffs who scoff at society.
Poverty,
cardboard caskets in the cemetery.
There's a niche between the have and the have nots,
the place they throw away food and it rots,
bread, bread but not for the dead and the mould
we can give to the weary and old,
it's share and share and **** them, they don't count
and we don't care.
Circumstance gives a fat chance and the fat cats get the fat other than that all is well for the poor and the needy who dwell in the dark because the meter is empty.
Poverty,
in the park, on the bench, what a stench,
why don't they bathe, why don't they shave, why don't they save the pittance they get or better yet why give them a pittance, give them ****** all?
Poverty,
call for ticket number forty three, your benefits have changed please come to booth B.
We are being outsourced to be the dampcourse in some old Etonian duck pond, all expenses paid by another raid on the 'workshy' who in any case will get by
because we're all in this together dontya know.
Poverty
is just a name they use to defuse the ticking bomb,
castigate the poor, exonerate the rich,
build another workhouse and life's not such a *****
We know differently, we who live poverty, we who see inequality but we still and will
**** for a dime.
Jul 2, 2015
Jul 2, 2015 at 7:14 AM UTC
Dad heard but never listened
Looked but never saw
Time spent was time wasted
And silence was our loudest talk
Money given was always taken
Reclamation for timeless thoughts
Dad went but never waited
Answered but never called
When time was there for us to talk
Dad drank,
and silence won once more
Nov 26, 2022
Nov 26, 2022 at 8:55 PM UTC
If I may presume to summarize the concept,
"Eminent Domain,"
The Big P People own the Right of Way
And the little p people
Have temporary possession of the opportunity
To get out of the Way,
Or to be smashed under the wheels
Of Big P Progress.
Appropriate compensation will be paid,
Of Course,
And living spaces provided
To the little p people,
While the Big P People thunder by on their new highways,
Overpasses, airports, causeways, and thoroughfares.
Reclamation will be done over the torn earth
To re-bury the unearthed little p people's dead,
To restore damaged aquifers,
To "replace" trees and grasses "just as before,"
Never mind the pipelines,
The concrete roadways,
The railroads,
And the power lines....
Eminent Domain...
Rhymes with Capitalist Gain,
And little p people's pain....
Sep 9, 2016
Sep 9, 2016 at 12:18 PM UTC
“This Insubstantial Pageant Faded”
(spoke by Prospero, The Tempest, by W. Shakespeare)^
<>
Our words are all actors,
a long run, run its course,
our long playing record,
scratched, love~worn to
worn out extremity, yet
yeoman service did offer,
extreme only in magical
transforming plain sight
into visions, a legacy,
bent gray, tarnished by
weary wearing aging,
their brief sparks now
but reclamation flares of
burst lights of waning days
in short lived tastings of what
was and can be nevermore
everyone’s magic has its preset
timed timing, and with
every day, each a concentric
ring marked and hallowed,
a heartbeat ring narrower
than its predecessor,
a shallower hollow,
a fair represent of both
all that came our way, and that
we resent with no resentment
into a cloud capped atmosphere
for all to ****** from a flailing,
flying breeze, their brief gleam,
multiplying, thus envisaging,
illuminating the manuscript of our
hinted future forward’s next percept
*
“And like this insubstantial pageant faded
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep”*^
Mar 2, 2024
Mar 2, 2024 at 8:23 AM UTC
modern behemoth building of the sterile
herded human
remains in sickness
compartmental
racked for our chemical curing
treat-meat
this building is only a single day of abandon
away from natural reclamation
taunts are made in the wings
the ants enter and leave freely
drain moth flies frequent most water sources in the building
rodents are at the door
rabbits and groundhogs tunnel in the lawns
hawks circle above using the buildings heat
the wild world
allowing our inclusion
for at least one more hospital stay
Apr 8, 2022
Apr 8, 2022 at 11:55 AM UTC
The aqua back drop peels away at a marshmallow scene
While the aerial obstructions deepen and darken
Earth begins to cry in a desperate attempt to be clean
An age old story of a planet's reclamation
Serves as a reminder that life is cyclical
We rise and we fall
With the end we forestall
Much like the recycled tears that paint across my bare skin
I can feel the interconnectedness within
Tranquility embodies this life essence
Self-sustainable, she puts up a fight
Taken for granted, yet ever constant
Everything is going to be alright
Nov 13, 2014
Nov 13, 2014 at 12:30 AM UTC