"reconfigured" poems
the skull and spine of seventy seven men, extracted.
retribution far past putrefaction.
a pile of bones in the center of town, at the corner of washington
& rochambeau.
gather around.
do you believe in the boogeyman?
a glitch in the darkness.
an echo of rage, high chroma bacteriophage.
every faithless father,
every sister spared,
every ritual sung just right, a brief blackout,
reconfigured pixels of outer night.
[bobby’s sega genesis awakens on its own]
thirty three years to the day, he
died on that suncrest boulevard, returned today just to say “hey.”
graveyard family tree and the moon.
first as a manifestation of electromagnetic phenomena
in a videogame’s cpu. 1993.
second as a fully-fledged entity materialized via videocassette,
hungry for pizza and pure vengeance. 2001.
third from beneath bedrock, the quarry belly baste,
a body buried thrice, undead toxic tumescence,
a walking corpse heaving black plasma. 2020.
the sequel.
the son.
the spectral chosen one, he
rips out a throat or two, quite fashionably so,
a man about town throttled and disemboweled,
as friends and neighbors stumble and sprint to escape with their own godforsaken skin.
let the bone collection begin.
emerged in afterschool hallways to **** old classmates turned teachers.
emerged in afterhours offices to devour old buddies turned bankers.
emerged in the quiet dark homes of neighborhood flesh and folk.
blood soaked socks.
why? you ask, must all these people die?
vengeance? no.
that was a lie.
he killed those people for a laugh
& that’s that.
Oct 17, 2014
Oct 17, 2014 at 2:58 AM UTC
Jolly antlers
Curling happily like fingers do
Adornment of a stranger's imagination
Funny toothless braying
A beautiful accompaniment to the white rocks
"Ting ting"
The bell strung from your neck joyously speaks your odd truth
Tender plodding of new hooves,
The scabs of your retelling leave their own interpretation of your metamorphosis
You may be reconfigured
But you are complete
My little reindeer
Jul 8, 2021
Jul 8, 2021 at 12:26 AM UTC
*The rainy day ended and a walk revealed
many lone raindrops on leaves and branches..
Water had been reconfigured from its flow
its pooling and singular constitution..
Now we saw individual drops as prisms
each its own reflection and color of light..
Such we are with our makeup of water
each of us a prism and
each of us Water...*
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 11:36 AM UTC
Silliest bristle came over me, like a yearn to wear a negligee to church, or eat ants. I can't remember who first gave me pause in an earnest sense of how to live life justly or fully. Not sure which one I'd want more. Doesn't matter, I suppose. My morals keep becoming reconfigured. It's difficult knowing who might be heroic, or who might be manipulating mass appeal in order to boost book sales. I think I just want some new exotic flavor, that rush of tasting avocado for the first time. That really happened to me, you know. I never knew the taste of avocado until I was nineteen and moved to California. It was not common at the time in New Jersey, or at least I had never had it. Never even heard of it, really.
I landed a job as a prep cook and dishwasher at a little mom and pop joint that catered to a mostly lunch crowd from the county court house. It was a quaint little town in the Sierra Nevadas. Townsfolk consisted of artists, musicians, gold miners, hippie marijuana propagators, and lumberjacks. Mostly, at that time, there were the good old boys, Republicans who held most political offices and police positions, and the newbies, attracted to the area by some new age communes, a Democrat influx. I fit into the newbie category, though it was a girl I followed there, not a guru. And of all the outstanding romances had, through the twenty five some years spent in California, none have lasted as long as my love affair with the avocado. It's a certain jolt I feel when guacamole passes through my lips, squishes around my mouth, and lands within an empty belly. I was beside myself in wonder, that very first day such a taste hit me. Now, being back in New Jersey, but not devoid of such illustrious fruit, I wonder where it is I stand on more matters of what it is to live justly or fully? Where is after here? I even see one of those new age communes has moved in down the street. Though I have my guacamole, I'm feeling less fulfilled.
Aug 27, 2016
Aug 27, 2016 at 11:12 PM UTC
T'is a far far better thing I do,
to write tributes to new poesy chicks,
when seldom sufficient is heard
an encouraging word
than repeat yellowed ancien
tale~tell stale revelations
of an ole man's
forgotten glories and
never ending
tribulations
research uncovers a single
tributary,
a common origin, an irony river,
for their source,
tributes and tribulations,
one and the same
herein, this aging
tribune
defends the new poets
even as his own defenses
erode ever faster,
daily the surf takes him,
granule by granule
thus, t'is more urgent that he
construe and
contribute,
formally and officially,
attribute
the old guard's passing mantle, cloak,
making no
tribologies
frictions tween young and old,
fictions tween old and old
reconfigured as pretend new
this the natural way,
this luminescent fractious friction,
gives birth to
an Einstein~energized
triboluminescence
heat and light
the by-products of the
tribe
of poets
Apr 9, 2014
Apr 9, 2014 at 10:11 PM UTC
i crouched
one knee to the floor and one up
facing god and his holy host
gasping for air and dribbling
knowing everyone that ive hurt indefinitely
wishing none of it was true
taking it back with tears
hoping "were alone now"
would ever be made honest
when the tune dies down
and the crust dries
on my high cheeks
something may have been developed
my mind anew
thoughts reconfigured
life repositioned
with imaginations like these
who needs
what are those called
cousins
no
the other ones
concerns
close enough
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 9:56 PM UTC
I thought you had shattered my heart with your fleeces,
And that I’ve been busy picking up the pieces.
But in reality you’ve stolen it for you own,
And someday you will use it as my gravestone.
Just a whisper of you echoes through my mind,
And still the goose bumps ripple every single time.
You had simply faded to a shadowy figure,
And suddenly in my stolen heart you’re reconfigured.
I wish you could just disappear,
But I’ve learned you will always be near,
For the fibres connecting us are spun of steel,
And while invisible they are solid and real.
These connectors keep you vulnerable to my caress,
Even though my broken heart you still possess.
We are cursed and you will forever be drawn to me,
And the fear causes you to take my heart and leave.
The steel will stretch taught but never snap,
And you are destined to always come back
Nov 17, 2011
Nov 17, 2011 at 9:25 AM UTC
bleed into forever,
as forever we are sanguine souls,
situated for slaughter.
death's inevitability beating down,
and time slipping behind
the mind, awoken to something;
broken, reconfigured, alive,
it's bred to fulfill situational ideas,
bleeding into annihilation.
forever.
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 1:28 AM UTC
If I lose my place,
I'm sure to be triggered.
I must find a safe space,
so I'm not reconfigured.
If someone I've met
as I go through my day,
yells at me or my pet,
we'll both run away.
If a person protests
my political views,
it causes such stress,
it gives me the blues.
I'm a sensitive guy,
so I run from all trouble.
Just don't ask me why-
you may burst my bubble.
Feb 7, 2020
Feb 7, 2020 at 10:52 AM UTC
i'm going to be
woken up when
september ends to
i will see october first
*(i'm scared to
death of living
but i'll try it for
awhile anyway)*
and sure i lay
in bed until noon
most mornings
a hot dim
reconfigured dream
trying to find
reasons any
reason
*(i couldn't today
didn't feel like music
didn't want coffee
didn't want to talk to friends
didn't want breakfast
didn't want to create
didn't want
didn't)*
replaying your face
bathed in two a.m. blue light
telling me that i had to
keep going and that
maybe it was selfish
but you couldn't handle
the rest of your life
without me in it
*(we were both crying
by the time we went to bed
and i'm crying again
when i think about it)*
you know those mornings
when you wake up and know
that before the sun goes down
your face will have felt tears?
yeah it was
one of those
*(and tears aren't pretty
just kind of watery)*
and by the time i had a
cup of tea and was sitting
at the kitchen table i was
sobbing my eyes out
*(i am so
tired)*
i couldn't help it
can't help any of this
*(i am so
*******
tired of being
broken in half)*
and i am so
tired of fighting
to find a reason to
get out of bed.
Sep 9, 2016
Sep 9, 2016 at 8:30 PM UTC
My grade school Principal would take a reconfigured boat paddle
and 'grill a young man's bacon' when needed ! I most assuredly earned
every lick I ever received ..
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 9:52 PM UTC
I think my brain is broken
There's always nuts and bolts left on my pillow
Every morning when I wake up
They never fit back quite right
Thoughts of never being put together
Haunt me when I'm alone
Hovering over me
Telling me that I'm just going to keep falling apart
And eventually there will be nothing that holds my head into my shoulders
It will topple off
Shatter in the ground like glass
I will realize that I'm only human
And like most broken humans
I am glass
And I crack easy
I don't think I'll ever like existing
There's more of all of you than there are of me
So why is it so significant if I begin to cease
I know I have family that think this way
Those two understand what I've been trying to say
All three of us should have been aborted
We're not just glass
We are mosaics
Shattered and reconfigured
Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 9:48 PM UTC
Ground is opened in the urban sprawl. Dark earth sits where concrete and asphalt use to be. The dirt can breathe once again after years of being kept under a stony tomb. Now green things take root and grow. Food is produced by the hard work and sweat of those living in the masonry covered towers. The idea of hope is taking root as more buildings are reconfigured to allow for green spaces to blend into the urban landscape. In slow movements forward, the towers of cement and steel are being joined by cabbages and pole beans. The life is returning to a once desolate place and things are living in cohabitation under a new sun.
Mar 13, 2016
Mar 13, 2016 at 2:11 PM UTC
I dove into the water without thinking
What the consequences would be while blinking
Salt stung my eyes and my vision ceased
I could still move my legs and arms at least
But I also tried breathing and couldn't
Get out of the water, I just wouldn't
I thought I saw a treasure at the bottom
Pretty, shiny thing that wanted to blossom
I went deeper and deeper till I could see it
But ended up being too out of reach
With disappointment, I reconfigured what to do
I looked up but I was trapped where are you
My vision finally collapsed and my breath was no longer
I was lonely and frightened which gave me time to wonder
I blamed you, but it was me, who became this monster.
Sep 7, 2018
Sep 7, 2018 at 1:20 AM UTC
I have spilled endless words,
reconfigured them in different ways,
trying to explain this existence,
things like love
& heartbreak
& these raw
intense
moments
that never go away.
So I'll try
crying out your name,
play kissing you,
alone in the dark
& wonder
if you feel me,
yet again.
Sep 22, 2014
Sep 22, 2014 at 5:23 AM UTC
They drove out one night, on a whim. It was a sprawling thing; a shrine guarded by foreign collection, reconfigured and asleep on their feet. They crept through the open doors, tiny frogs and spiders and lizards littering every inch. A droning permeates from somewhere deep within. A discarded book upon the floor, not but records of sacrifice and lies to the dead. Suddenly, a spark. An inescapable glow, this mess of fire, growing brighter all the while. Now the tools, the taste, the tenor. A man gives what he can. The offering will take, or it won't. And you, with all those sticky fingers! They steal away again, homeward bound; the faintest remnants of that glorious spark dancing in their downcast eyes. It will take, or it won't. Everything is static, nothing stays the same. They know that nothing lasts forever.
Feb 16, 2018
Feb 16, 2018 at 8:45 PM UTC
Middle school, age thirteen:
that strange doubled feeling
when walking cinderblocked halls
painted calm institutional blue -
there I am, heart in hand,
clopping in too-big shoes
to the strobing gym to see the girls
in their new bright dresses,
our bodies and faces branching
into adulthood relentlessly;
to see friends wearing cheap new suits
& talking endlessly of Kelly and Molly,
of Sarah and cheerleader Brittany,
of the Other Kelly, Erica, and Erin
(some having thoughts of Bryan
& Kenny, Mike, and Other Mike)
Yet there is another of me
listening to checkered floor,
how the linoleum squares echo
as I stalk through emptied halls,
(how disturbing, when a known thing
is so reconfigured and unfamiliar...)
I reach the chaperone stand,
deliver my ticket from a hot palm,
step into the loud and wild parade
as the dimmed dance floor writhes
with pubescent shadows,
my shoes clacking and shining,
looking for Kelly and Other Kelly,
drifting to safer bleacher corners:
unaware that thirty years later
this night is still engraved
on the back of a breaking brain:
the year the harvest failed.
Oct 9, 2024
Oct 9, 2024 at 6:14 PM UTC
Someone is hunting,
not animals but humans.
Creeping in the night,
hunting down humans,
beheading babies and children,
women are not left out,
the pregnant ones cut open
and the unborn babies hacked to
death in a gruesome manner,
the men killed and hung like pigs
in the butchers stall.
Using humans as targets
to learn how to shoot.
They preferred the
cows to humans.
Cattle were killed
when a human died,
now humans are killed
when a cow dies.
Even when the cow is lost,
it is the human that will die
to compensate and pay for the loss.
What a sad turn of events,
it is really a shame to see how
degrading their mind has become.
Attitude is everything,
their mindset must be reset.
Their mentality must be upgraded,
and reconfigured for they are
really mentally poisoned.
Who can save us from this raging calamity.
©2018,Emeka Mokeme. All Rights Reserved.
Jul 1, 2018
Jul 1, 2018 at 3:53 AM UTC