"regulated" poems
I like using fire as an analogy, a metaphor, the punchline for most of my poetry
I often describe the heart as if it were a hearth, while its beats were the heat it radiated
I see it—sometimes a roaring flame, often times a steady bonfire, other times a dying match.
It could scorch you if you aren't careful, but it also provides you warmth and light. A sort of clarity. Comfort.
It allows some of the toughest things on Earth to become malleable and mold itself into something new
It turns the bitter into sweet, the biting cold to teeth-sinking warm, the tasteless into delicious
It allows the spirit to soar with columns of smoke to the heavens while the body becomes fertilizer for daisies
It takes beauty, and burns it black and ash to the point of no recognition
Fire is so precious, and dangerous, and essential, and beautiful, and ugly—just like this hearth of a heart
Tended and regulated well, it's the greatest discovery of mankind
Allowed to burn out quick, or spread out of control, then it's the accident that burned down London in 1666
I believe I should end this by saying: find someone who will tend to your hearth as if it were their last dying light, instead of a person who would simply roast marshmallows with forest fires
Aug 29, 2018
Aug 29, 2018 at 5:00 PM UTC
Two fine films: The Lost City and Blood Diamond.
I joined Blood Diamond during a village massacre
and said to my wife A gun in every home.
Those devils would think twice
before razing the village and seizing the boys.
A well-regulated militia.
The local militia the most interesting moment
in a strong film with motive (economic, emotional), action (chases,
fights) and a **** sexless love story.
Use of violence by the local militia for a limited purpose: protect the
community, the young
from the janjaweed. The crop from the ****
Limited scope and defensive posture
but armed and coordinated, cooperative, the men (and the women)
side by side.
Warriors at the gate, you will not run, you will not bargain.
Just violence = limited scope, defensive posture.
Great music. Cuba, Africa.
The Lost City, when the communists tell the club owner under threat
of violence
No saxophones in the band. The saxophone!
Invented by a Belgian--Look what the Belgians are doing in the
Congo!
When the state's violence is turned against the citizenry
for non-violent acts.
This quiet neighborhood, July,
undergirded by violence, force. That's a given--
any farmer, custodian, EMT will tell you that.
Without just violence
Gandhi's scope, and King's, might be vanishingly limited,
negligible (but not non-existent)?
Regarding King
the matter is simple -- he was non-violent but dependent upon
federal force to counter the South's violence.
No doubt without the larger force, the non-violent would be
overwhelmed by southern violence.
Here, non-violence was a tactic, not an ethic.
Gandhi, however, had no violent partner to protect him from the
British. Or did he?
1. There was the potential violence of the population, which Gandhi
restrained but could release which the British feared, and
2. It was the restrained (limited scope) violence of the British that
allowed Gandhi to exist rather than be extinguished--this restraint
was a (British) cultural imperative (limited scope) as well as
emanating from Britain's view of India as a protectorate and
valued citizen of the United Kingdom (defensive posture).
What about violence or threat of violence to compel compliance with
community
as in mortgage foreclosure, driving without license, drug possession.
Perhaps it is necessary violence to maintain orderly commerce, the
common space, and preempt bad behaviors associated with
otherwise neutral, private acts.
The defensive posture is the common good; the limited scope is
forgoing deadly force.
But the citizen, too, must maintain a disciplined, armed non-violence,
in case the state (the janjaweed) engages in an unjust, autoimmune
violence.
Hence, a gun in every home.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 9:56 AM UTC
A Jersey girl came along
and I started to think about angles of yaw
needed to take flight,
how the force of a kick skirts
the delicate line between winning and losing.
I’ve seen it all before, but not like this. Besides, seeing
has nothing to do with believing.
Corneas can't capture the vibrations of molecules or excitations
of electrons. Champions defy biology,
overcome gravity and I believe what goes up
does not always come down.
I want to know the point where focus takes control
of epinephrine, who’s cascade is initiated by the roar of a crowd,
but negatively regulated by doubt,
when to take a long shot or build up slowly.
I want to live the difference between accuracy and precision,
taste the dirt, become painted with bruises and scorch my heart.
A flag is heaviest when you carry it,
lightest when it’s raised,
worn as a cape and allowed to wave in the wind.
Countries aren't build, they're created created
denying muscles oxygen but allowing them to taste gold.
It's ability to conduct electricity astounds me.
It’s not about alchemy
but transforming sweat into tears,
fixing nitrogen, reducing triglycerides.
Not all reactions need light, some create it.
It’s only over when there’s not enough energy for activation.
Dec 9, 2012
Dec 9, 2012 at 8:35 PM UTC
O! the lives I've wasted
The lives I could have led
If different paths I'd taken
And different people I'd met.
O! what friends were lost
When just around the corner they lay
Their voices heard but their faces
hidden
O! why had Destiny to steer me this
way.
II
With my life here in my hands
My impulsive moves and slow
meanderings
My efforts regulated by my will to
abstain
In gaining my present position
What have I lost elsewhere
And what have others lost
Because of my absence there.
Mar 20, 2018
Mar 20, 2018 at 7:07 PM UTC
The ogre that I am, I sit in my man-cave.
It’s bathed in light from my TV and laptop.
Each is a portal to our ugly world.
Regulated crystal-city skyscrapers
Form Giant’s Causeways.
Aircraft eagle overhead
Reminding me of vultures
And 9\11.
Cars beetling about the suburbs,
Some Beetles, Ha Ha.
River highways cascading cars.
Ants rush everywhere,
A seething nest.
So many an ant,
Holding a conch to the ear,
Or staring mesmerised at that tiny screen.
Yoda fingers his phone…
And me I sit here,
Metamorphosing metaphors
For a while
Before I visit Facebook Land
Once again.
Paul Butters
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 5:40 AM UTC
often I feel like a girl
sometimes beautiful, always insecure
listening, talking, crying
forced to write this kind of thing
often I feel like a boy
for if I was smart, you call me nerd
for if I can throw your books in the dump, you call me cool
trying so hard to be strong, to be accepted
often I feel like a girl
pretty in pink, you’d say you’d ‘tap that’
but then
have you really been inside a real girl
often I feel like a boy
whose voice you've never heard
only the shrieks when you lock me on the locker room
I never ******* asked, to enter in this asylum
often I feel like a bird
trapped in this four walls
obligated, machined, regulated
to which they say the best four years of our lives
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 5:48 AM UTC
Depression: a problem the nation has faced,
Not mentally, but
Within the economic structure.
The new President promised:
-relief for the needy
+FDIC- insured bank deposits
+FERA- gave money to the unemployed
-economic recovery
+SEC- regulated the stock market and restricted margin buying
-financial reform
+CCC- created jobs for unemployed men by restoring and conserving the environment
+NYC- provided part time employment to many college and high school students
And that was only the beginning.
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 9:14 PM UTC
What is the point of heaven
What is the point of hell
Heaven is the land of dreams
Hell is the land of screams
Now what is this reality
A place we can call living?
A place that everyday we stand for dreams and screams
Just to realize in the end it doesn't matter
As far as we can tell we fear the tomorrow we want it or not
For it does hold an unseen future for an seen past
That is the point of living, taking chances
Every day giving you a fortune cookie of live or death
What about hell
What about heaven
Everyday is the same in every countless division
No matter what you do you know your future's granted
Always know what's right behind you,
Always know your fate is sealed,
Everyday is a leisure or a seizure, does it matter?
When you realize everyday will be the same
What is the point of caring whether you want to end up in
Heaven or hell, a repeated senseless life in regulated borders
When reality is the place to care for with a wheel of fortune standing upon you everyday
Nov 7, 2012
Nov 7, 2012 at 5:59 PM UTC
You cain't go back
to yesterday's dawn
by adding another verse
to an old song
When time was by my side
we galloped through the years
Now the time shows and slows
and disappears
"Where has time flown ?"
is but an insult to youthful plea
protagonist to the old
and just echoes in me
While love was delegated ,
regulated , copulated . . .
it became sedimentated ,
heated , then pressurized
It became cold marble
entombed in ways
that now are just
memorried
Mar 11, 2015
Mar 11, 2015 at 10:21 PM UTC
too long your lips have stared
into the body of my thoughts,
studying the patterns
and the features,
deciphering the blueprints,
my irrational being
...those petals,
their textures burning in the color,
popping out like embers, fed
every regulated breath
you are compelled
to lick away the dryness,
wipe the prints and traces,
put out the flames covertly...
but make it look casual:
you cannot be caught spying;
or the government of words
denies everything,
severing the strings,
abandoning its secret desire
behind enemy lines,
to be captured, questioned,
and tortured
by your very own
collaborationist conscience
Dec 7, 2016
Dec 7, 2016 at 5:57 AM UTC
blurred faces. fuzzy
feelings. vibrate your words to
me. let me feel you.
private moments in
public. inappropriate:
regulated. eyes
meet across smoky
rooms. lips meet between misty
thoughts &desires.;
we indulge in the
****** up. we live on the edge
of what is allowed.
we are to behold.
us: you grind I moan you laugh.
Sweet Vision, say yes.
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 10:01 AM UTC
As I sit on this assigned desk
ears drooling with institution gel
I swirl on the seat, the wind pause
Musing in evangelised dilemmas
Lobotomised to jerking veracities
Sagacity amateurs boost egos
Stooping and stooging in asylums
Barricading others progression
Regressed losing solid grounds
Jurisdictional custodial supervisions
An infused scent of propagandism
Scenes of robotic observational modelling
Unprincipled to insist on another destiny
Calculating targeted risked predictions
Regulated to invigilate and unroll a matrix grid
Who am I? To forge his,her or their trench
Mar 9, 2016
Mar 9, 2016 at 7:56 AM UTC
Were you ever in love with someone not
Listed as an approved relationship
By roaming mobs of false analogies
In either-or assumptions basely masked?
Friendship and love are regulated now
Not by a written fiat of the state
But by the decibels of imbeciles
The bellowed mandate of the club and fist
The law of love is now the law of bans -
They’ve politicized even the touching of hands
Aug 4, 2018
Aug 4, 2018 at 4:02 PM UTC
I did not ask to enter this world a female,
but it's what God granted me.
I did not ask to be regulated by hormones,
but it is what is expected of me.
I did not ask for this child,
that was forced upon me late one night.
I did not ask for this judgement,
that is so easily handed out.
I did not ask to be called 'baby',
by that man on the subway.
I did not ask for the opinions of my weight,
which are so casually thrown about.
I did not ask for a smaller salary,
due to the genitalia I was provided.
But this is the life I was given, and so I find my tribe.
I find other women who grant me peace and protection.
I advocate for women whose voices are not heard.
I fight for my future daughters.
I protest the hate.
I protest the inequalities.
I protest for our Mother, Earth.
I protest, and I stand, and I cry.
My ****** is my home.
My womb is my decision.
My body my choice.
Nov 14, 2016
Nov 14, 2016 at 4:59 PM UTC
Once upon a time, light and darkness were born
Two ancient powers, taking form
They possessed every norm
Tipping the world upside down
Till their masters were created
They thought the chaos would be regulated
but fools they were
For the historic battles were never immortal
Hence, giving birth to an abnormality
It defied conformity
Instead of aversion,
A strange pull manifested gravitation...
An enticing realization
Much like a forbidden love,
their kiss hovered between red and mauve.
No sooner than it began, the curse set in.
a big bang and a continuous dilation
banned alienation
An agonizing melancholic segregation
for a Luna, once a creature of delicate darkness
is now a vampire feeding on her lover's light
dainty lights into one big stormy fire
an existence where they keep shattering each other's presence,
and for it to be poetically beautiful,
Is their reality.
Mar 4, 2018
Mar 4, 2018 at 12:12 PM UTC
Dear lord
she was
wholesome
before her culture was regulated,
now marketed. --
Her technological fancy
and consumer venture;
her webcam
with ripe buttock and *******
Evangelical woman hailing eretz yisrael,
equality your goal...
Ha-Shem has no equals in a global pantheon of one-worldism.
© S. Wesley Mcgranor
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 6:41 PM UTC
Time to enter
time to leave,
they'll give you time to check out
time to breathe
time for this
but none of that
how to groom your dog
or cat,
rules to rule you
rules that school you
how not to spot the fools that
fool you.
Regulations
that they send
and each brings us nearer
to the end of
civilisation
as we know it,
but we're
regulated not to show it.
I'm not sure which way to vote,
something else they'll regulate?
but
undecided while I wait
I'll read the rule book.
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 5:21 PM UTC
**The young people have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves as equal to great things and that means having exalted notions.
They would always rather do noble deed than useful ones. Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning all their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They overdo everything they love too much hate too much and the same with everything else. (Aristotle)**
The Hereford cattles talk quietly among themselves
The commute home on the B train was noisier than ever
The passenger beside them youth squirmed and frigid
Youth of today is selfish and only think of themselves
If you asked for a passed, they will give you a laugh
If the elderly asked for the seat, they will give it to
Their backpacks, and scream louder, old geeks
Discipline, like if it’s outdated: no structure
A lost generation without stability:
A dark history, I lay awake and wonder
How can we fix this? Problem, problem
And more problem heading their way
While in the field the Hereford cattle
talk quietly among themselves
Nursing their calf without being asked of their mothers
to cover up their babies faces:
May 2, 2017
May 2, 2017 at 6:44 PM UTC
The process is to accept
The progressive retardation
Wrought by chemicals
A necessary adjustment
Reevaluating meaning
Value and worth
There comes a point when realization dawns
The point where intellects breaks down to the base line of ignorance
Where attachment is severed
The process takes everything away from you
But not before draining it dry of anything worth having
And so the grandest theft
Becomes
The most glorious gift
Of nothing
(This is not easy to understand or comprehend,
It is the chemicals patient handiwork that allows eyes to see
To see and ears to hear
To hear
Without their scientifically regulated tutelage there are very very few methods that work in the 21st century that give them that side car joy ride straight the ribbon of BEING into to prayer closet of Nievana
Those of us who aren't willing to give up the things we attach to
The very things through which we define our selves, our souls, our minds, our hearts and our spirits
Drop them, move on a live without
When you realize you are living without, drip dmsomething else
It is the most difficult thing in the world
Yet by the end of the pilgrimage it has become too easy
Happiness is with nothing
Nothing is a clean slate for your imagination to create upon
This is heaven - wants nothing to do with the world
Process of chemicals and lack of sleep
It's a good thing
Though they who follow the path will be laughed at and scorned
By people who will never understand them
White trash bad *** and Rhoads scholar on the same page
"How can they live if not like us?"
You keep living, it's your calling
We are called to the realm of the supernatural
Where we will create our own heavens
Songs, stories,books , interactive movies we may never die
But if we do we know what we left behind
I wii not find I difficult to close my eyes
Having created in such a grand scale
Albeit with chemicals and ignorance guiding my way
May 29, 2015
May 29, 2015 at 1:19 AM UTC
*we are the refined
the delicate, the rarefied
the genteel, whose words
are etheral and our thoughts
exclude all things physical*
for us the ideals, the pure
the clean and the pristine
conventions suit us best
and the unquestioned
fits us like custom-made gloves
our lives are regulated
there's something in it
for each of us
we have all the answers
and for sure, we are the ones
going to Heaven
couretsy marks our birth
and everyone walks about
with the Dictionary
of Respectable Words
when we kiss
we don't exchange fluids
and when we have ***
we are dispassionate
we bring civilisation to the world
and we sunbathe in idyllic beaches
and we plan to tour the moon soon
we are tourists really all our lives
and when we are not, we polish our cars
and bemoan the State of the Environment
*we are the refined
the delicate, the rarefied
the genteel, whose words
are etheral and our thoughts
exclude all things physical*
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 6:56 AM UTC
The royal magistrate gives the laws,
the wind sails true,
the grass grows greener,
the sun shines brighter,
you dance in the meadows of youth
each day,
starting now.
The avant-garde ******** ends now
we are guided by the restrictions
we live in.
each day,
self-regulated,
un-mitigated,
joy.
Waves of acid-washed notes flash by,
each one dwindling longer than the one
before,
mingling in a pale composition
with each beat goading the next.
Jun 9, 2010
Jun 9, 2010 at 12:22 PM UTC
my eyes were feverish and my head, it spun
i was almost delirious due to the pain in my abdomen
the frost of winter and the ice in my heart
slowly, slowly they tore me apart.
fragile and tortured, i lay in bed
the thoughts of you running through my head
and as the Morning Light entered through a break in the curtain
i felt your arms wrap around me to stop the hurting
your breath on my neck seemed to melt me inside
i let the tears flow, i didn't have to hide
you whispered to me *darling i'll never let you go
just feel better, i'm here, you're not alone
rest your weary head on my chest and just breathe
darling i'll stay with you as long as you need*
forever i whispered *forever remain
you're the only one who can take away the pain
forever* you whispered *forever i'll stay
without me you'll never have to live a day
sleep a sweet slumber my sweet angel
i'm here now my love, there is no danger*
my breathing regulated and your heart beat me a lullaby
and i felt calm, safe and blissful for the first time
i'm not quite sure when i fell asleep
but i fell asleep knowing you were next to me
Morning come, i found myself on a sterile single bed
with beads of a fevered sweat on my forehead
the sheets was made and your scent didn't remain
i asked them why you were no longer there to take away the pain
*it's your delusion, child, he was never here
please get him off your mind, my darling dear
your fever it rises with the thoughts of him
you're burning dangerously from the outside in
you'll die if you don't cooperate with us
let go of this illusion of your love
he's long gone or maybe he never existed-*
no! i cry *no he did he did!
he loved me he'd never leave me, God forbid
he held me last night as he's held me since the first day
he'd never leave me he'd never go away
it's you in the white coats keeping me so ill
he's my medicine my only way to get well
you're keeping me from him because you want to see me hurt
you cruel cruel men you like to watch me burn
he is not the problem it is you, it is you!
he is my love and my cure it is true, it is true!
but without him this fever won't leave and this pain won't surrender
i'll die! i'll die before the end of this weather!
oh doctor oh doctor give him back to me
oh doctor oh doctor don't keep him from me
oh doctor oh doctor i'll die can't you see
oh lover oh lover return, return to me please*
Dec 17, 2015
Dec 17, 2015 at 11:07 PM UTC