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Nat Lipstadt May 2019
the spring mantra arrives with distinctive citified sparkles

a family of ducklings splash, mimicking young children,
shaking, spraying, squeaking, babies bath bathing,
jumping in and out of a fountain pool
of a tall-storied Manhattan apartment building,
the mother-leader attends them well for she recalls
the untimely end of the babies of last year,
lost to wanderlust on York Avenue,
cars and taxis as instruments of mass murdering,
but new spring is the season of new birth

the Cercis Siliquastrum tree trunk (!) oddly sprouts
unusual pink flowers
well before it’s branches grow up into a fully blossoming tree,
a signed spring time ritual, but since it is a/k/a, the Judas Tree,
we wonder if spring hints of Cerci Lannister’s fate betrayed,
in this, her final May dance, oh, which Judas brother/lover
will bring us a winter fin finale

the temperature control dial busted, the variability too wide,
the youngers are skipping the interregnum season,
going direct to elect shorts and T-shirt, while those who no longer bloom in the semi-warm, recall the wet chill of past evenings,
voting to dress defensively, wearing their aging skepticism
aware that all changes are exact crossing line-defined, wrapped in
medium weight coats, concealing embarrassing gloves in pocket,
decorative silk scarfs for non-decorative purposed,
all betting the under/over the spring is here all-in not yet sighted

the streets are busy, the momentary pleasantries
of warm sky and sun push the apartment dwellers out,
a magnetic force pulls us to the outside to exhale, in order to inhale,
guises manufactured excuses appear, a loaf of bread, a latte necessity,
the children desert happily their wintery confinement,
by pushing their own carriages, containing in their stead,
their lilting accented nannies, excited by their version of spring break

Me? toy shopping for this month brings rashers of birthdays,
more May galorey, singing come Dancer and Prancer, Ian and Isabel, Alex and not-a-baby anymore Wendy, and because the weather so pleasant, cautions ignored, the credit card swiped repeatedly, frequently and joyously, xmas reimagined, another May time ritual, rooted in the September month of *******, of staying warm, staving off winter *******, and winter planting for spring harvesting

children score grand-multiplicities for god made in his place
grand parental substitutes, each with two hands each equal,
so both must be filled with maypole ribbon, brightly colored
toy bags, presents wrapped in paper unicorns and all manner of
sporting *****, as we turn 2 and 6, 7 and who ate 8?

all that my eyes did see when we surfed strolled the streets,
vignettes fell like the spring rains, they, now, from daytime banished,
to after-midnight to do their breast feeding of tulips and weeds,
letting little children grow up snuggling in still over-heated rooms,
naked legs kicking off winter blankety snow remnants while dreaming of springing onwards and forward
into the party of life by inhaling nature’s

nature.
5-3-19  606pm
Juliana Apr 2021
A grid of nine, trapped behind
the locked box of cyberspace,
unavailable, calling for me.

The pink hues of stories and pictures,
the celebrities announcing another ad,
an AMA, capturing the repeated days.

A robotic stage, the marvelous mingling
of strangers, of friends we’ll never truly meet.
It’s hard to stay away for long.

The green and blue bubbles of simplicity.
Of how was your day. Of excitement. Of plans.
A concert of lyrics addressed only to me.

The bird which sings for all to hear.
The nerds who look up from their book
to smile a hello. The chaotic certainty
of community, calling for me.

After a day away, I’ve arrived back home,
the rectangular refuge of a reimagined reality.
Richard j Heby Aug 2012
It's not the time of dandelions;
they've all been blown away;

those fragile fragments now remind
the shooting stars of day.

And though the seedlings blown away seem gone;
they float as static light and air along
as pieces of a never ending earth –
a universe recycling its dearth.

All matter is
and always is.
A dandelion
may be his

smile. And think – drink water from your sink –
it may be reimagined stars you drink.
PrttyBrd Jun 2015
No we can't have it all
But we can have nothing
Nothing in common
But the weight of the world
Watching in awe as beside me you fall

And the embers, they smolder
For an hour or a day
As the breath Ignites once again
Consuming the smile
Before it is ever born

So, to the flaming death of joy we toast
Taking in the screams
On the descent of all who falter
I watch you fall in silence
Sharing a pain that consumes everything

You are focused on nothing
I am focused on you, oblivious to all
My loneliness beaten back by your own
If only momentarily we glance past each other
The air too heavy to revive all that is dying

One cannot follow what is right beside
Bathing in the aftermath of despair
Weight of the world, of lost souls,
Of the intangible yearning to feel
There is only loneliness for fear of sharing

Afraid of loosening the grip on the comfort of stagnant pain
or facing the nothingness of the unknown
We look but do not see anything save our own pain
No, one cannot follow what is right beside
I'll hold your pain if you'll hold mine
110914
Mitchell Aug 2018
I was there
Beneath it all
Stubbing my nose
Catching my eyes
On the most soulful of gifts

There was a promenade
Then music
A chef in a tall white hat
Shouting at the top of his lungs
As cracked eggs
Desperately tried
To reimagine themselves
As whole again.

They did not wish to change.

I am a poem
And I am nothing

I am a man
And I am nothing

I am a before
Yet to embark
On an after

Could this be it?

I think of
What could have been
If I had done this
If I had done that
And switch
Paralyzed.

The horizon
Fades at dusk

And is reimagined
At dawn

How I wish
I were content
To be ok
With such a simple

Routine

Progress
Achievements
Recognition
Advancement
Aw­ards

Realization

The ***** turns to tighten
To hold
Only to rust
Be forgotten
Put in the back of the pantry
Read from afar

The days of the sun
Are over

Darknesses lengths
Are upon us

Taste of the hubris of the moon
Its position is fixed
Such a fact, such a reserved space

Where will the moon go
But anywhere
But here?

And of us?
Where will our bones go?
Our me minds?
Our fleeting psyche?

The I is none other
But the billionth petal
Of a flaming sunflower
In a field
Surrounded by the identical

Taste ash
Mixed with honey
As the buzz of the bees

Fade.
Mystery Girl Nov 2015
I won't ever be the beautiful little flower
You had sitting on display
I think I finally broke
After being dropped too many times
Shattered into a hundred pieces
Let's try to pick them up
Put them back together
Almost like a puzzle
Wait, don't forget the super glue
Is this even working?
Where does this piece go?
Ouch...that hurt
Some of these are sharp
Careful now
Be gentle not to hurt yourself
Okay there we go
I think that's the last one
Not quite like before
But you know, I think I like it better
Lyra Oct 2016
We met as travelers
at the crossroads

but you had a plane to catch
and I was already home.
my little spin on  the last lines of Lang Leav's "Crossroads" x
Rose Amberlyn Dec 2016
I've been wrestling a beast.
Invisible at least,
or his fangs and eyes might
frighten me.

I've been dancing in the dark.
Dodging every blow,
and I fear if there'd been light,
my heart would never
slow.

And so I light a match.
And kindle what little light,
I have.
That this could finally be the spark,
that sets my life aglow.
Nicole Jul 2021
When I close my eyes
I am consumed by darkness
I can feel the tide spiralling
Pulling me down into it's depths
A tornado twisting and grasping
I am no longer in control
I have become one with choas
One with the shadows
It's like noise is everywhere
But I'm underwater
Muffled voices slither past me
Garbled tones swimming
I know it's there but
To me it means nothing
Nothing is real and
I am one with everything
Until I open my eyes
There's too much concrete
I am here once again
Awakened in emptiness
A Jan 2019
Lifeblood (Poem 1)

They called me the sun. I used to rain my light down upon them like it was my lifeblood, torn from my veins and arteries for them, for them, for them. They took it and hid it away, my blood, using it for their own gain. Some might have screamed Praise the sun! but for naught, as their brethren took and took and took and I was left a withering husk of my former glory, no longer golden, clouds on my once-fair brow. There was no glory in dying alone, without a battlefield or comrades. And for what? They complained, complained, pushing their hate towards me, for it was too dry, too hot, too much, too much, too much. How would I know? They wished for me on rainy days, hated me on the sunny. I was never balanced, I was always giving and taking too much.

To A Moonlit Dream I Can't Recall (Poem 2)

I dreamt in slow waves, shining so bright that the dark was chased away from the fair sheep I tended. My brother was off with his own, dusty with his own exhaustion when the day broke over and bled into the night. He was never much for talking, but when I spied on him, hidden in dark groves, he was alight, fiery with his own happiness and pride, until the sheep began to complain and the clouds crept in to watch. Wolves, were they, but I paid them no mind, for my sheep ran where they could not follow, to gossamer hills filled with hopes they could never express elsewhere. When my fingers ran in ribbons through their wool, the fair strands separating and splitting, dewdrops on a window pane, I sheared them, weaving tapestries of what they created within the confines of themselves.  

When my brother came wandering in one day, his arms ****** with his own life, splashing golden on the tiles, I could do nothing. We were our own shepherds, we could not take each other's flock. The day could not replace the night, as I could not replace my brother. I could do nothing to assist him, could not ease his pain. He would have to continue bloodletting, to give his sheep his blood until he was drained. My teardrops were on the fire until the night spread in thick tendrils on the floor.
These are a pair of prose poems I wrote for a prompt on Write the World. As I like darker takes on mythological characters, the two here are Helios and Selene, the Sun and Moon in Greek mythology.
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
Disordered Thoughts, Naturally

the ceiling fan overhead
shakes back and forth,
beginning, a train of
disordered thoughts,
this poem,
the caboose.

reimagined, the fan,
it becomes
a yeshiva boy
fervent praying,
his version of ***** dancing,
shaking rocking swaying fervor,
shuckling.

for what does he pray?

for advance forgiveness
for he is simulcast
requesting getting lucky,
to be knowing
the miracle of being
with a woman or a man,
thus, getting closer to
God,
naturally.

He will be excised
for being human,  
he will be excused  
for by definition,
by succeeding and by failing,
in his desire
to be close to divine,
he best divines the
tragicomic nature of the
human condition:
the joy of sin,
the sin,
of a life without joy,
naturally.


Clean sheets nightly,
turn down service,
chocolates on my pillow,
good night kisses
on each eye,
even spooning,
are not among the
six hundred and thirteen
positive commandments
in the Bible.
why not?

why,
cannot this be
constitutionally amended,

by voice vote
of anyone who cares
to shout out a yay,
or blink approvingly,
or signs by fingers
sugar snapping and
hands, toe tapping?

all methodologies
intended to indicate the satisfaction
that comes from changes
made not in,
but also
from
the human tissue of heartbeats,
naturally

Somewhere
a solitary fish
swims upstream,
against the current,
defying odds...

weird,
the ways things should be,
never thinking,
wondering out loud,
why compulsion impels
so many living things
to do the opposite of logical,
natural in so many ways.

never asking,
why a fish must struggle to spawn,
upwards and onwards
to die so it, and the
the man, the bear,
he will feed,
the progeny released
can live?


for if this is the
natural order,
then is not nature,
too oft logically discordant,
and thus
disorder is the
state of being,
naturally.

Something makes me
awestruck and wondrous silent,
ever time I touch a
young child's skin,
joy instantaneous takes hold,
true shock and awe
succumbs me.

cannot be just miracle mine,
the sensation of life so sweet,
wondrous on my fingertips,
that repeated stroking is
******* addictive,
naturally.

what would be the harm,
if this soft shell of derma-finery
were a permanent condition,
a constant reminder,  
we all share,
born and bred,
a premier clean slate of
natural innocence unblemished,
perma-frosted prima face facile,
naturally.

this was how
we were created,
why perforce,
was it deemed orderly,
'better'
to evolve into something
grizzled, cracked and roughened slowly,
naturally.

Strange thoughts
are my normal fare,
if you only knew
the laugh of it,  
you might recommend,
keeping them closer still,
and me
far away from you!


maybe there is a God above,
but if there is,
he be
responsible for the sleepless nights
where stanzas of
whimsy, pain and joy are soldered,
ironed into a coalescing coalition,
denoted as a
restless and disordered mind,
but of course!
not my fault,
naturally!

next time we meet,
see smiles irregularly sweet,
turning,
reversing to and fro,
for such is the
inchoate state
of what transverses
on my cellular network
these rambunctious dark hours,
naturally.
these disordered thoughts, are nature allied, nat-urally...
I believe in a past
that never existed.
Always willing to tell
others they should
be sad they missed it.
For what never lasts
can always be reimagined,
engineered ad-hock.
For me, the door to
the past is always wide open.
But, the one to the future
I cannot unlock.

so please don't give me the key
I don't wanna see beyond
what went before.

I believe in a moment
of imagined purity.
To close my eyes
on the acts of cruelty,
that lead to this modernity.
Only seeing the light that
concealed the night,
and the chains of *******.
For the good,
that is all I see.
Because I need to see
that good in me.

so please don't give me the key
I don't wanna see beyond
what went before.
Michael Perry Mar 2021
The Pink Bird Corridor (reimagined)

could it be some ones favorite color
or a bird with a plumage decked out
maybe it's a ballerina dressed pretty in a pink tutu
the choice is up to you as each one
will set ones imagination in motion
be it a color like no other that has a
very wide-ranging and serious devotion
or let us give a shout out to a kind of dance
mostly given on world wide center stages
where the female dancer wears a pink tutu
and her dancing partner wears
a tighter than tight pair of tights
or maybe just maybe you happen to be a devotee
inclined, one of the thousands who watch birds
ready to set their sights on one of the most
extraordinary birds around, unfortunately not found
here in (Delaware)  as it happens it is
a special  one of a kind bird who stands on one leg
most of the time because the water that it wades in
is usually very cold, in a warm climate? who knew-go figure

by Michael Perry
Left Foot Poet Sep 2017
trust in the shape of a key,
good god how corny is that?

satisfactorily nonsensical, a Pharisee phrase,
so offal illogical,
it borders on the poetically reprehensible

who has time to state this stuff,
pretend it is worthy of something respectful,
work it into a Nobel Prize awarded script,
nominated for "really bad ****?"

an ordinary hardware key, brass gleamy,
and the squealing grinding noise
heard while a blank progenitor is reimagined,
so so annoyingly ludicrous in this century
of plastic replicators but the noise,
comfortably familiar as a sound of
things being made

run thumb test over the cuts,
as if your thumb should know
what order the points and bevels,
the toothy gap spaces should be,
the correct disorderly order of the teeth

there are very few locks on a farm;
indeed the front door key
has not
been seen
in many a year

what's that you ask?
ok ok - I get it - in harvest time
it is early to bed and earlier to rise,
conclude this mystery key,
red winter wheat needs laying down,
stop your word seeds germinating

there may be few locks on a farm,
everything rusts so quickly anyway,

but stop to comprehend just how many locks
the human body employs  -
at least 613,
maybe many more,
and only one master
for them all

a shiny gleamy thing,
strangely,
its cuts and grooves seem to
spell a word
trust

go figure

1:05am in the city
yes, for the Canadian Iranian
zebra Oct 2020
wild night videos
for the dark web
3 Atlean men
and a girl

she got it
by a mob
of Moroccan **** rockets
and will pine
for the rest of her days
screaming to the hells
in a reimagined language

the regression to Lilith
**** *******
the world
when hell touched paradise
***** and man handled
shot by shot
mouth to ****** to ****
split and folded
tooth and nail
to drive the ****** tides
of the world

***** monsters like
T Rex
force a ritual infliction
butter meat of dreams
pain sensually
reworked into pleasure
blister-hot and oh so sweet
married to a paradox
like feeling bad
about feeling good

give me your ankles *****
an unveiled immediacy

right off the bat
i got just the girl
confiding in me
so ready to die
like an Aztec princess
to be the star
like a peacock
in an engorged circus
blizzard of jealous snakes
strangled fanged and spewed

a swansong exhibition
in blood-soaked ponytails

a bobbing head
and choke throat ***** picnic table
with mayonnaise wounds
mediating power
in a psychoanalytic fetish

death is not death
but performative submission
her body ransacked
in tooth marks
and red tipped *******

steaming eraser head
pulses
a **** soaked
chicken on a plate
eradicating reality

are you gonna eat that?

pass the ***
collapses time
lust  
custodian
of human archeology

**** piñata
bearing gifts
of squirty pork gasms
******* and cuchifritos
corpus of ****** horror
as liberation
crosses-temporality
and breaks the vessel of time
oow
Nefertiti where are you

a tongue up the ***
sniffs
Prada's Candy Perfume
**** blinking licks
up there where havoc lives
in ******* farm country
mads Sep 2023
Sometimes I can’t imagine normal adult things happening to me
Like buying a house, a new car
Being a bride in a wedding.
Getting a “big girl career” beyond retail.
Wanting kids.
Because I haven’t had normal things happen to me.
I was robbed of many things,
A childhood,
Development.
Love.
And a lot of the time I forget I’m 26,
Wearing a made up, misplaced childhood,
Still locked into teen age.
It’s not a resurrection of the dead.
It’s a reimagined gift to myself.
I am my own body guard, protector, nurturer.
I am allowed a childhood.
And I am allowed to have adult things happen to me.
I’m 26.
Lars Kadel Feb 2017
Instead, I give you

simple tragedies;

how you will
never remember everything
and the more you live the
more there is forgotten.
Sewn optical cords
seeing the reimagined
through blurry suspicion,
stifling doubt, and
****** buttons.

Metallic words
cutting skin like butter.
The knives will sink
slowly into our
chests and we will be
exactly too far away
from anyone to
do anything about it.

How convenient.

A set of hands,
their cross-stitched fingers
frayed at the ends,
entangling. Still,
they will stumble
to pick up the pieces,
to fix the seaming
in the strings.
Marie-Niege Apr 2015
see the rainbow but don't be
afraid of the rain.
panic/failure induced self-realizations are the best and it isn't even midnight yet.
nivek Jul 2023
can be all warmth
frigid cold shoulder
fake a smile

giving pieces of mind
a heart broken
a heart mended

can be all warmth
frigid cold shoulder
fake a smile, reimagined.
Myrrdin Sep 2018
When I was small,
I picked out an Aquaman action figure
Out of a bin at the secondhand store
He was missing a leg
Most of the paint worn off at his joints
But he was brand new to me
And what my mother could afford
I made up a story
About how his enemies had hurt him
How he'd defeated them
Became stronger
Was world reknowned for his powers
I loved him and this love fixed his brokenness
One perspective change made all the difference
I am like this.
Not broken, just reimagined.
rachel Feb 2017
seven wonders: the phenomena of the human condition in seven parts

1. the broken heart
the “humpty dumpty” syndrome, where you couldn’t be put back together again
the replaying your last words until I *****;
the part where I was drunk on your lips
and now I’m just drunk.
the part where you pretend this pain isn’t tangible,
that you can’t die from the break; from the flowers growing in your lungs
2. lost
a child, wayward
a blank space and the search for gravity, stability-
it’s the theme of your nightmares,
the thud thud of a tiny, panicked heart.
but, you don’t know the real definition of lost
until you’re a nomad in your own cranium
3. loss



4. disaster
nature obscura;
picasso reimagined.
the breeze pushes the seat of a swing set,
and in that moment nothing aches more than the way that swing misses children,
or how the ground yearns for feet.
chernobyl: a mass eviction
5. war
desolation; annihilation. this is what we’ve become.
I don’t believe in god (maybe nobody does), and
in this game of chance, a tango on a tripwire
there is no space for a deity;
telling ourselves that fighting for your country is a salvation
as we try to justify holocaust
6. ignorance
as the sunrise sets the clouds on fire
you try to reject the possibility that not all is good
it’s a comfort;
it’s bliss;
it’s your coffin and your funeral
7. death
better to burn out than fade away
a spray of stars, smouldering ash
we all have to go one day.
old but gold (01/2016)
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2014
Watt's Woolgatherings



woolgathering ~indulgence in idle fancies and in daydreaming; absentmindedness


Watt? Watt you say?

these words of yours,
they are mine own,
but in uterine conceived by you,
yet, birthed canal'd in my mouth,
when spoken aloud

call them the shared
jubilatio of the alleluia,
drink them as gospel bittersweet,
cups of AM coffee,
after midnight dregs

you know that coffee, where

love lies quiet
within the mute caresses
of skin to skin embrace.
the smile of a satisfied lover
and the smell of coffee brewing

for me.


so many of us birth poems in their java,
but only you taste

hints at the totality,
experiencing, rarified, extracted,
dramatic, lofty, brief insights

of being born every morning

with first day's breath,
by dawn's first light hints are provided,
thereafter, homebound, o yeah, mine now,
anew, renewed, kept reheated inside me

Watt? Watt you say?

beware those
the warts, bruises,
pus filled excretions,

(the chamber music accompaniments)
of a complete life?

always the spoilt milk,
reminders of the condition human,
have you not me charged
be thy union
am I not good enough to be
at least this,
at least a confederate,
guardian of your magnificent solitude?

but you are not always alone,
sleep with Jesus, kick him out of bed,
early coffee for him,
he needs to be alert,
finding the next day's
Mary Magdelene...

There are times when you jump a gust flings you into weightlessness and you float in the moment, forgetting about the fall. We all live for those moments; yearn for weightlessness when our souls don’t feel the captured form of our brief, earthbound existence.

Everyone bounces, right?

I chose to jump.
Again.


Watt, please take my small hand,
I want to jump,
fall and rise up,
be resurrected by the holiness of your words,
that you cannot see, self-blinded,
only the-needy-for-saving can

Like children
every poem is unique
I don't choose favorites.


but I am a sinner,
another amputated elephant
forced to choose,
I choose my poets carefully,
particularly the visionaries
in sidewalk cafés, notebook scribblers

Why Watt, Watt you remind me why

I will never be as goodly a poet as you,
but I will try, my birth's condition,
a man needing your permission to be
Resurrected, reimagined, because,

God as ocean deep
takes all, gives all,
caresses the fevered forehead
of brand new earth.

God as dark distance between
holds the lamp in the doorway
providing hope of a return home

God as the fragrant fecund flower
waits in innocent attraction
giving pollen to all who would receive.

God as woman born
took care to adorn the alter in pleasing raiment
exposed enough of the hidden treats
Enticements for the restless wanderer
to stay awhile and tend the hearth
raising a blazing fire.

God as woman born
endured the fear, the pain, the eternal longing helpless wait
mercifully forgotten at the first suckling sound.

God as woman born
slew Cain not
nor the others ever after.

God as woman born
removed the fruit from the soil with a tenderness
that wrung a universal sob
from the heart of creation.


so if woman must be,
resurrected as son of a woman poet,
let it be so,
beside you, you shear
wooly words,
from and for us,
gathering, gathering

~~~~~~~~~~~

This poem is dedicated to, inspired by the compositions here of Harriet Tecumsah Watt
She is one of the best writer and poets on this site, vastly under-appreciated. I proudly accept the title of her follower.  Read her and be infatuated, angry, enthralled and challenged. The words in italics are excerpts from her poems and messages.
Elissa Deauvall Mar 2017
To heal
is to create

To heal is to create a
new and improved version
of what was left in a pile of
shattered emotions

To heal is to break free
from the chains
that held you back
for so long

To heal is to learn
how to breathe again

To heal is to
feel alive
and to start anew

To heal is to become
a masterpiece;
a mosaic of pain and heartache,
reimagined into the most beautiful
thing to have ever existed
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2022
Few people know how to take a walk. The qualities are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good silence,
and nothing too much.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

<>

A late-in-life walker, the words above resonate in my mind,
with a check, check, check, check and a voluble ding, reading

and nothing too much”

many a poem mine labored, birthed arrhythmically walking,
eyes see verses, verses fill the mouth, mind desperate as
the feet unceasingly trod round new corners, new visions,
Emerson’s words remind my well worn weary path daily renewed, a vocabulary child re-newborn, and how to keep all this forever,
until tomorrow, and nothing is everything all too much carried over

and nothing too much”

speaks to an openness in every orifice, be prepared scout-boy,
to adapt to nothing too much as hours earlier now recalled are ancient history, mind staggers at the minuscule differences tween yesterday and this exact moment in this exact place that has been reimagined, deserving of recording, notating, and my desperation struggle to
semi-successfully delineate, report, on all these
mini-magnificent miracles countenanced, overwhelms…

the brain furnaces/furnishes a thousand thoughts, a million worries,
slew of infinity-sized emotions like love of children, so it’s confusing to window-peeking  strangers watching for the walking man with tears pockmarking his cheeks, unaware that his each stride is a story, a unique grace forward and too, backwards, history mine, reviewed, graded, and the comfortable shoes, the old sagging clothes well worn and beloved, fit like gloves, whispering in the good silence,
a lamb sacrifice to the

good silence,
“human, your foibles and deeds, admixture of
blood inherited, a morality crafted by ancestors,
so the next step is
alway$

and nothing too much”* and everything…

Sat Dec10 2023
Shell Beach, Central Park, in my mind, and nothing is perfect
Carlo C Gomez Apr 2024
~
It's all about
to become reimagined
along a foreign coast

Embattled shorelines
an archer on the beach
girl in a sling
facing the other way
playground martyrs

Random acts
of senseless violence
the warm taste of human failure

~
Jayn Dec 2024
In my solitude, I glimpsed a light I could not escape,  
Your laughter danced softly over my shoulder,  
Like the time I said I could never paint—  
And you, with a tender touch,
Held my hand and said,  
"I am the greatest masterpiece you'll ever create."  

I lost my way in your gaze;  
You told me it was I who brought you to life.  

White paint was out of reach, so my canvas stayed untamed.  
Red ran dry, so I bled deep to paint you unstained.  
Your hair brushed in black, a portrait unchained.  
I shaped your hands to mirror mine,  
So when I sought comfort,  
Yours would be the warmth I craved.

But now I search in desperate despair,  
To find the sketch of you in the back of my head.
It was all in my mind—engraved.  
So when I rot and fade away,  
You will remain beyond decay.
Addison René Jan 2016
let me crack open your already fractured skull,
and clean up the mess inside
these nimble fingers of mine
ache to be laced within yours
and i let me tear
the pages of a broken childhood
from your family photo albums
so we can write a new story
of kissing all the boo boos
and searching for the monsters under your bed
we can take the flashlights
out behind the rows of pine trees at night
and let me make shadow puppets of a life reimagined  
there's a breeze that flows
through the familiarity of this feeling
you can find it in the kitchen sink,
this shattered old bathroom mirror,
and a living room that never really felt alive
they don't matter anymore
and it's as if you never even lived here at all
and the boy stands in front of me
in the shadows of a second life
with a fractured skull and menthol breath
stringed with words that roll off his tongue
like barbed wire
because you don't even know yourself
and you're a fighting for a chance
at a life worth living
but these things will pass -
in and out of a melancholy mind of yours
while i remain on the bedroom floor
of the house you spent years trying to escape
cleaning up the mess inside your head
in and out of first person but oh well
David W Clare Jan 2015
Excerpt from my newest book

The demon gods of pathos

Book by David John Clare

The lost works of Aristotle reimagined

I'm a lost lamb on the dark side of the moon hiding in the forest that can't be seen through the trees hmm is there a man in the moon? The only moon in this solar system with no name! On a long and winding road that leads to no door.

Like putting two mirrors together that echo for infinity. Trying to figure out the Aristotelian rhetorical question as the demon gods of pathos hover above us in alien spacecraft.

Like the time I felt I was abducted off the streets in Bangkok only to find I was in the hospital after getting beaten senseless by a late night gang who bashed my head in the doctor said my neck was broken

I thought he was joking as I was choking on a neck brace how disgraced and sad my life had no worth I was hoping I had left this earth to join the demon gods of pathos...

D. Clare
Beaux Jun 2014
Dismissed Earth reconfigures with tongue
Binary reality simplifies through eyes
Barren body reimagined as fine wine
Hollow holds on cold text
With warmth behind false ideas
Carry out reversed scripture
Speak louder and louder
By choice
Indecency and despair
Three piece suit, satin stitches
Running sweat off worried hearts
Sweet honey suckle blood to bare
Love in a shadow box display
Echoes of an empty shell
S R Mats May 2024
Fleeting moments cannot be captured
Never really possessing true permanence
Haiku-like moments experienced
But never touched by hands
Mere reflected glints on a heart
Recalled within the poetry of a mind
Today you were

anguished, with what ordered sentence to fray
  into organization. Shimmering splendid thigh

of noon numbered, overtakeless I peering
   through a gray eye of storm. Ambulatory motors

whir double ballasting ground / AC Cortez was nothing like any other held captive loosely frolicking

the summer gone through a bat of an eye
   reimagined, engraved into / what for is this

inheritance but a dangling stucco of a home. Else
   the newfangled man will have skin ripe to borrow

denying  the  statement. I could no longer raise
   tomorrow and fall for, a form broken in

by a crossing of the river I smell turpentine
    bearing the casualty of paint because color when

seen as absence of something, a thing worth
    mooring to where we were and kept

for the next docile minute, mourning what but
    a closed preserve drowned by a hand

deep between what was once just once and
    a continuing strangeness, one's own rearview

but insatiable affront. Today you were
    spoken of, not to, once again this weather

is here heavy with debris, less than ash fit for
    return curious as perfume clinging to

soiled collar learning every breath a crevice the
   body seeks to fullness feeding on some sense

of abandon -- today's news gasp for clearing
    which you weighed in today as you were

        again and again and again just as sound is
   but a remainder of a tremendous leftover.
mariana Apr 2022
this house isn’t mine
it isn’t ours
but how lovely and cozy it is
i sit here alone in a room
i call it mine but it isn’t mine
what a fool am i
it repeats in my head
except when soft rains fall

the thrill of being sheltered in his arms

how can i miss something that isn’t mine
how can i hold it a bit longer
in my small hands
all the more space to slip through
slip away
and never come back

“how was work?”
i never know how to answer that simple question
its always alright
its always okay
days go by
i still don’t know the answer

my nails broken and body tired
what should i do
should i turn to you?
im on the edge of a cliff

i still dont know what to do
pour toi
Leeann Sep 2016
You* would have to smash their skull open
Gouge their brain out
Scatter it into pieces
Reach out, reach in
Climb into their skin
Wear it; take it
Breathe the air they breathe

Feel the blood coursing through their veins
Feel every beat of their heart
Reach through their ribs and grasp it
That thundering, pounding heart and
Make it beat with your own hands
Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump with every squeeze

Inhale every gasping, shuddering breath
From lungs crushed by every compress
Snap their wrist with the force of your grasp
As you take their pulse
That thrumming, faltering pulse
And make it your own

You would have to dive into their head
Step straight through delirium
Into the twin windows of their soul
Take those lovely, lovely eyes
Between your fingers
And hold them up to look through; each
The ultimate magnifying glass
Pierce their clarity straight through
As you refract the light away from you

Aqueous humor, vitreous humor
Flowing down a waterfall of tears
Tears of emotion? No
Tears running through flesh
Perfect fissures of imperfection

Can you hear it?
Thudding spasms
As they leap; a drowning fish
Choking on their own life
While the red crimson scarlet pours out in rivulets
So thick you could wade in it
Fanning out into a surreal image
A ****** halo
A renaissance painting reimagined in flesh
A living, dying mural

You would have to listen to every whisper
Each shaky inhale
Every wheezing, hoarse exclamation
Every shuddering gasp wracking
Their frail, jittering frame
As you pump air out
As you force air back in
Push down hard and feel; memorise
The rush of air as it leaves their straining lungs

Because then, only then
Will you be able to see through their eyes
Breathe their every breath
Feel their heart beat
Make their life-
A wrapped present so, so fragile
-your own

Yet
For all that you try; all that you do
You will never
Never
Understand their mind
Never
Understand their view
Never
Understand *them
What do you see when you only read the italics?
Gabriel Bonney Feb 2020
I wish I wrote a different song no one’s ever heard
I wish my mom would just admit she’s sick of every word
Overplayed, overstayed, it was a smash hit
Funny how overplayed songs sound like crap
I was told my true fans don’t like this song
But I hope they sing along,
I hope they sing along
At one concert in 2016, Twenty One Pilots changed the first verse to Stressed Out to this, and I find it very interesting. For one, he didn’t make “hit” rhyme with “sh*t”, and it doesn’t sound too well out loud, but I bet that’s on purpose. That makes it kinda deep I think, how even that goes against the norm and what people want. I just think it’s bold and true, and that we can learn from it
Mateuš Conrad May 2021
for those yet, imagining themselves alive...
i "kwa'ight"....
quiet... quite...
         acquitted...
if there's a rock to be lived
under:
i'll just be the rock... i once had a faint
notion that i was alive...
i had what might be congested in a summary:
a thirst... a willingness...
summary and all those
broken things... "things"...
within the enraged solo
projects of solipsists...
self-"betterment" up a cul
de sac... has... infiltrated my
breathing: crease... count in german:
eins zu zehn
jeden do dziesięć...
   kurwa jebana mać...
poor traffic... thd ******* blinkers are
on... a turning right done awry...
ein(s)... one... jeden...

eine ein eins jeden raz one
zwei dwa two
drei trzy three
vier cztery four
fünf pięć five
(pięść is a denotes a fist... a faust)
sechs sześć six
sieben siedem seven
acht osiem eight
neun dziewiendź nine (nein nein)
zehn dziesięć ten....

mind you...
be drop the pointless diacritical marker
on the iota... we'd see more "punctuation"
markers: where, otherwise: we wouldn't...

i congested myself with counting
in three languages to somehow...
ease-up...
ten? informant: he / him!
ta? informant: she... shimmy(?!) her's...
hisses of his'...

i will not bring the Iberians into
this discussion...
what's left, though? scraps
of language and language policing...
******* and bells...
twang... death to the ditto... blah blah:
bleach and mythological blondes...
scraps i do one job good for you...
most... better... will not trace lineage...
no smear...

          t"they" never think less of
the Yugoslavs... i'm tired of being a punching bag of a people...
of all "people": the Irish not 'ard enough to
challenge the English have to find...
come the Soviets come the Nazis simultaneously...
looks like integrating into English society
didn't allow me to forget...
this zunge doesn't erase the ******* blows...

rich, though... no surprise that the Reesh
would squander and throw their *******
potatoes like monkey **** at...
oh i guess: shelved "life"... peoples...
if i were living back among my brethren...
i don't think i'd be living at all...
what would i do with not being
agitated concerning... minor... qualms?

the ******* leprechauns... priests...
are less than the english...
but are somehow tier above the pollacks?
it's no offence when it sounds proper...
in a foreign babble...
dzida...

          i'd just ask the Eire son...
so... ahem... where's your ******* Celtic?
gone... non-existent?

aon, dhà, trì, ceithir...
   còig (what's wrong with co'ig?)
sia,
seachd, ochd... naoi... deich...
so the grapheme CH = X of greek origin...
a ******* hark?

the Irish like the ******* Arabs...
the British did this to: oos...
it's impossible to live with these
go-to-party "solipsists" to begin with...
integrate? into... or for what?
rot? that's a-plenty...
but when some spaghetti monsters
and those potato jargon-fiddlers start
their usual **** about a fellow
european people...

it's not like the Croats or the Serbs are
ever mentioned...
they vent to h'america and youz zee...
zese irish and italliano guinnea pig-me-ups...
kwoss-eyed... you know...
best bitterest better...
inbreeding... takes a chunk of coal...
chalk and cheddar...
mustard...

  inbreeding mentality... superiority complexes...
no reimagines parmesan cheese like
it's not... shredding... old skin
off of heels...
talk stinkiny witchy with a missing R...
this massive ******* gloat of "riddle"...
that suppose: it's also a man...

       while the world... "also" happens...
these little: belittling interferences...
as if we were all supposed to be crowned kings
or queens... it's not that i'm even elevated
above these concerns...
but that i must have them...
must: if i were a king... i most probably wouldn't
even entertain the sense of hearing
on their existence!

in a society of sociopaths and solipsists...
a massive get together
of protest happens once in a while...
i get drunk and dump ****** words
onto paper...
i'm not alone in this "adventure":
yet i'm beginning to be...
more and more sorry for having
such... indigestions to sorrow over...
moral relativism is out
in the words of the choicest
of the choiciest...
   i'm looking for something beside
the superlative adjective: choicest...
the diminutive "concern"...

which doesn't exist in english...
and i can't exactly introduce it using my:
mutterzunge either...
correct spelling?
look at it... choiciest vs. choicest...
the most most choosey...
to pick of calculus exponentially incremental
details of observable shifts...
the exponential aspect of detail...

how many of the Irish still speak
their Gaelic...
apparently there's a Scotch version
of the tongue...
but... the Scots will not speak it...
completely submerged in their union...
they'll just exfoliate in how distinct
they are from a Loon'don'er
speaking the same language...
you could probably rewrite trainspotting
using that linguistic language
embedded in the dictionary
of:

   how i met your mother, the mute...
/ (haʊ) /
       / (aɪ) /
                 / (mɛt) /
               / (jʊəp) /
                               / (ˈmʌðə) /,
                        / (ðə) /          / (mjuːt) /

i wonder... and what if we started writing
like this? proper... phonetically...
like linguists?
the side note of /(x)/ though...

the written word is doubly ambiguous...
to the point of no return concerning
the sufficiency of its practicality of use...

ʃeɪk  ænd
                ˈʃætə...

if i had the time and *******' worth of
writing a poo'em like a linguist...
if i had more love for the Irish...
sowwy... all love spent on the Scots...
from these Isles at least...

sheikh who? shake your: *****?
that's ******* fwank zapp'ah...
      
but it's not that... i have qualms with
the Irish over the stature and seriousness
when occupying the "underground"...
i won't rap: god forbid i...
"**** someone": my catchphrase
wouldn't be:

allahu akhbar... it would be that teutonic chant
of: gott! mit! uns!
if that Norwegian hyper-smart terroroist
chanted those words...
what words? these words:
gott! mit uns!

   but around these isels...
you'd think there might be a sense of solidarity...
among the catholic irish and the
catholic poles...
but no... tępy ajrysz...
  blunt-irishman...
                  one side arguing for the other sides
dislodging of "i.q."...
same with those spaghetti swindlers...
the...

mind you... ****** is not a racial slur...
it's actually better to denote a pole a ******
since... not kinh john: lackland...
the whole hiss-tow-stowwy...
i'm not pole: positioned...
i'm not...

    divorced from "my" people:
and the "mother" land...
                  Warsaw the last great end-venture...
keeping it up...
mawa: little old gone...
         in the hunch fabric of
lessening the diaspora approach...
you don't think i mind the missing links...
when there's a collected agenda for the purpose
of a purge of the intelligensia...
now... because only the Jewry suffered
a historical lineage of tonguies
towing complaints....

         **** it: the russian sayingly... newly invented:
**** me?! ******* too!
but in the english realm who's the lesser
******* among the polacks and the irish?
who's less gingerbreadman?
my side... most probably...
how will we ever let the 20th century become
past?
oh **** me... we will need another
war... but chances of that are...
sort-of-slim...

             no? it might begin with:
bypassing loan-words...
and how self-help gurus and famous psychologists
refrain from infiltrating lost hybrids of
focus, that there might be a clearaance to
discover society outside the realm of pop!
saavvy?
i don't like this...
psychological testimony of:
what's an alpha male?
not me... what's a beta male?
not me... what's a malaise?
what's an omega man?
everything that an alpha male is...
in that... there's an antonymous discharge
of needs... requests...
demands...

how many Irish still speak their...
diego / alfonso magic "whisker" ****?
that ******* Gaelic?
so much for aardvark "typo" in Scotch...
because it just so happens...
you speak an over exfoliation of lettering...
the aesthetically bogus: claim of...
no... no "originality":
i'm not even going to bother the higher
tier of diacritical markers to
instigate "something"...

but this whole: i'm a lesser "european" when
it doesn't suffice in north american parlance...
i'm sort of... em.... ******* bothered?
history seems to be a lesson
in teasing small-**** and the infinite
summary of infancy... last time i heard...
because the Mongols never made it to... "x"...
because the Turks never had ownership of Vienna...
because it took both the Nazis and the Soviets
to make me bow...
in England? the invention of snooker...
tennis... football... rugby...
bored people... obviously...

how: else: woudln't you have capacity...
need... to invent so many coliseum...
distractions to mind: and take seriously...
if you knew: you were an island dwelling folk...
and you staged your pride in not being
invade-prone...
a bit like the whole of east London's
pakistani-land...

wake up 40 years from now... from...
little bengali land...
the Pakistani grooming gangs of the supposed...
while i'm getting more and more irrritated
by paying for ***...
having Bulgarian ****** pretending to be
Romanian....
you see the grit in my use of teeth that aare never used to
nibble and conjure...
a "drying of bones"?

i will complain about the Irish as i will about the
tail-tan'ohs...
******* spaghetti slurppers...
we of the same European origins and the same
brain-drain... because the anglo-saxons
fiddled out a mechanism for...
a "coming together"... of...
a people... just like germany was confederated...
into a federality...
wow!

  the pope receding... on paper...
the Irish make complaints against the Polacks...
the Irish demean the Polacks...
nice nice... here's to me equipping myself with
Haitian "nouns"...
you, *******... ginger: knuckle-fiddle-numb...*****!
what Celt wishes himself to have
a Cyrillic ancestry?! almost all...

have your little i.r.a. memento...
       i'm only concerned about
a pomeranian, conrad... quest...
aren't the czechs / hungarians locked into
that... posit of being: without an access to
a "window"... hardly... that the baltic...
already is... Samaritan....

porsch monkey: among the slurrs... "poet"...
pshek in... denotative lingo...
it's a: thank you...
i call you worse:
    karot... burak... syberik....

thankful though: it's hardly a slur...
king John was known as lackland...
given the shrinking of the Angevin empire...
thus "we"... shrunk to the duchy of warsaw:
a satellite of Napoleon's ambitions...
then the Warsaw Pact...
pandering to the Bolsheviks...
blah blah: now more pandering to
woke ha-ha-h'americanacancan...
the mythological blonde: always on my mind...

the first words in my language
they managed to speak and they somehow managed to
call it a slurr... and polish: paul-leash isn't?
pole position, heading north?

say strawberry in ******?
TRU-S-KAWKA...
     paul's on a leash of nibbling on the quarters
and halves of would be barons of pandemonium...
we were teenagers once...
and once upon in an Ilford mall...
we bought compact disks...
rival schools... fugazi...
coal chamber's dark days...

  those where somewhat architecture days,
though...
you can't make this **** up...
you probably have had to live it, sort of.

- otherwise who can't forget the flight of the Jewry
from the area...
once there was a makeshift synagogue on
Coventry Rd.,
now there's a 7th day evangelical war band
gathering pulpit... source...
i was expecting a mosque: in all honesty...
it's a common suggestion:

now first comes the flight of the Jewry...
the whites are somehow 2nd...
but as i explained to my mother today...
i feel sick in a monochromatic...
homogeneous society...
i went to Cheltenham once...
to hussle my own self-published book...
i felt ill seeing so little minority
representation...
it's not like i'm brainwashed...
but among these minorities in Loon-dune
i'm a ******...
back in Warsaw i'm a feral animal...
among "my people" i'm zero-punkt-zero-nic...

the vagabonds of the world decide to congregate
in Loon'don... for some reason: ulterior or
altogether "other"...
the world has congregated:
is this still about the English having their
nationhood infringed?
perhaps from a perspective
of the Midlands... Birmingham...
but over 'ere...

funny that... i live in England...
but i probably interacted with more Irish
and more Scots than the supposedly
demographically first...
i probably encountered more Pakistanis too...

so what's the difference between
a Samaritan and a Sarmatian?
you're running? i thought i ran...
i might run... who's running?
is it raining?
is that... ****'ite iconoclasm?
sign me up...
            
but living among the Irish who are
not living in Ireland...
a tired old bunch... sometimes...
it's hard to fathom their identity crisis
since a whole swab of them
spoke a zilch of Gaelic...
it's like with these over-impressed
succcess stories of "integration"
from olive-pound land /
****** copper...

the parents want to integrate...
that **** backfires...
the grandson retains the tongue
to his grandma to speak
back to her her native...
yet his... "in-between"... "integrational english"
becomes a sick joke: stereotype...
almost a cul de sac accent...
the sort that has to breathe into a phrase:

oi oi! bown and bwead!
  em... bone and bread?
how does that work?
i guess it must work "miracles" from places
where the ingestion of gelatin is
foreign... transcending "foreign":
too alien to compose...

yes... detailing the promises of pork, pig...
the most economically sound
animal: beside the hoofs...
you can utilise almost... "almost": all of it...
one way of the other...
an animal that can never be a waste:
unless you're into dabbling into a cannibalistic diet...
plus... lamb... lamb: *******: stinks...
the aged lamb...
plus... how would you herd pigs...
pigs aren't herded...
it's a theological anger at...
camel-jockeys being unable to... harvest
the only potential of farm-food... via the pig...
pigs aren't herded:
i've only heard of a herd of pigs
and that's when there came a time
to treat a trough like an array of teats when
the porkies were 'ung...
is it a despised animal?
a despised animal because:
and the devil reimagined himself as a pig?

so god looks like a mythological blonde...
the devil looks like a piggish minotaur...
why this demise of pig?
why this gratification in the islamic mirror
of words looking accessible: i.e. dog | god...
my all mighty: allah: blah-lah...
fork in the road: are we 'appy... "now"?

but when you live among the diaspora of the Irish...
you'd sort of suppose... what's the gaelic for green?
now that the internet is here...
i can find out for myself...

why demean the pig? was the pig created by
the ******* devil?
or is this one of those Abrahamic ploy-toys...
rigidity structures...
to leave you surrendered...
go against anything else: beside the pig...
it's such an economic model, creature...
you can utilise almost all of it...

not all of us were born Afghan sheep
herders... savvy?
that eating pork is somehow signature
of inbreeding and s schizoid tinture...
wh'ah?! i lost the TAU along the way...
o.k.?!

it's a waste of time having arguments
with... oh forget: rag-muffin'...
inbreds... i wass thinking about ***...
i picked a spot... Rotherham...
Pakistani grooming gangs...
oh... right... here's a lollipop... here's some dosh...
i'll get a hard-on with a girl who didn't mature
into prostitution wtih a crack-******* 'abbit...

chances of me ******* low i.q. is like
zilch then? i imagine the tirades...
the knife-insinuations...
**** a barrister: **** for life...
settle down: solve **** concerninng:
immmovaable objects:
the sun still has "egotism" to rise
and call it tomorrow...
and her ******* own too: to boot...
imagine that!

why go after the pork 'n' pie?
why pet a dog?
why pet a cat?
     i've already mentioned...
sometimes lamb: just stinks...
lamb kidneys?
STINK... SCHTINK!
but you also can't keep pigs
in an environemnt where you also use
camels instead of horses... no?
no one is talking about this...
because... it's probably too obvious to have
to stress this ******* argument....

came the Ottomans... the Mongols...
the Soviets for a while...
came the Nazis...
why weren't we the people who championed
each other at snooker...
why didn't we invent football...
tennis... cricket...
rugby... i don't want to blame the English
for their race...
but they have been privileged in:
intra-"whiteness" terminology...

what English soldier ever stood ground
on ****** soil?
i've heard of ****** pilots having dog fights
for the battle of Britain...
how the enigma machine was not merely
the work of Turning...
etc. etc.
gravesend: i'm here reduced to "biasing"...
yet i'm giggling at the remote prospect
of "gravity"...

i have clues to concern myself over...
ownership...
          a hierarchy of a cascade...
time follows time...
this solo project of "individuality"
was never going to... "work"...

pending...

   connlach dearg...

    but the welsh still speak welsh... no?
i guess that Carlsbeg moment of:
probably the best'ly integrated people in
the world... the Welsh are...
they still exfoliate in having a punching bag
of their tow-tongue...
unlike that most, supposed... oppressed people
of the... anglophonic world affair...
the Reesh that speak no ditto of Gaelic...

who are, you, you people?!

— The End —