"renounced" poems
Flesh is heretic.
My body is a witch.
I am burning it.
Yes I am torching
ber curves and paps and wiles.
They scorch in my self denials.
How she meshed my head
in the half-truths
of her fevers
till I renounced
milk and honey
and the taste of lunch.
I vomited
her hungers.
Now the ***** is burning.
I am starved and curveless.
I am skin and bone.
She has learned her lesson.
Thin as a rib
I turn in sleep.
My dreams probe
a claustrophobia
a sensuous enclosure.
How warm it was and wide
once by a warm drum,
once by the song of his breath
and in his sleeping side.
Only a little more,
only a few more days
sinless, foodless,
I will slip
back into him again
as if I had never been away.
Caged so
I will grow
angular and holy
past pain,
keeping his heart
such company
as will make me forget
in a small space
the fall
into forked dark,
into python needs
heaving to hips and *******
and lips and heat
and sweat and fat and greed.
17.2k
Eyes pierced by the night, reverberating in silence. Voices renounced by the wind. Standing at the shore of waves and storms, you surrender to the inevitable as the sun rises.
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 2:33 PM UTC
Cast a Vast Million Colored Words, a Canvas of Solace
Dedicated to Tajudeen Shah
who wrote those words,
a fellow poet, a comrade in words.
----------------------------------------
With words we paint,
With syllables we embrace,
Tasked and ennobled,
We are forever fully employed,
Missionaries to all,
You too, are one as well,
Your fate can't be renounced,
So,
Before you pen words of
Lost love, woe begotten troubles,
Nature's royal blues and purples,
Spirits, demons, speeches, mumbles,
First
Write the uplifting sounds,
Cast a million colored words,
Upon a canvas of solace,
Bring one molecule of comfort
To the misbegotten, to the downtrodden,
In any way you can, form matters not,
But let this be our mantra shared,
Let this be our only morning prayer,
A prayer we are obligated to utter,
A prayer we are obligated to fulfill.
Solace, given,
Solace, granted.
May 18, 2013
May 18, 2013 at 3:27 PM UTC
My thoughts now live in the cloud,
My moments, wishes and hopes,
Opinions, preferences, scopes
Our loved ones live in the cloud,
Their Voices are screaming out loud,
“We hope you all make us proud”.
Our Selves now live in the cloud.
The future, present and past,
A shadow we eagerly cast.
The things we have renounced,
So hard to claim it back
There’s more than meets the eye,
The Cloud is just a lie.
May 15, 2015
May 15, 2015 at 9:27 AM UTC
islamophobia
at its finest
you couldn't have spoken truer words
three years before injustice
fell cascading down upon your head
like rocks
each one labeled
hate
fear
terror
and it's that label, drenched in your blood
that begs and screams to be renounced
i am not a terrorist
no,
you aren't, but every pale-skinned man
who doesn't know the pigment in your skin
as anything but dirt
couldn't see the difference
so yet, we fight
for you
your love, your voice
for every child that lives in fear
we will charge on
your skin tone
is not a death sentence
and the media who doesn't know
their right from their united left
will hear us
we do not need you
we do not need you
we do not need you
us many times as God will give us strength
we will charge on
for you
for them
for Palestine
for Syria
for every fear-filled child
we will remember
and for each one fallen,
trapped beneath the rocks
hate, fear, terror
we will set you free
Feb 12, 2015
Feb 12, 2015 at 6:46 AM UTC
CONFESSIONS OF A DROPOUT: DEAR EDUCATION
I am caught up in the ideal world where I breeze through the fast paced life
I look back and I see no one not even my own shadow
Life dumped me on a rainy day because I wanted to become of this generation
I was everything to pretend friends
Life seemed worth it with everything but you
The drugs, the cars, the money and the alcohol… **** I even drank methanol
But when push came to shove I had to grow up
By then life had already given me deathly blows that were beyond me
Deathly blows that sent me to a dark pit, a dark pit were life ceases to exist
God himself knows that I am beyond saving grace since I am a different case
Truth be told I dug my own grave
Now I am a slave to this burning rage
I now believe I am going to rot in this cage
Poverty looked and me said when I grow up I want to be like that girl
Pain looked at me and shed tears….. Death visited me and renounced its existence
So dear education if you ever get this letter know that I send my sincere apologies
I wish I could have listened, I wish we could have been friends more
I now live a life of regret were I dream of having a ride on death’s train
I wish you could take me back but furthermore I pray that you lend me a dying wish
Dear education…… please do accept my apologies!
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 3:10 PM UTC
Or, at least what you might think.
Judgement hurts in too many ways to count.
I stand in the local thrift market
looking for trinkets and such with my father.
He came here to look for vintage picture frames,
to put up on our pastel coloured walls.
He brought me to be a translator,
of his broken english.
I see the looks some give him,
but I am proud of my father.
And mad at how our society works.
Looking at my father you think,
he probably only knows his own mother tongue,
no education,
bad manners,
had lived in poverty before.
But you are wrong.
An Italian man sits by this booth,
selling picture frames.
I point and tell my father, and he walks over.
"How much for frames?"
I taught him how to say that well enough.
The Italian man says fluently,
"$40 a piece,"
but behind it you can hear a faint Italian accent.
My father hears this and his face lights up,
and he replies in Italian,
"Great, but can you lower it to $30. For me, man?"
The man seemed shocked to see a dark-skinned man,
speaks such fluent Italian.
The man got up with a smile on his face,
and told my father,
"Man, I was born in Italy, but you speak it better than me,"
My dad laughed.
Next time you see,
a strange man,
struggling with his english,
stop to think,
he might be able to speak to you in,
German. Italian. French. And in a tiny bit of Spanish.
And of course, his mother tongue.
He might have learned the culinary arts,
in a world-renounced school.
He might be able to do anything.
And he might even be a little more impressive,
than you will ever be.
Judgement hurts.
But all it takes is you to stop it.
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 6:25 PM UTC
Heaven
. . . Have Mercy . . .
Rest, rest, rest, for ye be none,
pitiful Fallen One.
Quivering bows flow over grave strings
bassoons and basset horns ring
pounding timpani’s announce:
Master of the Holy Choir
- - Renounced - -
Vain, fluttering heart
sublimely denounced, scorned;
fouled, ousted:
Horned.
Wailing strings, bassoons,
basset horns, thundering kettle drums
lift angelic voices to glorious requiem.
Pleas for Eternal Light’s remain
in wings refrain.
Heavenly Chorus' cradle to sustain,
mercy to soften
disdain.
The Holy Oracle contests --
to no avail.
Siblings’ choir protests.
Beauty beyond measure,
Angel of pure, Divine tessitura,
Absolution for Thee?
Foretellers of dark illusion
open Holy Scriptures to reveal
the drone of Eternal Damnation:
trumpets of ill
drag Thee to Hell.
Deep, ephemeral rhythms
exalt dancing strings,
seal destinies -- Kiss The Almighty King.
Glory be unto His Majestic Reign,
Will Supreme,
Tremendous,
Powerful, Holy Being.
Scribes record,
recite this dreadful day,
condemn Thee: Fallen One.
trumpets lament, strings mock
this unholy, forbidden way.
Bows flutter -- a memoir
of redemption.
Cries of confusion
dissipate
into muffled choirs,
murmurings
of deliverance.
Delicate chants
beg for forgiveness;
a Soul’s salvation, fusion.
To no avail!
Turbulent strings strike the Holy Duel
in wrath, writhing hatred,
majestic wings tumble --
twist to wrenched ******
Death devours, Birth becomes
the Fallen One.
Angelic dissolution --
distraught, agonized Ethereal,
Eternally beautify
these ghostly, trembling
winds, strings, harpsichord, drums.
Voices of brotherhood remembered,
cushion Angel’s earthly descent.
Breathe into infantile genius
heavenly symphonies
to sweeten a life
trapped, scorned,
condemned,
mourned
Love of God: Amadé
Jul 17, 2012
Jul 17, 2012 at 11:02 AM UTC
A loose handed emblem,
of folded thoughts,
Loss is weaponized in enchanted red,
Wrongs corrected stemming from the
blissful bare signed gawky individuals.
Homage backtracked and renounced
Barely earnest calls for a curious fathom-ability
Heaven bound birdlike shadows,
Bright light gagged and janky,
Found little finger blood tacked to the earth.
Aug 18, 2018
Aug 18, 2018 at 5:11 PM UTC
It's my last few days so I've been thinking a lot
Where will my soul go after it leaves my body to rot
Been a good man and a regular at the church
Renounced my whole life in His search
I'm a Christian so it's the church where I go
But I believe that God is one and not as many as the characters in a TV show
I hope that when I go, I go with his blessing
That I attain enlightenment, I don't care if I go missing
Now I'm on a stairway to heaven
Is His name unique or common like kevin
I'm on a stairway to heaven
I heard the steps are just seven
Yes I will leave my loved ones when I go
But I will look upon them that I do know
His blessing's the only thing I've asked him for
And when I get it I'll feel safe for sure
So I hope when I go I'm blessed
I don't care about the rest
So I'm On a stairway to heaven
Where I pray for the good of my sister Evelyn
I'm on a stairway to heaven
Only one left on the seven...
Apr 4, 2014
Apr 4, 2014 at 1:39 PM UTC
Sometimes I think I’m crumbling from the inside out. I can feel a parasite knawing at the coffin encasing my soul and exposing the pretense of overconfidence for what it truly is- dust.
There was a time when a smile from a man on the street made me feel special. Now it tenses my muscles and knocks on the bedroom door of fight and flight. If it came down to it, I know that acceptance would win.
I once saw a TV special about how coffins are becoming larger and larger because of obesity. When I was eleven, my brain was overweight with the awareness of the novel I would write and the ballet company I would star in. Lately, the obesity of my dreams is directly related to the size of the graveyard residing in my brain like an icy sea frozen mid-breath.
My best friend hurts herself because she doesn't think she’s pretty. I renounced my faith a long time ago, but I always pray that she won’t be among the one in four women who are ***** because a man told them they were pretty.
The leering, drunken man outside the movie theater built my coffin. The disease of his hand stroking my shoulder put out the fire in my brain like malaria kills 1.2 million people each year. Like the 1,871 American women who were sexually assaulted today. My skin still crawls where he touched me and my mind still recoils when I catch myself wondering if my oversized sweater and Converse sneakers were too provocative.
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 1:12 AM UTC
True love. Is it normal,
is it serious, is it practical?
What does the world get from two people
who exist in a world of their own?
Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason,
drawn randomly from millions, but convinced
it had to happen this way — in reward for what? For nothing.
The light descends from nowhere.
Why on these two and not on others?
Doesn't this outrage justice? Yes it does.
Doesn't it disrupt our painstakingly erected principles,
and cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both accounts.
Look at the happy couple.
Couldn't they at least try to hide it,
fake a little depression for their friends' sake!
Listen to them laughing — it's an insult.
The language they use — deceptively clear.
And their little celebrations, rituals,
the elaborate mutual routines —
it's obviously a plot behind the human race's back!
It's hard even to guess how far things might go
if people start to follow their example.
What could religion and poetry count on?
What would be remembered? what renounced?
Who'd want to stay within bounds?
True love. Is it really necessary?
Tact and common sense tell us to pass over it in silence,
like a scandal in Life's highest circles.
Perfectly good children are born without its help.
It couldn't populate the planet in a million years,
it comes along so rarely.
Let the people who never find true love
keep saying that there's no such thing.
Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
Wisława Szymborska, translated from the Polish by Stanisław Barańczak
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 8:17 AM UTC
Eyes full of the unknown
We slowly came to know
Of each other, nervous but excited
Feeling around in the dark what was to become so familiar
Months past in your arms
Years next to your lips
Arguments set in, thunder storms
We fought to make up and made up to fight
There was life in it still
Two strong characters of will
Impassioned lust laid across covers of trust
My beautiful vision of you and I
Too perfect you did decry
Infected by resentment, my heart shrank
You were to endure words so utterly fraught with cold
As though fashioned in the North Pole
Yet your love remained bound tightly to me
We would rise high above common ground
Soaring amongst the clouds, our love not to be touched
Until crashing down we fell into boundless hell
Picking at faults we should have forgiven
Too long they haunted our position
“You need to change” we both declared
Attempts were made in vein
So simple it all seems now
To have simply kissed your furrowed brow
Taken your hand and reassured you of my love
Apologised for any wrong made in haste
Sadly it was too late; you took matters into your own hands
Feeling away from me into foreign lands
To where I could not reach you
I went mad with pain of missing you
My utmost did I try to show my change
The man I had renounced stood no longer in me
I only wished for your return
To rekindle the fire that had died in my heart
I would rise born again a better man
With you to guide my unsteady hand
The fire remains quelled ever since you came back
To see and feel for me so differently
Our bond lay broken, dashed aside
Relinquished our tie, let loose against the tide
I now struggle out at sea, wave’s crash over me
Waiting, hoping for you to rescue me
It never came
Memories seemingly held you back
Of torment, tears rolled by
So your love drowned
Letting it go gladly, almost a relief
I now sit alone
Wet and full of regret, on a vast sandy beach.
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 5:23 PM UTC
last I checked it was 3 06 AM
the foggy window displayed scene to a rainy night of a
small town near the city of Chicago
your dim apartment filled sweetly with vanilla lavender aroma and the
delicate croon of Billie Holiday transcended from the living-room phonograph
a blue tin coffee *** pictorially placed upon faint orange flames
overdue library books and half-written notepads stacked symmetrically
within the oven of La Cornue Albertine ivory stove
you sat me atop the wooden counter of your tiny marble kitchen and
gently tucked at my stockings until they gracefully
renounced to the tile patterned floor
with your hands placed on either side of my thighs
you gradually - - -
kissed me softly on my knees
Jul 20, 2013
Jul 20, 2013 at 7:32 AM UTC
Across dry plains the tumbleweed dances
off the dusty floor
As a renounced ballerina reminisces
in her old studio
On the corner of the street
towards the west
following the sun
where all dreams go
And where the wind carries the tumbleweed.
The air rustles in the drift
as she sighs
Breathing in the dusty smell
of the grass
Of the room
where she once performed
for her beloved
now carried away
by the same wind
that carries tumbleweeds
and caused dust to dance.
A tear soaks the wooden floor
a small relief from the barren span
for the lonely ballerina
who is forever carried
along the scalding land.
Lost.
Like words unsaid
on lips untouched
cracked by the sun
where all dreams go
And where the wind carries the tumbleweed.
May 30, 2013
May 30, 2013 at 1:06 AM UTC
The lonesome Ness
ends best
when friends are laughing
by a tale
Told once to myself
in my head,
perfected
when renounced
and spread
Ignoring
the boring
for moments on end,
I visit as servant
instead
Jan 8, 2015
Jan 8, 2015 at 6:22 PM UTC
260
Read—Sweet—how others—strove—
Till we—are stouter—
What they—renounced—
Till we—are less afraid—
How many times they—bore the faithful witness—
Till we—are helped—
As if a Kingdom—cared!
Read then—of faith—
That shone above the *****
Clear strains of Hymn
The River could not drown—
Brave names of Men—
And Celestial Women—
Passed out—of Record
Into—Renown!
1.4k
They lose their lives to small hates so easily that you wonder if they are allergic to love. Perhaps these gangsters, revelling in their roadsters, go banging in their round pools of darkness to shut out the light, light so bright that it will reveal something sick about themselves. Their hair is so slick that it shines in the headlights and warns them to step away, find the shadows, a place that is far far away from cops and gallows. I thought myself a gangster once, true, tossing teens to the ground to grab their shoes; breaking windows with heads to see bleeding prism hues. But I learned otherwise when I found you: I discovered that life is a measured destruction of time already, so I renounced my life so small in order to **** myself in minutes rather than bullets and enjoy each and every doddering slip -- each and every juddering rise and fall as we watch the future play out having already gambled it all.
May 14, 2013
May 14, 2013 at 11:31 AM UTC
How's it going, these days?
Pretty good.
How's your family been?
I wouldn't know--
I renounced the blood.
In doing so, I kicked the sick.
I can't make a better world, but
I can pen an ending to this ancient curse.
I can choose a family,
& I chose the
vertebrae that
puts my spine back
in alignment.
I always had this choice.
Now I can see it.
I can let the blood,
and guarantee the world,
I'll have no progeny.
Trust me, when I say
it's my gift
to you and yours.
;)
Nov 9, 2018
Nov 9, 2018 at 5:28 PM UTC
I walk down to the stream,
a ghost among the tendrils of mist
wakening from the moist air.
The half-moon gives a weak light to my feet,
but grows stronger
as the night rises
and shakes off the sleepiness of twilight.
Sitting on a rough stone,
I look into the shadows
and begin to think.
I pull out my flashlight, try to write,
then turn it off and stare at the stars.
Branches of the tree above me grasp at the wind.
I wrestle with much more,
but cannot grasp my thoughts
or the inconceivable movement
within my soul
any better than I can subjugate the bodiless air.
A melancholy that is not sorrow
settled on me a year ago
this night, in the dark of October's waning moon.
I stand up and leave the stone to wander.
I meet the banks of the shallow stream
and stand there for a while, empty.
There is nothing,
there has been nothing,
for twelve months
since I renounced my pain and bitterness.
Everyone tells you that somehow
love will find you
when you let go of hate.
Everyone is wrong.
The stars spin
in their slow, silent dance;
the highway sighs in the distance;
the moon rises slowly as it had done
for thousands of years.
"Speak!" I importune the stars.
They do not answer.
"Show me your light!" I implore the moon.
The moon hangs there,
still,
among the darkness of the stained sky.
"Answer!" I demand of the sky,
and the sky says nothing.
Twelve months of solitude,
of emptiness and silence,
hovering over the abyss.
I have looked into the abyss.
The abyss has looked into me.
And slowly, like the setting moon,
like the way a fever ends in peaceful sleep,
I begin to fall.
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 6:44 PM UTC
REWIND
When I was a girl of twenty-two years,
there was the usual blood, sweat and tears
of life that’s lived when no one is watching
and naivety is all that’s botching
things up, in love and loss
and harsh mistakes.
Thoughts of my future rather than my will.
Should I not have aborted but stood still
to own the truth of my indiscretion,
and not lied to my love but made confession?
Perhaps he would have
decided to stay?
I have pondered much, these thirty-odd years.
Renounced the loathing of actions and fears
of misguided youth that lives in my soul
but will not dissipate though I am old.
Continuing on -
memories linger.
Wondering what that one life could have been.
Wondering if that was really a sin?
I question myself each year after year
though answers I don't expect to find here
in this life -
Still I mourn.
Apr 11, 2010
Apr 11, 2010 at 6:16 PM UTC
Who can compare with your majesty, oh Lord?
Who can match your might and power?
For with your breath you gave life to the earth,
and as you spoke, the world came into being.
Truly, God, you are powerful beyond measure.
Your strength is beyond the comprehension of man.
Only you can say what is right and wrong;
from your mouth come the decrees of justice.
Hear my plea, oh God.
I have fallen in the darkness,
and I can not raise myself up.
The heights of Your glory are beyond my reach.
I am beset on all sides by trouble.
Doubt and fear are my constant companions.
My eyes are blinded,
and I cannot see your path.
You, Lord, who sees all,
know of my faith.
I have never renounced your name,
but always have I kept it in reverence.
Look upon me in my hour of need,
and see that I have done no wrong.
Through no fault of my own
I have lost my way.
Surely, oh God, you will deliver me.
For do you not guide the righteous along your paths
even as you condemn the wicked to damnation?
Surely, oh God, you will pull me from the depths.
Reach out your hand
and rescue me, Lord.
Restore unto me surety and boldness once again,
that I might walk in your light forever.
Nothing is impossible for you, God.
You are all powerful, all knowing,
with love that never ends.
I place my trust in you.
Your mercy and grace are boundless.
Though I often fail to keep your laws,
still you do not abandon me.
Your forgiveness is unfathomable.
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 4:13 PM UTC