"repurposed" poems
the people vs. my every waking moment
me, for every heart I've stolen
the lost light given to homework
an idea embedded that our souls are
search machine engines
are we waking, are you my dreams
the people vs. contemporary art of all periods
angrier and more painful hearts
suicide as a solution
recycling factitious pollution
no one says a thing about ideas repurposed
the people vs. intelligence
truth
passion
anything other than money as a practice
Aug 7, 2017
Aug 7, 2017 at 6:29 PM UTC
The old order changeth, yielding place to new
-Tennyson, Idylls of the King
Like dinosaurs our institutions gasp
In spasms of existential death; they pass
At first unnoticed by the casual unobserver
Who trips over a covenant that isn’t there
If you vote they give you a sticker
The ephemeral Constitution changed
Like sweaty skivvies by each president
Law libraries catalogued for pulp
By obedient functionaries in tees
If you vote they give you a sticker
The faithful escorted out of the cathedral
By a bored security guard on overtime
The altar linens for sale at Goodwill
And the sanctuary repurposed on T.V.
If you vote they give you a sticker
Some of The Just Plain Folks cheer for the Reds
And the others cheer only for the Blues
As the reincarnation of Jack Chick
Blesses their four-wheelers and plastic caps
If you vote they give you a sticker
Election placards on abandoned buildings
Promise again prosperity for all
The **** lab cooks behind The Kute Kidz
Private Academy of the Dance and Math
If you vote they give you a sticker
An outreach of the Bright Light Free Will
Missionary Temple of the Lord Jesus Christ
Of the Lamb Sanctified 501C The Reverend Doctor Master Bishop Billy-Bob Hairdo PhD, DD a-brangin’ Messages and His Esteemed Lady Apostle Heather
If you vote they give you a sticker
And blessed be the Holy AR-15
God gave to His People to defend themselves
Here in the freest country in the world
Which you can find behind the barbed-wire fence
If you vote they give you a sticker
While fleets of luxury presidential jets
Arc high over our public housing projects
Reminding us of our prosperity
Here in the richest country in the world
If you vote they give you a sticker
And them Jews for Jesus I guess they’re all right
But them other Jews they just ain’t no good
Nor them Cath’lics nor them Mormons neither
And don’t you get me started on them Baptists
(We seem to have been otherwise engaged)
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new” –
(But neither cares at all for me or you)
But if you vote they give you a sticker
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 7:30 AM UTC
each emotional wound becomes an inkwell of blood. each crack in my unstable mind lets in sunlight. each dent in my ego catches rainwater and dreams. everything is repurposed,all lemons squeezed dry for my metaphorical lemonade.
but no matter what/
I'm not
made of talent
but/ no matter what I'm /
still inferior/
no matter what, I'll still be/
a shell of wasted/
potential, each mile / traversed
there's two ran away/
no matter how I /
use and abuse myself, I /
am still
useless
in their eyes. /
Feb 22, 2016
Feb 22, 2016 at 8:50 PM UTC
I was born in grave clothes
Raised in grave clothes
Unaware I even bathed in grave clothes
I didn't know the extent of my decay
Like the bones were expose in my face but I didn't have reflective glass to see my flesh
I was on a rotten path
Death would have been the only prize at the end of my race
Strongholds wrestled my thoughts and subdued my brain
Bone marrow deep I was linked to Adam
Lord knows I wasn't Abel
Dna tied to blood imprinted on the ground I had more in common with Cain
It's true a heart beat of sin causes death to course through vains
I wondered how could I be treated
Something was missing something was needed
To my shock it was Jesus
Clear! He got my heart beat right
With that resurrection power
Made my heart see light
He changed my life
I started to realize that the same power that raised Christ from the dead
Was the same power that lived in me
That does more than allow me to breathe .
It brings life back to limbs riddle with rigor mortis
It's reverses decomposition brings back what death has stolen
It's uncontrollable like a lighting storm.
It's unadulterated
Once it hits
It's changes landscape like when a nuclear warhead is detonated
Hoover dam generated power
Turbine engine spending power
Lift the dead out of sin power
Tectonic plate shifting, erecting mountains from plains power
By one name only can we be saved power
Second coming cracking the sky power
All knees shall bow and all tongues shall comply power
Corruptible turned into incorruptible in a instant power
Rebirth repositioned repurposed repented power
Turn what seems to be a lost into a win power
It is finish the precursor to the release of infinite power
I could never be the same because the spirit lives in me gives me power
My arteries are laced with a burning flame
A roaring wind, a groaning earth, a raging sea crashing waves
The impact of several elements crush the chains of a slave
It's the same power that said come forth Christ friend walks out the grave
The same power that moved the stone a borrowed tomb turned to a cave
It's the power of the Resurrection
In a world full of aborted life
It breeds conception
In a world that attempts to abort Christ
The church still cries out in reverence
Changed death for us now it's portal
Changed lives of stop watches into immortal
Resurrection power a glimpse into the eternal
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 6:26 AM UTC
An architects influence, extends only as far
As his lifetime
Although sculpted buildings may last well beyond
A single life
They are but toys for the times
Repurposed and retooled until
It carries nothing but shadows of it's origin
What should have been a schoolhouse
Could soon become a prison
What should have been a church
Would soon become a business
And in a backwards and cruel way
There is an odd sort of beauty in this
Because life is just a series of
Would have been, should have been, and could have been
That didn't.
Jul 12, 2013
Jul 12, 2013 at 12:14 AM UTC
there are fewer words for this
kiss on the temple
soft knuckles
the first sip
but it's as good as
any repurposed for
less regal things
a popsicle in august
the sweetest fuck-you to
midday thirst
the first snow and
realizing
you can play the piano still
after eight stagnant years
it is
wanting to stay
where you
only ever
cherished leaving
May 28, 2013
May 28, 2013 at 11:30 PM UTC
No picturesque ruins will remain for us
To wander through with our sketchbooks and pens
For drawing pictures or writing blank verse
About bare ruin’d 2 air-conditioning ducts
The baptismal font will be repurposed
As a bird-bath (with a plastic Saint Elvis)
And the stained-glass windows will be sold off
As fashionable bathroom accessories
The crucifix of deplorable design 3
Will be stored in the back of someone’s garage
Until the girls carry it off to the woods
And laughingly use it for target practice
A rubbly field will serve as a soccer pitch
Until seventy years 4 have passed away
1 Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”
2 Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73
3 Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited
4 Daniel 9:1-2
Jun 2, 2019
Jun 2, 2019 at 3:06 PM UTC
The fence posts stand, bleached and brittle,
a tidy graveyard for dreams not their own.
Each board a promise of security,
painted white by hands that never bled,
guarding a silence that screams privilege.
A lawn mowed to uniformity,
as if clipping blades could trim truth.
Beneath, the roots tangle in soil tilled
by those unseen in the storybooks,
their spines curved by centuries of labor
to raise a house that barely held them.
Inside, the air is stale with whispers
of manifest destinies and invisible hands.
Windows frame a world distorted,
a lens of 'normal' that filters out color,
washing the streets in sepia nostalgia.
The picket fence becomes a cage
for those who see the bars.
But who built this town?
Not the architects of ignorance
who claimed the blueprint as birthright.
No, it was those in shadow,
their brilliance stolen to light the chandeliers
of men who never thanked them.
It was the voices erased
to make way for the monotonous hum
of a narrative too pale to reflect reality.
Progress wears brown hands,
scarred from the heat of engines
that drove the country forward.
It sings in languages
that don’t fit neatly into syllabaries,
its rhythm syncopated, refusing the march
of conformity.
Progress carves its name
into the very foundations of a nation
too proud to look down.
And now, the town crumbles,
its picket fences splintered
by the weight of unacknowledged history.
The 'white normality' that painted
its walls in monochrome
is revealed as smoke—
a ghost-town haunted by the very people
who gave it life,
only to be exorcised.
Yet those ghosts do not wail.
They speak, steady and firm,
their presence undeniable.
They are the architects now,
designing futures that will not crumble,
drawing plans that see the beauty
in every hue.
And the white-picket fences
are repurposed for something new,
their shards forged into tools
to till a soil fertile with truth,
where a garden of multitudes can finally bloom.
Nov 24, 2024
Nov 24, 2024 at 4:57 AM UTC
I think
of these little children
these weeping angels their
lives stolen from this
earth by a
madman's
bullets and when I think of the
Twenty I think of their families but mostly their
words I just want Christmas I just want to have Christmas
And then I think of their homes each of twenty trees
Sheltering gifts with no owners, sheltering them as if
To protect the memory of the innocents, lonely presents
Can now only shine and glimmer with all their gaudy
Holiday glory but no longer a jolly happy shine now it's
More a glaring harsh shimmer and shine sad, and cheap
Compared to the lives of the little ones these presents may
Be repurposed regifted, or set aside but their original and
True owners shall nevermore know the joy they can bring
Dec 15, 2012
Dec 15, 2012 at 8:55 PM UTC
Improvised Explosive Device
The soldiers who were with me
no longer answer to roll call,.
They lie in peace at Calverton
except in my recall.
We were on routine patrol,
In the seemingly pacified town,
When the I.E.D. exploded,
a repurposed artillery round.
The Army, faithful to their word,
did not leave us behind.
On the way to the field hospital
They say I died three times..
Months I spent in a coma,
my broken body tied in bed.
When I came to, Doc had bad news:
I’d never walk again.
Staring at the ceiling
I swore not to be denied.
I swore that I would walk again,
His prognosis I defied..
It took three years before I stood
And walked as once before.
A semblance of the man I was
before I went to war.
Nov 14, 2011
Nov 14, 2011 at 2:28 PM UTC
one door closed, another opened
but even knowing that there is no way
to twist and wring positive thoughts
from a door slammed in my face
you told me why
you preferred closed doors
but even so
that hurt me more
doubt eggshells crack and hatch
branching thoughts of what this must mean
were we not friends? i thought we were
but i kept my thoughts unseen
do i regret this?
at the time i didn't want to seem desperate
if i asked again i might've found another way
but caring so much about this was pathetic
in the end, i don't know myself
muses have died and revived from the ashes
repurposed feelings like a fire-heat phoenix
they're part of me now, we've survived all the crashes
you can have your doors, closed they may be
because exterior and interior aren't important at all
different paths but we still walk the same road
i'm over it, it was nothing personal and i'm not gonna fall
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 11:35 AM UTC
He asks you, “how does a forest sound.”
there’s that veiled, monastic hush to everything,
not so much muffled,
words, (in your language or others,)
that cannot be understood save for their intonation,
vague fingerprints on your pearlescent neck.
you look up and there’s lace,
weaving itself matador armed through impossible eyelets.
straw falls out eventually,
your face hollows,
and eye sockets repurposed as homes for vines,
tendrils pushing upwards,
they breach the surface of the earth and take their first breath.
Apr 15, 2013
Apr 15, 2013 at 1:31 AM UTC
Tiny ankles hang down from a wooden bridge over the bayou-
and my friend and I stare at the black water
and point at all the furniture legs jetting out of the blackness
as if they were Cyprus knees—
and he says to me “Someone said there’s at least a hundred bodies in there”
and without hesitation or a moment of silence
for the uncertain yet forgotten Dead
I say, “Bodies float, so we would see them if that were true”
and he replied, after a brief moment of thought,
“Maybe they’re tied to all the couches or stuffed in the refrigerators”
and I couldn’t believe how many house hold appliances
have been repurposed to host all these passed souls
in the bowels of the swamp
and with a swing of my leg, too swift—
my left shoe dropped and hovered on the water
where lily pads should have been
Jul 12, 2017
Jul 12, 2017 at 9:00 PM UTC
Just maybe the stars used this navy blanket as their catharsis;
did you think that your uncaring hands on my face
my arms
my torso
was the same?
Because the stars had a
choice
and the night sky was more soundproof than these walls-
though you didn't seem too concerned;
lashing words out like slaps
or was it the other way around?
(connecting the dots
with unscarred patches of skin left is easier said than done;
you made me hate the colour violet anyways.)
Fast forward to a few light years
where the same swings I'd enjoyed during my childhood
repurposed itself
as the rope I'd temporarily worn like a necklace;
(they weren't supposed to be that tight anyways
and silly me hadn't kicked the chair away far enough.)
Dazed eyes and mind all muddled up taking in my new surroundings-
unmarred white with my hands secured to the small bed;
hadn't I been so disoriented
I might've noticed that familiar shadow hurriedly slip from my room
just as the monitor
beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbe-
and
then
nothing.
The night I died
the stars shone on;
I'd like to believe their way of release
was easier than mine.
// there has to be more than this //
Oct 17, 2017
Oct 17, 2017 at 5:24 PM UTC
Holding onto reality with both hands
His social life in a cup of coffee as he waits
Swamped sinking lifeboats
No longer accepting applications
For jobs that have sailed away
Buried alive, a napkin waiting its turn
To be plucked out and used
Then thrown out
Lucky if recycled and repurposed
To a younger man’s vision
Torn apart, his skills repackaged, Frankensteined for each resume
The boring job of cutting checks means he was
A bookkeeper, an accountant, detail oriented,
Friendly to external and internal users or customer service driven
Or any combination of above.
Leaving his car at home, he walks,
Afraid of running out of money for gas and repairs
Wondering what pieces he will put together today
Reducing his years of experience to a tweet
Comprehensible to the child in charge of his future.
Jul 14, 2015
Jul 14, 2015 at 7:48 PM UTC
The Absolute Truths of a Sonderer; a project of homelessness and homefoundness.
1. Everything we see or do is an influence
Everything we hear or say is an influence.
We must define good & bad influence, and create accordingly.
2. Our personas exist in four dimensions
At home, at work, in transience, and as digital
All require boundaries, development and love.
3. Everyone is a dreamer, aspiring in their own way.
Share your dreams through demonstration & action.
Don't sacrifice your dream in pursuit of another's
4. Celebrate the diversity of identities people can be
Enrichen your worldview with another's definition of home.
Be weary of mindsets locked to race, gender or nationality.
5. Find comedy in the world's tragedies
Deliver comfort in moments of distress
For happiness isn't opposite of sadness, but rather encompasses it.
6. There is yet to be a human whose mental health stands invincible.
Permitting another to speak may be all the health they need
Acknowledge battle scars do not lie solely on the flesh
7. Wasting your ears is as criminal as wasting words
Seek knowledge, in whatever form, when a listener.
Express love, in whatever form, when a speaker
8. One man's trash may genuinely be another's treasure
Discard people or ideas when their weight grows disproportionate.
All will be reclaimed, repurposed, and reloved.
9. Our vices grant infinite patience for stupidity,
Spirits that steal from the future to consume the present moment
Their intended use will rarely match their outcomes
10. Your value is to be as treasured as your survival
Whether celebrated or beaten, ignored or adored
It is yours alone to define, and yours alone to defend.
I love you all,
May 27, 2018
May 27, 2018 at 3:37 AM UTC
the initial purport
this literary effort delivered atchew
to reed constitutes hazmat tocks sin
within White House blew
per, viz thee president be
getting a Hollywood love story
with "Stormy Williams" despite brew
haha murmur, now dapper Don in deep doo doo
thus, this garrulous married pro LIX prone papa flew
off (like a bat out of hell)
to his Macbook Pro laptop presenting myself
implicating Trump as po' faux guise Mister McGoo
affiliated, confused, and explained
being on par with Winnie the Pooh
especially stuck right tub bear arms in grr...
Rabbit's House, now he doth stew
nsync, nonetheless this path a logical
rhyme stir on the straight and true
composeing grist sill for ye to view
now, nar hating, hit ting
private links provide attention turned toward
two thousand twenty presidential election campaign
no Iron nee, anno putter opportunity,
how he diplomatically strived, and nearly scored
to boast asthma, overt braggart, stalwart
asper ideal consistency of cement poured
affiliation, aggregation, and attestation moored
prevails ma (Jack booted - magical) lord
rolling back to Timbuktu progressive liberal
Democratic initiatives star Apprentice
sans ("NO LIES") being linkedin, he almost ignored
with voluble chattering class hud hoard
hobnobbing (with the likes of Missus Muir's ghost,
who resort to Matthew Scott's turf brand),
reconstituted, recycled, and repurposed, gourd
nonetheless Trumping protocol necessitates me bing bored
predictable feigned "FAKE" non accord.
Apr 17, 2018
Apr 17, 2018 at 10:31 PM UTC
The parks are now empty of all but the trees.
The rot in the woodwork has made itself clear:
the virus reveals a more wicked disease.
If we watch each other with growing unease,
more sinister shadows may draw themselves near.
The parks are now empty of all but the trees.
The nurses and doctors make no guarantees;
their furrowed brows are not at all insincere.
But the virus reveals a more wicked disease.
While some may not fret at a cough or a sneeze,
our day-to-day life shows a mask more austere:
the parks are now empty of all but the trees.
The wealthy can shelter on yachts overseas,
far-flung from the whims of our mad racketeer,
for he, too, was borne of this wicked disease.
But Justice may not brook the fraud she now sees,
her blindfold being repurposed as protective gear.
The parks are now empty of all but the trees,
and the virus reveals a more wicked disease.
May 8, 2020
May 8, 2020 at 2:36 AM UTC
And so be it:
our Ghosts are everywhere.
The final Gasp: now heard in the wind
The final Spark and Glimmer:
reflected back and repurposed towards the sun;
our Water, our Flesh: moving with the soils
Tear of grief and joy:
released and now to pool.
Multitude of Scream, Shriek, and Chatter fall with thunder!
Forest take These Broken Bones, create that shall not be sundered!
And so be it:
We are just as similar to those
called “fowl” and “swine;”
just as similar to those
whose weave and turn each vine.
And let it comfort You to know that,
of all enchantments,
death
is most temporary.
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 12:04 AM UTC
I've been trying to figure out how to get it back,
But I haven't seen you in months.
Have you found it sitting there?
I wonder if you threw it out along with fast food bags and stray receipts,
Or if maybe you repurposed it and hung it over your rearview instead.
Dec 10, 2015
Dec 10, 2015 at 8:30 PM UTC
One more
cigarette
One less thought
captured by my notebook
I know
I have two inner-pockets in my peacoat
One with Silver Sherman's
and one with the little notebook of deeper joys that follow
Yet I've spent more time
Lighting Maduro paper
than sparking ideas
onto trees that are utilized for musings
rather than consumption
I inhale carbon monoxide,
(in line following the crowd -- by choice)
Rather than exhaling the same
for the leaf-lungs of trees
I stretch for something
A dichotomy of Pockets
Paper lined for thoughts
or
Tobacco twined for my subduing
One more, One less
One more circus of circumstance,
One less bridge to nowhere
One more apple to pick,
One less bone
I wonder,
"When the sands of time
should be sifted through my hands
and not my mind?"
But my mind continuously filters,
wondering which grains of now-repurposed stone
amounts to more or less
You fool!
Stop staring at the back of the clock
Discontinue your prescription to madness!
Watch instead the gears turning
not in anxious fear,
but in wondrous awe
Everything: a means to its own end;
not an end to its own means
And yet,
blackened by the smoke,
hardened by the repitition,
you take another drag
And all I can say
is that my throat screams for tea
and my mind
for resolution
One more thought,
One less execution.
--
I know
That if I was self-driven enough
I could compose a chart
(or a melody)
that shows the correlation
between the distance of you
from my thoughts
and the intimacy of nicotine
to my mouth
Feb 7, 2014
Feb 7, 2014 at 4:56 AM UTC
Alias indomitable invincible
Donald John Trump oozes wrath
inexorably plunging every species
of life toward apocalyptic warpath
mercilessly threatentens world
wide web promising bloodbath
validating ex post facto commander
in chief as nonpareil sociopath
hence... this call to arms gives run
for money challenging any psychopath
lest inevitable according to dead
reckoning prediction of
wisest sages calculated math.
Thus one poetic footsoldier doth broadcast
dire straits emergency, and inveigh
grassroots action mandatory meaning
registered voters must
cast ballot per se
else planet Earth will...
burn thermonuclear gray
rendering oblate spheroid
uninhabitable, I daresay
if bleak forecast father time doth delay
global warming would outweigh
former worst case nihilistic scenario,
nonetheless Gaia will serve
as repurposed ashtray,
whereby inextinguishable fiery storms
approximating calculus of doomsday
nsync with intolerable weather forecasts
if complacency rides roughshod field day
defying lack of immunization oy vey
against opportunistic unfamiliar organisms
viral and bacterial agent provocateurs
microscopic gangbusters
nothing could allay
winning scrimmage play
thinning overpopulation whereby
scavengers make short shrift
plethora once living flotsam and jetsam
perhaps requiring rotting, putrefying,
goods put on layaway
(type of foragers -
reference https://www.google.com/search?
client=safari&channel=mac_bm&ei=
KECaXe_UA6SO5wLh-7gY&q=list+
examples+of+scavengers&oq=list+types+
of+scavengers&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0i22i30.
58737.70074..70997...0.4..0.223.1875.
21j2j1......0....1..gws-wiz.......
0i71j0i273j0j0i131j0i67j33i22i29i30.
wnDI0kLrKWM).
now ye might hashtag me chicken little
synonymous to Rome burning,
while Nero did fiddle,
perhaps scaremonger i.e. Cassandra
alamist bah bing away, a realist foaming
at figurative mouth with spittle,
would you believe cautious optimist,
who presents prediction,
while this poem heed whittle.
Oct 6, 2019
Oct 6, 2019 at 5:18 PM UTC
It was a strange thing to throw a house party for birds, especially since no one showed up. I was left sipping honeycomb champagne and gawking at the colored glass bubbles descending from the sky. And I thought it odd that a car dealer would care enough about my obsession with old VHS tapes to throw a few onto the cruise ship. Never mind the fact that with all I had paid on fixing my transmission of thought, I was dead broke and looking for a summertime getaway closer to downtown and nearer to autumn.
The things I'd like to do if I could paint. I would construe a white front porch in repurposed chair caning and glue it to a canvas, mottled in shapes and light. Or maybe it would take multiple canvasses to hold what I consider to be the best image of a future. Perhaps a patio with an overgrown garden would do the trick, and I would be just another loner.
Will anyone remember when we were children and we dug a canal by putting the dirt into paper cups and leaving it in the forest? You can't deny that life was easier before I ingested that Matisse print hanging on the graying wall. All these skewed angles and les possions sont rouge make for a bit of a stomachache.
I have a question for you to ponder as it gets dark. If I were to fill a swimming pool with blotchy pastel hues and sit in it as if it were a motel jacuzzi, would I receive some kind of tye-dyed epiphany or would I just catch a chill?
Jul 11, 2016
Jul 11, 2016 at 10:51 AM UTC
No
I haven't given up
I've just
repurposed my dream
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 2:29 AM UTC