"resurgent" poems
To my dear son, Boaz in distant Idaho,
Saturday nite, the whole of New Zealand waited in apprehension for the All Blacks rugy team to play the resurgent Wallabys @ Fortress Eden Park.
The previous week at Suncorp Stadium in Sydney, in driving rain, the All Blacks muddled through a painfull draw with the Wallabys, 12 points each with no tries.
The Wallabys had fancied their chances and had wanted an emphatic win on home soil.
Both teams took that score as a loss and the gauntlet was thrown for the second match…..
A brilliant evening, clear and fine , 50,000 people crushed in to Eden Park and you could feel the apprehension, the rest of the country sat in front of their TV willing the team on.
The Haka was given a brutal rendition, you could feel the determination, the passion emanating….the Ozzies glared their defiance back…it was all on!
10 minutes into a titanic struggle with the score three all Captain Ritchie McCaw had a brain fade and was yellow carded off for ten minutes by the French referee.
The crowd roared…then murmured their worry like you’ve never heard before.
The Ozzies mustered a huge scrum which the All Blacks countered with one man down…. The counter ****** pushed the Australian scrum back 15 ft.
Every man in New Zealand was on his feet roaring, you could feel the spirit of nationalism soaring….the moment was a watershed.
The All Blacks counterattacked showing a brilliance in attack and defence we have not seen for years… and from that moment on the game was won.
Final score 51:20 The Bledisloe Cup was ours.
As the match finished the TV camera panned across the solidly black clad crowd…. I have never, ever in my life, seen so many, simultaneous, sets of white teeth grinning!
The trip home to Australia would have been… a very subdued affair.
Thought I should share this marvellous moment with you Boaz.
Luv Dad.
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 4:28 PM UTC
Where does one start if not with the absolute I,
Beginning with sight,
The sun kept clockwork in check.
The kids kept their songs in their heads
The parents kept photo albums full of smiles where a split second
Becomes the cover letter for years of dread.
The page kept condensing life that is better left unsaid,
While the reader kept considering the page a part of him.
Beginning with sound,
The ocean kept grinding the ground.
The guitar kept articulating the waves that come from
A place that can be found
In the engine of muscled bone,
Arriving at what you know
Through nature's transient code,
Read between simultaneous consideration of scope
And a song that keeps you on your toes.
Beginning with touch,
The cage kept the prisoner condemned
Who was slave to the ego's violent whims.
Hunger ravages the idealism of men,
Who kept on believing in sensory over stimulation.
While rapid eye sleep kept fostering shackled sheep
Towards their only release.
Beginning with dreams,
I start to seem incomplete
Fuzzy puzzles kept flagging themselves as urgent but unapparent in meaning
And even faster in disappearing
To make room for me.
A resurgent thief
That kept insisting on stealing a mind's freedom to be.
Oct 23, 2013
Oct 23, 2013 at 10:57 PM UTC
outer body
mind sick off radio silence
worry behind me
embers of apathy dissipate across pavement at high speeds
"the best of the plague years" drones on through headaches
and sometimes this all still feels real.
DIY the time of your life
i've already given up twice.
old anthems resonate between clenched teeth
i just want to know where i can rest my head
it's like i have to channel the old me just to get a wrong word in,
senselessly spinning fabrications.
blog-tag manifesto.
cicada summer redux.
we are the originators of resurgent treachery,
and it's all seeping through the cracks at once.
settling ourselves by circumventing sidestep hearts,
old prestige fades as the evidence rests engraved on golden placards.
May 7, 2013
May 7, 2013 at 5:29 PM UTC
I. Manifest, oh Apparition;
I invoke thee to show me your light
so that I may apportion some inhibition
How I beseech thee, oh illusions of perception;
Masterfully guised as wolves among sheep
II. Materialize, oh manic vision;
For I have listened as the chasms between the Heavens and Earth
both wax and wane
Simultaneously
How I implore you -
throw down your swords;
For it is all the deplorable horrors
(sorrows) you reap
unto this world that I weep
III. Manifest, oh Phantasm;
When deceased molecules coalesce
A breathe of life is given to those ****** and bereft
A resurgent culmination unleashed
Dawning the end of Man
and the rise of the Beast
Is it that you simply perceive or believe -
or lack thereof
that constitutes your reality?
*Bestow the sceptre unto the spectre;
Assuredly, there you'll uncover a sepulchre*
Jul 9, 2013
Jul 9, 2013 at 7:44 AM UTC
ring ring (A Facetime call)
Mom: “Hey *** what’s up?”
Me: “Well, let’s see..
“We have an armed law enforcement that’s scared of the civilians they police.
One political party so corrupt it’s no longer interested in serving the people.
Half the population ignores the one real power mankind has - science.
Hackers shutting down pipelines, schools, hospitals and companies.
News networks that are allowed to just make up lies as “news”.
Half the population that’s determined to be uninformed.
Social media is destroying the minds of our children.
A political party that encourages its followers to die.
A world that’s quickly poisoning itself to extinction.
Religions that endorse obvious liars and guns.
An economy that depends on our self doubt.
Foreign enemies manipulating our elections.
A supply system on the verge of collapse.
A party encouraging resurgent racism.
A badly neglected infrastructure.
Inflation starting to heat up.
A near endless pandemic.
And a **** culture.”
Mom: after a moment of silence
“Have you been reading the news again? You KNOW you tend to obsess.”
Oct 28, 2021
Oct 28, 2021 at 9:10 PM UTC
My first poem of the year and neither resentment nor refined love will reside in these words or take refuge in my reluctantly resurgent heart.
For I bear a ravenous appetite for life’s silver platter with romance revered through love a la carte.
An uncontrollable thirst thrashes in my throat thriving in my esophagus as a craving for the Open Road infuses my bones.
How long I withered away waiting writhingly to walk the paths I’ve woefully dreamt about that ought but take me to all unknowns.
A path paved perfectly between the placid hills of the East and passionate oceans of the West wherein paramount knowledge plagues the mind.
But there is no foretelling the fabled beauty of the open Sky, the Stars fluorescing and illuminating the epiphanies I frantically search to find.
From love to life to salvation and struggle, the Stars send down their answers easing the sleepless sorrows consuming my dreamless slumber.
However, I am saved through the comfort of knowing I know not of anything in all that there is to know from this off chance cosmic encounter
Jan 3, 2014
Jan 3, 2014 at 9:50 PM UTC
Burning nostalgic memories
letting the smoke flow out my nose
Cause I resigned myself to just sit and pine
and dream about times where I paid no mind
to past lives
The past five years
I though the world would end
I shacked up with one that decried
my wasted potential in normal jobs
Like where do you get off
if I'm making halfway decent bucks?
The irony of our artsy resurgent humanity degrees
Just go and sell life insurance
Them boomers turned us into gloomers
Generation X, my young parents
the first victims,
at least they had half a fair shake in life
I think the 90s had it right
dripping in yin yang rings and necklaces
so we wouldn't lose our way
Woo wee, where were we?
Hiding from my brother in a clothes rack
with my parents at the mall every weekend
So much confidence in where we were going
The end of history itself
in our careful chaos regulation
Feb 27, 2021
Feb 27, 2021 at 6:02 PM UTC
An other,
outside of life,
a gleaned sum stacked into towers
that could never topple
because none ever amounted to a single stone.
This thing that, despite our best efforts to love,
often reminds us of a need to be contrary for the sake of being anything.
Still, all who attempt creation despite decay
carry a noble hope to never condemn the world
to an absolute knowing.
If described, heavier than ethereal
may come close to the tock implied in it’s tick, however neither
like now
and right now.
Obsessed only with the capture of this resurgent thief
I am attempting to draw a circle around with this passage’s entirety
knowing somehow, very well, that it cannot be contained.
There.
A phantom force lodged between complacency and rebellion.
The enigma itself
unraveling eternity for the sake of an intersection I cross
on nights where I could swear I was never a body
floating without need for up, down or any direction
because here all things reside in transit.
And it's here, with all my weight,
I vanish.
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 10:50 PM UTC
Whether virtual or actual paths cross,
aye great thee ahoy
no fear Mademoiselle or Monsieur,
thy harried style haint cloy
rather, when embarking
on introductory acquaintance
ship, aye employ
swiftly tailored indistinguishable,
asper this wordsmith mebbe goy
or Jew, yet genealogically
thine Semitic lineage,
unknown descendants begat,
one generation after
stitched another thread,
whence warp and woof, sans dat
(moth eaten tattered wool worth
coat of arms), twas slim and/or fat
chance biologic dice throw
adumbrated me Matt,
a skinny, quirky,
and nerdy kid, who sat
alone during lunchtime
at school pained, plagued,
and pronounced with extreme,
where introversion didst agitate
chronic state of misery being alive
immobilized, hogtied, and forfeited
natural predilection
to discover and create
heterosexual relationships,
viz interpersonal experiences
re: raison to date
initial intimate rapport
(anxiety fraught) fate
full situation with a gal
giving her good grief great
(yes, twas Maryann Sage),
who understandably became irate
predicated on lack
of mine demonstrative affection
quickly becoming an unsuitable mate
though now in retrospect
(hindsight always 20/20)
a sudden resurgent spate
finds remembrance of things passed
(with her) engendering
cerebral tete a tete
rankling memories,
hence for death aye cannot wait!
Jun 18, 2018
Jun 18, 2018 at 12:54 AM UTC
Daybreak on the River
Daybreak rippled sounds
And silver morning flow,
Cool the ire of the beaten night.
Such beautiful disturbance,
A surface shimmer gleam.
The river greets the end of the greylight
And passes by colour streaked,
Endless and resurgent,
Under the firmament aglow.
An eventual sun
That breaks the horizon,
With teasing rays.
The best of times,
The dawn of days.
And let the water breath
Kiss the sallow mists.
A final caress.
Vanquished to daylight.
Whispering willows talk,
Shadow borne on dappled waters,
Bank bowed swaying dance.
Weep willow, weep now,
For the day has begun.
Joy sapped, seeping
From trunk and branch.
Where the breeze wakes
To stir the nest dwellers.
Safe haven for birdsong
That is carried
Upon each gentling ripple.
A new day! they sing
And the river ripples its applause
In the first swish of fishtail
And dragonfly sorties.
Oh glorious dawn,
The day begins!
Aug 1, 2019
Aug 1, 2019 at 6:30 PM UTC
I save this enchanting poem
my lonely resurgent lover,
for a life, after this one of
struggle and strife,
I am not sure, when
would it be.
Thrown in to the darkness
I will embrace it's cadence,
with all my being, dwindling, sad
to kindle a drop of light,one after the other,
till the moment of liberation.
A poem to fuel my funeral pyre
to beacon you ,searching for
a music lost, longtime before
forever,forever,forever.
I save this scent,exquisite
wafting in the mountain air,
the vine so innocent
anointed me with
only for this evening
for you to recognize me
as your true beloved,
But I am lost in the thicket
of scented flowers,so sweet
and lost in the sad thought:
"How she would find
my scent distinct from others"
We are cheated by beauty
to which we pledge our
beating heart,without
remorse of any kind.
Love takes us for a ride
cashing in on our innocence,
making us fools of love's
sweet nothings that
dissolve in thin air..
Still love reigns
craving for beauty would never stop!
we are in a journey from darkness to light.
Dec 16, 2016
Dec 16, 2016 at 7:03 AM UTC
I’ve seen signs of life grow
As they dance within fallout zones
Hunger’s war-waged
Ravaged plains where no Jesus goes
Shopping for happy
And shinier things
A bazaar kind of market
Where real freedom rings
Over cannons crowns used to blow babies to bits
But now lion kings bow in the tigress’ midst
And in piles of ***** where they let the pigs squeal
But the monkeys as gods still respect what they feel
By the river, the nurturing mother, the giver
Created by Brahma, the people, the mirror
As clear as the lotus blooms Saraswati
With the grace of a swan in my speech therapy
Where the wisdom of elephants steps to progress
And the mercy for mice carries it to success
And the cobra don’t strike lest the mongoose is stressed
For Surya sent his very best from the West
As it sets in a sapphire mango mirage
And it adds to this human collective collage
With monsoonal communal’s resurgent potential
To never change climates on what is essential
Jan 19, 2018
Jan 19, 2018 at 2:34 AM UTC
I glance up and see hovering
one moment, darting elsewhere
then back, a haphazard discovering
of the next right place aloft to be
totally unaware of me and my delight
at such an unexpected sight!
Iridescently graceful. The sunlight on its wings sufficient magic for such effortless
flight.
At once I sense the slight shift in my perspective: that reality distorted by my ceaseless resurgent recollection and rampant speculation both articulating each next moment.
I struggle with the illusion of free will; supposing mastery of the calculus of human destiny; when all I truly do is engage in all variety of fight or flight; or suppose that God might barter faith for favor.
How human to imagine my mind sufficient to know the next right place aloft to be when in fact I could never know what choice of mine might influence me to lift my eyes to see a red dragonfly!
Is it a mere insect? A mere bug all a flutter? Or does it bode good fortune and vitality or is it a harbinger of death and transformation? It could matter, and secretly I wish it to transform my fate, making me special, gobsmacked by the hint of the mysterious and sublime.
But it's not that. Not really. It's no more than the intersection of gratitude and faith - the former arising from the moment past and the latter from the unknowable moment next.
cl - 2022
Jun 13, 2022
Jun 13, 2022 at 1:50 AM UTC
the virus is showing
its resurgent
capacity
which is why people
must stay well away
from a crowded
locality
the virus's spread
is akin to a wild
fire
and it burns into a human's body
with a uncontrolled
kind of
desire
the virus isn't to be
taken
lightly
nor treated as a non
threatening germ's
sprightly
the virus is still out
there waiting to
attach
itself
onto our healthy
shelf
Jun 26, 2020
Jun 26, 2020 at 8:38 PM UTC
Shards of silence splinter,
fractals in a firestorm,
spitting tongues of dissonance—
a thousand echoes collide,
furious in their quiet.
Cacophonous breath snaps the air,
a brittle pulse skittering on the edge
of infinity’s unraveling thread.
Fingers claw through time’s tattered skin,
guts of fate, entwined in the darkening loop,
each moment—shattered, resurgent.
The sky is a broken chandelier,
raining sparks like ghostly paperclips,
stretched too thin,
too jagged to catch—
each piece too sharp to hold,
to name.
Spirals twist through aching space,
each turn a jagged refrain,
unhinged from rhythm,
lost in sound—
chasing its own reflection,
a fractured symphony,
unsung,
stifled by its own reverberation.
Hunger for motion tears through the hollow,
frenzied like a feathered shard,
quivering in the teeth of wind,
caught in a whirl of starlight’s splatter.
The sky is endless,
but always breaking,
and always,
still,
it falls.
Mar 21, 2025
Mar 21, 2025 at 2:47 PM UTC
Resurgent greens and stronger hues
combined within the colours in-between
will spring again, the reddish brown
has nearly gone and all the silver
greys erased in darker shades
that shine with slickly natured stains
after the gentle, gentle rain.
Clouded skies unite and demonize
the dry and dusty plight of days of brutal
beating sun and scathing wind,
the thin veneer is quickly peeled
and puddle-swamped in bloodied muddled
swirls of coloured slushy earth
that tinge the tracks of heavy wheels.
The welcome cold at first conceals its
damp and chilling steel, and in the icy
shades of night the frigid bite ignites
less welcome sentiments until the wrap
of insulation seals the warming heat,
sanctifies the stolid feet and frigid toes
with subtle sweep of warming blood.
And in the morning when the sun returns
to claim the earth the mist surprises, rising
unabashed and clean again to grace the
nascent waiting skies after the rain.
by Ivan Donn Carswell. 8/16/2016.
Aug 16, 2016
Aug 16, 2016 at 11:22 PM UTC
I have three words in my throat,
One that I cannot set free,
Though its passionate suffering
Devours my spirit,
If I say it it would flame
The untamed hearts,
Fell the spirits,
But it stands at the tip
Of my tongue.
This is why I am unworthy,
Each maddening breath I cannot
Say it,
Until I see the Man,
His blood coursing out of His body,
The spit at His feet,
The hate at thrown at His Spirit,
Until I swallow the hurt,
Until I tear and let it all go,
This is who I am,
This is my faith,
I must recognize the Truth,
Thankyou Christ!!
I fall to my knees as I let
The faith resurgent in me,
I know that I know,
And so bled the Lamb.
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 11:56 AM UTC
battling bits of depression when you can’t identify the cause
is fighting a force field that you parallelingly approach infinity with.
You see it, you dont see its end.
You see yourself, you know youre not going to end.
But you wish it would go away (which one?).
Fake a smile and dont talk to anyone about it
in fear of being vulnerable.
Feel your way through zones of safe
head nods and small talk until you can lie back on the couch
and be wisped away by dreams that quickly turn to nightmares.
shed a tear or two in the shower so your dog
cannot lick them from your neck.
hiding your vulnerabilities from even the most vulnerable.
breathe in the cool breeze from outside
…through a 3” opening…
in hopes of a resurgent power, but only finding a gripping need to
not. do. anything.
I guess its better when you write about it,
but now I can’t put it away… here it is —
in the open.
hello, nice to admit you.
Apr 4, 2019
Apr 4, 2019 at 8:41 PM UTC
Suddenly life seems long,
stretched out.
Scenes I'd long forgotten
display on an internal screen.
Could these memories be mine?
Do they belong to another me,
because they don't feel tangible.
How can it be
that I was that person and ended up me?
People I haven't thought about in a millennia
now dance across my vision,
telling me their secrets,
their heartache and happiness.
Could I be so cruel
as to dismiss the fact that they
live in my actions,
my passions,
that they've produced the man
I see in the mirror?
Jul 24, 2018
Jul 24, 2018 at 8:44 PM UTC
Sometimes I stare at the vast yet blank night sky
Thinking of the memories we shared that are as wide
Sometimes I wonder how abysmal the ocean is
Thinking of the emotions I felt that are as deep
The alcohol is starting to take it's toll
The beer cans scattered all over the floor
Holding back the screams that want to be heard
Holding back the tears that want to fall
I wonder every night if happiness is with you
If the choices we made were really for the best
I wonder every day how my sadness would end
Even if I chose to leave everything and let you go
My deepest fears are making their way to the surface
My deepest grievances are making themselves known
Let me be free from the ghost you left me with
Let me be free from the past that I made painful
Everyday I pray with desperate earnesty
That our paths would never meet again
That I see your face full of joy, no regrets
While my heart is filled by none other than regret
I pray our paths would never cross again
Dreading that moment that I find out
That you never missed me even a second
While I missed you so much each and every second
I pray our eyes would never meet again
Dreading that moment that I find out
That even though a long time has passed
My resurgent feelings would remain the same
Dear God, please don't let me drown in these fears
Please relieve me from these harrowing sorrows
Don't let me see her with all the happiness in the world
While I drown with all the emptiness I got from it.
Mend the heart she left broken, please I beg
For she took away every piece, yet threw them all away
Stop the tears that kept on coming every night
Keep me from feeling numb and unworthy again.
Jun 5, 2019
Jun 5, 2019 at 5:00 AM UTC
*The east appeared with gleam , sweetish and balm
Convective , white light did shine upon the fallows
Hayfields became lambswool , brown thrashers sang of rainbows , of life principle bestowed resurgent , appeased , arable piedmont cropland , genuflect before the bluest of blue , before the mother of cloudburst , upon the gray toned and the disturbed , the humbled stricken tenders of the lowland barrow within the earshot of crackling cane , across the froth of over washed brookside , oak liquor tipping the surface of pooled hollows , wire grass laid to rest among yearling pine and sycamore*
Oct 7, 2016
Oct 7, 2016 at 8:30 PM UTC
Shallow waters seldom hide the blackened sand below
Rocks and land, erodes in tides, defiled by ebb and flow
The calmest waters, clouded up, by a river built on lies
The purest shores, shrouded over, engulfs an isle that cries
The years weep past, the time goes by, the waters seldom turn
Every second bleeds, through wasted lives, the oceans start to burn
As memories close and the truth is lost in waves of spite and shame
Hope breaks through, no matter the cost, drowning eons of blame
The storm batters on and the swell can’t contain
the depths of the ocean below
The current rips across all the doubt and the pain
As the strong waters start to flow
The tide starts to turn and fresh water renews
The life force inside the abyss
Resurgent, re-splendid, the water refuses
To be held back, to be held down.
Resist
Aug 21, 2020
Aug 21, 2020 at 11:43 AM UTC