"retained" poems
The older we grow
the faster life goes,
priorities change
quality of living
and loving takes
precedent, over
self-indulgence
and material things.
Nothing as important
as family and friends.
It is racing now,
these fleeting days
and years, reflected
most in my grandsons
growing too soon from
children to young men.
Along with Steller parents
our little farm provides
a learning ground for the
kids, teaching life lessons
that inspire character and
self discipline, with Cows
and pigs to show at fairs,
pride earned with accomplishments
and Blue Ribbons to share.
So lucky am I having a ringside
seat, watching yet another family
generation ascend and grow,
Football and basket ball
games to attend, Christmas
morns of excited children
clamoring down the stairs,
many birthday celebrations
with ever more candles aglow.
Memories all, retained and shared.
Perhaps the best part is,
these grandsons of mine,
still are up for hugs and
good night kisses, genuine
affection received and given.
Families are a true blessing
and a privilege, the only
real reason we are here.
All these things, remain the
sweet frosting on my aging
Grandfather's cake of life.
I sometimes wonder where
I would be without all these,
my reasons for being?
Aug 14, 2018
Aug 14, 2018 at 3:11 PM UTC
Dr. F. Wilhem discovered it by accident you see?
The first man downloaded was no longer man.
He suffered dearly until the plug was pulled,
and we started over again; with biologists.
Geneticists, Embryonticians, TransEugenecists,
all celebrated the new fast-growing body.
No more deaths at old age expiry, on battlefields.
for a price all would live eternally; eternity here.
It did not work. The bodies worked, the software recorded
but the people were insanely bi-polar. Insane in fact.
Until we switched the torso and genetics in tandem.
then somehow the surviving person retained all memories!
They were in fact; themselves! Just in a different gendered body?
Unfortunately for everyone this was a major psychological shock.
Unexplainable, sure, evolution took four billion years so...
...more time, more time, more experimentation is all we need.
Wilhelm changed it all.
When he added the shock,
added the <human> response,
turning the machines into
Humans.
They are truly A.I.
...verily human in fact.
Animal-ish, peaceful
then angry, terrible or
violent.
Artificially Intelligent;
Humans.
*"What good is it to change a person,
...merely into someone else?"* -Al Abd Azaz
*To see beneath the surface,
and know the ocean tydes.
To see beneath the surface,
and know the ocean tydes.
To see beneath the surface,
and know the ocean tydes.* *
Jan 21, 2018
Jan 21, 2018 at 12:14 AM UTC
One cannot stress too much,
the necessity of staying in touch
when the heart grows of someone fond,
laughing and dancing with them to life's song
it forgets all passage of time
gets attached to them, like two sides of a dime
but often times we must part ways
often times we are parted for days
and we long for the joy of their company again
though we think that the bond is retained
even if we were not to stay in touch
the heart is a fickle creature as such
it will quickly find a new object of affection
make a new friend, and forget that old relation
so if you cherish our friendship very much
I ask you my friend, do stay in touch.
One day we may be reunited again
Till that day let's keep alive the flame
of our lovely kinship, and hope to reclaim
some day, all our past joy again.
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 5:48 AM UTC
.
The waves spilled the rising tide
back into the scattered footprints in the sand
deeply entrenched in life’s mystery,
receding into every breaking wave
A stiff sea breeze put back every grain of sand,
elements of a larger object gathers,
gravity firmed, into the silent shoreline chasms—
a beheld essence washed out to sea
by the fugitive tides and retreating sea-foam
Soon all trodden traces visibly vanish;
unmarked mileposts on a metaphysical pathway
slip away back to a windswept shoreline
and elapsing summer tide
Seabirds glide in slow-motion,
held sway into the shapeless gusts —
as if feathered puppets hovering,
hanging from the rafters
of the burgeoning orange sky
There's an uncommon peace in the renaissance;
effervescent crisp ocean air filling
the indefinable emptiness
marooned within each heartbeat’s echo
Each new breath inhaled, disappearing within
the unhealed hollow of every thing once believed;
fully aware this life is unholdable as time,
yet feeling many things deeply retained
in each passing moment—
slipping away like a handful of sand
sifting through all these hands once held
Presence becoming wreathed in a miasma of stillness,
space that levitates like an unpredictable fog
that seeps into the gnawing voids
of an unsated hunger
harlon rivers ... August 1st, 2018
Jul 31, 2018
Jul 31, 2018 at 8:34 PM UTC
although you've gotten taller,
your eyes have remained
the same shade of trusting brown
and deep down
you are still the little girl
who stayed up late
whispering secrets to her best friend
beneath flower patterned sheets
and you're still afraid of spiders
and you still cannot sit still
and as you grew up
you noticed that the world
is a lot smaller than it used to seem
and i think when you looked
into the wonder-filled eyes
of this little girl
you saw a reflection of yourself
and it reminded you that
although you’ve gotten taller,
your eyes have retained
that same glimmer of hope
Jun 4, 2013
Jun 4, 2013 at 12:08 PM UTC
Amanda was a Panda
She was a lovely lass,
Although she had two big black eyes,
She retained an air of class.
She ambled into the Bamboo Bar
To have lunch with Panda Pete one day,
And he looked into her eyes
And to her he did say.
"Oh Amanda with your big black eyes
Will you please be forever mine,
And promise that you will never
Let your panda arms entwine,
Any other bloke panda
In this bamboo land,
Please oh please Amanda,
You've got to understand
For me there is no other
You're the only girl for me,
You remind me of my mother,
And so we're meant to be,
Together as a couple we'll be
With our four eyes of black,
Oh darling please look at me
Why have you turned your back?"
She answered very clearly
She said "because Pete I'd rather,
Find another Panda really,
To be my childrens father."
Now Panda Pete was really sad
He felt total and utter rejection,
So he sloped off before he got mad,
To a future of dejection.
He slunk out of the Bamboo Bar,.
Back into the forest outside
And jumped into his panda car
And took off for a long lonesome ride.
Tom Higgins 07/05/2014
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 10:40 AM UTC
Vote for him or vote for her,
Vote for anyone you like,
Use your vote don't lose your vote,
If you believe in all the hype,
The hype that's being pumped out,
By politicians by the score,
Posting posters and pamphlets,
On your window and through your door,
They're all after your vote,
A vote to get them a job,
Some are career politicians,
Some are just there to rob,
When the voting's over,
And their seats have been retained,
They just ignore the public,
Till it starts all over again.
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 2:26 PM UTC
My Prize for Waiting
~
*tucked in all by myself,
resting dark and quiet
in the thin place^
where the distance between
this world and the next,
is no distance at all,
but a few inches separating,
easily fordable, back and forth-able
my palms, hands down,
come to rest on my *******
and the two thumbs in unison,
begin to sweep the streaming space of their in-between,
conducting a radar sweep-search for the precise point
passageway to poetic mystical places,
hoping to snag any residuals for safekeeping
no hurry to either arrive or depart,
in patient attendance for
rhythms of woven word arrivistes,
coming in no particular order,
asking to be seized, greedy to be
nominated and recognized, immortalized,
as great poetry, prize worthy,
kept for all time inside others poetry chests
but in the thin place,
dream records are not kept,
hazy scraps at best retained,
a recipe for a witnessed totality,
is only a soupy reduction of a
few seconds of hazed video,
that can neither give nor get
no satisfaction
the plastic surgeons attempt to reconstruct
the body of the meal, the real deal,
alas, there are no prizes either
for botched surgeries and pretty but meaningless
poetry scraps
the only evidence of my travels,
a flushing, blushing residual flow,
slow to dissipate, a hangover makers mark
of a sojourn best described as unsatisfying,
my blush, a prize for waiting but failing,
“the most peculiar and most human of all expressions”^^
woe to me when returned in ignominy,
medaled in only base irony,
me and philosopher Pliny,^^^
both dying while recording our own private Vesuvius,
our bodies preserved by voluminous volcanic ash,
but alas, you cannot recite the ash of poetry
so one waits, cut and pasting brown edged
burnt photographs epistles,
that are clinging and clung to the distaff spindle,
insufficient to weave a flax complete
and yet we return perforce twenty four hours from now,
to snag another prized piece of meaningless,
my prize for waiting
in the solitude of the thin place*
3:35am Saturday April 6th, 2019
~
last nights scrap
***cease your whining,
seize your waiting,
therein is your own paid price
for the prize of inspiration***
inspired by Jean Fisher,
a real prize winning poet
Apr 6, 2019
Apr 6, 2019 at 4:26 AM UTC
The man stepped down from his horses' back,
As he swept to save the lady.
His eyes swept across the enemy's rack.
And it seemed too quiet to be shady.
He heard her cries and all her pain,
As the gunshots around him echoed.
He knew that to walk forth meant his life was slain,
His doom was all that beckoned.
He walked on past, to the enemy's shack,
And all he saw was the lady.
He took her hand and led her back,
His soul left to hades.
The day he lost, all fell was rain.
As they respected this brave old sailor.
And as he went, a smile retained,
And that was the smile of valour.
Dec 10, 2014
Dec 10, 2014 at 9:57 AM UTC
Once I read this quote
about how quiet people
have the loudest minds.
Now,
and only now
do I know what was meant by this.
I sit there while you talk.
Just sit and listen.
A little nod, a silent sound
of consent.
That's all you'll see from me.
Because I'm not a talker.
I'm the one who listens.
Attentively. Tireless.
An open ear
for everyone's problems
musings, thoughts.
And I don't complain
or give advice
I don't argue
or deny
I will just sit there
subtly smiling,
gathering my thoughts
inside my mind
And you are grateful
for that someone
who listens and cares
without judging
But ask me once
on my view, my experience
I will start slowly,
trying to hold back
on all the things unsaid.
tiptoeing around
so as not to drown you
And finally it will overthrow
my discipline
and words, letters, stories
start flowing out my mouth
passing the barriers that
have so long retained them.
And I'm afraid it might easily
crush you
because there's so much within me
that wants to be said
and so very few people ever taken the time
to listen.
Oct 15, 2012
Oct 15, 2012 at 4:26 PM UTC
Brings truth and life to my enemy.
God is Love.
Jesus showed us this Love.
Forgiving.
For I was His enemy.
Delivered me
a package of His one Living True Word satisfying and made whole
Through Jesus Christ alone shall
"Enlightenment" be obtained
Retained and maintained as the
Constant that holds all things together
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 5:16 PM UTC
There is no rain to chase.
What is lost is lost.
There is no time to be retained.
What is lost is lost.
There is no gaining back what's gone.
What is lost is lost.
I only keep the memories
that have been embossed.
My body's stitched together with this chaos.
Sep 19, 2016
Sep 19, 2016 at 9:50 PM UTC
i am my mothers child.
my mothers hands that held me, that i never wanted,
are my own.
"we have been cursed with beauty," she said.
i always remembered that.
and how fragile,
how bony her hands were.
her resolve to use them,
how it amazed me.
working in the garden tirelessly,
i knew how they ached.
our eyes are the same,
jade.
the big slanted kind,
like a cat, someone told me once.
my lips are bigger than hers,
my ******* too. I remember her being so bothered,
"that's not supposed to happen,
you must have got your ***** from your dad!"
my dad.
i was always a daddy's girl,
a tomboy,
especially when i was young.
i retained some traits from my father.
he is a good man.
but the things i learned best from him,
i wish i had not.
i learned to lie,
how to spend money where it was not needed,
and perhaps, how to be lonely.
i am my mother's child.
Jul 21, 2011
Jul 21, 2011 at 9:18 AM UTC
There were efforts to sling a steeple around a cloud,
to enclose a smoke ring in a palm,
bring a mountain to a riverbed. They failed.
Something of a Pythagorean charm is retained
for garbing oneself in white,
the precision of mathematics
performing beautifully the rites.
To refrain from bean-eating.
One who has held their hands
beating the air
for a long time
gains a kind of theorem for dignity,
despite having no solution to show.
Wrinkles reveal this was not the beginning but
a palimpsest, set over another work so old
the efforts must continue as the equation foretold.
May 30, 2015
May 30, 2015 at 11:02 PM UTC
Today,it rained.
I sat down at my piano,
And composed her an apology.
The patter of rain.
I looked outside,
And saw a tempestuous spillage of emotions,
And an unambiguous uttering of poetic truth;
That I never could discover on my own–
I saw the trees tell me explicitly.
God has His ways.
It was one.
I never would have guided,
My ever-so-guarded heart–
To yield with all honor retained,
And accept this silent insatiable feeling–
Love.
It always had been love;
That defeated time,
In the want of immortality,
In the pursuit of eternity;
That was abundant in scarcity,
And that sat like one timid angel,
In the abyss of my heart,
And lit it up.
Today, it rained.
I sat down at my paino,
And felt eternal in the silence between the notes.
Tomorrow, it will rain.
I will sit down at my piano,
And sing a song to the moments of eternity,
That God makes us experience,
Wearing this mortal suit;
In the name of love.
Sep 17, 2019
Sep 17, 2019 at 7:55 AM UTC
an unpardonable aberration
in possession of an adrenalized
dynamism of energy
which emerges
like that of the dirt on my face
but cannot hide
the strangulation of my hair
nor the red that fires my fingers
nor the desire or physical location
of my marvellous sexuality
or the ink that bleeds from my nose
when the excitement of creation
reaches its unmonitored theft
of psychophysical ************
of writing upon the page
those elusive words that once written
become an imagined ****** fantasy
blurred but cannot be retained
for the words must be free
free to be the poem, to be themselves
to be ourselves
Jun 12, 2013
Jun 12, 2013 at 11:29 PM UTC
How Sweet yet Sorted your Flavours that Are
Branding each ****** where Lust is the Key
Keeping their Thoughts stalled in Wonder that far
Beheld the Heart's Choice you picked out to be
Now in my Learning from Elders since Time
That People regardless are not Hors d'Oeuvres
Nipping that Spread to where Souls are defined
And acknowledge the Praise they so deserve
These are your Customers; Satisfy them
Yet still keep your Person well and maintained
None do they ask for much Sterlings and Sense
Just that Spark to which your Truth is retained.
That Day will come when no Fish will swim by,
Stressed on their Fins with the Bubbles you cry.
Mar 10, 2013
Mar 10, 2013 at 8:16 PM UTC
Have you ever felt alone in a crowded room?
Been surrounded by friends and lovers,
but yet an emptiness still sits in your chest?
Have you ever laughed, or smiled,
but felt the tears well up when you close your eyes?
Have you ever felt isolated,
while the whole room is held together?
Forgotten about and taken away
to a place where your heart knows some companionship?
Flicking out the ashes of your cigarette,
knowing each breath might be your last?
Have you ever listened to the sympathy,
but retained none of it?
Your mind remains blank and distorted.
The pain of past problems and demands
rises to the surface bringing new sorrows.
So you sit, writing out a new poem or story,
trying to figure out what's going wrong.
Where you went wrong.
Everything is always wrong.
Oct 14, 2012
Oct 14, 2012 at 11:51 PM UTC
humans born a mess,
messengers carrying blank notepads, sheet music,
brought from within to the without
a baby-sized handful of historical residues retained,
garnered from all too brief a prelim existence,
arriving possessing hints of what may be
most emerging crying,
crying over loss of the womb security,
for seers all, all see unaccountable futures clouded
by an inevitable chance of rain
and death
all of us, no one excepted,
covered for months in **** stained fluids ,
a holy, ***** combination
of amniotic nourishment,
and our own waste
a hint of what is to come?
human then spends the rest of life
cleaning up after himself,
mostly with tasks of addition,
punctuating by the occasional cleansing of
elimination subtraction
making room for the next love,
labored birthing of a baby poem,
from your womb, midwifed,
haunting ghosts of three note tunes,
begging for a set of lyrics and a
great chorus everybody can sing,
a completion competition
going along, all along, to the goings on,
all our routes preternatural crooked,
lived a life of pretense, a straightened out life,
which is the nuanced, connected summary of our components
which are all curves, dots on a line
and the composition source,
the secret chords employed,
tech installed just prior to birth,
effacing glorious sadness, glorious joy,
the human building blocks,
with the certainty that
*everybody knows,
that's how it goes
everybody knows,*
only fools believe,
you'll live forever
but live at least long enough to sing and write of
a man cleaning up his own life's messes,
and perchance, after our absence,
leaving the world better for it
Jan 7, 2017
Jan 7, 2017 at 10:49 AM UTC
on the paper
newly minted,
first time printed
causal pausation
assessment momentation
review, the second inclination,
then scrap-heaped,
in much bad company filed
retained, reserved, preserved,
for another go round,
another someday
you look at your hands,
telling them straight,
not good enough,
is not good enough
anymore
do try, so try,
three lines, four stanzas,
elegies and funerals
don't become you,
go into labor,
write labored
and birth free flowingly
knowing,
that all knowing glowing,
of a poem child,
product of
good enough
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 5:38 AM UTC
Chances!
Faith in an empty space.
Blazing maybe,
After a perfect kiss.
Loving perhaps.
Given half chances.
After gone issues.
Spent like chocolate pennies,impractical.
In wild romances.
Chances are wishes and kisses are dreams.
Nothing at all is what we perceive.
Chances are odd.
Not even the evens.
Dressed up to the nines, but only find sevens
Where nothing else matches.
When nothing else matters
In the sentiment from the diligent delicacy.
As only women bleed.
****** tears bless face.
Enigmatic smile retained!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Sep 5, 2013
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:40 PM UTC
His light house amidst
his mystic fog, signals belated
in triumphant decore,
Enamoured with ancient joy
of his blue green dreams
I chant.
“His rod and his staff
comfort me and all surrounding
gore departs.
I breathe in gasping
about my true love.
as he spots my battered
vessel into the wind sailing.
Ecstasy twinkles his teary eye
in the magic water dancing glare,
of our mystical full moon light.
For too long I've traveled
jeweled triumphant
yet unable to reach
his promised treasure vaults.
To the greed of legions on
treacherous paths all alone I wept,
through enemy's territories,
but all those from me have fled.
I roamed alone yester woods
I reach his safe private harbour
his peaceful shores.
As trustworthy jeweled queen
regardless of grave loss.
Willfully he reveals his home key
to come open up his door
as photographic memories
on new calming waters
get anchored deep.
At last I shall rest in love
on my bittersweet bed of roses
red, and flowers wild;
white sad lilies on hand,
saluting my beloved glories
recaptured and retained.
Enduring rhythmic ways
with courage, heart
brain and hope and off my
survival modes into éasier dwelling
into my grave but neither there
I shall trod alone no more.
~~~~~~
By Karijinbba
All rights.
Mar 29, 2022
Mar 29, 2022 at 7:53 PM UTC
You seem to know where you're needed
to whom this command addressed is a crazy me-man,
a street walking big DaVinci ibearded mumbler,
the kind you would cross the street
before the smell is close enough
to sending you running, not just
politely walking fast but a souped up
hi-yo silver away!
this guise no surprise,
you must and do
already know where I’m needed,
sealing the pact with a yellowtine post-it
writ in simple block letters ordered in a brewed cafe,
my latte arrive states my name as**
come see me
come to the time the place and the date
and prepare oneself for twenty and fours
of rigid interoperability as our systems
interface reach the pure state of 100%
ultimate wordless dialogue
communicating
in with by
perfect silence
heaven
you will write a verse,
my reciprocation
is already prepared
this terse repartee
will many spawn poems generational
for your family amazing and extended
an elephnat never forgets,
his servers are a rolling stone
with no direction home,
capacity unknown
every blade sighted retained,
and every sensate glance
a phrase seeded
departure will find me clean shaven,
pressed jeans neat,
and shod in well worn dockers,
cloaking my innate invisibility
when the children ask who was that,
you’ll sage reply
one new who knew where one was needed
Apr 8, 2019
Apr 8, 2019 at 10:18 AM UTC
You were never strong
Even in those moments when I thought you were, you are not, have not will never be strong
You let the victim card define you
And while you survived many things
thats all you did
You never over came
You were never the gold you sang you were
at most you were a gold covered chocolate coin
Gross on the inside
Covered with false light
You just turned 18
You can't play the victim card to get out of jail
You can't play it to get out of court
And no matter how loud you sing
The stench of the drugs and alcohol in your system will always be louder
You said you were proud of yourself
Not like your father
Or your brother
Oh but yes you were
Ever bottle to your lips was
There are days I wish I never would have met you
Never would have tasted the sin you subjected me to
Wish I would have retained my innocence
But now I look at gold covered candies
And thinks of your sin
Nov 22, 2016
Nov 22, 2016 at 8:56 PM UTC