"retakes" poems
Without a rope but
squaring the circle
the giant man gives it a try
takes a flight off to the sky
only to fall flat on the ground.
She turns around
gives the circle her pi.
He bounces back
and retakes the flight
Que Sera, Sera on the way!
Jun 6, 2018
Jun 6, 2018 at 12:46 PM UTC
When we were little
They used to call them
Spotted
Orange
Lizards.
I think they were trying not to scare us with
The words
Standards
Of
Learning.
Standardized testing.
Those things that you need Number Two pencils for.
Those things that they prepare you for
Every year
For months.
Those things that if a cell phone goes off
The entire class comes back
During the summer
And retakes it.
Those things that they give you hours and hours
To take,
Out of our normal schedule,
Even though they only take
Forty-five minutes
Those things that don't even count
Towards our grades
Because
"They're really assessing the teachers--
But it's important to do your best."
SOLs.
Those things that people stress over.
Even though your answers
Are only
Tiny gray dots
On a
Scantron sheet.
May 13, 2013
May 13, 2013 at 10:54 AM UTC
Wild Dreams Of A New Beginning
There's a breathless hush on the freeway tonight
Beyond the ledges of concrete
restaurants fall into dreams
with candlelight couples
Lost Alexandria still burns
in a billion lightbulbs
Lives cross lives
idling at stoplights
Beyond the cloverleaf turnoffs
'Souls eat souls in the general emptiness'
A piano concerto comes out a kitchen window
A yogi speaks at Ojai
'It's all taking pace in one mind'
On the lawn among the trees
lovers are listening
for the master to tell them they are one
with the universe
Eyes smell flowers and become them
There's a deathless hush
on the freeway tonight
as a Pacific tidal wave a mile high
sweeps in
Los Angeles breathes its last gas
and sinks into the sea like the Titanic all lights lit
Nine minutes later Willa Cather's Nebraska
sinks with it
The sea comes over in Utah
Mormon tabernacles washed away like barnacles
Coyotes are confounded & swim nowhere
An orchestra onstage in Omaha
keeps on playing Handel's Water Music
Horns fill with water
ans bass players float away on their instruments
clutching them like lovers horizontal
Chicago's Loop becomes a rollercoaster
Skyscrapers filled like water glasses
Great Lakes mixed with Buddhist brine
Great Books watered down in Evanston
Milwaukee beer topped with sea foam
Beau Fleuve of Buffalo suddenly become salt
Manhatten Island swept clean in sixteen seconds
buried masts of Amsterdam arise
as the great wave sweeps on Eastward
to wash away over-age Camembert Europe
manhatta steaming in sea-vines
the washed land awakes again to wilderness
the only sound a vast thrumming of crickets
a cry of seabirds high over
in empty eternity
as the Hudson retakes its thickets
and Indians reclaim their canoes
May 10, 2015
May 10, 2015 at 2:18 PM UTC
The morose characteristic of my troubled mind
as I continually try to arrange perfection
has me drowning in a viable light
while still clinging to the darkness
of my ideas
All those tomorows pass by my theater at dusk
while the reel keeps spinning and spinning
as if it has a life of its own
to hound me endlessly
and its retakes drive my A plus heart into
massive convulsions
If I choose to continue at this speeding tempo
while trying hopelessly to downtread
the photoplays
as each drama unfolds before my
weary lids
I will, no doubt
throw myself into the pit
of insanity
How do I get this **** reel
to stop spinning
so I can go
home?
Nov 15, 2009
Nov 15, 2009 at 7:43 AM UTC
A new arrival sends him itching
To drag open the drapes his fingers are twitching
He benchmarks the day as they come and they go
From window-framed photos
Stories of his own
Relays the album, day after day
Till the thought becomes fact, he can’t shoo away
It bothers him and blights him
The ****** won’t quit
Till he retakes his throne at the curtain slit
Jan 27, 2012
Jan 27, 2012 at 12:33 PM UTC
*the dayend corpse of me
touched by the sunlight
is reborn a baby.
thus each morn
defying finality of death
in hopes wild
opens eyes a child.
he sees no death
in renewed faith
finds revival.
all pains aside
retakes the ride
of survival.*
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 1:51 AM UTC
I wish I could leave my past behind me, go to a place where it can't find me..
I know I'm not supposed to look back and always look forward, but everywhere I go I see it's track like it's already where I'm heading towards..
My past, I'm looking for an escape and I can't wait, just give me a cape and let me fly before it catches up just to watch me die. I'm a joker like Robin Williams wearing a fake smile living a lie..
'It can't be that bad', yeah you didn't read Super Dad. I don't even understand the past I had. Read it, then you'll know it's me that's mad..
'Talk to a therapist' what? Open up to someone who going put me on a page and stick me on a shelf, thinking they know something about me when I don't even know myself?.
Yeah that's a joke like a broke bank, thinking I'm crazy just wait till you enter my think tank and your mind wanders to my rank..
Hanging out late nights constantly dealing with the internal fights. Praying to the Christ with one-way conversations, feeling rejected by the church's congregations..
I wish I could go back and relive my mistakes, and turn them like a story just call'em my retakes..
Yeah I think it's time for me to escape, forget the cape, I'll just put on my headphones and put on my favorite song forgetting about all that's wrong..
Just put'em in words without a pen, just type'em on this phone then copy and paste leave'em to waste till they find a home with one who can relate.. Yeah.. that's my escape.
by John Lee
Sep 28, 2016
Sep 28, 2016 at 11:35 PM UTC
too much of
which Ivy league school
professors
students
politician did this
places to travel to
what is urgent
how much vengeance
has accumulated
what happens when desperation
combines with intelligence
how much time to indulge in cowardice
before evolution retakes its course
the most important new field of study
why militance is unsustainable
against exponential vengeance
the convergence of domestic
and international vengeance
The prestigious institute of
Imperialism and the culture of vengeance
how the **** is sustainability possible
after attempting genocide
of the people who knew the land
and stealing people from other places
to create the worst
identity crises ever imagined
Nov 30, 2018
Nov 30, 2018 at 5:05 PM UTC
“You don’t indulge in much self-reflection, do you?” Peter asked me.
“Are you asking about that time in Reno I shot a man just to watch him die?” I answered.
(A poem from a friend (by Peter)
A big affair
I know more about particle physics than love
but you have a gravity of your own,
and I want to be around you.
A big affair
A fight for your attention and commitment,
a revelation, a feast of impressions,
I could drown in it.
Peter hops up for a handful of peanuts, then retakes his place on the deep red couch next to me. “Sure,” I say in my best frenetic, surly and spoiled voice, “leave me alone here - desperate for kisses - and then try and creep back into my life.”
Oct 18, 2022
Oct 18, 2022 at 4:52 PM UTC
I sit back and I watch all those girls who think they're in love
Till the next best thing comes along and they go fluttering away like a dove
If she would have just stayed with the first where genuine equality was law
She wouldn't have had to deal with this new man's wicked claw
I've been in that situation a few years past now
And I'd never go back, no way no how
But these girls, they do
As if tho they enjoy being black and blue
I've told them they are making mistakes
And I can't watch anymore retakes
I love these ladies because they are my best friends
I wish I could make them see that wretched man is a means to their end
But they don't see and they don't care
They Just keep saying that life's not fair
I pray one day they'll learn its there decision how they live there life
And it could be avoided, all of there strife
They just need to know it's okay to walk away
So that maybe they'll get to see the next day
I pray they'll get out before an untimely demise
Maybe they will take my advice and realize
They have to get out and break free
Otherwise they'll end up broken just like me
Apr 12, 2016
Apr 12, 2016 at 2:43 AM UTC
I'm in complete disarray.
My life is in shambles and there is no return I say.
I'm a wanderer of my own cataclysmic oblivion.
Though I see all the doors, but escape is one in a million.
I'm pulverized by my past mistakes.
My soul is burdened and morose, are there any retakes?
But life is not a quiz, but a lesson to learn.
If you can gather the knowledge, will happiness return?
I'm in a constant state of bewildered frustration.
I need another dose and a recalibration.
Someday I will escape from my own mind.
But it's the answers and hopes that are scattered within, that I must find.
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 6:45 PM UTC
am just fantasising about you, your sweet body, those ***** sweet kisses. The heart warming sensual moans as our bodies rock, and I slide into that sweet honeypot.
I can still feel the tremors of pleasure as I go deeper and deeper into you. I Love the smell our sticky bodies as we wash each other with our body juices.
My bedroom mistress, I yearn to learn more from your wealth of the act. You are an artist and I wish to be your apprentice. Teach me, let me do the practicals. Grade me, but let me have retakes.
Let me scoop the honey,
let me lick every drop,
Let me get drunk,
Allow me to savour the life dregs,
Let my fingers play the fiddle,
Let me sing and waltz to the rhythm,
Let me strike the notes in crescendo,
Allow me to drown in the melody.
Our song will have no words,
The music will not be meant for more than a pair of ears.
In our studio of five by six,
We will edit and launch our album,
And on our memory wall it will hang,
As the best platinum album of 2019.
Mar 11, 2019
Mar 11, 2019 at 10:08 PM UTC
Shadows falling
I scale back the grip on the reigns
Her smile possesses me,
It forsakes me, then retakes me
Careless caregiving
I cannot fathom my own peril
For her slender fingers entice me,
They chase me, then erase me
Stave off regret
For another hour, two at most
Her voice is beautiful slander,
It directs me, then infects me
Tempestuous
Building shelter is my priority
For her storm consumes me,
It supplants me, then replants me
Jan 22, 2017
Jan 22, 2017 at 9:09 AM UTC
The town's stillness shakes me
It hold's memories of my pain
The night's cold air wakes me
as I call out for you in vain
All alone my will forsakes me
and I slowly grow insane
The old fight, then, retakes me
because the drugs still feel the same.
Dec 15, 2017
Dec 15, 2017 at 8:27 PM UTC
I know i am involved in so many sins
I know i am not worthy of forgive
You my Lord has seen me into pieces
I ll soon be turn into ashes
As a human i do mistakes
i do repeat with abundance of retakes
You have always hold my hand in trouble
I am at your feet and asking to get me out of this struggle
You my Lord always treat me like your own child
On each and every mistake, you punish me on time
You taught me a lesson upon my every fault
before you, my Lord, my life and my soul put at halt
The stars showed me the light
The hope and to make my future bright
After all the shadiness that I am been into
The heaven calls me to take a look of the sight
O lord! I may be no one for you
But I always thankful by showing my gratitude
You showed me the path and the hope pf ray
To deal with the problems which comes my way
You give me so much in my life
Love me, hate me while keeping my sins aside
The love that you bestowed upon me
Keep me spirit so high
The time when it was difficult to survive
I had no one at my beside
You took care of me whole heartedly
And show me the light that guide
Aug 21, 2019
Aug 21, 2019 at 3:37 AM UTC
Its funny how you put yourself as a priority in my mere life..
Its outright hilarious how your tricks don't work on me no more.
Life is too short, I don't to retakes or reruns..
I am tired of building myself up only for you destroy me.
I don't have time for your issues for I have my own
I don't have time for you tears because I have mine, remember?
I don't have time for you because I am doing me now and it feels awesome
You are like a speckle of dust.... lost in space and time because in my world you don't exist... you never did...
Nov 10, 2014
Nov 10, 2014 at 12:47 PM UTC
i was told that every poem is about death,
*** and love,
never in that order.
that it's our job to organize
the chaos in a way that makes us feel
as though we won't be forgotten
when we're reduced to atoms and scraped,
bit by bit, from every etch
we've ever made
and the earth retakes our homes,
our names,
our loves,
lives, the lost.
but it's just a feeling.
what's important is embracing
every curve, every laugh,
every spat of anger. and learning.
that hurt won't always last unless we let it.
Nov 5, 2019
Nov 5, 2019 at 10:47 PM UTC
No one knows, you walked down that lonely path,
No one knows about the battles you fought so hard!
No one knows about the times you got defeated,
When you were cluched in fear that's still deeply seated!
No one knows the amount of courage you held to stay, even when the hope swept away...
No one knows how easy was it to give up, but you choose to stood up.
No one knows the amount of efforts which went unseen...
No one knows the journey was never serene!
No one knows what it takes to fight everyday...
No one knows how hard it is to not find your own way...
Years and years have passed... storms have swayed, shadows have faded, seasons cycled and illustrated.
Ans still...
No one knows how much it takes for all those retakes,
Everyday starting from the very start!!
Everyday when you fall apart!!
Sep 24, 2025
Sep 24, 2025 at 12:37 PM UTC