"ritualized" poems
is like no other early morning, man reborn, in the delivery
room of sky blue, the offsetting water deeper bluish hue,
the trim-all-around of the mixed salad greens of the staff's
scrubs as they usher in unity, with no imp-unity, the risks,
while the supervisory sky, disperses cumulus clouds in
peppercorn patterns of white chains, or big wide solitary
brushstrokes on a a ****** canvas, gettin' the feel in the
palm of the heft of brush, the viscosity of the paint, the day's
palette reflecting available colors in order to create a uni~cued
original of what has been painted an uncountable times before,
and before…
tho short weighted, was the sleep of the prior night's restful,
he awakes to the early morning light, the sounds of early
island rouse him, even, arouse him, for the August chill
foretells of the early onset of memory loss of the peculiarities
of this summered simmering, human warming and baking
and natural braking of the slowing of the heart rate, to better
accommodate, nature's hints and hidden reminiscences
of the true purpose of the summer's intervention upon our
collective and unique bottling, our individualized containers,
un~lidded, uncovered, eager for the fuel of sunrays replenish-
ing the length of our lives by the elixir of the summer
it is a chill 63 Fahrenheit at this time of day as we crossover
to the nigh day, from the cooling air conditions of dark,
the occasional helicopter intrudes upon the morning's calm,
the water placid, the geese honking regarding my watchful
rewarding presence, a slew, a bevy, of female vocalists, to
ease this transitory performance unfolding, and though one
feels the existential of his solitary singularity, as he thinks,
nay believes, he is the only one in attendance at this ritualized
emergence, he takes in the cool of, the heat of, the admixture
of both, the clashing integers of each, and he, fully invigorated,
goes silent, for once more, he has uncovered new combinations of
old words to accept and describe a new day's creation, miracle of miraculous, defying the odds of this ventures's success, his own continuance on this sheltered but open all around island implanted tween two tines of land, as if all the surroundings were created just to protect this, wholly holy place…
7:00am
Silver Beach
Shelter Island
Aug 19 2025
Aug 19, 2025
Aug 19, 2025 at 8:00 AM UTC
Thanks thespis for another muse anew,
Filliping my soul with the spirit of a song,
To chant for the young world in these pepperish letters,
before my callous eyes on the skull of historical future
on my pykitonic torso of I another African pykin,
as I finish my coffin for the cadaver of poetry
that the law of poetry is a distorting neurosis,
neurotic abnormality its baseboard of time
giving classical balance for wondrous poetry.
Compensatory motivation a charm of its seed,
Taking dear eyes from the skull of Demodocos
Leaving songfull mouth his legacy for humanity,
Warped physique not short of history,
Teaching the world to drink in full pyrene spring
As hunchbacked dwarfism of Alexander Pope
was not in any sense dwarfism of his poetry,
nor club foot of Byron in ******* to Maugham
Byronic heroism to Europe of yester times,
That sired Proust, the Jewish neurotic
And Keats the most dwarfish and Wolfe the tallest
Of man and woman to the cultural matrix
Of Europe, the mother of art, poetry and synaethesia,
From which was born Pushkin that took poetry
Out of his nymphomaniac heart, to the solace of czars,
And Shakespeare the dear thief, luckily converted
Childhood kleptomania into royal theatre of King Lear,
The parallel of four brothers from the house of Karamazov,
Their father; impecunious penny penchant muzhik
In the name of Fydor epileptic Dostoyevsky.
A lull of the time to escape from world of rent and tax,
Gripped nerves of the duo to a new realm of art
wherein sensuous glory from ***** and Indian hemp
propelled the souls of Coleridge and De Quincey
to grandiose highness of poetry in the dreams of *****
bordering on the teutonic greatness of ritualistic breed,
poetry that transcended from rotten apples in the writing desk
of Fredriech von schiller the begotten son of Germany,
writing under the arms of Balzac dressed in monkey clobus,
that along with Milton in the lost paradise, gave him swaddles
only when the poetic vein of Milton flowed happily from nothing,
but from the ritualized autumnal equinox to the spiritual vernal,
as Coleridge was in full recondite of marquetry,mosaic and miracles,
the miraculous white male sheep, the white ram of Wole Soyinka,
that he gave as a gift to Achebe at the last anniversary, evil decoy
that become a car which deathly crushed Chinua Achebe
down to demise in the catacombs for the law of poetry
as abnormal human neurosis an equation of perfect art.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 8:26 AM UTC
<Sun May 14 5:00 AM PST>
Let us be smart about this departure,
time unscheduled, yet leaving inevitable,
the sound of fabric torn, a rent performed,
a ripping, a release of the gripping, connecting
tissue of weft and weave tying parent and child
*(All of us poets, all of us comprehend,
there are two points, two buttonholes
that offer escape or farewell, when we
commence on something new, when we
pen our chest’s demands to exhale, cease the hammering*
*Perhaps, here, just after the third stanza,
the brick enormity of our selected task, on chest,
weighs heavy, boulder difficulties ahead, now fastened
and faster and faster realized, begs us, quit this essay,
return to placid, from an arrhythmia of imploding loss)*
So many fabrics, so many tears, wet and dried,
but upon commencement, the only finish line,
is another commencement, when the (mine-own) rendering
is finalized, beyond repair, when guilt gulfs overflows, flooding
plains of forever pain officiated by signed scar, “here was”
So many separations, varied and variegated,
surficial shallow surgical or plunges, widths of trickle,
depths of deadly plunges, records of inches, dates,
names, new heights inscribed, measured on a door jamb,
lost, erased, when child’s door closes permanently
Came today to the West, to Pacific Ocean entrance,
to celebrate a good boy’s ritualized threshold crossing
over into manhood, both symbolic and and realized,
but tear-up seeing the small child-man leaning in and on
his father’s larger frame, a coinciding giving & taking
no bonds are eternal, for such is life, the weft must be
warped, sundered and separated, so many reasons,
experience speaks, scars are like bandages,protecting
but deceiving, what they cover can never be excised,
a space created, that only oxygen can touch both sides
but never, ever be reperfected, mended,…or finalized
2023
San Francisco
May 14, 2023
May 14, 2023 at 10:07 AM UTC
nothing lives at 14,000 feet.
on the high pass the last land
the grassland we'd drag our sheep
to briefly graze between the valleys of
colca, and puno.
focused in motion, heads low
wrapped round in many layers when we'd sleep.
in dens, in dark, in distrust of stars
and worn old men of mists each night,
that toothlessly bite,
at broken brown stone, gums
hopeless, hungry, salivating and desperately white.
nothing lives at 14,000 feet.
but rocks dreaming cold rock dreams.
remembering when babel fell...
fists first ****** from young rubble, to find
that hands are hands and hands can climb.
nothing lives at 14,000 feet.
but the livestock we'd drag
and keep alive, tireless
because towers are brought low
but hills only grow
and there are coats to stay the snow.
but to pass through this place we
knowing tempt death, incur
the wrath of Abraham blaspheme
the Word and the Way and
the rich air and pastures,
from which rocks are raised
to keep us from the heights for which we lust.
in old history, obvious.
forgot. spoke only in folk songs.
ritualized in rote laws.
but in secret, memorialized.
as solitary, at the highest point
each passerby takes pause...
stares down at the earth from the sky,
kneels, in the dust, picks up
three, four, not more, small brown rocks
to place at maras in defiance and triumph.
superstitiously stacking little stones.
as if to say,
"here lord.
here is something you can knock down.
here is something you can bring low."
Sep 23, 2013
Sep 23, 2013 at 9:30 AM UTC
Turns out the King of the Projects
couldn’t even tie his shoes.
Couldn’t draw or make love.
Hell could barely even read
and definitely didn’t know how to sing the blues.
Turns out the King got his crown
after two and half games of basketball
on the weedy court at sundown
the day before his tenth birthday.
Turns out the King was the roughest,
toughest, scabbiest fourth grader
in the whole **** grade, raised
from good Somalian stock and
willing to sucker punch kids
darker than he.
Turns out the 4 ft 5 King of the Projects
stood mighty tall over the
class pet ferret, ephemeral
creature of habit,
watched the
rodent with eyes peeled as if the two
shared the same beating
heart boombox.
As it turns out,
every day at noon we had music
but the drums were always
taken by the King who
pounded a steady beat to the
shake shake shake of
the music teacher's 'script
of benzos, eyes still glued
to the ferret, seeking a ritualized dance.
Turns out the class pet escaped last week.
Turns out the King stopped coming too.
Shame really. As the teacher, I felt I had
to have something to say to him.
Turns out I was just as scared as he.
May 28, 2013
May 28, 2013 at 11:23 PM UTC
Despise the way absence become routine,
Ritualized thoughts.
The aroma of a meal,
One I have had before,
One I had before with you.
Stopped drinking.
Your songs are much softer when sung in sobriety.
I can look at other men.
I can flirt again.
I can be silly.
Best with you.
Here has been ten rounds of four weeks and all of those nights
Not one where you have not become phosphene,
A hallucination.
The kisses on the foreheads were the worst.
Dreamt of most.
Means something.
And!
I'm trying to find the key,
And I'm trying to unwind these binds
And I'm trying to release your chain
And I'm trying to fight the same fight.
And you aren't here to help me,
But you are also so present.
And I know you do not want me anymore,
Foolish poor tainted heart o' mine still cheers on time.
A ****** shame.
Aug 11, 2012
Aug 11, 2012 at 3:41 AM UTC
My growing disdain for any semblance of a productive life has grown far greater than I could have hoped.
When once I embraced life with a wide-smiled, open-armed optimism, I have only been left with this inexorable malaise.
It is a personal strife I endure ever day. My existential outlook has collided with the nihilistic propaganda force fed to the multitudes at an alarming rate. The functions, gatherings or otherwise diminutive events of the more fortunate seem to have subsumed the necessity for a more literate or enlightened future.
The only way I see it fit to continue is routine. Routine is the leading most killer in human spontaneity. It also seems to be the leading most reason behind success. Not monetary success (although it can most certainly induce that outcome). I am talking about personal success, self-improvement, finding joy again in my most favourite and sought after past time.
I assume it is within routine where I can find this peace of mind I am searching for.
I assume this because my life has already been stricken by the deadly plight of a routine. One that has caused me to lose my footing. Rather than a routine of value and productivity, I have stumbled upon a routine of self-indulgence, disparagement, and an ever-growing urgency to carry out the most asinine tasks that no other would ever think to dwell on for more than a matter of minutes.
My personal strife is my mind.
My personal routine is my life.
Because of this, I have forced myself into solitary confinement, where my ritualized routine of the self becomes a ritualized journey towards complete insouciance.
We are the future, they proclaim.
Jun 15, 2012
Jun 15, 2012 at 3:02 PM UTC
Ritualized out of the skies
in all places and all faces.
Rightly so,
a brightened show of patterned glow.
Enlightened thought is included
in the time we spend alive.
But after life we thrive.
Rightly so,
a brightened show of patterned glow.
I'm going to keep singing
until the last day
I'm alive.
Until I die, I'm going
to spit this jive.
Rightly so,
a brightened show of patterned glow.
To live a righteous life
is my internal drive
to set external vibes.
To reach eternal life.
Jul 5, 2013
Jul 5, 2013 at 9:57 PM UTC
Electronic invitations are sent
to this festival of pen, paper, and ink.
No one ever shows up anymore.
I don’t mind.
It gives me more time with this notebook
and a head full of fire.
On Sundays,
the coffee is $.87 and I can have
all that I can swallow.
Today, it came black
in spite of my request
and as I made my
attempt to doctor it
into submission,
it spilled.
The next thing I know,
I have a reem of coffee-soaked
napkins and I’m hoping these
pages can be
salvaged.
After doing the best I can
I hit the john to wash my
hands.
Stepping away from the ******
is a man in a suit and tie.
He shoots me a baleful look
which I gratefully return.
He didn’t stop to wash his hands
in his hurry to get away from me
so I know that his cleanliness and godliness
are about the same distance apart.
Upon my return to my wrecked altar
of ritualized scribbling I notice that there are
heavy beads of cream hanging on to the edge,
same as me.
Instead of wiping them up
I head outside and light a
cigarette.
There is a young couple
contented with their quick,
cellophane wrapped sandwiches,
Doritos and sodas,
a fine picnic supper.
I sit so that the wind is in my face
and the smoke blows over my shoulder
into their suppertime soiree.
Upon my exit
they shoot me a baleful
look.
I earned this one.
And, I gratefully
return
home.
***
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications
Oct 23, 2016
Oct 23, 2016 at 8:58 PM UTC
The door is open.
Leave it open.
This door is shut. Do not open it. Leave it shut.
Not this one, but the next one. The next right turn.
Make the next right turn.
Instructions not packaged. How to care for this new incomplete stranger.
Monarch butterfly. Teardrop firefly. Three tin passerbys.
The center for new age trauma victims.
Lifting skirts.
No I used to lift skirts.
Bring me down.
Triumph.
The softness of her antlers leaves me confused and shaking.
Bone and then praise.
Supper and ritualized masculinity.
A spot on the wall, no more spit on my face.
Soon my blood vessels will burst and my jowls will sag.
The paragraph starting here. But I am here. And back again.
To say whoever finds him here.
Anything medical related.
And it is so sad.
Am I dodging the blows?
Or moving swiftly between?
She gives praise to the glasses. And the rash grows, drugging with nothing sacred.
All of this son could have been avoided.
Oh, a horn in the distance. It is too late.
Come now ye polished hoods of chrome. Parade along the city's skirt.
Erosion, under humanity's weight stands strong.
A breakbeat. Appearance of stereo but we are just in mono.
Jan 21, 2015
Jan 21, 2015 at 4:17 PM UTC
~for M.C.C. ~
who sang me to sleep,
when my soul begged me for
sweet release,
just was lucky, I guess
*"Mornings here with a coffee cup
Stories in my head, looking up
If the rain holds off we'll be in luck
But we're lucky anyway"*
<>
Been there, done that,
ritualized & compartmentalized
the essences of the routinized,
to measure the days of my life,
as small keepsakes,
charms and tokens on a bracelet,
jingle bo jangle,
when another be repeated,
the telling belling of
a ✅ of satisfying satisfaction,
<>
and I!ve been bone
marrowed & narrowed hell~married,
imprisoned until decisioned,
that no life was no life at all,
(take note! y'all y'all),
and I miss my dog's greetings,
and snoring while I'm wide awake,
always loved to drive too fast on
back country narrow lanes,
in my suburban shrunk
small suv,
with radio blaring, no need for
trucking on the Truckee,
been there, done that..
<>
in the small ways,
in the
small places,
take my slow going days my way,
and not no need
to rent borrowed uninfluenc-ed content
cause I custom built it in,
easy like, five easy pieces,
learned to make daisy peaces,
of the bright nights melding
with life affirming hot sunlight
and there is no bad time,
with a cold blue~ribbon
in my left,
my right grasping two O'clock
on my heart and steering wheel,
driving freedom fine,
Chapin~ Carpenter
on the stereo dial,
no set time,
just anytime,
rain or shine
for me and my poems
to *** together,
like old time,
any fine rhyming time,
together we flashback
to the sweet Release
from jail in 2008
<>
***and break out a new one and clap it onto the clasp
my bracelet of charmed
keepsakes,
like memories of
my old dog, thinking
one more time,
just got lucky***
6/27/25
Jun 27, 2025
Jun 27, 2025 at 3:32 PM UTC
the anti-siren alarm song
collapses the dimensions of the oneiric realm,
fidgeting infinitesimally,
the tangled engine of acidic tubes
combusts last nights pepperoni bacon chorizo pizza
all of sparta trembles
stalagmites shake loose and dust the bedclothes,
cemented eye-lashes decalcify and split,
as two stumbling gargantuan steps
off the promontory of your bed
lead an unguided hand to the light-switch
the florescent hum gnaws at you
a singular parameter in the speaking mind's running mouth
“caffeinate me”
a hill, no, a mountain, no, a sheer abyss
'the stairs', a godly ascent
an ascent for winged creatures of light
creatures with legs for arms, zeppelin-like centipedes
legs whose construct are Dalían,
nightmarish vaulting apparatuses,
whose step is a bound and whose bound is a flight,
as if all of the thirteen foot-tall steps become cliffsides
and all of the cliffsides become interdimensional worm-holes
as the distance between two mustard seeds grows
and exceeds the circumference of the universal ellipse
we see our premonitions are of infinite potentiality.
resignedly, we take the first step
the next twelve follow succinctly.
we reach the ochre chamber of caffeine
only to be halted by a question
a sempiternal question,
a question of mythic, unverifiable stature
a plaguing question,
a question rooted
in our achey-breaky hearts and nigh-arthritic bones,
rooted in the seeping pathos
of our ritualized morning zombie-shuffle:
but it doesn't get asked today, we drink coffee
the world is right-side up again.
Feb 1, 2017
Feb 1, 2017 at 10:47 AM UTC
It is time now
I am only with myself
no more talking, no words
to say what is is or isn't
just a slightly higher moment
to confirm whatever I think
over costly drinks we discussed what is was(n't)
but now I am alone with these thoughts
no confirmation, no glory of assertion
merely speculation remains
now I sit here, and write
as if to tell you something you could not hear yourself
everybody under the thumb of another
that's how it is as we sit here
under the fancy world indoctrination of the conflicted fat man
you can judge *** at a glance
in the all-too-human world
shared brides, cultural matter-of-fact
they fold in on themselves and swing to Wednesday and Saturday nights
the dominant pattern is an item in the diet of thoughts
for as long as we have ritualized; who knows how long?
our theater; a mathematical dance of light, sound and spectacle
a pun reeling from it's own absurdity
endless laughter pours out of every theater
together we cannot help but be
a retreat from the brink
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 1:39 AM UTC
Alleged linear
Ignoring its devious nature,
Time is homogenous
Conflicting with my behaviour
Allowing ritualized secrets and processes
Personalized by fragments that possesses
The civilized enablers
To protect art in form of divination
Revealing obsequious attempts
To pretend the culture's end
Ignoring our needs,
Promoting that healing isn't real
Inculcating us through a pharmaceutical delight
A treat to numb your mind
And make you believe that magic isn't real.
Words Of Harfouchism.
Oct 15, 2020
Oct 15, 2020 at 1:35 PM UTC
these barking steps crush
the rind of their fruit.
stumbling
on a stairway spun to a cloud.
flaying
the meaty gorge of the heart--
the spittle of invective left
to crust.
all cover to be taken, has
been taken--the hour hails!
were ice stone,
and inner climate house to
transparency.
a Promethean liver would not soak
in drink, barely dull to its
ritualized beak.
the stars align a word that
has gone back on itself, good
to the forever of its reason.
the more heavy-handed a man,
so twice the force be struck...
humble made in the pooling
daze of tears.
Mar 26, 2018
Mar 26, 2018 at 1:16 PM UTC