"rotary" poems
as an astronaut, I spun on a rotary around the core of your existence like
you were the gravity that held me to the ground but kept me on my toes
if home is where the heart is, i'm coping with this unbearable homesickness
and I know my heart has an anarchy government, living a steel toed rebellion
but these relentless thoughts about you have gotten bad again, i don't sleep
my reckless behavior let loose, like a dog off his chain and collar and i
revisited the places you always talked about, how i dreamed to be there
with you recovering those lost feelings, and rebellion was assisting me
in the mind of my teenage angst, no autobiographies could be more
authentic than the hatred for this unrequited swelling i held in my heart
without a doubt, you're featured in my dreams more than nightmares
you couldn't be more real than the books that I hold in my hands
i'm sleeping in water filled with sharks calling me a tedious terrorist
entering their territory, leaving me with absolutely nothing
just build a bridge, get over it, if you have to, revisit my mind
maybe you'll see everyone is the enemy, not everyone is perfect
-kra
Nov 11, 2013
Nov 11, 2013 at 10:16 PM UTC
Drums of Autumn tell us, grandmother,
what did they mean?
Did you ever get the Lincoln cane? Did you cry?
Kenny, I'as a orphan. I never knew.
---That happened, Kenny was my name.
I looked past the rim,
there was the Corn Mother,
I think that's what I coulda seen,
but then it's only Grandma, with a grin.
Kenneth means know, Grandma said, I gave you that name.
kenning handy, a knower, by God,
not handsome in that vain way they have today,
handy,
winsome in puzzles 'n' riddles 'n' such
Kokopelli's play mate, some day.
Mistooken words rot,
if they lie, idle, in the dust
meaning
nothing ever. I shall not want,
I was taught a mistooken truth,
I took it,
gript it tight,
Get a job. Live with some class, join
a club that
takes your kind. Some churches used to
use
the Rotary test, if you could pass that test
you could eat,
after the message at the mission.
true? fair? goodwill? wait
if the first test is failed, what matters?
fair good will benes d'vitas?
from the treaty bound liars who called my grand
mothers savages, all of them,
right by
right of conquest. their treaty verified it to me,
then they gave me blankets,
General Leonardwood,
nope, Lord Jeff Amherst did that, then we died.
Read the treaty, 1763, small print. Blankets.
From the small pox ward, went unsaid.
That was just,
after
the French and Indian war, where the father of
the force that claims world-wide military
superiority
sufficient unto the evil of today,
George, the man on the horse,
surveyor for the future,
fought injuns,
so the king could sell their measured land to freed slaves,
thus making the mortgage chain, so popular today.
Build a casino, get rich quick, it's in the treaty,
lotsajobs,
busboy, bus driver, maid, Sioux chef and so
many, many more.
Grandma, in my vision, turned and walked
into the desert.
I took her word.
Brushed the dust and breathed it in.
Then I spit against the wind,
winked at you and rode my wind away.
Free is easy, if you can ride on wind.
Oct 17, 2018
Oct 17, 2018 at 4:38 PM UTC
Sweet sing-song kisses take time to times forgotten. I’d compare you to semi-sweet chocolate chip cookies. giving me taste of worlds known not to be. I’d make you the sensual honey in the bee hive. so sweet, I can’t share you. You’re like the tall glass of lemonade on sweaty summer days. quenching my every desire. The binding touch of your lips is a prison I will most certainly enjoy. The words that you speak so softly makes my ears tingle. With you, I can float around galaxies. no gravity exists in this rotary revolution. If it isn’t too much trouble, I’d like to tell you how beautiful you are, how your eyes are more than windows to your soul, they show mine too. The amount of words I could write cannot scratch your diamond hard surface. If I could put poetry in motion, you’d be the ever-so sweet line that melts hearts like butter. I could use these hearts in semi-sweet chocolate chip cookies, with tastes of worlds only known to us. We can fly around galaxies, save a dying world and if there’s time, we could possibly fall in love. You would be my light at the end of a tunnel, casting small pieces of serenity. You could show me all the things I never thought beautiful, having all of there delightful smells and sounds cascade over me, dripping like raindrops. The ways you have shown me. bring me back in time to a history I perceived long lost. This place has sweet sing-song kisses that takes time to times forgotten. It makes me think of you like sensual honey in a bee hive, I’d go searching from flower to flower with weepy eyes of joy, knowing that no matter how far I’ve gone or where I’ve been, I can bring my discovered treasures back home. When I finally return to our loft so high about unforgiving soils, I would swarm you with hugs and kisses. I’d love you so undoubtedly, gods must kneel before its power. So when our final curtain closes, our show meets a lovely lullaby-style ending, we could ask the world, How does being GAY change love?
Oct 25, 2012
Oct 25, 2012 at 11:04 PM UTC
"You are my friend.
Please do me a favor.
Give Bobby this phone number.
Don't tell him I told you to.
Maybe he'll call before Dr. Mendrokis and his wife get home.
The children are sleeping in their beds.
I don't really care for being alone.
Tell Bobby to call me on the Doctor's phone."
Jill tries to study but it's quiet tonight.
The telephone rings to her delight.
It must be Bobby.
"Hello"
There is a silence, but she can tell someone is on the line.
"Bobby?"
Nobody answers so she hangs up the phone.
Jill Johnson doesn't like
To be alone.
The clock ticks on.
She hears a racket in the kitchen.
It's the ice-maker in the freezer.
She takes a fudgesicle out of the pack,
As she wonders if Bobby will try to call back.
The phone rings.
Jill says,"Hello, Bobby? What do you know?"
"Have you checked the children?"
Jill hangs up the phone.
At the weather, Jill fixes a drink.
They won't notice a little missing brandy, she thinks.
That call was scary.
His voice was dark.
Maybe it was Bobby
Who was just pretending.
Maybe she doesn't like him much, anyway.
He's kind of a ****
The phone rings again.
"Have you checked the children?"
"This isn't funny, Bobby. Don't call back, anymore."
"Why haven't you checked the children?"
Jill slams down the receiver in a panic.
She dials the police on the rotary as fast as she can.
She's terrified and alone.
The policeman tells her,
If the man calls back,
The call will be traced
If she keeps him on the line.
She sits on the stool by the stairs.
She silently waits.
She's scared.
The phone rings.
"H-Hello..."
"It's me."
"I know."
"Why haven't you checked the children?"
"You, You can see me?"
"Yes."
"I turned the lights down.
I''ll turn them back up if you'd like."
"No."
"You really scared me before,
If that's what you wanted.
Is that what you wanted?"
"No."
"What did you want?"
"Your blood...all over me."
Jill hangs up the the phone,
It rings again.
She answers the phone and screams,
"Leave me alone!"
The policeman then says,
"Your life is in danger.
Soon, police will be there.
Get out of the house...
The call is coming from upstairs!"
Apr 30, 2015
Apr 30, 2015 at 5:28 PM UTC
is there noon on this comparison, and where does the stabilising hour care to fathom the giant and dwarf shadows of original shapes? if there is no magnetism of the clock's hour, minute, second, then the only magnetism apparent in the encircling of digestion / decimalisation, is to say the north of a compass, the compass' north equivalence of a clock's misdirecting eternity: of space for a clock asserting a mingling reason: the compass found it's existential reason in the north, yet the clock found it's "north" without care for magnetism, it equated the north with space, and yet what was encapsulated with rotary qualities? for clock the perpetuation of tick tock in space / for the clock treated space as a one-dimensional abstract, with its three-temporal awareness, and yet the compass said north thrice, and on the fourth said Antarctica was loosened to be explored.
i'm so tired - lifeless poetry,
make words encoded; i'm so tired,
so tiresome of other people
with bellies filled
and eyes in medium postponing,
to compass the needle
a gravity of servitude for the
clock of 12 (north), 6 (south),
and the disputed 9 (east) with
3 the (west),
darting eyes in Bahamas
for direction coarse yet coerced
by a promise, thus the compass riddling a madness
of constant stimulation with magnetism and
the magnet cursor of orbit -
wound three dimensions of time,
space optional, space always optional,
as ever time over-arching to be understood...
where then the compass, where then the clock,
if the compass led by vector of magnetism
to an uncertain place,
if the clock led by vector of missing magnetism
to a certain place of eased: tick, tock, tick, tock...
will that be equally given a wavering of
east, west, east west.... north, south...
what now?!
Mar 14, 2016
Mar 14, 2016 at 7:47 PM UTC
The moment I turned the rotary dial
I freed all inhibitions
Finally, I can speak
But at the other end of the line
No ringing rang
Just busy tones beeped
I sighed
I thought we were connected by telephone wires
Aug 9, 2015
Aug 9, 2015 at 10:32 PM UTC
You call me alarmist
Because I say what I have heard.
You call me socialist
As if it were a ***** word.
You call me communist
Like this is nineteen fifty two.
You make an epithet
Of anyone who contradicts you.
You call me coward
Because I hate war so much.
You call people ******
If men should hug or touch.
You call people terrorists
If they don't worship your way.
You seem to hate the poor
Wish they would just go away.
You have a list of names
You use instead of using specifics.
You have a list of behaviors
You consider to be extra terrific
Like making fun of races
And calling starving people losers.
Make laws against cannabis
While you are a bunch of boozers.
You use Christianity
Like membership in the Rotary.
Won't take your credentials
To be verified by a legal notary.
You hide your profits
And brag about your successes
And become homicidal
If you get anything but yesses.
It's a sick world you sell
With your hate filled speeches.
Surely this is not what
Your spiritual leader teaches.
There is so much disdain
And even evil in what you do.
Let us all hope and pray
Our kids don't turn out like you.
Sep 23, 2016
Sep 23, 2016 at 1:47 PM UTC
when he was 84, he rarely recalled
the Great War, though he left a finger somewhere
in French soil, and on deep sleep nights,
few and far between, it would call him
a spectral image of gas dead faces
drifting through like sallow clouds
in the charcoal sky
his nephew was the only one left
to fish these green waters, to court the steady
trout that he too saw in his dreams--all the others,
even his own sons, marching in the concrete squares
of the cities, visiting now and then like peddlers
hawking wares he could not understand...
soccer games and mutual funds
gourmet feasts at eateries
with cryptic names
the lake was still the same
the loons chatting, the waves lapping
but without his Helen, the fish he caught
were usually granted reprieve, saved from
his sharp gutting blade, her sizzling skillet,
and without her beside him under her ancient quilts,
the nights were not longer, for grief, he knew,
did not stretch time, but only
made its circle smaller
was a sun sated Saturday
when the nephew had honey do's as good excuses
and the old man was left alone, sitting by a black rotary phone,
waiting for one of his old nine digits to dial the new nine and two ones,
it is what they all would have expected, a cry for help, a long mute ambulance ride, them seeing him helpless with hoses and wires, delaying the funeral pyres, as was the custom in this post teen century
instead, though he felt the anvil on his chest,
and sweat drenched his JC Penney work shirt,
he moved not his feeble fingers to the phone, but his fated feet
to the lake, once only a long a hop from the porch, now a mammoth journey, ten, twelve Sisyphus steps downhill--when he reached the waters edge, the fowl called him casually, their slow song on the currents,
and he sat in the fresh grass, watching the painted blue sky
he saw the fins of those he had set free, hoping
that would count for something
when he curled in fetal repose,
and closed his eyes
by this lonely lake
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 10:31 PM UTC
Naked pink and ebony feet
brush the slimy grass filled path
Through the tea fields elephants retreat
After a night of jaded mud bath
Armored with sack and gunny weight
Enter the frost covered fields in drowsy rest
Wake up the greens to a gentle fright
And pluck under care of enchanting *******
The supervisor mackintosh
Walking with a bend and a toss
Shout at those Cinderellas
Who look for shoes and umbrellas
Even before its time to knock off
The tin covered temple of olfactory auditory deity,
the holy Garden tea
The chanting enchanting to a coma hot mesmerizing wafts of aroma
fills the air, capture the sense of all devotees who belong to the Orthodox commune TEA or CTC.
The sirens bugle the devotees into fits
They come in shifts for worship.
The tender hearts freshly plucked before they attain mature Tea
Spread to wither under a hell
of a hot air with care.
crushed and torn and curled,
the souls are put into a purgatory rotary drum to pause to meditate
on the ephemeral color change
To cover the green with copper red
Garment to ferment before being sent
to the fluid fire dance
To attire in black and retire
in packages
for a last plunge in to a boiling cauldron
The finale
Endgame
A sacramental service,
a self sacrifice to energize the tired souls
In cups of tea..
Dec 6, 2018
Dec 6, 2018 at 1:07 PM UTC
Will an eligible bloke happier be if he
Marries a ranking *ele like Miss Universe
With all her glory and graces, and 'cause
Of marriage mirth? Will a sheila pretty
An unbroken regalement have for a dream
Prince Charming--the fairy man of her whim?
Will the soul be jolly for the sophomore
More than for the frosh rapture of success
Had in the Ivy League of cosmic business,
When the heart cut a caper and an encore
Of hilarity requests of narrowed life--
To have constant binge in lieu of strive?
What man is wholly from trouble free, whose
Being be to sadness inured? Within, the
Spokes do sometimes snap at the rotary
Wheels of serenity, and chaos is let loose.
What thus can stay the pillars of pleasure in
A plagued world is above this little noggin.
May 25, 2014
May 25, 2014 at 11:57 AM UTC
Imagine a world without terror outer
and inner, sans famine of food and water,
where every soul is well-sated; a world
sans sickness and disease, not by the cord
of morbidity and death held; a place
where huts are mansions, every shack is
a castle, and each flat a grand manor;
where the roads are built with pure gold
and the bridges with resplendent diamond;
where the day does not change in colour,
except when full moon in its full array
once in a month has its own display.
I mean a planet steeping in love
unfeigned, bristling with true hospitality
of the soul; a world bereft of danger,
and of every mind-and-heart breaker;
a world with the similitude of the garden of
Eden, hung on the shoulders of harmony--
where man at another cove's lovely dove
will not leer, where there are
no split and divorce. The genre, stuff
of life where one's pigmentation is
not the cardinal, but the inner essence.
A sort of society where ****** Hussein
and Laden-like fellows and all their
coterie of killers do not have a lair
of habitation, i refer; where besetting sin
has no confederacy with the rotary heart
and mind of man; where the leagues
of villians are non-existence. An earth
where conglomeration of wicked cliques
is non-operational: where everyone be
holy--no child soilder, nor forced labour;
where women are not ravaged in cruelty
of acts, and is void of conflict and war.
Such a place "the world" is not called
but "heaven: governed by the Almighty Lord.
Jul 13, 2013
Jul 13, 2013 at 3:20 AM UTC
The haggard lawn is tired of the long hot summer now September has arrived.
Its seedy moustache is no longer luxuriant, but wiry;
A snake-like thing that has ambitiously unfurled without the full quotient of chlorophyll.
It is time to offer the sward the privilege of a cut.
Man moves towards machine, assuming simplicity.
But mower is asleep and will not fire.
At first he tries the simple fixes; fuel is present, spark plugs in place.
But the horticultural haircut remains undone,
As the tease of utility leads him to try louder, less sensitive approaches.
Meanwhile, the rotary monster relishes its narcoleptic interlude,
And the grass grows on.
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 11:31 AM UTC
The world has turned into a global village
No one can deny on that...
But..remember the phone we had placed on that beautiful table mat?
Yes...it was a matter of pride to have one..
The only fastest medium of communication we had at that time
It too had models...the rotary phone, the keypad and many fancy ones
We talked, laughed and sobbed sitting at one place as we were tied with the corded set with everyone.
It was safe.....no fear of radiation or loss of eye sight .
Though it was much too costlier than what it is today....people still communicated and talked their heart out
Now...every hand has a cell phone which comes with many features overcoming the limitation of the old one
People can connect anywhere in no time
Then why...?
We are so disconnected.....!
May be we mastered the art of telepathy?...or we are blessed with a magical wand...?
We talk no more
We only make groups
We love forwarding messages
We have become mute.....
So can we again move to landline?
Come out of the virtual world by talking to our dear ones at this time?
Can we try and understand what they are hiding behind their smiling whatsapp profiles?
Let's do things one at a time...rather than multitasking with phone on one hand and laptop on the other...
Let's give them the love and respect when one needs from your side.
So ..... sit back and dial a number of your loved one...and help the world again to become one if not through landline but may be your heartline!!
Bina Mukherjee
May 24, 2020
May 24, 2020 at 2:39 PM UTC
She only needed three fingers;
one for demands, one for insults, one to show love.
Her pinky made her feel too prim,
and her thumb made her feel like too much of an ape.
She had no need to hold on to anything,
and no reason to open any doors,
she just wanted a little silence from the thunder
and to see the cracks in the ground on a hot day.
One set of clothes for the doctor,
one set of clothes for the preacher,
and one set of clothes for the home.
She still has a forest green rotary phone with the ringer cut out
just incase the stove gets angry or the roof caves in.
She hated the Beatles and probably hates us,
but that's okay, we're not all that special, are we?
Aug 26, 2016
Aug 26, 2016 at 6:04 AM UTC
i threw the stone and it went however far
and my arm grew tired; puckered at the rotary cuff
like a cannon ball in a poached egg of oak sap...
i threw the stone and saw my breath thread
through the placid brilliance of immovable calm.
i watched how the aphids were gone
and kept a journal in braille and short-hand
in Kubla Khan's Garden.
i longed for the valleys i had never swept away
by descending from such heights
as i pondered the yonder god
of a misplaced
dream. so exhausted,
i stood in the damp muck
legs apart, straddling -
odd rocks and thin grass.
i wavered in the stillness
of ceased motion
and tarried in the Calliope
of throbbing in the Sun.
a fawn in the furnace
of a loving
lost.
May 9, 2013
May 9, 2013 at 6:50 AM UTC
As the helicopter chopped the air I sat there unaffected,
at the table
I elected to carve the roast
giving myself the most of it and putting aside a bit for 'Bob', old now and not a remnant of the dog he used to be
The helicopter bothered me
it flies in each day before our dinner or our tea and sits there in a field beside the house quite elegantly
but what's it for?
the pilot never gets out,never comes to knock on the door
and I wonder what he's waiting for.
I think he may be wanting me to take a ride across the sea and consequentially I am afraid
that one evening when tea or dinner's made there will not be a place set for me.
And in the tower blocks of regret up on the twenty seventh floor,I'll find out what he's waiting for.
I want the elevator to hesitate somewhere between floors two and three
Not willing yet or able to see the future that is waiting for me up on the twenty seventh floor.
I know what he's waiting for
but I'm not ready yet to face my future or regret and in these moments when I let my fears arise
I sometimes cry,my eyes are red
I butter bread and eat my roast and whether or not I got the most is not the purpose of this meal
the real meal is sat in the field,the helicopter will not yield its secrets until I take that trip
until I slip the harness
accept my lot which is always less than what I want but never need and on the twenty seventh floor, I'll find that one door that remains locked shut until I put myself in place before the mirror that shows the face of who I am.
After dinner is done,a slice of bread and jam to calm the nerves and soothe my fevered brow.
I don't know when or how or if I should even try to escape from that which would make me fly into that which I would hope not to see
but the helicopter waits
and I know it waits for me.
Jul 5, 2013
Jul 5, 2013 at 11:09 PM UTC
Five nights a week at midnight, he dyes blue.
Angel, you’re bad news.
Salvation Army button-downs unbuttoned in a second our hands have introduced kinetic bear hugs, although visually frail and weathered.
Shoulder length hair and a cuticle away from pure. obsession.
Of all the heartbeats and hop, skips and jumps; I surrender.
Adding the lye
m.
cm.
mm.
Get closer.
Knock me over in slow motion.
Tumbling rotary dial “1” click. “2” click, click.
Rendering the grease
I’m closing the locker when
He appears at 11:55 P.M.
Beat up, an 8 track cassette surviving a barrage of garage sales.
My dear affection is still a child labor law. Juvenile.
Staring Aderol Syndrome (S.A.S.).
Birds nest palms, the delicate benchmark.
I would give up half of $4.75/hr.
Warm me up and share $9.50/hr.
Collecting Grease
Gunmetal blue, locker “27.”
I read an article of clothing yesterday, not from these parts.
At
Your
Steel-toe
Boots.
Please listen. You know the dialect.
Coffee brewer, lighter sharer, you are the Aurora Borealis eventful.
Five nights a week at midnight, I dye blue.
May 28, 2013
May 28, 2013 at 5:51 PM UTC
I
found
an
old
phone
today
In a shop
with antiques
Bulky,
black and
beautiful
From the 50's
just like me
For sure it's dial
is a rotary
Its ring
takes me
to a musky old hotel lobby
I hear it ring... ring... ringing
The desk clerk shouts out
" Paging Irving Paging Irving
come to the front desk please".
Feb 19, 2016
Feb 19, 2016 at 12:17 AM UTC
I don't look into your eyes
I escavate every amber stripe
kissing the pin wheeling crevices
a rotary ferris wheel blurring and twisting
mingling as if your eyes of auburn oil and gold
were CD-ROMs racing at light speed
breathing your heart beat with every rotation
I peer into my universe and yours
God's and the eternity in between
and my stare slips as your eyes smile with your lips
and I curl with the dimples of your eyes
the moon and the sun collapse
and paradise blooms wide
in every amber glisten of your pupil
Jul 9, 2012
Jul 9, 2012 at 5:09 AM UTC
Anger,
Your anger breeds violence.
Violence creates more violence.
Way to complete the circle.
A rotary of madness,
Once you get inside it's green lights the whole way.
Ring around the rotary,
But you can't have what is not yours to grab.
Trapped falling in the sky,
Parachute made of exceptions.
All the rain drops want to flood the city,
Now how often does that happen?
Keep following me,
Me and and the piece I took from you.
Your puzzle forever unfinished,
Because you'll never find me again.
Can't merge with a crowded road,
Nor the thoughts in my mind.
Distracted words incoherently spew out,
I just hope you get the rhyme.
Dec 6, 2012
Dec 6, 2012 at 6:43 AM UTC
My guilt is a sad song that is catchier than Spanish influenza
I press it down and up, like levers on a strange machine
But the fluctuations are constant,
Always teeming high and sweeping low,
But never
Ever
Gone.
I guess it is conscience,
My moral discontent,
Which breeds this inner animosity,
But this is only data
And would be best used to implement a constant rotary of ways to help others
Rather than damning myself.
Aug 28, 2016
Aug 28, 2016 at 7:07 PM UTC
The world plods along
beeping
and buzzing
and vibrating with its
whirring gears
and sprockets and
well oiled processes
that pick you up and grind you
into a paste
and leave you
wondering how much
time you've wasted
looking down.
Jan 22, 2017
Jan 22, 2017 at 10:55 PM UTC
i dont know what to do
at this point
i feel nothing
i keep running around in circles
trying to figure it out
but i see the end of this rotary
thousands of miles away
and im so tired
so i cannot reach it
Dec 6, 2018
Dec 6, 2018 at 5:58 PM UTC
Yea, thou needest nay at a loss to be.
That's the way of milk-and-honey people,
Whose flirting feet are set to flee
The instant one's riches out fizzled.
For many a friend ***** and even family
Will forsake, leaving thee alone to deal
With and wax fat in the deep bowl of poverty,
At the turn of rotary fortune's wheel.
Jul 13, 2012
Jul 13, 2012 at 8:09 AM UTC