'Rudderless' poems - Hello Poetry

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P E Kaplan Apr 2014

The Curse of Frankenstein, 1957

As they walked along after the matinee, the older brother teased his sister, “Hey, guess what, Frankenstein lives in the attic and he’s goin’ get you.”  With a flushed face the little sister responded, "Nah-ah, besides the attic door is locked."  And her brother smirked, “Think Frankenstein cares about locked doors?"

Throughout their childhood, the brother jumped out behind closed doors, terrifying his little sister, and with each fright he gave his own fear seemed to lessen.  After a startle the sister thought, ‘Does my brother love me, like I love him?’, and she concluded, “He must, why else would he try to scare me to death?’

Within the decade, a sudden brain hemorrhage took their dearly loved mother.  Now, untethered in their mother’s love, the siblings changed, tightened, within,  While their father, a traumatized, war veteran, swiftly fell off the wagon, and the brother and sister cast off, rudderless, uprooted into troubled waters.

And with their hearts snapped shut, immersed in relentless grief, they parted ways.  Some years later, their father died, bequeathed them both his unhealed pain. The brother, the sister, slid secretively into alcoholism, conceded the family custom, invested deeply in their despair, the two went on, married, raised families, conformed.

And time went by, as alcohol soothed the pain until the brother breathed his last, his belly taut with fluid, his liver destroyed, a life sentence ended.  While she, the lone survivor, mysteriously yielded unto Grace and was pardoned, recovered, she finally understood, she knew deep inside; everyone did the best they could, even her.

…and within a circle of one; I loved them all forever and ever.

cirhttp://mladzema.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/il_fullxfull-362602814_18vc.jpg

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Bruised Orange Oct 2011

Muse wanders the strange landscape of dreams

While driving the backroads last night, I cranked up my stereo
and let the music take me where it wanted to go.
I'd heard the songs before, but I began hearing a different tune.
Must've had earplugs in before. I drove on, and the music played me.
When I'd driven as far as I could, and lost myself completely down those roads,
I pulled over at some strange station I'd never seen before.
I thought I'd sit a while there and rest, do a little reading from
the book I've been writing. **** my eyes for seeing words there I'd never
read before.  My book was writing me, I had never said a word.

I thought for a while about how you can wake up one day, hear the same song,
read the same words, and they tell you something you've never known before.
I realized then, I'd been driving with my eyes half closed.
Then, as the sun came up, I saw with my naked eyes a strange landscape I had never seen before.

Road signs were everywhere.  One showed I was on I-9, another read, 'Welcome to Idaho'.
I heard gentle clouds roll on by, and felt alone in my wanderings.
I saw paint blistering off the walls of some hotel, and wondered who would save me.
I thought about wicked games,and felt accused. I saw crossroads, up ahead,
with a ***** tonk on one side, wanted to go inside and order a case of finest wine.
I felt so alone, sitting in my rudderless boat (you know how dreams can go).

Then I looked up, saw a man standing at the crossroads
with a golden hammer in his hand.  I wondered if i knew this man,
and wanted him in my boat with me, to sail on the uncharted seas.
I wanted to drown in a deep blue bottomless pool with him.  Then I wanted to
accuse him, for walking into my dream, for standing in the middle of my aloneness.

I looked up at the sky (it was night again, as dreams go) and saw the
stars in the sky.  I wondered if the stars were real, or painted on
some false ceiling.  I wanted to climb a ladder and break through,
to find true.  I wanted to tear down the veils that kept me from
knowing all the secrets of the universe, to burn up the clouds
that hid the sun.  Then I wondered again if the sun was already
shining, if my rudderless boat was being guided by the soothsayer
of dreams.  And I wanted to know if this dream was a nightmare, just a picture
show, or some prophetic vision.

I felt pushed and pulled, with winds blowing a strong gale, and wanted to know if they blew from
the east or the west, but I could not tell, I'd dropped my compass miles back.
I wondered what the man was thinking, if he saw the same strange landscape.
I wondered if he had driven me here, or if we had sailed here together, our backs to one another.
I turned my radio on again, but only heard static, and wished that I could find the perfect song,
to express exactly the strangeness of this tale, to sing the truth.

I wondered again if I was dreaming or awake, if my ears
were hearing the real music in songs, if my eyes were reading
lines as they were written, or if I was still asleep, only dreaming.

Sometimes, when you wake up, you just
want to go back to sleep, and dream a little longer.  And sometimes
you think you've woken up, but you are still dreaming.  How do
you know the difference?  How can you ever tell? And where is
a good soothsayer when you need one?

I'm still wondering.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NhqN0KcWAE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLKUfBLJVqE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtfHk2hSlqA
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=b52s+wild+potato&FORM;=VIRE2#view=detail∣=874B55B2ED7446FB849C874B55B2ED7446FB849C
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YuaZcylk_o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_l4ZOVJ-ts

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Oscar Wilde

Glukupikros Eros

Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the fault
was, had I not been made of common clay
I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed
yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day.

From the wildness of my wasted passion I had
struck a better, clearer song,
Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled
with some Hydra-headed wrong.

Had my lips been smitten into music by the
kisses that but made them bleed,
You had walked with Bice and the angels on
that verdant and enamelled mead.

I had trod the road which Dante treading saw
the suns of seven circles shine,
Ay! perchance had seen the heavens opening,
as they opened to the Florentine.

And the mighty nations would have crowned
me, who am crownless now and without name,
And some orient dawn had found me kneeling
on the threshold of the House of Fame.

I had sat within that marble circle where the
oldest bard is as the young,
And the pipe is ever dropping honey, and the
lyre’s strings are ever strung.

Keats had lifted up his hymeneal curls from out
the poppy-seeded wine,
With ambrosial mouth had kissed my forehead,
clasped the hand of noble love in mine.

And at springtide, when the apple-blossoms brush
the burnished ***** of the dove,
Two young lovers lying in an orchard would
have read the story of our love.

Would have read the legend of my passion,
known the bitter secret of my heart,
Kissed as we have kissed, but never parted as
we two are fated now to part.

For the crimson flower of our life is eaten by
the cankerworm of truth,
And no hand can gather up the fallen withered
petals of the rose of youth.

Yet I am not sorry that I loved you—ah! what
else had I a boy to do,—
For the hungry teeth of time devour, and the
silent-footed years pursue.

Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, and
when once the storm of youth is past,
Without lyre, without lute or chorus, Death
the silent pilot comes at last.

And within the grave there is no pleasure, for
the blindworm battens on the root,
And Desire shudders into ashes, and the tree of
Passion bears no fruit.

Ah! what else had I to do but love you, God’s
own mother was less dear to me,
And less dear the Cytheraean rising like an
argent lily from the sea.

I have made my choice, have lived my poems,
and, though youth is gone in wasted days,
I have found the lover’s crown of myrtle better
than the poet’s crown of bays.

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M Harris Mar 2017

This Cold Black

And There Comes This Time, The Day Of Reckoning, The Last Night At Home, Where You Could Reminisce About All Those Moments Where You Could Have Been A Better Son, A Faithful Husband Or A Devoted Father, Reminiscing Those Mistakes You Could Have Evaded In Those Flashes Of Time, The Way You Could Have Gotten Those Flashes Right & Worthwhile By Amending Them At Those Instants Embedded In Those Constants And The Mistakes You Knowingly Committed Without Even Giving A Thought About The Outcome & Its Effects Later.
You Arrived At Conclusions Sometimes Without Even Thinking About The Outcomes Which You Regret Cursing Yourself With Those Empty Question Marks Filled With Greys & The Distorted Mirages Pulling You Against Gravity Into The Abyss. All This Time You Thought You Were Built To Last And Outlast Your Past As You Were Wrong About Fate Eventually Making You Realize Once Past That Gate That You’re Late.
But All Those Lapses Giving A Snap To Your Synapse Are Meaningless Now As You Cannot Control The Upshot Anymore.

All These Eons You Were Breast-Fed Lies By Those Plastic Eyes & To Follow The Congenital Assembly Line & Be Programmed For Idiosyncratic Slaveries You Were Shaped To Be In This World Per The Tint, Race, Money, Religious Conviction, Order In Society & With Hordes Of Other Plethora Of Anomalies & Your Real Purpose In Life Will Lie In The Trashcan Where You’ll Bred & Abused In This Lifespan, Appeasing The World Because You’re The Dog, The Society Dogs.
You Are Mass-Produced In Manner Such That To Be Impressed By The Authority That You Give All Infinite Reverence And Credence To Claim It.

And That Night When You Finally Comprehend To Senses, Suddenly Overall There Is A Different Version To This Sub Version & Those Endless Prayers Searching For Some Tangible Meaning To This Life Are Nonetheless Spiritual In Nature But That’s The Instant, You Are Being Offensive Towards The Established Order By Unleashing Chaos Into The Assembly Line Because The Society Does Not Want You To Make Logic Because You’re The Poster Child Of Anarchy To Them Because You Portrayed Oddity & Suddenly There Lies A Diverse Of Meaning To This Life.
The Society You Were Born To Is Cruel, And The Only Morality In A Cruel Society Is Chance. The Moralities & Viewpoint, Of The Society Is Frenzy And As Virtuous As The World Allows Them To Be, At The Slightest Aberration They Drop Their Principles & Ethos Into Dilemma & The Next Instant The Civilized Are Eating Each Other Up.

Existence Is Arbitrary. It Has No Pattern Save What We Envision After Gazing At It For Too Long. No Sense Save What The Authority Chooses To Impose. This Rudderless Ecosphere Is Not Designed By Vague Metaphysical Forces. It Is Not God Who Kills The Children. Not Fate That Butchers Them Or Destiny That Feeds Them To The Dogs. It’s Established Order We Contemplate As Established. The Paranoia Lingering In The Society Is That Under Great Power Comes Sense Of Protection. Society Has An Awful Track Record Of Sinking To Anything Or Anyone With Boundless Authority, Be It False Gods Or The Fear Injected Into Them Precisely From Their Inception, Sooner Or Later Detailing Them Into Puppets. The Sense Of Authority Clouding Them Makes Them Feel Innocuous.
In Due Course When You Realize What A Joke Everything Is, Being The Comedian Is The Only Thing That Makes Sense.
None Of Us Understand, Society Is Not Sealed Up In This Ecosphere With You. You're Locked Up In Society’s Assembly Line Depicted Divine & Aligned But Misaligned.

We Are Zero But Trivial Amoeba In This Mind ******* Huge Galaxy Of Nothingness. To Assume That Your Opinion Matters, Is Just Arrogant Beyond Words.

So, The Second You Comprehend The Whole System Is Downed That’s Instant Your Clicker Starts Going Down And The Next Moment You’re In The Sights Of The Cross Hairs.
As You Are A Personification Of Malevolence To Society And To The Society You Single Handedly Become Accountable For The Collapse Of The Fabric Of Society And World Order. You’re A ******* One-Man Genocide.

The Secret To Survival. Never Go To War. Especially With Yourself.

-03:21AM

#gravity #regret #time #night #thought #question #moments #mistakes #reminisce #outcome

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Bruised Orange Jan 2012

i had not gone fishing that night

i had not gone fishing that night.

the sun was down, with dark clouds hovering low.
me, in my rudderless boat, staring at the sky.
was i thinking of fish?  I think i was just lost at sea.

i was thinking, (well, i don't remember exactly)
caught up in a brief break in the clouds.  the stars
were out, shining their shining.   i saw them,
but didn't.  i was looking for the moon, her full, hovering
beauty imprinted still on my mind.

but this night, the moon was but a sliver of light, and i...
i was without remorse.  i had come to that place of understanding
that the moon's light neither waxes nor wanes within the confines of
shadow.  she becomes invisible in this shadowland, and perhaps this
is for the best, for who can take the beauty of the moon on a starless
night and call her their own?  she was not mine to have.

and the tide, it pulled me in, it pushed me out;  this motion set about
by the moon. (oh, my moon!)

i looked out, saw the waves come lapping gentle onto my boards.
the crash and slap, the rocking of my boat, shook me from
my reverie.  i looked down, saw these dreams gasping at my feet.

oh, beautiful dreams born of moon and tide, how did you land here,
and why?  i saw your gasping, your grasping at calming waters.

who was i to return you to your sea?
i was only a lost and rudderless boat.
i had not gone fishing that night;
i was no fisherman.

yet i took you home, slipped you into my
warm, salty waters and called you my own.

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christopher holmes Feb 2011

+
A bed-sits high and dry,marooned on a sandbank of night.
As  radio 4-casts its nets to isolated ships like me that rudderless drift on into the light.

Still dark outside,no sounds,save the distant echoing bark of a hungry fox ----streets away.
Another dawn ripped blackbin bag of a day creeps and ouzes in

Heavy unfocused lids fogged in the steamy smokeyness of tea and a first ***
plenty of time            plenty of time.
Time before the world wakes to the morning pips and its flushing, brushing, rushing sounds

A greyness gathers just beyound my pained curtains, as with a silent sigh a roosted blackbird clears its fasted throat.

Then as if by magic I 'm carried, scimming high above and beyound this mooring set in a silvered sea,on a welcomed mantra known to all.

As if a calling pray at day break,following each word in a moment subline
               Un angle vole                                                          un angle vole.

Rockall - Malin - Hebrides
         Humber - Fisher - German bight
               Thames - Dover - Wight.

Each single secert understood and noted only by a few as I glide over in paced, pausey surf rolling words

North northeast - 994 - Falling slowly - Low pressure moving away - Gales 8 very poor - Backing 3-4 later - Mainly good - Becoming variable - Syclonic later - Increasing 6-7 mainly west - Swally showers for a time - Fair - Good.

Oh so good, each pure English comforting sounds heard over lapping waves of air.

The bushy wet nosed fox sulks and cowers away from the breaking sun, as the blackbird draws a dewdropped breath though golden nib and tapping gently, call a hidden choir into song just for me.

Reminding me of the things I'd for gotten I care about.

Sharp timed unwelcomed pips flood the ears to prise open sticky eyes from promised dreams and spoon-cuddles warm
As I set forth on wetted pavements, ready to decline into my charted day.

Yet smiling as if blessed and no longer alone
            But filled with early morning salty thoughts of strangers

                  I
                     have
                                yet
                                       to
                                            meet

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Dr Emmanuel Moore ABOLO Oct 2014

Rudderless World

No road, no path
Trembling by the side of ruin
Awake me no slumber
Ayakata, he no sabi

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Joshua Haines Apr 2017

8. Stream of Pretentiousness; Degenerates

It's dark and the light leaks out
like the change in my pockets;
like the blood from her nose;
like knowledge from my head.

And I can feel myself being
  swallowed by this systematic
long dark. I cannot remove myself,
  a gut-worm in the lower-mantle
belly. Watching video-cassettes of
  my birthday. I don't know what
happened to my birthday video.
  I don't know what happened to
my parents or what I did to happen
  to them.

The light leaks, again, and I
choke on my celebri-thoughts;
mentally-******* to the
waves I'd give on a book tour
or studio lot. Talking about some
movie that made some money,
somewhere in Santa Fe or L.A.

The news is channeling my president:
a swollen man that is the physical representation
that a lot of American people are parasitic;
lovers in racism, xenophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia,
homophobia; scared of everything except the 'straight-talking'
magnate they put in office. Not playing president; playing God.

I'd hate to get political, though. I'd hate to ramble on
and on about something I don't know enough about to
**** myself over. I can feel myself picking up steam.
I can feel myself getting redundant but embracing the
bruised ego and poor technique. Loving the entrails
spilling out of the splits of my fingertips;
more beautiful than the brains I bashed on the sidewalks
of old Morgantown. Morgantown, a town so kind you
are gently destroyed by its over-crowded masses,
dying to be different or drunk -- I suppose that's not very
different than most places.

But let's get back to these trees that I haven't even talked about.
Let's get back to the kitchen table with the hollowed hard-drive,
with wires and cords flopping to the sides, like a
gutted spaghetti eater with poor stomach acid.
How terrible. I'll never forgive myself for that last line.

I feel so rudderless. So cynical with a touch of cliche.
I keep pushing back that age for success, thinking
that I have the luxury of choosing. My vocabulary is
limited. My intelligence is assumed; probably a void,
where delusions manifest and asian **** rewinds and plays,
  rewinds and plays.

#23 #stream #******* #writing

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Any present moment Jan 2014

An epic journey of random acts

We aren't given a guidebook of the
    life in store for us.
The best we can hope for
    is a life with
   maximum joy
     and
      minimum suffering.

I struggle with the thoughts....

Have you ever imagined being
     fatherless
     partnerless
     rudderless....?

Small graces that I never did.

So I only had to experience each
once.

Despair that now I am.

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Dark n Beautiful Feb 2023

Rudderless

Your flesh was never warmer to my passion(quote)
My passion was more than you could have deal with
My love of poetry writing, is my secret weapon
I am not gifted, I am black, however I am motivated by words,
I have never found them too difficult to string together,
But to make sense of them, that is another matter
Sometimes I think I am madder at life situation than an the Madhatter
I love to think that I am in love,
But this love thing doesn’t love me,
My mood at my age can change like night and day
And as the saying goes, I can't come out to play on a rainy day (no way)
Loving from a distance, and loving from the heart is also risky,
These are times when ones have to reach for the bottle of whiskey,
Sometimes, I think I am winning, but sometimes I have to take a step back
And recharge, because living in a fantasy world of lies, *** and video links,
Can be extremely dangerous, like the mixing bleach,
Words from his lips in his native tongues,
easily soften my heart, (today my heart is racing for you)
Such poetic, sound, I love to watch as he cleanses his body
For forty-five minutes, all I could think of to say to him
had you ever thanked God for such a blessing:
His smile said it all. I release my eggs: because of the poetic gesture:
My birthday will be in five days,
My age is reducing, because of feelings,
Somehow my body seem to be laughing at the calculation (😊
Rudderless!! But to hell with it , I am not docking no time soon
Ama is on her way to ….

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Steven Fried Sep 2013

Sail

Addiction's innocent cousin ***** needling into my veins
infected me seasons ago
the ache I once felt still strong as mast's girth

From wind to wind sea to sea we internally roamed
in my mind the map was a treasure trove for exploration
i never was bound to lake shore
wind whipping tide tussling rousing mornings and dusky
nights

My mistresses my pleasure gliding goddess
drift lazily and let me sing praise with shouts "Boom"
but coy or not I coil spry
aged not with time
but lessons learned

The youngest have yet to grow
knowledge of the mystery fables tell
of beautiful passings

Land's unreachable without proper direction
rudderless a hair's breadth magnified out of reach
cool autumn leaves fall on my skiff

She tugs at my heart and at your golden hemp locks
they have all my love stolen from your deck your bow
your stern your timber your core
but let us sail evermore

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st64 May 2013

time is but a disease

choo choo

next stop.....perdition

(no, not really...no-one believes this Stygian opacity)

1.
look how Time doth ravage thee
look what it did to thy visage
in smithereens, lies youth
it so artfully takes away
what is held so dear

rivers and streams
valleys and hills

arching to ecstatic heights
plunging to abysmal lows

into the ravine of chance
stirred by the spoon of Time
slowly around the cauldron
brews the self-same mixture
then poured into chasms of forgetfulness

using the eternal sledgehammer
it
smashes the foundation of thought
grinds the nutmeg of speed
pulps the fruit of mentality
slows the pulse of sensation

and pardons none.

2.
what was once sensuous and voluptuous lips
now are merely two dry slits on your face

once stared-into eyeballs, now glass over
vitreous cataracts steadily grow, ****-like

toned into lithe elastic bands now stretch
away into forever, a pale platform to walk on

life's morn is encompassed by years' slanting
clouded and bedimmed by mists of age

butterfly's existence outweighs a man's
by mere night-veiled windowpane of true sight

draw the curtains; close the shutters; screen the eyes
the time has come to shed all blinkers and face the sun.

3.
crimp
sag
limp
drag

mud cracks down a dipping dale
scalding pain sears sore half-foot

yes, time is but a disease
ravaging all
without fear or favour

sunken eyes
slower reflexes
tardier mind
scraggly body

hides not
condescends not
forgets not

the glimmer of ....
a time of ...

4.
cathedral invites the walker in
cool and calm recesses
sit silent
wait....

then *they walk in, carrying
one who had but a lucky half-score lot

clear soprano note becomes a rudderless bleat
announcing the folly of stifling ego

now shorn of burning frost of circuitous fervour
beams of mercy cast a final look-see
jump the barriers of
time
to
carry thee off.

pipe *****-stops are pulled out

(art thee ready? platform number 5)

S T, 9 May 2013

How age doth touch the brow of one and all.

Looking at pictures of and being inspired by the writing of esteemed Anglo-American writer W. H. Auden (born in 1907, York, UK - died in 1973, Vienna).

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

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RAJ NANDY Jun 2016

Dear Poet Friends, Delhi is well known for its Dust Storms during the hot and humid month of May & June, and the absence of rain! This poem was composed in the Month of May 2008, and posted on ‘Poetfreak.com'.  Hope you like the same. Thanks, - Raj

                  DUST  STORM
All through the sultry and humid day,
The sky had grown angry and reddish grey!
And the evening suddenly became very still,
As an eerie silence crept there in!
When suddenly from the sky came rushing out,
Making a prolonged whistling and gushing sound,
As if some beastly hounds have been let out, -
There came the raging, ravaging, Dust Storm!

Lashing the tree tops and smashing window
panes ,
Uprooting old trees by road side and lanes!
Ravaging and railing with its destructive force,
Blew the angry and relentless dust storm!
As papers and packets and old withered leaves,
Flew around like thread-less kites on this hot
Summer's eve!
All my collected thoughts, desires, and dreams,
Flew helter-skelter with the winds up high,
Like rudderless ships without direction,
With the whirlwind in its maddening motion.
With dust in my hair, in my eyes and mouth,
As the sand storm raged all around and about!

When after some time like a spent out force,
The storm abated as night drew close.
With dust in my hair, in my eyes and mouth,
But a pleasant coolness prevailed all around!
Dust Am I, And To Dust I Shall Return, **
Once I wake up from my Earthly trance!
And with the raging dust storm I shall rage
one day,
To join up in its maddening dance in the month
of May!
                    ---Raj Nandy, New Delhi.

** Based on 'The Book of Common Prayers' for the Anglican Church, where for funeral services these words appear, - ''Ashes to ashes, dust to dust''!

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SøułSurvivør Jun 2015

the words are singing

under my skin
high tension wires
they crackle and singe
the hair on my arms
burning inside
making roadmaps on my
throat and belly
leading

nowhere

the words are singing

an a cappella high note
bursting my eardrums
shattering glass

the fragments shimmer
and filter out into
the ionosphere
hang there
to rival
the

aurora borialis

the words are singing

their song of mermaids
their siren song

i crash on the rocks
i tear the paper
with a
rudderless ship
and the words
skitter
off the page

like lizards**

soulsurvivor
(c) 6/6/2015

I'm not sure if my wifi network
will be working properly
We've been having trouble

This poem was screaming for release

It's the last one for a while
I want to read more

Please forgive me if I am slow
The company is coming out
to look at the server
but I never know when my server
will be working

---

#words #song #singing #siren

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Perig3e Aug 2012

Digital conversion

There are three B's
intimately connected to a spinal cord injury,
bowel, bladder, and blather.
The gut severed from the brain
is rudderless.
Both bowel and bladder require outside assistance
which brings in blather.
The care giver, the talker.
One time, in my case
a born again ****** searcher.
Not for ****
but for digital conversion.
My *** well in hand I heard the purr,
"Do you believe in Jesus?"

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Valsa George Mar 2018

Rudder-less

He flew,
far from the plumed flock,
above the vast stretch of sands,
over crags and boulders.
flew into forlorn uncharted lands,
into the lure of the unknown,
searching for a tree to perch.
a temporary haven in encircling fetters,
a home away from home.
seeking comfort where none exists.

Saw the twilight nibbling at,
the blazing brightness,
from the sinking sun.
an orb of orange red.
a tad too naughty to tame,
playing out its remaining moments.

Nowhere within eyeshot,
a crown of supine leafy green,
propped firm on poles of brown,
shooting out into the darkened sky.
nor the whirr of nocturnal moths,
leaving the hide of leprous barks.

Like a kite at the beck of winds,
slipped out from the controlling grip,
with the string hanging loosely down,
he swayed and tossed in boundless blue.
below lay the abysmal depths,
and sand dunes forming cancerous lumps.

The sun that sank into roaring depths,
left not even a glint of light,
unable to hold on to a willed direction,
and passing through the Stygian sky,
he knew his body growing heavy,
felt the ache in every limb,
and the wings, losing their power to soar
x x x x x x

The descent was far too abrupt,
rudderless and reeling,
he dropped down,
like a missile, blasted out,
and none heard the fierce thud!

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Logan Robertson Mar 2019

Two Horses Short of Being Stable

She kept staring at the full moon
Her friend, confidant, fixation
Regretfully, I learn later, her escape
I kept talking in eerie silence
And keeping company to no effect
She like a bird tethered in a cage
I remember that night
Solemn the scar
Fourteen years hence
We were parked along a beach in Hawaii
Paradise one would think
Man and wife
Gazing in the opposite direction
I learn later our lasting vacation
Somewhere in the distance
Happy palm trees dance to the music of the waves
Whitecaps accentuate the moonshine of the night sea
Statues of tall mountains stand sentry
Separated by a treeline
Rolling hills, bare picket fences
And a defining moment
In the darkness and contrast
In·con·gru·ous
I see a few horses approaching our view, us
No doubt curious
My wife jests, as her eyes, depart the moon
Her reverie, her prayer pause
As the inside of the car shrivels
My heart braces
Her words, one by one
Denouncement at its finest
As she looks back at the horses, then me
"Even the poppies are in love
They're so stable"
She says this over and over
For my effect
Her eyes glassy
Her voice but a whisper
Steel, still
Drawing the horses nearer
Where soon their eyes
And noses peek through the fences of gloom
Big and brown,
Neighing
She begins to tear
Again
Sad and red
Real childlike
Her past begins to flash
Where she says something to the effect
That she once worked the corner of 42nd steet
In San Francisco
A bombshell went off
The horses sank in their seats
Lava spewed from my head
Mount Robertson in ashes
No votive candles could save her
Or us
Her angels on her shoulder
Lost to her rescue
Only albatrosses
Sinking
Sinking, us
Again in reverie
"Even the poppies are in love
They're so stable"
On and on
"I once worked the corner of 42nd Street
In San Francisco"
Her words, again, like ice
Melting
Reverberating in my mind
Where did I go wrong, I thought
Melancholy on the rocks
That night a man
And a moon cried
The sublimity of her message
The pantomime
The mock of steel
The planted seeds
The turning point
I can only gaze at the rolling hills
Now with two horses hoofing it back to safety
The darkness
The lost rebuttal and love
Her full moon
So prophetic
My teary eyes and mind could only wander
Past the happy palm trees
To the pieces of the puzzle
"You don't love me any more"
Deeply, I dug, wanting to find the answers
As her eyes and fingers quickly curled my lips
My insides a mess
She blows out my candle
Takes away the shovel
I knew
She knew
No words needed to be expressed
Only these
"Even the poppies are in love
They're so stable"
Soon it seamed,
Seemed
Stitches of our love ripped apart
That car that was once parked along the beach
Paradise searching
Now more suited for a funeral procession
As we bereave the aloha attire, hotel, vacation and then the airport
As two ships departed in bereavement
Rudderless, without sails
Our port becoming a pretense
The living room couch soon my refuge
Saturated with my tears
Faithfulness and honor
Her bi-polarity worsening
Sadly
Truly
I didn't know at the time
If only I had known
Had some understanding
The winds at war
Of what was in her harbor
More of the anchors of doom
Holding her down
The barnacles, erosions of her mind
I could have helped
I will always remember that night
Fourteen years hence
Two horses short of being stable
And the battles in my mind
The tears
The waning days and months
Where the seasons and time felt lost
A year later,
A morning dawn
Mourned
I looked into her vacant eyes
The stillness
She was finally at peace
No longer tethered or caged
There was a full moon the night before

Logan Robertson

3/04/2019

My wife was the love of my life and pain. She brought insight, intrigue, and mystery. She once told me she graduated from Yale, was a former model and once dated a Saudi prince, and I believed every word. What I can surmise about her illness is that her body was a cesspool of prescriptions drugs that only made her condition worsen.

#darkpoem #moon #lostlove #sadness #confessionalpoetry #bipolarity

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Chris Thomas Apr 2016

I am a weary traveler, yet I fatigue from sitting still
I've been on this trail, seeking medicine for my disease
Not sure if I'm still alive, or merely ill

I am lukewarm water, yet I burn from the cold inside
I stop at every impasse, pushing rocks out of my way
And wondering if my legs are broken, or if they overstride

I am a rudderless vessel, paying no mind to signs
As I drift from place to place, from dream to dream
Retreating from this world without a finish line

I am a weary traveler, yet I fatigue from sitting still
I've been on this trail, seeking medicine for my disease
Still not sure if I'm alive, or merely ill

#unknown #weary #traveler

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Jack Trainer Jun 2014

Depressed

Pendulous eyes, weary and bleak
Immoveable shadows, the unseen torrents
Coyly divulge the once impetuous spirit
On his shoulders, he carries a colossal weight
For his is a cleft vessel, rudderless and floundering
The rise and fall of each swell, brings neither hope or despair
He contemplates the gilded life, an absurd apparition
And slithers back to obscurity where the worm and dreams cohabitate

#poem #poetry #sad #depression #life #soul #you

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Joshua Haines Sep 2016

I'm an Amazombie in denim and fog,
Black and blue, and twenty-two:
a millennial with an oppressive blog.
***, money, and hipster brains --
condomless, rudderless, token.
I like the way you like the way
when I'm completely broken.

#love #america #*** #money #hipster #commercial #amazon #consumer #trump #clinton

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Bhupathi Prabhakara Rao Nov 2014

Of any color or creed,
Of status high or low,
Treacherous minds,
Heartless brain,
Venomous looks,
Ruthless tongue,
Heinous hands,
Rudderless feet,
Intense dubious desire,
Conspire, collude,
Often pay deaf ear
Snub wiser counsel of one’s mind
And skim out criminals
How to spurn viral thoughts;
A major challenge confronting humanity
Of a confounded nation
That needs vaccination.

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jo spencer Jan 2013

Assumed Identity

I am floundering in a new identity
often praise is irksome
it comes with a cost,
so subliminal I'll become, rudderless,
I voyage, comparatively
as a torrent is to stimulating.

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Alan McClure Jul 2013

Mrs. Buddha

That's him away then. So, kids,
what do we do now?
No, laddie, don't cry. We'll find our way.
No-one will write it down,
you may be sure of that,
but no-one will be burnt alive for it -
no nation will be conquered for it -
no vacuous, rudderless culture will claim it at their convenience.

On you go now, boys,
there's work to be done.
We can't all nap under a bodhi tree when it suits us.
Here now, no tears -
here's a kiss for you both.

We'll walk this path together,
real dust rising behind us,
real pain and real joy before us
and we'll maybe find
that attachment's not such a terrible thing
after all.

Continue reading...

Bhupathi Prabhakara Rao Feb 2015

Of any color or creed,
Of status high or low,
Treacherous minds,
Heartless brain,
Venomous looks,
Ruthless tongue,
Heinous hands,
Rudderless feet,
Intense dubious desire,
Conspire, collude,
Often pay deaf ear
Snub wiser counsel of one’s mind
And skim out criminals
How to spurn viral thoughts;
A major challenge confronting humanity
Of a confounded nation
That needs vaccination.

Continue reading...

Minx In Verse Jul 2014

Ode to my Mer-Lover

I swam in your seas
Dived depths to plunder treasures
From the dark ocean floor
Felt the tumult of your soul crash over me
Floated with you on calm blue waters warmed by the sun
Lapping waves rhythmically revealing belly, breast, pearlescent scales, hair red as flame.

Your lips formed a half-smile
As you sang your siren song
And I surrendered myself to an eternity of pleasures
Now I am cast adrift, rudderless
No horizon in sight
Endlessly searching for a glimpse of you.

Love the idea of mermaids and myths and fairy tales about them. Wanted to write something fantastical that also captures the longing for a passionate relationship long past.

#love #passion #fairy #tale #romantic #fantasy #sensual #sea #mermaid #mer-lover

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Daivik Apr 2022

what?

Just floating in this world like a rudderless ship

An aimless traveller on a nowhere trip

#aimless #travel #lonely #lost #isolation #poem #short #haiku

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Clair Meyrick Nov 2015

Gone

Motherless rudderless
There is no one to steer this boat.
We are still anchored in the past
Exactly where she dropped it.
Moss grows old
Rust corrodes
But time doesn't erode

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Valsa George Aug 2017

An Old man's Prayer

I am a paling star to be washed out
In the dazzling brightness of the arriving dawn
A calendar that ran out of time
A broken guitar with strings loose

I will soon exit out of life
Like a man hardly anyone knew existed
And only very few would miss

As I look back to the prime days
I feel years have flown away in a flurry
Like scraps of paper whirling in the gale
A dense fog crawls up into my eyes
The verdant vistas and smiling faces
Have discoloured like weather worn paintings
The violet shadows of red rocks
Form a dark cave within me
Nothing subsists in the dells n’ hollows
Of my memory
I wilt under Age’s burning breath
And wither under its deadly blight
Now I drift... a rudderless vessel
Through unknown waters

Waiting at the Departure Lounge
I now have only one prayer;

Don’t let me scorn and disdain the young
Whose sky is wider and dreams endless
Who walk with nimble feet and sure steps
To conquer the world that has left me a scrap!

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Evie Hammond Aug 2015

My Shotokan Tiger

When we met you said life had broken you
It started in childhood, what he put you through
And now you felt shamed because you were homeless
Abandoned by society, drifting and rudderless

You told me as though it was a ***** secret
And thought I'd walk away

You told me how you washed in the railway station
Fighting for work to improve your situation
Never giving up and never giving in
The very epitome of "Who Dares Wins"

And you thought I'd walk away?

You looked in the mirror and saw a loser
I cried and wished that I'd met you sooner
But you just said you'd learnt a lot
Sleeping rough on Christmas Day

You looked in the mirror, hated what you saw
But I looked at you, seeing so much more
Where you saw a loser I saw a hero
A samurai stood where you saw a zero

Knocked down 9 times you got up 10
If it wasn't enough you just did it again
Shotokan Tiger, in potentia
Noble, brave, strong.

Living proof that birth can't dictate you
That a ruined childhood needn't break you
You overcame all, yet I never pitied you
Forged in flames and born anew

Vicious abuse from a cowardly father
A little half man who claimed to be a soldier
So "brave" he beat you black and blue
But he could learn to be a man from you

In you I see a Pilgrim, bold and free
Longing for mountains and glittering seas
Always going farther, one peak more
You'll find your Mecca at the Dojo door

So walk beside me on the Golden Road
Let me share your honour code
Be my Sensei and guide my hand
While you light our way to Samarkand

For my husband, a truly inspirational man. References to the "Golden Journey to Samarkand" by James Elroy Flecker 1884 - 1915, a piece of writing that means a great deal to us.

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Bhupathi Prabhakara Rao Dec 2014

Of any color or creed,
Of status high or low,
Treacherous minds,
Heartless brain,
Venomous looks,
Ruthless tongue,
Heinous hands,
Rudderless feet,
Intense dubious desire,
Conspire, collude,
Often pay deaf ear
Snub wiser counsel of one’s mind
And skim out criminals
How to spurn viral thoughts;
A major challenge confronting humanity
Of a confounded nation
That needs vaccination.

Continue reading...

HEK Oct 2012

Things aren’t that bad, y’know? I could do anything I want. I was thinking the other day that I should travel more. Maybe write something. Maybe make something big.

You are not rudderless
but your oars are too small.

(You will not make it across the lake.)

You trail gold stars like promise (potential)(unfilled)(they didn’t say it would be so hard)
a thin trail marks your passage
soon gone
floating (impotent) on the water.
It’s a bit like a funeral; those burning stars
were dead the moment you
stepped into the boat.

(You will not)
(I’m sorry)
(but you will not make it)

What Might Have Been is a salesman
that perches on your shoulders.
He is heavy; he weighs you down.
The boat sinks further into the surface.

You glance at him, he is only shadow;
but you are shadow too.

(No)
(The boat sinks deeper)
(You stopped rowing long ago)

Together you paddle across the lake.

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Alan McClure May 2013

Spend

Money wants to be spent.
It sits in your pocket and bellows at you,
it tugs you into shops and boutiques
and weighs so heavy on your mind
that you gasp with relief
to be rid of it.

I don't like this, but I get it:
I accept the hypnosis
and resist when I can,
and perhaps it oils the system
which keeps me comfortable.

But I am fearful that our feel for time
is going the same way.
Hours are things to dispose of:
days, once spent, are lost and gone:
all our energies ****** us on
to the next thing, and the next.

There is no sense
of accumulation,
no glorying in the growth
of knowledge, experience, wisdom.
No respect for things which have been
and thus we shuttle, rudderless and dumb,
Barren, and infinitely poor.

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Mohamed Nasir Sep 2018

The Light House

how do I steer
a rudderless ship
will I capsize
be dragged down
into the cold hostile
sea not knowing
where to harbour
no island in sight
in the stormy night
wandering along
searching blindly
the coast.
how do I captained
a barren ship lost
if not for the light
the house bring to
weary souls saviour
like the Noor of God
reach out as a beacon
to shine as a warner
over the foggy sinners
guiding through
the crazy madness
a safe passage way
to return home.

Noor in arabic means light.

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SøułSurvivør Jun 2017

The words are singing...

... under my skin
High tension wires
They crackle, singeing
The hairs on my arms and
Burning roadmaps
On my throat and belly

The words are singing...

... an acappella high note
Searing the eardrums
Breaking the crystal
While the rose lies
wet on the table

Fragments spark the
Ionosphere
Hanging to rival the
Aurora Borialis

The words are singing...

Their siren song
I wreck on the rocks
I tear the page with

rudderless penmanship

The words are singing...

And they skitter off
The page like

lizards

SøułSurvivør
(C) 6/8/2017

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Ignatius Hosiana May 2016

Sculptures & Cacographs

To someone like me, it has always been easy to pen down the pain
than to just dump it in the violently flowing rivers of the past
and forget it ever happened, it's been easy to etch every bit of it on the rocks
everyday and admire each and every melancholic tear it brought
it has been sour sweet painting every ugly scar and every bruise
and admire the blemishes on dirtied canvas than let heal
those grotesque wounds without any memo to remind me
because to me the hurt has but been an adventure on the map of my destiny
I've sailed past hard waves, I've gone through dark oceans
to both poles of the sphere and witnessed how cold this world can be
and I've even juxtaposed the north pole to the south
I've climbed the mountains I thought impossible,
hiked even the steepest of cliffs,sometimes fallen and fractured
I've gone against caution and whence my ribs ruptured
healed and painted the despondent healing process yet gone
ahead to find fresh memory to paint, to write, to etch.
I've not wasted my mistakes, not a single tear has gone for nothing
for some should learn from mistakes of those who lived before them
and if life is too short and uncertain to live to tell
let the marks on the rocks at the pinnacles tell the story,
let the sad painting on the canvas do,the sculptures
let the cacographs make sense to eyes keen enough to squeeze out some sap of wisdom
I've not cried, bruised, battled or stumbled for nothing
it is not for nothing I've lived my life the way I've lived
with no manual or mentor to point out the rough edges
the looming pitfalls and risks of living in the twilight zone on the fringes
it's not by mistake that the ship of life is rudderless to most of us
every bruise, every mistake, every imperfection has its page
just as every century, every decade and every millennium has its age
I often write about the uncertainty I live so that someday
someone will be grateful I spared some time to say
that those who didn't err,who didn't whimper,
who didn't have the luxury of looking struggle in the eye
and walk side by side with her didn't really know the truth about life
because it's from the tears that comes the beautiful smile
after the blunder that lies the precious stones of a mile
after the pain that comes the long awaited gain
for the star filled clear blue skies always show after the stormy rain
I pen my pain time and again, because laughter's easily forgotten
but the pains are like plastics, so close to impossible seeing them rotten

#war #pain #philosophy #personification #struggle #overcomer #comparative

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— The End —