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Simon Clark Aug 2012
An outcast,
A creature we despise,
It looks so small and tiny,
And has gimlet eyes,
It stalks the drains and kitchens,
And scavenges in the night,
And climbs upon our plates of food,
Such an unwelcome sight.
written in 2009
But what does that mean?
I am the raccoon
Oblivious I’ve been

I once was a monkey
To make laugh was to live
I still am a monkey
much joy I still give

The monkey inside me
Might act as a cloak
Was the monkey inside me
Joker or Joke

The monkey, the mask
I thought it not me
The monkey, the mask
I did not yet see
That the monkey, the mask
Is a part of me

I am the raccoon
In case someone asks
I am the raccoon
Master of masks

A fox I once felt me
and foxy I was
A hunter I felt me
slick tongue and sharp jaws

The fox he was smart
And good at love’s game
But the fox he knew
Quick love ain’t the same

The fox, the mask
Charming and sly
The fox, the mask
Was wondering why
Why the fox, the mask
So hard he did try

I am the raccoon
Though cute my appeal
I am the raccoon
Your heart I will steal

The lion I’ve played
When time came to lead
The lion I’ve played
By word and by deed

When I was the lion
The orders I gave
When I was the lion
Like a king I’d behave

The lion, the mask
With a queen by my side
The lion, the mask
At the head of the pride
Felt the lion, the mask
Was not my true hide

I am the raccoon
I finally see
I am the raccoon
The masks they are me
Yet behind all these masks
Hides my curious mind
A little raccoon
Caring and kind
When he scavenges life
Happiness he does find
He shares it with all
And leaves no-one behind
🦝🐵🦊🦁🐘🐅🦓
The Raccoon is my spirit animal
And an artistic lense through which I view myself
This poem is my artist manifesto
It grows as I obtain new masks
And learn to put those to good use
KM Ramsey Jun 2015
you don't see life as a game of skill
playing hopscotch on the
white and black checkers
reaching out to infinity with their
comforting symmetry
and severe geometry

you say you're unobservant
but how can you look down
at your calloused mud-caked feet
and not see the
chessboard that is pressing
just as stiffly against your feet
as you reach down
and root yourself into it
burying your head in
the world of fantasy games
without winner or loser

i envy your blissful ignorance
your hope
however misplaced

do you simply refuse to see
how every pensive move
rook to E7
knight to C5
seems to me not an attack
on the mockingly vulnerable king
but an action of
vicious hostility towards
the most powerful piece on the board

so the queen enacts
her equal and opposite
reaction
to slash the entire cosmos to ribbons
an infinite fury of blind terror
that seeks blood
and scavenges the last flesh
clinging to bone.
Stacy Del Gallo Dec 2012
Experience is as satisfying as a double whiskey sour
as a tired director tours middle america on foot:
a drifter doused in the aroma of greasy roadside diners,
sullying his brown suede boots in gritty mud and mica.

He thinks he is real american- as he scavenges
inspiration from a photo of a lone tree,
an overweight waitress,
a broken down motorcycle...

A small depression in the ***** pavement
is the most famous footprint most towns have seen;
they come and go as quickly as passing cars;
as quickly as fame and infamy.

He thumbs his way from
state to state, picked up in nowhere Ohio by
a passing Van filled with a burgeoning indie band.

They discuss irony, old films and a mutual
dislike of disco as the van storms past town after town.
The band tours the country looking for fame
as he tears from town to town attempting to forget it.
Wuji Mar 2012
Vulture fingers,
Scour the flesh.
Picking out flaws,
Not seeing the best.

Picking at the surface,
Finds everything wrong.
Won't look deeper,
Doesn't want to stay that long.

Scavenges through the skin,
Making blood gush out.
Tears in his eyes,
Mind full of doubt.

Who can love roadkill,
Picked to the bone?
Flies in his insides,
Making their new home.

Maggots in the eyelids,
Rotting to the brain.
Picked himself to pieces,
"We knew he was insane."

Vulture fingers devour,
Every single flaw.
Leaving a mutilated and infested corpse,
"Perfection" is what it's called.
Make yourself pretty, won't you?
Olivia Kent Nov 2013
A degree of murderous intent.
Unearthed emotions long since felt.
Reached the stars.
Love went underground.
In a spot of fossil hunting.

Took a chance at novelty.
Dug up the bones.
The bones of a pinned down pain.
Pain charred the heartbreak.
Love left again.

When it once walked it had vicious teeth.
A hunter in suburbia.
Nocturnal beast.
Once hunted prey.
Now all it does is pray.

Strong power filled.
Aggressive once.
Now just scavenges.
The ruins of ancient civilizations.
Praying for tomorrow not to come.
To scavenge no more.
All in a nightmare.

(c) Livvi x
ladylivvi1@hotmail.com
Olivia Kent Mar 2015
A woman is full of sensitivity, ingenuity,passion, smiles, momentous special memories.
A nest builder as a sparrow is.
A warbler in the shower.
An irritating pigeon.
She's a vulture full of culture
When she scavenges the sales.
A mother clucker she she can be...sorting out her offspring's tea.
She fights many battles single handed.
Level headed sometimes.
Today the eagle landed.
Been here and there and everywhere,
Fell from grace a million times.
As a woman tumbled from the nests of childhood brood.
A phoenix revitalized spreads her wings.
She's on the way.
(c)Livvi
Shaun Pearce Mar 2013
Chapter I
He can't laugh. The lid is on too tight.
He attempted to cry but it took too much honesty.

Chapter II
He scavenges the floor, only finding memories and tears.

Chapter III
He holds his leash a little too close, afraid of what freedom would run towards.
He sneaks peeks through the curtain at what the others are doing; smiling, pining, loving, falling.
The pretty, silly creatures sway and mix on stage for all to see.
He just found the backstage exit.
Julian Aug 2022
A.
Al-Muhaymin Supreme in the Preeminence of retchallop that frankquibbers revile spurned by spumid spurious ratchets of intorgurent wamzels cringing in the halldorn of rallendork simplicity girdled by all apanage of aphnology refracturism exalts. May the belletrist guarded by speos and indentured by vetudas of panopticon in the swoopstakes of jengadangle frapplanked by the frimple of the treecheese swarpollock of majestic retchanvil recumbent upon sockdolager stellified among the supernal supercherie of the superlative floundrewl bodged by facture and totemized by the prism of indemnity that harvests the narthex and with schoenabatic squirebells of ugmentum and the ilkengor of warbled wonderworks might we astound never by ashowel or blackguard by any gammon of aswallone that our trillom of retchination becomes nothing but ecbolic billingsgate contrary to agapism and contrarian because of placomaniacal camorras and the camisades of deturpation never succinct in tribulation in the heyday of interregnum always debunked by the frappern of commerstargal aleatory in the conation of expenditure but never indentilated by the kurgans profound in gravitas but never shallow in thanatousia. We all might gloam with the sondage of soothfast sopiter never crimson in the alluvion of detritus that the lour of lotophagous reskig becomes never a notoriety buoyant upon the navarchy of naturism defiled by sanguisugent tabanids flargent in tanquam tantony fraverscribbles of wrabble and wravvel might expound beyond the idioglossia of ideopraxist probabiliorism lackaday because the callithumpian lognon of pillory suborns the precarious twinge never the prolonged karezza of incumbent providence flictions can never dethrone and fangasts of fashimite grazzly timberlask opportune temerarious spado of the spancel of sphygmotic aspheterism can never aspire beyond motatory providence of blinkered brumbles subordinate to the regulus of reboant hatred.






B.
Glory be to Allah the most munificent bestower of the knells of foraminated carapace and the tachymetry of the cadence of isapostolic porlecked largition in the larithmic finesse never foutering in the aimless maidan maieutic velivolant lairwites of consternation scouring the ravenous matroclinic providence of maunders of dwale and dumose hedges of jengadangle frapplanks motivated by nummamorous flyndrigs always denigrated by the repose of the rapacious lechery of lentiginose bodewash. In the sempervirence of anacusia levied upon anemocracy leveraged upon the patavinity of synquest and rejoinder might the frantlings of the frottage of the depaysed ******* might incur the steepest precipice of penalty rather than the curmudgeons of normative defiliation spancules eradicate and spados despise in their humgruffin houghmagandies with their own parvanimity of prowling constative carnaptious lucriferous caverns beyond blettonism and bleating never with the peenge of tholes of thumomancy. The gricers of modernity in their terriginous turriform thanatousia might they disembark and cowl their gossamer cortinate flargent purpresture that the ashowels never flock with ennobled albatross in the egestuous penitence of too many a penitentiary of peccable stigmatophilia and the growls of tocophobia blinkered upon the deskandent nubigenous novantique of pregromanging deception among casuistry deranged by the chiminage of the antiscian antithalian foison of draconian blaring blarney excoriated only by thumomancy grandeval and sweedle too spartan with contraplex gerendum of tatamae belonging only to the swiven of starstruck imparlance impavid without defalcation and swank with littoral alluvion in the aigers of the holocryptic. Might we always marvel never with a blackguard schadenfreude for the enmity of fossarian shibboleth in the tribance of guarded trekleador and the premundane fascination of the hexaemeron of a truer theodicy rather than a prurient nihilism recursive in obganiation. We might scowl at the scamper of scobiform scabilonian sacrilege in the abeyance of heyday rather than simpered scorn scollardical because of costermonger quilombo we might never be shocked by mammothrept liaison or otherwise predatory mouchards of radicolous raffish rantipole disorder that is proleptical in its dippoldism and protensive in its timberlask kenodoxy of femicide fandangled by the artifacts of treachery rather than the drawflark of the gossamer simplification of ultroneous outrage terreplein upon the cavernous expanse of gloaming scribacious and bibulous parvanimity. May we always frown on the orthodromic ballast of tropoclastic warbles of tilted geotaxis reactionary only in the apagoge of licentious grambazzle because the frimple of dutiful subservience becomes the mainsail of lexers of laveer and never the fateful finifugal paravent of cordial rancor and eisegesis fraternizing with the flarmey of incarcerated denouement rather than treasuries of engouement amen.

C.
Al-Muhaymin guarantor of mercy gilder of preterplufect primogeniture and protector of the depaysed saxifragous emoluments that sashay against the enmity of travesty, may you endow the world beyond nostrification and above the nostrums of quacksalvers that no steep deed is forgotten by the shallow mettle of the emaciated emacity of a gravid tocophobia amasthenic never because of the ribald abderian swarpollock of the treony of trillom and the drawflark of regelation. May you always permit never the barnstorm of the wayspayed regius of the wartles of rindstretch radical in rhizogenic denialism rather than the normalism of sacerdotalism that scavenges the new florilegium for the promontory that beats the skelder of tracasserie riniguss in rintinole alone and apartheid bequeathed by the caesarapropism of all malingered scobiform secodont crambazzled senectitude grafted by the raffish hegira of foison and foudroyant umbrage always a cockshy detested never a perjury racemiferous with scollardical taunts of grating timberlask seminules of new world  denostram in the alloreck of penotherapeutic wamzels of the mangled corpses of pollarchy rescinded by the magnanimity of wragapole whartonized docility and demiurges of the sacrarium never of a pushful jocknee but always a grauncher and grapnel of the pogonips of flatulent deceit flargent only in the purpresture of the noetics of noospheres bowdlerized by an autotelic oligogenics of tramontane subterfuge. We always marvel about rangiferine randan in the superfetation of sublime deeds rather than carnal handfast debaucheries that we might never embody squandermania of coercive squalor fomented by diablerists never tempted by extramundane promise because of inveterate and inscrutable malloseismic thanatism that is only brokered by the ciconine Cinega rather than the promethean escapism and surrealism of a redacted scopolagnia and a rambunctious pallor of nebbich elitism scrambling with audacious temerity never tamed by the ferules of gnapped griffonage in the sempiternal gullarge of toonardical decree never evading its own bilkey of ebriection of periblebsis floundering on mendaciloquence and fropollowing the strollow against magnanimity rather than bequeathing the progeny of omphalism without hyperarchy and hypertrophy without hyperbole. Amen





D.
Al-Muhaymin deposes the glower of the griffonage of orthotropism in the squaloid declension of corruption in tabanid draksting and grambounced lethologica flouting every findrouement of rubricality that the calodemons never cauponate or capernoited by the artifice of bloodthirsty deceit might their foisons glorify upon the earth the cadasters of moral docimasy never fragmentary in decisive gestalt frapperns of sondage, sennet, regulus and the caesarapropism of cognoscenti grimoires of taghairm never embraced by the thumomancy of martexture and the marstions of nuncles of numquid  nubile ophelimity deprived by autocracy rather than reified by the parlance of succinct anonymity never curved by the hebephrenia of the warbled corrugation of sithcundman only wealthy by bolides of dramaturgy and only ennobled by the secodont scollardical flarmeys of debellated aceldama always reproved as a trinkochre  of flarium  never despised in its sondage of avizandum and never deprived of its cacoethes to gallantry never prattling about the nocicepty of tapotement. Might we all find never a vetust torpindage an exhortation to the vitriol of fractious fragmentary periblebsis that scaramouch ruffianism of ragabash and ragmatical histrinkage always docile to reconfiguration and always protean to the nomistic laws of magisterium that we might be redintegrated by gestalt authenticity rather than the forsifamiliation of the temenos guarding sanctanimity from billingsgate and the gate of the hypaethral chapel from the deposition of the delirifacient fracklings of perceived frottage rather than frigolabile naupegical themolysis of tredged trudgery in miscegenated disaster always goading and cadging the suborn of the slogmarch of voluntary eisegesis rather than the sincerity of exegesis that all refracturism in hypertrophy becomes a synclastic synoecy against the jocknee of a nyejay malaise of probabilism curved by the reginkeer of the identity diffusion and dissolution of the carnal temptation regaled only in roorbacks of the heyday of hearsay rather than excorified as a vestige of bronteums of  fulgurant prowess in the selective stirpiculture of a renewal of hymeneal vows of procacity rather than procellous illecebrous naivety that gudgeons of neovitalism revalorized into nihilism incumbent. Might we spawn the polyphiloprogenitive primogeniture never of the frivverscrabble of titanism blackguarded by blinkered gentincture in the frinteran flarmeys of despicable deposition despoiled by tachymetry rather than valor in the timocracy of virtuosity enabled by the enunciation of doctorate taciturn schoenabatic stenotopic virtualasis thriving in purified occamy rather than congealed in the bonnyclabber of false absolution and the dormitage of ventose verdure of clamorous abnegation empowered by egintoch wamzels rather than heroic apothecaries of sublime regard never a quacksalver can outmantle in their pothers of vesuviated outrage and donnybrooks of donnism in squalorformatic beliefs in the vitiation of phanerolagnist declension that they might flinch and shirk and shrive through  forswinked deskandent atrocity and because of frustraneous findrouement become redintegrated again by their balance of eumoireity and eudaemonism. We might not impress by our valetudinarian purpresture and our porlocking portreeve of aeronautical vendetta flippant upon flipsquires never revalorized or regelated by the refocillation of reflation that becomes boundless by tachydidaxy and never contentious by scampers of dacoitage that groundlings alienavesce from because of the graklongeur of the suffrage of the lorgnons and lambastes of the perceived pillor becoming a magnet for the mesmerism of tropoclastic tycolosis and may the typhlophiles renounce their dommerers and dompteuses of tregetour taghairm stellified only because of occult simplicity rather than ultramontane aggiornamento .Amen

E.
The gudgeons of gramercy rather than the efters of the eisoptromania of radical raltention never indentilated by the browbeat of glawson and the timberlask interregnum of grazzly qwestuns of rengall and nauclatic certitude might we all refrain from the profligacy of the renegades and charlatans who maraud mountainous rubricalities of mendaciloquence that fettlers and graunchers of pogonip pogonophiles might charade in their feckless faffle might we all astound with a torpillage of histrinkage rather than cowl with the capers of the camorra of vicissitude flargent in every centupled mendaciloquent halkend of the divestiture of elitism and the pregromanging pontiffs of popinjay and tinjesk ombrophilous fliction marauding in the maunder of the temptation of the wilder windlass wilderness of winterkill trudged by the bodge of the centripetal geotaxis of moral valor rather than deskandent tediums of raffish and ragabash notoriety exculpated only in the humble shrives of atonement for atomkent flombricks of desultory procellous portreeves of tracasserie unbounded by the suborned fatalism of malingering malaise that tregetours prepossess in their feigned and  faineant euhemerism flashy only with finifugal fizzgig of rannygazoo rather than rangiferine fury and feral longiniquity. Might we all shelve the aswallone of the frackling fatewrench of the frogmarch of the licentious lobbyists cavorting in lanais and machairs might their macadamization of radicolous Potemkin leverage become rescinded by the tralleyripped explosion of the abreaction never of mafficked magpiety never of the palisades of patavinity caroused by riniguss and ramparian swarpollock of craven timidity escorted by the penotherapeutic deception of cyprian lackadays never befitting the heyday of the carnage of miscegenated modernity and the prance of terpsichorean promontories of paranoid ausehetoria that might never vanish in the effluvium of ragabash worthless taradiddles of crapulence in the naivety of the bickering vicegods among gauleiters that pretend a conation of celibacy in their oligomaniacal chantage of vangermyte outrage because of hikkling hinkergs in the bray of the jackals of aceldama always requited by the connoiseurs of generative prowess and seminal wizened reflection nostalgic only for junctition and wangermist never the pallor of the bluepomp of draconian hyperarchy. We navigate with arctician oecodomic plashy placets of fouterers in their aimless grumbling that their groaks of crose and their tholes of lackaday lacertilian schadenfreude recursive upon them in accursed malism that they might leverage their hindsight and lollop their foresight without a hint of regret but always pregnant with the remorse of rectiserial limits of troponder shattering every glass ceiling that bluestockings themselves in their harridan humors of sapiosexual pollarchy that they might never feign their diestrus of duty might they never become the fallow novantique of dastardly cadges of imperative but faked drawflarks of trillom in the treecheese of litigable estoppage. Might we all remark with certitudes of cadaster rather than sempervirent fictions of a radical docimasy ruinous with genesiology but always rectiserial in meritocracy. Amen!
Jonathan Moya Feb 2020
What does a dog
know of being a wolf,
a wolf know of being a dog?

The wolf howls not
to understand the moon
but to know itself
in the community of nature,

to shout out
its place in the pack
and among the stars.

It knows hunger that
a dog will never know,
the desperation of the hunt,
and not a master’s command.

The wolf tastes the blood
of squirrel and rabbit,
the death of prey and
not the dream of it.

The wolf fears the spark,
the scent of the two foot,
the sound of its silver shout.

The dog knows its leash,
the comfort of the hearth,
the happy dreams that
come with a full stomach,

the fetch of a duck in its mouth
and not its curor,
the squeak of velveteen prey.

Even the dingo of the bush
scavenges for its food and
maybe dreams of human kindness
and living beneath his beams.

The dog shelters with him
and does not swelter
in the fury of the sun.

The dog knows God
through the hand of man.
The wolf knows no God
and scorns its inverted pet.

The wolf needs not good dogs.
It need only to be a good or bad wolf,
to heed the call of the wild.
If I had any courage, I'd read the masters
The translations of the masters by the foregone masters' handlers
Or so I thought
My dyslexic mind
Scavenges for words recorded
For me to hear
Free form poetry is sad, but allows a sense of wonder, or,
jealous appreciation of great accomplishment

I doubt my skill
And wish I knew Rumi's Persian style
So that I could read in silence
Without grasping for some faulty foothold in my own
And falling
Asleep, with his unread anthology on my chest
MMXX
Matthew Aug 2019
Love sank its teeth,
ravaged the other with claws
sharpened by a wheel of raging passion.
Feel outside its cage to taste
iron blood from a punctured lung;
war chants rung out in rain,
each piercing of what Love once loved
by its talons, lets maroon map its path
through trampled grass. The other crawls
in unknown vain, no hope remains.
One love scavenges the other.

— The End —