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Sara Kellie Jan 2021
Where is it that you find your wonder?
'neath the rainclouds with pitchfork
collecting lightning,
in thunder?
******* is king,
Ecstasy queen.
Phet is my thing
with morning caffeine.
Six days and five nights,
the things that I've seen.
The rabbits and spiders
in the *** noodle canteen.

Where is it that you find your wonder?
'neath the sun with secateurs
collecting the fruits
of agriculture.
Health is king,
love is queen.
In this new life,
sober this spring.

Poetry by Kaydee.
Old ways. New ways
Raymond Crump Jun 2011
Under the spread hazel's winter
umbrella hung with pale catkins
pulling at a black bin liner rubble
spilled, a little toad tumbles free
from under in turmoil of warty limbs.

A toad in this garden where is no pond
found a moist pocket of plastic pleats
and a larder of wood lice in the rotted
pile sits on my palm calm as a buddha
thoughtless, yellow-eyed, unidentified.

Later, returning for forgotten secateurs
he drifts down in the water *** I let in
to the ground, trailing a bubble stream,
an olive green indifferent nature god.
The lordly stars sustain his crawlspace.
e Dec 2014
Soul Beat
Sometimes, after a lull
my mind feels the need to remind me of you
and I take a shovel to the dirt
digging up buried images of you and I
and I awake
from a frenzied dream
breathless
and in the seconds I float between sleep and full consciousness
I taste your scent in the air
your fingers everywhere
the warmth of your skin lingers on mine
sweat soaked
my pulse races
pounding like a hammer through my chest
if only I could take a pair of secateurs
and deadhead the hurt and memories you left trailing
like vines around my heart
suffocating me
leaving me empty
gasping for release.
Picture this Jul 2015
Poking through my neighbours fence
a climbing vine on smart ascent
tearing through the wooden slat
this winding spiralling acrobat

Overnight there's no curfew
it grew and grew and grew and grew
until it reached the bricks and mortar
nothing stopped it's path of slaughter

Pulling stones from their beds
it carved right through my old tin shed
this triffid is unstoppable
it's destruction is unfathomable

As I worked in my study
it tapped my window, I got worried
a leafy twig forcing entry
the grapevine fulfilling it's inventory

Next day the garland green and raw
spread across my own front door
tentacles ripping out the frame
the climbing plant drove me in sane

It penetrated through my loft
and had more stealth than Lara Croft
crept down to my sitting room
my temper bubbling to a fume

I quickly drew my secateurs      
chopping off one of it's ears
then slashing with my pen knife
before it wrapped around my wife

It was too late to stop the plot
the wine grew strong and tied it's knot
pinning me against the mat
and strangled me in a twisted plait
Dave Robertson Mar 2021
They can sadly twist naturally
even though trellis and secateurs
should train properly
a root bitterness can still linger

Most of the time a healthy growth,
both verdant and upward holds
but on dark days
or at dusk, the shoots can bolt

More so if left dense in clusters
so a monoculture prevails
when no amount of cutting back
will yield fruit

Plants get stunted, malformed
and left unchecked will stifle others.
So give time to your horticulture
for all our sakes
Mateuš Conrad May 2022
502 bad gateway:

title: left-over meat
body:
left-over: d'ah beat!
boom! Chloe wadies in
the hizz dep.
shout the harem chant
out loud!


in the full stare of the sun i sometimes feel like
the music dictates to me:
somewhere between Julian Winding's neon
demon and anything by Boy Harsher:
country girl e.p. / the song pain...

for the first time in my life my grandmother didn't
call me up to wish me a happy birthday...
i was always of the impression: cringe...
i don't like to be awarded anything: esp. when
it's a given: it's not ******* accomplishment...

i can remember having about 3 birthday parties
in my life...
one where i screamed: i'm afraid i'm afraid
for having to pop off the cork of a make-shift
non-alcoholic champagne bottle:
which i later spilled onto the glass table
and started slurping it like a dog...
like: a dog...
whereby i heard the prompt:
Matthew! we don't drink from the table!

what was the surname of those two boys?
Zawacki... no no... Ostarek... that's ******* *******...
i just made that surname up...
Ostatek! yeah... those boys...
i bashed one of them months later and
ripped off this crucifix: geld necklace...

one other party in a bowling alley...
whatever...

my 21st? oh sure... sure... that was "great" too!
i had to manage the crowd
and also deal with a jealous girlfriend
tightly knit in her spider-web of jealousy
smoking marijuana in my bed...
wanting everyone to leave:
because she couldn't stand me getting any
sort of attention...
then my high-school friend whom i invited
to stay over with three other high-school friends...
drinking too much...
vomiting outside the toilet on the carpet:
me... having to clean it up...

Jesus could have washed feet!
**** Jesus! i was cleaning up puke!
   to hell with that sociopath!
            hell: i'll grow my hair long if i have to
be missing a towel... i'll wash feet from dust...
you want to take care of
a, a Roman **** feast of bulimia?!

and why is it, that i don't celebrate my birthday?
a bit pointless...
now that my grandmother stopped giving a ****:
my maternal grandmother...
my paternal grandmother i don't even know
what she looks / looked liked...
she abandoned my father so she abandoned me...

woo boo hoo: who hurt you?!
   no one...
         that's why i go and visit prostitutes
to relax my heart...
like my maternal grandfather said to me once:
make sure to keep your heart small:
then you'll have people in the clench
of your fist...
              
              that's of course when...
my maternal grandmother phoned me two days
prior to my grandfather's death and told me:
oh... he's about to die...
2 years later... ah... the anaesthetic is finally
kicking in... for me!
   she's dead already...
3 ******* months prior i was sitting with him...
getting private dental treatment
because... England is a place where you
find: the non-existence of teeth!
people just slurp pre-digested proteins and
other assortments of shakey-shakey:
vegan "milk"-shakes...

             i managed to find... karl ove knausgaard's
alternative project after his magnum opus...
my struggle, i.e. Autumn...
  that part about eating the entire apple...
with the core... i sometimes do... whenever i feel
like eating an apple... rarely i stopped feeling
it was necessary to eat apples...

it's so much more simple when...
   you have issues with... your grandmother...
than... say... a past girlfriend...
so much... simpler...
               because the "misogyny" is not so...
harsh... so... obvious... sexually related...
   no no... it's... subtle... it's more on the level of:
distinction: i'm a man... and you're... a woman...
let's compare...
it's not like i want the stereotypical antagonism
of misogyny of: i want to **** this woman
but she doesn't want to **** me...

oh no...

oh look, who's here? Sylvester ******* Stallone...
i can be proud of my cat...
maybe it's just me...
   moo... he actually ******* moos and there's
the moon and i want a simple meow
but... after a certain hour when the foxes run
rampant i don't want to let him out:
but he wants to go to the toilet...
meows like Sylvester ******* Stallone speaks...
i have to chase him into his cuvette
whereby he... d'uh... decides to leave me
a doughnut's worth of **** in those flakes
associated with cat-litter...

he actually needs me to watch him urinate...
so i can immediately clean it up and
he doesn't have to bother with the "hide the evidence"(!)
side project...

moments later... Sylvester ******* Stallone:
meows like moos like the final speech
in the boxing ring of Rocky... it's doing my head in...
i go back up... number 2... with a slight tease
of diarrhoea... now i have to clean up...
and wash the ****** up...

i look at him now: lying in my bed...
sort of happy-proud that he has an owner that takes
care of him...
if only i had a child... eh... i sometimes wish...
but as a Mary Shelley experiment...
oh no... not with a partner...
i'd like an experiment as a male: not a single mum...
that must be fun...
you can play around with language...
morph, mutate... it would be...
then again no: people have their own agency:
young people succumb to peer pressure..

- but it's different now...
   oh who hurt you? who? might ask some "future girlfriend":
ah ha ha...
my grandmother did...
she told me only two days prior of my grandfather
and best friend being dead...
but she knew he was deteriorating a month prior:
and i had all that spare time on my hands:
i could have cared for him!
fishing trips! climbing trees! horse riding trips!
foraging for mushrooms! sure...
he did drink! that's all she remembered...
he drank because of her!
trips to the metallurgy plant!

i've learned my lesson: money's on the table...
i can only be gentle with prostitutes...
or let's put it this way...
whatever violence was performed on prostitutes
in past centuries... esp.: notably in England in
the 19th? that's *******, gone!
that's done and over and... gone... ****!
gone...

i couldn't harm a *******...
whenever i visit: i don't visit her for lies...
if she wants to say some truths most women are afraid
to say: fair enough...
i'm there to ****...
like i go to a butcher's for a pound of cool, red, raw,
Tartar... beef!
like i go to a florist for a bouquet of tulips...
i'm not there for some ***** **** latex suit gimp
fetish ***!
   i'm not saying that's wrong:
but like i already said:

once you walk through the desert of ***, less, -ness
long enough: you stop being thirsty...
and it doesn't matter whether you ******* or don't...
i tried both avenues...
you are simply turned off...
or rather: prompted by cues from animals...
pigeons do it too often... on rooftops...
you need a female cat and groom her while
she raises her **** of an *** with her nail
wriggling toward your nose...

that's how i was woken from my slumber...

it felt so good not hearing and good wishes on
my birthday from my grandmother...
for once! finally! i'm freed from that superficial *******!
i didn't accomplish anything by being born!
so why the **** would i celebrate this day?!
sure... it's nice when it's covertly celebrate:
no chores around the house...
no cooking... some champagne... fair enough...
but... oi oi! gather round! friends! family!
what a load of crock-****!

- today i was curating my eucalyptus tree..
cutting excess branches...
not a bad beginning... i'll be keeping the CROWN
of the tree... let it grow higher! higher!
but i'll need to cut off the branches outgrowing
sideways...

while doing just that... i was prompted
by a memory at "work": the first and probably the last
time a **** tried to work around me:
instruct me... "tell me off":
became angry with me...
     all of this is of course in my head:
what's outside is usually cordial, formal...
she said: you're not supposed to be here!

i should have said: and you should stop being
so confused, pretending to be macho!
why be ******* with me while at the same time
wanting to **** me!
******* ****: macho ****** are a massive
turn off... turn off the lights
and i still would do doggy dodge-style...

i have an ego of an iron maiden in my head....
it's all nice, politeness on the outside...
in the shallows of a veneer...
dig a little bit deeper and i'm savage...
today i proved that to myself...

it would have been so much different if i were
that stereotypical male hurt by his ex-girlfriend...
sorry, girl... that spot is taken...

so while i was curating my eucalyptus i was also
rummaging in my garden...
this poor apple tree... infested with parasites...
it's in ******* plain sight!
a bit like seeing the parasite mistletoe!

people hide, when cancer attacks: but trees are
in plain sight...
i don't even know what attacked it...
fruits about to blush further up...
but further down... these *******... critters!
these... aphids... i don't even know...
                                        coccoidea?

i don't care... i didn't... dearest mother was supposed
to spray these ******* off...
no... can't wait... i know a better procedure...
i'll just cut off the infested branches off...
and i did... threw the cut-off branches into a bag...
sealed it: now! suffocate!

i hate to see a suffering tree...
i guess: more than seeing a suffering animal,
more than a suffering human being...
because... trees... are mute!

so Edward Secateurs came into play...
no... no need to wait for spraying these ******* off...
i'll just cut off the branches infested...
put them into a bag: suffocate them...
cut off their live supply...
       i will embrace a rat...
vermin: king of the hierarchy balance...

i still don't understand why it's almost, somehow:
oh so, "normal"...

i think i idealised women once upon a time,
that's why i allowed myself to love them...
within the confines of a prescribed narrative...
my heart's too small to love like
a teenage boy, ever again...
i idealised women once upon a time...
after all: once upon a time there was
a once upon a time that was spread infectiously
like a cognitive-pandemic...

if i were to replicate my fish-dinosaur genes
any time soon... eh? too many complications...
potatoes cost too much:
i don't feel like driving or owning a car...
i don't want to extend the misery...
or pursue it in a linear fashion...
    i better be dressed for a vertical take-off...
white shirt, black tie, blak shoes...
                  black trousers, bye-bye...
oh... right... some underwear would be nice...

i figured it out though...
i'm not lonely: i'm longing...
that's the crux of the debate:
no one is truly alone... no one feels lonely...
lonely is sick... it's a sickness... it's parasitical...
i figured it out...
not now... some hours prior....
i'm... longing... i am prone to project vague:
idealisms on people... it's a sort of a 2nd reminder
of Romanticism...
i'm longing... wow! even i'm astounded!

ich bin sehnsucht! i am longing!
that's my only counter: when people try to make the distinction
between being lonely and being alone...
me? i'm simply: longing...
it's what drives me forward...
that does not give me exacting coordinates of
existence... in situ / in vivo / in vitro...

i need: ich brauchen bewegung!
i need movement!

for sure: polite societies: salon societies once
need rhymes and piano / violen concertos to
entertain the ladies to be a better: ****...
but... no...
talk is cheap... art is cheapest...

those botanical parasites attacking my apple tree
sure as **** got their worth's worth...
i almost cried with joy cutting the infested
branches off... stuffing them into a plastic bag...
sealing it... hello gas chambers two-point-oh!
unless any willing vegans might want to
change, their minds, any? any?!

well then... limb by limb we go.
Continue to be amused by the antics of lunatics and you'll be joining them in the lockdown ward which is open to visitors on Sundays unless it's not and this is not how it's supposed to be said the Earl of Montgomery whose real name was Bill and who had been ill with delusions for a number of years.

The roses in the gardens were tended by a mass murderer who lavished loving affection and brought these blooms to perfection before taking up the secateurs which had safety guards fitted because you can't be too careful with sharp bladed things.

The head chef was called Wellington who used to be Napoleon until the battle at Waterloo showed him the error of his ways and now he fries pancakes in a hundred different ways which all taste like crepe to the comedians in the dining hall.
unjumbling dreams can be quite maddening when you're looking for hidden meanings and you realise you're just crazy anyway..haha
Donall Dempsey Jan 2023
AND THE WAY UP IS THE WAY DOWN

"Footfalls echo in the memory..."

I still see you
in the rose garden

reciting Elliot in
those magnificent tones

although death
gently erases you

so that the roses
can be seen

through you
though your voice remains

true and strong
a swallow flies

through your eyes
you nothing now

but a ghostly aid
to my faltering memory.

I still miss your body
the shape of you

sleeping beside me
curled like a question mark

into my dreaming
back.

Never got used to
an empty bed.

Find I have to imagine you
conjure you up.

A sleight of mind
the smoke and mirrors

of desire
and wanting.

I prune my roses
"the poet's wife."

How we always laughed
at such a name

when you could never
write a word

only quote
your adored Mr. Elliot.

I prune
a rose that rambles

and oh dear
I appear

to have snipped off
your head

fading as it was
I will imagine another.

Your voice impervious
to the  secateurs.

"...for the leaves were full
of children..."

the children we
never had.

We lived our life
as if we had a wisdom

of our own
knowing

"If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable."
My eyes tell me they don't belong here
flourishing in a foreign climate
Invasive some say?
they do no harm, do they?

The natives seem content
letting their seeds mix
For a stronger more colourful future
or will the garden be overrun

The gardener, bless him
seems to have lost control
Sat in his hut drinking tea, watching
sharpening his secateurs

The deadheading is ruthless
lazy and the weak first, then the needy
The natives are nearly all gone
some clinging on, fighting back

My eyes tell me I don't belong here
maybe I'll flourish in warmer climes
I'll do no harm
honest?
Donall Dempsey Jan 2020
AND THE WAY UP IS THE WAY DOWN

"Footfalls echo in the memory..."

I still see you
in the rose garden

reciting Elliot in
those magnificent tones

although death
gently erases you

so that the roses
can be seen

through you
though your voice remains

true and strong
a swallow flies

through your eyes
you nothing now

but a ghostly aid
to my faltering memory.

I still miss your body
the shape of you

sleeping beside me
curled like a question mark

into my dreaming
back.

Never got used to
an empty bed.

Find I have to imagine you
conjure you up.

A sleight of mind
the smoke and mirrors

of desire
and wanting.

I prune my roses
"the poet's wife."

How we always laughed
at such a name

when you could never
write a word

only quote
your adored Mr. Elliot.

I prune
a rose that rambles

and oh dear
I appear

to have snipped off
your head

fading as it was
I will imagine another.

Your voice impervious
to the  secateurs.

"...for the leaves were full
of children..."

the children we
never had.

We lived our life
as if we had a wisdom

of our own
knowing

"If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable."

— The End —