"segmented" poems
Light train chugging, working to outrun
Over exerting, pulling along your freight
Sand is running out under the diminishing sun
Fastidiously you tug on your enormous weight
Segmented equal in seven hulking proportions
Weaving between sleeping rocky giants
Assertion in your drive gifted from the high heavens
Borne of light your cargo load of tenants
Silver blurred rays glinting back as reply
As you power your way through
Defying seconds, before the last rays should die
Against odds, delivering what is due
Questing to alleviate my inflicted darkness
Spear of brilliance slicing through my mind
Illuminating the farthest and tiniest of crevices
Nook and crannies that willed me blind
Careful manoeuvring to keep your balance
Through scenic views fraught with treachery
Furiously working to keep your cadence
Hopeful of unloading the load you carry
What lies dormant in that cargo of yours?
What sleeps easy within those boxcars?
What stokes the fire to diligently run your course?
What promises you bear, travelling near and far?
Bales of hope and crates of strength
Supplies of kindness and self-worth
Reside within your immense length
Intact and lay quiet within your formidable girth
Reliant on the light that fuels and feeds
Your axles seem tireless guiding forth those wheels
Thundering over land with the power of a thousand steeds
Armed to your teeth with alloys and steels
Expelling grit and dirt as you pummelled across
Grey-white fumes, shoot up to the sky
Flag flogged by wind, billow and toss
Blaring your whistle as you race on by
Propelling forward, horizon up ahead
There it is...in all its tenebrous glory
Darkened locomotive seething mad with dread
Brace for the clash and the loads the two carry
Sep 28, 2014
Sep 28, 2014 at 8:03 AM UTC
i get tidal waves of missing you,
after only a couple of hours.
the waves are strong and demand attention,
and i have to find a little clip or picture of you
laughing, or smiling, or talking,
simply just being
so the water will calm down
and stop drowning me in segmented thoughts of everything about you,
if only for a couple more days .
May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 at 8:59 PM UTC
Eggs, eggs, toss them high in the air
Catch em, and gargle, and mash them, and swear
Eat them with shells, eat them with sauce
Eat them with bags, eat them with moss
Eggs, eggs, between sandwich bread
That's what the wise elderly miller had said
Before came the bomb and he had dropped dead
Before being poisoned by a surplus of lead
And then came a centipede, long and sanguine
And bit a small child, so recently weaned
Off the protein derived from his mother's fine eggs
So he had to start munching on his mother's fine legs
"Be warned" said the Miller, his hair all askew
While dousing his wounds with mountains of glue
A tapeworm emerged, and looked toward the sky
Feeling envy toward all the birds that could fly
But the Miller was quicker, even in old age
He smacked the worm soundly, in a manner enraged
Bruised from the damage, and covered in glue
The worm turned away from the sky that was blue
Never with pelicans would he fly with delight
Never with owls would he soar through the night
For all Darwin's cruelty, an injustice rings
Tapeworms simply have no need for wings
So he bit the old Miller, and laid ten thousand eggs
They hatched and devoured his liver and legs
And as the man writhed, waiting to die
He vomited upward, up toward the sky
The tapeworm went flying, up toward the clouds
The air felt exhilarating, the rushing wind loud
For once in his life, he soared with the birds
Then in came a swallow, and bit off a third
His body, segmented, fell in parts to the ground
Tears seeped from his eyes, his face in a frown
From the ground he gazed up into the ominous fog
Before being lapped up by an unlucky dog
The End
Jan 19, 2013
Jan 19, 2013 at 1:20 AM UTC
I like mandarin oranges
I like the way they taste
I like they way they look
I like how they fit in pockets
I like their straightforwardness
I like that they are easily segmented
I like how easily shared they are with others
I like how I can hold a few in my hand at once
I like the feeling when I peel it all in one long peel
I like running my thumb under the skin as I peel it
I like the way they make my hands smell afterwards, orange-y
I like how people seem mildly impressed when I am finished peeling
I like folding the skin back into its original sphere like I never peeled it at all
I like when people play along when I give it to them even though they know it’s just skin
I like putting the peel on my head like hat or fake hair and pretending it’s normal
I like pinching the peel and looking at the little spray of citrus
I like ripping the peel up into little, tiny, itty-bitty pieces
I like having that little orange pile on my desk
I like knocking the little green ****** off
I like chewing on the big pieces of pith
I like looking at the word pith
I like saying pith, pith, pith
I like mandarin oranges
May 2, 2017
May 2, 2017 at 6:03 PM UTC
Pretty birdy boy with transparent insect wings
say NO.
Pretty birdy boy with sticky skinny legs
say STOP.
Pretty birdy boy with shiny plastic eyes
say HELP.
Pretty birdy boy with pearly baby teeth
say PLEASE.
Pretty birdy boy with centipede segmented body
say NO.
STOP.
PLEASE.
HELP.
pretty birdy boy sob.
pretty birdy boy cry.
pretty birdy boy scream.
pretty birdy boy ...
Jul 16, 2014
Jul 16, 2014 at 5:38 AM UTC
These.
Segmented lines and semi-circles.
Hold so much weight.
Fragmented dashes.
Across a blank page.
Make.You.
Feel.
Make my-
Emotions real.
Disconnection.
Should-have-smiles and blank eyes.
Suppression.
Fear.
I know how to express.
Fear.
I rather bury it.
Fear.
I don't want to explain.
Fear.
My finger tips will do the talking.
Fear.
You're reading this.
Fear.
Holds.
Me.
Back.
You'll never know-
How this should sound.
Where I've trained my voice to shake and hurry.
To pause.
To inflict some words more harshly than others.
You'll never know-
Fear.
I will pass you a page of-
Fragmented, segmented lines,
And hope that you feel.
But.
Should I expect my language to resonate with you?
My voice doesn't sing and,
My fingers don't play and,
Maybe this won't be so beautiful to you-
As it is to look at a huge canvas filled with gorgeous lines of paint.
As it is for me to hear a poet strip down on the stage, and let their emotions speak through their words they've memorized for days because the endless string of words ringing through their mind is the only way they can understand and express--
How.
They.
Feel.
You won't understand.
Until I stand before you naked.
Clothed.
Naked-in emotion.
Letting Go..
Showing you.
I'm letting go.
Raw emotion.
Shown.
Not heard.
Not read.
Not explained.
Raw emotion.
Standing before you.
Vulnerable.
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 8:53 PM UTC
I awoke one morning
To light beating through the window,
The steady hum of the city
In my bones. I was in a manic mood
Before noon, half-dressed with my hair
Standing straight from a nervous hand.
My chest throbbed with a warm weight,
A smoldering ember that expression could extinguish only.
I wrote and cried and bled
To get the vibration I was feeling
Down on paper. In vain I spewed
Collections of letters, contorted and foreign
My mind was
Shooting up skyscrapers and
Strolling down streets of shine;
I could but lust at a copy of Gatsby through a puddle of cheap wine.
I suddenly found I couldn't take my walls,
Any longer.
I forced open the window
And the city flooded my room,
Sending papers sailing. I resonated
With the silver river
And all of me cried for release.
I scrounged together clothes and wet my hair,
Then bolted out the building.
I was embraced by the world and twirled along,
Hull to hull with the lonely lot.
We, the builders of this landscape,
The elemental moving force
That hollowed these ashen canyons.
Day by day we toil along our track,
Carving deeper and wider, shifting specks,
Seamlessly, we are one-
Crisp dress shirt and an expensive smell, cracked black work boots and a ponytail.
I raised my eyes to the brilliant glare
Of the segmented sky and considered the beauty of being
A drop within a trickle.
Rushing, rushing, I flowed around corners
And broke against departmental shores.
I sought my gaze in a fifth avenue reflection but found only lips.
If people are the sea then I am the mist.
Understand me-- I felt not love for others,
But a crushing connectivity.
Drifting, drifting, I was swallowed whole by anonymity, crew and ship.
Critiques are very much appreciated.
Dec 4, 2012
Dec 4, 2012 at 11:14 PM UTC
The human definition of humanity is becoming a conundrum-filled calamity.
Vivid memories of eclectic booming sounds continue bursting around veterans as they lose sanity.
Mothers work through their pregnancies as their children are born into a materialistically filled world of profanity.
Has the wheel of morality begun an uncontrollable spin in our growing urbanity, or is because of the religious wars we fight, the likes of Christianity?
A travesty amongst us all, but this pain brings an unorthodox form of healing, as we learn from our mistakes and fantasy.
We ******** band together, with our thoughts in groups, to determine a path back towards our morality.
We fight with vigor such as if we were the Roman General Antony.
These fruitless and segmented fights can make the matters worse no matter the strategy.
We must all wake up at once from our mindless love of insanity, and finally, throw to the wayside this world's cruel vanity.
Who or what will ignite the single uniting thought to spread instantly throughout, the thought that will bring peace to our mind, sanity.
Dec 13, 2016
Dec 13, 2016 at 4:45 PM UTC
**Inspired by Meg Cranston's Artist for President
(http://www.uniteddivas.com/megcranston/megpresident.html)**
We assert that there is a youth culture that is different and separate from all other cultures and that our culture is governed by principles which the aged population finds peculiar or offensive.
We are tired of being labeled.
We are tired of being segmented.
We are tired of hearing old people talk about us.
We are tired of being the respondents to your 20 city questionnaire.
We are done with being ignored.
We are sick of 1980s spandex.
We are sick of your Top 40 hits on a compact disc.
We are sick of your rom-coms and big budget fantasy sci-fi sequels.
We are sick of 60 billion ad messages being hurled from satellites in outer space.
We are done with being disappointed.
We demand the right to change everything.
We demand the right to create our own words.
We demand the right to define what is cool in the morning.
We demand the right to re-define what is cool in the evening.
We are done with being told to follow.
We reserve the right to be elitist.
We reserve the right to choose our heroes.
We reserve the right to create jobs that never existed before.
We reserve the right to outsource, open-source and crowdsource everything and all.
We are done with your rigid ways.
We condemn the wars that you started.
We condemn the poverty and hunger you created.
We condemn your irresponsibility in ignoring our dying planet.
We condemn the forces of greed that keeps an honest man from climbing the income brackets.
We will fix the mess you left behind.
This is for school kids
This is for college students
This is for young professionals
This is for the young artist who shares his creations on DeviantArt
This is for the young blogger who dreams of being a travel journalist
This is for the podcaster who is on her way to become a successful RJ
This is for the YouTube user who dreams of her own television show and feature film
This is for the photography enthusiast who spends his pocket money on a Flickr Pro Account
This is for the opinionated Twitter-for-Blackberry addict destined to become a Twitter celebrity. (Even we don’t know what that means!)
This is for the coding guru who gifts his geek friend a mobile gaming app based on Dungeons & Dragons for his birthday. Yes that is cool...for now.
This is youth culture
Jul 30, 2010
Jul 30, 2010 at 2:24 PM UTC
A fire set between Lovers, smoldering
Incinerating a hole through their pure
Intentions juxtaposed to coveting
Above all else: More
Not a solitude of atrophy sprouting
In the cracks, but a flowering of beauty
in this segmented, quartered tissue.
The glued on perfection of self control: Dissolved
Lust for this temple to crumble and
Reunite, lessen this Schism of
Lovers betrayed by Lovers
Strengthen our bonds: Repair
The poetry of this divide, ineffable
Solace flooding the fields and drowning
Compassion in silence, untold
Stories of the Abyss: Secrets
Flecks of gold in blue, rarity defined
By the lies between Lovers
Thoughts of Amber, silica resin
Trapping, binding the Chasm: Imprison
Imperial, consolidating facts surfacing
From overturned, plowed dirt
Covering Lovers graves, coffins
of sleeping Emotion: Un-Waking
Life from Lovers veins, to
Lovers heart.
Schism.
Divide.
It will forever separate us, Love.
Nov 10, 2012
Nov 10, 2012 at 10:34 AM UTC
I’m the sickness,
the grotesque singularity that envelopes and gropes that sick nectar.
The sickly substance drains so subtle upon the cut edge of lips
and the pillar draw strings stitched and bound between cardiac flesh.
I’ll cleave,
cut and seethe,
suckle upon the sin I glower as I twine
and tug at those piano puppet strings caught in twain with every heart beat,
just trigger happy nerves spackled in misunderstood concept called love and impulse.
Pluck the collar cuff at your guttural sing and sentence,
those ballots fluttering from between pearl teeth,
I’m stealing those breathing gasps and loving longings;
they’re all just flecks and fragments of lackluster human baggage,
just mannequins treading sluggish,
fractured splinter frame and hinge fickle.
I’m the socio experiment,
the fiendish distaste of a chimera,
the zealous of corrupted cold hearted,
faux feeling skin wearing thing.
Just a copulation of electrical splatter and liquid tissue,
inorganic animal,
snapping jaw and glass shard fangs.
I’ll rile and reeve between the click and snap of your heart beat,
coddle the smoke of prey’s scent,
I’ll parasite the life blood that courses and holds beneath your emotional connect.
My cancer’s a slaughter fed consolation,
ever feasting malignant circumstance,
it rallies a thousand eyes,
irises blood thick,
fragments my moral conscience with teeth riddled limbs,
claws that chew and tear.
A multi-armed fiend,
segmented soulless and black tainted blood lost long ago,
all that remains ***** is the tissue wearing skeleton I claim domain,
fragmenting the soul into steel shards,
all’s just razor edge mechanical once the human feel falls to ash amongst the clutter of bone.
You’ll find the soulless circuit board in the gulf of your cancerous conscience,
as the human corrupts to cancer
Nov 11, 2013
Nov 11, 2013 at 7:50 AM UTC
He’s disembodied
Lives solely in his head —
His dance is chalk against a board
His feet are autopsied and tagged “dead” —
Science is
His beacon
His faith
His love
His life.
But what good is just a mind full of formulas
When not mindful or exposed to other arts?
Appreciation stems from sentiment
Making subject hierarchy harassment.
Nov 11, 2013
Nov 11, 2013 at 10:48 PM UTC
I have seen, somewhere, a beautiful green beetle.
It would not be so bad to be breathtaking
People would open the window, smiling
And let me flutter through.
But though I sometimes think I shine,
Fact is, I’m just a worm,
A segmented soldier of the dank, damp earth
Fated to be trampled, waterlogged
Poked with a stick, eaten by a bird
Or simply, unable to find the path
Lost, panicking, grazed by gravel
Trying to find my way home.
Feb 20, 2014
Feb 20, 2014 at 10:56 AM UTC
we talked about
multiple personality disorder
and how people
change into other versions of people
and I thought that maybe
for a couple of hours,
for a vacation of sorts,
you could become a segmented part of me.
and I would come to you
when I became utterly sick
of myself
and needed to forget
and you would start a whole new me
someone that I knew nothing about,
a naive stranger,
whose only background,
only indication of any past
was you.
May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 at 8:31 PM UTC
Under the sun some time ago,
A violent, greedy form was shaking,
And was struck down, breaking,
By the Son of Heads he tried to pry apart.
But now he is living.
A light shows upon his wicked hooks.
Pointed at something glimmering behind the chorus of swords.
It brightly glares down, the lost appendages float around,
One strikes! Oh– what a sound!
If it just had a mouth it would scream for the world!
Its fingers bleed and are lost to their home,
Said home no longer bound to its segmented docks.
Bridges burning, joints are turning, liquids leaking,
The strings are singing, the clouds are cutting,
A God is laughing! A box is smashing!
"Pathetic fool! See where your arm is now?
Where is your body now? He can't help you,
The evil one that left him lost and helpless!
Powerless fool! You are nothing without him!
He is an engineer without a wrench,
And you a wrench without a *****
Another choked by the strings of many songs... lost."
The shadow bleeds. He cannot see.
Without a mind he cannot think.
The sheep has tamed and came to shame...
My shadow... bound to his remains.
Have at it, thwart, the shadow.
Aug 8, 2016
Aug 8, 2016 at 10:45 AM UTC
I feel sometimes
That I am standing on a ledge
High enough
That when the clouds clear
And the seas are calm
I can glean a moment
Of the lost Atlantis
And far above the city lights
I can touch the stars
And capture a breath
Of the human soul
If you could for a moment
Experience this elation
This exileration
Than you would come to realize
That at most you know nothing
And that simple fact
Is the greatest truth to know
On the edge of this precipice
Made jagged by fire escapes
The world below seems small
And falls away to nothing
The grand canyon cannot reach so deep.
It is here that I find a segmented
Illusion of peace
And a serenity
That escapes me so completely
When I look away
That I become empty
A vessel without a captain
A being without purpose
On this ledge
I have more strength
Than the bitter moments that
Fill the space between these interactions
Here I can know God
And I am not a believer
In these breaths of
Simple
Honest truths
Where I can finally be alone
And in that loneliness
Finally find a path
That allows me to stumble
My way back to myself
So why
When I am on the verge
Of all that I am
Of all I could be
At this point of decision...
Is someone trying to talk me down
Nov 10, 2012
Nov 10, 2012 at 9:50 PM UTC
I thought she would not come
When the spider webs began to grow
And the shimmering strands
Closed out my vision.
When all became segmented
And web-trapped,
And I had to watch
As shrinking islands of meaning
Were all that stayed.
As the patches became dots,
Thinning and sharpening,
She pushed them apart,
Reached in, and pulled me out.
Jan 19, 2014
Jan 19, 2014 at 4:05 AM UTC
Telephone poles
thrown in stitches
across the never-ending blanket
-- that you stopped following somewhere
after an indie rock concert. The pattern that gavels crusades
on segmented streets--loss balance
bookshelves. Times when tongue-tied families test the lengths
of rapture and abundance,
both mouths tired and one eye black--a sock monster. A dog outside barking
and lists,
and lists,
and lists,
and so on.
All this while you watch the tide fall and rise.
Apr 16, 2013
Apr 16, 2013 at 12:49 PM UTC
Phyyt phoo, two aqueous lenses peeling through, the oxygen layers.
Pupils turn as they unfold, hungrier for light behind burnt sand barriers.
The switchboard like a carnivorous plant field independently moves points
And compacted, segmented panels respond like exoskeletal joints
There come the staccato screams of steam one at a time, puff, lining the door
Capsule, contaminated with air, is cleaned when the beetles wing lifts the floor
The boy I was, offers a raised thumb from the ground, science disciple
With Helium fission equations on a sheet hanging from a bible.
My eyes behind a visor open slowly, it’s time to take control
Still tears slowly lift from my face like a violin bow rising to sing low
Now in a place where time means nothing I can’t regret a thing
I just wish this clinical empty cold on all, to take the warmth that lies bring
With Creaking myofibril strings so imperfect in this black vacuum dream
I shake the hand of god; with polystyrene gloves as his work is so unclean.
Aug 25, 2013
Aug 25, 2013 at 7:27 PM UTC
He spoke,
her heart was guarded;
and he whispered,
and she smiled.
And he spoke,
and she cried
– but not tears of sorrow, tears of iridescence and eumoiria: for he spoke an aubade.
And he breathed.
And they lived.
And they fell.
And they loved.
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 12:35 PM UTC
To the right of my mind
a stuttering shudder stroked
into a conjuring trick
mist and fog precluded
with eternal density
Giving way to a definite
bypass of emotion
sitting, wondering, hammering
for the solution to troubled
senses that gripped in tight fists
Gradual senseless doubts
fogged up the highway
skidded into black icy fear
the foghorn sounding its blast
Announcing its brazen load
Keep me safe in corners
despite their black features
poking at me, barricading
my tomorrow with segmented
troubles, woven in pin pricking motion
Grinding statues were still
age transforming their limbs
into crumbling confinement
I struck out and rallied
them, together we circled
Transforming our once isolated
innards into sharing heart
shaped sentences
heard by those who chose to hear
and found droplets of hope
Dec 5, 2013
Dec 5, 2013 at 9:07 AM UTC
Don't tell me to calm down
If I could ******* CALM DOWN
I wouldn't be sitting here ready
To carve into my own veins
And watch the blood course
Through another wound
Just one more battle scar
On my road to peace
Well the more I fight
The more this so called peace
Doesn't look as good as it used to
I'd settle for some mild meyhem
Right about NOW
This chaos has worn me thin
I keep bending, not breaking
Stretching, not ripping
I have segmented myself
Into to many parts to count
Take another pill
Medicate yourself into
Oblivion, a rest stop
On my road to peace
Whatever, just don't tell me
To calm down
I take this agitation as a break
From my all out Panic.
Apr 3, 2010
Apr 3, 2010 at 1:48 AM UTC
From magical birth we're on our path to die,
But this is not a worrisome thing, don't cry,
Just take the moments as they fall like rain,
And drink up all the pleasure and the pain.
Once born we feel that life will be so long,
We happily take life's measure, sing our song,
But never think that time will soon disappear,
So like a school child venture forth, no fear.
We watch our loved ones come and quietly go,
Too young to understand where they have gone,
Our parents tell us it's a natural thing to die and so,
Our hearts still break but quickly heal and bond.
Then nature comes with seasons diverse, it's clear,
The natural order of things burst forth we've heard,
That in our own free world and segmented hemisphere,
There are things we love and hate and sometimes fear.
Then being young to college off we go with hope,
To educate ourselves and learn the ways of love,
But in the scheme of how to grab life's slippery rope,
We bow our knees and upward look for peace above.
Discovering love we fly on wings so short, gossamer,
To believe no others find the love we now have found,
This union comes as such a surprise and is a blurr,
When twenty years go by without a mournful sound.
The children come, the dogs, the cats and coupled friends,
Become entrenched in our lives with no signs, or sudden ends,
We become our fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, and trends,
Define who we are now and the journey's rough and life's road bends.
And now the people gather in their dark clothes with less to say,
A family man has left us on this day, the people will truly talk,
They'll single file walk past to gaze and look sad in their own way,
But this is what we do on feets of clay the endless, solitary walk.
Jan 5, 2013
Jan 5, 2013 at 9:02 PM UTC
It is STILL THE SAME for a Vietnam combat Veteran and
I am sixty-nine and it has been forty-seven years since I
returned home to America after standing up for our flag
and fulfilling my job which was to **** and as a highly
trained Marine that is exactly what I did for 13 months,
taking many lives every day and at the end of the day all
that we could say is how many did we **** today?
They called us grunts and side by side we fought and died
fighting a war that we thought we could win and every day
and night it took all our training to survive and side by side
we fought for our flag as many of our friends returned
home in a body bag.
Seems like I write about Veterans Day every year and here
in 2017 IT IS STILL THE SAME for Vietnam combat
Veterans: we lived through the war, now we die at home,
we are suicide soldiers who beat the odds, but we die alone
without our squads, and we totally look forward to death,
so we can find peace and we can get some rest.
IT IS STILL THE SAME: we can never forget the eyes, the
death rattling sounds that our mind seeks to drown and
the labored breathing and vacant lifeless eyes of life loss
that we despise as we spend a lifetime with segmented
visions of memory recalling death and life in vivid color
images because with death and dying you never forget
the eyes, friend or foe and we still hear their cries.
2017 at home IS NOT THE SAME for there are those who
refuse to stand for our flag and continue to disrespect our
country and those who fought and died for it and to those
who choose not to stand can just get out of my land that
I stood up and fought for called America.
Jon York 2017
USMC Vietnam 69-70
Nov 11, 2017
Nov 11, 2017 at 1:53 PM UTC
Stone walls like office buildings on a starry night,
Standing at attention, they salute to the masters of the world,
Tiny faces embedded in the grooves of each sector,
Playing stiff, as the wind pushes roughly through the evergreen seaway,
Wheels spinning continuously as you pass through communities; never ending hamlets of pine,
A silent coastline of towering majesty,
Like a segmented train, stretching miles long and dancing like a caterpillar,
Every bushel peaking over the other, knowing their role,
Waiting patiently like the caged animal, welcoming adventure with the twist of a ****
The largest hammock of an ecosystem crying out for you to bare witness,
Whispering softly in the breeze,
Come play.
Jun 14, 2018
Jun 14, 2018 at 4:50 PM UTC