"seizured" poems
it’s 12 degrees outside
excluding the breeze, I hide
behind the rising smoke
of the cigarette just lit,
my fingers are falling off,
nails ripping to the marrow
a ****** stutter impairing speech,
a seizured grab to the fleeced pocket
leaves only the other hand to freeze,
such a sacrifice to something
old-me said I didn’t need,
I kick around snow
as my leather boots wear a
coat of white as I shiver
and inspire, throwing a black
coat over my lungs
“hey do you have a lighter?”
“yeah”
the ash sails down
and kisses the filter and a flick
collides the ember to exhale it’s final breath
to the frozen floor,
I step inside and
suddenly, I’m cold again.
MJB
Aug 5, 2015
Aug 5, 2015 at 2:33 AM UTC
Satired attempt of release. I give in. I fall. . .
Still uncertain of radical advances in spirit: society’s breached birth of the familiar
Bound and gagged, clung electrical beauty transpired in beads of the dis-pristine
I unravel. I create. Torn from all known peace in chaotic slumber; I am preserved.
Raped. My sonata spent like the lost cries enveloped in simplicity.
And it cries.
It cries for what it doesn’t know or understand
A seizured wall of insecurity left blind to the rest,
and sometimes infurity.
***** Held. It smiles for now,
Wondering what comes next.
May 26, 2012
May 26, 2012 at 11:27 AM UTC
Freedom, my fickle friend,
How nice of you to come.
Shall I take your coat?
Or will you creep furtively in the corner like last time?
Why so shy, freedom?
Your reputation precedes you.
Your triumphs trumpeted universally,
You’ve an entourage of millions.
Ah,
Freedom has a secret.
Statuesque, god-like, beautiful.
I cut you open one night,
While you holidayed in Nod.
A cat in the night, I crept inside,
Looking to unlock my door.
Instead I seizured in nocturnal vision.
Your breath notstirred.
Your blood notran.
Your heart notbeated.
Shriveled demon,
There is no hiding under the scalpel.
Your mask is torn off.
You wolf in sheep’s clothing.
You rotten peach.
Come not when you are called,
For I know already too much self-contradiction.
Jul 27, 2011
Jul 27, 2011 at 12:05 AM UTC
A glance. Then another.
Where a thousand smiles,
and laughter, hiding, finally found light;
Though lips moved no more than eyes.
Caught. Captured. Drawn in.
Like inescapable black hole gravity,
Taking us to an unknown realm;
The start of a glorious adventure;
A destiny we've always known.
In late nights, where questions became our partner;
Where longing had become our friend;
Where songs of Mississippi blues origins,
Teased; mocked, our souls;
Laughter, passion, shared thought,
Replaced them with answers.
We found memories that have yet to happen;
Comfort, yet to exist.
Tenderness, following seizured passions,
Burned audacious passions within our chests.
Fallacious reasoning? Imprudent coordinates plotted?
Not from the pilot's seat;
Mind; heart; spirit; guided the inevitable course of your soul's smiling gaze.
Now we are lost again;
Unsure of which path to take;
Questions as our company; longings as our friends.
Is it unfair to wonder? To wish? To dream?
Is that only torture? The life unseen?
The passions, only distractions from past and present obligations?
Were we stealing away what wasn't ours?
Or are the choices of the past, stealing away from us?
I know I can't answer those questions,
Sitting with my old friend, the blues, strumming;
haunting twangs in darkness; without laughter; without passion;
with your thoughts frozen and alone.
I think; I feel, I know. Yet your late night friends are a part.
They murmur quietly, indiscernibly; as if unstudied answers on a test.
Ones you feel you know; but frightened too much for rest.
It all could have been just one more life quiz;
To redirect our life's journey; asking what we shall miss.
If that be the purpose; no regrets will have claws.
I'll cherish the connection;
I'll remember the glance;
The smile of your soul has sparked in me, again;
A passion for a chance I'd hidden as if not wanted for fear of loss.
And though it might seem crazy, as weirdness abounds my being;
I DO feel loss. I DO miss memories unseen; swaying dances unrealized.
Yet, the silliness of pain is tolerable. I'll sleep again someday;
And dreams awakened, once lost, will guide our way (s?).
--Shane Bowles
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 3:25 PM UTC
*every time a poem completed,
its state of affairs, certified & feted,
the boys gather 'round, for serious
series of slaps on the back, and
drunken wisdom words,
"you'll never do another one, better, boyo!"
and the dread of correct
feels me up,
filling me up
with cream filling
whipped up
anxiety
of the now seizured defeated*
as I grab a clean sheet from top of the stack,
and the retired muses overhear,
delightedly, whispering to each other
just loud enough to hear
me shaking tremble,
"*and right they are,
and write they are!*"
and yet, ex-poet, still a fool…
9:42pm
Wed Aug 6
2025
Aug 6, 2025
Aug 6, 2025 at 9:43 PM UTC
I will not be punished for what I feel
I will not let the anti-vagabonds knit together the
unsanctioned holes in my chest
Color will dagger
prisms will blind between ribs
And every day that I trudge through blank stares
and twin smiles
my hair will tangle and the moons of grit will sleep soundly
in nail beds
I'll keep chewing on words that free themselves around soul connections
Never swallowing them down
in fear that I'll be stuffed on my own metaphors
instead of the gorgeous others that await my digestion
of their seizured energy
I find myself, a rookie artist
thumbed down by grey roles
that fit me like a bustier made of hornets
May 15, 2016
May 15, 2016 at 5:31 PM UTC
Sliding into the bath this morning,
Was more an act of defiance
Then a ritual act of cleaning,
And a pleasurable dalliance.
Yesterday —
My doctor said (strongly suggested)
That I shouldn't have baths, showers are safer,
If I ever, on the off chance, seizured, because I forgot to take my medication,
Or, as I am trying to do, stop taking them altogether,
Aren't the laws of nature good? Just? Complementary?!
If I have another, isn't that injustice?!
Isn't cleansing the body, an act of worship?!
Should I live my life by the law of ‘off chances”?
I think not!
Today —
This bath is my protest.
And I am sipping coffee and eating pastries in here, too!
Jun 20, 2025
Jun 20, 2025 at 7:21 PM UTC