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Jo Swan Oct 2018
Alone I sail across the formidable sea,
Many men have drowned in this stormy weather!
Will the waves devour me to my death?
Where will the Wind of Destiny lead me?

My mind is fatigued by feeling of doubts
As my body has fought many hours to survive
And navigate the dinghy in search of land-
Where will the Wind of Destiny lead me?

Shivering silently in the darkness
My spirit crushed by the ravenous rain!
Should I surrender to the sea of pain?
Where will the Wind of Destiny lead me?

In the brink of suffering and strife,
I realise I am powerless against nature-
Only heaven can bless me with the breath of life.
Where will the Wind of Destiny lead me?

In the chaos, I made a personal prayer
And felt my soul submit to a serene state
As I ask the Lord to decide my fate-
Where will the Wind of Destiny lead me?

For the first time in my vulnerable state-
I felt the love of the Lord embrace my spirit
And all the fears and doubts dissipate –
Where will the Wind of Destiny lead me?

I realise life should move in a motion
Where love tames the wild weather of life
And relinquish all dark emotions-
So the force of the Wind of Destiny can awake!

With this new knowledge,
My spirit renews with vibrant vigour
As the truth of life finally been acknowledge
The force of the Wind of Destiny has awaken!

The sun wakes up from her sleep
The waves gently rocks the sail boat
The cloud calms down from her weep.
The force of the Wind of Destiny has awaken!

I feel my spirit soar
Like seagulls roaming across the sky
For I finally tasted the joy of God’s grace.
The force of the Wind of Destiny has awaken!

What lands shall be discovered?
I do not know what tomorrow will behold
Only courage and determination it will be uncovered
The force of the Wind of Destiny has awaken!

Staring sentimentally at the Sunrise
I feel the fiery breaths of the wind
Blowing my sail boat across the vast ocean.
Where will the Wind of Destiny lead me?
RyanMJenkins Aug 2012
So while I was enduring hordes of fear, the path to clarity eventually became clear
Because all I needed was for you to be here.
I've always held you dear, wishing you were near, or that next to me you could reappear.
Sometimes I can't even bring about a smile as I gaze in the mirror.

It helps to be aware of the happiness you've attained.  
I know I once brought the feelings unto you, and I still feel a little strange.
Locked up tight in a cellar in my heart, the feelings have remained.
Thinking of the years they've sustained, I pray for situations like This we could be trained.

Next to none know of the magic when we stared into each others' eyes..
Everything happened so fast, but it was a more-than-delightful surprise!
Even as ships capsized, I knew somehow we still had our ties.
But I felt lost for so long, probably because of my emotionally driven tries.

A ray of sunshine, a beautiful soul.
A piece of my heart you inadvertantly stole.  
With such a little role, potentially never again will I be or feel whole.
I'm unaware of my own control, and to myself I have taken a toll.
Your spirit lifts me enough to want to make improving myself the goal.

Whether or not again our paths cross..
I am making peace with the time lost,
Though still wishing our moments were equipped with a pause,
While regretting never fully telling you how many times you left me with awes..

I just wanted to tell you that I miss you.
I'd hoped I could blame things on a miscue,
But instead I take solace in time I misused.
All I've ever wanted to know is,
Did you ever feel any of this too?
Janek Kentigern Oct 2016
Sadness
it's strong stuff...
I've had so much I can't walk
without falling
I can't talk
without stalling
And slurring
Can't think
without blurring the lines
between problems
and mere actualities.
Lacking the faculties
to sort factual reality
from the masochistic fantasies
that lurk at the back of me;
Passively, I watch them attacking me
ransacking stacks of ****
that once brought me happiness
laughing mirthlessly, cursing the birth of me,
tormenting, caressing,
augmenting the worst of me,
Cementing self pity, bitterly nursing the urge
to revel in misery. Rolling in muck
and mire of recent history,
desiring nothing.
In anger I pander to these base demands,
Mistaking mere sickness
For something more grand
Avowing the charge of my own propaganda,
Allowing this world that I loved
to be slandered
Cowed
My friends are pulled down to an
unflattering angle. From here they appear
(no matter how dear)
to be traitors and thieves,
with knives up their sleeves.
I'll believe every lie my sick mind can conceive.

Don't give me the keys
'cos I'll drive off a cliff
Don't give me a pen
Cos I'll only write this
There's nothing unique in the words that I speak,
and this piece is nothing but
cliches,
mixed metaphors you've met before
similes sing of sick malaise.
Tongue out of cheek,
Dazed.
I'm released from policing
my verse,
Sad soul knows no quality Control,
As the heart beats crazily, I proofread lazily
sentimentally, hazily.
Without a **** to give
I chuck away the voice that says
“Don't write if it ain't great.”.

Days achieving nothing
but self inflicted *******
Gouging self-inflicted chasms
between loved ones and I,
apoplectic rage in spasms,
fits of fleeting normality
Bridge defeat, despair and insanity.
Weaponised hatred for all of humanity.
A small inconvenience
becomes a calamity.
Then revert to intertia perverted by vanity.

Next, corner a companion and
complain away the pain and drain your glass again and again without restraint

Explain the ways that your to blame, oh the shame the shame,
Dissect regrets, reflect until you've bored yourself to death,
(let alone the poor sod who kindly nods and slyly checks their watch, before they stammer out excuses,
Hints which I'm too hammered and useless to hear,
Too wrecked to check myself. They've done their duty as a mate, but remember,
steer clear of the fate,
Of getting ****** down into the vortex, of depression and regrets.
We've all got our problems. He's out of cigarettes.)
Whilst here I  reading aloud
still sore texts, to detect traces of affection.

Sad ****, sad drunk, alone again,
Get my coat, forget my phone. The inconvenience provides some light relief,
From the background grief.
Now tomorrow's replete with distraction s and tasks to complete.
The horizons' brightened with the prospect of splashing some some cash, and so much to choose!
Afternoons busy spent perusing reviews,
Megapixels, memory, which brand do I trust?
But I know I'm just
buying time,
Before the consumption high subsides
and I'm back with this background mosquito pitch whine saying "maybe I'm better off dead".
Bite you lip, hold on, its temporary. and whilst it feels scary, remember
Your not sick, you're not dying, your just heartbroken,
trying to move on, and maybe occasionally crying.
And that's healthy.
The weeping ain't that bad,
It's the cold light of day. It's the misguided logic. That's says "you had the best time of your life, now you've lost it,
All that was worth having,
Is behind you, and may I remind you,
You ain't getting younger, it's starting to show,
And times flowing towards the end, the time you spent on earth was wasted, getting wasted, not facing life head on and you'll never change. It's not strange that she's found someone better"
etc etc

You've been here before and each time it gets better. If you could write a letter to your younger self you could share a wealth of knowledge about Dealing with horrors from within.
Emotions invade us, but we can repel them. But you have to embrace them before you expel them.
So whilst it's not fine yet
And whilst I still pine, yeah, I'm resigned for the time being,
seeing the bigger picture.
And we're designed to recover then remove the stitches. No plans go without hitches. At last, whilst they might not go as fast as we like,
In the night take respite cos
Like the drunken high, and this ******* Hangover
This too shall pass
And one day you'll wake up sober.
Julie Grenness Oct 2015
On love and astral travelling,
Through the stars we're wandering,
On the universe we're pondering,
My eternal love, Napoleon,
Intangible man, but  full of fun,
Our jewelled cloak of stars,
We've journeyed from afar,
Shape shifting, glittering,
On love and astral travelling,
I'm no Carlos Santana,
I have no scarlet bandana,
I am the oestrogen,
Old Josephine,
Where haven't we been?
I have no testosterone,
You're my "Yes, master!" Napoleon---
On love and astral travelling,
Sentimentally wandering,
Are you Angelus or Incubus?
Reminiscing, reflecting,
Comical groupies for loving,
On love and astral travelling......
A whimsy inspired by music, the Albatross.
Aaron LaLux Jun 2016
The slap stings more than it probably should,
scratch that like a cat’s scratch on the back of a mattress,
the slap stings more than I thought it would,
because it was a surprise that was deserved but not expected,

and as she tries to explain herself,
with tears streaming down her cheeks and loving anger in her eyes,
I begin to think what every abused person forever thinks,
maybe I deserved it…

She’s small,
petite,
physically unthreatening,
but emotionally a serious liability,
like a stealth bomber,
aeronautically beautiful,
but destructively deadly,
a suicidal **** savage,
a carcinogenic princess,

she is,
small,
petite,
as cute as she is hard headed,
stubborn trouble that’s hard to argue with,

so I don’t argue,
instead of engage I ignore,
silence can be more of an insult,
than even the worst words ever are,
when words are replaced,
with the silence of space,
all kinds of assumptions and truths can occur,

so I don’t argue,
I don’t debate or retaliate,
I just politely remove myself,
from this situation when it escalates.

See,
I’ve been in abusive relationships in the past,
and the bones of the skeletons in my closet,
barely rest buried just below the surface,

and that slap,

that fckn slap,
almost awoke the demons,
so loud it almost disturbed the devil,
it almost brought about a most unholy resurrection,

that slap,

was like a shovel digging into the dirt in a graveyard,
almost uncovering the sinful skeleton bones buried just below the surface…

But I refuse,
to let this hysterically temperamental gorgeous Gravedigger,
unearth a past that's sentimentally painful and totally traumatic,
and even though I’m unnerved by the slap because that slap hurt,
I refuse to give in to her drama and become all melodramatically dramatic.

See,

she’s sweet as Halloween treats,
at the same time still bitingly bitter and distasteful,
so instead of engaging in here arguments,
I remove myself and my emotions from her Self that’s so ungrateful,
she calls me a player and a **** but I find that her labels are mislabeled,
so no I don’t give in to her taunts I refuse to engage in something so shameful,

instead of engaging,
I leave her alone with her tears,
I exit out the balcony,
and make my way down the stairs,
I take myself to the ocean,
walking barefooted along the path,
I am not responsible for her heart,
so I refuse to endure her wrath,

see,

domestic abuse hurst both,
the abuser and the abused,
especially when the two are in love,
and they are all out of options to choose,

there’s a very thin line between love and hate,
and those dividing lines can sometimes fade,
mistakes can be made good intentions misplaced,
a kiss on the check and a held hand can turn into a slap in the face!

The slap stings more than it probably should,
scratch that like a cat’s scratch on the back of a mattress,
the slap stings more than I thought it would,
because it was a surprise that was deserved but not expected,

feeling rejected,
and disconnected,
feeling both affected,
and disaffected,

I exit,

I exit the bungalow,
and ascend down the winding staircase,
I get outside and get away from there,
staring out into star lit space,

I breathe,
and think,
fresh air is so underrated,
I see my favorite star,
thanking me because I made it,
twinkling vibrantly she has me sedated,
not the girl,
but the star,
she is such a seductress,
shining in such radiant hues of electric light,
she twinkles vibrantly and violently,
she does not go gently into that good night,
she is the good in a good night,
twinkling vibrantly as other stars shoot across the Night's sky,

she rages against the dying light,
and I give thanks that I am still alive.

I walk,

barefoot and bare chested,
down to the beach,
where the dry desert sands of southern Baja,
meet the wet ocean waters of the Pacific,

bottle of wine in one hand,
book and pen in the other,

I marvel at the stars,
and remember that I am never really alone,
for as long as I can see the sky,
I’ll always see the way to get back home.

The constellations are stellar interpretations,
maps to guide us home to our final destination.


I arrive,
at the beach,
several shooting stars later,
and wash away the ache on my face and in my heart,
with waves on my feet and wine in my throat,
I record some more emotions on this paper,
because poetry is my form of emotional art,

and by the light of the full moon,
I write for as long as I can write,
my pains won’t be in vain,
and everything will be worth it even what happened tonight,

I will take all of our collective abuses,
and place them on these papers,
transforming them from form to thought,
then from thought to words on these papers,

I will take all of our collective abuses,
process and translate them into messages to be read,
I will take all of our collective abuses,
and process them through the headaches in my head,
so hopefully these messages,
will help others who have been or are being abused stand strong,
and hopefully these messages,
will help others who abuse or have abused realize that they are wrong,
because at the end of the day what we can say to relate,
is it’s all about love and hate it’s not all about right and wrong.

And just as I lose hope,
and ethereal angel appears,
wearing a white linen robe,
looking like a ghost holding laughter and tears,

she sits next to me,
here on the sands,
and takes the warm bottle of wine,
from my cold still writing hands,

she observes as I finish,
writing these last few lines,
she watches me with interest,
as if she can read my mind,

and she smiles even though it’s a painful world,
because she knows we’re both survivors so we will survive,
and she knows we’re both riders so we’re always ready to ride,
and we both shine way too bright to ever be able to hide,

and then we make love,
our passions rising along with the tide,
and maybe that’s why the girl back at the bungalow slapped me,
because she was mixed up with hurt feelings and hurt pride,
she was frustrated that she loved me but that here love was not enough,
but what am I to do I can not control how my heart feels or even control myself.

I hurt her,
so she slapped me,
and I guess that’s fair,
though maybe not exactly,
either way I care too much to care,
and either way that **** slap kinda stings,

even when I know it’s deserved…

The slap stings more than it probably should,
scratch that like a cat’s scratch on the back of a mattress,
the slap stings more than I thought it would,
because it was a surprise that was deserved but not expected…

– ∆  Aaron La Lux ∆ –

'The City of Fallen Angels'; available worldwide 7/7/16


ouch! I probably deserved it...
Mimi Aug 2012
Steal my heart
or still my heart
It makes no difference, just
filling the silence till
he says he loves me (tomorrow?
maybe never again).
So if you ask me to come I'll come
but don't you dare bore me
sentimentally
I'll put out (my cigarette in your eye).
Martin Narrod May 2015
Just a cool stone falling from the sky. A parachute smoking Parliament Lights coasting the real world that was passing it by. Coaxing a kettle to observe kashrut law but tamely give it time and it'll start handling the swine in the huge sunlight of Williamsburg's Southeast side. It will learn to pedal its parlor tricks in order to survive.

The tabloids had the story neatly bundled up with a news team in their 3-floor flat. Bubble-wrapped and packaged with plastic. Two new reasons to draw a truce to the agonizing and circuitous chasing of the playground muse. Beautiful warmed cerise porcelain skin intertwined by the golden threads worth never ever choosing to blink again. Beautiful like imaginary childhood sword fights among the assurance of our towering grandparents. Beautiful as the vintage polaroid blur of a person whose city slept itself into the sea. She slept herself into the sea.

From the sacred realm of the many desk drawers, lintels, cupboards, and closets where so many objects of misdirection, confusion, and memory appear out of 25¢ rings, faded business cards, nameless sentimental must-haves, four or five photographs that are never looked at, three or four leather cuffs, brass knuckles, a sailor's compass, 12 cigarettes, and two empty cigar boxes of stuff that is home to even lesser known finer sentimentally necessary stuff.

The commoner takes no notice of these fantastical theorems or the promulgating tantrummers in the sweaty cobblestone streets where in the sarcasm of a daydream, he the dreamer sleeps here yet he's awake in July the Fourth, Eighteen Seventy-Three, Independence Day or though it would seem. The narrator who is played by Humbert Humbert constantly fidgets with a steel 6-shot revolver, he drops it multiple times while his eyes are stricken with the brightest shine from the sheen off a knife in the hands of the stranger's while he shuffled and whined.

Inside the shells of flightless birds there are always the tormented ears echoing the screams of the children that they hurt. Who will never gait through wild strawberry fields or understand that everything is only as real as we choose to feel.
#addiction   #anger   #future   #hope   #bed   #flowers   #happiness   #hurt   #past   #of   #mind   #green   #shame   #white   #night   #and   #walking   #desperation   #old   #usa   #guilt   #head   #forever   #dry   #eternity   #feet   #cherry   #waves   #dear   #present   #familiar   #stream   #consciousness   #diary   #close   #stuck   #ankles   #blooming   #wet   #hopelessness   #crap   #california   #francisco   #footsteps   #bitterness   #adam   #your   #immortality   #online   #while   #quite   #blossoms   #ancient   #illinois   #eve   #martinnarrod   #shiva   #rehab   #lovehurts   #skull   #deardiary   #narrod   #martin   #clad   #dearjournal   #san   #beaches   #godlessness   #womb   #blinds   #opened   #headaches   #blocks   #review   #poetrymagazine   #published   #chicagopoetryfoundation   #26th   #westcoast   #baytobreakers   #bay2breakers   #sanfranciscobay   #sf   #ca   #dithering   #dogwood   #nikes   #abuenavista   #buena   #vista   #valencia   #themission   #missiondistrict   #threemonthsago   #fasteningsleep   #slatted   #thewestwing   #presidents   #chicagowritersfoundation   #unpublished   #streamsofsconsciousness   #condolenmce   #rattler   #fram   #upstairs   #chamber   #swim-meet   #swimmetet   #tshirt   #teeshirt   #tee-shirts   #bucks   #evanston   #wrappedup   #menageatois   #menage-a-tois   #ugle   #bandage   #selfpity   #selfcenteredness   #poetsinrecovery   #recoveringaddiction   #emotionalsobriety   #physiucalsobriety   #abstinence   #withstanding
thinklef Jul 2013
Sometimes i don't even know how i feel,
It feels like the mountain have been mounted upon
me,
the views are becoming blurring,
My heart keeps melting every night
as these problems accumulate in 4 letters,
"Lost"
My life is a puzzle,
i need someone to break it down,
My heart is fragile,
be careful how you handle me,
My words are becoming empty,
please understand how i feel,
i look minor when i stare in the mirror,
you can hardly tell cause this pain feast on my soul
It hurts me, it bite's me, it consumes me
i only look up to the provider,
as i wait for the stars for directions,
My heart keeps crashing,
when those memories trigger my emotion,
i need someone to believe in me,
Someone who won't judge me by my mistakes &
errors,
These tears won't let me think straight,
If you are to count my tears in numbers and
figures ,
you would probably be going to a million
My head keeps running in circles,
i need directions to the finish line
Truly lost am i in a huge world,
Every step forward looks like I'm on reverse,
i need to look ahead this obstacles in other to
revive myself,
You think you know how i feel?
How about been shot 55times without bleeding?
Apparently that's how i feel,
My future may be shining ,
But i have to trace the light,
in other no to be caught in darkness
You all said you were gonna be here,
i trusted you,
Yet again I'm here all alone with my shadow,
When i cry i bleed,
When i bleed i pen
Life kicks me like a ball,
Plays me like a tennis,
Takes me up & down like a roller coaster,
The cotton maybe closing on me,
but there is a brighter day above this walls,
Every night is a stormy night,
as these tears form a deep ocean
enough to drown a fast boat,
The past i will never forget,
Tomorrow i look forward to,
Life is but a moment,
i can't keep wallowing sentimentally,
to this statement of expression,
Cause my intention has always been my reaction,
i am running out of ink,
i think life is becoming so cruel everyday,
i will continue to pen these words,
till i know exactly how i feel,
I'm going back to the start.
thinklef Jul 2013
Every night i lay in my bed
thinking,
trying to picture what tomorrow will bring,
But these visions have limitations to what lay
ahead,
Mass destruction of the mind very hard to hide,
what is it that i fear most?
i don't know,
these dreams can't be interpreted,
a state of entropy i'm in,
Day dreaming of a glossy life,
In silence and tranquillity,
at night so glum as a glue,
or am i scared of the future responsibilities that
awaits?
It may be near when it seems so far,
Is that what i truly fear?
i can hear myself think,
as i feel my inner voice grating on my nerves,
this sincere tone & eloquent words arousing me
to reality,
my head propped up n both side,
realizing the thing i fear most is been me,
these words are brewing in my mind,
Or is it the mistakes i have made due to human
fallibility?
i can't keep wallowing sentimentally,
due to the fear of the unknown,
All i have to do is focus on the future,
In other not to jeopardize what lays head,
with tension & pressure,
Its time i confide in me,
Life will always have its twist and turns.
GfS Jun 2015
If you can remember any memory,
Real or Not
what would that memory be?
...
A question I've always asked myself.
If I could remember the times when we
held pinkies, or walked together
slept on a chair without a care
when we made moments matter
Sometimes, I wonder if those memories
were the same to you as for me
cause they felt all too real
They were moments where
it felt like
you were reaching out
and yet now
there's this ineffable distance
as if.. those memories were never real
It's sad to think that those moments
are your losses
cause I embraced it
and held it sentimentally
Was it my mistake?
What have I done?
To make you forget reality
and changed it with blank memories
...
If I were to remember a memory
Real or Not
I would remember you smiling at me
WFP inspiration + a fellow poet inspiration
with a hint of you in every verse
Not really good at making titles.. or poems
GfS May 2015
Every moment was like a dream, a memory.
Memories of odes, ballads with allegory
Every random smile, Every warm touch
Every single tear that was felt too much
Moments that we were happy, sad, and crazy
Were more than just consuetudinary.
To others, these days, these moments may seem ordinary
But to me, I held them sentimentally
These memories, I held tightly
Made me feel more uneasy
It'd remind me that we are to separate
And it'd bring me to a more depressing state
But these memories where I see you smiling
Make me want to stop crying
With each memory that flashes in my head
Make me smile more and more instead
So I hope you'd be happy wherever you are
It's not like you'd be gone and be so far
I'lll be there whenever you need me
Let's see each other sometime, maybe for tea?
To the girl that I once loved before her
Liam Jun 2015
sentimentally tattooed
permanently scarred
a colorfast spectrum

unrequited amnesia
autonomous dreams
bright grey dawns

perpetual emotion
forward momentum
one track bind
selina Feb 28
to love me like how you love your
cheap hmart wine, to sentimentally sip
at me until you are tipsy and having a
good time; and if i have nothing more to
give, set my empty self on a distant shelf—
forever is a paradise, even if to only ever
hear your laughter from the sidelines
live love wine metaphors/similes
Rosie Rae May 2013
There are nights when I cried so much I thought I'd wilt,
That all the colour would drain from me,
That all the life in me, all the air in my lungs
Would escape me and I would just stop.

Like an old clock, I would stop ticking.

People would still look at me and find me useful,
I'm sentimentally valuable.
But I am never to work properly again,
Eventually, they'll stop looking.

There's always hope.
I hurt so deeply, I hope I wilt.
I'm not a poet, but a heartbroken songwriter. I hope this will suffice.
An uncanny 60 degree afternoon.
Light generously pours itself in through the bathroom window.
Smoke dances around her, as everything should. She takes a drag.
"I haven't done this in ages," she says, in a serene voice we haven't heard in ages.
"the smoke is prettier."
What was prettier was the Victorian structure that once stood by the window. She glances sentimentally at the sacred remains.
But now she has more room to breathe, now she has light.
An illuminated limb brings itself to a pair of carnation pink lips.
She takes another drag.
Lauren R Feb 2018
I. He Will Refuse To Find a Way Up
A fifth hole in the wall this week opens and I crawl inside it while your knuckles are still freshly bleeding. I will find myself grasping at straws to justify your rage. You reflect it back onto me, an uneasy mirror that makes me want to tear open my own cathartic hands and find what made me so angry so long ago. I shake my head. I have loved you. I have helped you grow. I have been the soil you have stretched roots in and the fields of lavender you have scorched. I let myself let you go before I crawl into another drywall void.

II. She Will Not Be What You Remember
I can hear the echo of my voice reverberate where I thought your heart was. Your soft hair that ran through my fingers smells like burning hair. Oh, these things cannot be taken back, I know, I know. I will watch you turn to sand in the hourglass on my nightstand, next to rose petals, bottle caps, and other sentimentally valued found objects. You will trickle to the bottom grain by grain and be unstuck. It will mean nothing. I will watch it as time passes and try to break it no more.

III. You Will Have to Let him Go
We did it, like I promised: we laid with the cold to our backs, faces to the empty-not-empty sky, and let the snow cover our mistakes, dissipating our frail bodies into a million tiny oblivions. You fell apart, your ashes blown across several states, thousands of miles. I caught your dust between my teeth and when I flicked it off my tongue, it spelled poems and threats and manifestos in languages I could never understand. You're dragged by your heels into the hospital, cursing my name as my heart breaks. I'm sorry, my baby, my little brother, I'm sorry to the child I tried to raise like my own. Schizophrenia is a hard word to learn in every language, and understand in yours. I did not want to lose you. But sometimes, you weigh your sins, and the heaviest of all is the one that's easiest to utter into the world.

IV: How It Will Go
I've wanted to talk to you for a while.
> I know.
So...
> So?
So, I can't tell if I've missed you or not.
> ...
What I mean is, how do we know this is right?
> It is. We're no good for each other.
We're new people, well- maybe not new, but much different. I don't know if me now will like you now, but me now is longing for you then.
> You're not making any sense.
I know. I just want to say I'm sorry. I don't even know how to begin to say it.
> Sure.
I am.
> Alright.
Some part of me still loves you. She is biting her tongue because she doesn't want your name to roll oh so comfortably off of it ever again.
> Stop.
I'm sorry. I don't want to make this complicated again. I don't know why I'm doing this. I'm stupid I'm-
> Just shut up, okay?
Okay.

That night, I will claw into my throat and release the shrieks of grief snowpacked in it. I will congratulate myself on allowing the sun to set on the most golden thing I've ever been given the chance to hold.

My lungs will still take in air and send it back into the sky for you to return to me. It won't be the same. It won't be comforting. It'll sting and needle at my soft insides, sending all the words you ever spoke to me into my blood in tangles until it clogs my veins and makes its way to my brain. I will be left with half my face permanently lopsided, stuck in a frown, while trying to remember what did it in the first place.

V: Ideally, as if In a Dream*
The sun is dripping down your hair. It steams in golden runnels down your forehead and it casts a halo in your eyes, sainting you.
I am blessing all the uneaten meals, broken skin, and chewed up fingernails. I will bless how I raised hell and then settled it back into the dirt so I could bring down heaven for you and I, and it's warm, bright caress. The sweet, sticky clouds- they smell like marshmallow and clean laundry and kisses on the forehead.
I will be able again to think of your thin hands as being prom-queen-gown-silk swaddling blue jay bones: fragile and masculine and hollow and splintered all in one. I will run my fingers over your knuckles- as soft and as familiar as my baby blankets.
You will breathe in deeply, and I will too, just for the sake of doing it together.
I will say, "I've been waiting for this."
And you will say, "For what?"
And I will say, "this," just looking around.
This isn't one of my best, but it's an exorcism.
Tyler A Sullivan Nov 2018
Turn of the Season (Expanded 2019)
TURN OF THE SEASON

For Friends and Family


Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
                                          -Robert Herrick

Intoxicated nights of orange halogen lights-
Illuminating through misty blown water.
As the April breeze ruffles the newly sprung leaves upon the trees
Men pour malted liquor inside clandestine cellars of tuxedo staff and obsequious waitresses.

Echoes of an engine shuffles on down the alley,
Startled they hide in the cornered places.
Men enclosed in smoke talk of days of old,
And better times,
And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces.

Woman go about chatting of useless things and waste the night away.
Men sit about playing games of little meaning and waste the night away.
Both will head to familiar places at mornings first rays,
And April effortlessly falls into May.

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces,
Slowly trudging through the paces,
Slowly they tighten their laces,

And set out for another monotony dipped day,

Planting their ears to the ground listening;
And many things they'll hear and say,
With many hindsight memories in their mind glistening,
And their lovers will whisper are you listening,
And they'll say "yes yes my dear have no fear I am here".

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces.
And they'll make many a plan and in cases,
And step over cracks in fear of dark places.


The clink of a glass carries on down the hall;
The bartender while wiping the counter yells
"Last call",
And they'll retort "for what reason",
And he "none at all".
Then the bar goes the way of the shopping mall,
And summer slips effortlessly into fall.

What reasons can they make when the night is through,
When it's time to wake what will they do ?


As the days retreat with their hairline,
And each mirror more distortive than the last,
They'll retreat further, further into their mind,
And what will they find
With their sanity fleeting fast,
A desperate thought floating in the breeze,
A candle to thaw the freeze.


Intoxicated nights of solemn solitude,
Tucked in the back thoughts of a lonely suburb,
Trying arduously to abandon actuality,
But failing and jumping the curb.

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces.
"Sorry love they're not home I'm afraid",
"They've gone to the races",
Two lovers in two different places.

Rest assured rest assured they'll return,
They'll unconsciously sell their freedom,
Rest assured rest assured they'll return,
At this moment they are Carpe Diem.

Rest assured rest assured,
They'll be plenty of time
To fumble with furniture,
Plenty of time
To spend with her,
Plenty of time to waste
Plenty of love to give,
Now's to go slow not make haste,
Now's to go slow and live.


And they'll remember childhood
As a warm August kiss,
And where their feet stood,
And what they missed.
And when the leaves
Upon the trees
Fall down down down
To rise to their knees,
They'll remember who they are
And who they use to be.
            ...
And they'll come to age
Lost among the rushes,
And they'll gaze back on hesitation
Condescending conversations
Sharply silencing hushes.
             ...
So, before you grow old
And wilt away,
Before summer loses hold
And December has its day,
Enjoy what you have
For what you have is to enjoy,
For what you haven't
Are merely foolish toys.

This summer began as the last one did
And will end when Autumn bids
With the sun and stars above for you to see
Run around like children in the heat of lunacy.
...


Though I've fasted and wept,
Wept and prayed
And stayed stoic long
Through passing day
Scrutinized by throngs
I can never,
Never truly say
I have achieved arête.

No, I'm not the son of Xanthippus,
Who instigated the apogee of Athens.
The past beacons of Atticus
Dims my own ember passions.

No, I have not achieved what desired
Thrown to the wind it seems
Another day is expired
Forever slumbering in dreams.

Though I've loved and lost
Loved and lusted,
Won a few
Others busted,
Though I've seen the world at the needle point,
With all the sordid souls suffering,
I've lived like Cummings:
The farthest extent of emotions,
I've kept a drug induced devotion,
But never could I stop from wondering,
Never could cease sundering.

Oh do not say to me I have
squandered my time,
Racking the innermost emotions of my mind.

Oh do not speak of me
As if I were not here
But some sailor sunk at sea.

Oh do not confront my convictions,
As if I were a child
Lost among the maddening crowds,
Dreaming wild.

No, I am lost to the Demos,
They will not understand.
I wear a veil of pathos,
Deepening desolation with every  reprimand.

I've seen the valleys of my life
Where the flowers are disseminated like t.v. static,
And the only sound a high continual pitch.
                 ...

They've said go, Go I don't love you anymore
Not pretty enough to be a poem
Not intelligent enough to be of any use
                 ...
Though I've smiled and agreed
Agreed and died
Through all this hell
I have tried
...
You are not wrong who deems
It's all madness it seems

Life was so much more back then
At the apex of humanity
At childhoods end
We are met with insanity
  ...


They're troubled tonight,
Their restless gaze fails to penetrate the maw of a darkened window-

To have
To have not

To operate in the probity of normality,
To practice trembling sobriety,
To lose an arm for the ones you love,
To have in heart the morning dove,

Assures that come evening tide
Through shroud and delusion,
Secrets the world shall confide
And lift your illusion.
...

The very next morning
Or so it would seem,
Awoke the old men
Rendering a dream.

Patiently focusing
For a clearer account
The words from the past
They seemed to mount,
And as they pressed closer
Not to be deterred
It crested their mind
And then they heard

"Soured metal, rotted walls
Darkness hangs from hall to hall
Broken bonds burning ambitions
A feeling half held until fruition

Life a moment
A last choking breath
Happiness a second
Before eternal death

We exist only
In the time between
A hint of joy
Goes often unseen

Until again
The crest breaks
And life slips by
But leaves no wake

Such was the tale
Of the great eluder
A hidden knife
A dark intruder

A ****** thorn
Upon the rose
A heap of sand
At the toes

Left undone
The last request
Above the head
The water crest"

Intolerable mornings of required communion,
Accompanied with formulated phrases,
Men limp from church
Their mind wondering
Far from there
To their childhood breakfast table,
Breathing the memory becomes stable,
They hold on to it as long as they are able.

Plates of porcelain
Decorate the wall
Floral patterns swirling to the center,
Across the room mother enters,
The image wavers and ripples like water disturbed by a pebble


"Honey set the table
Get the biscuits, gravy, ladle."
Set the trays down equal from the middle, a cup to the left, forks and knifes to the right-
Get those filthy boon dockers off my floor and out of sight-
Go get your brother without causing a fight
BREAKFAST TIME
Rise and shine on the biscuit line
BREAKFAST TIME
The sun is up and shining
The coffee is on and the bacon frying"

The memory dissipated into a fleecy cloud.
It hangs heavy on their heads.
Remnants of yesterday remembered in indignation
When slipping off to bed.
  ...
With no more action left in my bones,
With no reprise resting at home,
With no pleasure found when I roam,
Distant memories I sentimentally comb.

These gems
Are all I have left,

I'll leave none for anyone else,
Just an old man
Riffing through the shelves.

Poor in mind, poor in health,
Just an old man
By him self.

I'm in the December of my days
And stuck fast in my stubborn ways,
If only I could grasp youth for longer !
If only my frail body were stronger !

If only I were confronted again with every last myriad encounter where I chose reticence,
Opposed to openness,
My martial mind refuses any peacefulness,
Perhaps the reason of my restlessness.
...

Shaking off the foreboding dream,
A distant luminary seemed to gleam,
An old man frail but proud
He spoke a poetic oration aloud.

"My head is swollen, my mind it wanders
My tongue is twisted stumbling it stutters
My thoughts are lost in the colliding clutter,
My meaning is lost under soft mutters.

My smile shields my solemnness,
My eyes reveal my weariness
I am a man of little happiness,
But refuse to possess helplessness.

I am as I decree,
An old man wrapped in misery
But not one broken to submission,
Just one in a transition.

I have tasted the bitters of love,
Witnessed the horrors of death,
I have choked my linen dove
To its final breath.

No, I am not a careless senior
Full of content
Shriveled in demeanor
Mind absent.

I'm dying not dead,
No resolving to expiration
Living instead,
No meeting expectation,
No bowing my head.

In credence I say
I'm living for today

No consideration for tomorrow
No more drowning in sorrow."

...
The heavens opened with their finale word
Come old man and join my hurd
Or was it the universe who spoke
What who gently stirring
Now awoke

Both, one or two, or together in unison
Whispered of sweet reconciliation
Come home my tortured son
Saved from damnation

Or was it darkness who called
Finally silence for body mauled
By time ever moving hand
Come rest in the ***** of the land.

His perception thinned
And then it was as he never been.


             .....



The day was overcast
Fitting the mood
Black suits stood in formation
While the unlucky ones heaved their load.

                    ...


Words spoken to strangers and colleagues.


"He was not an exceptional man

Not one of great worth
No wife, no kids, no friends.

To an outside eye it would seem as a waste
And maybe it was
But that's the nature of things to end abruptly
On a minor note"
Written by
Tyler A. Sullivan
mir4i Jan 2018
Lay back

ponder things

as times consumes

sentimentally speak through your mind

and let  your chaotic soul

dealt it with complexity
While I was strolling around the city, I couldn't help but think about myself just for a moment......
Jonas Gonçalves May 2014
I / Passion

I never met someone
who I could fall in love with
– abandoned, it was what I said,
trying to fool the *****.

Crazy is the foreigner's heart
who I allow myself to fall in love with,
even if I've already been born
with dead heart
– peaceful, it was what she said,
trying not to delude me.

Hollow is the lady's heart
who pretended to love without being loving
– convinced, it was what I said,
trying to forget her.

I never met you sentimentally,
because in life, we have to go and find
the best of each day
which fills empty of our hearts,
otherwise, we will die unhappy
– charmed, it was what she said.

II / Consideration

I died with
what people appreciate a lot,
and gradually I realize how
irrelevant my despair was.

Gratitude is maybe what I must feel...
although there's a bigger feeling.

III / Promise*

I'll walk through lonely streets,
trying to forget what I felt
while I expect infinity of my heart
finish and change to better.
Onoma May 2017
Don't exaggerate the price
paid to meet the pay off.
Ms. Magdalene oiled up a
pair of great feet only after
turning a blind eye too many,
to forced entries.
No sooner.
If you give pain a false address,
no one will visit.
They'll leave sentimentally
orphaned flowers at wrong doors.
You won't even answer your own
door knocking on itself, you hide.
As time chisels your sacrificial altar...
candles huddle closer and closer
for warmth, even as they burn.
Surrounded by answered prayers,
growing hungry for acknowledgement.
K G Sep 2015
the compliments were gone
away with my faint personality
sentimentally wrong
sensing brutality against me
informality
showing off
glass in my head
different people
dressed differently
voice difference
unfelt in my age class
I decide to rip
my lies open to view
clinching
seeing the the bright hue
cut and fall through
the paper walls
out of the blue i come
compliments are gone
not even self-confident
my problems are a sport
i would do something
but that's the last resort
Dave Williams Aug 2016
shame sentimentally suffices some sacrament: strange secondary seekers safely scout such suffrage so suddenly, shake spurious susceptibility southward so strangers seem superficial; supposing such simple servants survive such sycophantic schools sans shouting, scraping, sifting, straightforward striking; some surmise something sustains, something stinks. see? sure. self-sustainable, sick, staggeringly stupid ****.

subtle ****, slip sliding southward, stopping such sudden shudderance.

safe, she says?

soon such seas seem superfluous so... success: scream success! shake secondary security, say secrets, sratch surfaces, scrape sentimental sand so shapes shift sooner; similarly scrub seemingly subtle scars, seven seconds, second severance, something so subliminally separate simplifies shifting solace, sacrificing so solemly saturday's superficial stars.

such sweet serendipity.
always wanted to write something with more s.
#s
She endeavor sentimentally to enliven chocolate
till we're both finally in a rotunda as sweet
and intuitively match with just a Hershey's kiss
while a distraction is like something on screen
with their soundtrack and film avant-garde today.
Penelope Winter Jun 2017
You were the calming moonlight
Through skies of moonshine and loneliness
Surrounded by the fog and the thunder
And yet seen only as an omen of hope
A kaleidoscope of memories
But now they're just engulfed
In a cloud of powdered emery
I know the words you spoke
Were not spoken accidentally
I know the way you felt for me was not coincidentally
The same way I did
So tell me why, sentimentally,
I look at our photos and cry
(Physcially and mentally).
I know the day you left
Was not just incidentally
The same day that I told you:
(Regretfully)
I love you.

And you know that I know,
You loved me too.
Unforgettably.

- p. winter
Blois Dec 2017
It's Sunday, that I know. Also that
the new year will start on the same day
as the new week will, it seems appropriate.
Not that that would make any difference,
we will get confused anyway.
With all the promises in the air,
like the tiny ghosts of unborn
children that will bring laughter
into our lives, supposedly.
That is, unless you are old enough
as to not to promise anything anymore,
we are very much aware that the first person
that will get disappointed will be ourselves.

All of those who will be coming back home
tomorrow, to fight for what we think
is best for us, all of us who will be starting
the year with ash running out from our hands,
still sentimentally moved by the same songs,
old dogs trying to learn new tricks
but failing miserably, as we let time
run out. We all will be there.

Maybe the me from five years ago will no longer
recognize himself. He will be here to,
confused, afraid, and looking into the future.
Donna Mar 2018
Like a flicker of a candle
Seasons come and go
Like an half open blind
It's never a closed show

Like people you love
A few will turn there backs
Like shadows on a wall
Tis time to mend those cracks

Like a rainbow in the sky
So colourful and high
Does heaven really exist!
Is that why birds fly!

Like a crow caw cawing
On an ordinary day
Is it in that silence
That nature as it's say

Like these pictures in my mind
Are they sub-consciously real
Or do I think too much
That I sentimentally feel

Like a whale in the sea
Who swims day and night
Will eventually rise
To inhale the bright light
Jennifer Weiss Aug 2014
I am a contradiction,

Because I love a beautiful flowing dress
-more than any other clothing.
But I hate material possessions.
-a side effect of my journey to becoming "all knowing".

I prefer not to wear jewelry, much for the same reasons,
-But I sentimentally wear this amethyst ring my grandmother gave me every single season.

I dislike conflict, yelling, and fighting.
-But I will die fighting for justice, even outside of my writing.

If we traced back my origins, I am sure we could find,
- the exact moment everything was thrown off course, and how it led to this moment in time.

I never realized until the ripe age of twenty two,
the magnitude I have always had for loving you.
(even if I don't want to...)

I like kids more than I will ever like an adult,
- they are less prone to judgement and still use their imaginations, so we get a long better as a result.  

Sometimes I feel like a vessel the world will use until I'm dry.
-because sometimes I have to take in all the dark clouds, so everyone else can have a clear sky.
Tunde Lakanu Nov 2019
When you blink, who arrives?
Those curves for riding, I dare you
sentimentally tragic, stay a minute
exhale those limits
One ways, you get goosebumps



         -until we erupt
Geraldine Taylor Jun 2017
Unhampered velocity, flow of continuity

Selected autonomy, explore your philosophy

Treaded geography, to grasp empathically

Of no ambiguity, to reason amicably

Of no accord, nonsensical

The freedom just to be



Desire ambitiously, of difference unusually

Give access academically, promotions periodically

Acts of kind sporadically, improvise remarkably

Caring sentimentally, peacefulness tranquillity

Of one accord intentional

The freedom to be me



Written by Geraldine Taylor ©
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2023
an aging symptom
of the mediocre.

- assorted justifications of happenstance -

three bottles of 8.2% strength of cider... nothing...
it's understandable that high % beers are
reserved for alcoholics and taste bad...
but... when it comes to cider... at 8.2% it's like:
not drinking wine...

quick change of pace: 35cl of whiskey...
ooh... an itch that needs to be typed
and words have to be conjured from nothing...
listening to Button Poetry stand-up
poetry readings, cringing...
where's my straitjacket where is my Hannibal
Lecter mask... i need to bite on some bones...
bones of an over-baked chicken...
**** out the marrow... pretend to say hello
while clucking and clocking in a morning
with... with no more intention than
the intention already arrived at by a cockerel...

probably the first fun football match i was willing
to watch in a long time...
the magic sometimes happens...
Tottenham up 0 - 2 against Manchester City...
just me and dad watching the football...
last few minutes in the first half...
that's Tottenham two nil up...
then... the second half happened...
2 - 2 within the space of 45min + 10min...
and then... a solo show from the Algerian
Mahrez... sometimes it's fun watching a game
of football when one player has a carpe diem
stamina and the rest of the team
is... gripped by a passer-by mentality...
i'm having this passer-by mentality...

unlike the death-and-hollow-pangs of anguish
when existentialism was born, notably with Kierkegaard,
perhaps even Kafka...
i'm becoming more and more at home
within the confines of my alienation...
i realised that i started reading
Dickens' Pickwick Papers and didn't finish it...
gladly revisited: since the original was serialised
so even if abandoned: an easily returned to script...
i still remember some details...
Dostoyevsky's the Idiot... also started... not finished...
well... better heel myself in the ***
to get a move on...
not to mention Heidegger's black notebook
ponderings VII through to XI...
                  
     ****... another... Spinoza's Theological-Political
Treatise... in English...
that's the truly accessible Spinoza...
i wouldn't recommend reading Spinoza's
ethics in a ******... it doesn't really matter
it's a language i was born with...

   in English the form of words
that end with -ing...
    thinking, counting, running...
cycling, demanding...
similarity of tongues but with a different form...
beginning with dość: enough...
szczer-ość (truthfulness),
                   ladodn-ość - gentleness...

or like all the Croat surnames ending so:
   Puli-šić
                            well... this plentiful little life...
this little life of a nobody who bit his pride and sort
of figured out that people with little authority
have this self-aggrandizing monstrosity
of the Quasimodo complex...

so i have this friend living all the way in Hawaii,
London - Hawaii...
i told her that i'd love to be homeless on an island
with great fun aura of complimenting
me sleeping in the cannon of gushing warm
air... she sent me some compliments from
that land: way far away...
dried pineapple, macadamia nut shells...
i bet there are not oaks on that island:
one islander to another islander...
a year passed and we know each other's addresses...
we're not bullshitting or scamming...
now we made a date of it
by phoning each other...
tremors... i'm getting a stage-fright since she
already knows what i look like
and how flimsy i can be when it comes to
****** encounters... sure... even i too could
own that dog of commitment because
*** has become a sort of Apéritif -
bragging rights of women liberated with the maimed
men chained: i feel sorry for
those circumcised buggers who don't know
the feeling of ******* with *******...
and lasting longer during *******
having the ******* constricting the blood flow:
to hello, bishop's head purple...

but it's like that scene from Dancing in the Rain
with the face mismatching the voice...
what if my voice isn't rhapsody prone, RHASPIC...
not hung-over, not manly, gritty enough...
warped self-itemizations borrowed from youth...

or the currency of shame inducement
borrowed from all those proud specimens
of degrading parenthood as a parasitic
inhibition process of achieving full potential
living alone, alone self-praise!
while in some random Hindu household
we're talking less individuality and more:
get with the times, grandma is aching
and father is moralising...
can't bring a boyfriend home...
oh yawn and yawn some more...
maybe if i glued my eyes to feeding the expression
of language into the fabric of a paragraph
i might be a more serious and seriously undertaken
sort of person than all this empty voiding space
of the cascade of poo-tried...
maybe...

then again: life ought to be about making it easier
to struggle less with all the demands,
expectations, even those born from the grandiosity
of being served to align oneself by
being morphed by the grandiosity of the seas
and the mountains, this little atom called man...
make life all that can be bearable and
unconditionally civil...
learning the first lesson and the last lesson
in life: wisdom is born from dialogue...
while knowledge is a vector of agitating oneself
to speak with oneself...
wisdom is a dialogue
while knowledge is a monologue...

so much for spewing quotes, rotas of maxim
but never adhering to them...
sentimentally sort of adjusting
the frail thinking to a frailer mind...
and hardly any soul to drink from a fountain
at the bottom of the drip drip drip...

language apparently conjures itself up
spontaneously whenever feeling: no intentions
no purpose... instead: all that's in-between
of struggling to meet demands...

i'm tired i'm lazy... but i'll still find the pillow
my head will rest on in the thick-glue-of-night...
because i'm lazily so...
i was supposed to go to the gym with
my lesbian coworker...
she met someone... as lesbians do...
she woke up in her bed... lovin' it i replied...
well...
who doesn't want to be loved...
when surrounded by men who confuse a woman
for a man... while you're there dribbling her
assurances telling her: Pixie haircuts...
butch? the butcher who?
piercings, tattoos, Mohawk undercut hair...
rings... butch-rings... six-pack...
who doesn't want to be loved?
i don't... i like the idea of utility beside the neediness
of being love...
i like to think of interacting with fellow man
like a door is requiring a door-****
and a key and a keyhole to lock, to stash,
in a safety of the back-of-the-mind...

              love has become ridiculously simple to me...
but my god, i miss the youthful idealism
of what love was once...
Stendhal and the Crimson and the Black...
origins: always ******* French...
that was fun then and not so much now...
love is like owning a cat... or two cats...
i can ignore i can be ignored
and all this ignoring, mutually sacrificial...
leaves the cat and the owner with
a sense: but you'll be there when i meow
asking for the "manna from heaven"?
you'll be there when you let me go outside
but then i return and want to be let back in
into the warmth because it's cold outside...
and i'll plough the imploring meow in my defence
of you: taking care of me...
love, therefore? so much so much less about
pretending, parroting...
cinema dates, dates in the restaurant...
i just need love to resemble:
i need a shadow come noon
and i'm hardly moving, hardly moving like
a ticking clock...
i want love to be readily available: a readily available
duty of anti-conferencing demands
and... all the bliss of nothing that is to be ever met
for a hope of precursor expectations...
explanations...
something freely given like...
drowning if one is incapable to swim...
or falling with all the flamboyance of gravity...
falling to one's death like first flight seagull chick
or... hardly flapping...
freefalling like a sack of potatoes...

better still: i could do all the housework and work
on the side...
all the nitty-gritty *******...
but... i have found... it's almost impossible
for women to savour the own self-serving gratitude
of performing the feminine-exfoliation
of character building... less controversial
and somehow... appeasing, appeasing...
i have a pair of ******* between my legs...
i don't need a pair in my throat
heaving the grandiosity of constipating Plato
against a brick-wall...

cycling with a heaving, always remembering to
breathe through the nose,
sometime gasping for air skin
to a goldfish figuring out the bubble of BOB
tongue tickling: lapping and history via
only the etymological sourcing of events
completely idle within the confines
of the canvas of Darwinism...
overdoing measurements
               confining a kilometre into the "size"
of a centimetre...

cycling much better than having ***...
esp. when the brothel dynamic changes...
jealous women are: jealous women...
they keep you endeared to have more ***
without it being ***: ***...
one pleasured woman is at least
two angry women who are:
"oddly" not compatible with you...
because ever-knowing already spoke to them:
it's just impossible to relate to please
everyone...

life and traffic... custard bulging like so:
regurgitation: like foam of freezing
and hot-air ballooning...
     exploding lungs in details of cubism:
written about rather than painted...
violins crushed... sounds akin to the harmony
of representing the concept of music:
squared... crushed... never to be heard...
just knock-knock on an imaginary door...
a door a house that was formerly only a cave...
  
               even language: this flimsy kite serving
the ever flimsy atom of ego that's
extending and exploring the horizon of
who we let go: to live their life as any living creature
might... self-absorbed, self-serving,
self-gratifying... autobiographical-who?
most probably either me, or you; the towed two of
towering halving shadows
with fully-exploding faces of smiles: fakes;
cornflakes crisp... mud-holes and that
endless fascination with bears...
hibernating mammals...
what use and purpose of hammers...
pyramids... the bears sleep through the worst
ordeal of the seasons...
so much for music and so much for art...
flimsy compensations... ****** reparations...

blocked tube... if one there was a Marx writing
a history of man... by now we know
that Darwin is the new Marx...
with Marx the communist
and Darwin the capitalist...
                  i hardly think animals
ventured to apply the intermediate
medium of money in relating X to Z... via Y...
parents, busy... so? the existence of the nanny...
animals have no concept of the third party: helpful...
at least parasites are two-dimensional...

Darwin is like Marx... unavoidably true...
but truth: this sort of truth: Nietzsche's aversion to Darwinism
plain-sight...
no sight of liberation...
it's just a mundaneness of Atlas passing
the globe to the little man and: the ants fared better...
ants and Solomon fared better...

to me Darwinism is like Marxism...
escaping Darwinism is not aided by journalism,
tabloid press... or fictive escapism...
or science per se...
    Darwinism has become an impasse
unlike the possibility of filtering the flaws of Marxism
through... **** sapiens and ogling
into the warped-hole kaleidoscope-****
of the **** similis of ape...
mammalian borrowing ontologies of fellow
mammals and further extending the borrowing,
stealing from other categories of animals:
the Mantis Woman... **** me...
at least Marxism allowed a group-think
being together and the common good is...
and the commonality of evil is...
and we can overcome said X to accomplish
yet to be discovered Y...
but with Darwinism the new Marxism this
atomised man... this grammatical baron
this mammal of lent traits of other mammals...
the crown... atop the decapitated head
of king Charles II...

i wasn't a fan of Marxists writing history...
i'm also not a fan of Darwinists writing the history
of the world...
that's Darwinism outside the scope
of the actual science, what's being popularised...
who want to wake up in the safeguard
of an Agrarian Society?
   while giving into the impulses of hunter and gather
sexed up shamanism...
easily liberated: so much for forward thinking...
so much for planning...
i love being "bored" with a book...
i love being bored cycling...
i love to not love having ***...

                    such advancements and yet so little
to show for it...
   because... spaghetti-feet tangling married
to shoe-laces...
               life without advertisements...
because... you only end up buying what you need
and not what other people demand you to buy
for them to buy in return...
       i abhor Darwinism as much as Marxism
in the realm of history...
it's soul crushing... it's soul-denying...
  Darwinism and Marxism are like-for-like...
to admire the natural world and feel jealous:
the clowns of the mammalian hierarchy,
the bears... sleep through winter... we? get goosebumps
from the cold...

and just because Darwinism originated in the English language?
no wonder it's being kept like that historical artifact
of the the crucified man... being:
hmm... and the wisdom of man is purest
by being so insolent as to have to be crucified?
said wisdom seems, therefore, borrowed... not his...
given the account of Matthias ben Josephus...
i was sold a ******* lie...
praise to Islam for having a pair of *******...
i wouldn't even dream of concerning myself
with dictating the replication of my DNA as thumb,
rule, to preserve... what?! only i thought what i thought...
does it matter whether i spit or ******* or
take a **** or... have eggs in three ways:
scrambled, poached or fried?!
does it?!

   the useful idiocy of women and the preservation
of non-intended demands outside the confines
of the natural world...
at one point the pyramids of Giza
yet another pin-point the Hagia Sophia of Constantinople...
me scribbling so little with such adamant
desire to shackle myself to fervours of
earthquakes... even if disappointing
and never to accomplish a widespread focus
of influencing others...
i'll die... with a welcomingly arrived at
THE END... and i will have no son or daughter
to grieve for me... or... list a litany of forgiving(s) -
because i failed... at least i failed on my own.
Tyler A Sullivan Aug 2019
Turn of the Season (Expanded 2019)


For Friends and Family


Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
                                          -Robert Herrick

Intoxicated nights of orange halogen lights-
Illuminating through misty blown water.
As the April breeze ruffles the newly sprung leaves upon the trees
Men pour malted liquor inside clandestine cellars of tuxedo staff and obsequious waitresses.

Echoes of an engine shuffles on down the alley,
Startled they hide in the cornered places.
Men enclosed in smoke talk of days of old,
And better times,
And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces.

Woman go about chatting of useless things and waste the night away.
Men sit about playing games of little meaning and waste the night away.
Both will head to familiar places at mornings first rays,
And April effortlessly falls into May.

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces,
Slowly trudging through the paces,
Slowly they tighten their laces,

And set out for another monotony dipped day,

Planting their ears to the ground listening;
And many things they'll hear and say,
With many hindsight memories in their mind glistening,
And their lovers will whisper are you listening,
And they'll say "yes yes my dear have no fear I am here".

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces.
And they'll make many a plan and in cases,
And step over cracks in fear of dark places.


The clink of a glass carries on down the hall;
The bartender while wiping the counter yells
"Last call",
And they'll retort "for what reason",
And he "none at all".
Then the bar goes the way of the shopping mall,
And summer slips effortlessly into fall.

What reasons can they make when the night is through,
When it's time to wake what will they do ?


As the days retreat with their hairline,
And each mirror more distortive than the last,
They'll retreat further, further into their mind,
And what will they find
With their sanity fleeting fast,
A desperate thought floating in the breeze,
A candle to thaw the freeze.


Intoxicated nights of solemn solitude,
Tucked in the back thoughts of a lonely suburb,
Trying arduously to abandon actuality,
But failing and jumping the curb.

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces.
"Sorry love they're not home I'm afraid",
"They've gone to the races",
Two lovers in two different places.

Rest assured rest assured they'll return,
They'll unconsciously sell their freedom,
Rest assured rest assured they'll return,
At this moment they are Carpe Diem.

Rest assured rest assured,
They'll be plenty of time
To fumble with furniture,
Plenty of time
To spend with her,
Plenty of time to waste
Plenty of love to give,
Now's to go slow not make haste,
Now's to go slow and live.


And they'll remember childhood
As a warm August kiss,
And where their feet stood,
And what they missed.
And when the leaves
Upon the trees
Fall down down down
To rise to their knees,
They'll remember who they are
And who they use to be.
            ...
And they'll come to age
Lost among the rushes,
And they'll gaze back on hesitation
Condescending conversations
Sharply silencing hushes.
             ...
So, before you grow old
And wilt away,
Before summer loses hold
And December has its day,
Enjoy what you have
For what you have is to enjoy,
For what you haven't
Are merely foolish toys.

This summer began as the last one did
And will end when Autumn bids
With the sun and stars above for you to see
Run around like children in the heat of lunacy.
...


Though I've fasted and wept,
Wept and prayed
And stayed stoic long
Through passing day
Scrutinized by throngs
I can never,
Never truly say
I have achieved arête.

No, I'm not the son of Xanthippus,
Who instigated the apogee of Athens.
The past beacons of Atticus
Dims my own ember passions.

No, I have not achieved what desired
Thrown to the wind it seems
Another day is expired
Forever slumbering in dreams.

Though I've loved and lost
Loved and lusted,
Won a few
Others busted,
Though I've seen the world at the needle point,
With all the sordid souls suffering,
I've lived like Cummings:
The farthest extent of emotions,
I've kept a drug induced devotion,
But never could I stop from wondering,
Never could cease sundering.

Oh do not say to me I have
squandered my time,
Racking the innermost emotions of my mind.

Oh do not speak of me
As if I were not here
But some sailor sunk at sea.

Oh do not confront my convictions,
As if I were a child
Lost among the maddening crowds,
Dreaming wild.

No, I am lost to the Demos,
They will not understand.
I wear a veil of pathos,
Deepening desolation with every  reprimand.

I've seen the valleys of my life
Where the flowers are disseminated like t.v. static,
And the only sound a high continual pitch.
                 ...

They've said go, Go I don't love you anymore
Not pretty enough to be a poem
Not intelligent enough to be of any use
                 ...
Though I've smiled and agreed
Agreed and died
Through all this hell
I have tried
...
You are not wrong who deems
It's all madness it seems

Life was so much more back then
At the apex of humanity
At childhoods end
We are met with insanity
  ...


They're troubled tonight,
Their restless gaze fails to penetrate the maw of a darkened window-

To have
To have not

To operate in the probity of normality,
To practice trembling sobriety,
To lose an arm for the ones you love,
To have in heart the morning dove,

Assures that come evening tide
Through shroud and delusion,
Secrets the world shall confide
And lift your illusion.
...

The very next morning
Or so it would seem,
Awoke the old men
Rendering a dream.

Patiently focusing
For a clearer account
The words from the past
They seemed to mount,
And as they pressed closer
Not to be deterred
It crested their mind
And then they heard

"Soured metal, rotted walls
Darkness hangs from hall to hall
Broken bonds burning ambitions
A feeling half held until fruition

Life a moment
A last choking breath
Happiness a second
Before eternal death

We exist only
In the time between
A hint of joy
Goes often unseen

Until again
The crest breaks
And life slips by
But leaves no wake

Such was the tale
Of the great eluder
A hidden knife
A dark intruder

A ****** thorn
Upon the rose
A heap of sand
At the toes

Left undone
The last request
Above the head
The water crest"

Intolerable mornings of required communion,
Accompanied with formulated phrases,
Men limp from church
Their mind wondering
Far from there
To their childhood breakfast table,
Breathing the memory becomes stable,
They hold on to it as long as they are able.

Plates of porcelain
Decorate the wall
Floral patterns swirling to the center,
Across the room mother enters,
The image wavers and ripples like water disturbed by a pebble


"Honey set the table
Get the biscuits, gravy, ladle."
Set the trays down equal from the middle, a cup to the left, forks and knifes to the right-
Get those filthy boon dockers off my floor and out of sight-
Go get your brother without causing a fight
BREAKFAST TIME
Rise and shine on the biscuit line
BREAKFAST TIME
The sun is up and shining
The coffee is on and the bacon frying"

The memory dissipated into a fleecy cloud.
It hangs heavy on their heads.
Remnants of yesterday remembered in indignation
When slipping off to bed.
  ...
With no more action left in my bones,
With no reprise resting at home,
With no pleasure found when I roam,
Distant memories I sentimentally comb.

These gems
Are all I have left,

I'll leave none for anyone else,
Just an old man
Riffing through the shelves.

Poor in mind, poor in health,
Just an old man
By him self.

I'm in the December of my days
And stuck fast in my stubborn ways,
If only I could grasp youth for longer !
If only my frail body were stronger !

If only I were confronted again with every last myriad encounter where I chose reticence,
Opposed to openness,
My martial mind refuses any peacefulness,
Perhaps the reason of my restlessness.
...

Shaking off the foreboding dream,
A distant luminary seemed to gleam,
An old man frail but proud
He spoke a poetic oration aloud.

"My head is swollen, my mind it wanders
My tongue is twisted stumbling it stutters
My thoughts are lost in the colliding clutter,
My meaning is lost under soft mutters.

My smile shields my solemnness,
My eyes reveal my weariness
I am a man of little happiness,
But refuse to possess helplessness.

I am as I decree,
An old man wrapped in misery
But not one broken to submission,
Just one in a transition.

I have tasted the bitters of love,
Witnessed the horrors of death,
I have choked my linen dove
To its final breath.

No, I am not a careless senior
Full of content
Shriveled in demeanor
Mind absent.

I'm dying not dead,
No resolving to expiration
Living instead,
No meeting expectation,
No bowing my head.

In credence I say
I'm living for today

No consideration for tomorrow
No more drowning in sorrow."

...
The heavens opened with their finale word
Come old man and join my hurd
Or was it the universe who spoke
What who gently stirring
Now awoke

Both, one or two, or together in unison
Whispered of sweet reconciliation
Come home my tortured son
Saved from damnation

Or was it darkness who called
Finally silence for body mauled
By time ever moving hand
Come rest in the ***** of the land.

His perception thinned
And then it was as he never been.


             .....



The day was overcast
Fitting the mood
Black suits stood in formation
While the unlucky ones heaved their load.

                    ...


Words spoken to strangers and colleagues.


"He was not an exceptional man

Not one of great worth
No wife, no kids, no friends.

To an outside eye it would seem as a waste
And maybe it was
But that's the nature of things to end abruptly
On a minor note"

Written by
Tyler A. Sullivan

— The End —