Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Yue Wang Yitkbel Oct 2019
Verse:

Lofty darkness
Specks of obscured suns
Drooping light
Columns of lucid stars

Desert waves
I cannot tell if they are mountains
Or oceans
Desolate woodlands
We suffocate in the verdant and then
We’re forgotten

Chorus:

The desperation of the lost
Is not the emptiness of the barren
But unable to be found among the crowd
Obscurantist songs are rarely fully sung
For it may be above all, but none can reach
And none can teach
An incomprehensible truth
Is shapelessly hopeless
Is shapelessly hopeless  
Is shapelessly hopeless  

Bridge:

Like a pied enchanter, veiled and barely seen
With confidence unchallenged, he gestures deceit
As if waving alms of miracles so easily gained
Under dark carnival tents, quietly anticipating
The wonder of dazzling illusion, so fearfully arcane
The spectators kneel and bow to the ‘forged’ king

Verse:

Field of barley
Glares with gold utilitarianly  
River of humility
Ever ready to fulfill all thirst and needs

Stars faint and hazy
Only the clearest is used for guiding
Sunlight warm and cozy
Never bares itself for the elite only

Chorus:

The desperation of the lost
Is not the emptiness of the barren
But unable to be found among the crowd
Obscurantist songs are rarely fully sung
For it may be above all, but none can reach
And none can teach
And incomprehensible truth
Is shapelessly hopeless
Is shapelessly hopeless  
Is shapelessly hopeless  

Bridge:

Like a pied enchanter, veiled and barely seen
With confidence unchallenged, he gestures deceit
As if waving alms of miracles so easily gained
Under dark carnival tents, quietly anticipating
The wonder of dazzling illusion, so fearfully arcane
The spectators kneel and bow to the ‘forged’ king

CODA:

I’d rather be the ragged elder of solitary certainty
With sifts of wisdom and time, real grains filtering
Under the pure blue sky, the orange field gleaming
Watch over these substances over form fermenting
Would you rather have too much sugar till aching
Or let spirits pure send you to more pleasant dreams
Long version of:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3381369/obscurantism/
By: Yitkbel Yue Xing ****
Original in Chinese written: Wednesday, October 30, 2019, 1:46 PM
Original English translated on:
Wednesday, October 30, 2019 9:44 PM
---
Poetoftheway Mar 2015
an impurity
inherent or invasive,
identity, purpose, all unresolved,
substantive, long-lived, minute sized,
flexible, formed, yet more,
clearly shapelessly, so well visible
we'll disguise it
to survive it

without passport, an émigré
illegally legal border invasive,
but somehow more knowledgable
of the unmapped byways within,
more than me - how can that be?

never motionless, indeed,
always hurried, even when energy gathering,
despite it's detailed timetable,
detailing plentiful stops and
interminable unexplained
screeching wailings,
it has no smooth gliding,
nor rumbling grumbling halting,
to a final destination imprinted

this impurity,
a beheaded brainy horseman
searching for what,
I'm not permissioned,
unquenchable questioning,
all I am allowed is
sensory
surceasingly, unseasonably seeking

the undresser,
the verisign
of veritas
eyes mirrored reversal internal,
you can't understand why finishing
this poem is so hard

because you don't want to
confess this
impious impurity,
no étranger, it is but
copious insecurity,
of the all of you,

the ecstasy of
the rushing,
the upsetting,
universal unique to us, you,
unholy, ecclesiastical, catholic,
that impurity is just
the heart pumping the
mottled blood of
life coursing through your words
and out your fingertips,
onto those
stained drumsticks
used
to play the keyboard alphabet
about an
out-of-tempo
impure ecstasy
Brandon Apr 2011
(I)
The quest for love is tired and spent
Endless anguish for one that you hope to find
Along this extensive desolately disenchanted road
Where faces come and go in and out of aged shadows
No body is sweetly thought about for longer than an affair
Grown uninterested and somnolent of the same tedious routine
It’s all just a squandered course of existence

(II)
People covered in leaves
Sitting on a couch
Covered in leaves
Looking at me
Staring at me
Covered in blood

(III)
We were here fifty years ago
Drifting in and out of conversations
About some perverse poetry
Sultry vixens and the men they tamed
Whispers and shouts
Eloquently spoken over some scrambled background jazz
A hustle of people migrating around
In some discordant harmonious rhythm
Cocktail hour at this doomed speakeasy
We drank and were silent
We drank and were voicing our opinions
We drank more until we could no longer drink any longer
We stumbled outside
Attempted to hail a cab
Fell asleep on a park bench
Awoke to the sun’s rays glaring
From some far off distance
Warmth on our nightly chilled face
We rose from our slumber
And began to walk towards the nearest open bar
To start it all over again

(IV)
Stop!
This is *******
Proceed no further
A thousand exotic images
Flashing widescreen
Moans and groans
Entanglement of legs and limbs
Numbing
Tingling
Writhing
Writhing in ecstasy
A million dollar money shot
*** get baptized
No sense in wasting a good time

(V)**
There’s hopelessness here
Behind my eyes
Thirty thousand words
Scripted in chaos
Where does our destiny lie?
Somewhere out on the open broken road
Riding down damaged goods
Animals roaming free
Over civilizations failure
Hard-edged footprints
Caked in last night’s mud
Wandering shapelessly
We are lost
Feed the wall
Feed the tree
I only hurt in your dreams
So I plagiarize because there’s nothing better to do
Just killing a remembrance of time
Lying on the nearest railroad track
And waiting for the end of the line
Taylor St Onge Feb 2014
I am a kaleidoscope—shapelessly shifting, and
dominated by colors that I cannot change
without some sort of grandiose outside force
granting me a helping hand.  I might as well be water.

But my reflection insists on creating dissonance.  She
and I, although we look the same, do not coincide
as neatly as
           yin and yang
           Adam and Eve
           my hand in his.                       Perhaps because
thoughts and feelings generally
do not mix like paint.

Human beings are full of hypocrisies; I am merely
one of seven billion.  My doppelganger knows that

I will never be harmonious, and I am but an echo
of Sisyphus, yet still I wonder if she also knows how
sanctimonious I can be at even the best of times; how
wolfish my attitude can turn; how
downright wicked I can become.
                                                        (Perhaps she is overlooking it.)

Oftentimes, I find myself wondering if those ugly,
impulse actions I grudgingly stomach are really my
own choices, or if they are hers.  I am the analytical
one of us, and she, the fervent, the hot-blooded prima donna;
I think of how easily I lay down my neck to her will, how often I
throw my frontal lobe at her, belly up,
as if to say,             “this is my
                                              white flag.”
I allow my duplicate’s hands to twist and turn my paths.

She makes me self-conscious of the
           coffee splotch birthmark on my shin,
           my flummoxed feet that flounder about;
           the mausoleum I keep buried
six-feet-under in my backyard.  Her sentiment
bleeds into me and permanently dyes my bones red
like the red meat I am; she tries to coalesce us.  
                                                        Perhaps it’s idiosyncratic of me to
rip myself in two, but being made of water
makes it hard for oil to blend into place; it makes it
hard for logic to have any room for a
seemingly clairvoyant heart, though

sometimes I wonder if my sophist thoughts could
possibly have any consideration for my twin’s
sibylline yet affectionate disposition.  I
wonder what the
           secret is to being whole, what the
           secret is to ending civil wars, and what the
           secret is to placidity—
I wonder why all my answers are kept under lock and key.

The internal bloodshed within myself might not
be as abnormal as I think it to be, but if it’s not me who
I see when I look into the mirror,
what is it that others see?
a sort of self-reflection.
Brandon Apr 2012
Out on the open road
Walking down history’s damaged pavement
Animals roaming free and abundant
Over the inevitable failure of civilization,
An old memory of social society lingers
Like a long forgotten hatred that has ran it’s course
Fossilized hard-edged footprints
Wandering shapelessly thru the growth
Of once under controlled weeds and trees
The ruins of steel and concrete crumble
Giving way to fresh Earth and rebirth
JG Reposh Sep 2010
strand of rocks
doused with gulls
and the sea
they sit under no cliff's edge
as not to allow any man
to plummet to them
(gathering salt
not blood)

and the fish
flit so between them
with awkward glinting grace
as though god
did breathe his own air
into the waters

shapelessly the sun
does lean upon them
telling time
to deafest ears
Narinder Bhangu Apr 2016
Life gets its designs
in the sun and shadow,
the death shapelessly
in the dark hole
to the outer world.
John okon Jan 2019
The Morning Sun ©


               Stanza 1 :

The short hand of my big,round clock
Diligently whirred the hour of nine,
And the unfailing sun - faithful to her calling,
Rose again to shine.

               Stanza 2 :

Arghh ! The tendrils of her luminous rays
Sprayed discomfort - exceptionally piercing,
The moment of silence aided the voices of
Chirping birds perching the leeward side of
A neighbouring roof,
Adding somewhat a lustre, to the
Unwavering heat that fortunately found a
Path through the holes of my crisscross net.
Unbidden,I refused to adore her glistening
Grace,
Wallowing in selfpride,I declined my warm
Expression of gratitude for all of her
Kindness during the rainy days.
With overwhelming disdain, I let low the
Fringes of a yellow transparent curtain.

               Stanza 3 :

Nevertheless, undeterred as ever, she
Increased the dazzling filament of her
Toturing flame,
And all I ever did was gawk intermittently,
At the grandeur of her charismatic display
As she waxed and waned delightfully.
Causing tiny,glints to appear on the
Edges of swaying tassles that adorned the
See - through veils of my living room.
Arghh ! There she goes again - her
Untouchable forelocks made me scoff : they
Were as deadly as those oily,boiling,spittles
Dripping down from the cut - tops of
Long-lived vulcanoes,
Which no man ever dared tame.

                Stanza 4 :

The sweeping swish of daytime into
Noonshift, shapelessly radiated those lines
Of light through the scuds of sheepish grey,
As indifferent as ever : no soul, dead or
Living has ever been fortunate to wear her a
Royal crown - oh nay !
I marvel in awe as I unwillingly did watch,
My poor, sullen eyes could droop at some
Point,
Inwardly jealous of her daily, scorchy, touch.


Jahmenmuze.
I drafted this poem three times. A great piece.
Yenson Jul 2021
And who would have thought
that harmless fellow
will prove to be such a sharp thorn
in their vacuous brains
and oh how they toiled and fumed
and lament in indignities
prostrating their vices and swallowing
shame in bucket loads
the famed stiff upper lips now raucous
trembling in perplexities
off springs of empires and conquerors
of the seven oceans
now petty guttersnipes swinging handbags
in duels at dawn noon and morn
waddling in moral and ethical bankruptcy
shapelessly embarrassed
they hide in faceless guises shadow-boxing
and in dumb vituperations
they witter its terrorist and guerrilla warfare
oh, how have the mighty fallen
who would have thought a harmless decent man
could cut such a swathe
thru the cosmopolitan of the deadbeat agitators and
fulcrum criminal corruption and vice
who would have thought that good virtue is indeed
still its own rewards
Yenson Jul 2021
And who would have thought
that nice harmless fellow
will prove to be such a sharp thorn
in their vacuous brains
and oh how they toiled and fumed
and lament in indignities
prostrating their vices and swallowing
shame in bucket loads
the famed stiff upper lips now raucous
trembling in perplexities
off springs of empires and conquerors
of the seven oceans
now petty guttersnipes swinging handbags
in duels at dawn noon and morn
waddling in moral and ethical bankruptcies
shapelessly embarrassed
they hide in faceless guises shadow-boxing
and in dumb vituperations
they witter its terrorists and guerrilla warfare
oh, how have the mighty fallen
who would have thought a harmless decent man
could cut such a swathe
thru the cosmopolitan of the deadbeat agitators and
fulcrum criminal corruption and vices
who would have thought that good virtue is indeed
still its own rewards
Rosa Jamali Dec 2020
My promised Meridian
A poem by Rosa Jamali
Translated from original Persian into English by the author

Could you possibly find the name of the City in my own personal riddle;
The Landmark starts on the hill
And my sculpture is the landmark on Koohsangi Hills
Take the letter "Y" as its name
A thousand miles above the Sea Level
Geographically archived on the life line of my Palms
You know, it's my third gravity
And makes the gravity less.

And this last landmark
As if it's a dreamlike bas-relief on KOOHSANGI HILLS
And here it is
My footprints on the earth
Left after me.

Is this the same Geographic Meridian
Or my own promised land?

Now look at my Palm again, notice the heartline
The whole Land mass
Its Gravity captured me
Triangles are reshaping into a curve
My whole life like the Sharp Winding Geometry of New Labyrinths
My garments are there
Stuck !

As if there is no pear here
And my dress looks like a pear
But dark
Shadowy
Oxygen of air
A glass of water
And how I love you
Like a lonely cherry
This land had a crush on me!

As massive as that dream
Quite dimentional
Three dimentional
Like your heartlines
Folded, steamed in the Laundromat
But this corner is not gonna get creased.

The Landmark at the end of KOOHSANGI Street
Like a ***** I had been trekking the city, every corner of it
Which has given voice to my coughing throat...

Is this the promised meridian
Or my own promised land?

What's the last memorabilia?
Is it my face whirling in the winds shapelessly?
I'm not there any more but my heartlines there after me...
My whole heart head to foot became the murals of the City
Prickly pears
Prickly pears
When the lines join, your fate's destined
And now I have a new face.

How symmetrical it is!  

The City Mashhad was the answer to my riddle
Very complicated
Never entered my Vagabound mind
And now I'm the poison ivy of KHORSASAN
My dress over the washing hanging
Growing over the walls of houses,
One after another
My collective memory could have never found the name of this City!

One thousansd and one nights have passed
I was restless to sleep
But tomorrow
Would be the first day of my life!

Long after
The city would be a double Cherry
And what would be left after allllll....
My face over the hillllllllllllls...

— The End —