"shifty" poems
im a self describing a self
a face on a liquid surface
a plasticity
a brain
a three pound infinity
always remodeling itself
and making new copies
a copy
of
a copy
of
a copy
a massive accumulation of copies
each a slight distortion
from it's original eminence
a history of minute alterations
all subtle deceptions
my so-called reality
a memory
of
a memory
of
a memory
a repetition pouring the self out
self corrupting the self
until it is somebody else
a fibbing shifty double-dealing soft machine
trying to remain intact
it's signature
a disjunctured awareness
my cells talk **** about each other
i'm more microbes than human
every synaptic light of the divine casting a shadowed past
a devil to the true origin
a mangled remembering
my pillar of reality
spirit from matter
not the other way around
i no longer recognize myself
am i human
or perhaps a robot
an alien
a walk in
that left the original inhabitant
disembodied
to wander perplexed in a netherworld
lost and crying
or, just a bad copy
of
a copy
of
a copy
of
a co
py
of
a
a
co
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 2:46 PM UTC
Flamingo high,
flamingo low,
when flamingo stretchy-leggy, then flamingo grow.
Cheeky beaking, shifty sifting, lifting up a flipper;
notty neck and naughty pecks,
while dancing with a kipper.
Flaming heck and flaming Oh!
Flaming flamingularonimo!
I tango and flamenco
and I imitate a swan,
but this winking pink flamingo's
blinking going going gone.
Sep 22, 2011
Sep 22, 2011 at 11:28 AM UTC
Upward-curled, gleam of white
But as yet, something missing
“I swear, I’m quite alright!”
My wonder turns to stressing.
Is she really quite alright?
No-one wears their shoes,
Socks upon the carpet
Browning fog turning loose,
But purple mist diffuses.
Is she really quite alright?
My wonder turns to worried health,
I turn my focus to myself,
I pull a beer down from the shelf,
Indulging still our failing health,
She smiles, as if to say that she’s alright.
Trading sweat between our hands,
A greeting shared from man to man
We speak ambition, WE ARE PROUD
Our cigarettes, they make no sound.
They know that it will soon be their turn.
To be or not… I have forgot.
Our wasteland, wasted, seems alright
It skips my mind I’m all I’ve got
I’ve never put up much a fight
I hope I’ll quickly be all right.
But there are NO PROMISES
And no safe-houses.
smoke arouses surety,
But holds the door for vanity.
But as for me,
I highly doubt she's feeling free.
Charging, useless, up the hill,
The last endeavor of it's kind,
Cry peace, peace, but peace is killed,
Fulfill the end of southern mind.
There is no way that she's okay.
As men in grey
Lay on the ground
Bleeding with untempered sound
I cast my eyes about the house
I find her broken, fading lips
Pressed limp against assailant’s kiss
Those pearls that were
Her sentient eyes,
They cast upon me smiling sighs
She clings the arm of shifty eyes
And leaves the party, new inside.
And now I know she’s not alright.
But then again, nor am I.
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 30, 2014 at 7:20 PM UTC
Please explain inflation
Why do prices rise
For when I go out shopping
They change before my eyes
I just don't seem to get it
why some go up and down
Why a red car's more expensive
Than a new car that is brown
I tried to do some simple math
I went back to the books
Now I think that all economists
Are just white collar crooks
Follow me on this one, now..
A buck in 1970 is now worth near five fifty
I don't know how they did it
But I think it's kind of shifty
A funeral costs much more today
But this one is a pickle
For in western movies I have seen
My life's worth a plugged nickel
That hasn't changed in many years
So, I made a decision
It has to do with the new math
And that ****** new long division
Wheat is up, and so is beer
And theres one that I resent
To put my worth in when it's asked
It's still just two **** cents
A house...well, that's a nightmare
Some cost more than you will earn
You'll be owing for a lifetime
Your mortgage you won't burn
Water, there's another thing
It's now worth more than gas
But now, our nice tap water
It's quality won't pass
Six cents would get you postage
To send a letter, that's not bad
Today..it's almost ten times that
And that is really sad
But here's one that's confusing
Of all the things you've bought
This one's never varied
It's still a penny for your thoughts
two bits could get a haircut
And it would also get a shave
But now to get this combo
It takes two weeks to save
Hockey cards they cost a dime
And baseball cards did too
But, now they're an investment
And a dime won't buy you two.
Please think on this real hard now
It's a tale that's really old
Let's find how Rumplestiltskin
Could spin straw into gold
Inflation is a ******
It's all over the earth
I say smile, and then bend over
And that's my two cents worth!
May 31, 2012
May 31, 2012 at 5:02 PM UTC
Ice cream ninety nine
I know you make my lips taste fine
I need a big one mister
give me your large ice cream, ninety nine
We hear you coming
with lame tunes, Mmm pretty shifty
but we love to see you here
in our slum of a f>>king city
Yet Ice cream man
your sauce is tasty
and the blood you put on
makes kid's like us factory
Come back ice cream man
just one more ninety nine
come on ice cream man
let us bleed you dry again
By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka Neonsolaris
By NeonSolaris
© 2013 NeonSolaris (All rights reserved)
Nov 3, 2013
Nov 3, 2013 at 6:03 AM UTC
I miss my mother most
when I'm in her frenetic company.
Such an angry fragile woman
in the shadow of the mum
she used to be.
Lost and alone, wanting a way home,
one woman against the world
with no old friends
only fresh new foes.
She can identify every shifting lie
sitting scared with no escape
from a hundred shifty eyes.
Stalkers criticise every mistake
watching her practice looping moves
cornering her as if to prove
that we're all conspiring
each trying to rob her
when the screaming truth here
is that her fleeting thoughts
have already gone where
we can never walk
not even in our tears.
Mar 28, 2017
Mar 28, 2017 at 2:35 AM UTC
You're sitting across a table, in the next room- and it's the month of July.
And as the beads of sweat chip off your forehead
like a shank of butcher's meat,
your dorcel fin peaks through the sand where my toes peak through. The picnic table where I write letters; post cards.
I take photos, make reservations, and
even after I'm canceled on for walking around
downtown in my bright neon-pink underwear, I still roll to the
left side of the bed sit up and drop the cigarette I fell asleep on. You're just sitting, first entry: Stardom.
I don't have room for you in the corners.
The corners of this room, padded walls,
shifty vaseline sway- the white cotton stick
of a sucker pointing out of your mouth, its red numero forty dye shines
in the specks of light flicking
out of the horizon like a carousel ride
around and around.
I'm getting a bit dizzy, and even less honest.
If you want to see me spring,
like the silly string on my birthday, yellow silly-putty; molding the monster face,
I observe you through a kaleidoscope of dexedrine and morphine.
Your catastrophe with Xanax, passed out
in alien-green ******* at that party in the abandoned firehouse
on News St., how you could lay trust on me after that
(a daydream with sawing you called me)
sixteen-year-old mishap of an afternoon.
&
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 4:31 AM UTC
Baby-faced,
Shifty-eyed;
Briefly my heart raced,
It can't be denied.
Sweet,
Sketchy,
I thought it would be neat,
But it turned out messy.
Here's a tho(ugh)t:
I hope you know you had your shot.
Jun 23, 2014
Jun 23, 2014 at 11:57 PM UTC
Some demons are born from malice
Sky rending hatred and blood storms
Such are demons of unending passion
Some demons are born from greed
Covetous grins and shifty hands
Such are demons of delirious nature
Some demons are born of desire
Coquette gazes and glazed eyes
Such are demons of temptation
Some demons are born from hunger
Thirsty tongues and soft palates
Such are demons of gluttony
Some demons are born from envy
Green eyes and clenched teeth
Such are demons of bitterness
Some demons are born of laziness
Slow movement and emotionless
Such are demons of apathy
Some demons are both of the self
Arrogant demeanor and fearless gaze
Such are demons of pride
All are demons, that come from oneself
But the true evil of sin
Is the self.
Sep 14, 2018
Sep 14, 2018 at 2:12 AM UTC
Im a sailor on a concrete path
and I miss the smell of the sea
I miss the humidity
Im a sailor and I miss the crackling laugh of the shifty tide against me
Im a sailor on the corporate path
and I miss the simplicity of living a life carefree
Out on the ocean, Out on the sea
Our wherever I want to be
Jun 20, 2013
Jun 20, 2013 at 6:09 PM UTC
I know that isn't how my grandmother would want me to remember her. Hell, the last time you saw me, I was fifteen pounds heavier, unkempt, and I was wearing that awful, low cut v-neck that made my chest appear a bit too supple. Wish you didn't remember me that way. But you do. But I do. You can't redact the past. Believe me. I used up every black marker in Oklahoma County trying.
You're dating a chef. By your lovely description, I could see the tendrils of spiraling capellini. Smell the buttered ciabatta. Were there candles? Did you whisper over the wine glasses? I hope there were candles. Cinnamon candles.
I actually cooked last night. Cajun tilapia and wild rice. Easing back into it. I've been living off canned vegetables for two months. Peas and carrots mostly. I'm going to assume if you and I shared this conversation in person, at this juncture you would whisper over wine glass, what was the occasion?
Heather called last night. The dancer. She needed a place to sleep. I guess her Craigslist roommates, those two shifty-eyed boys from Nevada, bailed on the 30th of September and the rent came due on the first of October. She hadn't paid it. Evicted. For a night, my room was adorned in all manner of frilly things and five pairs of heels. She left everything else in her car. She explained the decorations as proof of employment.
Don't worry. I didn't go there. Though, she thought I would too. After staring over her head at the beige wall behind her for two hours with my *** hanging off my twin-sized bed -- her lying in the middle -- I tried to move her to the east. She took it as an advance. "I'm not on birth control and I don't want a relationship," she said. Are any soft women left?
Nov 2, 2012
Nov 2, 2012 at 1:49 AM UTC
I drink just to feel
What I had with you
I drink to bend like steel
I imagine you do too
I drink because I don’t remember
What actually occurred
That dark December
When shifty lies became blurred
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 11:19 PM UTC
Learn to recognize lies, while they stand at
Their podiums, and proselytize,
Like so many Sunday preachers,
You can see it in their eyes, and
Their shifty ****** features, though
Their words seem sincere,
Their subtle cues, serve as
Teachers of their inner intent, so
Don't forget your diligence, and
Let them **** your dissent, with
Empty promises and rhetoric, to
Fill your head with lies about,
How war is for the betterment, of
Nations abroad, the sentiment
Is laughable, the premise is a fraud.
Cause when it all boils down, and
When push comes to shove,
Democracy has grass roots, it's
Not imposed from above, and
At the end of the day, money is
The factor prime, it's the secret
Justifier for this terroristic crime,
First, they bombed Iraqi cities,
In a trial of "Shock and Awe"
That killed even more civilians,
Than what 9/11 saw, and
Once the cities were demolished,
Halliburton then rebuilt them, and
Reaped enormous profits,
To the tune of 40 billion, and
Among other things, in this
"Just" war's spoils, were
The underground oceans,
Flowing full of crude oil, and
We all fund these atrocities,
These lies, these hypocrisies, well
If you decide this ain't the type,
Of thing that you can stand for,
Write "exempt" on line 7, of your W-4
Oct 1, 2015
Oct 1, 2015 at 10:57 PM UTC
She looks out the window
At the thick sheen of ice
That covers the road.
People huddle and shuffle
In great huffs of warm breath
As they try to move on in their lives.
They try to ignore their wobbly legs
And shifty, slidey, slippery feet
On patch after patch of ice.
They've got great things to do
And many places to be,
So they battle the weather
That is set to defeat them.
But she sits amongst pillows
With fuzzy blankets and cocoa,
Content to let the world go on outside.
She'll just recline at the window
Reading her poems with satiated sighs.
Jun 23, 2014
Jun 23, 2014 at 5:33 PM UTC
Crafty Waters lured the Captain
To the middle and the deep.
in the height of the hurricane,
It proceeded to speak.
"What do i matter to the birds
who exist between sky and tree?
These fish swim in my currents,
yet are unaware of me.
But for you, oh captain,
I'm everything you need me to be!
You have your ship, and your men,
and your lives at my mercy.
Today you will learn
you can't control the sea."
The dastardly Waters led him to believe,
In exchange for his life,
his crew would survive,
brief cessation from the culling winds,
and unabiding tides.
The captain decided then and there
To make the sacrificial dive.
But before he made a splash,
the hurricane came back
and claimed his crew.
A Sage Seagull swooped down
saying," dear Captain,
those Sneaky Waters lied to you."
The trusting captain stranded,
his ship capsized,
despair in his voice,
to the clever gull he cries.
"stoic grey winged beast,
with blackened,beady eyes,
what difference does it make to you,
if a captain dies?"
The apathetic gull got close
and in a whisper replies-
"we'll trade words for fish one day,
now, repeat as I say."
The captain certain it won't help,
but he spoke them, anyway.
"Proud Waters don't you gloat!
boast about how big you pretend to be.
your power buys our fear,
turning men into memories.
But my life holds your story!
I'll tell it, if you set me free.
Am I drowning in you...
or are you drowning in me?"
Returned home.
the Captain captured fish
for the seagull to eat.
And from his lips told a story
of his time out at sea.
Still new ships think they will prevail.
Distant from diminutive land,
sailors set sail dreaming of the safety
of a mundane harbor.
Unaware of the schemes
between the Shifty Seagull
and those Maniacal Waters.
-
Jun 12, 2023
Jun 12, 2023 at 12:01 AM UTC
our circles of right and wrong,
fractured in absence of fickle zen,
stand now across the sky
diagramed on clouds in venn
and smiling the grey
blobs block the meteors;
it’s love of life that may
chain our bodies in the center
of that shifty airy water space
where waffles are gentrification
and the hands we hold are separation
and its happening everyplace
we go. so to talk and act
separately, is to deny that cloudy venn;
to go where mind is scarcely fact
and establish a dangerous distance
cuz yesterday I meditated
but today I must’ve particulated
cuz I see we’re one big contradiction
inside love that’s bound to mediation.
friere would say this occupation
is precisely our ontological vocation,
but to subjectify ourselves at the very
center of the venn is to carry
a weight upon the column
of my spinal cord unknown
even to the days
of my very best posture.
yet, your resistance to the slump—
it guides me to listen for the thump
thump of distant drums:
a revolutionary battlecry
through which I extend my hand
to hold yours across the waffled
space which we’ve so ******
our heartbeat races through my mind.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 5:19 PM UTC
it is high noon
and white sunlight blazes the sky
the air becoming a wall of heat
it is a miracle anything survives
at the bottom of the sky,
long blades of grass climb upwards
rustling with movement
veiling all life in shadows
mother cat is promenading
striding with babies in her belly
they push against their mother
her stomach expanding gently like a rock
somewhere beneath the canopy
a shifty dragon lies
his snarling tongue is sniffing for something alive
slowly crawling towards a dent in the grass
a newly born litter of kittens
their mother still wandering for shade
their life snuffed out before they’ve opened their eyes
do they feel the sun kiss their sleeping heads goodnight?
Jul 19, 2022
Jul 19, 2022 at 11:14 PM UTC
Life has some very special ways
It will repeatedly tell you that things are going to be okay
It will show you that there's nothing quite like love
And will put you with someone who fits like a glove
And then it will look at you and smile
And it will stay like this way for a while
It will make you feel like nothing really matters
It will give you everything that will make you feel flattered
And then it will grin it's evil menacing grin
And then you know It has decided to make your life spin
It will change all so quickly
And it will make you so very shifty
It will make you ask "what did I do wrong??"
And it will make you question where you belong
And then it will tell you that you are completely and utterly worthless
And it will show you that when it comes down to it, life is completely heartless
And as it spins you on it's horrifying merry-go-round
It will you put you in a place where you will never be found
It will tell you that you mean nothing
And it will make you wanna do something
It will tell that there's nothing quite like learning to fly
And it will tell you that the only way to do that is to die
And then it will go and tell you to pick up that knife
And then it will tell you to end your life
And in this completely emotional wreck of a place you are in
There's only one thing you can do, and that is to listen
~CDJ~
Sep 30, 2017
Sep 30, 2017 at 9:58 PM UTC
1 in 12 transgender people are killed every single year.
1 in 12 i can't walk the streets alone at night.
1 in 12 public restrooms are a choice of being yelled at, or being beat up.
1 in 12 i hide behind my hoodie and keep my head down when im in "shifty" places.
1 in 12 having to wear the incorrect school uniform because "kids can be cruel"
1 in 12 you're not a "real man" if you don't have a ***** and if you do have one, you cannot be a woman, like there is a set of rules.
1 in 12 i can't get i job because if they find out i'm trans they'll use slurs in the place of my name.
1 in 12 living a lie because i want to be alive.
1 in 12 but am i truly alive, if im constantly hiding behind a mask?
1 in 12 is it too selfish that i just want to survive?
Nov 25, 2015
Nov 25, 2015 at 3:17 AM UTC
Many are hamster-wheel humans
So punch-drunk from assuming
They know the way things work.
The wealthy urged them to elect jerks
To run this country into the ground
And turn it into the worst place around.
It’s a sad tale, a ***** of a story
Where those with guts, don’t get glory.
It’s a horror story, like in scary flicks
Where when men in suits get their kicks
Imprisoning brown people and kids
And laughing about the bad they did.
Afterward, they say others are to blame
But make no attempt to hide their game.
They put thousands in jail and charge them
And sing out loud their lying anthems.
They say fake news is the real McCoy
But, the real news they say is a ploy
Honest people want to stop the plunder
That, up ’til now, they kept hidden under.
But now it’s in the open meant to appease
Ignorant white people that are hard to please.
They want whites in power, think that’s nifty,
No wonder they elect only those who are shifty.
Too many quit learning in school, after ABC,
And they have no use for the land of the free.
They liked how it was in eighteen hundreds
With slaves, inhumanity to those they plundered.
They got up in arms when a black man won
And the class war was once again begun.
The very rich told lies to change the rules
People began to act openly like rapacious fools.
This is the country of which we were once proud.
It’s right now being destroyed by the elite crowd.
Oct 1, 2018
Oct 1, 2018 at 12:38 AM UTC
I was doing research in Hubei
Where they executed Yu,
That deity soldier glorified
By Buddhists, Taoists too,
I sat perusing manuscripts
That dated from the Ming,
And came across a reference
About Yu’s finger ring.
A ring of gold so broad that it
Would fit a peasant’s wrist,
For Guan Yu was a mighty man
His ring, an amethyst,
Set round with groups of diamonds
It was lost the day, they said,
That Sun Quan had ordered them
To lop off Guan Yu’s head.
They lost it for a thousand years
It turned up with the Ming,
Was lost again in battle with
That mighty force, the Qing,
I’d heard it round the market place
A whisper, now and then,
That ring, it might have surfaced
In the village of Maicheng.
I scoured the streets and alleyways
For signs of old antiques,
Researching as I went, I walked
Around the town for weeks,
I found a backstreet corner shop
One night, and open late,
Run by a dodgy Chinaman
A total reprobate.
He had links to the Triads, they
Would come into the shop,
A shifty group of gangsters with
Their stolen goods to pop,
From where I sat with manuscripts
Up on the second floor,
I’d look straight down the staircase
Watch them come in through the door.
One day they brought in a bundle
Tied up in a burlap sack,
Threw it down on the counter, said:
‘What do you make of that?’
Fang Zhang then opened the parcel and
He pulled out a giant hand,
The flesh the texture of leather with
A monstrous golden band.
The ring was almost immoveable
The hand, with fingers spread,
Could grasp a maiden around the waist
Or crush a warrior’s head,
I held my breath as the Triad tried
To disengage the thing,
And all the while the diamonds flashed
On that massive golden ring.
Fang Zhang paid over a block of notes
That looked more like a brick,
There must have been a million Yuan
From what I saw of it,
The Triad left and I caught my breath
Fang Zhang had pulled it off,
He threw the hand in a ******* bin
And then I left the shop.
He hid the ring as I walked on through
I had to get some air,
I’d caught a glimpse of a famous ring,
A thing I couldn’t share,
They’d say it didn’t exist, that I
Was dreaming, if I tried,
They thought that it had been lost to view
The day that Yu had died.
I went back down the following day
The Police were there in force,
They stood out front and barred the way
From normal ***********
They told me through an interpreter
Of the ****** of Fang Zhang,
His face was black, for around his neck
Was a massive, ringless hand!
David Lewis Paget
(Pronunciation: Guan Yu - Gwon you
Hubei - Who - bay; Sun Quan - Sun Chu-arn
Qing - Ching; Maicheng - My - cheng
Fang Zhang - Fang Shjang (soft J))
Oct 26, 2013
Oct 26, 2013 at 9:26 PM UTC
I want a mouthful
of truth
without you sugar coating
every word
but those lies that lie
behind your pearly whites
only goes to show
you can't ever tell the truth.
So, I'll keep my mouth shut
bite my tongue so hard
My lips touch
like a kiss from you
Never open, only
Blowing our love out of proportion
because I can't give
my heart to you
with no proof,
just changing gears
and shifty eyes.
You whisper, "Honey,"
But that's your disguise
Executing every syllable and consonant
Like a devout man
but baby you're not heaven sent.
So, pull me close
until you start to fall apart
and to be honest I can't wait
to hear you talk your way
Out of this one
but I'll be sweet enough
to watch you rot
From too many
candy covered lies.
May 26, 2015
May 26, 2015 at 8:13 PM UTC
It's the little things that
drives one mad,
a snapped shoelace,
on your way to the
liquor store in the
driving snow.
A cockroach in
the cereal,
dead batteries, when all you
want to do is listen
to music.
Shifty eyed people in
my house, quietly plotting
my demise.
It's the tree of
life, cut down to clear
space for a parking lot.
No love from my brother.
Another frosty day in April.
Cigarette prices constantly
rising astronomically.
Footsteps in an empty
hallway.
It's Just a hop, skip, and
a jump to the madhouse.
Apr 29, 2022
Apr 29, 2022 at 10:42 PM UTC