"shuffled" poems
I was born on a belt
In the factory of man,
Rolled into a home,
Labeled and stamped.
My life was made honest
By ink on a page,
And my future controlled
By a system of wage.
My whole life thus far,
Two decades of lame,
Incompetent bureaucratic,
Institutional reign
Has seen us shuffled down
The educational lane,
Made unified products;
For unified gain.
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 3:55 AM UTC
** “Except for needs I can pack everything I have
into my old black sea-bag.” * **
"I wish I had written that line,
I said loud enough for him to hear."
He shuffled around in his stool
and raised his cup to get
hit with a refill.
Frustration wiggle I call it,
you know like when your dad
couldn’t let you struggle with a puzzle.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
announced his irritation
"Where have you been,
swimming shallow side?"
"I stated swatting away needs
like mosquitoes on sweat
when I was seven."
He peered past his coffee,
furrowed his brow
and rubbed his tongue
over his lower lip.
"Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,
why do you keep saying that, I asked"
"Guess you’ve never been in the military.
College man I reckin,
fancy degrees
and you don't know Alpha Zulu?"
* From Alpha Zulu by Gary Lilley
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 9:43 AM UTC
The concrete jungle.
Home of the dreaded concrete beasts
Who lie in plain sight for the world to see
Crouched in marble ledges, twisted in metal beams
Wrapped around handrails, perched in their cemented trees
They laugh at those who cannot perceive
Because they don’t believe.
And who am I,
Yes possibly me
To find my identity
In removing my wooden sword from its sheath
Placing it beneath my two shuffled feet
To answer the alluring call of the beasts beckoning
To my hero’s heart, for my eyes to blink
To suddenly see them as they were meant to be.
In a world between
Real and imaginary.
For it is I,
Yes I believe it to be
Chosen to find my destiny
In a single push
That propels me
Into the path of the snarling beasts
Approaching their stairs and rails, ledges and beams
Gaps and bumps and ramps with speed
And as they stare at me hungrily
Opening their mouths expecting me
I will stand strong on my wooden sword
As the wheels of fire erupt beneath
And the scenery blurs in the flash of the rapidity
I bend my knees and grit my teeth
My eyes narrow and the drum in my chest crescendos its beat
A shout explodes from my chest, a primal scream
As I press on
In the concrete jungle.
Home of the dreaded concrete beasts
Who quiver in plain sight for the world to see
And whimper at the sight of who they now perceive
Because I do believe.
And it is I,
Yes undoubtedly me
Who will find my destiny
Conquering the concrete jungles of the world unseen
Surfing the concrete waves of the world between
With my loyal vessel being the wooden sword from the sheath,
That remains steady in the face of danger beneath my feet.
I am alive
In the concrete jungle.
Nov 19, 2015
Nov 19, 2015 at 12:55 AM UTC
I shuffled down the hallway
Trying to stay out of view
Peeking down the walkway
To catch a glimpse of you
But just as i heard you laugh
You looked over my way
I was smiling in a dreamy trance
As our eyes met that day
Your beautiful ocean hue
Made it hard to look away
But I broke the gaze and knew
Id see them once more that night when I lay.
I blushed and we both passed
He smiled and turned to leave
I looked back for one time last
To find him looking at me.
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 11:03 PM UTC
Shuffled in
Moved like cattle
Numbers on the forehead
Making money off of death
Gotta keep it white
Like sanitary
To clean up all the ********
Jun 4, 2015
Jun 4, 2015 at 11:11 AM UTC
Once, far away, Andalusia of time.
Was I, this dreamer, this student of crime.
Devouring textbooks with a gluttonous glee.
Of masters I conversed with, with lives like movies.
FBI-profilers, psychopathologists.
Faces carved from paleo-lithic stone.
The hearts of sailors betrayed by Triton.
Their ill-fitting suits an anarchists cry.
Oh blessed hearts long since buried in the plots,
of victims whose killers would never see man’s courts.
Who knew the world and hoped to teach I,
this fresh young prey with a predator’s eye.
This fresh young prey with a predator’s eye.
Sat I with the masters, in those secret little rooms
where the dead are shuffled to have chosen for them a grave.
And it’s never more real than when the beast sits still.
In the agonising ordinary glow of the halogen buzz
that shines on guilty and innocent alike.
To reduce us all to such pathetic things.
That if not for the debt, this creature’s crimes
one could pity being on such obscene display.
If it were not known to me, in great detail
the river of misery and depravity he had left in his wake.
As a mugshot robs the aura, so too the well lit room.
And I understood why it took a much colder mind.
As even though I possessed all the faculties which
could follow and track and trap the prey;
the predator must also ****
And being in those secret little rooms
I knew I could not see it through.
I left it to those stronger than I
and leave my mark through other designs.
Dec 26, 2015
Dec 26, 2015 at 9:17 PM UTC
Its funny how it goes,
how within the throes,
of passion and of death
One is aside,
another gains breath
I leave with a stumble,
and a look behind.
And I find myself fumbling,
for cleanliness, and absolution
And to the One
who was shuffled
and moved,
with wires crossed--
I do not know the meaning of this,
or the path which my feet tread.
And maybe with some dread,
She moves in your stead.
Jun 4, 2012
Jun 4, 2012 at 10:13 PM UTC
*It was then that the universe decided to play
Out a sequence of events that would lead to this day
She conspired with the sun
with the earth and the moon
With the rest of the cosmos
to create enough room
For elegant curiosity to bloom
Opportunity presented herself to his door
She gestured,
and smiled,
And said "wait no more"
He knew in an instant it was time to act,
Because chances are few, such a plain simple fact.
And so our protagonist seized that one chance,
For his soul to experience a new kind of dance.
It was all for a girl,
curiosity,
what if?
She moved with such grace, she sparked up a spliff
In the garden of dreams,
bathed in glorious sunlight
Her hair, face and smile
it all felt so right
And watching her glow and feeling her lust,
He knew it was time,
he knew that he must.
He leaned in closer for a taste of her lips,
She turned in towards him,
she shuffled her hips
And then when at last they shared that first kiss,
His soul was ignited and smothered in bliss.
And that was the moment that everything changed,
A shift in perspective, a life re-arranged.
For what then ensued through that day and that night,
Was nothing short or pure cosmic delight.
Moments come and moments go
Memories fade over time's forward flow
But the feelings remain, they are timeless and true
And no-one and nothing can take them from you.
So if you're attentive to universe's song,
and seize opportunity,
you can never go wrong.
For you might one day find where you truly belong*
Jan 21, 2017
Jan 21, 2017 at 12:01 PM UTC
The oil is gone, gone is the oil,
There is no oil for us to boil,
To power our cars,
To package our bars,
We need oil, oil, precious oil,
How we miss our material plastic,
We made everything out of it, it was fantastic!
Car batteries and glue,
Computers, shampoo,
All made out of precious oil,
Alas, it’s shuffled off its mortal coil,
Goodbye, goodbye to our fair oil,
Without our plastic,
Things are quite drastic,
All our cars are beyond repair,
There’s no more shampoo for our hair,
And on what do you think we do a poo,
Plastic toilet seats you cry,
it tell you, that’s not true!
You don’t even know how I’m typing this,
Computers are gone now – don’t dis!
Life really ***** without oil,
In 2011, it must have been royal,
A word of wisdom to those with oil about,
Look after it dearly, don’t let it run out!
May 1, 2015
May 1, 2015 at 5:52 AM UTC
I took Death out to dinner last night,
dressed up
in my favorite costume.
Dripping diamonds
and champagne tear-ducts--
I clogged my pores
with soggy make-up.
We wined and dined
and wore out our shoes--
I told him my secrets
He nodded and listened.
We shuffled down side-streets
and looked into mirrors--
I shivered in darkness
He drew me in nearer.
His body a bone-yard
Lovely but broken--
I heard his soft breath
I felt fingers stroking.
But crawling back homeward
Aching and tired--
We parted by day-fall
I watched him shrink inward.
With farewell promises
to meet again soon--
I swallowed the sunrise,
I cursed out the moon.
Sep 3, 2014
Sep 3, 2014 at 9:05 PM UTC
A sadistic outlook
I hide my fallacies and avarice in a sock drawer,
neatly placed next to my pill bottles
In the closet closest, I store the prospect of future casualties
Shuffled neatly undernearth media propaganda and the war in Uganda
I suffocate the tragedy of unknown victims in my display of malice
Muffled as they’re whimpering
Sociopathic symphony
Dec 28, 2012
Dec 28, 2012 at 8:50 AM UTC
i was just your joker you kept me in your pack
when you dealt your hand. you put me to the back
shuffled me around broke my heart in two
i was the the joker thats all i was to you.
you kept all the aces hidden in your sleeve
and the love you had was only make believe
i was just a card. someone you could play
someone you could use then just walk away.
the joker in the pack that you could throw away
i was just a game someone you could play
with your cheating ways with aces in your sleeve
and the love you gave was only make believe
i was just your joker you kept me im your pack
when you dealt your hand. you put me to the back
shuffled me around broke my heart in two
i was the the joker thats all i was to you.
the joker in the pack that you could throw away
i was just a game someone you could play
with your cheating ways i just didnt see
i was just your joker. you made a fool of me
Aug 13, 2019
Aug 13, 2019 at 5:32 PM UTC
My childhood was alluring days,
I miss those days in many ways.
I was so adorable on those days
And delightful like sun rays,
When I was a child,
My heart was painted with full of colours
And filled with beautiful imagination.
The whole world was like a pearl to me.
It was the most happiest days of past.
But I miss those days in many ways.
I played with my childhood friends and brothers.
I played with different types of toys and flowers.
They are like my lovers.
My life filled with happiness and joy.
Those days was heaven for me.
First day my mother left her hand,
She went away with a crying face
It broke my heart in many ways.
It was the first step to my kinder garten.
It was a new atmosphere for me.
I cried and played with ***** mud
And mud caked to my new shoes.
I miss all the fun and beauty of my eyes.
In my childhood i wished for many things.
Now I wish ,I want my funniest childhood days.
I realise they were the big things to me.
All are going through many stages in life.
The day I found my little tricycle in the backyard.
My mind run backward fastly.
Like a super car and all my memories shuffled,
Until I reach the memories of evergreen childhood.
Childhood is the best or world to all.
Everyone want to be a child atleast one day.
I want back my lamp,
To remove the darkness of world.
Music is inside in everyone's heart,
But It won't show out in some case.
Like childhood memories are inside us,
But still it keep fade in our heart.
Never stop playing, screeming, laughing,
It will carry your childhood with you.
We never and ever become older,
We all have an endless breathing and stages.
It can't take back and go back.
Look the world with child eye.
It seems more beautiful than anything.
Reminiscence of childhood were the dreams
That stayed with you after you woke.
Childhood is being carefully held like a glass.
My anguish wishes to be a youngster,
I want my souvenir back and
Blow it Up into a bubble and live inside it forever. ?
Dec 30, 2016
Dec 30, 2016 at 8:42 AM UTC
At the money table, Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac,
And neither one cares how you’ll pay as long as it is not a check,
Brassy appendages obversely curl to abruptly angular truncated legs-upon-his-lek,
And the proof of who he represents hangs weightily about his Plouton neck,
See the cotton-wafer stacks shuffled as bricks in rows to the translucent deck,
The waiver now giving its woe whence once wished-for upon the Great Molech?
Mr. crooked hook-nose at his compose will take on any bet,
As Sheol will have it, many lament, being in his debt,
A Canaan cursed and tribal descendant, the relative of Set.
For with misery and suffering well you get what you beget!
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 3:42 PM UTC
To watch or not to watch.
That is the question;whether it is nobler in my mind to suffer the feels and emotions of addicting shows and yet be so in love with them.
To watch, to cry.
One more episode and only sleep will help me to end.
The heartache and the thousand cinematic shocks the writers are obsessed with.
‘tis a consuming world with everything I wish.
To watch, to cry. To cry-- perhaps too much. Ay, but it's worth it.
For, when watching these shows and knowing what feels may come, when we have shuffled off this depressing factor, we must not forget the humor that makes happiness last oh so long.
To watch characters travel the depths of space and time.
The detectives prove wrong the proud men and even the relationships and love ‘tween the main protagonists.
The insolence of the hiatus that even patient fangirls cannot take. When we go on great adventures with a hobbit and a ring. Who could bear the long wait? To punt a sweat is a weary life. To discover world's unknown from books or shows. We travellers never want to return.
Our fangirl hearts burn and even still
We would rather bear the tears we have Than live in a world where there are none. Thus Fangirls are not cowards, not at all
Thus we are heroes so very proud
So we proudly say take flight on the enterprise with Captain Jean Luc
We bare our lights sabers alight
And lose ourselves in the action
Go we now happy as could be-- off to fangirl forever
To be normal? Ha! Never.
Aug 1, 2017
Aug 1, 2017 at 8:29 AM UTC
~~
Sometimes Loudly
Sometimes Silently
Yellow leaves have fallen,
Becoming dry
Pale
Passing through as the grained Sound on the Street
Slowly dark flees across the evenings
What an Illusion!
What Shadows!
Has Shuffled
The Past
Present
Future
Your form that creates metaphors
And what a wonderful feel
Through out its gravity
Night dancing,
When aroma of Night-Queen
Moving in the air,
Plays with the moonlit
As if Reminds
The First love Poem
Has burned within the form
Standing to fascinate
Away, a dense bunch
Of vine Forest
Bored Air moving
Listening the murmur
Of dried leaves
In the passing wind of banner
As if Someone Calling with
My old name
Empty
Restless Heart
Today is the tune that somewhere else
Like a flow
Of a distant river melody,
Surging waves of the attack
In the Strange night of Spring
Continuous grey leaves falling
Falling on the Floor
Whispering the words on the street goes through
What an Illusion!
What Shadows!
~~
@ Musfiq us shaleheen
Feb 24, 2015
Feb 24, 2015 at 1:47 PM UTC
the lake bed
was uneven
a mosaic
of large rocks
loose
and dancing
under foot
with each
shuffled step
an interchange
of unreliable shallows
and inconsistent depths
he wasn't
particularly keen
only willing
to venture in
up to his chest
reluctant
to advance
if he couldn't
plant paws
firmly
on soil
or stone
not even
the lure of food
was enough
to tempt him;
though he wanted
his treat
a reward
for his bravery
the murky water
the unknown
the unfamiliar
the unexpected
was just
too much
Aug 1, 2022
Aug 1, 2022 at 8:23 AM UTC
They lay on Normandy.
Two hundred miles away, the empty shells of humans
Who lie below the streets
Felt the poison that lurked above.
They shuffled out of the underground,
Boarding trains and ships like corpses
And dropping bombs from miles above.
A little French boy is spared.
His brother whispers “Bon courage,”
As the rest of the family are taken out back
And shot like mad dogs.
Twenty years later, he stands on the beach
With his young wife
Watching their sons roll and play in the sand.
His tongue tastes a warm salt
That couldn't come from the ocean.
All he can taste from the ocean is blood.
I can see my grandfather clearly
With tears falling down his face
As his mother shuts the piano.
“There will be no music,” she says quietly.
She is an immigrant
And I wonder if she questions the choice
That brought her son to a country where he might lay down his life
For strangers, four thousand miles away.
I can feel him now
Hiding in the apple trees,
High above the others.
He is in Sainte-Mère-Église, and there are enemies below.
And now I take them in my arms
Cradling them like children
“Je vous embrasse, les deux,”
And I lie down on the edge of the ocean at Normandy.
I exhale and hold them close.
The sun is shining, and I do not cry;
It is nothing but salt and water to me.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 9:27 PM UTC
Too lazy to decipher scrawl,
she took to typing.
But graphite gratified,
thunderbolts struck her empty.
Nostalgic for
the soothing scratch of pencil
as a child cloistered,
shuffled between states,
who translated her life
to pass the days.
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 8:38 PM UTC
She walked. While I shuffled my feet and stared at the ground.
Lights. Dancing around her in neon moonlit sound.
Grey rainclouds, they hummed a mournful tune
But I kept walking, and I tried to make a little room.
She turned, and the sun crept out and gave a little grin.
He smiled, awed at the sight in front of him but,
I mustered up, and sent her a slight return
And with a wave, she kissed away my concern-
Now we're walking. I can't speak a word.
The shy duck with the beautiful red bird,
We flew off; And soared high in the sky-
The sun had set, slightly reflected while I'm...
Bold as Love.
We're all... Bold as Love.
And I'm Bold as Love.
Just ask the Axis.
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014 at 10:29 AM UTC
I scrutinized the miserable wretch harnessed to the table
Polished my knuckle with his murk, malice, and fable
Placing a centipede on his stomach as it shuffled to his eye
Languidly impending horror as he begged me to die
I put pressure on his abdominal with the ball of my hand
Took a breath to my diluted lungs as the boy’s jawline ran
Tantalizing screams of dread, poor boy fastened on steel bed
I protruded my hand deep and to his intestines, it fed
My malignant clasp ripped and mangled as it went
Like the centipede too, itched and mangled as it went
And as his entrails to, like sizeable centipedes they went
In a ****** stream of fluids crawling and sprawling as they went
I bound up with glee as my poor wretch lay be, and I swung him head-toe to a pit
Where billions of legs crawl, but human ones not at all, a realm where arthropods permit
Feb 17, 2014
Feb 17, 2014 at 10:34 PM UTC
Come, my Lucasia, since we see
That miracles Men's Faith do move,
By wonder and by prodigy
To the dull angry World let's prove
There's a Religion in our Love.
For Though we were design'd t'agree,
That Fate no liberty destroys,
But our Election is as free
As Angels, who with greedy choice
Are yet determin'd to their joys.
Our hearts are doubled by the loss,
Here Mixture is Addition grown;
We both diffuse, and both ingross:
And we whose minds are so much one,
Never, yet ever are alone.
We court our own Captivity
Than Thrones more great and innocent:
'Twere banishment to be set free,
Since we wear fetters whose intent
Not ******* is but Ornament
Divided joys are tedious found,
And griefs united easier grow:
We are our selves but by rebound,
And all our Titles shuffled so,
Both Princes, and both Subjects too.
Our Hearts are mutual Victims laid,
While they (such power in Friendship lies)
Are Altars, Priests, and Off'rings made:
And each Heart which thus kindly dies,
Grows deathless by the Sacrifice.
2.9k
How many times I lay
On that old couch
Just through the doorway
Where she shuffled from the table to the stove
Bringing food to dad,
In for supper late,
Or moving dishes to the sink
While I rested from the day,
Just lying there,
Unaware of conversations
I was soaking in.
"I should have sold the winter wheat
A week ago.
No telling how far down the price will go
Now that Russia's stopped our sales."
"Pizza, two for seven dollars again;
Apples three pounds for a dollar;
Bread for seventy-nine."
Or heard his offhand orders for next morning:
"Fencing's got to be done at Henry's.
Boys! I need one of you to check the pastures.
Take some salt and mineral along!"
Mother seldom spoke, or if she did,
She gave correction,
Reported pizza inventories, or bread.
Asked clarifying questions,
But always the creaking oven door
Or the running of rinsing water.
I awoke this morning at three,
Almost a year after my fathers death
From a restless dream of lying there.
Heard my mother's sounds,
My father's voice,
Life as once it was,
Mundane and wonderful
From the couch around the corner of the door:
A living memory
I would no more expunge
Than to remove my own name.
In a dream state,
Attentive now to sounds
Grown too late significant,
Too late sweet,
Almost too painful now,
I lay,
Half aware or half awake...
Thankful to live a memory so real,
Unaware I was transfixed
Inside a memory
Moving lightning speed
Through dreams....
As he was readying to leave,
Perhaps to go down to do one last chore,
I heard my father's footstep at the door.
"Dad, I wanted you to know
I love you very much!"
I spoke the words,
Loudly, so he heard.
I heard him clear his throat,
Say something about getting back to work.
And I awoke, a full day's drive away
From that old couch,
Itself five miles up the hill
From the buried urn where his cold ashes lie.
Jan 18, 2013
Jan 18, 2013 at 6:27 AM UTC
Thrift Shop Confessional
Old carts squeak down re-sale aisles
"One of," "two of,"
Sometimes "three of" items
Tempting treasure-sifting shoppers,
Bargain-needing families,
Women seeking up-brand names at low-brand prices...
Our wives, followed by their husbands,
Acquiescent, but quiescently seeking
Seeking a thrift shop oasis.
A cast-off dining set beckons,
Sturdy enough, if a little battered,
To make us solemnly content to wait
Carted clothing trundling
Off to fitting rooms.
He shuffled up with a foolish grin.
"I think I'll join this convocation of
Waiting gentlemen.
My wife is a shopper...
She'll close the place down."
I moved a chair and gave some space;
Strangers become brothers in this place.
Five minutes on,
I knew he was a vet:
Army, Vietnam Nam...
"I don't like to think about it,"
Cleared his throat,
"Never can forget."
I turned to look at him.
"A little girl came running,
With her hand behind her back.
She only stood this high," he said,
And showed me with his palm her height,
"They carried grenades that way...
All of 'em...couldn't tell which ones...
Sergeant told us, 'Don't ever check...just shoot.'"
The voice trailed off....
I sat sweating in a thrift store,
Captive of my own politeness,
Half a century,
Half a planet,
Transported in his words
into a soldier's Hell.
"So I shot...
Nothing else to do."
Silence then.
A total stranger staggering
under the weight of having
Murdered his Albatross....
Of having carried this thing,
This memory,
Inside him all these years,
Of finding me,
The unsuspecting thrift shop guest
Who'd listen to his lonely tale,
Perhaps so he could earn some rest....
I, his unwitting Confessor,
Uncertain what to say,
Certain something must be said...
Certain nothing could be said...
Sat dumb, but understanding
The wisdom of confessional dividers,
The private comfort of two booths
Where prayerful exchanges
Intersperse uncertain silences,
Present in the overhanging need:
Demanding sorrowful returns,
Impending memories of sorrows...
And lonely trudgings home....
(Connections with Fr. Laurence's "Riddling confession finds but short shrift," in Romeo & Juliet, and Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner")
Apr 7, 2013
Apr 7, 2013 at 5:39 PM UTC