"shuttling" poems
on a sea strand,
have you watched empty shells
mercilessly tossed from sea to shore
and from shore to sea?
often I shrink and reduce to such a shell,
with jagged and broken edges
colorless and empty
among many a debris cast on the shore,
i lie half buried under the sand
waiting for some mighty wave
to wash me away
all the way to the sea
how tedious is my voyage
shuttling from him to her
and from her to him
unable to openly confess
who weighs more
on the balance of preference
through how many alleys and by ways
I have wandered, questioning my identity!
am I a puffer fish, being toxic
the fisher men have discarded?
a jarring note in a discordant symphony?
I wonder....! I often ask myself!
destined to grow
in mercurial climes,
planted in arid shallow soil
with the tap root trimmed,
branches pruned,
growth denied,
I, a stunted bonsai!
still I dream to be a towering tree,
that in profusion gives fruits and shade!
a ****** aspiring to be a Goliath
a hollow reed,
longing at once to be the singer and the song!
Jul 27, 2018
Jul 27, 2018 at 9:41 AM UTC
The calender reads 2016
But its feels more like 1984
Have you heard the crying
The American dream
Lying dying in the streets
While big brother
Is strapping blinders
On our heads
And shackles to
Our hands and feet
Were being lined up
By the rows
Willing prisoners
Of the slave power
Empire of minimum wage
Shuttling our children
Off to the animal farm
Market of big business
And big lies
***** water mixed
In with the rotting
Apples of the
New American pie
The sugar isn't sweet
To the starving
In the street
While trash cans
Over flow in the back lots
Of the super market
Super chains
Of the slave power
Empire of criminal rage
And its the cold dark waters
Of nuclear waste
Soaking the pages of the calender
That reads
2016
In these days that feel like
1984
No kindness or compassion
For hands shaking tin cups
Needing just a little change
Just a little shelter
From their sad weather lifes
Living on the cold ground
Below our overpass ways
No shelter and no change
No compassion and no kindness
In the fist and pockets
Of the slave power
Empire of ignorant ways
Bullets, bombs and hate
Harvesting fresh blood
For the ink
To print the pages of the calender
That reads
2016
As politicians write us back
Into the pages of the days of
1984
May 23, 2016
May 23, 2016 at 4:27 PM UTC
Unrhymed, unrhythmical, the chatter goes:
Yet no one hears his own remarks as prose.
Beneath each topic tunelessly discussed
The ground-bass is reciprocal mistrust.
The names in fashion shuttling to and fro
Yield, when deciphered, messages of woe.
You cannot read me like an open book.
I'm more myself than you will ever look.
Will no one listen to my little song?
Perhaps I shan't be with you very long.
A howl for recognition, shrill with fear,
Shakes the jam-packed apartment, but each ear
Is listening to its hearing, so none hear.
5k
LAST night a January wind was ripping at the shingles
over our house and whistling a wolf song under the
eaves.
I sat in a leather rocker and read to a six-year-old girl
the Browning poem, Childe Roland to the Dark
Tower Came.
And her eyes had the haze of autumn hills and it was
beautiful to her and she could not understand.
A man is crossing. a big prairie, says the poem, and
nothing happens--and he goes on and on--and it's
all lonesome and empty and nobody home.
And he goes on and on--and nothing happens--and he
comes on a horse's skull, dry bones of a dead horse--
and you know more than ever it's all lonesome and
empty and nobody home.
And the man raises a horn to his lips and blows--he
fixes a proud neck and forehead toward the empty
sky and the empty land--and blows one last wonder-
cry.
And as the shuttling automatic memory of man clicks
off its results willy-nilly and inevitable as the snick
of a mouse-trap or the trajectory of a 42-centimetre
projectile,
I flash to the form of a man to his hips in snow drifts
of Manitoba and Minnesota--in the sled derby run
from Winnipeg to Minneapolis.
He is beaten in the race the first day out of Winnipeg--
the lead dog is eaten by four team mates--and the
man goes on and on--running while the other racers
ride, running while the other racers sleep--
Lost in a blizzard twenty-four hours, repeating a circle
of travel hour after hour--fighting the dogs who
dig holes in the snow and whimper for sleep--
pushing on--running and walking five hundred
miles to the end of the race--almost a winner--one
toe frozen, feet blistered and frost-bitten.
And I know why a thousand young men of the North-
west meet him in the finishing miles and yell cheers
--I know why judges of the race call him a winner
and give him a special prize even though he is a
loser.
I know he kept under his shirt and around his thudding
heart amid the blizzards of five hundred miles that
one last wonder-cry of Childe Roland--and I told
the six year old girl about it.
And while the January wind was ripping at the shingles
and whistling a wolf song under the eaves, her eyes
had the haze of autumn hills and it was beautiful
to her and she could not understand.
2.3k
Tuesday lasses
we all have classes
get up and go
there’s no time to waste
join the flow
there’s no reason to wait
everyone’s hustling
coffee guzzling
bus shuttling
paper shuffling
syllabus assessing
apple-watch checking
there’s a fall-like feeling
making things more appealing
file off of the bus
and join the crush
trudging up science hill
thru the doors up the stairs
climbing in pairs,
in class, at last,
setup and relax.
I open my binder
and hand in the assignment
the guy beside me can’t find it.
and the TA moves on
the guy’s upset and I get it
he’s frantic and grim
I pretend I’m not watching him
as he ransacks his rucksack
too late, they’re taking roll
carelessness takes its toll
Sep 19, 2023
Sep 19, 2023 at 12:23 PM UTC
The immortal is the time before the rain
When we have thoughts of it afterward.
By then, the mosaic of tongue and its words
Are broken stones swept away
By the shuttling broom of storm.
Jun 11, 2019
Jun 11, 2019 at 8:09 PM UTC
Gently soaring against green sky,
white world above.
Glimmers pass just under each crest.
Starry reflections mesmerizing
the eye of the beholder.
Soon begins the dance.
First to cross over
bursts free
shattering planes to open air.
Gliding on warm sea spray,
a brilliant spectrum off
silver forms taking shape.
The pinnacle moment,
poised the dancer holds the world still,
and bows.
An angelic descent,
merging back to the old world.
Murky cold envelopes the winged dreamer.
Now in pairs and trios they come.
Each shuttling into a similar pose,
stopping time,
only to fall again into the fathoms
of the emerald abyss.
Jan 19, 2013
Jan 19, 2013 at 12:50 AM UTC
Proteins oh Proteins,
How much you do for us!
You are our support
The framework keeping us up
The bones under our skin
You are the mad scientist
encouraging chemical reactions within us
Enzymes, catalyzing reactions
You are our traffic regulators
Signaling how much,
Hormones
Like insulin regulating glucose in the blood
You are the detectives within us
Figuring out what it bad
Then flagging it for destruction
You are our truck drivers
Shuttling materials to
and fro
Hemoglobin, carrying oxygen from the lungs
You are our storage
Our shelves packed to the brim with
materials
Like ferritin storing iron in our bodies
There is so much you do
That is key to our survival
...
However shall I remember all you do
for my test tomorrow?
Sep 23, 2018
Sep 23, 2018 at 7:50 PM UTC
What’s the use of crying, in a Yesterday that’s gone?
What’s the point of worrying, in a Tomorrow not yet born?
Why not live in bliss and joy and peace?
In the present moment be happy, be happy, can we please?
Be happy in the NOW, this moment is a Gift
Smile and dance and celebrate, don’t just exist or drift
It is in this moment, that we can choose to be happy and glad Let’s not
lose this moment, to memories that make us sad
Yesterday is a place, that we just can’t go
The past is an illusion, it’s like a dream- a stage show
There is no way of being happy, in a moment that has passed
The only thing it will give us, regrets that will last
The future doesn’t exist, it’s just another dream
It looks so very real, as long as we worry and scream
How can we be happy in an illusion of the mind?
Let’s wake up to the NOW, let’s not be blind
Everybody wants to be happy, who doesn’t want this gift?
Who doesn’t want to enjoy their life with a lift?
Everybody wants pleasure, nobody wants pain
But they look for it in wrong places, stressed and in vain
Of course, we can be happy, in every moment of life
It’s a choice for us to live, with happiness or strife
If we decide that we want bliss, joy, and peace
Then we must be happy before this moment will cease
Happiness is not only becoming a millionaire in this world
Are the rich the only ones happy? See this truth unfold
There are many who are fulfilled and content in life
Though they have little, they are happy and they smile
What’s the secret of happiness? It’s being happy in the NOW
Not shuttling from the past to the future, we must not go
We must learn to remain in the present moment with ease
Then bliss, joy, and happiness will blow like the breeze
Our mind is like a monkey, it jumps here and there It doesn’t let us be happy,it wanders like a hare
If we truly want happiness, turn the monkey into a monk Being in the present moment fixed like a tree runk
The way to joy is ‘Surrender’, to the Lord’s divine will
Not living with hope and expectations, not worrying about bills
The future will unfold, as per the Lord’s divine plan It’s for us to be happy, whatever comes in our pan
Why live in regrets, of the past that’s already gone
It’s the Master’s wish that happened, why regret all that’s done?
The way to joy is to accept the Lord’s divine will And not curse and nurse, and rehearse every ill
Happiness is simple, if we learn to live in the NOW
Joy and bliss are possible, for those who go with the now It’s not in the
future, nor in the past, but in the present
We must realize that happiness happens moment by moment
Be happy in the NOW, that’s the only way to be
Don’t be worried in tomorrow, to there we cannot see
Don’t rehearse the past that’s dead and gone
Be happy in this moment, as if we were just born
Aug 17, 2019
Aug 17, 2019 at 9:26 AM UTC
It was just like any other sunny day,
Everything the same.
The same lazy mornings,
Shuttling through the signals,
And we meet,
To make me realize
It is not just like any other sunny day!!!
And you go,
"Perhaps this is the last time we meet"
And along with you went
My sleep, yes,
Am an insomniac now..
My smile, yes,
Been so long my ****** muscles relaxed..
My joy, yes,
Joy is just a word now..
My heart, yes,
Am just a creature now..
My brain, yes,
I can't think anymore..
My senses, yes,
I can't feel anymore..
And above all,
My soul, and yes,
I don't live anymore..
And you thought,
IT WAS JUST YOU WHO LEFT!!
Aug 21, 2014
Aug 21, 2014 at 1:54 PM UTC
Mixed doubles
Game of ***** began
Love all, score all
One up one, one by one
In high eye catching speed
Hapless **** shuttling
Between rattling battling bats
Oh, behold charming Olympians
Of insatiable thirst to win
In unflinching sweat in spin
Enticing game of *****
Enthralling audible audience
Exciting radiance of players
Unabated batting beats
Withered feather of floating shuttle-cocks
Spectacle kept spectators at bay
With bated breath at sight
Hooray to matchless display of match
No matter who won n’ owned medal
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 7:48 AM UTC
Shuttling between foster homes
life shaped me
to who I am,
while love and hypocrisy
played hide and seek
I drowned my real self.
Now I stand
on the road's end
looking for directions,
while passers by
stare at me
asking each other,
'Lost sanity, isn't she?'
I look on
baleful eyes
silent and wondering:
if life gave me choices,
where would I stand?
'
Feb 28, 2017
Feb 28, 2017 at 10:17 PM UTC
In a pure world
music and birdsong
spinning
the lingering
melancholy
no more sadness
only memories
and longings
prostrating on the trails
of yellow leaves
counting the rhythms
of loneliness
the handsomeness of the island
the dreaminess of
the susurration of the beach
the elegance of the sails
the water as always
beating the stippled quietness
awaiting the next dawn
a ketch drifting on the ocean
shining a turquoise light
portraying the poetry
of the predawn
or the predawn hilarity of
the fish and shrimps
in the ocean
this is a pure world
and there is music
and running water in it
and the samisen of moods
and the psaltery
of the nature
whats more
the happy pixies shuttling
in the forest
of purity.
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015 at 1:48 PM UTC
I am settled in the arugula palace
Everybody in the same scattered image
Seeking reconstruction or construction of the mind
I write this for myself to be unwinded & unrolled
He's a shifting plane of bisecting geometries
Now a thin woman shuttling kids in a minivan
Smoking newport cigarettes & feeling mucous gather in the sore spot in her throat. Her husband who is overworked & penniless--a clown frozen in a shipping container underneath a hi-low. He is fetching up the scraps of industry from inside a concrete bottle. He is messing with the intersecting circles coming off the streetlights. He is stacking up assumptions, wishing to be freed. Wishing he could reach that frightened child-monkey loser in the parking lot. He is clawing @ sensations he will never be able to name. He is secretly wishing for a vision. Secretly wishing to be known. He is tied & tethered to the clean-up crew. They are silent pretenders nodding at the recycling bins--never emptied. There he is formatted. There his eyes go staring out. There a picture--but what's a picture now that it's all beyond control, no longer static, no longer a container or reminder but rather a cloud passing, a moment's pause, a temporary fascination? A posing, a posturing, a big a-Ha!--fuck you! Stranger. You are not a part of me. The danger is madness. The danger is control. There are no static images. No peaches. No penumbras. No mandalas, maps, organizations or rebuttals. There is only standing water in the basement. There is only diet pepsi car keys hanging on the edge of a golden cloudburst.
Aug 22, 2016
Aug 22, 2016 at 5:35 PM UTC
Merry Christmas. Today your present is this smile I hold true
This is the best I can do for you
Behind this I hold the very honest truth that I must carry
I will bury the burden of what the truth carries; inside myself
Maybe this is the day you celebrate
To me this is the day I carry the heaviest weights
Amongst the worlds that I carry, today, gravity kicks in
My body screams and aches more than hopefully you will ever know
The seams of my scars begin to rip to wider tides
I press and hold them close
Letting the sea reap it's stains inside these veins
Gushingly I take on the mighty sea for all my own
As restlessly stirring within my being
Shuttling off the shakes as my mind wonders to the heaviest place
The pain of this holiday is the true horror that no one could believe
Behind each gift is another anchor to tie my mind down
Behind each "Merry Christmas" is another 2 tons to my darkest depth
The weight that you can never come to know
The nightmare called Christmas that can never be spoken
I bare burden to the past
As each year builds its own cask
I no longer know the joyfulness of this holiday
This does not mean I will take away this day
Never will I load this onto whom I know
Today is your day
Today is your holiday
Today is Merry Christmas
Dec 25, 2014
Dec 25, 2014 at 1:04 PM UTC
Shuttling through
darkness
no light at the end of this tunnel
yet
hurtling past destinations
blurred images of the past
Destined to be left behind
Unknown faces stare out
and when the train slows
they come knocking at the window
a flicker of recognition dawns
looking into their eyes,
reflections of the persons they were once
shadows of old friends
Familiar places
stop by her door
garishly lit
meant to be inviting
but only serving to highlight
the messy roads
littered with rags of ragged memories
Surrendering to
the warm web of words
from the unturned page of the novel
and woven from strains
of a melancholy song
tired of singing its happy tune
over and over again
Not alone in her journey
but surely lonely
distracted by a fancy story telling
lost in the same singular song
creating a cocoon
a safe soundless haven
body heading home
mind escaping to a fantasy
Tomorrow is different
waking up from an unreal reality
to life
that rarely travels in a line
she will try to move off the beaten track
but she will soon make her way back
on life's circular track
this time she may wave back at the staring faces in the window
Mar 20, 2012
Mar 20, 2012 at 3:24 AM UTC
Millions meet
without greetings,
shuttling to & fro,
destinations unknown,
day after day,
night after night
departing & arriving,
cubicles,
seat upon seat,
sore feet
& tired eyes,
circadian.
Mar 3, 2014
Mar 3, 2014 at 11:09 PM UTC
Glasses clashing with a clink
Sophisticated men of good health drink
Congratulating one another on a deal
Wondrous wealth the root of its appeal
And laughter loops in-between the night air
Months later a young boy can only stare
As his father returns home with all his tools
Midday heat hounding him as he sat on a stool
His calloused hands covering his face
Tearfully told the family that he’d been replaced
But not just him, every buddy that he could see
Said the job had set sail far over the sea
The young boy couldn’t understand the notion
Ran out the house and threw rocks at the ocean
Yet as the days went on there was one caveat
Prices at the stores did mysteriously drop
So once rare treats became as commonplace
As his father's work shuttling from place to place
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 9:50 AM UTC
weaving quite tirelessly
on an antique loom
she peddles
the warp threads
into a room
of weft
her hands
busy with it
shuttling her craft right to left
her foot
keeping the beat of a craftmaker a musician
even
Jan 24, 2017
Jan 24, 2017 at 3:02 AM UTC
The bat is still gone from the bell tower
Was it really ever even there?
Is this bat symbolic of some long silent God?
Or the silhouette of a real ******* monster
Skulking down the sidewalks and alleyways of my demented subconscious?
And just where the **** has it gone?
Does it streak high above on sunless skies
Screeching its demonic secrets to drown out the roar of ceremonial rockets
Shuttling the newly ****** & departed across the river Styx?
Or does it hang inverted from stalactites in the tomb of some long surrendered ideology
Filled with no riches or spectral guardians
Only this ******* bat to stand sinister vigil?
Is it something sinister or something sacred?
Or is it just a ******* bat?
Am I just filling in empty spaces with sub-par symbolism and psychosomatic horrors?
Hell, I'll probably never know
All I know is that the bell keeps tolling
Whether there is something there or not
And I think it's gonna drive me insane
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 12:35 AM UTC
next to (the) right of me stood you 中に浅草
to then the electric whir of shuttling quickly
we exited amongst inscrutable couth and uncouth
heads quickly and crammed full compartments
(春の東京が新しかった) it very exploded
around us neon jittering voices amongst
電動の木 from the rain slick asphalt towering
Jul 31, 2011
Jul 31, 2011 at 12:36 PM UTC
Less of the hustle and bustle
of the past
shuttling pedestrians
dead leaves
winter
sun with open arms
quiet street
a crowd of children from school
a game of chess by old men
sleeping barley and roots
sunlight is the key
to lighting up
this mood.
Dec 5, 2017
Dec 5, 2017 at 10:37 AM UTC
When you look
up into the sky
at night,
have you ever
imagined shuttling
into the universe.
Like the mind
of the poet
that runs all
over the space
and the universe
in fantasy mode.
Beautiful to feel
the throbbing of
the universe as
the beating of
a heart beat.
The subtle echo
of the sound
penetrates silently
into our being.
The words are
as smooth as silk.
Coming from the
realm beyond our sphere,
the universe reflecting
on the mirror
of the mind
with thoughts so
profound and powerful
floods the heart
with words so
serene to appease
the ears with tranquility.
The mouth agaped
as if drunk,
satisfied and comforted.
©2019,Emeka Mokeme. All Rights Reserved.
Jun 4, 2019
Jun 4, 2019 at 7:05 AM UTC
Cold and rarefied
Fixed in demeanor
Ways of introspection
Are coming across specific
They seem regal
so they relax
Some things
Care about themselves
It is synonymous
You are with others,
And others with you
Shuttling through our planet
And the planets' orbits pay zero attention
Matter has fevers,
like melting
But doesn't blame
Because it is different
Electricity cannot be so bad
So know
That you are good
Keep your mood happy
By doing your best
It is the only thing expected of you
Kindness in and out
May 25, 2019
May 25, 2019 at 2:36 PM UTC