"siphons" poems
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;[email protected])
It is the 30th day of the months in Kenya
State and corporate capitalist have now paid their workers
Wages or salaries or stipends or emoluments all being remunerations
While the rural bourgeoisie and urban bourgeoisie have also paid ex-gratia
To relatives come over-aged workers who have declined retiring
For the fear of looming starvation if at all they go home, where they were born,
Nonetheless; proceed they receive will do nothing whatsoever
As it will be stifled by the monster of desperate consumerism;
So fat and gullible in this tiger of land in the region called Kenya;
The terror peddling rent, courtesy of ruthlessness of the landlord
Bills of electric power in their full monopolistic gear
Bills of water devoid of quality, indifferent dysentery monger
Wages for maid who keep on usurping the food of my child; milk
Bills for gas, all of it redolent of comprador bourgeoisie in fashion,
Hotel and bar bill - a surreptious one, as the bar girl only knows
Airtime and renewal, TV channels and other screen capitalistic ploys
Family trip to local resort in a feat of foolish consumerist venture,
Money to the old mother at home and, sometimes depraved but patient father
ARV’s money to my *** aids stricken sister at the village, my aunt also
Tuition fees for my son at the kindergarten, who goes to schools but learns nothing
fees balance which my wife has to pay at the tailor to ransom out her dress,
M-Pesa and M-Swari loan repayment, this only for Kenyan 30th dayers
They know the agony of dealing with Kenyan mega-capitalist safaricom ltd.
This consumerism and **** consumerism,
It is the menacing bane of the Kenyan poor
It is the avaricious tube which siphons back
The hard earned money from pockets of the poor
Back to despotic account of the pitiless world pigshotry.
Feb 28, 2014
Feb 28, 2014 at 9:35 AM UTC
There is a Cheshire cat with a nefarious nose ring
Who lashes berating riddles, and vernacular that’ll make you cringe
He slithers through abandoned shadows
On dilapidated gravel, and bears a deathly sickle grin
Enticing as he may be, he only wishes to deceive
So be wary of his beguiles, they are hidden underneath his symmetrical smile
Nor give in to the plastic prophecies he preaches
Nothing he teaches will stitch meaning into your ambiguities
For he enslaves your sorrows and siphons your dreams
Leaving you asphyxiated in catatonic screams
Apr 1, 2010
Apr 1, 2010 at 11:26 PM UTC
Galloping through the apparently calm meadows,
My springbok hoofs were touching the grass softly.
How I rejoice hopping in the air above the cool moisty grass,
Hopping feels so ecstatic after a cool shower on the rainy season.
Maybe it's in the rain now that I feel so addicted to, but then I stop,
And probably it's the Anaconda's coil that siphons up on me now.
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 1:07 AM UTC
busy verbalizing my merchandise
a display of teeth reefed behind my smile
because merchandise is what i am after
and The Revels watch over me
and laughter drains down through sewer grates
i am watched over
my potential client walks away
but returns again with queries
on this hot day
a smell like burnt hair raises from the gutters
and these are the streets that radiate
on this hot day
an honest clash and not some some touchy bout
and here we are
the costly coil of pushing business together ;
a lively thrive
thrifty **** you"s and a dressing down
circling the other and striking their buttons
interlaced within is a genuine pressing
toward each other goals
this partnership
swiftly made
has an extreme edge and chaotic balance
the both of us must master or abandon our productivity
shall we be served by this union
or sever fighting ?
unfit
it swerves and suffers a pity
let's keep this one brief
we manage business
handshakes
and scowl away with our wares
each of us feeling equally scammed
(we've made useful enemies at best)
i break out laughing all the same-how
and howl because i feel
that feeling that this could go on forever
and business has roots in all my moods
i crouch at the curb
the curb is abrasive
i sit
i look at the dry heat radiating off the tarmac
the slight greasy lime taste of the air passing
the roof of my mouth
the electric wires running hum into the buildings
the storm drains at the edges of the roads
where laughter siphons down to the magma of Hades
it is waning off now
and i feel vague
i stand and i scan for more players
i spot a vivid orange one
one that i may barter their aura of vigour
traded for my sketchy wares
Mar 12, 2022
Mar 12, 2022 at 9:55 AM UTC
What I love
Is what everyone hates
What brings me joy
Siphons it from others
The Music
The Hobbies
The Weather
Irrelevant
You don't care
None of it matters
The impenetrable social bubble
Destroyed by one person
You untouchable, immortal
Yet fragile Benevolence
My growing smile is proof
There is still hope
Against all odds
A blessing
A remedy for a bleeding soul
For a broken world
Perfection
May 31, 2012
May 31, 2012 at 3:27 AM UTC
f this.
and that.
f the soul-sucking siphons.
f the **** ******** on all the things.
f the wretched that ravages souls.
f plundering the vast unknown. f the broken that breaks us apart. f the pain that can’t find the exit door. f the non sequiturs that never stop. f all the thinks I'll never get to know. f the desert that evaporates technicolor dreams. f the reams of unsung ink.
f getting up too early. f never enough sleep.
f having no focus because mind is always trying to escape.
f the architects of this unending industrialized violent puppet reality TV.
f not having patience for utmost important because basic survival in this free range slave menagerie is just too overwhelming and chips away daily at already threadbare sanity.
f the aches under these ribs always begging for more.
f the abyss that eats cravings caved in for breakfast.
f the knowing that knows how awesomely amazingly brilliant loving flipping mind-glowingly ecstatic and jovial like a MF this existence could be.
it haunts me:
iridescent reflective ascendant peacocked wings
fluttering phoenixflies burst from ill-fit cocoons
surfing air so ******* fresh
even the Lorax ain’t got **** to say - he’s dancing
with kombucha in one hand and a DMT pipe in the other
at the festival called, I dunno, Just Because it’s ******* Monday
and we could
love and make and dream and play
all day every day every year every life...
and I look over
at this giddy ******
epic little boy version of me
and I think:
****
I have to keep trying
keep believing in the things
because the thought of leaving him
in this world, as-is
without me
is the hardest thing
I’ve ever had to think
Apr 10, 2017
Apr 10, 2017 at 11:44 AM UTC
I used to date a guy
Who ****** a lot of people out of a lot of things,
Who pretended to be an alcoholic
Just because he was lonely
And the AA people
Had voices that spoke to him,
Voices that weren't in his head.
In Alcoholics Anonymous,
They have a saying that
"Fear" only stands for
**** Everything And Run."
This is a saying
I wish that I knew
When all those tacky neckties were holding me back.
So it's needless to say
That I didn't have the wise words
Of AA on my mind
As I studied the Big Book on my own.
Instead I marched into his mind
And flushed his month's "sobriety" token
Down his mental *******
Because sobriety doesn't mean
Stealing a bottle of wine from Jewel
And finishing it off yourself.
And I was used to getting lied to,
But I felt bad for those poor AA guys,
Listening to his ramblings on a girl
Who loved him
And wanted him to change
When in reality
She just wanted the lies to stop.
They should have given that sobriety token
To a man who earned it.
Give your tokens
To those who deserve them.
Do not put your pennies in a piggy bank
That only siphons down a gutter
In the end.
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 4:17 AM UTC
Seldom though eventually
His words will wash away
The human mind's a yawning sieve
That siphons thoughts away
For all we are is flesh and blood
And dust, in all due time
His face embedded in my thoughts
Will someday leave my mind.
Each grain of sand; each thought of him
Will slither down the glass
Slow and steady, one by one
Until he's in the past.
For now my mind's a youthful cache,
No wave can wear or wash
Impressions left upon my soul
Cannot be staved or quashed.
-Un-rhymed Notes-
*Every once in a while
The human mind is all it's built up to be;
A sieve, where the balm of time
slowly mends and knits
The torn edges of the chasm.
Every once in a while
It is as if the wound has healed
And the flow of muscle memory
Ripples beneath the unmarred surface*
Jun 18, 2015
Jun 18, 2015 at 8:55 AM UTC
A coercive throat siphons the sky: delineating.
Men of Normandy, your dulcet words still flow
On aching gusts around these hillock ramparts.
Autumns tapestry fell with Harold, listless it
Furnishes the margin of an otherwise bleak-boughed
Wood. An obstinate robin: the failing furnaces closing
Ember, pursues the regressive winter light among the
Limbs of a grand oak, laden with iron cloud, low
And heavy. The thicket is sparse yet astir, two narrow
Eyes, eight square, inky pupils squat below the
Russet brow of a thrice augmented cottage: histories
White-washed witness, bearing pale stone arms and a
Jaunty red-bricked cap.
©Thomas Gabriel
Jan 22, 2012
Jan 22, 2012 at 3:08 PM UTC
i am that spark that ignites your desire
that which fuels your madness.
i am the explosion of your senses
the explicit insult to your feeble needs.
of mind and body, result or not.
i am the force within your planetary resolve
not gravity. nothing of the kind.
i am that which streaks in the sky
a dying star, i am not. to feeble, i think.
i am that which siphons your resistance
the strength of a thousand black holes, i have.
i am that which reasons with your soul
for your body is too weak.
i am that which is enthroned atop your passion
its master and commander.
i am the continuous peal of deafening thunder
that plagues your wild fantasies.
i am your fear
you are at my mercy, i come when i please.
i am the scandle of your life
you dare not whisper of my existance.
i am that unknown
which you seek with feverish want.
i am not yours to keep
not yours to have.
i am that which eludes you
the fruit above Tantalus'head, the water at his feet.
i am.........
that which i will never know, that which you cannot know.
for i am incomplete.
and i am just beginning.............
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 11:10 AM UTC
Amidst the vast blue planet
Of what is sea and porous flesh
The ***** rides the current
At its hunger’s great expense
When restless waters compose
suppressing their distress
With frail mouth tethered closed
The swollen being is dismissed
Lusting for substance
Demure discarded for greed
Heart and hooded nudibranch
Unfasten their jaw to feed
Opaque moon for a mouth
Siphons water like blood
Rhythmic pulsing of valves
Gaping mouth left undone
As time judges persistence
Each beat echoes the ache
The ***** too ravenous
To hinder its weary gates
Then the surface cast light
To the starving and hollow
Who proceed to ignite
With the spark of each swallow
Aug 7, 2012
Aug 7, 2012 at 1:48 PM UTC
Sometimes Silence is a Lie.
it drains the lake, it does... it siphons the symphonies.
it bleaks the speech, unbridled
from a long mute, to a mutiny. the mute in me ~
would rather, but we'd rather knot.
null reprisals, highly prize super nova
in the Scotia of our scathing
plight.
no other might. but...
we'll do what the light won't
in the dark night.
we'll trouble the cube. each of us, the rube
in tomorrow's ****
the Thumb
in the oyster of an ill quiet
where the Lord of Prayers
Errs the attempt
to split Heirs.
We inherit the wind
and a breeze.
And a breeze will ****
a Windmill
straight fair.
but not for the lack of peace.
but the fog of war.
at the very least.
May 7, 2014
May 7, 2014 at 1:48 AM UTC
.
Labyrinth in my head...
Set in heavy stone.
Brightens not,
siphons instead.
The dark gnawing
at skin and bone.
Labyrinth in my heart...
Rerouting purpose
and derailing reason.
I'm together but pulled apart.
I've won most days...
But today I'm beaten.
.
Aug 11, 2017
Aug 11, 2017 at 1:48 AM UTC
Chums are settling
in the back room
of the Feast House ~
post and beam
ember dreams
gray fog fingers
and draping fiords
holding patron's gaze
Dandan is nestled
in a fireside chat
(with a song from Jeremy
playing from
the high rafter)
*sail east
and greet the dawn
young man,
distant shores
are converging*
Old habits
die hard
for the Great Dane ~
whistling tunes
in a somber minor,
baritone sounds and
orchestra strings
rising from a
distant, muted choir
Ruby lips
and finger tips
scour the
cockeyed soiree
*the safe house
is old
and rendered,
but well
worth noting*
Filling jars
with pickled pears,
the specialist
weeds the
white maggot
and siphons his
favoured grog
"...shackle the outhouse
my mates!
the foreign scrum
is bolting!"
Jan 18, 2021
Jan 18, 2021 at 2:37 PM UTC
Amidst the nightly dimness
Branded by vicious lights,
Minds rife with uncertainty
Perch behind strange eyes.
Foam and froth cushion doubts
Of shadows further down.
Tossing, turning, entwined;
Cries against the dreary drizzle.
Thoughts of daybreak vanish
Upon night's nimble prowl.
High above the goddess grins
Veiled by velvet and dust
As desire siphons, ****** and pins
The embers of livened skin.
Sheets of white glide underneath,
Illuminated by tainted radiance
****** on unfamiliar tracks,
Drowning in oceans uncharted,
Knowing less of the world.
Aug 2, 2011
Aug 2, 2011 at 3:09 PM UTC
my brother does this thing where he siphons the stories from someone. Usually old people because they have the best stories
I drive through the old homestead – the fog of my emotions
Have of my memories
My father does this thing where he holds his little hands at his waist, twisting them inside one another
We are three generations eating dominoes pizza
Defined by death and divorce – not there and not existing yet
My grandfather is 90. He is stories made flesh and my brother pulls at them like a rope from a,
Well,
Because he has discovered the census data for Ham Lake from 1940
My grandfather tells stories of the missing generation
His father – can’t work because he’s a welfare brat
His mother died young
Stepmother an angel – gave him socks when his father was crying because they cut him off
My father – tells underbreath mumbles of lost arguments and lost respect – he gives me socks for Christmas
Father drank a lot. You get to pick who I’m talking about. Maybe alcoholism skips a generation. If so I fear for my children.
Grandpa joined the navy. His father got a job – everyday worked it through sickness and in health – a marriage of money and mind because the paycheck meant freedom and freedom meant everything
He finds his dad at work – navy uniform coated in the expectations of his brothers.
“So you went and did it.”
The story kind of trails off there, the way old people stories do. Kind of like young person poems
I helped my dad set up the TV we got him for Christmas
Because he never used the guitar center gift card from last year.
Feb 23, 2018
Feb 23, 2018 at 11:33 AM UTC
There is a string of things hung with ideas as clothes pins
They take off the ideas and the string can't hold the thing
Memories are strands that if you pull it will never stop unwinding
The common person sees something in the little he won in life
The rest are rather useful than pleasant
Nobody received flowers or fame
If you could see now I'm dying to drown in flames
The love I've been placed through has to be the stuff of myth
It seems to hold back until the graze
The way it holds by taking
The way you hold by cradling
There's so much in me that you already know
I have a bit of wrinkles and the acne scars too
The whole of society sees me as living the dream
But the parts of me that people think are hidden are on the internet
See what the world knows
I should be aware of all the rules I've broken to be here
Then no purposeful ignorance can be said of me
There has to be someone who can point out the crumb on my lower lip
Rather than speak without the relevance of politeness
There's something about the way you hold me
That says you're trying me on
There is no transaction taking place
Treasure is most found on the map of my slow heartbeat
The calm before the storm siphons its way into my blood cells
Making me believe in the little I know as well
You have to be well read to read someone else's biography
You have no language if you only understand yourself
Take a bit off
Apr 15, 2018
Apr 15, 2018 at 9:17 AM UTC
The path of life slowly siphons me of my dreams,
like a child ripped of innocents.
Set with false expectations.
lead into the dark with no light.
Guided by stories of those who made it.
Alone in the dark i am.
fearing my surroundings.
following the imprints of the past comers
One institution at time,
I follow.
I follow for the ones who cannot travel this path,
I follow for the ones who have failed on this path,
I follow to leave additional tracks.
As i get closer to the end of this vast darkness,
the path begins to thin until there is nothing but a sliver to guide me.
Fear fills me.
I am lost.
waiting to be found.
Aug 27, 2013
Aug 27, 2013 at 11:05 PM UTC
Voie lactée ô sœur lumineuse
Des blancs ruisseaux de Chanaan
Et des corps blancs des amoureuses
Nageurs morts suivrons-nous d'ahan
Ton cours vers d'autres nébuleuses
Les démons du hasard selon
Le chant du firmament nous mènent
A sons perdus leurs violons
Font danser notre race humaine
Sur la descente à reculons
Destins destins impénétrables
Rois secoués par la folie
Et ces grelottantes étoiles
De fausses femmes dans vos lits
Aux déserts que l'histoire accable
Luitpold le vieux prince régent
Tuteur de deux royautés folles
Sanglote-t-il en y songeant
Quand vacillent les lucioles
Mouches dorées de la Saint-Jean
Près d'un château sans châtelaine
La barque aux barcarols chantants
Sur un lac blanc et sous l'haleine
Des vents qui tremblent au printemps
Voguait cygne mourant sirène
Un jour le roi dans l'eau d'argent
Se noya puis la bouche ouverte
Il s'en revint en surnageant
Sur la rive dormir inerte
Face tournée au ciel changeant
Juin ton soleil ardente lyre
Brûle mes doigts endoloris
Triste et mélodieux délire
J'erre à travers mon beau Paris
Sans avoir le cœur d'y mourir
Les dimanches s'y éternisent
Et les orgues de Barbarie
Y sanglotent dans les cours grises
Les fleurs aux balcons de Paris
Penchent comme la tour de Pise
Soirs de Paris ivres du gin
Flambant de l'électricité
Les tramways feux verts sur l'échine
Musiquent au long des portées
De rails leur folie de machines
Les cafés gonflés de fumée
Crient tout l'amour de leurs tziganes
De tous leurs siphons enrhumés
De leurs garçons vêtus d'un pagne
Vers toi toi que j'ai tant aimée
Moi qui sais des lais pour les reines
Les complaintes de mes années
Des hymnes d'esclave aux murènes
La romance du mal aimé
Et des chansons pour les sirènes.
843
Some lust driven,
mechanical, force bit my heels with
Her.
A skeleton scatters digitally
& opal curls fold and rally;
like the ribbons
I ripped
off
& fed to the floor boards,
records gawk at the
floral four chords.
Corridors with meat lords
& siphons at the doors
of my poor
endurance.
Lather me in mollusc glue
& beach chairs;
I will win this war for you.
Will the bulky books
teach me more
than the feverish looks?
A question to a bronze haired
child,
transparent
as the parents.
Telescopic looking glass
with the basket of the teeth
we've lied through
set aside where I reside:
A coral cave with my liquid
aluminum hunches.
Playing chess in the nest
that I built with
spit & twigs
from another clown
with a different wig.
The hippy who screamed
at his flower.
It was Halloween
& the malt made me assault
a Queen.
Aug 12, 2014
Aug 12, 2014 at 1:10 PM UTC
I have been too long in the world.
I am frayed at my edges
chipped
cracked and broken in places
I have been too long in the world.
Have listened too long to the
THOU SHALT NOTs
the
I WANT IT ALL MY WAYs
the
IT'S MY RIGHTs
and I have let them dry the lake of my soul
with their drains and siphons
I have been too long in the world.
I shall use the golden joinery
of the Japanese art
to honor my frayed edges
weave a golden, or silver, or platinum
thread through them
fill my cracks and broken places with lacquered metals
I have been too long in the world.
other edges, smashed to smithereens,
will be left as they lay
jutted, stiff
while the softened, smashed powder from them
I'll keep in a medicine bag
and mix it, as needed, with my blood
stirred into a salve, a queen of healing
I have been too long in the world.
my thousand-times-broken heart
repaired and repaired and repaired
and re-paired
I will wrap like the gift it is
with the gold of Love
while laughter falls from it
salve regina
c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater
Oct 6, 2017
Oct 6, 2017 at 9:40 PM UTC
I don't know...
Maybe it's cause, it's just one-of-those days.
But I wanna just give it away...
Maybe its because,
Im a little-bit crazy...
Lil-bit lazy.
Or maybe...
Its the story itself...
LONGING TO BE FREE... from ME!
HOW CAN IT BE?
how?
How can it be?
That You would use me?
(Back to the scene)
There's a mighty regime
"Illuminator" of darkened dreams
The Mark is seen
Then izzy starts to believe.
He embarks on the waters streams
"LIVING the dream"
He siphons others,
When well received.
All he achieves,
In just a few short weeks!
Making artists of thieves.
Conqueror of the disease,
of the fruit of deciet.
Not like art but of seeds,
Planting memory trees
In our children who need
Us
See Jesus.
Feb 28, 2015
Feb 28, 2015 at 1:25 PM UTC
it's ready to happen
hours count down to launch, but the burners hum already
the structure is taken up
siphons slowly into the bloodstream
the catalyst, the moment
the agonist, the imitator
the perceptual set is set, and it's famished
not even lit, and it's waiting for more-
the stimulant, the ignition
the doctor, the system
like inlets of blood, the freeways carry us to the city
like carcinogens, like poison medication
like aluminum, like exhaust
i too am carried
and when i reach that center
i am deposited, and begin to take effect
while i wait for my own poison to take hold of me
blood within Blood
and
poison in Poison
medication in Medication in MEDICATION
we make sure all of our cancers are medicated
it has happened already
but i am waiting for it to happen again
the freeway now quiets itself in anticipation
a new day to repeat
the city is ready for more
Aug 16, 2019
Aug 16, 2019 at 1:16 PM UTC
As the sands of time
Slowly slither, silently on
As you try to grab a hold
It siphons through your fingertips
The harder you squeeze
The faster the flow
But when you open your hand
Spread your fingers wide
a small pile settles in the palm
When you hold on
It suffocates suddenly, simply still
But loosen your grip
And life flourishes as you will
Change is the only constant
Always remember the simple truth, that
people are in your life for three reasons:
For a reason
for a season
or for a lifetime
Each one as important as the other
but none so important that you can't live without
each one just a lesson learnt
So be grateful for each moment well spent
Because after all...
All we ever seem to do is say goodbye
Jun 20, 2013
Jun 20, 2013 at 6:38 AM UTC