"sleight" poems
Its a scam, its a scam, see the Crimson Gang deftly scamming them
They by sleight have befuddled gullible masses Moral Compass
Made them see wrong as right twisting their brains from the stem
With deceitful guile they shepherded them all to the fools' campus
Slander and fake News galore fed to vacant hungry masses scrum
Knowledge is power the reprobates declares, do not let it pass
We're the majority the bullies screams, knowing they're just scums
Worthless charlatans who rob successes and **** without cutlass
They take a foregone conclusion and coat it with fool's gold crumb
A victim with no intention of going after an uninterested lass
Dumb masses fed fake news fooled into harassing actions dumb
A non-event becomes a show of the controlling might of our class
Crimson gangs interpret a non-events from his deluded sad drum
Creates a warped sick drama round a hapless victim for laughs
Gives street theater actions to masses, these will oppose and numb
Whilst poor victim subjected to 'voiding' madness wonders past
The Crimson leaders laugh so much like pirates drinking ***
Look how we manipulate the masses, they are so simple and crass
With our devious twisting propaganda they eat out of our ***
We simply use them to nail and crucify our victim to the cross
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 4:50 PM UTC
(Villanelle)
It takes patience to wait for the perfect light.
Glance away and the image can disappear.
And sometimes the background isn’t quite right.
The moment missed is like a face out of sight
That against all logic we hope will appear
From around a corner, bathed in perfect light.
Or a pause in the music on a moonlit night
When hesitating lips touch, and love leans near,
But voices whisper that something’s not right.
Technology offers consolation in its sleight
Of hand: Digitally correct the analog *here
And now*, counterfeit the perfect light.
Yet we want more than the mastered byte.
We want the flash between the waiting and the souvenir,
The instant when self and spectacle fuse, reality felt right.
And so we hold on to what’s passing out of sight,
The collision between soon and too late, the sheer
Thread connecting to the perfect light
In which the background is precisely right.
Jul 21, 2015
Jul 21, 2015 at 7:51 PM UTC
Life is full of mischief and artful trickery
The way through never made easy for the foolhardy
Misleading gestures only employed to solely distract
Left up to you to decipher and hopefully extract
Experiences teach much, had you only been accepting and learning
That a dove could be made to appear; out of thin air, out of nothing
When the road ahead offers no more than mere misdirections
Altered trajectories stemming from convenient misinterpretations
Your cards may have been dealt revealing astonishing outcomes
"Not the hand you get but the game you play," said some
Depending on deft wrists and a flick of the wand
Overnight you'll wake to find that a new day had dawned
Only would happen if into the wind you hadn't spat
Hope would emerge like a hare out of a top hat
The play on light and shadow, nothing short of dramatic
You volunteer onstage, accompanied by apprehension and suspenseful music
Faced with an eager audience; you realise that alone you stand
Be not surprised to learn that love is life's sleight of hand...
Sep 4, 2014
Sep 4, 2014 at 8:22 AM UTC
She says she doesn’t have the strength within herself to write poetry.
Yes, her. The one who so often nourished me with song
til my soul began to learn how to hunt for itself,
whose word carried weight in leading me to pick my own instrument,
albeit one of a different tone,
as the key in keyboard became prominent for the first time
and the sound of purposeful fingers upon it could be considered,
only in the right light,
synonymous to the plucking of strings, just as rooted in emotion.
Yet she's the first to say that she herself can't do it.
Thing is, I suppose we’re politely at odds on the matter.
She favors poetry that’s sharper, with a cleaner cut,
that’s message is immediate and jarring
as a conduit running from soul through skin,
or a loose-lipped diary finally freed from lock and key.
And when she declared it, I started to consider what my poems seem to me:
Blackberry bushes (but kinder, I hope)
that snag and immerse just long enough
to make me feel I’ve had an effect.
I’ve used writing to expel my most gnarled feelings
to any passerby who’s maybe felt the same.
Like crying in a mirror:
alarming, but oddly refreshing,
and an indefinite reminder that our aches are never only our own.
Still, I'm not sure why it blows my mind
to hear that even the most glamorous hearts,
who wear confidence as a summer breeze that's always in their favor
and who inspire, from beau gestures to sleight of hand,
are included in those who find themselves pacing back, back and forth,
begging curbside at the dime store
for a scrap of the same feed that convinces a heart to pump ink.
But she says that any art that's enjoyed is worth it.
So while she seeks out words that bare the bones,
I’ll stay and make a meal of the marrow,
hollowing them so that the poetry may have a rightful place
to reverberate as hymns in a universal monastery.
But hell, like I’m any old soul.
I dress nicer than I otherwise would,
turn to the mother who told me I don’t meet her lowest standards,
and ask for a critique.
All for the moment when she greets me at the door with a legendary G#.
...Now please, could you spare a dime?
Jun 28, 2018
Jun 28, 2018 at 2:27 PM UTC
To my dear friend, or so I thought, your actions have made it clear,
Our friendship’s come to an end, and you truly have taught, that I no longer need you here.
I truly know now, what a true friend should be, and it ‘s not the definition of you
Because today you showed me how, to open my eyes and see that your intentions were never true.
Now you’re just digging a hole, it gets deeper as you say, things that make others weak,
Next time think of the toll, that you will have to pay, when you don’t think before you speak.
The moral of the story, that I want you to hear, is that you shouldn’t be an untrusting friend,
Because you’ll lose all your glory, you’ll cause many tears, and bring relationships to an end.
In life you’ll have people who’ll say they’re your friends, but honesty is what they lack
Because they will take out a knife,
To end your whole life,
But instead stick it right in your back.
Jun 29, 2019
Jun 29, 2019 at 9:59 PM UTC
I am a sculpture
Of life' beautiful scars
Frightening when viewed too close
Perhaps better glimpsed at from afar
Twisting wounds
Healed over scratches
The heart entombed by loves hand
Blood covered latches
Oh masterpiece
Of intentional cuts and scrapes
Purple raised blue bruises
Hidden carefully from the world
I employ delicate spiderweb curtains
And my sleight of hand illusion's
It is only the bearer who understands
Where the deepest wounds are hidden
Bitter tears in a deep bottomless chasm
The unforgettable kiss of affections contusions
These shadows must never be loosened
Forever restrained even by deception
Guarded by spiderweb curtains
And sleight of hand illusion's
All Rights Reserved@ Tammy M. Darby Jan.13, 2013
Feb 25, 2014
Feb 25, 2014 at 10:09 PM UTC
Dull lips give way to a finely sharpened tongue.
Soft skin slides underhand like roughly hidden scales.
*You asked of me to bare my blood.
Both times I cut my veins for you.
Both times you asked for more
And I bled once again,
for you, my Prince.*
A hand touches my soul; held within the demons greedy paws.
All the while, I wonder why, I let you continue to rein over me.
An insufferable plague you have bestowed over my brow.
Nay...
My heart.
My heart quakes from Lust's tightening grip.
My veins bleeding for you...
A card dealt from the sleight of a devils right hands.
A dagger in the left, aimed for the back.
- Hark -
The call of darkness beckons me on-wards.
Calling me home through the red fog and the vile pit of hatred.
*When you asked for me; I was yours.
Then, when you asked for another,
I withdrew...*
You are an enigma, in your entirety.
Oh, sweet angel
burden with a devils twisted soul.
You shall burn forlorn in a delightful blue flame.
*Alas, ask once more my Nephilim Prince.
Ask;
and I shall bleed my veins for you.*
Sep 2, 2013
Sep 2, 2013 at 6:10 PM UTC
A translucent blouse of yellow covers her *******
Black skirt, sliced from foot to hip.
Discreetly covering from all but imagination.
The imagination provides the words.
To conjure image of this bird.
Five feet ten.
Womanly hips.
Sparking witchy fingertips.
In black ankle boots.
She stands.
Makes no demands.
Nobody matters.
Those she just flatters.
Lest those who wish.
Wishes which, can only be met by magic wand.
Only sleight of hand can convince her.
That love will e'er be worth having again
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Dec 22, 2013
Dec 22, 2013 at 8:40 AM UTC
Patiently waiting for the perfect light.
Glassy lake, wind, clouds, perfection’s near
as the moment dwindles into night.
Captured moments prove that you’re alive, a height
of feeling between depths of time and fear
that living casts only imperfect light.
But the moment missed is like a face out of sight
that against all logic you hope will appear
from around a corner, framed by the night.
Technology offers consolation in its sleight
of hand: Digitally correct the analog here
and now, counterfeit the perfect light.
Yet you want more than the remastered byte.
You want the flash between waiting and souvenir,
Self and spectacle fused, reality felt right.
And so you wait for what’s passing out of sight,
the collision between soon and too late, sheer
threads connecting to the perfect light
before the moment dwindles into night.
May 28, 2019
May 28, 2019 at 8:56 PM UTC
One's grand flights, one's Sunday baths,
One's tootings at the weddings of the soul
Occur as they occur. So bluish clouds
Occurred above the empty house and the leaves
Of the rhododendrons rattled their gold,
As if someone lived there. Such floods of white
Came bursting from the clouds. So the wind
Threw its contorted strength around the sky.
Could you have said the bluejay suddenly
Would swoop to earth? It is a wheel, the rays
Around the sun. The wheel survives the myths.
The fire eye in the clouds survives the gods.
To think of a dove with an eye of grenadine
And pines that are comets, so it occurs,
And a little island full of geese and stars:
It may be that the ignorant man, alone,
Has any chance to mate his life with life
That is the sensual, pearly spouse, the life
That is fluent in even the wintriest bronze.
3.5k
The rustic sheet of a door screams as we pull it like a scab
We step inside this warehouse can
Two floors - we're holding hands
His eyes lit like a crescent Moon - excited, he yells "daaad!"
Our head, like swaying swing
We see it all, tongue in cheek
Like controls without the freak
It's so much fun it stings
An asymmetric wasteland
Convenient and distorted
The walls - bleak and boarded
A symbolic sleight of hand
This is where we feel
My father's on the catwalk
Like paranoia paraphernalia
My son's grip tightens, it's the only thing that's real
Absolute felicity
To realize what I have in the confines of my hand
Imperfection in the making - he doesn't understand
Skylarking permissably
A reverie to remember
His smile - sifting through his eyes
Warm, he maneuvers like the flies
He was born in December
Moving closer to my father
He's amidst the in-between
Consistently foreseen
His motion is no bother
He steps along the ply
Somehow keen in his demeanor
Four-years-old, but greener
Tossed and turning - it's the gleaner
The sheet has been disturbed
He's falling to his death
I'm blanketed in sweat
This cannot be deserved
My father's eyes - they match my own
I tear through the distance
Foreseeing and consistent
My father is a witness
The fear - he's fighting falling
We've never known it more
His tiny hands just wishing there were nails
Collective - we're losing all things
I grasp a finger as he falls but not enough to bring him back
My son approaches pavement as it fills my throat the same
I look him in the eyes as they melt away in pain
My body wakes without my mind - hysterically screaming "DAAAD!"
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 3:00 AM UTC
Sly smile, slick man in a matching three piece suit,
sleight of hand, small coins.
Small and round, pink and smooth,
washed down with a whiskey burn.
Pop, pop, crunch, split.
And the come up...
Heart beating out of the tin cage
I had been trapped in my whole life, and now this--
Perfect moment, beautiful people,
laser lights, infinite energy.
Puking blood in the back bathroom.
Sheer happiness. Ecstasy.
Jul 2, 2013
Jul 2, 2013 at 2:31 PM UTC
How do you swindle the light?
This would be the greatest grift.
An ongoing experimental conn
where we all remember,
who the mark(s) is,
pretending, just in case,
behind the curtain,
sleight of hand,
behind the back,
if there is no wizard in the back seat,
just in case...you'll tell the kids:
'it was all for them.' So they could sleep.
Childhoods are just safe houses for hope.
In play roles come easy,
in assortments, and unpackages, separate;
but everyone knows the rules,
their part, they remember
that fairness is sacred to play.
Some games get played
and some gamers’ play is accidental.
The game like the carnival is vacuous,
inhaling all into its eye,
exhaling into its calm, swindles like a carney,
jettisoning all into the extinction of gratification.
The mystery lies in the conspiracy.
System can beat game, house, odds,
conn the conn and you can go home a winner.
The Universe is a big casino, you see.
And all you have to do is get up from the table,
cash in your chips, and figure out where your car is.
The house always wins, you’ll say.
But therein lies the reason we play.
Which you're sure to figure out in the lot,
cramped delineations garner thought,
you'll realize that therein lies nowhere.
The conspiracy lies in the abyss,
A place where villagers lose their cattle,
Costumed & uniformed, singing gray prayers.
Crop circles are diasporic clusters of hope.
Where science fiction invented the cold war,
Between ghosts created by radio waves.
A mass hallucination produced by trauma?
Dellusion v. Illusion
Nurturist v. Naturist v. Projection,
As long as it’s a weapon!
Destination unknown-
But just in case, let’s create something that can destroy us all.
Oct 4, 2012
Oct 4, 2012 at 1:27 AM UTC
I live in the belly of the bully, And that bully is fat and bloated
after eating too much of everyone else’s food without permission. Although he had more than enough to eat and he wasn’t really hungry, he left his island home; and sailed the seven seas to fill his sacks, and bring things back. He pretended to pay, elbowing his way into, through and around their worlds, and because they did not speak English they did not understand his slippery words (and he didn’t learn theirs). With sleight if hand and cannon he subdued then sold their souls to some obscenely wealthy aristocrats back in his island home.
He pushed them into the fields to farm and when they could not lift their arms from starvation he said it was nature’s predestination, so he did not shed a tear and he did not interfere. The natural law was all he saw. That man was very fat and and he was very flawed.
Sean Hunt June 12th
Jun 12, 2016
Jun 12, 2016 at 6:13 AM UTC
Pumped Up Kicks
Robert's got a quick hand.
He'll look around the room, he won't tell you his plan.
He's got a rolled cigarette hanging out his mouth, he's a cowboy kid.
Yeah, he found a six shooter gun in his dad's closet hidden with a box of fun things.
And I don't even know what but he's coming for you, yeah, he's coming for you.
[Chorus 2x:]
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks you better run, better run, outrun my gun.
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks you better run, better run faster than my bullet.
Dad – he works a long day.
He'll be coming home late, he's coming home late.
And he's bringing me a dark surprise.
'Cause dinner's in the kitchen and it's packed in ice.
I've waited for a long time.
Yeah, the sleight of my hand is now a quick-pull trigger.
I reason with my cigarette
And say, "Your hair's on fire, you must have lost your wits, yeah."
[Chorus 2x:]
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks you better run, better run, outrun my gun.
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks you better run, better run faster than my bullet.
Ru-ru-run, run, run, run [4x]
[Whistling]
[Chorus 4x:]
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks you better run, better run, outrun my gun.
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks you better run, better run faster than my bullet.
Mark Foster
Jul 21, 2013
Jul 21, 2013 at 1:52 PM UTC
she touched up untended walls
all alone, no party assembled
attempting to create reactions
with her color selection
and inspire sunken eyes
with the antonym for
"you are worthless" and "no one cares"
...but the paint is peeling
and her motivation runs constant
as she prepares her endurance
to spackle and smooth grooved surfaces
prime marks and hide pitted edges
to place appropriate strokes adequately
and try a little color contrast
on previously blended door and window trim
...but the paint is peeling
now bubbles form and fall flakily at her feet
as a sleight of hand starts its mischief
of defacing the layers of her self-affirmation
with synonyms for the premature initiative she displayed
so, she drops her tools and starts peeling
removing the pain that is hindering her renewal
and covering the constant decay correctly
working toward a strengthened surface
that maintains its finish against the cruelest force
and accepts loving, touches
without turning them to criticism.
Jan 22, 2011
Jan 22, 2011 at 12:47 PM UTC
A sleight of hand, and a boot that fits. Tightly; so tight a long walk seemed a step backwards.
So he walked, around the rings of Saturn, given the spins. He dances, a waltz for Venus.
He manages to steal his own heart, before she can.
Sep 11, 2016
Sep 11, 2016 at 11:41 PM UTC
These lovers’ inklings which our loves enmesh,
Lost to the cunning and dimensional eye,
Though tenemented in the selves we see,
Not more perforce than azure to the sky,
Were necromancy-juggled to the flesh,
And startled from no daylight you or me.
For trance and silvermess those moons commend,
Which blanch the warm life silver-pale; or look
What ghostly portent mist distorts from slight
Clay shapes; the willows that the waters took
Liquid and brightened in the waters bend,
And we, in love’s reflex, seemed loved of right.
Then no more think to net forthwith love’s thing,
But cast for it by spirit sleight-of-hand;
Then only in the slant glass contemplate,
Where lineament outstripping line is scanned,
Then on the perplexed text leave pondering,
Love’s proverb is set down transliterate.
2.6k
looking down
to spot my shadow,
i glimpse
your slender silhouette instead.
my orange tip butterfly!
this ain’t a sleight of light,
as dreams merge
our souls unite,
leaving our tanned bodies tangled
in a titillating state of tantric union
© 2021
Sep 18, 2021
Sep 18, 2021 at 8:36 AM UTC
the words that once flowed off my tongue have all been dried,
leaving nothing but a cracked and barren wasteland,
desert termites squeeze themselves into places they’re not wanted,
the phantom figure of what was once alive cries for water in a broken voice that will never be heard,
even by the most intent of listeners.
the fruits of my labor are met with mud on my clothes and spit in my face.
at the night’s fall i bask in the eternal cold,
the air i abuse is extracted from my lungs with sleight of hand
and an unnervingly charming smile,
a cherry tree beckons me forward as it waves in the midnight wind,
the crickets fall silent and i am momentarily assuaged,
bathed in the yellow light of the moon.
time ebbs and time flows, bringing with her the judge, jury, and executioner.
like Saint Bartholomew, i am strewn up to be flayed,
from my pocket falls a needle and thread, a note from someone long ago left behind,
and a rotting apple core.
they belong to the Earth now,
and soon so will my precariously perched form,
my very essence pooling around the tree and staining the leaves pink.
at my decaying touch, maggots spawn.
as if trained, they surround my body,
a cocoon in which i metamorphosize into who i’ve always been.
in my chest, the vultures will nest,
feeling safer than i ever could have,
nothing left of the girl who once wove tales of grandeur and painted paradises in her mind,
but a torn canvas and an empty shell waiting for its puppeteer.
Feb 3, 2019
Feb 3, 2019 at 11:10 PM UTC
No, no! Go from me. I have left her lately.
I will not spoil my sheath with lesser brightness,
For my surrounding air hath a new lightness;
Slight are her arms, yet they have bound me straitly
And left me cloaked as with a gauze of æther;
As with sweet leaves; as with subtle clearness.
Oh, I have picked up magic in her nearness
To sheathe me half in half the things that sheathe her.
No, no! Go from me. I have still the flavour,
Soft as spring wind that’s come from birchen bowers.
Green come the shoots, aye April in the branches,
As winter’s wound with her sleight hand she staunches,
Hath of the trees a likeness of the savour:
As white as their bark, so white this lady’s hours.
2.3k
There's the mosh...sordid details that thing...
creeping of sort...retelling...to stay in focus.
A silent film whose black borders encapsulate
a slab of skyward white.
Visages...opening...opened...to interpretation.
"The apparition of these faces in a crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough."....ashen...
daguerreotype of a Zen Garden.
All of nature's pretties cast in an occult brew...
stirred, and stirring...composite sketches posted
and burned upon lampposts.
At large...ritualistic making-of-face...illusion
trafficking the ever present primes of lives...
"the center of which is everywhere, the
circumference nowhere."...attestation o' mugs.
Visages...plucked from a year of our lord,
to be...rendezous of all light's putting to...
years thereof.
Alien unto thyself...oogly boogly, yet mirror-imaging...
behold/beheld/beholden.
By sleight of Hand...visages, who'd otherwise
be as soon pruned and leathery, inanimate under the
sun.
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 11:19 PM UTC
Left bank beards
in Beat hotel rooms,
a boulangerie breakfast
down the street and to the left,
and for lunch fresh baked bread and brie.
Letters sent home to fathers and mothers
singing sweet serenades of Paris
dressed up in autumn shades,
cheques for the royalties that'll
get them to Belize to write and swoon,
chat up ladies in the early afternoon;
where hotel fees that are treble those in the 5th,
bookshop stalls that'll never be found
another closing-down-establishment myth.
They were climbing with oxygen
long before we came along,
base camp poems written under
floor lamplight right before
the eyes of others.
Jett powered prose and wine in the light
sleight-of-hand punctuation and uptight
editors looking for finer narration.
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 28, 2013 at 3:52 PM UTC
1.
Potholes
spots of sunshine
wobble
2.
Sudden downpour
noisy trucks at midnight
crowded footbridge
3.
Sipping coffee
at a wayside stall
cockroaches too
4.
The morning sun
fondling with tender fingers
the red roses
5.
Chasing each other
in the bylane
two birds
6.
A girl
between the railway tracks
swings her pony tail
7.
Softness of wind
magic in her nearness
sleight of hand
8.
End of festival:
I stop by her haiku
on twitter.com
9.
A teenager
glides past me on roller blades
her long hair flows behind
10.
A toddler
trying to stand up by the pram—
young mother watches
--R.K. SINGH
Sep 19, 2012
Sep 19, 2012 at 12:52 AM UTC
-Audience!
Prepare for the magic act
*Hypnotically launching attacks
upon the helpless masses*
Won't pull a rabbit from a hat,
Rather false-flaggish gaffs
Practically exposed to radioactive madness
*(Feel the hurt disappear like doves
Gloriously soaring out your ***
Hijack these hijinks
Whilst laughing maniacally
Tornado alley to the trailer-park mentality
I call this a helluva brainstorm,
High-velocity lethality
Compose yourselves
Are your brain-stems intact?
-Okay. Now
*f
o
l
l
o
w
the swing
of
my pendulous
p e n m a n s h i p
Drearily drift into dreamy trance,
While I attempt
to initialize a feat
of mass hypnotization
Enchantingly dip
into deep illusory corridors
of thoughts limitless*
(Pay no attention
to any slippage,
Mental or otherwise
It's already dripping out your ears
& the seat of your pants)
Real ****
no gimmicks!
Abracadabra
Propaganda
Extravaganza
Gaze into my crystal ball
Mouths agape in awe
While I slay and lay waste
indiscriminate to the faceless plague
Come one, come all!
Phantom sorcerer I am, conjuring
unfathomable horrors
To the collective mind
procured through sleight-of-hand
Voila!
Still with us?
Alright, hold your breath
until you finally wake up
And illuminate the bogus
Hocus pocus front
♠ ♥ ♣ ♦
Shuffle the deck,
Reset Earth's debts
In a fabulous show
of m i s d i r e c t i o n
♠ ♥ ♣ ♦
Now, Ladies & Gents!
For my final performance
With this rope,
Suspended from the throat
I am going to bulls-eye myself
In the frontal lobe
Dead-center
In front of all you people
With this
.40 caliber desert eagle!
Graciously donated by our very own NWO
(applause)
This one's sure to be mind-blowing folks.
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 5:41 AM UTC