"sleuthing" poems
The leopard and the lion chose to become friends,
For they were all proud of claws on their paws
They each glorified one another for their mighty,
Ability to live on meat of other fauna throughout a year,
They each admired one another for running speed,
They each remained firm and loyal to one rule;
Lions don’t eat leopards neither leopards eat lions.
They felt warmth in their companionship without verve,
Until the time they initiated a certain joint venture;
To hunt an antelope as it was famed to be the sweetest,
Again, there had remained one antelope only in the world,
They dilly and not dallied anyhow about such glittering project,
They both endevoured to set forth by each dawn for a whole year,
Tediously hunting throughout a day, the lion doing a great part,
Setting ambuscades and arduously sleuthing to orient on trail,
The leopard severally fainted in the field due to exhaustion,
On one eve of christmas day, the lion captured the prey,
When the leopard was a sleep shivering in fevers of malaria,
Their prey was a middle aged female antelope with swollen hips.
The leopard was sparked to fire of life by a mysterious fillip,
He boldly requested work, now to help the lion in carrying,
The un-suspecting lion relinquished the carcass to the leopard,
Feat of shrewdness gripped the leopard, he took off
Running away with a lightening speed, the antelope on his mouth,
The lion again began to chase, shouting to the leopard,
To be a gentleman and stop running, for them to share the plunder,
The leopard never listened, he craftily climbed to the apex,
Of the most tall and most slippery tree, he perched at the peak
With the antelope on his muscular mandibles of voracity,
The lion remained at the stem, wailing like a toddler
His family does not climb trees, not even a shrub,
The lion wailed, using all styles of wailing,
Pleading with the leopard to donate even an iota,
Not even a small piece of antelope bone dropped
To drop on the ground for the lion to taste,
Human leopards are not good hunting companions.
Mar 21, 2014
Mar 21, 2014 at 1:16 PM UTC
Sleuthing drunkenly in a car home.
My nature subdued by the foul
nature of the world.
Gay club I leave my body hanging out to dry.
I can show every but ever moment of myself
and I love every send of it.
Belly is out.
Dec 31, 2022
Dec 31, 2022 at 11:11 PM UTC
tense as the rolled up newspaper thrown
slapping against the step
at dawn
awakening conspiratorial
slinking around the truth
sleuthing sniffing
my way to find
out this way or that but the way
about the signs the clues
preachers words the same weight
as the street corner girls
a way to think
in our detectiving
then the ultimate
DNA almost
the penultimate
remains of the doer dids
the who what did
whats the ne'er do wells on
Mulberry street , I know them hoods
no they were not the culprits
I scent along above below
sniff and snoof
behoove behind the wildest dogs
to find it was
mine own trail I had found
among the shivering forest green
I sat considered
a shylock set this up
then saw the bacon on my foot
I had been following.
I set off again my foot clean.
I will find this bandit.
I like bacon , though.
May 6, 2017
May 6, 2017 at 1:44 AM UTC
times like this, the plenary moon
tonight wearing many faces,
the white-washed truant at bay
white-hulled still, the brim of the sky
to a full, on such a bright night leaving a trace
of say, prongs of fire on the kiln
the skin the soft breeze molests with a chill
flung from pinecone – the blackened spires of the
very heart of flame and the mullioned wood that understands
what the heat of placeness mints underneath
our skin – what silence remains a translation when the smoldering
remains are bitten repeatedly, aureoled in the moment of vital meaning.
we hear its threat, retained in clock-whirs
like a primordial word or the fluting of light’s bendable
rondure harnessing a truth we let in.
I fail behind the walled-up lip of laughter
because the weight of passing
is heavy on my back – like a bough dragged
by rainwater, or sound elected to drown:
the smell of poinsettia assaults,
lifting its slaughter against Kiltepan and Ambuklao,
past mountains lulled to sleep: the moon sleuthing
like a well-oiled machine. what do you hear?
we are aware of its full absence,
like that of our undulation after a fall,
or the wild sibilance of breath trying to utter something,
going back home with a song in between teeth,
without words.
Feb 24, 2016
Feb 24, 2016 at 6:56 AM UTC
almond fronds for visions
spidered eyes black a wink kisses
the cheeks a sunrise nose spry
lips of tangerine peels left after eating the heart
calmest flowing rivers shoulders of
the places bream nip
for joy under a water slip
she is jungled
shy as the panther in the shadows
sleuthing blending in and standing out
when your eyes do meet a sudden
reality
by god she is beauty
the forest the green lush
thickets impenetrable dark illusive
illusory a dream a destroyer saviour a wild thing
a nerve fiber a coiled up bindle
of masks and hard sharpnesses and soft fur
purr
Jul 13, 2017
Jul 13, 2017 at 5:55 PM UTC
I wrote a short HePo series, an amalgamation of poetry and narrative. I tried to make a journey out of it for the reader in the classic Choose Your Own Adventure style in the sense that the onus was on the reader to continue the narrative instead of simply imploring the reader to turn the page.
This is the 'Director's Cut' for those without copious free-time to invest in internet sleuthing. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it:
Chapter One:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4930049/1-hades-lament/
Chapter Two:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4930058/2-no-where/
Chapter Three:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4930062/3-death/
Chapter Four:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4930078/4-a-day-goes-by/
Epilogue:
https://kiloblitz.net/2024/12/09/life-of-nowhere/
Jan 10, 2025
Jan 10, 2025 at 4:14 AM UTC
Gather round me, cursed patrons, I present to you a plague
Fare best served with murky water and descriptions best left vague
As a danger to ye all- I proffer cowards to depart-
There is peril in the air: A guise of parables and art.
Take heed now, sleuthing citizens, for clues lay all around
What drove the maddened cabin boy to run the ship aground?
Whose seductive fabrications made an honest man forswear?
Beware the pen and paper, there are clever souls out there.
Dec 5, 2011
Dec 5, 2011 at 4:08 AM UTC
It jumps along the clouded rows, two by two in sync
Step by step it crouches down, waiting for its opportunity
It scurries and jumps having a life of its own, as the light flickers on and off
Never once stopping on its rampage.
Creeping, sleuthing, mischievous in nature
It runs amok, never faltering in its blurry stride
Leaping, bounding, curious little thing
It slowly dwindles down, pausing briefly in a haze.
"Watch out!"
It looks up warily
"Go! Move!"
It flickers briefly
Then it sparks and resumes it tyrannic charade!
Up and down, forwards and back, swishing too and fro
It looks startled and never stops; will it ever slow?
Left, right, and back again, kneeling to the ground
It seems as if it wants out, this buggy little thing.
It listens to the resonance, hearing the silence as if it speaks
Booming, louder, LOUDER
It grows and stills, bracing for impact
Nothing, shadows, lapping at its feet
Quiet, hush, do you hear it too?
The rain that picks up beat?
Feel the tempo, breath it in
Embrace the pelting mewl
Slowly, slowly, its starts to calm
Reaching upwards
Can you grasp it little thing?
The moon the shines above.
Stand up tall and take what's yours!
A rustle, a sigh, "Are you there?"
A flurry, a side-step, "Can you hear?"
A mistake, too late, "Want to know?"
A pounce, make haste, "The fool lies!"
It stopped, this thing, that moved so fast
It doesn't function, this thing, that's too bad
Why did you stop mysterious thing?
Was it the dark? Or was it fear?
Wake up, wake up!
Please wake up!
I don't want to die yet...
Jul 6, 2011
Jul 6, 2011 at 7:44 PM UTC
Everything was as it
always was, nothing had changed –
youth sleuthing through
the heightened wet,
light gracing stonetop,
and a pillowed streak
on western sky –
and as before,
sun corrals light –
amoral, though not abnormal
but for
its leaning
on my weathered
heart
Jan 18, 2013
Jan 18, 2013 at 8:46 PM UTC
To watch with intent but not desire, his life passed
him on as he tries to explain which one he
would take to the afterlife if there is such,
like a convergence at the tip of the horizon or a
humid evening in Pasay as pyrotechnics scrape
sky fashioned like acrobats. The breeze he needs
no longer. And then begins to disquiet the quiet
with the heavy burden of which he will then forget
when he starts to move all of a sudden in space,
capitulating afterlife again if there is such,
and if everything takes a sojourn into the bleakness, must I remind you that you are all
variations of the same absence. Remember when
you had your name carved on wood as attendance
but not for long. You have escaped, locked in the
arms of a life that you thought was yours but
still isn't, leashed under the Sun. Bodies pulse
then fluctuate but not a sign of life. Words function
more in stillbirth. Never forget, as a dandelion
hovers and puts a smile on your dreary face,
and a question in search for all available and naked
answers. Principles undermine caprice. Do not
adhere. Must I remind you that you are
someone else apart from who you think you are.
You have yourself straightened, tucked safely
like intent, not desire in all its voluminous and
vehement speeches annotating something unknown
to the behest of ourselves. If I were a house,
I am gratified by windows -- your mirage there
transfixed in a secluded spot, looking out
brimming with life as curtains oscillate as the
Earth breathes with you. If I were a house,
you would ransack everything with a sly mouth
packed with powerful narrative. How you
have done over, leaving everything undone,
moved off-tangent, under impossibly gray skies,
brindled in prayer. If I were a house,
doors slammed, speculative fabrications sleep
through evenings and mornings until no difference
is met -- you meant a word as if it had a lock
and the key, somewhere cold in the air of
sleuthing pains making me so, less than
this and more of a fractured house.
Apr 15, 2016
Apr 15, 2016 at 7:43 AM UTC
Why are you so concerned of these little things
They dont amount to anything
They are nothings
But you see them as your everythings
Its just things
Your thoughts become something
I want to rip off like clothing
But you stand there seething
Quick paced breathing
Acting like its sheathing
The words you are mouthing
But i know you are wreathing
You say nothing
I try to be soothing
My love once unswathing
Replaced now with loathing
My heart cut by your scything
Just say anything
Dont leave me sleuthing
Questioning your worthing
Your silence bites like you're teething
Your intentions sit froathing
You toy with me like a plaything
I am something
Whats left unearthing
When i assume it will be scathing
Leaving me sunbathing
In your seething
Of your nothings
Which became your everything
And am I anything?
Just a little thing.
Apr 4, 2014
Apr 4, 2014 at 3:58 AM UTC
with what you had in your hands was simply
an ellipsis to emptiness. Hands can only carry
very little weight.
and to have been caught in a virulent string
of your Decembering noontime air – was it,
just birds spry and singing or was it
a wreathe of girls surrounding the *****
back to how it was to create light out
of primitive engines?
once it capitalizes, we are caught in this
small circle. often retained, the detritus of
such duel: once ripples are May and
initialed the reprise of springtime,
yet here we are only tropics, and cancer,
and the heat is too much as to bear
charge, your tired, sleuthing dog Django.
rasp for the lift, was it before the collapse
when both a yawn and a dance trembled
into /stillness/
Mar 2, 2016
Mar 2, 2016 at 11:35 PM UTC
Shadow as proof of memory: the indistinct light spilling on the tablework together with smears of water. The smell of hair on his skin now is engraved as lesson. At the tip of her tongue is strange wonder. Said this inner life when it starts to crumble, you are witnessed in the soar. Bedraggled through the slope of the street, a hand, or a vestige.
Her bony prominences of hand kneaded to retain as memory – to be swallowed by the full procession after; stroke as compromise: as if mapping all out. This is not how it should happen. It would happen when a safe distance is maintained by two bodies: the other sleuthing, the other moving in finite directions. An end will be revelry.
– took whatever it was that cannot be contained by the body. Remember first when you took the dive
into the water, as if never to return again, together with silent fish and errant current.
Underneath the blue, light still casts shadow in interstices. Conveying weight
in water – your mouth as conduit, my body as land for the till and clearing. Or my longing. Or a soon to be discovered ambiguity. Skimming through your moving imperatives, telling me you cannot
commit to quantum movements. That in that event, the world will throw you
syncopated images, that it will give rise to your hiding altitude and lob you to vertigo.
Detachment as question. They must run. They must remain fugitives – to be unseen by the rest, and only themselves know their seams, symmetries, contours even in absences. Even the sky now is engorged with cirrus. Soon, like half-truth, or wildfire brash against green, the pallor will deface the atmosphere and give it unction of rain. Must they be reminded that they should run.
But you are in a city, and it is impossible to not be thrown out of line by another figure. Names will be given. Directories will be solicited. Voice necessary to halve
this blatant quiet. And then to remind you of your sudden place, they will build a map
or a bridge with their arms outstretched into the sky, looking at you with life brimming through
their eyes – the smoke of your departure once again curling in its fetal nature
against their brows. Everything you do and undo is a forecast of some liminal finality,
as if all of this is birthed by the same oblivion – and that all forgetfulness feels that same in different
cities that may or may not know your name. And that in changing season, there will
always be
a hand that will be held even in its tiniest detail – all of the shadows once
cast by your small body drunk in its proud altitude – we both
know whose hand I am thinking of
Apr 13, 2016
Apr 13, 2016 at 9:56 PM UTC
there are many things trembling, disparate, conscious of their
spaces. things appear colossal when near. rife as tongued word,
an approximation – a misuse of time;
dealing more for sight than feeling, things snap in a very short distance.
fire burning glowers pale. lilt of a sentence in speech.
a luminescence is nearness. its impact, relative – brands it a different
form, recalls it, a clear warning as message.
what is yearned for is distant. mostly what’s ignored is as obvious
as want. you, both at the same time, undulating.
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 4:57 AM UTC
I will trust you with all my crystallised ideals, escaping my throat with my broken chariot voice
sleuthing amongst our pasts, while wanting to be in each others' present, now, tomorrow, and the next day
this trust is a fragile thing
I cannot give it to anyone
nurture it, light my eyes, touch my hands, dance with my sleeping body
the sun frames your beauty into this work of art, this black haired god, and you don't notice the rays
but I always do
trust me with your heart and hands and swallow your pride, desert your logic, and put your hands on my waist
as you surrender
to this forbidden kiss
-cj
Aug 21, 2014
Aug 21, 2014 at 11:19 PM UTC
If you
Dress for success
Wear nice clothes
People will talk
Oh Your one of
Those
Putting on airs
Supercilious
Conceited
Egotistical
Know it all
High and mighty
Self important
Attention seeker
If you
Dress simply
People will talk
You’re broke
Have no money
Lackadaisical
Pitifully
Poor
If you are
Successful
Prosperous
Thriving
Flourishing
People will talk
Inauspicious
Show off
Rubbing
in our face
Purposely
Making
Us look
Bad
If you are
Struggling
Phlegmatic
Unsentimental
People will talk
You’re
Languishing
Weak minded
In
The
Wrong
Place
If you
Speak
your mind
People will talk
You are
Superannuated
Antiquated
Archaic
Obsolete
Rude
Various
Opinions
Willingly
Conclude
If you
Stay Quiet
Quiescent
Indolent
Languorous
People will talk
You’re sulking
Brooding
Pouting
Self-deluding
Tantrum
Life is
convoluted
Opinions
Are like
Elbows
Everybody
Has one
No matter
What you
Do today
People
Will always
Have something
To say
Don’t let
Negativity
Rule the day
Mind over matter
Nonsense
Should not have
A voice
A choice
Useless chatter
Ignorant
Inconsequential
Naysayers
Are
Irrelevant
Players
As long
As
God
Is pleased
With what
You do
And say
Who cares
What people
Say
In the
Light of day
Live
God’s
Way
Inspired songs
1) it’s complicated 2002
By Avril Lavigne
2) complicated 2004
By Joss Ross
May 3, 2025
May 3, 2025 at 10:24 PM UTC