"slights" poems
Above the caldera at Yellowstone,
a brittle soil-rock crust
caps a lake of liquid fire
with only fumaroles and roiling geysers
to slake its upward ******
A single heedless step is enough
to breech that mantle's fragile seal -
spelling death by fire
to any hapless soul
who fails to guard his steps.
Fragile calderas also roil
buried in dark crevices of our psyches -
brewed of failures, slights and fears
dissolved in fiery pools
of self-consuming misery.
To dress and salve our wounded souls
we plant fertile gardens of reconciliation
with beauty, trust and charity
and kneel to gods of grace and solace.
But a despot’s practiced eye
knows how to tap our fragile crusts,
releasing acrid lava flows
from pools where fear and rage reign hot,
and reason has no district.
Friends and siblings - my flesh and kin,
this world is ours to lose or save
so let us seal well our Sacred Calderas
from bitter foes that stalk us from within.
July, 2006, revised December, 2014, 2015 and 2018
Robert Charles Howard
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 12:40 AM UTC
i can make one bottle of beer last hours
From cold to lukewarm
My *** settling into a state of what I call
Perma buzzed
Wussy sip after wussy sip
Perplexed looks and slights from friends
It serves me right to drink so slow,
Evading the glass bottle bottom but
I guess I want to be able to hold onto something so much,
It warms up to me and serves me well.
~
Right now, I want to be buried in a house of lavenders.
Aug 23, 2015
Aug 23, 2015 at 11:40 PM UTC
I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all
oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with
themselves, remorseful after deeds done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying,
neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the treacherous seducer
of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be
hid—I see these sights on the earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny—I see martyrs and
prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea—I observe the sailors casting lots who
shall be kill’d, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon
laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these—All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look out
upon,
See, hear, and am silent.
6.5k
<>
**”To dream by the oak and awake by the sea
when August has ripened and turned Jubilee
you must enter dominion of summer's delight
and live in the rapture of candescent light
Oh to live and to love one must first learn to kiss,
the kinetics of summer, with eternal bliss.”**
~from vienna bombardieri’s poem, “Kinetics Of Summer~
(with her kind permission)
<>
First verse pinpoints accurate, this,
my spot!
by oak and sea,
my precise longitude and latitude, where my summertime
eyes open to receive the gift of morning’s light, observing
the conjunction of land, hard by the sea, the land-ed avian gentry
and sea~sailor birds interacting, sharing the uprising currents,
for sport and observation, travel and pleasured sailing,
these “Masters of the Sky can fly for hours (or days), while barely flapping,” and this verse stuns, and
my shock,
at these, her words
my breathing is gasped and grasped
by oak and sea, for so it be,
this is where
my morning’s operatic scrum, ballet and dance hall hullabaloo,
my diurnal natural choreography is performed,
while slow sipping my very heated first coffee
it was here
that I learned to love more easily,
for the kinetics of summers trio of sun, sky, and moderate breezes,
lulled the turbulence of my disheartened lives into an easier
order, the world~surround, a living, breathing exercise that
warmed the spirit, cooled the soul, and spoke without uttering
a single word,
here dear person, is the where and the when,
the comfort of the natural-blanket
that enwraps, covers, cherishes the atmosphere entire,
containing the healing elixirs and protective ointments,
that remove the
plaque of life’s accumulated injuries, slights and scar tissue
simply put,
here I breath freely,
here I see with clarity
here the infusions of
living in nature, prolongs,
restore, remind, enliven
and enhances,
the intermixture of
body and soul
here in actual deed,
the kiss of summer bliss
upon
my tiring cell’s walls,
are resurrected even unto the nuclei,
by the warm breath of sun life and sun light,
and the breezes of salty sweet caramel air
and under their loving, combined-dominion
am I
resurrected and will yet sense,
one more Jubilee again
as I lay dreaming
by the oak and the sea…
Aug 2, 2023
Aug 2, 2023 at 4:05 AM UTC
A Rock there is whose homely front
The passing traveller slights;
Yet there the glow-worms hang their lamps,
Like stars, at various heights;
And one coy Primrose to that Rock
The vernal breeze invites.
What hideous warfare hath been waged,
What kingdoms overthrown,
Since first I spied that Primrose-tuft
And marked it for my own;
A lasting link in Nature’s chain
From highest heaven let down!
The flowers, still faithful to the stems,
Their fellowship renew;
The stems are faithful to the root,
That worketh out of view;
And to the rock the root adheres
In every fibre true.
Close clings to earth the living rock,
Though threatening still to fall:
The earth is constant to her sphere;
And God upholds them all:
So blooms this lonely Plant, nor dreads
Her annual funeral.
* * * * * *
Here closed the meditative strain;
But air breathed soft that day,
The hoary mountain-heights were cheered,
The sunny vale looked gay;
And to the Primrose of the Rock
I gave this after-lay.
I sang-Let myriads of bright flowers,
Like Thee, in field and grove
Revive unenvied;—mightier far,
Than tremblings that reprove
Our vernal tendencies to hope,
Is God’s redeeming love;
That love which changed-for wan disease,
For sorrow that had bent
O’er hopeless dust, for withered age—
Their moral element,
And turned the thistles of a curse
To types beneficent.
Sin-blighted though we are, we too,
The reasoning Sons of Men,
From one oblivious winter called
Shall rise, and breathe again;
And in eternal summer lose
Our threescore years and ten.
To humbleness of heart descends
This prescience from on high,
The faith that elevates the just,
Before and when they die;
And makes each soul a separate heaven
A court for Deity.
5.4k
Write something honest.
Write something true.
For you. I know it's hard.
I know it hurts.
I know you're terrified and shaking,
I know the words feel sick in your mouth and **** you,
I don't want to be sick, I don't want to be here,
but you must.
We must.
Keep writing.
No,
Focus.
Focus on me, baby.
Focus on your fingers,
your tongue tracing the words behind your teeth.
Focus on the rhythm, the cadence of keys clicking,
the calm of a storm having raged.
Having sought, having not found and broken, but still breathing.
You are still breathing, aren't you?
Am I?
**** you,
**** me for thinking this was a good idea.
No, wait.
Don't say that just yet.
Don't surrender before the fighting's begun.
Don't look if you never planned to leap.
Don't preach with no intent to prac-
No. You, Wait.
You sit and ******* wait awhile.
There.
Where I can see you.
Don't pretend that pretending isn't what we're good at.
What we're made for.
Don't spill your secrets like the world will thank you.
The world doesn't give a ****
The world doesn't care,
about your slights, your dreams, your fantasies.
No one gives a **** about your hopes.
No one's going to cry along with you, so stop it.
Shut up.
Honesty is for the virtuous,
and we, have all of us sinned,
again and again.
Your vulnerability supposes anyone would care to read...
Why?
When we'd all rather write?
Jan 6, 2014
Jan 6, 2014 at 9:21 PM UTC
A thousand tumbles takes a bottle in the sea-
a thousand dashes and whirls and swoops.
A million grains of sand takes that bottle in the sea,
to break apart, to come to me
in fragments like a snowflake fractal.
How many mermaid miles till she hands that glass to me?
For I've taken out my very-ness, for you.
- And my crossness.
My judgement and wrath.
I've taken out slight hot breathe
(for you to melt the ice on your whiskers.)
I've taken out my toes when they are reaching for yours in the cavernous blanket world through the forest of our lazy limbs.
I've taken out my righteousness
and my second guessing.
I've taken out for you (a surprise, I was going to surprise you!)
all the times you were going to be wrong to me-
and to wrong me...
taken them out to sea, you see?
In that bottle, pretty bottle. Broken now like too many vows.
I've taken out my knowing best and finding better.
I've taken out the half moon of your thumbnail as well
...I will miss that in my night sky-
(perhaps I'll keep that after all.)
I'll take out the complacency of holding your hand getting out of a chair.
and the mindless strokes
as you explain
my commonplace crazy
to
simpler minds-
I'll take out the very-ness of me, and the we-ness of us.
and fill a bottle with a the brine of a thousand tears from hundred slights not slighted quite yet.
I fill the bottle and gift the sea
with the softness of you and the brashness of me.
A thousand turnabouts it takes to reach you on the beach,
a sea glass diamond ring, engage me you engaging man-
and the tides tickles my feet in anticipation, marry me. marry me.
just a sea glass promise
for a mermaid bride
waiting for the sailor man to sing her sweetly with salt on his lips
Just a sea glass lullaby from the man who loves me so.
Marry me, marry me
And we drink sparkling water from a sea glass flute
and we drink all the us and we drink all the we
for sea glass could never hold a second in,
sea glass is far too vain not to shine in the sun fanning
your invite out in a spectrum of color that
a small child's hand creates when he holds it up to the rays.
Spills out all of my intentions
Spoiled child, loved child,
Spills out all of my intentions carelessly on the sandy floor for the tides to swallow whole.
My sea glass prism chucked unceremoniously back to sea
and me the mermaid bride left at her own alter...
But a seashell to your ear and her my wailing sorrow calls,
'marry me, sailor. marry me.'
sahn 8/5/14
Aug 4, 2014
Aug 4, 2014 at 11:42 PM UTC
Above the caldera at Yellowstone,
a brittle soil-rock crust
caps a lake of liquid fire
with only fumaroles and roiling geysers
to stay its upward ******
One errant step is all it takes
to breach that mantle's fragile seal -
spelling death by fire
to any hapless wanderer
who fails to guard his path.
Fragile calderas also roil
buried in darkest hollows of our psyches -
brewed of failures, slights and fears
dissolved in molten pools
of self-consuming misery.
To dress and salve our wounds
we sow gardens of reconciliation within
with beauty, trust and reason
and bow to gods of grace and solace.
But a despot’s studied eye
knows just how to tap our fragile crusts,
releasing acrid lava flows
from pools where fear and rage reign hot
and reason has no district.
Sisters and brothers of our flesh I pray
we find a holy and transforming alchemy
to convert our heat to light
and shield our sacred calderas
from enemies that stalk us from within.
July, 2006, revised December, 2014, 2015 and 2018
Robert Charles Howard
Oct 4, 2018
Oct 4, 2018 at 12:30 PM UTC
I cant tell you how much the hush hush hurts,
the gaps,
[the deliberately left blanks]
the silences that make me scared of saying words out loud.
It's the switching of meanings that does it,
all the tip toe awkwardness
the swift, unconscious side steps.
It's the whole long stretch of silence,
the whole deliberate
accidental
hush hush of something I never even knew the name of.
It's the casual,
forgettable
drops of slights
that I'm still turning
over and over.
It's a hush hush never intended to be malicious but
the quiet twists and tears
and so I can never tell you how much the hush hush hurts
because the silence keeps me hush hushed too.
Jun 14, 2018
Jun 14, 2018 at 4:12 AM UTC
Things sometimes fall apart
Among sisters and brothers,
No matter what they once were.
Childhood picnics and dreamy games,
Memories of trips with Dad,
Since Mom was tired of us.
We would climb Appalachian peaks
Or drive to look at the Mayflower.
Every summer there was a golden week
A lakeside cottage and all-day swims
In crystal water, becoming mermaids.
But time passes and bitterness accrues.
Imagined slights grow like slow tumors,
Never excised but nurtured by some.
I go to college and am freed
From the poison of ignorant rage,
From the creeping depression left
Like diesel fog on an endless floor.
Four or five years of delight pass
With only hints here or there
Of a sibling’s misery at home.
Of a once close sister, Maggie,
Who is ignored and never loved
By any man she pursues.
She blames me for it, for reasons
I have yet to fathom.
Of a brother, Francis, deluded, drugged,
Steals the family car in a rage
And drives to New York City.
Of Deirdre, the middle sister,
Whose friend who knows men who feed
On her ignorance and rebellion.
Only Susannah tries to rise above
The maelstrom of misery.
I send her to a school far away
And she sheds despair, at least.
Decades drawl, children are born to us,
While the bridge between us, obscured,
Sags and frays under weight of rancor.
Christmas dinners and birthday parties
Turn into chores, invitations kept as scores.
Petty grudges, like acid, sever the bridge
At last, all ties are abandoned.
When we are all grown and scattered,
No one speaking to anyone else,
Unaware, uncaring about the others.
Only Susannah visits me and smiles,
With no ulterior plan for insane revenge,
Or accusations for errant slights.
Her once dark hair is grizzled and wild
And her girlish skin now creased.
But her treacle eyes, “black aggies”,
I used to call them, still shine.
Only Susannah writes a letter,
Wishing us well and
Healing scars made by others,
Returning the word “family”.
To my basket of small treasures,
I carry with me
Into the twilight.
Oct 10, 2021
Oct 10, 2021 at 10:52 AM UTC
You ask me why I’m so angry all the time
I laugh because if I don’t I’ll cry,
I laugh because if I don’t I’ll cry.
And then you’ll call me emotional and hysterical
As if we’re still in the era of old where simple female reactions
Were pathologised and the bold locked up for being “mentally ill”.
You ask me why I’m angry and I simply scoff
And deny because if I start speaking about why
The rage in me will boil over like lava in a volcano
And then where will we be?
[pause]
I want to tell you,
I want to tell you why.
Why this rage, this utter, all consuming anger, this deep-rooted grief.
Let me tell you how I feel like crying whenever I hear about
Another **** case, another girl murdered for daring to refuse,
Another woman of colour who endured terrifying pain,
All because she was who she was.
Another minority violated, another black trans woman killed, her ****** unsolved,
Another child abducted and sold, like a commodity
Another another another
It never stops and it never ends
From micro-aggressions to gross violence
I feel it all in my heart
Like a stab between the fourth and the fifth rib
And it adds to my rage.
The words burst forth from my lips,
But I rein them in
Because even though I want to protest
Against your complete ignorance and your casual misogyny
And my being revolts in response to your words,
I stop myself
because you are my family, my friend, my peer
And if I say something
You’ll just ask me why I’m so angry all the time.
Sometimes there’s no winning
Resistance is futile
In a world so steeped in patriarchy
That it’s unaware of the consequences
Of perpetuating sexist narratives.
But I still want to fight
The oppressive systems that chain the girl child,
The casual way we respond to certain slights
Against the all encompassing freedom of women.
And I’ll take on a thousand such questions
If only I can change one life,
If only I can spread the word and fight the good fight.
And, I would have told you all this
If only you had asked.
If only you had the patience
To listen as I blathered on
About statistics and documented proof
Of how 50% of the world’s population
Is still under constant threat to their lives.
I repeat, fifty percent of the world’s population
Lives with a constant threat to their lives.
I would have told you about how there are thousands of accounts
Of harassment and abuse and violation of basic human rights,
The right to say no, the right to thrive.
I would have told you,
I would have told you all
If only you had asked.
So don’t ask me why I’m angry
Ask yourself why you’re not.
Apr 6, 2017
Apr 6, 2017 at 11:45 AM UTC
I want a love, a love who adores me
A love who believes I am the grandest love there will ever be
I need a love to believe in me
Even in slights and not adhere to bigotry of family or loss of life
Mischief dies, true love denies, lost is failure of evil tides
Fortune persists for love chimes
Listen to "Love Chimes" poetry podcast
http://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/episodes/110429-love-chimes-episode-of-relationship-rock-building-relationships-that-last
or listen on iTunes, scroll down to #24 and click on Love Chimes
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/relationship-rock-shirah-chante/id670836453#
Mar 6, 2012
Mar 6, 2012 at 1:41 PM UTC
All perish whence they quest for immortality,
Such foolish dreams will result in fatality.
Critters struggle in nets of ersatz reality,
Hormonal clashes unbalance our morality.
Under the influence by budding, ravishing thyme,
Oft' that sunny beam leaves me doing pantomime.
Chaste clues and envy droughts left me mellowing,
Such pain ipso facto I can't kiss this porcelain.
My seat of notions drives me to calculate,
While undead, fatigued, I falsely formulate.
Floundering in viscous fluids, I am drowning...
My verdant sail is half-mast: lonely, frowning.
Within moon-lit meadows, shadows flow cursively,
Beyond the kaleidoscope lay a rustic key.
Beg you pardon the rust and blackened fissures,
Pardon those slights to open eternal treasures.
To crave two heart beats align in synchrony,
To sluice my fingers through the strands of memory.
Embracing silvery asps soaring on the breeze,
My sight spies thy adieu and I shatter apiece.
Un-writing errors, distantly, unstumbling,
The abyss: now a star, wings unfurling.
'Tween the heavens fell meteoric golds,
Sinusoidal cascades of such sublime codes.
Traversed steadily upon the gilded firmaments,
Was so small, blind to the unseen monuments.
To be offered aristocratic absolution,
From my humble plebeian resolution.
I am sublime. 'Hold my dichotomous, nay,
Such cantankerous introversion within, eh?
Sep 22, 2010
Sep 22, 2010 at 3:40 PM UTC
Flutter flutter
little bird.
Flutter flutter
little thing.
Hush and listen
to this song I sing.
Good health and good fortune
to you,
it will bring.
So flutter little bird
flutter to me oh precious one.
Listen to this song that I will sing,
listen to my song
the song of the stars.
“Are the stars in the sky,
like you and I?
Do they flutter
or do they fly?
Do they shed their shining feathers
and make their nests out of
sticks and heather?
Do they sing sweet songs
or forgive each other
of all slights and wrongs?
Are the stars like you and me?
Can they soar in the air
so high and so free?
Can they loop and swing
flip or sing?
Or,
are they just stars?”
So flutter little bird
flutter little thing,
and don't forget a word
of the song that I sing.
Nov 7, 2014
Nov 7, 2014 at 6:46 PM UTC
We are not quite like monks,
although we, too, sit.
A monk sits and seeks
to find nothing in nothing.
We sit to create
something out of something.
Things float in our minds:
childhood slights and successes,
puberty, hormones, pain,
our first fumbling *****
our first bewildering wars,
colleges, conquests, rebuffs,
disappointments, jobs,
marriages, children, divorce:
all that has brought
us to this moment alone.
The monk sits in
deepening quiet,
unmoving in silence.
We sit, hand
caressing a pen,
a typewriter, a computer,
waiting upon experience,
hoping that
its loose images
and uncertain memories
will coalesce into words.
When they do (not always),
we call that a poem
and we call ourselves poets.
The monk devolves
into a nothing that is.
The poet crafts
a something that isn't.
Is the something
we have wrought
more than the nothing
that swallows the monks?
Or is it very the same:
not an attempt to touch
the depth of being,
but to become the depth
itself.
Not to be a magician,
but to become magick
itself.
To bow to the god
within ourselves
and allow it voice
or silence.
We both, in our ways,
do what we must do.
Namaste.
~mce
Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 9:29 AM UTC
Oh happy shades--to me unblest!
Friendly to peace, but not to me!
How ill the scene that offers rest,
And heart that cannot rest, agree!
This glassy stream, that spreading pine,
Those alders quiv'ring to the breeze,
Might sooth a soul less hurt than mine,
And please, if any thing could please.
But fix'd unalterable care
Foregoes not what she feels within,
Shows the same sadness ev'rywhere,
And slights the season and the scene.
For all that pleas'd in wood or lawn,
While peace possess'd these silent bow'rs,
Her animating smile withdrawn,
Has lost its beauties and its pow'rs.
The saint or moralist should tread
This moss-grown alley, musing, slow;
They seek, like me, the secret shade,
But not, like me, to nourish woe!
Me fruitful scenes and prospects waste
Alike admonish not to roam;
These tell me of enjoyments past,
And those of sorrows yet to come.
1.6k
I waited too long
to mow my lawn
biopsy my lung
yet lived long enough, anon,
however long is long.
Whatever. It's not wrong
to count along
while busy living. Sing
and stay strong
absorb the sun's photons
and store them in your bones.
Those bones
outlast slights and spurns
are white as lightning and strong
as sticks and stones.
Inside is one's
spirit, soul, the nameless one
the one that's never known.
It has no cell phone
can't communicate or even moan.
Therefore. Why complain?
Have some fun.
Soon
I'll be undone
subterranean
my garden burned down.
So what. John Donne
died and so did Milton.
Emerson too, and Whitman.
Get over it. Vote. Love. When
the train comes in the station
whistle with it, wish on
stars with passion
or careful hesitation.
Anything's fine, within reason.
Season by season
things get done.
Algebra and calculus, Malcolm X, George Washington.
No taxation
without representation.
A gun
in every den.
People will be governed
one way or another, by a sovereign
or trusted friend. Corporation.
Men
are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than
to right themselves by abolishing the Evils to which they are
resigned.
I'm too young
to die! I cry. My generation
cannot outrun the sun
but I want to see what happens
next, a tsunami or tornado, rain
and wind beyond our comprehension
hit in the head by speeding debris, irony
of ironies! plastic contraptions,
rotting computers and yogurt cups, pain
in the baby! Moment's
notice. None,
I notice, live long
enough to see the end. Amen. A million
years hence
human sense
has so modified and mutated among
other moons
we share one mind
and everything's remembered by everyone.
Look it up. There is no death, just perfect rest. A perfect tan
is possible, and work is fun.
I'm going there when I pass on
because souls will travel at warp speeds, using nuclear fission.
About suffering, religion
was right (and wrong) all along.
Jan 6, 2019
Jan 6, 2019 at 9:18 AM UTC
Place one hand on my shoulder
and guide my head under
You welcomed me to the world
so let me drown at your fault
Smile at me faintly as the waves
ripple over my eyes and fill my lungs
Like a babe being baptised
you hold the back of my skull
Now, not to keep me from drowning
but to show me your gentle touch
As my body erupts in panic, I flail
I feel your love
And for the slights you caused
I feel your sorrow
But I am too far gone, no longer
needing your hands to keep me afloat
Or to hold me under
Sep 11, 2024
Sep 11, 2024 at 6:43 AM UTC
The banker sits for his lunch. He sits with his superiors. They ask, “how do you?” He replies, “Good, and you sir?” After pleasantries comes food. Everyone ordered a salad. Food is picked at with dashes of chatter. After food comes business. Business among superiors. The banker sits quietly using his wasted acting talents on feigning interest. He twiddles thumbs, smacks gums, and adjusts weight from one flank to the other.
The bored banker nods conformatively. When addressed, his name varies from Tim to Tom to Jack. They were close it was Al. He fills in facts and numbers the optimates don’t care to recall themselves. It’s the only use he has at lunch. Those superior to the banker could have brought his report he made up for this occasion. But, there is an air of aristocracy when one has a serf accompany his master to a meeting of patricians. Like all courtly meetings, the barons and governors hide slights in compliments, cloak ambition in kindness. Use pens as daggers, dried ink as poison.
It’s not the banker’s place to notice such things, it is place to serve those who deserve his servitude. Every time he services his lordships, his tie gets tighter, his skin looser, and his bald spot increase its diameter.
The bored and defeated banker rises with the Bourgeoisie, clings to their heels, and gets the door. His lunch is over. His break is done. Back to his desk he retreats. Back to work. His time as a squire is done. Until his masters call upon him again. For lunch.
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 3:57 PM UTC
Flitting around
Feelings abound
Opinions change
There is no ground
It all unravels
And it dazzles
As it spins and spins
And the soul travels
Toward the light
The truth that’s bright
Buffeted by thoughts
Wounded by slights
And it weans
And moves free and lean
Away from its home
It’s seventeen!
And the dices
And spices
Fill the air
With chance
At prices
Running storm clouds
Lifting all shrouds
Finding out
And wondering aloud
Amid confusion
And intrusion
Sorting out
Ideas’ illusions
And the heart stops
And the shoe drops
Pains infuses
Where the ball hops
Changing, flexing
Bursting, connecting
The chrysalis emerges
Cocoon dissecting
Feb 14, 2010
Feb 14, 2010 at 9:24 AM UTC
I bore with thee long weary days and nights,
Through many pangs of heart, through many tears;
I bore with thee, thy hardness, coldness, slights,
For three and thirty years.
Who else had dared for thee what I have dared?
I plunged the depth most deep from bliss above;
I not My flesh, I not My spirit spared:
Give thou Me love for love.
For thee I thirsted in the daily drouth,
For thee I trembled in the nightly frost:
Much sweeter thou than honey to My mouth:
Why wilt thou still be lost?
I bore thee on My shoulders and rejoiced:
Men only marked upon My shoulders borne
The branding cross; and shouted hungry-voiced,
Or wagged their heads in scorn.
Thee did nails grave upon My hands, thy name
Did thorns for frontlets stamp between Mine eyes:
I, Holy One, put on thy guilt and shame;
I, God, Priest, Sacrifice.
A thief upon My right hand and My left;
Six hours alone, athirst, in misery:
At length in death one smote My heart and cleft
A hiding-place for thee.
Nailed to the racking cross, than bed of down
More dear, whereon to stretch Myself and sleep:
So did I win a kingdom,--share My crown;
A harvest,--come and reap.
1.4k
She evaluated,
assessed and condemned
the mind,
and slights of tongue
but never attempted
to glimpse
inside my heart
which always swelled and heaved.
Those early weekend mornings
spent alone
while they slept
and the sun climbed
broadly in the sky
were only safe because
of the proximity
of their souls,
her soul.
Maybe the outside
doesn't always reflect
what it can
or should
or doesn't show but feels
in vast measure
the way way a child feels
he's being carried.
Now idle winds blow
seething to be old
and free
of the minds own
burdensome choices
and rhetoric
about the ice
never again getting to melt.
Never being freed
to move from solid state
through flowability,
then wind its way
with out weight
down the road
toward yet another
chance at redemption.
Oct 9, 2010
Oct 9, 2010 at 3:45 AM UTC
I was beautiful once,
had my magic dreams
& my share of troubles.
I swallowed pain,
sifted through the rubble,
got stained,
tainted by the man,
even been ****** around
by the elite.
I've been drunk on my feet,
indulged in lots of illicit things,
like large doses
of heavy drugs,
***** *** &
petty crime.
I've dreamt of rebellion,
vindication & revenge,
sometimes exposed some
bad tendencies,
but despite all the slights,
all my misfortune & fights,
one thing is for certain,
I haven't found
any good excuse
to become a stone cold
****** killer,
not a single one.
Feb 25, 2014
Feb 25, 2014 at 4:27 AM UTC
O Prince Charming - O so young
There with lyre, just horsing around,
Maidens sought and maidens fair,
(Or prance along stable boys, I don't care)
Glowing sunlit golden hair, kept well,
Yet have at me an Alexander though,
great conqueror and builder hold,
Prince be ****** give me a king
Give me an emperor to so tempt,
Not an inexperienced boy on slights
but a battle-hardened man, a ruler instead.
Dec 4, 2018
Dec 4, 2018 at 8:29 PM UTC
Your words,
like silken tendrils,
crept along my skin,
Passing shivers flared,
Brushed off
with an uneasy smile,
Now these diaphanous strands
threaten to mummify,
Encase me in a cocoon
of slights,
sarcasm,
and casual cruelty,
Liquifying my insides
to better feed you,
Bloat your predatory emptiness
with my life-force,
Your clacking mouthparts sharpen,
As does my resolve,
My innards are not for your
slurping,
Skitter back to your shadowy lair,
This corpse will not play,
I rise, awakened,
The sun waits for me.
Feb 16, 2014
Feb 16, 2014 at 12:25 PM UTC