"slings" poems
I can't wait till I'm awake..
Plugged into the wall.
Nothing noted until the shell of the capsule
collapses under the weight of your trembling hands.
No there is no notation for what was said between us, just figure-less voices and a strenuous pain that strained our throats for the fear of nothing being communicated between the exasperated gasps of what was less than incommunicable silence.
Ugly is not a word but a feeling applied with meaning, applied to a certain truth about that metallic taste in my mouth, that tearful pain jostled in my chest and that consuming fear.
I know little of what this ugliness could mean other than it harbors shame in my corners. This shame is not inborn in anyone, but it builds it's presence as a drunken braggart who shouts obscenities and believes he is a prince of highest regard.
His ugliness is in what he slings from his tongue and his criticisms of all who in his mind toil about. But he is simply a angry troll with no heart and delusions of grandeur, frittering away time.. for time stands as an eternal judge and measure.
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 12:11 AM UTC
Light of my life,
The slings and arrows
Of outrageous fortune
Bloom a rose
In the deeps of my heart.
And so I came forth
But could not behold the stars.
The slings and arrows,
They trespassed upon my thoughts.
And I cried that I came
To this great stage of fools,
But it echoed loudly within me
Because I am hollow at the core.
That outward existence which conforms,
This inward life which questions
Confusion now hath made his masterpiece of.
I don't exactly know
What I mean by that,
But I mean it.
Nov 17, 2016
Nov 17, 2016 at 11:30 PM UTC
there's a marital dispute
between squirrels
in my chest, stomach and head.
she flings lamp and liver
while he slings obscenities
about her barrenness.
by midnight
they'll **** then sleep
and then I can watch John Oliver.
but their problems aren't resolved.
Jun 30, 2015
Jun 30, 2015 at 10:13 PM UTC
I wanted to write a poem about the joys simple things. But I’ve lost the meaning of them since I’ve been away it seems. For many years I’ve served duty tours, it’s just the life that I have lived. So I write poems of war and of warriors and death; sometimes it’s all I have left to give.
I picked my brain for images of candlelight picnics on sandy beaches, but I opened the basket looking for ammo to load in my weapon breaches. Oiling my guns may not be romantic, or when I lace my boots up tight, but you can bet your **** it comes in handy when you’re caught in a fire fight.
I tried concentrating as hard as I could, trying to envision more peaceful things. Instead I was reminded of Black Hawks with M240-Bravos in weapon slings. It seems I can’t be normal or think like a normal human being, I’ve been battle hardened inside my soul and this is part of what it brings.
PTSD is what they call it, they say I need some aid, but it just feels like second nature, pulling the pins and throwing grenades. I’ll go home one day and I’ll look the same because my wife can’t see my scars, I’ve hid them all inside myself and that’s what makes this hard.
They tell me I’ve been lucky, I didn’t get a single injury. But the damage was done inside of me and that’s what they don’t see. So I’ll go home a “lucky one” and act like I am fine, and live my days pretending, while keeping this war trapped in my mind.
Jul 24, 2012
Jul 24, 2012 at 6:07 AM UTC
When it comes to matters of the heart
it pays to be both wise and smart.
Be proactive and take care
of vulnerable hearts who take Love’s dare.
Perhaps a stress test would be smart
before old Cupid slings his dart.
Be sure your pulse is strong and steady
Not weak and racing and unready
Take Flax seed oil as a precaution,
before you dip into that Ocean
besides the undertow of emotion.
The mermaids that beset your dinghy
may tend to be a little clingy
The sea of love is cold, I’ve found
Tho oft I’ve floundered, I’ve never drowned
Dec 7, 2011
Dec 7, 2011 at 9:56 PM UTC
I walk across the landing
and through the double doors
and aim towards the lift shaft,
that's where I'm going, of course.
It's as if it hears my footsteps
and needs no company
as that old elevator
shoots down to level 3.
Every single morning
as I approach its doors
it disappears pretty quick
down to those lower floors.
I swear it sees me coming
and doesn't like the look
so as I rush to hitch a ride
the **** thing slings its hook.
The doors are on a system,
computerised I read.
But whenever I get near them
they change the ****** speed.
I stand alone here waiting
and it just isn't fair
'cause I am stuck up here
when I want to be down there.
It speeds down to the bottom
and sits on the ground floor
you can here it taunting you
with the movements of the door.
Then after what seems ages
it gradually starts to rise
giving me some hope at last
as I can hear the noise.
Then it makes a pit stop
at another floor
and seems to take forever
to open and close its door.
Each and every level
seems to get a viewing
as if it wants to **** some time,
with my mind it is ********
And then it reaches the sixth floor
as if it is my saviour
and finally opens up the doors
as if it's doing a favour.
It seems as if this machine
requires me to stalk
so now I've found the stairwell
and instead I'm going to walk.
Jul 9, 2015
Jul 9, 2015 at 1:50 PM UTC
The dream haunts me
often, far too often, building
in intensity but is initially
disguised in absurdity and the
nonsense of a young man's lusts
with an old man's deficits.
This woman-like entity,
ill-defined at first but forming
voluptuously, emerges from
swelling curtains. She moves, more
levitates, toward my bed, buoyed
by what I don't know, but angelic-like
it would seem. Or perhaps
an Aphrodite reincarnate?
Oh this goddess, what pale
skin, as Parian marble, full bosomed,
jutting ******* ***** that
beckon, nearly drool, and pursed
red lips beaded with sweet
juice stolen from the wild cherry
tree beneath my window.
Far too much clarity for a simple
dream. But such a dream! And what
seething testosterone I feel!
I am become a hedonist, raging,
pulsing spermatozoa, renewed
of time and youthful energies.
Nerve into nerve we join, ecstacy
compounding ecstacy, bodies wantonly
impaling the other on this love bed
to the result that each cell of our
individualities melds. We are indistinct,
yes - as one, and any ****** impulse
between us is shared to the point of
utter exhaustion, depletion. I am
nearly drained of life, it would seem.
Then, as it always must,
the scene changes, Act II.
Inexplicably, shedding a ******
serpentine-like skin, she slings it away
and drops limply upon me - entirely
skeletal, dry cartilage, sinew, lifeless,
sexless, motionless. The horror
of a diabolical hollowness
stares through me, and I am
suspended, fully terrorized, in
this paralysis. So, this is
succumbing to the Succubus?
God, my dear God, that I should
never dream again!
--
Oct 12, 2011
Oct 12, 2011 at 10:25 AM UTC
Once I looked to the Bard for words profound;
ageless, his wisdom ran unabated.
Yet Hamlet is now ideologically unsound,
“the slings and arrows” historically Iocated.
I wept for the creature of Frankenstein,
spurned by his master, forced to roam the Earth.
But I’d been subjectively positioned in a paradigm
by Mary’s anxiety about childbirth.
I read Balzac, Hardy and Henry James
describing “worlds” which seemed quite sensible.
Now Eagleton’s exposed their bourgeois games
I find them morally reprehensible.
I dreamt of being Robinson Crusoe
or proud, fierce Hawkeye in his buckskins dressed,
but Fenimore and Defoe have to go,
they’re culturally encoded and empirically obsessed.
Inspired by Guinness, did James Joyce sit down
to see what magic flowed when he was ******
The stream of Ulysses floats Bloom-about-town
dreamthinkingnever : “I’mamodernist”.
I’d gladly give Woolf a Room of Her Own
and be one of the boys with Hemingway,
but sensitive guys leave their bulls alone
say de Beauvoir and Luce Irigaray.
No more fun with Wordsworth being daffodilly,
no simple pleasure reading Mickey Mouse;
Steamboat Willie can’t help but look silly
dissected by Foucault and Levi-Strauss.
The Bible shows intertextuality
says the two Jacques, Lacan and Derrida.
Judas, a construct of bisexuality?
The **** fixations of Herod are?
It’s got so bad I deconstruct a holiday brochure.
I can’t even **** without Roland Barthes and Ferdinand de Saussure.
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 12:06 AM UTC
WIMBLEDON COMMON
Wimbledon common
Was always the place to go,
Catching the train from Streatham
The family all aglow,
Sandwiches in a paper bag
Thermos in a sack,
Plastic sandels and tennis racket
Not forgetting the cricket bat.
Everyone was skippy
The sun high in the sky,
Dad had his umbrella
But the rain was shy,
Jumping from the platform
Down a row of steps,
Brother took a tumble
And that was that.
Plasters in a pocket
All was mended soon,
Finally recovered
Felt over the moon,
Reached the grassy stretches
Whoops mind the dogs,
Come away from the lovers
They're out for a jog.
Find a shiny tree trunk
Horizontal on the ground,
Four happy people
Tuck in to raspberry jam,
Now for the thermos
Plastic cups ahead,
Here come the wasps
To eat our jam and bread.
Later penguin biscuits
And a trip behind the bin,
Dad puts out the wickets
Let's see who wins,
After a quiet session
Brother looses his cool,
Slings the bat skyward
You should see it go,
Mother looked upwards
Covering her head,
Just managed to miss it
Landing on the hedge.
I went off walking
To gather pretty flowers,
Dad hid under the paper
We had a quiet hour,
Clouds gathering slowly
The sun going down,
What a lovely day in the country
We're now homeward bound.
In memory and gratitude to my lovely mum and dad
Grace and Eric Ayton- Robinson who always did their best.
Love Mary **
Jan 31, 2018
Jan 31, 2018 at 10:47 AM UTC
i remember too many things
i should not,
things best left behind,
memories since best forgot.
i remember the things it seems,
things left in the wake,
of all my failed, unrealistic dreams,
all in all to forsake,
now I stand here alone without any schemes,
i now live in the lies i alone make.
i remember too many things,
and now i lay here in shame,
of neglected love and misfortune's slings.
Oct 4, 2010
Oct 4, 2010 at 1:02 PM UTC
I want to go back to my past
When tame pigeons of joy nested on my eaves
And I could hear their crooning
With the sweetness of love outpouring
I want to go back to my past
When innocent instincts ruled my heart
And I ran after every call from the woods or bush
Mesmerized by the whistles of the oriole and the thrush
I want to go back to my past
When every rainbow and every peacock feather
Ignited curiosity in me as a child
And colored my imagination wild
I want to go back to my past
When, with friends, I sat in the mango grove
And savored the ripe juicy mangoes
Careful not to let the pulp drip down our mouths
I want to go back to my past
When we strolled along the sandy strands
Watching the wild waves fray
And cooled by the kiss of spray
I want to go back to my past
When we had watched at night
A hundred fireflies dancing around the neem
Wondering if they were stars fallen from heaven’s seam
I want to go back to my past
When, like breeze, we ran over the meadows
Looking for the bleating lamb
Singing in chorus, ‘Mary had a little lamb’
I want to go back to my past,
When life appears a trying test
With ‘the slings and arrows of an outrageous fortune’
And as and when I feel so desperately alone!
Aug 21, 2016
Aug 21, 2016 at 8:23 AM UTC
Give me your heart,
Full of stringy sinews,
stretch them as far as you can,
use it as a yo-yo,
watch it,
it slings,
it's ****** feelings everywhere,
it's a healthy heart,
covered with a thin layer,
insipid lipid tissues,
whirling,
yielding,
under pressure,
submissive,
youthful,
zeal for love,
real lust for life.
whips back,
darned quick,
many happy returns,
while walking the dog!
(C) Livvi
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014 at 2:38 PM UTC
Quasimodo, ringer of the bells
Quasimodo, hidden in his hell
Watching from the bell tower as life is squandered daily
Nobody seems to understand the truth of human frailty
But there they chime again!
It's that time again!
You know Quasimodo's still alive
Because the Bells are right on time
In the shadows of Notre Dame
A monster stalks our halls
A giant, hulking, hungry mass
Searching for ****** girls
It's the truth, don't you believe it?
The beast is out there creeping
It's much easier to see
than the demons we all keep
Under lock and key
Inside you and me
Quasimodo, ringer of the bells
Quasimodo, hidden in his hell
Watching from the bell tower as life is squandered daily
Nobody seems to understand the truth of human frailty
But there they chime again!
It's that time again!
Quasimodo's still alive
Because the Bells are right on time
A monster forged in hate
was a man who died for love
and though he suffered the slings and arrows
of the cursed world he lived above
Quasimodo died
as Quasimodo lived
Believing that the gift of love
was the best gift we could give.
Quasimodo, ringer of the bells
Quasimodo, dying in this cell
Lying in the crypt with arms wrapped tight 'round his beloved
Embracing his dark angel as eternally as love is
But it's that time again!
Why don't they chime this time?
The Halls of Notre Dame are still
Quasimodo must have died...
Apr 28, 2015
Apr 28, 2015 at 8:43 PM UTC
Come rest, the weary;
A sheltered bay
Slings and arrows ne’er compared
To the mumbled words never said
Personal perceptions pursued
Come eat, the hungry;
A feast, fit for cattle
Jesters a King’s only friend
The only pest made to ignore
Power ignited so rarely in the strong
Come come, child;
A ***** constructed
Wood timber and sneers
The difference between “survive”
And “thrive” is how fat you get
May 9, 2012
May 9, 2012 at 4:21 PM UTC
Failure in my opinion is the single most driving force in our world.
Everything we do is to avoid failure.
But is it so bad?
Failure is the lack of the expected outcome but when the outcome is bad is failure not good?
An attempt at ones own life when met in failure can lead to reasons to live in some.
Many people feel that that suicide is the failure to cope with the "slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune" but no. It means to give up on that which you have lost control of.
For me the success of my failure has shown me that if I try again... I will not fail.
Dec 23, 2014
Dec 23, 2014 at 12:34 AM UTC
All silent in the months of grace
When frosty blankets fall across the hills
And fields where birds once sang their verse,
But melody of wind is all we know.
These lands to die are not yet dead
Though bee does mourn for blooms and for himself
When beetle joints go stiff with cold --
When funerary twilight season comes
To ***** the days. The final wren
Now senses slipping of the year, and so
Of tenant hill and glen deprived
Set in for sleep. If never to awake --
To never feel a verdant joy
Or exultation of the orb that breathes
Bright life into our skies -- at least
Released from hardships and her sorrows be.
But she has faith, she loves the sun!
The twinkling of his eye will come in May
Or else with April's gown he'll march:
Believing in her lover's rising light
The dream that takes her through the night.
Not far, a sickly naiad's wood
In seasons past so fair of face and leaf,
Yet creeping forest's yellowing
Like fingernails of corpse when skin recedes.
But then blush orange sanguinate:
The lover's sigh ignites when dies the vine,
Their bubbling veins in praise of life
When soonest to be severed by cruel scythe.
This phantom of their fate is grim,
More grim be sure than fate that falls in death:
The slings and arrows of the mind
Are those most potent poisoned, fear them not --
Illusory as winter's chill
That peels off maiden's wedding veil in spring:
A peaceful rest does come to all
Though private troubles drown the trees through fall.
Unthinking sleep does bliss the boughs,
In hibernation lose to learn anew
The sights proved true by waking world
That are the growing season's cause to feel.
When browns the brush and flies the thrush
Unanchored Daphne nods and starts to drift
In sea where beings dream as one.
Soft blizzard quilt on woods in slumber laid,
Demeter's daughter vanished into shade,
With knowledge that she'll never fade.
Nov 10, 2011
Nov 10, 2011 at 2:56 PM UTC
A fool could see this from a mile away
Still I let you get close
Your love, like espionage for future endeavors
For me to give out all my love to have it scattered across the walls you built up to keep me out
Still I was outside your solitude of isolation
My fair Juliet, misjudged and ruthless, how I like it
Blinded by mistreatment, I want what's bad for me
Like sugar to your teeth so sweet but risky
I'd fight to suffer the slings and arrows of as they say misfortune with you could never come my way..
No one said anything about sticks and stones
Jul 25, 2013
Jul 25, 2013 at 9:37 PM UTC
Growing out from childish pranks,
With the storm and stress of turbulent teens,
I locked within my mind’s cupboard,
A portrait vaguely sketched, but never finished.
Rough it was, though fancifully done,
The silhouette of a masculine figure,
The Gallant who would reach one day,
To hold my hand and own me his.
I had no inkling who he would,
Yet had fallen in love with that phantasmal figure,
He had dazzling eyes and sturdy limbs,
With striking features, ravishing to view,
Elusive ever to sight and touch,
He remained an enigma, abstract to grasp.
At times his contours grew distinct,
But soon blanched out into hazy lines,
When at times a covert devouring look,
Or a pair of intent adoring eyes,
Sent a thrill down my fickle heart,
I forced open my chest nut draw,
And took out stealthily that half done sketch,
Hidden out from world’s staring glance,
To alter the features one by one,
And make it resemble the man I met,
Either within a moving train,
Or sometimes in an elite gang,
Who derailed my thoughts in pensive mood,
And tickled my fancy to heave and sigh.
He made me turn and toss in bed,
And left me, many a sleepless night,
He stroked my heart with gladdening ache,
And made me lose in sweet reverie.
In the nick of time, he solemnly came,
To hold my hand and tie the knot,
With pounding heart and quivering breath,
I found him differ from the man I dreamt.
The fabulous fabric in my loom,
Looked at variance from the one unfurled,
Transfixed between fact and fallacy,
I struggled to hide a falling tear.
Time marched on in silent haste,
And I learnt to outgrow my childish whims,
Sagacity dawned with passing age,
Making me discern the real from the sham.
It made me admire his sanguine self.
On fathomed deep beyond external mien,
I saw him unveiled in taint less worth,
That made my heart ever pine in love.
Piecing together our halved selves,
With the glue of love, our identities merged,
Now he is with me in my blues,
Consoling me with his balmy touch,
He is with me in my joy,
Making it resonant with a hearty laugh,
He is there when storms rage,
Whispering in my ear, not to fear,
He taught me how to savour life,
To meet the slings with radiant cheer,
Now the image is clearly etched deep,
Never to erase, nor to revise!
And the old portrait locked within,
Grew so musty, bereft of use,
In its place, I keep within,
His solid figure in indelible print.
Feb 11, 2017
Feb 11, 2017 at 6:59 AM UTC
The difference between Monday and Sunday;
A vague salt upon the upper lip of some life apart,
Pages incarnate in an acrid stomach guilt,
And some bread and wine selling out
Before I make it to the queue.
Between the rest, perhaps a better hour;
A few words absorbed, wrapped in cling film
Like the ham and pickle I take on the train,
On the bread leftover from the priest on Sunday. Slightly stale.
For the most part, I try to keep on my shoes
And off the grass. The cling film makes it
Exceedingly difficult to know -
And I can never quite discern
The start of the horizon.
And the irony of it is, I can’t cling to much
Myself. City smog is honeysuckle riding
A summer’s breeze; Singapore slings,
Coffees and teas, and daydreams of you
Are more real than me.
It’s like looking through a car window,
Seeing outside rush away behind you
Before you can think about how beautiful it is.
Like having tired of a masterpiece from which
You expected timelessness.
Aug 29, 2018
Aug 29, 2018 at 11:38 PM UTC
THE SHALE and water thrown together so-so first of all,
Then a potter's hand on the wheel and his fingers shaping the jug; out of the mud a mouth and a handle;
Slimpsy, loose and ready to fall at a touch, fire plays on it, slow fire coaxing all the water out of the shale mix.
Dipped in glaze more fire plays on it till a molasses lava runs in waves, rises and retreats, a varnish of volcanoes.
Take it now; out of mud now here is a mouth and handle; out of this now mothers will pour milk and maple syrup and cider, vinegar, apple juice, and sorghum.
There is nothing proud about this; only one out of many; the potter's wheel slings them out and the fires harden them hours and hours thousands and thousands.
"Be good to me, put me down easy on the floors of the new concrete houses; I was poured out like a concrete house and baked in fire too."
1.5k
He told his sister to feed the dogs,
His twin sister; Sophia Bogvoskya,
As he was to take out the herds
Of horses, sheep, donkeys and cows,
Out to the plains and hill land for grazing,
She never took a **** she locked herself,
Up in the ante chamber of the main house,
She took the mirror and began looking
At her beauty, Russian model beauty
She began picking her nails,
As the dogs were starving in the sheds
They whined but no succor came forth,
A fiat that coincided with arrival of ogres,
The great Western Ogres, the tongues wagging,
They had a plethora of eyes and mouths,
Noses and ears, limbs both hind and fore,
They ate all the young sheep,
They took away Putin’s young brothers
Crimea and Ukrainian, both were taken away,
By the ferocious NATO ogres they were taken
In a whelp and desperate kicking for freedom,
Dogs stood aloof as ogres thrashed Sophia
Into thin lacerations of red flesh,
They ate as they roared with laughter,
Then they went away with their loot,
Vladimir came back home, found nothing
No sister, no brothers no sheeplings,
Only two white sepulchers glared at him,
The graves of his mother and father;
The former cooks of Lenin Vladimir,
He mourned and mourned grievously,
Then he sang a dirge of his forefathers
From the herculean land of Bosnia,
And also Moscow, he dirged;
We were born in the wee of the night,
When the bear is whelping,
And we were suckled by the Tigre
When our mothers were taken slaves,
For no man or creature
Will ever make us victims
Nor subjects of fear,
He recovered from the moment
Trial some moment of loss and bereave,
Then he chose to go after the ogres
But with a strategum of no match,
He began arming himself first
Before he could set on,
His mobile armory full of deadly weapons;
A bunch of wasps, wild bees, black ants,
A thousand slings, spears and sickles,
Machetes, poisonous saps, and toxics,
Wild dogs, five hundred snakes and scorpions,
Bows and arrows as well as cudgels,
Clubs, stones and chains,
He also learned how to use the hands
In the most lethal manner,
Then he went for combat,
To rescue all that was taken,
Taken from him by the ogres….
Sep 12, 2014
Sep 12, 2014 at 8:38 AM UTC
You love her
in her many
copies.
blue, beige
destroyer, creator.
You hate her
during some
hours away
from sun.
procrastinator
fighter, complainer.
You fear her
the control
you can assert
but can't reign
in. Boycotter
scaredy cat.
You're in her
swimming but drowning.
Your psyche should
not be a
tiger trap.
There should be leaves
and soft earth
not sticks.
As your fears sharpen
them, the pit
will become deeper.
So learn to watch
where you walk
in your veins.
Control your thoughts
your habits
your acts.
Or perish in
your own sea
of troubles
Hamlet's slings,
and arrows will be yours
And let's face it.
You just don't have
that kind of
thick skin.
Apr 7, 2011
Apr 7, 2011 at 9:24 PM UTC
Immersed in God ecstasy
and orange robes
the true bhakta’s thoughts
are always on God, for God
and of God
armed with pure love
the slings and arrows
of maya, good, bad and outrageous fortune
are averted
God and His beloved
whirl across the bhakti path
dancing with Rumi, Kabir, St. Francis Meera Bai
and all the beautiful bhaktas
for eternity
May 25, 2015
May 25, 2015 at 7:27 PM UTC