"stockade" poems
(from a song)
Perhaps I was born kneeling,
born coughing on the long winter,
born expecting the kiss of mercy,
born with a passion for quickness
and yet, as things progressed,
I learned early about the stockade
or taken out, the fume of the enema.
By two or three I learned not to kneel,
not to expect, to plant my fires underground
where none but the dolls, perfect and awful,
could be whispered to or laid down to die.
Now that I have written many words,
and let out so many loves, for so many,
and been altogether what I always was?
a woman of excess, of zeal and greed,
I find the effort useless.
Do I not look in the mirror,
these days,
and see a drunken rat avert her eyes?
Do I not feel the hunger so acutely
that I would rather die than look
into its face?
I kneel once more,
in case mercy should come
in the nick of time.
4.8k
Just a Game. . .
In the comfortable stockade of my mind
Hide and seek cannot be won
Tiptoe away and find a hollow,
The solitary spot
Slipping between turmoil
Festering in alcoves
Always waiting; back tensed,
Adrenalin sheathing the silence
If I remain undetected
Perhaps the seeker will ease off,
Forget the ollie ollie in comfree
Leave me stowed away.
Much later, I could creep into safety
Call a truce, change spots...
Yet unmarred, the same old rules;
Vicious whispers that ask of unknown.
Meaningful glances and gritted teeth,
The shock of lush green eyes chasing down memory lane.
Wake up, Maple. Wake up.
But I wouldn’t, and it didn’t matter.
Because the stabbing whispers would continue inside;
Dueling emotions I long ago left at bay.
Reside there, waiting.
Counting.
Watching.
*Ready or not,
Here
We
Come.*
Feb 12, 2016
Feb 12, 2016 at 9:24 PM UTC
If I were to die tonight
or tomorrow
or in the next 3 seconds…
…
…
…
I would want you by my side,
because there’s so much I would want to say
and so many ways to guide
about the world
and love
and about dreams that you should unfurl
wisdom, to dare to do things you never have
strength, so through everything, you remember to laugh,
hope, as the unfolding map
and love, to guide your every path
its a neverending list
a stockade
a wish,
of things I hope you know
of ways you can always grow
but if I had to choose
with my final breathe I’d say:
live your life
you’ve got everything to lose
everything to gain
and everything to choose.
So don’t waste your time
and make sure to let loose
and most important of all
sometimes I don’t wash my hands after pooping
Jun 10, 2013
Jun 10, 2013 at 7:28 PM UTC
The right eye
is the window of hope
the left eye
the window of despair
And this proposition
is proven in my photograph
a portrait of a grizzled guy
taken just before
he stepped in front of a speeding car
while gesticulating wildly
Who knows what happened there?
Yet I will live!
gather fallen timbers
to form a stockade
against time
Because finally
I have discovered
that time is not my friend
It's a simple game she plays
time girl
trickster girl
but my ancient beams
will prevail
I swear it
by a handful of ash
and mark the moment
with a rune that exists
outside of time
and says simply
Be this.
You were forever thus.
It's a difficult rune to read
and a harder path
to follow.
May 3, 2017
May 3, 2017 at 8:52 PM UTC
The door throbs with sweat
In the morning-tide
"Whom can come at this time?"
A friend, I bet.
I stalk the sound until I reach the ****
I open it to see the face of a cop.
Some questions spewed out of the mans mouth,
about if I have seen this other man printed on some page.
Then showed me of this woman,
which coincidentally is the one I've been raised.
They stepped in with no approbation
Suddenly, the atmosphere grew with scads of tension.
They access themselves into my home.
And snooped about the room, with noses to the ceiling.
I got this panicky feeling.
Again with the interrogation.
The only thing that fled through my mind was irritation.
Words came at me and caused an explosion.
Never have I felt more broken...
I constructed this stockade
to stable myself from memory lane.
And to have it easily be destroyed,
made me realize of all that I've been trying to avoid.
The men left, leaving me with bricks to recollect.
It was not a friend, that I have bet...
Jun 21, 2014
Jun 21, 2014 at 11:55 PM UTC
Syrian pilgrims on boats of hope
Finding no place to land
No one to lend them a hand
No Plymouth Rock to throw rope
How can Republicans cope?
They believe this land is their's
Exclusively, for a Macy's parade
A big balloon with man in stockade
Thanking themselves, saying prayers
Really just showing no one cares
Blaming it on religious beliefs
Though zealots they are themselves
Confusing truer issues as well
Where have gone the Indian chiefs?
To Mexico forced by Trump's police
Nov 26, 2015
Nov 26, 2015 at 2:34 PM UTC
I live now in a small garage
at times still half again too big.
It's not your style, a bit unkempt;
perhaps a bit too much like me.
Clean dishes jumbled by the sink,
not neatly stacked and filed away.
The desk astrewn with books and bills;
clothes all slag-heaped by the bed.
Makes sense, for I'm the one who left
to you the well-maintained facade
of stockade fence and painted trim
which most would call a happy home.
I left you ten thousand things,
careful not to take too much; but
find myself amazed by all
that moved in which I did not pack.
The touch of legs upon my lap
I found while sitting on the couch.
Your smile was wrapped in Sunday's Times
and wedged in with the bowls and cups.
Your hair blows up against my arm
as I drive with the window down,
and hear you sound asleep beside
me as the droning motor runs.
When our paths crossed tonight, we spoke
a moment, went our separate ways.
Walking past the shut-down shops,
I thought of how we fell apart
and everything that came with me
that I took pains not to include
and smiled to myself, wondering
what I had left for you to find.
Jan 9, 2011
Jan 9, 2011 at 7:31 AM UTC
I found the rat-fink bound at the whipping post
I found the ****** at the hitching post
I'm the one itching to go
Find me at the scratching post
Chomping at the bit
Chipping off the splintered wood on a telephone post
Get me out of this stockade
Put me in the guillotine
Because I'm out of my head
And I'm going off
Bombard you with simple truths
You know it isn't all it's cracked up to be
If it's too good to be true
You've forced my hand
Now I gotta be uncouth
Something I gotta come to terms with
Something I gotta come to grips with
Looking back at my formative years
With the world I lived in hot on my heels
The celibate dust collectors
The abstinent hypoglycemic meat puppets
I was on cue
My cue to calibrate my own gumption
Bounced off the wall
Put on parole
Used my reserved rights to exercise my rights
To put my foot in the door and leave it a jar
While I stuck my hands in the cookie jar
But I guess there is such a thing as too much of a good thing
Become an over night success
Being famous for being famous
That whole scenario's played out
So mind your P's and Q's
I'll ask you point blank
Do you think you're ingenious?
Prodigious?
Are you in that proverbial extravaganza?
Collecting blood diamonds
Enunciation silent letters
That say all that need be said
Sent through the Pony Express
Written in an acrostic anagram
She'll answer with palindrome acronym in a Pig Latin
And she's right
In some aspect
To a certain point
To some degree
She sheds light
In some right
Forever in debt to the price to survive
Forever seems like such a long time
Forever damaging stubborn pride
Forever giving out bad advice
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 12:44 PM UTC
Her fortress wall stood exactly 12,410 empty memories tall.
Crumbling brown bricks of broken promises.
Empty words precariously balanced upon lonely days and set among nights spent in the arms of another.
Until the artists' foolish knock.
Dubious exchanges of self, through fractures in her wall in which the sun peered through, risked permeating the soul and casting color by way of the elaborate stained glass windows he dared to solicit.
And so bricks she threw.
Disquisition of frankincense and myrrh.
Tarnished metals and warped wood tirelessly became freshly painted and brightly adorned stones of poetry and brass he proposed would sit where rock once rested.
And so bricks she threw.
One by one, and amidst her chaos of metaphors, he patiently picked up the shards of decaying wall she hurled.
Carefully tending to each flaw, he sculpted her a throne of good intentions.
Well formed promises he would keep, graceful words he would speak.
Inspiring sunrises and passionate sunsets in his arms of what could be her tomorrows.
Fragmented adobe became priceless art and rare gems far too precious to throw.
Her stronghold became a rare exhibit of her fears sealed away in well lit display cases.
From her towering stockade emerged a glass palace and everyone knows not to throw cinder blocks in homes of stained glass.
Nov 26, 2018
Nov 26, 2018 at 10:24 PM UTC
My thoughts are a prison
My imagination a stockade
All that I am and all that is
Contained within me a bastille
My room is a correctional institution
My home is mandatory confinement
This community is a reformatory
These sidewalks, these streets and
the road side signs a penitentiary
The television, the radio, the news
and all the crap they want me to
buy is a jail
The lines and borders drawn on a map, policies,
politics, governments and religions
are a fenced pen
The forests, deserts, rivers, streams,
lakes, hills, swamps, marshes, mountains
and oceans are a cell
This planet, its moon, the stars and galaxies
are a vault
The universe contains me
It restrains me
There is no escape
Nov 26, 2013
Nov 26, 2013 at 12:50 AM UTC
There is a small town in the far north
of India which sits just about the
base of the Himalayas & I had a
a small adventure there as I played
the game of bailing out some friends
on a dope charge from the stockade
where the chief smoked hashish with
a smile & a jailed sadhu who’d chopped
someone’s head off in a ritual because
he became the goddess Kali for awhile
taught the four of them some yoga,
but mostly I remember it because of the
complete & utter peace I found to be just
sitting by the river & letting the sound of it
as it tumbled through the rocks wipe my
mind clean & I was at peace at last,
but I moved on after awhile to the town
of Simla further north & there I saw a
dancing bear & the Himalayan snows
& so I guess there are always new places
to be aren’t there.
Apr 19, 2017
Apr 19, 2017 at 9:37 PM UTC
I chanced upon old standing stones
Bedecked in lichen green
Arrayed in banks of marble rows
With walk-ways in-between
Each bore the scars of craftsman’s graft
Recording time and toll
One fading remnant epitaph
For each immortal soul
And earthward bound the sun polite
With mountain cap in hand
Fell silent as the hearse of night
Rode forth across the land
The distant city lights awoke
Like lanterns on a lake
A bubbled haze of smog and smoke
Above the city scape
Large crowds of late-night shoppers milled
Around the late-night stores
And roars of drunken laughter spilled
From dingy nightclub doors
The squealing cries of lorries lade
With goods to stock and stack
Were echoed by the cramped stockade
Of dwellings back-to-back
As one by one the lights went out
In windows dark and dim
Arrayed in banks of brick and grout
Old dwellings grey and grim
Stood sentinel to souls entombed
In plots devoid of green
The living mass of those inhumed
With walk-ways in-between
Jul 5, 2017
Jul 5, 2017 at 5:01 AM UTC
Many of the world's greatest Leaders throughout our tumultuous history have;
Many of the insightful Revolutionaries in stink hole and glory hole countries have;
Many of the oppressed, disenfranchised and cheated also have.
Look to Lenin, Mandela, Gandi, Nehru, Havel, Bhutto, Ceausescu, Charles I, Papadopoulos, Lady Jane Grey, Louis XVI, Marcos, Milosevic, a pile of Mohameds, Mussolini, Nicholas II, Pinochet, Saddam, Marie Antoinette, Pope Clement V, Selassie, Baghdadi, Duvalier, and, let's not forget the author of Mien Kampf, Adolph the Tenderizer.
And what do they all have in common?
Some, before they became boldly notorious, and others, after they became criminally notorious.
Some, looked out their window and saw platforms being erected.
Others witnessed gallows, guillotines. posts and walls.
They all got some time in:
PRISON. GAOL. JAIL. COOLER. LOCKUP. DUNGEON. KEEP. PEN. BASTILLE. CLINK. STATESVILLE. SLAMMER. STOCKADE. THE BIG HOUSE.
You get the idea.
His time will come.
Nov 21, 2020
Nov 21, 2020 at 9:50 AM UTC
Abandon all hope
Ye who enter my domain
For once you go in
There's no leaving my brain
A relic of the darkest age
Gothic bells of Notre Dame
My atheistic serenade
My faithless roaring lion cage
My phantom of the opera stage
Masked and cloaked
In acid soaked
Smoke and mirror soul stockade
No Houdini escapade
Could escape artist my pain
From haunted houses locked away
Museums of natural mystery
Exhibiting my guilt and shame
From buried ancient history
Priceless are these artifacts
Of worthless self-discovery
Yet still displayed for all to see
As a suit of armor
Or a tomb of Tutankhamen
Where I have bested Rama
To be born again as Brahmin
Where you find me now at play
In nightmares of my new dream caste
Alone in every way
One can be stuck inside the past
Mar 5, 2017
Mar 5, 2017 at 1:58 AM UTC
*I am underwhelmed
It seems I have absconded
With a royal's daughter and yet
They merely chase me
With their gluttonous knights
And bewildered steeds
She is fairer than the month of June
And I see the faintest glint of emerald
In those majestic eyes
They empower me
Her skin is that of satin and raspberries
Delicate and ****
The gambit is afoot, but alas
Thou wicked lord, I possess two
And I will blend into the night
And the darkest of shades
She is the resolve of my compass
And to ends of Earth itself I will hasten
Though the wrath of kings
Is grand, she is grander still
And the stockade
Is no match for romance in flight
She belongs to me and not her prince
And thine emerald eyes don't deceive me*
Dec 29, 2016
Dec 29, 2016 at 1:32 PM UTC
The night's like a cockroach that crawls up my skin, evil, exciting,
I let the night in.
The stockade has fallen, I'm free on the lam,
what kind is this man that chaos delights in the cockroach? we all know those nights so
don't pretend you can't see
or defend me, but just be one if the stars will allow and accept it
for this is the now.
In this junkyard of existence persistence pays off.
There is the diamond, a mirage floats on high,
a jewel
and my third eye desires the fires within,
more cockroaches crawl up my skin,
I let the diamond lights in.
If I excell at this it is only because the kiss of a madness is on me, badness is in me,
If vanity is to be
then it is surely
the cockroach who leads
me astray.
Apr 14, 2016
Apr 14, 2016 at 4:04 PM UTC
cracked cement ramparts,
a less than mighty bastion,
swamp cooler overflow,
drool down the battlement.
behind the stockade walls,
faceless generals barked
orders to their private troops,
drilled their little soldiers.
“welcome to my castle.”
you call this a castle?
heat throbbing off the
parking lot convinced me
to chance crumbling stairs.
and there, step four, flight two,
i bumped into my white knight.
okay, maybe more like gray.
i’ll compr with silver.
Jan 9, 2019
Jan 9, 2019 at 9:41 PM UTC
Living wild
filed under
Amazon or
animal
and I lived free,
like Houdini
I escaped. the chains,
I reigned
supreme.
They trapped me
unnaturally,
used a stun grenade
took me from the safety
of my stockade to
parade me
in front of
Royalty.
And they hounded me
no longer free
I bury inside and somewhere
inside there's another me
like Houdini
I reign again
supreme
Mar 2, 2016
Mar 2, 2016 at 1:39 PM UTC
*Find a guitar for it is the sun , wind and rain
Frets are the tumblers unlocking one's pain
Music is the stair step to higher being
Harmonize with windsong as your mind is freed
Tones that touch the heart of thine enemy , mimic
the heartbeat of Jehovah , crashing wave chorus ,
thunderclap above , the flight of eagles , the braying of young
beagles , the coo of turtle dove , laughter of a child , whispers
of love
Perform with eyes ridden with tears , with unbridled fear
Before the committed stockade with reason held captive , before
the downtrodden and the betrayed , before the hopeful and the vain
In the backdrop of freedom , against the folly of state induced reason
In thy greatest hour of grief , atop the mountainous relief* ....
Sep 29, 2016
Sep 29, 2016 at 3:39 PM UTC
You will not understand my bible.
Nor my religious ensemble
Because the experience of man
Should not stockade the lamb.
The holiest of holy
Will not coax with their folly;
Instead we laugh,
We laugh at a deity so far off,
Living with guilt.
A primal lapse of living with out.
Attached to the congruent self,
The belligerent nod waging fear over life.
Smearing adverse anxiety.
We negate self love willingly;
So love is not the engine,
A beat down city pigeon,
Feathers plucked by famine,
Limping upon a drudged talon.
Wings clipped by obscurity;
Disheartened, love preys on insecurity.
So we listen
Without reason
Waiting for a faint voice
A hidden angel of observance
Vanquished to your medial
Awaiting resurrection of denial
Denouncing the paved road
Shedding the serpents load
A callous exterior
Boxing the ulterior
When you fathom this ensemble
When you see a flaming candle
A string thwarted in wax
Melting away the complex
And when you fall for the fable
You will understand my bible
A clean page
With each teaching sage
Jun 16, 2016
Jun 16, 2016 at 10:14 AM UTC
In my den, I paced,
measured the width
from each angle;
eight by eight.
One bulb burned
brightly overhead.
The commode was a
cold stainless steel thing
projecting from a wall.
My bed was a metal one
with a thin mattress,
with two sheets and
a blanket.
I was in
disciplinary segregation,
(that's another term for Solitary)
Two weeks for refusing to
obey a direct order from a
captain.
I was in the stockade
going AWOL (in peace-time)
I was ornery and a hard-ass.
They jailed my body -
but they never broke my mind.
Twice I was in solitary,
but they never broke my mind.
Yelling **** and bayoneting
a straw dummy was not
my passion.
And so I ran away from it all.
Discovering pacifism at
the age of seventeen.
Crossing the ARMY off
of my things to do list.
Dec 13, 2019
Dec 13, 2019 at 10:25 PM UTC
A wooden fortress to keep marauders out
a stockade made from trunks
barks we give to dogs
logs to keep the fires burning
lathes are turning out
spindles
and all the time
the forest dwindles
eventually
there'll be
one
tree
and someone
will carve a heart
on it.
while I wait for the kettle to boil.
May 9, 2018
May 9, 2018 at 1:45 PM UTC
Where those that have eclipsed past breath.
Regressing into a stockade of oblivions slumber.
There words are static on granite anchors.
But where whispers are numb, even though
deleted of motions, a needing persists beyond
confined stillness, a yearning beyond substance
A duet sprung forth, disconnected, but knew of
another's shadow caressing another. Thoughts are
like leaves they grow till branches intertwined.
Brushing upon memories buried deep beneath
the earth, a foliage of wanting. As leaves mingled
formations wove within the rustling emotions.
A pathway woven within leaves. branches silently
watch as they walk within this silhouette two leaves
released by the breeze, ascending to the distance.
They needn't say anything as leaves fall like teardrops
into an updraft, never falling below as these aren't
of sorrow. Two trees caress in a cemetery of cold memories.
Apr 25, 2017
Apr 25, 2017 at 6:32 PM UTC