"stultifying" poems
Midsummer flutters in on butterfly wings.
Softly landing on the corolla leading to the petals.
Slow motion has been initiated by summer,
people, air, insects and life has slowed.
Summer doesn't rush, summer doesn't push.
Summer lazes in a haze of shimmering heat.
Only tempers get short during long summer nights.
Humid hate filled anger disrupts the slow tempo,
only to quickly dampen in the humid stultifying night heat.
Honeysuckle, jasmine, water lilies and evening primrose,
come out and soothe the moonlit summer night.
A breeze rises and soothes the weary mind.
Summer night blooms, in more ways than one,
moonlight shimmers like gossamer threads
down onto the flower beds, the flower's
fragrance fills the air, soothing, calming,
softly, sweetly filling summertime with cruel kindness.
Cruelty of heat the kindness of sweet flowers.
Jul 18, 2014
Jul 18, 2014 at 9:17 AM UTC
Cigarette smoke whispers, writhing
Silently it tendrils up
From the glowing end in spirals
Pirouettes to cancers' cup.
Nicotine stained fingers tremble
Wrinkled, thin, arthritic claw,
Lips of carmine part to reveal
Yellow dentures gilding jaw.
Bacon breath of sour demeanor
Vacant eyes reflecting strain,
Hacking coughing greeting morning
Light another, **** the pain.
Silently the reaper beckons
Cavernous his grinning maw,
Welcoming the souls entrapped
In stultifying black tar gore.
Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
14 September 2010
Sep 14, 2010
Sep 14, 2010 at 1:54 AM UTC
iv 5-2-18
wrest the black tang the cosmic vacuum of background static and an ungainly dream of walking down a mountain path with my father we descend the silent belly of campus seats filled with mounted bodies lolling the inside stench anna walks ahead of me her voice cuts the waking body of midnight shuttles a hydroponic plant and the sparse parking lot of a supermarket radiating cold.
the fright, the nervous flesh, the stuttered pace of cars, the empty lot, the empty hour, the empty admission of make-belief, collapsing into precession at the peak of worthlessness.
ii 22-1-18
An endless stream, the back of an apartment block, fingers twine across the powder red of brick and sunlight.
I try to catch a glimpse of myself in her eyes, but beyond recognition there is nothing.
I see my father behind a sliding door. He moves further into the kitchen to take pictures from a tripod.
Clothes litter the ground. Nothing fits.
iii 4-2-18
the cracked linen STOP the momentary arrogance STOP the surfacing violence STOP the weathering STOP
A YELL torpid stultifying CRASH cruel ******* trace of the same
and all i can do is shrink as green tea soaks the tablecloth.
i 31-1-17
The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human.
Feb 4, 2018
Feb 4, 2018 at 12:38 PM UTC
Poet daubed the corporal on the wings of carney
Wanderer dilettante soul lusted au wild routes
Counted each the millimiles covered
Upside , unstrained , Unflaggingly.
Yon the valleys , epitome meadows and Hillsides
Beated around the alcoves amok
Ridges passed the marooned trails
Agape the flinged self flew spirited madrigals
Slowly rooted the tints into wilderness
True entity got superimposed to sylvan instincts
The obsolute shadow rigged the shooner
By dimension lengthier the time but shorter by grace
Grazed through and some toxic airs exhaled then pulled
Blinked all the roof to rugs
Remembrance of concrete boxes and intimate sidekicks
Cheap conflict wins to hit the ring
If body wins wanderlust looses thereby path ends
Simultaneous call by consciousness and objection by eternal shadow
Only the body grazed the maps with pointers
Though insatiably leveed
Kept retention the coursing shadow
Yet remained damp , savaged the sylvan traits
Life was near but the abstainer failed
Wilderness abysm rejected the unfortunate physique
There appeared
Scorched canopies along wilted flora
Container flogged the shadow to a stultifying death
Physique deceived self the core truth
Existence thereafter without knowing the chance with eterna
Several followed the imperishable conflict trail
Roll of honour diminished by fourth dimension
Marked victories of featherbrains over pappus chambers
Only few sticked upto xanthic flowers
Raise up , were the victories thristled down?
Many knocked and still keep on knocking incarnations
Fine array of fossilized saturnine inhibitions
Callous attritions over altruism of succinct shadows
Flip sorties pariance spurts
"The stanchion to revet my sky" voiced the shadow
Aug 2, 2016
Aug 2, 2016 at 2:09 AM UTC
Frothing, swirling, gushing powerfully
through the course carved over millennia,
water tumbles in a torrent that rips and scours.
In other places soothing, languid, meandering, here it promises death,
******* in and spitting out, a violent turbulent end.
…
If not death it brings rebirth.
A new being spewed into a new reality.
Nothing and everything is changed.
A new consciousness is born with crystal clear awareness
of the simple wondrous blessing of life.
…
It is here I wish to stand, scoured and tested,
the viscous stultifying clutter of the past torn away.
Clear sighted, I would truly know the wonder of being,
a fierce burning joyful knowing,
rejoicing in the miracle that is life.
…
And if this gift of new awareness came to me
how long might that pure joy and wonder last?
Too soon it might be gone and I the poorer.
But tested I’d have seen a truth that would not fade,
that by simply being, just simply being, brings peace.
Oct 11, 2009
Oct 11, 2009 at 8:22 AM UTC
Poet daubed the corporal on the wings of carney
Wanderer dilettante soul lusted wild routes
Counted each the millimiles covered
Upside , unstrained , Unflaggingly.
Yon the valleys , epitome meadows and Hillsides
Beated around the alcoves amok
Ridges passed the marooned trails
Agape the flinged self flew spirited madrigals
Slowly rooted the tints into wilderness
True entity got superimposed to sylvan instincts
The obsolute shadow rigged the shooner
By dimension lengthier the time but shorter by grace
Grazed through and some toxic airs exhaled then pulled
Blinked all the roof to rugs
Remembrance of concrete boxes and intimate sidekicks
Cheap conflict wins to hit the ring
If body wins, wanderlust looses thereby path ends
Simultaneous call by consciousness and objection by eternal shadow
Only the body grazed the maps with pointers
Though insatiably leveed
Kept retention the coursing shadow
Yet remained damp , savaged the sylvan traits
Life was near but the abstainer failed
Wilderness abysm rejected the unfortunate physique
There appeared
Scorched canopies along wilted flora
Container flogged the shadow to a stultifying death
Physique deceived self the core truth
Existence thereafter without knowing the chance with eterna
Several followed the imperishable conflict trail
Roll of honour diminished by fourth dimension
Marked victories of featherbrains over pappus chambers
Only few sticked upto xanthic flowers
Raise up , were the victories thristled down?
Many knocked and still keep on knocking incarnations
Fine array of fossilized saturnine inhibitions
Callous attritions over altruism of succinct shadow
Flip sorties pariance spurts
"The stanchion to revet my sky" voiced the shadow
Aug 19, 2016
Aug 19, 2016 at 3:31 AM UTC
Something I'm only learning now
and it's empowering how
what you think stay inside your head
and if it's not said
you can just think what you want
and no one can taunt
because it's private
I can sit in a stultifying meeting
think these people are fools and should be leaving
their jobs to some one else
Because their inept and fascinated only by themselves
and I don't like them much
but I can think that and they can't touch
me at all
and that's power, finally I'm finding this all
Jan 9, 2013
Jan 9, 2013 at 9:19 PM UTC
With lips intoning
A litany of endearments
In a language I fully understood
One kiss, one kiss, one kiss
Conjured up all those remembered
windows of the soul softening the
Jagged edges of the world
Erasing the stultifying atmosphere
Of unmistakable applications of
Symbols that try to unmake thought
His kiss provoked new meaning
The glamorous sounding world
Of ideas; A bewildering emotion
One that could not be filled
In with a charcoal pencil
A sensual communication
Only he could deliver
Wonderfully ******
Oh! The memory of the moment
And lift the curtains
Of the fringe that
Framed his face and gaze
Deeper, deeper into those
Smiling eyes; in sensuous touch
Of naked sound
Taste mysterious pulses
Imprisoned yet unbound
Spangled light reflected all around
Then we made words that pierced
The ground while echoes of
Forgotten laughter fluttered
Like a thousand birds
One moment, this moment
This kiss, Oh! His kiss
Holding in its tender touch
The promise of a lifetime
Mar 22, 2012
Mar 22, 2012 at 2:31 PM UTC
So Here, settled, is the bare voice,
Quivering echoes of egos
Do minds make the world hear Drum Dreams?
Here poets have milked tired *******
Of language to allay the lone,
Weighted and burdened from out There.
To rid themselves the form, the world,
The plague of storms that rock this ship,
That overflows, that bleeds too much
Of the vision that draws and defines
The days when the traffic of life
Is the onslaught of passing time.
There we trudge onward grudgingly.
Cradled upright by crashing waves,
Lonely amidst the dim gray sun.
Unnerving the courage of souls
Man is hushed, left to silences.
Reticent and bearing the masks
Hiding in Drum Dreams. Unnoticed,
We’re every soul at the crosswalk.
Here stands the prolific poet
Painting the infinite canvas.
Dreams are swirled upon dreams, deformed
By time, stultifying the brain
With dreams swirled upon dreams, drying
Into dust, caught in the wind’s palm;
Riding the breeze into the stream,
Into the curled spine of the storm.
Dreams swirled upon dreams, seeping;
Painting, and painting the loathsome
Self, trapped in the drum dream, suckling
Violently out of her dream mouth.
He imagines and paints, writhing,
Vacant howling in stormy clouds,
Cast in impotent bloodletting.
Here stands the fanatic poet,
Painting the relentless image,
Playing placated remedy
To dreary drunks trapped in the Drum Dream.
Hear, She hums, she hums the Drum Dream.
And life sways back and forth
Dancing the way the night does
Under the cool glow of streetlights
And all that remains of the world
Are still minds, hypnotized hearts,
And her sudden suckles for breath.
And we slow dance to a rhythmic drum.
Here stands the Prolific Poet…
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 6:05 PM UTC
The Princess and the Pauper
by Michael R. Burch
for Norman Kraeft in memory of his beloved wife June Kysilko Kraeft
Here was a woman bright, intent on life,
who did not flinch from Death, but caught his eye
and drew him, powerless, into her spell
of wanting her himself, so much the lie
that she was meant for him—obscene illusion!—
made him seem a monarch throned like God on high,
when he was less than nothing; when to die
meant many stultifying, pained embraces.
She shed her gown, undid the tangled laces
that tied her to the earth: then she was his.
Now all her erstwhile beauty he defaces
and yet she grows in hallowed loveliness—
her ghost beyond perfection—for to die
was to ascend. Now he begs, penniless.
Keywords/Tags: Princess, pauper, death, powerless, penniless, illusory, illusion, ghost, spirit, perfection, perfected, heaven, ascended
Mar 26, 2020
Mar 26, 2020 at 2:59 AM UTC
Oh Juliet, my Juliet, where art thou?
i have searched and searched fruitlessly for you
yet i gain no reply, no response to my increasingly pitiful cries
until that one moment, the blossom of light, fire on
cold, wet wood, shedding light on a beautiful world
only to be extinguished oh so cruelly, not with water, no
at least then there is smoke, an intricate pattern of memories
but no, dirt was tossed, and there it shall remain,
stultifying something beautiful,
and his uncivil blood will make my civil hands unclean
i have been banished from my personal fair verona
in search of another life, another love, a spark that will grow,
slowly, steadily but always held back by the ash from fires long before
Oh Juliet, my Juliet, where art thou?
Nov 17, 2012
Nov 17, 2012 at 5:36 PM UTC
Summer's breath
is a fetid breeze
that leaves me
sweating grievously.
Dull, repetitive driving,
heat draining
all my mental energy
like a seasonal vampire
leaving me uninspired.
Enter the earthy aroma
of someone new,
a refreshing spring water
point of view
a friendly face
with feminine contours.
Though *** is not what matters,
she is novelty
in the form
of a human being.
This thick stultifying summer
becomes less of a ******
with the introduction of new variables
that pull me from
my old terrifying echoes.
A stranger with
unknown stories
emboldens
the previously bored me
to write great poetry again.
Nov 7, 2018
Nov 7, 2018 at 8:29 AM UTC
it operates like a glass ceiling
But is more often self- constricted.
It can come in a set;
One inside the other,
Inside another.
Some people are able to move
From the smaller to the larger.
There are no hinged sides
And any movement will cause shattering of glass
And sharp edges.
Sometimes after a breakthrough others follow.
They can see the shards of glass
And avoid them.
At first the glass sides are clean and clear
But they become clouded
By those breathing the stultifying air.
Those who grow inside the box
Become distorted
By its restrictions
And find their faces flattened against its sides.
Sometimes the box is a lonely place to be.
For those who leave
There's no return.
The air outside the box is rarified
And keeps one
gasping.
Jul 23, 2016
Jul 23, 2016 at 3:59 PM UTC
For as long as there has been a cerebral cortex, there has been teaching
Humans, even the dumbest among us, for knowledge we are reaching
But somethings happened to the state of our education
And I speak from experience, in the trenches of our education nation
Something is wrong, something must be done, the war cry began
Teachers were fired, and some couldn't get up again.
Schools went their separate ways, like fighting friends
Some took up the new approaches like the latest fashion trends
Skinny jeans now, but bell bottoms were all the rage I remember when
Then there were the school takeovers by the State and army then
School became a grind, of test scores and dead students filling in bubbles
And that's pretty much where we're at, and still, yeah, there's troubles.
Dec 27, 2012
Dec 27, 2012 at 7:14 PM UTC
Not of any divine thoughts,
Or of some disruptive reports,
Not of high tales of morals,
Or of those words of import.
These are meagrely of those-
affairs that seem arbitrary.
I write of the many things-
scattered in the ordinary.
There are wondrous beauties-
In the wisps and curls of smoke,
That escape the evening's tea.
And in the weird lingering smells,
That call to morns from childhood.
Aye, there is solace in the news-
That the morning papers convey,
And also in the harsh routine of the day.
In the humble love of a spouse,
And the stern faces in the crowd,
Are those elaborate stories that tell:
The musings of a cause untold.
And on this premise of thought,
Like how flowers beckon to bees,
Spreads a meadow of a certain-
Fulfillment nurtured by chaos.
So, what with those chores,
That do not end with death!
And what with those odd things
That are strewn around like stars!
The daily battles with trifles,
And the woes for 'morrow!
Amidst these stultifying hours,
Lie the true secrets of happy living.
So, with no image nor compare-
'tis verse describes the ordinary with care.
Jun 19, 2018
Jun 19, 2018 at 2:17 PM UTC
We try to stick to canned goods these days.
Not that it’s particularly easy, mind you,
As the expiry dates have come and gone;
You have to have a feel for what ages well
And what simply can’t be trusted.
Some of the stuff in jars is OK, if the seal’s good
And it hasn’t had too much unnaturally bright light or heat.
Sometimes, in frustration or fear or just plain madness,
We’ll grab a couple of pieces of fruit or berries
Straight from a tree or bush
(Just a brief, guilty nibble, mind you,
As our wiring for self-preservation quickly takes over,
Though that’s akin to insanity in itself;
Indeed, a considerable number of people
Won’t even consider stepping outside anymore.)
We have come to this place, then,
Carrying our threadbare blankets,
Our dented and dinged peas and garbonzos
To this portentously lush locale
(Nature’s metamorphosis, now running in overdrive,
Having its winners among its throng of losers,
Sitting among a recklessness of flowers
Which have smartened themselves up
In sizes and hues heretofore unknown)
As what passes for evening takes hold
(The daytime air so stultifying and adulterated
They don’t even bother issuing warnings and advisories any more.)
We watch the odd, unsettling out-of-place aurorae,
Not giving utterance to the obvious—is this the one?—
But choosing to soft-shoe our way through the hours
With small talk, the odd kiss and cuddle
(There are those who have taken the humanity of affection
Beyond the merely foolhardy or oblivious,
Cults of propagation comprised of odd Gnostic outliers,
Dreamy and staunch proponents of extraterrestrial rescuers.)
As the darkness takes hold, we lift our faces to the stars
(For the nights are always starry,
Clouds being relegated to only memory)
And as they sit above us, stark, awesome in the oldest sense,
It is hard not to think of what an ancient man
Wrote of one equally ancient to him,
That though they have seen the totality of our folly,
They remain wholly without fault.
Dec 29, 2016
Dec 29, 2016 at 9:41 AM UTC
Because I don't know
and know I don't know
it saves me from putting up
a stupid and self-stultifying show.
You thought I knew
(what a mistake you did make!)
But I knew you knew far more than I did know
I held back and my folly I did forsake.
Feb 26, 2016
Feb 26, 2016 at 6:37 PM UTC