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Austin Mosher Apr 2013
Take me back to the start
When the world had a heart.
Let the subdivisions
Fall to oblivion
As kings wait patiently
For the public buses.
The dizzy drunkenness
Of the lioness cub
Shocks the perched bald eagle
As he swallows the world
kt Sep 2013
RUSH
"SUBDIVISIONS"
Words by Neil Peart, Music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson

The Trees
There is unrest in the forest,
There is trouble with the trees,
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas.
The trouble with the maples,
(And they're quite convinced the're right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light.
But the oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made.
And they wonder why the maples
Can't be happy in their shade?
There is trouble in the Forest
And the creatures all have fled
As the Maples scream 'Oppression!'
And the Oaks, just shake their heads
So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights.
'These oaks are just too greedy;
We will make them give us light.'
Now there's no more oak oppression,
For they passed a noble law,
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet,
Axe,
And saw.
by Rush
Tawanda Mulalu Jul 2018
This was once all that we knew.

A world in parts before we knew

     it

as such subdivisions as this, that and

more beneath that still: there was

once good and evil, god and them,

the rest of us, and

Jesus, simply looking upwards after

he flung himself forth from the dust

to the sky and the light was bleached

off and the colours leaked from our

eyes to our canvases. What more

can I say before we take more

of ourselves away from each other? What more

before you implant me into some other's

body, and the prayer completed,

and I am finally a computer? In

the meanwhile my eyes will look and

my neck will strain as the sun sets and

so does my little life: how long have I

wanted to see you again, o lord, since

my first scream of myself all so long

ago when I left my mother's salt

and was flashed into the flood of your

      world?

How long, o lord, will you have me here

to see your work through these ceiling

songs, such sonorous ringings, fleshy

twists and turns of paint as muscle

and what's that behind the cloud?

     Your finger

appareled in such golden rays?

Endless. When your ships brought such

dark skin as mine across these

times and spaces, what?, where you

surprised of my dreams to see it,

     this,

all engulfed in flames?  And

yet here you are and here I am and

here is the quiet my birth your

glory your joy the brushstrokes

the colours and the full fleshy taste

of my non-belief, leaking into my fingers,

sticky, frisk, and always.


    When I leave these, they will fall

and crumble. It will all go. In the hallways,

as I walk away: several big windows:

     Rome, sunset.

    When I leave these, they will go

and disappear. Into salt. Those large windows:

blue-shadowed branches begin some small slow dance.

     When I leave these temples they will dust

and return to dust the soil of our hands.

And the trees remain beautiful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Sibyl
Third Eye Candy Nov 2012
at dusk above,
clouds scud like loose teeth in upper gums
purple-pink in twilight. a deep night, seemingly ' on pause '
as all dust tumbles from bare skin
into the naked cause... our minds defunct. our minds undone.
our soul's law
at the very heart
like all
gods

where the birch and elm keep
lean rabbits, and stab at thee with long shadows with ashy knees
and bramble rabble; a riotous acreage of predation and escapeful providence
far beyond fences and subdivisions
where men add
by dividing
and knit with schisms...
where the earth has fangs in the ocean
and long nights.

your
answer is sovereign
and hunts
foxes
with your
eyes
bleh Oct 2014
i am lost in the wisp of your faltering
the fluttering of concrete entrenched
into stoic rigmarole

to reach out layer by layer
peeling unearthing
a catatonic subdivision of disjoint subdivisions
a limit ordinal
between touch and feeling

where we kiss on the cusp of that silent ocean on the edge of sound
drowned in the nebulous familiarity of
a distant melody
a tired resolve
re  solve the old puzzle  muscle memory's misted amnesia
half the pieces falling out the warn tinderbox

inarticulate drowned severed isomorphisms over
brea(d)thless infinities
self adjoint matted topologies
nestled snugly in the amniotic absolution
of form before being

      hands of matted ice
contorted into perfection
by the sculpting propensities
  of undulations of estrangement,

where we touch in the cusp of self reflections thousand mirrors inverted propensities
                        infinite infinitesimals
  nestled meromorphic partitions
hidden corners in the brevity of dusk
multiplicities fragmenting behind empty veils
(  to be seen is to be made discrete
   to be discrete is to flicker
                                     and disappear
  (inevitably invariable
          inevitable invariability))

we
       stand in a waterfall of gravel
   and drown our voices in the choke of our cellophane hearts

caked
             into fillets of aphasic tundra


  where we whisper our nothings in the desert on the boundary of silence

our words
                         escape us
           like rats from shipwreck


                                      we are
                       disembowelled catharsis
                           intentional and fatuous
                                   retching upon itself

       severed
and free
       and dead
like a phantom phantom limb
i miss the familiar deaths you bring
FLAT lands on the end of town where real estate men are crying new subdivisions,
The sunsets pour blood and fire over you hundreds and hundreds of nights, flat lands-blood and fire of sunsets thousands of years have been pouring over you.
And the stars follow the sunsets. One gold star. A shower of blue stars. Blurs of white and gray stars. Vast marching processions of stars arching over you flat lands where frogs sob this April night.
"Lots for Sale-Easy Terms" run letters painted on a board-and the stars wheel onward, the frogs sob this April night.
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2014
return voyage,
window seat,
trapped but nonetheless neat,
the views anticipated,
the route, north/south,
Eastern Seaboard, on the right,
don't need no GPS,
just a flotation-in-case device
under my **** cheeks

the local barge pilot
sent back to port,
now, the pilot~poetry commander  
in charge,
now piloting
this body, this ship,
over interstate global waters

my censorship overridden,
watching words flower,
in a daze of self-formation,
my input,
torn-out by force,
brain clamped,
seceded unwillingly from the
united state of the brain~body
of my republic

off to the far right
thru white haze,
the coastline, pointing,
an arrow head directing,
homeward bound

see further the water's edge,
wide but still bounded
by a somewhere-out-there horizon,
a glazed vanilla cloud bank
demarcating the end of the world,
for surely,
this cloud line thickened
over shadowed by
rainbow shades of only blue,
for this is where the cartoon sign is
perma-posted,
the one that appears always saying
The End!

beneath a complexity too much to explain,
lies a jigsaw puzzle incapable of ever being
disassembled and reassembled,
so fine are the parts and pieces,
of this land

roads like capillaries,
over and through fall earthy browns,
connecting mini homes,
an occasional clustering,
all set down scattershot,
randomness of guard-posts
over endless cultivations,
some linear, most not,
but all irregular,
as if the toy designer,
drew a landscape with
intent to cause or replicate
human madness at its tiniest,
its finest

periodically, the sea
invades the land, net casting,
subdividing naturally
the subdivisions human,
into islands and lines
of rivers so bent and curlicued,
they too,
cannot be conked,
their single hair straightened

where I am I so do not know,
guesses are hazardous,
so I make one,
Virginia perhaps?

Of course, I am incorrect.

from my perch in seat 12F,
I see a noon-day moon, halved,
observing me and vice versa,
sneaky uncensored notions
periodically sneak in,
causing poetic commotions

does the moon write like me
of what it sees,
or it is an inured sophisticate,
the daily astounding of earth's
mysteries innate, just commonplace,
a regular, serialized TV show?

below clouds cumulus, cumulative,
the kinds superhero's rest upon,
a white blanketed shelf of
fluff obscures the land,
the irony for those flying above this
delish
most relished,
blue skies above me,
a white wonder of
fuzzy cotton ball
underneath me,
which to those hapless earth creatures
is just
but,
another cloudy day

all is lost.

the captain speaks,
descent imminent,
control soon to be
returned to the
fool in seat 12F
the guy that did not write this poem,
but that other fool,
some dumb doppelgänger thinking,
a vista was his and
needed sharing

soon he will be concreted,
his flesh moved like a chess pawn
gliding in and on mass machines,
to move his essence to a specified
confinement cell,
from which
this essay will be reviewed,
wonderment,  who,
who riposted this travelogue
while his hands were tied and bound

for only an innocent can be so
wildly moved, wilderness bewildered,
natural emotions run ramped
from ends to endless,
only hopefuls see horizons,
and what lies above
cloudy grey ceilings,
while below,
in land of
asphalt green and work,
where bills due, obligations a must,
responsibilities that crush,
and so

his innocence is shelved,
wonder is a child's task,
not his,
his are chosen by
clock and calendar,
and flying is an excuse,
to get away,
not a place to get to...

and he wonders who wrote this eloquey,
while he observes rows of rows of
single family homes,
tall buildings and a Brooklyn Bridge,
a Central Park and even his home,
hard upon the East River,
while landing,
finally,
he espys

this place,
this isle,
Manhattan

it  is his brick and mortar,
the stuff of what and where
he lives,
like everyone else,


*on just another cloudy day
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/961704/a-prayerpoem-of-air-turbulence-and-thanksgiving/
A Prayer~Poem: Of Air, Turbulence and Thanksgiving
another Thanksgiving,
another voyage in the rareified
l'air au-dessus,
the air above,
next to, amidst
the satisfying but untouchable still,
the gray-white of the clouds of which we so oft
exclaim, and always fail,
to do justice by

this time the
turbulence
within
compulsion beating
compels this thanksgiving addition
to the compilation of airplane poems

the pointer finger tapping
out this journey's record,
a priori, gold leafed,
added, inscribed,
on the priory wall
of other journeys,
even before
it was conceptually written

the pointer finger tapping
upon your own chest,
calming the beating turbulence
ever present, a giving present
to me,
red wrapped

no whining!

I promise myself,
to promise you,
cause if this be,
the best poem
I ever write
(why not, could it not be this one?)

a small prayer shawl supplication,
shall not be marred,
with plaints and requests,
visions and incisions,
the beseeching distaste of
be and re quests,
this one simple,
even, and as always,
a tad odd like me

I am just an ordinary Joe,
flying over the middle,
the country, the real one,
no megabytes
amidst the real,
a few hundred other supplicants,
gaily glad on a mostly
head-phoned, protected silent passage,
over water, land, rivers, and family clans,
all engaged and presaged by
calendal X marked to make ,
a Mecca trip,
a Jerusalem western walled, holy mount,
which ironically is for me is
direction relative,
that bastion of flesh and sinners,
the city of tan men
and salt pillared women,
the City of Miami

whoa, real turbulence
makes the typos egregious, plentiful,
and the body sways,
left to rightly,
the poem is compulsed
urgent flown to completion
(amazing the shaking and the stirring,
to the point of locating the airbag)
perhaps, he thinks, someone in this
airy residence doe not want this prayer
finished

enough.

"The Prayer~Poem of Seat 25D"

Dear Deity of Whatever Name:

We humans peculiar to some places,
set aside a day, this week
for being superlative,
for looking inward and do
quiet summary addition,
employing organs,
as many as necessary,
noses and toeses external,
organs invisible internal,
a counting to make,
to number what we are,
isolating the better reasons,
why our existence justified

we do it in
foolish human ways,
as is our nature,
human and fools interchangeably
one and the same

So this one man counts
his words, ever careful,
ever plentiful,
and utters grace,
the Bene and the Blessing,
quiet inside,
his fellow airplane passengers
holy unawares,
that he is praying for them
simply saying this

May each one pause,
even for a second,
and collect the moment,
understanding,
that thankful is a
but half a notion,
incomplete unless
it is given
away to another,
by making it
selfless



in the air over the Georgia/Florida border
Seat 25c
Samantha Oct 2013
i.
In the hysteria of absolute clarity
- Otherwise known as the aftermath
Of an epiphanic experience or
47 revelations of elemental semblance
-
One sees one in all, and in
All men, Angels.
____

ii.
I live in the suburbs;
New subdivisions sitting on
Sliced up ground, where elvish houses sat
Comfortably twelve years prior.
The flowerbeds tell stories
In a Tolkeinesque script.

iii.
But the air's clear here, I can't complain.
We've sunshine and enough rain to sustain
The whole football team... we're in A division this year,
My last in high school...
but I still pigged out on candy today,
don't tell mom


iv.
I've been listening more to the silence
And counted seventeen days,
Sequentially (and to my disgruntlement;
thus I dare not jest),
Wherein alarum bells did  roar
From iron red chest

v.
Took Casper to the hospital downtown
On a day like today, hey
It was raining then too...
He had candy in his veins,
And purpley-white too tight skin.
I still pray for his life every Sunday night.

vi.
All Hallows' Eve, now two years past,
Beneath a blood moon
Did the two dance, and sat inside
A crippled tree
To laugh and kiss;
Make merry of a mutual sense of entropy

vii.
In slow motion with
devils dust and funguses and herbs
They brewed and spewed as
We watched and sang to each other
And I learned that demons are in
All men
Read chronologically from xii-i
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2016
how sensible it all seems, how crew-cut and with enough
anaesthetic to k.o. an elephant - outside the laboratories
the populists in whatever guise march on - as with any
congregation, atheists also muster up enough social muscle:
they too have their bouncers and other
gob-smackers with knuckle dusters -
as long as science is popularised it pushes
the boundaries of insensible chasms elsewhere -
                             but with so futile popularisation:
shortages in respective sectors: mandatory,
or as suggested: no longer rich bachelors and
         private laboratories - a science of regurgitation -
once they burned heretics, now the subtle
        championing of mingy sedatives - and since
Joan of Arc's heart no longer aspires to passion
and its all consuming fire, it turns into a wet
piece of coal - reining in the crowds of pop culture
zombies - said before, said again - but how
dislodged the feelings not ranging into absurdity
or at least nibbling on the zest of Dionysus;
but how things changed from that year, 2006,
everyone is asking, the poncy pope with glamorous
attire, the stiff-necked scientists - the pendulum
of guilt swinging in both directions - half of
the 20th century prescribed a fear magnanimously:
oddly enough - as implying: we forgive your
puny religious swooning and answering with
the easiest answers possible... here's a bomb -
so who are the sacred ones? they too are human -
the magazine dissected into:
a. what is reality? (can we be sure that the world
  we experience is not just a figment of our
    imagination) by roger penrose
     b. do we have free will? (the more we find
out about the brain works, the less room there
  seems to be for personal choice or responsibility)
     by patricia churchland
c. what is life? (if we encounter alien life,
chances are we wouldn't recognise it - not even
if it was here on earth) by robert hazen
d. is the universe deterministic?
   (however you look at it, the answer seems to be "maybe")
       by vlatko vedral
   e. what is consciousness? ("my soul is a hidden
    orchestra... all i hear is the music" - fernando pessoa)
            by paul brooks
f. will we ever have a theory of everything?
    (2000 years of rational inquiry may be approaching
  their crowning glory. just one more push could
   be enough...)
                            by michio kaku
   g. what happens after you die? (we have all
  wondered if there is an afterlife, but only a few are brave -
or foolish - enough to try and find out)
                                by mary roach
  h. what comes after **** sapiens?
  (all species are fated either to die out or to evolve
  into something else. all except humans, that is)
                   by james hughes -
so there we have it - the respective pillars of science,
whereby science replaces core beliefs into
core questions - to not hold firm, but to constantly
sway - the 8 founding questions - no more,
  no less - but how many people can perpetually sway?
   the supposed 8 universals, i.e. that every human
  being might, might not, will or will not ask -
     and for these 8 universals, exponential functions
of particulars: because that's how it's supposed
to be: chaotically democratic -
thus everyone knows the objectivity standard:
at its core is awe, outside the core pathology and
apathy - or let us say: passions and indifference -
then subdivisions of (+) and (-), and in general:
   however it is you feel: compensated or left starving.
in 2006, they congregated at a round table and
spoke god-this, god-that - no minority report,
  cold evidence never went down with women (or
so i'm told), three questions, question 1:
                 should science do away with religion?
oddly enough R. Dawkins said:
               "no doubt there are many people who do need
religion, and far be it from me to pull the rug from
under their feet." - we know that the bestseller
              the god delusion came out shortly after.
a physicist (S. Weinberg) similarly (c me la ri lee):
   "science can't provide a sense of magic about the world,
or a community of fellow-believers. there's a
religious mentality that yearns for that."
  L. Krauss: the success of science does not encompass
the entirety of human intellectual experience.
on and on this goes - i guess they have to debate for
the sake of debate - as i am sure everyone is aware:
   a debate can overpower the point of prayer -
confessions? i treat it more like poetry - but in saying
that... where is the medical profession in all of this?
we have astronomers, ecologists, biologists,
physicists, astrophysicists, planetary scientists,
cosmologists, philosophers... what's the odd one out?
it's a bit suspicious that this magazine does not
cite any chemists... and that's ****** obvious...
they're the ones making pacts with the devil -
whether Goethe's or Marlowe's Faust -
then at least to the more obscure rendition
of Pan Twardowski (Herr Tvardovsky) -
         but how odd it already is that chemists haven't
joined ranks with other scientists in their little
Friday night debating club meetings - seriously?
are those boffins serious about all of this?
            or as one said it:
i came from learning to write CO for carbon monoxide,
   and FeO for ferric oxide - or drawing electron migration
  diagrams when two compounds interact (a nice
playground of symbols) and went my way into
   some form of linguistics - primarily working on
          the tetragrammaton - i have no major interest
beyond this definition: would i debate the most
difficult metaphysical assumption of the omni-variations
in terms of ascribing the variations to a being?
i'd stumble in the metaphysical world on omnipresence,
meaning i would be a pantheist - meaning god
    would be anything and everything from the moon,
a mouse, an ant colony, my **** and what not -
            the all-in-one: for one thing, that's already much
too hellish to comprehend, let alone make comedy from.
but they haven't told you about the painkilling
saliva that beats morphine - catherine rougeo:
proceedings of the national academy of sciences,
vol. 103, p. 17979) - the compound's name? opiorphin,
or the scourge of Afghanistan. they also didn't
tell you about Saracen sabres - their scimitars contained
carbon nanotubes - forged from Indian steel
called wootz - 17th century examples studied by
P. Paufler (Dresden) found the carbon nanotubes
and even nanowires (nature, vol. 444, p. 286) -
or is this becoming to look very much like traffic
on London's M25 during rush-hour? it certainly is,
as was intended -
                   1950s: age of optimism -
influenza wave from the east, the indestructible transistor,
   television without wires, baby computer the size of
  a piano, rubber windshields, genetic chemistry,
atomic aircraft, the neutrino, sputnik 1, strontium-90
(radioactive ash)  used by manufacturers of woven
and knitted fabrics to overcome fog markings,
the coleopter, polypropylene (the remnants of German
word-compounding revealed in chemistry, and
only in chemistry, elsewhere compounding is
replaced by hyphenation, i.e. hyphenating),
                  and so on and so forth until present day -
passing through Sir, Julian, Huxley, who reinvented
****** with "positive" eugenics - oh sure, it was still
alive and kicking - quark hunters draw a blank -
             i could reference all else that was involved
in making the last 60 years - beyond that people are
call it ancient history - or are Virgil and as Horace,
and as Ovid did - turned their back to the world,
         into their poplar groves and jasmine filled gardens,
and said: ta'oh!           ta'oh!                 Tao!
  but not until then, before embarking i'm already
dreading to embark with something to add, to even
voice this -                                     but i guess i might:
  as ever, the freedom of speech is never as grand a
                                      luxury as the freedom to think.
Will laird May 2015
I am from my grandmother,who snuck out of the house to smoke camel non-filtered

I am from the middle of nowhere, not far from town.

I am from the pine tree with a water hose tied on it, where I imagined  I was Indiana Jones.

I am from the woods, where the cicadas sang at night.

I am from the kudzu that blanketed the trees and menaced the garden.

I am from the apple trees in the front yard, whose fruit                         never turned red.

I am from the middle of nowhere, not far from town.

I am from my grandfather’s plaid pockets, where he would pull out                     suckers.

I am from my father’s mustang that i crashed into the driveway.

I am from my great-grandfather’s picture, proudly displayed on the              wooden mantle.

I am from my grandmother’s bible stories, in the back bedroom where she read every night.

I am from the middle of nowhere, not far from town.

I am from Highway 494, where the trees were leveled to build subdivisions.

I am from the soft red clay and moist brown earth of the backyard.

I am from the moonlight I could see from the top of my house late at night.

I am from the sweltering heat and uncut grass in the front yard.

I am from the middle of nowhere, not far from town.

I am from the small cemetary past the corner store, where my grandfather      lies next to my grandmother,

and my father next to her.

I am from Uptown New Orleans, where my daughter learns her A.B.C’s in the back bedroom

where she prays every night

I am from the brown bag from the Shell station that i fill with suckers, and sneak to her when her mom isn’t watching.

I am from the picture of us dancing at a music festival, her on my shoulders, displayed proudly on the wooden mantle.

I am not from from anywhere, in the middle of town
Traveler Mar 2022
We got drunk on 70’s media
Deep in suburbia mind states..
No one had to wonder
Nixon was definitely a fake!
Vietnam was viewed
Through a fisheye lens
Body bags on helicopters
****** a moral sin
When it was over
There was little respect
For any of them…
Erin Suurkoivu Nov 2016
Do you see what I see?
We have descended into the belly of the beast.

Houses crowd together, their dead eyes staring out.
They’ve sprung up overnight like

Ugly toadstools.
The machines on the hill are busy

Scraping away the old. By that I mean
What was there before,

A forest naturally,
And putting up these monstrosities instead.

It can’t be let well enough alone.
There are too many people and someone’s got to make a buck.

The world burns down to the filter.
We suffer the fevers of the dry needle people,

And are left with what has been
Torn out from under us.

Some privy chair propped us up with potions.
Dutiful pawns, riding the arcs they have fashioned,

They pay us a small ransom
To cull and sell their wares.

Simple sticks and carrots are not enough to wake us.
The damage thus wrought we pay no mind to –

Subdivisions, shopping malls, parking lots.
There are too many people and someone has to pay.
A "B side".
Haydn Swan Feb 2015
When you left it was hard to see through the vapour that was left by your soul,

just transient corridors paved with emptiness, echoes of your voice,

staring through windows as if they were mirrors reflecting the spirit within, foreboding, dark skies, rain as cold as my tears

these walls hide your face,  they come alive and ****** the memories away,  mocking in synergy, the fast approaching coldness of the new day

that transient moment between the comfort of night and the rising sun quickens the weeping spirit

we seek the subdivisions of love, whilst hiding in the darkness of despair,  yet when it comes and the countenance is lifted, the hand of the shadow takes away our light.
Swanswart Aug 2016
Emperor patriarch enemy family
encyclopedia room flamboyance
and the minions of civilization bow
creviced foreheads etched
with hieroglyphic concentration
pantomiming the harmony of
banana splits dripping
on fireplace slippers
woven into the stories
your neighbors greeted you with
from the other side of the hedge

on the night the great comet arced
into our living rooms
and we kissed oh so
TV-like with the laugh track
clapping in time with the sprinklers
cha cha change the diaper ditty
after supper over done
under the influence
and in a fix
me another martini
extra olives
the smell of negligence
on her creamy pampered thighs
and the aromatic evidence
of lawn mower trim
on her teddy
bareness slipping away into comfort

the children wagering battle
plans with a mouse clicking
crayons left in box
cars matched tickets scratched
windows latched
onto
hobo toxic shock n awe
to see abandominiums
littering lots in crackopolis
virtual and simulated
between the in laws
and the outlaws
the grand apparentless routine
on display

could I borrow a toaster
or waffle with your wife
over the last stick of butter
backdoor banter about
Soldier of fortune
your last subscription
to the mercenary position of
the cul de sac coup d’état
taking place in spinning
class conscious of the fourth
estate third world second
generation first born zero
down home subdivisions
of the disenchanted
evening news is on excuse

that the whole thing is fixed
mortgages futures the lottery
tuition and everybody wins
army navy air force marines
corpses floating cross culture
reference guides to prescription
medication of futile society
Jonesing with the keeping
ups and out of product till
prime time reminds us
why we’re all here

waiting for the aliens
to excavate us.
Andrew Rueter Jan 2019
They used to worship the Creator
Now they worship job creators
Because of their blind nature
And aggressive nomenclature
They sacrifice life and limb
Bringing all that is grim
Making the world dim
Not listening to Him

They won’t budge
While they judge
And hold a grudge
As they trudge
Behind whoever has the answers
Or can cure their cancer
Like a magic necromancer
Raising skeleton dancers

They’re sheep
They’re slaves
I’m not deep
I’m just saying
Their praying
Donkey braying
Causes slaying
Fish filleting

Christianity seems stupid
After they’ve used it
Which is *******
From a ghoul’s wit
Who can’t cool it
Becoming enslaved by anger
And afraid of strangers
Any threat of danger
Nullifies Jesus’ manger

The pious anoint them
The rich exploit them
I wish I could avoid them
Instead I just annoy them

They say the Bible is the greatest thing ever written
But I really love the song Subdivisions
Which they call derision
But Jesus said we would do greater works
Yet the mere idea of that hurts
So they act like jerks
When I tell them not to compare Hattori Hanzo swords
They formulate violent hateful hordes
Expelling anger they’ve stored
Towards me
Trying to set them free
From a more manipulative breed
Until I hate them
And underrate them
After they understated
Jesus’ compassion
I can’t see in their fashion
Building a fascist far right bastion

They scream
And yell
Their dream
A hell
I can’t tell
How they fell
Under the spell
Of a holy well

They’re lured
By a cure
And obscure
The truer
Who can make progress
But meet resistance
In holy offense
And insistence
We may need some distance
To make up this difference
the raw confusion of the nucleotide fusion,
the great concoction of recombinant DNA,
when we cross over our own boundaries
and subsume, integrate, reformulate our
very selves, with inhalation complete of
another human being; the danger’s inherent,
absorbing a foreign body totally is the creation of a new being entire, vulnerable
despite the new totality of the resources of
two hearts acquired for mergence

and the rush of two different bloodstreams
now circulating, stronger by far, and equally
vulnerable to diseases never prior considered,
these tissues patches, interwoven skins, two
fabrics, silk and wool, a smooth itchy, that
makes us stronger with yet unknowns of weaknesses, and then we encounter what
cannot easily be digested, comprehended,
for even new cells split apart, and the terrible
terror of dividing division that is the side effect of integration, new subdivisions never
ever forever foreseen cause volcanic tremors
and trusting your other half is awful,
until the fear subsides

this is the why
I write of
only love poetry,
the study of this process
so poorly and powerfully
misunderstood
is the atom bomb
of the human psyche

in rivers dark we travel,
oars with cotton muffled,
for there are dangers on each bank,
and in the waters beneath
the salt and the fresh
excitingly & violently blending,
different weights
somethings fall to the bottom,
others rise to the top

and when the process is nearly resolved
(for never ending,
by default defined,
for end is a conflict
constant
interrupted by truces fraught,
fragrant and vulnerable)

this then
is living,
this physic of the
bio-il-logic process
called love,
and the endlessness
that it requires

the inconstancy
of the
constancy
of the
deepening well,
and the
redemption of
redefinition
of what is
well


<>

2:10pm
nyc
10/21/24
music
———
“Sometimes Whrn We Touch” Dan Hill
“Total Eclipse of the Heart” Bonnie Tyler
“By the Rivers Dark” Leonard Cohen
MJ Jul 2015
The realization that the notion of change means nothing, brought in by tears at the exact magic stroke of midnight in Donald Trump’s New York hotel, Manhattan. Bookstores buying everything in sight to build an impression, being calm being calm, loving hands are held. Seeing winter trees so quiet in such a small mulled-wine-man-made town, searching for dead women down the curves of subdivisions in the dark. Waking wrapped inside scratchy childhood blankets that kept me awake last night, kissing that face near running hot water, shivering legs always trying not to be heard
Patrick Kennon Jan 2015
Today I shed some tired eyes
Under leaves, leaves with corners
and sharp edges
Today I shed some weary legs
Upward over the mountain
down into the streams
The fragrant and decaying
The cloying and the stagnant
Odd how a man can look over miles of open country
& see nothing but subdivisions
Odd how a man can look at another
& **** for a belief
Odd how a man can smile into the empty bottle
& see no light through the glass
Bones buried under sand a time, bulldozed another foot deeper
Someones kid hidden behind a picture in a wallet
We hid somewhere, in those bushes in the field
Hid from ourselves
Listened to the creek and tried to decipher language
The tea your brewed sits cold in my hands
And the smiles you shared sit cold in my lips
We drank together on the beach, me and these guys
Selling cigarettes to put food on the table
While their sisters sold themselves
And all I could decipher through my drunkness
Was that I wasn't supposed to be there
Never was, never was

I sit with these ugly ballpoint words and think of you
I sit with these grasshopper thoughts and think of nothing
I sit with my feet in still water, my eyes on dead clouds
I think of the broken days
Blackout wine bottle days
Writing on the wall on where to ride trains to
Through New Mexico, to drift
Fall off the face of it for a while
Bootknife nights

We spoke through the cigarette smoke
How we didn't choke I'm not sure
Made me put them down
For good

It was odd, watching those dogs eat those camels
In the sand dunes
The bodies of a car accident lopsided and covered in someones
sheets
Drove for days, small cities, large refineries
An empty ocean that seemed to carry its sand into the horizon
Dune after dune
Somehow we bargained a pack of smokes for two
Saudi riyal

I drank to much and said to little, she always said
Over and gone, pictures on the fridge
Sleeping at 2, waking at 5
Eyes heavy and the first cigarette
A cup of coffee and the slow realization
That the sun remains to rise
they make the plans,
subdivisions of perfectly aligned streets,
and small lots that were once filled with trees,
building houses that represent
what you're supposed to strive for:
money, opulence, a wealth that now exists in ones and zeroes
on a monthly statement that may or may not even be true,
that we can't even trust,
countless numbers of people being told this is what they want,
filling these homes with extra things
they don't need or use
except when entertaining,
all driven by a company that tells them this is the American Dream -
to live in cookie-cutter houses
with no personality,
no imperfections,
a pretend facade,
to hide the imperfections of ourselves
in the guise of manicured lawns and beige paint.

give me a house that isn't perfect,
that needs paint and maybe a new porch,
where the corners aren't perfectly square,
and the yard grows weeds in between the grasses,
where the gutters need to be cleaned
because the trees are just a little too close,
and the spiders in the basement need to be relocated to outside.
give me the realness of imperfection,
a home that reflects who we are:
a little chaos
a little polish
a little messy
a little comfy
a little crazy
a little loving
a little bit of everything, out in the open
no longer hiding.
thoughts on the current real estate trends
Stephen E Yocum Aug 2022
Have you seen the newest
subdivisions they are building
these days? Tiny two story
******* box things all alike
standing cheek to jowl with
maybe three feet in between,
one might be ok standing alone,
but thirty in a row is shockingly
disturbing. With no yard front
or back to plant any flowers or
even let your dog take a crap.

I suppose they are affordable
for new first-time buyers in
this everything overpriced
world we seem to be living.

As for me, I would rather live
in a van down by the river.
"Ticky-Tacky little boxes
all in a row". Little Boxes
Song written and sung
by Malvina Reynolds in
1962, visions of things to
come, that are now here.
Will my grandchildren ever
be able to afford a stand alone
home of their own? Or is
generational inheritance
the only way?
Madalyn Jan 2018
Figmental retrospection.
A delusion. A castle in the sky.
Peering from the far side of some sequestered perspective.
Perceived as a fictious daydream.
An incohesive reality.
Your subdivisions experience an incommensurable verisimilitude.
Dartanion2 Jun 2020
In times of discontent
Some pious tears a closing eye requires
The soft quiet of near repent
Escapes the mind of worldly desires
As threats of pain & ruin bring compromise

Thrown together in thorny wind
Thoughts run south into orange hellfire
Where carnivorous lairs spawn subtle sin
Masked in righteous, godly, attire
Until the self can no longer recognize

So slyly can a mind be swayed
Treading broken trails of life's decisions
Those slippery slopes of daily choices made
Manifesting as good & evil subdivisions
Where confusion urges the mind to self-despise

A difficult twist this thing called life
The supreme energy moving every direction
Some creator has taught us to look inside
For this is the shelter of supreme connection
The kinetic kiln where all love is mobilized
Travis Green Jul 2019
The way he moved in the sunlight
drove my body in the deepest desires,
his bone structure a vessel of fulfilling
pleasures and divine thoughts, absolutely
appealing, sensual curves and shimmery
muscles.  I loved his round tight ***,
how it swayed in the light – thick
and juicy, a tantalizing dimension
filled with blazing sweetness.
rock-solid chests defining his existence
as a true man the veins spreading out
like the wings of an eagle, delicate
designs, astonishing angles, the *******
so perfectly positioned, his glistening
abs so deep and defined, gliding along amazing
alleyways and subdivisions.  I loved the way
he undressed in the bathroom, slowly pulling
his shirt and pants off like a brilliant moon
unveiling its kingdom in the night, tossing
them to the side, gently straightening his
boxers as my brown eyes marveled at his
thrilling **** hiding behind closed curtains.
His seductive stare meeting my fascinated face,
flexing his strong arms and shoulders
like a beast, inviting me inside his palace
of ****** dreams, embracing the cherishing
moments holding his massive back,
inhaling his invigorating smell
and the memories buried deep
within his mansion.  I wanted to love him
the way the stars loved the moon,
bathe in his extreme sexiness,
listen to his private conversations,
my fingers feeling his smooth beard,
the sleek strands an adored attraction glowing
in my mind, his Hennessy eyes a dark temptation
of brilliant creations, infinite symmetry, great details
of masterful inventions.  And I’d go on loving
everything about him, how his radiant body
reminded me of picturesque statues
and iridescent bridges, a dazzling drummer
drumbeating across the magical landscape,
my heart falling in harmony with his
sparkling kingdom, the way I could lay
in bed by his side, simply mesmerized
by his style, the streetlights shining
on our wanting skin through the windowpane,
the cats and dogs barking outside
as if the gleaming galaxies would answer
their call, the night traffic speeding on the
boulevard, their music blasting in our ears
as I studied every surface of his towering ship.
The keen knowledge revolving around his
empire.  The hard labor visible in his vibrant
bones.  The lonely days when he felt so alone,
his back leaning against the wall, wondering
if he’d ever pull through.  I loved every breath
of his existence and was willing to sacrifice
everything, to show him I was here for the ride
and I’d never leave his side, to rise in the
bright flames like a supreme Phoenix,
breathing new life into his soul.
Tarek Benbrahim Aug 2020
Your feedback Won t make me  fall back.
Sitting al desko
Playing sudoku 
Bored , frustrated
I m in a Hot potato!
I can't go along with any  decision concerning any intention
Lifeless emotions
Still , dominating inspiration
Brain wants my approval to begin a conversation
Hey stranger ,
Here is a blank sheet of paper
Rub onto it either with a pen or a Pencil
A penny for your thoughts Pencil Warrior 
A cut-throat self-competition
Are you a brave competitor ?
Are you up for pursuing the reader ?
That reading is worth consumin?
That you are eager to be an idol not a dime a dozen ?

So :
You Need  Knowledge Assistance
Then ,
You ought to Get My Maintenance
To make :
Your Wiriting resemble A Magic
Cool And fantastic
Mysterious Not  Obvious
Meticulous  but Not Hilarious

Hey Stranger ,
A Tip To Mention
That Writin if i m not mistaken is A Paaassion
Divided into Words
Whose subdivisions Are  Alphaaabet
With writing, you can be Against The Grain
Writing Evaporates lukewarm Depression Liquid
That s Circulating All Along in Each Vein,
Compiled steam By me into Glammerous Words Falling liKe A Heavy Rain
At That Moment ,
You Bested Your Opponent which is Pain
You showed The Opposite that is Gain
And Everybody is Endorsing Your Work :
That s Insane !

That s why:
You  Need Knowledge  Assistance
Then
You  Ought to Get my maintenance
To Make :
Your writing resemble A magic
cool and  Fantastic
Mysterious not Obvious
Meticulous but  Not Hilarious

Yes Brain , you stuck to the Point
Writing is a god-gifted Talent
I am lyrically fit and Grammatically Fluent
Arrogant ? No  I can T Flaunt it 
Not **** and Bull Story
perhaps I Should Admit it
No It s A Reticence
Illuminated Through A Piece Of Writing
Yes Brain
You are the ideas machine
I m The Typing machine
Let s Leave A Message
Whether is read (Red) or Seen
Nevermind ,
I just wanna make my conscience clear
How ?

That s why #:
I Need Knowledge  Assistance
Then
I Ought to Get your  maintenance
To Make :
My writing resemble A magic
cool and Fantastic
Mysterious not Obvious
Meticulous but Not Hilarious

— The End —