"subterfuge" poems
what is a poet
but a stymied wind
stamping the same soil
seen through polished lens
firing the bugle sound
to reach across some
distant mountain pass
not echo the same
ignite fire
stand strong
find north
refresh
for old paths yield
grey packages
more stale
subterfuge
but honed
solidity is found
in structures
built sound
a new song of old notes
rearranged to yield
perspective
deep
Apr 28, 2018
Apr 28, 2018 at 4:48 PM UTC
After the rain, I see the daisies,
In their clean, white dresses,
Fresh and perfect.
Washed and bright,
Their faces lifted to the skies,
And open to the sun.
Is it their youth that makes them so fearless,
Despite their diminutive size?
A naivety of spirit or
Lack of worldly knowledge?
Or do their fleeting, precarious lives
Lead them to so embrace the now?
No, their beauty springs from a truth far older,
For they are neither flashy nor flamboyant.
A daisy knows no subterfuge,
Has no jealousies, no conceit.
Its wisdom lies deeper,
And it bends with the wind.
To value the time that we have,
To see beauty in the smallest places,
And to love without fear,
Is a talent easily lost,
And the line between happy and sad is drawn
With a thin pencil and a light touch.
In miniature perfection,
A daisy lives fully,
Its face in the sunlight.
It lives, and that is enough.
Vicki Watson © 2014
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 5:40 AM UTC
Zeus had plastic surgery,
his fingertips shaved off
so he would not leave prints
when he committed
his archetypal crimes.
He changed his name to Saturn
then to Cronos
then to Albatross Von Mariner,
all this subterfuge
just to disquise the fact
that he goes borderline ballistic
when he doesn't get his way.
He pulled Icarus out of the sky,
wounded Prometheus’ side,
left Sisyphus on a steep lonely mountain,
dared Demeter to save her daughter,
yet these souls persist
in mnemonic literary defiance
of a single fact…
No god is greater than you,
the karma jury has come in
and Zeus is sentenced
to five years of community service
on Interstate Highway 5.
He will wear a yellow clown suit
with a red rubber nose
and floppy green shoes
with a fast food tray hanging from his neck
and he will walk in traffic snarls
stopping at every car
to clean the windows
to sell hotdogs
with purple relish and black mustard
wrapped in grey buns
as unappetizing and pathetic
as the lies
he has told us about ourselves
for so long.
Oct 24, 2012
Oct 24, 2012 at 7:35 AM UTC
No poison as venomous
Nor insidious a rouge
No piercing an arrow
Can compare to love
A disease like no other
Like no virus or spore
It rides the breezes of Autumn
With the leaves as they fall
In the laughter of lovers
As they gaze into their eyes
Their company they cherish
As the world, it turns blank
Such subterfuge is legend
As warning you it does not
And in chains of steel unbreaking
Your heart will be wrought
Your walls will crumble
Your discipline, for naught
You crave their happiness
And then you are lost...
as it tears you asunder
and rips you apart from within
Oh, such a malady has no cure!
You can only give in...
When will you arrive my love?
Please, come to me
Cool this fever of passion
This fire that rages within
Swiftly my darling!
Life from my fingers it slips
I can´t bear to see them smiling...
In sadness I wallow in...
yet, maybe this is what I deserve
For turning my back on my heart
The pain, the agony, it feels...
like the cut of a thousand knives...
Aug 26, 2018
Aug 26, 2018 at 11:50 PM UTC
Against the saturated
Horizon of dawn,
Loitering in the dark timbre
Of emerging consciousness -
Dissipating somnolence
And preemptive despair,
Tacitly adumbrate the
Yawning abyss.
Chastened by the cunning and
Lubricious nihilism,
Igniting fermented provocations,
Silent subterfuge; death,
By mirth - the inane;
Lament of the mundane.
Fallow paradigms, accretions of
The last gasp -
Evaporating empty liturgies
Of suspicion;
Charity and equanimity -
Lost in confinement,
Triumphant avarice bearing
Descendants
Of intransigence;
Wielding imperious
Schemes of orthodoxy.
Pollard fragments of
Silken tapestry,
Miasma draped depression
Abridging;
Conversely,
Permuted flurries of anxiety
Dislodge
The vestiges of meaning
That abide
In brazen equivocation.
Tributaries of dogma reach
Their confluence,
Watershed moment,
Numinous effusion
Streams naked epiphany,
The precarious vision -
A gesture of providence,
Certainty and contingency;
Gratuitously derivative, life
Equals choice.
Verdant branches of intention;
And opportunity the vine,
Live forward -
The pen, my voice,
Piquant conduit pouring,
Exuberant wine.
Footprints found in givenness
Underline,
Penumbrae of my soul;
Mirrored silhouettes,
Thoughts and words engender;
And in verse adorn
Fecund soil, Line after line,
The cosmos altered,
Continuum of permanence -
Artist’s art articulating
Essence of my imagination,
I proliferate, I design
Phrases unique,
Participation mystique.
Words creating world,
The apparatus of infinity
Heidegger, ontologically precise,
Language -
The house of Being,
Ineffable, Promethean
Literary devise -
Envisioning possibility,
And abundance to allow,
I occur
Inhabit
Manifest
Future phenomena
Experienced as now.
©2008 & ©2011 W.S. Warner
Sep 16, 2011
Sep 16, 2011 at 2:02 PM UTC
Winters can be tedious.
Sun dips into early dusk.
A dead fire refuses to ignite.
There's a quick repetition
of opening and closing blinds
over a barred window.
In need of reflection
I search a familiar face
in an unfamiliar landscape.
I have her in my grasp,
half illusion, half real,
a symbolic mask denies
her true face,
her glittering crown
divides us by its radiance.
Groping in darkness,
I stumble over objects
of wood and stone,
my unsteady tread tripping
over their contours.
I light a candle.
Bathed in amber light,
our shadows merge.
A new door opens,
stretching the perspective.
No formal borders here,
they wouldn't survive
the present climate.
In their place,
intricately carved
figureheads and totems-
a vision of the past.
My eye is a camera,
retinas branded with imagery
for the photographer's delight-
coloured pebbles, carved wooden animals,
tin cans, bones.....
....A Glass Sentinel
(though she isn't visible)
I can see right through her-
a vision of smokescreens
and subterfuge.
Past stumps of driftwood,
past the uncut grass,
a few flowers...
...to the fabricated backdrop
of a burning house, black smoke
rising
in
a
thin
stream.
At the open door -
The Guardian,
(I know her inside out)
unmoved,
(she didn't bat an eye)
defiant in a new skin,
a softer version-
The Mother protecting her children,
arms splayed, prepared
for fight or flight.
A russet flame
Licking her spine exhales
'Get out of my way!'
but she wasn't listening.
Smile fixed,
eyes of a phoenix,
a lion,
a raptor,
protector.
We all need feeding,
but not this way!
Throw me a cloth,
a napkin,
a man-size tissue
a lifeline!
She wanted this,
no, wished it-
this symbolism,
this burning of ironic portraits,
to clear the deck,
make way for new.
It shook the house,
its fate sealed behind closed doors.
I compose myself,
pull her back from the perilous edge,
gather her in my arms.
Fragments of shattered words
flutter in the ether.
What is real?
What is fiction?
A carbon copy of thousands?
A charred corner?
A forgotten candle?
WARNING:
'Eating fire' is a risky business
but can attract a large audience.
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 11:29 AM UTC
Upon every arrival of every celestial birth,
There is only one common normality.
A susceptibility to an infinitesimal design,
A kink in the chain, the war of our mind.
This psychosomatic condition is no stranger,
A rendition of life’s existence.
Confinement exacerbated by poor health in the gut line,
Hormonal imbalances manipulated by addictive influences.
Paradigms shifting in front of awakening eyes,
Psychedelic truths hidden within the tides of time,
Confusion and conflict preventing expansion of evolutionary consciousness,
A cyclic pattern, the sadness in all our lives.
This idea is immortal and internal in the human genome,
The greatest subterfuge,
Amnesia
Jan 26, 2017
Jan 26, 2017 at 3:15 PM UTC
So you think you are a master of techniques of persuasion?
You shallow pips-squeak, mediocrity is your mastery
the obsequious hoi polloi that surround you are the pitiable averageness of conciliation
Sophistry and subterfuge are your game of compromised facts
syllogistic arithmetic conceptualizing doesn't make anything so
your addition is flawed by your bungled bombast of banality and guile
fortunately for you, your crowd will never study logic
fortunately for you semi-literacy is de rigueur
You pompous swollen grandiose mass of hyperbolic gas
Fear is what you offer, lies are what you sell
your rhetorical flourish is as the stench of a waste dump
fetid, corpulent, fallow and febrile
toxic
half-truths, innuendos, ambiguities, conjecture and asinine aspersions comprise your specious fare,
fostering rumours, manipulating facts, you are the purported Biblical brood of vipers so extensively reviled against
Your relevancy is attributable to the dull stupidity so profusely prevalent today
Your "success" is the stuff of taint and treachery
You'll probably choke to death on a stuck piece of poorly masticated flesh
so appropriate and befitting the demise of a professional liar
Apr 28, 2013
Apr 28, 2013 at 12:44 AM UTC
We live in our own world,
A world that is too small
For you to stoop and enter
Even on hands and knees,
The adult subterfuge.
And though you probe and pry
With analytic eye,
And eavesdrop all our talk
With an amused look,
You cannot find the centre
Where we dance, where we play,
Where life is still asleep
Under the closed flower,
Under the smooth shell
Of eggs in the cupped nest
That mock the faded blue
Of your remoter heaven.
2.9k
I never was occupied with the essence of patriotism
The altruism of the conscription of the young, to later express gratitude for their service, for their heroism
The sensationalism of singing of the anthems, and the so-called 'civil defence'
But really, it's all merely an excuse to justify unwarranted offence
It's a weapon wielded as a subterfuge for the ethical codes transgressed
For capital, people become national and subsequently irrational
Due to patriotism, all the decisions of the government are infallible
And anyone who opposes said verdicts is radical
To continue reading about patriotism, please subscribe it's only $120 per annum. Fees are taxable
Oct 17, 2017
Oct 17, 2017 at 12:42 PM UTC
she fell in love
with a subterfuge
of a human,
manipulating words
into timely and
recurring emotions.
turning smiles
into idiosyncrasy
and crying into yore.
Act One
he started off easy,
with the tip of a hat
and a sly smile so thin
you'd walk a tight rope across it
Act Two
he had a way with words
that swept you
off your feet
without fail nor hesitation.
twisting love into lust,
and happiness into heartbreak,
and there's nothing
you could do to stop it
Act Three
as the final act prevailed,
he left with a surprise.
playing with her
heart strings like
a talented guitarist.
a song so beautiful
she seemed to dance
little did she know, she was dancing on strings
Prelude
as you see,
that was his trick.
turning a girl into a puppet
helplessly relying on
the strings she was
suspended upon
so if i may, i bid you with this,
never trust a magician
because a magician
never reveals his
secret, nor his
tricks
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 3:18 PM UTC
10,000 steps to a poem
<~>
walk to save my visions, my subterfuge-self, trying to
encapsulate the moments, seconds of nano-instances of a
tableau of histories, of actions becoming interactions,
a physical mitosis, ground into one human paste of word-cells
by a singular mortar and pestle that more than blends, but condenses
walk in Whitman’s footsteps, prowl old cobbled
streets seeing them anew, listening to the patois
of each skyward pathway, a commingling of
catechisms, Tefilot, Salah, Stuti Karana, into a stampede becoming a tornado funnel of a multivariate alphabets singularity - a prayer|poem returning to birth-mother
rush homeward desperate to retain the holy mess of verbal music,
before aged eyes release the visions, into a heavenly lost but found
depot of single lefty gloves, snatches and refrains, hymnals, phrases,
10,000 preservation band steps keeping but scraps, weeping
for the so much lost, yet blessing-uttering thankful for this one,
to a one
*who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to
this moment, to this season.*
4/4/21
1:50pm
~writ by night, daylight born~
Apr 4, 2021
Apr 4, 2021 at 1:57 PM UTC
That which Boils Toils
the product of my affection
May I make an interjection,
I may be at a spike,
my mind may be filled with spite,
and that's right, I am more than probably,
more than likely
overly hormonally irrationally irate.
Instigated, mind you, by your subterfuge,
incessant, noncovalent, depressant,
actions of will will make me seethe.
For my seething wreathing rampage feels so good.
Too good,
ice that cascades down your back on a stark hot summer day
The ice, tiny razors cutting tracks down your back.
Racing beads toward the finish line.
And it feels sublime
The pain of the chill counters the pain of the heat.
And that's how I feel when we meet
at that place where I become a monster.
My chill blown westward
counters the visceral heat in my breast.
That heat that makes me want to beat sticks and drums
and call in my army
It alarms me
That's why I whisper
And shy away
And sulk, because the Hulk is who I'm keeping at bay
My enemy is not the one with eyes searching for me,
but my Jealousy who is at war within me.
Aug 11, 2012
Aug 11, 2012 at 6:38 AM UTC
Seldom am I so direct,
Like Wayne, Parker, Kent,
I prefer my subterfuge.
But these words are penned
(figuratively speaking)
by the penultimate,
tumultuous,
and often callous wordjockey
yours truly.
As I've said, I'm seldom
more than the sum
of my company kept
*[let slip,
reacquainted,
self-righteous reconciliation,
regret, repeat]*
And today, I find
myself
writing thrice,
twice toward pride,
once of consequence.
Que sera sera.
I'm lead like a horse
who had to drink -
or perhaps imbibe?
your softly streaming sentences,
words which kicked like a mule.
Remember, I was hoarse,
parched.
On that parchment, I find these words:
I am a cause...
Truth at last, truth at last,
Thank God almighty...
...you know the rest.
I stand on this principle -
that I cannot stand at all
sin ustedes
your words the salve,
my words the therapy.
"Progress."
Just Cause.
Now, waxing on
toward the triumphant,
anthemic Aye!
If you are the cause and the casualty,
then each daily account
of what might be made martyrdom
should be cannon.
Am I eliciting allusions and assumptions?
Inadvertently, but then precariously so.
So the pieces fall,
the causality, literary
the eventuality, progressive.
Aye, we are naught but what
we are made of by others.
So each concussive consonant chips and chisels
off the ol' block.
To a good Mister John Henry,
my gratitude.
Nov 7, 2013
Nov 7, 2013 at 4:24 AM UTC
Service
the sections
we skim
on
four limbs,
integral
to the insect
cause
and effectively
crippling
the cross culture,
dumb and
auspicious
in the year
of the
opposable
thumb.
Feline
friction
in
the way
you
hug the fuzz
and
tug at
the tension,
a conscious
show of
subterfuge
and
pretentious
pretenses
concludes
in the dismal
aftermath
of a
stamped
and sent
ten cent
envelope
filled with
nothing
but hope.
Sacrilegious
privileges
construct
reality,
obstructing
the
graffiti art
along the
cosmonaut
crosswalk.
The fire,
fought
with wine
in the dark
etched an
imprint
in ash
where
the
cadre had
left its' mark
in the colors
of a
corroded
battery.
Under
spray
paint stars,
hollow,
half
sunken
sights
echo
through
the
illegitimate
children
of a
wind
chime.
Sulfurous
silver
lining
igniting
the ego.
A blue
reaction
in a black
field,
refraction
with a
maximum
yield,
it all glows.
Feline
friction
in
the way
you
hug the fuzz
and
tug at
the tension,
smooth
and rigid,
we fit in
the grooves
and service
the sections
in a
crippled
cross
culture
that
crawls
on all fours,
integral
to an insect
cause.
Oct 11, 2010
Oct 11, 2010 at 5:27 PM UTC
I didn't expect such an eloquent piece of work to slip from your mouth,
An amazing set of words put together as intricate an atom bomb,
Or as an improvised explosive device, so i see,
Thus I must be careful where i tread my glass slippered feet,
and be aware of what breath of words expels from my lips.
I never expected such a skill set of destruction and warfare,
From a beautiful mouth, so deceptive, that it almost seems,
you are an undercover lover,
both beneath the sheets, and between distinguished conversations,
regarding such tentative ideals of love and the ambiguity of trust.
A terrorist it seems amongst the ranks with a finger on the trigger,
with a finger on my lips, and a whisper hush in my ear.
It seems i was blind to your type of sweet deception;
There are codes i didn't understand, and my mind was melting,
from the heat of your touch and the sublime twist of your hips.
I can see your eyes ready to deploy a subterfuge of promises,
as they look into the distance calculating the logistics,
of this moonlight illicit flit of passion;
Never did i expect such an eloquent transpose of intentions,
Even remarkably as this feels like the Romeo and Juliette of modern times.
I am the 'x marks the spot' in no-mans-land it seems,
I am the calm after the storm in the aftermath of your expostulation,
You, my love, are a sublime soldier in this battlefield we call 'togetherness'.
No-one asked you to go to this infernal devastating war;
Yet i long for your return from the eternal, internal battle,
you fight between your heart and your head.
Nov 11, 2013
Nov 11, 2013 at 1:38 PM UTC
I have been unmade and made anew
bolts loose, screws askew
metal stitches holding jagged words abrew
Light a match, no make it two
don't smile at me
I know its true
don't construe my issue
with you
respects not owed and its not due
don't feed me lies
my trust you blew
spooned shards of glass
masked subterfuge.
Don't cast me out
don't look away
I'm a stowaway
renegade
castaway
what makes you think I will obey?
I know the face that I portray
like I'm asking to be betrayed
but cut some slack, bits of leeway
I'll scrounge for scraps
don't make me pay
you cut my tongue, I won't soothsay
the odds for me will soon outweigh
just watch I'll drop this masquerade
and I'll cutaway
to counterweigh
this disarray
replay
this wordplay
display of
swordplay
'cause I'm a stowaway
renegade
castaway
-Esther L. Krenzin-
-Roguesong-
Apr 1, 2019
Apr 1, 2019 at 11:57 AM UTC
Blood Orange Marmalade and Wild Blossom Honey
(a love song)
summer treats, sure,
but not of what we come to sing
no,
this a love story sung,
all about
a Sunday afternoon BBQ...
she knows I don't sleep,
cause I'm never there
when she awakens,
her worry~not~words don't soothe, sorry,
when ears are clogged
by fright and worry
so she does what
a woman does,
cooks me a meal
to soothe the
intemperate noises buried in the soil,
haunting this old soul
now on the downlo downward curve,
who wonders how
he got himself
into another
Laurel and Hardy^
fine mess...
so she will slide me into happy,
BBQ sliders will stop
the blood flow to a brain
that has not rested once all year,
she shops old fashion style,
wild blossom honey from Germany,
blood orange marmalade from where
I don't know,
to sweeten the barbie sauce,
her living loving way
(I add my salt tears right about here)
if this is not a love song,
then what is?
my ooh's exceeded by only my aah's,
music for her hearing,
far better than my poetry forlorn,
demonstrate my pleasure
bite by bite, giving her,
my love's loves delights
for she cooks love
and I write love poems
that won't be sung,
but nonetheless,
will be our shared repast
and banish temporarily all the
subterfuge gloom on a
blue green summer Sunday afternoon
if this is not a love song,
then what is?
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 10:35 PM UTC
Ole Hunchback
Got a right Royal burial;
That smiling villain's bones
Bleached black-blonde
In underground parking.
Exhumed and parlayed
For over two years;
Confirmed to be he
Who caused a Queen
To cry vats of tears
For the Tower boys.
Poor Anne dropped her hankie.
His horse-drawn caisson
Is a subterfuge,
A distraction to veil
Civil dissatisfaction.
He finally got his horse,
And we get the droppings.
And I see Cromwell
Standing beside Churhill
And Charles ouside
Westminster.
Perhaps Manson
Will be busted
In Poet's Corner.
Mar 31, 2015
Mar 31, 2015 at 9:22 AM UTC
sometimes
one can be thankful
for seeing a false facade
its veneer of plastic
gives it away
once the top layer
is peeled off
the true colors
of the facade are recognized
imitation....
like a Louis Vuitton handbag
fake....
as a cheap Levi tag
these hall marks
stand out
to give a clearer view
of what lies beneath
the facade's
subterfuge
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 7:52 PM UTC
Judy Judy Kansas cutie / it starts in the heartland / Tornado = social change through manipulated crisis / Toto the only free agent / Dorothy struck on her head by the closing window of virtual possibility / She realizes that hope'n'change have reached the prairie / Alice in Wonderland Hollywood / Kansas as futurist narrative / Star Wars pre-dated / It's a Wonderful Mythic Life / Miss Gulch as Henry Potter / Witchery in bitchery: Hillary 2016 / Scarecrow as Celtic bog-sacrifice victim / Tinman as ****** therapy client / Did that hurt? No - it felt wonderful ! / Bible-belt Pentecostal subtexts: "the anointing" / obsolete leonine monarchies / Louis Quatorze the Sun King / enlightenment through concussion / the tyrant must be resisted from the heartland / populist progressives plot stealthily to justify their rule through the wizardry of science / the tyrant utilizes tech to manipulate the credulous / green state fascism / journey out of ontic inevitability into the futurist nightmare / eco-mammon bailouts / infantile mental midgets ruled by witch-tyrants = One World Munchkinland / Dorothy as redeemer-Messiah / Dorothy as Mary Poppins / America exports populist prophecy to the greater world / Glinda the Matriarch-Goddess / Glinda as transcendent Wisdom / the Anti-witch antidote / Patriarchy creates "special effects" subterfuge / flying monkeys: shock-troops of the witch / simian social justice warriors / Obama as Witch of West AND Wizard simultaneously / flying monkeys: brown-shirt armies of new multi-culti order / George W. Bush was the the witch the house ("Hope & Change') fell on / Over the Rainbow: somewhere beyond ****** identity grievance-mongering / There's no place like the Restoration of All Things
May 18, 2016
May 18, 2016 at 5:49 PM UTC
Moonlight peaking through blinds
intermingling with candlefire,
Illuminating a tired artist
creating out of an innate desire.
Cups of coffee, cream & sugar
downed two at a time for stamina
while the typewriter tatters away
fabricating a tapestry of stories
weaved by burgeoning personas.
Who are you?
the stories ask
The coffee? The cream?
The paper? The sugar?
The moon? The light?
The candle? Their user?
Are you the art or the artist?
The heart or its confuser?
All of these questions & more boggle
the artist, who knows not the difference
between imagination & its manifestation,
reality.
Our rational world of thought has given way
to a mystical realm harbored deep within
every subconscious; a subterfuge of
silver threads that discreetly tie us together.
Every night, one after another,
minds across the world become interwoven
into a network of murmured incantations.
Dreams lost in translation like travelers
awaiting trains at different destinations.
Apr 2, 2023
Apr 2, 2023 at 12:56 AM UTC
I am the poet called, Sweetsilverbird,
but friends all know that I will never fly;
unless it is by every waking sigh
or every dream or wish or written word.
I have a tender heart that's often stirred,
but that's the code that I would live life by.
I could not bear to try to live a lie,
so of all subterfuge I have been cured.
I think because life has been so unfair,
I will not play the games that others play.
Why does a lifetime have to go so fast?
Why tolerate the cruelty that's there?
But I am made of simple human clay
and only live as long as I shall last.
Apr 19, 2012
Apr 19, 2012 at 1:34 AM UTC
I have nothing more to do
Than sit around and talk with you.
I could be doing other things
And you could be the one who sings.
I would get to listen
To know what I've been missin';
To hear your voice so sweet
It makes me clench my teeth.
You could tell me stories
All mine would be boring.
Yet I know that you would hear them
Or at least pretend to listen;
All because I have nothing more to do
Than sit around and talk with you.
A few months later and everything's changed
I'm surprised you still even know my name.
Days to weeks without talking, maybe a couple texts.
Now I have nothing more to do than let go, but 'm always vexed.
You told me so many lies
Even as you kissed me and touched my thighs.
I always used to look forward to another day
I couldn't wait to get out of bed for you to say:
"Goodmorning, love" or something cute
That would eventually tear me from my roots.
You looked at me so purposely
I couldn't believe it was reality.
Now I've waken up, and I see the truth
So I'm ready to let you go, and forget your subterfuge.
Aug 8, 2012
Aug 8, 2012 at 12:21 AM UTC
You cast out your net
Woven from fibers interlocking like our fingers
And disturb the calm of the surface I understand
Speech bubbles rise in my throat and pop with the sound of your name
There are plenty of fish in the sea
But I'm too tangled up in you to look
This isn't love, it's subterfuge
Yet somehow you still lure me in
And I fall, hook, line, and sinker
Sep 26, 2015
Sep 26, 2015 at 6:32 PM UTC