"thwarts" poems
a birthday poem for S.
perhaps, this is the responsibility, the purposeful gentility,
that poetry engenders, that thwarts the impulse to anger,
guiding away, finding a way, to temper the temper, to out
and joust away our basest, our first, but never our foremost
nor finest, succinct instinct, yet terrible human nonetheless...
perhaps, this is where we hide, neath our carnival masque,
our-would-be better selves, and struggle in this, this intensity intentional,
the season's change is subtly blatant, not obvious 'cept to those
who have a front seat, a well worn Adirondack chair in the nook
where the airy breeze offers fruits of words so easy, pluck words
as easy as breathing, and the slight gradation change, in the light and
temperature, and yet, the suns cares not, for it still warms my body,
though lower and slower, nonetheless, when the heat invades my soul, confirming my, our, existence,
burning off the fog of our contradictory confusions,
and eliciting an unsolicited
"thank you god"
for my, our personal miracle of re~birthing
and better comprehending,
that other
miracle we can embrace
never enough
loving kindness
sun~mon
sep 14~15
twenty twenty five
Sep 15, 2025
Sep 15, 2025 at 8:33 AM UTC
I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green **** hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly--
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.
4.2k
Have you heard about this brute beast that lives in these parts
Restless, he roams, goalless yet he thwarts
A lot of people have encountered some never lived to see the day
Where the monster decide to move past and mind be swayed
However that monster was not feared because of its relentless attacks
Neither it was because of his horrifying expression when he appears
But because of its presence, everyone is taken aback
And with the arrival of such a beast, one's guile might disappear
Face it or fear for your stability
For he is the leviathan that never attacks, he never uses force
However, he just stands there and mocks, yet your actions become coarse
Be brave, young warrior, face the foe at hand
Before you crumble your foundation that suddenly became sand
Face the creature and you will see, your might renewed and goals are clear
Those who do not become a prisoner of life, the ones who cower in fear
Yet, here why do one hesitate, you ask?
Because in the end, we are all being attacked at once
And your actions are watched by your loved ones.
Then you realize, it's not the monster that confronted you that you should be afraid
It's the monster that lives inside every person's mind that you should keep in check.
Aug 27, 2018
Aug 27, 2018 at 4:26 AM UTC
Maybe you joined for the money
To save your wealth from dilution
Bitcoin is money, strong and sound
But stay for the revolution
Maybe you came for clever tech
And Bitcoin’s designed solution
The coding and cryptography
Please stay for the revolution
Maybe it’s your first property
Due to worldwide distribution
Truly free and open to all
Now join in the revolution
We all want to save and to spend
Without fear of retribution
Bitcoin thwarts the controlling minds
Who are scared by the revolution
Take this step towards living free
From control and persecution
The Bitcoin Standard - hold it high
Stand firm for the revolution
Let’s keep it peaceful, free, and fun
While making our contribution
And helping our world financially
With the Bitcoin Revolution
Mar 26, 2022
Mar 26, 2022 at 10:28 AM UTC
Before the Dawn Of Agriculture men like ME where slapped into the shadow of ****** shame but now who needs muscles or chiseled chins, great size or strength, a lover’s passion or a manly countenance ‘cause for ten thousandyears now I can persecute any female for infidelity towards ME and hold paternity privilege over MY biological children because we exceptional farmers invented marriage to destroy human sexuality by enslaving women with MY property for *** so I no longer need to share or compete or settle for an alpha males’ sloppy seconds within foraging groups that are forced to share what they carry with them instead of our enforced legal couplings that takes the innocent, primal pleasure and mystery out of *** by connectingshtooping to birth thanks to dirt MY dirt MY very own thousand acres of seeded soil littered with pens full of MY trapped sheep, cattle, goats and pigs which means I can pork any female I fancy and destroy any man who thwarts MY desire as simply as the bulls I castrate into submission to easily herd into MY slaughterhouses that feed all the inferior people no longerdependent on their hunting and gathering skills but on ME to stay alive so not only am I not considered a sociopath by hoarding food but am praised at harvest time like a ********* Babe Ruth hero because I have legally claimed and legally ***** those precious few life giving inches of topsoil with rotating crops and extended grasslands that exhausts and shrinks the earth, MY earth MY reign of forcing agricultural workers to bend over in the fields, stupidly exposing hairless backs to sun poisoning instead of their protective hunters’ heads of hair harvesting MY food that shrinks the testicles of everyone who is forced to feed on the cheap calories of MY industrialized plants and animals that lowers fertility, but who needs big ***** anymore when you don’t have to **** larger animals in order to survive or attract females with your superior physical attributes proving I am the social parasite Sultan of Swat who grows fat on the food I’ve seized by stealingPaleo land in the name of government protected ownership.
Feb 28, 2017
Feb 28, 2017 at 8:43 AM UTC
2007, revised May 2nd, 2013
How neatly northerly she points her tail,
With fluffsome front paws pointing to the south;
Whiskers point west and eastwards, without fail,
Each side of her benignly-smiling mouth.
She navigates from rockery to pond
And slyly measures distances ahead,
With whiskers poised, behind a ferny frond,
Waiting to stalk fishes, with stealthy tread.
A water pistol thwarts her cunning scheme,
Fired from the door with some accuracy;
And like one rudely wakened from a dream,
She leaps into the air, and bolts to flee.
But soon her equanimity returns;
She's back smiling at fishes, through the ferns.
May 2, 2013
May 2, 2013 at 7:23 AM UTC
Once a month in the ghost restaurant
we bring wine,
we light candles.
Alan (veterinarian) recites a rowdy lyric
about the cloacae
of waterfowl.
Dennis (percussionist, oldies band)
recites from his bar stool about a pretty lass
courted by men at a dance, it’s his daughter,
she saves the last dance for him.
Lynette (social worker) tells how her big brother
tricked her into looking down
the nozzle of a hose.
Bob (physical therapist) sings about fishing
in Canada, then selling all the fish
to Japan.
Joyce (office manager) reads a poem she wrote
about music,
so I (contractor, retired) tell about singing
la la la
to my grandson
who needs constant holding.
We all agree holding is a good thing
but hugging among men is an acquired skill
not taught in Ohio.
Terry (maintenance man) reads a poem
about the secret meanings
of words.
Denise (nobody knows what she does) tells a story
about hitchhiking in France
where trapped in a truck
in the remote alps
with a man’s hand on her thigh
she thwarts the tough guy
by singing songs from The Sound of Music.
Bob washes the wine glasses;
Terry returns the key to its hiding place.
We hug, some of us anyway.
Our little town, once a month.
Literature, home-grown.
Feb 5, 2016
Feb 5, 2016 at 4:13 PM UTC
Wordless my inferior stance yells to be heard
Wheeling the throe of malice to infuriate
The thwarted truth to expose itself, as deterred
Blows, cower the truth in drier misstate
Justifying tears that cascade the willowed floor
Dwelling my eyes to Illusions in a bid to recall blissful memories,
Thus allowing my heart’s pleas to implore
The day after tomorrow to pacify my tearful cries
Wandering the pits of my darkened incarceration
My voice threatened to silence, by my bleeding furrows,
As my life thwarts forward, perplexed by the sanguine
Moat that had been conceived by those endless blows
Dealing my words, to the fatalities dwelling in fear,
Fear no more for as long as you have a voice there will be an ear to hear
Jun 16, 2010
Jun 16, 2010 at 3:33 AM UTC
HOPE
Gushing stickily out of heart
Dripping from the dagger stabbed
Flooding on the floor is my blood.
I sense the deadness of death.
Numerous skulls round his neck
Monstrous foot over my head,
Grim reaper thwarts my throat
Life Sap tastes briny on ground.
Facebook is not what it it is.
Single post can stab to death,
Oozing out of the holy wounds
Blood and water plops but flops.
I can see the Sun setting in zenith
Gleaming rays fall on my eyes
I padlock them to the world
Far-sighted a dawn dawning o'er.
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 1:53 AM UTC
Silhouetted against an orange sunset
in expectation of eve's subset
Halloween night, black cats
with green eyes vie for bats
ink-of-night garbed witch flies
on a straw broom in the skies
she concocts her plan to broil a brew
a potion, a mighty how-do-you-do
to poison anyone who thwarts
take note of her nose warts
don't cross her or you will surely die
and she will **** if her plans go awry
Oct 10, 2014
Oct 10, 2014 at 11:21 PM UTC
Persistent ill-will
Will fester and creep
Deeper.
It will reopen old wounds
And keep seeping down
Dragging down
Happy to knuckle down
To a common level
That we can all disagree upon,
While nurtured good will
Can soften all sorts of ill designs
With a front-line grace,
That keeps pace with a peace
That salves injury
And deftly soothes
Each latent misery
Paving a way for relief that thwarts
Any undermining sneak-behind thievery
So weep no more
And shred that unbelief:
This is where Hope is chief.
Jan 6, 2017
Jan 6, 2017 at 7:53 AM UTC
“A malignant adversary invader of my soul,
Conge deceitful lust the augury of artifice,
Mongrel horrid rancor glutton of enthralled rage,
She was fervent with only one ambition afore,
A grand mistake on my part a gazebo of treachery,
Chattels contrary to my reasoning of my desires,
An indisposed viper camouflaged covered in blossoms,
Progenitor of gasps an assassin tarrying in quietude,
A sea shower of sorrows from whence she was drawn,
As the salty drops adorn my sorrows of woe and despair,
Bellowing a fever of the mind from the vile deceit and rage,
As a fish linked adorned to an alluring virulent,
Fabric as the adumbration of the suns shines remorse,
A rapacious blaze leaving thou shuddering in angst,
I have traveled on a road lead to pitfalls and misery,
Imbroglio with no emotion renders windy clouds afore,
A citadel thwarts wane of melancholy and remorse,
That which reason doubtful allows my malignant adversary”
By Andrew Guzaldo 11/1/2018 ©
Nov 2, 2018
Nov 2, 2018 at 9:54 PM UTC
From earth's ***** he rises with glory
conqueror of shadows, the young morning sun
through nature's children, he tells his story
the mortals rejoice of what he’d done.
The first laughter comes from the flowers
While birds starts the song of the morn
And Dawn is rendered in full raw power
In his wake, a new day is born.
Upon the hour, when he is no longer young
His freedom slowly changes into pride
His fiery rays mocks the bird’s song
Softness and contentment finally divides.
Then the illusion appears
As everything he touches becomes a shadow
His own creation, thwarts him clear
Like a very treacherous foe.
And by the passing of day
His pride slowly subsides
yet he has a lot to say
But in whom shall he confide?
The answer came out easy
When a calm breeze swept his land
the birds returned home, and the flowers busy
to pray for the next dawn, hand-in hand.
The setting sun had the same innocence
That presented the beautiful dawn
For dusk speaks through his fading presence
With the same language that started the dawn.
The shadows were exalting at his departure
Until they too, felt the call
Broken were their form, and structure
When darkness consumed them all.
Jul 30, 2010
Jul 30, 2010 at 9:03 AM UTC
He is torn
between two royals,
blue blood, pretty eyes.
One is his master, his King.
The other holds his heart captive,
greedy, greedy.
She is porcelain skin, ****** hair.
Her mouth is a wicked creature,
poison her weapon of choice
(And how she has poisoned him)
She lusts for the throne
He thwarts her at every turn
Its a strange game,
tearing each other apart
Jan 2, 2017
Jan 2, 2017 at 2:51 PM UTC
I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn’t fight.
He hadn’t fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green **** hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
—the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly—
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
—It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
—if you could call it a lip—
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels—until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.
May 28, 2015
May 28, 2015 at 12:58 PM UTC
Dying petals adorn the sidewalk
They're varying pigments document life's varying stages of leaving,
Thwarts drafts of wind, their nature
to revel in my gaze
Not in act of personification,
They are not the object of attraction
No,
But a messenger to the careful stepper,
“Look up.”
Sep 18, 2024
Sep 18, 2024 at 4:43 PM UTC
Who decides what historical events adorn
textbooks students read,
hence a starry notion born
grew up while
this lumpenproletariat day dreaming,
Asian aw shucks husky
husbandry furrowed brow gritty farmer
barnstorming across
expansive fields of baby
(barely) barley corn
crib bed crop 'pon harvest time,
(an maize zing genre), especially
when enriched with humus
laden loamy muck cob bra,
then aye delightfully
trumpet from dehorn
of good 'n plenti kernel Sanders gave me
saluting rank and file fool's capped
fecund fashioned earthborn
dunce sing tassels,
versus growing seasons gone by,
when draught of ideas forlorn
despite futilely blowing on my flugelhorn
high and dry reap peat head paltry yield,
asper when this strapping chap
a sweaty backed greenhorn
pondering why agrarian laborious life of toil
omitted as part and parcel of "newsworthy"
posterity sagas deeming
shenanigans of highborn
and/or "FAKE" headlines crowd inborn
noble folks,
who grease palms of industrialists,
whose quaking self importance
thwarts aside rural cosseted
krummhorn grounded bumpkin mor'n
how kapellmeister coaches bourgeoisie
helping determine
zero absolute value of newborn
fated to slave away
till body electric outworn,
yet paradigm shift of
(butter late then ever)
jiffy popcorn version
sown by seeds of Jethro Tull,
whose bonhomie with brio didst reborn
agricultural revolution took root,
whence before long some did scorn
and lamented machinations
ordered simple existence ripped and torn,
where antithetical views suppressed
and unto revolutionaries
became legion and well-worn.
Jun 5, 2018
Jun 5, 2018 at 7:34 PM UTC
is delicate.
breakable.
prone to trauma,
and thus an effortless
vehicle for vengeance.
with a river of pain coursing
through arteries
and slender vessels linked
between the most vital
***** and the source
of thought, emotion
quite often thwarts wisdom.
And, oh children,
a steel serpent lingering
within easy reach
remains ever ready
to strike
at will.
Apr 2, 2019
Apr 2, 2019 at 10:10 PM UTC
Flashback to the time
I once drove off the edge.
When sinister sulking demons cried
and opened fire within my head.
Back to when darkness hung tightly,
a cloak clutched close about all corners.
When concealment couldn't hide me
in my quest for something warmer.
Thank the ocean, sun, moon, and stars
this sullen season slowly faded.
For remnants of filled ash trays and bars
rendered me positively jaded.
I'm still bereft of breathing,
these lungs wouldn't take another sip.
Might the darkness flee if I were leaning
over this candle dimly lit?
Flash forward to hereafter
when such episodes are but a tale,
in which an old demon's subtle laughter
no longer thwarts my efforts to prevail.
Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 6:39 PM UTC
Pain consumes me.
It thwarts all thoughts of me ever being happy.
The dark encloses me in a cage with tall iron bars.
And I sit curled up in a corner,
Head on my knees,
Silently crying.
But some days
The sun shines through the cracks of the boarded up ceiling.
I hold on to that light like a lifeline.
I cherish and treasure it,
Hold and caress it.
Murmur sweet nothings in its ear and try to convince it to stay.
Convince it to chase the darkness away.
But I always have to let it go.
And I go back to my corner,
Curled up with my head on my knees
Until the light comes out again.
My head slowly fills up with water as the darkness consumes me.
And I struggle to keep the tide at bay.
To keep my head above water.
I desperately wish for the light to come back again.
Because without the light
I don’t think I have the strength
To keep myself from drowning
May 24, 2018
May 24, 2018 at 10:34 PM UTC
i might have thorns
spikes
spines
quills
barbs
splinters
but i have them for
the reason
i have them is to protect
my heart is very dear to me
she keeps me alive
and so i try to return the favor
sometimes
i may do so too well
and in a way that prevents
hinders
stops
adverts
thwarts
discourages
anyone from
picking me
might be the worst decision
you could make
me do things i’d never even
dreamed of being someone’s
first choice
but those pesky thorns
spikes
spines
quills
barbs
splinters
they do a **** good job
to make sure i don’t get ruined
by someone who’d be afraid
of my
thorns
Jan 7, 2018
Jan 7, 2018 at 6:59 PM UTC
Keeping feelings behind my forts
Thoughts continually contorts
Vision before my eyes distorts
Universe continuously escorts
All the sorrow it transports
All my efforts it thwarts
So I'm feeling out of sorts
©Pauline Russell
Jun 21, 2017
Jun 21, 2017 at 1:50 PM UTC
When the world pinpoints every Flaw,
Destroying every ounce of Ambition,
She thwarts every judgement with Guffaw,
Rekindling a fire within like a Magician.
An abundance of delightful Cuisines,
Lights, music, what an Atmosphere,
Unmatched to the simplicity of her Beans,
No ambiance, yet so Dear.
A global footprint to Parade,
Mountains, beaches, what’s the next Place?
Sleepless until safety was Conveyed,
Her world residing in merely a Face.
Conquering every assignment, a solo Star,
Virtues unparalleled, is she Human ?
An infinite Heart, almost Bizarre,
A MOTHER or a living Superwoman.
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 9:10 PM UTC
The thought of what is left behind
Thwarts my plans
And provides a light so dim,
But a light nonetheless
That flickers along an eerie path
In a darkening tunnel;
Faking a route to salvation.
Teasing me with muffled laughter
And joy and things of the past:
Homely things, like comfort,
Peace, love, care.
The chance to love and care in return.
The chance to lift the muzzle from joy
And laughter,
To let it roar, to let it spin and swirl
In pleasurable mayhem,
In improvised rhythm.
But in the background
The voice calls this a lie.
My mind held in clenched fists,
Hands that are no longer mine
Shaking the images to nothing
Without me moving an inch.
Lying still in the fetal position -
The most versatile of all.
Depictions of birth, light and life
And of darkness, dread and death.
The shadows gain territory
Engulfing me and swallowing me whole
Until I no longer exist.
I am recognized only by
The residue of myself
Yet still a stranger who descends
Unannounced, uninvited
To re-establish my atrocious plans
And numb the thought
Of what is left behind.
Copyright Marc Hawkins 2016
Sep 11, 2017
Sep 11, 2017 at 2:10 AM UTC