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RH 78 Jan 2015
Jeremy the green alien
Wore a bowler hat
His favourite sport was darts
And he had a pint with that

He drove a little mini
Made in 1985
It chugged and spurted down the road
The alien could drive!

He was popular with ladies
He stood out from the crowd
He always had one on his arm
Despite not being loud.

But Jeremy was lonely
And sometimes he felt down
His family from the planet plaxo
Never came to town.

Aliens are clever
And aliens are bright
He tinkered with his mini
So that it could take flight

So if you're sitting in the garden
And a mini flies overhead
Think of little Jeremy
With his bowler hat upon his head!

Jeremy visits Plaxo
And flies to earth for dinner
No more sadness anymore
Jeremy is a winner!
Peanut Aug 2015
Time after time
In the depths of my soul
Nothing makes me happy
Knowing my heart is mended
Every veins stappled and taped
Rigid crevices filled with cement
Each dominant strats I have endured
Dissing this blood with artificial flavoring

Have you ever seen such gruesome illusion?
Engineering my way to this makeshift completion
And by the time it's done, you won't tell the difference
Ready my tools for I have a confession
Tinkering hearts, that is my profession
S**pectred recondition, deceitful reconstruction
I really am an engineer :3
Scottie Green Jun 2013
About a week or so ago,
I fell in love with a man
when I went to sleep
in a boy's bed.

His chest
read "weird"
in black-block ink
his self acceptance
made me smile.

His eyes,
puppy dawg brown,
breathed in every edge
of my body
knowing exactly
where they
were going,
but never fully
meeting mine.

Up my hips
on our dance floor.

Down my tummy
on his bed.

His distant
self assurance
consumingly
relaxing.

His
freckled face
and dimpled smile
only implied
deep sincerity
matching
his overgrown
words.

In adolescence
I'd forced myself
to give up the idea
of being with a boy
whose fingers read "bad."

But
When he came
to me
his hands
over
my body
his silence
over
my mind.

He
enjoyed me

The whole night

The way I did him

He took in
my stories  
grabbed my shoulders
with shaking
enthusiasm
with reaction
to my action
with interest
in the questions
of my own life
I'd barely explored.

He took in
my toes
my ankles
my hips.

He acknowledged
the marks
on the skin
of my backside
i became
self conscious
and uncomfortable

But he noticed.

He tinkered
with the ring
of my belly button
grazed
the edges
of my breast.

He breathed
in my ears
He wanted
badly
for me
to feel good.

He didn't play games
in either his loving
or his company.

They were both
giving
gentle
and distantly
warm.

So much
sincerity
from a man
I accidentally
fell in love
with the briefness
of a boy.
Akira Chinen Feb 2017
He tinkered here and there
He could mend a wing and find a prayer
He could fix almost any broken heart with a wink and a smile
And no one every noticed that his soul was drowning
Within the sea of tears trapped within his eyes
Or that his heart didn't beat or pulse quite right
He could fix almost anything
Except for the parts of him
That missed the broken pieces that once were hers
Before he used a wink and a smile on her heart to mend its wings
And watch it fly away on a prayer for better days
Ben Jones Apr 2014
Peter built a paper boat
To set afloat upon the sea
And visit spots of hidden coast
Where not a ghost of man would be
He painted letters on her bow
Which soon would plough and skip and trot
Between the waves which rose and fell
The letters spelled ‘Forget Me Not’

He bid his love a fond goodbye
The tide was high when he embarked
And drifted from his lonely cove
While weather drove and seagulls larked
His course was set, horizon bound
For solid ground and ****** shore
When darkness fell he made a bed
'Goodnight' he said and nothing more

His fast was broken elegantly
Delicately poached, his eggs
His freshly laundered morning clothes
Were hung in rows on paper pegs
He cut a furrow, straight and true
Across the blue, towards the sun
But in the distance, lightning spat
As thunder rattled, eddies spun

The tempest threw a wall of ice
Like careless dice, they clattered down
The sails dropped amid the squall
The hatches all were battened down
A curse was uttered through the storm
Its evil born on salty spray
With gusting arms of icy wet
It threw Forget Me Not away

He coughed awake, all caked in sand
Upon a strand of desert beach
Forget Me Not had run a-ground
But safely found the water's reach
He walked ashore and found a glade
Within it, made a paper home
And origami wings, he built
To never wilt and ever roam

He felled the tree and smote the ground
A frame, he wound of paper string
His garden flourished all around
Each sight and sound of ever-spring
The flowers jostled in their beds
And turned their heads to follow him
He kept his distance from the blue
In case the view should swallow him

An evil creature stalked the trees
It dined on bees and butterflies
On owls and cats, it liked to sup
To gobble up and gluttonize
With paper sword, he killed the beast
And cooked a feast to celebrate
A rain cloud sought to disagree
But quick was he to remonstrate

He flew his island, shore to shore
And kept a score of fire flies
They hung imprisoned in a glass
The light they cast could hypnotise
With nothing left to see or do
He flew up to the highest spot
And carved into a single tree
Remember me, forget me not

His boat remade and set a-sail
The heavens pale with early dawn
Upon his bed, he sat inert
With paper curtains neatly drawn
His charts uncharted, compass blunt
A currant bun, to satiate
A world of peril out to sea
To skillfully negotiate

Some time to contemplate the past
And backward cast the here and now
The Merfolk sang a siren song
And leapt along beside his bough
They guided him to foreign ports
Where shady sorts in cider soak
The tales they told were sizeable
And risible, the words they spoke

He folded down his paper boat
Into a coat of paper lace
And set the ocean to his back
The open track, he turned to face
The way he took was through a copse
The swaying tops of mighty pines
Leant form and rhythm to his pace
Upon his face were thoughtful lines

To either side, the shadows grew
No more, the blue shone through the boughs
And branch and bracken, driven wide
Were cast aside as careless vows
He chanced upon a quiet nook
A winding brook, it scurried by
It seemed a place where time would bide
While either side it hurried by

So dining sparse on only bread
He laid his head upon the ground
A lullaby the branches sighed
Was far and wide, the only sound
He deftly pitched a paper tent
And in it, spent a weary night
A whisper echoed in his ear
It lingered near, beyond his sight

So many weeks of rambling
Through bramble and through briar patch
And pausing for an hour at best
With feet to rest and breath to catch
The summer season on the wane
With autumn rain, attention pinned
To pounce on unsuspecting shoulder
Ever colder rose the wind

Above the adolescent fruit
Fed by the roots of ancient trees
Gave promise of a juicy crop
But yet to drop, they simply tease
Upon a morning laced with dew
A shadow grew and fell across
The spongy ground rose underfoot
And boulders jutted through the moss

The space between the trunks expanded
Saplings stranded on the scree
And whispers carried on the air
From places where they couldn't be
A sheer cliff now blocked the way
A ***** gray and smothering
Against, there thrived a mess of vines
With jagged spines their covering

He found a cave and ventured in
A desperate grin upon his lips
His chattering of nervous teeth
Was lost beneath the endless drips
Reverberating ceaselessly
Increasing with each fall of foot
A passageway and crooked path
By wrath of ancient water, cut

The arid air was felt to shift
And Peter sniffed a musky trace
The passage opened wide and tall
It sprawled into a massive space
The walls were smooth as beetle hide
But all inside was bathed in black
The flies were putting up a fight
But solid night was biting back

A tower carved from stalactite
In spite of probability
Was looming from the cavern top
And from it dropped futility
A spring of purest liquid gloom
Within, there bloomed an evil thirst
For those who drank a thimble worth
Would tread the earth, forever cursed

The cavern floor was laced with dust
A powdered crust of rotted skin
As Peter neared the central spire
The fire flies grew weak and thin
But all across the distant dark
There lit a spark and sprang a flame
That burst from ancient blackened lamp
To banish damp and shadow shame

A scrabbling amid the murk
As forward, lurked a breaking wave
Of decomposing denizens
The citizens of Evergrave
With sinew bared through rotted hide
The flesh inside was yellowing
From every throat that still remained
There shot a baneful bellowing

They forced him to the tower's tip
From which the drip of night was thrown
Gruesome stairs he climbed in haste
Of interlaced and knotted bone
A dire tunnel led within
The light was thin and shadow thick
A deathly door he tumbled through
And fell into a bloodied slick

Within was rank and heavy air
Like foxes lair where hunters slept
The walls, from living flesh, were stitched
The carpet twitched as Peter stepped
The Zombie Queen sat on her throne
Of flesh and bone of Underlands
She rested on its gory arms
Which raised their palms and held her hands

The creature laughed and cocked her head
A single thread of drool there hung
Between her lips and fear crowned
The single sound which echoes sung
The living walls, they tensed and strained
As terror reigned and ichor dripped
And when the monarch of the dead
Inclined her head, the stitches ripped

She spoke in harsh and bitter tones
As withered crones do curses bloom
The fate of Peter turned to dread
His soul, the dead would soon entomb
A single card he had to play
On such a day, in such a spot
He grinned and bid the rotting queen
‘Your time has been, forget me not’

His folded coat he casted wide
And from inside, a paper storm
Within the flurry, shapes were made
As wings were splayed and talons formed
A paper dragon rustled forth
And in his jaws, the queen he caught
He turned on the assembled dead
Within his head, a single thought

Peter climbed between the wings
Where paper rings he’d fastened there
Gave safety for the coming fight
And all the night, he nestled there
Until the dragon fell asleep
Upon a heap of smitten foes
And Peter robbed the deathly hoard
Each room explored on stealthy toes

He shunned the dark and met the day
And made away for higher ground
Along a path of narrow ledges
Razor edges, upwards wound
A trail, he scaled around the peak
Of Raven’s Beak the mighty mount
Up slopes which claimed so many lives
And widowed wives beyond his count

He stood atop the pinnacle
Where clinical, the ****** snow
Reflecting in the autumn light
Lent all a white and eerie glow
The frost had chilled his fleshy core
His eyes absorbed the scenery
A distant shoreline tugged his soul
A long unfolding memory

Of home and of his fireside
His future bride would tarry there
The tiny church upon the sand
He’d always planned to marry there
He took his dagger from his sock
Into the rock at just that spot
He carved upon the highest stone
I turn to home, forget me not

The knotted land that lay between
Had never been abode to man
The name it took was infamous
And ominous: The Neverspan
Its valleys tinkered with the eye
A fractured sky shone crookedly
Above a wood of vacant trees
That clawed the breezes hookedly

The setting sun would lead the way
Through lands which lay in wait for him
To bare him forth, a paper horse
To keep a course and gait for him
The blackness trickled from the bark
The  tangled dark enshrouded him
And songs in long forgotten tongues
About him hung and clouded him

He journeyed through the Ebonmire
Though fire failed to kindle there
His breath before him writhed in blight
And turned to fight the rancid air
Through many months of loneliness
And bitterness of solitude
He conquered the abandoned wood
And silent stood in gratitude

He forayed through the hill and plain
As on the wane the winters hold
The grass had shaken off the snow
Its Icy glow had turned to gold
A paper hat he now prepared
For as he fared, the rain endured
His horse was crumpled in the wet
No living vet would see it cured

The seasons tumbled mindlessly
And rivalry removed his haste
A sallow band of Neverbeast
By shadow greased and interlaced
With paper sword, he lay in wait
To penetrate each haggard hide
And when their blood was deftly spilled
A phial he filled for sake of pride

The sun became his only guide
His face belied his weariness
With little left to raise his soul
Above the cold and dreariness
Until the second summer passed
And sunset cast a silhouette
The outline of a tiny church
Was perched beside a maisonette

A flutter leapt about his heart
And wide apart, his eyes were flung
As Peter ran with tired limbs
The heavens dimmed and crickets sung
He reached his open garden gate
His face elated, turned to woe
As through the window he could see
His bride to be would not be so

A gentleman stood at her side
His bride adorned in happiness
And though it burned in Peter’s chest
His wrath would rest in idleness
So with a final fleeting peek
He turned to seek a worthy cause
Before he left he knelt before
His former door and seemed to pause

He fled upon his paper wings
As many things he’d yet to see
A myriad of foreign faces
Distant places he should be
He sailed the sky and sought the sand
His native land he soon forgot
Behind, he left a single note
And on it wrote: Forget me not
Kayla Hollatz Feb 2014
The tangerine stained race track
spread across our **** carpet, a turn
by the wooden bed frame, a loop
near the five piece drum set.
My brother’s fingertips gripped a Hot Wheel
by its rear end, its rubber wheels
greeting the track, propelling it forward,
launching it into another plastic vehicle,
and Crash.

I nursed the toy cars through emergencies,
playing doctor to replace cracked windshields
and torn plastic bumpers, victims
of one too many collisions. It alarmed me
how easily the 1976 Mustang could lose its wheel,
sending it spinning like a dreidel while my brother grinned
with splintered teeth, feeling nothing.
The car survived the impact, but people
don’t always walk away from accidents. They can’t be raised
on jack stands and tinkered with. The operation table,
home to drivers with fluttering heartbeats,
can hum to the deafening beat of a flat-line monitor.
A persona poem I wrote for class that it is still a work in progress. Any notes + opinions would be greatly appreciated.
Revel in space, yet not darkled, still
the **** and span of things that breeds
airlessness; The trees are evenly cut,
and their overgrowth seems like a forethought.
Where I am from, we eat fish with
our bare hands and our furniture, from bodies
of sandalwood, crushed with the scent of
peregrines. The morning makes you conscious
of space, and altogether the height of trees
syncopates to a nauseating stillness. In the awning
hours, leaves punctuate the ground – the cicada
with its machinistic song prowls, spills like
water from a broken vase toppled by me
years younger, raw, agile, deftly windless,
  wounded in love, lovingly wounded,
perhaps if there is a word for it, then let me
have my way, easily fraught with its meaning:
   a casualty. Sometimes the timeworn folks
would light cigarettes underneath the canopy
of a mango tree to banish ants and send them back
  to their queens – roosters in their wrinkled stations
croon in stasis, a song for the somnolent. I become
what the seasons evict. Constancy. Rearing weight
and gravity from nocturne. Tears are communal.
They make us aware of the weight of the Earth.
Somewhere, a funebre stilts through the silence,
and the jangle of little pieces spells out fortuity,
men in huddles mending pain by the sleight of hand,
a toss of a card, spinning in its imaginary axis: fate,
   feigned and fine-tuned to belief that it is controllable,
a variable, or a tabulation marred by frailty. From where
I am from, people stride through the streets naked,
soldering baskets filled with fruits gossamer from the
harvest, children suckling their mothers, the music of sweeping
metastasizes throughout the afternoon, and the same clouds
contort themselves to afford wry proposition: it is a day tender
with wonder, its allure overwrought, its sheen unremarkable.
  The funebre leaves with a necessary abundance of absence.
All the leaves depart from their mothering boughs,
  collapsing on the dreary back of the loam like penitence.
Like how once when you were young, you tinkered with
the fresh scab of your wound and felt the pain confine
  itself there, a part of you, that has now healed, but is still
      available for the world to break once again.
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2020
Hazy Day
————-

rose at 3:30am, anticipating an aria of glorious
thoughts needy of capture, encryption, preservation,
three hours later, an empty vessel rides high on the empty
white screen waters of the Bay of Zero, fed by Nada River,
emptying into the Atlantic Ocean, where microscopic is ordinary,
my, my, not~noteworthy contribution, noted for its worthlessness.

delivered the coffee at 7:00am, put on the music,
climbed onto a fresh sheeted mattress, yawning, yearning,
seeking to recover the lost hours and instantly tumbler-in,
inundating random notions, hazardous thoughts,
dispatched to keep me awake, as I trajectory into sleepyville,
each one an angel, coming down Jacob’s ladder for to wrestle
me home, even as the daylight reveled~reveals that a newborn
baby, will be new hot, dangerous, burning hazy day.


                                                    <!>

Hazardous Thoughts
—————————-

                                
“It is easier to give love than to accept it.” (Walter W Hoelbling)

Walter, Walter, what an accursed blessing you’ve given me!

This simple declarative is a racking, wrecking, symphonic
synopsis of this man’s life, crying out for une écriture monumental,
that somewhere in a hidden recess has commenced composition,
know not the where or when of it, but the why is a tightening noose,
squeezing my brain, choking my neck, impounding the heart beating,
because with succinct brevity betrayed out loud, my essential secret.


                                                     <!>

Every night I sleep with a woman and a man; the woman, you need
not know, nameless is what you shall call her, but the man, instantly
recognizable as just Leonard, descendant of the priests in the Temple. Me and the baffled King composing our hallelujahs.

                                                  ­    <!>

Art doesn’t not imitate life. It plagiarizes, embellishes, improves, with
tinkered recombinant DNA, shamelessly swiped, for which we forgive the audacity of its thievery, for with each attempt comes a Confession, remorse, nobody cares, whatever. Art supersedes, supplanting and superimposing, by grafting new branches upon old works, even occasionally improving what was once brilliantly original.

                                                     ­ <!>

Note to self: Do not forget to wake ‘n take the garbage, the recycling, and the corrugated cardboard and all previous poems to the Town Dump, before they stink up the garage. Post Office, Pharmacy for local weekly newspaper, no candy.

                                                     <!>

Dozy, sleepy. Sarcastic “great.”  I’ll never remember this poem;
**** these hazardous thoughts on a hot, dangerous, burning,
innocent hazy day.
note to self: dreamt yesterday in the early morn;, composed in the afternoon, listening to Jonas Kaufmann, edited, posted at 3:30 AM Friday listening to Kris Kristofferson and Janis Joplin.
3:35AM Fri Jul 24.

the precedent predecessor:

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3096449/every-poem-is-a-test-of-character/
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2013
The fifth poem I put on HP; few* read it so I resubmit as Lost In Space III.
I tinkered with it slightly... O yeah, based on a true story....

Multi-tasking your body

Kissing your eyes,
Sense the tipsiness of your
Trembling lashes,
Drinking a poem from
My poetry birthing place.

Between  kisses and rapido exhales,
Stutter and lisp
Uttered word-wisps,
Shockingly bad love poem stories.

Right hand strokes thy chest,
sensing/sending heartbeats upon my palm to the
Forever keep part of my
Treasury memory chest.

All the while my left finger
Catalogues, indexes.
It, mesmerized, it memorizes,
The curvatures of thy face
To be stored in the
Never-forget, always-place.

My tongue restless to participate
Goes wherever it feels like,
For the tongue is the only body part
With a mind of its own,
And enjoys getting into
What it calls, the best kind of trouble.

My eyes, my eyes, see only the
Totality of this moment.
When mastery of multi-tasking
Is the single best poem this man ever
Penned with his entirety,
Of which not word survived
For its unspoken silence was its glory....

May 19th
Laguna Niguel, Ca.
With the exception of the High Priestess of HP, Lori C., as usual...so this one goes out to her!
Liam C Calhoun Aug 2015
She’s the same old
Country girl
When she settles back in
With plentiful rice in mouth;
Dry and yet fulfilling with
Words echoing
In between chopsticks,
A sentence upon,
And within,
Every other mouthful.

She has a way with
Talking while drinking tea
Wherein her hands,
Once left to grains of Mao,
Speak nearly as much as the
Sound of
Slurping mountainsides,
Leaves telling stories
And roots shaking rock –
A little something so very
Ancient, so very practiced
And so much so,
That the burden of “old”
Overwhelms her “new”
And 25-year old back.

She rattles and he’s a way,
Away, a way away,
With tinkered thoughts of
Mirages buried silk screens,
The gentle sweep of
Fingernails upon back,
Shooting stars,
Dodging cars
And failure.
He’s the man on the run,
On the road, wherein –
He never ate,
He only watched her
And he never drank,
He only watched her;

He’d watch
Until the faint dreams of a
Sunrise’d give birth,
The new day’d be promised sleep,
And twilight’d be labeled,
“Escapade” or “escape.”
When came the closed eye,
He be the same ol’ boy,
The “other” she’d never known.
"Love is a dog from hell" - Charles Bukowski; and more often than not, I'm entirely compelled to agree.
SøułSurvivør Jan 2016
I built a magic time machine
I tinkered through the night
I erected it with art and skill
I knew I had it right!

Off I went on this fun flight
In my bubble made of gloss
I saw the future and the past
Then found that I was lost!

I saw the moments where I'd failed
I'd hurt my loved ones dear!
I saw the future bleak and dark
And viewed it with great fear

I tried to change the things I'd done
And found that I could not!
I practiced on the future, too
Was frozen to the spot!

I found the present compromised
Came back to my square bed
The empty place between my ears
The space inside my head

I learned a precious lesson
All that I can say
Is once you're off in time machines

You're vacant from TODAY!



SoulSurvivor
(C) 1/31/2016
Inspired by Megan H

-
Dorothy A Nov 2010
She married him just to get out of the house. He, in turn, was a great rescuer of helpless cases, and she was a damsel in distress. They were both so young. She was barely eighteen and he was almost twenty. It was the Spring of 1968, and none of her friends thought it would last. Those were the days of free love, and all her friends did not expect her to stay tied down for long. After all, she was young and did not experience that much in life.

At first, everything went smoothly. They both tried their best to be a good marriage partner, but their parents weren't good models. Their marriages seemed to be lifeless and void of love. So they  had to learn on their own, by their own, day-to-day experience.  

Soon she became bored with him, and he distanced himself away from her. He tinkered away at his workshop in the basement, bunkered down in his own domain while she found her haven in the kitchen. She quickly became love-starved, reading cheap romance novels to fill up the void.

She became relieved when she was pregnant with her first child, so she would not be alone anymore. Yet the birth of her son did not make life any easier, and it only added fricton to the distant couple. Another child, a daughter came only one year later. Instead of feeling closer to her husband, she only grew more weary of him, and he of her. All of her efforts was put into her children to attempt make her life happy. It did not work all that well for her, and she struggled with depression often. Yet she hid it, putting her best face forward in the midst of her desperation to convince her friends and family that she was fine.

They were both very surprised that the third child came around four years later, another girl, for he barely touched her. They had been existing like two roomates instead of a husband and wife.

It was nearly inevitable that he would stray from her. When she became more and more suspicious, she confronted him and he told her the truth. He did not love her anymore, and he was happier in the arms of another. She cried to her friends, and they all told her to divorce him. Even though she had few working skills, she was better off without him. She cried even harder, for she had to admit that she strayed, too, and she believed she may have been the first to do so.

She caught another man's eye, and she could not understand why a mother of three would be so appealing. Now she felt truly ugly, that her marriage was a lie, and there was no way back, but to be out of it. Most of all,  she felt that she wronged her children, and her illusion of a perfect family shattered before her eyes.

Her husband packed up his bags, but even he had tears in his eyes. He never meant it to be this way. What happened to the time when he could not keep his eyes off of her? He knew his children were counting on him, and he vowed he would always see they had what they needed--the basics like shelter, clothing and food. But they weren't going to have him, not like they once had. He felt like he let down everyone who counted on him, and it was a heavy load to bear.

So he went away, but neither of them could sleep at night. The other side of the bed seemed emptier than ever. The woman he thought he now loved was not going to make him any happier than he was before.

He now discoverd that he was just as much in his soon-to-be ex-wife's life as  he was while they were together, doing repairs on the house, paying bills, visiting the children. So why couldn't they give it another shot? They just didn't know how to revive the mess they were in, but both admitted they were willing to do do. She did not want him to rescue her, like she before, for it never worked in the first place.

They made several trips to their church pastor for counseling. Each one had to forgive the other, and not harbor any hard feelings, in order to begin the process of getting back together. It had been nine years since they first married, and they weren't that young, naive couple anymore. Life had matured them, often the hard way,and they were ready to try again.

Even though all her old friends thought she would never make it, she had learned to love her husband like she could never do before. He had learned to be there for her, and not distance himself. They could have stayed together for the children's sake, but nothing would have been any better unless they changed.  They both knew they did not want a marriage of convenience, or in name only.

Life was certainly never going to be without troubles, but they had remained together, weathering every trial. And they never regretted that they chose to stay together.
Sam Jul 2015
I heard your giggles filled with lust
you sprinkled me with fairy dust
said 'hold my hand, come to Neverland
lets leave our footprints in the sand'

You Hooked me in and Tinkered with my feelings
the clock was ticking but it was more than time that we were dealing
because you hadn’t cut your shadow loose
Now i’m just a lost boy tying knots for the noose
This fairytale didn't end well
woolgather Apr 2016
Into a spiral of words, we go once more
Into the head of a madman;
On the contrary, he is self-proclaimed,
None proves he is a madman, after all.
He sets his machine ablaze,
Sculpting words upon his hundred epitaphs,
Exclaiming he'll end his hell today,
And rise again, tomorrow.

He is but a tinker of words,
He is but a feeble being;
Unable to voice the change he desires,
Unable to converge in the norms.
His machine seems rusted,
Rusted, but not broken;
Spewing out nonsense in disguise,
Molding empty grandeur.

It is not his machine that needs repairs,
It is the Tinker who seeks soothe.
He toils upon his machine,
Only to find that none is wrong;
It still basked in ivory and gold,
It still made what it does.
Yet, why does the Tinker feel such incompleteness?
All was vague, until it, came;

It had a smile that rivaled the sunrise,
It gave the Tinker the eyes to see the truth,
It showed him the light, and umbra of life.
It guided the Tinker to the stars;
It made the Tinker feel new again.
Together, they tinkered the machine once more,
And together, they saw the marvel before their very eyes;
They were truly, a cog and a catalyst.

Yet all is not forever.
It vanished without a trace.
It left the Tinker lost.
With its departure,
It left wake of the darkness in his heart.
His eyes grew dimmer,
He saw his masterpiece again, as a loss,
A failure.

The Tinker left death to feed upon his happiness,
The Tinker felt incompleteness once more;
He gambled for it to stay,
Yet all gambles fail in the end.
Yet the Tinker never knew,
It never left him.
The Tinker was made a fool over nothing;
Art lest, just offer nonsense, in love's yonder.
If you find it confusing, then it works. It's literally how I feel every time.
The Year Jan 2012
Left alone to wander
Down the black stone road
Gushing, splintered, homebound
Spinning from the fall

Tightened, tinkered, totaled
Forced to reconcile
Is a call to arms in order,
Or is this just a trial?

Patched by panes of forgiveness
Light seeps through the blinds
The hurt is not well hidden
It’s just a matter of time.

Swelling, steaming, simmer
It flows over the brim
Caught by common courtesies
Stifled by general decency

Animalistic glances
Looks of sheer desire
Civilization is not well organized

Let’s set the ******* on fire.
Cait Anderson May 2014
a conscious thought stated:
don't write another love poem
but his words are vanilla to my ears
the smoothest silk texture
spun from his consonants and vowels
running from his lips and melting over my flesh
you can see where i get distracted...

because infatuation and intimacy intertwine
spinning a tangled web
woven from the strongest thread
and your fingers are musicians magic
strumming on my heartstrings
playing chords on my heart
carrying a tune that would make Celine Dion quiver.
it made me quiver
but there aren't six degrees of separation
from lust to love
there's one degree
but a thousand steps in between

the chemists couldn't explain
why our chemistry combined
in such an intricate way
and all the experiments were inconclusive
because only we are the mad scientists behind our insanity

and while the scientists tinkered
the mathematicians drew up an equation
insert me and you
into x and y
but x and y don't define hidden variables
that even we had to search to find
the eraser's been rubbed raw
against the paper with a hole in the center
they'll never solve their invented equation
because mathematics aren't involved

just a finely designed road map
tracing your veins and mine
from fingertip to fingertip
eye to eye
an artists divine sight
i'll be the paint to your brush
your lily pads to Monet
if your words are paint
my body's a blank canvas

i'm a writer
but even i'm struggling to find the words
that may as well be hidden in catacombs
but we don't need Edgar Allen Poe
to quoth the raven "nevermore"
nevermore shall i search for this unicorn of words
mythical in that they don't exist and yet somehow you do

we'll resurrect Charles Dickens
because he's the only man who would even make an attempt
but even his hands are trembling
with the pressure mounting of a lost word and a quivering pen

thunk

as we watched him dissolve into the pen and ink that created him

this conscious thought beckoned forward in my head
do not write another love poem just yet
for who will scribe the words to fit our facets
when the skins withered, wrinkled and dry
but our hands still twine like grape vines

maybe by then they'll have written another edition of the dictionary
Rob Rutledge Dec 2012
I lost my mind
Yet found a god.
Not yours
Nor Abraham's
Nor one I've met before.

It came between this world
And the one that lies beneath.
Reached forth with countless arms
That sought to caress relief.

It did not make the world
It merely rolled the dice.
We were a fluke of sorts.
An unexpected development
In the petri dish of life.

It is a scientist you see
That tinkered with what would be.
No omniscience
No omnipotence
Just a conscience none too clean.
For it despairs as much as we
At the horrors that have come to be.

I see now it has no power
To alter what has begun
No more than we can
Alter the colour of our sun.
Once I would rage at the sky
Calling yours a Sod.
Now I understand
For I have met Oh,
He/she/it is now my god.
A clandestine rendezvous of sorts…Bub brought his bottles and guitar, I brought my charm and natural hair and together we tinkered and wrote and drank and ate and walked and played and left each other even more bewildered than before.
MC Antone Mar 2016
Fear of it all,
Not knowing when to fall,
Working so hard for far too long,
To have it all go wrong,

Fear of alpha,
We Made scenes,
My ******* is biblical,  

I was flung from the clouds,
For clapping louder than thunder,
He casted us out,
For tugging at his crown,
Because we challenged a throne,
That failed to fold,

Here and now,
Hand selected or arrested whatever’s suggested,
As long as there’s a mic,
I’ll take the stand,
And play witness,

Groping the book oh so popular with hotel nightstands,
And before your bailiff,
I’ll promise my honesty,
Give you false hope, in my sense of loyalty,

Fearing you all
You believe I love to fib,
That’s what you teach your kids,
So do you see the guilt gushing beneath my skin?

Witness to havoc,
The day we set Heaven ablaze,
In the name of Adam,
I promise your honor,
We fought for the liberation of Eve,

But that isn’t what Father preached,

Hand in the prosecutors,
With another on the switch, guess who the defendant is,
Decadence is looking for a conviction,  

The anti-Christ’s came before the Vatican,
He’s of your genetics,

It’s inconsiderate,
You even preached providence,
It’s inconvenient,
To find out your scriptures of full of ****,

Fear of it all,
I was on the sidelines,
And Casted out,

Knowing too much for sainthood,
I tinkered with the watchmaker’s minutes, and was flung from the clouds,

Envious of humans,
But opposed to walls in Eden,
I’ll caress scripture with my finger tips,
I’ll recited your rites of pagans,
And pander to a judge, jury, and all the slaughtered lambs,

He tossed us out,
For tugging at his crown, and falling out of line,

Just a sheep counted before sleep,
But we woke up,  
When we assaulted the Angelic Order,
For fear of it all,

From incubation to graduations,
You’ve been suffocated,
Socially lacerated,
Incapacitated,
By a genre of gimmicks
Governmental deliverance,
Poisoned pulpits of pretenses,
Symbiotically capable of lethally extorting martyrdoms
I watched him rip that rib
  
Fear of you all pulling the plug on me,

I’ve worked so hard for far too long,
To let you lower my corpse,
Beneath entitled toes,

Never finding unity,
Only your sensual weakness for a delusional *******,
Detrimental martyrdoms,
I challenged a throne that refused to fold,

Fear of Alpha,
He casted me out,
To where the brimstone never burns out,  

Foaming at the brainstem,
Unhinged with a taste for their *******,
Fear of you all,
Those that surrendered to bliss,

Now you get my fear of it all,
The day I set heaven ablaze was my ultimately reckoning,
Ignorant because being different required intelligence,
Only now do I see,
Only fools challenge divinity,

A keg stand takes three dipshits,
I challenged Alpha.
Of Beelzebub’s breed,
Falling out of line,
Feeling Gabriel’s heel,
Teacher’s pet had me by the throat.
B Bach Nov 2013
What does it take to set the soul on fire
Fear is not having what that soul desires
There is a method that many have mastered
Through some kind of mental magic or simple trial

Some must  toil and some most fold
In order to keep that soul in an effortless hold
Others choose avoidance or torturous means
And keep the soul afloat in a flaming dream

Tormented by the riddle some lay awake at night
As if waiting by the gate to take the next flight
But Canceled again. On the ground they stay
Cause unknown. Further delays.

Watch the jet go back to the empty hangar
To be tinkered with before risking disaster
Piece by piece It's  taken apart
To find out why the engines won't start
Samantha Nov 2013
(really it is from several years past)

I swallowed a stone today.
It was no larger than a penny,
no lighter than a brick;
It went down smooth as honey

Usually when one swallows stones
It is the careful chosen sort;
Much attention paid to the details of it-
Any bumps, smoothed and sanded...
Gold and Ivory, Jaded streaks smoldered in...
A polished treasure sat snug in
A Deep Blue Velvet box.

I did not chose my stone,
Nor had I chance to smooth out its cracks, crevices.
I was the chosen rather, all too carefully.
'Twas not a stone to be tinkered with...
just did not seem correct.

Blundering my voice box,
tangling singing strings with Heart string,
making a mess of it all.
Speechless and always with a slight throbbing pang
When I tried to shout that stone jumped,
Clattering and clogging up the pipes.

Smoothed by riverbeds, kisses from fishes
With translucent flesh to put
Peridot veins on display,
I always knew the worth.
My stone only settle in the back of my throat
Away from the acids of below,
Poison rising above.
No larger than a penny, and heavy as a brick,
But it went down smooth as honey.
neth jones Apr 2022
at a glimpse i clock the sky
a curtain's been draped
     and we are all shaded
all of nature shares one direction
     narrowing on the horror :
a munking and blotted violation
     the sun has filled with dark ink
an embolism out of the order of life
     voiding over us
                     over the city
                     the world described beyond
                       all voided over

i fall
         dropped
         and shucked
the people around me go simple
dumb and bound with crimple gawps
     we are mugged by the sight

i feel like a farmed over minefield
              furrows being turned
trotted out
             anointed fears climb my throat
it is a show sung ill
          sol
       darker sunk
     than its surrounding leadened soak
yet ringed tightly with an annihilating halo

practical thought becomes clotted
   and my primal processor is tinkered with
evil witterings squirrel about in my thinker
my being is topped up with depravity

i must surely **** someone ?
but who..
(that kid with drool ? /
that business suit with brand name trainers ?)
   and for what reason ?

i madly stare about
look at them ; so human and null
potential victims all
                   raking in snapshots of this ecliptic venom
                     adding to the vat collective online
Prune The Brutes !
it is The Eighth Day and I know my role
Ha !
        such livid thoughts scheme

i shall wait out this exposure looked down upon
take some pics with the others
perpetrate goodly behaviour
mimic the tossers
pass through the ordeal
        with communal protection
                    and live another day
             happy slapped
                       with fresh mad
                               thought
epictails Aug 2015
Church bells tolling like risen gongs from ancient catacombs
The bells latched onto the conscious like anchors in shifty sand
Pulled me in between a stage of a ghost-like pantomime
Funny, funny fellows, followers of fools
It rhymed like pretentious poetry over my head

I'd wonder: those tails that wag the rope to beat
Do they move with the words of one or the smell of a thousand?
Are the hands that wiped the pews flawless
Bound to the secrets of the stained glass,
The shadows of the curled tongues in white gowns?
Like velveteen doves in rigid frocks?

Temples, do not confuse me
For a gatekeeper who keeps watch and never enters
I have locks to hear and ears to think
Those bells strike in the same places,
Invade everyone's Waterloo like a Napoleon possessed

Chartered vessels to dock in the legs of heaven
(Though horses on crusades know more than we do)
Knees scraped from worship all day long
But the marble stage tinkered on
Can only say so much for the hungry
Who raised their hands and never thought why
Hastened to its stop. I just wanted to get this poem over with but I'm too tired to recheck or redraft. This is bad and that is not an understatement. Getting seriously sloppy with writing. The house is always too noisy, the weather too warm, my head just could not settle the thoughts—I could find a million other reasons why I could not just get down to it. But the noise, my siblings being rowdy every single day is making me upset. Solitude is really the soul of writing. It takes every single distraction and you immerse in your ideas whether you like it or not. (Pls pls I need some peace and quiet. Been so tempted to go to that plateau near the cemetery where it's all calm and the sun looks astonishing when it sets.)
Hank Roberts Sep 2013
I tinkered around
and had all the pipe lines
before i climbed three
stories on a 32 foot ladder
made of glass
to the top of the spinning
glowing neon lights
where marriage was based on
the feeling in hearts instead
of anatomic positioning
when the primer didn't set right
and water destroyed my counter tops
Charles Leonard Oct 2014
Mental mechanics adjusting my brain,
speed up my motor, tighten my chain.

They say I am timed right
(they can tell just by listening);
but, don’t understand why
still I am missing.

A memory perhaps, a trauma, a wreck
jarred loose some something,
they said they would check.

They tinkered, they tested,
they wired me up, gauged my
compression, then fired me up.

I trembled, I sputtered, I coughed
and I cried, I started,
then stuttered,

then died.
All Rights Reserved - 1980
Megan Parson Sep 2017
You might think you know this story,
But yours is much more flowery,
Dabs and dots of illusion,
With decades of confusion,

A forgetful father, a muddle-head  daughter,
Tinkered to provoke laughter,
Perhaps for romance , a clever twist,
Or maybe, even a fearful fist!!

Up from times blurry trails,
Came the fanciful fairytales,
Full of gaudy glamour,
And foreseeable amour,

But who am I, a struggling writer?
To help you remember,
Oh no! My dears, I am a time spinner,
For it is in my broth, you
shimmer!
© Megan Parson 2017
Liam C Calhoun Nov 2015
PROLOGUE –

Silliness becomes a later suffering, if only tinkered by potion –

PART I –

A contractual moment whilst halos best remain hung on the hat rack since devils taste so much better. Bitter but belated, ritual yet related, so to in avoidance, fleeing anything that’d mimic life, “ideal;” perfect being a, “nine-five,” during which, “monkeyed with,” comes to a peak and a valley’s once more, a lack of control. A tailspin wherein one truth can become just a shy more intangible mere seconds later – We can see it, we can smell it and we can almost touch it – so allows the specter, the hand holding drink, and later, permitted, for our nakedness to play once more.

PART II –

Four more down and a few gin-fueled gestures later, we stumble upon but one edible truth, an apple and, “sin,” repeated thousand-fold – so succumbs you and a parallel I atop our empty and, “precious,” wants carnal. We masticate and learn to destroy the TV – naked, begrudged and bent over the boxes we worship. We annihilate the machines. We profane the dependencies; placation and participation wrought this artificial coercion, once a friend and now an object – a disdain, a thievery, a prison, vicarious and to be avoided by all costs.

PART III –

Human interaction and fluidic free choice soon become the new, “in,” the primal addiction amongst the bottles of tequila, *****, and plain-old beer. Our grinning, in the flesh and not in pixel, must and will rise like the places we’ve so very poisoned. Here and now, we care. We have to care, because if we don’t, it’s all for nothing. So we top the night twisted, simply breathing, where the smog isn’t seen, but it’s there. We top the night tethered, where the rain doesn’t burn, it believes. And we top the night innocent, and among stars, both in the sky and entangled the heart beating my right,

EPILOGUE –

For the time being, just being, where all seemed right, a little twisted, but wiser nonetheless.
A little long; but a moment I'd never forget.
Derrek Estrella Oct 2017
Let you know a story of the sweepers
They were no fools, they did not take the weeper
Every dime they made
They built their own brigade

She tinkered on, she did, the sulky sailor
He dreamt another job, the timid tailor
Surely, they’ll cross paths
Where the money’s at

A fantastic sail
Carried by a gale
Gallop down the windpipe
Of the sea-coloured stripes

The beggar found his riches off the starboard
We reach for that which we can never afford
A sandy rune in time
Our happy, crooning crimes

When pruning eyes quickly peruse the wheel
The boy quickly rises to show his seal
Beyond comprehension
Beyond condescension

Do away with looking glass
Steel your ship with trumpet brass
The world will only sway for you
If you take heed and start to move

A fantastic sail
Carried by a gale
Gallop down the windpipe
Of the sea-coloured stripes

When they reached the land they became meek
The weary scrambled to seek out the creek
To drown their riches in
And start alone again

Is it such a crime they are now strangers?
Fast and loose, when you befriend for flavour
They hold the memoir
They know that they’ve come far

The fantastic sail
Carried by the gale
They galloped down the windpipe
Of the sea-coloured stripes
Just Grace Jul 2020
Tinkered lullaby
Pastel my waking life
Love notes, in melodies
Score my nights
Loop endlessly
Delicate feathers
Primal heartbeats
Serenade me into insanity  

You set the tempo
I lay the drums
You do that bittersweet color
My voice will ache, though
Catch it, mood-layer
Send it
Repeat, player

Green room,  your living room
Headphones, lie on the floor
Give me your most beautiful dystopia
Inspire me, please show me more

I can’t see you, so join me in the liminal place
Melancholy, ache
Love me through the waves
Plush vibration, touch my face
Float me through your dream
Whichever path it paves

When it crests over
Your eyes are the conductor
Make my skin reach, my body rise
with the orchestra swells
We haunt and torture
Layer upon layer
I’ll never truly sleep

Drift
I'll look for you
You'll look for me
Then I hope we land.
Sincerely Em Oct 2016
She carries music with her every place she goes ..

It's in the gleam of her gazing eyes when she observes magnificence
It's in the tear drops of her crying eyes when the keys of her heart hit the wrong notes
It's in her smile that draws melodious beauty on her face
It's in her voice that hums mesmerising harmony ..

Yet, you upset her

You rid her from her music
You string her out of tune
You silence all the melodies
You took away the moon -

That glowed up the dark night sky
That made the stars feel at home
That made the night feel safer
Yet, you made her feel alone

The waves came crashing on her kingdom
The wind blew away her home
The home she called her music
Is now forsaken and gone

He was walking through abandoned streets
Through destructed pathways of her soul
He stumbled upon a light of faith
He sensed a spark of hope

Tune your keys for harmony, he said
Sing to the aria of happiness and dance
And if life tinkered with your melodies
You need not to look up nor glance -

I'll play that tune of happiness
For you I'll cross the lands
I'll dress you with fine fabrics of music
He said: For sadness, you are too grand

She sang to all the notes
Of a composed music piece
He twirled her around in grace
Like wind swaying through leaves

Once again ..

She carries music with her
Every place she goes
It's in the veins of her melodic soul
And with her music she grows

It's in the gleam of her gazing eyes when she observes magnificence
It's in the tear drops of her crying eyes when the keys of her heart hit the wrong notes
It's in her smile that draws melodious beauty on her face
It's in her voice that hums mesmerising harmony ..

And you, can never upset her
Know the things that make you stronger .. Then carry them with you. Always.

Sincerely, Em
Wilkes Arnold May 2018
When you floated through my life
I couldn’t meet your eye
I was down scrubbing drenches
But your smile made me high

It hurt when I fell
Trying to reach your stunning grace
It takes more than worn hands
To touch an angels face

I wish I was everything that you deserve
But my feet are nailed to the floor
My arms hug my straight jacket
My body contorted and sore

Maybe I’ll see you again
When I fly with tinkered wings
They’ll melt if I catch you
They’re not the real thing
I saw a girl at work today

— The End —