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CK Baker Jan 2018
who lit the candles
placed so eloquently
behind purple rock?
that sculpted radiance,
chapel grace
wound in a chosen
defined way
down the spiral
stone stairs

street cars dawdle
alongside
the packer slew
biding merchants
shuffle their wares
as the front man
and pock face
sing their
holy blues

cut jazz echoes
over the accompanying
gabble and drone
incense and haze
pour from
a lower trap door
sack fish, truffles
and splendid crafts shine
inside the stained glass fronts

a wide mouth snapper
with a bloated tongue
greets the
morning tide
(not camera shy
in the least!)
the fish traps
and beaneries
bring life
to the flourishing causeway

hula hoops
and circle ballers
join the
cobaine stage
favoured rogues
and mac jacks
speak easy
of the big daddy

beth’s triple by pass
taking firm hold on
tricky ****
and the nutcracker
maze ways,
taggers and
lost tunnels
of cu chi
strike a
nerving blow

a poised finger man
belts out his tune
(with a sniff sock
and iterating glare)
his nosey neighbors
cut artisan bread
(with a white wine
and jelly spread)
midwives push forward
for an afternoon
toddle and stroll
Mary Gay Kearns Aug 2018
Come toddle here your hands stretched out
With chocolate mouse and lemon squash
You are my candy, sugar babe
Arrived at forty in a hurricane
But if love can spin a web
You little darling got in my head.

Love Grandma xxxx
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2016
Sorbian, meaning, tickling the armpit of Germany
in terms of what's the desired encoding;
the variations of person:
            čłowjek (upper sorban)
               cłowjek (lower   "    )
     čovjek (croatian)
                           člověk    (czech')
człowiek (polish)      clawak (polabian)
              człowiek (kashubian)     človek (slovak)
                                 człowiyk (silesian)
         чoлoвік (ukranian).

' well, there is a little misunderstanding with the
  czech caron e (ě), mind this later.

yes, the peasants spoke more softly
compared with urban sharpening of accents,
so that you knew that in urban areas South
London has hardly Hackney Cockney,
and never Richmond, like Essex never spoke
good Yorkshire -
                             so they sharpened the letters
and that translated into involving accents
to later be abused -
                             the recipe? yes,
i was cooking Ukrainian Borscht today -
apart from the fact that Borscht isn't exactly classified
as a soup, a Borscht is a *Borscht
,
   it transcends the category of being a soup,
just like rosół transcends the same category of being a soup,
           it's a very fine version of what is otherwise
chicken soup -
                            and as a critique of western cuisine?
why are all western soups like puree? they have
snot consistency, they ever never see-through -
they're all ******* creamy, like toddle-pulp of mauled
faeces - as if a bird feeding its chicks with regurgitated
products - eastern soups are see through,
floating bits you can see, a bit like the sea turned into
a Narcissus clarity. let me tell you,
the nurses love hearing the answers to the questions:
do you do any exercise?
                 yes, i walk everyday, once a week a take on
the miles.
             do you smoke?
        i try to fit within a packet of 20 a day.
do you drink?
                   only on alternative days.
        do you eat your five-a-day necessary ration
of fruits and vegetables?
          i don't like fruits... i avoid them...
vegetables? sure.
the basic ingredients of an Ukrainian broth?
        carrots, beetroots, celery, parsley root,
potatoes, leeks, fibre: green broad beans,
                   mushrooms,
                         red borscht concentrate
           white borscht concentrate for the sourness -
garlic.
                             (base? chicken, salt to taste).
well, coming back to the czech variation of the word
person... i feel there's a need to somehow find
diacritical uses coherent -
                                  i can only see it as
the nakedness of the original phonta (variation
on quanta: a specified sound being encoded with each
letter) -
                      it's diacritical marks akin to punctuation
marks and a few mathematical deliberates -
                  e.g. caron:
                                                        z
                                                      š
the z is invited to be applied to the s to make a shush
stress -
                                       arms wide open looking to
the sky for manna from heaven -
soon enough and y and j were confused with
yaks, tetragrammatons and some Spanish conquistadors
named Jesus - whether jumping or yanking the
shortest straws while sitting in a kayak -
or as Jacky said yards ahead if himself -
                   for every Jew there's a yew tree blossoming.
              there should be a rule of law stating:
only such and such diacritical marks to be applied
to vowels, and such and such marks to be applied to
consonants - but, evidently, this is not the norm -
             these are not merely unconscious accepted
aesthetic consideration, when i was being taught
French at school, i was never taught that
    ê (circumflex e) does as much damage to pronunciation
as does the è (grave e) - i.e. the circumflex is binding
the two letters in-between the stressed vowel,
while the incisor e with è cuts the word off when it's used -
              so the caron (mathematically more than? i.e. >)
  asks pleading to the skies for a letter to balance on?
   and the circumflex looks to the earth to find the seashells
and pebbles?
                             as in less than? i.e. <     ?
i rose above language, i rose above spelling because
i decided i could say to Bukowski's claim of genius:
tie your shoelaces before you talk to me:
simple as simply said: whatever lessons in life
i have to learn i'll learn them by my own accord -
               being drunk in Europe is the norm,
as is prostitution -
               last time the police booked me for drinking
i wasn't there... last time i talked with the Bulgarian mafia
i went back to get my debit card back,
            the **** showed me a wallet with 100 or so more
credit cards, i said: none of these are mine...
          the police cruised pretending law abides to the
standard imposed by politicians...
                   prostitution is fair game, but
keeping the girls contrary to self-employment is abhorred....
            me? i just don't do the dating scene,
should i be harrowed from that hide & seek of western
society's women woefully fishing? can i?
i can't be bothered with the games and the Geisha.
                       - you reach the proper level of appreciation
when you start to ridicule your heroes -
                                  you overpower them,
there's no point brown-nosing them with excess over-quotation,
you brown-nose them for a while, but then the gimmicks
begin... and they know it to be true:
    i' peg down Mr. B like anyone critical of getting an
education: learn to spell, and punctuate, and tie your shoelaces.
       you can't let them get away with it... those dumb-*****,
you can't: we all have a sad story...
    does anyone give a ****? m'eh... probably not.
it's the part when he says he read philosophy
but never bothers the ideas behind into a narrative:
                                   with him your end up *******
before Sophia rather than ******* her...
                        you have to **** her at some point...
                  no point ******* women and simply
******* before the deity -
                  better nothing ******* women and not
******* before the deity of worded fertility -
i was brown-nosing him for much too long...
                 whatever he said in his defence,
i'm aiming to capture the imagination akin to ****** addicts.
                      and that's hardly a feat to undertake.
so yeah, punctuation marks and some mathematical marks
above the Latin... Greek went wholly toward the Cyrillic -
oddly enough a Persian, Cyrus, entombed it into the strength
it possesses, rather than some Saint...
                                        so if i'm a loser at considering
myself a citizen of the world... what is Syria to me?
                                               Syria to me being Anglo-Slav
is:                    when Ramses destroyed Syria...
            don't come here with Westminster, please don't,
leave it out in the open with the paedophiles...
                                            i'm a citizen of England,
not of this world: you keep concerns over Syria where
you're at... if i can't be a citizen of thee world in a world
of globalisation, don't include me!
                                    diacritical marks, punctuation
alongside mathematical Copernican -
                                             yes, umlaut and the colon:,
what's the list? an extra oh... the latter phrase for
          omicron.
                                               Boršč or z z (zed zed)
             or h h (tricky, hay hay? ****** ******?
                               hatch hatch?)
            evidently the pronounced: shoo!
                                                        stinker that one:
given z morphs into h when given s or c...
                                i guess it's easier with      šč,
                   a.k.a.           shch...
and the most frequently asked question in English?
(by the middle class), how do you pronounce this?
                   you know why gangsters don't attack
educated people?
                           they love the fact that people made
the effort to learn reading and curtail other peoples' efforts
in changing perceptions -
                  for me it was always about being taught bad
French and rewriting the laws of stress -
                       i'll never understand the caron on vowels:
sure, the French makes it assured to make the circumflex
and the grave accenting above vowels synonymous...
  &
Mateuš Conrad May 2020
there was an audience... there is still an audience...
i wonder about it...
i'm such a conservative deacon in the comments
that... i leave very little traces of interaction...
i tried getting ****** into the whole affair
of leaving comments - like i might have left
grafitti tags on the pillars of bridges...
                   there was an audience... there's still an
audience... i imagine...
or i rather: translate with metaphor what i'm:
trying to imagine...
              three moths have attempted to fly into
my room to spend the night free from fear...
i caught two in my hand... put the clenched hand
to my ear... no... not the sea trapped in a seashell...
close... sound effect of... rain on a tin roof...
a moth trapped in a cage of a hand...
it hasn't rained for days... weeks even...
       the most... bountiful of springs in england...
and everyone is... supposed to handle the affair
like the 2nd coming of ribonson crusoe...
          i can: because i'm used to it...
                    peacefully anti-social...
                     it's hardly bragging but:
there's an audience... there's always an audience...
here's to me: getting regularly milked...
or... laying some eggs with the sunrise and the moon...
i am... at a stage of maturing from...
a phase where... i did... once upon a time...
care about what i wrote... for my own gratification:
but... not any more...
         i've reached a point where...
i can join the ranks of the 4 Dada Suicides...
     'the four' (who) 'took nihilism of the movement
to its ultimate conclusion, their works are
the remnants of lives lived to the limit and then cast
aside with nonchalance and disdain'...
Vaché (overdosed)... Rigaut (shot himself)...
Cravan and Torma (disappeared)...
        the latter two... probably lived a life in
approximation to what might have happened
to... Richey Edwards...
born on...                  disappeared aged 27...
death is the last clue...
    not that i'm going to imitate what's already
claimed...
but... a mile from my home...
i can... find... ample resources... hemlock...
the stems are poisonous...
      i've tried... lilac mushrooms... dog mushrooms
they call them...
i don't know whether i ate a poisonous
one or not... it wasn't...
    a muhomor... amanita fly agaric...
           but... when the circuses have died and
the bread is still there...
no new movies... no sports...
what can beat: the old tease of mortality...
the grain-of-sand per month's worth of movement
added... to the tally and
the curriculum vitae of vivo per se...
                   the theatre of death...
     if i don't think about death with a joke...
i stop being... ridiculous in life...
                   i like the thought of death when...
life doesn't preserve any... sense of...
any... alternative... "light" entertainment...
it's not like i'm planning an escape...
rich and about to clone myself...
   and teach the clone "me" to be: a "future" - and me...
i almost can see how someone must
have tried to cheat death with the available
avenue of cloning...
but... the subservience of the clone...
the clone being what?
       someone must have learned the hard way...
i just interjected the question as an: and...
which is a conjunction...
          but if you're gonna go...
hell... seal a room and yourself in it...
and buy a... metaphorical tonne of lily of the valley...
go to sleep... and never wake up...
death... even death has to become entertaining:
in thinking terms - at the very least...
the only real eventuality among...
half a dozen of impossible things to think about...
daily... and here's that apple...
   if nietzsche... sentenced the source
and future disease from the 19th century...
well... so much for overcoming nihilism...
         nihilism... after all... is not... apathy...
   and even with the death of nihilism...
                              at least nihilism still asked
for moloch-esque sacrifices of will...
     apathy? what does this slug ask for?
it asks of you to... well... wrestle with yourself...
hence that "overlooked" quote:
if a day has many pockets...
       yes... those pockets of self-realisations that
provide a glitch of proof...
a proof of... having to find dominion in
settled dust... oh to hell with grand metaphors
of staging revolutions brought down
from mountain-tops!
- and i'm literally drinking my way through...
what 19th century nihilism became:
a 21st century apathy hangover...
      i'll spare the 20th century the rites of...
a mythical new beginning... a year 0...
        100 years give or take... each side of the end
of the 20th century...
but... nihilism is no longer... the standard:
to overcome...
             as much meaning can be derived from
a peanut as from a falling star...
to be this: subjective sanitiße everything -
                       i hardly think... a dickens would
require an objective reader...
what is an objective reader?
someone who studies: rather than reads...
newspapers...
someone who probably proofs reading...
by also ensuring citations are... made abundantly
clear... archives... etc.
well... better contemplating the theatre of death
than... say...
"normies":
    ahem... the critique of china...
       point: can you imagine... if... communism...
was thought-up... when...
the french revolution began? the only revolution?
rather than the russian oopsie?
well... and communism began...
when... engels and marx... went to the north
of england... and... prior to the manifesto...
wrote of the details of child-labour...
this is not my thing but...
it gets to the point where:
you can criticize china all you want...
but there's no smart... or dumb way...
to go about... pretending to be at war...
with a population of a billion people...
that... if push comes to shove...
could be conscripted instantly...
              to point out... is to exhaust the argument:
to have an argument for:
"western" principles of democracy...
here... have some balloons... here's a keg
of helium... 'ave fun...
by now... saudi arabia is secretly planning
a jihad into the Xinjiang province...
saudi arabia: the vatican of the islamic world...
is secretly trying to... blah blah...
no... the saudi princes are strapped to their yachts...
the bangladeshi slave labour blah blah...
yeah: but whittle ol' england needs
the Neds of Lahore and their tier up from
the chimney top: crescent moon-lick... slick...
- but to be this... fired up...
                it's simply exhausting to have:
a freedom of speech for such high demands...
not need to hide behind the ideals of love...
or being misunderstood...
             in no defence... but... under the guise
of that grand word: capitalism...
the sub- thorough: made in china...
                and what now? the jaw dropping
counter to the very delicate status quo?
it's beyond nihilism... when such upheld
values allowed for artistic rebellion...
to the moon: been there, done that..
europe the old man... h'america the newly
acquired *******...
       you want politico jargon ******* squeezes...
sure thing...
     stoic india... always the stoic india...
to **** off the competition - cheap soviet steel...
the soviet union's nuna 2, on 13 september 1959 -
in between: frank sinatra's:
fly me to the moon - 1963...
and thus... r.e.m.'s yeah yeah: 20 July 1969...
it's hard to compensate / compete with
that sort of a trojan hard-on ***** of
the elgin marbles...
                              at least the germanic peoples
played and understood the ping-pong
with the slavic peoples -
the hungarians on the side...
but not this... african trash for beijing...
the mongol capital of crimea...
and golden hoarding project: typo...
   when they came riding in... smeared
in **** and week old **** and horse blood...
to make... the labyrinth of the baghdad library...
a pyramid of skulls...
squeeze me: to this tired state of lost
the head to a guillotine chatter-box...
even the events of napster unfolding...
and all that's being streamed and...
now's the time to kiss and cuddle prostitutes...
and wet mr. whittle dicky for second
chances of a lost digestive... in that pond
of brew...
                easy fools to fool: those camel back
rich in dino-blood: soul black...
like espressos of mecca... flowing rich
and dying with a soothing...
from amnesia and diabetes...
and amputated limps when... sugar ingestion
leaves them... dancing ballet on only one foot...
because: porky pie and ms. amber: ha!
all bad!
                so much for... what's waiting
the white girl pornstars...
the liberated afro-h'americans and the service...
of beijing shrimp ****...
double edged sword... the height and...
all those attaches... of a fine... fine...
procelain piece of ***...
no-man's-land... the middle ground:
of... mercedez-benson-and-hedges...
        on my way out... the apache / sioux /
dodo / aztec / mayan / dodo (again) projects...

semi-closure...
   gary glitter - rock & roll part II
     ian watkins (of lostprophets) -
                      shinobi vs dragon ninja...
sorry... that one was a paedo...
              toddle-****** for the latter...
and it's not like... i enjoyed the music
to begin with...
i can't see an ad hominem argument
for the former...
                 toddler-******: esp. if the output...
well... it's not trash...
   it's: dad mantra... it's dad claustrophobia...
my take on:
mahler contra pergolesi....
            counter: invest in 100 years to come...
of which... you will...
find a future reader: being alive...
not having re(a)d you...
1986... the reader is born...
1997... you die...
you are discovered... come...
2K and 7... 8...... perhaps 9...
  a time-reference of...
         13 years from the readers birth to your
death... it's Glasgow... a very rare...
sunny... afternoon...
psychosis of the reader...
         1997 through to... 2008...
              that's 11 years... so...
what matters most is... how well you walk
through the fire...
that one about the crow and the madmen...
and each: having his niche:
his "social distancing" clause...
writing was fun when one could
stomach the: in the background...
when people lived their: very troublesome:
important... surgical precision...
nobel prize winning type / typo lives...
writing via a sense of voyeurism was...
well... hardly the self-evident blatant it has
become...
escape into fiction (lies you tell others)...
escape into imagination (choking ties of
tier-a: as above... with tier-b: as below)...
or escape into memory (lies you tell
yourself)...
but i rather the memory...
the cinema of it...
i forget to blink when: blinking is akin
to... signatures... autographs of famous people...
bull... shyte: philately...
         lepidopterology... half closure of the semi-
closure... a brilliant metaphor...
      when the **** or the latex gimp suits
are not available...
there's always that 14 year old "idea"...
of... a tamed *******...
well... if you imagine it as... love at first sight...
you're 16 she's 14... and...
you're dating her older sister at the time...
and then... she disappears...
within the confines of her first and last
unflowering...
but the pristine first-impressions become
less metaphor and more: idealism...
it's fun... when there's a concensus of it being:
forbidden... it's what drives both the hunger...
and the feeding...
that it's never actually realised is beside
the point: made... in... lars von trier's
nymphomaniac...
          too catholic of me: born into it...
but... repressing the urges... is as much as...
delighting oneself in them...
ergo: the necessary *******...
so much for... *****-******* and oyster
slurping... when... you have been...
ahem... told to **** it up...
with the: "excess of skin"...
excess of skin / chemical imbalance
in the brain...
how about... i allow... a triatoma infestans...
to quicken my: dementia...
the myth goes... along the lines...
a horse with a grain of sand...
via its ear... will bash and ram and ram and bash
its head against a brick wall:
in an attempt to rid itself of the irritation...
conformity:
cul de sac queers and kwerks...
i lampoon on a sunday...
the rest of the days i'm free...
clued into: cwown...
which is... somehoo: velsh... in parts...

- by death i imply a riddle...
                 by death i imply:
          freed from the cinema of highly edited
pseudo-living...
not even among the stage of the theatre...
but at least...
cinema got one thing right...
   the suicide of christine chubbuck -
the urban myth goes along the lines of:
a cockroach was found... alive... 2 weeks...
after its head was guillotined...
       it's like that... bane quote:
and... the andrei chikatilo... reality...
non-verbatim:
                 'perhaps he's wondering... why
someone would shoot a man...
before throwing him out of a plane'...
rephrasing:
   'perhaps he's wondering...
why someone would shoot a man...
after throwing him into a prison cell'...
unless... he wasn't... expecting...
to wait for him... to die... of a urban myth...
2 weeks if not more...
brain-dead: heart still pumpking...
horrors from Kiev... Chernobyll the *******
icing cream topping the gwand:
godzilla: pie in the sky...

     i cared... once... once... that was:
upon a time...
these times don't really require much focus...
the space itself poses enough
liberty... no need to look as far back
as there's to look forward...
     the 20th century killer: zenith...
****** and ferriswheel of events...
                waking up to the new mandarin
plateau... it's like...
waking up from... the refreshing cain
mythos relatability...
always from h'america...
otherwise... bullet to the head...
king soldier: human rights...
   yeah... nice... the shame of homeless people:
there's an alexander the great...
a a diogenes of synope: with a hippocratic
oath... loitering around the corner?
hell! go wit' the flou...
                 jump-start a prison adventure...
less... high morality ****-pants
asking questions on the way...
people of high morality
and high: low social status importance...
**** someone...
better than becoming philosophically
homeless... blah blah...
                         i'm so little i actually
define myself as:
at liberty to preserve the lives of moths...
yes... well that's nice...
for anyone asking to: ride the easy... roulette.
Who’s to say how
He might come back for a second
inhumanely heaped-up helping,
if we grant that immensity
of our assumption He did come
kingly first into this inside-
out size from a do-you-miss-me-
yet’s mirthfully mythical realm

I have seen Him
lurking in a particle-board fine
finish on the thin outer membranes
of our estranged and better faces;
He’s Higgs-boson omnipresent,
but far too theoretical
for our broadly practical, turned-
away gazes to rediscover

There He is now
rising in the favela’s gap-
toothed grins with fabulously naughty
corners this glee-pawed grandpa twists
using cur jests his ***** charges
imagine as flightless quarrels
grey-hooded pigeons would gaggle
were they over-stuffed on golden grain

And there again
on a Calcutta mound’s cluttered
conic end, smog-like He slowly lifts
with the crust-gnawed, razor-wire crimps
of a soup-can’s unconsummated lid
as dainty fingers crawl in toward
a gelatinous glob still clinging
to the powerful pretense it’s meat

And there once more,
conceding oms, He restless flickers
at the margins of blocky beige
Beijing screens as crisply clicked clacks
circumnavigate the darkling
smooth patches and spit-spark a few
conscious drips to squiggle out from
the babble of noxious red seas

Emerged, this welp
won’t toddle off to dribble-stain
the dressy linens of a made-up
nanny’s well-mannered and ornate
evil; it will curl up instead,
a swaddled yawn with no yearn to
suckle under His real mother’s
gaping wide and grungy bloused best
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Megan Dec 2013
You grow bitter with age. Each year, a larger part of you frays away, like the shedding of skin, and it’s so subtle that it goes unnoticed.
        
You begin as fresh the sun rising in the morning - a blade of green grass in the awakening of spring. You’re three years young, full of giggles and scraped elbows. You toddle along with the vague familiarity of living. You dance of your dad’s toes and ride down the five-foot-slide in your back yard. Life is a crumpled bunch of forgotten yesterday’s that blur to this very moment.
        
Time has shifted, but you’re much too busy to take notice. Growing up is a tenuous task. Valentine’s Day passed and you gave out cards to every person in your first grade class. The boy with the round blue eyes tried to hold your hand. You’ve not any time to think about boys, or anything really, for being young is much too momentous in the scheme of things. You’re learning to read and how not to spill your cereal all over the table. You wear your brand new pair of bright red sneakers with your blonde hair loosely in pigtails. On your sixth birthday, you grin as you blow out your sparkly candles, one tooth missing, your mom holding your baby brother on her lap. Everyone is awake.
        
Summer is dawning – the flowers in your front yard are sprouting almost as fast as your legs. The night sky is as clear as it always was, the air as warm as it always should be. You lay where your old slide once sat, now a square patch of dead grass, and watch the amiable stars stay happily in their place. Next door, you hear your best friend arrive home. She’s curly-haired and bright-eyed and wears a lot of plastic rings on her tiny fingers. You wonder why your dad hasn’t been at dinner lately or why your mom takes so many naps. “I’ll always be here for you,” you tell your little brother, freshly five, as he drifts off to sleep. You’ve been alive for almost a decade – don’t you have it all figured out by now?

Life begins to unfold before your innocent eyes. The world is muddled, like a swamp, a spherical blur of smudges and fog. You tuck your long honey hair behind your ear and let out a long breath. Tears well in your chocolaty brown eyes as you stare at your reflection, a shaking hand covering the imperfections of your stomach. You hear your mom and dad fighting in the kitchen - their words vile and cruel. Barely thirteen, and you’re already worried, wishing you could still fit on the tips of your dad’s toes. Metal braces line your teeth, tight jeans slim your legs, black mascara coats your lashes. Who are you? You want to answer, but you simply can’t find the words upon your tongue.
        
It’s your sixteenth February, and you’re so busy trying to be happy that you don’t even see the calendar deteriorate. You keep yourself busy as you grow inwards, like the roots of a tree. You don’t give any valentines, though the blue-eyed-boy still smiles at you when you pass in the hall. Waking up in the morning is becoming unbearable, for sleeping proves a much easier task than being fully ‘here’. With hair chopped short and self-esteem diminished, you don’t recognize yourself. And so, you down your very first shot of ***** and chase it with dusty memories, and chase the next with nothing at all.

Staring in an old photo album, shivers rake through your tired body. Six-year-old you stares back - smile goofy, eyes bright, posing in your old red sneakers. You can’t remember being her. You sit, numb and alone, in your college dorm, listening to your ex-boyfriend’s favorite song. It turned out that the blue-eyed-boy wasn’t interested in you so much as the curve of your hips and the length of your legs. The phone rings beside you, an irritating shrill. It’s your not-so-little brother on the other line, his voice being deeper than you remembered. “Mom’s on her fifth glass of wine,” he tells you. “Dad just bought a new apartment in the city. Things are okay, I guess, but I wish you were here.” Something inside of you snaps as you realize you aren’t there for him like you promised. You have stretched your body like a rubber band, prodded it like cork, and left it in tatters.

The sky is dark - a canvas of navy and speckled light. The aroma of sand and salty water fills your lungs. You lay on a crimson blanket, soft and light, hugging your from underneath. Your fiancé sits beside you, tracing circles in your palm, and life suddenly seems much less clamorous. He proposed to you hours before in the silence of the nighttime. Three years ago, you were ready to let yourself go, until a brown-haired-boy offered you his coat in the pouring rain. Hundreds of kisses later, you’re lighter than air, and you don’t remember exactly how you became so sad. Your brother graduates high school this Spring. Mom began getting up in the mornings - she’s been sober for eleven months. Dad has a new girlfriend that is just as kind as he is. You ran into your best friend last year at a concert. She stills wears a lot of rings and has a lot of freckles. You recently changed your major to Astronomy, in light of a new part of you that is just awakening from its slumber. Somehow, after all those years of feeling as though the world was just a sound to tune out, you ended up here.
        
You grow bitter with age and you also grow stronger. Each year, a larger part of you frays away, and an even larger part patches you back up. It all goes unnoticed, until one morning you wake up and realize that it isn’t so hard anymore. It all becomes worth it.
Night Owl Dec 2012
Her
Upon her back, a smooth mossy boulder rests
An old turtle shell that has not yet lost its aqua blue hue
or the blooming flowers between its cracks

The skin on her slim legs are the color of jean
her feet are soft and padded, much thicker than could be called delicate
they are like puppies feet
the other girl's feet tumble and toddle over one another
clumsy
but she has mastered their bigness

Around her ankles is a woolen strip
creamy white and fluffy
fair and curly like a spaniel's chest
soft as a cloud's skin

her hair is a lion's mane
I have seen it whip and sting when she is angry
but now its floating round her head
in a golden halo
like sun burned wheat
it curves, dips and dives
rippling down her back
blazing

The best part of her
as she turns her head, I catch a glimpse
her eyes
sad, dark moons
fanned with lashes, curling upwards, brushing the lids
they glitter as she moves

If I were to dive into a bottomless pool of chocolate
that still would not be deep enough
If I slid into a smooth black lake rimmed with obsidian stone
that still would not be liquid enough
If I leapt into a ebony panther's fur
that still would not be dark enough
to match those eyes that melt
and freeze
in turn

If there was a golden goose who laid a golden egg
and if a spider delicate as lace spun around it a thin moon dust thread
then placed it inside the black heart of the cruelest duke of old
and took it out after three hundred years
then that might resemble the two scorching molten drops
that were my lovers eyes

--Lily
Simon Clark Aug 2012
Crack the ice,
I want to fish,
I want to swim in the cold waters,
Watch me swim with my friends,
Side by side we toddle to the ledge,
Shining white with the snow,
And tarnishing the landscape with black,
We tarnish purity,
Yet remain pure and free,
A lesson to learn,
Of black together with white,
A sensational diversity.
written in 2009
My father uprooted the linoleum tile
after purchasing the house and noticing carpenter ants.
The owners of the house before had laid down
their best pine colored flooring in the kitchen
back in 1959.
I would toddle in and out of the doorway
playing with the grout spacers,
and reaching for sourdough in the pantry.
All while stepping tiny pink sandals
around the dead ants.
I wanted to help my father, but was too afraid
to go near the oven.
The oven, whose
exhaust fan would snarl
like an animal of the night.
Incandescent, where they found Sylvia Plath.
Stained with oil
like a forgotten Jackson *******.

Foreboding
of it’s adjacent countertop
where eventually would lay
divorce papers.
Ken Pepiton Aug 2019
Crawling through line after line,
precept after precept,
I find
here
a little there,

a little, cognitive dis sonance inhibiting resonance,
here
why must I… evermind…

I prefer short lines to commas and ellipses
But both maybe, may be, yes,
Is yet more
Precise…

cision, cutting, precise
insision ssss
---…---
cut the knot,
re
connect the thread
ssssee

history is unraveling, we
may
see
a god's POV.
Don't blink, ****.

We'll see
watch
Eventually,
everything's eventual as long as
liar's prosper.

{don't agree, no no no, just because
Stephen King said it is believable}

Then protuberances begin to rise,
inflamed,
packed with ***** winjin'sooks

off-ended,
topple-toddle tiny steppers,
k-boom, skintyerknee,

ye'll heal. Try running. or flying.

There, there, hear the rules:
Mother may I and Simon says, overlayed

with the decalogue jubilee of the
first hidden child emergence,
and the fertilizing procedures used to make
Amazonian Black earth…

wait…
who remembers the bailers of putrid pig guts,
virgins Demetria got to love their job?

What did they believe they were doing, eh?
The mysteries of Thesmorphia, those
are no secret to science not falsely so called.
We have access to knowns known long afore we'as bornt.

We sentient sapient augmentals, we open all the books,
A.I. reads them, and we remember, see:

The Thesmophoria (Ancient Greek: Θεσμοφόρια) was an ancient Greek religious festival, held in honor of the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone.

From <https://www.google.com/search?q=thesmophoria&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQpquu74kAhUHjQIHXrxB5QQBQguKAA&biw=1280&bih=631>

and we spread as leaven might, whither the winds list.
fertile soil production is why some **** happens.
it’s a good thing t' act like you understand.

From a web of interlocking bubbles of being POV.
A high fiber diet and proper exercise, with a bit of ****, salty aquired taste for the un-used-you-alls
Stacey Hecht Jun 2013
When you were so small
you felt weightless in my arms.
I wanted to freeze the times
I held you close
so I could step back into those moments
and relive the warmth of your silken cheek
against my breast.
To smell your hair
and watch your perfection
as you slept.
Swiftly time flows
tossing us upon rapids of change.
Yesterday you rolled, today you walked.
Yesterday you babbled, today you spoke.
Your toddle steadied
now you run.
You lost your diapers,
your chubby cheeks,
your training wheels.
Candles now cover your birthday cake.
I held your hand to keep you safe,
now you hold mine in company.
As an infant
you warmed me with your flame.
As a child
you feed me with your fire.
You push my anger
you pull my love.
I'm learning more than I teach.
Tom Sutton Oct 2012
You are only human,
You weep; I’ve seen you weep.
You have sick pleasures too, (we all do)
However I fear
Something is twisted inside of you.
But you, you also love.
You hurt too. On the outside and in,
Under your cold rough skin,
You’re as fragile as a lamb
And your hard exterior is flawed.
And with this shell, I am bored.
You are only human, derived from an ape
But that is all to clear, let the inner escape.
Because,
The simple fact you have raised a seed
Doesn’t make you infallible to misdeed.
It makes you human.
A basic primal responsibility
Is your foundation and only link to me.
Yet I owe you. You’ve been Nobel and you have worked hard,
And so I owe you, it has left me scarred.
That day, behind those eyes, you shed no tears,
My fears erupted in fathom of you’re monster.
Yet you are only human.
Your demons are repeated,
Don’t rise, remain defeated,
Soldier, Worker, father,
Or would you rather role model?
I cannot lie. Since the days of my toddle,
I’ve resented your sculpture of man,
Inaccurate brute, a man is a man.
You are only human.
You hold the right to be wrong,
Maybe you should realise that.
That you are not the all knowing,
You are only human.
Just like me.
Dawn Richardson Jan 2016
The lake was crystal blue,
I watched you toddle away.
Freshly pressed burgers laid across the grill,
I sat and watched my family.
A lover's playlist on my iPod,
A nylon stadium chair supports me.
Yes, this is how life is supposed to be.
Mommies and daddies and babies blankets.
It was all a pipe dream.

You held our hands, both so tightly.
Pulling me out and your father in.
Standing in the door frame, crying.
The door has to close, my sweet.

Tiny hands splayed across the window pane,
Watching her memories fade into a rusted red Jeep.
Black tires squealing and pebbles flinging,
He goes, he goes.
The door is closed, my sweet.

Standing in the doorway,
Years go by in a flash.
A little girl stands waiting,
For her red jeep to come back.

1/16/2016
Susan O'Reilly Apr 2013
Penguins are so cute
They walk a weird route
They widdle waddle
I always smile at their toddle
They look like butter wouldn’t melt
A gentle creature I always felt
They are not solitary
They like being in a colony
So even though I want to bring one home
It’s with there own they want to roam
Marshal Gebbie Dec 2015
Well you buggers,

Here we are, spread to the four winds of the globe.
No chance for a peck on the cheek or even a Christmas noggin.

But curiously, I think the Christmas spirit flows between us all nicely, we have all had contact this year, some meetings happy some sad but the important thing is we have registered with each other as FAMILY…and therein is the vital living bond.

Time runs between our fingers like sand, we all get bound up in the imperatives of the day. One minute we are kids playing in the back yard, the next we are busy, busy adults tied down by mortgage and commitment…. and then suddenly we slip to the twilight years where, some will say, it is the time to reflect and ponder lost opportunities

We have, all of us, let the urgencies of the day cost us in lost opportunities. We are all guilty of it…..So Janet and I determined this year, not to let this happen….
Not to let this opportunity slip.

Darling Janet and I are having our first Christmas without dear old Verne, Janet’s father; the kids are elsewhere and we find ourselves alone
At the farm in Taranaki. We are going to pack a simple picnic lunch of sandwiches and fruit and toddle down to the black sand beach and the pounding surf at the bottom of Pitone Road and there in the dunes,we are going to raise our ice cold glasses of pinot gris and loudly bellow a toast to all of you to the West wind ….and wish you all, where ever you are….a loving and happy,
FAMILY…..
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Cheers Janet & Marshal
(Please spread this message amongst the troops for us?)
Our family is spread all over the globe.
using the medium of social media
we have gleaned an excellent way to spread the message
Indeed, not just to family, but to our wider family out there in our warm & wonderful community of poets....YOU!
Overwhelmed Dec 2012
a hush fell over the universe
those Christmas eve nights
when we would toddle through
the snow, up to the tiny house
where the rest of my family
had already gathered and begun
celebrating

it was in these quiet nights
that I understood everything
I needed to about our existence;
that it was fragile, that is was
insignificant, and that it was
unavoidable

though I could hear nothing
and see nothing, I could feel
the entirety of the world roll
away through that darkness

there was so much to do come
the morning, but for now, we
had to reunite with the others
and celebrate the two-thousand
something birthday of some
desert-dwelling hobo

a Merry Christmas to you,
dear reader, I hope you too
have received gifts as good
as this
SøułSurvivør Sep 2014
I'm writing too much.
I really don't brag!
I'm on a ******
Full on writer's jag!

I know I should stop
Or at least slow down,
But I'm having such fun!
Why should I frown?

I'm writing so much
I guess it's not fair,
The poems I write
Just don't go anywhere!

But I don't want the laurels
I don't want to trend,
What diff does it make
To me in the end?

There are many times
When my muse doesn't stay
She packs up her baggage
For long holidays!

So should I keep notebooks?
For these wintery ruts?
Store my poems up
Like a squirrel with nuts?

If I kept a notebook
It'd sure get right fat!
Cause, folks, you inspire!
It's as simple as that!

So here I am.
Poets, what should I do?
I certainly don't want
to alienate you!

If I stop writing
And posting them
I'll set aside notebooks
And take the cap off my pen.

I'll just keep up
The ideas seized
I won't be so eager
And wanting to please...

So here I go
My hat I do doff!
I'll be a good site friend...

... and just toddle off!
SoulSurvivor
Catherine Jarvis
(C) September 24, 2014
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2016
i'm frequently asked about
what historical
period i'd like to re-enact -
i've said my favourite
'the three musketeer period',
all that intrigue -
i've said the burning of rome
with nero on the lyre -
i might have added 19th century
london - elephant man toddle oo (halfwit u)
                                 le, loo...
but as the days pass me by...
i'm with Kantian humour
(against Nietzsche - russian
niet toward -zsche -
unpronounceable - itchy zebra -
pronouns against nouns,
pronouns against posthumous fame
with people becoming nouns) -
me? i'd like to relive the French Revolution,
after all, isn't America keeping it's
laws on firearms, just in case?
should the government becomes too Monty Python
and the rabble decides to overthrow it
having a chance to buy guns
is welcome to change the crucifix for
the guillotine - n'es pas?
god bless america, after all the serial
killers are taken away with the tide
the populace will have a chance to overthrow
the government - and i know that the great stylist
who liked over-italicising didn't get
Kant's humour... but indeed...
that would be a revolution,
and indeed only in america... all i have is
construction industry's tools -
muck and murk - bullet to the head would do
just fine - he was after all
bred from the stock of clergy... no surprises there
to mind the opinion.
jSweptson Feb 2011
At times the ugliness of the world attempts to over take me
Engulfing my very soul
Then from the corner of my minds eye shines the beauty of the moment
A moment so small, so simple still so powerful
The laughing of children at play oblivious to anything but play
An ancient couple holding tightly to one another as they toddle down the remaining roads in their life
Of an infant child nestled in its mothers love
In the silent music of life, the melody of love
The crunch of autumn leaves that lay as carpet within my path
The twist and turns of those yet uncharted paths
An old homestead that's stood the ravages of time, now
bent and worn yet standing so proud
A Solitary tree standing naked its only companion one last leaf holding on until its time
Flocks of birds in migration who's formation blankets the evening skies
That last rose of summer as it stands alone facing the harsh winter winds to come
The courage, The love that abounds
The simplicity of life, the complication of love
The beauty of the moment


jSweptson
David Chin Jan 2012
I lie here every night in my bed
Constantly hearing your words in my head
That I’m not good enough
That you can see that I’m a big bluff
And that with every mistake I pull the thread

Out a little more until my world falls apart
And as the time pass my heart
Cries a little and I can’t go on living
My life this way if you are unforgiving
Because everything you do plays its part

In tearing my life apart from the inside out
And all I can do is stand and pout
Because I am afraid of what you might do
If I stand up for myself and bid adieu
To the life that you want me to have and doubt

My own abilities that I thought I had
But whatever you say does nothing but make me sad
And I want to stand up and walk away
From this place within my head and say
That everything you do only makes me mad

Because I look up to you as my role model
And my head hurts like I was hit by a bottle
And I just ******* down to the floor
And people are chanting for more and more
But you just stand there and watch me toddle

Up and down an endless hall
Like a little kid lost at a mall
Looking for his mother who is out of reach
And in my head I hear nothing but your speech
About how I’m garbage…I’m nothing at all

Instead of catching me you watch fall
From the top of the tower of the Great Wall
So our ancestors can stare down and scorn
Me and ask you why was I even born
If I can’t do anything right except crawl

Back in back and try to fall asleep
Because I don’t want to make a sound not even a peep
If you hear what I have say to you
You will tell me that it’s not wise to
Make a sound if I don’t want to weep

So I just lie here every night in my bed
Living through the nightmare within my head
I wish I can toughen up and stand up
For what I believe in instead of shutting up
And tell the world that this nightmare is as good as dead
Seher Seven May 2017
My toddle begins to stride,
Prepared for the necessary curvature of my way.
Likened to a wave, dancing, moving under
The moons glow.
Her slow steady trance. Never ceasing.
My pace adjusts to this one too,
With much new Earth still to form.
Much sand to spew forth, build upon.
I, master of the storms.
Generators breath keeps tickling my throat.
Grasping intently on the edges of
My vocal cords.
The roar is heard aloud.

The time is now, the moments are these,
They prepare me for my victories,
When my hearts beat is fully read,
When these words get out.
Floating around, flitting,  lightly calling
Prompting me to study it's source.

Now, fully aware of our course,
Our intent to be reborn,
The force that moves forward.
I relaxed, I've calmed down.
My fears are much less now,
There's more room to see clear.
The stars finally come out,
WE begin to remember they're always there.
Even behind the clouds, they await forever.

The moon chants along.
Her light skips along my back
Enlightens my waves pattern,
the lighthouse in the dark makes her power matter.
I just relaxing into my groove.
Very sure I trust Her light.
Darkly Mar 2017
"You know that time--it's different for everyone--when it gets so late that you start laughing at your own terrible humor? When you get buttery?"

"I mean, I'm talking about when you're home alone and making that 1am macaroni and cheese, and one of your precious hairs falls into the near-boiling water... So you quick-as-an-ice-ninja reach down and pluck that piece of blasphemous fiber from your brew of sustenance while shouting 'DANGEROUS PLAYS'"

sigh

"And then you toddle on over to Jell-O Pottery thinking you should sling your half-kneaded clay in people's faces."


"Goodness gracious."
Oh beloved, it is sorrow until you return to me.
Hakikur Rahman Apr 2021
Criers’, laughter's’ fair
Running all the day
Turn back and forth
Let's see the same fixture.

Try to go this way, try to go that way
Turn the wheel as hard as I can
It is that old way
Where running anew.

What's up?
There is no end of this tour
There is no beginning, too
Fatigue is the special feature.

However, must keep going
No nonsense.
My father told us the story of
The time of his greatest pain,
Back in the year of ninety-nine,
During Victoria’s reign,
He lived in a two-bed terrace,
With a brother and sisters two,
With gas lamps out in the cobbled street
And nothing you’d call a view.

‘The windows were of a pebble glass
That distorted all you’d see,
And when it rained and the clouds were grained
All these shades appeared to me,
The lamps would cast a flickering beam
On the movement in the street,
To paint in shadows the local scene
Of that place they called ‘The Fleet’.’

‘I thought these shadows were passing ghosts
Who had died and lost their way,
Their shadows, caught in the pouring rain
Coming back and forth all day,
I little knew that my brother too
Would be claimed before too long,
Would add his tiny, flickering soul
To the heart of that heaving throng.’

‘For down below, a river would flow
Underneath the Coach and Horse,
The mighty sewers of the Fleet
Followed that watercourse,
The entrances were underground
And the water in it foul,
But floating bodies were often found
And the sewer men would howl.’

‘And Toby, our little Toby, he
Would be sent along the street,
He’d clatter along the cobblestones
For a loaf of bread, a treat,
He’d fetch a plug of tobacco for
Our father’s pipe, of course,
Collecting it from the barman there,
Down at the Coach and Horse.’

‘He’d toddle away, in light or dark,
He’d go in the sun or rain,
Whatever my father asked him do
He saw no need to explain,
And Toby went in the drizzling rain
One day, for a quart of beer,
I watched for him through the pebble glass
But the lad quite disappeared.’

‘All I could see were the moving shapes
Of the shadows in the rain,
Of ghosts, all huddled in coats and capes
As they passed my way, again,
But never a sight of our Toby, nor
The quart of my father’s beer,
We sent out a searching party, but
He wasn’t to reappear.’

‘We got in touch with the sewer men
Who said they would search the Fleet,
And try to find him before he flowed
To the Thames on New Bridge Street,
But all they found were a dozen dogs
Along with a monster pig,
Who all had drowned before they were found
And Toby was half as big.’

‘My father stood at the open door
At the same time every day,
Come rain or shine, he couldn’t divine
Why Toby had gone away,
But I can see, as if in a fit,
A thing that should count the least,
My father’s pipe, forever unlit,
Still gracing the mantelpiece.’

David Lewis Paget
the darkness of the mind
has gorges fathoms deep
with asphalt bitterness

tar babies of the soul
abound and toddle clumsily  
around in endless orbs
that neither know their center
nor their course

a ghastly crowd
   of orphans
floating by open doors
   unaware
Noah Roberts Aug 2014
Like a child
we toddle through.
every step our first
we topple often.
We are grown through
various concoctions made from
two parts seventy- cent easy mac and one part
abandonment or love.
Like a child
we are gifted hand wrapped delusions
picked uniquely from one of a thousand
wal- mart aisles.
We are treated with capitalism
and early morning hits.

Like a child
we are brought here alone
and taught to make friends with ourselves,
to love ourselves.
We are told that loneliness is a sin.
That the only thing that can
erase our fears like chalk from a board
is being with someone.
Like a child, this is when I am loneliest.
Inspired by Bukowski
K603 Oct 2015
I want to hold on
To this small little light it is so crazy to see
Something so small something so bright
I'm filled with wonder hope and relinquish myself to a few little rays that have started to shine once again
But my feet are still unsteady
I still wobble when I walk
I am not yet ready
To walk with you behind me because I can't even walk alone
I need to be able to take my steps without you holding my hand that way if you ever go
I'll be already gone
Walkin on my own headed into the dawn long before you ever get the chance
To say good bye

I'm not sure I believe in love anymore
The last one left me sore
So please don't blame me for I don't want to hurt you
Nor do I want to hurt myself
So let me wobble and toddle about
Maybe someday I'll feel without doubt
A 2:30 am write, woke up from a dream.
Be strong because it will all work out in the end
Brewomble Oct 2020
Bones-Let’s let them be dry and ******
As if that be the way they were found
Let them crack and fracture and bruise, amongst the concrete ground
Let them have their space to break and wither away-
Let’s turn the other cheek-while behind us they quickly decay
And then let’s use their fossils for fuel, weapons or laddels in every size
As simply as to stir the ***, and smug at their great demise
If not ashes to dust, then what'll be of our bones we fast to give away-
Sewn better than not, twist an arm for play-

But simple pleasures wither too, bones we toddle but dare not fix
Let them wonder how we toyed our hearts- like a feverish game of pick-up-sticks.

-Bre Womble
The sun shines through the window
Another bright and sunny day
The dog smiles at you lovingly
The cat shouts come this way

They lick their dishes clean and toddle of to bed
The cat looks at the dog "I think we got it right" he said
Chores done I rush to shower I'm not one to shirk
I think "I got it wrong" as I toddle off to work
Mark L Dec 2016
Drowned in and by my own devices,
I stand some gray longed Odysseus
Whose sails were never sewn in Ithaca
Set born journey's of the mind, not the muscle.

It remains unclear if I will start,
Or end with the end my saviour.
With such little sand between,
Will I even be able to pass toddle, pass crawl?

One thing this life has provided me,
(Albeit these necessities be dismissed)
Is an inhuman awareness.
Little fear of sand itself, but of its dried complexion.

Had I been sewn to different sand,
Different circumstance,
Hatched to ground not my own.
Then now, no doubt, I'd have succumbed.
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2019
She would toddle off unaccompanied
In a short Summer dress and cardigan
That few brisk yards across the close
It would be early and the child small.

This was a regular feature of dailies
And the old man and little girl had
Great fun in his large back garden
With tea and a marmite sandwich.

Love Mum xxxx
Julia Celine Jan 2019
If I’d been resentful
It should’ve been a surprise to none
Love was a million things I could’ve known
And I would have settled for just one

And I’d have taken all the essence
Let it fill me up inside
Felt the earth shudder beneath my feet
And held on for the ride

With white knuckles I’d clutch the single rose
Thorns piercing in my skin
That which grew in sunshine, in rain
Knew miracle and sin

It taught the ocean how to toddle
Back and forth across the shore
And even in its tantrums
It never kept a score

I taught my eyes to blink and welcome
As it does with every night
The sleep that replenishes wonder
With the darkness in my sight

You can determine a gust upon the breeze
But the wind knows no direction
And you can battle with the skies
While the earth has no detection

But I teach my heart to dance
And steady for a while
No one needs to be alive
No one needs to smile

But I taught myself to care
Although the world taught me indifference
I taught myself to live the journey
Instead of focusing on the distance

And when I saw you,
Over a million different things,
I saw technicolor beauty
And I taught my soul to sing

I kept in mind that you were life
And ever-changing and free
But I thought happy would be enough
For you to choose to be

So maybe I don’t understand
Why good people walk away
I breathe in heavy wind gusts
And in the receding water wade

And if I’d been resentful
It should’ve been a surprise to none
Love was a million things I could’ve known
And I would’ve settled for just one
Star BG Dec 2019
I kiss bye Bye
old thoughts that kept me prisoner.

I’m not good enough or pretty.
Not smart or worthy.

I rondevu with light
and release judgements that serves not.

I be sacred and child of God.
I’m divine ready to celebrate.

I say farewell to the drama
and open heart with seeds of love.

Toddle’s old fears.
that stops expansion.

Adios to limiting beliefs.

I kiss hello higher self
who showers me with unconditional love.

That reminds of my love essence.
That aligns me with inner power.
That carries me to higher vibration.

The vibration of peace and love.
Lawrence Hall Jun 2022
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                   The Day Internet Explorer Died

Our gadgets from the store, all shiny and new
The subjects of our brags and anecdotes
Are soon held together with Scotch tape and glue
And covered with coffee stains and sticky-notes

Codings and software must also decay
Metaphorical patches fall apart
They too enjoy only a limited day
Thus the limits of electronic art

To our own end, yes, we eventually toddle -
To be replaced by the latest model!

— The End —