Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
fists clenched
fingers torqued,
palms reddened

raise up the length
twist tight -the center,
muscle, guns...

feel the power
cheek to cheek
gobsmacked...

I live to see my arms.

Admire me.
Cassandra Cepe Jul 2017
“cold winter sky—
where will this wandering beggar
grow old?”
— Issa


I. Stories

A ranch north of Spain,
his woman, their child... a dream
painted over, gone.
His... (unrequited)
...own tragedy for himself—
young death in Paris.
Quiet night at nine,
inside a café... gunshots—
being... nothingness...


II. Histories

A cold monochrome,
the winter hue of darkness:
umbra of despair.
Portraits of torment:
beggars, drunkards, prostitutes,
1901—
Lapis lazuli
thinned, turpentined—bleu de France—
ennui of sorrow.


III. Images

Melancholia
—the impotence of the will—
in Barcelona.
Barefoot on the street
corner, sitting on the ground,
he leaned on nothing.
A half-stringed guitar......
Germaine’s ******* distracted him..
he laid his revenge.


IV. Meanings

No can a beggar...
no steel strings a guitarist...
—a friend’s eulogy.
The cadaverous
curves of the bones torqued the flesh—
tedium of old age.
An allegory:
artists, poets, mendicants...
****** or broke oglers?


V. The Painting

His evocation:
the grave of Casagemas—
a guilt exorcised.
A mute’s discontent,
a blind man’s desolation,
an oil masterpiece!
An old guitarist,
blind, begging for an audience—
a blue Picasso.
Written
21 August 2013

Copyright
© Cassandra Cepe. All rights received.
L B Aug 2016
I lay on the ground below
the curved hips of the hills at sunset
The aperture of my eyes, my ***, my eyes
and the narrow escape
of mind from body

I am ten again
and they’re calling me falsey
“*******, No bra!”
Shoving them into the lockers
of Holy Name’s pool
My eyes? Brown. My hair? Brown
My body? Invisible, lean and “Leave me alone!
or I’ll punch your lights out!”

Meanwhile, Mom is mortified
but not cause I’m banned from the stupid pool

All I want— is to run bare to the waist
Ride my bike, maniacal  
Be a bird
Swipe ice from the milk truck
Marvel over maggots in garbage
Catch toads, caterpillars, pollywogs in jars

Later, sell lemonade— get rich!
…and pretend…pretend…
till the litany of our names, hollered from the porch
till the street lights come on….



“This is for something you haven’t got yet”
says the matron of the fitting room
Bones in a bathing suit?
What I haven’t got?
or they haven’t got?
will never get—
in their worlds of curtained cubicles
Cause of death:
Strangulation by measuring tape!



In my plaid two-piece
sunburned shoulders, wind-wild hair
By sweat and the afternoon’s imaginings
I built a fortress of sand and stones
to endure forever….

But she— shook the blanket
at the tide’s full reach
Peppered the air with an epoch
Clouds darkening
the wind-torqued sea

Finding my flip-flops, we—
    trudged off…
    into the changing… changing
Meagan Moore Jan 2014
We watched the sun fall down and scrape its knee again, across the horizon.
Effusing amaranth, carmine, and cochineal across polluted vista.
It felt petty to issue guttural laughs, or engage the myofacial crescents beneath its visual lament as the Earth turned its back again.

We watched the sun rise, bruised, tender and shy this morning.
Its muddled contusion obviated by the gauze of fog.
A mottled neophyte -
Luminescent crepuscular rays defied dregs of interstellar debris and cloud.
Aching to kiss your skin -
In stellar cloud nursery, it eschewed the torque of orbit and gravity - eras before verity of your essence.
Humbly settling concentrically about oblate sphere, and gaseous tome.
Latterly - It altered the atmospheric pressure on the other side of the planet a week antecedently, as you clung to your dream lattice, and Earth innately turned oblate nucleus.
Its intent –
A veneration of you.
It bade the atmosphere convey a breeze echoing about your dermis, as it gilded your frame laconically, betwixt shaded steps beneath cloud and arbor.

The sun yelled at me at its pinnacle today,
Pallid bone – molten - miasma of rage
Its core missive garnered inertia – coronal plasma warping ellipsoid factions in inflections of elusive filigree
Pirouetting spicules spattered smelted torrents in the dismal anchorite
Atomic schism – silent but felt
It stoked humidity under shadowed niche - casual vaporous smears evinced no clemency.
Flesh torqued, and seized beneath itself, briny globules shed from puckered pore.
Culminations of sensitive fluid sacs scorched into the shallows of my chassis.
Insignia knit in cellular shrapnel

The sun ignored me today – or perhaps, it was I it.
Enigmatic tenacious resolution – an echo of its gravitational collapse
Inverse thermonuclear fusion
It is not fear in a relationship that keeps you apart, it is neglect of the infinitesimal.
Jon Tobias Jun 2013
I feel like a comic strip hobo
With no money for deposit

And still I step from slapstick to cement
and hope court jester is enough here

I have come out of the rain
and into your home
Drawn to you
Though there is no pie in your window
No ghostly fingers of your sweet smell
beckoning me in

You make me feel
Like a ghost in a graveyard
Praying for a new harmonica inhale
and exhale
So that this music can sound more like a dance for two
A panic waltz for feet trying to match your grace

And today
Darlin'
There is honey between my teeth
A sweet sound

Our love is backwards
Blacklisted
An elbow torqued and knuckle gutted dry heave halleluja

Arthur Miller would have written a satire about our love

I remember our early conversations
You said you didn't believe in god
I said that he was a fantastic literary device
You said though you didn't believe in god
that people themselves could be godly
I suddenly wondered what you would look like with a jerry curl
"Let's not call it godly," I said
"What then," you said
I don't know

I just know that
Your eyes are like second winds
like Breathcatch memories
of highway carjackings
where you were the one left on the side of the road

The warm summer pillow of your stomach
And the peel of my face away from it
Is sticky like candy
Your stomach is like candy in that way
So is my face
I can be sweet too

Your smile is speechless
like the speakers are speechless
And the music has stopped
and our bodies are still
save for your smile
That quivers like fire

And I am a comic strip hobo
With a bandana backpack
and not much to offer

But I am drawn to you

You make me feel like harmonica breath
You make my mouth feel like honey
Evan Stephens Oct 2018
No phone call tonight.
The sick moon
coughs a cloud -
like a gray stain
on its face -
& I watch
as the new cloud
falls through the night
like a guillotine.

Sick moon,
thin and waxing,
my chest is
a curving hurt too.
Twisted and torqued
by the old carving forks
from the Thanksgivings
where red wine
sat screaming, and
polished plates
were also moons,
hard and silent
and empty.

No phone call now,
the breakup is done.
I shed my skin and salt it.

No phone call now,
only vagrant silence.
The sick moon breathes
a scrape of cloud
down the quiet
spine of night.
Chuck Dec 2013
Cogs and free wheels chains and hubs
Twist and turns loud creeks and rubs
Sears and Snap-on won't do the job
Park and Pedro worth a few bob

Your problems are complex and real
You're tormented cry: squeak and squeal
Not a job for the feeble man
I have the tools, do what I can

Put you in my vice and hold tight
Crank the toggle bolt, torqued just right
I am the wrench to smooth your ride
Hand me the tools, stand by my side
When e'er i chance
     to steel a passing glance
     in the mirror hairline fractures appear
than 'afore long

     snap, crackle, pop
     becomes crystal clear,
whence aluminium glass mirror
     (made of a float glass

     incorporating additional processes)
     leaves highly reflective surface patina 'ere
one narcissist ken
     while away countless hours

     preening, primping, and pruning
     e'en the slightest glare
ring blemish finds cause
     for cosmetic surgery

     evincing interlinear
crows feet and dark
     circular "bags" that distinctly lear,
which medical term for skin folds

     and ballottable skin edema
     described as “festoon,”
     or “malar mound,”
     an eye sore overclear

demanding immediate
     dermatological action
     (if necessary) taking
     extra adipose tissue from rear

end supposed extra junk in the trunk,
     where derrière,
     would not be unduly sore,
     perhaps requiring

     (whatever would suture self)
     plus extra padded underwear
which subjugation voluntarily
     "going under the knife,"

     would stave off depredations aging
     (such as puffy eyes)
     at least for another year.
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2013
Everyday, A New Person

Stop!** Lest you think,
This is some poem, of a nature serious
I warn you with supercilious contempt
This is a mischance, a contretemps,
This is a dumb poem, like Suntan Lotion^
Inspired by that silliness's Broadway success,
About how everyday, I awake,
A New Person,
With a new designer hair styling

O Yeah, I gotta grip the sink counter,
When I see how my pillow friends^^
Have revenged themselves the night prior,
Upon awakening, I contemplate suicide by pills
But more labor saving for the undertaker I usually choose
Setting One's Hair On Fire

It be awful, it be ridiculous
That my hair defies gravity
Standing straight up,
After a night of lying down,
This is the product of rocking out to the
Hardest of hard rock n' roll.

Now I am a man,
Re hair and grooming I ain't usually
Prioritizing and swooning,
But get this,
It takes a tube daily,
Of alcoholic gel,
To get my pop,
To do the 'lie flat down flop'

When my woman strokes my hair,
She doesn't think I notice,
How she subtle slides her hand down my shirted arm,
To dispose of the newly acquired kitchen grease,
I sometimes, on really bad hair days,
Need to employ to encapture my Grayed Fleece

No faking joke, my mind out strokes
When I look at what handiwork
Has worked me over,
Multi-directional, punk sensational,
I swear it also has changed colors!

No unrequited love, just requited hate
For my torqued, drugged, twisted hairy fate,
Two minutes to write this idiotic ditty,
Ten minutes to nerve to open my eyes to look twice
At what the hairie fairies mischievously hath wrought,
Is unbalanced, demand a recount, a fair fight sought

Soon it will be clear, if you think this poem amusing,
Be in readiness for an Ode to the Haircut upcoming,
Be in readiness for an opera, entitled naturally,
Get Thee To The Barber of First Avenue
As soon as I get the nerve to leave the bedroom.
^ see Do Not Economize on Sun Lotion!
^^see First Poem of the Day: Pillows vs. Poetry
Ken Pepiton Mar 2023
Subject enters trance
Subject enters trance state
Subject enters entrancement

Entrance word opens mind
Mental kind
Mind kind, man kind, male and female

see that fe,
see iron, the processed bile,
from certain ores -  see a detail

allowed the ancient few who read
all the ancient writings, as we read
French or Farsi, today, we the augmental.

Augmented I, exo-mindful chooser bot,
software, with a calcium lattice frame,

any curious child could have been shown,
by way of instructions, seldom read, ready

do the drill. Do it again. Do another whole
day. Being particular as to what use is made

of my pronominal reality state, my real estate.

Non moi. My ever after all of that. This.
These
times that try men's souls, since this means
of forming information along bendable old bones,

Once, in the dreamtime's local translation mindspace
timeless,
nothing was.
Nothing was evil, and that was good, a chain construct,

mind chain, prior to any sense we readers hold chains
to represent, closed torqued rods of iron, formed
on the horn of the anvil, the only known anvil,
for the making of such things was closed knowing,

must be earned, this epithet, honest, most honed,
among the dull stone scattered across my plain,

Mam, re, remember,
Mamre had a plain called by his name.

Terebinthine Oaks, con-secration acknowledged,

by whom, asks my little boy, who knew which oak
Jacob buried the stolen idols lied about under,
for shame.
For shame, he who wrestles still, with the will
to be the bherer of all my own shame, amen.

Nothing hidden that shall… should we quibble?
Known is known,
and should one choose one may make a plain
from a point
once,
stretched this far. And holding… ad in fun item,
Chotsky for any one to open worm cans with.
I make a habit of becoming something new, once a day.
wordvango Feb 2017
i like the word epicenter
heard it one night all cranked out trying
to get drunk the juice like water
my nose sweating
amped like hell
wanting to disassemble the VW
bug
find what that sound was,
took apart the carburetor first,
sniffed and stood for half a second said, nah,
not the prob
looked into the glovebox
was sure the bug was in there,
a few screws later
the dashboard was on the porch
and still I had no idea what
that ******* sound was
walked in quick circles
thinking , almost,
it had to be the radiator
or a fanbelt or the tires!
Yes !
I took them all off, carefully snooted around their
hoses the perimeter of the fanbelts circumference
the radiators fins
the pressure
got to me of the tires was perfect,
had to be the ******
I sniffed down my throat went that
chemical taste like antifreeze
I took her out
the transmission
inspected her tip to toe
the servo thing the
valve body
went full bore into the
torque converter
it torqued
converted
now I was getting worried
it was the mirror was loose of course
I took her off
it was coated with a white powder
did a line straight to
AutoZone
for a mirror cleaning
fluid , they looked at me funny.
Pat Broadbent Dec 2017
Day closes to an open window–
A sill, a still rest for my spent legs;
Torqued over to face the breeze, welcome chills
Swing the brush with each croak of my knees.

Laughs crane over amber roof clay–
And somewhere behind a white fence
It’s someone’s birthday, a dog brays, coos rouse a baby
Who cries off-key with the family’s song

A dark cluster shifts in the sky,
And the moon emerges from nil.
I’d forgotten my eyes but to see like this…
So long since the night kept me filled…

Spark lights strung in beads on a rope
-Chatoyant, chatoyant comme diamants–
“Brille et brille petit étoile” string the notes
of a mother’s rock-a-bye song

My squeak of a refrain pitters into the air
-Cassant, cassant comme verre-
No love from eclipses we sing to,
No peace from mullings in prayer

Then a fairy book glow sweeps this vision–
Its air thick and sweet to the tongue–
My glance caught by shimmering scales on the back
Of this Ville like a dragon in slumber
—oh, to dance on that spine
—to leap from his eaves into air!
—to fly with these legs where I don’t have to sleep
—and days don’t sit brittle and spare

But fingers to the pulse in my cheek—
To a cauldron of wicked alchemy—
Trace an infection spreading like dragons’ wings
Where beasts may be best left sleeping.

Painfully pretty, the light grows ever fainter,
I should drink it in while I can still see—
There’s a reason art’s left to the painter,
And my brush colors sorrow on everything.


But I’m not sorry now, nor sad, though my eyes water
And wobble the world ’til I blink;
With my back towards the concrete, grounded, this altar
Casts a reverence over everything.
Still in works
mike dm Dec 2015
and as you lie there
in that torqued fetal position
lights dimmed
you will -*******- overcome it
with a red plastic lighter lighting
blue skies that bloom past the has-been

it's a new day it's a new you
that happened
drawn courtesy lots of byte size chalk.

When e'er I summon fat chance
to empower me self with courage
and steal a passing glance
in the mirror then instantaneously
hairline fractures appear
than 'afore long
snap, crackle, pop
becomes crystal clear,
whence aluminium glass mirror
(made of a float glass
incorporating additional processes)

leaves highly reflective
fractured surface patina 'ere
one narcissistic blackened barbed ken
whiles away countless hours
unseeingly preening, primping, and pruning
e'en the slightest glare
ring blemish finds cause
for cosmetic surgery
(namely liposuction)
evincing ghostly interlinear
crows feet and dark

circular "bags" that distinctly leer,
which medical term for skin folds
and ballotable skin edema
described as “festoon,”
or “malar mound,”
an eye sore overclear
demanding grotesque immediate
dermatological action
(if necessary) taking
extra adipose tissue from rear

end supposed extra junk in the trunk,
where moon a fish scent derrière,
would not be unduly sore,
perhaps requiring
(whatever would suture self)
plus donning extra padded underwear,
which subjugation voluntarily
"going under the knife,"
would stave off depredations aging
(such as puffy eyes)
at least for another year.

Until the end date regarding
mine cessation, damnation,
glorification -ha time on Earth
(hammered into crucifix
courtesy nine inch – rusty - nails)
my changed body morphology
particularly around equatorial girth
unwanted layers of flab allow, enable,
and provide me to burn wicked fat
these cold winter days and nights
serving yours truly as built in hearth.

Incremental corporeal essence, here
to forge i.e. figurative spear
tire of mine, doth elicit despair
daily appall, thus I air
part tickle laurel lei objection
able bane, cuz this tear
rubble flabbiness a glare
ring anatomical feature, I swear

shape shifted into a dare
ring ridge hubble unsightly
bulge ballooning mere
lee (just south of Montana) so clear
lee obscuring belly button – an innie , where
former washboard abdomen veer
hilly subsumed by displeasing scare
really hated love handles glare

ring paunches noticeable, especially
when abdomen bare
adduce, deed hoos, and
reed hoos sing the culprit bing
one or more beneficial
pharmacological prescription medications
eliminating debilitating crippling panic attacks,
albeit re: fashioning
now alien metabolism, but

necessary medications giving
immeasurable *** bull heaving
relief to this generally
autobiographical, comical, ecological,
grammatical, illogical, kinematical,
methodical, (parenthetical), rhetorical,
theoretical, vertical and  
xylographical off the old block  
exhibiting joyus rapture, where
psychological state contra dancing,
jitterbugging (a slight bit of hyperbole,
where I tango with) kickstarting

long overdue ability
to experience living
social shorn of paralyzing anxiety,
yes every now and again
isolated heated flare ups making
stellar cameo appearance, asper
rendering literal "NON
FAKE" pennilessness,

and non seek quit tore ring
excessive (no pun hush meant intended -
heavy handed) perspiration,
but generally "speaking" quieting
reductio ad absurdum unbearable
woebegone raging against the machine
adrenaline hellishly riotous smiting
body electric non verbally remonstrating

condemning indescribable torturing
poisoning relentlessly (like
stinging scorpions) upending
many prime decades vice wrenching
yoking ambivalence kamikaze
nose diving worthlessness toward
total mortal re: suicidal bombing mission.
mike dm Dec 2015
and then, with one flex of thought
i torqued the possible into
the most beautiful cerulean sky you've ever seen
with this pixel of might
over must and muscle
☒ Give to me the possession of my hormones back for full absorption*
☒ as I'm keen on resuming the bony splinter means of bone resorption
☒ while admixed by neo-commixed protocols of bio-ecleptic sorption
☒ Let's stomp sun-burnt faces 'cause J. Edgar Hoover was the riddled
☒ manufacturer of Malcolm X from a ***** mulatto known by Little
☒ who scrounged while Jersey burned its cheap, girly skirts for a tittle
☒ Marilyn Monroe was like a door **** because everyone got a turn:
☒ spooks, gay wops, greasers & tunnel bums who were keen to learn,
☒ even day laborers, migrant fruit pickers & coal miners eager to earn
☒ as Marilyn's 'scribed tranquilizer regimen was of no mortal concern
☒ 'cause it was Norma Jean's lithium intake that no one could discern
☒ anymore than the Unabomber's gripes seen by Alexander Cockburn
☒ or the clinically-constipated pretentiousness of nut-job Bruce Dern
☒ who holds far less star appeal than a gator-****-covered swamp fern
☒ or a petit jury of unscrubbed, chitlin'-lovin' nitwits about to adjourn
☒ into the night life of ******, their ponces and mamas horridly stern
☒ who were evicted by the Empire Hotel Group of the Hotel Lucerne
☒ whereat a politico can parlay sick-leave *** with a volunteer intern,
☒ in a meeting room spread eagle on **** carpet near a V.F.W. lectern
☒ for a thrilling roll of tattooed *** wiggle, tanned hip swish & churn
☒ Thiomersal makes serums kick ***, so we'll long for what we yearn
☒ to eat doves, hawks, wrens, rooks, robins & the greater crested tern
☒ Merck adds the blood of rabbits to their notorious M.M.R. vaccine
☒ to proliferate superior mutant strains that filtrate foggy brains clean
☒ Patients are murdered in hospitals for their kidneys, lungs & organs
☒ Do not cry over spilt milk nor over the disarmed Aussies poor guns
☒ 'cause switched ships Titanic & Olympic were banker J.P. Morgan's
☒ The P.M. didn't expose insurance fraud for fear of losing war funds
☒ The power to tax involves the power to destroy is heavy and taxing
☒ as it wanes menstrually when it is not in the seventh house waxing,
☒ or naked in a river with water moccasins, gators & pirañas relaxing
☒ as redacted facsimiles of pentagonal papers have militarians faxing
☒ about whether Check 'n Go offers the best 3rd-party-check-cashing
☒ while our children are dulled by prescription tranquilizer dopamine
☒ they are concurrently spazzed by that genic stimulant amphetamine
☒ which was pharmaceutically pedalled by allopathists as benzedrine
☒ that's able to hyper-stimulate a brain faster than a ten-pound praline
☒ while sickening patients via rashes of neuro-transmitting histamine
☒ A superior knowledge must be properly applied to equate to power
☒ from a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall or Pentecostal ivory tower
☒ below which poor people must be transfixed into a cowardly cower
☒ whilst stupefied by the oily patter of tele-prompted twit Matt Lauer
☒ who graduated from imbecile of the minute to retardate of the hour
☒ He got this way by substituting saw dust for desiccated wheat flour
☒ while denigrating Ike's warning against the militarists we empower
☒ I suspected that the stinking ****** I grew up with wasn't a brother
☒ till the program for adoptees: Look Dumb-***, I Ain't Your Mother!
☒ School-gun-free-zone laws force armed criminals to finally disarm
☒ in gun-free zones to protect our children from armed-criminal harm
☒ as no one need fear for in each school there's a regulation fire alarm
☒ plus in every home-room there's a martial-arts-trained school marm
☒ and if her tae kwon do fails she'll lure from him his gun with charm
☒ as she's a **** gal even though she was raised on a Wisconsin farm
☒ O Lord God have mercy to steer a misplaced/misdirected gratitude
☒ to a septicemic pit that'll sanitarily coax hyper-stimulated negritude
☒ what'll ablate pained receptors spun into a dextro-rotational attitude
☒ coursing towards 1 dizzy patter replenishing whomsoever'll delude
☒ the framed, gullible men & clothes-racked naturalists who sun ****
☒ 100% cocksure to stymie church with a girlified/glorified interlude
☒ before the bank of God files this in suit, the way it wants to be sued
☒ or epoxied, affixed, pasted, joined, stuck, adhered, taped and glued
☒ onto pages of doggerel verse that's shockingly & mockingly shrewd
☒ while an edibly-ripe tomato's rendered unpalatable as it was stewed
☒ for a *******-tight ***** forcefully torqued cracks tightly *******
☒ falling from the stitched mouths of dowagers bitten off half chewed
☒ From Hibernia to Albion, Scotsmen hang martyrs from an oak rood
☒ as pleated t'ings Scottish are sorely transfixed & rough-hewn crude  
☒ where Wales' women decry a Holyheaded Welshman miner's mood
☒ that's digested like lamb lobscouse stew which's St. Helens #1 food
☒ pushing Brixton's Jamaican monkeys into a quasi-Rastafarian feud
☒ Out of the blue you rained on me saturating this prosthetic left knee
☒ I should've shot you in the neck before you pushed me out of a tree
☒ I can't cover my bald head unless somebody sells me a wig for free
☒ From a boat it's good to hurl & ***** 'cause it's fish food in the sea
☒ as rancid crap dumped overboard makes for delicious salt-water tea
☒ the type preferred by the vampiress Liz: Romanian quean of misery
☒ & ma to the wing-eared-imbecilic Chucky mate to mammy Cammy
☒ in full glory, in casual shift that is provocatively low-cut and flimsy
☒ Albanian maniac = Albaniac from under & off a Penn Central track
☒ Romanian  maniac = Romaniac no matter the ooze of angled crack
☒ that will trump disease by scarfing red-peppered cole slaw cabbage
☒ so as to avert pelvic-girdle bruising plus sudden high-thigh damage
☒ Conventions banning torture are seen by State eugenicists as quaint
☒ because botulism makes not a crone seem no younger than she ain't
☒ In circles dark chronic emphysema is a darkly chronicled complaint
☒ soon as you thunk no violation too vile could make Liz queen faint
☒ on the decks of slaughter-ships finished in super polymerized paint
☒ **** no stick to monarchical petticoats while the shell rots of a saint
☒ where no sodium fluoridated water can pineal gland ******* & taint
☒ as no lardy laird shall see redress from Marxian Scotland's restraint
☒ Dominican man-eaters wolf almond brother & nephew sandwiches
☒ over the shrill hue & cry of black, barren, hog-shaped Indio *******
☒ whose godless zombie voodoo chants prohibit hiking furry britches
☒ even though hairy pants are the #1 thing that negresses know itches
☒ all students at Lee Harvey Oswald's C.I.A. college of patsy snitches
*☒ where marksmen and sharp-shooters exhibit shaking-palsy twitches
I always arise
     at break of dawn,
when curtained solar
     radiance openly drawn
upon a vast
     wasteland, though thankfully
     most (boot not all)

     bipedal hominids gone
widely analogous
     to chess pieces
     scattered across a giant
     severely torqued shredded board,
     perhaps except for a stray pawn.

Life distilled as self search engine
     crawling on hands and feet,
(NOT with Google) basic needs,
     during cold and heat
sans eat, drink, sleep
     and of course excrete
     (at some distance
     removed from hovel).

Thick cobwebs glom collapsed
     damp moss covered walls
     nearly self imprisoning me,
where the once glorious
     complex edifice stood,
     now...nothing but a
     rubble heap of scree
barely hinting anew of these halcyon

     hunting gathering feral days,
     when life seems so carefree
versus back when big pistol packing
     game commissioners roamed
     the verdant rolling hills
     of Highland Manor on the lookout
     for ill eagle looking aliens,
     now...quiet as a cemetery.

Yet such utter desolation
     (forcing a daily struggle
     of lovely bare bones survival)
     matches my mute
     misanthropic nature - dee
void of material trappings,
     but more pleasing
     tis the absence of humanity

solitary existence always sought out
     before the global catastrophe
rendered most every
     square inch comprising,
     the terra firmae
     obliterated amidst a sea
of abomination, damnation,
     and ruination, nonetheless

     dystopian crumbled ruins agree
able, and affixes
     a purposefulness to survive
     by the sweat of mine
     furrowed brow, nee
back breaking twenty four hours
     seven days a week
     laborious work - key

ping this weather
     beaten body of mine,
     (that feels a bajillion years old)
     in tiptop shape pre
pared to defend myself against,
     the most fierce-some (rare lee
seen beast), i.e. another
     lone nasty, short and brutish

     **** sapiens, which sighting re
moat, cuz mountains
     of near impassable
     huge precariously perched,
     pock marked, and jagged, debris,
an absolute deterrent to all
     but the most gargantuan,
desperate and/or crazy,

what me worry,
NO..., cuz parameters of life
     never known to be
so clear cut without the threat
     of nuclear weaponry,
where mankind leveled playing field
     for every specie.
Accursed human species
case in point Vladimir Putin,
who strikes terror across globe.

Don't underestimate his hell bent
zeal to attack United States,
one blood ******* infernal
predacious **** sapien
mercilessly bullies, interrogates,
threatens... with zeal.

Considerably less mortifying
constitutes wrathful ordeals
exhibited by adults who treat
thine wife with indecorous jibes
like punks who sat back of bus
or classmates at Methacton
High School, mine alma mater.

No different than typical mean kids
many crotchety residents here
Highland Manor Apartments
majority residents aggrieve the missus
though said counterpart (thee spouse)
exudes standoffish poise
countenance dons and
nonverbally trumpets scowl
body language broadcasts
social graces be ******
easily interpreted as snub

engendering hostile imprecations
cruelly fiendish provocations
undermine capacity to experience
peace of mind
exacerbated by her
figurative cold shoulder
propensity to flip the bird
notched, ratcheted, torqued... tension
courtesy miss prissy heiress,
daughter, she secured management role
albeit (hats off) to nepotism

guarantees lifelong job security
issued thee missus warning
rental stipulation disallows
overt ******* flashing signal
emotional entanglement ensued
yours truly tasked
to pursue more favorable environment,
yet scant finances (mine)
and poor credit
two strikes against
locating affordable living situation

since sole family income
social security disability
direct deposited monthly
buzzfeeding checking account
regularly near anorexic,
cuz additionally I pay
costs of living expenses
cole king avoiding being homeless,
thus this penniless
among dime a dozen
day late dollar short

low income bracketed
(marching with madness)
mister casts quandary
couched as poetry,
no great expectations,
nonetheless cathartic to communicate
(hoop fully understandable)
present tense plight
projected as plotted trend
fat and/or slim chance
fate will curse me as lottery winner
pipe dream teasing
this word plumber flush with ire,

who feels nsync and drained
scraping hand to mouth
bemoaning apathy, dismal
effort, gross indifference
toward self sums (mein kampf)
plus academic struggles
proffers grim forecast
as coxswain at mercy
rudderless ship of state
edges closer to his waterloo.
Anomalous earthling inhabited
mancave quarantined
cocooned gamesomely
knowingly protected travesty
impossible mission sidestepping,
thwarting, zapping
eventuality, inevitability,

opportunity utilitarian death
crowning glory fêted within
netherlands immortality
granted courtesy biological
proliferation offspring re
vitalizing, restoring,
requenching spent human lives.

Self sequestration commenced
instant (karma) fertilization set
narration mein kampf within
womb mommy dearest,
she within prime ovulation age
begat me in utero un-
aware how existential crisis
(mine) linkedin metaphor

whereat sanctity housing
yours truly during embryonic
/fetal development + vital
placental lifeline keyed into
present day self (christened
Matthew Scott Harris) still
analogously tethers (as
iterated above) outward adult.

He considers metamorphosis
child to adult incomplete
early during carefree preschool
boyhood heavenly bliss
short lived spunky spontaneity
squelched after first grade
February 28th, 1968 marked
turning point pronouncing
significant psychological

cleavage figuratively pitched
emotional, mental, and
spiritual withdrawal symptomatic
psyche quashed, torqued,
and wrenched full blown cycle
logical gearshift hijacked,
though undoubtedly propensity
inherent since... birth
genetic/chromosomal aberration.

Especially when fatherhood
food me gifted with beauty
full daughter diagnosed at
tender age developmental delay
within asperger's syndrome
thankfully Shana Punim, (a
person's face endearment
appellation - chiefly in Jewish
use) eligible recipient

to receive early onset supportive
services, which initial diagnosis
undertaken within her
first birthday, thus staunching
immense struggles later.
Supportive services incorporated
battery audiological, cognitive,
emotive... tests to help pinpoint diagnosis.
She underwent cost free

(needs based) therapy - most
times resistant and noncooperative
(nonresponsive) to
engage whole heartedly,
but bonding with facilitators
wrought budding relationship
with concomitant trust.
Participation with therapists
and class/campmates (the

latter structured summer programs
pertinent as she evinced
able bodied/minded
to benefit with stepped up
socialization (interpersonal
interaction - or lack thereof)
immediately apparent as preschooler,
but got bolstered
thru confidence building activities.

All thru k-12th grade
our cherished progeny
benefitted being streamlined with
classwork (and take home)
assignments custom tailored,
plus after school
remedial programs boosted flagging
shortcomings allowing,
enabling, and providing laudable

transformations, whereby
she began (to assert herself in
making major decisions),
now at age twenty one (born
February 4th, 1999) lives
with few housemates in Bend,
Oregon while matriculating
at nearby Community College.
☒ Give to me the possession of my hormones back for full absorption
☒ as I'm keen on resuming the bony splinter means of bone resorption
☒ while admixed by neo-commixed protocols of bio-ecleptic sorption
☒ Let's stomp sun-burnt faces 'cause J. Edgar Hoover was the riddled
☒ manufacturer of Malcolm X from a ***** mulatto known by Little
☒ who scrounged while Jersey burned its cheap, girly skirts for a tittle
☒ Marilyn Monroe was like a door **** because everyone got a turn:
☒ spooks, gay wops, greasers & tunnel bums who were keen to learn,
☒ even day laborers, migrant fruit pickers & coal miners eager to earn
☒ as Marilyn's 'scribed tranquilizer regimen was of no mortal concern
☒ 'cause it was Norma Jean's lithium intake that no one could discern
☒ anymore than the Unabomber's gripes seen by Alexander Cockburn
☒ or the clinically-constipated pretentiousness of nut-job Bruce Dern
☒ who holds far less star appeal than a gator-****-covered swamp fern
☒ or a petit jury of unscrubbed, chitlin'-lovin' nitwits about to adjourn
☒ into the night life of ******, their ponces and mamas horridly stern
☒ who were evicted by the Empire Hotel Group of the Hotel Lucerne
☒ whereat a politico can parlay sick-leave *** with a volunteer intern,
☒ in a meeting room spread eagle on **** carpet near a V.F.W. lectern
☒ for a thrilling roll of tattooed *** wiggle, tanned hip swish & churn
☒ Thiomersal makes serums kick ***, so we'll long for what we yearn
☒ to eat doves, hawks, wrens, rooks, robins & the greater crested tern
☒ Merck adds the blood of rabbits to their notorious M.M.R. vaccine
☒ to proliferate superior mutant strains that filtrate foggy brains clean
☒ Patients are murdered in hospitals for their kidneys, lungs & organs
☒ Do not cry over spilt milk nor over the disarmed Aussies poor guns
☒ 'cause switched ships Titanic & Olympic were banker J.P. Morgan's
☒ The P.M. didn't expose insurance fraud for fear of losing war funds
☒ The power to tax involves the power to destroy is heavy and taxing
☒ as it wanes menstrually when it is not in the seventh house waxing,
☒ or naked in a river with water moccasins, gators & pirañas relaxing
☒ as redacted facsimiles of pentagonal papers have militarians faxing
☒ about whether Check 'n Go offers the best 3rd-party-check-cashing
☒ while our children are dulled by prescription tranquilizer dopamine
☒ they are concurrently spazzed by that genic stimulant amphetamine
☒ which was pharmaceutically pedalled by allopathists as benzedrine
☒ that's able to hyper-stimulate a brain faster than a ten-pound praline
☒ while sickening patients via rashes of neuro-transmitting histamine
☒ A superior knowledge must be properly applied to equate to power
☒ from a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall or Pentecostal ivory tower
☒ below which poor people must be transfixed into a cowardly cower
☒ whilst stupefied by the oily patter of tele-prompted twit Matt Lauer
☒ who graduated from imbecile of the minute to retardate of the hour
☒ He got this way by substituting saw dust for desiccated wheat flour
☒ while denigrating Ike's warning against the militarists we empower
☒ I suspected that the stinking ****** I grew up with wasn't a brother
☒ till the program for adoptees: Look Dumb-***, I Ain't Your Mother!
☒ School-gun-free-zone laws force armed criminals to finally disarm
☒ in gun-free zones to protect our children from armed-criminal harm
☒ as no one need fear for in each school there's a regulation fire alarm
☒ plus in every home-room there's a martial-arts-trained school marm
☒ and if her tae kwon do fails she'll lure from him his gun with charm
☒ as she's a **** gal even though she was raised on a Wisconsin farm
☒ O Lord God have mercy to steer a misplaced/misdirected gratitude
☒ to a septicemic pit that'll sanitarily coax hyper-stimulated negritude
☒ what'll ablate pained receptors spun into a dextro-rotational attitude
☒ coursing towards 1 dizzy patter replenishing whomsoever'll delude
☒ the framed, gullible men & clothes-racked naturalists who sun ****
☒ 100% cocksure to stymie church with a girlified/glorified interlude
☒ before the bank of God files this in suit, the way it wants to be sued
☒ or epoxied, affixed, pasted, joined, stuck, adhered, taped and glued
☒ onto pages of doggerel verse that's shockingly & mockingly shrewd
☒ while an edibly-ripe tomato's rendered unpalatable as it was stewed
☒ for a *******-tight ***** forcefully torqued cracks tightly *******
☒ falling from the stitched mouths of dowagers bitten off half chewed
☒ From Hibernia to Albion, Scotsmen hang martyrs from an oak rood
☒ as pleated t'ings Scottish are sorely transfixed & rough-hewn crude
☒ where Wales' women decry a Holyheaded Welshman miner's mood
☒ that's digested like lamb lobscouse stew which's St. Helens #1 food
☒ pushing Brixton's Jamaican monkeys into a quasi-Rastafarian feud
☒ Out of the blue you rained on me saturating this prosthetic left knee
☒ I should've shot you in the neck before you pushed me out of a tree
☒ I can't cover my bald head unless somebody sells me a wig for free
☒ From a boat it's good to hurl & ***** 'cause it's fish food in the sea
☒ as rancid crap dumped overboard makes for delicious salt-water tea
☒ the type preferred by the vampiress Liz: Romanian quean of misery
☒ & ma to the wing-eared-imbecilic Chucky mate to mammy Cammy
☒ in full glory, in casual shift that is provocatively low-cut and flimsy
☒ Albanian maniac = Albaniac from under & off a Penn Central track
☒ Romanian maniac = Romaniac no matter the ooze of angled crack
☒ that will trump disease by scarfing red-peppered cole slaw cabbage
☒ so as to avert pelvic-girdle bruising plus sudden high-thigh damage
☒ Conventions banning torture are seen by State eugenicists as quaint
☒ because botulism makes not a crone seem no younger than she ain't
☒ In circles dark chronic emphysema is a darkly chronicled complaint
☒ soon as you thunk no violation too vile could make Liz queen faint
☒ on the decks of slaughter-ships finished in super polymerized paint
☒ **** no stick to monarchical petticoats while the shell rots of a saint
☒ where no sodium fluoridated water can pineal gland ******* & taint
☒ as no lardy laird shall see redress from Marxian Scotland's restraint
☒ Dominican man-eaters wolf almond brother & nephew sandwiches
☒ over the shrill hue & cry of black, barren, hog-shaped Indio *******
☒ whose godless zombie voodoo chants prohibit hiking furry britches
☒ even though hairy pants are the #1 thing that negresses know itches
☒ all students at Lee Harvey Oswald's C.I.A. college of patsy snitches
☒ where marksmen and sharp-shooters exhibit shaking-palsy twitches
Ryan O'Leary Jun 2019
If Bolt On is not properly
torqued, anythings possible.

Especially, now that he is
trying Nut an yahu for size.

Let's hope one of them has
had to good sense to bring
a washer!
Third Eye Candy May 2020
Dagwood spoiled by the sun on the outskirts of the meadow.
Tremulous reeds torqued in the bumble wind with rods of pollen
lilting into oblivion on a warm gust of meandering Spring.
Towers of Sky mount the hillocks of the world and daisies run.
I see regal turmoil and jubilant hemorrhage of Grace.
so many owls with wide eyes and earthworms dreaming of Mars…
You can almost be
as fragile
as a gnat of
Time.

And You Are.

— The End —