"transferable" poems
the unthinkable is our specialty
~
there are special periods of varying length
when we are given grants of capability
where solutions transferable like shared salt drops
and red gummy bears
you need, I believe, and the
no contract is signed and commissioned,
belief is suspended,
for the eyes have the evidence,
the ayes win the nomination,
the shaken but unbreakable longest kiss
secures the deal,
and the local island newspaper banners a headline,
“miracles on the island expand contagiously!”
this is when
this is where
one walks the streets and the dirt roads
sing song smiling,
the tide always incoming,
the peeks of sun
perfectly strong,
installing a feeling
of safe and home and not alone
where is shelter?
*here here,
here is shelter,
hear is shelter,
in words and deeds and on our
embracing fingertips*
9:45am
April 11, 2019
Apr 12, 2019
Apr 12, 2019 at 3:44 PM UTC
Where Is Shelter?
depends on the location of the storm…
so oft have I queried the gods and you?
Where is Shelter?
*to which, my response, while surrounded so well (!)
within
my moated island circumferences redoubt,
always was a simple:
“Here, Here is shelter!
But so human, thus so prone to delimited vision,
always, we scan the skies outward, fearful of
the hurricane and storm that approach,
from without, appearing, and the brewing
sky’s danger is visceral~visible to the naked eyes,
when,
it is disguised within the chambers of the
body, festering, until it is pestering, and
shelter, sadly, is not injectable, transferable,
easy remedial, and the hunkering down
with four walls not the solution, for the walls
themselves are damaged by decades of
waves of innocuous gently lapping that* still
*erode igneous granite(1) and fissure the self,
this secretive, enemy insidious…*
so it comes to be, that my own daggers have
pivoted, the pointy dangers pointed outwards,
well entrenched in their own defenses, now targeting
the whole of me, my outer walls breached, and
fired upon by cannons of cells, a treacherous
attack, bombardement par l'artillerie et les drones,
of the Fifth Column (2)…
so once more, say no more, but ask the brief of demand,
Where is Shelter?
the answer is as of yet to be decided,
but the forces
arrayed for and against
are equally determined!
W.S.
Jul 29, 2023
Jul 29, 2023 at 3:30 PM UTC
the wrong atmospherics of transmission
move in uninvestigated chaotic archives
red and pink turbulent storms swarm across
deep space frequencies in imaginative
currents of pulsars
that are translated into phases
each represented in diverse
conflicting modes of expression
in obsessive grooves of consciousness
cut up components of recycled narratives
audibly fixating on vibrations
that sound across the universe
in diffused spirals of manic fluctuations
converting archaic symbols into equivalents
of dust surfaces that oxidise in intermittent epochs
and deposit a rediscovered earth
an expansive transferable construction
of accidental providence
that allows for expression in artificially generated realities
hallucinated images that float
across the consciousness of the cosmos
producing visions that punctuate rational thought
become preoccupied with the conception
of interplanetary transpeciation
counting the chronological diversity
of those that occupy the black, blank
vacuum of space
Aug 4, 2013
Aug 4, 2013 at 7:54 PM UTC
i have been introduced to a fragmented universe
blue and silver
amid temporal ruins
oxidized epochs extract from me
thought processes and aural distillations
of a catatonic rage, that discards all trivia
in its scrutiny of minds
in a chronological diversity of words and images
it is a kinetic fluency of gestures
in an ****** calligraphy of expansive
transferable threads of thought
it is the real and the imagined
one that precludes inquiry
which leaves me infused
with a compulsion of composed complications
in episodic inspired delirium
Apr 14, 2013
Apr 14, 2013 at 12:46 AM UTC
It is a replicable dialectic
that swirls in my mind
like a spiral of cigarette smoke
covering fluctuations
of diffused expanses
of transferable hallucinated images
relying on an artificial artificiality
to generate a reality
one that amplifies a calisthenics
of maximized reduction
in the blank vacuum of space
allows those sophistication’s
where there is a scrutiny
of exclusions
that may perhaps betray
the concepts of others
those correlatives
of our own creative interirority
where a mind may repeal a transgression
for it is breakfast in the time
of the Wizard Pig
Apr 21, 2013
Apr 21, 2013 at 5:24 AM UTC
i listen to Dubstep music and sip tea
i am the Post-Mark
Pondering Gender politics and finishing my tea
i am non violent, a pacifist
But don't put it past me that i won't clench a fist
With righteous grist
If you make me feel alone in my considerations temporarily
i'm not a weak soul am hardy folk
Hardly lost faith when i realised God was a joke
Like a big fat egg yolk splattered all over paper
Christmas hogging 3 months of calendar
A Consumerist campaign, but tell me i'm the miser
Police tend to pass me in the streets, i think smart
Skin colour ain't the first part
One of the mainly white audience at the Public Enemy show
The system as it stands fears me though
If you stop and searched my heart you'd **** me though
i Listen to Deep House and sip Lucozade
Lost deep in this house
i've never worked hard at a job
So **** lucky at birth to have wealth
But that's my parents money (and I'm not in any way responsible for slavery)
Kanye West with his Confederate Flag ****
"I'ts mine now, what you gonna do?"
Little did we know that we were the 'New Slaves'
Contemporary thinker, i read the game cover to cover
After all they taught me from birth how to study
i'm too uninterested in ticking boxes to earn money
To satisy the transferable skills that you want from me
I'll Enjoy a nights alcoholism instead of getting high and writing an essay
Am I getting too wordy?
i'm trying to spit now, can i? can I?
The gender politics on my mind at inappropriate times
i told the guy at the door i wasn't thinking about race
Most people are thinking about 'the race'
White Middle Class kid picked up a mic and tried to rap again...
I listen to Hip Hop and drink water
Hardly faded I'm perfectly sober
I'm energised naturally, words seem to strengthen me
I am the grassroots, I have been wrongly righted
My Parent's deserve this so want me to sit tight
But I'm jumping right into the middle of hip hop (and feminism)
And theres nothing you can do about it.
[For All My ****** and All My *******
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 7:48 PM UTC
“I can calculate the movement of stars, but not the madness of men.” Sir Isaac Newton
I can, but only of my own,
the orbits of the stars
within my envisioned mind,
this anti-expanding universe
this black hole of anti-matter
collapsing inward, the gravitational pull calculable
where I, madman creator,
am the sole witness mine self-destruction
I summon fate, luck, random numbers to the dock,
but all pleadingly state it wasn't me,
"I was somewhere else, had to be,
you cannot see my mathematical probability,
ergo i am definitionally
not capable of being guilty-
my orbit of madness
non transferable to you-mans"
who then can I blame?
for-seen poems every where,
upon on every face lay dime store words of bad novellas,
awake to work in dread,
return from it more deadened
and the piety pointy poetry pills
refusing to cooperate,
and the madness equation
has too many answers viable
what shall I title this poem?
Apr 20, 2017
Apr 20, 2017 at 9:33 PM UTC
Hire me, hire me,
I have four A-levels and an Arts degree.
I have little experience or transferable skills,
but i'll gladly complain for free.
I'm educated. EH-DUE-KATE-ED! I'll scream in my head,
as I make your coffees and your teas.
My intelligence is far to great,
your menial work is just not for me.
I belong to greater things, I believe.
an author, a politician, a diplomat maybe?
or even, only if I'm lucky
this twenty-five a year scheme in marketing!
So please hire me, oh please!
I'm poor, desperate and my love-life is in decline.
The streets are no place for a graduate,
with a face, quite like mine.
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 6:53 PM UTC
I am often asked this question in comments, private notes and emails.
The short answer is: I don’t know.
I don’t know if there is an answer or if I’m the man to even try.
First, there are probably as many ways to write poetry as there are poets. I can’t imagine any one size fits all template. That is too horrible to contemplate.
Second, my method is actually a non-method. I will describe it, but I doubt it will be useful or transferable.
I have been a fanatical reader all my life. I still am. I probably read an average of three books per week. This has been going on for decades.
I have been reading poetry seriously for perhaps 43 years, including being taught how to read closely by some brilliant professors as an undergraduate and graduate student.
This has deposited an enormous mishmash of poems, sentences, images, phrases and fragments in my brain. Add to that mishmash decades of reading across disciplines, especially history, philosophy, religion and novels. Imagine that mishmash slowly marinading and fermenting.
From that random accumulation, without provocation on my part, poems emerge. There is no order to this and not much effort. I just channel what shows up. I do some retouching, but little serious rewriting.
And there you have it: my non-method. It should be obvious why I doubt it will be of much help to anyone else.
I can give a bit of advice, but only based on my experience.
Love words. Love to learn them. Love to play with them. Delight in them.
Read as much poetry as you possibly can. I doubt anyone can become a poet without doing this.
Be patient. It takes a while for the marinade to work. I’m 65 and I only began writing seriously eight years ago.
Find your own method and your own voice. You’ll know when that voice is authentic.
And then, sing out.
Mar 2, 2017
Mar 2, 2017 at 11:10 AM UTC
Is there a place somewhere known and yet unknown
where humans keep or lose their guilts
Is there a dumping hole or a snug
or a fierce incinerator blazing
That destroys or obliterates
human guilts
Is it a known some guilts carry comfortably and alone
just another thing for the holdall satchel bag or arm
Someday its worryingly heavy on the shoulders
other times it's just small and weightless
An accessory as any others
imperceptibly light
Is the heavy guilt or tons heavy ones like granite stone
a weary toil left in a storage or thrown over a cliff
What ever done guilts come with a personal receipt
bearing owners name time and number
Attached to owner and carried 24/7
marked as 'Non-Transferable'
Is your guilt or guilts bearable or carry-able like your phone
have you stored, hidden it or pushed down a crevice
What about the indelible receipt on your person
that which is there and rests on you
Does it flare like an incindaries
or just simmer quietly
Is your guilt a bedfellow that clings to your chest in a zone
whispering in tone foreboding and chills persistent
Or one that wades in and recedes like shore waves
perhaps it's a type like a central rigid statue
An unmovable edifice of horror
coated in fear and alarm
Is your guilt light and niggly, a Bonsai with no tall grown
did you amend paying a due and penanced did leave
And though the attached receipt still haunts you
least you know it will gradually fade away
Leaving truly tutoring imprints
Never to be repeated
Is your guilt a stranger yet unmet and your spirit happy flown
do you walk in salient steps with no recourse to remorse
And greet each morn with pleasantries to I, me and self
enthralled no rent paid for secret storage or a crevice
Just the one that stands before man and Creation
Held aloof by a Conscience unstained
Copyright@Laurence14th Aug2018.all rights reserved.
Aug 14, 2018
Aug 14, 2018 at 8:11 PM UTC
The question seems to lie in
Wether we are
We are the physical computer drive
Or the transferable background programs
Wether we are
Tied together in networks or an internet
Or wether we are a lone, disconnected monitor
Wether this place
Was created intentionally by an experimenting programmer
Or wether it is just a bug, a byproduct of natural binary
And if we
Have the computing power and memory storage to download the truth
Or if we'd simply overheat our circuitry
Oct 13, 2016
Oct 13, 2016 at 9:45 PM UTC
I wash my hair
The dirt is stripped away
Wet.
Rinsed down the drain into the sewer
Stinking sludge water waste
A homeless man leans down
Filling up his intellectual cup
Gutter filth rot glory
No wonder bums are crazy
Talking to mattresses, having imaginary riches
Someday
Makes me wonder what it's like deep inside
I could be imaginary
More than just one
Do I get the crazy out on paper?
Or down the drain when I wash my hair?
Mar 3, 2012
Mar 3, 2012 at 7:38 PM UTC
Non refundable
Non transferable
SOMETIMES returnable
Always exchangeable
at times revocable.
Given to freely
and held by the greedy
Bursting with happiness
while drowning in stress.
Avoided from fear of it
Pursued with a frenzy
Blinding the novice
But gives clear sight to many
Fighting to gain it
Dying to lose it
Fighting to keep it
Striving to stop it
Killing to halt it
Living to give it
Killing to honor it
Dying to take it
Just can't get off of it.
What silly creatures us humans are
Doing silly silly things
for the feel good chemicals it brings
We do and feel all these things
Going beyond and above
Just for LOVE..
Nov 15, 2024
Nov 15, 2024 at 12:23 PM UTC
They said, thoughts are transferable
So, are you thinking about me too?
May 27, 2022
May 27, 2022 at 6:10 PM UTC
The Vague Hope is the substance that gets me through the day
That unassured thing that tells me, "Don't worry; it's okay"
It never tells me how the things that seem bad will be alright
So I cannot quite refute it, and with me it spends the night
It nestles in my heart and head, and I like child, hold it close
It's always perfectly designed to be a saving dose
It fills my heart, much like the feel of Love, both pure and true
But Vague Hope's non-transferable, so I can't give mine to you
All I can say is that you must request it from the world
And from the blackened heavens an answer might be hurled
Like a spear thrown from the hands of Romans into boars
Vague Hope may be presented to be kept; forever yours
Aug 8, 2013
Aug 8, 2013 at 12:31 AM UTC
T.S. Eliot: "Last year's words belong to last year's languages and next year's words await another voice.”
<>
exactly.
the old words are salty, unexpectedly coarse, unrefined and unsuitable for staying and surely not for going. The words are stamped with an expiration date.
the evening is calendar-redlined, wobbly but outlined & finite, but the words are resisted, non- transferable. Stale.
and I drink and wonder whose voice, with artifice of a new vocabulary, all next year’s words, will bid me farewell and will I understand the spoken sounds of a new long division?
Dec 31, 2021 4:07 PM
Dec 31, 2021
Dec 31, 2021 at 6:29 PM UTC
The only note I took from yesterdays class was “the western governments failed to do anything about it” and that really drove home for me how transferable and different yet identical ongoing war is. WW1, WW2, Iraq, the syrian war.
I don’t know where poetry sits in all this. I think poetry without action is like theory without praxis so I to an extent I don’t really care what poetry is or should be in regards to war. There is a limit to what the written word can do in terms of changes the course of things and influencing people, it’s not nothing but it’s also not enough. The recognition of the limitation or inadequacy of the written or spoken word is demonstrated in how many poets are activists, they know speaking or writing alone is not enough.
I think poetry can be fuel, nourishing, provoking but then it’s like what are you gunna do about it? Western politics, particularly liberalism seems to have gotten it’s wires crossed somewhere along the line and some people seem to believe that talking about and reading about things is enough, that think pieces can actually change things and help people in of themselves.
I think the most poetry can be is a starting point, a seed, but what are you gonna do to grow it further?
I think poetry can be a call to action, and a call to action shouldn’t be read as a metaphor, take it literally and answer the call.
Sep 16, 2017
Sep 16, 2017 at 5:55 AM UTC
The Bug
Is Love a compulsion, the sudden idea that this person,
no others, will meet all your need and make you happy.
It is a moment, falling in love only happens once when
you are among the blessed and anointed by the gods.
For some, the illusion lasts a lifetime for others it falls
at the first hurdle of familial tediousness.
Luckily love is transferable you meet someone else who
will make you happy but it will not be the same as first
time, no matter how many times you try love is a gift
only given once, the rest is repetition
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 at 7:08 AM UTC
Just like these silly little gifts, my love can gather dust in a drawer,
Or it can be yours
But it cannot be made use of any other way.
It cannot be given to another.
THIS love, this here,
It is for you.
It is not transferable.
If I am forced I will love again, some other way, some other person,
But YOUR LOVE
Will never leave me.
This gorgeous, precious feeling...
It will sit abandoned on some dust covered shelf,
A beautiful thing never touched because of its worth.
That is why your guilt puzzles me.
You are not taking anything from me,
Not putting my adoration to unworthy use-
It is for no one else but you.
It could not even reach another.
It is ONLY yours,
And so,
Like your gifts, like your flowers, like everything I try to give you
You may take it and let it rejoice at its entire purpose of existence,
Or you may let it gather dust
And become heavy with grief.
Dec 6, 2014
Dec 6, 2014 at 10:49 PM UTC
did this poem just write itself, is more needed?
every day is holy, you just need to reason why!
could it be:
laundry day, a fresh starting, a new cleansing sparking
stroking her face, squeezing her apple cheekbones, smile extracting
making kissing her forehead, caressing her thumb knuckle, into a weapon of holy war
early to rise, coffee maker man, a saint she declares, from night risen
tracing her heart’s shape with a memorizing fingertip, transferable
to your own graying forested chest
happy new day, an everyday celebration; Happy Lockdown Day!
Feb 9, 2020
Feb 9, 2020 at 8:20 AM UTC
A promise made, a vow—unbelievably grand
Until tanks and footsteps disturb the land
Handshakes firm, papers signed
Yet missiles and bullets still lag behind
Peace is non-transferable, war is our own,
Limited liability for the lives that we've blown
For threat prevention, we may reinforce,
Bombs will drop without a hint of remorse
When the world begins to ask
We say we honored it, our assured task
A truce! A pause! A peaceful day!
We’ll bomb them all by the end of May
We reserve the right to reverse the ceasefire
As bodies fall to the chorus of our choir
Diplomacy’s a practiced art—
Where ceasefires end before they start
Feb 24, 2025
Feb 24, 2025 at 8:48 AM UTC