"trodden" poems
Two memes diverged in a dank montage,
And sorry I could not watch both
And be one memer, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it memed in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as dank,
And having perhaps the better meme,
Because it was dank and wanted memes;
Though as for that the meming there
Had danked them really about the same,
And both that montage equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden african american.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back to 9gag.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence: ******* kiddies
Two memes diverged in a montage, and I—
I took the one less memed by,
And that has made all the dankness.
Jun 3, 2015
Jun 3, 2015 at 10:50 PM UTC
O'er the midnight moorlands crying,
Thro' the cypress forests sighing,
In the night-wind madly flying,
Hellish forms with streaming hair;
In the barren branches creaking,
By the stagnant swamp-pools speaking,
Past the shore-cliffs ever shrieking,
Damn'd demons of despair.
Once, I think I half remember,
Ere the grey skies of November
Quench'd my youth's aspiring ember,
Liv'd there such a thing as bliss;
Skies that now are dark were beaming,
Bold and azure, splendid seeming
Till I learn'd it all was dreaming —
Deadly drowsiness of Dis.
But the stream of Time, swift flowing,
Brings the torment of half-knowing —
Dimly rushing, blindly going
Past the never-trodden lea;
And the voyager, repining,
Sees the wicked death-fires shining,
Hears the wicked petrel's whining
As he helpless drifts to sea.
Evil wings in ether beating;
Vultures at the spirit eating;
Things unseen forever fleeting
Black against the leering sky.
Ghastly shades of bygone gladness,
Clawing fiends of future sadness,
Mingle in a cloud of madness
Ever on the soul to lie.
Thus the living, lone and sobbing,
In the throes of anguish throbbing,
With the loathsome Furies robbing
Night and noon of peace and rest.
But beyond the groans and grating
Of abhorrent Life, is waiting
Sweet Oblivion, culminating
All the years of fruitless quest.
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*Blue clouds gaze the wrapped sun
frozen kisses in my blood
travelling a thousand miles
to meet up with you.
There is none else walking
down this path where memories
wake up and dance
inside my armored heart.
I peeled off each kisses embrace
out of my parched lips.
I shook off the tree,
where your scent had blossomed.*
***Every step down this scarcely trodden path saw...
Each peel fall with helpless, damsel-like grace.
Brown leaves shone amber touched by fingers of the sun
Invasion of warmth through my greyed bony carapace.
Gentle tremors reverberate within with subtle anguish.
Sweet scented portal that took me back,
To the illusion of time where we once were...
In drunken stupor...laying under a star strewn canvas of black.
Senses that spoke of a great fantastical tale.
You are still here... In this cloying void with no one around...
Only that scent...your scent tugging on my core
Invisible tendrils berthing my feet back on ground.***
*Alone and wanting don't want to be anymore.
I want to feast my lungs on your skin once more.
I want to vibrate under your touch again,
In anguished anticipation and sweet pain.
I hurl your name to the echoing wind,
Blowing ferociously over the closed passage.
Only to find that I'm but elongating
the distance between our fading wishful stars.*
***Fading far only to find that I'm lost yet again,
Still harvesting a basket full of ripened hope.
Traversing planes with warped, slanted doorways,
Frantically seeking purchase on knobs with fevered gropes.
Heavy layered breaths inhaled too shallow...
Tracing missteps to decipher what it all meant.
When all is moot...weary, weathered and futile,
Forever I'll be bathing in the familiarity of your soothing, nectarous scent...***
Dajena M
ryn
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 11:50 PM UTC
Bees build around red liver,
Ants build around black bone.
It has begun: the tearing, the trampling on silks,
It has begun: the breaking of glass, wood, copper, nickel, silver, foam
Of gypsum, iron sheets, violin strings, trumpets, leaves, ***** crystals.
**** Phosphorescent fire from yellow walls
Engulfs animal and human hair.
Bees build around the honeycomb of lungs,
Ants build around white bone.
Torn is paper, rubber, linen, leather, flax,
Fiber, fabrics, cellulose, snakeskin, wire.
The roof and the wall collapse in flame and heat seizes the foundations.
Now there is only the earth, sandy, trodden down,
With one leafless tree.
Slowly, boring a tunnel, a guardian mole makes his way,
With a small red lamp fastened to his forehead.
He touches buried bodies, counts them, pushes on,
He distinguishes human ashes by their luminous vapor,
The ashes of each man by a different part of the spectrum.
Bees build around a red trace.
Ants build around the place left by my body.
I am afraid, so afraid of the guardian mole.
He has swollen eyelids, like a Patriarch
Who has sat much in the light of candles
Reading the great book of the species.
What will I tell him, I, a Jew of the New Testament,
Waiting two thousand years for the second coming of Jesus?
My broken body will deliver me to his sight
And he will count me among the helpers of death:
The uncircumcised.
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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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Take only what you can carry,
Only what you need.
Just enough to feed and water
You and a faithful steed.
Forget the path well trodden,
That will not help you on your way.
Instead forge your own trail
For others to follow one day.
Never shy from an opportunity
Throw yourself through every door.
For this life is an adventure,
Now go,
Explore!
May 14, 2012
May 14, 2012 at 8:22 AM UTC
This poem is not pretty...
It's real black and white
no one wants to listen to them
few want them
families in shambles
mom was gone long ago
the ***** drug addicted, unlucky
children, adults, black , white, chinese
you name it they are there
no work
no hope
hungry and *****
few notice them
blending into the sidewalks
400 a night fill just one shelter
one shelter of thousands
crazy and sane
the forgotten and the down trodden
it could be you
you just don't want to admit it
Mar 22, 2014
Mar 22, 2014 at 9:36 PM UTC
Choosing a series a words for a ditty,
Those we first pluck a few at a time.
For readers it will, at first, seem so pretty
When they detect that rhythm and rhyme.
But soon, I suggest, it becomes such a chore,
When words strung together do pose
An oft-trodden pattern or insipid score
That bounces and sings as it goes.
The message conveyed in this rigid frame,
Is lesser I fear than than when we escape
From words chosen for just ending the same
Or some fortuitous fit to that shape.
So I tend to lean towards using blank form,
For verses I build by the letter,
And chose the words that I feel will conform
To that which my heart says are better.
Aug 18, 2013
Aug 18, 2013 at 11:31 AM UTC
See how this Trodden Commoner invites
With his Self cheers the Hero on the Board
As he predicts his proven Time and Sights
Another Inscrutable Win absorb
So much so it becomes the Nation's Theme
With Married Saints you dear Prince do us Proud
Even if your Light condenses to meme
At least those close to you will share your Cloud
I would only wish for your Halo's Morn
That a Wee Signature you could offer,
Poking your eyes from Dimensions and Form
And just see the Heart which knows no other.
Yes, I know. Seven-by-Ten Digits speak same
Most by Tradition. By nature are Dames.
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 11:27 PM UTC
Racing, blind nights gone weary,
Missing like cold wind, blowin'
Trees, objects of nature caught ruthlessly divine,
Simple cognition or possible chasing lights drowning tears mark moons and mansions alike, in the presence of fire,
The great blind rat lifting it's tail, in disgrace showing motionless mass,
Get the blackness on the Jordan river death urge silently moving like herds of sheep in the hills of Holy
Thousands of nation men, trodden down with sand and mud just to get the right passage of mind and thought
A small Vietnamese girl,
About the size of a...
Nevermind the voices you hear they all come awake and slowly disappear
Droughts of ether alike in tunes I might just do without the rest of doubts hedges lawns and patios
Glazed in passionate flowers
Paradoxical a nebula unhidden,
Slow chasing the candle lit masks
Mar 7, 2015
Mar 7, 2015 at 4:29 AM UTC
Young athlete who just joined the game
Keep your hopes high while running low
Towards success must be your aim
For you to wend, for you to go
E’en if you lose, e’en if you drop
Trodden by feet of rivalry
Get right back up and never stop
And win this race with chivalry
Ne’er seclude yourself, ne’er be coy
Don’t take in vain each accolade
Don’t be too scared, don’t over joy
And don’t let worthy honor fade
Never go blind with dark distress
Nor deaf with roars of losing so
Young athlete, don’t apply duress
But keep dreams high while running low
And even if you go too deep
Down the path you should not have set
Your worthy honor always keep
With bravery, ne’er with regret
Keep running on, keep running still
At the far end, light you will see
Keep running with force, if you will
You will soon grasp bright victory
And don’t let such grand rewards go
But don’t keep them so you may boast
Keep your dreams high while running low
And keep on trying if you lost
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 4:57 PM UTC
.
The waves spilled the rising tide
back into the scattered footprints in the sand
deeply entrenched in life’s mystery,
receding into every breaking wave
A stiff sea breeze put back every grain of sand,
elements of a larger object gathers,
gravity firmed, into the silent shoreline chasms—
a beheld essence washed out to sea
by the fugitive tides and retreating sea-foam
Soon all trodden traces visibly vanish;
unmarked mileposts on a metaphysical pathway
slip away back to a windswept shoreline
and elapsing summer tide
Seabirds glide in slow-motion,
held sway into the shapeless gusts —
as if feathered puppets hovering,
hanging from the rafters
of the burgeoning orange sky
There's an uncommon peace in the renaissance;
effervescent crisp ocean air filling
the indefinable emptiness
marooned within each heartbeat’s echo
Each new breath inhaled, disappearing within
the unhealed hollow of every thing once believed;
fully aware this life is unholdable as time,
yet feeling many things deeply retained
in each passing moment—
slipping away like a handful of sand
sifting through all these hands once held
Presence becoming wreathed in a miasma of stillness,
space that levitates like an unpredictable fog
that seeps into the gnawing voids
of an unsated hunger
harlon rivers ... August 1st, 2018
Jul 31, 2018
Jul 31, 2018 at 8:34 PM UTC
I am a fortress.
I have withstood wars that should have broken me.
Burned down and decimated by the mindless,
I rise up from the ashes.
I stand with my body, eternally.
I am strong.
My thighs are battle grounds trodden down three times round
and they're blooming new flowers,
mending from those who fought over them far too long,
my thighs have super powers.
I am soft and sultry sweet,
full of vulnerabilities.
Nature proves if anything that this will never make me weak.
My eyes once snuffed out are blazing brilliant brightly now,
rivers of tears have been filled in,
replaced by peaches and cream and skin.
My arms are solid protective forces,
my hands, tangible whispering caresses.
I wear my broken bits on my *******
puffed out chest with pride,
for I have nothing to hide.
My feet take me to and from all the places I've ever gone,
and my mind,
my mind, it tries. It tries so ******* hard,
and my heart cares so much that it shows
in every scar and battle wound,
in every mark that was ever taken as a flaw by boys who never saw
that without the storms I wouldn't glow the way that I glow,
every boy who told me to 'go with the flow'
like I couldn't learn a **** thing for myself.
Still, the lessons people preached did teach me a thing or two,
just not what they usually intended,
my face doesn't face up to face value,
belief is most beautiful when suspended.
My eyes see lies better than my thighs do,
yet resilience sees to it that both are mended,
but if there's anything I've ever learned that's true,
you should never leave anything open-ended
Jan 29, 2016
Jan 29, 2016 at 7:35 PM UTC
The lost days of my life until to-day,
What were they, could I see them on the street
Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat
Sown once for food but trodden into clay?
Or golden coins squandered and still to pay?
Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet?
Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat
The throats of men in Hell, who thirst alway?
I do not see them here; but after death
God knows I know the faces I shall see,
Each one a murdered self, with low last breath.
‘I am thyself, — what hast thou done to me?’
‘And I—and I—thyself,’ (lo! each one saith,)
‘And thou thyself to all eternity!’
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∙∙∙◦◦•◎•◦◦∙∙∙
Caribbean blue sail's a galaxy
rivers gushing, mumbling for an eternity
reflections of Love forms to thee
Suddenly silence adumbrate
aesthete, A lustful tint of Peruvian trees
petrichor whiffs of earth's virginity
A syzygy that I can't apprehend
but, can fully appreciate its denouement
rebirth of once I fell in love been
Listen to its sotto voce ruffling
preterlabent streams, resplendent hymns
humming grasses cues to sing
Upon the mountain tops hidden
rocks of geos sighting a treasure within
only to discover lore’s of forbidden
Cascading trees whispered a cold
a journey I never knew how to go as told
trap between floras along the road
Propinquity of my eyes closing thin
soul reserved for death, till breath hops in
trodden a land ****** for me to begin
A minstrel with hands like marbles
strung a fiddle of tessellated symphonies
open wonders the eyes never seen
A bouquet of amaranth revealed
the longing heart found someone of new
sighs my feelings and away I strew
Jul 8, 2017
Jul 8, 2017 at 3:22 AM UTC
A place of history, lives lived and life lost.
We know not today the human cost
Of battles fought by the ghosts of our past
To create a peace uncertain to last.
Walk slowly, walk quietly and open your mind,
To a world and its people that are here to find.
Floors trodden heavy with memories rich,
Walls with secrets they are happy to pitch.
Love, laughter; joy, sadness all under one roof;
Feel the emotion and imagine the truth
About the people who lived here long long ago
And whose spirit you salute when through this castle you flow.
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 3:24 PM UTC
Elephants are contagious!
Be careful how you tread.
An Elephant that's been trodden on
Should be confined to bed!
Leopards are contagious too.
Be careful tiny tots.
They don't give you a temperature
But lots and lots - of spots.
The Herring is a lucky fish
From all disease inured.
Should he be ill when caught at sea;
Immediately - he's cured!
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In the hour of my greatest need,
When my rage has been spent,
And my selfishness,
Profanity,
Lovelessness,
Anger,
Lying,
Cheating,
Lawlessness,
Single mindedness,
And my quest, in all the wrong ways, for love,
Stands alone.
When the darkness is my greatest achievement,
Still,
I AM FORGIVEN.
I AM LOVED.
This is senseless to me.
It belies comprehension.
It demands exploration.
And after all,
Remains senseless and incomprehensible
Except for the words I hear
As I lay wounded and trodden upon
By my own sin,
"Welcome home. Be at rest."
Mar 1, 2014
Mar 1, 2014 at 6:45 PM UTC
There are beetles on my skin
Attacking my bark
With pincers sharp
-trying to get in
And as they cover me
Head to toe in a blanket of living death
They tickle in bitter giggles
At my senses, set ablaze
By their exo-skeletal steps
I do not build a scream
For the sound would die out in between
The sheet of beetles
And my trodden lips
Instead I lie still
Commanding them with my negligence
Fusing with their fear-mongering
They take my shape; I don’t take theirs
I am the alpha insect
The form of their nature
And now I stand
In beetled armor
A figure against the sun
My shadow raining over the undergrowth
Reigning over the under.
In this symbiosis we travel
Across valley and valley
Coleoptera-covered Rand McNally
Covering the earth, showing
The dominance of man
The man the man
He who holds the plan
In the palm of his life-colored hand
I am he
The guardian of land and sea
Infected with a voice-in-hand
Who writes eternity
Whose pen is the land filled with ink of the sea
And with beetles of lead
I harmonize
That between myself
And quaking skies
As the world shakes in its roots
During a spacequake
That bends our atoms like dried glue
But then I am not alone
And as I rest on grass of gold
The heroes step forth, dressed in animals
In a dark, ****** harmony
That is the nature of our home, our Terra
The brute beauty in black void
Swimming through time like a turtle
On which the souls of man rest
On golden grass
Our spherical nest
And our evils are justified
By the good of our pursuit of beauty
Though selfish maybe
Though hellish for he
That swims on land
But drowns as he walks the sea
We are multitudes.
We are Gaia, we are the mother tree
The ****** bliss of humanity
Dark and light, both are we.
Mar 20, 2014
Mar 20, 2014 at 8:59 AM UTC
A summer of discontent
Uprooted families swap a bombed house for tent.
A summer of disbelief.
Acts of terror but where is the relief?
A summer of turmoil.
Mass migration not safe on home soil.
A summer of confusion.
Gangs, traffickers, corruption collusion.
A summer of down trodden flowers.
The tears we shed from the sins of powers.
Oct 14, 2015
Oct 14, 2015 at 1:45 PM UTC
THERE is a queen in China, or maybe it's in Spain,
And birthdays and holidays such praises can be heard
Of her unblemished lineaments, a whiteness with no
stain,
That she might be that sprightly girl trodden by a
bird;
And there's a score of duchesses, surpassing woma-
kind,
Or who have found a painter to make them so for pay
And smooth out stain and blemish with the elegance
of his mind:
I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their
day.
The young men every night applaud their Gaby's
laughing eye,
And Ruth St. Denis had more charm although she had
poor luck;
From nineteen hundred nine or ten, Pavlova's had the
cry
And there's a player in the States who gathers up her
cloak
And flings herself out of the room when Juliet would
be bride
With all a woman's passion, a child's imperious way,
And there are -- but no matter if there are scores beside:
I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their
day.
There's Margaret and Marjorie and Dorothy and Nan,
A Daphne and a Mary who live in privacy;
One's had her fill of lovers, another's had but one,
Another boasts, "I pick and choose and have but two
or three.'
If head and limb have beauty and the instep's high and
light
They can spread out what sail they please for all I have
to say,
Be but the breakers of men's hearts or engines of
delight:
I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their
day.
There'll be that crowd, that barbarous crowd, through
all the centuries,
And who can say but some young belle may walk and
talk men wild
Who is my beauty's equal, though that my heart denies,
But not the exact likeness, the simplicity of a child,
And that proud look as though she had gazed into the
burning sun,
And all the shapely body no tittle gone astray.
I mourn for that most lonely thing; and yet God's will
be done:
I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their
day.
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They bleed into grey
The global visions of our day
Until the well trodden trail
Becomes our way
I've seen it
I've touched it
I've held it in mind
I lingered in that cave
And left stuff behind
Yet it occurs to me
That living is the goal
To experience every pleasure
As we inevitably grow old
Perhaps we came here
Simply to experience life
The good, the bad
The happy, The sad
Back and forth throughout time
Til we return to Source
Jan 22, 2015
Jan 22, 2015 at 9:32 AM UTC
Kindness is not nice.
Nice is soft and inoffensive.
Nice is easy and effects no change, it's cotton wool - not stuffed tight, but just resting on the surface ready to be blown away or trodden into a muddy disinterest. Nice is a damp whisper, a mouse cowering in the corner, taking up as little space as possible, lest it be noticed, lest it presume too much and cause a whisker of offence.
Kindness isn't like that -
Kindness pushes in, claws out, quick and heavy, uninvited, unexpected, taking pleasure in disturbance, in leaving nothing unsaid and little undone in its pursuit of creating a disruption of difference. Kindness counts everyone a target, anybody a likely candidate for a three act matinee and evening performance of loud Kindness. Surprise is its currency, smiles its language, common humankindness its passport to lands yet to be explored, to vast red territories with drumbeats of gratefulness for the opportunity to march in with regiments of compassion and to leave a signature devastation of brutal Kindness.
Kindness is not 'nice'.
Kindness is loving awe-ful.
Dec 24, 2019
Dec 24, 2019 at 3:37 AM UTC