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Claire Waters Dec 2013
i
you say i am honestly not the same person
i say one day i woke up honest
and i do not know how to undo experience
my own eyes and ears and nose and mouth
cannot be undone at the moment
how do you do it?
push that pressure to the back of your mind
like that
how do you all manage to laugh with a straight face
at things that you know aren't really funny
i can't fathom it. where you go
when you are stomping and ripping
and ****** and jeering
and laughing and running
it's exhausting to watch you

ii
i apologize if it doesn't make sense
that i can't play along
but playing along
doesn't make sense
i could never win a grammy
with this tight lipped smile
laughing at the expense of others
makes me feel more like a paparazzi
placating insecurities for currency
leeching off the vulnerability
you may not think i'm smart but
i am smart enough to know this is not 'normal'
and there is nothing wrong with staring at you in the rearview
and saying "i wish that was really sarcasm"
i'll tell you the truth
and you don't have to like it
and you don't have to like me
and i don't have to like you
because if there's one thing i know about myself
it's that i don't dislike anybody
until they show off their callousness
hoping it's the right party trick
to gain respect

iii
we watch comedy tv, and you are worried
by the way my spine cracks
when i let out a uncontrollable laugh
dragging on, beginning to spill, and as i try to quell it
my whole body shakes with the pressure
of it bubbling inside of me
you feel all of this beside of me
a small volcano with a bent back
quaking absorbed by pillows and flowers and cushions
not quite right for you
wondering why i couldn't laugh like this earlier
when we were not alone
everyone is looking for something more porous
more willing to let in effortlessly
and absorb tirelessly
that can simply laugh like a stream bubbles
and let go of the undercurrent
yet we are sharp and uneven and course like logs
and the weight of our actions carries much further
being shunted downstream by tides of gravity
every intention runs it's course
every intention speaks volumes
if you feel that in your core
every day you will uncontrollably think of how
every intention defines the quality of the laughter
stuck in someone else's head
and you will save it for things that are funny
Alana S Sep 2015
my tears aren’t forced
they flow in that
dark tunnel that she
dreamed so long ago
she wasn’t ready
to take her first steps
I wasn’t ready to
take mine without her.
Little things bring her back
like empty bowls or the tower
of books she’s never going to read.
People have been calling this a
trauma, but they’ve forgotten the
loneliness of life’s journey. She dreamed
a tunnel and added bright lights
and dusted the floor with powdery snow
she traveled far yet I can
only see the trails of
milk puddling around the lost key that she
dropped under blankets
of memory and phrases of
I-promise and tomorrow. I’m growing up as
she falls down. She wasn’t
perfect but that’s why it
was so easy to love her.
My journey’s ongoing, and the
deep undercurrents of pain and
grief are pulling me through
that tunnel.
I’m rowing softly by,
quietly, quietly,
as she is laid to rest.
her memories swallow the emptiness
she is kneeling at the throne.
I follow slowly and leave my
tears for her to know that life’s
path isn’t paved in water but
with sorrow, with endings, and with lost
boats on turbid seas.
shamamama Apr 2019
Hungry.

In the silence,
of this afternoon,
they arrive, ready
to feed children who wait
in nest high above.
Their high whistle dancing,
pierces the soundscape
These mejiros--yellow with sharp white eyes,
Comb through hibiscus bush
Finding a meal
Hidden within
Like  parrotfish
Munching through coral reef,

I sit under tree listening,

Abruptly
The seashells to my mind
Fill with shrill sounds
Of mothers scolding monsters,
A quickening--
Their white eyes dart like fearful
squid flying through
brushy undercurrents.
Underneath,
The small lion cat
Stalks the
Hungry sounds
In the bush

the Hungry looking for Hungry
Mejiros fill the landscape here, they are active feeders and singers of this tropical landscape.  I played with metaphors from the land and from the sea--reflecting on Hawaiians who match something from the earth and something from the sea.
phocks Apr 2014
grey skies roll
clouded tropical
undercurrents
of future falls
shrouding skies
and shifting seas
from sad-eyed lowlands
to mountain highs
and we as trees
shiver branches
ever extending
shootings in the breeze
at arm’s reach
we never touch
planted
too far apart
and as such
falling droplets
slip through fingers
and shatter the ground
an endless coming down
our roots soaked through
spent
and craving more
all around
aroused from slumber
the petrichor grows
slowly floating up
and filling the air
composed at sunrise as the first storm rolled overhead
K Balachandran Feb 2014
This woman is a chameleon,
how her hues change!
she is the conqueror-
wearing the false hues of the conquered;
a desire for perfect conquest, in disguise.
                            She instinctively find
what she wants to conquer,
from among the smiles
identifying the heart of her like,
from its invisible presence,
from  a distance.That one moment
qualifies her as a magician of heart strings.

Her studied indifference now
is a tacit invitation
to get near her,
though concealed in many layers.
She makes sure he doesn't
miss the message,
but for the uninitiated
it goes invisible.
Sly looks he send now and then,
when she moves closer, his whisper:
"Don't you hear what my heart says?"
his half smile is being reciprocated,
what was made to look like reluctance
was in fact a challenge
for him to go and get
what he wanted,
not as a gift, but
as a hard earned asset.
He thinks she was the best
he has ever set his eyes on.
They hit it off in a bit.
Amitav Radiance Feb 2015
Cruising along the
Rushing river
Flowing with
Rapid urgency
Time’s never still
Left the anchor
To sail ahead
Finally, to be swept away
By undercurrents
Transported to
A distant shore
of a resting place
Poetic T Jul 2018
Weak minds
   block stronger voices.
for a voice that speaks
                              truths
always conflict with the
     rationalization of others
                             ignorance.

Never let lies seep beneath the
                          waters of truth
and float like away in the
   undercurrents of denial.

There are always layers to
                        truth..
But lies are only one layer
folded upon another getting
tighter and more unstable
with every moment its breathed.
Amitav Radiance Jan 2015
Many sighs between
The heart and lips
Oft, feelings are adrift
Winds of time
Takes hold of the sail
Pulled away
By the undercurrents
Of despair
phocks Feb 2012
The undercurrents of society flow,
Like dreaming fog lights caught in the undertow.
A lone warrior fights only with himself,
So that soon one day he can be put on the shelf,
Ready to be picked at the drop of a hat,
Sadly misused I know not what is said.
Forty two mistletoe drive is where my baby lies,
Under the shade of my boondocks ride,
So long and farewell my princess belle,
No two times go together very well.
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2020
i can't imagine a better maxim for a marriage:

   when both of you are young...
and... instead of being
these "star-crossed lovers" -

with a rubric
                  of the thwart(ing)...

to marry: when both are still in love with life...

                    from a nation-state into
the ***** of a diaspora...

what a fine word...
   the mass-influx of hyping around
the otherwise, fake:

       migrant workers...
like the current argument for
british sovereignty:
we will not have any of the bureaucracy
from Brussels...
but, we, will! have...
those romanian fruit & veg pickers!

it's hardly a joke:
more like a choke...
                    what's the difference between...
leaving one part of the country
for another: part of the same country...
and then... being daring enough...
to leave the country: thoroughly...
and have to learn a new language?

dual-citizenship...
go back? stay here?
hmm... i'm not really fond of speaking
or writing in ******...
the germans dissolved...
the russians too: dissolved...
i'm pretty sure that language can
remain intact... as it is...
under the law & justice party...
once they focus on the breeders
with tax-free incentives...

Chicago! what a fine diaspora hub
for the ****** "expatriates"...
good thing i never made it to
h'america: in stripes...

the friends of my youth...
most of then? crimminals...
        the nicknames we had for each
other:
i remember being taunted as being
an... "angol"... because my father wasn't
their father and wasn't part
of laying down the foundations
of "bones" for the dockland light railway...

i left a nation: still in its infancy...
and to its infancy i will drink!
but as a language: not a people...
not a geographic location...
a metaphysical manifestation:
if the word be a faustian signature...
yes, my lord... i see the pinching
itch of the natives squandering it...
like it should not have been...
a frederick hohenstaufen II experiment
in a nunnery on Sicily...
mute children... raised by nuns who didn't
speak: pretending...
to see... what language was genesis primo!

my allegiance is to the tongue...
it might allude to the fife and drums...
but dealing with the rascal
who deems...
that god save the queen be treated
with irreverence...
i'm not as daft and yobbish to glare
with a hydra giving birth to an extension
of its neck-load girth...

give me! the british grenadiers' fife & drum...
and i'll show you le marseillaise!
i have long ago pledge my allegience
to the tongue...
              
because? well... to be honest...
under all the supression from the...
(a) herr meisterstuck:
         the day:
        
        the prussians... "forgot"...
they were jumbled up with the lithuanians
as the last pagans of europe...
and then they decided: whatever it
was that they decided upon...

i hear some russian... i hear a down syndrome
person talk...
it's all lovely and sing-along...
but it's hardly by strict obligation
to the latin script... is it?
i have to nibble at pitty-worth jokes
to aid my...

diaspora: involuntary mass dispersion
of a population from its indigenous territories...
last time i checked...
i was born into a city famously known
for its practice in metallurgy...
i was the never-to-be grandson
of Die Krupp ambitions!
    i would leave my hometown and...
well... there was Warsaw...
or the... brain-drain train "elsewhere"...
from a nation into the grand...
vacuum of the diaspora...

except in england...
       the no. 303... most of which settled
in either Scotland or... Stratford-upon-Avon...
elsewhere... some other... "elsewhere"...

well...
   given that i have had had a choice...
ha ha! comma? sir?! that that?
      given that i have had - had a choice...
well... imagine... perhaps there's something
about Fwench... but i'm chosing sides...
it's not in Norwegian...
so... b'leh b'leh b'leh... b'leh...
                      
               i just have to borrow some german...
speaking this... hybrid saxon having
buggered enough afghanistan-esque brit druids...
the zeppelins were always dropping...
soap-bubbles...
          i tease oh god...
i tease... but this music is so... so...
oh so delight-ful!

                   die könig im gelb!

ah... to marry: when both are in love with life!
terrible affair: should... "life" somehow
matter: to disappear...
this love a suffocation for the best ****
they had in... ever...
and there's nothing of what life is concerned
with...
either children or... being infertile...
but to be in love with life...

the russians can't proclaim a diaspora...
then again: the "mafia"...
i've heard of an italian mob-esque...
      disposition... subsequent undercurrents
to boot...
an... irish mafia?
bothersome details...
         i still pledge my alliance to a Dickens
over a a Shakespeare...
because...
by chance... i might find some poetry
in the prosaic? by Shakespeare alone:
i'm... "expected".... aren't i?

bad news from York-and-the-shire...
Rotherham... and the... prefix ****-
   and the suffix -stani "debate"...
                   do you even know
how... let's not go there...
to term a bogus inconvenience of...

'what the hell is concerning you...
to fathom from cloud-9 a ****** notion of...
being out-bred?!'

an economic war... is a slow war...
it takes time...
it would take the amount of time...
to turn a once proud town focused on
metallurgy into rubble...
some stayed... some moved to warsaw...
some... played: a joker hand de facto...

i am: this... subtle... p.s. curiosity...
had i only come to breed...
rather than to otherwise...
nuance... allegiance...
zu die zunge?! alles!
             die menschen?
                     jeder seine haben!
             die schwach wind und der flagge?!
ist: die schwach wind: und der flagge: nein?

perhaps there's a stressor
of impetus in german that's not allowed
in english...

     ich bin hier für die sprache...
              
it must be translated... such it being:
oh such a wonderful... phrase...

   to marry... when both... are in love... with life...

zu heiraten... wenn beide...
                           sind im liebe... mit leben!

art-*******-and-funky-funky...
parsley-sage-rosemary-thym­e...
        what? thyme? there's a phi or a theta
to posit... instead...
you took the Dubliners' route of: paddy...
tad... and toink!
                'ucking scoundrels!

i will call... the greek-chinese ideogram...
I(ota) the key... and... "thereabouts"...
a keyhole of O(micron)...
it's an id: representation...

                 squashed: yes: 0... for better...
"graphics"...
    
to be young... and to share a half of both:
of being in love with life...

       Φ = the key enters the keyhole (I, O)...
    Θ = the key is turned... (Io)...
         Ψ = the door is opened...

        enough... Beijing "abstract" concerns...
for anyone?
       what's the abstract of rotation?
                                   oh... i guess: 'micron!

so much for abstracts as: only from boing-boing-xin...
some letter can qualify to be
apprehended in ideograms...
B - bossom or a fudge-yeast-byproduct
of a full ***...
              etc. or... Φ, Θ, Ψ...
       now by adding the brackets...
and time has a geography...
from the height of mythology...
to the depths of journalism...
that's... a vector:  (Φ, Θ, Ψ)...

     it's a key... a door... a keyhole...
                            an opening... n'est ce pas?!
hey! let's complicate it further
with: mr. squint... chop-sticks...
dragons... live vermin sushi...
    and counting dry grains of rice...

i'm not: Česlav Miloš...
to begin with... Czesław Miłosz was...
a Lithuanian...
because Copernicus wasn't ******...
"because and because"...
                     sides... all this talk of:
"allegiance"...
**** it... it's a cosmopolitan allegiance
to... the commonality of tongue...
shared to the point...
when... old fictions wrestle with me
and i'm confined to my own cubic...

for english is a language i can
entertain...
allow... yes... this parasite can erode
its host's cranium und...
                                  grauangelegenheit...
it was never... so imposing...
as a german tongue or a russian tongue...
therefore and thereby?
      an easily qualified tongue-donor
with the expanse of thought:
a complete and utter brain-drain on...

now...
there's a difference...
the english will not know it...

there's the nation... and there's the diaspora...
can the english... claim h'america...
or canada... or... australia...
as a nation-extension toward the confines
of a diaspora?
no... i don't think so...

that: quintessential inconvenience of
being merely: english...
   more prone to a local geography...
a devonshire... a derbyshire...
               someone of york...
  lost in new york...
                    a people with...
an imploded seance of diaspora...
    from the humble little island...
to: whatever fraction that was supposed
to make one impose on...

had i just been Irish... and "somehow"
forgotten my Gaelic...
or been that Welshman and no longer
with any Cymru...
well then...
but i come willing because...
      beside the mother and father...
the maternal grandmother and -father...
who will i speak my "native" and "mother"
tunge / zunge to?
          
i rather imagine marriage:
as when both of them are in love with life...
and in love that being said:
a little tale o' whittle england:
make it big in h'america...
        
         this... the most complete...
antithesis of a diaspora...
                    or rather: what lingua franca
was... and what l'inglese is...
and how: even if arabic tried...
and even if: mandarin would hope for...
well... hardly...
jackie chan kung fu and muhammad:
english is more popular than islam...
**** it up: camel jockey!
oh sure... they're "muslim"...
conflicting opinions... once:
speaking in english "arrives"...

                   i'm here: to turn up the volume...
because... i might as well have been
born in estonia... and speaking... estonian...
and never having left estonia...
been very much happy for the euro
and the... thumbling russians... somehow...
"retreating"...
well... if the russians are retreating...
they're: trying to revise being
an indo-european mongrel with...
accents of scandinavia concerning
the founding fathers of Kiev...
and them being russians:
what the hell do we do with the ukranians...
and the mongols that settled and became
tartars?!

yeah... the russians are on the retreat...
    this little island that... hopes for a diaspora...
instead... shuckles...
it has to settle for a h'american empire...
an australia... a new zealand...
ogh! mein! gott! no expatriate diaspora!
no tea with mussolini typo excursions!
mein gott! v'er vill youz goez?!

         zee f'ikkin moonz?! on a sputnik flarez?!
light up baboon *** numero uno:
then whisper among the fwench...

yes... very much brilliant...
         to be alive... and to marry so young...
and be helped: so young...
and not be thwarted...
   'coz crazy bunnies had the best ***...
great: to be alive, so young,
and married: and married to each other
and at the same time: having life marry you
to love it: to be together and married
to a love for life:
and... just... somehow...
having a co-dependent... of reciprocated
self-interests...

                            even in poland...
a soviety satellite...
with concrete chicken-shacks... ah yes:
that... "once upon a time"...
better the ******* state as my landlord
than some grubby liquorice ****** 3rd party:
libertarian "full dislocusre of mammon's
expression of par-tay"... sort of *******!
give me the state, the grey-suit and the gimps!

or? shackle me up for a stipend
working the sloughterhouse...
to boot... a house filled with 20 dobermans...
and 5 rottweilers...
i'll slaughter your cows... for the steak chops...
as long as i have the dogs to cuddle
and imagine myself doing the greater:
cosmic-karma-good...
the dogs... the harem of dogs...
no... women need excuses...
the dogs!

                 hell... a woman would require...
anniverseries... flowers... pinnace for a tsunami...
crumbs... what's a loaf of bread?
details... something to be minded as:
once being a plughole...
blah blah... hands for cushions...
        
              plus... women can't drink...
let her everything else: apart from the whiskey...
if she really wants to drink...
tell her to sober up on some Stendhal or
some Balzac... but don't let a woman
try to outcompete a man drinking...
she can drink...
but not... in that most... ugly: crab-feast
of... "detail"...

the english man... england...
h'america, australia... new zealand...
oh... wait... you were hoping for a diaspora...
weren't you?
yeah... clearly i didn't find an affair of
the imitation of greece...
took charge of the latin script...
inverted the mediterranean sea...

i speak your language: doesn't imply
i've shed the "ethno-nationalist" tattoos of "d.n.a."...
for a people to have made it bitter...
with the teutonic order over access to the baltic sea...
what's the baltic sea?
it's like the black sea...
the baltic sea is about as useful as...
well... the danes and the norwegians
held the toll and price of passing...
just like the turks or the byzantines held
the key of the bosphorus...
the baltic... is a "sea"...
just like the black sea is a "sea"...

did you know... there's a caspian sea?
yeah... it's a "sea"... more like... a lake would
be so much better...

the english could be akin to the arabs
from 200 years ago...
instead: sitting on a tonne of salt...
and waves...
and open horizons...
while the arabs sat on camel ****...
sand... and dinosaur juice...
and materialistic leprosy and limp-****
viagara palm tree impromptu...

sure... the lottery ticket of the past,
oh the most glorious past times...
        nothing lasts forever...
       so it seems...
            here's me celebrating Dickens
to the last... breath... because...
keeping up with speaking my native
language: when there are no
prussians, no russians...
           no austro-hungarians...
and there are only...
ukranians and lithuanians readying
to guilt-trip me over the failures
of the polish-lithuanian commonwealth?!

in this language i can...
ale... nie... w... tym!
harlon rivers Nov 2017
Blackwater rise up from artesian fountains

Upsurge from the provenance of earthen soul

Mingle unto a river of willow’s bend and sway


Rooted in boulders
                                                       
  
scattered  within      

                           milestones                               

                   and
                     

                                           riverbed Cornerstones

                                                   ­                                       Gray


As though empowering sown seeds mightily strewn

With intent a higher law's freshet flows

For to stream from silence in a satiating tongue

Rolling currents thickly bestow


A  river  of  simple  truth lay  bare

A stream of random kindness betides,

Rivulets of unconditional love abounding
  
Rootstock birthplace coursing passage from whence

Unbounded rivers' silent reverie manifests


Rippling cadence immersing pulsing whispers

Unbounded rivers rushing deep and wide

Blossoming undercurrents gushing,

resounding,

rhythmic  ebb  and  flow


Verve undulating wholly alive

Genesis of soul marrow's enlightened shine ―

Wellsprings arise from bedrock

ancient mother earth

A surmounting light leavens abidingly

From imploring water's flowing river song


To illuminate the beckoning pathway's bearings

divergent from thither and yon
                
Through  which  to  portage

A way to carry back home in psalm



*h.a. rivers ... November 4th, 2017
Notes:   The Blackwater River I once flew into
is farther north in the British Columbia wilderness
Anderson M Oct 2013
A river flowing against its course
As if to floss
Its rare peculiar uncanny ingenuity
A notable case study of ambiguity.

An estranged lover unceremoniously
Literally butchering his offspring mercilessly
In cold blood
For having been dragged through the mud.

The undercurrents of change overriding
Entrenched seemingly myopic tendencies which aren’t binding
Causing irrevocably reversible state of affairs
Care not to be caught in the crosshairs.

A hopelessly optimistic romantic
Head over heel in love with the mystique
Aura of eccentricity effortlessly effused by
Her, she indeed worth a try.

Myriad circumstantial conundrums
That is cause of the inevitable humdrum
So characteristic of life
Answers a trifle few and the lackluster enthusiasm rife.
Frantically chasing the wind
hoping against hope to catch it some day
will that day ever come
so that my chase is ended
and peace finally finds eternal abode in my heart.
aya sakura Mar 2010
meadows that stays so green at spring
and so bared in autumn
magically white in winter
scorching and gold in the air of summers

perennial.

how do they do that?
to stay the same on the foundation
yet ever-changing on the surface.


what difference does it make really?
what kinds?
of the surcoats of hazel and acorns
or the blankets of snow on the slender branches
of trees?


don't they, even once
feel weary of all the undercurrents,
of shifting shapes of shadows?


and stand their ground
and shouted their demands
and push at intractable walls?


and flop down
and sift like flour
and grate like mozzarella?


to toss the gauntlet
say


'enough!'


doesn't anyone ever muses then
of whether the slideshows of nature
being flagrantly displayed and paraded
before their soon indifferent eyes
would feel of their performance.


but oh,
those poor meadows,
those poor meadows,
those pitiable meadows.


continue with your acts and scenes
that shall never pauses nor halt
oh no, no.


for you are impressive actors
on the forested stage
and the eyes, belligerent
yes, they are
will be watching the other way


never straight to your eyes
your artic, chilled
encasing a turbulent, melting, whirling
hot caramel core
yeap, right there on your irises and pupils.


so go on
go on


my delectable
my neglected
my pushover
my poor meadows.
Rapunzoll Jun 2015
Your lagoon orbs,
flicker with jaded emeralds,
swallowing me beneath
their sapphire waves.

What once promised me
much has led me to these
abandoned ruins, and
long forgotten shores.

A drifted siren, trapped
between the fleeting seasons
haunting these oceans
in search for Atlantis
within the bones of ships.

Wasted by the fragrance
of your sailed freedom
and plump, luscious
lips rouged by red wine.

I waited for you to
anchor me to this life, not
to sink, to drag down
with me into the depths
of these undercurrents.
© copyright
Janette Jan 2013
So say these rooms are darker
than you remember, these distances
between bones, so deceiving,
the syntax of castanets at the windowsill
swell all the cells with silk,
my body sun burnt
and translucent as moth wings,
bring the viral inconsistencies in the sternum
to anchor my reddened limbs
into the desperate ***** of the heart...

Where I gather milk and moonlight
at night, the phantom
tantra of your lips, open
my mouth as deliberate
as the throat swollen with rain,
remembers how your kiss
takes to cold, at the collarbone,
something slender and unlaced,
your mouth, a length of silver chain
wound about the impossible symmetry of my dress
made entirely of vowels,
dried roses caught in its hem,
baby's breath tangled and dangling from my hair...

See how the body becomes an apology,
bending into an alabaster suicide,
its entreaties carved into the heart,
in the tar at my shoulders,
and now, how the fibula splits open,
feathered, I am this dark seed across a canvas,
a furthering, azaleas harboured
in the languid anklebone, and sudden water
gathers at my hem, bears the scent of hurricanes
and lilies, all this mayhem in the cells,
begin to loosen its wreckage, the rough
of your hands, river-wild and dark,
cool against my cheek, the ropes
of your arms bind the moment, opaque,
and I lose my way among the hours,
dimly lit through the damask curtains,
the windows are veiled by a steady rain,
and in my famine, I swallow enough of this gin
to drown, the dark collects in my mouth,
as the muslin flesh presses the seams of my dress
in blackened promises, of milkweed and almonds...

Thursday, at last,
and there are sonnets in my hair,
these hours are so rare, the indigo
in our roses spread like bruises,
as you weave poetry into the hemp of a collar,
my wrists, all Indian burns and snakebites,
snap beneath the jungle gym
where lilacs burst against the barbed fence,
the light swallows the seconds
and how my face is hollowed by shadow,
moths beating themselves, merciless
against the porch light, as you still, your body
listens to the gentle burning in my bared forearms,
the taste of copper, the risk
of skinned knees that bleed
in the lull of nightfall,
when I begin to braid
my daughters hair, fireflies
in a glass jar, at the panes, dizzy
and wanting, whisper their pale accusations,
left scrawled in the margins,
in a drier season, I tear out
the furious passages of my body,
and survive solely on ritual milk baths,
as lips allow in a liquid innocence,
though it takes more than this to drown,
the giving in, a tangle of amber braids
in the undercurrents, there is a gentle tedium
to my hair between your fingers, my throat
beneath your thumbs, a thickening
of immaculate tethers to bind the seizures about your lap,
the octaves tremor, like cicadas,
all those days in the ground, the damp wrinkle
of their wings, years I have been hiding
the bones in the words, as the syntax
of sorrow and jazz darken the windows of this room,
on a day that can go no further....
Chloe Jul 2014
Run, carousel horse, run.
Try to understand the circles you’ve spun.

Staked and anchored to docile motion.
Acting out this ordered commotion.

The wooden platform on which you stand.
Turns to the song of repetition and demand.

Bright flashing lights and epileptic episodes.
Rusted machinery breathing out chemical corrode.

Dressed in painted costumes of false grandeur.
A perverse imitation of true splendor.

Children come to watch you prance.
They scream and order that you dance.

They yank on the reigns with savage cheer.
They poke and **** and hiss in your ear.

You’re nailed upon this dizzy ride.
Built from material and empty pride.

You live in a swirl of regret.
Time comes, it goes, then, you forget.

You’re an instrument of attraction.
Something you don’t feel even a fraction.

But, like clockwork you whistle a tune.
Of smiles and laughter and undercurrents of doom.

Run, carousel horse, run.
Try to undo the damage you’ve done.
An old piece I found in an old notebook.
K Balachandran Jul 2021
1.She seized me with one glad eye,
Some cryptic intent lurking behind.
The other eye gestures to me,
To move closer, I couldn't see why.

2.But her overture my system accepted,
Though not fully understood by me.
I couldn't even process the proposal,
But the verdict was out without the judge.
"My system is compromised, no doubt,
She has managed to hack it, I did suspect.
My legs moving towards her in quick time,
Is clearly the evidence for the breach.
Her kohl lined eyes, too played some trick"
On mind's screen, thoughts flashed.

3.She met me half way through,before
It became too evident, the undercurrents
That control the whole episode,unferled.
The smile she flashed was a command,
Didn't I hear a click, somewhere deep inside?

4.Her Kohl lined dark eyes
Concealed a suggestion of magic.
Dramatically she said what sounded,
Like a convoluted password,
My transformation was completed.
As a green parrot, so exotic!

5.Did I ever in my life
Had any hunch, that indeed I was
A parrot in disguise, and my sole aim
Was to meet her, the siren with distinction,
I loved the stupor slowly taking over.
To me it was what was badly needed.
After such magical change to an avian!
That too  without even the wave of wand.

6.Gently she lifted me and put,
At a spot on her left shoulder.
Then, as if by some prompt,
I started telling her, things he liked to hear.
This I guess as parrots we learn from nature.
A line of eager admirers she walked past,
They seemed pleased hugely, no doubt,
Because, she is with some one,
She seemed specially care.

7.At home, the enchantress was
In her elements, on a cage hung high,
On a perch, I sat gazing at her.
The prince in daring disguise,
In a bid to meet the enchantress in person,
And lose myself in her radiance.
Her face beams a smile that sugests,
All of this was a trick , she had perfected
In keeping with nature's wish.
DJ Thomas Apr 2010
I did not know her then
nor do I now
but in between, I did

She swam for Barbados
fluid young islander
of affluent Germanic descent

Adrift, cultures island sought
she surfaces, bobbing
in the Red Dragon’s wake

House on the Bay,
overflowing camper van, brim
full of friends and fun

Over the Bridge
splashing loneliness, diving
into my bath and bed

Floating alone
undercurrents scratch, tides
sandy icing of memories

Locked lapping Bay days
drag
piloting others fun

sea blue horizons
debentures sold, goodbyes told
surf Ahoy

She jumps far flung
fun soaked, to sail
the Bay of Islands

.
copyright©DJThomas@inbox.com 2010

Far Flung Fun is inspired by a memory of Nadia and dragon drawn with eyes closed, capturing the musicality of her ‘splashing loneliness’ in unusual collocation and context soaked in a ‘watery’ semantic field, with enjambement diving-boards centred in three line verses, a single ‘drag’ line highlighting meaning and internal ‘sold’, ‘told’ mouthed rhythms.
Orion Schwalm Sep 2012
The call me...Captain Swurve.
They call me Captain Swurvey
They say my heart's half gone
As it's plagued with rot and scurvy!
They said I'd chase the sunset
And drink us all to drought
I said nay boys, I'll follow the tides
And leave no liquor-starved crewman without.
Now, as the legend rests
Just like the setting sun
I'll dream of pretty wenches
That did my poor heart shun
And raise my flask o' whiskey
And tip up my old gun
And wish that it was ***.
Surrounded by the sea
Of people looking over me
The captain that I've always wished that I could have the ***** to be,
Is not exactly what he seems.

I'm the captain, sodden and somber.
I own no land, and I owe no man no man's land, which is a place I've chosen to wander.
Take that as you will, I take wasteland as a million metaphors, dried up, littered on, desert that used to be a golden shore. Back then Bikini Babes would just come to right up you and ask you to rub tanning lotion on their backs, and you somehow didn't even have to flirt to feel attractive.
                                                     ­             This place doesn't exist.
                                                      I made it up. That beach never had any water.
There was no such thing. Like perfect pitch, or total bliss or uncontrollable mental disorders.        

Yeah, I owe barrenness to y'all. I'd never get any peace and quiet, or the zen of a much needed vacation
                                           without that feeling you get in a crowd of total isolation.

It's hummmmmmming....of a million minds, a crowd of buzzzzzzing bumble *******, deciphering my metaphors.
**** metaphors, listen to what I speak, when I'm not up on a pedestal.

You know I used to want to be an astronomer? Just a fun fact.
Not because I never had enough tact to be an actor,
Just because I was always rather apt
                    to just sit back
                                   and watch the
rapture.

Bowl of popcorn over here on the left.
Bottle of **** right here on the right.
And the most beautiful woman God could create, raining down her fiery scorn on me, loving every minute of this cataclysmic *******.
I am Captain Swurvey       and       I        like      to      ****.
Everything beautiful is useful to me,
Everything else just *****.
And whether I want you to or not, you'll probably believe every word I say.
STOP.

I am Captain Swurve
And I am sailing swervingly
Unsettling the neighbors and uprooting your search for worth and immortality.
I do it because people with a purpose make me nervous,
Looking only at the surface
                                           You never go much deeper
                                            And I'm skimming along on that surface,
                                             But all I ever yearned for was the chance to dive overboard
                                               And drown myself in the deep end of your ocean.

I'd like to see your coral reefs, and be swept up by all sorts of riptides, and undercurrents, and
maybe
just maybe
I'd really love to see the bottom before I die.

I imagine all beautiful lights. That no one has ever seen. It's another world down there. And well...

                                                        ­                                          You know I've always wanted to see your Marianas Trench...

Switch around, we're in space, I'm sailing through the sun storms, desperately reaching as far out as I can only to crash on the rocks of your atmosphere.  Reeling off, and spinning past millenia, knowing there would never be enough space in the universe to keep us apart for too long. You couldn't hear me scream, but if you'd let me in there...you would have heard the battle crying inside me. If your brain's synapses are stars, then your heart is one insignificant little planet amidst the skies that by some stroke of hell managed to create life as I know it.

That metaphor
has been done before
I'm used up
i'm not original BUT
GOD
**** IT
I can't be the only person who's ever fallen in love.         I wouldn't ever want to be.    
Because then you wouldn't see much in me. Without these seeds... It'd be kind of like a wasteland.
But *******,
I am so glad
That humans learned how to plant.


Talk about self-absorbed, this kid writes a poem about his own celebrity persona which he pretty much invented! Well, there have been some modifications I can't take credit for.

You choose what you want to believe about me.
But I am just a person
My name is Captain Swurvey.

...
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2023
some of us walk insistently,
instinctively, and instantly to
and upon the edged path,

this physical nexus & abstract mental locus,
a cliffside enticing rock strewn trail,
drawn of men, by men, for men

(yes, men are people too, still)

enthralling views,
down to the riverside,
where eyes intuit the
beauteous aroma of
precious precocious
precarious precipices
and the near-stench of
mortality

amidst
wafting scents of inane undesirable need,  
hints of destruction, or,
alternating eager relief,
like a ****** infused, instant attractiveness,
making weakness in the knees, all too real,
trembling with a delicious accented edge of
a fresh, familiar scent, fresh baked bread,
an all enveloping consumption need now!

to
crave what we fear,
to fear what we crave
our cravings are craven,

this twisted sense, annuls
our common sensibility, yet,
titillates our pleasured imagined relief,
releases, our unsated, even better,
our insatiable curiosity to tremble,
an entire body enjoined by vibrato~
enticing tremulations, shaken and stirred,
this danger choice releases something primordial,
escape? a reckless wrecking so deeply designed,
it has its very own designation…death wish

multitudes of easy choices afforded my senses,
and by accident, all mine chosen, all nearby,
I travel the esplanade près de the East River,
where even if calm is the sole visiblilty,
undercurrents and the unpredictable passage
of container wakes and the larger freighters
will hand you down, so easy, to become parcel
to a littered river bottom of centuries’ artifacts

but even more tempting, the balcony,
a hop, skip and a jump unlocked,
mere ten steps, no need for a running start
why it’s the “height of convenience,”
he ruefully winces, and not even any
TSA lines or inconveniencing “conveniences”

Why this calamity seems so desperately desirable,
Why this unabrogated feat so featured, nay, even
feted in our hot? cold? bloodstream

Why just men?

I don't know,
Perhaps,
it is all I know.

Do You Know Why Men Cry in the Bathroom?
Why Men Cry in the Bathroom

For so many reasons.
I will tell you the why.
I think you know,
Or perhaps, you think you know.

Men are always O.K.,
Even when not.

We expect the worse,
Accept the worse,
Nonetheless,
We are forever unprepared.

Wearily, we cry,
In the bathroom, in private,
Lest sighs slip by,
We be unmasked,
Early warring, strife signs warning.

Copious, tho we weep
Before the mirror confessor,
It is relief untethered,
Unbinding of the feet,
An uncounting
Of beaded rosaries,
Of freshly fallen hail stones,
Of night times terrors
By dawn's early edition's light,
and welcomed.

But look for the mute tear,
The eye-cornered drop,
*** tat, that never drops,
But never ceases formation and
Reforming, over and over again,
In a state of perpetuity of reconstitution,

The tippy tear of an iceberg revealing,
And I see you peeping, wondering,
What is beneath

Look for:
the torn worm-eaten edges of spirit,
thrift shop bought, extra worn,
grieving lines neath the eyes,
where the salt has evaporated,
discolored the skin.
worry lines,
under and above,
browed mapped, furrowed boundaries.
the laugh line saga,
where better days are stored,
recalled, as well as recanted,
publicly, privately.

Why just men?

I don't know,
Perhaps,
it is all I know.


Jan 6, 2013
Hal Loyd Denton Oct 2012
These dark red canyon walls stand in tall narrowness they are defined by disregard are they not
Inflamed in temperate conditions as a caldron pressure intensely felt with the occasional “emotional
Firestorm” that erupts with water that stands tall in this narrow straight tossing water makes the picture
Totally true how you feel emotionally undercurrents that perform devastating acts the unpleasant
Reality of dry bareness after such flood waters to taste and know love and its pleasure then have it
Removed on all levels home friends family all that you cared and shared just a sweet haunting memory
Then the lone masterful dark angel loneliness itself makes camp in your hearts devastation the one
Battle strategy left is defiance where honorable love was the most inviting host now rebellion insolence
Leads the heart that is alone you look out on the world with a course eye but all the time the heart of
Wealth and love that once was calls after you with tears and a haunting lament crying for yesterday
Those last days of autumn when even the earth is in tender moods with assistance of colors so blended
They are the materialization of peace joy nature’s love told on the grand scale come and walk under my
Wooded canopy of richest hues as they burn into this decline that speaks of hope and richest promise
This must be where you seek a refuge this power at this level will mend the most broken of hearts
Tender finger that surpass any and all surgeon’s ability to heal this healing rides on the gust of wind
In late fall it mixes with emotional heaviness it actually removes heavy hurts then takes their place and
Imperceptibly a freeing has occurred the longer these days last more mercy is found go into this wooded
Wonder follow the hill down to a peace full stream and as it carries the wayward leaf it will also carry
Some more of your wounds away the cool water will raise a temperature control heavenly designed it
Will touch your brow a morning long past will return and you will acknowledge it with a smile something
That has been a stranger for many days now these early days the harvest moon shines so golden
No one can stand under its golden beams and not thrive with serenity’s voice passing over the torn parts
Of the heart it responds by these wounds becoming healthy with healing oh gentle memory I
Remember so sweetly in September those fabulous days so again just in a small amount of time it will
Be turkey and all the fixings topped off with pumpkin pie and whip cream on top I hope you think of all
These thoughts as you stroll through pumpkin patches know this from this lonely heart of yours that
Beauty and love are the dominant truths that will win so use that as your fortress your mind protected
And secure behind these impenetrateable walls if you feel any different it is only lies that given the test
Is only like wisps of smoke no substance just a lot of empty drama that is useless when truth answers
The door there is a usurper loosed in our world he starts the problems that break the heart then as
A good devil he comes back to mistreat you some more it’s like he is trying to improve on the
Devastation already visited on your life these words for ever bind him I will stick to you closer than
A brother I will never leave you alone how would you like it if you lived in olden days and the king of the
Whole realm came and knocked on your door wouldn’t you be excited my friend there is a King at your
Door but He is the King of Kings you first would melt in His arms and all troubles would dissolve not only
Would it be honey in the rock but your heart will know sweetness beyond compare this is only a prayer
Away hurting broken one mercy as wide as the ocean and tall as Everest only awaits your voice’s cry
traces of being Feb 2016
Caught up in the urging undertow
swimming against the stream's surging swell
awash in swirling back eddies
succumbing to natural undercurrents
relentless ebb and flow

we are not helpless
to swim against the leavening tide
lest we be breathlessly swept away
when spring melts the winter solitude
the  creeks do sing of rise and fall

yearningly drawn by a deep well of gravity
as high fountain snow-melt waters mingle,
steal away on the rise; migrate
unrestrained runoff rolling unturned stones
against the wind to the sea's abiding drum

oh river rouse from deafening silent winter slumber
oceans beckon to the confluence swell,
where all great journeying rivers diverge in perpetuity;
meld where the tide water’s restlessly lie
absorbed, unsung, infused unto - -
ever rolling currents roil
      
it's not the weight of gravity carried
nor the distance coursing burden's thorn
a faith in believing in this journey's unknown destiny,
how the shouldered load is borne

I was lost, alone in life's raging river;
in the river I did not drown ...


© ---
Heather Horner Dec 2023
He captains the ship
with a grin
You’re all in
Hoist the sail
Climb the rigging
Settle down in the cabin
Close that door in behind,
You want to go live in
His life, your life, his wife
You say

He scoffs at the crew
But not you
You’re the maiden
He’ll find treasure to hide
In you he’ll confide
And provide
The answers you desired
He knows best
You say

When seas are rough
And he’s had enough
Surrounding ships wreck
All are affected
Once important neglected
It can’t go undetected, surely,
As he undresses you
with his insults
Addresses all your faults
He’s just stressed
You say.

Your attempts to rekindle
Throw you overboard
His words
undercurrents,
that drag you beneath.
Used to swim
Now amongst the weeds
Can’t help but concede
He needs me
You say

You struggle
You had learnt to blow bubbles
But now you’re in trouble
A muddle
Confuddled
That’s typical for you
He says

You plead to be rescued
Lock eyes with the crew
But they’re through
So washed ashore
Bedraggled and torn
He picks you up
Keeps you safe,
Loved
And warm
You say
Feedback welcome! Been playing around with this one and know it needs a little work. Thanks 😊
phocks Oct 2013
-
The undercurrents of society flow,
Like dreaming fog lights caught in the undertow.
A lone warrior fights only with himself,
So that soon one day he can be put on the shelf,
Ready to be picked at the drop of a hat,
Sadly misused I know not what is said.
Forty two mistletoe drive is where my baby lies,
Under the shade of my boondocks ride,
So long and farewell my princess belle,
No two times go together very well.
Causticji May 2015
Deconstructing a Kafkaesque
amphitheatre of the absurd,
Easy wallows she in their hypocrisy,
Son of a gun grabbed on
to the gold that fed his infant
self, doesn't dare let go, won't ever,
Dev breaks the bottle he hits,
scrounges, discards the last scrap,
the rat scurries in, devours, heads
back into the smoked corridor,
the auction goes on, so does he
showering petals and pity upon the
middle road more travelled, bumpy,
potholes full of acid and bile,
the stupidity of the tyrannical majority
and an underwater civilisation consumed
by mind-numbing, mildly shocking TV,
undercurrents of power drowned under.
Uppercase Him, uppercase He,
they hoist a red flag, set it afire,
stomp out the flames, wave a black
rag till the ashes turn to naught,
the Dionysian petit bourgeoisie proceed,
spew, *****, spew, repeat.
The voyeuristic rat has front row seats
gaze fixed, piercing centrestage
auction-house by day, amphitheatre by night,
the bids shall resume when
the morning bells toll, till then,
Dev's hungry for more,
the rat enjoys the show.
mjk plumage Sep 2014
i disagree
when people say that this world doesn't have magic
would you say there is not something enchanted
about stars sparkling like glitter and dust in the air
moons and streetlights in likeness being beacons in the darkness

it's 1am and there are people awake, everywhere in the world

for a second,
it feels like everyone's listening to the same song
i am charged with the same energy as everyone and everything
i am connected to magical ley lines and spell undercurrents
there's nothing like this connection running deep to rune collections

it's 1am and i'm still awake, i am the world and the world is me
based on thoughts that came to me at 1am, despite not writing at 1am.
PERTINAX Aug 2018
Dammed,
The vault of his mind was laid bare
A barren stream with only fossils visible
At the mouth, buried under silt he found unspoken words
That he had left to the undercurrents of political correctness:
"You do not own my mind
It is mine and mine alone
And with it I shatter
Your rules and ties that bind"

As if in response to the unearthing
The dam began to crack
Releasing a tiny rivulet that began to push downstream
Splitting into two distinct eyes that have for too long been blind
Where one stretched long and far into the past
While the other ebbed and flowed in the whirlpool of the future
Where endless possibilities competed for dominance
Against any attempt to join the relative calm of memory

The dam shuddered again and the gates flew open
The river of life rushing back to fill the void
Deafening the ears
Which for so long had only heard the carefully curated lines
Repeated and indoctrinated since his birth
It was in this moment of flood that freedom came pouring forth
His eyes were opened
He saw the sight
His ears could hear
His tongue could fight
His raging river returned to him
Liberty in the light
Black Jewelz Jun 2016
The Passionate Pen
Pulsates with luminescence.
Its source transcendent,
Pages radiate, injected with ink incandescent.

The sun squints when the strokes soak.
The sheets must be sheathed in a quote's cloak.

'Tis no quill
Taken from a bird's nestle.
'Twas a thrill
To concoct the ink, with a firm pestle.

Lava for determination,
Stardust for high hopes,
Starlight for inspiration,
Glacier water for rejuvenation,
A drop of the Savior's blood for salvation
And a speck of His sweat's salt for eternal preservation.

Finally, I siphon a raging scream of emotion
Into the cartridge to keep the mixture in motion.
Swirling like undercurrents of the ocean.
Merlin has never known so potent a potion.

An elixir of passion.
I mix it with passion.

The pen glows
And throbs with a tempo.
It plants seeds,
Watch the stems grow.

The false poets—watching at bay—
Flock, & they say,
"Long live the Passionate Pen!"
As, once again, the Passionate Pen
Conquers the day.
Anthony Williams Jul 2014
Come closer
by all means come closer where in a blink
pools fix and widen into trackless lakes
your eyes unflinching against my own
forcing mine to yield to look's vortex power
I sink lengthways on to beached magnificence
fearing no fences bind this brimming shore
desiring all of your cresting feistiness

we close in privacy like a whispered prayer
I stoop to overhear furled head to head
the feather of your cheek ticked pinker
confession spilling loosely off shoulders
flowing undressed like some burlesque fantail
and I found myself buoyed up on thin air
shocked by the vapour in essential oils
so lavishly luxurious their condensing iniquity
I could only try to endure your body heat
by closing my own eyes for a moment
but out of focus pours into a concentrate

the control over hands gives me false hope
but I find a clearing of purity overwhelms me
caught helpless in all I add to mire seeping cruel
your lifeline lips offering a hint of moist buoyancy
then sinking a ship of plumped up poison
purple as inky clouds penetrating my mind
the slim tip of your tongue elusively unkind
flickering like a searching candle in a cave
dripping in irregular beats an anti-doting
to form rivulets which in their mystical midst
surround a fresh discovered vale to defile

I feel it's formation in an archway of neck
the undercurrents freed into giving way
you suspend on the bridge an apex and deck
my firmly held happiness into crowning cries
overflowing from the safety of inner recesses
the excesses needing knee breeches on both sides
to wade through a drowning press of paradise
in on the outstretched reach of a relentless tide

yet gorgeous is its precipitous edging test
with bouts of engorged selfishness
I hear your eager call in urge
return
from compliance into shambolic demands
until I am summoned to a trembling portal
biting on its handles like a moon crazed wolf
wanting to escape but in awe of its might
that it will capsize and spring open floodgates

plunging me back into dizzy abandonment's past
to the captivating idea of a last biting grasp
at your sweep-me-up voluptuous swoon
so tight on my heart we both go swimming
from intakes of breath into open eyes again
loving the saltpetre of a spa bath drop descent
into rapids extinguishing hot pulsating harm
which taunts and scolds me to calm the claim
for more days of dangerous vain tainted venom
held at bay
held aloft
by your pressure
bandage
arms
by Anthony Williams
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2022
promise me! promise me to get me out of this hell-hole i put myself in! promise me! i don't know why i put myself through, several days of transcribing a snippet, this was merely a snippet from Kierkegaard's oeuvre, but, how unbelievable! each word was a labour, prop up the book in the right place, read, don't look at the keyboard, let the devil find work for idle hands... look for the devil who would be able to write like he might read Braille! my god, the punctuation, ****** an elephant's ***...the essential Kierkegaard - edited by howard v. hong & edna h. hong: hurt my sensibilities, or, rather, my pedantry, when it comes to punctuation... transcribing is not plagiarism... its brick-layer toils... one word, after another... if i were translating from Danish, i think i'd punctuate the text better: to give it some... panache! some: oomph! you know? this is my dedication, i'm supposed to be awake at 7am... i already shined my shoes, i've already prepped my white shirt, black trousers, black clip on tie, i have my papers (credentials) in order... tomorrow i'll be at the London Stadium overlooking West Ham take on Leeds United in the FA cup... like always, i'll be more interested in the crowd... spotting a pretty girl among the "yobs"... because i truly care about football when it's on the t.v.: in real life... i once stood with three cans of beer and watched a non-league / non-professional match compromising of enthusiasts in a park, at a distance... i couldn't see much... i still don't see much difference... unless it's on the t.v.: the stadium doesnt really "frighten" me... but this one time in the park, i sort of looked the Michael Myers part... headphones in... one young woman was trying to... communicate to this older woman: also walking her dog... about confronting me... i think i "said": gaze... i looked at them... the younger woman was trying to tell the older woman about confronting me... the older woman told the younger woman: YOU, HAVE, NOTHING, TO TALK ABOUT, WITH THIS, MAN! i was drinking a beer, standing... a decent distance from the football match: but i also remember that... that 1995 Charity Shield game at the Old Wembley between Manchester United & Newcastle: ants kicking a grain of sand... obviously i didn't understand why i might pretend to be a *****... my new favorite word... *****... alias for paedohpile... if i don't look menacing and some woman can "think" she stands a chance against me: merely posturing... then we have issues... oh **** me... transcribing... that's worse than plagiarism.... i once did the most pristine plagiarism job on some... social-science course up in Edinburgh... i was having to make up credit scores, being the romantic idiot... losing my virginity to Isabella of Grenoble... oh, get a French girlfriend, take up French... i hate the language... they write what they don't speak: phonetically... which is sort of in line with my prior ambition for the plunge - to transcribe some Kierkegaard, but also translate some SZYMON STAROWOLSKI observations... circa... 1650... the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth... sorry.. it's not going to happen... i've done enough transcribing enough *******'s worth of: this punctuation needs to... "go"... to better understand myself... through this iron maiden of: someone else wrote: what someone else wrote... i'll leave ol' SIMON for another take... given... transcribing is a labour... writing, freely... idiosyncratically: appealing to my, appeal...  how, why, when... oh i can deal with that, these days... it's not even concerning what sort of thesaurus peacocking exfoliation is being used / abused by the writer... i'm... more allured... by... punctuation... since i don't bother to rhyme, since i find all lyricism a tad bit... crass... what else is there? the measure of: how to stop... how to begin... how to "objectify" the conjunction-intermediacy of... punctuation... no manner of human speech can be / could be encapsulated by comparing it to a river... point being... i'd rather write as freely as i can, about the most mundane events in my own life: prop up my subjectivity than... somehow... "somehow"... succumb to some sensible objective reality... objectivity does not give me a drive... it does not equip me with a manly persevence... it's antithetical to what i understand as human nature simply because... ha ha... objectivity has been owned by the English... it's their lot of being sensible... like watching would-be journalists looking at what's currently happening in Kazakhstan... then trying to compare it to... the posturing: the civilian security of protests in Ham-Ham-H'America... and it's like... so what? the people are simply, expected to, take it?! the liberty's of the individual that believes himself to be outside the collective will... sure... well... sounds nice... unless of course... the hive really does come after you... i'm all for individual liberties, after all... i own a private library that could put the public library where i live to shame... although... i'll give them a sly one: Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus... they owned it, i simply loaned it... fair enough... but i'd rather write about women... i was having my haircut done... closed my eyes... because... hell... the mirror and ****... with my eyes closed i was stroked by this blonde bombshell... we talked about owning dogs, about owning cats... Alsatians? oh, i really have a hard-on for them... i used to own a dobberman... prior to it being illegal to snip their ears and cut their tails... she was a cat that does that to her? like she looks to be self-harming? perhaps she should nickname him Freddy Krueger?! my maine ****? oh... it's rainy, he just sleeps in my bed... he usually sleeps with me.. what?! the bed's big enough for the both of us... i'd love to own a boxer... i'd love to own a rottweiler... i'd also love to own a Triumph bike...

one of my replies... you know, a liter of whiskey can go down well... i get double drunk from good conversation, i rarely encounter what i'd consider a good conversation... that's why... i much prefer to drink alone, of note... i had more fun pretending to talk to myself than expecting "talking" to be an anti-canvas with some, living, breathing: might have kidney failure, etc. punk or, sociopathic? here's the script:

see you now,, i'm just about to rewrite a Kierkegaard transcript.... i can't imagine it being much fun... the whole process is so unoriginal... but oh, oh so necessary... that i sort of don't want to live without it... bonus points... i''ve drank enough to make it... bearable... trans-scripting....i danced a little in my bedroom, donned my cat with a pair of sunglasses.... thank god i'm not kind of a sort of H'american version of a... "winner"... so much of life can be tolerated when it's not being competed for!...

i've just filled out an induction form for the West Ham stadium, played niceties with my supervisor, sent her an emoticon, LOLz back... i'm pumped up, ready to smack a few teenage boys into shape, what, could possibly go wrong? speaking below the depth of breath / audibility, watching the birds... i want, i want to give them a second, a third, a fourth... chance... let me give these people a chance... i know their failures... but... the possibility of being loved by one of them, whether man, or woman, whether pseudo-woman... i'll go as far as to say... i wouldn't mind a "Thai surprise"... i know they're capable of it... give me this already acquired heart of stone... and i'll show you... that they'll bleed rivers of honesty... just a little while... that is all i ask...

this is all, of course, before the plunge begins...
wait...l of course there's more, there have to be constellations
involved!

it was originally titled: Private Library Allure...
now, i'm "thinking": two ripe mangoes...
a mango curry or a mango chutney,
or perhaps, both?!

i have this one particular constellation in mind, that's visible to the naked eye, don't worry about - wait... let me take a second look:


                  •


                    •
      •



           •


    

            •          (circa)... the big wheel...
the grizzly she... in terms of gods & men...
there's an replica: much smaller...
so i guess this is the microscope: since it is enlarged
while the identical constellation
is a telescope...
       no matter... i'm thinking of this constellation

                                 •
                          
                          •
      
                   •
                       •
                    

                          •
                             •
                                •



              •
          ­                                            •

the scorpion constellation, it only appeared once
(to my knowledge) in pop culture,
in Dreamworks' the Prince of Egypt...

now wouldn't that be a waste... me simply drinking,
not allowing alcohol to be the extra calorie intake
that might require me to scribble...
waste of a good whiskey: should i simply drink it
and not focus on scribbling...

point being, i'm about to undertake something
i'm not very keen on, to prove a point,
i'm about to transcript two of the most profound pieces
of writing that recently caught my attention...

not to mention i'm reserving bragging rights...
my private library is... richer...
than the public library of the town of Romford...
i might be an alcoholic,
but i'm also a bibliophile...
there's nothing more precious thank a book...
perhaps a tonne of bricks...

why did i decide to cycle in these temperatures...
****'s sake... i'm old school,
i don't "trust" wi-fi cordless earphones...
the temperature dipped so low that
now the wires are performing at sub-optimal standards...
sort of hushed...
mind you... i love the cold of the January nights...
******* get such a hard-on for the wind
that they almost feel like they've been pierced...

none of the following will be original content,
but i just have to transcript it...
maybe a whiskey refill... a cigarette...
i need to get into the groove of typing up
someone else's work...
oh ****, there are two of them...
well... at least one of them i will not have to translate...
however: do i want to include the original...
all those diacritical markers (ctrl + c / ctrl + p)
will be rather fiddly... do i have the time?

- oh, right... i'm here... the above was...
"somewhere" / "sometime" else...
a sort of... quantum-dasein...
past-participle... black hole... blah blah...
i'm still gearing up for the transcript
of Kierkegaard...
the translation of that ****** equivalent
of the Czech: YAN HUß

-------------------------------------- (pending line)

the pending line is not moving... i've already
written a pre-scriptum a day "late"...
i think i'll manage the Kierkegaard...
but none of the ****** "crap": since...
i'm not about to translate...

once more, please refer to the essential Kierkegaard...
edited by howard. v. hong...
& edna h. hong...
            hong? i too have a terrible surname...
a bit like ******, or Stalin...
people see Elert... they immediately prompt me
with: so... you're AH-LERT?!
i never hit them back with with...
you sort of missed this zeppelin...
it's etymologically german...
in earnest... it's missing: SCH...
that's... ESCHLERT...
          but i have no trouble with people
who like... low hanging fruit...
pedestrian interactions...
         a peasant among among peasants...
a peasant who can discriminate against
peasants...
my given surname at birth was no much better...
fellow countrymen...
oh... i remember it... this one time...
tricked me...
open your mouth...
so i opened my mouth...
then quickly closed it...
i was spat at... a fellow countryman spat
in my face...
although he was aiming at my mouth...
i hold... not allegiance to the English...
1997... why was i deported?
for being an economical migrant?!
oh... the world is now, somehow, ******* welcome?!
i hold not allegiance to the English:
to the tongue: all...
but i also hold not allegiance to my inherent
****** reference... i'd rather just call it
a "reference"...

i abhor both parties... one for sort of telling me to
******* because:
they're now the church-going party of people
and my grandfather was conflated with being
a communist party member:
sure... since... socialism in a soviet
satellite was very much the same sort of shin-dig
as it was in RaSHa... ROSIYA...
*******... wanking me off a little...
**** Poland... **** England...
both can sink... to... whatever they deem
to be acceptable by their standards of...
oh... in England... peer Lord Ahmed... *****...
Rotherham... fun times!
i don't even want to know anything about
Poland.... my ethnic class by birth...
i'd rather ******* and create trans-ethnic mongrel
gremlins with a a girl from Kenya...
in Kenya...
yeah... me... in Kenya... creating a pseudo-Brazillian
republic of... copper-skinned polymaths &
multilingual freaks!
sign me up!
                  
i really didn't expect to mind much of me...
it's nice that... they read so little nd watch so much regurgitation
of a t.v...

like i once pointed out: objectivity is...
overrated... hell... it's more than that...
by now it has been hijacked by fake-news and
anti-science pseudo-narratives...

which tells you a lot about a people who
seemingly tolerate Muslims...
tolerating Muslims that don't tolerate Sufism...
i'm good with the Turkish barbers...
anything else... you better ask a Hindu...
how do Hindus "tolerate" Islam... if, at all?

these are not my words... they are a verbatim
transcript that most public libraries will not own,
but i own... ergo...

the subjective existing thinker is aware of the dialectic of communication. whereas objective thinking is indifferent to the thinking subject and his existence, the subjective thinker as existing is essentially interested in his own thinking, is existing in it.

(insert: my own questioning furthered from the genesis of this 19th century Danish thinker... point aside... i am... the queen's subject... i am not, the queen's object... the queen is not forcing me to be subjectively objectionable to... say... building a new wing for Windsor Castle... i can't be, regarded as the queen's object... constitutional monarchy doesn't work through the expedience of extension... i am the queen's subject, i am not her object... i am subjected to the queen... the monarch... but i'm not... "objected"? i'm not objecting to the hierarchy she presupposes, predisposes with... it's almost a "paradox"... but as a subject... in the most immediacy... as a subject... i am not her object... i am not her servant! that some people, within her immediacy are her objects, by regal extension, her guards, her... ******* tea nannies... sure... but... i am beyond her claim for being objectified... i am "subjectified"... how? i can fester... concern for the monarch, i can adorn her with "dasein": care... but her regal extension dilutes itself... her regal power... the cut-off point... is... when she can no longer objectify me... i can be no more her ******* tea-*****-nanny... her soldier... hell... a police officer is not made a police officer by some royal decree.... a police officer is a subject of the regal authority... a soldier? an object of the regal authority... why? the soldier serves the crown... the police officer? serves the public: the subject of the subject(s)... not... like the solider: the object of the object... to be subjected to "something": is hardly demeaning when otherwise the supposed stance of being "demeaned" is to be: objectified... counter to any sort of "argument": to be objectified... is to be spared... the experience of being: subjected to... i.e. / e.g. to objectify a woman... is a synonymous expression for... not subjecting a woman to... what objectifying her in the first place might... entail... by objectifying a woman... you're at least not subjecting her to... the undercurrents of objectification per se...

even i am thinking to myself: this sounds stupid...
the fox is currently having an asthmatic fit of giggles
come 2:20am...
if i am objectifying a woman as a "thinking thing"...
then... i'll be less likely to subject her to: think...
if i am objectifying a woman as a hammer...
then... i'll be less likely to ask her to:
also bring some nails along...
that's the positive on the micro-scale...
because on the macro-scale?
i'd rather be the queen's subject than...
be her... well... the extension of the queen:
her object... her tea-*****-nanny...
her soldier... her... prime minister...
it's a ******* weird dynamic... but...
it's the most pristine that has ever existed... period...

constitutional monarchy ought to be
the envy of the world, for some of the bad apples...
it still i... it should never be undermined...
should it ever be... i'd call that... treason!
to the very fabric of reality!
and as someone who was diagnosed as schizophrenic?!
go figure... but don't come cryuig to me...
make, sure...
you have some "ice-cream" **** readily available
to sa e you, some Rotherham **** heart-throb...
why oh why... having lived n these Isles...
for as long as i have...
the would me mothers of my would be children...
i'm not even going to beg to, ask...
low i.q. breeds low i.q.:
naive... people(s)...
           genius is an aberration...
it's a  mutation...better stuid and reproductive...
work along: plenty for the ants..
*******, ants...
and once they age?
darts?! football matches?

i can't blame them!
i have yet to cite them proper...
although: thank god the filter
of having to invest in having to read...
in people actually reading

therefore, his thinking has another kind of reflection, specifically, that of inwardness, of possession, whereby it belongs to the subject and to no one else. whereas objective thinking invests everything in the result and assists all humankind  to cheat by copying and reeling off the results and answers, subjective thinking invests everything in the process of becoming and omits the result, partly because this belongs to him, since he possesses the way, partly because he as existing is continually in the process of becoming, as is every human being who has not permitted himself to be tricked into becoming objective, into inhumanly becoming speculative thought.

the reflection of inwardness is the subjective thinker's double-reflection. in thinking, he thinks the universal, but, as existing in this thinking, as acquiring this in his inwardness, he becomes more and more subjectively isolated.

the difference between subjective and objective thinking must also manifest itself in the form of communication ˣ. this means that the subjective thinker must promptly become aware that the form of communication must artistically possess just as much reflection as he himself, existing in his thinking, possesses. artistically, please note, for the secret does not consist in his enunciating the double-reflection directly, since such an enunciation is a direct contradiction.

ordinary communication between one human being and another is entirely immediate, because people ordinarily exist in immediacy. when one person sttes something and another acknowledges the same thing verbatim, they are assumed to be in agreement and to have understood each other. yet because the one making the statement is unware of the duplexity (dobbelthed) of thought-existence, he is also unable to be aware of the double-reflection of communication. therefore, he has no intimation that this kind of agreement can be the greatest misunderstanding and naturally has no intimation that, just as the subjective existing thinker has set himself free by the duplexity, so the secret of communication specifically hinges on setting the other free, and for that very reason he must not communicate himself directly; indeed, it is even irreligious to do so. this latter applies in proportion to the essentiality of the subjective and consequently applies first and foremost within the religious domain, that is, if the communicator is not god himself or does not presume to appeal to the miraculous authority of an apostle but is just a human being and also cares to have meaning in what he says and what he does.

objective thinking is completely indifferent to subjectivity and thereby to inwardness and appropriation; its communication is therefore direct. it is obvious that it does not therefore have to be easy. but it is direct, it does not have the illusiveness and the art of double-reflection. it does not have that god-fearing and humane soliciude of subjective thinking in communicating itself; it can be understood directly; it can be reeled off. objective thinking is therefore aware only of itself and is therefore no communication, at least no artistic communication, inasmuch as it would always be required to think of the receiver and to pay attention to the form of communication in relation to the receiver's misunderstanding. objective thinking is, like most people, so fervently kind and communicative; it communicates right away and at most resorts to assurances about its truth, to recommendations and promises about how all people someday will accept this truth - so sure is it. or perhaps rather so unsure, because the assurances are recommendations are the promises, which are indeed for the sake of those others who are supposed to accept this truth, might also be for the sake of the teacher, who needs the security and dependability of a majority vote. if his contemporaries deny him this, he will draw on posterity - so sure is he. this security has something in common with the independence that, independent of the world, needs the world as witness to one's independenceso as to be certain of being independent.

ˣ double-reflection is already implicit in the ideas of communication itself: that the subjective individual (why by inwardness wants to express the life of the eternal, in which all sociality and all companionship are inconceivable because the existence-category, movement, is inconceivable here, and hence essential communication is also inconceivable because everyone must be assumed to possess everything essentially), existing in the isolation of inwardness, wants to communicate himself, consequently that he simultaneously wants to keep his thinking in the inwardness of his subjective existence and yet wants to communicate himself. it is not possible (except for thoughtlessness, for which ll things are indeed possible) for this contradiction to become manifest in a direct form. - it is not so difficult, however, to understand that a subject existing in this way may want to communicate himself. a person in love, for instance, to whom his ****** love is his very inwardness, may well want to communicate himself, but not directly, just because the inwardness of ****** love is the main thing for him. essentially occupied with continually acquiring the inwardness of ****** love, he has no result and is never finished, but he may nevertheless want to communicate; yet for that very reason he can never use a direct form, since that presupposes results and completion. so it is also in a god-relationship. just because he himself is continually in the process of becoming in an inward direction, that is, in inwardness, he can never communicate himself directly, since the movement is here the very opposite. direct communication requires certainty, but certainty is impossible for a person in the process of becoming, and it is indeed a deception. thus, to employ an ****** relationship, if a maiden in love yearns for the wedding day because this would give her assured certainty, if she wanted to make herself comfortable in legal security as a spouse, if she preferred marital yawning to maidenly yearning, then the man would rightfully deplore her unfaithfulness, although she indeed did not love anyone else, because she would have lost the idea and actually did not love him. and this, after all, is the essential unfaithfulness in an ****** relationship, the incidental unfaithfulness is to love someone else.


as a side-note... these impossible, to my mind:
imaginary "problems"...
say, for example...
the racist... the non-racist... and the... anti-racist...
do i use racial slurs, sure, but i always tend
to "translate" them to by implicitly urban scenario
tokens... i'm a "******" if i don't get on time,
i'm supposed to work for free...
i think of racism along the lines...
well... you, know... that Pakistani grooming
gang in Rotherham...
it doesn't affect me personally,
i'm a bachelor, i don't have a daughter...
but... even on my level, since i'm so far away
from the issue... i start to get affected...
**** is the lowest of the low...
i once ****** a *******... all giggly and drunk
at first... but then... she started crying during *******...
a burn-out moment on her behalf...
i had to stop... o.k. you're selling yourself... willingly...
but... i'm not going to... whatever...
if she might have claimed p.t.s.d.
i could also claim the same...

*** is ugly... just before perching myself on the windowsill
once the night arrived...
i heard a voice in the darkness... thanking me...
at the end of my garden... i wasn't exactly listening:
i never listen... but these words of: thank you
sort of penetrated me...
where is the supposed "Ummah"
when it comes to the Uyghurs?!
the fond fellows of Arabia... would rather send
their suicide virgins to the western land
with prospect of conquest, with prospect of seeking
our proselytes... than...
keep their Ummah intact... do the Arabs really think
that their Chinese believers are...
worth so little to them?
           where are the attacks on China?!
eh... Pakistani uncle said grandma
then decided to **** some cousin...
  sorry... low... hanging... fruit...
   i need a drink...
                            
        i can understand racism... esp. given the attempt
at a multicultural society...
i rather think of myself as a non-racist...
****** a black girl, ****** a Thai girl...
****** an Indian girl...
but... this... white, female, anti-racism stance?
i don't get it... daddy issues?
they must be daddy issues... parental issues...
you have to purposively make yourself anti-racist...
affirmative action buzzwords...
you can never be: the highest pinnacle of negation:
not-racist... you have to be actively: anti-racist...
you can never be passively: non-racist...
you have to... do... "x, y & z"...

these words shouldn't even see the light of day...
so much *******...
all of it... crass...
as much as the Brazil-Project of interracial
new-Arab interbreeding sounds great...
newly tanned "Spaniards"... "Arabs"...
"Indians"... if you've ever visited Kenya...
i remember being approached by these three gorgeous
Kenyan girls working the pandering circuit...
black skin glistening in the moonlight...
as if someone rubbed them with butter...
plump... one of the local Kenyan boys asked whether
i'd like to visit a local bar... i declined...
i forgot myself... took to the hammock...
slept the whole night in the open...
some ****** stole my cognac while i was asleep...
me? we best interact...
but... interracial breeding sort of disrespects...
the seeming aeons of... what allowed black people
to be black... what allowed white people to be
white...
it's no good, like... black girls are not angry
when the white girls are giving up so much ***
to their male counterparts?

if i'm supposed to "think" about race... sure... i'll give
it a short shot... because i'm expected...
i have a furry river and.. by now:
i'm more res vanus than res cogitans...
i don't think i need to think on the basis of
narration... i'll just be reactionary...
not because it's easier... it just seems rather...
necessary...

anti-racist: tropes! they are just that... people try
so hard to not-be... X... that they almost forget that...
they are X... because they are compensating for
the environment they were brought up in...
daddy's sins... mother's opinions...
by now a racist is better suited for conversation
than an anti-racist... who the ****** bleached "us"?
it's like: i can't the difference between people...
like... Somalis don't look more ancient than the rest
of the Africans?! maybe i should find more Ethiopians...

i sometimes think of "existing" in a way that...
elevates the posit of: exiting...
sure... cogito, ergo... blah blah...
but that's not enough... to exist is also readying
yourself to exit... existing is a pseudo-continuum
of rented... time, body... in order to...
make the banal finalities of / for an exit...
Anonymous Oct 2012
Fire burning in the depths of my belly
Undercurrents of deep red passion
Lingering over the places that you've been
The fingertips that graze my skin
Are pleasure inducing tools
Goosebumps raise and shiver on the surface

It is nothing compared to what lies within.
MaKenna Mar 2018
There was a girl with jet black hair who introduced me to pain and called it ‘a good time’
Her smile looked like the light at the end of the tunnel, right before the train hits you.
I found myself touching things she used to touch, looking for echoes in her fingertips.
It only led me to shattered glass and abandoned halls.
I’d shout her name watching her absence sink into the corners of the wall.
Growing up the doors started slamming themselves to save my sister the trouble.
I started sweeping my heartache under the living room rug because she complained about the mess.
When I moved out, I should’ve let that pain in my closet on the second shelf. Instead I tucked it inside my chest, and tried to breathe around hurt.
My innocence was lost and there was no map that told me where to get it back.
I tried to elude anyone who could see past the painted on smile.
I wore a mask for so long that it became another layer of skin.
I disguised every tear as allergies and every cut a cat scratch.
My sense was persuaded by whoever’s aroma smelled most like security.
My discomfort was overlooked but still lingered in my subconscious.
I keep tracing my shadow but by now my silhouette is a statue.
And I wish I hadn’t flinched every time someone raised a hand, or wince every time I was touched.
I wish the night terrors didn’t push me to sleeping in the closet.
But it was all apart of the healing process.
I have an empty space where my wishbone should be.
There’s an emptiness in my chest but I learned to fill the spaces with more love and kindness.
My story remains etched in my heart with a copyright mark because nobody can take it away from me.
I’ve spent my whole life living in a cage, but now I’m finally free.
My journey’s ongoing, and the deep undercurrents of pain and grief are pulling me through the in between.
Now it’s been two years and the trauma I’ve held tight to has loosened like a tight balloon, it’s draped across my ribcage.
I press on the emotional bruises and the pain is dull and withering.
I came out kicking and screaming but I made it out alive.
Try to think of the healing that comes out of pain.
Shannon McGovern Sep 2011
This floatation device doesn't work
so well anymore, not now that night
is falling and the chill sets through
my marrow.
Currents were made to drift,
and so they do. In and out
the tides swell like lovers
falling into and out of bed.
All the rocking has made
me dizzy, and the seasickness
and nausea pools in the water
like shark red undercurrents
and skies at dawn.

The rain is usually an indication
that you're entering the eye,
where it is calm for seconds,
fingertips tingling, twitching,
waiting for the explosion
that rips the sails from above
you, and sends you plunging
into an eddy.
And when you are tossed overboard,
watching your ship thrashed between
the waves and weather;
waiting for the searchlights;
don't set off your flare at the first sign,
or you'll lose your S.O.S to the sea.
  
This floatation device doesn't work
so well anymore, not since you left
with what's left of my wreckage,
and the farther we drift apart,
the more I feel like dying.
K Balachandran Jan 2013
That alluring cloud, just a whiff of vapor
                      that slowly dissolves.
Night has only specks of light
             sprinkled in smoky darkness.
Life is a murky  lake with
              swirling undercurrents.
Love is the only boat,
      that would float and ferry us safe.
K Balachandran Jun 2013
They found their rendezvous in a house of secrets.
She smelled myrrh and frankeincense
Time never bound them within  its band
Space was theirs as much as they want
They went long evening walks though
winding road that went up, to the top of the  hill
ending below the yard, star paved sky,
then with a rare fervor traveled beyond light years
she embraced , he felt grace from past encircling him.

The house of secrets had numerous rooms,
not on the solid piles of reality it stood-
he suspected, though it filled mind,
Was she an apparition, creation of mind,
"What is real, what is myth?"
looking downhill at the plains, extending
far horizons, she asked in  mind's whispers
to hear her he needed no voice
birds in strange formations, he saw
flying against the crimson curtain evening spread,
they watched the drama of life, flowing with time,
never they were aware,
they belonged to two different time frames,
understanding  the undercurrents they smiled.
They walked back to the house of silence,
through different roads, to hunt secrets.

— The End —