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Yea! though I walk through the valley of the
  Shadow.

  ‘Psalm of David’.

Ye who read are still among the living; but I who write
shall have long since gone my way into the region of
shadows. For indeed strange things shall happen, and secret
things be known, and many centuries shall pass away, ere
these memorials be seen of men. And, when seen, there will
be some to disbelieve and some to doubt, and yet a few who
will find much to ponder upon in the characters here graven
with a stylus of iron.

The year had been a year of terror, and of feeling more
intense than terror for which there is no name upon the
earth. For many prodigies and signs had taken place, and far
and wide, over sea and land, the black wings of the
Pestilence were spread abroad. To those, nevertheless,
cunning in the stars, it was not unknown that the heavens
wore an aspect of ill; and to me, the Greek Oinos, among
others, it was evident that now had arrived the alternation
of that seven hundred and ninety-fourth year when, at the
entrance of Aries, the planet Jupiter is enjoined with the
red ring of the terrible Saturnus. The peculiar spirit of
the skies, if I mistake not greatly, made itself manifest,
not only in the physical orb of the earth, but in the souls,
imaginations, and meditations of mankind.

Over some flasks of the red Chian wine, within the walls of
a noble hall, in a dim city called Ptolemais, we sat, at
night, a company of seven. And to our chamber there was no
entrance save by a lofty door of brass: and the door was
fashioned by the artisan Corinnos, and, being of rare
workmanship, was fastened from within. Black draperies,
likewise in the gloomy room, shut out from our view the
moon, the lurid stars, and the peopleless streets—but
the boding and the memory of Evil, they would not be so
excluded. There were things around us and about of which I
can render no distinct account—things material and
spiritual— heaviness in the atmosphere—a sense
of suffocation—anxiety—and, above all, that
terrible state of existence which the nervous experience
when the senses are keenly living and awake, and meanwhile
the powers of thought lie dormant. A dead weight hung upon
us. It hung upon our limbs—upon the household
furniture—upon the goblets from which we drank; and
all things were depressed, and borne down thereby—all
things save only the flames of the seven iron lamps which
illumined our revel. Uprearing themselves in tall slender
lines of light, they thus remained burning all pallid and
motionless; and in the mirror which their lustre formed upon
the round table of ebony at which we sat each of us there
assembled beheld the pallor of his own countenance, and the
unquiet glare in the downcast eyes of his companions. Yet we
laughed and were merry in our proper way—which was
hysterical; and sang the songs of Anacreon—which are
madness; and drank deeply—although the purple wine
reminded us of blood. For there was yet another tenant of
our chamber in the person of young Zoilus. Dead and at full
length he lay, enshrouded;—the genius and the demon of
the scene. Alas! he bore no portion in our mirth, save that
his countenance, distorted with the plague, and his eyes in
which Death had but half extinguished the fire of the
pestilence, seemed to take such an interest in our merriment
as the dead may haply take in the merriment of those who are
to die. But although I, Oinos, felt that the eyes of the
departed were upon me, still I forced myself not to perceive
the bitterness of their expression, and gazing down steadily
into the depths of the ebony mirror, sang with a loud and
sonorous voice the songs of the son of Teos. But gradually
my songs they ceased, and their echoes, rolling afar off
among the sable draperies of the chamber, became weak, and
undistinguishable, and so faded away. And lo! from among
those sable draperies, where the sounds of the song
departed, there came forth a dark and undefiled
shadow—a shadow such as the moon, when low in heaven,
might fashion from the figure of a man: but it was the
shadow neither of man nor of God, nor of any familiar thing.
And quivering awhile among the draperies of the room it at
length rested in full view upon the surface of the door of
brass. But the shadow was vague, and formless, and
indefinite, and was the shadow neither of man nor God—
neither God of Greece, nor God of Chaldaea, nor any Egyptian
God. And the shadow rested upon the brazen doorway, and
under the arch of the entablature of the door and moved not,
nor spoke any word, but there became stationary and
remained. And the door whereupon the shadow rested was, if I
remember aright, over against the feet of the young Zoilus
enshrouded. But we, the seven there assembled, having seen
the shadow as it came out from among the draperies, dared
not steadily behold it, but cast down our eyes, and gazed
continually into the depths of the mirror of ebony. And at
length I, Oinos, speaking some low words, demanded of the
shadow its dwelling and its appellation. And the shadow
answered, “I am SHADOW, and my dwelling is near to the
Catacombs of Ptolemais, and hard by those dim plains of
Helusion which border upon the foul Charonian canal.” And
then did we, the seven, start from our seats in horror, and
stand trembling, and shuddering, and aghast: for the tones
in the voice of the shadow were not the tones of any one
being, but of a multitude of beings, and varying in their
cadences from syllable to syllable, fell duskily upon our
ears in the well remembered and familiar accents of many
thousand departed friends.
All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
Are all but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o’er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay
Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine stealing o’er the scene
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She leant against the armed man,
The statue of the armed knight;
She stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene’er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story—
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another’s love
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he crossed the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade,—

There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!

And that, unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land;

And how she wept, and clasped his knees;
And how she tended him in vain;
And ever strove to expiate
The scorn that crazed his brain;—

And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves
A dying man he lay;—

His dying words—but when I reached
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long!

She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love, and ****** shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.

Her ***** heaved—she stepped aside,
As conscious of my look she stepped—
Then suddenly, with timorous eye,
She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.

’Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly ’twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with ****** pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous Bride.
Anais Vionet Aug 2022
Oh, shrill lark, just breathe. You rage too well.
Seek no comfort in wretchedness.

Renounce the gossamer moon, curse starlight
with a breathless voice - if you must - but let love be.

As the saddest tale fades after telling,
undistinguishable kisses fade like dewdrops.

Seasons alter, you will love again and love better
laughing unabashed, at the memory of this gentle injury.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Unabashed: undisguised and unapologetic.
Arran James Jun 2014
My favourite season is autumn
When the darkness starts to surround you
Like a comforting embrace across your entire existence

It's like when you take a bath
And the water temperature matches your body's
And you can't differentiate
Where the water starts
And where your skin ends
Like taking flight

That's what autumn is to me
The exterior darkness
Undistinguishable
To my internal void

My soul leaking from every pore

I exist everywhere and nowhere simultaneously
It's freeing really. Detached from my earthly vessel
I

Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
  A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
  Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
  Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o’er;
  Far off the noises of the world retreat;
  The loud vociferations of the street
  Become an undistinguishable roar.
So, as I enter here from day to day,
  And leave my burden at this minster gate,
  Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
The tumult of the time disconsolate
  To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
  While the eternal ages watch and wait.

II

How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!
  This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves
  Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves
  Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers,
And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!
  But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves
  Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves,
  And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers!
Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,
  What exultations trampling on despair,
  What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,
What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,
  Uprose this poem of the earth and air,
  This mediæval miracle of song!

III

I enter, and I see thee in the gloom
  Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine!
  And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine.
  The air is filled with some unknown perfume;
The congregation of the dead make room
  For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine;
  Like rooks that haunt Ravenna’s groves of pine
  The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb.
From the confessionals I hear arise
  Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies,
  And lamentations from the crypts below;
And then a voice celestial that begins
  With the pathetic words, “Although your sins
  As scarlet be,” and ends with “as the snow.”

IV

With snow-white veil and garments as of flame,
  She stands before thee, who so long ago
  Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe
  From which thy song and all its splendors came;
And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name,
  The ice about thy heart melts as the snow
  On mountain heights, and in swift overflow
  Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame.
Thou makest full confession; and a gleam,
  As of the dawn on some dark forest cast,
  Seems on thy lifted forehead to increase;
Lethe and Eunoë—the remembered dream
  And the forgotten sorrow—bring at last
  That perfect pardon which is perfect peace.

V

I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze
  With forms of Saints and holy men who died,
  Here martyred and hereafter glorified;
  And the great Rose upon its leaves displays
Christ’s Triumph, and the angelic roundelays,
  With splendor upon splendor multiplied;
  And Beatrice again at Dante’s side
  No more rebukes, but smiles her words of praise.
And then the ***** sounds, and unseen choirs
  Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and love
  And benedictions of the Holy Ghost;
And the melodious bells among the spires
  O’er all the house-tops and through heaven above
  Proclaim the elevation of the Host!

VI

O star of morning and of liberty!
  O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines
  Above the darkness of the Apennines,
  Forerunner of the day that is to be!
The voices of the city and the sea,
  The voices of the mountains and the pines,
  Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
  Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!
Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
  Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
  As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
  In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
  And many are amazed and many doubt.
the dead bird Jun 2016
I wake
from dreams of you
like waves of the ocean
that break
upon the shore

a persistent feeling
of dissatisfaction
hovers quietly
above me
making no sound
but

always falling
always dripping
always coating me
so that every damp
footstep
I leave behind
reminds me
it will never leave me alone

the wetness
from my raincloud
and
the water
from the ocean of my dreams
become
the same liquid
that permeates my being

interchangeable
undistinguishable
from one another

tell me -
why do I dream
of disappointment?
Honey, it’s raining,
From the skies,
Big shiny drops,
Heavy
Make a loud plop
As they drop
I gaze out the window
My special one,
That I use
For time travel
This time,
I go back
25 years

Honey, it’s raining,
From your eyes,
Big salty drops,
Heavy
Make a loud plop
As they drop
Right on my heart
I hold you close
They disperse
Equally
On both of us
Mingling with the rain
Leaving a stain
So Indelible
Several washes
Couldn’t remove

Time erodes
Mighty rocks,
Changes courses
Of Mighty rivers,
We were destined
To hear
Each other
Speak again
Across
A chasm
Half way across
Our new world
To find
The stain erupt
A dormant volcano
Time could not silence
It’s raging in my ears,

Honey it’s raining,
From both our eyes,
Big sweet drops,
As we meet
At this time warp
Just lean across
Touch me
With Your hands
Your lips
Your eyes
Wipe my stain
Even as I wipe yours
With our memories
Same old Stories
Growing kids,
Spouses
Is it better
To have loved and lost
Than to have never loved at all?

Honey, it’s raining,
From the heavens,
Great big morsels,
Manna
That Soaks
Two hungry souls,
Eyes skyward
Open wide
With gratitude,
Silent in awe
Thanks lord,
Harsh thorny gates
Melt into vapor
We hold hands
Our spirits mingle
Bodies merge
Undistinguishable
Two rivulets
Turn to single
Silver Shard of ice,
Head bent
In thankful prayer
Shelby Azilda Jun 2013
We drifted like unanchored ships,
Across the sea.
Soon you were just an undistinguishable shape on the horizon,
That I only knew through memory.
I did not know how the sea changed you,
And you did not know how it weathered me.
Ady Apr 2016
Move away with me,
a road trip;
never ending, always driving.
We'll make a home on the road
and watch the scenery through
rolled down windows.
Watch the world we left behind
as we continue beyond.

And, it's not running away, I promise you.
It is never closing our eyes as we make our way
forward through the blur of the life around us.

I'll watch over you as you rest through the dawn
in the backseat of my car.
Once the night descends over the horizon,
we can park on the edge of the earth and
observe as stars and city lights converge.
Undistinguishable; sky and earth a long awaited
reunion.
A metamorphosis of the divine and the sublime.

Baby, let's live our life on the roads;
let's be ahead of the time;
leaving young, living wild.
Hope everyone is doing well
Poet kiri Mar 2018
I WANT YOU TO LISTEN BEFORE YOU FEEL.

I
Congratulate
You.

...

I understand now
That I am not
and she is neither
and nor are you.

In Life
is Man,
Woman  
and
Money.

And I am disgusted  
with my own state of affairs.
I am a HYPOCRITE,
(YOU COULD BE WORSE )
that a rat that is not a part of a the race
has a better chance of virtue.

I am not unique but
part of the equation of nature
for a upon a time in history
I was a "FEATHERLESS BIPED"
just as a chicken awaiting
the process of  
the roast.

YET
upon death and decay,
if I am not in history
as a statue to symbolise  
immortality.

I
will no longer  
be MAN
but a CREATURE
with bones undistinguishable from
my kind.  

These words are of a man
man that has nothing
to him and his time
but a chance to reflect on life's
greatest EQUATION
of meaning.

These are the words of the man
that lives like dog
he dares to speak his mind
a man we question his existence and purpose  
we call mad, insane and a savage.


His words will never shake you
if you question
WHY HE DARES TO SPEAK IF HE IS NOTHING?

Were you truly listening?


Question.
Would you lend an ear
to a
A man that lives like a dog
or
A Man that lives in concrete
bubble?

I want you to Think beyond the concrete bubble
you call safe.

MAN + WOMAN x MONEY(NATURE)=...............
whats your equation like?

©Hansmind, 2018
Hello, I hope you are all well.
I would like thank you for the support this year, I am really great full for all the comments and likes.

Please feel free to comment and CRITIC THE POEM.

Its going to be the first poem in my 4th collection called
"Seasoned Thoughts"

KINDLY LIKE, COMMENT & SHARE.

      Thank you.
Hollie Aug 2010
All alone, yet surrounded by so many

Faces watching faces without letting on that they peek

Thoughts that usually aren’t thought

bubble up through the mind.

As fleeting images flash by like a strobe light

Pictures into other people’s lives flit past

almost too quick for thought

A face is illuminated by recognition and

is kept animated by the familiar

The illumination dies and the face once again

resorts to its stoic politeness

The noise is undistinguishable from the chatter

I step down

Am briefly bathed in the pool of light allowed to follow me.

The doors close

And I am alone again.
(c) Hollie Turner
She wears a sterling silver lie on her finger,

A Christmas gift, unintentionally leading her into Fraud,
months after the wrapping paper had been torn away.

Never gifted with piano fingers, hers pulsated with words waiting to pour through her pen

Having passed faith tests with flying colors,  she looked at the rounded Christ less crucifix, Jesus replaced with fashionable jewels,

She believed it was a medal for coming out alive and in faith

Little did she know that the test was a mere three months away

Not unfamiliar with temptation,

She knew her weakness,

Knowing herself only to be human,

Seeing the ins and outs of her fragility,

Still pushing onward into hope,

Bordering on the suburban developed atheism, but always landing on the grassy faith.

But as one who was too old to be young forever, there was one whose failure

Would drag her out to the desert littered in nihilism.

She feared how at home she felt there,

Seeing her reflections not in any oasis, but in the land that once held such promise

But had been drained of breath and water

The dry ground being undistinguishable from her feet,

too tired to keep going, too broken to stay,

Ignoring that lone piece of metal, glaring from her fingers,

Being covered in the dried and drained land,

Hiding away the lie that was stuck to her,

Fingers swollen with the untapped sap,

Too thickened with sorrow to be drained easily,

Growing into her skin, scarring over,

Ingrown faith, digging itself under her skin,

Unavoidable metal in a desert so bleak,

A Medal that brought prior pride

Now a blood clot in vain of surviving.
Sal Gelles Sep 2012
i made you live,
i'd killed you;
i'd been there.
i'd done that,
but you showed no remorse for your own accordance with my accolades.
and yet you've taken my own words against your own for disservice,
distance has been created from the anguished laugh you'd let out for a trembling break of the silence.
and as it broke down, realistically, you'd thought of what you'd learned from me,
and at last, i was used in reference, as in silence i brooded at your demeanor;
it was transparent and openly so; undistinguishable from the rest in its cleft.
this phenomena's gone on far longer than expected, and you've outlived your expectancy.
so, again, i'd killed you.
then i made you live.
and i'd been there;
you'd never done that.
modelb0nes Apr 2013
winter is cold*
the frost of your oxygen
leaving your mouth as you leave
the place you came from.
winter smells like hate
Bitter, sad, distasteful
winter looks like you.
So stiff, so still.
unrecognizable
undistinguishable
but I love it,
The way it looks on you
I love the way you look
Winter is cold, yes
but it somehow makes me think
deep thoughtful thoughts
And I love it
I love
winter.
Kayla Oct 2015
a man in a dark suit stands in the shadows
and speaks words i will never understand
and he cries tears that leave maroon stains on your pale skin
skin that used to brush past mine
freckle to freckle, bruises and scars
and the man inches closer
leaving shadows in their place
his voice becoming more audible yet still undistinguishable
heart beats slow and this love turns lavender
like the face of another dead boy on the news
like her favorite color
or the walls in my first bedroom
and the man creeps forward again
strides matching the size of your lies
this time sun rays pour over him
revealing every detail of his physical state
but we all have secrets that aren't even exposed in the light
grumpy thumb Jan 2016
Between steps
her silence paces
ripples of a memory
keep me company.
And I swear at times
I can feel her hand clenching mine
snug deep in an overcoat pocket;
her breath sighing
into my ear
on the verge of uttering,
but words no longer live there
and
how our bodies pressed so close
our heartbeats were
undistinguishable
and everything rhymed.
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2017
i came here to cast a shadow: to burden, by overshadowing meager efforts of improptu.*

yesterday i was burning a "tattoo"
into my right hand with
a cigarette,
   which i later extinguished it on...
today i was clenching
a ice cube in the same hand -
clenched...
    the similitary of the pain was almost
undistinguishable...
so...
      who said hell was all about fire
and bbq? i tend to imagine hell
       as a solar eclipse, and as snow
and ice... the cold can prolong the pinch
of pain for much longer...
  plus it numbs,
unlike fire, where you're running around
like some frantic maniac.
KofiKrafts Sep 3
This mind seems so power for the you I conjured in front of me looks so real we could breathe the same air
Every detail, carefully thought out
Every word spoken, left me mesmerised
Every action, I hung onto
Your imperfection unrecognisable to these  blinded eyes

You inspired a me like no other, or rather forced a me like no other
For I lost control of thought and autonomy
I became a puppet at your disposal pulled by the string of the heart
A man that overflowing at your sight, one that  would find a way to rip the oceans to reach you
A person that felt invincible, because this amour  was made from the strongest of emotions and forged in the deepest of connection

How this faded soul yarns for the warmth once felt as our bodies contorted round each other
feeling like a incomplete puzzle till our picture came to life
You and I interlinked, our very fabric of being woven till were you began and I finished became undistinguishable

I infected by your laugh, replay that melody
To the point the way your lips curled and pressed together when you smiled is a living image etched
I remember the way your touch pulsating through me, turning skin tones vibrant
A reflection of the feeling manufactured only by you
Your moods flashed red and pink a blended hue all to well I knew
But now mine sits broken on blue

That human lays buried in the past, because the those words that poured from your mouth was to me you picking up your shovel and scattering the embers of us
each sentences uttered seemed like the very dirt tossed upon that human
I repeat the word human because no more would I be able to identify that version of myself
A being lost in the void of endless, all consuming heartache.
Any critics and pointer appreciated
will Sep 2019
Her eyes were brown
not sweet like honey
or cracked with gold
with green flickers

Her eyes were holes
deep pits of darkness
That held me tight
and pulled me in

Her eyes were dark
They held secrets
undistinguishable
from iris to pupil

Her eyes were beautiful
Don’t give me the romanticized golden or light brown, I want pools of night looking deep into my soul.
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2021
iskra (title): par (the body to bypass the 502 bad gateway)

O these tender winter nights,
when the moon graces the skies at night,
i missed him....
in my native tongue he's known as ol'
baldy... he's not known by the name Luna...
just like the sun is a she...
& not Helios...
i missed him... how i missed him when
the nights were short...
when the biting air mingling with
frost didn't nibble at the hands
and explore x-rays...
bone-father... pristine eye:
he who discards unnecessary dreams...
will never allow recurrent dreams
to fester your mind...
   i look at this migrant crisis & think...
why are these people looking for
an elder of the north?
am i the elder?
    another question: could i be as welcoming
with a ***** attested to Abraham...
- once upon a time
i was taking a train from Romford
to Liverpool St...
a single mum with her child...
the child approached me
with a book & started reciting  the words...
in deutsche... i tried to hide weeping...
oh course i shed a tear...
a child was reading to me
about... operating trucks...
constructing scaffolds...
             doing the "magic" that diggers do...

ULVER - KVELDSSANGER:
you can just skip to the song: Utreise...

i imagine that if i were united with a woman,
the role of father would drastically undermine
my relations with the woman...
pointless talk...

i'm currently undertaking a
nvq level 2 stewarding course... so a preliminary test
of your English & Mathematics skills...
i almost completed the English skills test today,
i'll do the Maths tomorrow:
i always preferred a su doku to a game
of scrabble / a crossword...

overall score... 56%...
passable... grade C...
now the stats...
comprehension at 80%
text comparisons... eh... 50%
implicit meaning 33%...
  
    you're getting the drift?
poets should never be NVQ tested on their language
skills... you start reading e. e. cummings
or william burroughs?! FAIL... outright fail...
too much freedom you see...
you have to have a return policy...
a return framework...
you need to learn English parrot...

language features... at 75%...
using glossaries (67%)
organisational features (ditto)
bias (a big ******* fat 0... it ought to be O%)
bias... maybe i just misread something
or... never mind...
NVQ level testing: it's not like getting a BSc in
chemistry... oh **** no...
it's a mind spaghetti pressed...
you need to be double sure... i.e. wrong at least once...
****'s sake...

fact & opinion (50%),
writing style (75%),
written communication (60%)
writing (33%)... seriously? seriously?!
format & structure (40%),
organisational markers (60%),
persuasive language (33%),
complex sentences (50%),
GRAMMAR (80%),
verbs (75%),
     punctuation (36%),
   spelling (78%)...

   but bias at O%? you ******* kidding me?
i can't tell the difference between reading
propaganda in newspaper & reading directions
to get from A to B?

NVQ jokers... you must be stupid...
let us help you...
******* left high school with some A-levels
now they think they can rough up a BSc
owner... you know... i did this one ****** module
at university, some sociology course...
they told us to write an essay...
that we couldn't plagiarise...
what the **** did i do?
i plagiarised... we were supposed to be monitored
some some giant precursor of an A.I. Brian...
brain... that was supposed to pick up plagiarism...
sure... but if you know the "magic" of rewording
& have a ******* thesaurus handy?
i had to listen to some music,
my focus was elsewhere...
i plagiarised the essay: through & through...
managed to get a 1st for it...
did the, "system" catch me ought?
of course it didn't... so much more computers
& rules & what became my totem...
no wolves on these isles... the foxes will suffice...

NVQ *******... just regurgitate:
it's not even remotely related to learning... its a parrot
parody... but... after the initial test...
let me tell you...
i never learned so much grammar as i did now...
not under the GCSE model, for sure...
if only the English punctuated like the rest of
Europe apply diacritical marks...
but i write: outside the realm of giving a flying-****
& a gingerbread to consider what's
formal what's informal... it's... arrr... art!
you bring me down to a level of proficiency in
understanding: oi! black: to the right...
white's: down...
to the centre...
                        it's somewhat debilitating when
having to make distinctions...
what is from what's... because somehow
the practice of... congesting? concentrating...
compounding words is... informal?
if the apostrophe is so hideous when it comes
to don't vs. do not... **** away with it
when it comes to the possessive article!
don't use it... so how does: it's Sams bicycle look
like now?!
pretty ******... people make up these rules
only to give themselves gatekeeping stature...
gatekeeping hierarchical procedures...
o.k. o.k. i get it...
but i'm writing this only as a retaliation:
don't think some of us don't know what's
happening...

i'm ******* gagging for the mathematical questions,
i hope a su doku comes up...
it probably won't...

i never had so much encounters with grammar,
people who don't write poetry have ****
for brains...
there are so many formalities...
... is not even a recognised punctuation:
"strategy"... you can't allow yourself
the " " markers... whoever wrote the NVQ exam
obviously didn't read any Heidegger...

i forget that the 'obvious' intention is...
i generally appreciate 'said' as a quote...
"x" indicates toying with metaphors, misnomers &
insinuations... but no... oh no...

studying history doesn't give you the luxury of
studying grammar...
seems like grammar is fine... 80%...
bias at a big fat 0 of O%... come on?
first they test you, then they double-sure...
language so rigid is bound to be:
a non-language...
                      
        soulless "thing"... but fair enough...
after the last, failed, terrorist attack... i'll plough through...
i like tending to the flock...
i like the look on...  faces... that seem to recognise me...
as if they know me from a dream...
and there i am... in the flesh...

my Indian companion... i fixed her clip-on tie
for her, i took the knee doing up her borrowed
steward jacket... blah blah...
she told me she was diabetic, complained about
how for a week her other companion told her
to watch her sugar intake: i will have nothing to
do with reminding you of anything...
she was freaked out by autumn leaves
piled up in the park, how she was afraid about
not knowing what might be lurking
beneath / in the pile...
i told her about my apprehension
with regards to swimming in the sea...
how i much adored swimming
in waters where i could see the depth:

swimming in glass...
how she was afraid of cycling after falling over...
how her mother made the analogy:
cycling is like flying...
only today, with my hood up...
yeah... it really is... your view is so unobstructed...
if you don't look down and spot
the tip of the handlebars...
you can almost forget your legs are peddling...
she finally managed to fathom enough
strength to kick a pile of leaves:
to no surprise... nothing but leaves beneath
the leaves...

a walk in the park... i like the idea that a woman
must be comforted...
i like women with suspicions of reality...
one little phobia here...
another little phobia over there...
i like pocket-sized minds & hearts...
its fits "in" nicely: to whatever grand event is
happening, otherwise...

the match "might" have been taking place...
but the park was so gloriously available to wander
in alone, at peace...
it made more sense playing the authority figure
with a walky-talky...
asking people to drink up their beers before
getting to the venue...
such a... simple role... not a plumber or carpenter
in sight... if this is work... then i don't know
what loitering is... all it took was a change of attire
to turn: this load of ******* into work...
from what otherwise would be considered...
loitering by the load of *******...
simple!

O but the moon is high in the sky & winter is finally
playing the ******* accordion like
it might be slapping a heron against a rock
to death... love it... no other month is so magical as this
one... while all the people slip into a pseudo-hibernation
faze... i find myself rejuvenated: realigned...
the cold serves me abundance that no fruit
can ever bring...

gone are the bothersome insects, esp. the flies...
while the cats self-impose their own curfews...

why is it, that in Poland you see hordes... of crows &
kafkas... hordes of them: like clouds...
but in England... solitary wind-bits...
at most... in Huginn & Muninn pairing...
as if the ravens in England adopted the nobility
of swans... in Eastern Europe them come as...
messerschmitt: schwarzkreuzwolken...

         furchtbar!
see... when the English speaking world starts
playing funny... political, social, whatever...
grammatical... i tend to "forget" i speak English:
oh how i adore this tongue...
it's an armchair, compared to all the other tongues...
with one exception: the elder English,
which has to be.... most probably...
if not the modern variant, then any other variant of...
what was spoken in Saxony was also
probably spoken in Thuringia,
Swabia... Pomerania... etc.

    like the guy who delivers some of the packages
to my door... der glücklichenmann...
for a long time i couldn't place him,
his "accent" was no accent at all...
several scenarios later did he disclose his origins...
Deutsche... ein glücklichendeutschemann!
ich muss sein in güt: gesellschaft!

eh... perhaps the German grammar structure
when translated into English was
***** a little by French grammar which:
who borrows from who:
western Slavic grammar is so similar to French
grammar... if i were only this,
before... i was taught by a self-righteous monolingual,
later a Spanish woman teaching French:
perhaps i could be speaking French right now!
im diesem augenblick!

but the guy leaving packages... only today i picked
it up... he does have an accent... he has a German
accent!
he hid it so well prior... before he freely disclosed
his national identity... i wouldn't have known...
now he accents his speech like a German might...
prior to: undistinguishable...
amazing... i could the same with my ******
mother tongue... but i'm schizoid...
i can make clarifying distinction between the two tongues...

only today... for once he sounded so German
when speaking English, he almost had me fooled thinking him
a Schwiezer!
das "Himalayamann"...
    mein gott: so ich gedanke(n)...

but English can only become insufferable once,
of twice, three times i strike gold...
i end up drinking and teasing some German....
it's not like the zeppelins are coming,
are they?!

let me know... i must know... the part where i'm to be
educated about a minority status,
by a minority that is becoming: less & less...
minder und minder ein minderheit...
i'll cook my own ******* curry:
this that & the other...
too bad you will not "make east" of my peoples' food...
how much, do you ******* want?

it seems:

genug ist nicht genug!

i turn to German to make a "sacrifice":
i turn to it for: TROST...
English is too cosmopolitan... at times...
in London: all the ****** time...
i looked at Derby supporters when
they played Fulham like animals...
not in a bad "sense": someone ought
to herd these ******* home
to a warm pillow...

i don't like being reeducated concerning
statures of anti-racism... that's ******* *******-wanking
reemphasis...
i can't be... anti-racist...
i can be: counter-...
i can... not-,
           but anti-racist is a belief in the inhumanity
of those that express their, little, piquant...
tastes... i can't be anti-racist...

if i want to **** a chocolate ice-cream cone...
mein gott: weltpolitik!
nein! nein! nein!
          zu hölle: mit diese scheiße!

it only takes one ******* would-be Jihadi to
identify you as a German
before the 2nd concludes...
hey... why don't i try pretending to be: German?!
women of my own ethnicity can't tell the difference...
let us, do German!

such sights to see... solche ist winter!
ausgedehntnächte...
der mond...  neugier ohne frage(n)...
Avia Stone Nov 2019
Have you ever thought about
What it would feel like
To be happy
The mystery stays mysterious
To me

Happiness…?
I do not recall
That word to be
Within my vocabulary

I wish
That I had
The defintion
To such a…
Foreign
Unrecognizable
Undistinguishable
Unfamiliar
Unusual
Word…
Such as
Happiness

One like myself
Cannot obtain
Such information
For such an
Unusual word

To describe
Happiness
I would not know
Where to begin
Where to end
Or even where to think

Happiness
Is an emotion
I do not feel

Sunshine
Daisies
Happy smiles
Turn this
Stupid
Hopeless
Girl
Happy (a spin off a spell from Harry Potter)

And I’m sure that
When you saw
The title “Happiness”
This probably
Wasn’t what you thought
Would come about
In a poem
Like this

But then again
Nothing is what it seems
In a society
Like today’s

Magic is only a
trick on the eyes
Just like happiness
Is only a trick
On the heart
On the emotions

Happiness…?
Such an
Unusual
Word I may
Come across

But yet
Here I am
Writing about it
Still
Not feeling it
Kinda did a thing
Dennis Willis Jun 2021
I am the entangler
the wrangler of nows
never thens
I am at an action
a spooky distance
away from really
near to you
and elsewhere too
all at different times
that were undistinguishable
and we went round and
another shape              
I've never seen
encompassed it better
than these poor words
collecting

— The End —