"
"nor is this a fact," nor is my syntax the 'true.'
i can't use quotations in the way i'd like to,
to allow the paradoxical to seep through
in the sly act of revising 'this' honestly--
merging truth with falsity, to silently see--
grammar become a means to shatter certitude

"i can't tell the 'truth' with these ["i can't tell the 'truth'
with these{...} very words"] very words"; i really can't...
it's somewhat unfair to communicants, this rant.
let me bolster your trust by not telling it slant:
in fact, it's not poetry, not from this angle.
maybe when you read, this 'this' will be poetic?
meh, i'm relying on telling, not showing. so...
quiet's often better than such entanglement

but this is not about value, it's about truth.
sincerely, i doubt i'll keep those two separate

perhaps... if you pretend i'm a prolix parrot,
who happened through some acosmic accident
to be the transmigrated daimon-soul of Sappho,
or Hypatia, Gertrude Stein or Plath even...
(yeah, i'm like a Cretan for going on): they weren't,
'your gobbledygoo,' or 'Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.'
stripped bare at the Caesareum, being murdered
for the crime of godlessness or female wisdom
spoken in the scapegoat-hungry rule of Rome...
this is not what they were, not the whole truth, at all
and though from winds of ****** she spoke in verse
that her vast poetic fame 'was no delusion:'
and that, 'dead, I won't be forgotten,' i fail,
painfully fail, to trace into a verbal womb
the seeds of those that transformed all, yet now entombed...
for to remember them in me is to revise,
reduce, sadly in that poetic untruth found...

"this" is a gestalt, i guess i'll have to say,
a "figure-ground," a floating 'shape' in some context,
one that you embody too, somehow, not in text;
even through a distant sharing, it's realized
(hold onto the random metaphors you find,
they're probably better than what's in my mind)
and to share this with you now, to hypocritize,
it's lunacy. i mean, the moon, the poetic moon
is not a meme, is not a custom, is not a poetic fact,
in fact, it's not in this poem, and if it were--
being televised with some authentic ontic pixel-space--
here between the lines augmented mOOn for you
it would prove how unpoetic the poem is, and how
very true the moon is, if it were here, right quoteunquote"here"
ineffably punctuated
            -- well, let me try
and fail again to make Erasmus proud:
the quotes would hang about romantic beams
parentheses to echo adjectival spectra streams,
an underscore horizonal and asterisks for stars.
but not these * asterisks,
or those_types of underscores--
better (parentheses) and far more "quothy" "quotes"--
the punctuation would literally ^punctuate^ the sky of my text.
time would stop.                                                            ­                   and that would be poetic.
you don't need to breathe, even; not this 'you,' in this moment
(the one i've failed to capture):
'i will put you on the moon' i say,
'and sit you buoyant by the buddha-astronaut, who,
in answer to the question sprinkles moondust in slow motion,
symbol-guiding realness, my "finger" for solution,
to present to you again, what is present to me now.
the Russian names, the rest of names, the 'face' some say cries, "sweetly,"
as if we could use the moon's sympathy,
or as if we should feel it for the white rock that elliptically defines us,
dances to our rhythm, (the tides, the ****** huntress)
the one that taught us to dance,
the one that taught us to yearn darkly in surreal eclipse
more hopefully for the chance of cataclysmic doom
some Greeks thought it was a disco ball, after enough *****, that Dionysian night,
some Greeks thought it was a disc,
like a coin that flipped just right
to match it's dance about our pearoid earth
in synchrony's anachronistic mirth.
i would lick each Bacchant clean to learn the mysteries of poem
i would lick each Bacchant clean. period. no music or noema known
this 'poem' is not a "poem"
in a very real sense
i did not make this,
nor did i compose or create it.
if you're not following it's ok, i'm barely there myself -- i'm trying to refer to...
the elliptical shape that certain publishers use
to refer to fundierung
the double-founding,
reversibility,
the flesh of passive
the flesh of active
enfleshed perceiving
the common meaning we contribute
but can't attribute to any source we express!
(however distorted) after the fact, yes! --
either all that, or the meaning you get from "this" act
doubly-enfolded, with two pairs of hands kneading the same dough,
two pairs of eyes weaving the same lOOm,
another Indra's net to sew,
in meaning you give now,
the techne of your reader's mind
and the meaning i'd wish to know,
if i were still writing what you are reading,
doing my best to ignore the title
and to write something worthwhile...

i do wish i could show it to you the way i love it in your own poetry,
but you would know that, already, without my love

without my unpoetic lack of facts, my rhymes.
free of poems, free to flout the literary sea.
free to be unwordly, and let the contradictions fly
"

You know, my love, that the worlds we have each created for ourselves
are galaxies apart.
Our language games are mutually untranslatable.

We never had a chance, my love. Even I know that.

We would never have been able to achieve an understanding of each other
deep enough
to overcome our fear of the unknown, (and utterly unknowable),
that we symbolize for each other.

The logical, brutally rational part of me knows that we could never have made each other happy.

So why must I, though you have been gone now for quite some time,
keep my mind on you all the time?

Why do I still feel this way, thinking about you every day?
And I don’t even know you.

I write this not to try to change anything.

I have lived long enough not to hold out for what cannot be.

Despite my unwanted, embarrassingly unrealistic romantic dreams from Hell,
well, not exactly Hell,
say, from the dark cave out of which fly the blind bats of activated archetypes,
inevitably,
we still would have had to face eternity, or the lack thereof, alone.

You are still looking forward to an eternal life with God and, I realize now that, ridiculously,
I still can’t stop dreaming of an earthly paradise with you.

Nasty business, my love, that we are each in love with an illusion.

What if we lived in a world in which our longed for illusions
were not just desperate self-delusion but pointed at some kind of Truth?

Do you think that would make us happy?

Isn’t it pretty to think so, my love? Isn’t it pretty to think so?

Your muse: a frumpy feminist who doesn't even like you or your poetry; a clipped-face mean-hair nag of a PC hag, a harridan of the nanny-state who inspires boring identity politics-driven free verse. Your muse smells nasty and has bad teeth. She voted for Hillary and loves Maya Angelou. Your muse barely tolerates your tepid unpoetic soul but she smiles a fake smile and lies to your face. Yours coerced you into publishing that e-book no one ever downloads. Your muse is unamusing, unmusical and moos like a cow. Mine mews and purrs like a sleek feline friend while sinuously scribing heroic rhymed couplets in the air with her tail. Yours grunts superficial Haiku through her snout then heads for her feed-trough in the mire. Your muse is a  dumpy data-driven bureaucrat who recites in a monotone to 3 medicated listeners at the yearly event. Your muse hired a social media specialist to market her product that no one wanted. My muse has no Facebook page because she want no Facebook page..

My muse is ergonomically sustainable in exquisite ******* epiphany. My muse laughs eternal rivers of lyrical light over the fact that your muse made you recite that silly stuff at the poetry slam. My muse loves me almost as deeply as I love her. Her ethereal body embodies all philosophy. One tiny point of light refracted from a single facet of her diadem will vaporize your merely mediocre muse. My muse is beloved of all true poets, for she stepped forth from the riven crown of the lyrical Father himself to bathe in the wellsprings of holy inspiration. You are utterly unworthy to even fantasize about kissing my muse's beatific, shining and holy ***. You wouldn't recognize MY MUSE if she knocked your post-modern skull with an Alexandrine sonnet. My muse gazes upon you for a millisecond and you writhe like an academic insect pinned to a collection board. My muse sneezes on you— and you get published in Atlantic and people yawn. Your muse makes entire English Departments nod off and then wake up and leave work early. My muse gets me high, drives me home AND pays my bail. In cash. My muse is an orthodox blood-washed Christian saint, elect of God and alive forevermore, shining wisdom personified, mother and sister and daughter of lyrical love. Yours is a lying crypto-Marxist troll who had to pay an ogre to artificially inseminate her and even then she could only conceive misshapen dull-witted free-verse freaks who whine about micro-aggression while they limp to the nearest safe space where they curl up in fetal position and scrawl confessional existential incoherent dullness.

My muse rocks. I love her more ever since she kicked your muse's unpoetic ***. I choose my muse so you lose.

I am a poet.
I am an artist.
A lover of words, a shaper of thoughts, a master of feelings;
A player of emotions, a speaker of charms, a thinker of minds.
A giver of taste-and at times, a succulent creator of madness.
Madness outside such lines of timid regularity;
The rules of the common, and the inane believers of sanity.
For to me, sanity is as easy as insanity itself-
On which my life feedeth, and boldly moveth on;
And without insanity, t'ere shan't be either joy-or ecstasy;
As how ecstasy itself, in my mind, is defined by averted uneasiness,
And t'at easiness, reader, is not by any means part of;
And forever detached from, the haunting deities of contemporaneity.
Thus easily, artistry consumeth and spilleth my blood-and my whole entity;
Words floweth in my lungs, mastereth my mind, shapeth my own breath.
And sometimes, I breathest within those words themselves;
And declareth my purity within which, feeleth rejection at whose loss;
Like a princess storming about hysterically at the failure of her roses.
Ah! Poetry! The second lover of my life; the delicacy of my veins.
And I loveth, I doth love-sacredly, intensely, and expressively, all of which;
I loveth poetry as I desire my own breath, and how I loveth the muchness of my fellow nature;
Whose crazes sometimes surroundeth us like our dear lake nearby;
With its souls roaming about with water, t'at chokes and gurgles-
As stray winds collapseth around and strikest a war with which.
And most of the year-I am a star, to my own skies;
But by whose side a moon, to my rainless nights;
On the whole, I am an umbrella to my soul;
So t'at it groweth bitter not, even when t'ere is no imminent rain;
And be its savior, when all is unsaved, and everything else writhest in pain.

Thus I loveth poetry as well as I loveth my dreams;
I am a painter of such scenic phrases, whose miracles bloometh
Next to thunderstorms, and yon subsequent spirited moonbeam.
And t'eir fate is awesome and elegant within my hands;
They oft' sleep placidly against my thumbs;
Asking me, with soft-and decorous breath;
To be stroked by my enigmatic fingers;
And to calm t'eir underestimated literariness, by such ungodly beings, out t'ere.
Ah, poor-poor creatures-what a fiend wouldst but do t'is to aggravate 'em!
As above all, I feeleth but extremely eager about miracles themselves;
and duly witness, my reader-t'at t'is very eagerness shall never be corrupted;
Just as how I am a pure enthusiast of love;
And in my enthusiasm, I shareth love of both men and nature;
And dark sorrows and tears t'at oft' shadowest t'eir decent composures.
When I thirstest for touches, I simply writest 'em down;
When I am hungry for caresses, I tendeth to think them out;
I detailest everything auspiciously, until my surprised conscience cannot help but feeling tired;
But still, the love of thee, poetry, shall outwit me, and despise me deeply-
Should I find not the root, within myself, to challenge and accomplish it, accordingly.
I shall be my own jealousy, and my own failure;
Who to whose private breath feeleth even unsure.
I shall feel scarce, and altogether empty;
I shall have no more essence to be admired;
For everything shall wither within me, and leave me to no energy;
And with my conscience betrayed, I shall face my demise with a heart so despaired.
Ah, my poetry is but my everything!
'Tis my undying wave; and the casual, though perhaps unnatural;
the brother of my own soul, on whose shoulders I placeth my longings;
And on whose mouths I lieth my long-lost kisses!
Ah, how I loveth poetry hideously, but awesomely, thereof!
I loveth poetry greatly-within and outside of my own roof;
And I carest not for others' mock idyll, and adamant reproof;
For I loveth poetry as how as I respectest, and idoliseth love itself;
And when I idoliseth affection, perhaps I shall grow, briefly, into a normal human being-
A real, real human being with curdling weights of unpoetic feelings;
I shall whisper into my ears every intractable falsehood, but the customary normalcy-of creation;
And brash, brash emptiness whom my creative brains canst no longer bear!
Ah, dearest, loveliest poetry, but shall I love him?
Ah-the one whose sighs and shortcomings oft' startlest my dreams;
The one whom I oft' pictureth, and craftest like an insolent statue-
Within my morning colours, and about my petulant midnight hue?
Or, poetry, and tellest me, tellest me-whether needst I to love him more-
The one whose vice was my past-but now wishes to be my virtue,
And t'is time an amiably sober virtue-with eyes so blue and sparkling smiles so true?
Ah, poetry, tellest me, tellest me here-without delay!
In my oneness, thou shalt be my triumph, and everlasting astonishment;
Worthy of my praise and established tightness of endorsement;
But in any doubleness of my life-thou shalt be my saviour, and prompt avidity-
When all but strugglest against their trances, or even falleth silent.
Ah, poetry, thou art the symbol of my virtue thyself;
And thy little soul is my tongue;
A midnight read I hath been composing dearly all along;
My morn play, anecdote, and yet my most captivating song.

I thirstest for thee regularly, and longeth for thee every single day;
I am dead when I hath not words, nor any glittering odes in my mouth to say.
Thou art my immensity, in which everything is gullible, but truth;
And all remarks are bright-though with multiple souls, and roots;
Ah, poetry, in every summer, thou art the adored timeless foliage;
With humorous beauty, and a most intensive sacrifice no other trees canst take!
O poetry, and thy absence-I shall be dead like those others;
I shall be robbed, I shall be like a walking ghost;
I hath no more cores, nor cheers-within me, and shall wander about aimlessly, and feel lost;
Everything shall be blackened, and seen with malicious degrees of absurdity;
I shall be like those who, as days pass, bloometh with no advanced profusion,
And entertaineth their sad souls with no abundant intention!
How precarious, and notorious-shall I look, indeed!
For I shall hath no gravity-nor any sense of, or taste-for glory;
My mind shall be its own corpse, and look but grey;
Grey as if paled seriously by the passage of time;
Grey as if turned mercilessly so-by nothing sublime;
Ah, but in truth-grey over its stolen life, over its stolen breath!
I shall become such greyness, o poetry, over the loss of thee;
And treadeth around like them, whose minds are blocked-by monetary thickness;
A desire for meaningless muchness, and pretentious satire exchanged '**** 'emselves;
I shall be like 'em-who are blind to even t'eir own brutal longings!
Ah, t'ose, whose paths are threatened by avid seriousness;
And adverse tides of ambition, and incomprehensible austerity;
Ah, for to me glory is not eternal, glory is not superb;
For eternity is what matterest most, and t'at relieth not within any absence of serenity.
Ah, but sadly they realiseth, realiseth it not!
For they are never alive themselves, nor prone-to any living realisation;
And termed only by the solemnity of desire, wealthiness, and hovering accusations;
For they breathe within their private-ye' voluptuous, malice, and unabashed prejudice,
For they hath no comprehension; as they hath not even the most barren bliss!
And I wantest not to be any of them, for being such is entirely gruesome;
And I shall die of loneliness, I shall die of feasting on no mindly outcome;
For nothing more shall be fragrant within my torpid soul;
And hath courage not shall I, to fight against any fishy and foul.
My fate is tranquil, and 'tis, indeed-to be a poet;
A poet whenst society is mute, I shall speak out loud;
And whenst humanity is asleep, I wake 't with my shouts;
Ah, poetry! Thy ****** little soul is but everything to me;
And even in my future wifery, I shall still care for, and recur to thee;
And I shall devote myself to thee, and cherish thee more;
Thou hath captured me with love; and such a love is, indeed, like never before.

But too I loveth him still, as every day rises-
When the sun reappeareth, and hazy clouds are again woken so they canst praise the skies.
I loveth him, as sunrays alight our country suburbs;
With a love so wondrous; a love but at times-too ardent and superb.
Ah, and thus tellest me-tellest me once more!
To whose heart shall I benignly succumb, and trust my maidenhood?
To whose soul shall I courteously bow, and be tied-at th' end of my womanhood?
Ah, poetry, I am but now clueless, and thoroughly speechless-about my own love!
Ah, dearest-t'is time but be friendly to me, and award to me a clue!
Lendeth to me thy very genial comprehension, and merit;
Openeth my heart with thy grace, and unmistakable wit!
Drowneth me once more into thy reveries of dreams;
And finally, just finally-burstest my eyes now open, maketh me with clarity see him!

Ah, poetry, t'ose rainbows of thine-are definitely too remarkable;
As how t'ose red lips of thine adore me, and termeth me kindly, as reliable;
And thus I shall rely all my reality on thy very shoulder;
Bless me with the holiness confidentiality, and untamed ****** intelligence;
Maketh me enliven my words with love, and the healthiest, and loveliest, of allegiance.
Bless me with the flavoured showers of thy heart;
So everything foreign canst but be comely-and familiar;
And from whose verdure, and growth-I shall ne'er be apart!
And as t'is happens, holdest my hand tightly-and clutchest at my heart dearly;
Keepest me but safe here, and reachest my breath, securely!
Ah, poetry-be with me, be with me always!
Maketh me even lovelier, and loyal-to my religion;
In my daily taste-and hastes, and all these supreme oddities and evenness of life;
Maketh me but thoughtful, cheerful, and naive;
And in silence maketh me stay civil-but for my years to come;
and similarly helpeth my devotion, taste, and creativity, remain alive.

Ah, poetry, thus I shall be awake in both thy daylight, and slumbers;
And as thou shineth, I knoweth that my dreams shall never fade away;
Once more, I might have gone mad, but still-all the way better;
And whenst I am once more conscious; thou shalt be my darling;
who firmly and genuinely beggeth me t' keep writing, and in the end, beggeth me t' stay.
Leave me not, even whenst days grew dark-and lighted were only my abyss;
Invite my joy, and devour every bit of it-as one thou should neither ignore, or miss.

In memory of, and with respect to the victims of the 2011 terrorist acts in Norway.
As the weather resembles, one remembers...


Perhaps if you went to *my school,
You'd have gotten beaten up for your egocentricity
Long before it grew to such deranged preportions.

As misplaced as the runes you carved into Glock and rifle;
You'd have been not only estranged, but broken.
Disarmed decades before detonation.

Alas. A distorted berserker you ploughed through
Establishments and hearts; an armed teenager fuelled on
Video games, soft candy and steroids.

Pity the nation that nurses such an unpoetic national enemy.
We forgot your name and face, as you never knew ours.
The symbol we chose was an ocean of roses,

Like torches held to our love unharmed.

Norwegian leap year two-thousand-eleven;
Only twenty-two days in July.

I have lost my words
Which I turn to for repose and release
They have disappeared and transformed
Into slurred speeches and mismatched colors
My fingers, they search for comfort
Lacing each other in confusion

I cannot find the words I am looking for
My thoughts have remained quiet for too long
What I thought was a spectrum I could rely on
Is as bland and dull as the skin I have worn

My eyes are a perception of lies
Only visualizing in black and white
My mouth a conception of verbal conundrum
Confusing and replacing words
Once so facilely found

I am born into a world
I'm not even sure I can call my own
I do not know where I am from
I cannot find the words I wish for anymore

n.j.



https://perennialink.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/unpoetic/

Our summer fellowships are over! We learned a lot - for instance - how summer’s a lot less fun when you’re hemmed-up, inside working. I mean, we preesh’d the clinical experience, the learning, and especially how good these fellowships will look on our med-school applications - seriously - but there were a hundred rules - aren’t rules incompatible with summer?

Hmm, Ok, let’s see, something poetic..

As the summer sun's blistering radiance waned, shadows,
muscled by sunrays to the marginal edges and corners,
gradually spread, like water - soothing, lenifying and assuaging
simmered nerves with their refreshing, canopied touch.

If sunlight scorched with heat, twilight soothed and gentled,
while varnishing, the dimming world with rainbow, event-horizons,
larger, more inventive, colorful and glorious than any mere mortal art.

Night gradually squeezed, unseen, through those vivid sunset cracks,
and refreshing night-air, drawn in by the last, escaping updrafts of heat,
rustled cooling relief to weary workers seeking the solace of evening and home.

back to unpoetic realities..

When work was finished, we’d retreat from the heat, racing up to the rooftop pool, like two happy porpoises out of school.

Whoever invented poolside food delivery, should win the Nobel Prize for ‘thank you very much.’ We wouldn’t go back to our rooms until it was dark and we’d started to prune.

Now, we’ve a month to relax before our Junior year begins. We got letters from Yale that said, “As upperclassmen..” “Upperclassmen!” We shouted as we danced in hand-holding circles, singing, “Upperclassmen, upperclassmen, upperclassmen, upperclassmen. upperclassmen.”  
We’ve grown so much at Yale.

I may never change the world with words.
I may never write a string of syllables  
that a high school kid will be forced to memorize.  

But I know that I must try
because the world is a wonderfully awful
brutally beautiful place and everyday
I look at something I saw yesterday
and still it shakes me.

And maybe I write too many poems
about too few different things like
women that get stuck in my head
the way poems sometimes get stuck in my pen
or... did I mention the women?

But I'm going to keep writing
about the same four things
or the same one girl
until I can read it back to myself
and instead of it reminding me of what I ment
it will show you what I saw.

Because in the end you gotta do
what you gotta do and I HAVE to do this
and I don't care how much I was
called a ***** in high school or last week.
And it doesn't matter if I meet somebody in a bar
and when I say I'm a poet they smile and walk away
and never look back.

Because I AM a poet
not because I made the choise
but because I was born this way

and before you comment on how
I'm stealing the slogan
of Mamma Monster
I'm going to say that it's not about
being gay, or the wrong color,
or being sluttier than most people like,
or being crazier than most people can handle,
it's about absolutely owning who you are,

because deep down we're all a little queer
and you can let your oddities make you invisible
or you can make them turn you into a monster
and let you be the thing that goes bump
in the middle of the day.

And if you don't like it
I apologize for this unpoetic end
but you can go **** yourself.

i’ve planned out my whole funeral.
which probably makes it sound like i’m a lot more interested  
in dying than i actually am
but i just--
i think my problem is that i was never the type of person to plan ahead.
i never have imagined my college life,
or my future career, or how many kids i might i have.
i’m one of the only people i know
that has never tried to picture their own wedding.
my mom says that’s a good thing,
keeps me away from unhealthy expectations
but she’s my mom
and it’s like how your mom always tells you that you’re pretty
because what the **** kind of mother
doesn’t correct their kid’s self-loathing or at least try to?
my mom, she’s pretty used to me lying on my kitchen floor
in the throes of an existential crisis
because existential crisis is sort of my nom de plume
and before anything else,
i am afraid to be someone disappointed by my own dreams.
but i think because i never tried my hand at planning
i have no idea where i’m supposed to be in my future,
i have no idea what i want.

see the thing is,
i’m afraid i’ve never really fit in comfortably anywhere in,
i’m just really good at pretending i do.
if i wanted to swan dive into my psyche a little bit more,
i’d chalk it up to all my biracial bicultural biwhatever *******:
that feeling that i’m two things at the same time
and i don’t know where i fit.
in simple terms:
i’m too white for the latino kids
and not white enough for the white kids.
in complicated terms:
i’ve got close family about 4000 miles away
and i feel really ******* guilty for not loving them
as much as my family in the next state over,
and i resent them for not getting who i am
like my family 4000 miles away does.

i don’t think i know anyone who worries quite like i do.
see i’m not unhappy, really,
but maybe i’m the saddest happy person i know.
i try not to think about it too much,
but my brother tells me it’s because i think too much;
he’s one of those people who is frustratingly self-assured
even when he’s not.
i told him to play highway to hell at my funeral half as a joke
but mostly because i can’t even stand to imagine
the thought of outliving him.
we’re the weird kind of siblings who adore each other senselessly.
identical, two halves of a whole,
we are the same person a so many ways.
he’s the reason i exist in a completely unpoetic way --
he wanted a little sibling so much
that i joke that he begged me into existence.
he is the only person who’s ever laughed at the right parts of my jokes.
he tells me to stop worrying about tomorrow like he already has.
i think this is our key difference.

i like stories because i like escapism,
i think poetry is the only time i’m really… myself.
it is what it is and it isn’t what it isn’t,
and i loved harry potter because i wanted to be magic
and i loved star wars because i wanted to be a galaxy far, far away.
and i love how i met your mother
because everyone loves lily and marshall, right?
and everyone wants that, right?
to love someone that much,
to be so ******* sure about somebody
even when everything else is ****.
i’m just afraid that i’m never going to get that.
which is cliche but all cliches had to start somewhere
and i think people actually hate cliches
more because of the fact they’re so inescapable true
rather than the fact that they’re corny.
i’m mad at the TV for selling my a dream i’m not sure i get to have
and i’m mad at life for not imitating art well enough
and i’m mad at life for imitating art too well
and i’m ******* ****** at whoever told me that
i could be whatever i wanted when i grow up
because they were ******* lying.

so i tell you that at my funeral
i want everyone to get really ******* drunk.
and you tell me that jesus christ, daniela,
most people don’t spend their free time
thinking about their own funeral.
and it’s a matter of perspective, i guess.
some people never see the meteor coming
and some people can never tear their eyes away.
death is always walking towards me, the bus is always coming,
it’s just that sometimes it sort of speeds up
and everything else slows down.
so at my funeral, i want there to be an open bar
and i want to have someone collecting
other people’s stories about me at the door as admission.
i am not obsessed with my legacy,
just my end result.
i have never known where i’m going to end up
but i’ve always been willing to find out.

and at my funeral i want everyone to dance.
sloppy and uncoordinated.
i don’t want my funeral to be sad.
i can’t think of anything
less fitting.

my head hurts
my heart hurts
everything ******* hurts
and there's
nothing
at all
poetic about it

i cannot write you a poem,
I'm sorry.
But the way i feel about you,
all these emotions?
they cannot be placed into words,
nor fathomed into art.
It cannot be expressed in song,
or spoken eloquently.
So sorry,
I cant write you a poem.
But I can say,
I love you undeniably.

Let's cut the crap and all that sweet **** — we weren't those kind of people. We weren't made for romance and sappy poetries, weren't made for love songs, and cringey sweet nothings and gazing at the sunrise after camping out for the night on a hill. We were made to hold hands and a few almost-kisses during drinking sessions and forget about it the next day, to smoke and lie down a little bit too close to each other on rooftops and talk about depression and anxiety attacks, and deny everything in the morning. We were made for my unsaid "I miss you too's", that want to escape my lips the moment you say your drunken "I miss you's". We were made to see each other break down in between a pack of cigarettes and two bottles of local ***. We were more like two ****** up souls recognizing each other; more like two faultlines causing an earthquake and taking everything down with them, more like the first raindrops to fall apart before a thunderstorm, like two planets out of orbit crashing on each other in a brief but destructive way.

You see, maybe we're just drawn to people similar to us, and maybe, we're just drawn to each other because we're equally messed up. Maybe it was just the strong urge to save the other that borderlined to romance. But I guess being messed up wears people out, and sometimes I find myself wondering who got exhausted first. Where did the talks about "wanting to die together" go? When did the conversations about our saddest secrets cease? What stopped "Man, loving you is a disaster I won't mind being struck by," from coming? Was I too depressive and sad for you? Were my breakdowns suffocating? Did my fuckedupness stop feeling like home and started looking just plain ****** up? When did you start fading away? Why would you do that? Stupid questions.

You should know, it beats the **** out of me to say it, but I was perhaps a little bit desperate for you to stay. Perhaps I got too comfortable with your demons, I almost adopted them as mine. Perhaps the fact that you were willing to give me your ******-up all was comforting. Perhaps I was selfish, and I kinda wanted my darkness to be the only darkness you'll wanna light. Perhaps I miss you and it feels like I'm a chainsmoker on withdrawal from her cigarettes, and what ***** more is that I don't even know if I still cross your mind as that same sad girl you were happy being sad with, as that same sad girl who had always been your destination, and the very same one you apparently stopped coming to. And perhaps, thinking about all of these is *******. We weren't some modern-day knight and damsel. You weren't the guy with the beautiful blue eyes, and I'm not the girl with the blue washed denim they sing about. We were just misfits who made a mess out of the messed ups we already are, as if that isn't already enough. We were just planes thrown in the air, hoping to land, but ending up crashed and burnt. And that's how it always worked for people like us.

I was never worn out by your sadness as much as I was worn out by mine. And clearly, you were my favorite messed up, but, you're just not worth it anymore. And this — this is a just an unpoetic musing about the wrecks that we are, an impulsive attempt of detoxifying you out of my system. This — this is me, disowning your sadness; this is me disowning your demons. So let's just cut the drama and all that sweet **** — we weren't those kind of people. We were the almost-but-not-quite's, the could've-beens, and the never were's. We weren't the kind that bags the happily ever after. We weren't the kind that makes it.

All we are is everything short of lovers. All we're made for is everything short of I love you's. And this is everything short of love.

Poetic Pyromania to prepare for NaPoWriMo 2017

Haunted by data, hounded by blog-bots, assailed by algorithms, poets have been reduced to human resources, fractionated, monetized and commodified like petrochemical residues of the antediluvian world. In keeping with that metaphor imposed upon us by ourselves, we await a mere spark to begin consuming our own fuel, flaming voraciously into poetic combustion. Through this incendiary process, we liberate the very energy that an unpoetic world seeks to label, quantify and merchandize. Flame, however, cannot be commodified—only intensified, suppressed, or extinguished. Elemental fire may be started by lightning, produced by physical friction, electro-chemical reaction, or started from a pre-existing blaze. Poetry is similar; whether sent from God as a bolt of epiphany, a spontaneous combustion, or as a transposed flame inspired by anterior works, April is our month for playing with metaphysical fire. It is thus that we, as elemental (or just mental ) poets, refuse, at all levels (lyrical, cultural, mercantile, geologic, celestial and infernal, etc.) to be co-opted, commodified, and/or in any way politically corrected.

We poetic oilmen and women are the active nihilists of a nihilistic era. We locate promising sites, then we draw up, from below the poetic bedrock, raw inspiration. NaPoWriMo allows us to drill deep into the sedimentary layers of poetry and tap into the deposits of lyrical fuel trapped within. Some gets pumped up, some comes gushing spontaneously to the surface in a crude form. It can then be refined to varying degrees of flammability and into differing types of fuel; think diesel versus jet fuel… one will take you further faster, but both are indeed fuel.

As oilmen and women, we pump our precious resource up in raw form from subterranean seas—the remains of lyric flora and fauna of a previous age buried under the silt of an inundation of data-driven global dullness. Through sheer creative will we set these deposits ablaze, to produce, out of the incoherent night that surrounds us, poetic illumination. In the light of our own flame, we cerebrate the utter uselessness of our artistic product—by continuing to create it, refine it, and then burn it up in a transcendent pyre of irrelevance. Thus, we wage uncompromising war against the powers and principalities of technoid global dominion. Our useless words, unread and unwanted, undermine the process of attempted global conquest by the unpoetic Enemy.

the melancholy you wear always
is becoming of you, albeit repeated.
I reminisce about last year
about the ethereal days
filled with pain yet,
                                           I felt... like, I was supposed to
does that make sense to you?

your furtive glances make me anxious
anticipating the moment
where you regurgitate your words
your unpoetic bile

that I drink in so willingly
so deep
our movements ripple
our murmurs trail off

to somewhere we cannot follow

Up, down, back and forth
Seems purely unpoetic
What a serene change

So I hear the word
this Poetic World
has some unnecessary criticism
Not the constructive kind
not building anything
just tearing it down?
Why?

Not anything anyone wants to hear
apparently
maybe that's the fear
Pretty hard to understand motive
when we don't even understand it ourselves
Constant contradictions
Unrealistic predictions

I'm sure you'd cut your nose off to spite your face
Hoping to get their goat
that they are thin skinned
I hate clichés
Doesn't leave much room for intelligence
right?
who doesn't use 'em?
Everything in life is a metaphor
even life itself
truth is only a concept..
the only thing I can imagine is that if you believe it enough it's true
Everyone's version is different
Even swearing on a stack of Bibles
We see things we don't know we do
When choked till blue
A different view
I won't tell you what you want to hear
unless you come real near my ear

I don't pick sides
I'm far from anything but a perfect storm
one that can't be warned to stop
once the wind of calypso blows
And the water shows
I can turn it on like a light switch
strike a soaking match
burn like the fire of your hell
without accelerant
Not arson
You can drag me there but I won't dwell
I've seen the devil face to face
Even he has some poetic Grace
as a fallen Angel might

You don't necessarily have to say anything nice
Can you write it on a grain of rice?
maybe don't say anything at all
or be more articulate
think a little bit before you speak
Or shut that squawking beak,
start talking... there you go.

You never know
who might be listening
Poison arrow with ****** ink it might be glistening
aimed and ready...sights are steady
covers the view from the desert sand, still can see

You'd rather just send a deluge of hate
Bitter taste you can't get out of your mouth
you thought you'd spate
something ate?
spewing
chewing
Like the **** addicts that were eating the face off a homeless person
or the woman on the news who stabbed her four children to death
I got a knife don't want to plunge
So don't you lunge
Plenty of darkness and so-called evil in the world
We can share the stage
I can listen to your rage
or not
and vice versa
We all can be sent to that address
That Abyss
You think anything you're saying is different?
Not very poetic.

Are you an emotional vampire?
Cuz I'm guessing you're just trying to be a literary one
Do you think you have some emotional intelligence and the rest of us don't?
Some people might have to look up with that means
That is alright
poets strung out tight
you think this reporter won't cover subjects others won't?
Like an unpoetic war....
Paaaalease

That we cower in the corner
Like a well-beaten dog
or a scrambled eggs and mixed messages
Eventually they'll bite back you know
I would just laugh
Not maniacally
Just because I know I'm protected
I'm insured for writing this down
I hate to run you out of town
I'm running out of time
We all are
so stop wasting it

I got a gun it's a 45
Shoots shotgun shells and hollow point bullets
called The Judge
Just gave her a rub
It decides using my hands and words
If they're heard
might help the Jury and trigger the Executioner

I won't to ask you treat me the way I want to be treated
cuz I don't know that myself
And I sure as hell don't know how you want to be treated
Personally I don't really read into any messages from sources I can't trust,
there's tetanus in that crusty rust
Too many big problems
just past twelve
send in demon elves
Be careful who you pick fights with
Even that friendly dog will turn
Not sure you'll ever learn
I hope there's no need for extreme rendition

Some people belong to clandestine services
Maybe recruited really young
Couldn't confirm or deny
Really wouldn't want to make you cry
anything but your own tears
Where do you think all that newly discovered water in the center
of the Earth comes from?
More water than all the oceans rivers and seas on the surface...
So
everything we believed about how this Earth..how it was created, formed was WRONG.

The people who are absolutely certain
are the ones I trust the least
Keep thinking they're going to discover the God particle
is that what you're looking for?
We're not going to find the answers
if we don't stop asking
questioning everything
we die.

get a picture of the force?
so don't make this an outbreak
leave that scab alone
don't touch anyone else
Unless they want to be touched
where the want to be
let alone what you don't understand
agree to disagree
check yourself

There are a lot of Cooties going on
Contagions
and few snipers
got gear
and we got game
You can blame
try to shame
whoever you want
You know the truth just gotta dig a Little Deeper
Listen to the creepers
Or not
Today you got more than big brother watching you

You'll see when you look in the mirror
Better be looking over your shoulders too
have some eyes in the back of your head
Do you see that witch?
A mirage?
Could be worse
you could be deaf and blind.... without those hands,
with no food on the poet Island

Maybe not maybe only in your sleep
Get past what hides beyond skin deep
Look up at the sky when it darkens
Watch swooping blackened wings
guttural things
shadowed figures and crimson eyes
and capes
swarming locusts are a gift

Every fear you have inside
crawling on your skin
Brought up in a Riptide
From the belly of the Beast
Anyone purges in the same
different ways
Today is just another piece of time
another rhyme
Nothing special
Or different....
or is it "the day"?
Anyway..

As I see it All I Got the Magic Eye
So just be careful who you pick a fight with
they might walk softly and carry a big stick
as I drag my baseball bat behind me with my glove and ball caught inside
I hide
Tipping my hat at the winking sun
You hear my cleats Crush against the pavement as I walk
it's the only sound
Until a loaded round
or the sunken broken arrow
taken out by the singing sparrow

Going off in peace
So let me go
Upset enough so you should know
Be careful who you pick a fight with
Tread lightly
Right now I got nothing to lose
The archangels are getting Wild
And I'm their child
not because I'm ugly
I just hate ugliness
Not afraid of 7 years of bad luck
Using that bat on the mirrors
I might be a joker,
a conscience stroker
A poet... you are too and you know it
Hard tellin' not knowin'
Can't get there from here
just be careful who you pick a fight with and I will too
Missiles on standby
Not stand down
banks of your armies clowns
Retreat in defeat
Don't appreciate having to go there
bode

Cherie Nolan © 2016

This poetry site used to mean
Quite a lot to me,
But recently all that I've seen
Is not what used to be.

Perhaps this site is dying,
Like the fragment of my soul,
Which has given up with trying
To love this unpoetic hole.

"Five–O-two, Bad gateway"
Is mostly what I read,
And the same **** poems every day
Appearing on my feed.

This used to be a lovely place
To connect and to explore,
But now I accept it's lost it's grace,
And this site's done for, for sure.

I hope in time they'll fix it,
And this site will be restored,
But, 'till then, I will not risk it;
So I'll leave on my own accord.

No me diga – la nena ‘ta pregnant again?
(I thought she decided no more after Tito…)
she’s almost 16 – and she dropped out of school.
(It might be the spice in abuela’s sofrito…)

There’s one in the oven and two in the stroller
Oh nubile Boricua, what gives – ¿Qué sería?
if life is the masa and birth is the bakery
yours is a virtual panadería…

Some pulse in your short-shorts, those flexible hips
under tropical rhythm of lewd reggaeton
seems to summon the ***** from your lover’s abundance
whenever you find yourselves home and alone.

Where’s your man? Who’s the daddy? Why didn’t he stay?
your gaze is unsettling, harshly pathetic.
You sad Betty-Boop: are you waiting in vain
for your man – or your period?  How unpoetic…

This life lived on welfare, entitled, enslaved
with your babies at grandma’s and you with your phone
is a taxpayer’s nightmare and teenage recurrence
(but you’re busy texting some drama unknown…)

Mamita herself looks more like your hermana
She started this game even earlier, too
When you stand, side by side, in your thongs and pijama
it’s hard to be sure who is who.

time passed with you
is time well wasted
change well made
from bills well spent
and i am bent out of shape
from all these round rhyming words
bowed to the ground
at the feet of this feeling
confused as all hell
(however unpoetic that may be,
it's how it is)
at the line between
beauty and truth
between outside and underground
uncomfortable heat and ignored cold

weird words, but that's all i've got
i'll shout them underground, unheard
or silently
to the cold, rushing river
or whisper them to myself
but that's it
(however dishonest that may be,
it's how i am)
and these simple words
primary colours:

red is telling me
that the pink in your cheeks
is diluted, and i don't want to know
what that real colour means

blue is saying
that the ice in the air means nothing
and that melancholy has no place
in the space between our hands
since we close that
a million times a day
and it is forced to escape our grasp

yellow tells me
that the sun is shining, somewhere
and i reply that i don't even care
it's sunny here, even underground
face turned round to meet yours
i'll survive

time passed with you
is time well wasted
change well made
from bills well spent
and i may be broke
but trust me
it's been worth it, throwing
colourful Monopoly money
imagined riches and caution
to the wind
with you

You think the painful sound
of goodbyes,
are the worst,
that there can't be
anything more unimaginable,
than that,
but I cup my ears,
a sound more deafening,
as eardrums break & my heart,
brought every time in the leaving
death isn't the only way,
but as I lie here next to you
in the silence with your back turned to me,
I contemplate that thought,
connect with me emotionally you say,
I've tried,
I'm not a mind reader
after all,
no communication,
will **** it every time,
so true,
not matter how intelligent I am,
the cold air so telling,
where'd we go anyway?

We act like were good,
such a stupid show,
stupid girl, stupid love,
I say well done,
my dear,
I say to you,
hey bravo,
that young man was here today,
again,
I didn't ring him,
he did just stop by,
I think,
and he sure thinks I'm special,
& I am,
don't you know?
he kept saying so and that you didn't,
he sees what you didn't notice,

I heard a soft grumbling in his voice,
a sweet wondering,
sounds of temptation,
relieving of frustration,
calling my Gypsy heart,
I'm faithful
but you give me a loving kiss,
& a hug, say how wonderful I am,
we look so happy,
I play along,
laughing,
oh you praise my hands,
my cooking,
my sense of humor,
how charming,
very talented,
a poetic license to ***** me over?

He says, I'm beautiful too,
he sees,
they do,
oh & I can dance, wow,
except,
too bad you never dance with me,
even 2 left feet could hear the beat,

& those boys you keep telling 'em,
'till they're green with envy,
and wanting a piece of that pie,
tongues are waging,
all over this town,

I hope you're,
not wonderin' why,
I know that you love me,
I do, I truly do,
but the fact is,
passion shouldn't be so elusive,
or a club you belong,
one so exclusive,

I don't want to be objectified,
don't you see the tears I've cried?
you know, you must,
how hard I've tried?

stop saying those things,
I'm much more than that,
like good poetry is?
you don't want to touch me,
and why?

Loving is free,
and I wish you knew,
how much I wanted you,
I don't NEED anything except
your touch,
but I need it very much,

  I know you don't think that's true
used to seem worthwhile,
had value,
we ached for alone time,
snuck it in,
stolen moments,
stored for later,
you're hibernating
it's all used up,
used to be so optimistic,
now I'm just realistic,

I'm so sorry we disappointed each other,
Love is not so easy,
you asked me to leave,
then said I left you,
a constant tug-of-war,
& constant sorrows,
I never know
exactly where I stand,
seems you left a long time ago,
I just can't figure it out,
gone in empty demands
I quitely folded my hands,

I prayed & I stayed,
my heart never strayed,
even when I was betrayed,
until today that is,
until the unbearable wasting,
eats me whole,

& maybe,
baby,
time to stop this unpoetic rhyme,
I think it's now,
to let this Gypsy spirit to go,
time for me to head,
get on own the road,
time to hit the dusty trail,
that driveway is a callin'
I hear that highway,
hummmm,
and the wind in my hair
& ain't that I don't care,
as my tires are sinking,
here into the sand,
not quite what I had planned,
I put that water bucket down,
cause I'd be likely here to drown,

I just want to be wanted,
the way you want her,
the way he wishes I wanted him,
and the way that he wants me,
to be the only girl that you want to touch,
that you want to kiss
feel, that you want me again,
emmmmm...I can taste it now,
so sweeeet,
I can feel it too,
but I ain't warm no more,
I closed that fridgid door,
and I know that I'm not the one,
you'll never be alone,
you got your memory of her,
a fear of getting close to me,
all to keep you warm this winter,
like a bone,
she'll never leave,
or let you go,
it's interesting lovers treat each other
the way they never treat a friend,
but you're my friend, until the end,
and I'll never really say goodbye,

You & I know it's time for me,
to say farewell,
I grabbed my keys
and I grabbed my coat,
cars waiting, gotta go,
still nothing,
nor a peep,
quiet as a church mouse,

Sang all the desperate love songs
written all the Poetry I can,
you were the centerpiece
of my obsession
I wrapped around you,
like you were my whole world,
thought I was still waiting on your arms,
your touch, a kiss
just turnaround,
but I know now,
that's not true either,
can't change it, can't go back,
or get there from here,
and there's someone else out there
who's wondering and waiting for me
still,
I feel it, like a beat
calling me home,

thank you for sharing yourself,
what you could,
I learned so much
to want more.

My goodbye wish?

I hope you find that too.

Cherie Nolan © 2016

I'm getting ready
for a Poetic War
all this time
been keeping Score
building a Poetic Army
is a good idea

though we are the Elite
our seat
is with
the Highest Command
in the World
comprised of Genius Ninja's
cloaked in love
sent from above
teaching Mindfulness
praying hands

prepare your Sandbags
the ones under your eyes
are nothing
compared
to the sleep
in counting sheep
you made me lose
and choose
a side

I pick me
you see
like Joan of Arc
I have a mission
to see to the end
my Unpoetic Friend
and Foe

Slay
with what I say
my words
you do not stand
a chance
regardless
of your dance
I am coming
in my anger
in this
I am ******
into Justice
my pen
unsheathed
for battle
my ink...is what I trust.


Cherie Nolan © 2016

And I can control my feelings better now.
The shakes are still there of course-
General anxiety is another problem to deal with,
But, since it's winter,
I can pass it off as just being cold
When the small child holds my hand
And asks me "why are you doing that?"

The drugs are working,
And I can feel myself getting calmer by the day.
The things that bother me don't so much anymore,
And the medication flows through my bloodstream
And into my brain, slowly changing it's
Chemical make-up, and helping me become
A better person.

The drugs are working,
And this is my first attempt at a poem in months.
There's no rhyme or structure anymore,
And it's lacking a certain something that you're used to-
The metre is non-existent, and everything has
Descended into free verse.

The drugs are working,
And I can't help but wonder if that's a good thing or not-
Perhaps it is. Perhaps it is the case that I have simply forgot
The unbearable pain from which my poetry was born,
But still I miss it- those ups and downs which made me... me
And now, as I stare blindly at some old withered tree
I forget what poetry lies within, and only feel forlorn.

The drugs are working,
The old feelings have gone away
And, with them, a part of my soul,
Which could not stay another day,
In this unpoetic hole.

But the drugs are working...

Ugly is beautiful, ugly is under the pretty skin and colors we wear.

When one thinks of art and the beauty of words it must always sound nice, it must follow and follow traditional laws of language;
**** that.

Art is an expression of self and soul is it not?
Humans don’t all have beauty in them, humans don’t always have some wonderful soul or righteous heart, so why should all art show the beauty of life?

Why not mock the beauty? Why not admit that sometimes we’re ugly, sometimes we’re crass, cold and vile?
Are we not all we are? Do our life experiences not shape and make us?

Life is not perfect and we all have pitfalls, everyone is flawed yet when it comes to art we deny the fact and mask it by saying “art reflects the tragedy” or “I use art to express my pain” and in that way, we make it romantic, but what if, we just showed it as it is.
What if we just said exactly what we’re feeling, what we’re thinking, what we want?

Must we use the beauty of words and paint and rock to hide our shame, or fear, to mask our greed and lust?
Sometimes people aren’t pretty, sometimes they have no soul, so what if some art was ugly?

What if I didn’t use proper words or language
Or started to; break up words by what-ever means I saw fit for the piece?

It would confuse, it would anger, it would look bad.
But that would be closer to human than always trying to turn some act of woe into some poetic moment.
For a moment reject the beauty, reject the urge to be clever or pristine, smear some mud across the page, ugly can be beautiful in itself because ugly is just that.

You are not the best, you are not the best looking, the fastest, the strongest, smartest, you do not know everything- so it would make sense that art at times should be flawed, that art should be ugly and broken, that art should offend you at times.
There is a humbleness to be found in ugly art, in art that is raw and exposed.
Once you take away the fluff that people are attracted to, once you strip her down and expose what she is, you may find that while some art is a flawless figure in her **** skin- other art may be torn, ripped and festering with disease but she’s not hiding anything in that moment- and on top of that. She doesn’t care.
Why should every poem sound nice?
Why should art have rules and laws?

Of course, we must have laws and standards, of course we must have laws and rules HOWEVER in times and for somethings- breaking that mold, stepping outside of the box, that is needed.
I say ugly art hides nothing and shows everything, pure surface value with no hidden meaning or deeper philosophy, which won’t do for some people.

Some people will rip art apart to understand its meaning refusing to believe in face value because they can’t understand the face value of ugly, they have to have something pretty, they have to have something clever or witty or something they can cling to as being elite as if that somehow places them above the social stature at which they reside.

Trust in ugly art, trust in unpoetic words, trust in blemished statues, trust in unpolished raw music, trust in ugly from time to time.