Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Stephen E Yocum May 2016
From youth, not unlike the love
I received from my family, I surmised,
that extended love might be everywhere.
With artless, open arms and heart,
I embraced this simple notion.
In time, sadly this childish wish
was honed to a hard truth by maturation.

Friends and loves come
and go, fleeting in heart,
and committed soul.
Unreliably, flowing in and ebbing out,
like deep undulations of an ocean,
all too often with sneaker waves
that pull us under. Breakers pushing
our ship onto the rocks, in a sea
of shallow unfulfilled expectations.
Encounters becoming disappointment,
with too many frogs kissed.

My educated suspicion is,
beyond our family of blood kin,
Faithful canine love is the only
other "truly committed devotion"
we are likely to get.

In the end, that may well be enough.
Perspective wisdom can be a bitter lesson.
You've got a white scarf, but it's unreliably so
I could count on it to be white for many years
Until last year, when it didn't quite resemble snow
It changed colors, and brought up many fears
Like will you make it til tomorrow?
and will you still be here?

You used to wear it like it embodied majesty
Like you were a lion and it was your mane
Curling around your neck and screaming of divinity
I know that mane better than I know your name

(buddy)

The leaves will change and your scarf will too
Your head will bump mine, and I'll bump yours too

I'm running from my thoughts and the truth
This might be all for naught and tomorrow you
Will be here still, and I won't have to say goodbye
To your scarf, your mane, our collective life

Maybe your heart will still be kept in mine,
Released only when our heads collide

Your personality is truth
Your personality is you
I try to ask others to be like you but they can't
That plight is wrong and an ineffective chant

Your heart, your personality, your truth
Will be held in my heart regardless
of whether or not tomorrow I see you

And I do see you.
For a while there, you were hiding behind your disease
But now you're able to come out of your shell with ease
And now I can have another collection of moments with you
Your personality
Your truth

And you are truth.
For a year I thought you were gone and that the next
Moment I saw you, you'd be descending into a grave
You would be gone and only accessible through memories
Your truth
Your personality

And you are personality.
It pained me every time I saw you, thinking I wouldn't see
It and how you walked and how you cried for water when
You needed it. I'd trip over you, and trample you, but you
You are truth
You are personality

You're here today, eternally in my heart
You're here tomorrow, and when we are apart
A year down the road, and a plethora more
You'll be in my heart forevermore

The part of me that you bring out will never exist again on this earth
And your white scarf will never be seen by my brown eyes
But I can hold you here
Right here in my heart
And you can pur
And I can contemplate when you'll bump my head again
this one's about my deceased cat who had a ring of white fur around his neck (2/18/16)
Angelina Aug 2016
To: Sarah Joyce Crimson*                                                     8th July 1943                                                  

A man in a gray suit has captured my heart, mother
Along with the tie, of course
Surrounding plants would've died
At his gaze and grace

Armored charm and wide toothed smile
His last name could've might as well been poise  
I don't know what it is about him, mother
But his gentle crinkled eyes certainly isn't  

His voice is as flattering as the lullaby you once sang
The tone itself symbolizes warmth and stability
Undiscovered treasure in the midst of all volumes
It is home I feel closest to when I catch a glimpse of it in my ear

I don't know whether to feel astonished or quivered
By all means, that'd be deemed as eerie
But you once said when a man one day turned my cheeks bright pink
It sure could only mean one thing

It is unreliably evident not to notice me blush
It is even more apparent not to notice his blunt stare
Sending chilly shivers down my spinal cords
Activating fondness I'd never in a million years imagine I'd sense

If only you were here to see for yourself
How proud I'd make you, indeed
You said one day I'll be able to marry, mother
Well, this day isn't as far planned as it once seemed  

                                                       ­               *From: Christine Louise Crimson
When I said “I love you,” I lied
with a drifting and dreamy head
across the velvety sea
I imagined
resting and narrowly defined
in the nakedness
at the edge of your lap.

I have a history
of over-indulging
mixed-up senses.

I tasted the sight
of a gently curved nose.

I caressed the scent
of a lightly perfumed neck.

I’ll speak but not hear again
of the salty, savory, sweetness;
all bitterness has gone.

It’s not that I binged
so much as feasted
after a prolonged period
of self-deprivation.

And now I’m caught
between two urges:
To shave, to shear, to no longer
shabbily make shrift;
Or to revel
in the sloppy temptation
of recalling you.

Powerless I'll watch
the dissembling
tomorrow makes.

Before it comes, whisper-soft,
I repeat my mistake,
and unreliably say,
“I loved you.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Kimberly C Brown Jan 2011
I'm sure I can't explain it
almost unintelligible, when
steps echo--I hear them constant
your laughter--infant green caressed
by spring.
Scents from your skin--I--
become unreliably--intoxicated--
This delicious shiver--shutter--spasmodic movement
like hot metal dripping--heavy and demanding
making clear its presence--but--
not so much enveloping--not the slightest
overpowering--but--
none the less empowering--and--
still rather lightly--kissing?
Dripping as they do
relentlessly like Japanese torture
drops of liquid fire scorch--fall
ing  incessantly--!--
like rain on hot pavement--you--
your eyes burn into this fevered skin.
I truly can't explain this!
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2022
probably the best day in my life...
it's too hot to eat...
i'm getting leaner...
must have lost about 3kg...
    just one Cornish yoghurt with
some strawberry under-filling "jam"...

currently drinking whiskey
listening to a Templar chant -
  veni sancte spiritus...
i'll probably move onto some Byzantine chants
and then some Muslim songs...
whatever...

but what i really want to do is move
onto R.E.M.'s automatic for the people...
finishing a reply to: night-swimming...

no... nothing about skinny-dipping
with the full voyeurism of the moon...
snow... ice... salt and darkness... and the biting
cold...

this heat is intolerable...
i spent the day glues to the wooden floor...
i was switching positions...
to one side... to another side...
one leg on the bed...
lying on the floor...
one leg one arm on the bed...
no good...

              it became so hot that whenever i lifted
my torso up...
i lay down: FARTING with my back...
literally... i haven't eaten anything in
about 3 days... well... "eaten":
i find technical grounds to suggest:
you eat something when you get to
**** some of the excesses out...
ergo?
        i've eaten the bare minimum...
ergo: i haven't **** anything out...

the zenith of summer is intolerable for me...
i hate summer...
   even if this years summer brings with it
no snails... or flies...
just ants... spiders... and rats...
i do hope the rat problem i'm having
in my kitchen will be resolved by the heat
rather than rat poison or the "guillotine"...

i was lying on the floor dehydrated and feeling
sort of serene...
i think i could die from hunger and dehydration...
then again: what's a calorie intake
from merely alcohol?
         it probably does fuzzy "things" to the brain...
no wonder i'm listening to Templar chants...

me at my worst...
         strange... the Templars were the most violent
of the crusader camps...
yet... they sang the most...
it's not like the Knight Hospitaller...
hell... match them up: the Templars with the Teutonic
knights...

i've come across these two men
in my nearest past...
distraught creatures...
     "rats" willing to bite their tails off...
i too was in their confinement
of de profundis...
                  no one but me came to my aid...
scuttling... lost... blind... torn...
i'm sort of happy i could have helped them...
the good one can give unto humanity
is so cheap yet so expensive...

   perhaps it has been my purpose to not
attain wealth...
     then again: i'm already wealthy...
the Romford public library doesn't own
a single book that i possess in my private library...
it did, though, put me on course
of acquiring Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus...
but that's about it!
   the rest is junk! i live in a city where the public
library is a joke, compared to my private collection...

this reality is: truly... PUNISHING...
Ilford had a better selection...
i gained some recognition writing my A-level essay
on the counter-Reformation in high-school
based on the research i did:
from the books i found in the Ilford library...
i just heard that the next class of pupils
were introduced to my work...
but the current reality? PUNISHING...
                
i had to resort to *** with prostitutes...
i do remember the last one i pleased...
           no... it's not working... BITE IT...
she die... it wasn't working... i had to return
the favour... slobber in oyster juices...
probe with my nose...
                insert my index and middle...
as imitation...
                         personally? i find giving a woman
oral *** rather therapeutic...
        play me some monk songs while you're
at it and i'd reached the godhead...

one of the traits of the myth of Gomorrah...
******-eaters...
   i'm one of them... short tempered:
***** beyond repair...
                        i could drown in a bottle
of whiskey and about a dozen *****
properly dished: hygienic...
just frenzied with taboos of...
               flowers... pink and slightly purple
tinged bouquets of floral flesh...

flowers... endless bouquets of floral flesh...
maybe that's why i write so:
i abhor talking during ***...
i tend to insinuate my partners to refrain
from talking during the act also...
if they can't: i don't restrain them...
but i contain myself to the maximum
of an onomatopoeia... there's no "daddy"...
there's no "*****"...
        i'm of the persuasion:
you ever **** me like animals **** each other...
or there's no ******* conversation
outside of *******... the end...

and this is what makes...
songs akin to the Templar chant: veni sancte spiritus
so... so... DOUBLY ******!
it's a hidden eroticism...
because it disguises what could otherwise
be a misunderstood ****-eroticism!
it's not! sure... women sing...
but when men sing to other men about
something that's deified: by each individual man
and therefore unrelateable...
by "casual" constraints leading toward a belonging:
a camaraderie...

that's different...
             no wonder the Teutonic knights had
a brothel in their citadel...
sometimes... you want an excuse... any excuse...
to bypass the narrative of Eve
and return to the Hells and Heavens of Lilith's
company...

damaged? no... hardly... i'm just unlike any
of the Jihadi G.I. Joes and Johns of the current era...
i actually want fame postmortem...
and i actually want a harem in "heaven"...
i'm testing the waters... not by killing people on
the whim / promise...
   you begin with ******* prostitutes...
                 you end by ******* prostitutes...
stealing kisses... performing oral ***...
this is me CRUSADE against whatever the JIHAD
has made available...
thank **** i made my way towards Turkey...
now i'm planning advances towards Iran...

- i still think one of the best albums ever recorded
has been, so far, R,E.M.'s automatic for the people...
just like i remember courting her hands
with firm grips while eating her out...
peeping with a pseudo-voyeurism into
her eyes...                   sure: my *** is not gay-pride
***... it's what was made available:
certainly nothing sadomasochistic... organic...
law-breaking... all the more real:
the reality being:
it's illegal to own a brothel... in England...
it's not illegal to frequent one...
BASE...

the SIDEWINDER sleeps tonight...
            well... i'm not sleeping: right about now...
i said i would and i did...
cycling shirtless... t-shirt-less...
furry brother on the run from the sun...
what an amazing feeling...
just like R.E.M sang about night-swimming...
hmm... NIGHT-CYCLING...
   in my world no is trying to fall asleep
or thereby trying to wake up...

there's just this grey glue of people
in between of being in between...
and that's almost contained within the word:
hubris... hell... even better... a compound
of words: a hubris-hiatus...

             i like that... "we" should invent a HH
dep. to make sure the HR dep. are doing their job...
maybe i'm just dehydrated...
haven't ingested enough calories...
or maybe... i'm seeing clearly while other people
are still forever: fuzzy...

ready and to burry your father and your mother...
what did you think when you lost another...

not my words.. worries wiped and dusted...

NIGHT-CYCLINNG...  SHIRTLESS...
barbarian within all that's could be
compensated with a "whole"...
hours prior?
dealing with the heat...
the bed could be considered useful...
if it wasn't for the excesses...
i prefer the floor...
i'd like to think that knocking on a pine
tree would spontaneously
conjure up an idea for a door...

then again... could a forest conjure up
a house... and a desert too?
                hmm... pyramids...
necropolis axiom...
               who dies, apparently: lives on?
no?
                     then i best be dead...
                 thinking is an involuntary act...
sort of automatic sort of by no persuasion
sort of forced without any originality...
hello: oranges and no future sunrises!
hello: how's you: ******* too?!

how's that?!
         me? i'm sort of chirping along with
angels like a pigeon ought...
because: pigeons ought: chirp and chat
with angels...
              and i want to breathe death
into the minds of gods... telling them...
you ought to be subordinate to what's
the required burden... that we ALL... SHARE...
THIS... *******... BURDEN!
savvy?!          no! there's no in-between
we either share this burden:
or we don't! if we don't? well then...
the gates are open... we annihilate yourselves..
we work with each other?
    there's a second chance we might
breathe... or swim... or take a liking to
bicycle...

            then again:
i'm not going to care that much...
i just want a harem...
             i find women boring...
if they're not multiplied...
i have a short attention span...
and a long attention span...
i'm just too envious of men prior to me...
i don't want to be distraught with
an envy of Solomon...
    
and i kept drinking: because i felt and felt some more
intellectually isolated....
i couldn't conceive a retention of intelligence
beside the realm of what could be obtained:
or rather... disregarded...
i could never become "Cosmopolitan" enough...
"gay" enough... "proud" enough...

these days a litre of whiskey is not enough
for people of my "incompetence"...
it's enough, though: to lean either left
or lean right... or... neither...
                         goof: my indifference is screaming...
a silent scream before the altar of Moloch...
times are changing:
nothing really changes...
           the perpetual expansion
of space...
poetry > mythology > history > journalism < poetry...

death's not really apparent until...
what's not supposed to be dead...
is actually dead... is... dead...
          by curiosity concerning the colour purple...
all out mortal concerns
confines to the allocation of
collecting pillows... to replicate clouds!

my friend died... a grandfather to no one
beside me... but also my cycling buddy...
yet all these people became involved in
guilt tripping... some daughter... some son...
i lost a... friend!
i didn't lose a grandfather! primo... i lost a friend!

i sooner bled from my head
than i cried with my eyes!
i associate the name JOSEPH with: LEAVING...
i smear my tears like women smear
their fake attraction chemicals: apart...

to the burdens of death and to the burdens of life:
death to the living... and life to the dead...
at least some are unreliably
unaware that they are there, yet.

one comment after another:
but isn't that Ii? there's no N... in that... it's iota-iota... not lambda amber... well... great... for shallow beginnings... best try scribbling some graffiti...it could make my commute more memorable... don't... seriously... i was just traumatised by catching a rat in my kitchen... i was keeping a female main **** in between my feet... even she ****** off from the dying sounds... death by snorkeling on a bleeding snout? bleeding from biting the tail off?! if a rat's dying in a way that makes the cat *******... and you're like... should i open the door and stab it to death?! yeah... great Cyrillic sort of ******* br'uh..

you ever listen to a rat die?
ever listen to a rat die in such a way
that your cat runs: the **** away?!
my father compares me to a rat...
he doesn't compare me to
a fox or a vampire: wish wish...
i'm just a rat...
              
   i just wept... listening to a death
of a rat...
i wanted to open the cupboard
and stab the baited ******
with a guillotine applause...
         but then i thought:
i suffer... you suffer too..
         hell... if the cats are not going to touch
you... i'm not coming closer with a knife
either...
death the great deceiver...
   with life the greater culprit... of making:
sacrifices...
more that's to be lived than
is to be expected to die...

           did "god" say as much?
what's the point: if... a limited number of potentials
are not exposed to the glory of my "thinking"...
i expect more to have ever been alive
than for those to have been accounted
as the arithmetic of by death's: queue...

remarkable... my father keeps calling me a rat...
remarkable... sure... i drink...
you ever listen on a rat dying
from a rat-trap? then again: i don't know...
i started to insinuate Morse code
by scratching a knife
against the cupboard...
imitating / creating circles...
that ******* squeaking...
                       the retaliating motivation
to pursue life!
       i took my Maine **** into my lapse...
to wait for her to pounce...
even she was distraught...
she ****** off.. even she was like...
sure... you open the cupboard door...
aim the knife...
or... you get a good night's sleep
and let the rat die on its own...

listening to a rat die from some minor injury...
i'm thinking... of men dying beach-strapped
to their injuries come D-Day
concerning Normandy...
     i like to have the luxury of being
this forgetful further...
getting sentimental about listening
to rats dying in traps...
in the middle of the night...
while i was no Newton and i'd prefer a pear...
but... a cat... couldn't listen to the torture...
a cat... a cat couldn't listen to a death of rat from
a trap...
i lodged her between my legs in order
to pounce...
she ****** off...
    she couldn't stomach it...

you ever listen to a rat dying in the middle
of the night?
i thought about the death of my grandfather...
i should **** mosquitos more often...
i should **** spiders more often...

but rats?! oh... **** me...
the way they struggle coming to the fruition
of their expected life...
scuttling... scribbling... scratching: nibbling...
the squeaks...
CATS *******...
seriously... a rat's dying: the cats *******!
me too... i ******* and drink to excess...
why if your father calls you a rat...
and then... hey presto! you catch a rat!
and you're killing it...
well... tear... umbrella... raindrop...
one fine autumn day...
                   thank you dad:
but i won't be mourning:
like you weren't mourning for your dad...

maybe... what's that? maybe i wish i had a
a wife... then again... maybe not...
i just listened to a rat die... scratching like
mad...  
                 sure... the day was great...
being glued to the wooden floor over-sweating...
until... scuttling and nibbling...
a rat caught in a rat trap... probably dying...
the ******* cat was traumatised!
cat! not predator?!
                                or maybe it was the fact
that i was weeping and wanting an apology
to come through...

i haven't eaten much in the past 3 days...
i need to sleep...
i actually need to fall asleep in my bed
and wake up in it... rather than
on the cold floor with not pyjamas...
i abhor summers...
              these superficial insomniac events
of non-event.
Lawrence Hall May 2018
“…or if we must be wakeful, cheerful…”
-from St. Thomas More’s evening prayer in A Man for all Seasons

Soft, healing sleep now rolls away, away
One’s senses flicker unreliably
The electronic weather panel glows
The CPAP whispers a leaking-air hissssssss

Awake. And why? The day was cruel enough
And now the night reproaches with things done
And things not done, all mixed in raw reproach
Life-choices laughing, mocking, taunting

Perhaps sleepless Macbeth can tell us why
With mirth displaced, all through these haunted hours
From youth, not unlike the love
I received from my family, I surmised,
that extended love might be everywhere.
With artless, open arms and heart,
I embraced this simple notion.
In time, sadly this childish wish
was honed to a hard truth by maturation.

Friends and loves come
and go, fleeting in heart,
and committed soul.
Unreliably, flowing in and ebbing out,
like deep undulations of an ocean,
all too often with sneaker waves
that pull us under. Breakers pushing
our ship onto the rocks, in a sea
of shallow unfulfilled expectations.
Encounters becoming disappointment,
with too many frogs kissed.

My educated suspicion is,
beyond our family of blood kin,
Faithful canine love is the only
other "truly committed devotion"
we are likely to get.

In the end, that may well be enough.
Perspective wisdom can be a bitter lesson.
A friend I admire suggested that
I repost this offering, calling it
"Current" perhaps she was having
reasons to relate. So here goes.
I hope it helps a little. Remember
dear girl "Men are like public buses,
if you miss one, just wait a while and
another one will be around."
Malia Dec 2019
I’m a waterfall,
A stream of words,
Unreliably flooding
Just to dry up at the first sign of drought.

— The End —