"unwitting" poems
A message heart delivered by a musing troubadour
left footprints upon a well weathered rivers’ rocky shoal
the lazy days of the summer’s simmering
ethereal breezes lazily waft astir
Unknown distance ‘tween yonder skies azure;
thoughts of nebulous distances fearlessly ignored to be sure,
connectedness sown and deference’s soar from high above,
yet beyond vast breadth afar the great divide
His brimful heart in hand fulfills passersby thirst
needing love here, hearts on sleeves sincere,
wellspring sensibilities handed out willingly here
voids filled by word of quill …
right now is the known needed time
Glasses half empty suffused to their half full brims;
do unto others you will reap just what ye sow,
a poet beyond the bounds of his own demure,
bearing immense understanding
The quintessential essence of family love
drips from heart like heavens rain,
testifies the heart's purpose for being
A poet’s voice speaks in soul’s timeless tongues
unknown breaths from another understanding realm
too deep for words;
yet the word sayer struggles to see his forest ‘s poetic beauty
for to see beyond the pendant beauty
within its magnificent grandeur
of his own gifted heart’s nurtured trees.
~
The Twist
This poem was not written by me.
It was written almost four years ago,
lying fallow in some passing cloud.
Writ for me by someone effervescently more talented than I,
and one of the poets whose quality of work, and command of our shared language is something to which all of us should aspire.
I post it now as yet another homage to the true author.
For in reading it, never was a poem was far more clearly,
an unwitting self-portrait.
**It was written on August 21st, 2013
by Harlon Rivers**
by Nat Lipstadt
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 12:53 PM UTC
tufts of grass sit in the yard
hairy green patches of tenacity
in a field of neglect
half a screen guards
a **** stained door
where someone painted, 214
the pit sits behind it
waiting to be fed
or to be chained again
to the stake
where, like any beast
bound by gravity
and the grave, he
will make ceaseless circles,
smaller e a c h day,
unwitting sentry to those
two legged creatures
inside, who
with or without the pit,
lie prostrate,
in dreamless
bug rich beds
when they fall from sleep
they too make circles
bound by their own
stakes and chains
that can’t be seen
but their pull is felt
and
their eternal rattle heard
no matter how far from home
the prisoners of tulip roam
Dec 24, 2012
Dec 24, 2012 at 12:46 AM UTC
tufts of grass stand in the yard
hairy green patches of tenacity
in a field of neglect
half a screen guards
a **** stained door where
someone painted, 214
the pit bull sits behind it
waiting to be fed, and to be
chained again to the stake
where, like any beast bound
by gravity and the grave, he will
make ceaseless circles
smaller e a c h day,
unwitting sentry to those
two legged creatures
inside
who, with or without
the pit, lie prostrate, in dreamless
bug rich beds
when they fall
from sleep, they too make circles
bound by stakes and chains…
invisible
though their pull is felt
and their infernal rattle heard
no matter how far from home
the prisoners of Tulip roam
Oct 19, 2015
Oct 19, 2015 at 2:42 PM UTC
the green grove a magnet to my eye
on these sun baked plains
I enter the glade to take shade with the cicadas
and vampire mosquitos
then I see it, Eden’s villain, coiled and rattling,
red ready to strike
I raise my staff, I too programmed to survive, do to what millennia
have taught
still we are in this staring standoff—silent save its rattle, deaf
I am to the chorus of insects
neither of us moves for an eternity of seconds, until the snake lunges at my feet
where its fangs find a field mouse, and devour it while I watch, an unwitting witness to expiry other than my own
I leave the copse, whole, content another creature has, for today, taken my place in the bloodletting
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 5:37 PM UTC
If you were to ask me what boredom was, I’d tell you were boring and to stop asking stupid questions, but if you really persisted, I would tell you boredom is the tick tock on the white clock on the white wall of our English classroom.
it’s the thrill of seeing how many dried crackers you can cram into your mouth before your mouth becomes a cracked and dried desert. Boredom is
making up haikus,
Alone but not quite knowing,
How many syllables go on each line
Boredom is haikus.
Boredom is
the decapitation of innocent
grass blades as you listen to an unenthused sports teacher
the blood of your unwitting enemies splattered on your fingers.
Boredom is this boring poem
Now you were never one for boredom;
you enjoyed sitting on the grass, getting a soggy ***
you enjoyed the crunch of crackers snapping on your tongue,
you really enjoyed
and I still do not know why
making up haikus
you enjoyed the long languorous spaces between lines...
and I guess that really was just you.
But recently the silence has been getting short its rudely interrupted
by forced laughs and nervous glances from eyes that recently went shopping
You jump at every crunch or crack, scared of well…
I don’t know .
And your poetry,
Well, you barely write anymore because you just can’t seem to muster up the energy and you’re just tired and its nothing to worry about and it doesn’t matter anyway because you have an English essay due tomorrow yeah-
And the grass misses your ***
And I miss you
And there’s someone in your place, a lethargic parody, too frightened to pick up the phone, frightened by nothing at all
There’s a black hole in the shape of a friend
hidden behind the comets of comedy and asteroids of avoidance there’s a small hole
I reach in… grasping for a hand,
I catch glimpses. tufts of hair. old coffee smiles
but… nothing
so, I try again
I reach in, grasping for a hand, or even a bone
I catch glimpses of skin, hair, teeth, bone. Nothing
and each time I throw myself into the silent abyss,
batter past the comets and asteroids and reach into that dark expanse I find less and less,
I miss you
I am right outside,
whenever you’re ready to,
we can talk a bit
I’m trying my best ,
and I really care for you ,
but haikus are dumb
accept it, it’s true.
The spot of grass is waiting right where you left off,
the crackers in the tin are there just waiting to be scoffed.
if ever in that silence
you feel yourself alone
just know that in my house,
you’ve found yourself a home.
Feb 25, 2021
Feb 25, 2021 at 3:53 PM UTC
Enticing poppy,
an unwitting aid,
one vial of your blood
they **** to accrue.
I’ve never felt you
course deep through my veins
yet, my soul's tarnished,
family destroyed.
**** you, sweet flower,
repossess your gift
that eats from within.
We’ve no want for the
paltry donation
encased in syringe.
Apr 9, 2010
Apr 9, 2010 at 12:23 PM UTC
Fallen from grace,
No longer do I sit high upon the pedestal
That you had once put me
No longer am I seen as idol or mentor
Nor wanted as provider or protector
But now looked upon as an outcast
And banished from your heart
Betrayed by the one who now blinds you
With a veil of lies and deceit
That weighs on your young fragile heart
With heavy words of animosity and abhorrence
You have been trapped in a malevolent web
Of hatred and retribution
Used as an unwitting pawn
In a game of emotional chess
Your words of respect and adoration
Have been replaced by venomous accusations
Of brutality and oppression
Taught to you by the one
Who now holds the chains that bind your heart
But I will not be vanquished or deterred
By these attempts to falsify or dilute my love for you
I will be strong in my resolve and true to myself
I will not let these misguided asseverations
Destroy my confidence in knowing
That my spirit is pure and that one day
You will be able to break free from your restraints
And uncover your eyes
So you can distinguish the truth from the lies
Until that day comes I shall be waiting
Ready to stand next to you
As opposed to being on that pedestal
And walk down a new road with you
As your friend and equal
Feb 7, 2018
Feb 7, 2018 at 9:52 AM UTC
My Lucifer, unwitting Muse, dog-eared Vonnegut,
afrobeatnik third eye, howls escaping
from your headphones, wailing about secrets, about infidelity,
about analyzing life until there ain’t nothin’
left. Then you shuffle by in your black and white Adidas,
hair in twists, wearing the striped sweater
of nihilistic intent, quoting the rants of Holden Caulfield
in your blog like you never didn’t know him.
I never asked to know you, to want who I can’t have
when I can’t even love myself. And every fiber
Of my being yearns for reciprocation. What is there
to return? What is there to feel, you meditate on truth,
fallen angel in the parlor of rebellion, blasphemous goodbye,
bright and morning star simpering like crickets in the palms
of daybreak. Your musicality radiates from subway chatter
and overheard profanity down El Camino Real.
I take in your ballad at my post office mailbox,
in the abandoned echoes of daydream monologues.
You’re a philosopher, exploring theory of mind, a cartographer,
mapping the labyrinth of your deepest desires.
Tell me again about desires, demonstrations of divine sadism. Tell me
about human empathy, the animated faces of wordless expression,
the metaphysics of free will, my beginning and my end,
alpha and omega, my fortress in the land of chic.
Blasphemous hustler, let your idealism simmer, your wit, your mojo,
I come to you an amateur, a neophyte, a lowly scab
in the strike against ignorance. Give me my melody, my song,
my one-hit-wonder of all that is cliché and unknown.
But I can’t be the other woman, your girlfriend, your aspiring
Playboy bunny only 10-bucks-a-throw. Your highness-who-yells-
his-ideas-into-the-ears-of-echoes, your every quirk spellbinds me.
Each day I wake to your entourage vibrato.
I am held captive by your brooding stare, empress of liberal
doves. You visit in my dreams when the sky is a force of darkness
viewing light through peepholes, your flaws an aphrodisiac, a love drug,
a fast hit in the basement from the ecstasy of words.
Aug 1, 2012
Aug 1, 2012 at 5:37 AM UTC
It’s irritating,
When words seem to be
Unfaithful blemishes
Of yesterday’s past,
And a constant annoyance,
Unwitting today’s unknown.
To think about your what if’s,
And should don’ts of,
Repetitive reminders from the scars,
Engraved in you’re witty,
But beating heart is a daring,
Challenge to an unfaithful mind.
The fear to hold joy,
When a dark rose neglects,
The power of a white one,
In it’s purified significance,
Unveiling the worth and,
And the death of its own demise.
But no one realizes the faithful
Beauty of a dark rose.
To sting, to warn to challenge,
To be truthful to the subconscious,
Of the heart that also has protection,
Held and brace by pericardium.
Even the heart needs to be comforted,
And the mind in need of consolation,
So remove the stones blocking your eyes,
From your visual death,
Of growth and compassion,
Love is blind,
The mind is weak.
Then there is fear,
You can overcome.
So overcome it,
With the passion in your eyes,
The smile that you have,
For the very truth of your wellbeing.
Oct 6, 2013
Oct 6, 2013 at 9:20 AM UTC
If you were to ask me what boredom was, I’d tell you were boring and to stop asking stupid questions, but if you really persisted, I would tell you boredom is the tick tock on the white clock on the white wall of your childhood maths classroom.
it’s the thrill of seeing how many dried crackers you can cram into your mouth before your mouth becomes a cracked and dried desert. Boredom is
making up haikus,
Alone but not quite knowing,
How many syllables go on each line
Boredom is haikus.
Boredom is the decapitation of innocent grass blades as you listen to an unenthused sports teacher, the blood of your unwitting enemies splattered on your fingers.
Boredom is this boring poem
Nov 23, 2020
Nov 23, 2020 at 6:00 PM UTC
Try this! Another site I rarely visit [long since extinct by 2017], had that weekly challenge and this time it read as follows:
Using the poetic style of your choice, answer the question “Who am I?”, without using the pronoun “I”. Instead, write your “poetic biography” in 3rd person.
Here was my submission....does it make sense?
Yours Truly
(sonnet # CCCCXLVII)
No butterfly, perhaps a moth? just lent
Some precious time to try to fly while night
Reigns, ere the morning dawns. A reckless wight
E'er chasing carefree; mayhap too, half bent
Unwitting on a troubled course, intent
On fun and happiness whilst grief its plight
Imbues with sob'ring grey, as if t'indict?
Where time's misspent in tracing romance' scent?
"Forgiven" as a blessing daily sought,
Its nameplate hangs for all the world to see.
And if Truth's lessons seeming dearly bought
May mercif'ly be granted taught, 'twill be
A better ending than this vain life's wrought,
If when time's up, it flies, O LORD, to Thee.
07Jan12
D66d
By Jennifer S. Gordon aka Cheeky Missy
May 10, 2017
May 10, 2017 at 6:04 PM UTC
Thrift Shop Confessional
Old carts squeak down re-sale aisles
"One of," "two of,"
Sometimes "three of" items
Tempting treasure-sifting shoppers,
Bargain-needing families,
Women seeking up-brand names at low-brand prices...
Our wives, followed by their husbands,
Acquiescent, but quiescently seeking
Seeking a thrift shop oasis.
A cast-off dining set beckons,
Sturdy enough, if a little battered,
To make us solemnly content to wait
Carted clothing trundling
Off to fitting rooms.
He shuffled up with a foolish grin.
"I think I'll join this convocation of
Waiting gentlemen.
My wife is a shopper...
She'll close the place down."
I moved a chair and gave some space;
Strangers become brothers in this place.
Five minutes on,
I knew he was a vet:
Army, Vietnam Nam...
"I don't like to think about it,"
Cleared his throat,
"Never can forget."
I turned to look at him.
"A little girl came running,
With her hand behind her back.
She only stood this high," he said,
And showed me with his palm her height,
"They carried grenades that way...
All of 'em...couldn't tell which ones...
Sergeant told us, 'Don't ever check...just shoot.'"
The voice trailed off....
I sat sweating in a thrift store,
Captive of my own politeness,
Half a century,
Half a planet,
Transported in his words
into a soldier's Hell.
"So I shot...
Nothing else to do."
Silence then.
A total stranger staggering
under the weight of having
Murdered his Albatross....
Of having carried this thing,
This memory,
Inside him all these years,
Of finding me,
The unsuspecting thrift shop guest
Who'd listen to his lonely tale,
Perhaps so he could earn some rest....
I, his unwitting Confessor,
Uncertain what to say,
Certain something must be said...
Certain nothing could be said...
Sat dumb, but understanding
The wisdom of confessional dividers,
The private comfort of two booths
Where prayerful exchanges
Intersperse uncertain silences,
Present in the overhanging need:
Demanding sorrowful returns,
Impending memories of sorrows...
And lonely trudgings home....
(Connections with Fr. Laurence's "Riddling confession finds but short shrift," in Romeo & Juliet, and Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner")
Apr 7, 2013
Apr 7, 2013 at 5:39 PM UTC
Your eyes don't see me
I talk to you and you don't hear me
I can't reach you
A layer of rubber covers you
I would like to tear it up
and yell at you
All my love
All the love you gave me
My pain feeds on
your unwitting words
Fragments of you lost
One tear at a time
Fragments of me torn
Thrown into your oblivion
A crumbling rock
I fight with a sword of nothing
I can't win
I can't save you
I can only love you
Jan 3, 2021
Jan 3, 2021 at 3:49 PM UTC
*for T.M.R.
our "fellow" southern friend*
the southern way,
she-poet
teaches me
via long distance
breaking of the
braking neural inhibitions of
the loudest silences
that only humans can
mistress
photos, stories,
Facebook posts
how the earth rebirths
taking unasked
unwitting but wisely
both of us
to be refreshed,
so verily
the southern way
sharing worldly
southern words
betraying a
more than
passing
(how I hate that word)
expertise
in spring colors
glorious to every sense,
best described
as nature's way to humanize what we wordily call
hopeful,
self-betraying herself by the
she -poets
innate
southern ways
calls me
northern boy
in a
true voice,
raconteuring,
quick retorting
always in the midst of
d r a wling stories,
about all crazy frogs
of Columbia County,
jumping multiple courses
all about
she-poets navigating
life erratic,
half ecstatic
yet singularity colored,
characteristic of a
ninety percent southern
Tennessee whiskey blues
hear clear
she-poets
welcoming swirling
undertow undertones
lying just above the calmest
morning water surface glistening
words betraying nothing,
yet saying
all in
between, in
pauses of
speckling sun drops spectacular
she-poet
has her places
in woods, knolls and
rarely visited mountains
where cold brooks and cold beers
southern sooth
in ways
I will likely,
wanting but unable,
never learn
to hear clear
the southern way
is never flex,
nerve never
never bend, smile,
still fighting
the prior lost cause
ignore the
cracks coverup
until and when
the afternoon sun
ceases to warm
the orchard porch
daylighting no longer
when no one is around
she-poet
weeps out loud alone
in the
southern way
and I,
northern boy,
student witness,
having obtained
a learner's permit
for her teachings
re
the southern wayfaring ways
of living life
weep along side
in my unsatisfactory
northern way,
learning that,
who knew,
tears are also
glue
anywhere
Apr 12, 2015
Apr 12, 2015 at 8:08 AM UTC
Runaways hiding in the abandoned warehouse,
Teenagers stolen, unwitting spouse,
Gangs and violence all around,
People disappearing without a sound,
Blood and drugs and stolen girlfriends,
Turf wars and kidknappings, is there no end?,
People vanish and are never found,
People hunt them down, like bloodhounds,
A world with knives at every turn,
People who live to watch things burn,
They never think about the consequences of their actions,
Just watch the news for the family's reactions,
Shoot old friends in the head because of a debt,
Slit a strangers throat because you don't like their pet,
Lock ememies in your bathroom; release them for money,
Beat them inch away from death; 'till they're crying for their mummy,
Tie a stranger to a raft and watch them drift out to sea,
When are these people going to wake up and see,
It's time gang members had an epiphany,
You can't lock people up and cover them in wee,
Karma says that bad things happen to bad people like them,
Every mean thing they've done, to them we will condemn,
Relentless bullying towards your colleagues and your peers,
You've had your brutal fun; it's the Day of the Disappeared.
May 1, 2015
May 1, 2015 at 7:36 AM UTC
It was a small bit of freedom
Stolen under the dark desert sky
It was counted out
Not by minutes or hours
But kernel by kernel
Of delicious forbidden fruit
Eaten slowly
Like a lover
Savoring every sweet drop
Nothing else existed
For the moment
But the wide open night
And sweet rough skinned fruit
Torn open bit by bit
Slowly anticipating every ruby orb
That would burst it’s sweet juice
In wet pleasure
The nights were hot and dry
The smell of dust
Still hanging like a veil
And it was it all was about the dust
That freedom giving dust
Not from the dry desert
But the dust left on the window sill
Tended in soft careful piles
Next to the bars
To be carefully packed back into place
So they could lie
Lie about the night
Lie about the fruit
And the forbidden trysts
Under the outstretched arms
Of the small twisted tree
But the rough red peels
Left carelessly strewn about
By small unwitting fingers
Eventually told the truth
That the bars wouldn’t
And they started counting the fruits
Every day and every morning
The bounty now left untouched
But the night was still there
With stars close enough to hold in your hand
The hot desert breeze gently breathing
And every moment
Free
Jul 31, 2014
Jul 31, 2014 at 11:25 AM UTC
The encapsulating power of silence is a beckoning wonder of the universe, as we abandon our awareness and travail toward psychedelic oblivion.
Although Neolithic tendencies have shaped our foreign fields of hybrid plantations at the expense of organic exuberance, it is wise that we listen to the concerts at dawn and dusk as they echo from the depths of the woodlands.
In our unwitting state of being, owls often grace us with their ghostly presence.
This sullen atmosphere is so damp with the juices of forgotten dreams, and we are not yet shrouded by the mysteries of such treacherous slumbers and defensive immobilisations.
Look at the patterns upon the rock of the Badlands where geological delicacies are too difficult to masticate.
Jan 25, 2014
Jan 25, 2014 at 10:48 PM UTC
our thoughts are the ribbons
wrapped around the words like a bow
like a present of misgiving
that only the giving could bestow
it's hard to live with the living
when we die with what we know
it's the wit of the unwitting
it's the only gift we show
Nov 13, 2015
Nov 13, 2015 at 11:55 AM UTC
I am a fallen angel,
I cannot lie,
A brilliant smile,
And wings of paper
Are my only disguise.
I am a singing siren,
With a coy voice,
And a silver tongue,
I twist my words,
To make things alright.
I am a cold banshee,
A harbinger of doom,
Just a warning for you,
But you fear me so,
You shot the messenger.
I am a unwitting succubus,
Unknowingly stealing,
Hearts of men,
And leaving my morals,
Behind.
I am just Sahmeiraa,
A throwback to my past,
Just a 13 year old nerd girl's RP,
With the only one she loves.
She is nothing to anyone but me.
Sep 7, 2014
Sep 7, 2014 at 9:02 AM UTC
Her kink was to watch
as I stroked one out in the car
in suburban parking lots.
One night, a guy in a ball cap
walked by. That poor man
was her unwitting accomplice
to ecstasy, but he just shook his head
as he strolled into the pharmacy.
I figured stroking was easier
at home on my own,
but that's the ****
we do to see
her smile.
-Ron Gavalik
Jul 19, 2018
Jul 19, 2018 at 12:51 AM UTC
I think my grandmother is convinced
that my ovaries will shrivel up
if I do not find a man by summer.
She was married by 19,
and has always wanted great grandchildren
she loves buying baby things, children's toys.
Kindergarten is the golden age of life.
I did not date in highschool,
but if she saw me looking at a boy,
she asked if he was single,
and told me to ask him over for dinner.
When I hit University,
I found a sweet, mad, mess of a boy
and she was quiet,
but we went our separate ways,
she started up again.
Scheming, the unwanted matchmaker.
Asking if the piano player at church was single,
(he's four years younger than I)
and trying to arrange play-dates for me
with unwitting high school acquaintances.
She means well, I know,
but despite the hopeless Romanticism I harbor
I know I need time, (there are still open wounds),
to fall back in love with myself,
before trying to fall for someone else.
Feb 12, 2014
Feb 12, 2014 at 9:42 AM UTC
pigeons calling on the balcony
become unwitting poets
as their coos take the form
of haikus somewhere
in my third eye.
Mar 26, 2011
Mar 26, 2011 at 9:21 PM UTC
Who knows what losses
this infinitely rich
and resilient heart has suffered?
The sorrowful splendor of the Earth --
its endless cycle of gestation
and bringing forth,
its eternal season of becoming
and decay --
inspires and beckons her silent musings.
And her muted passion,
burning with the
mesmerizing ardor of the innocent,
awakens a diffident adoration
in the bickering brood that surrounds her.
How beleaguering they are!
these driven ones, so eager
to possess the elusive beauty
that stirs the dark, enigmatic
depths of their harried souls.
*** unwitting they are!
those dreary ones...
Destiny has drawn them
to the shimmering, diaphanous aura
of her breathless presence.
And destiny will drain them
like a brimming chalice,
so full of their impetuous blindness.
For they will never see
how she is set apart
by the wandering, restive vision
of the chosen.
But I see her,
standing alone on the fringe
of the tumultuous herd.
She gazes at me with
that subtle, sacred smile,
and I feel the threatening,
familiar forces of the universe descend --
Jacob
wrestling with the angel of authenticity.
She gazes at me,
and in the still light
of that impenetrable look...
the silence speaks!
I tremble in anticipation.
I listen and am fed.
For Laura.
Sep 4, 2018
Sep 4, 2018 at 4:01 PM UTC