"venial" poems
*“...Your words were found and I ate them.
They became a joy to my heart. In my mouth—
a sweet delight, but in my belly—bitter...”
--Jeremiah*
...But that night
by dim background of next-room light
I could not see your face
just feel your hush of shadow words
on spine of shudders
Seems we dropped this bomb
that would not stop exploding!
...And I was sure?
that it was right?
because...because....!
Their eyes were slanted!
So they could not see—
the “Good Guys”
VANISH—
WIDE-EYED—!
in its TOO-MUCH-LIGHT
Still your voice insists
in pause and fissioned hiss
that I MUST KNOW
in tender half-life
TRUTH
too pure
too deadly white
I swallow lethal glowing dose
HOW CAN YOU SPEAK
SUCH WORDS SO CLOSE!
EXPOSED!
“...in mouth sweet—in belly bitter…”
Stories? and the Grandma Song
rendered tender—lull of voice
Soul’s cabinet cleared of venial sin
Last of all—the tucking in.....
They say you first get sick....
Seems we dropped this bomb
that would not stop exploding!
And I am invisibly ill—with truth
approaching critical mass
Will angry rads incise their ways?
Will leaden swords of angels drive them back?
In this night—
my bedtime stories fainted at your
whispers...whispers...WHISPERS—
fusing an oblong fear
that I MUST NOT DROP!
but I cannot hold!
Fetal-folded
frail and freezing
under covers— just barely peeking
“Jesus hanging on the cross…Tell me-- was it I?”
Jesus hanging in the cross
TELL ME! IT’S NOT TRUE!
"Tell me, mother
Were you God talking?
I could not see your face
by the next room’s light..."
May 9, 2017
May 9, 2017 at 11:40 AM UTC
It is vice versus virtue, in vindictive victories, laden in vanity, as venial villainy, intervenes in the memes of the idolatry, that dauntingly hangs from branch-less trees, vetted out, and stripped by thieves, as only on our knees we breathe, in peace.
Sep 24, 2012
Sep 24, 2012 at 12:35 AM UTC
The ivory of the egotistical lily,
The morning hymn of the pious jenny,
The dazzling ebony African beauty,
The sweet spice that seasons my honey,
Rain thy glaring love once again
Upon my careless dispirited pride,
As I rain these tender tears
Upon this stagnant dry land,
I have tasted thy venial venom
With seasonal ache and repentance,
Now, purge my narrow breath of life
From this wicked roaring hunter
Who fire’s at my forlorn nights,
Do not preserve this deficit of mine
For our innocent image,
Lest the gods of the City of the Dead
Keep close to our naked hut,
Calibrate my disobedience with thy soft wind,
And let not thy fierce storm approach,
Resurrect my muscles from the grave
And cover my bones with the flesh of thy kisses,
Open thy wonderful cataract to stream
From thy tongue into my barren bones,
And seal my cockcrow and thy twilight
In the clouds of thy slender cotton wool,
Come, oh my dear Kabutuwaa,
Come and visit my farm this bedtime
And let us **** the blazing stars mutually,
Set free the promising arrow of my daylight
And the pretty bow of thy nightfall
Via the thick murkiness of this gulf,
Allow me to crawl up thy tree of life
And taste of its couple peach anew,
For my craving lips longs for thy
Indispensable eternal ******
© PRINCE NANA ANIN-AGYEI
Email: [email protected]
Apr 7, 2013
Apr 7, 2013 at 1:12 PM UTC
-They say my head's up in the clouds
The way I speak, think, some would label it as "loud."
I'm unable to deny; thoughts fuse themselves with my specific imagination
No retries, I simply cannot falter. This is what will finally earn me that craved standing ovation.
-First things first, don't you dare look down on me
That ill-thought notion in itself is just a tragic catastrophe
Refusing to put in effort, here I stand
Life ahead of me now? Not a single second planned.
-I'm a joke. A simple disgrace.
A huge understatement to say you hate the sight of my face
I've no excuses for my recent nihilism
I'm free but also bound; psyche imprisoned.
-But your disgust is irrelevant to this entire tangent
I'd do everything again with absolutely no regret
My "loud" thought process is simply contradictive
Parts of my mind nothing more than vindictive.
-Venial in it's purest simplicity
Certain situations exemplify my irrefutable superiority.
So keep it coming, your spited words don't hurt,
"Head in the clouds," expectations similar to dirt.
Mar 13, 2015
Mar 13, 2015 at 10:46 PM UTC
I bought a ticket
For a friend;
Do I really
Want him to win.
Is this what one
Calls a sin?
Venial, mortal,
Let's crank it up a notch.
Let's involve the cops,
Or the color of your skin.
Is this what one
Calls sin?
Cardinal, deadly.
Let's raise the ante.
Say you're near the body
Lying on the floor,
The evidence is clear,
You're the next of kin.
Is this what one
Calls sin?
Wherein is the sin?
My friend kept all the winnings.
Cops are on the take.
Our brother's in the gutter,
Our confession came too late.
Our sins are mere mistakes:
At worst call me ingrate.
Jul 16, 2015
Jul 16, 2015 at 9:40 AM UTC
- - - and i have been thirteen years out,
thirteen cast out, in it to
impress with some congress
and break a rhyming scheme
with some unrelated information
that could – and would –
ramble on and on, trapped in a
roundabout and listless format
pressed upon from birth in
mimicking action of that conception.
of anyones, of graphic denial
to linger in bliss and in blind
parasitic servitude.
- - - and i went for a cigarette,
and basked in the sun on a
November-ending day.
and i thought
of my plans, and how i am
pathing myself; and i thought
of my writing, and how i am
advancing myself; and i thought
of my life, and how i am
fulfilling myself; and i thought
of my death, and will i be
able to accept myself. and in on
in repetition, once again
in haste, in waste, in mending
of past-lives and weaving their
threads into this greater fabric.
- - - and my **** is constantly hard,
and i try to be shameful of Sin
on the long winter nights.
then there’s a point in exhaustion
when the mind stops. stoic absence.
“what brought you to this town?”
a bad decision, a woman.
“mind if i pray’d for you?”
if you want.
“mind if i pray’d right now?”
one hand grasped in both of his,
‘oh heavenly . .’
kindness out into the world.
and my ***** constantly hard
and my lungs tarred
and a harsh word traded for prayer.
- - - and perception becomes skew’d
with the last drop of sanity
cryin’ forth to ride the snake,
to nip at Apollo’s heels in
his retreat at the end of night.
and to wail from my place of rest
at the loss of the Sun’s mistress,
to the loss of a lover given.
logic null’d by the body of another,
inert love, nothing more than
a little friction.
we press’d against each other
with hopes that we could
impress upon anothers physicality.
venial sin, so long as confess’d.
congenial sins we are bound to regress.
- - - and i beg to be set free,
beg to be loose’d,
to have the notch that is me
relieved of a taut string.
to feel my force release’d
through the heart of another.
to be witness to a love
called ones own while Ross
wails on with his epic poem.
we fail as the red and white
haul us to a stroboscoping stop –
intermittent breathing and panic.
Dec 1, 2012
Dec 1, 2012 at 2:49 AM UTC
One feverishly feigned embrace
And struck with hand, dagger graced
Though the votive venial
It precipitated the coup de grace
Ignorant stood captivated,
Discourse evaporated
As conspirators followed suit
Silence serenaded the orchestrated,
Symphony of treachery accentuated by sovereignty's strikes, resolute
Although he knew the fate awaited
And pain he could not substitute
The fight he would not forsake, and so suffered mute
Until his soul was devastated by the visage venerated...
The coda extricated,
"Et tu, Brute?"
Apr 2, 2016
Apr 2, 2016 at 9:36 PM UTC
Breath counts our days and nights like God.
Breath during twilight laid into blissful sleep,
breath of newborn welcoming the world,
breath during considerations on storm of frozen years,
breath of mortally terrified man thrown into abyss,
breath of memories creeping into oblivion,
breath during ecstatic experience of union with beloved,
breath of bard in sanctuary,
breath of soul while symphony plays in it,
breath during interference of God's message,
breath during observation of visible signs of what is performed in soul,
breath while you are overwhelmed by primal instincts,
breath during kiss affecting the sphere of sensuous ,
breath during awakening of images of love sick from excess of words,
breath during the intervention of God in life,
breath on the path of recognition of the idea of good,
breath during maturity examination in the field of theological virtues,
breath during reward of unrighteousness,
breath during arrangement of feelings.
Breath releases emotions without need of Katarsis.
Breath strengthens internal sense of security.
Breath makes soul your guide and teacher.
Breath makes possible
connection of mind,body and soul,
deliverance from the darkness of ignorance,
release from bonds of illusion,
separation of the spiritual needs and ****** needs,
to experience spectrum of human feelings,
to be a man distinguishing good from evil,
to celebrate life in all its glory,
to get rid of belifes limitating mind,
to enter into spiritual and physical world,
to study cosmological issues,
to hipothesize and recive answers,
to experience fulfillment in the field of love,
to overcome chaotic desires of our soul,
to use the knowledge gained before entering the body,
to become an expression of divinity,
to imitate order of nature,
to dry out unusual flowers under a pile of books,
to experience God's Providence,
to prove that justice is worthy of having,
to exploit days and nights in conformity with destiny,
to avoid venial sins in the future,
to exceed usual consiousness,
to dance in lake with stony bottom,
to think about something we never experienced,
to avoid the loss of sensitivity of the moral conscience,
to cry in defense of the poor,
to express respect and love for fellow beings.
Breath is the hourglass measuring time grain by grain.
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 1:36 PM UTC
If alleys were blind,
If you could drive
me anywhere
near insanity's brink;
Or if time could march,
and the moon whisper
it's forgotten lines
in blue octopus ink.
If scarce winds could dance,
where soft rains kiss,
or the brave stars wink.
If my neurons were,
in that thinking circus
of blown-fuse circuits,
the weakest link.
If man is a parasite
***** blood from earth,
grieves igneous oceans
that once gave birth;
If venial sin is always the lesser,
and time leaves us dead in the dust,
I'm bound to make you my
secret confessor,
for time never sleeps
in your rust.
Sep 16, 2010
Sep 16, 2010 at 11:40 AM UTC
I watched her indecorous return
with no shame to her actions
and when I confronted her
she did not care one fraction.
Her way is venial carnal
a wicked child at heart
should of left her when I met her
from at the very start.
Yet before I knew it
her talons were deep within
and I cried because I love her
even with the sin, she brings.
Her temper tantrum nature
screams she should be obeyed
destroys my body and soul
in every single way.
By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 27, 2013 at 12:56 PM UTC
Oh god, am I given virtues by you?
Or am I born with these virtues?
Do I need you?
Or do you tell me what to do?
Can I **** in the name of the lord, oh god?
Will they all go to heaven, oh god?
You ****** god.
Is it godly to ******
Oh god, will I go to heaven?
Where I am forced to be happy?
Will thee make me love thy fellow sinners?
Brainwash me with love my lord.
Oh god, will I go to hell for my sins?
Forever in extreme pain for a venial sin?
Does thou consider this fair?
Oh god, are you a sadist?
Oh god, can you forgive me?
My lord, you sent your son to die.
Is this because you cannot forgive me?
Can man do something god cannot?
Oh god, is this world of pain and misery your creation?
Have you designed us to be in famine, **** and lunacy?
May I starve, be ***** and go insane in your sight?
Does this please my, oh god?
Oh god, do you blame the devil for your creation?
Have you, the all knowing one never sinned?
Are you not the one who killed in pride, Jobes livestock?
Why did you give humanity temptation?
Oh god. Is heaven, the place I want to be valhalla?
Is hell, the Hades of Hellenist religion?
Oh god, do you expect me to believe a book?
And zombies?
Oh god, thou must take me for a fool.
Which I am.
A fool whom blames humanity for it's problems.
And not the invisible spirits of the night.
Aug 1, 2016
Aug 1, 2016 at 7:39 AM UTC
To think its even palpable
Is laughable
In papal
Purchases
Of lurching
Murderers
Searching
The versus
For versions
Viable
To the venial
Ventricles
Of vengeful animals
Toppling
The tiny trees
Just with their being
A seething species
Finding peace
In the pieces
Of enemies
Scattered in the streets
I wish i could say
There was disbelief
But i got a subscription
To weekly casket wreaths
And im singin in the rain
Refraining from profane
Crackling in the rain
Of my reign over sane
Waning in the basements
Flooded with the muck of lakes
Drained sacredly
In the same ****
I go silent
Before violent
outbursts
Squirting the words
On the wills of birds
Chirping the verbs
Of disturbing slurs
That i never heard
If asked
But im keeping you on blast
To unmask the crass
Endeavours of an ***
Fighting fire with fire
First and last to laugh
Burning blurbs on your maps
Every time your lapped
And lapsing in the trash
Itching the rash
Amassed in your lap
And slapped in the face
A disgrace to the pace
Of a space in the haste
Of wasted hate
Too late to change
Into shorts today
To show the ****
On your legs
As your girl
Cries when she begs
For me to *** in her face
But its okay
She knows her place
But do you
In the back of the line
In the grey and the blue
Whispering to you
To stay and acrue
Humility
In militant pedigrees
Of satirical phalacies
From your knees
You need me
The truth
Go ahead
Its on you
...
May 5, 2013
May 5, 2013 at 4:45 AM UTC
up until you are four feet tall
you think you're gonna be the next ****** mary;
every day you comb your hair with soap-dry fingers
and dress up like the sky.
you practice raising your hand and using it
to press the cumulonimbus waiting between your lips
gently down your throat;
you practice being clear;
you practice cursive till it's circuitry
at lunch, you fold airplanes with precision,
cover them in crayon script and
throw them toward the floaters
in your vision, past birches
and the pale afternoon moon.
your worst will dive to a floor stained with pizza grease;
your best will only sit indefinitely
on the reachless windowsill
of the school cafeteria
you and your best friend
practice getting married at recess,
gathering dandelions and buttercups into sloppy bouquets
till she gets stung by a bee
and is led inside through gray hallways.
you play statue on the grass in a dark green jumper
and look for white clovers while you wait for the bell
your third grade teacher has you
dressing 'venial sin' and 'mortal sin'
in lemon-scented ink that burns your lips
but not the page;
it makes you taste petrichor
writhing in your teeth, hear downpours
against the wild soil of your esophagus and cheeks,
and in a few years you'll try to bury your guilt
with acorns deep in that sandy ground
you're used to laying upside-down on your bed
wondering if jesus ever lied to mary and joseph
about climbing trees under bethlehem's star,
if he let their branches color
his books green, his hands purple.
you wonder if it's sinful
to scar notebooks how you do, how he did:
quiet, inhaling--
--
at five and a half feet tall, you still feel
like how jesus' notebooks probably weren't:
you allow the dots on your i's to dangle too far to the left,
your clothes and hair and sky to be scorched
by prism fragments and setting suns
and, sometimes, you let the clouds between your lips talk for you,
and, sometimes, every syllable is a promise from god after the flood
but sometimes you kneel in back pews
and recite a tenth hail mary
and think about whether she ever held a hand
that was stained yellow from the petals of palm-warmed flowers:
and sometimes you're blank again
Sep 22, 2024
Sep 22, 2024 at 2:20 PM UTC
Nothing similar here,
Nothing of value,
Like lost wind, graciously devouring us all,
I've seen thousands watch,
Place-time make-shaft growths,
Truth is we are all in it,
Like small drops of billowing souls,
SIMPLE:
Put the basket,
Over there,
near the drawer,
Where the penny men scream
And the daffodils cry,
Heaven's mercy proclaims,
That Love has a name,
FOUND:
She's near the ocean border,
Like cream she copes with all her cares,
First come, first serve,
Frivolous desires,
A certain dangling view,
Is following the nighttime glee,
Shadows of breaking yellow closed knit families,
Seething brightly forevermore
CONFIRM:
I know now,
Better days,
Of future events,
Follow close now,
The dragon is dead in sorrow,
The mask is broken,
The Maker of all things,
Both vast and venial,
Is truthfully today's greatest,
Merging of idea and life,
In one symposium of design and desire
Feb 11, 2016
Feb 11, 2016 at 5:57 PM UTC
Venial she is in all different matters,
Where her verge is golden plastered to flatter thine human senses.
Veteran of suspenses,
Unnacustomed to kindness of words?
Believer in verbs?
Unavoidable to any common sensed man!!!
Knowledge giver beyond delinquents,
A true player of cants and cans,
Lover of strict demand!!!
Desirer to shake hands.
What unbalanced link canth I connect?
Is thy heart still wrecked for not having as thou needs?
From always having to bleed?
For you die another day!!!!
Put your fashions on display, for God's your only judge, you actress you!!!!
Substantial,
Your heart burnt sleeves are worn where the pain is scorn and qualm,
Where darkened sky's are the fringed and never blue,
Hybrid of god and man, for thou ways are noticed globally!!
Vocally you sound a hummingbird so high,
Harsh to thine self, best to everyone else,
You adventurer for troublesome ride!!!!!!
Tabby's cannot compete your wild child,
Where being stable is praised!!
Stadiums arth waiting your eyes to be impressed by you're plentified fruitful garden....
May 13, 2015
May 13, 2015 at 9:12 AM UTC
Prohibidos los silencios y los gritos unánimes
las minifaldas y los sindicatos
artigas y gardel
la oreja en radio habana
el pelo largo la condena corta
josé pedro varela y la vía láctea
la corrupción venial el pantalón vaquero
los perros vagos y los vagabundos
también los abogados defensores
que sobrevivan a sus defendidos
y los pocos fiscales con principio de angustia
prohibida sin perdón la ineficacia
todo ha de ser eficaz como un cepo
prohibida la lealtad y sobretodo la tristeza
esa que va de sol a sol
y claro la inquietante primavera
prohibidas las reuniones
de más de una persona
excepto las del lecho conyugal
siempre y cuando hayan sido
previa y debidamente autorizadas
prohibidos el murmullo de las tripas
el padrenuestro y la internacional
el bajo costo de la vida y la muerte
las palabritas y las palabrotas
los estruendos molestos el jilguero los zurdos
los anticonceptivos pero quién va a nacer.
559
Let us now damn famous men
for their low morals and cruel cunning.
This witch hunt is different from all the rest;
now the witches hunt and the men go running.
From out of the woodwork the women come;
victims, opportunists or jilted lovers?
Forty or fifty years have passed.
Their denouncers are mostly young grandmothers.
Now Garrison Keillor has joined the ranks
of venial men obsessed by lust.
He has been banished from Lake Woebegone
Where the women are Strong, the children are bright-
and the men look no better than any of us.
Nov 29, 2017
Nov 29, 2017 at 8:11 PM UTC
I am widowed and my children are all grown.
They are busy with their own families.
My tree is bare of leaves and no birds sing.
The house is quiet and I wait in hope
That the phone will ring or some friend might stop by;
Anything to end my isolation
I hear the mail slot open and the thud
of magazines and junk mail on the floor.
The letter carrier, gone without a word,
walks briskly in the outside bitter cold.
The radio is on and comforts me.
a chance, at least, to hear other voices.
They prattle on about terrorist threats;
venial Politicians and celebrity divorces.
Another year reaches its anticlimactic end.
I’ll watch the ball drop and prepare for bed.
It is for others to make the New Year Ring-
My tree is bare of leaves and no birds sing.
Dec 29, 2017
Dec 29, 2017 at 9:10 AM UTC
There was misery and agony all around,
Everyone was crying the blues with hands clasped,
With body trembling, heart palpitating.
Everyone was trying to engulf the grieve of the loss,
Of the total loss of a loved one.
His spirit is going to meet the deity,
He is going to heaven leaving this mortal bulk and
The thirst of abundance of wealth.
But he is leaving all the unforgettable relationships,
leaving all the immortal memories,
going to last till demise, with all of us alone.
But why to cry, when a loved one is going
To meet the enormous supernatural being?
When his spirit is going to meet the almighty,
When he is leaving all these venial desires, all these Mortal thoughts, leaving this ill world.
Whether to cry our eyes out or to be full of the joys of springs?
Whether to grieve or to rejoice on this event
Of bonding among the spirit and the almighty?
Whether to follow footprints or to make one?
Jan 3, 2021
Jan 3, 2021 at 9:43 AM UTC
When his heart stopped on the table, and the nurse pronounced the time,
Graham was surprised as any that his consciousness survived.
He was a lifelong bureaucrat; venial, unrefined,
with all of the complexity of a soured table wine.
He was not meet for Heaven. He wasn’t good or kind.
He thought he’d join the Devils, but his option was declined.
So he wandered as a lonely ghost in a world gone monochrome.
Surely there were others like him but they did not make themselves known.
He grew envious of his ashes, resting silent in their urn.
His mortal flesh, consumed by flames, was at no risk of return.
One time he tried to say a prayer, to stir the mystic Chords,
But no one heard a syllable; he had forgotten all his words.
He wandered like this countless years until he lost his mind.
It had been his choice to live like this when he still had world and time.
Oct 25, 2014
Oct 25, 2014 at 9:30 AM UTC
When the body politic, long fleeced, begins to understand,
I believe that local weathermen will be in high demand.
Our politicians will all be seen as having feet of clay;
Venial types who sway according to the winds each day.
Weathermen are truthful; weather girls the same.
They tell us when it’s going to snow and when it will turn to rain.
Their forecasts aren’t perfect but I believe they try.
They consult the Doppler oracle and gaze into the sky.
They, daily, take the auspices like some archaic priests.
They prophesize the temperature for cold snaps in the East.
They are the only public voices who do not spin or lie
They don’t fall back on talking points or dare debate the sky
So if we now choose presidents from their appearance on T.V.
I nominate Bill Evans for president and Storm Field for V.P.
Jan 13, 2018
Jan 13, 2018 at 11:35 AM UTC