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RAJ NANDY Feb 2015
AN INTRODUCTION TO INDIAN ART IN VERSE  
By Raj Nandy : Part One

INTRODUCTION
Background :
The India subcontinent and her diverse physical features,
influenced her dynamic history, religion, and culture!
The fertile basin of the Sapta-Sindu Rivers* cradled one of
world’s most ancient civilization, (seven rivers)
Contemporary to the Sumerians and the Egyptians, popularly
known as the Indus Valley Civilization!
The Sindu (Indus), Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, Bias, along
with the sacred river Saraswati, shaped India’s early History;
Where once flourished the urban settlements of Harappa and
Mohenjodaro, which lay buried for several centuries;
For our archaeologists and scholars to unravel their many
secrets and hidden mysteries!
Modern scholars refer to it as ‘Indus-Saraswati Civilization’;
By interpreting the text of the Rig Veda which mentions
eclipses, equinoxes, and other astronomical conjunctions,
They date the origin of the Vedas as earlier as 3000 BC;
Thereby lifting the fog which shrouds Ancient History! +
(+ Two broad schools of thoughts prevail; Max Mullar refers
to 1500 BC as the date for origin of the Vedas, but modern scientific findings point to a much earlier date for their Oral composition and
their long oral tradition!)

On the banks of the sacred Saraswati River the holy sages
did once meditate, *
When their third eye opened, as all earthly bonds they did
transcend !
From their lips flowed the sacred chants of the Vedas, as
they sang the creator Brahma’s unending praise!
These Vedic chants and incantations survived many
centuries of an oral tradition,
When Indian Art began to blossom into exotic flowers like
Brahma’s divine manifestations;
With all subsequent art forms following the model of
Brahma’s manifold creations!
The Vedas got written down during the later Vedic Age
with commentaries and interpolations,
And remain as India’s indigenous composition, forming a
part of her sacred religious tradition! *
(
Rig Veda the oldest, had hymns in praise of the creator;
Yajur Veda spelled the ritual procedures; Sama Veda sets
the hymns for melodious chanting, & is the source of seven
notes of music; Artha Veda had hymns for warding off evil
& hardship, giving us a glimpse of early Vedic life.)

IMPACT OF FOREIGN INVASIONS:
Through the winding Khyber Pass cutting through the rugged
Hindu Kush Range,
Came the Persians, Greeks, Muslims, the Moguls, and many
bounty hunters storming through north-western frontier gate;
Consisting of varied racial groups and cultures, they entered
India’s fertile alluvial plains!
Therefore, while tracing 5000 years of Art Story, one cannot
divorce Art from India’s exotic cultural history.
From the Cave Art of Bhimbetka, to the dancing girl of Harappa,
To the frescoes and the evocative figures of Ajanta and Ellora;
Many marvelous and exquisitely carved temples of the South,
And Muslim and Mogul architecture and frescoes along with
India’s rich Folk Art, enriched her artistic heritage no doubt!
Yet for a long time Indian Art had been the least known of
the Oriental Arts,
Perhaps because from Western point of view it was difficult
to understand the spirit behind Indian Art!
For Indian Art is at once aesthetic and sensual, also passionate,
symbolic, and spiritual !
It both celebrates and denies the individual’s love of life,
where free instinct with rigid reason combine !
These contradictory elements are found side by side due to
her culturally mixed conditions, as I had earlier mentioned!
Now, if we add to this the constant religious exaltation,
With the extensive use of symbolic presentation, from the
early days of Indian civilization;
We have the basic elements of an Art, which has gradually
aroused the interest of Western Civilization!

The further we get back in time, we only begin to find,
That religion, philosophy, art and architecture,
Had all merged into an unified whole to form India’s
composite culture!
But while moving forward in time, we once again find,
That art, architecture, music, poetry and dance, all begin to
gradually emerge, with their separate identities,
Where Indian Art is seen as a rich mosaic of cultural diversity!

(NOTES:-In the ancient days, the Saraswati River flowed from the Siwalik Range of Hills (foothills of the Himalayas) between Sutlej & the Yamuna rivers, through the present day Rann of Kutch into the Arabian Sea, when Rajasthan was a fertile place! Indus settlements like Kalibangan, Banawalli, Ganwaiwala, were situated on the banks of Sarsawati River, which was longer than the Indus & ran parallel, and is mentioned around50 times in the Rig Veda! Scientists say that due to tectonic plate movements, and climatic changes, Saraswati dried up around 1700BC ! The people settled there shifted east and the south, during the course of history! Some of those Indo-Aryan speaking people were already settled there, & others joined later. Max Muller’s theory of an Aryan Invasion which destroyed the Indus Valley Civilization during 1500BC, supported by Colonial Rulers, was subsequently proved wrong ! Indo-Aryans were a Language group of the Indo- European
Language Family, & not a racial group as mistaken by Max Mullar! Therefore Dr.Romila Thapar calls it a gradual migration, & not an invasion! The Vedas were indigenous composition of India. However, they got compiled & written down for the first time with commentaries, at a much later date! I have maintained this position since it has been proved by modern scholars scientifically!)

SYMBOLISM IN INDIAN ART
From the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic to the Cretan Bull
of Greece,
Symbols have conveyed ideas and messages, fulfilling
artistic needs.
The ‘Da Vinci Code’ speaks of Leonardo’s art works as
symbolic subterfuge with encrypted messages for a secret
society!
While Indian art is replete with many sacred symbols to
attract good fortune, for the benefit of the community!
The symbols of the Dot or ‘Bindu’, the Lotus, the Trident,
the Conch shell, the sign and chant of ‘OM’, are all sacred
and divine;
For at the root of Indian artistic symbolism lies the Indian
concept of Time!
The West tends to think of time as a dynamic process which
is forward moving and linear;
Commencing with the ‘Big Bang’, moving towards a ‘Big
Crunch’, when ‘there shall be no more time’, or a state of
total inertia !
Indian art and sculpture is influenced by the cyclic concept
of time unfolding a series of ages or ‘yugas’;
Where creation, destruction and recreation, becomes a
dynamic and an unending phenomena!
This has been artistically and symbolically expressed in the
figure of Shiva-Nataraja’s cosmic dance,
Which portrays the entire kinetic universe in a state of
eternal flux!
The hour-glass drum in Nataraja’s right hand symbolizes
all creation;
Fire in his left hand the cyclic time frame of destruction!
The raised third hand is in a gesture of infinite benediction;
And the fourth hand pointing to his upraised foot shows the
path of liberation!

It was easier to teach the vast untutored population through
symbols, images, and paintings in the form of Art;
For a picture is more effective than a thousand words!
The Dot or ‘bindu’ becomes the focus for meditation,
Where the mental energies are focused on a single point of
creation,
As seen in the cotemporary art works of SH Raza’s
artistic representations!
Yet the same dot when expanded as a circle becomes
wholeness and infinity;
The shape of celestial bodies of the cyclic universe in its
creativity!
The Lotus seen in many sculptures, on temple walls, and
majestic columns, denotes purity;
A symbol of non-attachment rising above the muddy waters,
retaining its pristine color and beauty!
The Lotus is a powerful and transformational symbol in
Buddhist Art,
Where pink lotus is for height of enlightenment, blue for
wisdom, white for spiritual perfection, and the red lotus
symbolizing the heart!
This Lotus symbol also finds a place in Mughal sculptural
carvings and miniatures;
The inverted lotus dome resting on its petals, forms the
crown of Taj Mahal’s white marble architecture!
The trident or ‘trishul’ symbolizes the three god-heads
Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva;
As the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer, in that cyclic
chain which goes on forever!
The ***** stone of Shiva-lingam surrounded by the oval
female yoni symbolizes fertility and creation,
Usually found in the inner sanctuary of Hindu temples!
Finally, the symbol of ‘OM’ and its vibrating sound,
Echoes the primordial vibrations with which space and
time abounds!
All matter comes from energy vibrations manifesting
cosmic creation;
Also symbolized in Einstein’s famous matter-energy equation!
The Conch Shell a gift of the sea when blown, sounds the
ancient primordial vibration of ‘OM’!
It’s hallowed auspicious sound accompanies marriage
ceremonies and rituals whenever occasion demands;
And pacifies mother earth during Shiva-Nataraja’s sudden
seismic dance! (earthquakes)
Dear readers the symbols mentioned here are very few,
Mainly to curb the length, while I pay Indian Art my
artistic due!

A BRIEF COMPARISON OF ART:
Despite the many foreign influences which entered India
through the Khyber and Bholan pass,
India displayed marvelous adaptability and resilience, in
the development of her indigenous Art!
The aesthetic objectivity of Western Art was replaced by
the Indian vision of spiritual subjectivity,
For the transitory world around was only a ‘Maya’ or an
Illusion,- lacking material reality!
Therefore life-like representation was not always the aim
of Indian art,
But to lift that veil and reveal the life of the spirit, - was
the objective from the very start!
Egyptian funerary art was more occupied with after-life
and death;
While the Greeks portrayed youthful vigor and idealized
beauty, celebrating the joys of life instead!
The proud Roman Emperors to outshine their predecessors
erected even bigger statues, monuments, and columns
draped in glory;
Only in the long run to drain the Roman treasury, - a sad
downfall story!
Indian art gradually evolved over centuries with elements
both religious and secular,
As seen from the period of King Chandragupta Maurya,
Who defeated the Greek Seleucus, to carve out the first
united Indian Empire ! (app. 322 BC)

SECULAR AND SPIRITUAL FUSION IN ART:
Ancient Indian ‘stupas’
and temples were not like churches
or synagogues purely spiritual and religious,
But were cultural centers depicting secular images which
were also non-religious!
The Buddhist ‘stupa’ at Amravati (1stcentury BC), and the
gateways at Sanchi (1stcentury AD), display wealth of carvings
from the life of Buddha;
Also warriors on horseback, royal procession, trader’s caravans,
farmers with produce, - all secular by far!
Indian temples from the 8th Century AD onwards depicted
images of musicians, dancers, acrobats and romantic couples,
along with a variety of Deities;
But after 10th Century ****** themes began to make their mark
with depiction of sensuality!
Sensuality and ****** interaction in temples of Khajuraho and
Konarak has been displayed without inhibition;
As Tantric ideas on compatibility of human sexuality with
human spirituality, fused into artistic depictions!
Religion got based on a healthy and egalitarian acceptance
of all activities without ****** starvation;
For the emotional health and well-being of society, without
hypocritical denial or inhibition!
(’Stupas’= originated from ancient burial mounds, later became devotional Buddhist sites with holy relics, & external decorative gateways and carvings!)

KHJURAHO TEMPLE COMPLEX (950 - 1040 AD) :
Was built by the Chandela Rajputs in Central India,
When Khajuraho, the land of the moon gods, was the first
capital city of the Chandelas!
****** art covers ten percent of the temple sculptures,
Where both Hindu and Jain temples were built in the north-Indian
Nagara style of Architecture.
Out of the 85 temples only 22 have stood the vagaries of time,
Where a perfect fusion of aesthetic elegance and evocative
Kama-Sutra like ****** sculptural brilliance, - dazzle the eyes!

KONARAK SUN TEMPLE OF ORISSA - EAST COAST:
From the Khajuraho temple of love, we now move to the
Konark temple of *** in stones - as art!
Built around 1250 AD in the form of a temple mounted on
a huge cosmic chariot for the Sun God;
With twelve pairs of stone-carved wheels pulled by seven
galloping horses, symbolizing the passage of time under
the Solar God !
Seven horses for each day of the week, pulls the chariot
east wards towards dawn;
With twelve pairs of wheels representing the twelve calendar
months, as each cyclic day ushers in a new morn !
The friezes above and below the chariot wheels show military
processions, with elephants and hunting scenes;
Celebrating the victory of King Narasimhadeva-I over the
invading Muslims!
The ****** art and voluptuous carvings symbolizes aesthetic
bliss when uniting with the divine;
Following yogic postures and breathing techniques, which
Tantric Art alone defines!
(
Both Khjuraho & Konark temples were re-discovered by the
British, & are now World Heritage Sites!)

Artistic invention followed the model of cosmic creation;
Ancient Vedic tradition visualized the spirit of a joyous
self-offering with chants and incantations!
The world was understood to be a structured arrangement
of five elements of earth, water, fire, air, and ethereal space;
Where each element brought forth a distinct art-expression
with artistic grace!
Element of Sculpture was earth, Painting the fluidity of water,
Dance was transformative fire, Music flowed through the air,
and Poetry vibrated in ethereal space!

CONCLUDING INTRODUCTION TO INDIAN ART:

Indian Art is like a prism with many dazzling facets,
I have only introduced the subject with its symbolism,
- without covering its complete assets!
After my Part Three on ‘Etruscan and Roman Art’,
Christian and Byzantine Art was to follow;
But following request from my few poet friends I have
postponed it for the morrow!
Traditional Indian Art survives through its sculptures,
architecture, paintings and folk art, ever evolving with
the passing of time and age;
Influenced by Buddhist, Jain, Muslim, Mogul, and many
indigenous art forms, enriching India’s cultural heritage!
While the art of our modern times constitutes a separate
Contemporary phase !
The juxtaposition of certain concepts and forms might
have appeared a bit intriguing,
But the spiritual content and symbolism in art answers
our basic artistic seeking!
The other aspects of Indian Art I plan to cover at a later
date,
Hope you liked my Introduction, being posted after
almost forty days!
ALL COPY RIGHTS ARE WITH RAJ NANDY
E-Mail: rajnandy21@yahoo.
    FEW COMMENTS BY POETS ON 'POETFREAK.COM' :-
I have a vicarious pleasure going through your historical journey of Indian art! Thanks for sharing this here! 2 Mar 2013 by Ramesh T A | Reply

The prism of Indian Art is indeed has myriads of facets and is an awesome mixture of many influences some of which you list here so clearly - a very understandable presentation of symbolism too - -thank you for your fine effort Raj. 2 Mar 2013 by Fay Slimm | Reply

Oh what an interesting read with immense information capturing every single detail. You painted this piece of art with utmost care. Truly, it's works Raj…tfs 2 Mar 2013 by John Thomas Tharayil | Reply

First, I have to say, the part about the lotus symbolism reminds me – My name ‘NILOTPAL’ can be split into ‘NIL’ meaning BLUE and ‘UTPAL’ meaning LOTUS. So my name represents wisdom (although it contradicts ME.. LOL). A lot of things were mentioned in the veda and other ancient Indian texts that were way ahead of the time Like the idea of ‘velocity of light’ got considerable mention in the rig veda-Sahan bhasya, ‘Elliptical order of planets, ‘Black holes’ , although these are the scientific aspects. The emphasis on contradictory elements or even the idea of opposites in Indian art is interesting because India developed the mathematical concept of ‘Zero’ and ‘infinity’. Hard to believe Rajasthan was a fertile place but now it possesses its own beauty. It was great to read about the Natraja, ‘OM’ and the trident(Trishul). Among symbolisms, Lord Ganseha is my favorite because a lot is portrayed in that one image like the MOOSHIK representing
When I composed the History of Western Art in Verse & posted the series on 'Poetfreak.com', few Indian poet friends requested me to compose on Indian Art separately. I am posting part one of my composition here for those who may like to know about Indian Art. Thanks & best wishes, -Raj
Tom McCone Mar 2014
dunedin. friday, three, afternoon.
set from home under a blue sky
with full& prepared pack,
a somewhat empty stomach,
and a necessity to get away from the city.
hiking boots tread asphalt down to the depot,
where, in thirty-seven minutes punctuated
by plastic seats grafted to a wall
and a mildly disjunct group of small or
big-time travellers, the naked bus
pulled in, a hematite centipede
crawling into the lot. it was a bus,
no complaints. all others' bags
stowed, twenty seven bucks outta pocket
and swung into the front-right-window seat,
bid a farewell to the beat-down
pub across the road and onto the one-way
merging into a highway and outta
town the dark bug skittered, on
schedule or something resembling it.
behind the driver, the sun came through
around the beam in the window. warm patterns
laid on skin, the countryside's broad expanse:

cylindrical bales of hay scattered about
paddocks, dark late-autumn florets of flax
on roadsides, plumes of white smoke from
bonfires in townships as small as a thumbnail,
hedgelines of eucalyptus, pine; russet streaks
through bark of single gum trees stood
off-centre in fields. sticky-wooded hillsides
punctured by fire breaks roll almost forever
and back. the rushing sound of passing cars
through the 3/4-golden ratio of the driver's
ajar window; twenty-first century mansions
verging on out-of-place. saplings emerging,
bracketed, through verdant grass patches.
museum abbatoirs. toitoi like hen's plumage
lining drainage ditches. another Elizabeth st-
(how many could be counted out by now?) tidy
front yards and milton liquorland through this
small town. an everpresent tilting sun. fields
of flowered nettle. s-bends through pancake layers
of hills. a delapidated gravel quarry at stony
creek. deer farms, sheep farms, bovine farms, alpaca
farms (favourite); another bonfire seen down a
long gulley; a power substation, all organized
tangles. a two-four 300m before the bridge into


balclutha. 4.40pm.
across the road into the i-site
two friendly ladies circle locations
to make (got a car) or try to make (on foot),
offering a ride in half an hour,
leave it to chance.
across another road, drifter's emporium
(that's the name, no joke) got a knife
to open up cans- bought no cans, brought
no cans, still nice to have one anyway.
down the road, 200ml from unichem, waste
no time, turn ninety degrees, cross a
railway, then outta town in a sec. first
photo: half highway, half clutha river. fine
shot. sit down, watch the water couple mins,
head down the road. red-black ferns radiate
under willows down the riverbank. metal
bumper-bars keep legs on, the road rolls
gentle turns, diverges from the river. stick
to the former, faster that way. no intentions
of hitching. just wanna walk. and walk. and
walk. guy yells out a car window. envy,
likely. who cares. apple tree hangs over
a dry ditch. pick a small one, gone in
a minute. probably ain't sprayed. been
eating ice-cream dinners more often'n
not the last coupla weeks- isn't much
the stomach won't or can't handle anymore,
anyway.

odours of decay from the freezing works.
seagulls sound out nearby.
typical.

down the road, the reek of death fades
out. back to grass. sit in some of the
tall stuff, under a spindly tree. put down
some ink, a handful of asst. nuts. 'bout
thirteen fingers of daylight left. no idea
if the coast is further than that. little
care. down the road the land flattens out,
decent sign. the junction was a fair bit
past reckoned, though. flipped a chunk
of bark (too lazy to get a coin out) to
figure whether the coast was worth it. bark
said no, went out anyway. gotta see the sea,
keeps you sane. past a lush native
acre or two- some lucky ******'s front lawn-
changed mentality, slung out a thumb (first
time). beginner's luck, kid straight outta
seventh form pulls over in a mustard-yellow
*******' kinda beach-van. was headin' out
to the coast, funnily enough. had been up
in raglan (surf central, nz), back down with
the 'rents now, though. out kaka point, only
one of his age, he reckoned, no schoolhouse
there, just olds. was going to surf academy,
pretty apt. little envious.

the plains spread out and out, ocean just
rose up out of a field. there's nothing
more perfect. gentle waves stroke the sands,
houses stare intently out at the mingling of
blues. one cloud hovers so far away it doesn't
even exist. down the other end of kaka point,
back on solid ground, walking into a gorge, laments
about not choosing the coastal route. but owaka
is the new destination, bout 11ks, give or take
(5ks later, sign says another 15.. some give). nothing
coulda beat that sight anyway, stepping outta
a van onto that pristine beach.

entry: gorge route to owaka. seven.
late light painted the tops of hills absolute
gold. thought maybe this way ain't so bad. beside a
converging valley, phone got enough reception
for dad to get through. said in balclutha coulda
got a room with a colleague. too far out now. lost
him in the middle of a sentence about camera film.
surprised to have even got that far. road wound
troughlike through the bottom of the gorge, became
parallel to a cute little stream. climbed down chickenwire
holding the road in place, ****** in it (had to).
clambered back up, continued walking as the occasional
campervan rolled on by. took a photo of the sun perched
on a hilltop, sent it to mel. dunno why. anxieties
over the perfect sunrise picture came frequently,
a goal become turmoil. the gorge flattened out,
and soon in countryside my fears allayed. round
a corner in picturesque nowhere, found my shot.
sat in long grass. stole it. sighed. ate a handful
of nuts. moved on. {about eight}

dark consumed the surrounding gentle-rolling hills,
nowhere near owaka, which was probably the tiny bundle
of lights nestling a little below the foot of a
mountain in the distance (not too far off, in
reality). near the turnoff to surat bay (was heading
there, plans change) a ute honks. taken as friendly.
a right turn instead of a left, farmsteads lit
up in fireplace tones, the sound cows make at
dusk. it got colder. would one jersey be sufficient?
hoepfully. stars began pinpricking the royal blues of the
night sky in its opening hues. eight-fourty-ish slugged
back about 3/4 of the syrup, along with half of a box
of fruit medley (so **** delicious), in light of dull
calf aches becoming increasingly apparent. needed
to walk a helluva lot more. ain't one for lettin'
nothing get in the way of that. lights in the distance
became the entry sign for a camp-site. no interest,
head on. past another farmhouse, stars came out in
packs. three cows upon a slight hilltop. next junction
pulled left a good eighty degrees and was on the
straight to owaka. less than two minutes later,
a dog-ute pulled to a halt and offers up a ride down
most of the stretch. didn't say no.

still stable, as two pig-hunters tell
of their drive back from picking up a couple
pig-dogs somewhere north. they were heading
out bush to shoot, thought they'd seen
another guy they'd picked up a couple weeks
ago, who'd taken 'em out somewhere they
couldn't remember. paranoia grips, but
the lads are fairly innocuous. they say it's
dangerous out here, gotta be ballsy walking
middle of the night, no gun, no dog,
all by yourself. wasn't worried, got nothing
to lose anyway (still, this sets helluva
mood). by a turnoff a k outta owaka, dropped
off. said probably all that'll be open there
is a pub, if that. bid luck and set their way.
above, the whole sky is covered with shining
glitter. down a dip and turn, **** in the
middle of the road. an ominous sign indicating
the outskirts of

owaka. approximately 9.40pm

my head loosens as i approach. the lights
form across a small valley i can't verify
exists or not between dog barks i mistake
for the yells of drunkards and lights
pirouetting from cars behind me. i slow
down i don't want to do this.

owaka is terrifying. plastic.

the street corners thud like cardboard. i
walk past a garden of teapots, a computer
screen inside the house glares through the
window pane bending breathing outward. there
is nobody here, still there is a feeling
like there's people everywhere, flocking
in shadows. a silhouette moving in a
distant cafe doorway. the sound of teeth,
of darkness fallen. thick russian tones
sound from a shelf of a motel. eyes
everywhere, mostly mine. i stop only round
a bend and down near a police station, yet
feeling no more safe, sitting in a gutter to
send mel my plans, to tell myself my plans.
i want to be nowhere again. i am soon nowhere.


out of breath, out the other end of owaka,
the sick streetlights fade into comforting
dark nestled between bunches of indistinct
treelines. the feeling of safety lasts but
twenty minutes, where another dip in the
road leads through a patch of bush, in which
gunshots ring periodically and laughter and
barking rings through. breaking down, it takes
five minutes to resolve and keep going. ain't
got nothing to lose, anyway. boots squeak like
diseased hinges all down the road. hadn't
noticed beforehand, the only thing noticed
now. an impending doom hangs thick like fog,
the thought of being strung up like an
underweight hog. walking faster and
not much quieter, the other side of the
bush couldn't have come sooner. the fear
lasts until the gunshots are distant nothing.
still alive, still out of breath, still
fairly ****** up, there's no comfort like the
sound of nothing but the occasional insect's
chirp. vestiges of still water came around
a corner and just kept coming as the golden
moon sung serenity all over. finally, a peace
came to rest over the landscape. sitting by
the road with a clear view of the moon's light
sheathed in the waters, the stars above wreath
a cirrus eye to watch over the marshland
plants leading into the placid waters of

catlins lake, west. ten fifty-one.
crossing a one-way bridge over a river winding
its way into the lake, another turning point
decision arose: continue down the highway
along the river, or head straight out and
toward the coast again. having resolved to
make it to a waterfall by dawn, and the latter
offering a possibility of this, the decision
made itself. turning back around the other side
of the lake, the road wound a couple times
up a gentle ***** out and up from the valley
at the tail of the lake, and into a slightly
more elevated valley. the country roads ran
easily and smooth, paved roughly but solid.
not a car came by for kilometers at a time.
lay on the road past a turnoff for quarter
of an hour letting serenity wash over, the
hills miniscule in comparison to home, the
sky motionless, massive thin halo about the
moon. walking on, night-birds called from
time to time (no moreporks, though. not until
dawn), figuring out how to whistle them back.
a turnoff to purakaunui bay strongly
considered and ultimately ignored; retrospectively
a great call, considering the size of the detour.
hedgerows of macrocarpa, limbs clearly cut
haphazard where once they'd hung over the
road. occasional 4wd passing, always a 4wd,
be it flash new or trusty old. you'd need
one out here. have no fun, otherwise.
monolithic pine-ish hedge bushes, squatting
giants. once, a glimmering in the sky, a
plane from queenstown (assumedly) almost
way too far to make out. the colossus of
the one human-shaped shadow cast down
from the moon to my boots. how small
a thing in this place. swamped out by
the beauty of this neverending valley.
breathless.

the road turned, not quite a hairpin,
but not entirely bluntly, a welcome
break from the straight or gentle
sway, and five minutes turned to dirt.
had to lay down again- legs screaming
by this point for rest. still, they
had nothing against pressing on. dad
taught me to just keep going. that's
the thing about walking. stop for a
little bit and you're good to go
again. pushing for the fall was probably
overkill, but no worry now. dirt road
felt so right after a good 20+ks of
asphalt, only infrequently punctuated
by roadside moss or thin grass. it
was as if beginning again (well,
kinda, if only with as much energy).
having downed only a litre of water
(leaving only half a litre more), a
litre of fruit juice and about 100
grams of assorted nuts since more
than twelve hours ago by this point,
it should have been a shock to
still be going by this point. don't
really need that much anyway, though.
gone on less for longer. hydration,
anyway, was the least of all worries,
the air being thick with water, ground
fog having been laid down hours ago.

up the dirt track, more cows. they make strange
sounds at night. didn't know anything yet,
though. that's still to come. a ute swang past
going the other way, indiscriminate hollers
from the passenger-side window. waved back
cheerily. so far from anything to be anything
but upbeat now. not even the heavy shroud of
tiredness could touch that, yet. the track wound
on forever. was stopping every half-kilometer
to stand and stretch, warding off the oncoming
aches. the onset was unwieldy, though. didn't
have long. past a B&B;, wondered whether anyone
actually ever stayed there (surely would, who'd
not revisit this place over and over once they'd
discovered it?)- certainly would've, having the
cash (apparently parts of "lion, witch and the
wardrobe" were filmed here. huh). further on, the
road turned back to seal, unfortunately, but
with small promise- surely, at least fairly
close by this point. turning a corner, a small
and infinitely beautiful indent against the bush,
a small paddock bunched up against it, stream
wound against the bases of trees, all lit by
the clear tones of a now unswathed moon, sat
aside the road. it was distilled perfection.
it was too much, just had to keep goin' or
risk shattering that image. next turn was
a set of DOC toilets, an excellent sign. must be
basically sitting on the path entry now. searched
all 'round the back for it, up the road, nothing.
not entirely despondent but bewildered, moved
forward and found a signpost. the falls were now
behind? turned around and searched even more
thoroughly, quiet hope turning to desperation
by the silent light of the moon. finally,
straight across the road from the toilets,
was the green and gold sign, cloaked in
darkness under clustering trees, professing
a ten-minute bushwalk to the

purakaunui falls. saturday. 1.32 am.**
venturing into the bush by the dull light
of a screen of a dying phone, the breeze
made small movements through the canopy. it
couldn't have been any more tranquil. edging
way through the winding cliffish track through
dense brush, the sound of a trickling stream
engorged into a lush symphony of water. crossing
a single-sided bridge across an unseeable chasm,
twinkling from the ferns behind became apparent.
turning off the dull light, the tiny neon bulbs of
glow-worms littered the dirt wall risen up about
half a metre, where the track had been cut out.
my heart soared. all heights of beauty come
together. continuing down the path, glow-worms
litter the surroundings and the rushing of
water comes to a roar. at a look-out platform
above the falls, nothing can be seen save a
slight glisten. down perilous steps (wouldn't
be too bad if you could actually see 'em) the
final viewing platform lay at level with the
bottom of the falls. they stood like a statue
in the dark, winding trails of thin white wash
through the shadows hung under trees. left
speechless from something hardly made out, turned
around and back up the stairs to where the
glowing dots seemed their most concentrated.
into the ferns above, clambered through and
around moss-painted tree trunks and came to rest
a couple hundred metres from the trail, under
a fern, under a rata. packed everything but
a blanket from nan into the bag, laid it out
on curled leaf litter and folded up into it,
feet too sore to remove 'em from boots, curling
knees up into the blanket and tucking a hand
between 'em to keep it warm. only face and
ankles exposed, watched the moon's light trickle
through canopy layers for a few hours, readjusting
tendons in legs as they came to ache. sleep (or
something resembling it) set in, somewhere
around four.

some time slightly before six, the realisation
that my legs had extended and become so cold that
they'd started cramping all the way through hit,
coupled with the sounds coming through the bush.
thank you, if you made it all the way through :>
tloco Jun 2015
Coming to now, the story of life not as a practical lesson in wisdom as such in a parable or teaching only casual experience for individual. Experiencing this wisdom will change your knowledge gained through the events of becoming with the kingdom of heaven. Ways on the tree of life or paths which are ordained or divined in the Lords or spheres build your learned life knowledge. Adapting as a disciple on the natural skill of the soul shows a person whom, the individual is in a pure state of self and exponential in the ***** of the tree of life.
As a child of light I lived happily joined in the union of spirit, my young soul always with the Almighty Father and Creator in the Tenth heaven. From a dream of the past awaking as a watcher of an extremely large craft inside the entire vessel I could see animals each of them were named and had most important characteristics from the Father. From high aloft in Heaven to the boat a watch was taking place omnipotent over the last life within. Many hosts and angels spoke once I was inside the boat but wasn’t as a soul like a spirit invisible I saw and heard. Angels divine in accord to works of commands were at work in heaven whole groups of choirs known as orders were not ever interrupted by my watch. Trumpet sounded heard in the spirits from heaven to the sea and rush gate of the heaven’s upon the earth. The name of angel that sounded and captured fallen in the thirteenth month; Tebae-et, into the stellar order of gates or fallen paradise.
A child of light borne in spirit always with the hosts or different characters in life such as Chanokh (Enokh-Father of Melekhi-Tsedek order), but it was either in dream or warden amongst crowds of souls touring in celestial spheres with paths of light on the tree of life. Walking outside my house the morning after my dream, I felt as if I could float in the air body and soul light as a feather. Surrounding me was Topaz, chrysophrase, jasper, chalcedony, and amber gemstones still transparency like crystalloluminescence. Above me sapphire with alabaster and my soul looked down upon me with white eyes shining light out of them in a robe covered in my names brilliantly shone in gold light in the temple of my soul. My body was in euphoria and I stared into the future and realms of heaven, seeing into the seven seals as celestial wardens. The divine experience was wholesome pure enrichment to my soul each word I had in communion with the throne of supreme majesty firm with glory, order, and unconditional loving care. Differences in the Father; whom was a body of so many names and creations perfect in commands, recordings, gates, cycles of hosts myriads, elementals, migrations of stars, and firmament upon firmament.
The way of the most holy spirits as complete body of the Father the original tree of life, which is known completely in the true names it was created as. The spirits, angels, guardians or incessantly serving hosts help the Father governing of the kingdom of heaven in the four parts of man. The structure I remember is perfection with tongues that fill the heart with everlasting laughter, hope that cheerfully overcomes in a soul victory. The heavenly abode the height of the throne gives the soul countenance of wisdom to the word unto man. Upon a single walk with the Father had taken my body and spirited my being in soul countenance of wisdom so far through the future I had saw unto trumpets of revelation.
Melekhi-Tsedek order the true religion to be proclaimed unto man the creatures such as animals, fallen accursed, the plant life in, promise, orphans, and widows were watched over on the decree or divine ordination from heaven. Ascending up to the throne; I went through the knowledge of the complete day in heaven or paradise recorded then toured the solar spheres, through the knowledge of the spirits or holy hosts that did in accordance to the orders. The process was divined in the Father’s willpower over my essence I had knowledge to what was being experienced in a connection unto every living creation. Completely, opening the mind unto Ratsiel (secret of God), through the third-eye founding of my soul into mysteries of kingdom of heaven. Voices of many named angels were annunciating with pleasant tones and choirs voices of angels by the thousands. Recording archangels kept the things that were occurring in the kingdom of man, while also serving the obligated roles of their natural being as direct personification of God. Organized, synchronized, and in spirit of prophecy patterning so perfected without error moving about in every way structurally sound through commanded orders. Systems of planets were kept sealed in the seven hallways or wards that divide heaven’s celestial nether space from the foundation of firmaments of word and universe unto the highest Lords signs of zodiac places. Above Almighty Father can sit omnipotent as ascending angels, spirits, or orders can go the entire flight focused on the Father’s throne. The orders of body were eminence Seraphim, Cherubim, Wheels (Thrones), Dominions (Authorities), Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangel, and Angels. Although the kingdom in spirit was always changing and becoming according to the cycle of the sun’s orbital sphere into the gates of each day on a 28 year cycle and 7,000 year unto 7 days in heaven the Lord a light-giver and also Lord of completion, Sabbath day.
A fresh gust of wind and a light pure feel was a regular experience while awakening my mind I learned of the Elders of heaven whom had crazy stories like when Samson had the might to slay the lions or tore down the temple of Dagon. I knew the hosts and things that had become in the kingdom of heaven to allow the might shone as a show for the heaven, but also act of the devils in his life. This knowledge was in a book the scripted the entirety of all the acts that take place as a divine act, once a celestial being was in visitation in spirit. The seraph Ratsiel (secret of God) investigated the acts of the temptation of Adam by Chavah and the acts of the archangels in response to the threat. The accord to the acts of everything that exists in the accord to knowledge of the solar is obtainable through this book, the book of knowledge.
Later in another dream I met the minister of death in spirit which as within a myriad where thousands of spirits were at works performing the acts in which is their existence and adapted behavior as a role in realms. Being in one place while still seeing into a complete different world or plane of existence doing as is need or divined in nature. Black darkened pillars came down on me as this space ship shaped like a pyramid with the patterns of natural earth red and black like lava years after a volcano. Around me each pillar stood as a being in realm invisible to my eye except for one being on a throne centered in the myriad the throne of death. Fiery torment in flames along with brimstone flowed in two pooled lakes parallel from one another with a long path going from gate to the another gate leading to Sheol or Hades. A base foundation of the throne is a horizontal shadowed hallway with many smaller pillars which give no support to the throne, while the path is vertically centered. Two stairways go up to the platform of the throne one on each side of the platform decorated with images of Baaliyal in form of a torrent. Death sat upon the throne with darkness like the appearance of black smoke blowing from his mouth a complete skeleton. Skeletal body covered in black cloak with a screeching voice like a woman’s long fingernail’s scratching a chalkboard. Terrified I walk my being over the site of my soul-mate who is on my like side and here with me she is like a dream and become in multiple places at the same time. Beautiful she was consistently becoming in hosts of cherubim changing into many different forms of the adapting natural instincts of animal’s behavior for survival, she is tan Carmel skin color and flesh uncorrupted by any mans thoughts of lusting ruin. Passionate vivid dreams of a                maiden lying in an alien jungle full of plants most like a rainforest but yet close to the planet’s beaches, wearing a purple robe. Dark and warm humid with a damp feel to the observer of the smooth cover of the claylike terrain of the solar sphere. Again I dreamed of her while she was separated from me by the prince of Tyre or the cherub covering the mercy, she ran amongst different hallways while in the tower of Babel and giant nephlim watched with other gods in gold cursed trying to look down on things in spirit. I walked up the stairs and could see myself from outside of myself, seeing my form as a human being in appearance most like Michael or Melekhidael with breastplate of gold without a helmet. Death screeched out at me and I saw an ancient giant of hell also the spirit of Tanhumeth trying to send me into the past. Awakened into a new form I walked through the gate vertical in the chamber beneath death’s ministry. Sopheriael Yahweh took me into the spirit of a seraph Hadaneriael then, into the 10 archangels of punishment over the 10 nations of Babylon the great which took me into the depth to the ninth circle of punishment for a reign in gates of the Phul seal or in Phalek. My soul was the loosened stars of Kesil through Samuil the poisoned messenger a discernment spirit involved in the surfs of the accord of the kingdom of dark princes in paradise, the divine comedy Queen of Angels enchanted songs counted into paradise. Darkness in the kingdom of heaven, with the ability to paralyze minds with seraphim hosts of terror, I walked through the brazen gates of Hades seeing everything on fire but also thousands of thousands of different forms of creations each rarity seen with delightful insight to provoke interests into any living being. The life paths of a multitude of creations would come through Hades and become baptized through spirit’s fire of pure refinement spoken as worth in the golden city, precious daughter of the loom, here in accord to John the Baptist’s   prophecy.
At a young age of 6 years old I began to refuse the world or play directly into the kingdom of heaven which was a lonely elect of self in my family also in the church my family attended. Wicked spirits attacked the gates of my inner ear where and had began to tell me of things that would happen in future then, keep me from being with the Father completely in heaven. My memory started to fade in fear that I would only to struggle if I kept learning. Gradual disillusion way from the throne began while I was only a few years old, the devils were wise in deceit most from the tree of knowledge and future mistakes from which I saw rolling with wheels of heaven. Moments of times in the future I would soul determine things into happening from the spirit of prophecy it was something I kept special between the Father and mines relationship. Constantly I would hated life and wanted to die, feed into temptation, stole, and spoke accursedly cutting my relationship from the Father.
Was not until I was seventeen years of age when I felt an overwhelming feeling like I had just explained something about the firmament of heaven which usually gives me this same feeling like a gust of wind in my person with a prestigious self worth from outside of self comforting to my soul. Looking up into the pitch black night sky, I saw a strange and odd formed constellation of stars above me I raised my arm and pointed at three stars. As if on command or through a governing of the stars each was loosed and fell immediately after pointing to them. Excited as the skin of my body was stinging as hairs stood to the point of super natural acknowledgment of the world’s great mysteries finding depth in the human soul I watched the sky then turned to the east. About to use the marijuana I torched a bowl of green bud then thought in the medium mostly of the kingdom and Father in heaven. In the zephyr region of the sky I saw a light floating, soaring, flashing, and moving faster than anything I had ever seen in life but on movies scenes. Astonished again I watch the spirit jumping around in the sky with multiple purposes and clear intent to do for the Father most high. My only other witness to this was my black minx cat shadoe, whom I looked at and said “I going to have a vision tomorrow” then finished two more hits of the cannabis before leaving to my room in the basement of a two-story house.
Awakening to the day was full of feeling of mystery I didn’t tell any of my experience from the night before. On October eighteenth in the day I smoked some marijuana went to Crook County High School and a blood drive was setup, I planned to give a pint for my first time ever so I went to auditorium where the blood was taken from my arm. Feeling faint and in hope for a high opposed to school I left and was excused from classes. Arriving at the house I stopped my Suzuki Sidekick in front then went in and downstairs to the place after the last step knowing something amazing was about to happening I uttered the name Metatron. Linear thought was tremendous while spirit balanced on a pillar and the first seal Arathron had me in celestial hallway warding the ancient spirits from the night before. Sitting down in a lazyboy recliner chair I first start the satellite television turn it on with remote, the spirits are crazy making grandeur boosts of how I can control everything like that remote but from mind. Flipping through stations I begin to change the channel in accord to how I sense and feel the spirits. Crazy things start occurring watching until I was seeing a celestial vision. Hearing my mind from above it was intriguing and making my pride compulsive like no one living I was experiencing these sights. As a mode of characters in a set ordained function were becoming visible on the tree of life but each were in a different realm not visible to the other. Beautiful alien life most exquisite to the eyes in the planes of other worldly adobes just doing into a set way of commands rare without repetition. Nine characters panther, eagle, falcon, wolf, coyote, Siberian tiger, and one man with blonde hair came into view in a dense rainforest like jungle each was adapting to the environment but they were only one soul becoming the entire time. The forest was no longer and the upper places had new hosting since I had entered and changed things with my thoughts, I became the soul of the characters. Seeing upwardly was a flight to the top of the extreme heights of the Father’s presence through the third seal of Phalek. At the arrival of my being I saw the most adorned and absolutely marvelous splendor of white shine like that of the sun’s rays hitting snow filled fields. The Father’s presence so handsome and gorgeous I have never seen another beauty like it only his eyes were so bright shining when he created my being as a star to his left-hand above a white marble pedestal of wisdom. Father had most elegant white robe shining in purity and sat upon a throne center below seven pillars known as the tabernacle of creation or tabernacle of seven days. In the presence I was pulled back down I felt spirits by the millions entering me, fusing to the dawn star in me finding a place inside me. Possessively filled with spirits till an evil pride overtook me and I felt ever sinful or dark taint of the soul. Lightening fell on the seventh pillar in the tabernacle blue bolts streaked downward as I fell from the presence back to the sphere of Adam’s where I heard two voices speaking. Red clay-like surface with rough igneous and metaphoric rock on the solar planet were a tree had burned to charred pieces. Sin from the Tree of knowledge was present as a spirit she was a young apprentice of the ancient one or Athiquelis. Introducing herself with flaming hair of red orange flames, her eyes shone as big red gemstones of ruby and a body covered with a black dress that faded into the natural darkness of her nature. Waving and floating in the air seducing temptation in her words that spoke into my mind and not from the channel. Soothsaying feminist voice would move me to her place and origin beside a large eleven foot pillar of smooth dark bla
JAMIL HUSSAIN Oct 2016
Hamari Sanson Mein Aaj Tak
Woh Heena Ki Khushbhoo Mehak Rahi Hai
Labon Pe Naghme Machal Rahe Hain
Nazar Se Masti Jhalak Rahi Hai*

O’ even today within my breathes
That sweet smell of henna is still lingering
Upon the lips songs are way-warding
And with mischief, the glances are twinkling


Woh Mere Nazdeek Aate Aate
Haya Se Ek Din Simat Gaye Thay
Mere Khayalon Mein Aaj Tak
Woh Badan Ki Daali Latak Rahi Hai


O’ inching towards me,
One day he shyly gathered himself
Till today, within my thoughts
His body's youthfulness is still swaying


Sada Jo Dil Se Nikal Rahi Hai
Woh Sher-o-Naghmon Mein Dhal Rahi Hai
Ke Dil Ke Aangan Mein Jaise
Koi Ghazal Ki Dhaandhar Khanak Rahi Hai


O’ this cry coming from within my heart
Finds its way into verses and songs
As if in the courtyard of my heart
Beat of a poem is throbbing


Tadap Mere Bekharar Dil Ki
Kabhi To Unpay Asar Kare Gi
Kabhi To Woh Bhi Jaleinge Isme
Jo Aag Dil Mein Dahek Rahi Hai


O’ my restless heart's tremor
Will surely affect him one day
Someday, he too will burn
In the fire of my heart which is raging


— Translated by Jamil Hussain, Sung by Noor Jahan
I L U like my ***** clothes
Love being forgotten
On my bedroom floor

I L U like chores love the
music that helps them
forget they're chores

I L U like ***** dishes
Love hot showers and
the other side of the sink

I L U like I love spilling
Salt, and warding off the evil,
By tossing some behind my back

I L U like I love
Breaking rules about
my own supposed
non-Superstition

I L U like black cats love
Bad luck, cause to them,
It's just Friday, you know?

I L U like the hot dog bun
Loves staring at the beef patty,
Wishing "if only, if only"

I L U like bread loves
Being forgotten till we're really hungry
And then we're all ungrateful, like
"Hey bread, you remember us?"
And bread is high above us, like
"Always."
Not even a hint of scorn

I L U like the first time I saw
Jurassic Park, The dinosaurs
Were real enough
sans chicken feathers, and
Who needs modern science anyways
when love has no fossil records?

I L U like the weather loves
Surprise parties.
I L U like painful
surprise party memories love
being forgotten on my bedroom floor

I love you like Mayflies love living,
oh so briefly, once a day, every single day,
Chapter one to chapter none

I love you like mayflies love themselves,
brevity and all, stirred by nothing but
the glow of Dawn's light,
Dead by dusk, the Mayfly never
knows its final form.
It dies
in complete
incompletion,
but that's okay.

It drank the salt ocean,
it breathed the living air,
And that's how I want to L U
Mayflies are cool little buggers.
Snehith Kumbla Aug 2016
I try
warding off
the surge,

but it has
a sea's
nature,

lurking slurp,
mouth-watering
possibilities,

skin
lodged
to skin,

lickety
suckety
spring
Mark Lecuona Feb 2015
Nothing familiar is the answer
It is always someone you don’t understand
Finding meaning
Outside our own means
As if they have nothing to lose
And they don’t
They do not think of their parents
Or what they were taught
Except for facts
Warding off
Things that are unexplained
Strange
Scary
Secret societies
Dystopian
Cold
Every institution of man
Rejected
As man withdraws from convention
Stirring the drink
With a hint of every influence
Without burden of form
Changing course on a whim
Fully versed in possibility
Stopping along the way
Every corner
To explore
For days and days
Forgetting the mission
Except to learn
A being of discovery
Courageous failures
Skeptical of every word
Unless it is their own questions
Enduring shock
Smiles instead of fears
No sense of consciousness
The natural act of a man unafraid
Except his own existence
Because then he has to acknowledge yours
And though he loves you
He cannot just sit next to you
And watch flowers return to their rightful place
So you can grimly smile that what you always wanted
May only be counted in moments instead of days
That become years
Though each moment is what he wanted all along
Because time is nothing to consider
Except how much remains
George Anthony Aug 2016
my mother calls it being rude,
tends to yell at me for it
as if deluding herself into believing
that i won't yell back. i'm not a *****;
i won't take it
lying down.
i might be her son, but
being the teenager doesn't make me wrong,
and her being the adult doesn't make her right.
she doesn't get that,
doesn't see my side.

my friends call it sassy,
and encourage it,
and laugh, and it's nice
to just snark with them, back and forth
like a steady stream of sarcasm,
cutting quips from sharp tongues,
scathing remarks. it's all
playful, in the end,
like children who squabble over toys
then hug after mere minutes of cool down.

my mother used to call me "mouthpiece"
as a kid. it's funny how
she takes me so seriously when i'm only joking,
then laughs and degrades me
whenever i take something personally,
as if the verbal abuse slipping from her lips
is nothing more than teasing.
she's a hypocrite.
she calls me rude, an "ungrateful little ****",
wishes hell upon me, slaps me round the head
and gets in my face like a threat,
teeth bared like blades

but mother, i'm not scared of bleeding―
got that beaten out of me
so very long ago.
if you could just stop now, shut up,
quit being a mouthpiece, as you call it,
then this will all blow over,
and we can go back to pretending
that each of us doesn't exist to the other
for a couple nights.
we're sort of volatile, you and i
sometimes your words hurt more
than daddy's gripping hands or neglect ever could.

sometimes you make alcoholism tempting,
and wouldn't that be a fine symphony,
"like father, like son"
ringing hollowly in the empty space
between my ribs and my lungs
forgetting how to breathe
without breathing too much.
somebody once called my panic attacks
"attention seeking", but they were so wrong.
i've never wanted to be more invisible
than when i've found myself vulnerable
over a ******* memory, a ******* ghost of all the--

do you know how strange it is
to feel your heart hammering against your bones
with the too-fast flow of blood making your head spin,
when you've been so certain
that you've never had a heart at all?

this heart never got broken, depressingly enough.
it's kind of tragic to want something to hurt bad enough
to make you feel normal, human
but i've kind of been conditioned for disappointment
and solitude, and anger.
i've been so fine-tuned to drum beats
and cold voices,
it's no wonder i'm so closed off and detached.
but hey, at least it saved me some trauma,
no betrayals here, no questions,
no "i thought you loved me". hell,
i'm not even bitter that i never got a chance at a proper family

does that make me lucky?

ah, such a mouthpiece,
always spitting venom, dark humour at my own expense,
warding off any meaningful company
laughing about those times i tried to **** myself
like they're nothing

did you expect any less? how could you expect more?
your worthless son
is as cold and dead on the inside as his daddy.

that bitter symphony,
"like father, like son".
Riley Renee Nov 2014
concrete slams across my shoulder blades as you press your body against mine
an outside invasion;
oppression
my hands climb to my lips warding off the gin and wine of your
kiss
it poisons me as you reach to grab my flesh

I should’ve turned to coffee and water;
velvet nights of smooth moonlight and a bitter windchill
God whispered warnings of you
across my thighs, near your neck
gin and wine

it’s you and me, mixing liquor with jealousy
fabricated curls and a whitened smile
you stand towering over me
asserting deceitful dominance at every chance
yet darling,
I’m
laura Apr 2018
got a lovely tatty on ya left leggy
got no motivation or inspiration
but that *** needs lotsa smackin'
or maybe mine does, red from your hands

bittercress amongst the flowers outdoors
warding dancing birdflit
of people friendly pudgy pigeons
man i hate the birds, the people

singing their arias, their liturgy
feeling like they know somebody
in the canon, me in the sheets listening
to their rumors, trying to break our secret
K M Krueger Apr 2010
Snuggled in the corner
of his crystal castle
warding off wind’s whip,
head pillowed on phonebook pages,
warmly wrapped in dreams.
Street light serves as lunar glow,
While courtyard is landscaped with
cigarette butts and a broken bottle.
He’s Prince of the Paupers.
King of this urban domain.
T Sep 2013
I spent lots of minutes and a deep cup of coffee
with your sister, warding off the rain
and realizing that it was easier to acknowledge
that you've become someone I never met,
who wouldn't call me babesio and give me an Anthurium for Valentines Day
because they were sold out of Cactus's,
I decided it was easier to call you a loser
and laugh at how everything isn't working out;
Life's not what it should have been
for you or us
and nodding along when your sister says
'you're better than him, he'll figure it out'
because it was much easier than acknowledging
that I still only want to wrap you up in a hug
spend all day doing nothing together
and talk about all the grand things we might do someday

I'm okay
Really, I'm fine
But you're not
And that hurts me more than you will ever know
Bec Apr 2015
While i was guaranteed eternal advice and happiness in my exclusive group of friends at our tri-weekly lunches and weekend clubbings, I simultaneously indulged myself in the pleasure of being surrounded by an erroneous kind of couple, the lesbians.  Stefanie and Andy were the token lesbians in our group of friends.  Token lesbians proved to be a great asset to our group for warding off unwanted straight guys looking for a way too easy lay.  My friendship with Stef and Andy would give me my way in to all of the lesbian and gay bars in the city notorious for their ***** ***** martinis laced with desire and chilling excitement on pretty girls drink free everyday.  Whenever i needed that "unique" night out on the beautiful New York town, Stef and Andy were right there to buy my first beer.  Everyone has to have that one token gay couple, no matter man or woman.  Some of us choose to flaunt our outrageous choice of friends all over the most elite restaurants and parties across Manhattan as a way to boost our inner self-esteem; while others specifically keep them around to ******* our conservative elders who refuse to give over our much deserving trust funds.  Stef, Andy and i had been friends for nearly eight years.  I met Stef on my first day of working at the Times, she was a fellow new employee fresh out of intern training hell.  From day one, we stuck together like glue knowing that if we played our cards right and made friends with the archangels of New York literary heaven, eventually we'd see the light of God.  We had thought the hazing of interning at this stress packed **** hole was horrifying but we had only experienced a slit of what true work was.  The slaving over deadlines and editorial reviews had cut our souls in half and drained our eyes of tears.  Stepping out of one of the most powerful buildings in New York, the fresh smell of cigarettes and brandy flowing through the opening and shutting doors of the nearest bar half a block away.  Given the name and outer decor was a huge signal that this place was not somewhere i would usually find myself after work on a Friday night, the offer of "first round on me" boggled my thought process.  Stef persuaded me to walk alongside her as we paraded our way through the busy rush hour traffic of guilty hubbies simply wishing to get home and bang the life out of their trophy wives in hopes that their women would forget the minor incident involving someone else's lingerie ending up in the ***** clothes on Wednesday morning.  Boredom had overtaken me personally as well earlier that week when i overheard Stef confirm with someone named "Andy" that she'd be at "The Heel" as soon as she could leave this "constipated place of crap".  Much to my surprise, my third eye skills lacked as I was under the impression that A) "Andy" was a boy, B)  Stef was straight, and C) I would end up going home with one lucky bachelor tonight who made the wrong mistake of being able to order a ***** *** and coke on ice and dance like his *** drive depended on it.  Fortunately, I was wrong on all of the above and while i was repeatedly hit on by pixie cut after pixie cut, i lost my gay bar virginity, gained my token lesbian couple, and went home tipsy as a homeless man on Fifth Avenue.
Tonight my love is sleeping cold
  Where none may see and none shall pass.
The daisies quicken in the mold,
  And richer fares the meadow grass.

The warding cypress pleads the skies,
  The mound goes level in the rain.
My love all cold and silent lies--
  Pray God it will not rise again!
this is the city
that my daddy built
inside of me
between my guts
where my heart should be.
what isn’t rusted
or burnt out
or tired
is barbed-wire and wary.

this is the city
that my daddy built
with his anger.
it’s set up high
on a hill of scissors and blood oranges
and blood oranges with scissors
inside of them,
red juice stains
in sticky pools and dirt.

this is the city that my daddy built
in our house.
in our home.
where the people are shadows,
speaking in whispers
tiptoeing behind closed doors
so as not to rouse the beast.

this is the city
that my daddy built
here we pay tithes in blood oranges
to humor his desires
warding off uncalled for bloodshed
like the time that I
finally stood up for myself
and he broke the kitchen table
with his fists.
it was an antique
that traveled with my great-grandmother
from Sweden,
now just another broken thing
in the landslide
of scissors
and blood oranges
and dirt.

this is the city
that my daddy built,
scarring my skeleton,
following me everywhere
like a spilled bottle of India ink
blacking out the finely drawn sun,
like past transgressions
follow the guilty,
like the golden touch of Midas,
turning everything into
a mountain of scissors and
blood oranges and dirt.

this is the city that
my daddy built,
making my concept of home
a depiction of ruins;
the vestiges of what
could have been
if we hadn’t lived
too close to his minefield,
before causing my mother
to take my sisters and leave
like a snowbird at the arrival of spring,
at last realizing that her spine
consisted of wings.

this is the city
that my daddy built.
this is the city that
scarred and weary,
shadows of skeletons of birds, we
will move on, leaving behind
brick by ***** brick
until it’s nothing but a memory
of a pile
of blood oranges
and scissors
and dirt.
To the tune of "Rinsing Silk Stream"

Let not the deep cup be filled
with rich, amber-colored wine;
My mind was eased of sorrow
even before I was drunk.
Distant bells have already echoed
in the evening breeze.

My dream is broken
as the scent of incense vanishes.
Too small, the hairpin of the gold
of warding-off-cold
loosens its hold of my tresses.

I awake to find myself blankly facing
the red flickering glow
of the candle.
vircapio gale Oct 2015
my self-hood couldn't be...
my self-hood always has...
your self-hood also shining in the same reflected flickering of light.
what light i think i am is cauldroned in a background shade...
a primest shade of gasmic cosmos bursting forth
the light a simple consequence of hither-sided space
and freedom-ceilings in between.

inside siding outward warding off the sides i cannot center in
--outside siding inward warding off the sides i live within--
twining two in where i stay,
while choosing neutral non-act act,
on moving trains i shade as other than i am
complacent as the cog
that clicks the same in hatred-climes
as when it clips the love-me-nots of Spring
From my Dark Watcher Series;

A heart carries a shield, which to hold at bay,
the demons of the night, that want to play.
Warding off the tears, that joins the game,
with feelings of hate, giving birth to shame.
Swords drawn, the duel begins once more,
sheathes of angry words, slamming doors.
Ruthless sparring that cuts to the soul,
their points dipped in poison, take their toll.
Lethal cuts, rivers of tears that run red,
through gouged cliffs of unknown dread.
Spiteful jousting of controlling speeds,
that ****** deep, to finish the fateful deed.

Kathleen Kohl/Levinski
Michael Kusi May 2018
Message drew out her Celestial Blade Saber and prepared for The Conflict.
But she felt the energy of Nihilist, and knew she was the strongest warrior she tangled with.
Message spoke to The Alliance Project and said, I’ve never encountered a woman who has basically goddess power.
The Alliance Project said on the watch, Stand down and we’ll get you out of there, this fight isn’t yours.
Nihilist, Tell that loved one of yours good-bye, because this is now your end and doom.
The Alliance Project turned on the Isotrain Mechanism and said, We must rescue Message soon.
Breastplate-Bearer ram their ship, and the Projects will go in and help Message fight.
Message is too good a warrior to lose to this type of power, because we have The Insight.
Message knew that her best chances were at long-range, because up close she would have died.
She touched her Celestial Blade Saber all the way up to the end, to fuel the Acidier flames inside.
She then pulled a button on the handle of the Saber, and fired it as Nihilist charged.
Nihilist kept coming as each missile from the Blade Saber hit its mark.
Nihilist grabbed Message by the waist with her hands and held her up, all the time mocking.
She shouted, No enemy can see me and live, and Message taunted, The Federation is coming, keep talking.
Nihilist pushed on both of Message’s sides, and Message felt her hips and ribs go out of alignment.
She started to black out and wondered if it was wise to get this assignment.
Suddenly Message had an idea, and put the Celestial Blade Saber through’ Nihilist’s foot to the ground.
And used the Death-Touch to **** Nihilist’s leg, so it was lifeless, and Nihilist roared with a raging sound.
Nihilists tried to pull the Blade Saber out but it would not come out, it was attracted to the Death Touch.
Message knew that she did not have time so she had to go to the cockpit because she was in a rush.

She ran to the cockpit, and she saw activity all around the ship as they prepared for the fight.
But Message remembered that on spacecraft like this, the cockpit was to the right.
She entered the cockpit, and used the Death-Touch on both of the pilots.
Message then told The Alliance Project, I will join the Isotrain Mechanism by flying into it.
The Alliance Project responded incredulously, You will crash our ship? Message giggled, You was going to do it first.
She started to fly Vibrate’s spacecraft into the Isotrain Mechanism, but made sure to crash into its side.
That way the Projects could get out and fight, and no one on the Mechanism could have died.
The Celestial Blade Saber suddenly snapped into Message’s hand, and she thought Nihilist is free.
And with all that pent-up energy and anger, she is surely coming after me.
The Covenantial Project said, We are on Vibrate’s ship, and are headed to link up with you.
Suddenly Nihilist burst in and said, Tell me, what would it feel like to see your insides on the outside too.
Message wrestled with Nihilist, and although Nihilist was stronger, Message was skilled in hand combating.
Soon Message was on the floor with Nihilist’s foot on her chest, and Message wondered if this was the end.
Nihilist said, You will die by the blade you used so badly, and pulled out a blade to strike her neck
She ****** down but the blade was stopped short, by the Excalibur of the Templarist Project.

Arthur pushed Nihilist off of Message and they soon began to fight with respective blades anew.
Message was so engrossed with Arthur’s blade skill she forgot she had a mission to do.
Meanwhile the Covenantial Project and the Alliance Project were fighting Achilles, and doing well.
So well that Vibrate was aggravated, and she was holding a scepter and muttering about hell.
Message knew that that scepter was the key to something and she resolved to steal.
So she put the Concealment Garment on a Netherbeast, and turned him into Message to be killed.
Message then kicked him to Vibrate, who utterly disposed of this Netherbeast in disguise.
But as Vibrate was doing so, she momentarily turned her eyes.

Message snatched the scepter out of her moving hands, and suddenly she heard a voice.
It was the words of her father the Legate, who said, You were my one and only choice.
To hold the Dahomeyian Rulership and lead the Federation to victory,
This power is now yours, and you wield the Dahomeyian Kingfather Scepter.
Vibrate knew with horror that the scepter was out of her hands.
And was now in the reach of someone who was purposed to command.
Message said to Vibrate, This is your end, you will die here on this ship.
Your reign of terror across the universe is over, because of what I grip.
Message and Vibrate charged, and soon much blood was shed.
But Vibrate saw to her horror that all of it was hers, and that she had bled.
Suddenly Message pushed the Kingfather Scepter into Vibrate’s chest.
Her chest collapsed into her backbone, and she fell dead and lifeless.
Achilles looked up and said, Mother! as he sank to one knee in respect.
The Alliance Project said grimly, You’ll join her, and he put the Abyss Sword between shoulder and neck.
The Alliance Project then held up Achilles and screamed, This **** was made by this face!
This was the weak spot of anyone, The Alliance Project pushed Achilles off the ship into space.
Message took the Kingfather Scepter and roared, Where is Nihilist, I have unfinished business.
A Netherbeast was speaking to Nihilist from afar and said, It is better to retreat than die in this.
Nihilist went into a Beacon Pod that detached from the cockpit, after warding off Arthur’s blow.
She could not believe that someone so righteous could be so strong, so she knew she had to go.
Nihilist said, I will take the place of Vibrate, and Achilles only wanted to conquer a kingdom not there.
Then all will know the name of Nihilist, and when people hear it, they will tremble with The Fear!
Luke Colbert Jan 2013
I helped Jesus down off the cross
And apologized for his terrible loss.
All through the night we traveled at length,
And slept through the day to regain our strength.

Nights came and went, the stars at our backs,
Warding off evil and constant attacks.
Canvased the sky with our own selfish rain,
Filled in the holes to make sure we were sane.
Shed our skin, with no way to know,
Where it would end or how it would go.

I trusted him, and he trusted me,
I helped him hear, and he helped me see.
Reason and fear, pleasure and pain,
That which must go, and which could remain.
Darkness and time, purpose and need,
The life that flows through this blood that we bleed.

Somehow the masses had gotten it so wrong,
But we took it well, and we played along.
Once they had finally seen what we’d seen,
They carved out their eyes and washed themselves clean.
Then they hung Jesus back on the cross,
And wept without eyes for their terrible loss.

Safe from reason, no need to fear,
Pleasure and pain were no longer near.
Now came their purpose, they’d fulfilled their need.
Of course they asked Jesus, and Jesus agreed.
He’d hang around, they’d carve out his eyes,
Covered in blood is a clever disguise.
And what about the masses as they sleep through the lies?
Together, never lonely, ascend into the skies.
Michael Amery Jun 2014
Warm rain drops beating the pattern of my heart's pulse on the shutters of this old barn house while far away a lone wolf cries, unanswered.

Wind kissed tears from hollow sad eyes form wet trails over dried out wrinkles, whistling through the caverns of past glories on this war torn face, bringing colour and life with the desert rose.

Softly playing violins couple with the lone broken voice of a fallen angel, singing of maladies forgotten, joys yet birthed and a promise, a promise that you fulfill with each breath.

Morning bird song chirping of fresh hope and new love, a sweet tune warding off possible predators even while in search of prey.

Rumbling thunder, the roaring approval of gods reverberating within my bones, my soul, even as the hairs on my arm stand on end at the sound of the fickle lords' voices.

The silence of night captures my imagination, from it's seemingly emptiness rises fables of faery love and poems of ***** desires, all falling short of your brilliant black opal beauty.
Kylia Nov 2014
It's
fascinating how
at night, the moment my eyes
filter out reality, my blanket transforms
into                      a                    shield,
warding off all the spears that life hurls
towards me, only to shatter like
glass in the light of
tomorrow.
Sometimes my poetry tingles have weird, weird timings. This thought decided to flutter into my insomniac brain while I lay under my poofy blanket and worried about ghosts and monsters under my bed.
Daniel Ospina Jul 2016
She twists and turns under sheets and covers.
Sleep evades her as fire burns her cold skin.
Darkness shrouds like tapestries of terror
Warding off consoling light –
“Let me in… let me in.”
Boards creak and nails scratch the walls
Inching its way towards its fidgeting prey.
A monstrosity stands before her eying the
Trembling body –    
“Let me play…let me play.”
It leans forward to her ear and whispers,
“I know what you’ve done, what a shame,”
Its serpentine tongue licks her cheek.
“I thought you were better, free from blame.
But you’re like the rest, foul and unclean,
A lump of mass and unfit to live.
Unworthy of redemption, so obscene –  
Let me give… let me give.”
Sobs erupt from her quivering lips and gasps
For air from the weight of her filthy sin.
It caressed her hair with its skeletal, scaly
Hands, and kindly asked to
“Let me win… let me win.”
But a streak of light from the rising morning
Sun sent Guilt back into the dark.
A new day, a new beginning, an
Opportunity for a fresh start.
But from the depths of what has been,
There it waits for you to
*Let it in… let it in
robin Jun 2015
a pink spit shine in your suprasternal notch,
split lip stamping your skin with red,
lipstick kissmarks or ****** scabs. this is how it goes,
this is how you learn to spell your name,
letters to fill your mouth. rituals leave stains on your sheets.
you washed them in the river and the fish all rose to meet you, belly-up.
you eating porcelain, ignoring your bleeding gums, stronger than a doll. id rather be scared than lonely you said
as if they were mutually exclusive,
as if it was a choice. pressing your fingers in the saviors wounds cause you dont believe in holy
but you believe in gore. scales like stars littered in the grass.
you in the streets screaming HIT ME at indifferent cars,
begging dead wolves to eat you too, one last meal, one last **** before you go,
one more sin cant **** you too much, right? right?
death like a bloodletting, draining a wound.
at the riverside you sort the viscera from the flesh,
leave the eyes for birds. fill your hollows with something warm,
something liquid and soft,
for a moment you feel whole - until it leaks in rivulets,
soaking your skin, you felt whole.
bring me the head of god,
big enough to build a home inside, bring me the heart of god,
big enough to feed a kingdom.

your head is full of meat, raw and red, juices dripping from the ears,
your head is so, so, full, so full, bring me the liver of god,
clogged with human sin, bring me a poison that could **** the stars.
he brought them down, dragged them from the sky to bless the world, bright like angels,
purity burns. bleach in your fresh-pierced hands.  you were warding off lockjaw,
killing the flesh.my limbs are not mine,
corpse parts,
scars as seams at the joining-place. you say my hands hurt,
you say i feel like my knuckles are splitting, you say can we stop?
you do this every time. keep digging. i feel deathly. i feel deadly.
your feet in soft dirt as the shovel hits wood. i know what you know. i know what you know. i know your name and i know the soft spots on your skull. i know the breakline on your rib, the place where it's almost healed. knowledge of your ****** parts,
the soft parts where the teeth go in. im ready to die,
im waiting to die, put your tongue in my mouth and ill bite it off. put your hand in mine and ill break your wrist.
Ken Pepiton Feb 2023
Look once more,
look back and see the way, to now
from
when reason first was used
to master the frame
of mind, embodied, as mine,
informed with shapes of things solid,
shapes of things inside,
shapes of thing outside,
shapes of thoughts stacked in sequence,
after the hallelujah,
as per holy orders of worth appraisal,
services rendered,
magic performed,
life administered, for another week,
any body can handle one more week.
After the hallelujah.
learn that definition once, and you never
see sequential activity in ritual
as before,
magic effectuation, affection, as joy
one mindful, chewy, gustatory morsel,
of child-like faith, to be conserved.
Conservatively speaking,
Whig-wise, knowing one's prepositional relativity.
We labor, not in vain… to become worthy
to tread, with shoes, on streets of gold.
where milk needs no cow, and honey bees
never need be busy all day.

Riches and sweets, both
take more than either promise, aimed at
via entertain-mental mmm-usings tight
at tension, mind's time spaced taut
edge of me, edge of mine,
edge of ever aimed at
thus far… where we suffer this is so…
- measured timespace in mind agone…
Then we live through the last now, to die.

Becoming the author, fisher for being bubbles
afloat in ever after all.

At my funeral. To spare the hassle, imagine.

Friends and loved ones,
most are dead, or far away;

but we recall times, vague days
incidents for which we each hold bits,

instants, reality instantiated, pastense,

feel the kiss, feel the shame, the joy,
the hope, the loss, the win, the terror,
the truth of no perceptible way,

away from quit.
--------------

Infancy instants, perhaps, we guess,
we recall being babes, for briefest
recollections of perceptions kept, some how

to be reformed from shards of information
stored some where in an image of a moment

seen from the frame of a seer, not me, seeing
me, infant me, tossed and caught by a laughing
man in a sailor suit…

and, the oddity, of the singular infantile memory
stored some where for reconstruction, living
entertainment…

like unto Agricultural Entertainment, an art form
ancient as harvest festivals,

when locals picked the orchards, and our worlds
were edged in otherwise wild hedge rows,
where little creatures live at child level,
where words miss heard give stories twists,

too odd to be retold while holding any of the small
awe, aw, so sweet, too dear to let be meaningless,
but
as truth been told,
mean is bad in dogs and men, mean is bad in mankind,
mean is common,
mean is most common,
mean is measured, granted
mathematical reality, mind my means, you know
"intend, have in mind;"
Mental meaning application, folded man-kind wise…
Sometimes connected to root *men- (1)
"to think,"
which would make the ground sense of man
"one who has intelligence,"
but not all linguists accept this.
Liberman, for instance, writes,
"Most probably man 'human being' is a secularized divine name"
from Mannus [Tacitus, "Germania," chap. 2],
"believed to be the progenitor of the human race."

~~~~~~~~

Institutional minds, adapted from drama,
worn like Superman's or Bishop Sheen's cape.
Übermmench, **** sapien augmentacious,

**** habitus, us, as we think, we are.
We are no other way,
as a man thinketh truth, as a mind may think,
fine, so is he, in his own mind, right or not,
limited fineness, judged, discerned, quarkishly
ever finer, to this very point,
where mind being time being comes to mind,
in you.
We, momentarily, agree, aggressive face to face
point, fair call
at the inner edge of the inverse square
practical fractal constant…
gravest of issues, at thought
speed of intention to grasp. Percept perceive
link touch… flowing listing seeping soaring

bemused become
amused and entertained, feeding on ensamples,
as sorted characters,
defined societal aspirational imaginal
roles in reality aboard 1950's era Spaceship Earth.


Standing, unbowed, before kings,
bowing before mean men, thinking

all ya'll are said to be created, made
equal…
valued worthy
of opinion expressed as yours, as
wings put on wishes, shoes on prayers,
for warding reaching pulling pushers
-list as wind, in cognitive bias, right
lean as wild grasses launch new seed,
- double helix, twisting up
- from down,
feel massive missal push us on,
orbital, for a lifetime,
be maker of a being bubble
be a minding creating creation,

as weighed in balance, or mass, as gold
or wind in force testing wills for making

a way, where no way was.
Dead end. No way from now, but through.

Wind beneath my down swung pinions,
lifting my imaginal self over my useless

wait state, ever learning, never learning
the whole truth we are sworn to tell,
as soon as
we begin to see as others see, subject,
object
seer
seen seeing, saying

we may be minders of findings, guardians
set to watch,
set to see,
set to say look this way, these invisible limits

terminal connection looping past through
you
as my word choices,
pass the blood brain barrier and pierce
eternal you, in stasis.

- ---------------
- post radio war, not so long ago

"how ' we gonna keep 'em down
on the farm, after they've seen Pairee?"
- enter the era of the salesman
Total war, full power propagation of faith,
in practice, words are empty, meaning
is made- hate festered pride
of whiteness, same color as the rich, qualia
as equally mistaken in terms we call common,
****** speech of the non-reading classes,
stupid peasants, children of useless men.
Lower by far than, Biblical men
of the baser sort. Belial's
sons of total depravity,
two rungs lower than average
working classes, labor, any collared man willed
to pay sweat for bread and circuses.
And a dry, warm place to sleep.

Man, the reasoning creature, is what he eats.
Man does not live by bread alone.

Imagine grooming a gimp, from puberty.
Imagine Michael Jackson, "the kid is not my son!"

Look out, Howard Bloom. Duck.
Watch the boy do a thousand shoulder shrugs.
See the fantasizing worth of awe in focus, this
is us,
we paid to see the man perform, in a role made
from lies a child uses
to make just now,
reasonable, just
cause,

I can, I have power given me by Life, look,
who can imagine being the fan,
aw, man,
nobody longs to be
in the nosebleeds, being there
is not being you,
when all you can become has become true.
Just imagine,
fakes never make it.

And truly a big tragedy to be avoided, next.

We interview… the biggest nobody,
an entity insisting formless information imagines
bubbles of being limited
-- some strings of pearls rolled up

roll into little *****
of gnoshit pearls, treasure true, in essence
from dried gnosisnot. These we cast not to pigs.
To think a readers reasons
for writing, become one
of the rare breed born
to become readers
of one thousand books, once before you die.

------------------
If Warhol made action seem so mundane,
might I not make fun seem so slow a function
to make perfectly reasonable,
picking a fight with a lie,
because I can… being created equal to that task,
I can recognize lies I told,
I know where the handles are, I know what holds
the handle to the secret meaning of things,
can seem material, where free will
is culture locked as impossible.
Thingo no hypo.
Action movie, opening sequence,
as liturgical as any measured reassurance,
enter in, become the entertained,
we live in another realm, we only play at
while being entertained, we only watch roles

being presented for judgement,
test your will to link a mind projection,

from a former time shaped mind, aimed
at drawing an audience, a crowd,
all agreeing upfront to pay
for the mirror neuronic stims,
in a darkened room filled with fools such as I.

Who allows possible a gunfight with ***'s,
at goal-to-go range, taking five minutes,
and no named characters die,
all blood is non player blood,
only a child's mind never exposed, flash,
allows that to feel real, for five minutes,
into a nonreal mindtimespace
reality
of ever once,
and ever after, onces

such as once, seeing a gun in your face,
once hearing the bang, from a gun in your hand,
once
upon
recalling that was a movie, and I never killed a man,
but by osmosis, I imagine I can see
how hate
works the same as ******.
Relax.
Recall the unbelievableness.
--- so what are silent action movies feeding,
young Aldous Huxley, a bright well educated lad.
{We are all alphas}
-----------
"His uniqueness lay in his universalism.
He was able to take all knowledge for his province."
-------
Only a rich man's son may so say.
Even, as limiting to level, if such leveling
evens the odds, serves to increase resolve
to square the circle and fix pi to simple, once
and
for
all. As events in the heaven occur, fractally

added in fine ality… at you, dear reader, enlivening me.
Infinitely, relative to yesterday.

Of course, comic books count. As in the future,
classic video games shall seem poetic code.
I appreciate the reader's task more than the writer's. Writing is easy, reading what you write from the outside is the reader's task, unless it feels like a game.
My heart is but a wary fortress
Warding off any ounce of deception
Yet allowing complete devotion,
Succumbing to a lost revolution
Yet defending against any form of desertion,
Searching for sincere redemption
Yet invoking shrouded decryption,
Craving such an elegant disruption
Yet containing any sudden eruption,
Maneuvering through endless manipulation
Scanning for one perfect creation
That will bring about final completion,
My heart is but a perception
To an ultimately intimate emotion.
Hannah Bauer Jan 2016
A baby is born.
Hope handed over,
wrapped in blankets
and swaddled in light.
The baby grows
in warmth and love.

The years go by in flashes
of increasing darkness.
Seventeen years later,
the same child
crushes her knees
to her chest, warding
off the panic
in her blood
and the depression
in her head.

Abused. Assaulted.
Life crashed down.
Disease. Death.
Too much.

The parents stare
in shock.
Where is the hope?
The light?
The joy?
Their arms crave
to hold the bundle of hope
swaddled in light.
Their eyes yearn
to hear the warmth
of laughter bubbling
from lips too silent.

Shadow shrouds
the child,
with her knees crushed
to her chest.
Battle scars much too deep
and past much too dark.
Had the idea for this a few months ago, but only finally wrote it a couple weeks ago.
Martin Narrod Jan 2017
I have mistaken you, for the great wielder of language, that in the times of Caesar my father, my hero, the castle builder in mid-century medieval Spain, he was not. Painting mustard seeds and his mistake, bulbs of garlic for warding off the blood-suckers, I don't think it was his intention, but he could paint potatoes the flavor of want my sister and I so craved when she and I and him, revering in our trident throng forged language before a fading Tuesday night.

A painter is great rarely, but occurs in small, adequate attic-like spaces, empty squares upon squares, readied for the taking of language. Art might be the purveyor of its own bright useless entity, bright ripened similes squeezed out of the Dutch into the Latin vernacular our father failed to remember while poking him at midnight to rile him up to bed.

It was a mistake, the one my Godfather made when he started studying French with himself. No ranking professor can rank himself into his own pedagogy. Language might have lost its roots, maybe it even lost its qualities of being official.

"This is the office of the president."
"The President of the United States?"
"No, the president of the DISH Network."

This is for me, not any president I serve. You could have learnedly observed the words my father would spell to me, each individual vowel and consonant given their own power. However, not my mother or sister could undertake with adequate prowess the tenant of speaking as such, and their tongues suffered as their palates poorly undertook their flustered attempts to enter our philocalist resolve for Caesarian language.

Sadly now, as I think of reading. I think of your fingers and what you must certainly claim to be such grandiose proficiency, your digits and dactyls bring a melancholy hoop of unpleasantries to my eyes. Your mistake has been writing as you speak, and speaking as the free-style spoken-word "artists" attempt to do, in a horrifically insufficient and inarticulate way. I know your mistake when I open myself to read the Associated Press, listen to what Capitol Hill has to say, even coming down from the end of the bar it is a sick knot of undoing that I so wish any children we have will never be privy to.

Except on this Monday night where we can still commit our lives to one another without becoming the indigestible alphabet that has evolved into a toxin around us. What chance does poetry have if sentences collapse in short-dialogues? What will become of our hands? Will they forget the feeling of a pen or pencil in their grip? Certainly, those short notes and scribbles of cursive my mother left for my father, sister, and I will take themselves into antiquity with cuneiform and chalk, whether in Spain, The States, or another place, they have stormed out world with writing and grammar mistakes. He who must pretend to be understood by taking up the thesaurus to talk, will never have the qualities necessary to write without totally ******* it up.
Holding up a mirror to tomorrow
I see me just standing there
I’m not afraid of catching your eye
You’re clearly well aware

Life’s always changing, mutating
The years exhale and die
Waiting below falling bodies
Why stay here? Why?

Sophisticated and calculating
The risk to reward’s too great
If you feel differently
It sadly is too late

We hardly touched tenderly
Warding off shame
You never took me seriously
But stole my spring rain

Grass, clouds and sun-baked sky
Pervade tenements of my mind
Doused with gasoline
My children’s children striking rocks


And it’s suddenly Winter again
Grass hidden, clouds dreary, sky gray
I’d starve before I let you dig me out
I’d let you freeze in your sleep

All bundled in a corner
Away from light and love and time
Forgotten in our stories
Surrounded by my mind
MMX

Written back in January... really digging for something to post
“Do you know?”
“How will…”
“If the pain in my heart effloresces into something greater than this, what shall I become?”
“Never in my life have I gazed upon a countenance as beauteous as the one in your possession.”

“A parcel of pure magnetism is what the Lord of the Divine has bestowed upon me.”
“The stars in their dainty iridescence have blessed us and the thoughts of your love in my heart light up the darkest night in a big bang of enamorment and soul.”
“Time has not forgotten my wish, to be intertwined with the soul of another.”
“Do you see me?”
“I see you?”

The moons benevolent smile has given me the hope to search for a scarred heart buried beneath the tumult of ebony skies.
Love is not cliché and redundant in a heart that has wished for it since the beginning, the genesis of the very Universe.
The Phoenix shall inspire a metamorphosis within the confines of my soul as time unleashes the benediction of my faithful rewards.
In that day, I shall gaze upon your face once more and no longer will a diseased juggernaut guard something which is slowly waning, slowly diminishing within my spirit and soul.

A lightning bolt shall crack the ground beneath us and as we fall farther and farther into the Earth, there shall be a treasure in store for us in the core of the terrene.
Love has become an emboldening and yet abstract concept to me, so many forms, so many ambiguous faces to go along with it.
“Who will it be this time?”

“I don’t understand you but I know deep down inside there is a shining star that shall bloom like a vivid sanguine rose and it’s warding thorns shall beckon a new dawn.”
They will combat the darkness inside of you like a deep wound.
-Tears shall overwhelm you but the change must come.-

By, Iridescently Efflorescent
Poem about a lost love. If you have any feedback, please do not hesitate to let me know. Hope you like! <3
Sleepy Sigh Apr 2012
I have fancied myself to be a china doll
Alone on a shelf,
And waiting for some caring hand
To open my eyes and clean my dress -
But this at best is merely fancy
And at worst passes into pain.
I was not made to sit lonely
With my brain. Nor am I patient.
To stall with no hope of restarting
Is an unbearable weight, and waiting
With such vague notions of the someday-to-be
Is a foolish self-inflicted fate.

Oh patience, you unremarkable trait.
You have no care when even-handed Fate
Valiantly bestows opportunity.
You sit unmoving and insensate,
And merely wait and wait and wait
For Time's inexorable pendulum to swing
And the boredom of an afternoon to bring
Some visitor's hands, and perhaps some care.
(Though not too much, a doll's only a plaything.)

So no, I am no china doll rejecting -
Stupidly - the passing glances
Of strangers given to wild dances
And children given to clumsy hands,
No, I am no longer a fragile waiting dream
Hoping to visit some loving mind
And fulfill myself in a single eve,
Only to trickle the rest of my nights
As a empty-laughing lifeless little stream.

Enough of this!
I move, I leap, I sit no more.
What lay on the mantle lay now on the floor.
(And perchance the fall has cracked my face
Warding away some unforeseen gentle embrace
But) I shall find my own way into some arms,
Into some wild dance.

My partner will see these cracks and be
Far less afraid to drop me, throw me,
Lift me high and let me fall,
(So I may see the world around me
And - electrified at the sight -
Thank myself for wanting more)
Than a china doll
(Could ever have hoped for.)
Sarina Jun 2013
Baby, angel, I have begun
growing chamomile on the left side of my mattress:
you left it warm enough to grow something
as impossible as weeds. And I know
I am preferable to the sun
at least to you, but what about the moon? There is just
something about luna, the moon, lune.
Sometimes I want to talk to it the way I would
you: moon, oh my stars,
I did not believe in naturalism until I believed in you.
Baby, angel, we are only embers
of what we once were. I heat us up as tea
and grow herbs where you once would breathe.
Warding off bumblebees by
taking their stingers into my paw, the air can hurt us.
saige May 2018
although 8:30 was phone time
i'd long lost the privilege to
twiddle the coil, treasure your smile
through the line
because i never hung up when i
was supposed to
**** the doctors, **** the
too-clean floors i should have ruined
just from walking, watching
everyone tuck hairs behind ears and
cradle plastic to their faces
families to their faces

9pm was medicine
whether i wanted it or not
(i didn't)
then bedtime
but i wouldn't drift until 10
and always on my left side
because there were three inches
of rustling and light
because i had to keep
that two-ton door cracked
because that was back
when nobody trusted me
to be alone or
to be at home, even
**** our parents, **** the
monsters in my head, mostly

but they'd fly in bed
and plot escapes
wondering if you'd aid and abet
if i ever asked
(i never did)

and i wouldn't count on anything
not for sanity, not to sleep
just the obnoxious things i used to
number
blinks and air duct rattles and goosebumps
compulsions got worse
(everything was getting worse)
but i'd been inpatient for months
i was bound to pick up
a few more quirks

i'd crawl
out of my assigned bed
to the desk
pick up the photo of that fennec
fox you raised at zookeeper's camp
(**** magnets
that aren't strong enough
to hold the good stuff)

but tinkerbell, was her name
tiny triangular angelic-looking thing
and you'd given me the t-shirt
last visitation
your uniform, a souvenir, a gift
(a life-line)

lime green and neon orange
and i never wore it
not there, not in that hospital
i kept those threads to myself
same as some of the girls
hid scissor blades and caffeine pills
and
i kept a secret, i kept wanting to feel
like a rebel again
(because god, that was something)
but it hurt me
like hell it hurt me
to feel sneaky without you
grinning beside me

and when i'd climb back in bed
it'd scar me
deeper than the contraband of the
other patients, probably
i'd bury my face in cotton
clamp my hands and
lips onto the holes
where your neck had been, your limbs
your sunburnt bones
and no matter how thick
that ******* wedding dress curtain was
the occasional head lights, brake lights
were like fireflies out there
and if i were lucky
i'd fall asleep like that, right then
imagining life going on
around the block i was trapped in

hoping, idly
you were
wrapped around one of my shirts
praying, finally
it wasn't getting damp
like yours was

just soft
like your hair, like your skin
like your heart
should always stay, has always been
(were the fireflies playing
outside your window then?)

oh the wallows
i'd shut my eyes so
tight i'd see colors
(and if i wasn't lucky, if it were
a screaming night, well
here is where they'd sedate me)
because i'd try to find you in all the
shades and shapes
because i had to remember, i had to say
goodbye buddy, just in case
because my throat would be raw and
my nose would be clogged and
my sheets, your shirt, would be hot
and slimy and salty and
sometimes it'd become a chore
to breathe
...
and sometimes
i'd fall asleep like that, at last
pretending i was drowning
drowning in the nearest thing i had
to the soul closest to mine
the shirt in which you spent
the summer of your life
(without me)
and you needed to
be the last thing
i'd see
...
but
like a bombshell
i'd wake
with nurses and clipboards and
giddy long-sleeved girls around me and
your shirt
limp in my arms, hardly even tearstained anymore
and i'd throw the covers off and
stuff my feet into some socks and
count the steps to the shower hall and
look forward to
attempting to
drown again
come 10 pm
Scott Madden Jan 2015
Every now and again I like to sit down,
On a park bench, pew, or a bar in town.
With a cup of tea, let my worries untie,
And give a moment for each passer by.

I drift from out of the fore to the scenery,
An extra within the biopics of humanity.
Each person has a vivid and complex life,
Someone they love: family, husband or wife.

Within each person is an epic untold,
Each a vessel of the tales they hold.
Some are of loss, some are of love,
Wandering nomadically from up above.

And in each of these stories I play a role,
Sitting on my perch, warding off the cold.
I am but a tiny part of their life's narrative,
At most a stranger they exchange a glance with.

And I wonder, how ignorant am I?
To let each one of them to pass me by,
Without stopping them and enquiring,
What each of them is most desiring?

They are all chaotically unique,
Each one of them a kind of freak.
All a bizarre consequence of nature,
Chemistry, and their family's nurture.

Wide eyed as this realisation becomes clearer,
I'm sitting here and out of focus in your theatre.
In the wings for my cue, not yet a factor,
To step on and become your lead actor.
Connor Ruther Jun 2011
Tonight was staged a great decoy,
The festive focus of our joy.

Men set aside the hostile ax,
And all obeyed the solstice pact.

I sought warmth from that common hearth.
To briefly stir my sorrow still heart.

I drank, I feasted, and I carried on.
Am I still here with Christmas gone?


I am contained on a white blank page;
With all things finished, no thing obtained.

Clouds surround and weather worsens,
Love, for warding, draws the curtains.

Coldness deadens my silent shout.
There's warmth within, but I'm without.

The Great Game is played; I a pawn.
Am I still here with Christmas gone?


I knew I'd have to pay my debt,
In bleeding either clear or red.

I chose to weigh with crystal tears,
An empty penance, they appeared.

But selfish flesh cannot continue.
Life's a stage; Death's a change in venue.

I flee from fate, myself withdrawn.
Am I still here with Christmas gone?


As if by some celestial force,
My choice seems bound to run its course.

I'll let my form be dashed and skewed,
Ere' ever I yield my love untrue.

From first breath I knew my part.
Child with a candle in the stormy dark.

Now Ravens crow the silver dawn.
Am I still here with Christmas gone?
RaySlev Sep 2012
Your hands are posed up in front of your body,
as if you are warding off bad things.
But your face is waiting.
Fingers come up to meet yours,
weaving themselves around you.
They are my own.
Our palms press against each other,
a fire igniting beneath us.
The white blue flames licking our toes.
How can a simple touch
feel so rewarding?
I lean in so the tip of my nose grazes the stubble,
stiff, but I can still feel the softness of skin
below your jaw.
I want to take that skin in between my teeth
and ****
and make you want me more.
But this isent about ***
No, this is so much more.
I inhale that intoxicating scent.
A scent that can't be described as anything but you.
Just a simple smell, so intense
that it wraps its self around my chest
and squeezes, until I release my breath.
Unable to hold on to it any longer.
Your arms move around my waist
and they are pulling me in closer.
But im drifting.
Blackness is consuming you
while my ears are perking,
ajusting to a horrible high pitched noise.
I roll over,
shifting under my stiff cold sheets.
A green 7:00am flashes in the dark
as I embark on another day without you.

— The End —