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There’s a constant anxiety on those tables
A perilous way to deflect the world and all its problems
A kind of insidious joy in collecting
All these miniatures, minuscule and exquisitely crafted figures
Bothered by life in their stillness
Like little swans and princesses
Lingering in a silence which is sacred.
These tiny clever ones
Shuffled on slightly scratched wood,
Wear their days like a cloak of doom
And push each other
Like Londoners out of the tube.
Fearless, little monsters
Repressing their hunger,
treading over the borders of life, they enter
forests from which no escape is granted
Where awakens a desire for mutiny,
From the abnormal perfection
Smothered under ceramic faces.

A bedside table full of whatnots
Doesn’t shield you from bad dreams
The little shepherd lies smashed on the floor
And no one’s going to cry for him.
A poem about the confusion and franticness of life. People always running somewhere yet scatched in moments of panic and fear, like they were whatnots on a table. Suggestions for improvements welcome:)
Terry O'Leary Jul 2013
Remember all the Wise Men on their knees upon your yacht?
With orphans on their backs they’d crawled (with others that they’d brought)
Through rubble on the highway sands and residues of Lot.
They came from severed cities selling postcards of your thoughts,
Though offered for a penny piece, not even worth a jot.

They mused
               “How are you feeling? What it is you want, you’ve got.
               The words you scrawl on calling cards: ‘I AM – the others NOT’
               Shun wisdoms of the Seven Seas: ‘Salvation can’t be bought’ –
               Your fathers tried before you and your fathers came to naught.

               “You started out by gelding goats and then by casting lots
               Of bodies to the battlefields, contorted, tight and taut,
               Then wallowed in the wake of trails the dervish devil trots.

               “With marching bands of fatherlands, and drums of Hottentots,
               You lure your legions in harm’s way like giant juggernauts.
               Like Tweedle Dum your minions come (the sober and the sots,
               The troglodytes, barbarians, and mislead patriots,
               The Vandals, Huns and Hannibals and seaport Cypriots,
               The Japanese, the Congolese, Americans and Scots)
               To vanquish bows and arrows, spears and catapulted shots
               Of those who hide in bamboo huts their families, pale, distraught,
               (Their withered wives with dried up *******, their swollen babes in cots)
               Who swoon, engulfed in poison darts and vats of acid hot,
               Consumed by magic mushroom clouds, atomic megawatts.

               “In churches of your deities, your Holy Huguenots,
               Your Imams, Rabbis, Voodoo Dolls and Mitered Lancelots
               Lit wicked kindled candled walls in temples (while we fought)
               (Used pins and needles, magic spells on makeshift mock whatnots)
               And mosques, cathedrals, synagogues have blessed each new onslaught
               With prayers for pipers, puppets, pawns, your rigid armed robots.

               “Upon your knees in golden naves, while peeking through the slots,
               You horded thirty silver pieces, downed a whiskey shot,
               Then crossed yourself and wrapped yourself in furs of ocelots,
               And danced on cleated cloven hoofs in purple polka-dots,
               Then drank His blood from chalice cups with pious afterthoughts.

               “You’ve treated men like mongrels chained, like little flies to swat,
               By doing what you wanted to, instead of what you aught;
               You’ve wiped your nose with dollar bills and paid your serfs with snot,
               But when you’ve paused to preen your pride, you’ve scrubbed a scarlet blot.

               “In ashes of our victories: the diamonds that you sought,
               The crock of gold, the Golden fleece of bogus Argonauts -
               In mirrors of your lifelessness, the evils you begot.
              
               “The haunted winds strew leaves of time across a shallow plot
               Where now, beneath the frozen stones blanched bodies bathe in rot,
               Disintegrate, return to dust to feed Forget-Me-Nots
               Amidst the bane and pits of pain where broken bones lie caught.

               “In fields above the catacombs and tombs of Camelot
               The black and withered tree of Death arises from the spot
               Where oft beneath a bleeding moon you hid your gold in pots
               Embedding doubts neath barren bogs where roots of wormwood squat.

               “While waiting at the river Styx, in twisted time untaught,
               From branches of the gallows tree, in recollections wrought,
               Your soul, a beggar’s blanket, hangs in crazy quilted knots,
               With dangling pearls and diamond studs mid dripping crimson clots
               And gaping wounds with bulging eyes like fouling apricots,
               For wrapped in chains around your throat, the Reaper’s grim garrote.”

Yes, that’s the fate of all your kind, disclosed by Wise Men taught.

But that was, oh, so long ago, by now you have forgot…
PJ Poesy Jan 2016
I've tucked my dreams away in a time capsule. For certain, they will be better use to someone in the future. Though in all likelihood, they may never be found, for I have told no one where they have been buried and shan't offer a clue. In the capsule, far under the darkness of dirt, should one happen upon it, they will find obscure memories along with those dreams. Just tokens they are, recapturing happy times, made of clay and paint, spell ridden for a future discoverer.  These knick-knacks are sure to have power, as no intention I have ever had has been greater than what was formed in those whatnots. You've seen bric-a-brac shelved, gather dust, and finally find themselves wrapped in tissue paper, inside a shoebox stowed in an attic and forgotten. Then one day they are rediscovered by another generation, who is charmed by their quaintness. They are dusted off and put on a shelf again, until sadness bearing that memory requires them to be sold at some yard sale or donated to a thrift store. I can not see this for my whatnots. To me they are too precious to leave in the hands of those close to me now. I won't have them sobbed over. That is the reason they have been buried. And should a certain someone find them in the course of time, may they only know their dreams fulfilled, by a time capsule that stewed long enough to design newer wonder of whatnot.
Please don't go looking for my whatnot. It has been planted for a certain someone. That person is yet to be known.
Ekstyn Jan 2017
Hey, can you do me a favor?

Let me know once it stopped, okay?

Tell me.

Tell me no matter how much it may hurt me,
tell me once you stop being in love with me.
Let me know when your heart no longer whispers my name.
Tell it to my face,
that it’s over.
I don’t want to hear it from someone else,
please at least have the guts to tell me
that you don’t love me anymore.
I know it sounds pessimistic,
but can you blame me?
We live in a very unpredictable world;
one thing can turn to another within a span of a second.
I don’t want to deal with a heartbreak because I ended up believing that love is all about hearts and flowers. And that love can withstand anything. I don’t believe in forever.
I believe in the now.
See, I can’t promise you these superficial things and vague whatnots.
I can only give you what I have now.

And I don’t expect you to promise me the stars and the moon,
no, don’t give me forever.
Don’t give me something you don’t have.
I don’t want to hope for something that may end up nothing.
Save me from the heartache of believing in love too much.
The sad thing is that we can’t even promise our tomorrow.
We don’t hold the universe in our hands,
we don’t know what will happen next,
we are no seer.

So, here I am, promising you my now
and only asking you the same.

So tell me when you don’t love me anymore.
I want to hear it from your lips with your own voice.
I want to hear the same voice that told me iloveyous,
telling me the idontloveyouanymore.

Tell me once you are slipping away,
but I won’t promise that I will not try to keep you,
because I will,
I am only a human too.
Promise me that no matter how broken I become,
you will walk away,
because you don’t love me anymore.
I don’t want you staying because of pity,
you can walk away with the memories:
I’ll keep what I need,
and you walk away with yours.

I won’t blame you, no, I really won’t.
I will cry, but all the same,
don’t comfort me.
Let me mourn the death of a love I once had.

So,
If ever this shall end…
Please tell me and have the decency to
break my heart properly.
Letters to my future lover
saturns Apr 2017
My life is a series of "do this" and "do that",
Not actually doing what I really want to.
They say it's for me, it's for the best and whatnots,
Everything's more of what I'm expected to do.

Then came a reckless boy who called my life boring,
That was something I wasn't really expecting.
The first experience he gave me was a piercing,
He changed the way I see life, not even knowing.

04-19-17 // 12:46 PM
I hope we'll be okay soon.
dj May 2012
What a fix to be stuck on

A sea of remotes 
Controlling their channels
(Channels really know
How to pull people in.
But not me. I just watch news.)

Piles and piles and stacks 
Of remotes
Mangled up in cords 
Around the main event:
The TV.

Back to that pile of remotes -
All different kinds & controls
There's a pink one
With polka dots or chicken pox
There's a swampy soggy one
A grey tomb-stony one
Etc., and whatnots

What to do with all them?
Control the tube, of course,
But they all do that
A little bit differently.

"To hell with this white noise"

I ****** up a chrome looking remote
Soapstone it wasn't
But cold cold cold still
I pressed the red button near the front
Blinked it didn't 
But got stuck.
I just stared in frustration
For a long while, into that fuzzy screen.

And then
Out of the white noise
A gigantic chrome razor-hand
Came crashing through

Pulling me in.
T.V. Time!
Happily she flounces
and bounces
on the ground in
her lemongrass-hued
dress of whatnots

Way back when
The worries of the world
Were nonexistent
She ruled the forests
The toadstool wonders

She never thinks
of sadness or misery as
she performs her silhouetted
pirouette
for the birds

And as she flies
Above the trees she thinks
to herself
It will be like this
forever
What do you do when you're feeling so blue?
And you are under blue skies listening to the cries
Of the terns and the gulls.
The heart constantly pulls
Me to the oceans shore
Once there I'm not blue anymore.
I stand skipping the stones
Dreaming of lost sailors bones.
But it's the battles I love the most
Off the Cape of Good Hope or the Ivory Coast.
I can hear the cannons roar and see broadsides score
And I transport with delight into the thick of the fight.
I drink *** with the matelots
Take potshots at whatnots
Those enemies of the crown I say let them sink down
Into the cold arms of the deep
I will not lose any sleep.
But once more I find myself stood on the shore
And I'm soaked to the skin.
I hadn't noticed that the tide had come in.
I'm such a dreamer.

John Smallshaw  2011
we don’t need
to be fixed.

we need to be
aware. open. owning it.

embracing
our pain, our history
our patterns, our spasms.

confession:
I've been fantasizing…

that one day you'd roll up,
like Richard Pryor at the end of Moving,
sitting atop a semi-truck of your whatnots,
war paint smeared upon your dashing,
wearing a tie bandana and bullet sash,
carrying a semi-automatic weapon,
after stalking your **** cross-country,
to the front of our gutted dream house,
after this misadventure, arriving, finally,
at home imperfect, thankful just to be,
there with delirious, Cheshire cat grin,
like a lion dragging in a carcass,
bloodied, brave and proud,
eager to greet my eyes and say:

Honey! Look what I found!
I found my ****!
I brought my **** home...
This is my ****.


and I would greet you,
with water-colored greys
inking down my dimpled peach,
in a black and white gingham apron,
heels, nylons and corseted vintage dress,
mirroring that ****-eater right back,
tray of warm hash brownies in hand,
that got nothing on my toasty sweet
lips dripping to say:

Your **** is lovely, darling.
It'll go perfect with mine!
It's up in the attic - properly labeled,
arranged and categorized.


and with that kind of
ownership, acceptance and bravery,
there is no way our stuff will ever be
more powerful than us, together,
merged and emerging,
by way of wings, soaring,
above our ****-spattered clouds.
if you’ve got me,
I’ve got you, too
SDC Sep 2014
I don’t see people anymore,
only shadows.
I see their past and future
trailing behind and ahead
the constant lagging and catching up of them.
I am the patch-work mish-mosh
made-up creature-being
with Past / Future / Present
silly-goose whatnots.
I am the girl you laugh with at Starbucks
because you’re too ****** bored to live for coffee.
I get it.
Let your smiling teeth do the talking.
I am the one-liner two-timing
*****-less wretch of a lady you call friend.
I am the cigarette loser who watches your dogs.
I will burn your children alive.
I am the tree-hugging
nonchalant ******* handing out flyers.
I will plant a seedling then rip it to shreds.
I will wear its bark for armor.
Your precious ******* oak
puts out cigarette butts now.
And from its death we grow cancer cells for fun.
Hell, we’re past time for past-times.
It’s all coffee and cigarettes now.
Coffee and cigarettes
and honking horns.
Coffee and cigarettes and honking horns
and shadows.
No more people.
2014
Aashi Sinha Sep 2020
In the dark i saw you, bathed in yellow and blue
yellow and blue
happy, true?

i love it all, red, yellow, green, eyes, freckles, the beauty spots, silly whatnots
i love it all, the tired eyes, the voice, his voice, his touch, his sighs, his hugs, his writing, everything, his everything, and travis scott while maths

joji, jeans, games, memes, science, print, morals, snap, memories, Heart, Full, Yet, Feels, Like, Nothing

F1 generation pain
Tommy Johnson Jun 2014
The Packrat has morphed into a hoarder
I tried to removed the monkey in a suite off his back and put it in he barrel with the rest of them even though it wasn't my business, although I was its uncle

Get in

A quaint little bungalow
Where sweltering heat is a constant
"There's coffee on the back burner, ya want some?"

It was a blessing in disguise
A bona fide  slice of paradise

We read up on the complex of Oedipus Rex and the debate of moral fiber when talking about Ped Xing

We hopped on to a plane going to Pismo Beach and joined the mile high club then enjoyed clams on the half shell  

We listen to a dollar fifty nickelodeon
And talked about how music is dead because everyone is just na na naing and yeah yeah yeahing their way to the top of the pop charts  

Over a *** pie
I confessed my love
His rebuttal seemed abysmal to my sleeve dwelling heart

He said this was an unnatural habitat for him
And if we were to be together it would raise eyebrows
Tarnish his illustrious reputation

It was an unanswered prayer
After all the whatnots and whathaveyous
He got sick and died of AIDS about a year and a half later
He never came out

Dodged a bullet there on that one
RM Sep 2022
We have been through a lot
The ups, the downs and the twist and turns and  whatnots,
but I'm still a stranger in your world;
I prayed for your love, I asked to be a part of your life,
And our hearts now beat as one;
But I'm still a stranger in your world,
I know it's not your fault;
But it still hurts my wound like salt,
Sometimes I feel that I numb all these pain with alcohol
But this past indiscretion of mine is what haunting us all
Now I feel strong enough so I don't fall, and soon enough
I'll stand tall and
That's when you will make me a part of your world, once and for all
And I'll stop feeling like a stranger in your world,
Lonely and small;
Sweetheart, that day is not far away when you will proclaim me to the world as the one,
Till then I'll just hold on and fight everyday and remain strong...
softcomponent Aug 2014
the last is first behind the door of
contented pretends, and all the
whatnots in the void, all the family
photos ripped with rusty angry scissors
of betrayal and defenseless death.. no
justifications, called his son Justin Case.
Aches and backs beyond the last belief it
was ever rendered slow framerates across
the landscape, all anger and beverage
-induced slutties.. skittles in the shot
corrections, as if the world around has
a way of saying 'sorry' when the fault
lies with but a little bit of bottle body it
never intended to swallow or wallow
whilst watching a swallow swallow spit.
are you listening yet? upset? p-p-pangs
in the lunar plexus?
Heliza Rose Aug 2016
I haven't found peace
And I'm guessing I should
Like it is fundamental for my journey
Yet my journey has come to a halt
Well at least part of it
Like I'm in one car going at the speed of light
While I'm in car that has stopped moving because it broke down and a guy named Joe refuses to fix it, even though he has all the spanners and whatnots

So while one me is almost at the destination
The other me is hopelessly lost
Ken Pepiton Mar 2023
An Opus, is this. Ai do declare, my works,
my opera, taken in to my self aware, soft
and gentle
- tame the framing window

- as the Mona Lisa in chalk, let it be
So, old man, he says to me, quoteless in my mind;
what do you think of the last linear affect, my wisht
effectual request, quest for reason to will. May we?
Taste, and see.
Firsts are always free,
there, sit and stare at a stump,

At the core, before first root, the door
to out is locked up tight, living is hard.
Imagine many hands making light function, easy
shift from one sense to another, by the numbers.
Seed time.
Long time and short time
long lingering memories, short sharp reminders,
freedom, heard touted for all its worth, cost free.
Live to realize you did believe,
this is what we get, on earth, within bounds.
-mindtimespace and maybe Aristotle's four causes.
-there never was a hell those are church merch.

Coknowing, as any reader by now must be, coded,
we know freedom is not free,
we lieve be, it had to be won,
and as with any war,
winning is never done,
until we all choose, yes, or no, use our reasoning,
learn to bolt the rye,
- sift bran and endosperm
life has many
layers, many folds in a flakey crust

set… listen, windy March time flooding prayers,
asking the boss of all the weather, for wisdom
to come
on the folk who rebuilt
on the new sand.
Knowing, high and mighty.
Storms mean less to a house built solid/
broken bricabrac and whatnots galore,
shattered anvilt'dust,
as in the wind, once used to sweep away,
my married mind, unwound, or un raveled
as may be the case, aitia, as accuser.
opera operates deus ex machina

Is he free,
is his task his alone?

May be, may not, who could say?

Science with its native usefullness,
knowing good and evil, as translated
from the idea,
pride.
- Whence comes contention
How much, how little, measured out
so my part and yours, balance, against
all our worth as ones among the many,

duty service warring minds, stealing time

let this be the palimpsest, recovered
from
radical actual chthonic stage
between the rootedly other wise, simpleton
sublime curios spirit, settling soul substance
hope imagined
image, form imagined in motion, in access

the unacknowledged legislator, impotent
in the wasteland populated by the poets past.

Empty of spite and venom, distracted ******,

the dread of failure, is past me now,
I have become a defender of the faith used
to form my bubble of being,
thinnest of walls, translucent lattice seen
closely enough
to discern the marvelous vision, not to be
lied about by one who never watched selecting
portals accept the usefull and abhor the useless.
-cellular ATP [pop]
Freedom
of the press, belongs
to the man, wombed or un,

Take the poet's high seriousness, this
which brings a self forward -duty
to try signaling-- here,
here, exactly, as
by standing acting out that light announcing danger,
dare not come too close.
Mime meme, mea culpa. {as we cross another's line}

"compulsive excavation
of the void inside"

Irinia, HelloPoetry.com said that,
- goodnight, as an exclamation
-  she said that right
Peace, be still.
And I, the old Weaver's fan,
known as Happy, whishing
wafting hot ai
r, we there, as my soup cooler
slips in a Disneyified whatifery
pool where wandering minds wait
recoknowning, groan growing,

silliest little diamond miner
of 'em all… so stupid, he's cute.

And in that way, the hero being
generated, on the pattern
handed down, to be seen

when you gaze in to your
close kin's eye and see co-known,
we were made
for this,

Klang, that Zildjian once again!
Exclamation, thus marked, calls
attention in the mind's contextual
effectuality, becoming
realized,
instant by instant, at first glance,
whose enemy am I, is the game,
truly
win or lose?

End act one.

Act two. In realized ever after that

The Internet exists, and we were here,
to help announce it,
then we made decisions, to make this.
-Opus

Spiking hopes up, we are among
the first billion mind text to text artforms
to survive
the transition to whenever next insight
sets us right, functional, operational
points,
in reality, centers, of shapes.
- of things in mindtimespace
In this medium, this is my realm,
your role,
is yours to define, any time, think ahead,
see if this goes there, what if it does.
Read'm and weep.

Then what do you do? Ever being after
learning enough to come this deep
when
time arrives.

Short time and long time,
made some mutual sense, muse using me,
and me,
I wished for this, that's so,
I asked to know the meaning of certain things.
I third in to knowing grown, as a tiny we
takes form of information in words rye,
or reasonably surprising to confess,
you know, McLuhan says yet, you know
nothing of my work. Awry.
Successfully making pasta with home-milled, bolted flour depends upon an appreciation of the interplay among grain selection, mill settings and bolting equipment. Failing to consider these factors increases the likelihood of making a weak dough and pasta that breaks when cut and/or cooked. Although one can mask the impact of a weak dough by choosing a more forgiving pasta shape (e.g., creating cavatelli instead of making tagliolini or tagliatelle), knowing the interaction of grain, mill and sieve will help you to create the pasta you envision. Google it.
Certainty is madness, has been resaid
in many ways, all the same, nothing changes

until the bubble of all we call awesome, pops.

AND Boom, it's Art for art's own sake, and me,
for my own, as we two witness, here,
this has already happened this once,

upon, operating the game, shame is left
in your -wherever,
compost it, tell the world.

I made nothing of myself.
I made something else, and then
I made U,
my qwerty symbolic friendly stat set,
bound near-letter
to peeling layers from this particular pearl,
today- in the post Everybody Knows, Cohen
sacred making idea in other words
sacrificial artifice,
offering unto that
super positioned we, humanity has set aside,
holy
holy
hoho ** green giant, ma jones, whole earth

Stewart Brand, right worthy former breather,
with us to this day, in word, and you know,
wheres words take us,
a we spirtitually untied, we
these days, depend to the nth degree,
on real estates in mindtimespace, literaturely.

Ben mentioned, awesome,
I did not catch the reference, I see,
I said a third I line pattern stylized me.
I see, I said for the nth dime degree
Phryigian Liberty Lady.{PLL} appearing

on the silver dimes entangled in the web,
of what Bacon knew or did not know,
when he invested with Madoff.
I know.
He did not write the sonnets.
Marking timestretched most point. Here.
right passing the point.
We imagine everything, am I right?
Line upon line, messaging any thing reader
ready, right now,
this is not the act, no novel form
of a sliver of if,
this is not that.
this is vid licet, per missions taken
for granted, as
meaning clearly I believe I have the right to say
reflectively

I know a whole
other story, new to you, but not to many readers
you were,
in previous experiences
in poetry, and books
for lievers being brought online
in due time.

Ever after that. You may, pause, and imagine roses.

Act three Realized mentally

At the end, it is mental ascent, we do form,
in conformity to the commonest of codes,
Berners Lee's Hyper-code, as manifested in hopes,
of artists,
so called by all who knew them, the framing crews
at Aaron Brother's Art Mart Penny-Frame Sales
events for staff, same
kind of crew glue,
as seen any where,
apron clad, badged, same grinning, that's me,
I did that, too. Grind,
locked in midnight restocking

Walmart, yep, #26, Van Buren, Arkansas.

Target on… Cuyamaca, Santee, San Diego New
Trolley End, right, future planned in action..,

I got black dirt cred back to Moses, m'friend,
I am as full blood American as may be by imagining
I am a Union man, distant scion of a soldier
who had a son prior to dying, around 1781.

In the war for freedom of the press, yes, Ben,
my childhood proverb provider, reminds us all,
owning the use
of money is better than owning
money.
Freedom
of the press, belongs
to the man, wombed or un,
the awesome asexual after all we know,
who who followt Jeffy, and yet did not die in shame,
I mean
after all, we know, we think, why any might
be
so tempted to throw in a sorted *** scene
to envoke audience reaction
by invoking spelchekian mastermind.
Freedom
of the press, belonging
to the man, wombed or un,
who has access to HelloPoetry, past all the 502s.

Free, if you will. No yoke. Seat of y'panting/
Ai aiai

This ain't showbiz. It is one act enacting another.

A writing being ready and read, at once, later.

SO, I bet the Diamond Farm.

Friendly local game, envision a vision of your own,
drawn from what you know is good, for food.
Good idea, fishing for everything.
Got one,
governing meat eaters,
keep your gun, pay a meat tax, by
buying a deer tag, which you may use
or put in to a deer harvesting pool.
That pool then gets used
to pay hunters and packers.

Living forests allow humane behaviour.
Be having the right to use the proteins,
- but you must pay the butchers
- as you might pay yourself
- for the gutting and skinning and all

tastes may be acquired,
that is a power, that sense, too any thing
taste
at first, too bitter

resending hate hate hate, thought caught,
infecting all who take free time to think.
Sweet persuasive, tiny
taste, ah
any, ha, may take a direct object status
in any story, told to gurgling gut gladly
reminding us, aha,
food is not imperitive, o see, im per it
-this instant, soon, however, bread's a must
imperit
ive found myself a happy enough
moment,
dopplering blue jay flies by, says Hi.
- I read myself into the game, and call

Back to Bellow, he told of a fellow in Spain,
who spoke of nudists on the public transportation
in Frankfurt, so, I slip in time slime, no crime time,
¿when was that,
in the era Bellow was an adult in,
when I was just a kid… living in those days?

Poker on the Diamond Farm, in the dust,
we swept into play in the after you believed,

what-did-you-get-to-do game?

I got old. After a while.
Actively participating in the spirit
of my time.
And most of my future happened as I did,
we happened to be here,
at this time, reading.
An opus set to end, when the contrabassoon
blow ai ai ai.

Curtain.
Art  for no other reason, than this makes me happy, and no one dies.
My hair has always
been a sensitive subject
“Let me touch it”
“Your hair is nice”
“I want to do your hair for you”
“Is that your natural hair color?”
There are a few people that fuss about my hair
I am not one of them…mostly

My grandmother use to do my hair for school when I was younger.
She’d swat me in the head if I was sleeping and moved.
Heaven forbid I moved in my sleep.
She would also tell me about my hair, as if I didn’t know
“You need to do something about your hair”
Does my hair insult? Does it scream to someone?
“You just don’t know. I’m dangerous when I’m not in place.
Beware all that must look upon my hair. It will eat your soul.”

My mother fusses over my hair too. I come home
shamefully hiding my hair. I washed it myself, and somehow
I lack to skill of a master hair dresser. My mother finally takes one look at the
terribleness that is my hair and tells me about it, as if I don’t already know.
“You need to do something about your hair.”
Apparently, I’m offending her with my hair.
I have committed this hair sin that must be corrected.
But I have not committed the worse hair sin.
“If you dye your hair, don’t come home.”
I still like coming home, so my hair is not purple.

Then there is my hair dresser. We’ve known
each other over ten years.
She has done my hair through
some good times and some bad times. She has told
me how wonderful my hair is. She has witnessed
my hair break combs.
I told her of a time I wanted a haircut.
She nearly cried.
So now I just tell people,
“Don’t play with my hair, or my hairdresser will cry”.
I mean it too.

I have hair dreams
I’m walking somewhere unimportant
and someone, a faceless stranger,
says “Hey, did you know your hair is sticking out?”
In which my hair laughs manically and grows
beyond my control.
It infects the world, and
it coils around my neck.
I cannot get it off as it
Becomes tighter and tighter
Then there is blackness
and I wake up yelling
“******, hair! Stop killing everything in my dreams!”

My hair is uneven.
No matter what is done to my hair, one
side is always thinker and longer than the other
I shall never have that lovely, perfect
ponytail or bun. My hair around my edges it
far too short for that. A hair dresser called Cookie
once said about my hair
“It looks like your hair is running for president,
And this side is winning!”
If you cut me straight
down the middle, you still wouldn’t get
a symmetric hairline, cause even then,
my hair is shorter in the back and gets
shorter with stress and life. It’s like
my hair laughs at order and symmetry,
which bothers me every time I see hair
that looks like it was created by angels.
This is probably one of the reasons I’m like
“******* hair!”
In response, my hair seems to say
“******* too!”
and laughs at me in the mirror.

As for me, I like my hair, but it’s pretty much there
and I have to tolerate it. I don’t like people putting
their hands through it cause
I have no idea where their hands have been.
I always give them
this blank stare of doom
when they ask to touch it
and I don’t know them.
Who are they?
Where have their hands been?
I feel like they will infect my hair
with nameless whatnots
and all my hair will fall out
What will they say then?
“I’m sorry I made your hair fall out”?
By then
It will be far too late for an apology.

When I go to bed, I don’t
tie up my hair or roll it.
I am far too lazy and indifferently
uncaring to do so.
I can still hear my grandmother telling me
“Roll up your hair when you go to bed”
and how upset she would
be because I didn’t care.
This is a war we fought for years.
It always ended in a stalemate,
and start again the next day
Everytime I wake up, my hair
shows me what live action anime hair
looks like. My hair stands up
against logic and gravity
sticking out in ways and paths
that some would deem
impossible without help, had they not
met my hair. My father would take one look
at me
and say
“You look so natural, child”
in a sweet but condescending voice.
I’d roll my eyes. If he really
liked my hair, he would have told me so.

When I was under eight years old,
I accidently cut my hair
trying to cut rubber bands.
The result was chunks
of my hair liberated
from my head. One of my uncles
came over that day.
I was explained to him
of what I did, this young
hair sin. He laughed at me,
so then I experienced young hair shame.
I didn’t cut my own hair after that.
Instead, I cut my brother’s…

My hair means many things to different people
Even a three year old that has no
idea what the weight and importance
hair has on the world
has told me
“One day I will do your hair”
little does she know, I’ll be ready for
her when she gets older. She will not
be doing my hair for me.
That is, unless she becomes a hairdresser.

I never really understood why
there’s so much to be said about
my hair.
This is my hair always telling things
to the people who see it, even me.
This is one of my UA poems. Written before 12-7-2012
madi Apr 2018
I learned that everything hasn't changed for the better,
Sometimes they changed for the two times worse situation.
Situation that everyone can be hurt or worst can be a "cray cray"
We always say that playboys, cheaters, playgirls, prostis & whatnots doesn't have a place in earth.
How can we be so dumb in this world full of hypocrites, & naive people?
Why can't we be one of them be a hero of words? Be a hero with sense,
Be a hero without cape but has respect, acceptance, & know who God is.
Why can't we be one of them?
Everything registers on the scale one to somewhere.
I've logged in and on, been marked then as absent, ( so long and then gone )
The realisation that it's not a game simulation
comes later.

Christmas and robots, whatnots and if what's,
pennies in slots and your fortunes told.

Convinced that I'll sink
I start to swim and then..
..then the sky closes ranks
and the evening swans in

I swallow my pride and cadge a ride,
one going somewhere.
Arlene Corwin Apr 2018
A Career From Bed

It’s luxury.
To lie in bed, thinking thoughts;
Pillowed head, notepad and whatnots;
Lifting laptop at my side
(my writing bride –
or husband, as the case may be)
And write my poetry.

Uncomplicated, ‘easy peasy’
(English jargon) child’s play
To type some fragments,
Work them through,
Sending them away
To you.

In come the comments.
Not a penny changes hands.
No long-term contracts –
Only contacts,
“Like you”come-backs
Unseen as a daytime star:
With sweet, smart followers galore.

This passive bed of roses
Lap of splendor and much more…
Career from bed
Conducted solely from my head,
Solely in unsaid creation.
What in heavens could be bed-der?
(Sorry for the awful pun;
An un-withstandable temptation).

A Career From Bed 4.4.2018 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Corwin
A loving bit of ridiculousness!
Nylee Jan 20
I'd always die for your attention,
I'd always cry for your attention,
I'd always lie for your attention,
I'd even live, if I get your attention,
Love, care, whatnots, I just need your attention,
It is suffocating, this suppression
attend to this sensation.
Danny Apr 2020
Love me
Like you've never loved before
And like you'll never love again
Till I can't take it anymore cos I'm filled up
And until the only thing left in the plate set before me is more of it

Hold me
Like a mother holds her new born child
Looking into its eyes, fast forgetting the pain and whatnots she's been through
Till the delicate smell of your fragrance becomes my shield
And until my skin starts to melt into yours

Touch me
Till your prints are boldly engraved on me
Let your hands run wild and wide all through and true
Let it wander around my body,it's yours for the taken
Don't hold back, this is all I've ever wanted

Kiss me
Till the taste of your lips linger on even after you're done
Till I'm wasted and as drunk as a skunk
Or don't you know your mouth is an ocean of wine
I'll gladly swim in it until my strength is gone and I drown

Leave me
Only when I tell you to which I'm pretty sure is never
Never forget we're bound from now till forever
And even before the clock started to run its never ending race
Let it be the one thing you don't know how to do
Shobhit Mar 2018
The purpose of your life is often forgotten
and at times it doesn't even matter.
You toil hard to recollect it, reconsider it and somehow
Reconstruct it.

For a while, you take pride in seeing what you have rebuilt from scratch, from broken bones.

But that moment of self-appraisal is so ephemeral that you fail to capture it like you have done all your life for tons of other moments, you thought were vital.
But they were lost in the mist of
Procrastination and complacency, your only two bullets in your barrel.

So you are done recreating your purpose, one more night went by
without your eyes getting what they have craved for years, sleep.

Your brain exhausted and demolished inch by inch in the futile iterations, but you don't give up. And yet those red cracked up
dry eyeballs don't fail to do What they do best, see through the cracks lines of your glued pieces.

They exactly know how and when they will fall apart again for they have seen the same now for untrackable times.
Your head doesn't even try to comprehend what you are
forcing it to understand. For it has accurately anticipated the outcome.

After all, past experiences do save a lot of time effort and energy. Once again you have ruined your night, and perhaps the day to come and years to go.

All your determination spent in useless resolutions that are destined to doom tomorrow first thing in the morning.

Coz you have used freshly brewed Willpower to exhilarate a soul that seeks rest and solitude and blankness, a speck of nothingness if possible only for a second.

How pathetic is your cognition, failing to apprehend your own mind while you live your life in vanity claiming to understand others?
For once in your life, surrender.Raise both your hands and say "**** this ****". Go far far away from the things, people and places you are remotely familiar with.

Give your thoughts a ventilation and your head a passage for clearance. Pour every drop of them into a pit and cover it with rich humid assimilation.Don't worry if they will germinate.Just leave them there on their own.

Move away to the edge of nothingness, clearing the shelves, dusting off all phony ideas, dreams, and whatnots, you have accumulated during those insipid nights which you thought were your companions, your shed of solitude for you were a fool.

For once,  surprise yourself, love yourself like you have done to everyone else in your life but you.

For once, don't bother thinking before doing something.

For once, taste the mystical taste of consequences no matter how grave they may be.

For once, just do it and let time and another side of your brain handle the rest. It has been there for a while now doing nothing but watching the other half thinking, compiling junks for years.

This is nothing but bathing your soul, your conscience, your perspective in the spring of voidness.
Nyx Mar 2020
Did i ***** it up before it even blossomed
Into something more i wished we were
I know we're going through circles
Every time we tried to dance together
But i thought this time would be different.
We found more common ground
Found more whatnots and ideals to talk about
It was getting better
And i wanted it to be something more
Truly
But i do end up ******* it every time
I don't know what to do
And i know you've been fed up with
Empty promises and half-assed vows
Of faith and staying
So maybe fate has a funny way of toying with me at the moment
To have you close but not even mine
To have you far and farther still
But i couldn't just stay away
I don't want to
Because this dance is what i do want to do
Eventhough i know i have two left feet
So, here goes what has always been constant
My loyalty
To be yours in any sense that might be
I'm stretching my hands and my heart to you
Would you dance with me?
A legal pad with copious notes , dates
and chicken scratch
A room filled with diplomas ,
whatnots and balderdash
Here I sit in 2017
The minds boil has become inflamed
The second child declared insane
Clutching white flesh in the midst -
of the fall
Blank stares , nervous ticks and quite abnormal
Silly grins and childish games
The afternoon thespian now fully engaged
Tugging at his lip , wiping his brow ,
rolling brown eyes , wearing a frown
A punctual ghost to pander my folly
A toast to the woe begotten , the disillusioned -
and the melancholy* ..
Copyright October 24 , 2017 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Donall Dempsey May 2020
THE UNOPENED WEEKS

she paddled in the chitchat
suddenly surprised
to find herself in deep water

she fitted herself
into the conversation
like an ugly sister into a glass shoe

she conducted him
around herself
as if she were a museum

she talked about herself
as if she were chapter headings
in a history book

she felt like an actress
in a play other than
the one she should have been in

the stopped( ha h.... )laughter
running madly
about inside her

her strangeness stretched
all the way to the end of the room
her smile...an. . .horizon

"I'm learning to be
hungry
for your kiss!"

"Ahhh...that kiss
I think I need
a bit more practice!"

the unopened weeks
lay ahead of her
she longed to be them

"Love all!"
she grabbed him by his whatnots
"Advantage me...new ***** please!"
Yenson Dec 2021
I think they should get angrier
more frustrated more incandescent
they should go get the pitch forks and battering rams
they should bring the burning cross
and tars and feathers
all these hidey scaredy-cat hullabalou rigmarole
is just ageing them and shrinking already small pale brains
look the invader is living rent free
and getting paid for rest and relaxation
give him the chance
he will be ******* your mothers and sisters
plunging some mega sword in pearly cushions
and you all say remote this and remote that
you write pointless dirges
and compete to show off your rather fundamental grasps
of your own spoken language
while the invader lives like some primitive oil rich potentate
you should be climbing over barricades
carrying hot boiling oil and sacks full of nails and whatnots
this is the age of woke
the seasons of intolerance mob rule cancellation and distorting truths
now is the crazy democrazy (sic) where famous manager and some cricket captain
can disappear or be removed for a silly joke
this is the brave new world
go get the ropes and gallows out for that mocking INVADER
Arise vandals thieves barbarians and all in-between
white coats and pointed hats are optional







https://youtu.be/YrHIQIO_bdQ
satire
I scraped through the week again
and got to the end,
pretending I don't have to do it again
pretending the sky is not threatening rain
wondering what's in the pantry to eat
should I go veggie
should I eat meat?

whatnots and knick-knacks,
I got lots of them
pots of them
some say
I got the hots for them,
but
patently
I do not.

Still thankful that the time is here
to sit in my jim-jams
and pour out a beer,

tomorrow
I may work again
tomorrow,
it may rain again
but tonight
is mine.
can you match my energy
be as into me
as i'm into you
can you be consumed
soft and swooned
whisper naught whatnots
fall in love with my doom
lay around in my room
kiss me when there's nothing to do
i'll do whatever you want to
just let me know

is there a way to make this work
where neither of us end up hurt
or feel used
always fall too soon
end up bruised
but i like the blue
almost a little too much
is weird that i'd like to
be marked by you
we should be alone

even if it hurts
the pain is so delicious
when i melt in your hands
you don't feel malicious
i wanna trust my guts
and your outward intentions
even though i don't always make
the best decisions

i really wanna drown with you
thats all i wanna do

— The End —