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a lion out of the plains would be sick
walking tall in a marsh
with mud in his pretty mane?
no i don't think so.
fighter in the wrong land
fury in the wrong fist
turned inwards instead of to the wildebeest
cloven hooves at his ***
instead of teeth at their throats
proud proud lion
never be a gangster here
pull up that saggy skin and face the facts
you're in the wrong town now, kitten
more about me feeling wholly  out of place, though this one is delivered  with a more upbeat tone.
Adam Childs Dec 2014
Softly and steadily we munch
A roller motion action
As we gently pass over
Living in a contented silence
Randomly we each call
Hollow pipes we are played
By the holy organist
As life plays its tune
Understood be very few
As we submit to the herd
And spiral around a oneness

Mooing and mooing
With a great gusto
We send out O's
circles spiraling
Softly blowing bubbles
With an oily shine
We are carried forward
In these bulbs of light
Air filled with vibration
Caressing and holding
Our community with
An invisible film
As we all feel this
Light headed embrace
And the golden ring of community
Is placed on our finger
We say "YES YES YES "
For we love her very much  

Living free of hierarchy
As everyone is equal
Servant and master
Divorced from the conflicting
Ties of politics
We are as level and free as
The planes from which we graze
Living a freedom faraway from
Rank and power
And enjoy the vast out stretching
Places where our hearts unburdened
By mountains unfold into unlimited spaces
Collapsing within each breath
We spread our Love with the ease
Of melting butter in the African sun
Far and wide

In the mating season
We may bumble around
Like bumper cars
As you can not underestimate
The force of each individual
As we bang and bang our way  
Through life until opportunity knocks
Until life says yes
As our our stubbornness
Is not just the perfect No
But the perfect Yes to
And mothers reward our newborns
With her loving milk
The perfect colostrum
A silky bliss

In the expansive community
Of wildebeest and cattle
Where endless love
Can spread like water
We can learn so very much
community love wildebeest
Ellis Reyes Oct 2014
Unforgiving heat
Cool drink
Giraffe,
Hippo,
Wildebeest,
Gazelle
Sip muddy water hole
Crouching low.

Unforgiving heat
Cool drink
Texans
Sip fridge-cooled Camelbacks
Crouching low.

Light breeze
Eggplant skies
Tall savannah grass
Sways
Masking movement.
Predators travel
Unseen.

Guns ready
trophies sighted
Giraffe
Hippo
Wildebeest
Gazelle

Bullet chambered
Trigger finger
trophies....

Running?

Cheetahs pouncing
Texans screaming
Law of Nature
End of Story.
This poem is the product of a poetry challenge laid down my 6th grade English students. The gave me the words, Giraffe, Hippo, Fridge, Eggplant, and Texas. My assignment was to create a poem that included surprise or astonishment and incorporated all of the given words. This poem is the product of that challenge.
cheryl love Jun 2013
There was a race at the farm
This caused a great deal of alarm
A stampede of wildebeest
Were stopped by old geese
But the rest of the animals were calm.

The Geese thought the situation funny
And so did the farmyard bunny
But the wildebeest were too strong
And their plan went wrong
So the Geese ended up giving the Wildebeest money.

They called the race off as nobody won
But the farmer was running with his gun
The pigs hid in the trough
The rest shot off
And once more the race had begun.




That night they lay tired in their beds
The Geese were snoring in their shed.
The chickens thought they were lucky
They could have gone to Colonel Kentucky
And thanked the geese for saving their heads.

The moral of this story is plain
Do not mess with angry geese again.
There is no doubt about
That a farm should not fall out
As they have only got themselves to blame.
cheryl love Apr 2014
There was a race at the farm
This caused a great deal of alarm
A stampede of wildebeest
Were stopped by old geese
But the rest of the animals were calm.

The Geese thought the situation funny
And so did the farmyard bunny
But the wildebeest were too strong
And their plan went wrong
So the Geese ended up giving the Wildebeest money.

They called the race off as nobody won
But the farmer was running with his gun
The pigs hid in the trough
The rest shot off
And once more the race had begun


That night they lay tired in their beds
The Geese were snoring in their shed.
The chickens thought they were lucky
They could have gone to Colonel Kentucky
And thanked the geese for saving their heads.

The moral of this story is plain
Do not mess with angry geese again.
There is no doubt about
That a farm should not fall out
As they have only got themselves to blame.
Cameron Haste Aug 2014
Moss covered women
beggin' fog man
to grip a cig
from their tangled wigs
(a snarl of emerald branches
& voodoo masks
with plastic flasks,
they grave loot from caskets
& trash.)

Raunchy regulars
calling loogies to duty.

I've been livin' in a tumble ****,
with a doctorate for wildebeest.
don't go back, she bites.
Olivia Kent Sep 2013
Blood red plain of killing fields.
Lioness stalks her prey.
Tragic zebra separated from the herd.
As lady lion quiet as bird.
Creeps through concealing long grass.
Undergrowth.
Undercover.
Trying not to rustle.

Lioness has savvy.
Not Zebra mares' saviour today.
No games.
She flies.
Hear the wildebeest scatter.
They know she's there.
The birds, made them aware.

Assails from the side.
One fell swoop and zebra's down.
The other quadrupeds return from their scarper and scatter.
No fear today.
The lioness is fed.
She is not greedy.
Nature beat her quarry.
From the trees emerge her cubs to take their fill.
The laws of the wild instilled!

By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Thought I'd write something simple x
Paul Hansford Jan 2016
Very early in the morning we were woken from our sleep,
We were going on safari, being driven in a jeep,
We went out before our breakfast, we went out before sunrise,
We went out before the sleep had fully vanished from our eyes.
We had to dress quite quickly, and we went out in a rush,
And after we'd been driving through miles and miles of bush
For an hour or two, I have to say - forgive the way I speak,
But the roads were very bumpy - I was dying for a leak.

The driver stopped the jeep and kindly offered us a drink,
But it might have been more kind if he had only paused to think;
We had seen a herd of elephants, some vultures in the sky,
Several wildebeest and zebra, a hyena passing by,
Giraffes, a pair of ostriches, a buffalo or two,
And we'd taken lots of photographs (well, that's what tourists do);
We had even seen some lions lazing underneath a tree,
But ... we hadn't seen a toilet ... and I really had to ***.

Beside a water-hole at last we found a pair of loos,
And I hurried to the gents', 'cos that's the one I have to use.
Yes, I went up to the gentlemen's, and pushed the door ajar,
But I didn't push it hard, and it didn't open far.
There was something in the way, you see. I did a double-take,
For it looked just like a tail, the last six inches of a snake.
I decided not to panic - I'm not that sort of bloke,
And it could have been a rubber one, left there for a joke -
So I pushed the door wide open, to be sure of no mistake,
And what should I clap eyes on but two yards of living snake!

I closed the door, quite firmly, and went to tell the guide,
"I was going to the loo, but then I found a snake inside."
He didn't quite believe me, but he went across to check.
- Not just a snake, a cobra! - "Gosh," I thought, and "Flipping Heck."
For the snake looked very supple, and the snake looked very strong,
And if it would uncurl itself, the snake looked very long,
And a cobra's bite is savage, and a cobra's bite is quick,
And if that snake had bitten me, I'd be feeling rather sick.
"It might even be a spitter, judging by the size,
"So don't you go too close, and please be careful of your eyes."
But I had to take a photograph, for that's what tourists do,
And, warily, I took a snap of the cobra in the loo.

The driver wrote a notice "Danger, Big Big Snake Inside",
And the lady with the first-aid box took out of it with pride
A strip of sticking plaster to stick it to the door,
To tell anyone who came, there was a cobra on the floor.
By now the snake was moving, it was climbing up the wall;
It hid behind the cistern, and could not be seen at all;
It came down again, and wrapped itself around the waste-pipe neatly,
Then slithered right inside the pan and disappeared completely.

Now I was on a mission to tell others what I'd seen,
But I was very conscious of the fact I'd Still Not Been!
So in that situation, though most times I wouldn't dare,
When I found the ladies' empty, I quickly popped in there.
I'd had a narrow squeak, but now (in every sense) relieved,
I had to write my story, which I hope will be believed,
For every word is gospel truth, I fully guarantee,
And it's even got a moral, which is very plain to see.

    (Moral)
If you ever see a man who's coming from the ladies' loos,
Please don't jump to conclusions, he might have a good excuse,
- "I went to spend a penny, for my need was quite intense,
"And I had to use the ladies' - there's a cobra in the gents'!"
The record of a true encounter, in Zimbabwe a few years ago, when things were less difficult.
I sat by his bedside the day my father died.
The cancer that had riddled his body and soul
Now had complete control.

He fought kicking and screaming
The night the men in white came to take him
On his final journey
Like a great wildebeest
Struggling to get up on its front legs after being taken
Down by young lions. The way so many had said he
Probably would since he fought his way tooth & nail
Throughout his life from the very beginning.

That night I sat on a chair at the foot of his bed
Staring out the huge ceiling to floor window
Of the medical centre
At the many worlds hidden beneath thousands of straight
Stationary lights in-between fluid winding rows of
Transient lights and thought how the light of This window
Is just one of many thousands. At that moment it seemed
More like just one tiny speck in the vast star fields
Worlds above this city of light.

My father had spent most of his life just a short
Six-mile drive from here, under the scattered lights of His
Hometown.

He turned to me and asked,
“That’s a big city. Where are we?"

Dementia had claimed his mind ten or more years earlier. It
Slowly wound its way around his brain like a cocky Snake
?Handler being choked by a boa constrictor unawares.
It seemed like it all caught up to his body.
But it was good to see much of the bitterness
And bad blood between us dissipated over the past decade.
On that night compassion ruled the day.

I could not say it then
But it has been many years
Where it seems compassion has forged with objectivity.

In a lucid moment he looked around the hospital room
Bewildered as if he were a little boy who just woke up
From a bad dream and asked,
“How did this ever happen?"

If only I could have told him.
Sometimes the truth cannot be spoken or heard.
All I could do then was sit by his bed
Lean in close to his ear
And sing softly his favourite hymns. 

By morning his lifeless
Dilapidated body lay in the fetal position.
His once ravenous mouth now forever frozen
Looked like a knothole in a twisted cedar tree.
All I can do now is hang my head and think
Of how weak and frail we humans truly are.

Like compassion forged with objectivity,
Weakness and frailty forges with fleeting moments of Strength.
We forge heroes out of these moments to tower above
The pedestals the former is made of
To somehow minimize the pain of this often denied truth.

               --Daniel Irwin Tucker
My wife & I put our life on hold & travelled to the U.S. to help my mother take care of my dying father. She wanted to keep him in the comfort of his own home. We were there for five months.
Mixed group migrations

Zebras  Antelopes and Wildebeest
      Sprinting
Across the breathtaking Savannahs.

Survival Instincts....

'A new life
to learn survival skills .....
Everything on the go.

A new born calf learns to sprint within 7 minutes of being born.

Window period ...
testified by the predators.

A couple of days in life
Good to give competition to the
Adults in the herd .

"Anew , Life's Lesson Learned "
Had been watching a program  on Nat Geo , along with  the kids , a few days back.
The animal kingdom has so much to offer , to learn life skills , while  on the go.
The wildebeest and other animals of the same kind , are constantly on the go across the savannahs for survival.
It saddened Intrigued and amazed me , to watch ,how the wildebeest' s calf  has to learn survival skills in a span of few minutes of being born .

For the mother - The joy of birthing, The fear of losing !!
Steven Fried Sep 2013
Before the birds and the bees the sun and the moon
without stars in the sky nor the land nor the dune

Not a sea not a plant not a tree not an ant
there was not a wildebeest nor an elephant

Just one small room
was the Craftsman's dark tomb

He toiled unstoppably without night nor day
in the blackened room he was bound to stay

for eternity the Craftsman seemed doomed
to continuum to be stuck in the loom

Blindly toiling in the binding shadow
with black tools viciously hallow

hammers and nails mud clay ashen bricks
marble chisel mortar pestle tricks

Monotony sparked the craftsman's lost temper
the wall became canvas for angry distemper

His artistic equipment brushed the prison walls
hour upon hour O' mighty hammer falls

He hammered until it whittled away
his fists were red raw like the break of day

The Craftsman was caked in saddened rough sweat
dejection on brow heavy did get

The Craftsman let his head fall low
out of the wall did a light show

A peephole smaller than a rat's tail
was broken wide in the prison cell

Wondrously untamed the light spilled
rolling and soaking all was filled

With light's glory the Craftsman could not see
another blindness that harsh bright brought be

His tools and materials all were a beautiful gleam
the Craftsman pleasantly content with the scene

Slowly but surely the room was filled
and then his neck almost needed t'be gilled

Lacking a need and bound to drown
he singularly thought his problem profound

The Craftsman deftly picked up his tools
and set to building collective pools

To contain flowing light
he took all his might

and built wholly right
a fountain delight

Artistic wonders into his structure
of beast and nature all perfect sculpture

Of timber and clay of marble and grass
he worked until the fountain's completion at last

In the Craftsman's abode was the most beautiful fountain
which all of the light was collectively bound in

Little black Leeches began squeezing through
at first it was only one Leech or two

The Craftsman was able to squish them all out
but even he grew tired bout after bout

They began to stick to his precious creation
Leeches worthy of the vilest waste-bin

The evil pulled petals off of wooden flowers
and the nose off of many clay tigers sin powers

Duly distraught for days he sat
tormented watching his statue crumble flat

Under the weight he watched stone clueless
wondering who endeavored to do this

Disregarding he set to his one task
deep within his mind he firmly did ask

He built a statuette and endowed it with life
by breathily bestowing will to battle strong strife

Using only dirt that had flowed into home
he crafted brains limbs and torso and left them alone

The Craftsman thought and pulled out a rib
and crafted the partner the woman most glib

The Craftsman sat back and watched ambition grow
the seeds thrived and they the **

They fought and they loved they created and destroyed
they lived and they died but survived all the void

The combat with Leeches
embattled stony beaches

Watching the battle
he saw no major rattle

When the Craftsman realized he was needed no longer
he built a chair for himself and sat down to ponder

Years and years more was the Craftsman
stoically sitting watching his creations gain traction

They leaped and progressed
with clothes or undressed

Intervening no more
they handled their score

His beard grew longer and longer and his eyes drooped lower and lower
until finally the Craftsman's heart beat slower and slower

comatose he waited ever in slumber
for his creations to need him to save any blunder

Ever hoping it never was necessary
life flowed around purposefully predatory

He watched their lineage improve naturally and viciously
and off they went history to history
the future was as it will be just a mystery
fountainfable.pen.io
Dear America,

I was built on a loose foundation
A table with three legs
to sustain the load of a table with four.
To make nothing from something but
For something to come from nothing you need some thing.
The most terrible thing to waste
The superlative of Man’s tools
What makes us as individuals unique,
On the contrary defines us as a social order
The mind, The M.I.N.D.
My Intelligence Nurtures Divergence
Always accepting of the opposition,
A bloodthirsty cheetah digging its fangs deep into the flesh of a wildebeest,
my mind feeds off of their ideals,
Further amplifying my intellectual power.
Expansion within the human intellect,
builds on experiences of failures and success
Be afraid of failure, but unafraid to learn from defeat
The world is a frigid place,
and even colder when you squander your most valuable weapon.  “A weapon?
What beats an M16, double barrel shotgun,
9mm, Smith and Wesson, or Desert Eagle.”
Young blood, the divine power is in your head
Gandhi, Malcolm X, Socrates
Gone too soon due to minds considered Weapons of Mass Destruction,
Weapons of Mass Enlightenment to others
Since 1992 I’ve embarked on a journey
A journey to educate myself
A journey to realize the man I want to be
A journey to reach my full potential
Universally familiar words of my grandmother
“You can do whatever you put your mind too”
The future poses as an unknown force,
But within me fear is absent as my MIND is fully equipped for the ongoing battle of life.
I was built on a loose foundation
Tupac Shakur, John D Rockefeller, Oprah Winfrey, Chris Gardner, Christopher Wallace, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson, Henry Ford, Bill Gates.
Expected to come from nothing to something
but had that one thing to become something
Utilize your strengths and bury your weaknesses
For with a strong mind the word weak is without purpose
L T Winter Dec 2014
My tears are--
Narcoleptic diagonals
Collapsing forward-

Motion into neurons-
Bound-by-arteries
Instead of gravity.

They find construct,
By fluorine cyclamen
And wildebeest chantries.

But to understand
Is-bygone-remorse
Made of much more
Than clovers stitches.

Needling skin into bone.
Thoughts from flesh.
EC Pollick Nov 2012
Everyone I’ve ever idolized dies tragically.

He said that Blues Run the Game and died still feeling that fire all over his body.
He sings about losing control again even though it’s he who was.
He taught his son about responsibility and fell to the wildebeest.

I used to think the monk who set himself on fire
was insane
but now I think
he was a product of sound rationale.

Ears are falling off in this starry night.
And I see nothing weird
If he told me to keep the object carefully
I would.
Madness is Genius.
And I’d rather be absolutely ridiculous
than nauseatingly normal.

No one tells you that the very best parts of love
are also its very worst.
Love torments the soul
Tragedy becomes a way of life
And suffering, a daily occurrence.
Such is the way of the mad artist.
Who after he paints Starry Night
Cuts off his ear.

I’m starting to think
I’ll live longer
If I stop being an artist.
The best artists are the best thieves. However, this thief wants to give credit where it's due. See Nate Evans' "untitled" --> http://hellopoetry.com/poem/untitled-5279/
topaz oreilly Oct 2012
Muster and Roll
Imagine time and the continental plates merging
Trust in no one, Enkai or  Snake oil medicine shows.
Gumbo stew trumps the Serengeti ?
Wildebeest hording into the new territory
Manifest destinies assured.
Michael Hoffman Dec 2015
Santa Claus is 100% pure love
his heart does not divide
the starved and homeless man with his tin cup
from the wealthy politician in his black limousine

nor does Santa ever blame
the frightened small town girl
who paints her lips and struts unsure
down hard dark streets

Santa Claus remembers his own mother
and weeps for the lonely karma of octogenarians
diapered in wheelchairs along fluorescent hallways
abandoned by the ones they birthed

our great elf winces every time
he feels the crocodile's fearsome jaws
drag the wildebeest down
while the zebras flee

he prays relentless sailors
stop harpooning the great breaching whales
and hears the grasses scream
when bloated oilmen pound holes
in the prairie dog's kingdom

he regrets that schoolteachers lie
about what a great man Columbus was
and why the Sioux, the Apache and the Arapahoe
were incapable of evolution

he knows you don't need a bicycle helmet
to ride downtown for ice cream
knows our legal system is for sale
knows surfing is Neptune's brave ballet

Santa delights in the spiritual joy emerging
when patients see angels hovering everywhere
before doctors scream psychosis
and numb what they do not understand
with sad needles and leather restraints

his reindeer are the dreams of the spastic child
who knows he will never run
his sleigh a zero carbon emission vehicle
and his great heavy bag carries
the sweet prayers of the Jew, the Christian
the Muslim, the Buddhist, the Hindu
the Gnostic, the Wiccan and the existential humanist

on the night before Christmas
Santa dreams that all the cars and trucks disappear
and every freeway grows trees and flowers and grass
where everyone chats and meanders and strolls
and vendors sell SnoCones, apple juice and pears

because Santa Claus is just doing
the one thing he knows how to do best
on a long winter's night
to bring some light to a world
that races toward extinction
while the butterfly sleeps with the lizard
and the children still believe
In honor of Walt Whitman and Alan Ginsberg
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2015
enter slav digressing with the celt... yeah, saxony, once known as the northern arm's length of parody shaking oiled up speaking saracen sign language: arabica wavy wavy bye bye. you concrete those words in i roof it over, then we can both admire the rich russian vixens dry up their wealth with the saudis - we need television after all - and it’s in 3-d! and it’s 1-d head-banging closure! :)... ;( :x, :s, \: (mouth’s missing but i have a mammoth in malibu -
and my love can’t aim to have the mortgage too - but hey, girl’s heading for the one coin-flip  dolphin clap; and i was a teenager once too... but played grand theft auto 2d throughout asking for a bottle of whiskey and a panda’s / koala’s bothersome diet to hunt sleep); is there some sign language translation of emoji? i just don't have the talents to enter the emoji language and become a *******! or make democracy justly an exclusion of cowards and ******? i can’t do that, let’s utilise charles the third! ‘too busy, too fuzzy,’ well hear and karma sutra the talk of the man, after all the coinage and respecting the hedgehog on his head.

i cleaned it into a hotel like i would into a brothel,
while the suffragettes
looked like the elephant man in niqāb,
and i was ready
with the fist; although i shook less
than i spoke to mouth it off into democracy
continuing the power struggle vetoed with bodies extracted
into the count warranting mourning.
what success is it if a white boy in a western society
can’t leave the nest and establish a taxable one to suit power?
where’s the power then, in the stateless individual?
where is your power to my ******* of being given wife and house
not given? where?!
if i can’t be the individuated pawn power broker you can’t be in power... idiots!
you have to give me the ******* i “desire” to be in power, if you can’t,
you’re not in power! ave augustus ave ego!
try contort the square into a triangle by contorting **** into f
ck.... ah ****...
you already did... where’s the spanks’ worth of bullseye?!
you germans have no decency in human affairs
than you have to inspect **** movies varied
by wildebeest stampedes
from guernsey into gibraltar in gifs, do you?
well i did **** off a palm tree and got a coconut for an oasis’ worth of thirst.
scar Jun 2015
the people swarm like ants
that’s what they say, isn’t it?
but they’re not like ants
at all, really.

ants have a purpose, a structure
they scrabble across the pavement as the sun beats down
with a common goal
carrying huge leaves between them
thousands of times their weight

nor are people like wildebeest
who stampede wildly across the plains:
LIONS! RUN!
their purpose is logical
their goal is survival
but people

people swarm in great swarthy swathes
sweating their way through the summer
slipping and
shivering their way through the snow

there are so many of them, and
their goals are so individual
so complex

not for them the ingrained logical processions
not for them the sole desperate stampede away from danger
no.

they have a society
have a culture
and wrapped in the cloaks of their conforms and their norms
they slither through the daylight
take up the space around them
give no heed to how they’re filling it
or who must take it next.

it’s why i like the early mornings
and the late night times
when the world is empty
barren
silent and pure
untainted by the congestion of the day.
Hot box a cigarette , sawmill gravy and country ham ,
Entrenched in the morning paper , dishes scrubbed , drumming of pots and pans ! Blue collar people with somewhere to be , buoy's chained to the bottom of the sea ! Sweet black ribbon covered in fire ants , May honeybees , wildebeest crossing the wild African plains..
White smokestack dens of endless toil , black tar factories , dead fish waterway , boiling star infrastructures !
Biscuit , tobacco , hot coffee welder , plumber and electrician
Caviar , flounder , after dinner mint doctor and lawyer ..
Goody powders ,  soda pop cures , work induced migraines for
societies  'riff raff' , high atop steel skeletons , life hanging in balance .
Xanax , blue cheese , marriage counselor soccer moms , yoga , wine party ..Young people lie in their own blood , candle light vigils are like all others . Repetitive anguish falling on deaf ears , billion dollar football stadiums , homeless freeze to death , Good Morning America focused on the Grammy Awards or someones *** , Miley's tongue , Scientology or Donny and Marie !
Bath salt possession , teenagers are shot full of bullets , Kelley and Michael promote Hollywood garbage , their so ******* cute !
Copyright November 5 , 2015 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
V. the ballad of briseis

my heart is of
the flesh of figs,
and that which
i cannot touch:
grainy sweet
garnet nectar
pretty to behold
but easy to bruise

no god shall speak for me, briseis
for this fig-heart, like the heart of man
craves art as it does god
and though i know you not by name,
but only pseudonym:
blood, words, and love,
we are kindred souls

i'd like to believe that we
are cut of the same cloth
hewn of the same mound of clay
(or cast into the same iron, i suppose
for we became one another's anchor
the day we met)

i once told you, my dear briseis,
that if you taught me symbiosis
i would teach you love
for you found pragma
in philosophy cold
markov's blankets
freud's ego, plato's cave
whereas i found pragma
in alchemy's poetry
chekhov's gun
freud's neurotics, plato's human

it means nothing.

the alchemy lies
beyond the chemicals,
beyond the seed and the egg,
beyond our festivals of atonement,
beyond my prima materia
and your unfulfilled magnum opus

it lies in simple interdependence,
the oceans, the heavens,
the forests, the deserts,
the storms, the famines,
the herds of wildebeest,
the colonies of ants,
the beady dew on the spider web
and the purling river shallows,
our acrid mouths yearning for mother's milk,
the boy who makes us cry at night,
the fiery logs roaring against the cold air,
the hoot-owls and the faces on the wall
(our skeletons never did stay in the closet)
bathed in that slow, hideous wonder
those interplays of love and symbiosis

as i drown and die in reverie once more
pray that the stakes may be forever higher
that i find those eternal elysian fields
so long as our achilles lives to fight again

we are more alike,
than you or i would
ever dare to admit,
briseis

so humor this fig-heart:
hold me and tell me
that it'll be all right
to fig-hearts and fickle fate: we aren't perfect, and that's okay.

~ILIAD~
this series, inspired by the greek epic of the same name attributed to homer and madeline miller's "song of achilles", is a narrative of my life, short as it may be. i [attempt] to explore everything from race to sexuality, to friendships and reconciliation. i hope you take something from this. you can read in whichever order you like, as a series or as standalones.

interpretation of truman capote's "other voices, other rooms", with text taken directly from said work in stanza seven.
Supposing creatures had a voice,
Would they really say that we could eat them?
Would they really step forward willingly to the abattoir?
Like Lamb to the slaughter…
Or do they too speak profound thoughts?
Could they or could they not,
We may never find out this,
But, surely we must believe they are more
Than just a simple slab of Meat.

Could they think from a new perspective?
Evolve or Die? **** or be Killed?
Could they really want to be sacrificed?
Their deathbed a slab of concrete,
An axe as their executioner,
And a butcher’s as their tomb…
Their only purpose in life nothing more,
Than just a simple slab of Meat.

Should they really see a new lease of life?
Given the freedom of the grassy plains,
Or left picked apart, the bones scattered,
The prime cuts selected, The gristle dumped.
The only purpose as food for a higher being,
The only question on another’s lips.
How much are you willing to pay?
After all…
It’s nothing more,
Than just a simple slab of Meat.

After all is slaughter any different to hunting?
The axe as the fangs, the predator as the executioner,
The prey is the cattle, the wildebeest, and the animal.
The thrill in the chase, but not in the capture,
So why does it end in slaughter?
Surely the prize is a little bit more,
Than just a simple slab of Meat.

We may argue and we may debate,
The civil rights of these animals.
But so many people cannot see,
They think them merely as a meal.
So blind to sight and yet so advanced,
But nobody sees the hidden obliviousness,
For they cannot see animals are more than,
Than just a simple slab of Meat.
Andrew Rueter Mar 2018
One day I met a titular telepath
That made me do social math
After I took a brief bubble bath
Underneath his heavy hovercraft
That submerged my brain
Allowing no sign of refrain
Only the pain
Of the stain
Of his Rorschach test
Filling inside my crest

You cast a spell of thought on me
When you walk by so haughtily
I can't think
Only drink
Your Kool-Aid
Of a fool's blade

It should be considered a crime
The way you control my mind
I feel so pointlessly paranoid
And it's not the ****
You travel to an abysmal void
I just follow your lead

I live in a world of mass media
But you cut off my streaming
So I guess I won't be seeing them
And I can focus on dreaming
Of an amazing life starring you
And introducing happiness
I don't care how it's reviewed
The critics negate sappiness

I'm so afraid you will get rid of me
While I sit under your guillotine
That can't reach me in your grasp
But if I ever leave it'll be in half
I'm trapped in a precarious position
That I fear will carry us to collision
I put my ear to the ground and listen
For an approaching stampede
That will steal my cognition
Will those wildebeest thieves
Make a deadly incision?
abby Nov 2015
your hands are gospel, writing history
with your fingertips and whispering
prayers up and down my spine
i called you my ravenous wildebeest, and i
said it with a smile painting my lips, but
you are everything wild,
thorny, and carnivore.
you're gonna eat me up with texas-sized
teeth and leave me a carcass in the
desert. but i don't mind
i want to be bone for you,
bare.
i think that maybe your bigness is going
to consume me
until i'm a star-soaked black hole
set me on fire, douse me in gasoline
make all the blood rush to my head
because kid, you're a firecracker
and i've always been in love with explosion.

*(a.m.c.)
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
go to a brothel, you won't feel anything about what's considered the teenage atypical damning of events that make violins of us all.

now i know why i prefer bourbon to whiskey,
my usual stock went missing today
at the supermarket, i was thinking prior
recycling a plastic bottle of coca cola and a glass
bottle of whiskey... three Buds on offer for
£5 and then a bottle of Scots' Club at £11 (and
a bottle of coke): for the extra walk to buy
£5.99 Chesterfields at the Bangladeshi outlet?
hmm, that's a tough one... solved, Scots' Club
dried up, they've been watching my predictable
pattern on c.c.t.v., either that or i honed
on ant-mentality - which is far worse than
what Nietzsche described as herd mentality -
post-Nietzsche post-religion existentialism?
ants... not oxen, not sheep, not wildebeest -
simple, ants... compactness perfectó!
the antonym of deus ex machina, i.e.
the deus in machina - we all have our roles,
plumber electrician poet... cashier drill sergeant
bus driver... with me i imagine a Michelin star
kitchen... yes chef... yes chef... what is this ****?!
throw that under-cooked scallop away!
if it ain't perfect throw it away!
most would beg to cry and run out of the tense
environment - ooh look at me, bourbon makes
me rosy cheeked - the smell of it makes me summon
the gluttonous honey thickness of a prostitutes
lubricated **** - in Amsterdam with the laws
being lenient they call them sanitation workers
from Bolivia, this plump one told me her life story,
****** into bucket in front of me, told her
child minion to get beers for me, laughed
when i wanted to lick her out - opened the window
to fish the punters into her abode - true story -
i have absolutely no imagination, experience
counts - Amsterdam is fun - you should go there
some time... it's so much freer without
this Victorian-like theatre of courtship in England,
20 years in England, never ****** a swan -
she's too into her feminism away from the "naughty parts" -
darling... and what does your lover call you during
******* while you're drooling on the Ajax?
hmm? sloppy Samantha... or just ****?
***** words during arousal makes the geek take
the noble toilet paper given to them by the maidens...
(psst... they think it's a hanky)...
and with all that space, poets have a phobia with
punctuation, hence verses, hence missing colon (or alter
italics), semi-colon - maybe a full-stop along the way...
and the most annoying part, thus examples:
Prose writers speak a lot,
They draw the matchsticks by the lot - (oh hell, forget the hyphen,
that's reserved for Oxford acceptance of new words
requiring agility and optometry's rediscovery of origin:
Saxons in Istanbul running a sausage stand -
no no, ****'s Halal, we promise!)
But when they speak, they speak to the grey matter -
Never quiet the sparkler parts of the brain...
CAPITAL WITH EACH NEW LINE...
toss-up between learning punctuation and not using it -
i doesn't matter if poetry is the opposite of the claustrophobia
of prose's skeletal rigidity of a paragraph -
poets could become less tedious by using punctuation,
i'd begin with an exercise - count to one-hundred -
ensuring the space between one and ninety-nine
is uniform, i.e. a second apart - can't happen
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
| | | | | | | | | |
   11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
    |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
         22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
          |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |;
when in Edinburgh i had a mental implant, the compass,
mostly thanks to the locality, and the Firth of Forth -
i knew my west and my east, esp. looking at Prince's
Street (scoot-ish Manhattan - squares and linear
and diagonals, picture perfect) from just off the Royal
Mile - honestly, from the old city i could see America
don't below. but bourbon really does have a brothels'
perfumery feel about it - it really hits the cheeks and
warms them up... whiskey oddly enough doesn't...
that's what ****** her off... high-brow ******* -
a boy a girl a ******* - not romantic Marcel Schwob's
Monelle* - harsh realism of de Sadé (who also
wore the t-shirt with the slogan: I'M A FEMINIST!
while cursing from his cell window in the Bastille) -
the Saudi oil billionaires will run out at some point,
last days of the **** - i know, i prefer de Sadé -
adds a bit of spice - and if i'm going to be brutally
honest as his critics are, well, i'll be honest
about one of his works - ****** - crispy mint.
debates on the Man Booker prize - old guard and new
guard - that's the problem with the English...
they pretend to read on their Summer holiday...
who the hell reads in summer? they spend
their Winters in front of the television - i thought
that winter suited reading as it does writing?
the long nights, esp. the long nights -
the Russians said: our future is in your reading public -
the Americans said: our future is in the pulverise(d)
by images public - iconoclasm of words, trademark
logos (telegrams from time to time) - just recently
an advert at a bus-stop by some Asian car manufacturer -
no nuance, but definitely nuanced: GO FUN YOURSELF -
also called the state of literacy rates in England,
a girl writes her G.C.S.E. English exam paper
in text acronym (UR v. you're); so they locked up the Marquis
for obscenity, but Anaïs Nin walked free to everyone's
applause - the part where you tell me Kierkegaard
made a meal from the tree of good and evil
with his work either / or attached to Nietzsche's
beyond... muddles muddles and pumpernickel troubles;
sure, call it word salad - but i hardly think you're
a vegetarian; going to a brothel makes all this
****** warfare seem rather obsolete - esp. when it's prompt
for books and debates and serious action -
all the prostitutes of France came out in protest when
the government wanted to punish the pundits -
hey! do a Jesus! side with the "filth"!
these girls aren't going to be nuns, the feminists won't
save them, not one of them will be a star in a real-life
adaptation of pretty woman - and not, a, single, one
will buy the feminist arguments of the bourgeoisie actresses -
me? i will not ever have a girlfriend who experiments
with her child niece in a theme park imagining me in a
daddy role... or reads me a questionnaire about complimenting
differences from a Cosmopolitan magazine.
Third Eye Candy Apr 2016
I moved to Africa... and

now i have my ghost swahili
discretely... my skin, too white to be
a lion's grunt. But I serve no wildebeest
on two legs.

I love the broken yurts and the falls of Victoria.

I come from where we all come from.

And having arrived
I love best the world
from where I've
been.
Rob Sandman Jun 2017
Trip Sitter Poem by Rob Sandman

We’ve all got a friend like this of course,
Istabraq, Seabiscuit the ould warhorse,
Snortin like a whale inhaling at the surface,
Smokes til just lookin’ at them makes your lungs hurt its-
Amazing grace while you’re off your face messed up,
They’re in the corner laughin' - not a hair mussed up,
Not out of place in the place to be,
The opposite in fact a life saver to see,
Always at your back with a friendly shoulder,
A spliff, skins smokes-well timed glass of water


Not immune or a ******- just seasoned,
When you’re lost-beyond all reason,
Lost the end of your sentence?-they’ve got it,
a well tuned part in the heart of the party chaotic,
The calm center of the whirlpool, Deadpool-
Quick with a line, not too cuttin’ but nobodies fool,
trip sitter, designated brain at the sesh,
A little OCD maybe, but  nonetheless,

We’re all thankful with a full tankful
Its gas havin' a laugh knowin' you can bank full-
Confidence in your mates if you trip,

But no mercy with the quips,  quick! zip your lips
If you’re not in full control of the tongue,
They’ll be followin’ the slips and zip down your lungs
You’re a wounded gazelle on the plains and they’ll lunge,
Like a cheetah once you’ve taken the plunge


I’m not talkin of only one person of course,
We all take turns as the tour de force-
goes round
Like a Merry go round sound friends abound
While you’re bewildered the wildebeest takes the crown,
Don’t know about you, but I’m blessed with a few true-
Trip sitters babysitters life fitters diametrically opposed to bullshitters


*Sideplitters with one liners that leave you gaspin’
For air beyond compare got the grasp and flavor
Best savour the moments-they’re all too few ,
Best friends are saviours  who help you pull through,
So lets all give thanks to the big hitters,
Thanks lads and lasses I’m always grateful for me trip sitters!
This is a poem for my Mates, we all have each others backs,
we've all been the "Calm at the Center of the Storm" for one another,
I hope you're all blessed in the same way,
Watch this Space for an E.C. Podcast featuring Music, Laughs, and (more than) Occasional over the top Language and abuse!
Paul Butters Jan 2018
Enjoy your cuppa tea and coffee.
Sit back and relax.
The world is full of strife and corruption:
Untold Evil.
Yet it’s Paradise Earth.

We take for granted
Our timeless oceans,
Mountains and plains
Teeming with Life:
Forests and savannahs
Herds of Wildebeest
And prides of Lions.

Quaff that beer and lager,
Let your Whisky burn your breast.
See those panoramic views
On your television.
Get your mobile out
And check what’s going on
In Social Media Land.

Wallow in a bar of chocolate
And dream of stroking dogs and cats.
Indulge in Romantic Fantasy,
If you know what I mean,
And be mindful of everything
That gives you joy.

Make Life a Celebration:
Party Time,
Full of sporting
Laps of Honour
And harmonious choirs.

Smell that cooking:
Roasts, fries, breads and cakes.
Taste it in your mind.
To the sound of birdsong
And Eric Clapton.

After all,
You only live once.

Paul Butters

© PB 14\1\2018.
Let's brighten things up a bit.
Olivia Kent Jul 2014
Confusion
There was a spotty tiger,
he got muddled with a lion.
You won't find him on savannah grass,
nor in the trees in India,
you'll find him in the salad bar,
round the corner shop.
You may find him supping mocha's,
and wearing moccasins to keep his claws inside,
wearing his dark glasses to protect his sight,
he wore his bright pink headphones,
so he seek the beat,
never chased a zebra,
nor ate a wildebeest,
didn't hunt the townsfolk,
it wasn't in his style,
instead,
once a year in winter time,
he'd go off on holiday,
go flying down the piste.
Woo hoo!
There he goes again,
that trendy tigon,
liger?
Zooming past upon his skis.
(C) Livvi
Do something diabolical.
Flit your wings and
Leap from a skyscraper
Take what is rightfully yours
Or what isn’t

Have the courage to
Not give a ****,
But plumb the depths of
Every possibility
Never hide your face

Always be restless
Never settle, and spit
In the eye of adversity
Crawl in the glass like a wildebeest
Let your hands bleed and your body shake

Stab yourself in the heart
If it must be done
Cry the tears of your people
And feel their pain.
But never stop

Be wicked
Allow the bracken to grow
Become one with nature
Shout unto the mountains
Shout until they answer

Be unbelievably horrible
Be something
Be dark
Be unreasonable
Cackle with delight

Stir the ***
Suit yourself
Seek out revenge
Be diabolical
Be dark
Paul Butters Jan 2016
It’s just after 5AM but I am up,
Compelled to write and share with you
Bad images
From video and TV.

I gave you a newborn calf being killed by a lion or something.
But there are countless more.
Young seals being swallowed by killer whales.
A young queen bee stabbing its rivals to death before or after they hatch.

An unlucky wildebeest is pushed by a panicked herd
Back into the river
And into the jaws of a crocodile.
Survival of the fittest
Or luckiest.

Animals running about some abattoirs
Trying to escape death.
Fighting for their lives.
Watching their siblings die.
Enter Man.

A groggy man has survived being shot by a firing squad
So a soldier walks up to him
Puts a pistol to his head and fires
So the man falls
Fountains of blood pumping up from his head
To Beatles music.

Rows of orange shirted men kneeling
A hooded man behind each one
With sword ready at the throat…

So many horrors.
No fiction.
I wonder what God thinks….

Paul Butters
Gotta get these out of my system...
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2016
i knew robert, he used to make clean cuts of newspapers without licking the edges, oh let's not play that game of targeting the word as a misnomer when it's an umbrella for the technicalities: the horror happens with the third child, the second child shows signs of weakness, anaemic or lisp tongue, the third child is the parents' mistake... i was the first and the last, Chernobyl hit me as a foetus, no can do, national socialism was accepted freely, the castration of women. me, now? i'm living out a pseudo-Stalinist plot-line in democracy, democracy dilutes despotism, because democracy believes in the great number of despots, but doesn't own up to it, it's not one singular person to mind, democracy has despotism inherent in it without iconoclasm... they loath en masse cult-lie practices in politics, dis-inhibited concerning one person, they pretend to be vultures, they congregate in the house of commons and say the dictator does not exist, but hell he does, he's only so abstract he doesn't have a body, but the thought is pervasive, it's a thought cloning device - well hey hey! science fiction! that'll topple Jane Austen's sensibilities, won't it?! well the plot is: as a former satellite state inhabitant and knower of a man experienced in the party propaganda i'm reliving it all in england... the "defender" of democracy... more like a sociopathic advert for a detergent - bop boo ya.

so this x-files episode from season 1, episode 23...
we'll mind that in a minute... based on the re-interpretation
of the acronym i.q. -
capitalism has just lost its scouts, the advertisers,
technology cheated them,
i got live t.v. and recorded t.v. -
ha ha... i can basically record something
and skip the adverts - magic -
interludes, ******* a ***** and pulling
out and not ******* - delayed?
no, just censored sensations of the muscle -
capitalism's crutch, the advertising mechanism
is long gone, how are they going to penetrate
the bypass on t.v.? those 3 minute interludes
are just seen at speeds x30 so for me to enjoy the
program... yes, the nationally televised
was courteous enough to let you enjoy
the whole show without adverts -
the private always seem to be the young
interrupting the old, unthinking *******
to mind respect, well, here you go...
x30 sprinting past your efforts - i need to be
thinking about the plot, not a *******
cleaning detergent or the migration of wildebeest
in africa, no thank you, take your charity
soup of tears elsewhere, i like to salt mine
to my own gusto -
a repressed storage i call it, there's a theory
in physics akin to this psychological theory:
the, big, bang - bangs in vacuum though?
a red herring? i'm sure -
but guess what, from my library the only
book i like rereading is *r.d. laing's

the politics of experience and the bird of paradise,
scout's honour, the only book i reread
within the framework of snippets, and i'm all
candy after re-reading it -
but yeah, this season 1 episode 23 -
the i.q. question:
intelligence                 is left                intact
what's challenged is the q.,
i.e.                     quotient                -
transcending into a different grammatical make-up,
i.e.                        quantity             - the        t,
the quantity of reproductive intelligence,
well geniuses are about as numerous as thieves -
both are intelligent, only the former delves in
paperwork -
so the other i.q.                            quality    related,
qualifier -                             why inspect a
quotient on a non-qualifier?
                                   well, he's already presupposed
as intelligent, no matter if Einstein 150 :
                     master & blaster (70) -
but he's still qualified as intelligent, although
at a parallel - the less useful, the more unique -
so there's

i.q. no. 1           -      intelligent by the expected quantity
                                 reflecting eugenic success -

and there's...

i.q. no. 2           - intelligent by a phenomenal quality
                            reflecting eugenic anomalies -
                          
mutation with the latter, coherence with the former...
oh come on, after being fed rigid science,
those little electron orbits in emblem of nuclear
power plants with a nucleus to later learn
that these orbits don't actually exist
because electron ontology is based on spontaneously
appearing and disappearing clouds -
much like psychology: negative thoughts,
no thoughts, positive thoughts -
the pure proton as the cartesian
i am, the pure electron as the cartesian i think
and the pure neutron as the cartesian therefore,
but see the ambiguity of the neutron?
it's inconclusive, which side will win?
well, the answer is neutral - because the two sequences
are in a stance of un-resolvable co-, i.e. coexistence -
indeed the atomists invaded solipsism
that matched up to the psychological theatricals
of theories surrounding the ego - a courtesan
of protons, neutrons and electrons, a natural at it.
Marshall Gass Jun 2014
Miss Shaped
With that hourglass  figure
shifting sand from one orb to the other
She knew her time
was ripe.
Walking into the alleyways of wilderness swamps
where lurked men of all contortions of mind and body
She met her match
in mister muscle.

Not a nerve twitched in her entire
body when he flexed his biceps
and wooed her with no words.

The years of steroids had tied his tongue
into strips of knots
and crosses unable to stop
pumping iron.

Miss Shaped loved this muscular
feast of a man.

The years rolled by
for misshaped

mr muscle had no iron in his heart
only triceps biceps
he left when too many wildebeest
chased his moll.
Author Notes

Just a crafty play on words with several different meanings. The poem will dull you into deception. Say what you will to break it apart.

It took time to assemble

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 24 days ago
Green velvety moss blankets sharp edged stones ,
your feminine fancy awaits on the opposite shore with silken legs
befitting a supermodel in Paris .. A Van Gogh brushed smile ,
the eyes of a fawn , waterfall locks of hair baiting your deadly advance
across the crocodile ridden waters , like a wildebeest you splash and trounce the neck high , raging gauntlet , fighting for every breath of air
as you nervously reach the shore , graciously pulled from the river rapids by 'her lover' , the biggest man you've ever laid two eyes on ...
Copyright February 14 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights reserved
I had a nightmare last night,
Filled with death and fear,
With danger and falling,
Only for a message to appear.

And suddenly I'm in her room,
Panicked and afraid,
Her room is empty and bare,
Apart from a short poem taped to the wall,
To my Mum who will find I don't live here any more,
The next two lines unclear in my mind,
But the final line stands out bold,
I've found hope with you my love.

Underneath a hasty drawing,
Of animals in the wild,
And of one lone wildebeest,
Daring to trust,
In the nature of a falling elephant,
To keep her from falling herself.
But I'm not sure the elephant was strong enough.

I know that sounds strange,
But this was a dream after all,
Even so I'm worried my love,
So if you see this please respond,
And tell me you haven't left home,
And you're not leading your life alone,
Because only my words can reach you from here,
And I'm afraid that when finally I'm near,
You'll have disappeared.
Seriously, are you alright?
This dream isn't made up
The maniac , manic depressive walking city streets , world inverted , diving head first into the blue separation where night verses day , darkness at war with the light of the world . Gray day inversions , deprivations , tainted perception , misconception and miscalculations .. Bright eyes remit their focus ! The child loses his way . Incapacitated . Confused . Yet intent , focused on the garden of good and bad , temptation , righteousness ! Sexuality . Lasciviousness . Piety surrounded by Lucifers minions ! Crocodiles await the migration of wildebeest , rainbow trout tread turbid water for their afternoon meal , mourning dove to field of millet ! Bewildered sweet spirit reduced to crying in supplication , misunderstood , longing for the path by the light ! Traversing mean streets like the rat , the security of a structure to one side , on a high state of alert ! Pawn of the citizenry , cardboard empire and the bottom feeders . Catfish pawning for dung , corruption amidst the sea of inequity . Images flying point blank , a thousand miles an hour ! Shoot him dead ! Continue killing him long after his last breath . Send him back to the blue , where Angels await !
Copyright October 17 , 2015 by Randolph L Wilson *All Rights Reserved
Rex Forté Dec 2014
I wish I could be like...
A tiger blazing through the jungle
or a wolf in a pack howling at the moon
or a duck hawk diving for the ****
Instead I am like...
The orphaned elephant soon to be killed by a lion
or a wildebeest crushed in a stampede
or a sheep, baaing pathetically, before being sheared.
my first poem is crap I know. Constructive criticism please

— The End —