"wrangled" poems
this is my excavation to
the days coming along
running hands with laughter
throwing it down on the table
*straight
flush
okay, cool*
sister, these things don’t matter
when we’re twisting into the sun
with pants that are too short
the fountain rich with
iced chai
tangled with the peculiar
the beautiful
through these moments
I commend
our hearts for finding each other
love is always on the move
as sure as shoe shine
as mahogany
like timidity to relinquish
to let the universe take hold
and instill this emotion
into my body
fit it all in my heart
O, singer of love
fit it all in my heart
the knell
the reverberation
the cotton that lands
on your hair
the sunscreen stuck in my ear
we are a sketch of two travelers
sleeping under stars
the fire
finally dies down
the rapture of the universe
is overwhelming
everything flows
everyone is connected
and this music we hear
is constant
like gentle waters falling
this too, sister
makes my cane solemn
and I draw you in the sand
only to watch the tide
wash you next to me
the emotion
wrangled in English
simply means good
simply means
a full listen and
dear sister
because everything begins
and will be remembered always
as love
Jun 10, 2016
Jun 10, 2016 at 1:20 PM UTC
VACUUM CLEANER TANGO
---Lyrics by Jonathan Caswell
(Some misspellings are due to rhythm keeping)
The Vac…cuum Clea…ner Tango,
Is like…a juicy…mango,
Those fi…bers will…entangle
Your teeth or brushes, pretty quick!
The girls…who do…the cleaning,
Are ev…ver so…well-meaning,
To move…around…guys leaning,
That watch…and approve…the show!
Plugs must…be changed…more frequently,
If lon…ger hallways…decently,
Are cleaned…the most…expediently,
It’s all…a part of…the dance!
The vac…cuum clea…ner tango,
A dai…ly chore…is wrangled,
By clea…ners star…spangled,
Perfor…ming it with…extra class!
Feb 5, 2012
Feb 5, 2012 at 2:45 AM UTC
Treacherously torrid torrential tempestuous
The warrior on the mountain confessed to us
Sordid sully suborn salacious
Only the worst will ever keep pace with us
In extremis extremity exigence exodus
Is the answer clear to all of us
Intuitional intrepid impetus intrigue
Spontaneity's tortoise trauma fatigue
Heuristic horizon hornswoggle huckster
Or just another cauldron muck stir
Mystical magical manumission mandate
That only the good would ever relate date
Fornicating fecund finite's fate
I can only hope it will be I rate
Tirade treatise's transpicuous treachery
Adjunct juxtaposition may get the best of me
Estranged ensemble's ethereal expletive
Won't be contained, like water in a sieve
Wanton wayward warrantee wrangled
And all of that surreal newfangled
Omnipresent omnificent omniscient omnipotence
How I wish I could float its boat sense
Feb 26, 2013
Feb 26, 2013 at 5:54 AM UTC
"That's it! I'll take it to the scissors myself!"
Mangled, wrangled, tangled mess,
meandering tendrils coil and cross, clump.
Split ends,
knots so impossibly tied the eagle scout is left bewildered,
sun damage: fried, frizzled, frazzled, frayed.
Broken teeth in a gasping comb,
choking brushes enveloped in the furling mess,
hairspray, fruitless, face it:
(Another) Bad Hair Day.
"That's it! Today's the day!"
The call is made, the appointment scheduled,
you sit and wait.
X's mark the calendar, the day is nigh,
your do's judgement day is at hand.
It's time to settle this.
The day before, you wake up,
absentmindedly getting dressed, drudging through routine,
mirror's the last thing you see.
Crusty eyes suddenly open wide,
as split ends seal and knots unfurl,
sun damage heals and combs sing ceaselessly.
The day is met with a new life,
and the dark days of yore seem like a past life,
as this sunny day seems like all there is.
You laugh at what now appears to be such trivialities,
"Twas a bad hair day! And merely so!"
You allow yourself such a shallow deception.
Your hand grabs the phone, your fingers make the call,
your voice makes the cancellation--
"How could I have been so foolish to resort to such measures?!"
You hang up and scoff at yourself,
a hearty laugh in jest at such hastiness,
tossing and swishing your luscious mane to and fro.
You allow it to slip through your fingers,
on the cusp of the cure,
as the bad hair days truly outnumber the good (you know it to be so).
For the next day will come--
You'll greet the mirror with that heart-wrenching sigh,
in visible anguish at the chaotic mess that encroaches upon your head.
Don't let a good hair day fool you;
make the call.
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 12:13 AM UTC
The holy cardinal said:
who bare rib?
fresh cut new did,
he said -- who is this?
He slowly tread; wrangled thee
there's a 4x4 in his 20/20,
he asked -- “double play?”
the kid ran away
May 31, 2022
May 31, 2022 at 5:52 PM UTC
Sleight of hand
creates illusion
politicians the rich
in collusion.
Good slaves we
buy their Solutions
titrated diluted pollution.
They've got you wrangled
with the carrots they dangle.
I see black holes
You See Stars Spangled.
"Disseminate fear keep them numb and Confused
they'll reward our
egregious abuse"
but fools won't believe
when it's dark
they see day
so now I tell you
what's the use anyway?
They've got you wrangled
with the carrots they dangle...
You see white stripes.....
I see liberty.....raped and strangled
Keep it obscure,
then hand you a cure,
their best phishing lure
To make you believe
that this country's great
they use a little bitty hook
and a tiny bit of bait
They've got you dangling with the carrots they're wrangling.
I see black holes
you see stars spangling
They've got you wrangled with the bait they dangle...
you see white stripes,
I see liberty ***** and strangled
They got you dangling
with the **** they're wrangling....
Open your eyes
you'll see there angling.
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 5:11 PM UTC
The game played no longer how it once was
No votes on new posts
don't check the trends
or check your own for views and comments
The substantive roaming data of broken WiFi connections
Mangle your jangling words, hide your swollen faces behind forced smiles, Rembrandt bastardisations or smeared oil paintings of the black soul(less) beasts that lurk in satiate tree shadows fawned over the lawnmower blue cycle rinse washed acid soaked daydream ***** slap nation
So you revere the works once read on poetical facsimile sites
only to smear words of younger wordsmith wrangled teen angst
and now in your age and ardor it seems advantageous to judge
But then that will leave you hollow inside
or in fact, you could jump from a tall building only to bounce off the concrete into a children's pool and drown there in three inches of **** coloured rain water
But so instead the workload decreases as your dementia bedpost nightmares
all come aflutter
The laced lily white throng of petal pinched patterns masks
the marked men on their dusty knees
There, watch how heads explode
or listen to foley artists rendering the lacquered finish of the watermelon headjuice
Make up words
or make up lies
Wear make-up daily, earn some prize
or don't
I don't care
idc
idk
Resemble rhyme or reason
Disassemble the times and season
Return to pejorative pretensions, rants in verse verse verse verse prose format and **** the rest
Or simply return to the old ways of playing the game
Upvote this, and maybe they'll take interest
Comment here
return one there
Use tags, hashtags, wash rags, fat slags, arm chair fat cats
But always separated by spaces, prettyblankspaces
No, I don't do slam poetry, I'm too white and not nearly rich enough to not care
Reassemble the times and season, maybe make sense of it
Maybe not
Just don't let them become a passing trend, please
Jan 26, 2015
Jan 26, 2015 at 12:23 PM UTC
Here the triple-shadowed unveil their beliefs:
wrangled dusk-bitten demigods walking with-
out shame.
Between the voice I feel and the
touch I see, sweetness loses itself in multiplic-
ity. Here the ****** creators
peddle their big
dreams: failed, half-imagined writers writing
for some fame. Between the ink I taste
and
the blank page I peel, beauty spills onto an
unfinished film-reel. Here the salient idealists
distribute their silent pleas:
faceless, disre-
garded farmers farming hapless grain. Be-
tween
the thoughts I see and the biases I smell,
innocence sits unwanted in a wishing-well.
Here the greatest artists
present their newest
piece: aged, masterful painters painting to
stay stane. Between
the subtlest colors and
the heart-arresting hues, skill picks up a gui-
tar and sings some southern
blues.
Sep 8, 2012
Sep 8, 2012 at 3:09 AM UTC
We synthesized tomorrow; -since.
Enzymes bore more than-
Colour to bone; --though.
It wasn't the sound
Of nothing that betrayed-
Marble-ebbing-into-waves.
A lisp could quaver,
Sight; we only heard
Centipede-segments-sometimes; with-
One leg too many.
They caressed magic from
Moon-vivid illusions; and
As whispers wrangled senses,
We found the ground-
This wraith became me.
In distance; I stole.
Attention, yet before that.
We electrified paper once.
Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 7:48 PM UTC
and in the graveyard of my lovers
i take care not to step loudly
that they might not wake and see,
how cold it is.
that i might not smash their corpses still
i put an arrow in my own heart
to wrench it out with might
and little will it bleed, if at all
i finally dug myself a spot
so i too can wait for footsteps overhead
warm in thick soil
only asking to be wrangled from the dirt,
here and there,
to see the cold.
stooping heartily into my hole
i whistle merrily
Nov 2, 2018
Nov 2, 2018 at 12:28 AM UTC
crimson roses for breakfast
glass of wine adorned with thorns
stems wrangled around my figure
scaled petals as my skin
Jul 29, 2020
Jul 29, 2020 at 9:07 AM UTC
I have a secret, something sour, and something
deep, deep, and deeper that I try to keep from you –
The fury that I can’t rid nor come “real,”
real me, the “he,” who stands not more than an
arms-length your side.
I may smile, wink, and speak of sunny days,
but there are the hours, sometimes,
where I can taste the, “vicious,”
the blood of both survival,
and all that’d threatened prior –
the “red” that flows from the past and
meanders “now,” the “red” of a
thousand yesterdays wrought dust,
wrangled bruise,
the “red” born in back-alleys
and buried in whiskey,
the “red” that never seems to rest.
This war-drum, I can feel It” climbing up
and crawling out through my nostrils
singing songs for –
Split teeth on split knuckles, breathing,
steady and suddenly, uphill,
the flare of the maddened bull,
an eye for only anger and beyond tether –
Destructive.
I dare not tell my newest friends that a part of
“Him” is still in “Me.”
He’s always “there,” hunting, haunting,
and will always be.
They’d surely run if they knew,
and I’d run too, if I could, but wouldn’t get far,
as he’d be running right there and with me;
Like the shadow always yearned for
and the same that’d scare come the movement not my own.
Aug 13, 2015
Aug 13, 2015 at 9:42 AM UTC
An apartments the size of a grave
and just as expensive. It costs a life
to be buried on Avenue A.
Two girls reunite in their street corner booth
where many nights have been spent confiding
about boys, the plausible deniability
of taxicab ******** flights home over
one bridge or another.
She's just returned from a semester in Africa.
The unencumbered smiles beaming from
the children's faces linger like a sunburn.
Her friend is agonizing over a guy who believes in her
wholeheartedly. She commands him like a drone
with the send button on her phone.
She asks her friend if she saw the article in the Times
about women in Afghanistan who die for their poetry?
Is it still warring over there? the friend says.
Her laugh is ambushed by a new feeling, something like
regret at having allowed herself to be wrapped
in the personality of her dresses for so many years.
First thing when she got home she pulled her grandmother’s old fur
out of storage and wrangled the antlers onto the cat
but the smile didn't come. Tonight, we're going dancing.
The boys are meeting us there. Does that work?
She nods. A button is pushed and a car carries them
to a warehouse in Bushwick which twenty years ago
was a wonderful crack house. Oh, it's so good to see you again!
She laughs and pretends she is living the night like it's her last
the whole time thinking about a young girl
across the world speaking her poem
into a telephone so someone else can hear it
before the line goes dead.
Feb 8, 2014
Feb 8, 2014 at 1:35 PM UTC
I don't know what word other
mothers secretly wait
for their children to utter
but when my son first said mommy
I felt like an ice cream cone
sliding off its hinges toward the grinning dog's
waiting tongue. When shoe came,
he stopped looking at faces for a few days
to more fully watch the world
where his new word lived.
Daddy comes and I change the subject. Last night,
I built a good enough campfire while my dad held
the boy and pointed heavenward, beginning his
celestial litany, *Andromedae, Cassiopeiae,
Draconis, Moon, Star, but the Sun is
asleep*, and I suddenly felt too
close to the fire. I knew I was nearing
that glen around my secret word
In the growing proximity, the world narrows
into the paper-thin bridge where only poetry will fit.
Later that night, the baby wrangled with
his own yawp and could not lay his head
and so we walked the isle
and stopped to be wooed by frogs with banjos in their hearts
and we remembered together all the secret
trails to lagoons and we pointed and garbled
at all things known and unknown
and at last, he pointed to the sky and said new.
I peered up to see what was new, but that was
not quite it - he tried again, moo
and the last gear gave
and the great machinery of my waking
rolled onto the highway of my own life
as the son put the two words together and spoke my secret moon.
Jan 14, 2012
Jan 14, 2012 at 6:47 AM UTC
Treacherously torrid torrential tempestuous
The warrior on the mountain confessed to us
Sordid sully suborn salacious
Only the worst will ever keep pace with us
In extremis extremity exigence exodus
Is the answer clear to all of us
Intuitional intrepid impetus intrigue
Spontaneity's tortoise trauma fatigue
Heuristic horizon hornswoggle huckster
Or just another cauldron muck stir
Mystical magical manumission mandate
That only the good would ever relate date
Fornicating fecund finite's fate
I can only hope it will be I rate
Tirade treatise's transpicuous treachery
Adjunct juxtaposition may get the best of me
Estranged ensemble's ethereal expletive
Won't be contained, like water in a sieve
Wanton wayward warrantee wrangled
And all of that surreal newfangled
Omnipresent omnificent omniscient omnipotence
How I wish I could float its boat sense
Dec 26, 2015
Dec 26, 2015 at 2:13 AM UTC
To describe how you entrance my lusts is not to love you
To say you are beautiful, to compare each feature you wear
With flowery prose, with dramatic declarations
Is not to love you
For it is not you curls, or the scent of your hair
Nor the colour of your eyes that I would squander an ode to
There are many with eyes and hair such as yours
Many with less or more graceful hands
A many of lover’s lips and pleasing faces
With shapely forms and tapered waists
With the embellished scaling cadences of a choir
And other things for which I’m told I should desire
All of something mortal worlds compare
All these things the world tells you is beautiful and faire
These are things a camera could capture
And not the reasons I love you
What I love about you is not something that can be caught
Cannot be wrangled, pinned down, or fought
I was allowed witness to your spark
A moment your soul burned bright enough that its very embers reached my heart
It took root in me, it grew to a flame like a zippo lighter
Every time we spoke, it fanned a little brighter
For me, before it began it was over
Of any room, dressed in any garb, to me you are the cynosure
That light at your core lit up your face when you smiled
A smile was just a smile until I saw how you did it - right there!
It fills a room until I scarcely believe there is such a thing as air
I fell in love with your clever disputes and the contagious way you laugh
The words, worlds and points of view that you craft
With that mad humour, compassion, and your bluntly put curses
Your desires, your faults, your quirks
Your temper, your heart, your mirth
How your eyes took in spans of bland ashen days
And your mind painted it all into a miraculous blaze
I love
The things about you, you don’t notice or even see
I’m like a bird in love with what it means to be free
For me there is no one fairer, no other who could raise the bar
Because there is no feature that could sway me
I fell in love with who you are
Sep 25, 2018
Sep 25, 2018 at 7:32 PM UTC
Treacherously torrid torrential tempestuous
The warrior on the mountain confessed to us
Sordid sully suborn salacious
Only the worst will ever keep pace with us
In extremis extremity exigence exodus
Is the answer clear to all of us
Intuitional intrepid impetus intrigue
Spontaneity's tortoise trauma fatigue
Heuristic horizon hornswoggle huckster
Or just another cauldron muck stir
Mystical magical manumission mandate
That only the good would ever relate date
Fornicating fecund finite's fate
I can only hope it will be I rate
Tirade treatise's transpicuous treachery
Adjunct juxtaposition may get the best of me
Estranged ensemble's ethereal expletive
Won't be contained, like water in a sieve
Wanton wayward warrantee wrangled
And all of that surreal newfangled
Omnipresent omnificent omniscient omnipotence
How I wish I could float its boat sense
Aug 19, 2019
Aug 19, 2019 at 12:08 PM UTC
time ticks quickly
its insistence echoes through my bones
dates mean as much to me
as raised voices do
and both whizz past in a blur
the way cars do on a highway
because that's all i am, a kid playing in traffic.
i am no more a child than the girl i was ten years ago
i have, in fact, shrunk.
i have been crushed upon being released,
wrangled by the wind before i can begin to take flight.
the most enduring thing society has led me to think is that
i am simply incapable of living.
i am a sad impersonation of the sun -
shining so brightly for others, though inside,
i am lethal vacuum.
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 12:01 PM UTC
The calendar maker don't know tragedy
is gonna happen on the day
he takes most pride in, it ain't visible on his screen
and it ain't wrought and wrangled in
with the pixels on his
paper or on the
walls of his custom.
if he knew, d'ya think he'd bother
caring for september,
June July or November
d'ya reckon he'd bother
to name the days at all?
Jul 27, 2013
Jul 27, 2013 at 11:53 AM UTC
Reading books, drinking tea,
Trapped in it's own hypothesis
Yes, that's me.
Manacled hearts, wrangled thoughts.
Trapped in the past.
When I shouldn't be.
Jun 4, 2016
Jun 4, 2016 at 4:52 AM UTC
Choking
And sputtering
On a wrangled wreckage
Of my long, lasting train of thoughts
Tangled
Nov 17, 2013
Nov 17, 2013 at 1:44 PM UTC
she is not here
she’s gone
stranger in our midst
uncomfortable in our ways
she walked in the quiet below the trees
while we wrangled and plotted
in crowded alleyways
and streets
you do not see her
she’s not here
you won’t find her
at the edge of the lake
where she walked often
she’s not at the park
where she sat in meditation
while we clamored and fought
to bring to reality our dreams and ambitions
and vast unimagined desires, unacknowledged
she is not here
you do not hear her song
you do not see
her gentle face
all you have is your violence
and the harshness of your faces
she saw she was the stranger
and she walked past to move into her own
Feb 3, 2012
Feb 3, 2012 at 1:27 AM UTC
games like small children
fire like the hell pit
relentless stupidity
disgust and aching soul
all the dogs are black
barking and biting
chewing to the bone
syphilitic like groupie ******
sycophantic like talk show hosts
skies of swine
and rivers of dirt that can't flow
people undervalued
fighting and clawing
for a morsel to take home
dreams like night terrors
opportunity like a flu vaccine
black hole emptiness
always night but never peaceful
militant peacekeepers
targets all lined up
wrangled into old chains
longing for the end
for the end of the world
trying to bring it ever closer
just to hold it tight
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 3:17 PM UTC
"My body craves you like parched senses ride waves, deeply, sensually, like a new life, a new frame of mind. I've found a gem and into it's depths I gaze for hours. Windows aligning with mine and I'm in your panes, your frames, your lens of power. I'm free, I'm wrangled to the ground by branches, and now I'm underneath the world and I'm sinking to your bed and we're warm.
I want to be a woman, clay and you'll mold me, form as you hold me, crack when I'm dry, you'll rewet and reshape my core. Heat me and glaze my sharp corners and fill me with rising warmth and purpose
Break me and I'll be fine
My pieces will be yours "
"Woman you already are. Molded by your own hands. Inspiration gained from the world around you. A masterpiece already. Nothing i could do could ever increase your beauty. So instead i shall take the role of awed onlooker.
And somehow i never believed i would produce that effect on you. But if what you see is anything like what i see. Than ive been to the stars and seen cosmos from afar. Ive watched stars die out in brilliant arrays of color and searing heat. Ive seen new life bloom in the cold wastelands of space. And i really should thank you for making me an astronaut. "
Mar 2, 2017
Mar 2, 2017 at 12:13 AM UTC