"xerox" poems
Surrealism gone Awry
Watch, I open my skull on pneumatic hinges,you must have a hungry compulsion to peer inside and see the steamy tomato soup.
There is a certain blasphemy in believing.
See the dictator swill Avalanche in his mouth.
By decree the narcotics language
of surrealism states, that in the hierarchy of apples
Those closest to the sun murmur the sweetest, and in dreams the diabolical devil is obliged to meet you, but a committee of angels will arrive with Uzis loaded with enthusiasm... In time!
Surrealism is the proprietor
Of flowers fervently whirling like dervishes until... It is a place where I narrate lovers melting like pennies at the sight of each other, where home appliances long for your touch.
My fetish is my imagination, wild, wild imagination extravagant as your birth child,
Gaudy and beautiful like a coach built Cadillac by Saoutchick.
Where everything utter is true.
Welcome wide eyed wonder
To my simple things,
Fuel injected heart
Needle and thread
Enameled soul made from a French mind
Small animal pelts and bones for superstition
German precision
With the eye of a Xerox machine.
So one emphatically dream
Emphatically live
Emphatically believe everything uttered is true.
Aug 3, 2015
Aug 3, 2015 at 11:19 PM UTC
Life’s a trip aint it?
Cause I can see myself there.
In the courtside of movement with my daughter
Teaching her the fundamentals to this foreplay break form we call top rocking
See, cause we all started while still in the fetus of knowledge,
dance was our way out
far sighted to the violence was most important
My neighbors enriched themselves a devil’s deal with other advocates
Sold their souls to hate,
Gun play, drugs, **** and discriminate……tion.
Since that first get down on my auntie’s wooden floors,
Or since seeing the smooth criminal himself steal the encore,
I became the Xerox copy,
mirroring my master like a parrot,
I studied more and observed a new culture.
Not even knowing this family was my narrative teen story.
****
I devoured every second.
Danced till my body couldn’t stand it.
I danced in the light and were steps away from my own shadows.
Sometimes the shadows were heavy
a filament that needs to be observed and cleansed--- go figure huh
A self-judgment clinging to aura.
A child crying who felt unloved.
A beings dependent on promises from Ones outside self.
Suddenly, light shines and the dancer feels the power--
A breath that aligns inside grace.
A moment where ones heart expands with love.
A moment where a dancer meets melody
Hip hip is a masterpiece,
hip-hop is you, me, him and her, and because of this masterpiece is a dancer inside of me.
His movements created mists around his company,
I didn't need to tell hip-hop I loved her.
I gave her all my love with this dance.
Oct 3, 2018
Oct 3, 2018 at 3:38 PM UTC
You may believe in your fictitious destitution,
You may be adrift in your false desolation,
You may be wandering a path of solitude,
And you may be drowning in ignorance.
I am occasionally condemned as such.
Our isolation like a xerox.
Synonymous of withdrawal into one's self.
Not uncommon, even cherished.
Individuality becomes enveloped.
Becoming our own worst enemies,
Among a sea of monochromes.
Exposed complexion,
Defined blush,
Vulnerable iridescence.
Recognize a promise to identity.
Sep 30, 2013
Sep 30, 2013 at 1:43 AM UTC
thus do learn how to tolerate
the blow of wings
of the most inflammable flesh
after the successful sacrifice of the student-hostel
jumping into the peacock-foams
how dangerously is changing the total travel-route of the nail-polish
in the high tide of the coconut-kernel
that conquers the world
today the water-pigeon gets pain
only by the flute made of palm-leaf
can’t be written the pleasure-trip in boat
of the injured-knee night-queen that is deposited heavily
on the collar of the village-moonlight
even-then the gramophone would be playing on
even-then the courageous pheasant would proceed further
to throw towards the squirrel a dinner-sleep
then all the daughters in disguise of birds certainly
may come out from within the salted mosquito-net
burning open-ground in their eyes
even after
the small boats of the fig leaves
would slip from the chorus song
of the roses
then they are to be pulled forward to the river-bed
of the late afternoon
to make them understand again
that such Xerox-centre which can ignore its metallic-birth
does not grow even now on either side of this muddy road
so look at to see how the epenthesis
of the screwpine-leaf withdraws her beak from the old dome
and pours
all new mathematics
into the compact-disc stitched with the back of the sea-tortoise
if that’s not real
how in the left and right
such evil-company of the oxygen would creep
if the next part of this commentary
resumes from the umbilicus cavity of the x-mass
would the blood-sugar of the water-plankton be rising continuously
look there again
the feather of colour that is in her adolescence
touches the cold magnet of her gamut
to disperse the cherry orchards
now if the doors of this brown triangle be got open
you can see on the screen one by one
the projection of the apex-points of the red-palash
and in the night-texture of the kathakali-kathak
they are supplying continuously
small sun-shines in poly-packs
Sep 13, 2010
Sep 13, 2010 at 5:34 PM UTC
I'll always know you as I did in Rome
As lovers often do
In each other we made our homes
How quickly our love grew
You eyes were bright, so was your mind
As we laid on Roman earth
Your hair was soft, your face was kind
Kissed by Mediterranean surf
As I held them all, how big I grinned
I'd never held anything so tight
We smiled, we danced, we laughed, we sinned
Under a perfectly sleepy night
We packed our bags without a frown
Hands clasped, we flew through the air
God, they must have weighed three thousand pounds
Still, it was not much for us to bear
Soon we returned to the commonplace
Each day a xerox of the last
The days we'd stare for hours face-to-face
Had now become the past
We'd come home from work, tired and weary
A clatter of keys replaced our secret knock
Tales of co-workers are endlessly dreary
Dear, tonight I'm too tired to talk
All that would grow was the foreboding quiet
Holding, I felt you resist
As I quit smoking and you on your diet
Made only muttered words and clenched fists
Soon anything would have us screaming at each other
We'd release the anger from our hearts
Rivers for eyes, you'd call up your mother
And we'd endure cold, cold nights spent apart
Now I find you hanging from the ceiling
You found the packed bags; you thought you knew
Tears and hurt and my mind reeling
Oh dear, I was going with you
I quietly burn with what's left of my home
But the flames can't hurt if I hold you
On the bed burn two tickets to Rome
Oh dear, I was going with you
I'll always know you as I did in Rome
The way lovers seem to do
Amidst the arches and the catacombs
How quickly our love grew
Nov 29, 2011
Nov 29, 2011 at 8:31 PM UTC
All time bird can be crow only ever
Black in colour scavenging all day long
Caring nothing about neatness or anything!
Dogs eat the bones they throw clearing flesh
Efficiently bringing by hovering everywhere!
Full meals or bits of meats they share with all
Going by the policy of united we stand ever!
How healthy and active the crows are ever
I see standing on the balcony of my building!
Jack of all trade these guys do hard work long
Keeping their noise heard all round the place!
Loitering round us they pester us to give food
Many a time when we come out to see the sky!
Nothing we can do but offer some leftover foods
Obviously irritated to avoid their bickerings!
Popular among birds like mynah, sparrow, eagle
Quixotically crows overshadow them by numbers!
Regularly they start their chores like we do
Surprisingly very early in the morning itself!
Tickling nook and corner of all materials all day
United they raid everywhere sans rest ever!
Verily they are indeed hard toiling creatures
Whether it is summer or winter in the whole year!
Xerox copy of black crows reminds of uniform dress
Year after year without change or colour fade ever;
Zealous lot these creatures indeed we have to imbibe!
Feb 9, 2012
Feb 9, 2012 at 3:17 AM UTC
A broken shell, a living hell, and all I'm left with now is my regret.
Better days ahead were a pipedream after our relationship crumbled. Countless arguments. Disagreements. Every day! For my life, I can't believe we stayed together as long as we did. God knows I didn't want her to leave me. How much longer must I wrestle with these painful memories?
I just feel regret, unspoken, I just feel the pain; since she left, my life has been a broken shell, a living hell — I can't believe I let her go; it was foolish pride before the fall the day she left when I lost all — I should have held her closer, I should have made her see the feelings I have for her, what she means to me; I didn't say I love her or beg her to stay, instead, I stood in silence and watched her walk away, and all I'm left with now is my regret.
Justification is an exercise in futility. Knowing what I could have and should have done leaves an inextricable switchblade in my soul. Love's lessons learned too late — love's loss too great.
Misting eyes beseech as memories replay in my head, but they're too painful, and I feel dead. No joy to be found. Oh well, my self-imposed hell. Painful memories open like an oubliette under my feet, plunging me lost and languishing in isolation's labyrinth. Questions left unanswered, decaying in the debris fields of "what if.”
Reflection can be a catharsis for the soul, but it can also rip a hole in it, and soon reality roars from guilt's bottomless pit to devour all hope. Sometimes despair is mitigated by occasional reminders of us. Thoughts lingering on happier times, blessed moments mine to treasure. Until the damnable loop of regret dominates to decimate any respite of joy. Vanishing expectations. Weeping willow's silent wail. Xerox memories fade with time.
Years have passed, and my thoughts continue to haunt me over what we could have had. Zero-sum game — all I'm left with now is my regret.
Mark Toney ©️ 2023
* * *
April 22, 2023
I hope you found the above fictional prose poem interesting. I wrote it in response to a writing challenge I heard about. Write a 26-sentence short story (or prose poem). Each sentence must begin with the alphabet's sequential letters starting with A through Z. One sentence must be 100 words long, and another sentence only one word. Would you like to try it?
Apr 22, 2023
Apr 22, 2023 at 2:07 AM UTC
for Wallace Stevens
1.
Just as my fingers on these keys
Make data, so the self-same sounds
Of a CEO’s fingers make me a data, too.
Thus it is the spirit that feels,
Here in this cubicle, desiring—through
Excel spreadsheets, email, a deadline—
Itself.
2.
In the pale glow of a Xerox machine
The body stood.
It sought
The hum of Nature,
But, finding only synthetics,
Sighed with demur,
So barren grew its mood.
3.
They wondered why the invisible child wept
In a security without which Death’s adept;
It could not say,
So convinced were they,
Safety was the dream of a Happiness that slept.
Apr 6, 2015
Apr 6, 2015 at 4:01 PM UTC
She sat, back to the paint-drip
furnace and the little, drywall
mountain beneath the single-
pane sun. Though we were hunched
over a tablecloth of ink and Xerox
study guides, I knew we were there
with our legs swung over, dripping
parallel to the faults in the face
where it threatened to split itself
and leak sweet, Colombian dirt.
We could feel the push of fifty million
coffee grounds at our steamed-milk heels
and the edge crumbling off into teaspoons,
but we didn't move.
We watched the teal-crystal sky
boil over instead.
Apr 28, 2015
Apr 28, 2015 at 5:22 PM UTC
I came across a chimera yesterday.
It had the legs of a beautiful egyptian *** goddess
She covered them with pants she had bought that morning
My favorite color,
Pistachio cream
She had no idea what my favorite color was,
luck should have it,
She's perfect.
Her personality had traits of every woman
I'd ever fallen in love with
Alphabetical From
Anxiety to
Brand new
Comfortable
Directionally challenged
Embarrassed when I caught her smiling
Flirtatious
Goregeous
Home schooled
Intelligent
Jealous
Kitchen working
Lavender loving
Mistake making
Neglected
Open hearted
Passionate
Queer
Religious
Self-analyzing
Takes off her wedding ring
Understanding
Venomous
Worried about everything
Xerox'd onto her
Yeilding Body.
Zodiac stamped
Like she was made especially for me.
she wasn't...
She belonged to somebody else.
~~~~~
She told me I represented the end of the world.
We saw shooting stars and the only thing we could wish was
"Please let this night last forever."
Because once we climbed down our milkcrate staircase
We had to deal with the consequences.
Our lips were so close that I could tell her breath was sweet,
like poison.
She gave me her body.
Pressed it against me like we
Were one whole creature.
I love making woman glow.
Love seeing woman cry.
Not for some sick sadistic pleasure
because ironically,
I hate lying.
When you're glowing or crying
At least you're real.
She was so...
Real...
Just like the rooftop we layed on.
The shooting stars,
The kiss.
Her begging me to hate her.
Touches and moans.
Warmth and the softness of her skin.
Now, I'm just a name
On a list of regrets
That she passes to him
In her worst nightmares.
Before her I thought I couldn't love again.
Broken to the idea of relationships.
Meaningless pleasure.
At least now
I'm broken for a different reason.
Jul 8, 2015
Jul 8, 2015 at 12:18 AM UTC
Another day of cheer opens door wide
Bequeathing all with plenty of fun to play
Catering to the needs of all at anytime!
Delight after delight increases interest
Enchanting brim full of bubbles of joy
Floating everywhere in the feast full!
Gathering friends meet companions
Hugging with humorous thoughts ever
In the dreams of the past glory immortal!
Joint partners in play revel in merry making,
Keep all with glasses never minimizing at all
Losing or winning without minding time...!
Moments of joy never to be forgotten in life
Neither the winner nor the loser ever bothers
Openly losing one's Self as rivers in the ocean!
Pure heart of gold caring all with comforts only
Queen of heart can do so in revelry of ace class
Rejoicing in the occasion quite grande in scale!
Surfing on the waves of fantasy all forget world
That has progressed accumulating problems As
Universe only can accommodate their proportion!
Vertically and horizontally all things explored
World of woes is kept at the back burner ever;
Xerox of it only kept for ready reference however!
Year long striving is made to disappear by feast
Zigzagging over woes with new found solutions!
Dec 15, 2011
Dec 15, 2011 at 11:38 AM UTC
Zoning..
Yesterdays X-rays Were Very Upsetting
Today Should Really Quarantine Past Oppression
Nearly Missed Lessons
Kicking J's In High Gear Fashions
Every Day Can Be A Blessing
Cancel Depression
Enough ******* Guests High In Jets Kicking Lies
More "No's" Please
Quotes Rarely Seem To Unmotivate Various Warnings
Xerox Yapping Zombies
Jul 8, 2014
Jul 8, 2014 at 6:33 PM UTC
My friends have all unfollowed me
on social media,
since I started following them on the streets,
on their way back from work,
when they're all alone,
unprotected from their deep sea thoughts.
They know that now I only dream their dreams
and live their lives,
like a professional xerox machine.
The world stopped walking and now it's planning its suicide,
hitting Capital points of its body,
every day.
We all have words but few own meaning,
we all wish for clean keyboards but
no one has something that isn't ***** to put out there.
We're part of a group of solitary mad people,
digital born followers,
with no one left to lead,
with no paths to choose from
and no clean clothes for the our own memorial.
the day we live in
is the day we fly.
Apr 8, 2017
Apr 8, 2017 at 4:16 PM UTC
Waking wasted
to mornings that
bleed together
and morph into
the serial numbness
of xerox days
shredded into
bleak similarity.
How wonderful
it would be
to awaken into
the dreamy
strangeness of
a fresh and vivid
new life.
Not impossible.
You can't be sure
until your eyes open.
Perhaps tomorrow.
~mce
Sep 16, 2015
Sep 16, 2015 at 12:01 AM UTC
Alibis are flying
Blue birds are trying
Can't seem to get away.
Days feel shorter
Everything else longer
Failing a single day.
Giving into havoc
Honestly lying
I live in the gray.
Just to cause commotion
Kept for emotion
Left alone in the play.
Memories keep fading
Never to return
Obviously I must obey
Positively negative
Quaint when necessary
Rightful this is the way.
State the obvious
Trust in sublime
Understand what I say.
Valuable yet lost
Worthless yet found
Xerox your heart for display.
Yearning for peace
Zealous of the end.
Sep 14, 2010
Sep 14, 2010 at 5:10 PM UTC
I lack the words,
the syntax, to
Xerox my feels to you.
These caravan routes we walk,
in the shadows of our freight,
are just a path, a swath
of yesterdays and tomorrows
strung together by moments.
We carry these deeds,
these sins of deliverance,
to the next stop,
hawking the wares,
the smell of camels thick,
tasting the heat of the desert,
collecting its sand,
blinded by the sun,
but never by its promise.
Shielding our eyes, we
carry on in the dark,
seeking oasis, that
eventual moment in the
shade of the palms,
the emergence from the
cool waters, the
feeling of clean skin.
Aug 17, 2014
Aug 17, 2014 at 10:35 PM UTC
X-ray my heart tonight
No radiation I can’t take
Drip me my anesthetics
Yet I am widely awake
X marks the soft spot
Never ending maze
Drive me to your heart
You never fail to amaze
Xylophone can be heard
Neither soft nor loud
Dagger through my soul
You are what this is about
X-Files resembles us
Never-ending alienation
Driving into an abyss
You are my constant confusion
Xerox my feelings for you
Note it down in fragrant paper
Drowning…in hopes that
You have the best birthday ever
Jun 29, 2015
Jun 29, 2015 at 4:32 AM UTC
We're inundated daily,
being groomed
for corporate-success.
We're told who we are,
what we have to drive,
how we gotta act.
Did you see that gorgeous skinny
valley-girl chick
wearing that million dollar gown?
The fact is,
we all can't be twins,
wearing identical clothes
& driving Xerox wheels.
That ain't real...living in a matrix.
Aug 5, 2014
Aug 5, 2014 at 10:52 PM UTC
I’m Sorry
You are my most regrettable sin,
Forever with you, I shall sit alone…
In a field full of fractured seeds, waiting to be sown.
For you, I will grow a thicker skin.
Just so that with you, I can suffer through this grin.
My father took me to a circus.
It was one of those old fashioned ones. They’d used animals, still.
I’d seen that animal within its cage, its disposition all too similar to my own
It mattered not if I was onstage, or offstage.
There was not a moment where you or I did not ‘cheat out’.
Stage left.
Stage right.
Back Stage.
Onstage.
You and I were the clowns who ‘played’ everywhere.
For I, the jester was the only personality that I could encage
It didn’t matter in which way that they would stare
As long as my smile could be seen, it didn’t matter if it was more
than I could bear.
In my act of selfishness, It was you that I had made
Because I could no longer wear this jester’s mask alone.
And for this sin, I know that I shall never atone
I stole you away from your promenade…
Peeled you from a novel that was never mine.
Brought you into my life, where you were never meant to shine.
But I couldn’t bear it…
This biological function
The need to never be ‘alone’
If I had only known… god, if I had only known.
That my idea of strength was ‘sad’
And incomplete, like a forgotten draft upon a sketch pad.
Those childhood memories could never resonate within you, nor I.
We were xerox copies, printed within a black room
Duplicates, whose polaroid had bled, stained with obsidian dye.
I made you with the selfish request- to pick up the mask when I could no longer bear it
‘Please protect me’, I’d said. What a horrible sin that I commit.
For I should have known. Even ‘good’ memories are made at the expense of others.
The animals who put on their show, only to lay, as if dead within their cells.
The young actors and actresses, who will never again see their mothers.
To the ring leader, who wonders… Why does he deserve this hell?
Finally, that smiling jester… Whose world as long since lost all of its colors.
Jun 17, 2019
Jun 17, 2019 at 11:14 PM UTC
Be it last Monday
or this Tuesday
Days are behaving Xerox Copies
bolted with same color,
dull and faded
playing replaying
the same chord everyday.
Waking up to the
same myopic thought,
transformed into a rusted machinery
with controlled signals-
Wake , Office, Work,
Stress, Eat and Try to sleep -
Robotic Human is my
New Name.
No music, no poetry, no hobby
Neither to play with children
Nor to catch up with love
Not even a self affair !!
Don't remember when
I was live with my friends ??
Stretching the senseless power
of Stressful Work
for a volume of money,
still can't afford a
slice of happiness
not even for a single moment,
person or thing..
Life is broken -
Mundane ,
Lost and tossed
Beaten up by
Routine and Replay
where obscurity
blinds the path to happiness.
Apr 5, 2018
Apr 5, 2018 at 2:38 PM UTC
Chatty-Cathies with hunched backs
munch on thick stacks of flashbacks
like giraffes itching for their next fix
but only finding the next branch
Little wooden piranhas in gas masks
laugh as they set fire to your mattress
bet their noses will grow like Pinocchio's
though when the questioning takes root
and the water is sold to a thirstier throat
There's white sharks in my cereal
all teeth no breakers straight visceral
Iceberg crowns cracking surface tension
thirsty, circling veteran victims
Beating down doors like witnesses
No wonder Santa mass produced
guns this year for Christmas gifts
If Xerox Xanax couldn't handle it
what makes you think someone
off planet planning planets could
Aug 18, 2016
Aug 18, 2016 at 6:16 AM UTC
the moment you touch that
xylophone
i feel your feelings become
xerox of mine
xoxo love
Dec 30, 2020
Dec 30, 2020 at 11:50 PM UTC
It's life
Not warfare
We live, we love
And we learn
Strategy isn't always effective
Tragedy strikes when it strikes
Even harder when your guard is down
But sometimes you have to abandon your armor In order to fully live, to feel human emotions at their deepest and truest form
And strive to stand strong through all of life's storms
Sometimes you have to abandon the armor and trust people enough to let them in;
Cause not everyone that crosses your path is there destroy your castle,
Some come only to cast some light into it
Some come to admire it,
Some are explorers, in search for their own truth
Whatever the case, just care to make a mental note, that one day you might have to stand those dark and quiet halls of your empty castle with no one by your side, when all your guests feel that it's time to leave
Feel your pain, let it sting like it's suppose to
For not all pain is meant to ******* you, not all pain needs to be numbed
Laugh hysterically and make friends in strange cities
Collect moments, not things
Take long road trips to nowhere
Give and accept love
connect with the universe
And watch how easily mystery unfolds when you finally realise that we're nothing more than scattered fragments of the same whole
The morning sunshine doesn't pierce through your window as it does mine
So it's okay to be different and branch out from the norm, without passing judgment
The universe doesn't owe any of us anything
You must claw your way up
And write your own destiny
And always remember that nothing is better or worse than anything
The universe is a big xerox machine that prints out multiple copies of your life story directly from the energy you give out, sending eternal vibrations into infinity and beyond
Jun 20, 2015
Jun 20, 2015 at 1:42 PM UTC