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Hesitations grips me
Sometimes with a soft gentle squeeze and sometimes with an iron fist
That split second where you see that girl with whimsical hair and a playful smile and your body is screaming at the top of its lungs “GO AFTER HER YOU FOOL!!!” while your brain mulls over the endless stream of stressful situations
I can hear Robin Williams calling out to me “Let me hear your YAWP!” and I’m shaking, quivering, rattling, generating the vocal ferocity of a lion! And all that comes out is a whimpering “yawp…”
Hesitation grips me
A harmless compliment to brighten someone’s day, no harm done, just a quick simple “I like your pants” a smile and I’m on my way
Simple! Wrong!
That flickering candle of pleasantries is cut short by a swiftly shutting window of opportunity
The breeze not hesitating to extinguish its light
Hesitation grips me
How many moments must I suffer paralyzed lips before my can of complimentary worms is opened?
How many lovely strangers will continue to mill about their days in unblissful ignorance of my enjoyment of their simple, subtle or overt characteristics?
This hesitation grips me!
It shackles me and holds the key in front of my face and all it requires is one real Yawp! The mustering has begun! That key is my freedom of hesitant chains! Just! One! Yawp! I think I can I think I can I think I can! Just! One! Yawp! “yawp…”
Hesitation grips me
Meant to be read aloud, quotes are whispers.
raingirlpoet Dec 2014
i like the chill that races up my spine
when my voice projects too loudly
it reminds me that my voice is mine
and so i'll shout from the rooftops proudly

my voice is most often soft
people rarely hear me speak
they look around, did someone squawk?
nope, it was more like a tinny squeak

i'm not the bravest person
yet my opinions urge me to speak my mind
every blue moon i'll gather the courage
and my definition of brave is redefined

my voice may be small but when it rains it pours
my mouth grew wings and away it will soar
bringing me to heights i never knew
speaking is only worth it if the words are true

today my barbaric yawp will be heard
both in written and spoken word
i will not hide behind the veil of silence
silence may be golden but being loud is preferred
My trembling,
pimpled little
yawp

on its way over
the rooftops,

Was blown by a whim,
bounced off
a gable

and fell into
the backyard
of a preacher

It was spitted,
and brushed
and cooked to a turn

Then served up
with coleslaw
to a chortling
crowd of
the brethren

after a sermon,
of course,
and hymns
and grace

and a chorus
of heartfelt
amens
ERR Jun 2011
Arthur Bellow was a mellow fellow who never asked for much
Only child to a land man and wife who worked the earth
Their self-sustaining ranch the heart of farm and winding wood
They raised their living stock under siege from thriving crops
A private clan, Mr. Bellow kept to his collection of books
His wife would weave, would also read, and would take their terrier for walks
Arthur tagged along, full of creative verve and eagerness
The river, forest, beasts and wind were friends; they often spoke
He attended local schooling but had trouble fitting in
The children who mocked him he envisioned as cold blooded lizards
His reptilian teacher reprimanded him for tutoring one on his test
Arthur left the building vowing never to return
Committed himself instead to the plow, *** and plant
Back breaking labor from morning ‘til day’s end
In rest he walked with mother finding faces in the bark
The creatures kept him company when family was insufficient
Under a sunrise hotter than most tragedy struck the patriarch
Trembling and perspiring he dropped weak to his knees
His life muscle ceased its beat as he saw his flash of past
Arthur came running when he heard the music stop
Mrs. Bellow came stoic and pale, speaking only with her feet
Ordered her son to dig a ditch as deep as strength allowed
And once complete she lay her husband down and joined him in his sleep
Arthur begged and pleaded but she made him fill the hole
He bathed his mother in dirt like she had washed him as a babe
Sealed the grave with tears and sprinkled seeds like she’d instructed
His dog licked calloused, blistered hands to show not all was lost
He dropped the shovel and tried to yell, but yawp came forth as song
Arthur never left the farm or tended fallow fields
He managed what he could but the task demanded aid
A solitary man enjoys his island with friends he doesn’t call
A lonely man, however has no company at all
He caught a shrew-like thief one day with eggs he planned to steal
Being the only other human, he let him share a meal
The suspicious shrew fled through the now-unfriendly wood of lizard eye
Where the rumor speaking, mad old hermit seeking came to spy
Arthur had discovered he was not alone at all
A crepuscular couple returned to parley when the sun would fall
He found them in the library, alerted by the loyal one
Whose growl turned kind when wraith he’d find were family reunited
They visited quite often to keep him company in twilight hour
To praise him for his learning and kindness that he showed
For in their absence he had lived in books to replace all trace of school
And the seeds in the central grave that Arthur raised began to grow
His parents, very pleased, shared their otherworldly plot
Arthur was to release his goodness and knowledge to the air
Although no rewards would come to him, intrinsic deed be done
The forest heart would be reclaimed, and rest would come for flesh
In the next noon Arthur freed all beasts and let them walk away
Release from domestication, the mighty horse dark in tone
Turned golden as it left him, gorgeous and majestic
The terrier was last to leave, sad though it understood
Once empty, Arthur doused the house and then the barn in oil
Shattered his lantern and transferred the flame until they were engulfed
The local fighters came and did their best to end the burning
But despite all efforts the library sublimated in a cloud
When every page was turned to smoke he called upon the rain
To cool the glowing remains and give his friends a final drink
The men brought Arthur to custody for witchcraft and for arson
He smiled for even as he left the ground had grown more green
Immediately put to unfair trial, opposition ready
It would seem that the town in full demanded his demise
Arthur chose to represent himself as he supposed all men will do in time
He recognized the witnesses whose accusations boomed
The reptile claimed he was dishonest and a cheater
The little lizard spies said instead reclusive necromancer
The suspicious shrew told tales of Arthur luring him for ******
The fighters full of fear said a conjurer of the elements
Without a chance in the eyes of men he was taken to a cell
Feeling quite betrayed by the many he’d wished well
Arthur thought of his parents and wondered why he was alone
They appeared to him once more, apparating in his cage
My son they said in unison, you have been misunderstood
And spent a lifetime serving others for no benefit of self
For this your friends are free and the forest muscle flexed and hard
As blossoming beacon; in death the noble feel no pain at all
Upon hearing misplaced song echoing through damp stone structure
A guard investigated, preparing to beat the troublemaker
He came upon Arthur’s cage confused, head cocked and jaw dropped
The door was locked, yet the man he came to punish was no more
Thomas Mackie Jan 2019
We stomp and we romp
with our filthy, bare feet
we jump and we bump
in the high summer heat.

Just skin, nails, and teeth
stop when we see blood
we are the ***** girls
rolling around in the mud.

We're queer, we drink beer
in the park in the dark
we yawp, twist, and shout
and we jeer and we bark.

We **** for the thrill
in the sweet with sweat season;
we say it's revenge,
but we don't need a reason.

Saturated plum flesh
bursting between jaws,
we are boundless, we are seeping,
we are love without laws.
Dear straight people,
It is a common believe that queers are docile, non-threatening, non- violent, and weak. That being queer is a choice to attract others. This is a poem to remind you that we are as natural as the sun, we are everywhere, and that we are not afraid to smash your brains in with a brick.
Sincerely,
Author
Kevin May 2017
fury, winds raged the treetops
threshing branches, approaching brush.
but from a distance, natural destruction,
looked like beauty in the forest.

and this was just a piece.
this is not the whole.

inhale, exhale,
increasing repetitions
repeat, repeat.
decrease and deepen.

pause in awe of the machine you're given
watch the forest faint, beatific ruin.

feel the fibers tear in effort
feel the area inside you swell
this is just a piece
this is not the whole.

process unto another day
with brighter light and seasoned winds
as repeated swells exhale an ending breath
gawk, inhale, hold, process, yawp; repeat.

understand this thing, know it truly
die through effort, repeat, repeat.

beaks with feathered wings swarmed in silence
Persephone cheers with distance, "defy their gravity"
here; pause; absorb the leaded revolution
weigh inside this mockery of death

"this is just a piece,
this is not the whole."

abandon seated distance, chase with fire
the unknown of the unfolding.
ravenously consume  the untouchable time
feed, inhale, pause, process, exhale, deepen

repeat, repeat;
endlessly repeat.
this is just a piece,
this is not the whole.
this was inspired by a sturdy wind, crashing into treetops of little distance, while riding on our local bike path. it was beautiful and sounded with weight. i had this thought, that every experience that could ever be had is only a piece of what life has to offer and, the lessons or observations tied to such an experience will only lead to a piece of knowledge, not the whole of knowing.
Nikki Paulin Dec 2013
I don't know you, but I feel you right from the get-go. You go about your routine that lassoed my heart into you, you who prance around the vastness of my dreamscape. I come to recognize your presence only in my sleep, at the very least that's what I know.

In that hazy, twisted world of subconscious shuffling, we find ourselves sitting cozily, face to face, at a table outside that rustic coffee shop. Honeyed words and laughters sprightly echo from that very spot where only a vase of freshly cut chrysanthemum sets two bodies and heat apart, longing.

Sometimes, we glorify sunsets at the shoreline. Sometimes, we sound our inane daredevil yawp at a cliff. Sometimes, we simply stargaze and draw across the skies Cassiopeia and Ursa Major.

We embrace the beauty of chaos we often find ourselves walking aimlessly along that busy thoroughfare before we head back home; normally we exchange random thoughts about school, my fascination with Rand's objectivist framework, your addiction to Cobain's craft and story, my weakness over falling in love too fast, your resilience and hope in times of defeat.

We are wired to each other in a special way, so special that it all has to be in lucid dreams. Feelings are intense. Kisses euthanize the butterflies. Midnight cuddles are soulful  calisthenics. Holding each other's hand  is infinite.

You present to me a self that is nurtured by its soul. I think I love you in my sleep. I feel happy with everything that goes with closing my eyes and letting dreams of the world I created creep into my consciousness. In such a realm I don't know you, but I feel you right from the get-go.

Do you see me in your sleep, too?
My advice to fellow geezers?
Just say **** it!
“Roll up to the magical mystery tour!”
Just like John & Yoko!
Smoke a big fat doobie each morning.
Step out the Hogan door, just greet
The East and walk in beauty.
After a few weeks you just won’t
Give a **** anymore; just not give a ****
In general, no longer care about what’s
Not important: The Guv’ment.
Politics. The rate of unemployment.
Inflation. Even radical, freaking
Muslim Jihadist TERROR!
Yes.  Just light up, Babaloo,
Do one’s bit for the Decline &
Fall (dropped you, didn’t I?)
Let’s mourn the dying ***** goddess.
America: that shining city on a hill,
Colombia in all her senility, insolvency &
Not even D or I, just Lusions of grandeur.
Let us contemplate the decrepitude,
The crumbling, up-in-smoke spiritual infrastructure,
The USA: the United ****'s-Creek of America,
Going down, down, down . . . ALERT!
NEWS FLASH! It’s Rome & Great Britain,
It’s the update, the demise of Empire all over again.
I remember those sorry-***, pathetic Brits,
Met them all over while hitchhiking around
Europe, an intensive, closely observed tour of duty
Abroad: a gift to myself, in fact a scholarship,
I rigged for myself back in the early ‘70s.
Going abroad: once a reserved right of passage for certain,
Privileged children of the 1890s, lucky spawn from
Families known as the “Well-to-do.” And why not add:
Dubbed the “Mauve Decade" because William Henry Perkin’s
Aniline dye allowed widespread use of that color in fashion.
The "Gay Nineties,” referring to a time not of buggery, but
Merriment & optimism, & lest we forget, Twain’s “Gilded Age.”
Got the time, spare a dime, got the freaking time-frame, Mack?
It was a dark & stormy total eclipse of Jupiter.
Spiritually speaking, I was free-floating.
And what of those same-self, sad-assed &
Sorry, pathetic Brits?
Well, consider the specific years.
Experience in Europe in my early 20s,
Meant 1972, 1973 & 1974.
Surely, a time for English disillusionment,
What with the sun finally setting,
A vague, prismatic twilight time,
A virtual requiem for His or Her Majesty’s Empire,
“Rule, Britannia ... Britannia rule the waves.”
(Cue ruffles & flourishes, fifes & flugelhorns)
This was pre-North Sea Oil Bonanza days.
This was England before Mrs. Thatcher
Gave her good people a long overdue,
Richly deserved kick in the tuchas.
“The Iron Lady” they called her.
Stopped Orwell’s future, doornail dead, she did.
“Maggie’s Miracle” they called it.

Those Brits I met & knew back then,
Those “Used-to-be-Contender” types:
Self-deprecatory, apologetic & cynical,
Mocking the Union Jack,
Shedding salty tears for Lost Empire.
“This blessed plot, this earth,
This realm, this England.”
Ironic & bitter to a man,
“Gulping gin & bitters later,” observes
Current tenant occupier, 221B Baker Street,
Sherlock finding the word at last,
The definitive literary term,
That one precise mot juste, that says it all.
In a word? Sardonic.
The USA is going down, down down—
“And away goes trouble down the drain!”

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That’s right: $KA-CHING$!
An ad right in the middle of a ******* poem!
Always the sensible poet, I kept my day job.
But now in my 60’s finally figuring out:
HOW TO MAKE POETRY PAY?
Bow down to Adam Smith & Ricardo—
Not the ‘Splaine me, Cuban bandleader
Of that surname, but David, the classical economist,
The “Iron Law of Wages” guy
It’s time to make money.
Call in the Madmen.
Send in the clowns.

Mad Men – AMC - AMC.com www.amc.com/shows/mad-men Official site for AMC's award-winning series Mad Men: Games, making-of videos, plus episode & character guides.

$KA-CHING$! $KA-CHING$!

And Dan Draper: an alcoholic, chain-smoking,
***** magnet & Korean War ****-up, shifty
Name-changer, last seen at that Big Sur ashram,
The Esalen Retreat & Jingle Inspiration Center,
**** Whitman coming clean, at last:
Hovering a foot off the ground
In the lotus position, receiving **** *** from a
Coke bottle incarnation of Vishnu.

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Money: FUNGIBLE GREEN.
$KA-CHING$!

Those once sardonic Brits,
Now have Brooklyn accents.
We’re going down the drain, Babaloo!
The barbarians are at the gates,
A horde of hunger, a ******* rabble,
Green-eyed monsters, envying America’s poor,
Craving what little Uncle Sam’s indigenous poor have left,
Ragtag migrants, short, dark compañeros,
Swarthy Huns & Visigoths,
Whitman's last yawp, the last gasp breath of
Work Ethos, be it Protestant or Papist,
A colossal mélange of famine, hope & prayer,
The usual suspects: “Your tired, your poor,
Your wretched refuse & solid waste,
Your huddled, yearning masses.”
My advice to Emma--Sephardic-Ashkenazi,
Proto-Zionist, years before Herzl:
Get yourself a nightclub act, Ms. Lazarus.

America: I am hidden in a high grass savannah,
I watch the hyenas pick your carcass clean.
Adam Smith: he displaced the term greed--
Smacking as it does of deadly sin baggage—
Replaced the term Greed with Self-Interest.
And the only invisible hand I know of is
Down my pants, jerking me off,
Mesmerized by slogans, divine metaphors, like:
“A rising tide lifts all boats,” a Big Lie, for example.
Today’s economists call it “The Multiplier Effect.”
You pay me and I pay him & he pays he or she,
Merry Goes Round, Goes Round & Round the Merry-Ground.
All is just so cool & groovy,
Life is just a copacetic bowl of copacetic until
Some self-interested ****-*** decides to export
Your ******* job right out of the country:
Casus belli? Most certainly. Class warfare,
Always our hitherto history.
It’s not like that fat slob Michael Moore never warned us.

**Roger & Me (1989) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0098213/ Internet Movie Database  Rating: 7.5/10 - ‎22,470 votes Director Michael Moore pursues GM CEO Roger Smith to confront him about the harm ... Roger & Me -- Michael Moore's controversial but popular film is a highly ... Plot Summary - ‎Quotes - ‎Trivia - ‎Awards
I speak of fear, sheer limbic,
Reptilian fear, and there’s the rub:
Obliterate thought and all that’s left is fear,
And fear’s known associates & cronies:
Hunger, Thirst, *** & everything else
Triggering our amygdale nether brains,
Each synapse a single primal scream,
Rich Reichian fodder and sacrificial yawp,
Whitman’s bleating syllable, straight bedrock,
Down low on the Hierarchy of Human Needs.
Abraham Maslow: another shrewd Jew from
Brooklyn, New York. Atta boy Abe:
Adrenaline pure and simple,
An instinct for survival.
I suppose my only regret in life,
Was that I was not old enough to be
A victim of the Holocaust.
I mean nothing facetious or disrespectful by this.
(Like Jesus, I was born a Jew.)
All I mean is that a stint at Auschwitz or
Bergen-Belsen, might have done wonders for me,
Saving me much time, given the number of books
I’ve read on the subject, just trying to get my heart &
Mind around the throat of evil.
My story is truth, not science fiction.
Yet, I confess to having some difficulty
Discerning the difference lately.
Perhaps this is why my mind wanders.
That’s probably what I love best about Stanley Kubrick—
Another insightful New York Jew.
His vision of space, namely the shrewd perception,
That after 5,000 years of recorded human history,
It was going to be difficult.
It would be a challenging enterprise,
Noodging the human race to choose,
A more cerebral path;
A state of mind & brilliant grace,
Embrace a kinder, fearless self and future.
Kubrick understood he must first take us to Odulvai,
Our primal anthropological killing fields,
Then he could transport us to outer space.
Only then, could we evolve,
Adapt to cooperation and tolerance,
Shift our future focus,
Our natural and spiritual resources,
Our potential.
Collaboration not competition.
2001: A Space Odyssey: released
A year before the Apollo program
Put a man on the moon, five years
Before the space station Skylab.
Kubrick’s gift to mankind was a clear new perspective:
Man in space looking back at a very small holistic Earth,
And an infant self, both diminished,
Made insignificant in a vast cosmic context.
Other forces were at work, of course,
Lying in wait as always, global forces
Co-opting the vision, drowning it in an old
Unabashedly mercantile reality.
That Darwinian old world order,
Again, reducing human existence
To an economic absurdity.
Globalism: the scariest Bond villain yet.
Xander Jun 2017
Snow is not supposed to be blue.
But it is. Tangled
in her locks so blue that the seas become envious.
The hair of the girl I thought I loved when I
thought I knew what love is.
But I don’t think that anyone knows what love is. We
hope and pray that the phrases that we string together with
flowers and promises can represent this idea that we
dream
about grasping in our trembling fingers since the day we came into this world
kicking and screaming.
We’ve been trying to figure out how to feel love and tackling the freezing fear of,
“What if I never find it?”
As if love is inside the treasure chest buried beneath the world,
Accessible to those who can find the map and find the spot marked with an X.

X is such an ugly sound.

It’s the sound of listening to her argue with her ex-boyfriend about their ex-relationship
And about the ex-problems that they had in their past ex-together and
it’s listening to her slamming the door to her bedroom in a tantrum because
sometimes love is not enough.
But if love is not enough, what is?
And what about love is not enough and can it be fixed and
mended like your mother kissing your knee after you fell outside
playing tag
with the neighbor girl with hair so blue
you swear that the gods made it from a summer sky itself?
If we are too young to understand love at thirteen when
your crush kisses you in the darkened gymnasium at the middle school dance then
how can we know that love is what we feel at six years old for the
fathers when they play hide-and-seek in the yard with us and
know that there is an absence of love for the
mothers that turn us aside and build fences between us
are those fences there to keep me out or to keep her and her anger in?
So, logically, if we don’t know love at six or thirteen then
when do we learn what love can be and how do we learn what love is?
Is it trial and error where we have to wait for “the one”
or is it just a guessing game, a gamble, and
hope that the person that you have so many
similar interests and hobbies and passions and beliefs and feelings with is
a person that you are in love with?
So do I love the girl beside me
sprawled out in the morning snow?
With hair so blue that the seas become envious?
No.
After all, how can I?
I don’t even know what love is.
From someone who is still hurting
Tommy Johnson Mar 2014
They swoon on behalf of the exalted one
Brandishing the sword of the spirit
Deliberately making a racket
Tremolo picking

******* on the man’s marrow
Sitting on a pick nick blanket
Kicking up new ground
You sure have a knack

This is the taste of terror
Remember what you have learned
For now, for when?  Forever
Leave no stone unturned
Just wait your turn

A blind recommended private eye
Take into deep consideration
Deliver me from the life of a lemming
Diving off a cliff into a cesspool

Daunted, left helpless in the courtyard
Belated birthday gifts given so thoughtlessly
Nonchalant sarcasm afterward
They shall not speak henceforth

These are the days of madness
The sanity you’ll lose
The colorblind in glasses
Receiving Rubix Cubes
Tell me what’s the use?

Running across the T-ball field
Frightening a legion of geese
A teenage thrill only to realize
My shoes were covered in stool

The banshee so aerodynamic
Its yawp makes my head split
Calling collect just to say
Your virility is too impressionable

We were the living theater
From which your inspiration derived
The kettles of fish and cans of worms we opened
That we cannot deny
We will not lie

We are dead
From the neck up
From the neck up
From the neck up
Aaron Mullin Sep 2014
52 Weeks: Whitman

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

52 Weeks: Mullein**

The Red-Tailed hawk swoops by and catches just a glimpse, he tilts his head Dionysian style mouth slightly agape.

I too am a wild thing, I too am untethered,
And I sound animalistic in the dining halls of the tamed.

The final missile thud holds me in a sweet caress,
My likeness rockets earthward … tried and true and tired and truer,
I am coaxed into existence once again.

I maintain my aetheric ties as I know this is the roadmap back to you,
It’s nice to be enmeshed in the living once again even though they drain,
To drain is to live, one gives eternity to be mortal - it’s the only thing that ever made sense.

I won’t depart, I dig in my heels,
And I turn my back on the organized.

I am of the earth because I understand my antecedents … my mother’s mother’s mother …
And because of this knowledge of ante’s I can set prece’s, hopefully precisely.

I hardly know who I am or what I mean (on a good day),
But I am good for you none the less,
As our tastes and sounds and smells and touches intermingle.

And always I wait patiently,
for me for you,
for us.
An adaptation of Whitman's final stanza in Song of Myself
Micaiah Jun 2014
Do I have to be selfish
And hide the truth
To achieve everything

Do I have to be a thief
And steal one's right of knowing things
To manipulate everything

Do I have to be egocentric
And forget about others
To be happy alone

To yawp is to scream
To scream is to feel relieved

Am I relieved
Or do I look relieved

To be or not to be
I wanted to cry
but couldn't—22 year old American male—
so I laced up running shoes
no jacket
just shorts
12 degree punishment.

I needed to get away
from a silent phone,
an empty inbox
so I could scream out my coward

sprinting over hills
in the full moon's
telling light.
I try to curdle blood
but choke

on vocal cords
bolted in place
by modern modesty

too scared
to sound my barbaric yawp
I yelp
like a coyote

the size of a wolf pup
that only has breath enough
for half a call.

I stop to catch the wind
and with it
howl over and over

again and again
until I scream,
freezing every heartbeat
within earshot.
A single tear
drops on the fire.

Breathing heavier now
in the moon's empty landscape
I begin dragging my feet
slowly toward the agony of a silent phone
and an empty inbox, trying to calm myself
because one tear is not enough.
Aaron Wallis Oct 2013
His earnings were no use now,
A bottle of antiquated Romanée Conti would undoubtedly do,
A premium Gieves & Hawkes ensemble donned,
Jeff Buckely trills of lilac wine as he puts on his GJ Cleverley shoes.

He turns up the dial on his harmony producer,
Fading out the shrilling yawp of the telephone upon the table,
He sits up in his silk sheet bed,
The lights dim to a squint and the Psychotropic tab make him unable.

A pill for each mood now a-swirl in his gut,
He deliberated if that earlier he should have elected the lamb over the pork,
Then peers to the room’s edge to the dark of a crook,
As slippers pulsate and instigate to a mellow sway and begin to curiously talk.

“What you do there?” They spoke with pry.
He enlightened the foot snugs that he wished to die,
That he hated a life as obtuse of this,
Now once able and mind half disabled he would take a knife,
To his wrists.

A razor flavours blood of the open arm,
As authoritative calls bellow and boom behind the door of his sweet,
They would never find the cash in the Caymans,
As there was none; just good wine, fast cars, his suits, and the fine shoes on his feet.

The slippers float and thus speak on:
“You are a fool to yourself you have done it all wrong, they have notably found the note”.
“There is little time left you should hurry now,”
“Take one last sip of the wine and let the razor meet your throat.”

The door bucks with each thump,
Through the yells and demands it begins to give as it creaks,
He lays a gasp in his ruby and blood,
He is now a fade and almost absent and the slippers are asleep.

They will salvage him from his discharge,
This man of hate for life, life of lies, thief of the poor and unto his soul,
A man who obstinately wanted more,
Until more was a bore and nothing no longer more fed the avid hole
she is a little more than a little tired of
lists.  And litanies that go no
where, and
hail no one.  it would be nice to be the
list, instead, being penned, being spun into be
ing, to be the logical result of a strong clear
desire.  (all she can really remember
from that pirate
movie is that the compass only worked if
you could let yourself
                         wild yawp want it).

More. more (the word quivers at the nub
           like something might be actually
happening).
More
magic beans.
Less stirring soup.
More of to fly into
               a rage at the intrusion
more intrusion! less
steady golden eggs that bore her
into a whipless
stupor.  More unknown. More parapets of cloud. More
lovers the size of small mountains. More rumbling
and coming apart at the fault lines.
More lava beneath me, she writes and grows
warm. Oh! How
that would burn...
she is a little more than a little tired of
lists.  And litanies that go no
where, and
hail no one.  it would be nice to be the
list, instead, being penned, being spun into be
ing, to be the logical result of a strong clear
desire.  (all she can really remember
from that pirate
movie is that the compass only worked if
you could let yourself
                         wild yawp want it).

More. more (the word quivers at the nub
           like something might be actually
happening).
More
magic beans.
Less stirring soup.
More of to fly into
               a rage at the intrusion
more intrusion! less
steady golden eggs that bore her
into a whipless
stupor.  More unknown. More parapets of cloud. More
lovers the size of small mountains. More rumbling
and coming apart at the fault lines.
More lava beneath me, she writes and grows
warm. Oh! How
that would burn...
it's so fun to play around in pure longing.  Poetry is such a good all terrain vehicle for this...
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.
this was during a father's day trip, and am trying to get at some of the thrill of a poet parent watching a child come to language
Michael Hunter Dec 2012
I have found a new companion to take my morning coffee with.
He’s sharp and very observant – and he’s honest.
So honest, in fact, that I’m often stunned into reflection and reverie.

Mr. Whitman’s words coax from me a surprising intensity of feeling and joy,
and at the same time, cause me to have to pause and write unknown words
in my notebook, to be discovered later.

Walt is a most engaging fellow.
I picture his halo of white unruly hair and beard,
and understand more what he means as he
‘… Sounds his barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world!’

My coffee grows cold as I am swept away by his snap-shot catalogues of life around him.
I sit breathless at the end of these lists – feeling as though I’ve only just arrived
after a long journey abroad!

And then his wisdom and gentle heart speak to my soul and takes away my protective wall.
He speaks of ‘god-like’ man,
‘… Whose human mind is but a gem in black decay enshrined.’

I weep to find such a companion of my heart.
A friend who keeps me company in the dark morning hours as my coffee slowly cools.

© 2012 Michael Hunter
Mark Wanless Jun 2016
foreign tongue fast babbling phone call
to half a world away genetic kin
easy as dirt
like the dirt that owns the blood
half a century away
land of snows and lapis sky
hungry maroon monks incanting
barbaric yawp pujas in
decadent political system
controlling the yellow spirit and red blood
of happy ignorant sad intelligent humanity
of the there then
it's always been like this world
when mighty mao and red army liberates
with bullets prisons mortars torture
barrel of the gun communist truth
rippin tongues out with meat hooks
father of such misery you can not see
they treat everyone like this
not just you         yaa that dirt
Tibet

i was present and hearing a phone call between relatives half a world away, literally
Carsyn Smith Dec 2013
I'm the silhouette that flies with the sun,
with wings outstretched, hear my mighty cry
and fear my shadow as it falls upon you.

Shoot me if you must, if you can not help it,
your arrows will not find me
as I circle you slowly.

Be frightened of my beak, drenched in night's blood,
watch as it rips golden columns in two,
but you will never see it bathe in the moon's tears.

You'll never see me, never know my name,
let imagination be your greatest enemy
for I am nothing but a small black bird.

Yes, I am the silhouette that flies with the sun,
so slowly we rise, but
so quickly we dive into darkness.

I am a creature whose battle yawp is "m'aidez"
A thing so small, no bull's eye could do it justice,
whose beak is soaked in its own tears.

A bird so small and so frightened
it is easily swallowed by the shadows
that lick her feathers like the fires of Hell.

You'll never see the silhouette fly at night,
for she is lost within her own darkness,
fearing the shadows that hide under black feathers.

Just as she's about to fall,
listening to her brittle bones break,
the sun picks her up, mends her, and begins the cycle again.




I'm the silhouette that flies with the sun,
with wings outstretched, hear my mighty cry
and fear my shadow as it falls upon you.
mike dm Oct 2014
I am not sloth
I am body bodied forth
Beating the day at its game

Dear depression
Take my outstretched hand
-And you may have my ear too-
But your haunts have no place
In the seat of my being

I am lean
I am not a copy
I am variation
Because you are before me
Changing me
Growing me

When I hold my lover
She will know me
And I her
When my lover speaks
I am wiser and all is well
When she needs space
I will steal myself away
Alone but not lonely

I am not fabricated
I am not walled in
My room is balance
My room is not fear
Come envelop me
Surround me
Throw off the those shadows
That flail in my deepest corners

Inhabit me
And I will be host
To you

I am not tame
My yawp awakens
Dotard gods preying

An exhale of mine
-Deep and full of lust-
Is enough to humiliate
Billions of absentee deities

I am not just your version of me
I am not just me
I am us

For a time..

Peel back your crush
Open up
Let me in

Eyes rolling back
To look for the words
That cannot be had

With five pens
Write your sweet everything's
Into my flexed back
brandon nagley May 2015
A weary face stareth back at us all,
Giants grow tall where thy small minded are casted!!!

All concept to be trapped in our man made prism's!
Such derision is unanswered,
The gardenmen and planters make grow all thou conceiveth today!!!!

Love seekers to slaves,
What's the difference in its core?
Some cry out for extras,
While Heartbreakers taketh more!!!!

More of nothing left!!!

A thief to their theft,
A liar for every aching tounge!!!

Unappeasable audiences,
Bookies seek out bondmaids for their own descretion!!!!
Non completion soo cunning to these lusted cumulaters!!!!

Damsel,
Where art thou?

Elyptic in thy writings?
I proceed!!!

Laughing to bleed,
Or bleeding to die?

Electrode pulses bypass what's become of us,
Eristic flumes travel fluctuating rooms,
Where thy keyhole has no fit!!!!!

Acidic spit lines the dried out apertures,
They yawp ,
They count,
But add nothing to their foulard writings!!!!!
Kevin Bennett Jan 2014
#10
Come nigh my friends
And sound your barbaric yawp!
This world is ripe for the taking.

Speak light and gay.
There's no time for mourning
Or depressed poems in the making.

Heavy hearts find comfort in verse;
Relying on strife for the feel to fit.
But I see too much beauty in the world
And my poems dare to reflect it.
Kristen Mar 2015
And now I Yawp--
Across the hills, over the stormiest seas and why?
I am no longer afraid!
I loafe myself, yes, and more--
I am Alive, and also
living.
What a great and tragic thing to be!
I relish my versatility--
I have power! The power to choose!
And in every moment we make ourselves---
And I choose the colors carefully
But yet they come together in a wild way
Because I am Alive!
And tomorrow, I may not be.
Oh, to be living!
And I am dying, too!
Never once before has my Pride been less of a vice
For in it
There is humility.
As I recognize the vast expanse of my own Power
I take responsibility
And lower my hands to the dirt
And my self to the ground
And examine my tread-marks.
And I will walk with a Purpose!
No more shall I pretend myself a helpless aside,
Lost in the current of my own life!
No!
I, I am responsible for my every action,
And as I move, I move us all.
(If the movement may be small.)
So small as to be unnoticeable, yes,
But what significance I have is still Significance.
And thus I walk alongside my kin and carry my morals upon my shoulders.
I. Must. Not. Back. Down!
Am I afraid of my own success?
Of course!
But I mustn't let that stop me;
For there is something at work that is
Much larger than I shall ever be--
And I am a part of it.

I do not separate myself from the system, but instead recognize my movements in it
And its movement in me.
To be fair, I have never finished reading Whitman's.

I should also note that recognizing the things that you can't control is as important as recognizing your power....
VVanGone Sep 2015
we take one step forward three steps back
and all the while we are looking for ourselves
not wanting to walk as the living dead
like hearts chained to a desk
like those we **** or want to ****
and we wonder why we are the way we are
wanting more than sometimes seems possible
our desperate yawp that we will not settle
for this living death
you will make your way out of the morass soon enough
and all of this will be a distant memory
a mostly pleasant diversion
from the prison of living
Ksjpari Aug 2017
Sanmati, my messenger, is no more a milksop.
Ardent though is she never will yawp.
Nagging sometimes though in some shop.
Merrily walks in crowd alone till atop.
Amends her needs; tackles one with strop-
Till he agrees with her, else does lop.
In always high spirits, ready to swop
Joy or sorrow equally treats like gumdrop.
Angry if treats us like a bellhop
In our home or out, but never plop
Nor cry in public to show us flop.
I am developing a new style of writing poetry where ending words of a line rhyme with one another, at least in last sound. I named it Pari Style. Hope readers will like it. Thanks to those invisible hands and fingers which supported and inspired me to continue my efforts in my new, creative, artistic and innovative “Pari” style. Thanks for your inspiring, kind, soft fingers.
Sarah Kunz Nov 2016
What a cacophony of a man.
You inhale upon your sagged cigarette in a banal matter to bind together your facade of a nonchalant man.
Man man man..
What makes you a man? I see you and your gratuitous gestures, but what defines the substance of your manhood.
I'm going to take a drumy roll of the dice and suppose your ****** anatomy is the typical sad prune like elephant of your fellow males. You keep on insisting through your bolstering language that you are a man. "I am a man *******!" Your words go launching out of your unrolled jangy car window.
Is that all it takes? You simply yawp out these proclamations and it makes them true?
Well then, I suppose every fellow that has cut me off in the treading pool of traffic, bares resemblance to a donkey.
as we parted ways
in the early snow
that evening now
so far afield yet
i recall
your casual
hello mistaken for
circumscribed absurdity
that i adore
my fingers
became interlaced
between yours
despite the
years and so many
painfully memories
the lot of which
ferried away
into the broken
oblivion
the innocence
of youth
that had i
from that day to this
known
resilience
that i again
would stand
near you
upon that precipice
that overlooks the
deep summer chasm
where quiet
meetings between
old friends
dissolve in the
soundless yawp
of real and boundless
possibility...
Ksjpari Aug 2017
Without values life may whop
And you cannot even yawp
As the destiny may strop
A valueless person nonstop.
If your values from life lop
It is zilch and make you fop –
Fop – a man with concern atop
For dress than character prop.
Without values we may drop;
Cannot stand or walk; sit or hop.
So respect values that clearly mop
All bad, illicit or forbidden crop.
I am developing a new style of writing poetry where ending words of a line rhyme with one another, at least in last sound. I named it Pari Style. Hope readers will like it. Thanks to those invisible hands and fingers which supported and inspired me to continue my efforts in my new, creative, artistic and innovative “Pari” style. Thanks for your inspiring, kind, soft fingers.
It has been a thrashing defeat lately,
they have been
Charred, and Burnt, and burnt and triple tossed!
And they’re still;
Munching and mincing the mundane motion of hatred-
to burn again, to burn profusely, a bit too more in their fiery lake of remorse.

They have been an admixture of life, loss, and liberty,
but they still seek to spread the mirage of a thousand dreams,

And, I have been a character underneath the hazy shades of appearance,
sleeping for a thousand years or more,

Well,
I could have been a mirror which trembles at the passing of hunts and hordes.

I have all been a fatty fuzzy Butter between burnt baggy loaves of bread,
And an edgy elite Ox dreaming essentially, incessantly,
to flutter like a doped dreamy butterfly.

But, their waves of cadence do not reach any height!
From that squalid catalog of their mistakes,
they gain nothing, seriously,
by stringing together, solemnly, their tattered pieces of life,
their vague memories of solitude,
and transcendental brightness,
they gain nothing, nothing but small pieces of an insatiable pleasure.

“This has been a complex composition of a Phenomenon, as you see.”-
said Michelangelo
“They would seek for a gigantic yawp!
There was nothing to be meant at all!” – said she, with perfect normalcy!

Coming down the road, all alone,
all covered with water and pebbles and mud,
People, as I see, talk of muddy days, diseases and the decease of success!
A slight fuzzy wind blowing into my face!
And the light on my door harpers the state of falsity.
I try prioritizing peace and calmness. She tries eating salads.
They try to wait for a better basic tomorrow.

But,
Everyone in the world was so doomed to happiness.
Their Morality was-
A mad- mad-
Maddened gaslight on those bloodstained walls!
They do not have anywhere to go;
I do not roam around anymore like a wild solid pig,
they do not sit down on the sofa with hope as their favorite cushion,
and-
They don’t try to adjust the temperature of blind follies and melancholic memories,
with perfect calculated mercy and normalcy.
Well, what they have is Michelangelo,
“And, Different colors made out of tears!”- said she, with perfect normalcy!

They all come and go!


But I still dream of green nights and glittering snow!
And about Distances which can be shattered into foam!
Mel Williams Mar 2019
Rot
I just feel alone.

A single weight held tight across my jaw.

A timelapse of sorts.
One that repeats itself again and again.

Again and again.

Again and again I wish.
For more.
For less.
Less weight.
Less surrender.
A single shield is all that is left of me.
If I raised the sword, would I collapse?
A single wall falling in on itself.

I am a single wall, falling in on itself.

Why? Is the gold-leaf not enough?
To show favor? Gain favor with the gods?
Whomever they may be.

The sword falls.
Clatters across my side.

There is too much weight today.

One I can put down.
The other, I cannot.

I swallow the sword as I swallow the pen.
It never feels like enough.

Break wall, break!
Tumble, sword, tumble!
Clatter life, clatter!
Make noise, for God's sake!
Make some noise as you fall!

Make noise as you fall.

Do something, Lord, something.
Don't let this be your last breathe:
Your last exhale into an open space.

Yawp greatly into that rotten apple sky.
Cast your own poison into its folds.
Leave something behind.
If it is rotten, then let it be so!

Let it be rotten.
As rotten as you are.

Maybe something will grow from the soil.
Another apple perhaps.
Or a single tree.

I would prefer it.
Leave something behind, by God!

Leave them
Something

— The End —