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Nat Lipstadt Jun 2023
I am a Taken Poet ~ “The Wreckage of Your Silent Reverie”^

<6:45 AM Sat June 3>

again and again, a peculiar lyric
more than provokes, ******, injects,
no mere head buzzing, sledgehammer
beheaded, no under skin, in my pores,
shedding,reabsorbed, replaying the replay,
until I, will-less, commanded endlessly,
induced, besplay my irritants into my
“take,” for I am an overtaken poet, searching relief

too well, the wreckage refuse of these
silent reveries consume us, and I shriek,
contemplating the years of holey falling,
not hours or days, not weeks or months,
spent in rigorous dreams, facing & escaping,
my guilts, my fork failures, bottling & pouring,
with no relief from screams, head-banging,
nightmare visitations and inarticulate moans

until they form words, projectile ejected,
pollutants upon a clean, white background,
and dispatched to the heavens or nether land,
and to you, here in poem form that brings but a
modicum crumb of relief that empties, buying
time, knowing full well, my cup runneth over and
fresh replacement troops are eager, readily available,
by joining the seesaw border war, splitting my halves

my halves for I am not whole, I am deboned,
and slices fall off of these trough of words,
these statements of fact & fission, uninformed forms,
even worse, formed formlessness reciting repetitive,
inescapable  escapades, dead-ended hell highways,
these poems, all carcasses of me, roadside ****, until,
someone unseen, unknown invisible, removes them
to the largest refuse pile in world, a inutile poem heap

even this epistolary of diary entries offered down for
your bemusement, my expulsionary relief, give but
the briefest analgesic, and a newest version of an oldest
reverie, old friend, comes like the unending beeping,
of a dying battery of a fire alarm, squeaking, unrelenting,
unresponsive to curses or begging till the last ounce
of its energy is consumed, so too I, impatient squeak words,
too many contemptuously familiar yet well hid in new combos,

temporarily pulled from the wreckage of my silent reverie


~~~~~~~~~~~~<7:45 AM>~~~~~~~~~~~~

^ “Oh this glorious sadness
That brings me to my knees
In the arms of the angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie

You're in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort here
You're in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort here”

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Sarah Mclachlan
gray overcast chilly Saturday morn,
listening to the chirping of a dying battery,
reminding me of my mortality and
my other stuff.
Ken Pepiton Feb 2023
Look once more,
look back and see the way, to now
from
when reason first was used
to master the frame
of mind, embodied, as mine,
informed with shapes of things solid,
shapes of things inside,
shapes of thing outside,
shapes of thoughts stacked in sequence,
after the hallelujah,
as per holy orders of worth appraisal,
services rendered,
magic performed,
life administered, for another week,
any body can handle one more week.
After the hallelujah.
learn that definition once, and you never
see sequential activity in ritual
as before,
magic effectuation, affection, as joy
one mindful, chewy, gustatory morsel,
of child-like faith, to be conserved.
Conservatively speaking,
Whig-wise, knowing one's prepositional relativity.
We labor, not in vain… to become worthy
to tread, with shoes, on streets of gold.
where milk needs no cow, and honey bees
never need be busy all day.

Riches and sweets, both
take more than either promise, aimed at
via entertain-mental mmm-usings tight
at tension, mind's time spaced taut
edge of me, edge of mine,
edge of ever aimed at
thus far… where we suffer this is so…
- measured timespace in mind agone…
Then we live through the last now, to die.

Becoming the author, fisher for being bubbles
afloat in ever after all.

At my funeral. To spare the hassle, imagine.

Friends and loved ones,
most are dead, or far away;

but we recall times, vague days
incidents for which we each hold bits,

instants, reality instantiated, pastense,

feel the kiss, feel the shame, the joy,
the hope, the loss, the win, the terror,
the truth of no perceptible way,

away from quit.
--------------

Infancy instants, perhaps, we guess,
we recall being babes, for briefest
recollections of perceptions kept, some how

to be reformed from shards of information
stored some where in an image of a moment

seen from the frame of a seer, not me, seeing
me, infant me, tossed and caught by a laughing
man in a sailor suit…

and, the oddity, of the singular infantile memory
stored some where for reconstruction, living
entertainment…

like unto Agricultural Entertainment, an art form
ancient as harvest festivals,

when locals picked the orchards, and our worlds
were edged in otherwise wild hedge rows,
where little creatures live at child level,
where words miss heard give stories twists,

too odd to be retold while holding any of the small
awe, aw, so sweet, too dear to let be meaningless,
but
as truth been told,
mean is bad in dogs and men, mean is bad in mankind,
mean is common,
mean is most common,
mean is measured, granted
mathematical reality, mind my means, you know
"intend, have in mind;"
Mental meaning application, folded man-kind wise…
Sometimes connected to root *men- (1)
"to think,"
which would make the ground sense of man
"one who has intelligence,"
but not all linguists accept this.
Liberman, for instance, writes,
"Most probably man 'human being' is a secularized divine name"
from Mannus [Tacitus, "Germania," chap. 2],
"believed to be the progenitor of the human race."

~~~~~~~~

Institutional minds, adapted from drama,
worn like Superman's or Bishop Sheen's cape.
Übermmench, **** sapien augmentacious,

**** habitus, us, as we think, we are.
We are no other way,
as a man thinketh truth, as a mind may think,
fine, so is he, in his own mind, right or not,
limited fineness, judged, discerned, quarkishly
ever finer, to this very point,
where mind being time being comes to mind,
in you.
We, momentarily, agree, aggressive face to face
point, fair call
at the inner edge of the inverse square
practical fractal constant…
gravest of issues, at thought
speed of intention to grasp. Percept perceive
link touch… flowing listing seeping soaring

bemused become
amused and entertained, feeding on ensamples,
as sorted characters,
defined societal aspirational imaginal
roles in reality aboard 1950's era Spaceship Earth.


Standing, unbowed, before kings,
bowing before mean men, thinking

all ya'll are said to be created, made
equal…
valued worthy
of opinion expressed as yours, as
wings put on wishes, shoes on prayers,
for warding reaching pulling pushers
-list as wind, in cognitive bias, right
lean as wild grasses launch new seed,
- double helix, twisting up
- from down,
feel massive missal push us on,
orbital, for a lifetime,
be maker of a being bubble
be a minding creating creation,

as weighed in balance, or mass, as gold
or wind in force testing wills for making

a way, where no way was.
Dead end. No way from now, but through.

Wind beneath my down swung pinions,
lifting my imaginal self over my useless

wait state, ever learning, never learning
the whole truth we are sworn to tell,
as soon as
we begin to see as others see, subject,
object
seer
seen seeing, saying

we may be minders of findings, guardians
set to watch,
set to see,
set to say look this way, these invisible limits

terminal connection looping past through
you
as my word choices,
pass the blood brain barrier and pierce
eternal you, in stasis.

- ---------------
- post radio war, not so long ago

"how ' we gonna keep 'em down
on the farm, after they've seen Pairee?"
- enter the era of the salesman
Total war, full power propagation of faith,
in practice, words are empty, meaning
is made- hate festered pride
of whiteness, same color as the rich, qualia
as equally mistaken in terms we call common,
****** speech of the non-reading classes,
stupid peasants, children of useless men.
Lower by far than, Biblical men
of the baser sort. Belial's
sons of total depravity,
two rungs lower than average
working classes, labor, any collared man willed
to pay sweat for bread and circuses.
And a dry, warm place to sleep.

Man, the reasoning creature, is what he eats.
Man does not live by bread alone.

Imagine grooming a gimp, from puberty.
Imagine Michael Jackson, "the kid is not my son!"

Look out, Howard Bloom. Duck.
Watch the boy do a thousand shoulder shrugs.
See the fantasizing worth of awe in focus, this
is us,
we paid to see the man perform, in a role made
from lies a child uses
to make just now,
reasonable, just
cause,

I can, I have power given me by Life, look,
who can imagine being the fan,
aw, man,
nobody longs to be
in the nosebleeds, being there
is not being you,
when all you can become has become true.
Just imagine,
fakes never make it.

And truly a big tragedy to be avoided, next.

We interview… the biggest nobody,
an entity insisting formless information imagines
bubbles of being limited
-- some strings of pearls rolled up

roll into little *****
of gnoshit pearls, treasure true, in essence
from dried gnosisnot. These we cast not to pigs.
To think a readers reasons
for writing, become one
of the rare breed born
to become readers
of one thousand books, once before you die.

------------------
If Warhol made action seem so mundane,
might I not make fun seem so slow a function
to make perfectly reasonable,
picking a fight with a lie,
because I can… being created equal to that task,
I can recognize lies I told,
I know where the handles are, I know what holds
the handle to the secret meaning of things,
can seem material, where free will
is culture locked as impossible.
Thingo no hypo.
Action movie, opening sequence,
as liturgical as any measured reassurance,
enter in, become the entertained,
we live in another realm, we only play at
while being entertained, we only watch roles

being presented for judgement,
test your will to link a mind projection,

from a former time shaped mind, aimed
at drawing an audience, a crowd,
all agreeing upfront to pay
for the mirror neuronic stims,
in a darkened room filled with fools such as I.

Who allows possible a gunfight with ***'s,
at goal-to-go range, taking five minutes,
and no named characters die,
all blood is non player blood,
only a child's mind never exposed, flash,
allows that to feel real, for five minutes,
into a nonreal mindtimespace
reality
of ever once,
and ever after, onces

such as once, seeing a gun in your face,
once hearing the bang, from a gun in your hand,
once
upon
recalling that was a movie, and I never killed a man,
but by osmosis, I imagine I can see
how hate
works the same as ******.
Relax.
Recall the unbelievableness.
--- so what are silent action movies feeding,
young Aldous Huxley, a bright well educated lad.
{We are all alphas}
-----------
"His uniqueness lay in his universalism.
He was able to take all knowledge for his province."
-------
Only a rich man's son may so say.
Even, as limiting to level, if such leveling
evens the odds, serves to increase resolve
to square the circle and fix pi to simple, once
and
for
all. As events in the heaven occur, fractally

added in fine ality… at you, dear reader, enlivening me.
Infinitely, relative to yesterday.

Of course, comic books count. As in the future,
classic video games shall seem poetic code.
I appreciate the reader's task more than the writer's. Writing is easy, reading what you write from the outside is the reader's task, unless it feels like a game.
never knew it,
never was I self-percepted,
that anything exceptional,
lay within, neither obvious
or dormant, was just an ordinary
if not, extra-ordinary pained
child by peers and my surrounders

and my own words yet today,
do not confer any distinction
when yours irradiate me into
a stunned and silenced reverie,
a reminder, a minder, that talent
recognizes no laws of equilibrium,
equality, and certainty not, equity

so I read with shocked, shocked, I tell you,

bemusement but comprehensive perception
when the young and extra~special confide,
their own misperceptions, overwhelmed by
the anxiety
of the billions of sky stars, and letters in their
twinkling orbs when forming identifiable comets with tagalong
dust trails^ of the debris of words that are formed by
their travels and travails on orbits
not necessarily predetermined
by gravitational adult pulleys, a gravity upon
their projected, sometimes directed,
sometimes not,
trajectory

"and yet, though an orbit is a type of trajectory,
not all trajectories are orbits"


nor are
"some comets, particularly
those from outside our solar system,
that move so fast that the Sun's gravity
is not strong enough to capture them
into a closed orbit


These comets follow an open, curved path
through the solar system and then
continue on into interstellar space,
never to be seen again
"

so be advised,
as you reassemble the debris from the multi~universe,
when assembling your owned,
unique~verse,
create your tail
and trail,
the futurity
of you is to be both
silent and loud,
absorbing and disgorging,
to awed and to be humbled,
by all that and those who went before,
all once younger and talented,
and knew this self-same anxiety,
but never let the fearing of their
the mystery of plotting of their
path
deter them
from exploring the skies and deep mines of the
sea trenches where undiscovered mysteries
abide

<nml>

4:59am
in the city where one can never see the
light of the stars,
particularly
by their owners
^ dust trails of comets
long-lasting streams of debris that can be seen for centuries
Hal Loyd Denton Jul 2013
Eleanor stepped from the rear platform of the caboose as they were sidelined to let a freight
Pass she mused how she loved freight trains how romantic they were the gust of night air from the
Passing train that and the sound the train made was intoxicating she too was a piece of heaven she only
Had a blanket wrapped around her body just above her breast her blonde hair was wet it had deep
Comb lines she presented the highest qualities of womanhood freshness innocence a wild freedom a
Tenderness her face expressed a look of longing a yearning the call that commanded wonder she picked
Up the natural richness from the golden sunset as they traveled west the silver stream that was wide in
The river they ran alongside for many miles this night it had been her bathing pool bemusement and
Wistfulness came from her eyes and played on her face there to was a sadness a mystery that spoke of
Pain she was travelling with a music troupe on the cheap she stated to stroll in the dark up the length of
The train first she encountered the only Spanish man in the group he was setting with his back against
The train on the rail at first quiet and thoughtful was his tune you visualized walking down the dark quiet
Street of a Spanish village then he increased with a fastness you could hear Olay the scene quickly
Changed to the famed bull fight in the great arena he played slow and softly making you feel the
Tenseness as the great Matador faced the great beast the first pass was letter perfect the grace the cape
Moved in a half circle then he spoke Toro the bull charged but in the blink of an eye the Matador saw
The bull turn his head with those massive horns it caught him in the side and then the terror of a human
Doll being tossed and stomped the cadence of the guitar told it all the day would go to the bull glory and
Honor would go to the dead Matador she continued to walk as the guitar sound faded only to be picked
Up by the sound of a rich trumpet it pierced the sweet night the distant pine seemed to sway in
Appreciation the lone Coyote not to be out done howled his plaintive cry to the magnetic moon the
Expanse of the dark southwest night was the fulfilling and telling of the tale many ghost rose that night
Native American people always on the move in their nomadic way the wild mustang were real they
Stood grazing in the lush grass just across the river Eleanor with her rich creamy skin seemed as a dream
Passing between them made perfection call out from a night train
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2016
for mine own Yocum*

<>




a strange parting shot,
that we are are the refuse
upon this island Earth,
the very last item on some being's
weekly grocery list,
a list composed 'illions of years ago,
of things that could be worthy of
"creating"

this thought sticks to my soul,
like a rosé pink colored
NYC street'd, well chewed,
gum piece
adheres to my sole

the musical companion to this ecrivez,
a sinfonia for strings politely begs to differ,
while a hard covered book
dances me over to Texas,
Dudamel conducts Barber,
all making the question of
man as an afterthought
in a divine master plan for a planet,
seems almost recklessly absurdly nonsensical


then

my cell buzzes me back to this

******* hell earth

seven more cops shot, three dead

down in the bayou of Baton Rouge,
on a sabbath Sunday morning

rouge red now assumes,
takes on a different
notation colorations,
to my bleeding eyes,
delivering importations
of  headaches confusion rampage,
red rage

the amplification of the worst of we,
afterthought creatures surely,
why "create a destroyer,"
an absurd contradictory term,
so we are gift wrapped  
beneath the misleading approbation -
human

there is no nobility in our savagery,
or dare I sneer and say,
in our humanity

you cannot seal a wound with music

you cannot revive the dead with a poem ear-whispered

sitting beneath the tree shade
of my privileged place,
my surrounding world is
bay blue and grass green,
my vision myopic,
I am a self-centered,
microscopic collection of red cells

conceding to you Sargeant,
this designer of the human form,
who wrought it from
soiled earth and excess rib bone,
had a peculiar sense of humor,
a comedian full of
malice aforethought,

for are we not
the final joke,
for someone's bemusement

we must have come last,
because you always
want to leave them
laughing
Mistaken Beliefs
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1706235/mistaken-beliefs/

Within the unfolding creation of this Earth,
with its majestic mountains and valleys,
its rocks and trees, its life-giving streams and seas,
Surely man was but a minor afterthought
no more important than birds, or snakes.
Only we see ourselves as exalted above all other
living things. Our opinion is highly overrated
and wholly underserved.
Vivian Jun 2014
women swilling white white in glasses;
remember when you took me
out to dinner with your parents?
your father peppered the
salmon to excess and the
sommelier to exhaustion:
what year? where were the
grapes grown? what would you pair
with this? what about with that?
your mother gave me a
knowing glance as he prattled on,
and you shook your head in bemusement.

I wonder what
looks she gave
you while I was distracted.
I woke to a knock at the door one day,
And stumbled, to put on my gown,
The place was a shambles, and last night’s tea
In cartons, was scattered around.
I hate people seeing the way I live,
They shouldn’t call round, it’s a *****,
But called out, ‘Who is it?’ and got the reply,
‘It’s me, it’s the upstairs witch.’

I had no idea she lived upstairs,
The apartments are all very small,
The slightest of noises will carry on through
The ceilings, and paper thin walls.
I opened the door in bemusement then
To see who was pulling my leg,
She wore every colour the rainbow sent,
Pushed past me, and said: ‘Call me Peg!’

I followed her into the wreck of my room,
And mumbled, ‘I know, it’s a mess.’
She shrugged, and she pointed my PC out,
‘I knew it was that, nothing less!
You sit and you type through the early hours
I hear all your whistles and bells,
Your tappity-tapping is driving me spare,
And worse, is confusing my spells.’

‘I have to compose when the mood is high,
And that is from midnight and on.’
‘And I only spell when the Moon is nigh,
I can’t til the sun has gone.’
We stared at each other with little grace,
Both grim, with a certain intent,
She wouldn’t be giving an inch to me,
I murmured I wouldn’t relent.

‘We’ll have to come up with a compromise,
I’ll help you, if that helps myself,
I’ll spell in your program a silence key,
And you’ll be at peace with yourself.’
‘But what am I getting from you in return,
This sounds like it’s going one way…’
‘I’ll bring all your stories to life,’ she said,
‘In colour, and one for each day.’

‘I’ve written so many, you’ll never keep up,
I’ll need to go back through my files.’
‘Just open the drawer of your cabinet,
And I’ll carry you there, for a while.
I’ve seen all your stuff on the Internet,
Your devils and demons and ghouls,
I haven’t a clue what you think you will do
In a garden, with so many fools.’

She sits in her garret and plays with her spells,
I type without making a sound,
I open the drawer and I walk on the shore
Or hear bells from the church in the town.
I follow each lady I’ve written in verse
And make love when I’m feeling the itch,
They all wear the colours of rainbows at first,
And they look like the upstairs witch!

David Lewis Paget
Guy Braddock Dec 2013
Convex curvature, female caricature
In the shiny polished upper side resides my reflection
Up left, roses would strive
To derive right ***** from the
Unparsimonious point of inflection

And what inflection! Phrasing inflected
Sings songs well affected
By the erratic gliding
Of ******* chiding
The inopportune haste of
Her lover

I, graced, sit down in bemusement:
For nor does she bring just a
Knickknack's amusement
Nor do I lug
A source of apologies
Instead our duality slates
Juxtaposition
As the most redundant of tautologies.
This poem is a bit of an enigma. I challenge you all to guess who "She" is.
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2024
~inspired by a poem and messages from fellow poets ~
who have ridden beside me here,
for a decade plus,
SE Reimer, & Sally Bayan~

*we take our meds, vitamins and supplements
routinely, faithfully and with a big smile
of self-bemusement at all the times I mocked
those sillys who believed that
hu man
can
override his prescribed
sentencing

record almost every morsel that passes through my portals, reporting quantity and quality to remind me of my human needs, but
more to gauge my wearing weaknesses, and
make confession of
my sins of gourmand commission

and despite this and more, regular checkups, and blah blah blah, No Lies told here, the aging days are upon us, my brow furrowed
by a lengthening To Do list, that is endlessly
refurbished with more additions than
subtractions, ergo, the list grows longer as fast as the days remaining,
grow shorter,
ever faster!

no kidding myself, you feel (really) the cells
slowing their recovery, their fading fastness in every little thing, we squint where we used
to go without trepidation, we twist and turn
to musical utterances and undertones that
are groans and laughter at the old carcass’s
refreshing harmonic epiphany
of time’s passage

and think well,
I’ll do that tomorrow,
handle that later,
deal with that problem surely
eventually,

and the only thing that is attended to almost
instantly, is writing here,
last gasp observations,
that my being demands be issued now!
in time beating to
my slowing heart rate,
or factually,
my rapidly
rising rate,
each a contradictory economic indicator
of the same,
singular portending trend

so here I am ribbing and scribbling myself
before you, prompted by a gorgeously written poem by my friend (1) and the departure of another to a faraway land
where they live, my failure to meet, a shameful delay by an old man’s cautious
fear, that should not be abided…

is this a poem,
a cri de coeur,
a confession -
something of all three, but it is done,
breaths and words rapidly expelled, and for once. I feel like I have, once, now, gambled
against time, and actually

won
Brittle Bird Jan 2015
and I feel like I am tight rope walking
over my life;
I can see everything so well
that the only thing I neglect to pay attention to
is myself,
then suddenly it's all too late
and I am falling head first
into the midst of
all
this
bemusement.
Wk kortas Dec 2016
In my father’s cosmology, God rose late come Sunday morning,
Having wreaked His vengeance by proxy the night before,
And it was a given that we greeted the Sabbath
With whispers and sock-soft tiptoe,
Knowing that his belt (black, wide, thick with implicit warnings)
Hung within easy reach of the bed,
Though sometimes, with no more explanation than
Man alive, what a beautiful world it is today!
Cold cornflake brunches would be postponed
(Our wonder mixed with consternation and rumbling stomachs)
As we would be whisked into the car
In order to sing His praises, our father all but jumping from the car,
Heading toward the preacher at a trot,
Invariably greeting him with Devil’s on holiday, Father,
So here I am
(the church was Lutheran,
Though it could have been a mosque for all he cared.)
He’d sit through the sermon, rapt and at attention,
Alternately scowling and smiling, knitting his brow and nodding,
And then he would corner the incumbent occupant of the pulpit
(He’d have scarcely noticed, if at all, that the leadership of the flock
Often changed hands between our cicada-esque appearances)
Backing him into a wall or against a railing
While he jabbered away, pointing or grabbing a sleeve in punctuation,
Gesturing like some latter-day Prospero, arms ****** Heavenward
To embrace the air, the sky, the whole of the cosmos, amen,
While the pastor’s gaze varied from bemusement to outright horror.
Such occasions were outliers, of course,
Father being much more inclined
To spend his Saturday evenings in un-Christian pursuits
Then stagger home singing a litany of done-me-wrong songs,
And his search for a joyful hundred-proof clarity
Ended before he glimpsed fifty, that being time enough
(So the pathologist noted in his final judgment)
For his liver to become elephantine, his kidneys mere pebbles
(Those effects, be they deleterious or otherwise,
Not listed explicitly nor in the footnotes
Which accompanied the post mortem.)
June. 1876. Chief Sitting Bull gives of his body , cutting his arms , to give of himself to his
Grandfather the creator .
Two days of dancing before the great sun , then came the vision .
White man will fall from the sky like locust with no ears to hear I give them to you
Do not take from the body's. *****  '.

My school cap started to fly around the play ground , I wasn't to have brought in my
Queens carrage with horses and now my cap was missing !
  
As far as the eye could see. Chief Sitting Bull had amassed.
Lakota , Sioux and Cheyenne Warriors ,
'. This will be a. Good day to die '.

My men had gone on ahead , I just had to see what my Scoat had seen for himself ,
and climbed up on a ridge .
As far as the eye could see. Savages. Armed to the hilt.
Feeling the blood drain from my face   , what had I done , would I ever see My little Sunbeam again ?
Coming in form the playground I proudly told miss I was. Custard. , a wry smile came over
her face , '. You mean. Custar. , ' .  Bemused I replied. No Custard. Miss I was Custard ' .

The custard jug spun round and around , and around. ,
with every child hopeing , praying not me .
Not my turn to eat its skin , oh but someone had to
Would it be my turn today ?

Yet. Someone had to that was the name of the game. , to see. The joy on
their faces. , the bemusement of others. for the sorrow of one .

















A Wagon in hospital , along with. Cowboys and a horse.
A. Doctor. Awaited. ,
'. Oh. What a. Brave boy. (. to see. The Doctor alone on my own ? )
Here's. a. Syringe you Brave boy . '.


Yet we sang Yellow submarine in the playground , played football. With concrete
Seats. Tennis ***** .
and looked out for Sir .
We played Bull dog  ,
Swopped. Football bubblegum cards for Gordon Banks or Bobby Moore .









and eat bom boms and sugary treats out of white. Paper bags ,
and Golden nuggets. Straight out of the box .

'. Bang bang your dead '
   Bang  bang your dead '
    The gun slinger came over. As I sat quietly on the ridge .
    I had a lot to learn about death it seemed .
The Seventh Cavalary were being shot at  by the ravine
Heads severed. , scalped , body's mutilated. ,
Bang , bang , bang , shots fired at will. , death a heart beat away , and a ****** end
Custar s. Men shell shocked. Awaited the Indians. Granddad. In the sky
The Indians. plundered. Ransacked what was left , forgotten Sitting Bulls words .
Now where ever they may stand forever on this White mans land .

'. The Beatles have split '. What ?  Why would a Beatle split I asked myself ?
We were all waiting to go in lineing up one by one
To find our own coats with pegs and and hats and cartoon cats and name tags.

Sunday School. Plastic shields and swords .
' Now remember
I am a star that shines so bright sending true seekers here tonight '
Ashford Congrigational  Sunday
'Sunday 18.  September. 2016
Then I looked up and there before me were four horns ,!  
I asked the Angel. What are these ?  
These are the horns that have scattered. Israil and Jeruslem .
Then the Lord showed me the four craftsmen
What are these for ?
These are the horns that have scattered Judah.
so that no one could raise his head ,
But the craftsmen have come to terrify them ,
and throw down these horns
Who have lifted up their horns against. the land of Judah. and scatter its people.

The paster lifted his head , '. You are the craftsmen  , now raise your hand
If you agree
And many did .
S Smoothie Feb 2014
Twisted and bent over
By just the thought of it;
Why rapture must come
With such intolerable cruelty
The Gods only know.



They wield us like toys in
A careless game of wits
for some bemusement

If I Were to dare and venture forth
to find the golden chord

and climb up to the stairway of heaven;



I would pluck the very eyes of Athena
and Themis and swap them in kind
So they may see eachothers minds

And cast upon it a blessing
cured of this sickly and ravaged
Regretted remorse that bodes
In the hearts and souls of weak men.



The shame travels in cycles
the pain is constant
broken only by fleeting moments
Of hope and regretful longings.



I Sailed with this ship of fools
To find the golden fleece
Knew full well that
The ends of the world
Will still fail to appease.



there is no god or immortal
That I serve except this *******;
And yet, the unrighteous lover
Renews my faith in love?



**** the gods
for making a device of heart so voracious
And easily spaced for the fitting of loves and pain,
duty and honor and every other
cruel twisted trick tied by a harp string
That tugged at will could test the thresholds
That torment always breaks.



Keep your gods and
Masters of cruel fates

I will follow none
And will wait for death

till I row the strokes to bring

that of the netherworld and beyond,



Just to find and ****** in zeuses
Wretched heart

the one he gave me by his stake
And watch him melt and burn and suffer
Twisted over and bent

finally to understand his cruel mistake
Lindsey Miller Jun 2012
you pull the phone from its cradle
(the dial tone wails miserably)
and the glance you throw at me is a mash of expression
the corners of your mouth blending together
bemusement and sorrow
hope and desolation
as you caress the seven numbers
and tell her in broken lies
that you're coming home soon.

then
after the shy thud of plastic on plastic
and the tumble of ice in a glass poured solely to forget
you stand and turn
so like clockwork
there is a kiss that never meant a blessed thing
and three words said without impact—
sidewalk-chalk-in-a-rainstorm,
beached-and-sundried-starf­ish words
swept back out to sea.

i can wish for revolving doors
to keep you running in perfect circles—
a blissful three-sixty—
and lead you back to my cardboard palace
so we could air out the mold between the creases
just for a glimmer of something
fresh
and new.



but there are reasons why the serpent escapes from god.
Steffanie Nov 2015
If I thought that we would crash and burn
faster
than he and I
There is nothing that would stop me from walking away.
Finding myself in you
So that I may go on forever knowing.
Bemusement be ******.
You see,
I owe it to everyone involved
to see this to the very end.
To see this to the wreckage.
through the turmoil
and dismay
until we find ourselves in
deadlock.
Our own
inferno of fulfillment.
Ultimately
I will be with you.
Without being animated by old knots.
Damage undone.
Relentlessly
loving.


Present tense.
To have you,
however I may have you,
I am at ease.
Lucky Queue May 2016
Yesterday they lined up all the boys to give them a good talking to.
After all, when you're about to ask the head priest's daughter for her hand, you must do it the right way.

But of course, they'd only line up the boys, and not the girls who glance and flirt and trail the tips of their fingers along wet gowns when bathing.
It's known that Victoria will kiss anyone who can tame her curls, and Alice leaves violets for those she fancies.
Even a pig recognize that Jacob and Peter have been making eyes at each other for about two summers, and that Matti only longs for books.
Harold's true love is venison, and though he could be won over digestively, Emi is really trying to move towards vegetarianism.

So they told the boys how to carry themselves and some listened in desperate eagerness and earnest and a few planned pranks, and anyone worth their salt could tell it was a disaster.
This morning, the local girls dressed the boys in flowers, as is strange tradition, but then a few joined the line and fairly glowed in their blue linen and lemony cinnamon licorice hair, dripping with petals.

The king laughed and the head priest smirked in bemusement, as it is every year.
And Emi gazed, bored and silent to every proclamation, gift, and oath.
Yet a fourth year had passed without a chosen suitor.
Courtyard emptied, and I drew near her chair as well.

"I have no strange and beautiful art to exhibit or exotic sweet to taste. I do not seek what you will not eagerly give, and I will not ask you to be my wife, but I'd very much like to be your friend ifthatwouldbeokaywithyouthanks."

After all, who doesn't fall in love with Artemis.
5.31.16
Katie Aug 2015
Star in the sky, winking at me. Tell me your story. Will that set me free?
Why am I still searching? Will I ever know? Someone must tell me so I may go.

Question no answer. Lost in the dark. Floundering about, leaving no mark.
How can  I fix this? What should I do? Who am I and how do I find you?

People meander, like fish in a bowl. Swimming and swimming with no end goal.
Yet they keep going, unfazed by the pain. I can’t understand what is to gain?

Where am I going? What will I do? Should I keep swimming and floundering too?
I hoped for much more but perhaps this is it,  accept what you have, own your own ****.

All  I can do is sigh with bemusement. I can’t move forward. My mind simply refuses.
There is  no round up to this poem/story/rant.  I want to be myself but it seems I just can’t.

I want to know me, be true and be good. But all I seem to do is  dream about “could”.
Another sigh for good measure, thrown out into space, at least I’ve written something, saved some face.
Hannah Jones Dec 2018
Gone are the days
of hating that I
love you.

No more will I regret
harboring affection
for you, my friend-
the point of loving
is to  l o v e
not entertain bemusement
nor toy with reverie
but to love.
And this love
is a choice
I am honored to make
every day.
But darling, I'm new at this.
Right now
I don't know
what to do with this love
still young
still pure
so I get frustrated.
This isn't carnal-
I refuse to go down
that road again.
Because I love you.
You are more than
your body
your smile
your sense of humor
you are the son
of a King
and deserve to be treated
as such.
I'm simply trying to navigate
this labyrinth
there must be a map somewhere
but until I find it
I will tread carefully
'round the garden
past the budding newness
of it all
and strive to find you
at the end of the day.

Gone are the days
of hating that I
love you.

Here's to the days
of knowing how.
Love is hard. But boy, is it worth fight for.
Ken Pepiton Feb 2021
I am surprised to find you like
similar
things. Liking being
a sort of seeing
we agree
adds value to the seen thing,
the noticed, see,
odd
thing we both see at times, like

failed
corrective measures taken too late,
leave a
… mark on a stone. patina red as mars,
scratched away, a thousand years ago…

Empty swirl, wordless,
holds now the whole story,
told to
me, after all that came before,
all the histories and mysteries and wars.

Major catastrophes,
each taken personally as much smaller
on the scale of human events.
Minor tugs from a star so far we only now imagined
at
such
distance, anything being at all.
--------
Only everyone you knew
died.
Everyone did not die, but how could you
have known
now was pending, even then, as now.
See.
What we do
now, regarding wrongs that never had a link
to right, do we make
next,
or wait to see if we were
left behind, or
was nothing meaningful for now,

survived by signals to seers,
saying, see we came this way.
Nothing is behind us,
pushing.
We do not flee, we wander,
hither and yon and back,

tilling soil with a pointed stick, to plant three sisters
where the river left some mud,
black with mulch from the ******'s dam, that sent us
driftwood
for our fire, while we wait.

--------- no names remain to mark the stone as owned,
we claim it ours,
we possess this space in time, if you mind
or if you even
think
you mind matters beyond your mortal ken, out there
from where your last lie lay told

I know, I know, we all believe we know
we report,
open wide the portal, we run like Jehu, there is
peace
being made in the desert.

Come see, come see, listen winds singing
see,
we say see life, a little
tiny
bit of it, is you. Yes,
you the nobody, who hears such things and takes
the granted fact as evidence,
warranting a song.
To the good
to come of all my seed,
life with me is different than life without me shall be,
but here,
this place where the flood left a good harvest for such
as see
the future crouching at the door,
here I left the lines that drew you to this end.
-----------------
amused bemused well used to dance, in olden days... imagine life is more
zebra Oct 2017
oh, the poet
antagonist to the good and evil alike
a sobbing child
let lose in the world
with words and appetites piqued and sensual
transgressors of the middle class
and dull speak

their literary magnitude
sometimes perfume and sometimes stench
dripping on wet pages
written by electric brains
nimble figures and wet crotches
to relieve themselves of stupidities accumulations
wrought by their culture
mired in stink think
of either or

from the head up
high minded saints
from the hips down
undulating demons
each in denial of the other
a buffet of lies

the poet
purging private pleasures and torments
for the bemusement of the world
laid-out on the page
like public masturbations
for all to see in the theater of the ear
genuflecting
with mellifluent grace
and silver tongued appreciations

— The End —