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Where Shelter Sep 2017
<•>



for all the Ella's of the world,
who wonder
"what the seagulls talk about all day long. while looking up at the gentle sky mixed with blue and purple, their white feathers glisten from the fiery sun."


<•>


one day when you arrive,
visiting, at my isle,
of Where Shelter,
(with signed parental permission slip),
resting upon weathered worn, Adirondack non-slip covered thrones,
in the official Poetry Nook,
a seashell throw from bay and dock, where the seagulls
thrive and dive, in between pooping, pollinating, and
rest up after day trip visiting the town dump

then,
together we will write a poem about
what the seagulls talk about all day long

having employed them long time as co-conspirators,
editors and a test audience (assayers of my essays),
sadly must report they
occupy themselves in mostly matters culinary,
local gossip of my neighbors and other avian interlopers
(geese and osprey)

hoping this doesn't disappoint,
but know this,
it was the sand, the breeze, the trees,
the moon and setting sun, the waving waters,
animals of all kinds,
that together, taking years,
taught me to write like this:

<•>

the sun 7 o'clock afternoon sky low,
warmths the world, as did its morning glory reciprocal,
a dozen hours earlier,
both a low heat,
a sky stove top
'keep warm' setting,
a desirable global warming temperature

recall that promise not to burden you
with a hundredth scribing of his
lottery luck, this poetry nook and the
idyll of its surround,
but!
its childlike insistence,
while stomping on the greenest sea grass
of this portly world, insistent,

"write of me, attention must be paid!"

the lightest breeze of excellent sufficiency
asks the trees to shake
their compatriot leaves
as if to applaud,
one more time, a lord of the ring serenade,
an evenstar song of
the solstice of perfection

a cloudless night but for
an occasional wispy white blemish,
hinting that the orb's final bow tonight will be
a forever remembered,
standing ovation performance

in an hour, to the dock we'll go,
joining  the congregant gulls
in appreciating the edging lower of
an immaculate inception
of a dying day's deceptive departure conception

my troubles, those that
furrow and till the brow,
105 miles away, as the crow flies,
for now,
suppressed into non-existence,
as we drink to la vie en rose,
our wine glasses, ****** the salmon pink
of suns rays rippling, tippling and reflecting
upon humans, who too reflect,
upon their good fortune,
this single and singular
peeking at the peaking of their perfection,
each wishing this be
their journeys end, their final solstice

to walk into a funnel upon the water,
into the sun and the
horizon in attendance faithful,,
alighting upon the wings of the most glorious of  inviting,
dying rays of setting,
answering the question, at long last,
a finale,

here,
here is shelter!
  ^

<•>

so be quietly patient and never
write in regret,
for you are but sixteen years old,
and could teach to this old grandpa,
(who, by the by, has an Ella-all-his-own that is
of your proximate age,)

how to write
with the simple grace,
and the fresh wisdom,
of being
sixteen years young again
^https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2044967/the-solstice-of-their-perfection/
<•>

https://hellopoetry.com/ellapopov/

f r e e l y.
all alone on the evening beach. able to take in the moment alone.
slowly falling back into the sand. as if I'm trying to sink and hide into it. grabbing the sand in my hands and counting each grain because I have all the time in the world.
  letting the ocean crash unto the shore, slipping me it's deepest secret. making me laugh as the Novembers chilling air plays with my hair, trying to convince me it's secrets are much more scandalous than the waters.
  wondering what the seagulls talk about all day long. while looking up at the gentle sky mixed with blue and purple, their white feathers glisten from the fiery sun.
  I stand back to run freely, away from my daring problems. as I run, the wind whips my face, blowing my hair back. making me feel the need to let my arms back.
Where Shelter Jun 2023
Silver Beach: Always the Sole First

familiar white fishing boat, up with early light,
seeking sustenance and pleasure in = measure,
anchored ‘bout quarter mile east of my under-the-coverlet,
(of course! as the crow, raven or scavenging osprey flies),
it’s precise location amazingly exact, but alas, soon daily
familiarity breeds no secrecy, and now joined by a
farther out, smaller version, a compatriot in spotitude,
of the best spots for harvesting the early running
brackish bay water favorites, striped or black sea bass

what persistent fortitude these fisher-peoples display,
early to rise, first to depart, when others crowd its “spot,”
(amazed by its knowing precision the exactitude of “spot”)
this ship, always the sole-first, invokes a first poem of the day,
always a soul-first, an unburdening of deepest gratitude that
one more day granted me to imbibe this vista, awake to its
soothing silent heavenly serenity, absent machine or
electronic interference with my delicate sleepy wakefulness,
when newly minted words come into my mind, my
secret spot



Sat AM June 3
England, with all thy faults, I love thee still--
My country! and, while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Though thy clime
Be fickle, and thy year most part deform'd
With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost,
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies,
And fields without a flow'r, for warmer France
With all her vines; nor for Ausonia's groves
Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bow'rs.
To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime
Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire
Upon thy foes, was never meant my task:
But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake
Thy joys and sorrows, with as true a heart
As any thund'rer there. And I can feel
Thy follies, too; and with a just disdain
Frown at effeminates, whose very looks
Reflect dishonour on the land I love.
How, in the name of soldiership and sense,
Should England prosper, when such things, as smooth
And tender as a girl, all essenc'd o'er
With odours, and as profligate as sweet;
Who sell their laurel for a myrtle wreath,
And love when they should fight; when such as these
Presume to lay their hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause?
Time was when it was praise and boast enough
In ev'ry clime, and travel where we might,
That we were born her children. Praise enough
To fill th' ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue,
And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.
Farewell those honours, and farewell with them
The hope of such hereafter! They have fall'n
Each in his field of glory; one in arms,
And one in council--Wolfe upon the lap
Of smiling victory that moment won,
And Chatham heart-sick of his country's shame!
They made us many soldiers. Chatham, still
Consulting England's happiness at home,
Secur'd it by an unforgiving frown
If any wrong'd her. Wolfe, where'er he fought,
Put so much of his heart into his act,
That his example had a magnet's force,
And all were swift to follow whom all lov'd.
Those suns are set. Oh, rise some other such!
Or all that we have left is empty talk
Of old achievements, and despair of new....


There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know. The shifts and turns,
Th' expedients and inventions multiform
To which the mind resorts in chase of terms
Thought apt, yet coy, and difficult to win,
T' arrest the fleeting images that fill
The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast,
And force them sit, till he has pencill'd off
A faithful likeness of the forms he views;
Then to dispose his copies with such art
That each may find its most propitious light,
And shine by situation hardly less
Than by the labour and the skill it cost,
Are occupations of the poet's mind
So pleasing, and that steal away the thought
With such address from themes of sad import,
That, lost in his own musings, happy man!
He feels th' anxieties of life, denied
Their wonted entertainment, all retire.
Such joys has he that sings. But ah! not such,
Or seldom such, the hearers of his song.
Fastidious, or else listless, or perhaps
Aware of nothing arduous in a task
They never undertook, they little note
His dangers or escapes, and haply find
Their least amusement where he found the most.
But is amusement all? Studious of song,
And yet ambitious not to sing in vain,
I would not trifle merely, though the world
Be loudest in their praise who do no more.
Yet what can satire, whether grave or gay?
It may correct a foible, may chastise
The freaks of fashion, regulate the dress,
Retrench a sword-blade, or displace a patch;
But where are its sublimer trophies found?
What vice has it subdu'd? whose heart reclaim'd
By rigour, or whom laugh'd into reform?
Alas! Leviathan is not so tam'd.
Laugh'd at, he laughs again; and, stricken hard,
Turns to the stroke his adamantine scales,
That fear no discipline of human hands.
The pulpit, therefore, (and I name it fill'd
With solemn awe, that bids me well beware
With what intent I touch that holy thing)--
The pulpit (when the satirist has at last,
Strutting and vapouring in an empty school,
Spent all his force, and made no proselyte)--
I say the pulpit (in the sober use
Of its legitimate, peculiar pow'rs)
Must stand acknowledg'd, while the world shall stand,
The most important and effectual guard,
Support, and ornament of Virtue's cause.....
What am I to do
Oh my fair skinned sister?
You are family to me
Yet I fear I may be forced
To bring the news
That I'll not be returning

I fear that if I do return
It will be on my shield
Not with it
As the Spartans used to say

Here I stand as Leonidas
Foolhardy and bold
I watch as I crumble
As my phalanx fold

So what am I to say
Oh my fair skinned sister?
How long will you mourn my absence?
Before you forget
And carry on?

What am I to think
Oh my dark haired sister?
What am I to feel?
You have been my guide

What am I to be
Oh my bright eyed comrade
My cheerful compatriot
My dearest friend?

Sing to me
Oh my fair skinned sister
Some sacred sonnet to save me
Play for me
Oh my fair skinned sister
Some long and lingering lyric
Some sweet melodic line
Some hypnotic harmony
To save me from my mind
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2023
Family biz takes us on the Acela train to Washington, D.C.,
a many-hour tour of the Monuments upon the Mall inclus,
never on a prior agenda, despite semi-frequent visitations,
but this time, rose early, in the cool morning, to touch and be touched

She asks if we have time enough for the Vietnam War Memorial,
time enough plentiful, no inkling her purpose was manifold, nay,
woman-fold, relating a story of a first teen boyfriend, they vowed,
to never lose touch, tho they became geographically distanced

On New Year’s day, a promise to each other, to speak on the phone,
they do honor this commitment, he will call, for in your early years,
solemn promises, honor, memories potentialities, galvanize bonds;
first love’s easy camaraderie birth tender promises, kept well-tended!

Till one year, no call comes, and desire, necessitates her to be
the protagonist, only to learn that Gerald, drafted in ‘68,
did not return, his parents inform her, the story told wistfully,
a Ranger locates his name, her reflection strains to reach his letters

Only I see her eyes filling and brimming, the shoulders ever
so slightly sagging and know this moment needs memorializing,
for we shed tears so rarely, that this youthful relationship, now more than threescore extant is why we built this black granite wall


Visit the Jefferson, MLK, Washington’s obelisk, and of course
the author of “of the people, by the people, for the people,”
a humble visage, humanizes his grandiose, white robed presence,
assessing his potential measure of life assassin-shortened, we exclaim

”if only, what might have been!”

but no tears are shed, but for a name of a young man,
taken before his prime, who enabled a girl to taste deep own-self, at an age we barely ken the words revealing our true emotive, or understand the color palette of serious, meanings of how we tick…

she’s easy overcome, I wonder, was she inside feeling, exclaiming,
”if only, what might have been,”
but no words emitted, only tears, that a tissue so softly takes away,
I think who among us, yet sheds sad tears for the days of our youth?

this poem in fufillment of my obligations, witness, memorializer,
arm to be leaned on, carrier of Kleenex, compatriot tear-shedder,
empathetic, sympathetic and recording secretary
that our past, is never truly past,

it is just waiting for a reflection,
resurfacing one more time
on a high polished black
granite slab

<postscript>

black granite mirrors sandblasted refresh cut scars into our consciousness and for some, our conscience, as one who
rarely thinks of and forgets to reflect on the life lottery he won,
back in 1968, so he was not called to serve, exclaiming

”if only, what might have been!
In Memoriam
Gerald Levy
There’s nothing I remember, so I shall invent a life.
It all starts with a dichotomy. Speech, lack of speech.
Logos, preceded by the lack thereof.
A heartbeat, maybe, echoing to form a vowel.
And then a sigh, with inexplicably twisted tongue.
“I”…
I…
I’ll tell you. Raising a finger from my desk.
I’ll tell you how it began. I was in the dark, and decided I had had enough of it.
I flipped on a lamp at my side and began to write.
There weren’t any words yet, but there were symbols for sounds, and that was close enough for now.
I pressed enter, and the message flew to a compatriot.
Or an enemy. This flush dichotomy of forms abounds!
I hold my breath and wait.
Waiting, for a response.
Waiting, to imagine words I’ll never hear.
And the light hums.
I…
What is it, inside that filament
which speaks?
What is every minute morsel of matter telling me about my beginning?
I’m not sure I want to read it, when my phone shakes.
But that’s what that behavior dictates.
A laugh, a cold analysis, a response.
This could go on indefinitely.
I don’t even know where you are in the world.
I’ll never see you.
I think of a more advanced dichotomy, I read about.
It was attributed to Freud.
A baby masters the objective universe through two utterances
in a ball game.
Fort… gone.
Da… there.
For now, these words are silent, but if I were in a crib
You would be the breast I long to devour,
The meaning I would choose to fill my mouth with
Muffled exclamations:
DADADADADADADA!
And I cry. But I don’t know what this all means to you.
Because I haven’t told you with electronic signs.
I’m not sure the word “to cry” carries any meaning.
It just stands in for fear.
Fear of being alone in the world, with the dark,
And no logos.
But I could go on for days reading walls of text on webpages developed by people
who have long since died.
I can summon the likeness of every celebrity onto a screen
rubbing my ***** while I look at them.
I can hear the music—
I CAN HEAR THE MUSIC—
Of all the world, vibrating. Rhythms contracting, like vulvas after birth.
And the silky, black discharge is this emotion in my brain after I think of you.
I created you with my words.
I illuminated my world with the thought of you.
And now I have nothing to say to the creature I created.
I am in horror before you.
Fort, fort, fort, away!
You have left me, without ever being present.
You were here, you were gone, I had no control.
And when I weep, the fear drowns the sun’s luminescence
The clouds hide the sky
The air sculpts my lungs
With emptiness
after words have come out.
MMXII

http://www.ncspp.org/fortda/origin.html
i was drinking orange ****** ***** with Kitty
the mushroom cloud destroyer,
my compatriot, my downfall
the sky was purple and the grass was red
and we plotted the end of the world
we fought for dominance i lost
sat on my street corner
stealing kisses from
passersby like a magpie,
plucking the shiny buttons off coats.
  when I became the queen of sheba,
decked to the nines in brass buttons
confiscated corroded combustible
i rode an elephant called shiva the destroyer
and sliced long cuts with a sword into my legs
and the white scars were like hope.
i played backgammon and chess with multiple lovers
and they all lost because i was an impenetrable fortress.
I wore the red crown and stabbed out their hearts with my pointed teeth.
then i sat upon the edge of the world alone,
tore out the cores of a million and four  sunflowers
and watched all of the people riding trains
and walking in the parks holding the hand of someone else
someone who isn’t cold Kitty
as the violet sun began to set
i dreamed of what someone else’s hand
bones skin muscle corpulent sinew warmth
and I slept like an obsidian stone.
RF Aug 2013
When I have the dream
that I am pulling him
from the castle, by such
crude force, and I dream that
Otto, my dawn compatriot,
has him by the collar
face down
I feel myself out of that
assumed body, still present in
the scene – and each time
I recourse to the knowledge
that the lake has a great depth,
an unknown depth at its deepest point
So when the ripples are subsiding
When Otto stands in that detumescent
pose, I look very simply and solemnly
at the water, and my outside self
just above
is revelling in recourse to
the lake's unknown depth.
The beast I am
cannot know the serenity in that great depth

With that in mind
I long to plunge him, to
plunge my surrogate frame into
that beautiful water
among the weeds, the trout and
the body
And dive
in nervous equanimity
to that depth
to know that fact
and to hold my arm out
through the deep
as a line to the surface

but I am conscious of
the approaching light
so we leave, Otto and I,
the morning sun warming
us, releasing the dew;
I know I will return
to the cold room
to erase all the lines;
spent
after the relentless
****** of a man many citizens
of my nation
suppose to be perfectly innocent

In another vision
I emerge onto the lakescene
in a slender junk
my white drapery
and my precious oaring
does much to disturb
the Guineverean twilight;
close to the bank
where the fog has receded
there are orbs
I am younger
than I have been
for some time now
and just as each movement
that I am making
in my elegant junk
strikes me as being unique
I am faced with his image
over again
in the same humour
the likeness
over again
they could not find the body
in the deep lake

I can make a confession
that I am alone on this trip
confident, though
quite old
with my husband long departed
this is a confessional piece
about when we went to the lake
and I swam
and he was watching
and we were quite young
and I thought I might marry him
and I did
and after the drying off
and the drink of water
he was telling me about Ludwig, looking out over the Starnbergersee
with his mournful eyes
I cannot say if I loved him now
I cannot say if 'summer surprised us' as the poem said
he liked the poem
his mother was named Marie
and our house had a wonderful garden
so that poem was evocative, I suppose
you could read it that way
I didnt open my body again

I often wonder if the silence
owes something to my
nightly ritual
my method of calm:
I lie very still in the dark
burrowed into the sheets
and I imagine each being
reposing in the uniform rooms
the light outside almost without colour
within, it is only I,
repeated throughout each room
and each room's little boxed being, I am
luming over the bodies
to extinguish any little vestiges
in those cognisant minds –
the memories falling;
dim petals around me
every time my hand
on a bright body
the sssssss sound
that leads to the inevitable blossom
that is falling around me
Where Shelter Jul 2017
alas, the same promise,
yet again, broken, no more writing of
the lightness of perfection so real,
it cannot be a truly,
a man's one more poetic homage to improve upon nature's gift,
nary a single craft to be seen,
tho somewhere, a motor hums nearby,
a mechanical reminder that men
will intrude, even if unobserved,
not necessarily then,
a picture complete

the sun 7 o'clock afternoon sky low,
warmths the world, as did its AM reciprocal,
a dozen hours earlier,
both on a low heat,
a sky stove top
'keep warm' setting,
a desirable global warming temperature

that promise not to burden you
with a hundredth scribing of his
lottery luck, this poetry nook and the
idyll of its surround,
it's childlike insistence,
stomping on the greenest sea grass
of this portly world,
"write of me, attention must be paid!"

the lightest breeze of excellent sufficiency
asks the trees to shake
their compatriot leaves
as if to applaud,
one more time, a lord of the ring serenade,
an evenstar song of
the solstice of perfection

a cloudless night but for
an occasional wispy white blemish,
hinting that the orb's final bow will be
a forever remembered,
standing ovation performance

in an hour, to the dock we'll go,
joining  the congregant gulls
in appreciating the edging lower of
an immaculate inception
of a dying day's deceptive departure

my troubles, those that
furrow and till the brow,
105 miles away, as the crow flies,
for now suppressed into non-existence,
as we drink to
la vie en rose,
our wine, snatching the salmon pink
of suns rays rippling and reflecting
upon humans, who too reflect,
upon their good fortune,
this single and singular
peeking at the peaking of their perfection,
each wishing this be
their journeys end, their final solstice,
to walk into a funnel upon the water,
into the sun and the
horizon in attendance faithful,,
alighting upon the wings of the most glorious of  inviting, dying rays of setting,
answering the question, a long last finale,
here, here is shelter!
a  sincere apology for writing of, again and again, the perfection of this place in our lives

Silver Beach, Peconic Bay, S. I
I am a creator,
a builder
a maker.

Bringing substance to the void,
brings me the greatest sense of joy.

A blank page.
A clean slate.
I draw out form,
and bring forth shape.

And I am a musician,
a lyrical magician.
The man.
The myth.
The mission.
My own unique rendition,
In every composition.
                                                                                  BUT
Can you identify my theory?
I'll be shocked if you're correct.
If this is sonic engineering,
then I'm a sonic architect.

And I am an inventor
A leader,
A dissenter,
A believer,
A protester,
A deceiver,
And a mentor,
A compatriot,
An apprentice,
A confederate,
An accomplice.

And I am a teller of stories,
of horrors, and of glories.
And I am a writer of tales,
of triumphs, and travails.

And I am a creator.
A builder.
A maker.
A musician and a writer.
Not a lover, nor a fighter,
Not a fixer,
Nor a breaker.
Not a giver,
Nor a taker.
                                                                                                  No.
I am a creator
cellobello Feb 2012
It breathes.
The centre is a heart, beating, pulsing, living.
I cannot find my way.

It shifts.
The movement confuses me, bending, twisting, changing.
My mind is uncertain.

It deceives.
I search because I am lost,
I am lost because I search.

To find what?

Myself.

My soul and my identity are calling, beckoning, luring.
I am afraid of what I will find.

The helping hands.
One my sage, the other my compatriot, smiling, listening, encouraging.

I know I must walk alone.
It knows.

For I am the maze,
And the maze is me.
Graff1980 Mar 2017
If perchance
we stumble in
to this mortal dance
and swing
and dip
across the tip
of life’s ledge,

If we dare
to venture on
beyond
simple reflexes
past poor pretenses
will we meet
and dance
in poetry?

Sweetly
and discreetly
we will bend in
words that mimic
ballet movements;
Feathers flapping freely.
I see you before me
and I adore thee
as a true friend
as a poetic compatriot
because you are great at this
sharing the depths of
our heart that write and love
all the world
below, around, and above.
Keith W Fletcher Nov 2016
Have we become
So OBdurate
As to believe
Only by OBedience
Can we create
A future

Therefore all must be
OBedient servants ?
Encouraged
To OBey
Those visionaries
Who show
Through
An OBsfugated vision
Fraudulant validation
By an
OBiterdictum decree

"The OBjective
tolerates no OBjections !"

OBjugation
By those convinced
OBliging ...
Is an OBligation
Without any thought
To the OBlique they seek
To completely
OBliterate

Somehow convinced
OBlivion....
Complete OBliteration
Will heal this nation
OBlivious
To the fact
That this
OBlong view of history
And how often
We've seen this OBloquy
Cast it's shadow across nations
When OBnoxious
And OBscene inhuman beings
OBscurantist regimes
Lead their people
From OBscure into OBscurity

Wherein massive OBsequies
Are ever present
As are the OBsequious
Willing patrons
OBservable by
The  nature of their ignorance

As they believe OBservance
And being an OBservant
Faithful Compatriot
Is equivalent to OBservation

Where in reality
Their darkness... so complete
They could no longer
See...the light and glory
Of the stars
From an OBservatory

Following the OBsessions
Of the exaulted Leader
They come to OBsess
Compelled
To seek and destroy
Dissenters and freethinkers
Who are to be made OBsolete

By their very existance
They are  
Considered OBstacles
OBstinate non- conformists
With OBstreperous
OBstructionist agendas
Seeking to reverse course
By their Obtuse views ...
And philosophies
Believing that the Obverse
Must be seen

Or a time will come
When total OBviation
To save this nation
Becomes....
...all too...
.....OBVIOUS !!
Speak up
Speak Nigerians,speak for you poses a mouth that heals a nation.
It is in thine voice of thy mouth and thy vibrations on thy body that remedies spring forth.

Speak Nigerians,speak against the calamity that befall your land.
Speak against the hand that hurt thee.
Speak against the innocent blood spilled to please others.

Speak Nigerians in a united tone so your voices can be heard.
Speak to tell your fears.
Speak to make it clear.
Speak to put the nation right.
Speak to put an end to police brutality.
Speak to put an end to misappropriation of funds.
Speak to put an end to intimidation and High-handedness.
Speak to put an end to deteriorating health facilities.
Speak to put an end to weak institutional structures.
Speak to put an end to electoral misconduct.

Speak to put an end to unemployment as a normality
Speak to put an end to poor social amenities
Speak to put an end to injustice
Speak to put an end to oppression
Speak to put an end to sectionalism played by our political elite
We are tired of freedom of speech guaranteed but freedom after speech denied


Arise o compatriot
Arise fellow comrades in the struggle
We clamor vehemently to put and end to bad governance
So our future can be secure
        
                 Ojuolape Isaac Mfa
Zywa Mar 2022
Differences draw boundaries
and there are words for it:
baby, child, man and woman

red, brown, yellow, stupid and smart
black, white, compatriot, barbarian
We know all about it

there is a reason
that we are innocent
and others offenders

There are words for it
and answers too: punishment, pest
crash, bombs and grenades

manslaughter, hunting, gas and fire
all within the boundaries
of own laws first

At home, on this side and
at home, on that side of the border
people wish for peace
Collection "The drama"
A Simillacrum May 2018
Words are unstoppable
Words may be spoken
Words may be written
Words may be thought

Night falls over the day
Night falls over the block
Night falls over the hood
Night falls over us

First as the dusk
Then as the stars

We can see nothing
Street corners light
Streetlight too bright
We can see nothing

Too bright but never enough.

We can see nothing of hope in the cosmos
We carry our blinded eyes in our hands

Buy me a knife.
Buy me a gun.
Find me behind the barrel,
I'd rather be first in line,
I will secure first place.

Buy me a knife.
Buy me a gun.
Find me shaking the iron sights,
I'd rather be running away from the system,
I will do what I must.

Take our education, expect us to grow.
Take our nutrition, expect we maintain.
The gatekeeper looks less like St. Peter
Than it looks like a bank.

Make it for money,
Expect we be happy
For the physical.

Make it vanity,
Expect our diminished state
Be aspiration and dream enough.

Words are unstoppable,
I know this to be true.
Where are the words
We need the most?

We cry for each other in night,
Each broken compatriot
Each potential confidant

Convinced we're abandoned
Convinced we're at war with the poor
Then at war with ourselves

Expending bullets for the clout on the shelf.
I am in here just as you so put that down.

I am in you, and I need your words to tell,
To touch, to show,

Those with nothing know what more there is than this.
Deep Sep 2021
"O my beloved, my friend, my compatriot!
Do not betray me being my friend"
Mere Hamnafas, MEre hamnava
Mujhe dost ban kar daga na de....
PE Scott Nov 2020
the bird pecks the acorn,
fighting through the casing's steel,
the bird breaks his beak and falls to the floor,
the rainbow of his wings failing in spiel.

the floor becomes a deep red,
the acorn waggles and girds in its success,
not realising that his compatriot he had spent all the moons with was long dead,
and it falls with the passing winds of distress.

It hit's the floor in the same place,
bouncing off the stone statue corpse,
the acorn stares to the bird's face,
knowing that it won’t peck anymore marks in its force.

the acorns rolls next to the bird in solemn shifting agreement,
knowing that it's barrier and breakdown is imminent for its bereavement.
An old poem that i really love, I'm happy with how it looks and didn't edit it since i originally made it, I hope you enjoy!
Madeline Cirullo Apr 2014
Quivering moon
a reflection of your
old self
penetrating a bus window
or two
so bright aflame
I want to dance to you
as you dance alongside
your compatriot being
Robert Gretczko Aug 2016
an open mind can see fires yet unlit
befriend those who are readily unfit
  stroll pastures moist with dew
   break apart and add many to few

cruise on pathways in pure delight
   sit quietly as day journeys into night
bump into walls sturdy and tall
seemingly steady but ready to fall

arise in passions so bravely met
win on a loser and lose a sure bet
flounder solemly at loves’ doorway
   put loss and revenue off another day

shed light on most pressing of things
place rainbows in stones and cast them on wings
embrace strangers’ sternest of glarings
    put things in places, in the most odd pairings

stumble through friendships with utter spite
hug a child tenderly to fend off a fright
  cast a pebble to a tidal wave
fall to forgiveness when failing to be brave

shout at a naive then honor a guardian
  knowing full well those clothes you have been in
remember how foul ideas can be
herald a compatriot, get ready to flee

for once opened all hell it can fill
    eyes, ears and mouth fashion its will
full of fantasies and wildest things to tell
         like a Pavlovian pup awaiting the bell
Wk kortas Nov 2020
Our Sweeney nurses his Falstaff,
Joining his hail-and-well-met fellows in mirth
This man of hearty life and laugh,
His fingernails rife with the stuff of earth and labor.
Outside, the moon’s reflection
In the sluggish and slatternly Canisteo
Is a portentous dot-and-dash thing,
Its light here-and-gone
As incongruous evening thunderheads,
Great wavy pompadours rolling off the big lake out west,
Growl sullenly as they move through;
Sweeney pays them no mind, as he has other fish to fry,
Regarding a frowzy pair from the sisterhood of round heels,
One of whom, catching his glance,
Crosses the room, mounting his lap and mussing his hair,
Purring ‘Jus wanna see how your lap feels, Hon.
At which she falls on the floor
(But softly, in the manner of an old campaigner)
Thereafter taking a moment to pull her skirt up just so
To adjust a stocking (black, with a run or two on display)
As her compatriot stands nearby,
Making calculations and considerations,
And with a barely noticeable nod to her co-conspirator
The pair head to the bar
While Sweeney, grinning the grin
Of a toreador expectant of victory and its spoils
Rises to join them and, just as suddenly, pauses,
Perhaps cognizant of the old poker saw
That if you look about the table
And can’t figure out who the mark is, it must be you,
Or perhaps it was the ringing of the bells on the hour
From Our Lady of the Valley
(Normally inaudible inside the tavern,
But the wind had made an odd swing to the southeast,
Allowing the chimes to occasionally outshine the jukebox)
Or perhaps something else intangible, inscrutable,
But in any case Sweeney bids his congregants
A hasty farewell as he saunters to the doorway,
Exiting into the humid, fecund evening,
And as he negotiates the sidewalk homeward,
He notes the odd evening singing of birds,
Their songs, even though he is part and parcel
Of this small city and its streets to his marrow,
Unfamiliar to the point of bafflement.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:  The Canisteo is a small river in Western New York; it runs through the city of Hornell, which is the final destination of **** Diver, the protagonist of Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night.  I fully understand this interests no one but me.

Eliot scholars would be, I am sure, most horrified by this piece.  In my defense, I would note a) this is about a man where Eliot was writing more about Man and b) I am more likely to be anesthetized than anthologized, so there is that.
William Marr Oct 2016
In order to shoot
an invading bird
they define an air space
with searchlights

In order to shoot
a fleeing compatriot
they ***** a paradise on earth
with tall walls
Johnny Noiπ Mar 2019
Out of the star-crossed Southern
night, comes a group of heroes
whose sole purpose is to defend
White Rule! Capt'n Confederacy!
Fed on a strict diet of Hog Maw
& Chitterlings, Ox-tails & grits,
the Capt'n is the South's Ultimate Rebel
Soldier!! White Lightnin'  --- channeling
electric bolts conjured from the sky
through the use of prosthetic copper
hands & his sidekick Moonshine,
who can deflect sun-bright moonlight
off White Lightnin's glowing fingers;
Winter Blonde, whose utter whiteness
renders her invisible in broad daylight!!!
Her one weakness: Dark male flesh...
& Lastly, & most likely least of all,
RR, the Human Locomotive, can outrun
any man or ****, except uphill...
These are the Confederate Revengers!

Called together by the Absolute,
shadowy leader of the sinister racist cabal:
The Confederate Revengers meet
their newest prospective member:
"Ladies & gentlemen, I'd like you
to be introduced to the one and only Medusa,
last of the mighty Gorgon race."
The nefarious heroes bowed their heads,
the sight of the primal goddess
being too much to behold.
"She ain't no southern belle!" cried Locomotive,
but she kicked him in the cow-catcher
& groaning, he doubled over.
"Anyone else want to question my pedigree?"
she snarled earnestly, her complexion
a translucent shade of emerald.
So it was settled. Medusa was brought
into the motley attired circle,
but the Mediterranean queen
had her own motives for signing
on to the as yet unknown venture.

In her innocuous alter-ego as Sunflower
Juniper the nefarious agent Moonshine
made her way into a soirée of Northern
bigwigs; tarted up like a Yankee *****
of easy virtue, a costume she had had
to don many evenings before,
sometimes for nights on end, getting
high-ranking Union officers liquored
up, & before that, the British military
gentry would spill their guts over her
full jugs about troop & ship movements
during the last skirmishes of the old war.
Moonshine, older than she looked
had aged well & parts of her kept
slipping into view. The Bluecoats were intrigued.
By the time they were all drunk & passed
out prone on the floor, Sunflower knew
the exact location of the Union front line...
Slipping into the shadows before dawn,
Moonshine, as she was commonly
called by her underworld confederates, vanished
like her namesake with no man in blue the wiser.

Returning to the Kave of the ****,
Moonshine reveals what she knows;
however, our nominal heroine,
Medusa herself, is a Union spy & quickly
prepares to inform the Generals that their
movements have been compromised.
Ironically, at just that moment both Union
& Confederate Commanders bellies were
hit with the rotten cider offered by a little
black boy dashing here and there sloshing
a bucket of homely cheer. Everything coming
to an abrupt halt, Medusa was about to remove
herself from the vast cavern & speed
into the night to the Union camp
just over the hill. Her mare had the speed
of Pegasus but she was nevertheless
set upon by White Lightnin',
who hurled a blue charge of searing heat
at her head of vociferous serpents.
Not to be bested, the Gorgon Queen
snapped her mount's reign
to hurry on faster and cracking the short
whip, the startled creature spray
as it galloped a veritable drinking stall's
worth of pungent ***** from the racing
thoroughbred's straining
bladder blending with the pungent
sycamore & lilacs of the surrounding fields;
the warm sway of night filled
with enchanting aroma from all sides.
So intoxicated with the Southern
countryside's native allure despite
the ravages of war, White Lightnin'
didn't notice the enormous
puddle of horse **** that had turned
the road to mud beneath his feet
& once the tattered suede boots
set down in the mess, did a jolt
of lightning rise from the soles
of his feet up through his spine
& spread through every other limb
& nerve in the stunned rebel's body,
searing the specially wielded copper
gloves to his hands & filling him
with more voltage than any normal
man was ever created
by god to withstand. Shocked to the skin,
the frozen electrified hero crackled &
popped like a burning fir tree until
there was nothing where he once stood,
but the charred set of smoky boot heels.
That was one less Super Confederate
Medusa would have to deal with in the end...

Captain Confederacy, as his alter-ego,
the nondescript traveling women's shoe salesman
Travis Toetickler, suspicious of their mysterious
olive-skinned compatriot, goes to the hotel where
the gorgon is staying to investigate;
finesses the flimsy brass lock to gain entry
to Medusa's suites, wherein she keeps mostly
locked away, certain items with particular
attitudes & appetites of their own.
Dixie, waiting outside disguised as a chambermaid
as the Captain ducks inside the darkened room.
Immediately there is a sound gnashing fangs
&crunching jaws. A feather boa, unfed for days,
had strangled the hapless
solid white hero in the dark while
a pair of snakeskin boots held his legs, while
an alligator purse was taking big chomps out
of his meaty belly fat. Dixie, against her better
judgement enters the room only to be used
as a toothpick... & when Medusa returns
she finds only the blood spattered remnants
of Captain Confederacy's white & Gray
uniform & the bird ***** remains of little Dixie,
beaten down by a writhing leather, mermaid
ribbed bustier.
Vernarth was in Sardinia in the Nuraghe megalithic complexes when he conceived his apostolate as a messenger, biologically entrenched in the taxonomic stasis, with a merely profane and urban framework. In whose classification he would transmit to his relatives after long periods in Macedonia, sailing and doing his falconry and philosophical avant-garde tasks with Aristotle, from a laxity that invited, after long rejoices, to record and sculpt messages with the pigeons of his village. Near Pela, in the central region of Macedonia, where his general Alexander the Great resided, south of the Axio River, his abode was nomadic and was on a hill near the lakes and mountains surrounded by Greco-barbarian inhabitants, tracing the Chalcidian league , after the Peloponnesian War. He was in great campaigns in the former Pela, in which he watched arduously in urban and architectural plans, where he had the privilege of interacting with great artists, thinkers, historians and philosophers.

His testament as an artist is precisely to be an apostolate of a thought that would intersect with the Yahwist gift towards a mission of the Apostle Matías, whose connection would provide his transliteration of the post-mortuary link of the Jesus of Nazareth, in substitution of Judas Iscariot, due to his apostasy. . Vernarth, distressed by this episode, became Commander of Alexander the Great, lying already primitive in his Hetairoi ranks, transcending over the stain of Judas Iscariot, to face in the arena of Pela. In a reverie near the Thermaic Gulf, he genuflected under the sacrosanct trees near some illustrious Kashmar Cypresses, Channeling his spiritual raging and tramontano in the gulf, to take him out of a banal summer from his transition of an immolated soul and make him walk for thirty days to bare feet, without sweet potatoes in his hands to ego stone him, only naming him slavish stubble from the crops of the deleterious nesting grounds of the Kashmar Ravens, bidding him so that his blood is ****** from the heels of the rooted trees of Thor forest, usurping the " Don de Iahvé ”in dishonor of its Hebraic appellation, for rhetorical onomatopoeic, resulting from the whimsical roar of black lineage emanating from the mouth of Aulos centrally in the Cobra. In the aforementioned connection he was recomposed in the group of twelve, being in the gulf and in the incidences of the re-indoctrination of the twelve apostolates, he being with his prayer and sacrifice in the religious character for the community worshiping Kashmar; whose roots hardened towards the immolation portent of silence as it entered the black night of Judas, for excessive twists of its bifurcations, intertwining with the Beams of the Thermaic cliff, like a lynx observing the height and its prominence in that of Judas diminishing over the stained requeríos of hell ..., thus their remains were scattered by the synod of bustard birds in the sky sprinkled with globular creation, faded by the hordes of the conclusive of the late Neolithic Druid by the alternate deity Belinus, with ingots of sooty petrified poplar of Hecate boiling in  the Avernus.


We shoveled over the holm oak groves and their trees, sacralizing factotum after the ritual of the Dodona sanctuary, in uniformity towards a murmur in the leaves from an oak in the spell of a man towards an oracle, to consummate him with the mendicant count of the Ziziphus spina-christi ; hawthorn from the crown of Jesus but with Kashmar implants, on the crown of Judas already immolated.

Vernarth walked alone through the inlet of Skala, on Patmos, when he had to undertake a trip to Judah, even so he also walked in the inlet of Sardinia, after being in the megalithic complex Nugara, together with Etréstles and Walekiara, they are approaching the coincidence from Tuscany. Once they stayed in Sardinia, a coastal sailboat transported them in the middle of a stormy day, it was a great happy day to arrive in La Spezia. Here they parked at night following the Liturgy, highlighting those that coincided with Lent of Holy Week, where one day they were seen talking with Petrarch and Laura de Noves. The olive trees keep pietism with the phantasmagorical spectra of the Kashmar, conceived for them by the double murmur of the Duoversal man's spell. Always in Tuscany the slopes below the garden have been occupied, which has a distant view of the roofs and towers of Florence. The monumental fountain is set on a steep hill on a side flank of the garden terrace, where it has a seated god flanked by lions in relief of stucco from a niche decorated with pebble mosaics and padded masonry. "Here at the Verbena ..., one day of long feast, everyone together with Vernarth gets drunk with Corinth Wine and snakes crushed by their deformed feet, which brought and did not stop the swaying rhythm of the music that made them anticipate their multi existence beyond the grave than his limitless sensibilities, turning his apostolate close to his instigated destiny to Patmos in the hands of his original Duoverse with translation, rotation and Duoversal Theurgic orbit, for spell-dogmatic invoking ultra-sensory powers of angels and gods, in order to communicate with its compatriot land near Pela, in synonymy with Sardinia and Florence.
Verthian Apostolic Conception – Kashmar / part 10

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