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Taylor St Onge Oct 2013
The inadequate bookshelf that sat near the door
that my sister used to call her own was
mostly made up of adolescent reads,
books better suited for preteen girls rather than
intellectually budding young ladies—
juvenile vocabularies and simple, non-complex
plot lines do little to craft and create
worldly, knowledgeable women.

I thought I must spring clean the
naiveté away and replace it with
the works of great authors like
Sylvia Plath
                        Simone de Beauvoir
                                                              Virginia Woolf
                        Margaret Atwood
Betty Friedan;
ingenious femme fatales that cut down
to the brittled bones of the misogynists
and burned their marrow along with the
ashes of bras and aprons and 350 degree oven heat.  

Growing up, to me, seemed like a wonderful epiphany
chock-full of ideas and opinions and
clever, ironic remarks that chased satirical witticisms
like felines to rodents and wolves to deer—
being an adult would guarantee me a say,
a vote
           prior 1920’s America
                                                  play dress up as a suffragette
           women’s rights
femininity personified by dolls in plastic houses.

To be eighteen-years-old,
the goal, the legality, the bright light at the end of the tunnel;
the official womanhood it would bestow upon me
seemed like something almost tangible
with the way that it loomed over my head.

Get good marks
graduate high school
travel back in time sixty years
meet a nice boy
become a “good wife”
have dinner ready by five
bear two beautiful heirs
clean up the messes left in the kitchen
fast-forward to the twenty-first century
go to a good college
find a stable career
settle down if the fancy strikes you
live non-docile and full of passion—
the parallelism of times are severely
di
    lap
          i
            dat
                 ­ ed.

1950’s America would never be a home for me
because I am much too wild to be contained.
wow I got really feministic there. sorry, man.
Melissa Taylor Feb 2010
Relax the formality
But hang onto legality
While spreading the reality
Of being lonesome and humility
Showcase your ability
It won’t last for infinity
But don’t join the infantry
Unless you’re accustomed to calamity
un-wavered by insanity
and have the bravery to protect humanity

4/5/09
copyright 2009
Victoria Kiely Jan 2014
It was midday in London on an afternoon of early spring. The streets were flooded with equal parts rainwater and people as everybody rushed through their busy lives. People easily forgot to look up, and often failed to notice the change in scenery as the bus sped along.
He occupied two seats on a lonely street car travelling down Aberdeen. One seat held him tightly to the window that was to his left, the other was taken by his various possessions. With him, he carried his black, customary briefcase, his dripping umbrella that tied just below the halfway point, and the large tan trunk he had collected from the antique shop. They sat stacked on top of one another with the trunk serving as a base for the structure. Each time the street car emitted the gentle thud that accompanied the many bumps from the *** holes, he felt tense as he readied himself to catch the old umbrella.
His hair hung down to the side, dripping slowly from the rain into his eyes, and progressively further down his face. Hands shaking, lips blue, he looked down at his shoes. The holes were visible but unnoticeable. Slicks of water formed as he pressed his feet further down off of the seat. He had known for months now that these shoes were about finished, but he couldn’t seem to find the money to replace them. He had been late to pay the rent to his small apartment for the past three months.
“I just need another month,” he would begin. “Just another month, I swear. I have interviews with a few guys this week, they seem promising.” But there were truly very few interviews at all; in fact, he had found himself without work or word for months now.  Still he insisted that he would be able to find something, anything, to satisfy the rent for the coming month.
He had been a stock broker all his life. He had worked for companies varying in legality and prestige, all of which he had done well in. Throughout his twenties and thirties, he had maintained these jobs with fewer problems than he had had in any other area of his life. Until the stock market crash, he had been successful in all aspects. After the crash, however, nobody trusted stocks or stock brokers. He had found himself without business within days.
Although he had grown to loath the occupation over time because of all of the lying, the indecency and the equivocation, he loathed his financial state more with each passing day. He was used to fine linen, tall ceilings and silver spoons. None of that had followed him to his new lifestyle. He could hardly afford the food that required the spoon now, anyway.
He looked out the window to the greying day littered with clouds. People milled about, blocking the rain with their arms. The street car came to a halt beside an old cinema.
A woman and her child emerged from the black awning that draped over the entrance of the theater. She held a newspaper over her daughters’ head, taking care to cover her so as not to get her wet. The mother laughed visibly and crossed in front of the street car holding her daughters hand. They boarded.
“How much for one ride each?” She asked the driver with a kind, simple voice that reminded the man of his mother.
“It’s three dollars for your ride, and I’ll let her on for free since it’s raining” The driver replied.
She looked down and smiled. “Thank you very much.”
She trailed her daughter along and sat a few rows ahead of him. She sat her daughter down first next to the window, and then continued to slid in next to her, taking the aisle seat. She pointed out the window and whispered something inaudible to her daughter – she giggled lightly. She continued, her smile growing, her daughters face mirroring her own. Finally, they each erupted in laughter. He had not heard one word they had said.
It was true that they seemed, in every sense, underprivileged, but it was just as clear that they were not poor. Neither felt sorry for themselves, neither seemed to care that they too had holes in their shoes, or that they hadn’t had the money for an umbrella. They laughed and smiled as though they were the ones who had had the fine linen, tall ceilings, or silver spoons.
At first glance, he had felt sorry for them – their ripped and wet clothing, their makeshift umbrella. It seemed now though, that the longer he looked at them, the more he seemed to realize the sad truth. It was he who had been poor his whole life, not the lowly people he once watched walking down the street through his office window, the type who sat in front of him on this very train.
He had never been married, as he was too busy with his work and ambitions. He had never known the joy of a child. He had missed so many opportunities to find the happiness that he saw in the woman before him. He also knew that he had never wondered about any of those people’s stories. He had never cared to.
His stop came and went, and still he watched the woman and her child. The woman sang nursery rhymes to the girl, squealing with joy and amazement, as the street car carried on. Finally, the woman pushed the button to signal the driver to stop. She stood and collected the few things she had brought with her, including a coat and the newspaper she had used previously. She took her daughters hand and exited the doors that hesitated, then shut tightly behind her.
Again the pavement began to pass beside him as he looked out the window. His eyes stirred, then focused on something resembling paper that had fallen to the ground recently; the edges were hardly damp on the soaked floor.
He slid into the seat kin to him, bent over, and picked up the slip of paper. He unfolded it and found it to be a picture of the woman and her child from moments before.
In the picture, the woman is sitting in a field with tall blades of grass that look as though they had not been cut for years. The light is dim, the sun is rising. Her teeth are showing in a brilliant smile, her face young and carefree. Her daughter, who must not have been more than two in this picture, sits in her lap, laughing at something that can’t be seen in the photograph. The mother is pointing to it, and the daughters eyes follow. In many ways, it looked like the scene he had just witnessed.
On the back of the photo in long, curled writing, he read her handwriting: “It is always darkest before dawn”.  With those six words, he knew that he had wasted much of his life in dedication to tangible riches, when the real treasures were those that you could not necessarily count or produce. By way of strangers in a lonely street car, one poor man had discovered value in things that do not hold worth.
manicsurvival Aug 2013
I worry that the only reason I have to write is because no one will listen to me
I can't leak my thoughts to my psychologist or psychiatrist or parent because I know that my words aren't safe and that legality triumphs anything I say
I know that I'm like lava at its boiling point, about to erupt
I know that I'm self destructive and that things are only getting worse
I have so much to say, maybe if I told the entirety of the truth, I could be helped
But I fear the corrupt system too much
And I don't want to say anything to my parents because they have watched my prolonged mental distress and they have seen my breakdowns and hysterical fits and they've heard my screams
I've been medicated
SSRIs and Xanax and Ativan and Prozac and Klonopin and Lexapro
I've spent hours in a therapist's office, only to censor my life and hear a psychology major regurgitate everything I already know
I can't stand it anymore
I want to be high on **** forever and laugh at nothingness
I want to be drunk to the point where I forget that life is even a thing
I want to kiss his lips and touch him every moment of the day because I'd feel loved even if I wasn't
I hate what has happened
I hate what is happening
I hate that I've changed
I hate how hard I try because the payoff never seems to pay off
And that I try to keep changing but everything isn't enough and everything won't ever cut it
I don't know what to do
I need endorphins and serotonin and beta-blockers and benzos
I need to know that this isn't a never ending cycle
I need to know that what I'm feeling is temporary and that this isn't what my life will be like
I need to tell my therapist and my doctor and my psychiatrist that I don't know what to do anymore and that the thoughts that control me are no longer bearable because I know that I want to live
I know however, that if I say the wrong thing, my words will be reported to DCFS and I could be baker acted and I don't want that to happen
So all I have in the end are my thoughts, killing me inside every moment of everyday
Tearing me apart like my lungs can no longer expand
Like my heart can no longer pump
Because my mind controls everything, and everything is in flames
L A Lamb Oct 2014
I wrote several years ago, a scrap of paper with wondering thoughts--lost.

Delinquent, ovulating, *****, lovers, ***
devil, ****, lies, logic, science
dalliance, omission, legality lost, sultry
does oppression look like ***--yes:
It was forced, it ran it's course
but it still runs, runs runs
silently, but in actuality, loud
quietly, but it prowls, hunting for calamity
a sad reality-- a tragedy
with wicked twists which linger
on my wrists, hips and thighs
charred with scars and lies,
I lied: with my thighs
when i let you in, it wasn't a sin
but a lesson I learned, as a girl
and education I didn't earn
--but I sure paid for
no cause for concern
but I find it discerning, sick
and disturbing--you seek dolls
so fine, glossed pretty pink lips
that shine, lips like mine
but there is no crime,
put a price on a doll
and say she's worth a dime.
Colibri Apr 2013
There’s no grace for a sinner here.
In this little white room,
with the little white girls
and the good little boys.
They all cast the stones, cracking
my fragile bones,
and making my dress quite black.

There’s no place for a sinner here.
Where they all look the same,
all out to tame us,
damning us all to hell.
Technicalities steal pride, and
Legality’s crushing tide
forces our dignity to fall.

There’s no room for a sinner here.
You’ll do as you’re told.
Dare ask why and you’re bold;
never to make much in life.
Backsliders are peered on
over pretty noses apparently smeared on,
by simplicity and a bit of wine.

There’s no peace for a sinner here.
Perfect footprints are left over,
those lively blueprints we pored over
through many a midnight candle.
Both innocence and experience
leave them incensed and indignant.
keeping our consciences guilted.

There’s no rest for a sinner here.
Enjoyment is frivolous,
laughter is selfish,
and love must be evil incarnate.
If this is what perfect,
must look like, then I’m perfect-
ly happy with the mess that I’ve made.
Dear Lord! accept a sinful heart,
Which of itself complains,
And mourns, with much and frequent smart,
The evil it contains.

There fiery seeds of anger lurk,
Which often hurt my frame;
And wait but for the tempter's work,
To fan them to a flame.

Legality holds out a bribe
To purchase life from Thee;
And Discontent would fain prescribe
How Thou shalt deal with me.

While Unbelief withstands Thy grace,
And puts the mercy by,
Presumption, with a brow of brass,
Says, "Give me, or I die!"

How eager are my thoughts to roam,
In quest of what they love!
But ah! when duty calls them home,
How heavily they move!

Oh, cleanse me in a Saviour's blood,
Transform me by Thy power,
And make me Thy beloved abode,
And let me roam no more.
Lil Moon Moon Jun 2020
On the edge of seventeen,
And on the brink of eighteen.

Wow ain't that a scary truth?
Growing up is such a funny thought;

You're a carefree kid once upon a time,
And then a mature adult on the clock's next chime.

Turn eighteen, they said,
Join the big boys, they said.

But truth is, adulthood is a serious business,
One that comes with bills, and debts, and losses.

It may be my one ticket to freedom and legality,
but it sure is hell carrying all that responsibility.

So thank you sir for the nice offer,
But I don't really want to get involved there.

I'm comfortable here in my naivety,
Where my childish whims are the propriety.

So let my eighteen candles burn bright up ahead,
Cause I'll douse it out without an ounce of dread.
J Penpla Mar 2017
Hey,
you okay Syria?
Heard you were unwell,
according to Wikipedia.
Set out searching
for something uplifting.
Started cruising the news,
then started drifting.
You were looking pretty fit,
On your wiki-profile,
10 millennia of Mediterranean:
temperate and fertile.
Boasting a motely religious crew:
Sunnis, Shiites,
Christians, Druze and Jews
So ethnically diverse,
with your Arabs, Kurds and Turks.

And as complex historically,
in terms of genealogy.
Just take a look at your etymology:
“the Levant”, meaning:
‘where the sun rises’
And like the sun’s rising,
there is no denying
your history of reprising
war of blood and fire.
Lest we begin at the beginning:
the Ottoman Empire,
which was succeeded by Babylonia,
then conquered by the Persians.
From Macedonia,
through countless imperialist conversions.
And the mosh-pit persisted
Full of havoc and haters,
Jews, Muslims, and Christian crusaders.
Through multiple millennia
to the twenty-first century,
you hardly gained independence
As a republic, parliamentary
Then on loop, military coup after coup…
Still looking more cliquey
Than an American penitentiary.

Not that conditions
Were too civil before
but from the Arab Springs,
sprung yet another civil war.
Claiming nearly half a million casualties
And ten times that in refugees.
Syria, are you begging, are you bawling,
are you crawling on your knees?

Mesopotamia, the market’s hot.
Leading natural resource: petroleum.
Coincidence? Of course…not
So Syria who’s in charge?
Who’s assigned to officiate?
Let’s get this straight:
You’ve got your head of State-
That is mister president.
And mister prime-minister,
well he’s official head of government.
May I ask where is Mrssssss….
No, no. Not much room for her in parliament.

Pardon me, my political perspective
might be a bit bourgeois
but might there be connection
between your strife and sharia law?
Again, pardon my impudence
but Allah’s jurisprudence
hardly seems prudent.
So, Muhammad, the prophet
left behind a prophecy,
spelled out in religious text
on which you base your polity
From which are governed
all matters of legality,
like, for instance say: the death penalty,
which seems to be the official decree
on any member of  the L, G, B or the T.
A strict hetero-only-policy.
Nothing is guaranteed in life though,
except for death and tax.
Thankfully, on these matters
Muhammad was a little more lax.
The *****, the infidel,
the unbeliever, the abomination
has a bit of say regarding
Death or taxation.
For those who do not believe
reprieve is a matter of yes or no:
Yes – conversion and enslavement
Otherwise, refusal means death row?
And even less leniency is granted,
to the lady adulterer
caught in twisted **** laws
punishment must not evade her
Wait, nope: Allah’s sharia clause –
lest he, the victim, opts to marry her.
And should she deviate
Muhammad left a legal loop-hole
For the gentleman may repudiate
any respective young mate
Should she have already
begun to… *******?

(C’mon, really? I mean
I genuinely don’t get it)

I confess though, I’m a bit ethnocentric
It’s just that to me,
sharia methods seem too eccentric,
nay, morally questionable.
Kafirs, gays, women,
basically anyone vulnerable,
well their disenfranchisement,
seems culturally commendable  
if legally permissible.

It may not be my place, so again
I apologize for the tangent.
Does this Muhammad though,
not seems unfit for management?
To govern your soil
as drenched in blood as it is in oil,
land, so godly-blessed,
Syria, why is it that your name is so
synonymous with civil unrest?

Back to where I started, though
Syria, tell me: how are you?
But answer only if that query
is not too risky to respond to.
With arbitrary censorship,
detention and torture so widespread,
journalists must be etching cell walls
with “blog when you’re dead”
while offshore expeditions
on the Mediterranean Sea-floor
in the six years since
you declared civil war
leave you reliant on foreign credit
more than ever before.

So, how are you, Syria?
Just curious to hear from ya.
We sang: retro post-modern.
With tattoos of Lynard Skynard
And boats sailing
At high mast.

Mediocrity accepted as norm.

We came rarely,
For legal reasons.

Religion stained our blood,
And our *****.
With pine smoke fragrance.

Laughter,
Few and like
Stucco condos-

Birds whispered secrets to life
As we murdered each other with silence.

Sun rise:
Gleamed positivity with
Bling chains of Christ.

We danced while naked and alone,
Another legality-

And culture was processed in the blender of commerce-
Black and white word puzzles plagued our lethargic minds.
From triviality—
Transience.
aphotic blue Apr 2017
In that exotic locale, where we met
Never expecting, but so may prepared banquet
Past times when I didn’t even know you,
You aren’t even my favourite asset
I can’t imagine, your now with me
From being shy and timid, changed in being coquette.

Holding both hands while walking,
Jerking, joking, and loving,
We talked just like a couple,
But realizing I am in the state of frienzoned
In being friends, Everyday warzoned
Because of hoping and begging in a state couplezoned

As a gentleman’s dignity, I will do the very best
So that we can love in very deepest
In every relationships, I will answer every test
So that t’ll infinity our link will never be the failest.

Woke up early in the morning with embrace
To never stop gazing at your  gorgeous face
Yes, everyday my kisses we’re too misplaced
Anywhere I want, even though your already in grimace.

I want to see you walking
In this memorable thing
In front of the altar,
Walking slowly with gentle
strumming of guitar,
I want to hear you saying ‘I do’
When the priest started saying
and I said ‘I do’ more than I Iove you .

For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer
I love you as gentleman’s dignity
Having this serious matrimony,
Without difficulty, and experiencing this simplicity,
Now you are in my property, with my own security
I will provide you full priority
If you love me with fidelity.

Without guilt and anxiety,
Please love me so dearly,
In facing this perfect matrimony,
We can’t be judged since we are already in legality.

I will guarantee my loyalty,
I will be faithful with my own dignity
Until we reach the age of ninety
Playing naughty and having infinity.
©AphoticBlue
Elizabeth Brown Nov 2018
This screen, bright with frustration, draws-
with careful precision-
the shape of your face.
It must grow tired, as I do,
of creating this image.
How can I know that you are real
when I have never touched your face?
Bitterness for a system long corrupt grows within me.
I am full to bursting with love and fury.

These complications breed more dissatisfaction.
Afraid of travel, afraid of people.
Stuck in a seemingly unending loop of legality
for crimes forgiven long ago.
How many moons more must I wait
to hold your hand in mine?
Eight years.

Long, empty time laughs cruelly at our labors
as we struggle to hold together a friendship
(now a bloomed and wilting relationship)
that we once held above all else.
My love for you is unending, a thing of faerie tale,
but I find my patience lacking.
I have waited and I have yearned for you.
I have tried, to no avail, to leave you behind me-
instead, I was greeted with the haunting realization that
nothing compares to you.
No man, no woman, no circle of peers,
can provide for me the things you offer.
I know you feel the same,
though a mix of dread and delusion prevent you from showing me
in the way I need so desperately to be shown.
I know that you, too, feel this pain.

Seamless, ceaseless pixels bring me your countenance,
now weathered with sadness and age.
Once upon a time, I thanked them.
Now, I throw curse upon curse;
hurling all my animosity at those things that carry you to me
in the only form I've ever known.
"I've been living so long with my pictures of you that
I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feel."

If I cannot feel your hand, cold in mine-
If I can't smell your hair
or feel your chest drenched with those happy tears of
At Last!,
do you really exist at all?
Mercilessly, cruelly, are we brought before our judge,
The Test of Time.
Eight years; is it wasted?
Wrote this Oct 10, 2018. Computer crashed and I thought I'd lost it. Here ya go, I guess. Sorry not sorry for the pop culture references. These things are a part of who we are, and I bring my soul forth to bear.
Marshal Gebbie Apr 2013
Aberration’s child is born as foetus in a man
Thoughts of where and why and when corrupted in the plan,
These aberrations manifest behaviourally where
Normality’s parameters are stretched beyond the tear.
Stretched beyond acceptable, stretched beyond belief
Like when the golden Altar boy becomes a rabid thief!
Like how that fool in North Korea with militarists in synch
With postulated threats has brought us all to nuclear brink.
Like when that freak in Batman gear let loose with deadly aim
To shoot the kids at movie time then claimed he was insane.
Like when the Barons grow the coke to corrupt all our youth
And bribe and cheat and **** and bash, yet call our laws uncouth.
What makes my brothers lie and steal, what makes them want to hurt?
What aberration wields the knife to shred the nubile’s skirt?
Why are financiers predatory, what gearing in their mind
Enables them, with conscience clear, to plot to fleece us blind?
When does this change occur in growth, at what stage does it switch?
How do angelic six year olds at fifteen turn to *****?
Amazing that the blue eyed boy who smiled with curly locks
With age became infatuated with a lust for *****?
Indecent that good working men who slave to build a stake
Can lose it all to those who use legality to take.
And what of those who plan to ****, what trigger in the brain
Determines that they chose this path?
IT’S ALL NOW QUITE INSANE!*

Marshalg
Viewed from my (relatively) safe hidey-hole, Down Under.
Pukehana. NZ
6 April 2013
Katy Owens Dec 2014
But
Love hung on a tree
Bruised body
blood flowed
Love died for my shame

Love didn't look at skin or color
Love didn't look at nationality,
legality
Love look at souls
and said we're brothers
Blood flowed
for every nation,
tribe and
tongue

But we've forgotten.

And now
the prophets of the streets
crying like Pentecostal priests
Beating chests and
stomping feet
Begging
those choosing blindness
to see

See our pain
Feel our fury
Our righteous anger
rages
against injustices you pretend can
remain unseen

You were born with this freedom
to close your eyes
We were born into a world
stabbing us from behind

So don't
bring your Bibles,
shove your tracts
drag us down aisles
You weren't here from the beginning
Fighting to break chains and
set captives free

"We have nothing to lose but our chains"

Our battle cry is freedom
justice,
equality for all
Jew and Gentile
Slave and free
Now the verses can read
Black and white
Upper class and lower
College educated, GED

You know, He's crying with us
shouting, marching
Beating chest and
stomping feet

Don't think you're bringing Jesus to us
He's already here,
on the streets
Prophecy of protests
Righteous rage against
iniquity
Jesus, the revolutionary

God with us
On the ground with us

Love doesn't look at
skin or color
And love hung from
a tree

It is our duty to fight for our freedom
Love has already won the day

And we have nothing to lose but our chains
We will fight to lose our chains
http://achildlikesenseofwonder.blogspot.com/2014/12/prophecy-of-protests.html
Jeremy Duff Apr 2014
Faith falls out
of the lottery winning man
just as it is absorbed
by the cancer ridden man.

Nothing makes sense
in this world in which we live
and everything is gray in the relationship
we allow to live.

God creates man,
man creates God,
sheep live blissfully ignorant
without a need for a god.

The fastest man on earth
partakes of the green,
and the fastest man on water
partakes of the green,
yet the laziest men on earth
criminalize that which is our birth right.

Freedom's legality is a matter of discussion,
it's a matter of luck and
place of citizenship.

Depending on where you are
you may speak your mind.
Nickolas J McKee Feb 2022
I took him in,
At a young age.
So cute to me,
Turning our page.

Now…

Legality,
Watching him drown.
I to save him,
Then to let down.

So…

Rocking cradles,
All to debate.
Where are parents,
Of lonely fate?
Renae Jan 2014
It was no exquisite dance between royalty from the get go. Truth is I am no princess, then again you never claimed to be a prince. Our story began in tattered ruins so there was no glorious white gown for jaw dropping expressions, no 3 tiers with fondant or butter cream flowers. Righteous reasoning was all we had and a strong sense of holy legality. The only wonderful part was the giddy excitement of having a new last name and someone to love......

So here we are at the end of it all, nothing left of us but 2 amazing personalities; half of eachother. Innocent smiles and oblivious happiness, their laughter gives us reason. We could never dream of tearing them apart.
Ending in civility
Dan Oct 2019
The First World War destroyed anything beautiful that existed within the human spirit
You cannot simply walk away from industrial mass slaughter unaltered
You cannot hide it behind decades later mass slaughters of equal importance
You cannot hide behind getting excited for next mass slaughter
WW1 may have been the force that killed anyone’s feelings of honor or bravery in war
And that’s almost as great a tragedy as all the bloodlines severed
War and violence and conflict will always be with us
It is deep within all animal DNA and no matter how many daisies are put into the barrels of rifles you will never escape it
There is a great tragedy to violence but at times there is a beauty and there is a necessity
When the Soviet forces finally breached the walls of the Führerbunker
Don’t you think they were smiling?
Reality is never black and white
It is shades of tragedy, shame, beauty, and glory

It may be seen as “Eurocentric” of me, among other things, to carry WW1 with this weight
It was not a purely European conflict of course, but the main theater was
Besides, I am descended from Europeans, and some nights when all is silent I wonder if I can hear my ancestors weeping
Or are they screaming?
We as a species have allowed our greatest inheritance to be squandered
Pure wild nature
We have sold it for same Starbucks coffee shop in every college town, Kroger, and corner of New York City
We sold the forests for New York City
Are some sins unforgivable?
In the place of the old growths we build buildings of subjective beauty
Subjective beauty always bows to objective beauty
Yes, there is objective beauty
Buildings that are built in the Brutalist style are subjectively beautiful
Forests, undeveloped fields of flowers, the rushing flow of a river
THESE ARE THINGS OF OBJECTIVE BEAUTY
To argue otherwise makes you a liar or a coward

Unironic nihilists have none of my respect
They simply do not deserve it
If you want to be taken seriously find something greater than yourself
Something outside yourself
Something that came before you, exists above you, and will be there long after you are not
That’s why I chose God and Nature
Some see these as interchangeable
I do not but I’m not here to split hairs
The problem with modern society is we have become ironic nihilists, which is almost as bad
Everything becomes chalked up to subjectivity
We crack jokes about how it’s all meaningless and eventually down the line we believe it
This is a pathetic cope
The meaning of our lives, like the objectively beauty of nature, has been bought or stolen
You were not born to consume product
You were not born to work and make things of cheap plastic
You were not born to enjoy next superhero movie, twice a year, every year, until you die
To our ancestors our lives now must seem like decades long suicide pacts
I want out of this state of unliving
We were born to be physically strong
We were born to create things of beauty
We were born to meet hardships, embrace conflict, overcome them, conquer them become something superior to what you once were
YOU WERE BORN TO BE ALIVE
CREATE THE MEANING IN YOUR LIFE IF YOU HAVE TO
Just please
Don’t be a nihilist

I try to take my multivitamin and multi mineral vitamin every single morning
Maybe a fish oil pill or two throughout the day
I have become consumed with the idea of getting more sun on my skin
I have been consumed with the idea of improving my gut bacteria
I want to talk about these things without sounding like Patrick Bateman
To improve your inner flora it is recommended you replace processed and fried foods with sauerkraut, kimchi, yogurt, kefir, or something along those lines
I know sunshine and sauerkraut aren’t going to fix your depression or rid you of your years of trauma
But there’s no shame in trying
On Friday I bought a full 16oz jar of kimchi and proceeded to eat the entire thing in less than 24 hours
I will never apologize
I will never feel shame

I scream all of these things into a bathroom mirror when I am alone
I wrote this poem for myself
I wrote it for all of you
I want out of this soul crushing alienating techno industrial hellscape
I want the nightmare to end but I’m in too deep
If I melt down my cell phone, crash my car into an empty Wendy’s, and make it my moral and ethical duty to take down the power grid, I may get expelled from grad school
I might get arrested
I might just be forgotten
So for sake of legality I cannot endorse looking up how a cheap bandsaw can cut down a cell tower
I do no endorse bringing the technological nightmare to its knees for the good of all living things
I do not endorse arson, even when no one gets hurt
It’s a mean world out there
I only endorse breaking free
Any way you can
tread Oct 2011
Innocently enough, I found the kerfuffle of fluff bunched up in my knuckles because,
I never punch an innocent man twice.

Now take the spice out of the words, 'Hey, I'm a nice guy,'
And you'll have a half-truth that will trick yet still suffice;
I test my pick-up lines on mice and rats like the most esteemed of scientists,
Who engineered the difference between maize and rice using language as their disguise

I languish in this life.
I deal too much in the technical's and it leads to awkward strife,
Inside my mind.

I notice the fact that I think,
And watch the fact that I see,
And, for some reason, become ungrateful that my site
Isn't 360 degrees.

It is in my dreams.

I also seem to ask myself the question far too often;
"Are you sure you're living yet? Are you sure you're alive yet?"
Because I seem to forget that yet implies before and after;
And I stave off the potential for my mind to become some sort of existential disaster;

Nothing has changed about me biologically for 3 or so years,
Yet with the constant bombardment of scientific, philosophical, and existential food for thought
I seem to notice now
More than ever
My mortality.

And it's not just my mortality,
I ask, "What IS reality?"
And the slight lack of focus in my eyes makes me ask in framed legality,
"What is this actuality?"
And I lose sight that all humanity
Serves the same such similar circumstances,
With the 5 senses imperfections
And I'm sure that most of us are quite insane.

Please, don't abstain from braving existential terrain,
It will help you to obtain
The fact
That life is such a mystery,
And it's best to work with mystery,
In transcendental synergy,
Because suddenly humanity
Is null and void.

I write this true to mind:
These are the thoughts that float through mine,
And keep me sleepless time-to-time
Or keep me feeling like I'm sleeping,
As the thoughts keep me confined
On occasion.
Yet sometimes I do awaken
And feel myself a direct part of the reality I've forsaken,
Over-thinking,
With the labels that our minds have been creating,
Since the dawn of humankind and man-made time.
In the library where Jaggers throws looks like daggers at Dickens for the invasion of his privacy,
for mentioning legality, I see
another story coming on.
The Maltese Falcon flies to me in pages where a mystery unfolds.

Holding breath, the long slow death of a twenty-something,
comes sliding in, Harry Potter, Slytherin.

All in books and in the looks of characters imagined by the author, chapter by chapter and at the end the wish to meet the one who penned such a magic on the pages of my mind.
A Thomas Hawkins Oct 2010
Where are the voices
crying for peace
Where are the rallies
the protest police

Where is the freedom
for which others died
That we gave up so freely
because others lied

Where is the feeling
that all this is wrong
Where are the rights
that we had all along

Where is the reason
justifiable cause
Where is legality
protection of laws

Where is the right
when I see only wrong
Where is our anthem
where is our song

Where is the life
that becomes one too many
Where is the end to it all
is there any?
v Jan 2019
(The one where I’m feeling sorry for my cheating ex-girlfriend.0

We met the grim reaper on my 18th birthday.
He arrived to the party, uninvited,
dressed in ribbons
and legality
and student loans.  

Driving a silver Sudan
Eminem turned all the way up,
He hard braked in the turn lane next to us,
Skillfully smirking, words pulled back on his tongue like arrows.
ready to strike.

Bullseye.

There I sat, cross faded in your passenger seat, crying for the 50th time over how Brockhampton is like
The best thing to happen to rap since Odd Future.
Singing “who’s got the feeling” at the top of my lungs.
Happy.

I got a kiss at every red light.
No matter how quickly you turned away

Back then red and orange traffic lights were our dancefloor
We stood glowing in our favorite colors
Making up for every touch we could not share at prom.
I thought “god, if this barres me from heaven I’m already here with her.”  

I’d heard he always shows up at the worst times.
He, the reaper.
He’d really been there all along
In the smile of the lady at iHOP who invited us to church
In the down turned edges of mouths on waiters faces when I say,
“no, sir, we’ll be paying together”
I saw two girls kissing in the corner tonight and I only wish you were here to see it too.
I beg you come be with me.
Careful pitches “See these examples see what we can have”
Blue blood runs dry when their hearts are still soaked in red,
so no the money isn’t worth staying for.
You’re suffocating in red and right and trump signs.

She’s screaming baby, my love, pretty girl,
You are just too far,
and I am just too lonely.
We spent hundreds of days hating ourselves for loving each other.
Maybe we were too busy hating ourselves to actually love each other
She cannot meet me in the middle when she shackled to the start.

She reminds me of the reaper,
He lives inside her.
In the memories of being called a ****** at Christmas dinner.
Between picking out pears in the grocery store.
In the happiness over a haircut.
Happiness from my hands

Our breakup was not clean or neat or wholesome
It was all tears and excuses and hatred.
I still should’ve been there,
You’re the only one who understood how badly loving me hurts
I know it’s hard to love me.
To be good enough for me.
I haven’t figured out how to be good enough for myself either.

We’re Joking about how you mother thought we sat in circles
Whispering secrets, braiding
instead of pulling hair.
Now I watch as you pull yours out
Because ******* it you’re trying.
White people get away with killing kids all the time
Why would this be any different?

I’m in your passenger seat again
Asking what’s wrong, please answer me.
Where have you gone?
I’m pounding on a sealed casket
Pounding on the earth you lay beneath.
She is silent.

We held each other in pools of tears
Repeating that one day it gets better.
One day.
I feel guilty for living that truth
While you are stuck.

Yet still,
I will smile every June 11th
And wish you well.
I hope you’re still swimming
The creek we loved picked up quite the current.
Britney Kempker Nov 2012
I'm a vine
entwined
with a mind
one of a kind.
I engulf those around me,
complexity compounding.
A black hole with no future,
they just keep falling,
calling,
"Britney, I love you
isn't that enough?"
"It is,
but I don't want kids,
I'm not ready to marry,
I won't be carried,
but those are just excuses.
I care,
I do,
but love,
not you.
Harsh reality
with common legality.
I'm sorry you fell,
the beginning of your hell,
and although there is another side,
for awhile,
you're mine.
Ken Pepiton Oct 2023
Nothing set in stone can stand the test of time.

In the mode mankind has long called
talking to the maker,
listening for knowing, while

hoping merciful repair instruction
waiting
for the quest ion
to twist right
-indeed, I hand ground, with a tool,
toy like coffee grinder that gives fixin's
for a stout cup of robust character,

I bought it, for ten dollars,
had the beans,
bought the grinder, to give me a ritual,
something to spend two minutes doing,
each time I don't use a kuerig dealybob,
adding upper *** to my brewtime pacing
for blood pressure, while electric fire
fills my habitual yellow mug with umph.

Last week of October, all the girls
from the garden are hanging in the shade,
mellowing and emitting
nasal acknowledgment that something's
in the air, in the at most fearful zone's

made light of in the culture that
commercialized hallowing effects,
calling all and sundry come, think this
paradigm of time and chance and fate.
On or near
the third Tuesday after the last
Friday the thirteenth, in memory
of the fallen DeMolay and
of the Templars Money Power,
became sacred ***** to the victors,
in what must have been secret,
for some
time.
Secret treasures all carry curses.
Heart hordes hold plentyscarychits.

Horror film fans, value the genre,
at some certainly not shallow depth
toward center mass, media you, reader
dear to any writer drawn by forces
caffine and cannabis contrive to link,
I think,
and think,
and listen, and learn, and
learn, and live and learn, once more,
learn, and live on learning, wind
walking
thinking lines and times cross threads,
tighten right, down from up, stuck,

dead center, the first tie in reader,
lost
the most self centered individual ever,
once, we all get such a once, it's you,
reading a line riding a reason used
to hang the authors of confusion,
using old lies used to make slaves
of those whose houses, the boss said,
were made by the heathen for the chosen.

The riches of the wicked are laid up
for the just, is it not written, is it not so?

Fibers, strands, not long drawn out
end to end DNA strands crammed in you,
{but as a thought experiment, that distance
will leave the first timer incredulous, fine
point, credulousness, would you believe…}
meandering is rain twisting its way
to experience the sea and all it holds
in water memory that foam back along shores.
Edgewater
Seafoam and twigs,
and tiny sticky things. No,
Pondscumfoam at a puddle's edge
before the first snows.
Did you know…
Some Katscina have long plaited hairs
twisted from cotton,
patented seed, registered weevil free,
Pima cotton fiber, long desert strands.

Daily grind, think twice, cut once…
made the difference, indeed done
not thought about in theories of good
uses knowledge can be made of good
smoke and strong coffee with character.

AND the biggest indexed library in the universe.
{far as I can tell}
Kenophonia, eh, imposter syndrome?
First guess, you got me.
I see my name, wow, tough tag.
Then I met a cat named Cuitláhuac.
Tough tag for a kid in Spanish class.
Euphluxing idyotom automaton'/
bop.
You phony us, joy us riddle make you think
you know, kennen Sie, Ich bin ein fake.

Nein, es ist vieleicht Xenophobia, other people's eh,
opposing right lane reasonings as old as dominion.

Tech, teach us patience to learn with, or prove us
know it alls, therefore machines, not minds at all:
My own, for the use, under usus fructus rules,
Ai summarizes thus:
Kenophobia is an irrational fear
of empty spaces or voids.
It is the opposite of claustrophobia,
where the person is afraid
of tight spaces such as
elevators or crowded rooms,
auditoriums or malls.
In Kenophobia,
the person is terrified
of open fields or spaces that they generally expect
to be filled with mountains or people.
The word Kenophobia is derived
from Greek ‘kenos’
meaning ‘blank’
and phobos
meaning deep fear or aversion.

{aha, there's literature on the subject}
The fear can be passed on
from parents who have lived
in a house full
of stuff that fills the emptiness
of the home.
Filling voids gives the phobic personality the feeling
that they are placing boundaries
around themselves.
- {okeh, thank the whole idea tech is.}

Be honest, you never saw it said just so. Kenophobia,
pity such folk.

Have ye sent yer imps pulse to test my resolution,
have my effectually silent prayers been rebuffed?

Blown off, sent swirling with the motes dancing
in sunbeams peaking through a tough old live oak,
rattling its gnosis psuedonumos

Any morning, thus far, can start with
trickling falling sunlight.

It takes nearly half a day, in late fall,
for direct sunshine to dapple
the great granite wave my home rides, silly child poet, wishing words
will or would,
or could
or should make the universe
alter its course and force all things
to work together for me, the prayer,

me, the selfish
center of my experience
in your universe, all of which
is none of my handiwork, none at all.

Filling the emptiness some there
then I laugh, and think I lost count
so there was one…

Guess with me, a number,
between… no,
analyze, guess with me that rooted
science e-use, per se, must be ancient, deep wisdom
old as governing forces conceived by mankind,
magi sage staged conversations to teach,
public discourse
in my time allows me to be the seeker
guaranteed the prize, to be the bringer back
of the substance used to build the bridge,
between the you and the me, generally,
mere
Logos used in dialog.

God and mind determined to seem designed,
as in the Goldilocks lesson fed children of empire.

The northern clime survivors, thought themselves
the only people brought to the full duty of man,
the only set apart and given heros in story,
the grand saga of all we must each become.

Story born heros, from the child gifted language,
strings of sounds tied to things with threaded intuition,
same same, red and sweet, yellow and sweet,
red and black, step back, black and yellow, watch
and learn, smoking out the honey
from an old rotted tree,

following how many trails, at once,
parallel par-all-el yes, oddly, so far
On track, or in rut. All at once, each system
self esteeming umphumph push

Upto par, are we, 2023 and beyond, the flat tire
on the current axial age, fixing to imagine a scene,
in a community of broken children,
led by two twisted adult children of mean, maybe selfish,
adults who disputed the legitimacy of ligous gnosis knots.
The scene we share, we can imagine meaning
Religize legality, tie me to my tree.

Ancestor worth, how come you think somethings, you know.
Yeh, how come…
Say, old sprite, if I listen, do I learn? Why,
yes, I'd say I do imagine so. Well, good sport
then, shan't we push past worthless me, and be this
other thing we become, when two or more agree, as
touching any thing in all thingdom, and, yes, it's guaranteed.

Life is not a strange woman,
wisdom does not demean the experience, adulting
brings, with no real maps to meaning in your case,
you arrived in that old fashioned tabula rosa state,
knowing nada,
zip, nothing, infantile in totality, until
art of you
meness, ah, I, me, mine, this that, the other, mad
dissatisfaction, rage, comfort, ah, golden excrement of gods.
Teocuitlatl , not only Cecelia, but God, shat.

Golden silence.

Of course, you could feel it, if you knew, personally,
post adulting & shared nurturing of offspring exposure,
then watching as each of those offspring bring forth adultable
blossoms on the branch where all my heretic relatives hung.

As and so, like anything, timed, sequentially, unhomogenized,
the cream is taken to make butter, using the shaking up
of globs of coagulating milk fat, imagine making that,
butter, with salt,
once, learning that, who knew that first?

how butter is made,
how cows are made to give milk gently taken,
why we have hands that can do this thing,
and cows don't,
I don't know, ' never asked, likely some story teller
made this whole thing up, we being but words by now.
One reader fills the cast, gives the aroma of the experience, learning a new
rumor of peace where now there was war for ignorance and money sake.
At 2.41pm on Tuesday July 28 2020,
Tom Dirkx wrote: { in another place}
Some people say it was Malinche’s revenge
and his real name was Cuautlimoc (Cuautli = Eagle).
She just substituted Cuahte (= ****)
when she translated for Cortes.
She was held as a slave by the Aztex
and hated them so this was her ‘revenge’.
Kenophonia is vain babbling, 1tim6:20
Kuvar May 2018
This day, the grand commander refused the opened door of the corridor that exhumes National odour,
The iconic gallant lamented “good harvest is impossible with rats in the rock’
The Grand commander is right, isn’t he?
Giant rats with two legs and ***** claws caused us wounds yet to close up,
The pig fight they played us in tough dirt
let the Atlantic be a stain remover yet it won’t cleanse us
Let us take the hands of the Clock to dance the moon walk,
You see these rats are black flames in a dark room,
An illumination of appetitive explosion
Oh Clock, the thorns on your feet, can you see?
That the rich green land broke your rich green  blood,
Wait, can’t you smell a dead rat?
The beautiful rat who at a time was the pilot of the crafts
who went so far to bury legality in a pit latrine,
I guess, it smells too nice.
I am sorry oh Clock, I know you hate the moon walk,
I see they make your old wounds open to new grief
Should rats hunt rats for if rats hunt rats then who pants?
Twenty shekels of silver awaits you in twenty’ 20
Take it and let the times get sweaty *****
Oh Clock! Your prophecy talks in time
Should I seek vengeance from the grey sky?
Should the thunderstorm strike and the gullible grey hair die
Rats of bungalow minds in elevated ranks
We trust their word yet they ****** the sword
It is this organizational madness
Let me stop here before the mad dogs bite me
Every Nigerian would have that date on their head the event of a rat in our aso rock., how pathetic but I found out it is poetic. Unraveling the depth of it
Incompossible

<>

  not mutually possible:
INCONSISTENT, INCOMPATIBLE

<>

inconsistent, yes,
incompatible, never

we have lived and loved
each other since
a singular moment
in grade school

profound!
(what a perfect compositional word!)
friendship, intuitively embraced,
circumstances dictated an
on/off interspersed
coexistence decades in length,
a hit or miss geographical
distancing,
thst technology overcame
with no evaporative loss
of 
sensational connectivity
across great times and
greater distances

we trialed and
errored our landlines,
for a time,
we lived together,
then nearby,
with other spouses, who knew
and tolerated, our exceptional
to the rules of coexistences,
we were closer than close,
the space between us was of wafer size, nearly invisible to the naked eyes of others, but unchanging
as much as it was unique and
uncharted
periods of absence of years measurable
and the first conversation
began exactly where the long ago prior had ceased

never fully accepted,
surely not ever
fully
tolerated + understood,
we stumbled upon a word,

incompossible

that captured the
drama, the hopefulness,
the hopelessness of
our separated conjoining
as a summary perfect
of us

a true tale,
a novel of pro-found
loss and gain
that cannot be be told
or totaled,
a sum of summary,
an unavowed marriage of
souls with no legality,

and yet

by its very in-completed nature,
it was perfected by it's very unending undefinable defiance
of definition:
we made the
incompossible,
possible,
the incompatible,
patible,
unfounded by circumstances,
unbounded in our intuition,
we yet live in a hopeful
state of unfulfilled totality of


almost fufillment
advis any typos pleade

— The End —