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sara Oct 2013
i think bodies are just vessels for soul
they are not who we are, they are not the definition of us
they’re just storage until we pass on to that place that is neither great nor terrible nor recognizable or nameable in the slightest
not a heaven or hell
a feeling in the direction we touch as up
nothing there
nothing we have words to describe
it’s a just
not that anyone asked but
René Mutumé Jun 2013
and sometimes love is a stranger
walking up behind you
dressing the nights face
and you don’t wanna look around
until it’s too late and you turn
-around drunk
pouring it away like forgotten wine
when really the gift has no age
and never has the taste of anything nameable
she is the hum that torches words
as they are not like her
where the word hunts, this stranger
is fed by a drive on the open road
that knows every part of your skull
that moves through the parade,
and takes you too
war
turned away
like bugs on skin
where it sweats with no remorse
and rains
somewhere else.
PK Wakefield Nov 2014
wet stoops
wet sleeps
down beside
vibrant hulks
of day into night becoming
a persimmon fleshed in robes
of sweetish musk of raging dark:

that blind canny o' comely marsh
where sweats tallly the brisk frigid
smirk of winter coming into between–

i cannot fathom
nor wonder 'pon a thing more
violent **** or primly stolen
than the absurd tumor of suddenly
which every immense second of life
Is.

and how do i call it?
how do i name it by itself?
is it nameable?
is demanded some strict finitude of immutable logic?
or is impossibly monikered in nothing short of illimitable self?

(and who have I been? have i been myself? where did i begin? and shall i ever end in knowing?)
Cassie Aug 2012
you sang your song in the dead of the night that thursday.
and each note that flew from your mouth was a moth,
dying and gasping for breath in its last struggling moments.
and as the pale moonlight shone down upon you like shards of glass,
I could see right through you
[you're so thin-skinned]
to your innermost thoughts.
and I expected beauty or wisdom or hope or all of these,
but I saw nothing and wondered
how the moths that flew from your mouth were so beautiful,
and how the cold tears that you cried could express so much
if there is nothing inside.
where is it then, your soul?
does it come from some un-nameable source?
how sad that you are not the creator of those beautiful moths,
but merely the one who birthed them,
only for them to die in the still air of that thursday.
KathleenAMaloney Sep 2016
Soul Ripened Sun
Light’s Saving Love
Sailing Reach

One
Word of Light
Born of Nothing

Creator Once Dark
Mother of Thought

Illumination
Reflected Mirror
Descended Risen

Memory
Miracle
Upon The Moon
A Footprint

Impressed Life
Reverence
We Now
Thee Take


Still Seas
Virtues Living Oneness
Spiraling Upward
Un Nameable

Rocket Ship
Apollo Aphrodite
Pen Tips Scroll
Heaven

Ome’s Voice
Beyond the Earth
to accept our nameable days,
   the plenitude of them,
  means we are to be forgotten;

to come in flesh with
    our words and clothe us with
      them, will mean that soon,
  eyes shall, through malleability,
      unsheathe us all
    to our impurities.

a gaping orifice is in the seascape
   singing elaborate music,
  and to gyrate to this
will mean that there is a hand to
   hold until the songs fade
   to their closing.

to become love means to be aware
   of what our hands can do,
   what our bodies can flinchingly
  shut with their capacity to
   mend distances,
    what amount of words could
  hurt, what silence could scar
    and what nuisance could
  stir mundane abstractions,
and to become presence
    means to embrace our departures, why a thing ceases to
  stay is a question in the pristine void and beats back with a voiceless answer: love, and its
   telltale askance!

  to become and simply be,
   coming to be and ceasing to be,
what to make out of it,
  that in the flesh and the indelible mark of loving,
  its rampant depictions are all
     but ash.
Arlene Corwin Jul 2016
Lazy Love

They wake –well, ‘wake’ is not the word.
Lids refusing opening, muscles slack,
Wakefulness alone marking awareness.
Arm reaching left, remote device bedside,
Sliding, a mere automaton
Reaching near, she presses On;
Lo, light, sound and the television.
Still, the eyes are shut,
Yet something’s wakened.
Lying still, an arm embraces;
Bodies in slow motion snake-en.
Unidentifiable, un-nameable, encased
In one another’s arms, things happen -
Young, fresh, hippy Happening
Straight from the ‘Swinging Sixties’.
Here’s a pair way past their 60’s
Rising high above the years,
Skies above their years
Entranced, in love, enlivened,
Eyes blinked open where
The mini-moans of pleasure bear
Some mini-tears of joy.

Lazy Love 7.23.2016
Circling round Eros II; Love Relationships II;
Arlene Corwin
Do I have to say more?
zumee May 2021
Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine.

When the wild god arrives at the door,
You will probably fear him.
He reminds you of something dark
That you might have dreamt,
Or the secret you do not wish to be shared.

He will not ring the doorbell;
Instead he scrapes with his fingers
Leaving blood on the paintwork,
Though primroses grow
In circles round his feet.

You do not want to let him in.
You are very busy.
It is late, or early, and besides…
You cannot look at him straight
Because he makes you want to cry.

Your dog barks;
The wild god smiles.
He holds out his hand and
The dog licks his wounds,
Then leads him inside.

The wild god stands in your kitchen.
Ivy is taking over your sideboard;
Mistletoe has moved into the lampshades
And wrens have begun to sing
An old song in the mouth of your kettle.

‘I haven’t much,’ you say
And give him the worst of your food.
He sits at the table, bleeding.
He coughs up foxes.
There are otters in his eyes.

When your wife calls down,
You close the door and
Tell her it’s fine.
You will not let her see
The strange guest at your table.

The wild god asks for whiskey
And you pour a glass for him,
Then a glass for yourself.
Three snakes are beginning to nest
In your voicebox. You cough.

Oh, limitless space.
Oh, eternal mystery.
Oh, endless cycles of death and birth.
Oh, miracle of life.
Oh, the wondrous dance of it all.

You cough again,
Expectorate the snakes and
Water down the whiskey,
Wondering how you got so old
And where your passion went.

The wild god reaches into a bag
Made of moles and nightingale-skin.
He pulls out a two-reeded pipe,
Raises an eyebrow
And all the birds begin to sing.

The fox leaps into your eyes.
Otters rush from the darkness.
The snakes pour through your body.
Your dog howls and upstairs
Your wife both exults and weeps at once.

The wild god dances with your dog.
You dance with the sparrows.
A white stag pulls up a stool
And bellows hymns to enchantments.
A pelican leaps from chair to chair.

In the distance, warriors pour from their tombs.
Ancient gold grows like grass in the fields.
Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.
The hills echo and the grey stones ring
With laughter and madness and pain.

In the middle of the dance,
The house takes off from the ground.
Clouds climb through the windows;
Lightning pounds its fists on the table
And the moon leans in.

The wild god points to your side.
You are bleeding heavily.
You have been bleeding for a long time,
Possibly since you were born.
There is a bear in the wound.

‘Why did you leave me to die?’
Asks the wild god and you say:
‘I was busy surviving.
The shops were all closed;
I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.’

Listen to them:

The fox in your neck and
The snakes in your arms and
The wren and the sparrow and the deer…
The great un-nameable beasts
In your liver and your kidneys and your heart…

There is a symphony of howling.
A cacophony of dissent.
The wild god nods his head and
You wake on the floor holding a knife,
A bottle and a handful of black fur.

Your dog is asleep on the table.
Your wife is stirring, far above.
Your cheeks are wet with tears;
Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting.
A black bear is sitting by the fire.

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine
And brings the dead to life.
Poem by Tom Hirons
Ken Pepiton May 2021
To the reader, dear child,
on the other side, passing in a gravity solution
that makes all things work
together

as did Hiroshima, dare we say, make for a far
better day today
than say,

that one day,
what does it say
of you and me?
We were no part in that day,
but a bit of us was, I dare say,
blown heavenward that very day,

for dust and ash are as one thing,
at the level of motes in my eye, squinting,
see, through the lashes, form a jeweler focus

to mark the slightest wrinkle,
to be tugged taut right now.

Solidity in this realm beyond the frontside
of the window we peer through, share through,
but see through darkly, projecting our known
on your window into the unknowable truth.

Bah. How can one imagine unknowable truth?
How is why's younger sibling, in the novel
experience peers judge. Judging angels,
best done in the rawest form available,

-- surprise, not boo, no start-el entheosis,

unless the truth is somewhat sorted and some not.

Chaos and death are bad guys one Plancksec,
joyous uplifters into other realms, the next.

Times pass, as page one testates to page five oh three.
And it came to pass.
We have aged, aggressively in some parts of what we are.
The sounds we say are same as always, shuffling
into pidgins we generate in familiar settings,
common sense of hearing and tongue and eye and face
and hands and minds that make three points
work to
gather space to think, time to reason, first meet season.
Safe inside three points we agree upon


Never was before, no dreamin', nada, zilch, we was, is all.

We was, then we was now, re-
memberin' how
we was a one thing-kind, an I
alone among many nameable things,
all working together to build a channel
for the flow,

to you, the reader in the top line today.

Then was this dream o'mine t'you begivin'

see and say you saw signs of meaning as true'no'lie
words and words
alone,
no brighter than the sun light
no darker than the night shade
words
on line
in lines long and lines short
down the page a goingoingoin' on'n'on

to now, right now. this'n'when you wake up
and read us at a point in life's book where
we be the answer
to the most recent,
most often missed point in life.
Why it works.
Start. Finish. Stop. Oops. Re- ah, ha,  a mythtery
stuck tongue stutter stop, say shibboleth,
hmm, can you now?
Say se, see me open, wook.

Velly intwesting tings tongues.
Some say one thing, some say the other.
After all, how influential can an immaterial thing be?
Personally.
To you, I mean
nothing, right? But to me, I am all I cannot live without.
Middle Shelf Feb 2020
in beast
alchemy
and sound's fleshy

through a potient called language
we paint a world full of meaning

we give names to the un-nameable
reason to the unreasonable

we throw clocks into the void

through a potient called language

and my dear it's just time,
but with a name

(come again?)
  and end it right
Arlene Corwin Apr 2021
At least it feels that way.

A New Phase Of Awareness
   (Bared For All To View)

I am conscious;
See and hear and all the rest.
I am aware, newly aware
The I am consciousness.
That’s huge!
Not only senses but
The sense behind the senses,
I am sense-ness.  
Consciousness.

As soon as you add suffix -ness
A noun becomes the all-embracing;
Something in itself.

No longer parts divided and connected
But a unitary abstract quite un-nameable;
Sustainable — an ‘it’.
Not’ only ‘quite’, but It.

Oh, the limits of the word!
It is absurd that what you are
Is in reality an It:
Alive, eternal, undivided.
Some deny it, but it’s true.
Consciousness is you.

A New Phase Of Awareness 4.27.2021 I Is Always You Is We;Circling Round Experience;Arlene Nover Corwin
Donall Dempsey May 2023
AS IS

mountain tired
of its human name
throws off the words

like so much
tattered clothes
walks naked

into a sunset
becoming its own
"I am"

rain too
pays no attention to
the human sounds

reinvents  itself
every time it falls
"I the ever becoming!"

the sky laughs
as words stuck upon it
fall off

"I the great un-nameable!"
pinned down
by a puny words

the moon disdains
all attempts to trap
her in human language

she
"the great she
who is"

who do these
humans
think they are

humans gasp
as the map
unfolds

the mountain has left
of its own accord
the rain falls no more

and the sky
doesn't even
want to know

the map now
a blank
piece pf paper
Donall Dempsey May 2020
AS IS

mountain tired
of its human name
throws off the words

like so much
tattered clothes
walks naked

into a sunset
becoming its own
"I am"

rain too
pays no attention to
the human sounds

reinvents  itself
every time it falls
"I the ever becoming!"

the sky laughs
as words stuck upon it
fall off

"I the great un-nameable!"
pinned down
by a puny words

the moon disdains
all attempts to trap
her in human language

she
"the great she
who is"

who do these
humans
think they are

humans gasp
as the map
unfolds

the mountain has left
of its own accord
the rain falls no more

and the sky
doesn't even
want to know

the map now
a blank
piece pf paper
AS IS

mountain tired
of its human name
throws off the words

like so much
tattered clothes
walks naked

into a sunset
becoming its own
"I am"

rain too
pays no attention to
the human sounds

reinvents  itself
every time it falls
"I the ever becoming!"

the sky laughs
as words stuck upon it
fall off

"I the great un-nameable!"
pinned down
by a puny words

the moon disdains
all attempts to trap
her in human language

she
"the great she
who is"

who do these
humans
think they are

humans gasp
as the map
unfolds

the mountain has left
of its own accord
the rain falls no more

and the sky
doesn't even
want to know

the map now
a blank
piece of paper
i peel myself back,
looking for skin.
for bone.
for something warm-blooded
and nameable.

but there’s only
mood swings - ADHD?
echolalia - autism.
hobbies that turn to hunger -
special interests.
talking too much - ADHD.
talking too little - trauma. Or is that autism?
flinching at softness - trauma.
stimming - trauma. Or ADHD?
people-pleasing - trauma.
Shutting down - trauma.
Or were those also autism?

what isn’t accounted for?

when i laugh,
is it because i’m happy
or because it’s the safest sound to make?

when i sit in silence,
is it peace
or practiced disconnection?

was i ever whole,
or was i built
out of reaction,
adaptation,
survival?

do i still count
as a person?

i truly cannot tell.
but if i don’t -
that’s okay.

because this is who i am now.
a map of every exit i had to take.
a body full of reroutes.
a nervous system that remembers everything.

even if nothing here
was born purely,
even if it all came from need -

what’s left
is, well, what I have left.
This is what it feels like to unpack your own existence with a clinical checklist in one hand and grief in the other. I wrote this while wondering if there was ever a version of me that didn’t come from adaptation. Maybe not. Maybe this is all trauma. But if so, I still made something out of it. And that still counts.

— The End —