My poems may not be all that good
not near as much polish as they should
some of them wither on the vine
but *******
at least they are mine!

That must be a
Halloween mask...

I know you're not
That good looking.


SoulSurvivor

Why is the concept of being forgotten so paralyzingly terrifying to me?
Before the expanse of time,
none of us stand a chance of being remembered.
We will be swallowed up,
only be known as a statistic, a point of reference.
The thoughts we think are paramount
Quail before the laughing face of Time.
God will remember me,
so why do I care about what those on earth think?
Why do I care what people think?
What kind of sick ******* are we that we derive pleasure from others' pain?
Schadenfreude is alive and well
Unlike you and I
Why don't I throw up my hands
And succumb to the ravages of an indifferent Time
And an indifferent society
Why not let them win
Who values a game which is purposely weighted to one side
If not those who have waged something dear upon the outcome
The Ender inside me rejects the faulty system.

Why do I persevere for a "humanity"
which will never improve
In fact,
the more we evolve and know and comprehend,
The more apt we are to be heartless
Because why do we need a heart when we have a brain, Tinman?

Why do we care what we look like
Our bodies are merely
borrowed from the earth
And in the blink of eternity's eye
what we call ours
will belong to another

Why do we live in a world overflowing with bodies
And entirely lacking with people

Why can we satisfy any part of ourselves
by draping on borrowed emotions
Why is the false more alluring than the truth?
Show me an honest person
And I will show you an attractive one.

I am not you
you are not me
And we will never be
The same
Despite the pervading effort of our society
I will not be assimilated.

If we let people in,
They wouldn't hate
So why are we terrified of doing that
Is it because,
If everyone is in,
No one is
And in ceases to exist?

Why do we feel the urge to gloat about things we did not earn

Why does 1
Make more money than 2
Because his nose is straighter,
His hair is curly rather than straight,
Because 1 spends an eighth of his time in the gym
While the less attractive 2 spends 7/8 of his time
Screaming inside
At a society which has cut off its own ears that it can't won't hear.

Why are random genes a judge of worth
While character is a word so overplayed
It folded its hand long ago

Why is the face of a beautiful liar
Infinitely preferable
To that of a plain truthteller
Infinite whys
And a world which whispers
     Cradle me with your honeyed lies
     Assurances of past lullabies
     How do I trust what the mockingbird cries
     When even it runs from the skies
Why do so many see ourselves as bound and controlled by manipulated strings
When those strings are nothing but ropes with which we can escape

Why do we live on top of one another
Without deigning to know our prisonmate
Without so much as a spared thought
For the dead flailing beneath us

Why do I hold dearest to my heart
Past injustices
Counting them as the tiny, insidious proofs
That I am a good person
Because good does not exist without the bad
Relativity is the grip keeping us from sliding
Down.
Away.

Why is it that words spoken can never be taken back?
Simple. We can never reclaim what was never ours.
You think you are original in your menial thoughts
What have you done but regurgitate the thoughts of your predecessors?
Rearranging the same letters
To form the same tiresome conclusions.
We are the worst type of plagiarists.

Why is the only thing propelling you a sense of duty
Why are you devoutly loyal to objects rather than the people who happen to hold them

Why

Why do we invent reasons to hate one another
We take solace in the loopholes which justify our hatred
That we may not be like the "monsters" we condemn

Why are "we" and "they"
Not just markers of distance?
Why must they be very real, ubiquitous mentalities?

Why are somber topics the common stuff of jokes
Because we have grown numb enough to empathy
To shun it in favour of a laugh?

Why is suffering so prevalent
When we have an excess of affluence
Are such extremes what define us as a race?

Why is a white lamb the symbol of pristine innocence
When innocence is slaughtered day after day?
Why are sharks abhorred creatures even though
Our vicious attacks
Far outnumber theirs
Do we idealize them that we may have a reason
An excuse
To assert our dominance over yet one more
To feel the joy of crushing them underfoot
Why do we focus on certain images
When the true image of our society
Is the person who occurs each day,
Who breaks
The answer is because we know
that we
Are at fault.

Why when confronted about the tiniest aspect of ourselves
We rear our heads in defense
Backing up against the corner of idiocy
The walls built upon the truths we have fabricated
Why are the swirling armor of falsities so comforting
And when pierced
We rebel
With every bit of the person we have built
Lashing out as does a dog chained its entire life
But even a dog
Which is after all "just an animal"
*Is not fool enough to delude itself into loving its chain.

the woes
the woes
of the poets did
compound
for there were many woes
around

the woes they couldn't
surmount
woes that stayed on the estate's  
mount

poets tormented by woes
day and night
and there was no respite
for their plight

the woes were never
ending
the woes not ever
suspending

the woes such as
plagiarists
taking works in pilfering
fists

so too the trolls on
patrol
on them no firm
control

woes
woes
woes
besetting
the
poetry
community
woes
woes
woes
permitted
to
act
with
licensed
impunity
woes
woes
woes
of
them
not
much
immunity    
woes
woes
woes

A Coat
By William Butler Yeats

I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world’s eyes
As though they’d wrought it.
Song, let them take it
For there’s more enterprise
In walking naked.


TOBIAS

Sometimes poets make mistakes
On these quite public sites
It causes great dissension
Brings on many fights
This is especially tragic
When the poet is a light
They are then maligned a lot
Their character a blight
What should have been a shining beam
Becomes as dark as night.

I am one such person.
I made a public show.
Partially due to ignorance
Of how internet stuff goes
Yes. I had my lapses.
But now I let the flow
Bless my faithful readers
I wish to bestow
Grace to other poets
Some of whom you know.
But some folk still malign me...
They do so on the low.

This has NOT been gracious.
Actually unfair.
Would YOU like your every deed
And ***** laundry aired?
I don't pretend to love folks here...
I actually care!
But some became a pitfall.
They'd rather be a snare.
Can you take my moccasins
And place your foot in there?

I have NOT been hiding.
Put pride on the shelf.
I have confessed many times
I TOLD ON MYSELF.

But there ARE those unforgiving.
They go around and "warn".
Their modus operandi
Is to cause a hornet's swarm
They don't care who they may hurt
They do a lot of HARM.

If someone is repentant
And has a humble heart
Comes only offering
To love and be a part
Wouldn't it be prudent?
Wouldn't it be smart?
To forget the past transgressions
And get on with our ART?

This does not apply to PLAGIARISTS
Those who do not SERVE
They ****** our brainchildren.
RUN DOWN, AND DO NOT SWERVE
If they are unrepentant
THEY GET WHAT THEY DESERVE.

That's it for my sermon.
That's all I have to say.
Let's start writing poetry

AND GET ON WITH OUR DAY.


♡ Catherine

And from the dirt I return,
Masked up and on

Dead men tell no tales so I had to reach back into the well with my shovel and bring out the bones of the poets before me who spoke too little, they remain silent heroes with low book sales.

The pen is mightier than the sword, I went Out for Blood and spilled as much of my own as anyone else, the battlefield was littered with bodies and thoughts, ghosts of the unlucky.

We grow or die, adapt or survive. The Jester mask- I wear it with it pride.

This is the resurrection of a thousand dead thinkers who got lost to time,
Some had their work plagiarized, that’s what’s known as a crime.
I ring the bell for who it tolls cast their names on my list, I drink to remember and to forget.

I say a prayer before their names, unmarked talent in a shallow grave.

Bring out your dead because the hacks, fakes and plagiarists need to see some skin before they try to take more flesh again.
They pose art, I recreate crime scenes, they have a new book on the burner cooking, I’ll Hannibal them as I roast them over the open fires of creativity.

You think this is easy?

You want the fashion, fame, money and house?
What about start realistic, one light on, a cup of forty-nine cent Wendy’s chili and a rent check that’s overdue.

While people bleed, sweat and carve their art out, you come along and pick it apart, then take what you want and call it “art”
You’re a hackjob wackjob whose too busy jacking off, I wish artists had a Mafia so you could get Whacked off.

You stole the words right from out of my mouth, I think its time to show all these “artists” what a bleeding heart is all about.
Mel Brooks said “everyone steals, you just have to know what to steal” he didn’t mean ruin someone else by taking their core ideas and sticking your name all over it, it’s soulless ***** like you that make me sick, as I go to cough I let the leash the slip and the hounds rush out to junk the bodies of the soulless majority who make a living off of someone else’s paycheck.

It’s work, it’s real, it takes time, effort, energy and dedication and then you come along and steal, I get it. You want what you can’t have, problem is- you can’t recreate it so you’re a one trick pony with a lame leg who hasn’t got a clue. Your autograph reads “Elmer” because you get turned to glue.

We’re not the polite socialite artists who stand around and blow smoke up each other’s *****, we’re too busy to hang around and wax whimsical, we need to know where our next meal is coming from, you just wanna talk Kafka, flash cash like Hoffa, the Jester is here to show you the way to your coffin.

I Spray Paint the Manifesto in your town.

In the right light I have angels wings and a golden halo, but the mirror behind me shows the devil horns and spiked tail, duality in man hyding in plain sight, I flipped the coin and you lost the toss, now you’re dragged out of sight.
Out of sight and out of mind, the lack of you doesn’t hurt the community, when one hack fades another one takes their place but they all look the same so don’t worry about the continuity.

I am only an author of a voice to silence your worry.
Listening is not my virtue, it's bloviating my lure-y.
An appeal to be appealing has left me reeling
For lucidity in a city that has forgotten who I am
Which is me.

I am only an author of a voice so silent, so worry.
I hate to live in my mind, yet it is the ***** I scurry.
From my mind's eye's **** I suckle with fury.
Silver-tongue, golden-throated, and nothing else
To be spoke of. With my chest swelling; pleurae
booming with the boon of pride to ensure he
is able to amount to another morning rise.
Which is me.

Since when have I become so masturbatory.
They say youth is self-absorbed and centered.
So full of themselves they think of fireworks and glory.
But what of youth misspent, snuffed whence
They were in the first chapters of their story.
The forgotten rue. The golden rule.
Somewhat few, follow that truth.
Which is me.

Which is me, the me I knew, or what others, to me, show.
If my personality is borderline, and that is disorderly.
How is my fin not to be written as a tragedy?
Will they paint my funeral with superfluous filigree.
Recite a remembered, and cold opened eulogy.
For a man they did not know.
For a me I did not know.
Which is me?
The me I knew?
Or what others, to me,
did hew?

"Debase me!" I say
Burn me alive, for I did not live.
I stole from you, my cherished youth.
I am only an author, let me rejoice in my depression.
My writings are not narcissistic, hardly a confession-
I am a writer that writes what he knows.
My Socratic allegiance agrees that God is wise
And men, surprise, know nothing.
And if men know nothing.
If men know nothing.
If Man knows nothing.
Why are we so full of discovery?

Man may not find themselves but in a quandary.
Mine is this, and it haunts me unjustly.
Which is me?
There's the positive, the plural.
The public, the private.
The reticent and internal,
Jonathan.
But I am awash in my self without knowing myself,
Engulfed in my blood, my bacteria,
lacking opsonin.
I strike at my heart, my mind, and my tendon.
Uncertain of where I end or where I begin.
I am the stalking horse and predator
An author with no editor
Which is why my poetry is so sloppy.
If writers write what they know,
and youth is all for show,
where do those like me stand?
Are we plagiarists that copy?
Chameleons sipping coffee
Bloviating about the bouquet,
Abusing sophistry?
Do I mean to deceive, is it impulse,
is it instinct.
I must ask,
Which is me?

I am only an author of a voice.
Perhaps I am a mute.
So cut my chords, snip them clean.
Let me live a life serene, as I work and doddle
away with my pen mightier than sword.
Which is me? Who am I?
No Greek poets or philosophers
can define.
The one question begged to be answered.
I am me, who I am. Son of God.
King Solomon.
My sin is idolatry. The commonality of my age,
stuck in neutral of self-display.
The world fell into dismay,
split in two,
The Judgment of Solomon.
Will show which is true.
But even in this *******
Of rhyming, scheme, and infatuation
I've still yet answered the question on my heart
Which lettered the head of my distracting start
Who am I?
Which is me?
Narcissus drowned staring at he.
And left the Nymph alone, all alone
Lest I be as pretty, as the rippled reflection
in the Spring dew.
Let me hem, let me haw
Let me hew,
say what I saw,
and I stared at my reflection
staring at you.
Which is me?
Which is us?
This poem has turned
into an omnibus
for a worried mind
to letter and scatter
everything the matter
from a mind stuck
or struck
with ardent aim.
Which is me?
I sound with glee, an answer unto thee
I am an author with a voice.

the heavens had fallen
woe coiled about the earth
while his muse plucked the singing arrows
sticking out of his chest like harp strings
a mythical epic tearing into the clouds
a force for liberation in touch with its inertias
jiggling the ultimatums like **** on a treadmill
her radiant ***** lit the sunset like a comet
which doesn't come up in my spell checker either
anyhow charmed into her black widow arms
in front of a massive god-hewn stone altar
the peasants were praying to their media gods
the sky was torn off its thundering hinges
and cast under the hooves of their black unicorns
hurling us listlessly into the era of detail
which merely requires confrontation every time
the nemesis ******* print their news
with rhinoceros horn hammers on your head
Beauty's ******* sister Justice screams
laughing at the improbabilities
of a longish gauntlet running puzzle
right when you think you have it
they got you by the lips the nemesis *******
a shelf full of pain killers for your every move
I guess it's because rain is simpler than love
guess again was her habitual greeting
so we pounded until the bed broke
from the seething energies of speculation
spitting boiler sparks nostrils filled with soot
I saw through it all every granule
life is discovery in every banal instant
which makes it not so banal
seen from under a rustling riverbank willow
the wheat stalks were golden with fruit
still mortal after all these tears
an occasional sitcom laugh track ******
arise ye wretched derelicts
from trailer park to metropolis
I promise you a Jacuzzi spa
filled with the juice of nectarines
from the semi-divine Army of Grace
on every unlit street corner
a beer soaked rebuttal follows
while we feast upon the carrion of
plagiarists and Kafka magistrates
dead as a toad under the traction wheel
the world needs a gigantic Spring Break
an earnest burlesque before God's breezy perch
my head is now a gravitational anomaly

From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon