Part One
Nascent Craving

The insular heart unsealed; pearled eyes
Breach parapets of stone— periled shield,
The sweetest ****—
A threatening wonder and irrefragable synergy,
Nervous routes of cognition  
In this nascent, amorous craving.
Locked and abased,
Dissonance lends pathos — euphoric and onerous,
Disconsolate cries curb sublimation,
The regnant bleed diffusing — fervid lust
Fondled, tactile surfaces in throbbing anticipation.

Sullen, aft a veil of laughter,
Visceral aftermath, out of
The ardent ash,
Burns a thirst;
Insuperable numbness and ache.
Efflorescent intimacy,
Table for two
Enraptured in new alliance,
Élan vital (psyche);
Urgent dialect petitions
Equivocation, jocularity blending
Provocation with indecision,
Noted lilt of descending inhibition.

Adrift, the incessant Now;
As occasion inexorably diminished;
Resonant simpatico tending,
Numinous amity;
Heard conversant, cognitive idioms—
Lassitude, time-eaten pangs of the unhinged heart,
Wounds axiomatic,
In disquieting synergy,
Nibbling, the circumference—
Misery’s permeating truth;
None immune, all trundle incongruously past,
Facing intrepid savages.

Licitly felt, reverberations of Amor
Whence the heart behaves;
Measured cadence, pulse elevating—
Treasured lover, contemplative muse;
Undulating clasp, inflated bone of absence;
Incarnation — a woman,
Beyond prosaic;
Ineffable adoration pours in certitudes of verse,
Elenita, enclothed —virtue unvarnished;
Reservoir intrinsic, poised advocate of the innocent:
The crooked lines of insolence,
Brazen culture of neglected youth.
Perceptive blue stare, sensitized tears—
Plaintively, evincing her injustice ago.

Part Two
Tendered Senses

Siren silence, eruptive blush, ampler between phrases
In dulcet tones — stirring discourse;
Foments rebellion, the strife beneath— his ****,
Out of its vast reserve,
Penetrate the narrowed ambit, vaguely announced.
Groping hands, migrating the sensual member
Stern faces grimacing— mirror in abrasion,
Under the blind surf of consent;
Burrowing ambiguity, emerging torsion,
Plunge, enlisted and content in the sea;
Subsumed in the nonverbal cue,
Persuasion’s plea,
Quelled in the post cerebral assent.

Piercing eyes parallel crystalline waters of Lake Tahoe.

An untouched portion of his awareness remains aloof,
Palpable in the subsequential quiet,
Obsequious and febrile, they sinned on sofas;
Peregrine predilections quenched and viscid—
Serenely requited, the room breathes her presence,
Limp, figures *******, mantled in adolescent torpor.

Erudition in bloom, trust undoubted,
Illuminating, satiating; tempest calm—
Under canvas
Terrain soaked and sodden,
Postliminary — rains of invalidation.
Allowance and permission
Recalibrate, salivate, shortly only—
Initiate, obliged consecration, appraising
Curvatures of the spine,
Stuns him obeisant, her femenine pulchritude,
Propinquity inciting vigor,
Emergent allure, the updriven
Tower of wood sprung from the blanket.

Suffused in ether, purring streams of remembrance
Vaginal honeyed dew, sung into
Orchids, remnants of remember;
Drenched down the cynosure of devotion;
Succulent view, diaphanous pantied bottom;
Halcyon mist, saporous wine — compliance of the will,
Freed fires wander,
Pliable rind, twin plums dripping,
Abject confession, dispatching doubt
In tendered senses,
Pivotal tree, lavender Jacaranda holds the key,
Unfurled, cindered vulnerability.

Half-denuded skin invites confessional savor
Acutely bubbled rear, fleshly furnished denim;
Sultry visit, San Ramon Valley in the fall,
Strewed limbs splendid, flowing filmy;
Imagination yields—
Bursting silk congealed
Across deft thighs, ambrosial thong draping ankles,
Grazing ascension, the curvaceous trajectory
Nose inflamed with fragrance,
Inhaling, climb of acquiescence,
The ****** weal, amid the globed fruit,
Focal intention — ploughed lance thrusting,
Absconding, the ancillary perfume of essence.

Perceiving avid validation,
Swimmingly, amid the monstrous gaze.
  
Humid skies simper dank, set swell the incense of Eros,
Surge of poetry engorged
The flame levened shaft,
Nimble ******* flounce, spill the harboring mouth;
Moist hands merging, unfettered,
Weave in supplication,
Vicinity voicing, enmeshed diversion;
Supple and spherical behind
Posterior arch, milky-skin against the lip—
Ripeness jostling their complacency;
Lapped the mooring, ridden decisively;
Recapitulating— spumed forth, bellied over hips warmth.
Abandon the dirge of self-pity
Late under ego’s trance.
  
Part Three
Present Tenses

Tempting trespass across sacred gardens,
Flowering, scandal set luminous: attachment—
Consensual, their corresponsive fear;
Protean manifestations— evocative, perpetual
Unutterable contention in a fictive resolve,
Deliberating the merits of their widely disparate tastes in coffee,
Amorously touring wine, let’s drowse through the gnarled vine.
Sundry deficiencies pale, once contrasted;
The beatific vision—
Material substance unaccompanied,
Imperceptible, tear-streamed cheeks in synch,
Ventral kiss, peak of carnal perfection,
Reminiscence— flesh violent with Love.

Fiction knew to meander the innominate rift,
A tincture of irony soften misdeeds
Immense as the sea.
Insolvent beast stippled with sapience—
Unmasked, the fabric of delusion;
Dependence smothering the disciplined heart
Resentment put up for release.

Waste of residual years
Fate’s apportion, scars bleakly observed;
Chastened by heartache, engulfing fervor
Too faint to recapture.
Vague glimpses dry—
Hypervigilant his defenses,
Veritable suspensions, embers lit linger;
Slender walls of solidity, the horizoned self,
Faith and reason in concert — stone levels of elucidation.

Fractured bones of distance, emanate a rigid salience,
Another ponderous night of absence—
Lingering, cauldron of dearth as indifference ushers,
The quotidian coil of contrition.
Tearful pallor, sequestered —ciphering time and solitude;
The unkissed mouth, his restive brow;
Suspend in the approximate span.
                      
After Lucid alliterations are spoken
Devoid of her face, his lover’s nudge—
The man nurtures his hurt.
Anxious as seldom unscarred,  
Venus’s susurrations,
In present tenses,
Kissed by her serenades of integration—
Notwithstanding metaphysic intrusion,
No chain stays unbroken,
Postponed drifts of deferment left unspoken,
Reverberations of amor.

© 2013 W. S. Warner

If you wanna get a good look
Here is the number... 666 oh 123
Im a joker, man, really. Its all a mind game,
So let us recalibrate the beat.

A man in a bar wound up in a storm
Where he felt nothing could go wrong
But any minute now we will generate a sound
That will keep the lonely man strung along.
Hes eating his own insides, acid diethylamide
Running from the bunkers into sands
Where the men who fire against him innovate a system
To blow him sky high into a fan.
It was always just a joke,  they tied him another rope
So they could keep his heartache in a single cell
No lights and no wires, the squealing of tires
Echoing in his head like bats of hell.
When his heart becomes released, hes cured of a disease
That only the lonely men in the world will know
And he can keep it in a jar, at the top of his tower
So he can prove it was never just for show.

If you wanna get a good look
Here is the number... 666 oh 123
Im a joker, man, really. Its all a mind game,
So let us recalibrate the beat.
A friend of mine wanted to have this one,
And I gave him a warning from the heart
They howl like hyenas and they drain out the sun,
They were raised this way from the start!

Walking from a hotel, escaping from a padded cell
A woman's eyes adjust to the sun,
She turns to a rainbow over a concrete meadow
And she proceeds, repeatedly to run.
A siren sounds and the pigs fly down
And loudly beat her into the ground
But when the people scream for sobriety,
They send in the special ops team.
She is rolled into the ER, her mind is spilling over
Her entrails, for halls, on the floor.
When the nurse comes out, she kicks and shouts
Because needles make her feel like a *****.
The man sits beside her, a wall is his divider
But his voice screams for him to be resumed
His will is awakened, the loathing is shaken,
And the wall, by his hatred is consumed.

Infraction distraction! A chemical reaction!
A busted heart writhing from a soul unspoken
Attacking the black team, the voices clashing
The bodies piling up and Pandora's  box is opened.
Ripping the cords from her face with his 4word letter grace
He sweeps her off the bed and hangs them by the head
Collides with a building with gold-tooth fillings
Blacksmith, locksmith, shadows in the distance
He turns into a red raw onion on its hind legs
Trying to jump a distance that he cant place
He reaches for a killer bee and instead holds ***
And the birds head changes to a woman's face.
He lingers for a second until the shadows blink
Then he runs into a river to stop and sink
It was there he designed a building of its own kind
Where the woman and him practice witchcraft and sleep.

If you wanna get a good look
Here is the number... 666 oh 123
Im a joker, man, really. Its all a mind game,
So let us recalibrate the beat.
A friend of mine wanted to have this one,
And I gave him a warning from the heart
They howl like hyenas and they drain out the sun,
They were raised this way from the start!

Desires and dreams suffocating from the multitude of tightened nooses
Liars yell screams awaiting actions to ebb and let flow my creative juices
Fires up streams sinking ships and their teams burning all of their uses
Flyers and schemes left in the wake with the sinking list of all the excuses

Before you let go, you better recalibrate your aim
Who do you know, if you miss, can take the blame
Confront status quo, hide from your parent's shame
A stunt, try an grow, from a wildfire's blazing flame

Comme si comme sa
The grey area that I breathe
A snow print of a paw
Life's Purpose I must seethe

Lying out somewhere in the far off distance
Dying slow and numb with little resistance
Eyeing thee mortal setting sun's persistence
Vying for a final answer to human's existence

An open letter to my mothers boyfriend,

When you blame millennials for the current state of our nation, you are disregarding the environment we've learn to survive in. Cookies hanging over our heads, blindly following the sound of people celebrating empty dreams. Dreams recited by our fathers.  I am not trying to place blame on you, as I know you too have been infected by these unspoken rules. You too had a cookie hanging over your head. But I want you to know that our cookies just look different. As time passes recipes’ recalibrate and cookies transform. And I feel for you, maybe you’re still chasing the cookie, maybe it’s getting harder to chase, or maybe you ate the cookie and still felt hungry. But if we really want to have this conversation, about the current state of our nation, I’m gonna need for you to stop talking about cell phones and 20 something year olds and start talking about where these cookies came from!

epitomize
and optimize
imitate
and recalibrate
streamline
and recombine
the evolutionary "line"

fireflies  
and theorize
circulate
and gyrate
guideline
and divine
the galaxy and the stars

moonrise
and clockwise
death rate
and procreate
sunshine
and lifeline
laws of nature are defined

maximize
and re-size
penetrate
and migrate
bloodline
and decline
the story of our world

allies
and despise
prostate
and dictate
enshrine
and benign
generations throughout time

endings
and beginnings
losing
and winnings
and everything
in between
is what we find

I am capable
Of anything and everything
And exceeding expectations

I will blow you
Out of the water
With my delivery and presentation

Wow people
Of every place
Space
and Imagination

Open doors to galaxies
That will recalibrate
Your mental foundation

Fill you with love
5th dimensional
Fixation.

if it started in the basement where do we end up?

when my lips press up questions with my hands far down below
what do I want from you?
new love got noticed today

re-calibrate and judge again
is there anything we've fought for?
the text behind my fingers might be lying but my lips for sure are not.
holding hands doesn't count when your mouth is facing the other way

back at home shallow hands we've hung up at the door
and duct-taped truth gagged in the den
if it's in the open, it shouldn't have to be said
but you just could be blind? or is your mouth not quite on straight?
like mine.

re-calibrate and judge again
is there anything we've fought for?
the text behind my fingers might be lying but my lips for sure are not.
holding hands doesn't count when your mouth is facing the other way

please try again with this vending machine of love
I wont take your crumpled-for-granted dollar no more
take me out to city streets
or i'll just go alone
and perhaps text you when i'm home

re-calibrate and judge again
is there anything we've fought for?
the text behind my fingers might be lying but my lips for sure are not.
holding hands doesn't count when your mouth is facing the other way

reading lines from a script in goodnights and hello's and daring daring not to say
when I didn't always mean it
it goes unspoken face to face
what do you hear between us?
I think I'm going deaf

re-calibrate and judge again
is there anything we've fought for?
re-calibrate and judge again
is there anything we've fought for?

holding hands doesn't count when my mouth is facing the other way pressed against somebody else's.
I hope you notice before I have to say.

Let's take a second
Recalibrate this conversation
You do know, right
That I am the hinge on this life
I don't want praise
Or a pat on the back
But even hinges need WD-40
From time to time.
**** it,
I need to be greased constantly
I'm needy in that way
(Therapy helps)
But look into my day-to-day:
On my left is the Wall,
My root and my reason
My family (my girls).
The Wall is permanent, important
(Those words don't do it justice)
On me it relies on necessities of life.
For that Wall, I hold the Door.
The Door on the right,
Replaceable, not solid,
It's a means (to an end)
That Door is temporary, minute
(Compared to the house)
And on me it rests, day in and day out.
On ME it rests
I  am the only hinge
The other?
We won't talk about him
But hinges only have two hands, you see
One on the wall, one on the door
I have no hands that are free
Hinges are fierce little *******
That are good at their jobs
But they age all the same

So *******.

Here’s to scrumptious nights.
cats and boots and cats and boots
We went clubbing last night, to recalibrate
ourselves on the dance floor, where magic happens.
cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots
To focus on sensory experiences, the beat,
and share in the fun and tangible sense of freedom.
cats and boots and cats and boots
Feel the wave, show your energy, be the wave
cats and boots and cats and boots
be disheveled, swing your hair like a weapon
abandon, silly, self-protecting vanities
cats and boots and cats and boots
flashing lights on dancing figures
make it all seem slo-mo and extreme.
cats and boots and cats and boots
It’s been too long since we’ve done it like this.
Work-worn, I’d lost my lucidity and stumbled badly on a quiz.
Lisa pushed my books onto the floor, declaring, “Get UP, we’re grabbing some bliss.”
cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots
failure has a reality, a gravity and pull all the more shocking in relief.
I’d started out the evening gloomy and ashamed - a figure of regret -
but I’m better now, buoyed and recharged and soon I’ll have a plan - hopefully.
cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots
There was a guy there, on the dance floor, who looked like a young Leonardo DiCaprio.
We made eye contact, nodding and smiling at each other in motion.
We gyrated, together, sort of, for a second, in our separate orbits - no conversation
I just watched him for a moment or two, sexualizing him like eye candy.
Just seeing him was sensual fun and I wondered what he smelled like.
He had a gritty, sweaty, idealized beauty, like a dancing ‘David’
that no Michelangelo could ever capture in stiff granite sculpture.
The music ended - momentarily - we knew it would start up again
and we were there for it - til 1 or 2 am anyway - then it recranked.
cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots and..
Lisa grabbed my hand, jerking me onto the dance floor almost
before I could set down my drink. Eeek! “Slow Down!” I yelled,
but my complaint was lost in the din and my involuntary laugh.
cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots and..
.
.
Songs for this:
Dance To This (feat. Ariana Grande) by Troye Sivan
Good Time Girl (feat. Charlie Barker) by Sofi Tukker

I shut off my power and my phone in an attempt to recalibrate, which is why I haven’t been posting lately. I go for a two hour walk everyday after work, talk to weird people, as well as make friends with stray animals before going home and playing my guitar until sundown. I light some candles and sit next to my open window and read until the Coast2Coast show comes on my crank radio and I listen until I fall asleep. The cold shower in the morning takes some serious *****, but after defeating the cold shower I have noticed my productivity at work sky rockets, as nothing that I will face through out my day will require the will power that is required in facing cold water submersion first thing in the morning. I have been writing the old school way with a silver Cross pen in a sketch book my mother had bought me for my 18th birthday, and boy have I forgotten what a pain it is to do edits with pen and paper.

I was growing bitter, self destructive, and unappreciative, and I figure I needed to hit rock bottom to appreciate the little things again. Thus far it is working, and I am only two weeks in. I am shooting for October 1st before I turn the power on. The phone may come sooner, as my boss is *******. I am attempting to build my body, mind and spirit as a result of my looming feelings of forlorn that have been pressing in on me in an almost shout that I have mostly ignored the past couple of years, but the time of putting my instincts aside has ended. My ear is to the ground and my eyes are to the sky and once I am full of what these fill me with, I will speak of what I have found.  Be well friends, and see you soon.

O, you mountains
Fists of rock, jutting toward heaven
Your Picasso faces, so broad and strong
Pine and fir above prairie grass
Elk and moose and bear reigning superior
Such heights, such deep distances
You recalibrate for me, my size
I am lost in your immense trajectory up,up
And my breath is taken from me
With no regret
Blowing off your defiant peaks

I’m walking away from everything
That’s ****** me off
Or made me unhappy

I’m going to let myself lose control
talk to strangers, I don’t know
move to a foreign land
be back by Christmas, but who knows what then

I’m going to leave this place I know
pack up my things, let my baggage go
become a stranger to myself
Maybe return as someone else

I’m going to reinvent myself
be irresponsible with my wealth
find a new song to sing
get in a fight, hear myself scream

I need to recalibrate my soul
I need no one to make me whole
I’m going to make more time for me
make all my lists of dreams realities

I don’t need my head on straight
I’m twenty-one not thirty-eight
I’m allowed to fall apart
be stupid, follow my heart

Regret
sounds like
knees hitting carpet
faster than words can travel
through a cellphone receiver.
It looks like
a black left fender
on a brown Honda accord.
It feels like
boulders placed
between your joints.
It does not leave
until you pick it out
from between your teeth.
It is a filling meal
that leaves you unsatisfied.

You must recalibrate your scale,
convert the value of moments gone.

Wipe your shield clean,
and watch the road ahead.

Asphalt under your tires
can fill you to new depths.

And you can be light again.

On the surface, Hello Poetry is a haven: a digital campfire where voices gather to warm each other against the cold expanse of the internet. A place where the line between confession and creation often blurs, and where the act of writing is not performance, but survival.

But lately, the fire has grown too bright—artificially bright.

They call them suns—badges of appreciation, visible tokens of endorsement. A nice idea, right? Support a poet. Shine a spotlight. But as with all systems that monetize visibility, the spotlight becomes a searchlight—and it stops illuminating truth. It blinds us instead.

The Distortion of the Feed
Let’s be clear: this is not about sour grapes or petty envy. It’s about who gets seen, and why.

When you pay $15 for five suns, or receive them via subscription, you can choose to boost any work. Once sunned, this poem trends. And if you sun multiple works, the system staggers their rise—today, tomorrow, the next. It’s orderly. Predictable.

And utterly devastating to the organic ecosystem of the front page.

On days when these sunned poems stack high, young writers—often screaming silently through metaphors—are buried. Their work no longer rides the wave of genuine engagement. It gets eclipsed by well-polished pieces with patrons, not peers.

I scrolled today through endless sunshine, only to discover—way down below—the voices of kids trying to survive abuse. Strangers admitting they're scared to wake up. Teens reaching out through enjambment because they have no one else. And they were hidden. Flattened beneath an algorithm that rewards polish over pulse, polish over pain.

HePo Isn’t 911—But It’s a Lifeline
We can’t pretend that Hello Poetry is a substitute for emergency services. It’s not. But we also can’t pretend that this space doesn’t carry immense emotional gravity. For many—especially the young and unseen—it is the only place they’ve ever received an honest comment. An echo. A sign that their words matter.

When a trending system sidelines vulnerability in favor of vanity, it commits a subtle violence. It reinforces that unless your work is sunworthy, it isn’t worthy at all.

Let’s Not Confuse Curation with Censorship
This is not a call to cancel the sun system. This is a call to recalibrate it.

Let paid support elevate—but not suffocate. Let sunned poems shine—but not dominate. Let the front page reflect what it always claimed to: the soul of the community, not the size of its wallet.

We can love poetry and refuse to commodify visibility. We can cherish the bright voices without dimming the urgent ones.

Conclusion: A Platform of Conscience
Hello Poetry, if you are listening, understand this:

You’ve built something precious. Don’t let it rot under the weight of your own reward system. Make room for the cries. Make room for the wild, imperfect, confessional, gasping work. Because if we let only the sunned poems rise, we are choosing applause over advocacy.

And some of these poets?
They don’t need praise.
They need an ear to be heard.


Thank you for reading.

Re-post if you agree ❤️

paranoid eyes
run infinite eights
try to see the angles
in this tesselated state
look beyond the holographic
mind recalibrate
repeat the mantra
to the self
differentiate

i learned the hard way that love
doesn’t mean staring down the barrel
of a loaded gun,
telling me it’s his way or no way at all.
no one can ever make me
compromise my values,
not even the sweetest face (you),
not even the smoothest talker (you),
not even the gentlest touch (you).
i see you in every landscape,
every arrangement of orange leaves
on the autumn trees,
the snowfall on the tall mountainsides,
and i feel you in the hot sun
that beats down on my skin,
but i can’t keep dancing around
the words on my tongue,
the ones that keep trying to
pry open my lips, gasping for air,
begging to be set free.
no one can recalibrate my mind
to suit his needs, his wants.
we promised love to each other,
but even that isn’t enough for me
when my concerns, my beliefs,
aren’t second to none.

I ought to believe
That your heart is paralleled
With my veins that I look on to
Blood streaming you've cancelled

Things I look up to happen,
The plans I made carefully,
Destroying my inner senses
Without you knowing it internally.

My shattered belief
Never hassles me to the bore
Where you never drop an expectation
Frustrated like a kid in a toystore.

It's hard to act naturally
What else can I say
I must recalibrate my sensitivity
Oh, What a day.

With a buzzing chest I float into the abyss
Striving to recalibrate
Feeling the emptiness around me I regain my sense of meaningless
In the dark I don’t exist
No pressure
No expectations
No judgements
I feel total relief and utter bliss
I’ve abused this paradise in the past but not again
This time I will remain here forever

To all interested parties:
Be aware
My guilt button is out of order
Due to mismanagement
And over usage
It was burned up.
Please do not attempt
To resuscitate
Recalibrate
or commiserate
The loss
Empathy, compassion and gentle humor have agreed together to compensate.
For an unspecified time period
Joy and peace are their
Sunrise greeters and
Moonrise seaters
In this theatre of daily grace.

It's the start of a new year
Time to embrace a new direction
A new way of viewing things
A brighter and more positive perspective

First is to let go of the past
Because the land to be occupied ahead is vast
Time to consciously make decisions
And prevent weeds from your garden

It's not time to wait for people's approval or disapproval
Time to choose the seeds to plant and cultivate
The season to self-motivate
To use positive energy to irrigate

Love is an energy that we must propagate
A required force for us to elevate
When things appear blurry
Spend more time to meditate
Look within and recalibrate