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Pyrrha Aug 2018
I often ask myself why I spend so much time learning another language
Why do I obsess and stress over something by my own will?
What do I have to gain, why do I want to teach and translate this foreign tongue?

Yet every night I force new words into my mind
And it makes me feel so calm and distracted
All my fears and concerns fade away as I take this information into my brain
I see nothing but beauty in every character I write so much so that I often write in the wrong alphabet
To me it's the most perfect and beautiful script
It's like riding a bike for the first time everytime I translate in my mind
The culture and language has found its way into my heart

I've fallen in love with the language like you do a person
Slowly, then all at once
Without understanding at first but slowly uncoiling the wonderful beauty before my eyes
I've found my passion and my saviour all at once
There is power in words which spawn from language
Every new term I learn makes me feel just that much stronger
Enough to feel invincible
I've been self teaching Korean for a year and plan to become a translator and/or an english teacher in South Korea. Once I master Korean I plan to learn Japanese. Learning languages comes so naturally to me that it only took one day for me to memorise Hangul and from then on out I knew where my calling was. I'm also fluent in french and ASL.
Lawren Jun 2013
A calm and cool breeze
Passes through the leaves of the trees,
Persuading the branches to sway,
Like algae in a turbulent sea.
Without a cloud in the pale blue Arizona sky,
The sun radiates down-- hot and glaring.
It reflects off the shiny paint of the cars around me,
Illuminates the brown mountains in the distance.
And magnified through the thick lenses of my glasses,
It blinds my sensitive eyes.
The surrounding sempiternal desert
Is so clear and sharp,
That no one nor nothing can hide
(With the exception of the beings who can blend,
And despite my tiring efforts,
I am not one of them.)
The nearest Creosote bush
Eminates of the smell of water,
As it passes through a hose.
I am instantly transported back home
Where sand is replaced by grass and plants
That require regular watering to survive.
When I close my eyes I can see
The illusion of a waterfall, created by the uncoiling hose
As it ejects tepid water for us to traverse.
But upon unveiling my windows,
I allow the sandy landscape to penetrate into my soul
And I am brought back to the present
Where life subsists, illogically,
Through a dearth of water, and inordinate sun.
Jago Lantz Aug 2013
Warmth, it is the rising steam
Blowing against my lips
In clouds as thick as cream
I down it with timid sips
That numb my throat softly
Because the first cup is always costly

Release, it is the loosening of the soul
Uncoiling like a taught wire
Caught 'round the neck of a young foal
The bitter-sweet taste is a burning, liquid fire
But the feeling is contagious
There's no need to feel courageous

Desire, it's filled to the brim
Like a sea of flowers
Unwilling for their monthly trim
It churns within me, a growing power
That's too subdued to abuse
And too wonderful to refuse

Disappointment, it ends with the final drop
When the cup's tilted vertical
I realize it's time to stop
For my tongue will never reach the final hurtle
That mocks me from the shadowed curve
Making me think that it's too good to deserve

Rejoice, it's a teaspoon of honey
To ease the bitterness of the blessed brew
It clears the clouds and becomes quite sunny
So that I may offer some to you
Take this cup, and I swear you'll smile
For the unmistakable taste of honey-sweetened chamomile
Out of the poisonous East,
Over a continent of blight,
Like a maleficent Influence released
From the most squalid cellarage of hell,
The Wind-Fiend, the abominable--
The Hangman Wind that tortures temper and light--
Comes slouching, sullen and obscene,
******* the skirts of the embittered night;
And in a cloud unclean
Of excremental humours, roused to strife
By the operation of some ruinous change,
Wherever his evil mandate run and range,
Into a dire intensity of life,
A craftsman at his bench, he settles down
To the grim job of throttling London Town.

So, by a jealous lightlessness beset
That might have oppressed the dragons of old time
Crunching and groping in the abysmal slime,
A cave of cut-throat thoughts and villainous dreams,
Hag-rid and crying with cold and dirt and wet,
The afflicted City, prone from mark to mark
In shameful occultation, seems
A nightmare labyrinthine, dim and drifting,
With wavering gulfs and antic heights, and shifting,
Rent in the stuff of a material dark,
Wherein the lamplight, scattered and sick and pale,
Shows like the *****'s living blotch of bale:
Uncoiling monstrous into street on street
Paven with perils, teeming with mischance,
Where man and beast go blindfold and in dread,
Working with oaths and threats and faltering feet
Somewhither in the hideousness ahead;
Working through wicked airs and deadly dews
That make the laden robber grin askance
At the good places in his black romance,
And the poor, loitering harlot rather choose
Go pinched and pined to bed
Than lurk and shiver and curse her wretched way
From arch to arch, scouting some threepenny prey.

Forgot his dawns and far-flushed afterglows,
His green garlands and windy eyots forgot,
The old Father-River flows,
His watchfires cores of menace in the gloom,
As he came oozing from the Pit, and bore,
Sunk in his filthily transfigured sides,
Shoals of dishonoured dead to tumble and rot
In the squalor of the universal shore:
His voices sounding through the gruesome air
As from the Ferry where the Boat of Doom
With her blaspheming cargo reels and rides:
The while his children, the brave ships,
No more adventurous and fair,
Nor tripping it light of heel as home-bound brides,
But infamously enchanted,
Huddle together in the foul eclipse,
Or feel their course by inches desperately,
As through a tangle of alleys ******-haunted,
From sinister reach to reach out--out--to sea.

And Death the while--
Death with his well-worn, lean, professional smile,
Death in his threadbare working trim--
Comes to your bedside, unannounced and bland,
And with expert, inevitable hand
Feels at your windpipe, fingers you in the lung,
Or flicks the clot well into the labouring heart:
Thus signifying unto old and young,
However hard of mouth or wild of whim,
'Tis time--'tis time by his ancient watch--to part
From books and women and talk and drink and art.
And you go humbly after him
To a mean suburban lodging:  on the way
To what or where
Not Death, who is old and very wise, can say:
And you--how should you care
So long as, unreclaimed of hell,
The Wind-Fiend, the insufferable,
Thus vicious and thus patient, sits him down
To the black job of burking London Town?
Under a stagnant sky,
Gloom out of gloom uncoiling into gloom,
The River, jaded and forlorn,
Welters and wanders wearily--wretchedly--on;
Yet in and out among the ribs
Of the old skeleton bridge, as in the piles
Of some dead lake-built city, full of skulls,
Worm-worn, rat-riddled, mouldy with memories,
Lingers to babble to a broken tune
(Once, O, the unvoiced music of my heart!)
So melancholy a soliloquy
It sounds as it might tell
The secret of the unending grief-in-grain,
The terror of Time and Change and Death,
That wastes this floating, transitory world.

What of the incantation
That forced the huddled shapes on yonder shore
To take and wear the night
Like a material majesty?
That touched the shafts of wavering fire
About this miserable welter and wash--
(River, O River of Journeys, River of Dreams!)--
Into long, shining signals from the panes
Of an enchanted pleasure-house,
Where life and life might live life lost in life
For ever and evermore?

O Death!  O Change!  O Time!
Without you, O, the insuperable eyes
Of these poor Might-Have-Beens,
These fatuous, ineffectual Yesterdays!
Valsa George Jun 2017
From here and there
I hear him speak
His voice, falling in mild whispers
But he always plays hide n’ seek

At times he speaks loud n’ clear
Sometimes so harsh and stern
How he denies my wild longings
With a stubborn ‘Yes’ or ‘No’

What magic and mystery in him stored
I am at a loss to gauge
Amid the shards of my broken sleep
I often struggle to decipher his mysterious codes

I sought after him ever and ever
Down the nights and through the days
Taking him to be one from the dead,
I searched him through avenues dark

Along aisles of the dead lain in rows
And in the hallways of fame
But he eluded me like a mysterious sprite
Prancing around and hiding about

When I give up my search after him
He shouts and whistles amid the din
And I see faint truths suddenly uncoiling
Forming in me a clearer perspective of life

At the end of my incessant search
I chanced to meet him within my own self
Peering into my depths, I saw him, his face veiled
And a balance held obliquely in his hands

Lifting the veil from his countenance
I saw him clear, clear as in a mirror
Someone with such commanding air
And stern with an impassive demeanor

In the still pool of humid silence
I heard him introduce himself
His sound ringing so distinct and clear
Leaving echoes in the hall of stillness

“I am CON- SCI-ENCE,
Your alter ego
Listen to me, you shall not stray’’!
Largo e mesto

Out of the poisonous East,
Over a continent of blight,
Like a maleficent Influence released
From the most squalid cellerage of hell,
The Wind-Fiend, the abominable--
The Hangman Wind that tortures temper and light--
Comes slouching, sullen and obscene,
******* the skirts of the embittered night;
And in a cloud unclean
Of excremental humours, roused to strife
By the operation of some ruinous change,
Wherever his evil mandate run and range,
Into a dire intensity of life,
A craftsman at his bench, he settles down
To the grim job of throttling London Town.

So, by a jealous lightlessness beset
That might have oppressed the dragons of old time
Crunching and groping in the abysmal slime,
A cave of cut-throat thoughts and villainous dreams,
Hag-rid and crying with cold and dirt and wet,
The afflicted City. prone from mark to mark
In shameful occultation, seems
A nightmare labryrinthine, dim and drifting,
With wavering gulfs and antic heights, and shifting,
Rent in the stuff of a material dark,
Wherein the lamplight, scattered and sick and pale,
Shows like the *****'s living blotch of bale:
Uncoiling monstrous into street on street
Paven with perils, teeming with mischance,
Where man and beast go blindfold and in dread,
Working with oaths and threats and faltering feet
Somewhither in the hideousness ahead;
Working through wicked airs and deadly dews
That make the laden robber grin askance
At the good places in his black romance,
And the poor, loitering harlot rather choose
Go pinched and pined to bed
Than lurk and shiver and curse her wretched way
From arch to arch, scouting some threepenny prey.

Forgot his dawns and far-flushed afterglows,
His green garlands and windy eyots forgot,
The old Father-River flows,
His watchfires cores of menace in the gloom,
Sunk in his filthily transfigured sides,
Shoals of dishonoured dead to tumble and rot
In the squalor of the universal shore:
His voices sounding through the gruesome air
As from the Ferry where the Boat of Doom
With her blaspheming cargo reels and rides:
The while his children, the brave ships,
No more adventurous and fair,
Nor tripping it light of heel as home-bound brides,
But infamously enchanted,
Huddle together in the foul eclipse,
Or feel their course by inches desperately,
As through a tangle of alleys ******-haunted,
From sinister reach to reach out -- out -- to sea.

And Death the while --
Death with his well-worn, lean, professional smile,
Death in his threadbare working trim--
And with expert, inevitable hand
Feels at your windpipe, fingers you in the lung,
Or flicks the clot well into the labouring heart:
Thus signifying unto old and young,
However hard of mouth or wild of whim,
'Tis time -- 'tis time by his ancient watch -- to part
From books and women and talk and drink and art.
And you go humbly after him
To a mean suburban lodging: on the way
To what or where
Not Death, who is old and very wise, can say:
And you -- how should you care
So long as, unreclaimed of hell,
The Wind-Fiend, the insufferable,
Thus vicious and thus patient, sits him down
To the black job of burking London Town?
SG Holter Jun 2014
Selfless service.
Ego-less existence. Robes

Unwearable to mortal
Men, yet their colours are

Worth adopting onto
One's own everyday

Fatigues. I sit with one eye
Closed wherever I am, wondering

Whether this snake uncoiling
Within me is Kundalini awakening

To tell me that Dio's Stand Up
And Shout is not a mantra,

Or just some sense of knowing
That I have not a single reason to

Smile. Until I
Smile.
Jess Dutton Mar 2015
She stops before the glimmering mirror,
falters and prepares.
Gangly and awkward,
Legs unfolding, leaning forward
she drinks.

A slender skyscraper gallops,
sashaying.

A wet bud uncurls and blooms.
Winding, uncoiling, plucks a leaf.

Enchanting daughter of heights:
Embraced by the clouds,
Smooching the stars.

Towering sky-queen, ossicones her russet crown.
Bronzed cloak, auburn jewels.

From protuberant knees to shadowy lashes,
a lofty leader,
willowy wanderer.
Chris D Aechtner Nov 2021
Sun Tzu realized that razing an enemy to the ground can lead to long-term negative results for Empire, especially depending on that which fills the vacuum left behind. That can be observed in contemporary times with ISIS having filled the vacuum left behind in Iraq and Syria.

When showing too much presence in outlying territory that had been left alone as a neutral buffer between two opposing Dynasties, that can prompt the other to become nervous enough to attempt to mitigate an issue that it regards as a possible growing threat.

Also, regardless of location, imposing too much open hostility upon an enemy can eventually lead to the enemy becoming emboldened enough to rebel against the openly oppressive Empire. When imposing overt tyranny upon an outlying territory in what might appear as an immediately successful operation, that can lead to using too many resources to maintain that position in that way. The potential of troops can be lost when stationed as a permanent standing army in an area located far away from applicable future need; that holds true regardless of available technological advancements in transportation—from defended shipping canals and heavy calvary, to cargo planes and aircraft carriers.

Those are a few examples of possible problematic logistics when attempting to assimilate an enemy.

Within his diabolical brilliance, Sun Tzu expanded one of the main prongs in the “Three Pronged Approach”, injected the heavy metals of dark arts psychology into something that already had a foundation of psychology: Enforce will upon the enemy without the enemy realizing it, to the point that the enemy will help you to accomplish goals against itself, relishing in the effort with a sense of duty.  Subsequent experimentation led to permanently changing the face of warfare overall. Ever since, successful (subjective, depends on perspective) Empire, empires, nations, governments, and corporations use the tactic.

The Trident-Tongue of Perpetual Psychological Cultural Warfare:

The Target: Village surrounded with forest: society: a clearing in the woods:

Infiltrate the village as a messenger who bears warning of a powerful, dangerous enemy making its way towards the outlying territory where the target village is located. Sow fear. When enough villagers are afraid, offer protection against the “common enemy”. That protection is 1/10 of the resources necessary for an open, direct enforcement of will. Explain that the cure, the guardians, require lodging, food, and other basic needs as small payment for services rendered. Use mindgames on reluctant villagers.

When the village agrees, and your presence becomes common place—"normalized”—begin to plant ideas in the villagers, and that includes sowing doubt on your presence. The villagers begin to divide themselves into opposing groups against each other. One group believes that there isn't an approaching enemy, another group calls that group selfish, as going against the betterment of the whole. Another group suddenly believes that it isn't good to eat something that their ancestors had eaten for centuries. In the ensuing chaos, poison some of the village children. There are many fairy tales that include broken families, lost children, and attempts made to poison and eat children. Poisoning/destroying eggs in nests is a way to cull goose populations.

Once the enemy villagers are too broken to properly run the village, announce that the invading force has been spotted in a nearby valley, and that the villagers need to hide in the forest surrounding the village. There are bamboo enclosures waiting in the forest. Explain that the enclosures will offer defense to the villagers. After the villagers enter the enclosures, lock the villagers in the enclosures, and begin to ridicule the villagers for having fallen for the trap. Mock the villagers, spit on the villagers, laugh at the villagers. Remove pre-selected villagers from the bamboo enclosures, **** and ****** the targets in front of their caged families and friends. Have another group that consists of individuals sporting insignia, weapons, and armour that differ from the first group, pretend to scare off the first group. Release the villagers from their enclosures. Explain to the villagers that their former captors lied over there being an encroaching invading force in order to trick the villagers into the enclosures, and that you are willing to protect them against their former captors. Overjoyed, without being prompted to do so, the villagers offer much more payment than before for services rendered, so much so, that you 'sell' their own products back to them.

The villagers believe that their gods sent Sun Tzu's death knights in shining armour to them in an act of divine deliverance.
The villagers mindlessly follow and parrot every command and slogan issued forth from their supposed protectors.
The villagers don't remember village life prior to having been enslaved by their divine shepherds. The stages of demoralization, dehumanization, destabilization, crisis, crisis mitigation, and normalization have been completed. The villagers have burned the bowls in their skulls, are empty jugheads to fill with idea-petals of poverty, subservience, sickness, and death.

1/10 the amount of usual resources were used to secure the area in a sustainable manner. There weren't valuable troops lost in battle. Weapons and armour didn't need to be mended and retooled. Empire doesn't need to worry over revolt from the villagers, and the village works for Empire. When there is need to retool or replace weapons and armour, the village blacksmith does so in the belief that he is helping to protect the village against a common enemy.

The enemy villagers are injected with a new passion for a while, but break again under the strain of hyper-conflict that perpetual psychological cultural warfare causes in an infected individual. Use the good cop/bad cop psychology (the template and blueprint for contemporary politics and political systems) in various ways until Empire inevitably begins to devour itself. When Empire devours itself, the outlying provinces are the first to go as Empire implodes to protect its core. At that point, Big Brother had been selling the village's goods to caravans to spread the goods throughout neighbouring provinces. The wealthier that Empire becomes, the more that the consistently poorer target villagers offer to Empire: A tell-tale sign of an incoming Great Reset uncoiling from off the horizon, slithering down into valley basins filled with current moments.

Gaslight the villagers, blame and shame them for everything, squeeze them to their last guilt-drop before setting the villagers ablaze.


One of the Great Deceptions within the Grand Illusion is the delusion that there is constant need of the worker. A worker is useful in various ways in different seasons of bloom and wither. Within universal change, there are constants: The peasant doesn't bow to the King without bowing to the Queen before being ground into grain for winter stores, just as the worker honeybee drones are cast from the hive during winter—relish their death with a sense of duty fulfilled on the frost as snowflakes kiss their wings.

The broken villagers are useless to Empire, husks of their former selves. In the scenario of a neighbouring Dynasty approaching to feed in death knell, lock the villagers in their homes, and set them ablaze as decoy-beacons in the valley for the encroaching Dynasty.

The burning village is located in a bowl of ash surrounded in a steep, jagged-toothed mountain range. As the enemy Dynasty descends into the valley, you head westerly towards the third largest bastion in Empire's outer rings of defense.


Sun Tzu didn't come up with the concept on his own:

He retooled a trident that he found leaning against a scorched bamboo enclosure located in a long-forgotten forest.

                                                        ­     11 12 2021
I understand that it isn't a poem.
Deep Oct 2018
Occasionally, I seek Sanctuary
In a place where the Life Force glows.
No rush, no clock faces; with time just a gentle flow in space,
Time to nurture, heal and grow,
In a place where the Life Force glows.

Occasionally, I seek Sanctuary
In a place where I lose my ego.
Listening to make my body loose,
Releasing feelings, space for growth,
Uncoiling my body and energising my core,
Brings awareness to tenseness that serves me no more.

In a community, I seek Sanctuary
Where gentle open people flow,
Authentic, selfless, caring folk with hearts as precious as gold.
Shaking off trauma and sharing universal truths,
Clearing our monkey brains ancestoral wounds.
Vibrationally protected.  And intensely connected.
In a place where the Life Force glows.
Holly Salvatore Apr 2014
The world is raw
And reeling
You are kneeling
On the cold side of the
Road pulling grass out of her
Downy fur feeling the still-
warm blood soak into the
Knees of your skirt and
You are feeling the hurt of
Intestines that are
Not your own Ropy, Uncoiling,
Stretched like homecoming banners yet
Homeless in the dirt
Your lips are bitten
Raw in the fury of the heartache
And your head is
Reeling drunk and there are mudslides
Rolling from your eyes taking your mascara,
Motherhood with them
And pooling at the bottom of your chin
Dissipating in drips
Her blue eyes rest like
Heavy-lidded sea glass and you
Remember a time when they rolled
Like waves full of new worlds
And you choke on the past
And you choke on her fur
You feel the crush of a
Starched and polished night
Falling fast
And you choke on the headlights as they pass
On down the highway
And you fall asleep holding her hoping
Your body will be enough to bless and
Keep her warm Hoping that your
Breath will be infectious as a cold
Until jarring hands pull you out of
Highway grass and flashing lights
Drive you back down the road
And you lay her body in the yard
On a red blanket
Soft fleece like blood and loose guts
You're alone now and you lay your body in the
Seeds, the pool of blanket
And you fall asleep holding her Whispering
Pleasedon'tbedeadPleasedon'tbedeadPleasedon'tbedead
­Like a stuck record

God writes "No." inside your swollen eyelids
With a ( . ) it's final
**Pause for breath
Tim Knight Sep 2013
Five children, a sixth on the way,
the eldest around 7,
the others barely walking.

The Dad looks like a Kevin,
heavy arms bringing his shoulders down
to the top of his daughter’s head,
he feeds and is fed on
nothing but steak, pan fried and
broiled
for succulent juices to run down his shirt
uncoiling and picking up the pace
from face to stomach, a slight overhang
so his belt never sees the light.

The Mum stays quiet,
a Kate or Collette,
but she says nothing,
just stands there carrying his sixth baby
keeping it away from the narrow traffic to the side of her.

Five children, a sixth on the way,
the eldest around 7,
all waiting to start another academic year.
from coffeeshoppoems.com -  a place for no-nonsense poetry
it's too boring to be simply up to no good
vanilla skin and ashen lips, shaking hands
sly, slender nostrils that started drip wine again
convinced she's not a person without him

when she laughs that cool laugh
these straight lines that keep her
coiled and uncoiling again
she smells like absolut and lust, cheap perfume
H W Erellson Jul 2015
Son
My boy...
You were going to grow up strong
in the dust of the village;
you'd nurture the weak wherever they'd lie forlorn;
you'd make life, in your love's belly,
in the soil,
in the lined smiles and creasing eyes
of young through old.
You'd ***** the land, modest, humble;
seeing the light of life for what it is,
taking & giving.
Sometimes you have to take- but you always give.
Life is unfair, but you would've broken your back
heaving the scales into balance...
Except you never will, my boy,
my blood, my name,
pale and silent,
uncoiling from your mother.
I held you in my arms, feeling in them the exhaustion, the gift of fathers, mothers, uncles, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters...
In your death I realised your not-life,
my boy. My love. My son.
Nina Messina Apr 2014
There is an ever growing forest within my chest, viridescent canopies endlessly reaching towards powder blue skies like hands extended upwards in prayer
Vividly mesmerizing flowers of imagination and life bloom in scattered unmarked paths for meandering souls
Sadness flows in endless fountains pouring forth rapidly rushing streams of velvet indigo and starlight
Crumbling riverbanks signal the beginnings of tentative doubts
I’ve become aware of the weight of heavy shackles curling around my wrists like thick vines and ivy twisting over old bricks
Nature reclaiming my insides, society disdaining and threatening to capture and drag me beneath the underbrush
I feel the unmistakable pang of hopelessness nesting its thorns just below my ribcage, etching itself into my skin like stonemasons carving their legacy into mountain faces
My body is sacred ground, a temple of an apathetic deity who’s staked ownership over the emotions that run deep like ocean currents in my veins
My heart pumps opalescent despair, washing up on the shores like waves on new sands of lands I’ve yet to see
My forest lays on an island within the bermuda triangle, unreachable by sea or sky
My emotions act as geomagnetic pulses and methane vents to  confuse your aeronautical and sea faring instruments,  causing your vessels to come crashing down and sinking into the vast expanse of rolling royal blue unknown
I exist for the sole purpose of straining inspiration and failing aspirations
Those inky black buds slowly unfurling in the core of my being, remnants giving way to wilting foliage, petals listless at my feet, eroding with the will of misery and time with vibrant colors burning to ashen corpses
With my lips I inspire hope, yet my own lack thereof hollows me out like rotting jack o lanterns
with light flickering despondently through gaping hole, my eyes, liquid light vaguely sauntering downwards, softly dripping into my hopeful reserves like torrential rain
Drumming like the thrumming of my rushing blood in my ears and the powerful thunder of waterfalls cascading in the distance, returning to earth from their perpetual perch atop towering mountains
A jungle of my own endless shame carves me like a sculpture, eroding me like oceans and cliff faces over thousands of years, with fear uncoiling like deep blue carpets of jagged glass running like rivers, squeezes the paralyzing uncertainty into my blood like an injection. Turmoil joins self loathing, they loom above like my own personal berlin wall, disappearing into the white clouds composed of nervousness and doubt, separation from all I long to aspire to on the other side
Jonny Angel Dec 2013
Thai smoke swirled,
uncoiling snakes
reaching into Heaven,
lungs exploding,
ecstasy released.

Harmony we found,
us herbal warriors,
brilliant,
enlightened smiles,
high-fives all around.

We sped in slow motion
across the emerald sea,
only to be stopped
by a jailbreak
blaring
so loudly
on FM radio.

It was silly,
us on the bridge,
******,
bewildered,
looking around
as others drove by
sober.

We laughed till
our buzz blew away
with the fading traffic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMFYs3gfgis
I love Thin Lizzy...."Jailbreak" is classic!
Minal Govind Mar 2016
Eyes wide open,
mind tightly shut,
we play victims to the postman
slotting news and letters
where little light filters through,
only as he sees fit.

Grotesque, gross manufacturers
spewing out page after page after page
of page three scandals -
of rich brats waxing lyrical,
American hip-hop DUIs,
fat cats cat-fighting.

Media
breast-feeds her gullible men
and milks the misfortunes.

We are part of the orchestra -
synchronised puppets looking to our
Master
to tell us
how
to read the notes.

Outside
there are flimsy flyers
advertising freedom
that have morphed into paper-planes,
but are impenetrable of ignorant masses,
flitting around the heads of the blind -
like cartoon characters after
being beaten up by
fists.

It is injustice.
Peel the scales from your eyes
and open the flood-gates, let forth the criticism!

Ask why an American singer's ten minute jail sentence
is more important than an Afghan girl's sentencing to be gang-*****.
Ask who the ten percent of the South African population are that receive sixty percent of our gross national income and how to alter that socio-economic gap.
Ask what is to become of learners who pass with thirty percent and if that is even possible when books aren't being delivered to schools.
Ask where one can find manifestos instead of accusations from each political party.

Do not let them dictate
your truths as
CAPITALISED LETTERS
with no urgency.
Do not let them confine
your insight to the ink on a page.

We are worth more than glossy sensationalism.
We are worthy of urgent honesty, transparency and enlightenment -
herein lies true freedom.

The liberation of the mind.
The uncoiling fist of a freedom fighter revealing the truth held within.

Amandla awethu.
JL Dec 2015
Meg
Shes next
the one
The Bait dangled in my face
Followed her from Beetle's to Market St.
She stopped at the state liquor agent
Her reflection in the bottles
Strange and obtuse
I trail in her shadow
As she hits the main drag
She's taking potshots from the brown bag
Pitch black dress and a red purse
Looks like she just woke up
In the back of a hearse
Cunning
Taking to the street backs
Like a cat to the fence
Through the ghetto directing traffic with her hips
Her pheromone trail has me licking my lips
In the gaslamps I can make the outlines
Of her unfinished tattoos
The naked torso
the bicep
Weeping willow

I gave her a million chances
But she never answered the phone
Galvanized by a single conversation
Eyes
An itch on the frontal lobe

A fire in my chest her screams act like billows
Steel grip on the nape of porcelain
Anaconda uncoiling from the ****
Naked
I stand above her
Lying all blue lipped against white sheets
Gently
I pose and photograph her
This one's a keeper
They say I hate women
Nothing could be further from the truth
CharlesC May 2013
This name
she gave
to that ego
we know
and don't know..
Out of humility
the self ITSELF
declares..
a simple entrance
but never alone..
accompanying is
a serpentine
uncoiling
some large and
some small..
our life chore
is recognition
keeping our Eye
on these our
slithering friends..
and knowing
no matter how
skinny they
don't disappear..
and this more:
their fond wish
merely to grow..
Thanks to Nancy H
snake handler extraordinaire
One Simple Voice
retreat
May 18, 2013
PK Wakefield Feb 2013
which utters coolly out of totally sleep tingling
the unclosing voice of Summer
an enormous prism of kissing waits in sweat
and lakes about the necks
of mountains where the uncoiling bodies are
hard in skin of gold
and nothing hurts

and nothing's old
Ivy Swolf Jun 2015
Pour a tragedy into
my hand and allow the
novelty to drench my fingers
and seep my skin. I'm
jealous of my age yesterday
and the person
who I might be tomorrow.
What a baffling existence we lead every
morning after the awe of
the sunrise
has dissipated.

When
the world outside my
window looks like a charcoal smudge
on the back of my fist, I think
of the uncoiling stillness bleeding
in and out of me with each breath. I'm wholeheartedly
in love with
thoughtless first times, but
I'd rather burn a bad first
draft and recklessly risk scorching
my fingers
instead.

I burn my tongue on coffee every
morning and shiver myself to sleep.
But one thing I learned today
is that a colorless existence is normal
for most people
until you have the courage
to spill a little blood
and believe that red is
the most beautiful color.
wow this seems so unconnected, but that's just how i've been feeling lately. like an outsider in my own skin living through days i cannot fully claim as my own, behaving foreignly to people whom i cannot fully connect to in one capacity or another. i've just been feeling very very strange and i hope this poem reflects that in a way.
Amber S Apr 2012
i want to eat the stars up.
munch on the shine, lick the twinkle off my fingers.
no direction now.
unwinding. uncoiling. unraveling.
one centimeter in front is black as coal.
one step and everything evaporates.
one blink and the stars return in haste.
one star giggles towards me with sharp soprano
she leaves. she leaves.

darkness, you old fiend you.
your teeth are far too large,
your eyes far too devious.
you will devour me.

twinkling star, shrill spirit.
sprinkling. spoils solely on all but the unwanted.
wish i knew. wish i knew.
where my mind was.
wish i knew. wish i knew.
what his heart looks like on the inside.

stars, twinkle. twinkle away.
i'll be here. i have nowhere.
i am no one.
Onoma May 2017
Carted off to who-hears paths
doubly deep of our weathers.
Keeping armfuls of guts from
spilling, un-wed worms uncoiling
for their native soils.
Saying loudly our slippery peaces...
to break with surface light.
To trade ravings hinged on absence,
moistly noodling context in place.
Freakishly conducive to metabolizing
the essence of otherness.
Kyia B Apr 2013
Your skin itches
as it winds through,
slithering up like a snake uncoiling from sleep
eyes heavy and laden
finding the best path.
Soon every part of you starts to itch,
feeling the need to move,
the need to run,
but there's no way to go.
Constricted,
tight,
you feel bound to your skin,
Every part of you starts to shake
not being able to abandon the feeling,
you sit and wait,
wait until the shaking stops.
And when it does,
there's no satisfaction,
just a shiver,
and the worry of never knowing
when it'll happen again.
Liam May 2015
delicate springs of sensibility...
wound so tightly
by life's twists and turns
relieved intermittently
by uncoiling poetic release
ticking away periods of peace
...like clockwork

— The End —