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Marco Buschini Dec 2016
Lie within chaos, and create comfort
In visions of endless love.
Riding slowly on the crest of a morning fling, and flutter,
The body stutters
Like a street dancer.
Shine in different directions
And end the yearning
For a love of creativity
By stripping off
And darting
Into a sea of uncertainty,
with a sense of
Unimaginable lust for what keeps you
Ticking like a sturdy clock.
Find the rhymes that combine
With what lies inside the mind,
To stumble upon the future pleasure,
That you unearth with delight,
As you wonder.
Inspiration is born out of desire.
Fuel to fire the birth of creation.
The mind quakes for a taste
Of the cake, that is blessed with greatness.
Nylee Apr 2019
All the praises
    Sweet sugary words
                            need to be ignored
To unearth the truth
.
Patricia Drake Feb 2013
He began with all living things
On the first day of anti-creation
Killing all; be they beggars or kings
No judgment just pure negation

On the second day lights went out
There was no longer night nor day
Only darkness was present throughout
Not a shadow not a tinge of grey

All this darkness destroyed vegetation
Photosynthesis ceased to take place
Everything was beyond devastation
Gasping and lacking in grace

The fourth day destroyed solid ground
He made sure every rock all the stones
Would sink and not ever be found
No one would ever unearth old bones

On the fifth day the clouds were unmade
Rain reunited the sea with the sky
In a marvelously heavy cascade
So the second last day went by

On the last day he reversed creation
Of Heaven and Earth in one blow
It was much easier than damnation
And God sat there and enjoyed the show.
I want to compel,
all the people to tell,
of their travels,
their hardships, b
and times that went well.
The love that was shared,
and hate that was bared.
Is a part of your life,
if you truly cared.
Twas fear
that berated the souls of the earth.
With pain contemplated,
the flame lost its hearth.
But when claims no one stated,
begin to unearth.
The stains we created,
start losing their worth.
For what is fear without worries to fuel it? Darkness may make it,
but governments mule it.
Realize,
this fear isn't real,
and misinformation,
is all you've been fed.
Then you'll start to ponder,
is this life even real?
Is there any legitimacy,
in all the things that they've said?
There is nothing hiding
in your closet or bed.
And there are less evil people,
than in the news that you've read.
This idea was created,
so they wouldn't be blamed.
But you won't be jaded,
you cannot not be tamed.
The people that faded,
that still are unnamed.
You fight for their memory,
cause they'd do the same.
You Stand for their ideals,
And keep them all close.
Feel all of the feels,
cheerful or morose.
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
   —The Serenity Prayer

I. Heron

I was born arrow-straight, built for flying,
Three skipping stones past Otter Creek, hollow
Bones blanketed by slate gray, blue stones slight
And callused by well-worn prayers and shallow
Swells of minnows — subterranean aches —
And water cold on yellow scales, hardened
By the calamity of sunsets, lakes —
The drowning weight of too many pardons.
Dip low, tend this broken shoreline sweetly,
Spread shadowed wings and break honeyed silence.
Forgiveness take flight at dusk, discreetly
Written in psalms. Tepid soul find balance
Between the calm, a resting river space
This old trembling mind cannot displace.

II. Quetzal

After the storm, the chaos and quiet
Meet like dew poised on timid fingertips
And shallow grasses to quell the riot
Stirring inside. Fix fragments of this ship
Made of broken parts. My soul’s petrichor:
Inhale failure with a benediction
That fills tired lungs with bravery, before
Nature proposed expectations — fiction
Taut and mended by truth. The earth exhales
In breaths refreshed by rain, accompanied
By loudening trills and harmonious tales —
The tremor of circumstance, and the need
To continue existence like the weeds
That grow in sidewalks despite human greed.

III. The Pelican and the Gull

American Magicicadas choose
To surface seventeen years after birth
For the purpose of recreation. The Blue
Pelican cannot quietly unearth
The patterns of the tide without the gull,
But she does so with tireless trials
And the moon at her back — the lunar pull
Shaping stray shells for a little while.
Twenty-one years of tawny solitude
Shattered by innate desires, buried
Deep by stubborn aches, and kindly allude
To breathing for the first time. Weight carried
And lifted by rekindled hope, reaching
Sands like a button shell kissing the beach.

IV. Kingfisher

I pondered self-acceptance before diving
Into seas uncharted, with the patience
Of Tibetan monks softly harvesting
Grains of sand on an abandoned shore. Since
Emptiness is impermanence, we change
Like shifting seas suspended in nature,
Born from the crease of God’s hand — rearranged
Flaws bound by circumstance. Come close. Nurture
This silent heart into awakening.
Beyond these gray waters surges the sun,
Hopeful in the wake of a newfound spring,
Ochre and alizarin. We become —
Aware that no one saves us but ourselves,
With self-worth rising in tremendous swells.
Gita Ashok Oct 2011
A widespread condition
related to nutrition
is lactose intolerance
that is in essence
the inability to digest and assimilate
the milk sugar-lactose-the substrate
that is acted upon by lactase-
the specific enzyme
over a period of time.
This may happen suddenly
and generally
at any age most unexpectedly.

Lactose intolerance
is caused by the absence
of the enzyme lactase
that breaks down lactose
to the simple sugars-
glucose and galactose.
The condition may be
secondary,  congenital,
or developmental.

Secondary lactose intolerance
invariably has its occurrence
related to a gastrointestinal infection
and its disappearance
is linked to the causative factor’s correction.
This type of intolerance-
(certainly a nuisance)
is reversible
if we are a bit careful.

Congenital lactose intolerance,
an inherited form of intolerance,
is a rare genetic  abnormality
that one can unearth
soon after an infant’s birth.
This need not cause any fear
as it lasts only half a year.

Developmental lactose intolerance
also known as primary  intolerance
is one wherein the enzyme synthesis
is progressively less
during childhood
and this persists into adulthood.

Gita Ashok
24/10/2011, 2 pm
MdAsadullah Dec 2014
Terrorism has mushroomed
all across the world.
Greenery here is not less,
some terror must be unfurled.
I 've heard that some desi
terror outfit has taken birth.
More shadowy than shadow,
their secrets difficult to unearth.
Help is required from security
agencies of developed land.
There they lock up terrorists for
years without trial on remand.
They've trained dogs to smell
terrorists before they become one.
Our country is developing fast,
soon it will be second to none.
Full use of the cyberspace
this local foxy terror group makes.
In this virtual world whose
identity is real? whose fake?
This tricksy group makes
bombs sophisticated, smart.
It targets selected only,
suddenly before they can depart.
But few unintended ones died in blast,
must be suicide bombers, Indeed!
Terrorists don't understand political
equations, what is the need?
Now our Police catches
terrorists just minutes after the blast.
Their must be some-kind of relief
for citizens shocked, aghast.
My little brother eats my head,
wants to catch a tiger alive.
Jocularly I advised it is animal dangerous,
flesh and bone it can rive.
Instead we can catch a cat and
with continuous torture and grill
we can make it confess to be a tiger,
with third degree surely it will.
Dreams
Are euphony
Of thought,
Of heart,
Of body,
Of the splendid,
Of the soul,

(Unbinding our once
Spectral Fates
          That spiraled down
The Keys of Life
Tainted by
The Greatest of Dissonance)

My Redolent Reverie,
Sweetened by
Mellifluous Nectar Tides
Of cherished moments
Steeped for eons
In our
Carnal yearnings
Are made anew
By the Cosmogonist’s Hands
Of Eternity

(O, for I
Doth doven the skies,
That the Incendiary Wings
Of the Auburn Pheonix
Imbue me
With the Souls Acquisition
Of Golden Pinions
                      Of the Thew of Vitality).

Captive visions,
Slumber in
My Azure Dreamer’s Chest
Engraved with
The Insignia of Archaic Fates
Upon it’s
Starry Epidermis
Till skies fall
To the Terrene
And
The Luminaries
Shall rest
Betwixt
The palms of my hands

(O, for then
This Juggernaut of a Man
That I am
Shall Effloresce
Ceasing to be
     That Loveless Sentinel,
The Guardian over
The Bastion Heart
He fathoms
Impregnable)

.Ensorcelled Butterflies
Radiate
Lovelit Lavender Light
Upon that
Astral Parcel,
Lulling my weary eyes
By the
Sovereignty of Monarchial Wings
Vanquishing the doubts
Once blurring
My Kaleidoscopic Dreams
(Life’s Iridescent Seal
Branded upon
My forehead
And etherealizing
My exhalations
                    Till crystalline)

My sullied heart
Pulses shadowed winds
(The Sweeping Gales of Solemnity)
Without the
Blissful Kiss of Cadence
Resonating an
Ebony surge
Deeper,
Than first octave tonality
Of abyssal timbre.

I beseech you,
Unfurl those forested eyes
My Desiderata Materialista,
That I may
Drinketh of your
Emerald Streams,
Ineffably Pristine.

(For then
I shall be
Spirited away
      To Eden,
My existence
     Shall become
Nirvanic Transcendence)

To pine is a pang,
To envisage
Is to breath.

Perhaps that
Is the only solace
My feeble soul
Can bear,
Without you.

By your alabaster skin
Vein my eyes
With luminescence.

With your tender caress
Saunter my
Voracious skin.

Weave my Chrysalis,
By your
Susurrant voice.

Cocoon me
In your
Flawless serenade,
That I metamorphose
Bearing the
Sacrosanct Wings of Phantasmagoria
And
The Melisma of Your Piety.

Pearlescent blood
Floweth within me,
Like baptismal rain,
As I muse
When you alight
Once more
In my Cosmos.

I am yours,
Floral Fallal.

~Our fears are the burdens
    Of the Vestige of the Past,
      A hollow cry
       That fights to exist
         In a zeitgeist
           That flowers
              Quicker than
                Our hearts know how to beat.
                          
                     Unfurl your Gates
                           To the Arbiter of Fates,
                              Unearth the Hallowed Crystals
                                 Of your Garnetiferous Passion
                                    That takes shape
                                        Because you…

                               O, Stalwart Knight,
                                    You were cosmic
                                         Like myriad raindrops,
                                           Mystic echoes
                                              Emancipating­ your spirit
                                                 From the trepidation
                                                     ­    Of the mortal kind.

                                                   Evolve,                                            
                                Evanesce,                       ­   
                                                  For to be Ephemeral                      
                                 ­                Means to conquer                                  
That Magisterial Oblivion.
                                                       ­     Se’lah.~
Hey guys! I've been doing a great deal of experimenting with my writing as of late. This piece is an embodiment of all the introspection, musings, tribulations, and heartbreaks I have experienced as of late. I hope you all can appreciate this piece despite the quasi-obscurant references that I present bereft of explicit detail.

The core of this piece lies in the fundamental nature of our dreams, yearnings, and aspirations (as well as the shadows born of the loveless blight). It effloresced it something much greater as I continued to refine it. Hope you guys like! God bless!
1.

Minds break apart at midnight,
piece together in dreamless sleep.

Robert Lowell poaches pen-and-ink
drawings for Life Studies.
Sylvia Plath dons Ariel’s red dress,
but loses Ariadne’s thread.  

Lowell raises For the Union Dead,
mythic monument to his family’s best.
Pigeons decorate it with their ***** mess.
Plath pins a ******* to her chest —  
shockingly pink —
and stands beside the kitchen sink,

Stirring a *** of poet’s gruel.
Madness and death the golden rule
no artistry can break. Not even the careless
reader can take leave of these senses

Once they’re rendered on the page.
Confession doesn’t age well,
as Lowell knows oh so well,

unless it suggests more substantial fare,
say, a flannel bathrobe for him to wear
in a Boston psychiatric ward — if he dares.

There’s something wrong with his head.
Crown him Caligula; his lineage has fled.

“What does that have to do with me, Daddy?” Plath artfully whines.
“Fill the tulip jars with red water, not wine,” he replies.
“The bridegroom cometh. Turn off the oven.”
But it is too late. She has met her fate before it predeceases her.

Like a teacher’s pet, she bets her life on a recitation
of Daddy, a term of endearment,
a term of interment in a stark, loveless miscarriage,
a dark, masculine disparagement of her freedom. O Daddy dearest.

Lowell shoots up to salute the younger poet, guessing
she has given the year’s best reading by a girl in red dresses.

At this stage, what does it matter that his “mind’s not right”?
What can he do but give up his right to pray, as every insight
       slips away?

But no Our Father for Plath. For her, the Kingdom comes too late.
Colossal poetry cannot save; the poet raves and raves and raves
       into that dark night.
Turn off the oven, turn out the lights. Daddy, too, is not right.

2.

Blake fired his Proverbs of Hell
in the dull, damning kilns
of England’s Industrial Age.

A poet’s no sage, but Lowell earned
his wings when he doctored Blake’s phrase:
“I myself am hell.”

A stone angel directs his descent:

Fortune favors the bold.

Never discount the power of chance.

Affliction of the senses is a gift.

Invisible seeks invisible.

Darkness obscures our limits.

We carry darkness within us.

Anarchy breeds spirit.

Artistry breeds no merit.

Appropriate beauty, at all costs,
whether, man, beast or angel
.

3.

Poetry births an artifact of words; we unearth them, and they adhere.
We bury them, and they fall flat — hollow sounds, futile splats,
       prehistoric grunts ground into the ground.

Bathed in lithium and alcohol, here bobs your calling, Robert:
Everything matters; nothing coheres.
Build a shell of a soul on this maxim, a notebook of negation.  
       Grind your axes.

Sanctuaries may crumble, gates may close. Press on. Press on.
Corkscrew your identity into the iambic line; rouse the reader to find
the misleading promise of Eternity in the sonnet, the sonnet,
       the endless sonnet.

For minds lost in madness, tree limbs dangle like kite tails in the wind. No one flies here anymore. Gather reddened kindling while ye may.

What exiles you from the ancients — Homer, Virgil and Horace —
springs from vision, not technique: You lack the requisite blindness.

Absence absents the soul. Here, now, forever, shimmers only presence,
only the present, only Presence: divine, human, animal, marmoreal.
       Skunks, sails, cars and pails. Sing on, O son of New England!

Day by day, failing all, fill your void with fiery
hieroglyphs of verse. Then call your duty done.

4.

Behold: You are not the favorite, after all, but Camus’ stranger,
trapped in the blinding sun, stumbling on the burning sand.

Only what dies in you endures.

“Is getting well ever an art,
or art a way to get well?”

The skunks scurry, scavenge and survive far too long for you to answer.

You lie down beside orange fishnets, facing the shore.
At midnight, you will dream of dreamless sleep.
To follow the development of this poem, it's important to know the works and lives of the confessional poets Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath. If you are unfamiliar with them, I suggest you first read "Skunk Hour" by Lowell and then "Daddy" by Plath. Short biographies would help, too.
Michael W Noland Sep 2012
I don't always feel you

nor do i care.

nor shall i fare

the weather of your temperament.

I am exempt of the pettiness, and of the nervous fetishes, in the indifference.

I try not to be presumptuous, in the perceived ignorance, of the plunderers of my wealth

but am more alive.

More willing to die.

More willing to try

anything but sigh

in feeling the mediocre hand of my health.

So high

doling out the breathless help, in the restless stealth, of bland demands, felt,  in the smoking stacks of hell.

I survive off the glean, provoking, glass from sand.

I act,  as though i give a ****.

Evoking ash from hands, in the defiance of no mans land.

Stamped

in the trampled giants of the black.

Sampled, the compliant hacks in backless, tackling of the stance.

Cackling

I cracked.

and cracked the cast, in blast powder, compounding the flames, of the flounder flamed, in profane name calling.

Never to dodge the calling ..

Feeling the falling of doubt.

In the Tao,  of mauling my malevolence.

Thought i bled it out, as the stalling turned to insulting rebukes, in the flukes,  of lands never lived, but shredded in repulsing lingo, with a flute, to do away with the kids, I mingle, in wait of the sedatives to kick in, than,

Bingo

Nail it to the cross, of the intended loss, singling and wringing them out.

Lost

amid, the somber slayings of bombers praying, for fire to rain from the sky.

Rid

of the calmer makings of alarming sayings, for desire to feign from the cry.

Denied.

The reciprocation of a social spy, trying his best to comply to the prize, and smile.

Its been awhile.

Been a while in exile of thine own heart.

Heart of gold in denial.

Denial of the trials where i shone the brightest, in the mightiest miles of defiled lights.

Lights igniting the nights, in my first rights of passage.

Passage granted in the damaged dues of diligence, where i pursued the villages of my virtue.

My virtues perused the innocence and matured.

Matured in the final words of old birds, dying with dimes, and bagged wine in hand.

Never to understand the last laughs from young chaps blowing off their stacks, just to collapse, in their own mess.

I confess to paying homage in the calmly delusions, of my intrusive self abuses, to the ruthless seduction of my bitterly bitten bruises of seclusion.

I try to loosen up a bit, but instead run this gambit of bankrupt belligerence and hope for the best.

******* in the blessed wishes of the test.

Tested in the vetted nutrients of an institutional bowel movement upon my chest.

My chest giving in to the stress.

I often wake in duress as tears flow through the forgotten, as i brush my teeth of the remembrance of dreams, and clean the dumb away.

Clothe my flesh, and put my gun away.

Locking the front door, I journey into my day.

Every day...

One day.

One day from the mundane

I wont strain to change it all.

I will make the call

but never answer.

Instilling the hollowed cancers

to end it all

I shall befall,  the null.

The No.

The land.

enhanced.

Seeing.

The unseeable.

In unbelievable hate.

Conceiving the inconceivable, and cleaning the slate of my faithful fate, in which i ditch the mares of my dared intention.

I concentrate on the beautiful view from the deliberate limitlessness of my vivid visions to another place, that closely resembles the one that i hate.

Consumed of blue suns, and water breathing.

I bloom

in anger activated guns, and painless beatings.

Marooned from afar

I dare to bare the battle scars of taking it too far, and fainting.

Tainting the waters of life with the ****** knife, of my,  positivity.

The imagery of my imagined city

ssscattered across the tattered remains of my naivety.

Sssteadily holding fast upon the mass of men, even though i readily hate them.

In a single flash of rash decision, i forget it all, and go to work ...

smirking in the murky fog, that marks the facade,  where i lurk in shirtless shirking from the cold.

The shaking of the folds, in time, in space, in the told, telemetry of the mold

I'm

emboldened

In the boots that birth, the same old, hold of the complaint.

Applying force in restraint

In pursuit

to unearth, and loot

the saint

in broken wings, and painted words

that twirl, in the spinning ink

on the brink, of the blur, that births,  this sleeping male

to a world, encroached, by mundane flames, poached, from the slain trail of the ordained, tales of Mikha'el.

As others entrails line, the pale comparisons, as mine, are shell shocked in monotony.

i signed with the autonomy, never talked, and marched blankly into the day.

Every day

but one day

to stray

from the mundane

and make it right.

I will get out of my head

and fly

in light.
Roland Oct 2018
‘Twas during inner turmoil that a certain yearning arose
Whispers of breakage reaching deeper as time goes
From the disillusionment of reality it was forged
Of seething rage the desires hunger gorged
In following certain conformities felt like being a prisoner
The will to resist the motions of many being aimed to muster
To not be like a tree that has to be cut or uprooted just to move
To be driven by reasons that to only ones viewpoint can behoove

Looking at another view of the coming uncertainty
As a pathway to many possibilities with regards to unpredictability
That stopping a tragedy is sometimes not the thing to do
Lest one forgets that the phoenix must burn down to rise anew
Or that Ragnarok is followed by a great rebirth
Who can know what revelations a raging flood might unearth?
Being lost might as well be the way to find an elusive longing
The remedy to the Anhedonia closely and ominously looming

When being chained to the rhythm just compares to an inner futile feeling
Knowing that a greater horizon is missed by the act of settling
A bet on the odds that epiphany might be found in whatever form
To behold serendipity actually being brought by the coming inner storm
In using the great idleness to plan the restoring of a balance
And to see clearly without the feeling of rushing pressure and turbulence
The path and pace may change to the deeper quest not yet ceased
In bringing forth the long sought betterment through a cataclysmic release.
Asphyxiophilia Sep 2013
The carpet is frayed in the hallway
And the nails along the walls are facing upwards
As reminders that any attempt to
Unearth the secrets swept beneath them
Will result in ****** hands
And the closet door in the bathroom
Is hanging off the hinges
From the time your stepmother tried
To hide her boyfriend in there
And your father threw it open
As a reminder that closets
Are cliché places to keep skeletons
And the red smear beside the toilet
Is the result of your father's fists
Breaking blood vessels and skin
As a reminder that even ghosts
Can leave behind stains
And the glass window in the bedroom is splintered
From the time your father had a nightmare
And thought the house was on fire
As a reminder that sometimes
We burn from the inside
And there's a hole in your bedroom wall
From the time your brother put his fist through it
As a reminder that walls are the only things that stand between
Yourself and every version of yourself that
You've tried to hide within them.
SHELBY MATIAS Jan 2019
Is it my body you wish to plant
Your flag & lay claim to
Looking for buried treasure
Hoping to unearth riches
Beyond your wildest imagination
Trying to discover what men before
You have failed to possess
Rummaging through what used
To be a Holy Temple
A place of innocence
Unfortunately,those men before you
Stole every ounce of that
There is nothing left of me here...
I Am But A Hollow Shell
A Metophor Of A Woman Giving So Much While Men Take And Leave When They Get Bored,Leaving Her Feeling Worthless & Empty
Melissa E Pike May 2014
She loves me
She loves me not

You are the sunflower basking in the light
Whistling in the wind
Rising each day

She loves me
She loves me not

How could you pick the petals off of something so beautiful?
Unearth a living thing from the ground and slowly torture it with each pluck

She loves me
She loves me not

She loves me!
Like the sunflower loves the big sun even after it has been dug up
Even after its color has been thrown to the ground with each-
She loves me, she loves me not

You are my sunflower
I’m sorry I pick on you
King Panda Aug 2017
the morning sky
performs a hot dance of rain.
ever-growing lime washes away,
white and sour mistaken
by some noses as
aromatics.
a season
of ever-ending frost
absent from windows
and misty
misty
journey
through the rain
without an umbrella.

rain jilts
its luscious sun-lover
behind clouds.
it beheads drops into
the thin morning air
only to be crushed
by the sidewalk.

this excites the worms
who unearth themselves
like fishing-bait zombies.
the worms are then eaten
by the birds who brave
the rain and the slick
sidewalk, once baptized,
now eats their ****.

I step in a puddle
with my rain boots.
there are holes in their
heels, and I feel
my skin start to crinkle.
I think of you
for the first time in sky water
unsubmerged
docked
landed
and lean in
to the liquid veil.
jo spencer Oct 2013
The formulae for well being
is found in those memories,
a preparedness to unearth
yesterday's yearbooks;
which releases those far flung controls of analogue, 
resurrecting belt driven
record players
to play Starbuck and Brothers Johnson
reviving  '76,
mentally speeding on pristine motorways,
buzzing by on a chevy  corvette
humming to the suggestive "Afternoon Delight"
vying with your Radio's antenna.
Shonna Jan 2012
This is not about you.
This is not about
the transmutation
of your jail celled mind
wrapped in self-help
and cellophane.

This is not about
your new found
discovery
discovering me
and my afflictions
according to the
white man’s diction
a dictation
of my past
extracted
and examined
under the microscopic
power of time.

This is not about
your self-defined
enlightenment
when you made
a deal to unearth
the truth of HeLa
coated in dust
covered particles
of HeLa
on your nightstand
and I laid
in a grave
unmarked.

This is not about
my big lips
and thick hips
under ***** covers
running a sweat
fever on my thighs
shaking feet in stirrups
and the pain was rich
after a tight pinch
and I didn’t know
what part of me
had been snipped
to grow cold
and never die.

No, this is not about you.

This is about me.
A historic legacy
left to thrive across the time
less chains of nucleic
tidal waves
Covalent bonds
could never rival
the strides of this soul
miles beyond
the distant
COLORED ENTRANCE
something brewing
inside dividing
inexplicable replication,
readying for harvest
behind a dried tobacco field
Expectations agony deep inside my mind
Has reached a point of no return
What is this you do to me
All of this that burns

Neither logic lies nor sense does it make
I care not for what I see is true
True it feels and it must be
The answer lies in you

Alleviation of curiosity is a must
To calm what rages deep inside
No peace left as is
Unearth or come untied
Copyright *Neva Flores @2010
Robby Cale Feb 2010
Look, I just want to move you.
Woo you.
Shake you loose but never lose you.
I want to
Savor the glazed reverent silence
Of your gasping, ungrasped breath.
Sip it down till there's nothing left
Yet still explain all the rest.
See, it's time I unearth some gold.
Nothing here sold.
Just given freely to slurp up,
served up cold.
But I dare not go it alone.
Not when there's so many heplping hands
Beyond my own.
So I first court Eloquence.
She's an easy mark to find,
volubly masticating volumes
while leisurely lathering her tanned,
Leather skin.
Dolloping her monocle-bodied features
In librarian sin.
She says...
"My dear boy.
Berate them NOT
with your false start,
lethargic oddities.
Your penchant,
Melancholic falsities.
You must but grunt through the trudgery
Of your muddy misgivings,
And birth only accessible
Pertinent notions.
Neither precarious nor
Incongruous to the truth!
Robby.
You must simply relinquish your
Intrepid, frenzied paucities!
So I dismiss the diss.
Since
her big scary words are kinda lost to me.
Evidently, though,
I must need a Joe Blow.
An Everyman.
A Streetcorner Clairvoyant.
I turn to
(drum roll)
Raunchiness.
His beer belly **** and **** jokes
And dollar store aftershave suggest
A pleasing 'pull-my-finger' charm
that just might turn the trick.
He licks his lips,
And chides through a buck-tooth,
Spit shine smile.
Sheeeooot, boy,
That there one's easy.
All you gotsta do is
Go down deep
And speak from your gut.
Tell em how you feel..
How you REALLY feel.
Tell em..
shoot, tell em they rub you just right,
You might well feel as ***** as
Your gas gauge after a good pump.
As ***** as a McD's wrapper
Corner-pinch-discarded like
A used diaper hammock.
Yeah! You tell em your as ******
As a receptacle
For used diaper hammocks!
Hells yeah.
Girls will eat that **** up!
And say you're as gay as rainbow gold
As straight as an arrow-head.
As misled as finding your folks are still *** fiends
or as contradictory as ***** like me!
Boy, you are as con-fused as the
Lumpy, stumpy, pimply dimpled teen who finds out
Santa Claus IS real!
And he's hanging out loose
In every single Hustler Magazine!
Now hear me boy.
If they still don't care,
Or they see that you're scared,
Just say you feel as guilty as midnight dials
From parents of Girls-Gone-Wild,
sneering,
"Well shoot, sugar plum.
You sure ain't been feeling
Real secure in awhile."
And as he loosely labels me
As awkward as **** thermometers,
As misunderstood as **** plugs,
I give Raunchiness a dismissive shrug,
And return to the mystery
Of what I've missed from me,
Whatever still may be
My own poetic style.
For instance, recall daisies,
or if you have not seen one, so much the better.
Paint me a crass picture and sleep
on the shallow crevasse. Stilt through
the orchard and search there: nothing still.
Even the nothingness is form-fitting, and thus,
your vestigial image of daisies. Mold something
out of the vacuity, and there a retrograde sculpture
will wind back to clay. Cornerstones have your name,
and your name even so, has taciturnly placed stones.

Stones. These tiny bodies that lay, undemanding,
scourged by the rapid passage of a carriage.
I wait there, with them, still thinking of daisies.
I know of a child, cylindrically obtuse, in front of the mirror.
Have you seen yourself in the hazy windows
of the Metro? What do you see? I still see daisies.
Or people with heads of daisies. But remember your
forethought of daisies? They are nothing. I am a beheaded daisy
in the lackadaisical wind of Summer. There is nothing to gain
here but the sadness of cold passing. And the child that I am speaking
of, his name, Magno. Sturdy like the rucksack he’s carrying,
lovelessly trundling altogether with the pipes and the
handrails, almost signaling the alarm without warning.

This uncared-for sultry evening decides to splinter
itself against the masses. Again, the daisies appear to me,
this time, in heady form rogue with peripatetic fragrance.
Magno used to unearth daisies and give them to her
mother when he was stiflingly young – he hustled through
the carefully placed furniture. Whatever happened to him,
I know not. And just like the daisies we have come to know now,
trains that do not belong to anyone, and the daisies too, that go
unheard of and unknown to the behest of the city,
have gone into the subtle beginning of everything
that once started in itself, the form of splendor. Nothing.
Amanda Kay Burke Dec 2018
Thoughts are eating me alive
I feel sharp bites as they gnaw
Bleeding out pints of sense and reason
From conclusions I draw

I am glad to drift to sleep every night
Even with precious time flying by
Happy to experience any relief
No problems behind closed eyes

Conversations filling free dreams floating within
Attempting to be understood
Have no interest in indulging opinions
Hanging silent in my head, engraved in 'would'

In efforts to turn around my thinking
I stuff my mind with different distractions
Put hands to use with various tasks
Only substances bring satisfaction

I need to unearth the causes
Responsible for lack of peace
Little by little learn to be happy
Sorrows burning my brain will cease
Thoughts can cause more damage than anything else
I

Winter is long in this climate
and spring—a matter of a few days
only,—a flower or two picked
from mud or from among wet leaves
or at best against treacherous
bitterness of wind, and sky shining
teasingly, then closing in black
and sudden, with fierce jaws.

     II

March,
           you reminded me of
the pyramids, our pyramids—
stript of the polished stone
that used to guard them!
                                    March,
you are like Fra Angelico
at Fiesole, painting on plaster!

March,
             you are like a band of
young poets that have not learned
the blessedness of warmth
(or have forgotten it).
At any rate—
I am moved to write poetry
for the warmth there is in it
and for the loneliness—
a poem that shall have you
    in it March.

     III

See!
         Ashur-ban-i-pal,
the archer king, on horse-back,
in blue and yellow enamel!
with drawn bow—facing lions
standing on their hind legs,
fangs bared!  his shafts
bristling in their necks!

Sacred bulls—dragons
in embossed brickwork
marching—in four tiers—
along the sacred way to
Nebuchadnezzar’s throne hall!
They shine in the sun,
they that have been marching—
marching under the dust of
ten thousand dirt years.

Now—
they are coming into bloom again!
See them!
marching still, bared by
the storms from my calender
—winds that blow back the sand!
winds that enfilade dirt!
winds that by strange craft
have whipt up a black army
that by pick and shovel
bare a procession to
                               the god, Marduk!

Natives cursing and digging
for pay unearth dragons with
upright tails and sacred bulls
alternately—
                      in four tiers—
lining the way to an old altar!
Natives digging at old walls—
digging me warmth—digging me sweet loneliness
high enamelled walls.

     IV

My second spring—
passed in a monastery
with plaster walls—in Fiesole
on the hill above ‘Florence.
My second spring—painted
a ******—in a blue aureole
sitting on a three-legged stool,
arms crossed—
she is intently serious,
                                  and still
watching an angel
with colored wings
half kneeling before her—
and smiling—the angel’s eyes
holding the eyes of Mary
as a snake’s hold a bird’s.
On the ground there are flowers,
trees are in leaf.

     V

But! now for the battle!
Now for ******—now for the real thing!
My third springtime is approaching!
Winds!
lean, serious as a ******,
seeking, seeking the flowers of March.

Seeking
flowers nowhere to be found,
they twine among the bare branches
in insatiable eagerness—
they whirl up the snow
seeking under it—
they—the winds—snakelike
roar among yellow reeds
seeking flowers—flowers.

I spring among them
seeking one flower
in which to warm myself!

I deride with all the ridicule
of misery—
my own starved misery.

Counter-cutting winds
    strike against me
refreshing their fury!

Come, good, cold fellows!
    Have we no flowers?
Defy then with even more
desperation than ever—being
    lean and frozen!

But though you are lean and frozen—
think of the blue bulls of Babylon.

Fling yourselves upon
    their empty roses—
              cut savagely!

But—
think of the painted monastery
  at Fiesole.
grabbing her by throat hair he holds gun barrel to right eye with free hand she edges fingers into boot pulls dagger plunges it into his heart

i didn’t mean to do that i meant to do this

i’m trying to figure out how other people deal with disappointment of old age i guess they arrive at some settlement some settlement that eludes me

very few figure out meaning of their lives until it’s too late then become detectives trying to figure out whys if you wake up tomorrow you’ve got a shot at new day no one in this world knows what might happen

i believe people can do change maybe not their nature but spiritually emotionally intellectually psychologically i recognize change within myself i did could now never commit acts different from who i was more scared sensitive hopeful pure honest longing for love probably i sound corny all i want is mutual love adoration in way it was easier when i was thoughtless i got ***** i don’t know

poet must face every conceivable fear terror no matter how despairing risk walking away from table without chips

there are good people and bad people sometimes good people make bad mistakes sometimes bad people make smart choices

for decades he lived knowing no one valued him except his family collecting his paintings reading his works praising his efforts his entire career an inside job

her graying disheveled hair muddy smudged apron raw arthritic fingers she cooks meal washes dishes a million trillion dishes thankless life mom what’s for dinner

some people see it all coming plan invest i never saw any of it coming i never imagined

the sickly smell of grandpa’s farts lingers in room nauseating family

he held shivering abandoned puppy in arms she whimpered repeatedly he swore in that moment to protect her stood by his promise until he buried her

wild wolf chases him growling snapping nipping at ankles tearing jeans biting drawing blood he runs

pitiable old men everyone knows old men are impotent jokes with no pack to punch just harmless peevish impediments what good are they what purpose do they serve get the ******-freaking out of the road old man

riotous advancing mob overcome military police

sharing yoga class old man attending his skin thin as parchment bled i cleaned his blood from mat every class until he died

after puncturing her maidenhood reaching ****** he strokes head of 8 year old daughter good girl good girl daddy is so proud

skin him alive skin him alive little girl asks what’s different about poetry from standard writing grandpa answers i have no answers

not possible yet happening gradually suddenly amidst bribes bargaining lies government collapses citizenry unleash in anarchy yearning for change

Mom’s fogginess i sense it beginning in myself possibly inherited will i become like Mom there’s no one looking out for me Mom i’m looking out for you

after 30 or 40 years life is over don’t believe what they tell you

when i’m dead what will they unearth in my personal effects writings paintings letters emails bookmarks internet visitations or gossip accusations from those still alive probably allege another selfish decadent fool squandered resources missed opportunities misses the mark

maybe in 5 years i will live in New York City London Paris Tokyo Tahiti  with beautiful wife who will spread her buns want me to **** her grab my ***** at least once a day

there is a star in north sky that shines i understand you looking away when pain gets too great please look into my eyes when throbbing subsides

don’t make it any harder than it has to be please find it in your heart to forgive me i am so sorry

yup i’ve got cash guns friends in Canada Mexico Netherlands France first let’s make a run for the border  then later think about a boat

oh yeah one last remark ******* haters bigots greedy ******* all you big city fat cats small town big fish fearful suburban housewives over-cautious grannies gangsters politicians real-estate lawyers moneylenders fraudulent priests ******* all you movie actor phony smile celebrities cliché skinny jean cowboy boot rock stars all you left-wing right-wing tea-party outer-space inner-space freaks ******* i can’t don’t know how to explain myself ******* all
Kelsey Mar 2014
THESE ARE YOUR HANDS AND THIS IS HOW YOU TELL THE FLAMES YOU'RE NOT ALL BAD.
THESE ARE YOUR THIRD DEGREE BURNS TO SAY YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE WITH BONES MELTING IN TRUST ISSUES.
THESE ARE YOUR WRISTS, THOSE ARE YOUR KNEECAPS, THIS IS YOUR STORY.
THIS IS HOW YOU BITE YOUR TONGUE BUT STILL MANAGE TO LEAVE THE WORLD WONDERING HOW YOU COULD MATCH UP TO THUNDER'S HARMONIES,
THIS IS HOW YOU WHISPER TO MOUNTAINS AND KNOW THE PEAKS WILL HEAR YOU.
THIS IS HOW YOU TELL THE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD TO SHAKE HANDS WITHOUT STARTING AN EARTHQUAKE,
THIS IS HOW YOU TELL DEPRESSION TO LIGHTEN UP,
THIS IS HOW YOU GRAB ANXIETY BY THE SHOULDERS AND SING LULLABIES TO ITS LUNGS.
THIS IS HOW YOU WALK UP TO GOD AND RIP OPEN YOUR CHEST WITHOUT INTRODUCING YOURSELF FIRST AND ASK "WHY?"
THERE'S PAPER UNDERNEATH YOUR PILLOW,
THOSE ARE THE NOTES YOU PASSED TO YOUR BEST FRIEND IN THE THIRD GRADE WHEN YOU TOLD HER ABOUT YOUR FIRST CRUSH.
THERE'S A PAPER THAT'S BEEN IN YOUR BACK POCKET FOR A YEAR AND A HALF,
THE ONE NEXT TO YOUR RECEIPT FOR A BOTTLE OF WHISKEY AND STAIN REMOVER,
THIS IS THE NOTE SHE WROTE YOU A WEEK BEFORE HER FUNERAL.
THIS IS HOW YOU WASH YOUR JEANS WITH TWO CUPS OF 'TODAY I FORGOT TO REMEMBER TO FORGET'.
THIS IS HOW YOU COPE.
THIS IS HOW YOU LAY ON MUD STAINED CARPETING AND AND STARE AT YOUR BROKEN DOOR,
THIS IS HOW YOU CONVERT TO HARDWOOD FLOORS AND STRONGER DOOR HINGES.
THIS IS HOW YOU WIN A WAR WITH ONE BODY ON A BATTLEFIELD,
THIS IS HOW YOU SHOW A BLIND MAN THAT YOU CAN PAINT A ******* MASTERPIECE.
THIS IS HOW YOU REACH HEAVEN WITHOUT DYING, THIS IS HOW YOU KNOW HELL WITHOUT LIVING THROUGH IT.
THIS IS HOW YOU UNDERSTAND THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE, BY CROSSING PATHS WITH THE GUY THAT MADE YOU HATE WET PAVEMENT AND THE SMELL AFTER IT RAINS,
THIS IS HOW YOU HELD HIS HAND THE SAME WAY YOU HOLD A KNIFE, THIS IS HOW YOU LEARN FORGIVENESS.
THIS IS HOW YOU SMOKE WITH THREE LUNGS AND LOVE WITH ONE.
THIS IS HOW YOU STUFF THE PERSON YOU WANT TO BE IN A FORTUNE COOKIE AND LEARN PATIENCE.
THIS IS HOW YOU TELL PEOPLE YOU'RE NOTHING LIKE YOUR MOTHER. THIS IS HOW YOU SAY YOU HAVE YOUR EYES, NOT HERS BECAUSE THIS IS HOW YOU UNCLENCH YOUR HUSBANDS FISTS.
THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE SOMEONE THAT NEVER KNEW HOW TO BE ALONE, THIS IS HOW YOU WORRY.
THIS IS HOW YOU CONFIDE IN A HOSPITAL BED TO TEACH YOU HOW TO LET GO.
THIS IS HOW YOU LET THE NURSE WITH SHAKY HANDS TEACH YOU HOW TO TRACE THE STRAIGHT LINE ON YOUR HEART MONITOR AND BE OKAY AFTERWARDS. THIS IS HOW YOU LIVE AND ACCEPT DEATH.
THIS IS HOW YOU UNEARTH YOURSELF,
THIS IS HOW YOU STOP EXISTING,
THIS IS HOW YOU STOP FOCUSING ON LIVING AND BREATHE FOR YOURSELF.
THIS IS HOW YOU STOP THINKING AND FEEL.
THIS IS HOW YOU SPEND A LIFETIME TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT 'THIS' IS.
Francisco DH Apr 2014
Give me your jewels you've hidden so well,
Contained and buried deeply in your heart.
Unearth and place 'em inside my pail
So I may take 'em and remove the shards.
I will polish 'em, before I tell
If your jewels, your love, is what I have sought.
gwen Sep 2014


today
I went to the beach in search of epiphany.

I was hoping to find her among the clouds,
witnessing her morph into an ivory shape that would
probe my unconscious into fashioning
some big epiphany
out of her silver linings,
relentless against the beating winds.

or perhaps

unearth him beneath the patterns of cracks in rocks; and
he would weave a veiny trial to
lead my psyche into navigating
the big epiphany
after testing his infallible focus,
relentless against the beating waves.

instead
I felt the sea spray tease my toes
the maritime breeze whip my face
the scraggly sand stab my heels
the roaring waves crash against the jagged cliff

I did not find epiphany.

all I found
was that again

**I felt small.
thoughts about epiphanies and how they can never be forced out of sheer will or coercion, no matter how much we may need them.

— The End —