The Campaign Builder's Guild

On the corner of West 65th and Kissinger Street, you can buy a gun for a couple hundred dollars. I watch from the dirty windowpane of an abandoned Rockefeller warehouse as a pair of misanthropic Peruvian night-owls, dressed like Pinochet but with the guile of Aylwin, deliver nine crates from a beat-up schooner. An inscription on the side of their vessel is faintly visible as they venture into the unknown night. It reads: 'Dictablanda.' If only their hearts were softer than their iron fists.

   Three men with glasses and suits from the Agency arrive. They talk quietly and open the crates, inspecting the goods and nodding to one another. They call each other by name as they dilute the product of all but three of the crates. One Theodore, one Augustus, one Napoleon: 'We are what we need to be,' said one indistinguishable suit to the others. 'Remember that without us, there is no them.' They report back to Julius. What needed to be done has been, and with one crate in stow they vanish into the night.

   A man in a fine suit, probably Armani, strolls onto the dock, flanked by a trio of darkly clad enforcers. 'Ah,' the Armani says, 'the goods are here.' His slicked back hair is graying at the temples, but his subordinates address him as 'Sam.' The enforcers take one crate each, and Sam calls his nephew. A celebration is at hand, and Sam is supplying the fireworks. His empty Armani suit creeps out of the street light. 'Leave the rest for the street rats,' Sam quips.

   Midnight is fast approaching. Twelve blue men and twelve in red approach the product. Their hands extend to spray lethal bits of hateful matter, and the screams of the stars have no bearing on the twinkling parallax of their slavish morality. When the red blood flows into the gutter and the blue remains standing, the five who breathe still take each one crate. Brothers in arms have become compost for a white garden.

   I make my way to West 65th and Kissinger and I ask to speak with Ronald. As it turns out, Ronald has left his gun store to a father and his son. I ask if I can speak with them. The answer is an emphatic 'no,' as they are too occupied with their machine to pay attention to the business. Some men from the church had asked them to work on it, and it was designed to power the homes of businessmen and thieves.
 
   I wish the family business was in better hands, but perhaps when they take a trip to the docks they'll understand.

   Or maybe I should bring the docks to them.

[spoiler=WARNING, COARSE LANGUAGE]

Quote from: Intersection BluesLook, you just need to understand. You didn't really'"well, that is, I mean to say that I could have BEEN THERE, but you wouldn't look me in the eye. OH MY GOD SHIRLEY IS THAT A NEW PAIR OF SHOES WHERE DID YOU'¦ they say, well, the stock market's a mess, wouldn't bother; look, nigga, ayo, fucking check bounced nigga! I broke up with her yesterday, caught her cheating on LIBERTY MUTUAL SAVINGS, I wonder if she even loves All you need is love. Nah, don't worry about it, I'll see you tomorrow? Vote for Halverson. Oh my god Jason it's been like forever since like I saw you how's Brittney?? What, oh, no, sorry, didn't, uh, sorry'¦ CHRIST COMMANDS YOU TO buy now, for just nine ninety five! Awwwww shit, I love this song! Wait, wait, wait, hold up. I think I heard her say'" uh, was that yesterday, tomorrow, today? Shit, I don't know. Fucking going to the spot tomorrow, can't wait to get blazed up'¦ I don't understand. THE END IS NIGH. Haha, no, no, nothing like that. George Bush can go to hell. Sir, vote Halverson. Who in the hell needs a Bible? Shit no, I just wanted to shut the old man up, jeeeeez my professor sucks. Three thirty, are you serious? Nobody, and I mean NOBODY can drink more than Joe.

Hey, what are you writing down?

Quote from: What's the context?What's in a name?

After all, everything is named. Be it a proper name or just a plain old lowercase name, everyone has one. We're all Joes or Johns or Jacks or Mohammeds or Nbwanes or what have you.

I don't care much for names. Am I a Jack? Or a Jake? How about a Tobias? Why am I not a Gaius Julius Caesar? The people around me name things and name me, and I speak their language for the sole purpose of acceptance.

I'm not a Carlos. I'm not a Steven. I'm not a Hu. I'm not a Vladimir. I don't use names for other people if I can at all avoid it. Because I don't think it's fair to sum up an entire person in one word. I don't think it's just.

Nominatively speaking.

This will apparently be the dumping grounds for any short snippet of stupid ideas or literary pseudo-experimentation I do for the next couple of days, so bear with me guys.

And feel free to comment.

[spoiler=ABSOLUTE GIBBERISH]

The pilgrim came to me for advice, I pointed him toward the pool of knowledge. To bathe in it is to immerse yourself in St. Augustine's blood. When I asked you how you were, I didn't mean to demean it, I mean, I meant to be mean. Did I tell you the story of the strange man and the old lady? Together, we'll dance in the twilight street light while watching the white and black knight engage in a fist fight.

Did you think it would be so easy? That's not what I thought of, not what I wish she would have said. Could anything have been more subtle than the disdain you felt toward my stained heart? When is this movie going to be over, I'm bored of monologues.

Yesterday, I spoke with you about tomorrow. Today, I didn't exist. When we all thought I was gone, you surprised him by reminding us of your voice, quiet but terrible with thunder. I thought they said "Yes," but it was secretly a cover-up of a much more sinister plot. Adverbs spilled from the dingy leather pouch you hung on the wall.

I told you, but they told me. Only after telling her what it was could I understand that I wasn't what she thought we were; only together could ideas and people become separated and our hypocrisy could evaporate. Now two midnight bunkers erupt with applause as the clerk and his wife separate for the first time in years. Yes, yes, it's all okay, we don't need a demonstration of your technical skill. Go play a trumpet if you feel like letting Jericho fall.

Is any of this sensible?

Could you please turn down that aggravating whistle that infects my brain?[/spoiler]

A master and his student were sitting in the monastery, carving statues of Apollo and Artemis from half-hewn stone. When all was finished, the Master spoke in rhyme and rhythm, though the rhyme was in another tongue and the rhythm was hidden beneath the green sands of eternal wisdom, lost on the beachhead of Sophia Heights.

"To what purpose," the student asked, "do we write such poems and brave such heights? Why do you leave the stone unhewn, the statue unchisled? What beauty of the present do you destroy?"

The master set down his chisel and his hammer. "Beauty is a fading transience, a temporary substitute for the happiness within. Outer beauty can be found in all things in all their forms, and it is not our task to shape the things of our world to our liking."

"Should I retrieve the morsels, so that we may eat in celebration?"

"Unless your nourishment is in fact the reflection of our inner turmoil, I am neither eating nor making such."

"But I could build a castle of our grain and oat, a tower of impression and impressiveness."

"On false foundations. Castles corrode as stone and mortar fade to sand, sand along the beachhead of Sophia Heights. Blasted by wind and rain and hateful bits of metal and propelled into the drift of eternal motion."

"Your poetry is murder," the student quipped.

"My prose is treason."

The student nodded. "Your crimes against humanity are the origins of literacy."

"If I had only been a carpenter, rather than a thief. A carpenter's victims never scream."

"The things you had designed would still be the greatest horrors in history."

"To the yew and birch and maple and oak perhaps. The willow is on average an emotional creature, so its sorrow would have been disregarded. But to take the lives of those who cannot speak and to create a home for those who can is better than to take the joys of all and put them to sleep as though a mangy mutt."

"Should not the masses share your plight? Could not your inner struggle propel their minds toward Sophia?"

"These words and thoughts are mindless drivel, dammed against the river of eternal, purified harmony. The thoughtful stream of consciousness."

"I would suppose there is but madness at that river's delta, and ocean in the chaos beyond."

"Chaos and tranquility are often confused, and it depends upon perspective. There is a certain harmony in the fundamental wellspring of element. To return to the ocean's floor is to discover life's silt-covered start."

"And the cycle of passive-agressive evolutionary fury and tidal destruction begins again?"

"Hardly passive, and nearly passionless."

"Then you should put these thoughts to string and chord, to lyre and song."

"Were that rhythms and rhymes were as kind as the gentle caress of a muse's fingertaps along my scalp! Would I conform to meter, tapping my feet to a hidden pathway to which these thoughts could abide?"

"You could allude to its purpose. Call it for what it is: philosophy as art."

"I will have resigned my destiny to the captive audience of strings and horns, the blaring anger of the lyre and flute. For now I shall keep my thoughts and writings separate, as though two squabbling children who fight for my attention."

This started out as prose, but ended up in poetic form. I decided to post it here.

Quote from: The Wisdom of the Midnight GraveThe night I met Sophia, I was far from sober
I think still of how I'd feel had I the chance to know her.

Drunk of the heart and of the mind, to mention not the liver,
 I stood and spoke and laughed and joked to strangers holding mirrors.
Their eyes, their masks, their hateful strands of whimsy known to few'"
such are the facts of tasteless tracts said toward my view.

The words and deeds and thoughtless pranks of my false peers of age
soon seemed to fade from this parade of lustful angst and rage.
The dead air's night and willful fright took naught but some to bed
as mist and moon and midnight gloom brought visions to my head.

The grove, the grave, that erstwhile slave, my friend quite prone to fancy
stood yet aside the twilight stride, its glow and life entrancing.
Enter did I into that realm of dead and mournful song,
interred inside was all I knew of life and love withdrawn.

And as I stood along the stone that marked my mother's home,
the mist and moon and midnight swooned and offered up a throne.
Seated there, in autumn's air, I heard the wispy whiskered call,
and sleep and sweep along the streets did death's embroidered shawl.

'Come now,' said she, her hand outreached, her eyes and spirit loosed.
'Who, me?' said I, my eyes enticed, her deathly glow a truce.
With little left to wonder, I moved to make demands;
with wisdom, whips, and winsome wish instead I shook her hand.

Sophia, she speaks in volumes; her hand is the concernéd touch,
but my drunk ears, my useless peers, could not discern much.
I sat with spite as snow and ice began to tumble down,
report did I the record thy sightless eyes do sound.

My words were minced, my heart was torn, my conscious cast aside;
for all I knew and all I was, from her could not I hide.

I'm reminded a little of Poe in the last one.

Quote from: JokerI'm reminded a little of Poe in the last one.

I was reminded a little of Poe when writing it.

Don't really like how this one turned out. Poem.

Quote from: Blue Street Blues (or the Angry Wolf at DawnWalk on down to Blue Street
At a quarter past three past five
You'll meet old Mister Princely
He's got a pair of wooden eyes.

You'll see the scene
Where I have been
Which I will now describe
I miss the midst of Mister Fisk
But now I am your scribe.

The jester saunters in
With the swagger of a king
You'll laugh once and again
But that ain't what he means.

The joke's on you
At least to him
And that is what he'd say
And as he laughs, he'd steal your hat
With the quickness of a snake.

The barber and his neighbor
In the dress-coats of the dance
Walk into Mister Princely's
And proceed to shake his hand.

When all is said
And all is done
You look twice at their names
You see their slate is red with hate
And their minds are turned to blanks.

Now I ask you, stranger
From the bottommost wells of truth
Could not the path of Blue Street
Hold the potions that could sooth?

If all is sold
And all is gone
Would hope still yet remain?
I feel it's true, this avenue
Is all that's left in vain.

This one is slightly inflammatory. Just a warning. The easily offended should stray away.

Quote from: Wake Up, StupidIt seems like the entire world is being devoured by the greedy mouth of Cronus, who wishes to share neither his love nor his wealth with the offspring he has spawned. The derelict father of a generation will gleefully fill his belly with our future misery.

We don't need a Zeus. Kill the father and become the tyrant? The lamentable fate of all such kings, and Caesar's sword testifies as such.

We don't need a Lenin. For ailing intellectuals, their hearts misplaced, will give way to brutish thugs with hammer and sickle brandished in hate.

We don't need a Jesus. The thoughts and beliefs of our people need more than radical reimagining, they need to be stripped away and structured again.

We don't need an Emerson. To stand aside and seclude oneself, to withdraw and write and mind your mind'" the conceit of the collective self and the genius link to it is not to be celebrated.

What do we need? Bush wanted to reach Mars. The dusty red Roman god of war. The irony is astounding.

What do we need? Smiles and glitter replace thoughts and beliefs. We talk about the superficial connections when we need to talk about what matters.

What do we need? I drink the black bile of the Earth's crust, it fuels my life. I will make Gaia weep with blood until I, the dread vampire of the human race, have killed her with my arrogance.

All things must pass. Life is the transient expression of an immutable vibrancy; my atoms are borrowed from canyons, gasses, stars and unknown parts. We are the self-aware universe, the wrinkle in thought connected to all things. And when I pass, bury me beneath the willow tree, for there I shall become immortal.

I want to go to sleep and wait for this to end. I so desperately wish for all to be replaced with a deathly void of the unknown night and shadow, the comforting embrace of nothingness.

But I know that sooner or later, I would have to wake up.

Those familiar with Walt Whitman might appreciate this or hate it.

Quote from: 180, revisedWhen I heard the learn'd English teacher;
When the themes, the essays, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the prose and metaphors, to see, dissect, and ruin them;
When I, sitting, heard the English teacher, when she lectured with such self-cause in conjectured form,
How soon, insurmountable, I became bored and sick;
Till hiding and sidling out, I wonder'd off to myself,
In a cynical choice right there, and from line to line,
Look'd down in perfect silence at the book.

My life is a deck of cards
I feel like shuffling them
And maybe after rearranging them upon the table
Their order unimportant
I'll draw a new hand from the deck

Quote from: I dreamt that there was an intentional exchange of mistaken identitiesHave you ever stared into the violet eyes of an unapologetic paradox?

Have you ever stood on an azure mountaintop, breathing sweet caramel air?

Have you ever smelled a flower so yellow it tasted green?

Have you ever felt the sound of laughter scraping slowly across your scalp?

Have you ever heard a sour apple?

I'll let this one speak for itself.

Quote from: The Aqueduct DelousingIt was an odd and sunny Monday when the chancellor made his speech
While JFK and Ronald Reagan barked up a tree
I walked down from the docks and I held my head up high
I had yet to learn that this would be my day to die

I waited at the street light, when it said stop then I would go
And at the old folks' home I picked up Edgar Allen Poe
'Take me to the bar,' he said with quite a thrill
So I revved up my car and we drove down to Bunker Hill

As we ordered drinks I noticed there was trouble there
As two men in minks came in with uncombed hair
One said his name was Ralph and the other's name was Henry
But I knew as soon as they walked in that they would apprehend me

So I took a cue from my old friend, the Kentucky Colonel
And I jumped behind the frying pan as if it were a hurdle
And as the two argued among themselves about their garden
I ran across the marketplace looking to buy a pardon

The lecher and the pauper were eyeing me strangely
As an old and younger couple were trying to buy a baby
I took out my fireworks and lit off quite the fuse
And when they let me lead the band I had to refuse

I decided then that I would go to see the sights of Paris
But the Hilton there was closed so I just crawled upon the terrace
The king and queen stood all alone, sipping on their wine
And I tumbled down to be their clown and tell them all was fine

The jester did not like that, so he moved to kick me out
But I just tipped my hat to him as I hopped upon a trout
The sudden call of sea-bound hauls then burst upon my soul
So I communed with nature and changed my name then to Thoreau

But soon as I had done that, a soldier took me by the arm
And told me that I had to go save the countryside from harm
So I hopped into the marching order of the ants and bugs
But they led me to a spider-hole where I was given handsome hugs

I kicked my feet and jumped right back up into the melee
When suddenly I learned that I could turn night into day
So I slipped and slept until the sun and moon had switched around
And I let my life expire so that a new one could be found.

As a cheapass incentive for replies-- anyone who posts a substantial reply responding to just one or two of the pieces posted here will receive a badge! Hooray!

(By no means are you limited to one or two responses!)
(//../../e107_files/public/1224045507_2_FT55712_lighttower.png)

well, it be not bribery that brings me hence,
Nor promises of shiny flitty badges...
The urban items invoke the best images, and images seem ehat you do best in this thread, snippets of color and calrity amidst the riotous
mixing hues, and sudden ideas flash after lists of mindless words shuttle by.
A dumping ground, with corpses of last weeks ideas sitting in piles, grinning word-skulls rictus afflicted,
yet seeing back into the idea-eyes of the writer as much as I.

A silhouette of regret...

Quote from: Icy Hipster Bitch Session #9I left my wallet in my bathrobe and my eyes upon the chair
You asked me if I had to or had ever read Voltaire
But I just laughed at you like you were Stephen Colbert
Because you're not real, you're just a puppet

I took you to the carnival where I lost all my bills
As Congressmen and carnie men tried to get me killed
And every last one had their hands in my pocket still
When all I wanted was to use the toilet

Last night I had a dream that we both had on our hats
We held another funeral for both of your cats
But I woke up and realized that's not where it's at
So I threw your picture into the garbage

I guess you could say that I'm a man of simple tastes
Because I simply enjoy the finer things that I make
I'm arrogant, impossible, and easy to fake
But it doesn't really hurt my self-image

If I were a gambler, I'd put all my stock
In the ones you deride for cruising on your block
So take all your jewelry, go to the pawn shop and hock
Your pointless dreams and ambition

I'm done with you, fed up with liars and cheats
That tattered poor self I can finally defeat
And I go back out onto the mind's Main Street
And put the key into the ignition.

Quote from: You're Original.Look at you
Your bleach-blonde hair
Your spray-on tan
Your cut off sweats
Your pretty pink phone
Your layered makeup
Yeah, you're authentic.

Like, oh my gawd
God, who are you?
I imagine that once you had goals
I'd think that once you had a self
But now
You talk
And no one listens.
They hear you'"
but they don't know what you mean.
Do you?

I can't see you
Beneath all the layers of them.

The sewer grates of this city seethe with her rage
Seas of taxis are her blood, the streets her capillaries
Sweet little songs die in the cascade of the hustle
While the somber, sinister notes haunt the skies

She pushes her derby hat over her eyes
Ignores the gangbangers trying to fuck with her
Covers her ears when the gunshots ring out
Her dignity is out of her hands

I miss the days when I would walk with her
She'd speak to me, I would speak back
Perhaps we both were younger then
Or maybe I was just in love.

What an unfortunate city... Icy Hipster Bitch Session #9 is particularly awesome. "A man today" just blows me away with the way it's written and posted.

Quote from: The Mountaineer's LamentThe summer swells with humming bells and hidden blood and toil
With twilight fright at crimson light of midnight bursts of oil
At such a time could I have deigned to make the trip ashore
Instead I loomed, the coast illumed
Behind my empty door.

Embraced at dawn, the wayward pawn of daylight's growing glow
I sailed along the lakeside lawn as thoughts and dreams did flow
Awake would I with feeling neither rich nor quite so poor
And I would gasp, and raise the mast
Among the sycamores.

My wife, the sky, the endless night, when she would go to bed
Would take with her the canvas which upon the sunlight bled
Had I the sense or loving mind found in few but more
I would have known, I could have shown
That with her I would soar.

And as I watched the steely fingers of the city's sprawl
I felt my doom, my hatred bloom, my gut began to crawl
The crimson claws of progress saw that I was but a chore
My wife is gone, and skies at dawn
Sparkle nevermore.

*whoops*

The monolithic duty of the erstwhile man-at-arms
Has been replaced of late by a sergeant's false alarms
That he would go so far to jeopardize his role
Speaks of the desperation of the people that I know.

When false peers peer into the pier of periodic past
Their fears appear to disappear, cast aside at last
But fast approaching gas, coasting along the land
Was fraught with naught but draught within its often-changing hands.

The locust swarm, with focus gone, quickly fluttered there
Devouring the fields along without concern or slightest care
Groveled graveled groves in which temples have been built
Have turned to dust and since have flushed away as though they're silt.

To watch as all my life and friends wither and erode
Hurts my soul, but of more import, causes me to bode
Should I be gone before you are, I ask you just one thing:
Please remember how it was when we were all laughing.

Polish Hare Krishnas standing on the sidewalk
Holding all their wishes in a bag with their chalk
I know that if you saw them, you'd stand on your knees
And tell the Lord Vishnu that you do what you please

A Muslim and a Christian walk up the avenue
Along with their friend, an Orthodox Jew
One Abraham, Ibrihim, a farmer named Earl
All three together plan to conquer the world

Folk faiths replaced by an atheist regime
Chinese Democracy is more than it seems
I hold you close to my chest so you can feel my heart
As Sunnis and Shias try to tear it apart

Just call me Zarathustra, a preacher in need
Of access to Ahura Mazda's divine steed
Gilgamesh and Hercules engage in a brawl
As me and old Ulysses share a beer in the hall.

There's a lot of meat here, so I'm going to break this response up into a series of posts, I think.

Your poetry reads like prose. By this, I mean that your focus is clearly turned toward the evocation of imagery rather than the description of action and narrative. You're no raconteur, but rather a conjurer.

In the case of the writings that have action and plot (such as the first one in the thread), I often have trouble following the thread of events through the obscuring language. But that very language is so vivid and compelling, it almost seems not to matter.

There are a few places where you let the florid language lapse, and the effect is jarring. For example, from the "master and student" dialogue:

Quote"To the yew and birch and maple and oak perhaps. The willow is on average an emotional creature, so its sorrow would have been disregarded. But to take the lives of those who cannot speak and to create a home for those who can is better than to take the joys of all and put them to sleep as though a mangy mutt."

"On average" sounds contrastingly colloquial. (I'm not sure what to replace it with, but I'm pretty certain "on" is the wrong preposition to use here. Maybe rephrase to something like "by nature," possibly set off by commas?)

Similarly, "as though a mangy mutt" is jarring, partially because "mangy mutts" seems colloquial, but mostly because it's a fragment. Consider "put them to sleep like mangy mutts," "put them to sleep as though they were mangy mutts," or some other phrasing. (Using "as though" cries out for a verb.)

Have to go now to check on a minor local emergency. Longer letter later.

Quote from: Luminous CrayonThere are a few places where you let the florid language lapse, and the effect is jarring. For example, from the "master and student" dialogue:

Quote"To the yew and birch and maple and oak perhaps. The willow is on average an emotional creature, so its sorrow would have been disregarded. But to take the lives of those who cannot speak and to create a home for those who can is better than to take the joys of all and put them to sleep as though a mangy mutt."

That particular entry was less a well-thought out piece of prose and more a dramatization of a chat log from IRC, but I agree that it in particular is sloppy and incoherent. I'll probably give it another look sometime soon.

This train-wreck was written when I was drunk last night, I'll be honest.

Quote from: The Kings and Martyrs on the HillI think and drink Communion wine until my heart is full
And from the masses are the ranks of the faithful culled
And as the streets of Israel are filled with chariots
The hanging noose is yet reserved for Iscariot

Dark clouds gather on the summit peak of seasons passed
Simon born as Peter denies his king thrice when he's asked
So we stand together under Pontius Pilate's rule
Worried naught in autumn's frost with temper and with cool

And as the princely follies breathe of hate and of decay
The solar gleam of winter sparks within his heart of clay
The thief and the arson on the cross next to the thorny king
Is martyred not of reason but of violence fomenting

The holy hall of Jerusalem was burning to the ground
And nothing we can do will save it from the crown
Should that the heralds of the Herodic kings of past
Remember now their crimson brow was such a hateful task.

Quote from: The Twisting TruthIs not peace a form of war that silently resounds?
As class elites discuss discreet profits in their lounge
Estranged to change, they've yet to hang in the autumn air
Zapatista assets freeze as wealth steals Harlem's hair
Like Fantine, she weeps and screams, her body sold wholesale
And yet she frets for Cosette, her heart is weak and pale
You and I, we see her standing on the street corner
As we stand inside the Upper Quarter.

Like little bugs, we're crushed and flung across the desert floor.
To spring and swing into evening we wish but never soar
The workers crawl into their holes as spiders sidle out
They have devised their demise and whisper to the grout
They weep but know that life abroad can be just as fickle
And so they scoff at the drop of hammer and of sickle
For all people hear the call of the lone porter
As they stand aside the Upper Quarter.

Is not war a form of peace that violently surrounds?
As armies march into the dark and win some bloodied ground
All alike, they step onto the brick and spray their lead
Graffiti artists are soon found and murdered in their bed
The guardsmen laugh and spray their gas, masked from the storm
And little children breath the fumes as bodies fall in swarms
And as the mists part along the ranks of the soldiers
They stand alone inside the Upper Quarter.

Quote from: Beginnings and EndingsLife is such a pointless trick
Of light and of darkness.
Variations, shadows crawl
Ever silent, ever dead.

In all things lost and all things won,
Surely there is refuge?

Doorknobs lock, bolted shut.
Ears of stone immune to hope.
As I peer into my life:
Death is all I see.

Quote from: The PantherIn my dreams,
A panther growled
And licked its blackened lips.

Its purple teeth
And ice-blue eyes
Were upon me fixed.

I held a torch
In both hands
And tried to fend it off.

The panther pounced
My flesh unloosed
And devoured, I'"

I became the panther.

Quote from: Talking to the CatI've an empty mind
So full of things
Such facts and other drivel.
All my life,
And through death,
If they remember me,
It will be as HE-WHO-SPOKE-TOO-MANY-WORDS-YET-SAID-SO-LITTLE.
But like a wounded moth,
Or perhaps a brilliant butterfly,
I flit from responsibility
Into the sun
And cry like Icarus.

Quote from: SincerityTo the dearest, precious woman
The dandelion of the garden
She who breaks the ice
Just so she can go fishing
For compliments.

To the lovely
No, beautiful
No, pretty
No, cute girl

I thank you
For everything
You never gave me.

Quote from: The PamphleteerAhmadinejad is standing in the circus tent
While insurgents in Baghdad refuse to relent
A shepherd is killed and his body interred
As someone pours a drink for Henry Kissinger.

A condor erupts from an Afghani veil
A Chinese bullet flies on a Darfur trail
Bin Laden dons his Soviet-era fatigues
And his Rolex watch commands the mujahedeen.

The Free World is hardly as free as it seems
Resting on the shoulders of Third World dreams
As Mugabe and Amin and Hussein have shown
The CIA just doesn't care who holds the throne.

Quote from: Streetwise Poet

Quote from: The PamphleteerAhmadinejad is standing in the circus tent
While insurgents in Baghdad refuse to relent
A shepherd is killed and his body interred
As someone pours a drink for Henry Kissinger.

A condor erupts from an Afghani veil
A Chinese bullet flies on a Darfur trail
Bin Laden dons his Soviet-era fatigues
And his Rolex watch commands the mujahedeen.

The Free World is hardly as free as it seems
Resting on the shoulders of Third World dreams
As Mugabe and Amin and Hussein have shown
The CIA just doesn't care who holds the throne.

Amen to that.

Quote from: Neverlasting FishbowlsTo cosmic time, I'm but a blur
My heartstrings are a dulcimer
The phantom spirit in your eyes
Is handsome in its moral ties

Summer springs at winter's fall
Relinquishing a thinner Saul
Tout le monde, they say in jest
Madonna holds you at her breast.

Symptoms of a braver mind
Hidden from the slavers find
The truth that gleams in harvest moons,
The truth that seems to calm and soothe.

QuoteTo the dearest, precious woman
The dandelion of the garden
She who breaks the ice
Just so she can go fishing
For compliments.

This is the best stanza in an excellent poem. I love the way you are using line breaks here, so that each new line forces the reader to adjust his understanding of the context and reevaluate the meaning of what you're saying.

In some of this poetry (here I am thinking of "The Pamphleteer" as an exemplary piece) the rhythm and meter suggest that you're writing these as rap lyrics rather than as a standalone poem. Reading the lyrics "straight" produces no real metric pattern or forward motion, but I can easily hear them slotted, with various rhythms, into the regular meter of a musical beat.

Quote from: Luminous Crayon

QuoteTo the dearest, precious woman
The dandelion of the garden
She who breaks the ice
Just so she can go fishing
For compliments.

ElDo is our resident Tupac. I'm going to be his manager or producer or something...

Quote from: The Free-Thinkers AssociationDishonest eternities and idiot fortunes
Coupled with couplets blown out of proportion
Are loaded into caskets, then a U-haul van
As fragments of humankind fall on Afghanistan
Leeches, bleached and beseeched, cling to my wife
As blackened blood pours up the drain of my life
The cracked and salty lips of the oceanic shore
Are crushed beneath the wishes of a heavenly door
Violent and virulent is the uncharted anguish
Its steely resolve is remarkably stainless
Napoleonic formations swell and raise the mast
As the prairie turtle of the race comes in last
The captain of the guard calls to the Virgin Mary
I put my hat on my arms because they're trying to scare me
The cigarette salesman tells my mind it's out of luck
And tired of running, it would rather walk amok
It hankers down and batters down the chorus calling 'schwa'
As I abuse a pair of clueless ants and throw them to the maw
I jogged into the county fair and lifted up my shoe
'My soul is falling out,' I screamed '˜til I turned blue
The baker then mistook me for a berry from his patch
And threw me in the crust of the next pie from his batch
As planets passed and Miramax films played in my mind
I summoned reels of images of the life I left behind
Holding onto handelebars carved from granite blocks
I felt the wood beneath me splinter on the rocks
The future and the past climbed into the golden carriage
Tensely, with intensity, they conjugated their marriage
Mayonnaise soldiers played the funeral march
As the chimney sweep gently weeped, rather, wept upon the arch
The professor said I had to have a motif in this poem
So I pulled up my pants and the nurse had to send me home
To veer, or voire, to steer and saw at my hollowed bones--
"Qu'est-ce que tu as dit? I was on the telephone"
At last, the poet laureate cleared the eyes to his mind
And thinking he was free, he deigned to end his rhymes.

To respond to the above point made by the perceptive Mr. Crayon:
I don't know if I'll ever record any of these, but many of the poems are being written to a phantom soundtrack that plays in my mind. It probably makes the rhythm difficult to read, as it's very fluid and seems to change every line, and really I have nothing else to say, other than your observation is founded in reality.

Quote from: American SocietyDo you see the change?
Do you see the change?
Do you see the change?
Do you see the change?
Do you see the change?
Do you see the change?
Do you see the change?
Do you see the change?

Hey, first of all, you got a much-desired psychodelic crayola reponse.  I'm envious.
I will also mention that I swear to Jubilex I heard Beck's voice when I read over 'The Free Thinkers Association" the second time.

Quote from: May I Have This DanceHey there, Jenny
You were the queen of the prom
You had the perfect teeth,
The perfect little dance,
The perfect little life,
And everybody loved you.

Cold, grey, November days,
You've got three kids now?
Isn't that'"well.
Hey, how's that relationshi'"
He wouldn't marry you?
He just drives around in his truck?

All day?

Please, I'm not bitter
And, excuse my contempt;
You had so much going for you,
You were royalty,
And it's just so sad to see you
Become this cliché.

Quote from: Four Letter WordsYou make love
You break love
You fake love
Erase love
Berate love
Forsake love'"

For the sake of love
Stop.

QuoteThe [Redacted] Story

You are [classified]
When we [redacted] on the [withdrawn],
I [omitted], you [redacted]
But you [removed], your [classified] were [omitted]
And that's why we were so [withdrawn]

Quote from: BileI'm shadowboxing a wraith of self-hatred, and time and again I've been barely coming out the victor. The warden shouts at me to hold the pressure in, to seal away the reactor to avoid a meltdown. I'm the only one that isn't allowed to show negative emotion.

So I wind up my roll of duct tape, plug my bayonet into my empty eye socket and go and drink poisoned thoughts from empty cups. The trickster pulls her sleight of hand, my vision becomes unfocused, and suddenly everyone's looking at me like I'm the strange one. Their faces contort and groans escape their lips. I sit in my solitary dark corner, watching the display, disgusted by it all but unwillingly fascinated by the grotesques before me. A layer of filth and grime coats the floors and tables and the people that populate them, but just take a whisk of the magical little potion and it all goes away.

Suddenly, I come to the realization, the moment of clarity that I've been waiting for. I'm no longer aware of where I am, it doesn't really matter at this point, but when I put the key into the ignition, reality blurs around me. Grappling my arms away from me and pinning them to the ground, the Great Drunk Beast fills my heart with blackness, pours hatred down my throat, and fills my muscles with the strength to be everything I am not. The transformation leaves me not quite a brute but certainly uncouth, and within my sights are all the baser emotions, all the fundamental components that form my otherwise complex neurology. Or neuroses.

But the black flame that consumes me, the one ignited by this unholy concoction, will burn me alive if I allow it.

Quote from: Sweet Son of ParadoxI am the god of the anthill
The king of dust mites
Emperor of microbes.

I wear a crown of filth,
A robe of rubbish,
And hold a scepter of grime.

And despite it all
I grin through tears
For at least I still am royal.

Quote from: The Nutmeg AddictWhen last I heard the forlorn call of lost and leery foes
I held a keg of milk and egg as people nearly froze
An early winter storm blew in of fierce and lashing tongue
And hindered us from finding where the mistletoe had hung
The sleigh bells broke and rang no more, the carpenter went home
As fabled hopes had sang and soared, a harbinger to roam.

When dazzled little midnight specks of starlight sky did fall,
The magic of the festival had glowed throughout the hall
Songs of folklore and of myth had been wrapped in sweaters warm
As babies born in snowy fields were left for God to mourn
The townsfolk came and made their peace with sunny manner still
As the crippled old Nutmeg Addict saw his spirit killed.

Hypocrites and malcontents were the first to then speak up
And wrest then from the Nutmeg man his psychedelic cup
With twisted grins, these empty men then moved with hate and spite
And the town watched still in sin the Nutmeg Addict's fight
The haggard hazardous old man was pried from winter's seat
And soon they threw him into the frigid crystal street.

As Christmas gifts and vicious lips spoke of the Nutmeg Man
Viscous quips and mistresses discussed then the New Year's plan
The murderers and riot mob would round the city block
And with some luck they'd single out the hanger of the socks
For this small town with all its little brownstones in a row
Was beholden to a Devil who dwelled within the snow.

Quote from: Streetwise Hipster

Quote from: Sweet Son of ParadoxI am the god of the anthill
The king of dust mites
Emperor of microbes.

I wear a crown of filth,
A robe of rubbish,
And hold a scepter of grime.

And despite it all
I grin through tears
For at least I still am royal.

This is fantastic, just wanted to say that, thanks for posting it :D

Quote from: Neo-Post-Post-Post-ModernismThe problem as it used to be was failure to communicate
The walls we'd built had led us to impale and yet to ruminate
But now the privacy of past has all but vanished to the wind
As information floods to us regarding enemies and friends

I do not care about your thoughts on Lindsey Lohan's life
I do not  care about your recent quarrel with your wife
This static on the Internet seeks to creep inside my brain
I long for silent days and nights and wish for malcontent again.

Quote from: Worse than Before but Still All the SameI'm buried beneath a pile of dirty white socks
As I draw a artistic masterpiece via lightbox
I prance and dance with my friend Lance until the day is dawn
And then we both grab lemonades and set fire to the lawn

The warlord calls and warns us where to stay
So I throw my friend into a cell and set out on my way
The commissioner and his posse ride up the city street
And every last one of them has on a pair of spiked cleats

The blind old cynic calls out to Julius
He tells the old dictator about the sin of hubris
Then Brutus comes from nowhere and pulls a great prank
And crucifies the pirate lord from the deck of the plank

Soldiers born to Heracles hold their standard true
So I go into the merry seas and oceans so blue
The pantograph hatches Prometheus' scheme
And issues commands from the nuclear machine

Nero uses his new gift to burn Rome to the ground
As politicians use the chance to spread the wealth around
Patrician families hold their status to the gods
As Antoinette force-feeds cake to all of the clods

From the ashes of the city a phoenix does arise
And Tom Outland's engine sprays oil into my eyes
Sarkozy and Putin exchange a tense stare
As the changing of the guard brings grey to my hair

The aging of a people brings fat to their belly
And old Willy Loman can't remember what to sell me
He walks into the poison hole to breathe the cyanide
And Biff cannot decide if it is patricide

Vonnegut and Cather dress up for the waltz
As Langston Hughes and blues men argue at the march
Malcolm and Robert are murdered at the fair
And my gnarled wooden leg turns into a chair

Sitting at the table, I play my fiddle loud
And Moses and Jesus part the middle of the crowd
I see red, the crowd goes dead, silent as a photo
And Jesus breaks out his guitar and hammers out a solo

Suddenly a demon who calls himself Walker
Goes to war with stories written by Faulkner
Racist old men explode all over Birmingham
About matters that should not be concerning them

A sword and a shield appear in my hands
I throw them aside and go buy up some land
Katrina, the temptress, she wrecks the old town
Leaving gumbo chefs with a permanent frown
 
The story keeps on changing, the writer is scared
All the world filters through his angry red flare
The poet calms his nerves and slips him some booze
What comes next seems almost too hard to choose.

Quote from: Longevity of SoulsI weep the tears of Solomon when last he heard the call
Of all his wives of foreign gods within his crumbling hall
That wise old sage had forsook the powers he beheld
And Caesar's troops ensured that old Israel was felled
The corona of history was passed soon to the King
First to Herod then the Christ, the pivot soon would swing
As Zealots called to Pharisees and called for Jesus' blood
Black storm clouds turned the sandy desert into mud
Simon born as Peter rose and took the papal crown
As Saul of Tarsus stood in awe as light would soon surround

Apologists and charlatans would tarnish their good names
But Augustine and Charlemagne restored the sacred chain
The kings and princes of the time soon assumed a role
As enforcers of the cross, a goblet was their goal
Barbarism and disdain became the twisted truths
And cuckold Arthur became the rising youth
When folk tales of the ancient past were revived from ash
History was soon revised so Christians would not clash
Up in flame and up in smoke went Alexandria
Its library and pagan thought met with malice and mistrust

So great evil and great good soon would come to pass
In name of God and name of King and especially of class
Europa seemed corrupted by a universal greed
So Martin Luther went to Worms and posted his treatise
Calvinistic doctrine soon swept the northern lands
And good old Henry seized the chance to marry yet again
Impure yet within the minds of the most Puritan at heart
The Anglicans began to tear themselves apart
Ousted from their nation and without home or hope
The outcasts left Angleterre and learned soon how to cope

The blizzards of this foreign land hardened their resolve
And soon the wars began against the native tribes involved
Colonies grew discontent and declared their independence
As slavery became the norm for social men of interest
The generals played their games and fought a bloody war
But soon the King grew tired and severed his support
A nation birthed in thought and deed separate from the church
Was born to Thomas Jefferson under Sally Hemmings' skirt
Muskets flashed and rifles passed from farmer then to soldier
As tensions grew, the nation blew apart its bold composure

The war was won when all was done with casualties aplenty
As the nation wept for their kin, Lincoln died violently
Republicans and Democrats blustered and rebuilt
As dreams of black men from the South were hidden in the silt
Christ and God were soon invoked by parties young and old
The righteous and the selfish both believed their sacred goal
Emerson spoke to the priests and told them, 'Look within'
Harvard made a point not to invite him e'er again
Transcendental humanists expand the nation's mind
But Whitman stood in nature with a smile and declined

The brewing storm across the world exploded in a flash
And godless men of all the lands bled and fought and thrashed
Their disillusioned shells returned to deadened lands abroad
They numbed the pain and lived a life as tragic as was flawed
Depression settled in the land as the Satan on the Rhine
Peddled works of hate and spite that saw his quickened climb
The hammer and the sickle rose and straddled all the East
And planes and tanks and guns soon replaced the ancient priests
The Chosen Tribes of Israel were slaughtered by the score
And Franklin, Winston, and Josef battered down the door

The fungus cloud erupted and the Rising Sun withdrew
As the clawing hands of two titans began the fight anew
The dust had hardly settled as the children squandered peace
As the Israeli specter loomed above the Middle East
Armed with power and with flame granted by the world
They dominated all they saw with rockets they had hurled
The chessboard of the global map became a deadly game
Until the rise of Gorbachev who sought a different claim
The end of war was thought by all to be soon within grasp
As Bosnia and Rwanda were both allowed to pass

Terror and oppression were now the tools of trade
By both sides of conflicted testaments of faith
Were that the problems of all men and women yet so clear
It sometimes seems as though mere chance that we are even here.

I wrote this during a sleep-deprived half-breakdown last night.

Quote from: on run running on run-onI'm mumbling to a pair of sneakers about the injustice of the war, but I can't hardly see the person standing in the mirror because the sky is too green and the earth is black and everything is wrong. But I don't know if it's just because I'm sitting all alone in a little white box or if it's because the river I've been swimming in has finally dried up, so I guess I'll just take a watering can and let everyone pretend it's okay. I'll put on a pair of sunglasses if it means avoiding the truth in your eyes because the gateway to my soul should be better guarded, after all who are you to look at me and look in me and pretend you understand what's going on? If I had a genie, I think I'd wish to wish that he could wish, because a genie surely thinks of better wishes having heard so many. But i don't really care what the Emancipator thinks because although he's trying to free the slaves he can't see that he's a slave to his own mind, unfree and chained to the prison warden's desk. Everyone has a pair of eyes that they've been putting on the floor, and I'm tired of people stepping on me and mine, I can't very well lift them without having my hand trampled on. Both of you stand with her and see how your height compares, I have some building to do. I'd rather not discuss the matter if you don't very well mind, but I keep running in hopes of running out of words.

Quote from: Dishonest Yesterdays of Nobody in ParticularYou spoke to me about your life
I wasn't really interested.
You seemed so damn mystified
By the stupid little things
Do you have a brain?

You recall how things used to be
I seem to remember differently.
Oh, but all was well,
You were happier then, surely
Is that what you think?

You keep mourning the death of this past
I hear it all the time.
If you keep this up
Surely you must see
You'll lose what you have left?

Quote from: Procrastinator's OathIt's not that I can't do the work
It's just so'"well, it's dull
I'll start in just a few minutes'"
Yeah, after this song is done

Okay, to work I go,
I've opened up the book
Put my name on the paper. . .
Time for a break
I think I'll make a snack
Is that Back to the Future on TV?
I'll finish after this movie'"
Oh, sweet, a marathon
I'll crack down in a couple hours

I'm kind of sleepy
No way to work
I'll just take a power nap. . .

Class is in two hours
Shit shit shit
Deep breath
Open the book'¦

And in fifteen minutes, I'm done.

Quote from: The Ballad of Bertrand and EmmelyneThe lonesome meadowlark perched on the branch of yew
Coos sweet mystic melodies to the Wandering Jew
Who, travelling to the village where tombstone sailors lie
Hopes to cast off his curse, hands groping at the sky
With rugged look and hat and coat stolen from the hole
And with the name of Gabriel sewn upon his soul
This tempter, this traveler, this diplomat of night
Consumed by phantom flames and hideous to sight
Is ready, so he thinks, to seize his life again
And so, in slumber's shadow, he fills his life with sin

Inside the slums of the village where he hopes to go
Sits Emmelyne, the lady with a heart that none can know
With scarlet hair and pouting lips, with rivers in her eyes
Emmelyne, eternal, wraps the winter 'round her thighs
For, though she loves not snowy banks nor memories of cold
The empty air can fill the void of the life she sold
When cast upon the daggers of daylight's crawling climb
Her voice is like a violin, her laughter is like chimes
The peasants of the village all shower her with presents
As Emmelyne declines them, her face becomes unpleasant

Bertrand Baker, born to Quakers, burns with heavy guilt
He stitches all his life into shining patchwork quilt
With pastel dreams of purity, of glory, and of lace
Bertrand is consumed with visions of a woman's grace
He knows her face, her sultry voice, her smile and her tongue
But her name is lost to him, the note that is unsung
On wintery nights, he holds his palms near the open flame
Imagining that she is near, her touch and breath untamed
Yet winds of loss and tides of truth steal this quiet rite
And Bertrand Baker shuffles off into the winter night

Upon the hill are those who preach, the morose gang of monks
Proponents of great zealotry, opponents of the drunks
Among their rank emerges one, their leader, Father John
Who treats the peasants ruthlessly and sells them for a song
With harvest gone and monks withdrawn, he settles for some grain
And gorges on the gifts and tithes shuttled from the plain
Those who hunger, those who thirst, the helpless flock of lambs
Are sacrifices for the success of God's unyielding plans
To Father John and to the monks, the world is nearly cleansed
And the monks are unaware of all the Father's sins

With guarded hate and harried gait comes Gabriel's approach
As a donkey hauls his cart, he seems beyond reproach
For though his painted face reveals a sinister design
He shares his oils and elixirs for a meager fine
And Emmelyne, with her hopes slung across her shoulder
Buys a potion, takes a drink, becoming even colder
Kaleidoscopes of memory slither down her spine
As snakelike people take her blood and paint a silver sign
Bertrand, walking to the square where Gabriel now stood,
Sees his love, pale Emmelyne, on a bench of wood

Noting that her river eyes are swirling, swelling, swallowed
He takes the potion from her hand and sees her soul is hollow
Grabbing Gabriel with force and thrusting him aside
He searches for the antidote to save sweet Emmelyne
Quietly escaping from the ruckus of the square,
Gabriel repaints his face and dyes his silver hair
Father John and his monks arrive to place the blame
And put to death Bertrand Baker by unholy flame
And as sweet Emmelyne awakes from her drugged state
Gabriel, now far away, laughs at Bertrand's fate.

Quote from: maybe botham I vulnerable
or am I venerable

are you caustic
or are you costly

are we haughty
or are we happy

Quote from: transciencestrap on a pair of wings
let's go fishing for
eternal happiness?

disassemble me
look at my clockwork chaos
and tell me you love me

i need to know
if you are cosmic
or if you are a dancer

Do you by chance do limericks?

Limericks usually aren't my thing

Quote from: A Love Letter to the Lady GazaSay hello, hello
To the brand new world
Say hello, hello
To the brand new year
Say hello, hello
To liberty
Say hello, hello
To democracy

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat
Oh, the rocket's red flare...
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat
Not a refugee camp, it's an--
Did you hear the explosion?
Anarchy.

Demagogues,
Rather, Democrats,
Unequivocally support this strategy
(Because you can't fire a nuke from a slum
No air strikes in Iran though, please)

Sizzle, sizzle, smoke and flame
Thus the school shall go
Crackle, simmer, boast and blame
Necessary. Unfortunate.

And as a child's blood
mingles with the sand
You wonder:
This is the Holy Land?

incidentally, I'm just cross-posting stuff from my blog right now, a link to which is in my sig.

Quote from: The Friar and His AlmanacA man I once knew from the desolate slums
Who poured out his soul to the celibate scum
The peasant who hung from the devilish tongue
The priest of the pirate who peddles in puns

Had such a great fervor and feverish thrill
With dreadlocks and deadlocks and simplest of skill
That, still in the pillbox of Calgary Hill
The friars took arms and were ready to kill

The battle to wage was a frivolous one
Encouraged by Peter and Presbyter John
The question at hand was if war could be won
As so went the drum, ra pum pa-pum pa-pum.

And who could endeavor in blackest of times?
The Baptist is severed, a platter to find
The passions of passives entombed in the lime
Is pleasant and present and ready to climb

The smoke and gunpowder and cavalry ride
Recall and enthrall all of those on the line
In order and rank as the flank, it does hide
The war has begun with all reason aside

That man I once knew from the desolate slums
Who poured out his heart to the hellish of scum
Had died from an arrow that pierced through his tongue
As so went the drum, ra pum pa-pum pa-pum.

Last cross-post for tonight

QuoteThe newspaper's in the trash can
The journalist, he seems unsure
All the things he thought he knew
They now seem so absurd
Pointedly, he makes mention
Of his untimely decline
He climbs into his unmade bed
Weeping to his bride
The past, as he would tell it
Has been thwarted by the priest
As he stares out the window
Onto the empty city street

The day has almost receded
The night is beginning to rise
The city in all its splendor
Is about to come alive
Lovers crossing street lamps
Roost underneath the bridge
Both entranced by mystery
And both, so frigid
The constable, he sees them panting
He strikes them with his feet
And now, there are two dead boys
Lying in the city street

Pigeons trapped in cages
All along the rooftop edge
Are chirping their fears away
And are leaving hope for dead
The keeper has been little comfort
Or the ringleader at least declared
Lending to the line of thought
That soon would fill the air
Causing all to fill with fret
And some to even care
And as they hummed in unison
The message was discrete
None in cages or in the sky
Would sweep the city street

Fortune seems oh so tempting
At least to the midnight mime
He speaks with silent wisdom
And pretends that all is fine
He watches all the antics
Of the shadows and their kin
Confused by their hypocrisy
And scared of their intent
He sees a child walking
Into the where the bell has rung
The mime, he tries to warn her
But the devil has cut out his tongue
And as the child is lifted up
Dangling by her feet
The mime, he sits and sleeps alone
Upon the city street

The beggar, though just a boy
He sees the coming dawn
And so with cup in shaking hand
He refuses to be a pawn
Though his hat is on so crooked
And he is mocked by all who pass
The angels have prepared him
For this, his bravest task
Pity has been his companion
And often some disdain
But the beggar boy looks to the sky
As his tears mingle with rain
He needs the coin and needs it quick
For his parents are recently deceased
And he has to purchase flowers for them
And leave the city street

Quote from: Candles Lit Inside the Empty PaneWho could think that thunder can be stolen fast?
Forever bottled,  sold, as all things that pass?
The politician bleeds upon the floor
Living like a soldier without war
His life is flashing on the silver screen
Screaming all along the Aventine

Should not all who speak be made to think?
Do not all who gamble surely take a drink?
The undertaker dreams of greater things
Scrambling in the presence of the kings
As he shovels dirt into the hole
Where your body lays without a soul

Are the sins of others our burden to bear?
Sitting in a prison cell with graying hair?
The warden breaks the hands of the thief
Who promises to turn another leaf
Upon the tree of life, he's crucified
And only the old warden knows he's died

Quote from: The Unfortunate Perfunctory Cannibalism of a Farmhand's Calloused WorkshopOn a dead gray day in the middle of May
The boots of the strongmen crunch
Upon the hay of Mister Holiday
As the governor eats his lunch

A bird will sing, it's a pretty little thing
On top of the Cadillac car
The notes still cling to a broken fiddle string
In the back of the big black barn

On a dead gray day in the middle of May
A shotgun splits the air
And all will say of Mister Holiday
That at least he died with flair

Quote from: 9pxonly those[/size]
who want to hear
the march of all
the industries and
as the train moves
down the track you
feel your teeth
begin to rattle
feel the power
of the engine
tumbling fortune
bold decision
and as the sound
begins to fade
the awe of it
begins to fade
the thunderclap
begins to fade
and the train
begins to fade

into the horizon.

Quote from: The Bombardier's Funeral MarchUnzip your mind and play a little tune
For the maker of the bombs who died last June
It took us twenty weeks to find all the flowers
By then his dreams had wilted as fortune clouds glowered
As Capricorns and archers took to chaos cards of decks
The empty chamber of the gun would project a witch's hex
And should procession patriots choose to build an arch
All the horsemen of the land will join the Bombardier's march

The thief of thieves who stole a crown from the god-king's head
Whose trial was a sham, whose prison was of lead
He became the icon of the iron musketeers
Philosophized and prophesied by warehouse women seers
Whose visions crawled into the minds of mobster mentalists
And promised to advance the cause of the wanted list
 As the drought began to drawl and thirst began to parch
So began the wicked task of the Bombardier's march

Cascade clavichords and washed-out brass brigades
Began to burst and break as though they were grenades
And wisdom-wishes of the masses and the thriving streets
Pebbled all the prison walls with pasted patterned sheets
Orchestras of violence moved swiftly without shame
And the bombardier evoked the king to blame
He was killed for negligence of the tax on starch
But now we all shall honor the bold Bombardier's march

Quote from: Epitaph of a Beautiful TyrantWho will mourn
the butterfly
smashed against the
window pane?

Who shall grieve
the monarch dead
ended early
in her reign?

The graveyard moths
imps of commerce
do they fret
or feign?

acceleration / hyperactive / life and death / changing hands and / changing heads, hydra / wisdom w/o there ideas / ideals / pouring / torrential / ending / all / linear thought

Quote from: Yearning Visions of the Midnight QueenStarlight burns within your eyes
as you don your
olive-tree jacket

Your oracle smile,
as though Inspired
by a goddess

Your laughter is like
a dove perched
upon a church bell

Your smile is
a flash of light
eviscerating darkness.

Beams of fortune
Tides of honesty
Your gleaming mind

I need you in my life.

Quote from: Vibrant Throes of SympathyWispy strands of yesterday
Your solemn ocean-eyes
The warmth of your words
Sweet melodies build into
Symphonies of ideas
With paint-brush precision
I prime, then color
my adoration.

Quote from: Song & DanceSweat-drenched keys flash piano verdicts
Rhythmic be-bop transcends time
Wiggly trumpets scream into circuits
The bassist feels his temper climb

Chaos (panic) on the ball room floor
Nightclub matchsticks burn with glee
The shaking thunder of the frat house door
The old man and his wife's bad knee

Music, dance, future, chance,
Euphoria in its grandest splendor
Romance at its utmost tender

Chaos, order, movement, stance,
Calypso corridors of pulsing trust
Improvised signals of lust

Quote from: MacabrePerched upon the midnight crown
The chancellor is shuttled down
He answers all opponents' claims
But secretly records their names
His police parade at dawn
And the king is now a pawn
As sonnets soon are penned in jest
And pinned upon the hangman's breast
The skies are red, the moon is black
The devil's hand is on my back
But when I stare into your eyes,
I can see through their lies

Suited for the Senate seat
The poor man bleeds from his feet
And secretly believes his call
Is sacred and is meant for all
Holding baskets full of bread
The Lion of the floor is led
Into pacts and pointless trades
Exchanges born of hopeless knaves
Solemn servants scrub his brain
Until only his hate remains
But when he stares into your eyes,
He remembers why he cries

Power, money, sex, and wealth,
Seeks the sailor for himself
But unknown to the captain's crew
Their souls were to the devil due
As yellow seas of brimstone, smoke,
Ash, disease, and death were stoked
Sulfur tides begin to crash
Against the shores to seethe and thrash
Shipwreck memories of life
Are stolen by the knives of strife
But as the sailor sees your eyes,
The clouds are parting in the skies

The clock and all its gears shall crumble
The bunkers of the priests shall rumble
Humble, hopeless peasants shriek
As missiles kill the swift and sleek
The noose is tied around my head
The rope is made of flame and dread
The words and daggers of the clown
Become the floods that nobles drown
The drummer rattles at my cage
Persistent in his sightless rage
And as I look into your eyes,
I wait for all the  sweet goodbyes

The last one.  I love it.  Good work.

Quote from: The Brimstone BrideSCREAMING IN THE DESERT NIGHT
The weeping witch begins to caw:
WHO SHALL SUMMON UP THE WIGHT?
And bromide, burning, breaking law,
Speaks in Tongues nailed to the wall
And soon upon the floor would scrawl

BURNING EYES AND ROTTED FLESH
Such were the witch's brew to need
WOUNDED LOVE AND EGOS FRESH
Ingredients the witch would cede
Murdered joys were squealing, fried
As soon arose the Brimstone Bride

TO THE DUKE WHO ALL SHALL FEAR
Such were the words she spoke aloud
I OFFER THIS, A PENANCE QUEER
The witch had spoke in blackened clouds
And as would rise the Brimstone Bride
The prince came to the witch's side

CHAOS, CROWS, AND CRIMSON HATE
Crawling words heaped on the night
MURDERED AT THE MIDNIGHT GATE
The witch beheld the horrid sight
As the prince was torn apart
She  could see the bride's black heart

Quote from: field left blankall I ever wanted
was to be loved
&
according to you
that was too much
to ask.

OK, The Brimstone bride is a keeper.  Do I have permission to slightly change and use in the Sweet Retreat?

Quote from: Vreeg's BordeauxOK, The Brimstone bride is a keeper.  Do I have permission to slightly change and use in the Sweet Retreat?

You are more than welcome, as long as credit is given.

Quote from: Hemlock CrimesWith her  silver-studded centerpiece and systems of malaise
And her  hypnotist laundry bills and salsa smoke and haze
Her  memories of loneliness and curfew ticket rides
Coupled with her dancing oboe-Samson soldier tithes
The squawking jukebox dancing queen is sliding in her ear
Telling all the apricots of the changes she has cleared
With window-screen Christians and their patriotic kin
And her  cardboard cutout idol of Abraham Lincoln
And soon the question calling card is crumpled in her mind:
What in all these pointless paths do you hope to find?

The tundra dancer homeless queen is buried in the snow
Hoping in her car to find what Goliath cannot know
In prodding prose and pesticide, she swallows frozen tears
And her fasting penance-pride shall hollow all the years
Those times that chill her bony mind and broken-ballroom heart
So pledged unto the captain of the parachuting tarts
Whose sister twin is ransomed by the paralyzing waste
The passive poignant punks who have stolen quiver faiths
And echoing throughout the caskets of the arctic queens
Is: what in all these broken  paths do you hope to glean?

The mercenary pistol-poison Florence florist sighs
And casts the bones of the damned upon the servant's eyes
The servant sweeps the ash and soot onto the broken plain
And mimics all the danger calls of trumpets pouring pain
To quit the burning fortune favor she seeks a lucky charm
But knows to hope for Caesar's ghost will only set alarms
And so in somber shadow-squeals of caustic crimson code
She crawls along the corridor and steals the thought to bode
Upon the desk-job officer who kindly had just asked:
What in all these empty paths have you been so tasked?

The poem protector diplomat who carries all the rugs
Is burning bridges on the farm so none can steal his mugs
And knowing that the cancer-cream of corn and potion shops
Is building cabins made of loss and burning all the crops
Thus he takes the empty mind of unfilled jugs  of death
And with his smoke and steamboat rage beseeches angry Seth
To crush the spirit of the times in zeitgeist atom bombs
As stormy weather winter eyes have stolen summer calms
And as he ponders limitations he asks in even pain:
What in all these worthless paths should I seek to gain?

Fire-fashioned Vulcan hammers break the treaty calls
As agony and apathy search in earnest for the stalls
Of fate and fighting fastened freaks who sing their dullard hymns
And in their empty endlessness ask for frantic friends
Whose sombrero spastic dreams can summarize the world
And bottle distant aspirations upon which Christ is hurled
Curled into the seismic days, they wait with flaming swords
And prepare to burst the daylight dreams of sunny sailor shores
But soon a slithered question springs upon their pirate plate:
What in all these senseless paths should we know to hate?

Answered in the doorbell words of ordered dismal homes
Is the question-refrain-dream of actors made of chrome
With leaves of night and blades of day in search of fame and shame
And scalding all the cascade brooks that bubble buoyant claims
Cider-spirit tree-toed nymphs and emblematic books
Are splintered sister hipster hits corroding all the hooks
Scorned and sentenced by the midnight judge for guilty pleas
They hope in swirling turtle fate to enter when they please
Corrupted, they are asked in jest by the stars above:
Is it in these hollow paths that you search for love?

Quote from: DodecahedronDoes belief relieve
Does relief believe
Discuss discourse
Disgust this horse
Prancer, cancer
Dancer, answer
Haberdasher
Madams ask for
roots of daisies
root for days and
end it well
at the bottom of
the well.

Quote from: Through the Gates of Tartarus: Curtained Dawn of ParadoxThe angel-corpse of Lucifer upon which hate is built
has been buried by the sergeant underneath the silt
of warlord shores and cryptic throes, those sympathetic strands
of the shifting shadow flames of a hundred open hands

Surging such, though thunderstruck, the menthol mermaid dreams
as oyster-opened hopelessness splashes on the seams
of the angry ocean god of oil, trash and grime
who upon the hound-dog deaths can never find the time

Those broken clock-face Eden screams of Adam sold to scores
are murder-faced typography that pull the curtain cores
from the apple Knowledge-breath the snake has thus consumed
the hardnose happy golden coins that demons must subsume

Bear-trap amber wooden fakes and falsehood freedom nights
penned by Cain in Abel's blood upon the Bill of Rights
those Plato forms of flaming horns and sparking vinyl sighs
that curdle all the love and praise of twilight manic eyes

Hark the silver gunfight thoughts that burn in angels' ears
of farmer crops of knowledge-vents  and iron-coated shears
the import of imported goods in the Kingdom of All Souls
cannot be stressed enough by miser-guidance coals

The aching, quaking trade regime of marching diamond men
dapples stadiums of hype to erase the armaments
of collective action wars in heaven-hell mistakes
known to all the choral gangs as seas of burning lakes

Melting, melded resolutions of the praetor prize
are lauded by the Lord Below as sacred, true, and wise
the steel-mill Satan summer screens that seem so kind and clean
burn inside the convict bars that burst the crowning queen

A deck of cards inside the sanctum shuffles gypsy tents
as tarot fools and pointless rules demand the mail be sent
a compromise of spiky shells negotiate the fate
of the mobile mundane malls that seize the soap to sate

Their endless thirsts and Fender throats that scream the devil's light
to all the harmony and hope of fallen fang delight-
the trade and mindset of the published patriot and priest
protects the patient proctor clones of clement booted cleats

The ruby-roaming ranger king begins his roaring prayer
to dispute the beast within that claws with golden hair
havoc highland soundboard signs of scathing psychic scythes
reap rewards from rounded reichs and diplomatic ties

To textile tins and tens of tongues, the tempter tempers, feigns
those cowboy rebel angel tears that drive the kings insane
so that the pepper-salted face of David could become
a combat crown of lustful lies to blame upon the sun

And as the royal regal-thighs of states begin their stride
the devil's dues are paid in full and Charon claims his ride.

you did great, with this one.  Just fantastic.

Quote from: Ramblin' Jo MarieThis town is a bore and it's drivin' you mad
You got dirt on your shoes and you're shoveling sand
You dream of big money and a motorbike journey
Instead you're deliverin' mail to attorneys
Your pants are too tight, your shirt is unbuttoned
Something is wrong and you feel like a glutton
Oh, you gotta get out but you don't know who to trust
Except your six packs of cigarettes and your wanderlust
So instead of a plan, you make an escape
Dragging your heels on the interstate

Now you're in another city, got a chip on your shoulder
The world keeps on spinning as the days get colder
The lines on your face are increasing from worry
You can't pay your credit card and you gotta hurry
To the grocery store where you make some money
Bagging all the canned foods for the sixty-some honeys
Oh, you gotta get out but you don't know where to go
So you pick up your shoestrings and give them a throw
And instead of a plan, you make an escape
Dragging your Geo all across the state

"Fancy meetin' you here," you say with a grin
To the piston-headed drunkard who can give you a spin
He ain't much of a looker and he smells like bait
But you gotta make ends meet whichever way
So when he smiles through his kangaroo teeth
You think of how you promised yourself it would be
Oh, you gotta get out but you don't know how
You're tired of living in this one-horse town
And instead of a plan, you make an escape
Dragging your heels back to your mama's place

Quote from: Cancel the Court DateIron-on fury and a sense of blurry
Avant-garde relations of man
Provide all the context for a merciful pontiff
Don't you know we're still in Afghanistan?

You keep telling me darling that you know how it started
But I have to keep telling the tale
About the rebels of commerce who expect all of Congress
To provide the money bail-out in bales

You got me puzzled and angry
You got me huddled and praying

I'm standing in the kitchen and I'm on a big mission
And I see you keep on towing the line
With your straw-hat and pistol and you're overall fickle
Don't you know this is 2009?

There's applause in the chamber but my coat's on the hanger
I wore it to another job interview
And my taxes are low but I got nothing to show
And man I have even less now to do

You got me hustled and hazy
You got me troubled and lazy

Quote from: Trilogy Tragedies Trading TravestiesYour tattooed-tan and temper titan tambourine is shrill
Your sandy summer sample savior is silent, without thrill
Your catacombs of reverie and calendars of crates
Are canceling the causes and the castaway berates
Your drunken-daydream dismal death and dicey coat of arms
And your cookie fortune life that puts your sight at harm
And who could know that deep inside you're hollow as a tin
And that you embroider all your love with symphonies of sin

The sycophants and psychopaths are grasping at the sleuth
Begging him to barter with the farmers for the truth
Regarding waves of asphalt haze and hissy silver rakes
Quashing cravings of the craven killer-thief who slakes
His thirst for art upon the parts of faith that cannot hide
From the whips of danger-drawers that cardinals deride
As being so unmanly and as being wreathed in red
Encompassing the days of men and breaking all the bread

Such began the night that ran and bled into the years
The months that morphed into the sighs of children and of peers
Who cannot know by biting blows what banished banners breed
And refuse to save the clues that reveal the kingdom's greed
For who among the funny ones can hold their light afloat
To the shipwreck days of yore that guard the harried boat
And as all sights of senseless nights begin to melt away
The parsimony panzer parson prays for pavement pay

Silence speaks in simple speeds to single sweeping sores
And tears the tear-drop temple tastes from the tailored Thors
Those sowed by sanctioned anxious ants that answer to the name
Of the anguished father whose son has died in blood and vain
The wars that take and mutilate the helpless friar will
Of anyone who cannot take their tongue-drop tyrants off a pill
Are prepared in name and verse to preserve a way of life
That promotes the endless fields of hatred and of strife.

Quote from: The Sad-Song Caveat of the Last Living TeardropYou must remember
friend of mine
to never lend your heart

To the ones who
steal your laugh
and tear your mind apart

You must remember
friend of mine
to always hold your breath

Around the ones
who hold the guns
and seek your timely death

Quote from: A Barbell for You

Girl,
I need you to listen
Everyone you know and talk to
They judge you and mislead you
Everyone you've lent your heart to
Has always let you down
But don't despair and
don't
let
them
tear
you
down
You've got the brains
So don't let them tell you
Who you are or what to do
Don't let them swallow your pride
With their amphetamine lies
You're stronger than
you know

Ahh, gotta love the shaped ones...

EDIT: Do you think you could do one shaped like that middle finger people always put in chain emails?

Quote from: MissingselfThe white-sun gaze is fixed upon the town of Missingself
A village-city named by and for a corpse  of winsome wealth
Who in the days before his death was known for hate and spite
But now endowed is all the town with his money and foresight
Distraught and unromantic, the people fought with iron fists
And left their children all alone to speak the alphabet
This generation sadly was raised by the television screen
And cast away from their parents' love, were seen as quite obscene
Inward and introverted, they were soon hurled to the world
Supposedly grown-up and whole but really boys and girls

The Trombone Sailor tramp of trails was first to leave his post
He owed to much for too long and meant  to see the coast
Off the cliff of dead-end dreams he had hoped for a silver coat
To impress all of the city girls and return with one to gloat
But as he crossed the country with the answers in his hands
He constantly ignored himself and made severe demands
Upon the people of the shores and the mermaids swimming by
Who helped him to mistake his arms for clouds of smog and lye
And so with fervor and with faith he bought a big red truck
Hoping to rebrand himself as a rambling, roaming buck

 Spiders crawl beneath the tears of Mistress Morose herself
Whose pain is only half sincere and whose mind is without health
Hope is her secret poison and her weapon gas of choice
She drains the life from all she loves and then she steals their voice
Her blood burns through the daydrops of the open pool of fate
And she captures with her words of love any fool who will wait
Long enough to seem sincere but is short enough to see
Only what she wants them to as she brings them to her knee
Who knows what she seeks? Not I, and certainly neither her
As she wraps her endless empty nights within her ballroom fur

Johnny Jailbreak screams his tantrums into the breath-break machine
Proving to the highway cop that he isn't unfit to drink
But on the brink of danger and feeding his doorknob death
He writes silly songs about love and life and knows that nothing's left
For him to free and him to like or for him to even touch
But his basket tongue and basset lungs are pounding far too much
And so his hands are shaking and his silence pulse is true
As he fills his socks with all he knows and puts on his silverside shoes
And as his satin bedroom eyes are battered by the barroom beer
He eats his problem glass shard life and smiles through the cheers

Ah, look at the queen in the corner named Ladybird Marie
She keeps her twittered twists of hair inside her tawny sleeves
Rubies drip from her lips as she sways her gypsy dream hips
Her voice is like a crowing car as her fingernails she clips
She has to keep her wits about her when she walks at night
For though she is quite well-to-do, she always has to fight
Against the demons of her soul that burst across her face
Whenever someone makes her out and mistakes her sad disgrace
For a window to her soul when it is a painted porcelain mask
A mating song she learned to sing so she never had to ask

The Liar holds an ocean inside of his domino cup
He hates the world he lives in so he decides to make one up
A baby born in winter, a wife that has left him, sure
The means and ends are all confused and broken on the curb
His wooden nose and highland doom is a curse of his happy parade
As he digs his grave on Pleasure Island and kills his red charade
His crusade, as he would tell it, was to unite all the people abroad
And cancel all his parents' credit cards to save them from distraught
But as his fiction and his faith are washed onto the beach
He secretly destroys his myths and tears his bedroom sheets

There's a man named Wilson Warmen who holds all the records and more
For picking up the broken lives of the women on the dance floor
His secret, or his sanctum, is a pair of lucky wooden dice
They scatter chance and portray his luck to men as well as mice
Upon the marble-makeshift mansions of the masters and the priests
He holds his ears and seeks his peace through honest-eyed deceit
Although he knows his fortune is a briar patch of iron teeth
He brags about his fashion sense and relies upon mystique
For although he holds no skill to which he can call his own
Nobody in the village square can claim his rightful throne

In the alleys is the Poet Who Dreams of a fire-lit cruise
His swirling patterns of despair are a blessing and a ruse
Though  he peddles books of brilliance from his battered cart
He has a banker for his brain and a locksmith for his heart
Beneath his smirk and open chest is a coldness none can know
Born alone in ancient times and buried deep in the snow
He bought a gold harmonica and an electric jam guitar
But he only knows how to play the tape-deck in his car
And as his heartbreak bricks of dawn are spilled onto the street
Everyone that he has ever known begins to laugh at his defeat

Imagine Todd Lambert, the banker-briefer of the tolling booth
He prays to painted pictures and a melted golden tooth
Though he wishes to write tickets to his friends for mistrust
He settles for a wedding ring to embrace his inner lust
Though he knows not who to wed, he begins his solemn-eyed quest
Of ruining the fun of all and by brushing against her breast
Perhaps he could have waited, perhaps he should have withdrawn
But nobody else in all the town would even listen to his song
So with pen and paper, he begins to write his will anew
Leaving all his possessions to a woman that he never knew

What causes all these conflicts? What keeps these souls so discontent?
What encourages their friendships and leaves their lives so sadly spent?
Who can say for certain? It requires too much disdain
You would have to spend your time with them and soon would go insane
The truth, it seems, as sad and lonely as it spills onto the page
Is that none of these adult children are worth their daily wage
In time they may spring to life and heal their wounded hearts
And seek the love of themselves and replace their broken parts
But as sure as fire breathes their names and sparks in a hissing hell
They will never find their happiness in the streets of Missingself

Quote from: Out on the Open RoadIn my crossroad travel book I found a distant land
Entangled in a field of corn, owned by the river hand
The captain corpses of the army marched along the streets
As heartbreak handsome heralds hopped upon the mayor's feet
Women built from portal posts and pathway ponder pasts
Were risen from the stellar sleighs and put upon the masts
So that the lighthouse cryptic duke could call a violet face
Upon the telephone he wore in the hope of fashion taste
For who could say what men in fear would do to Camelot
When cast upon the open rocks of haves and of have-nots

A lava-tongued aristocrat of the bold and bland brigade
Approached me with his man-at-arms and holding both grenades
Proceeded with his other arm that grew out from his chest
To steal my water and tell me that this was for the best
My empty canteen wishful thinking ceded simple sighs
As the railway worker men approached me from all sides
Telling me in velvet words that they had lost their jobs
Because of my own carelessness and my phony mobs
And as I tried to tell them I was not their wooly goat
They began to pour concrete into my open throat

The cackling history of faith and the hopeful hierophant
Expect me then to scrub their ears and hold their hollow chant
I asked them in my letters if they sought some form of trade
But life inside their decade minds was only a charade
So poised was I inside the halls of commerce to convince
The castle-creeks of cancelled freaks that I was their lost prince
That, in a haze of mist and maze, I told them a blue lie
About their center-village square and my silent silken tie
But as soon as they discovered that my top hat was a fake
I knew that even coming there had been my own mistake

The road away was humbling, not pleasant in the least
I soon became a servant boy, a peasant and a priest
So that I could evade the tiger-truth of pumpkin fists
That followed me to where I went and played my tragic lists
As though they were biography, a blemished banal bore
The carnival of all my dreams with clowns and clones and more
So maligned were these all these freaks I took a greasy pen
And drew faces on their empty heads and truth upon their skin
I promised then I would destroy that awful travel book
And never return to the place that God himself forsook

Quote from: LiberShadows wreathe the ravens as they fly into the light
They are stolen from my sight
Unbound from all delight
What fright they have and give to all the people

You look as though you've seen yourself
A ghost outside of time
Throw your matchbook and resign
Can't you see, you're nothing without
Wanting

The capsules holding happiness
Devoured by your breath
And still yearning for your death
Your tresses, without feeling, are withdrawing

Fountains flow within your eyes
As your hands wave in the sky
With freedom sailing high
What could I persuade you to
Give me

And sitting on the spinning wheel
That jumps along the road
The tongue, the scarlet toad
This episode still wishing and misleading

What could the caves of sighing trees
The weeping sound of tyranny
Abstaining from all melody
Could you be alone and still not truly
Dreaming

Together in the fields of pine
Our heart-strings will entwine
Searching for a sign
As everyone is visiting the circus

Elephants and acrobats
And a dozen twisting tents
Hidden deep within the hints
What danger lies within your fields of
Sorrow

Quote from: Santiago SerenadesI was sitting at a dinner table with an open bottle of wine
A woman came up and she had asked me if I had the time
"Why yes," I nodded quickly, "it's just a quarter past nine..."
She looked like she was waiting in line for a victimless crime

"Have a seat," I offered loudly, hoping to relieve her stress
She flashed her teeth, looking hurried and a little vexed
She lowered the straps of her tiny black and white striped dress
And said, "My date, he left me, and it has me so very perplexed..."

We talked for an hour as she told me all about her day
I felt as though I knew her though I never even asked her name
And as soon as she remembered, she asked me if I would like to stay
With her or by myself, and we left from the way she came

She changed as we had entered her cozy cul-de-sac-bound house
She kissed me on the cheek as she started to unbutton her blouse
I saw a picture on the mantle and wondered if she had a spouse...
I saw her diamond-ring finger and my hope was so quickly doused

"What's the matter?" she had asked, her lips curled into a sneer
"If you already have a husband then why'd you bring me here?"
She looked to the ground and said, "He's been dead since last year..."
And feeling quite embarrassed, I pulled her so close and near

There was the hint of passion and a yearning hidden on her lips
And every time she moved there was a certain sway in her hips
I felt my senses fading and I could not seem to come to grips...
With her or myself as the sun and moon kissed and eclipsed

As the minutes turned to hours, I was feeling jubilant but sore
I could barely move but she was calling out to me for more
But then there came this loud knock over from the door...
She said, "You have to leave," and I said, "Baby, what for?"

"My husband is home," she told me and began to cry
I could tell she wasn't kidding and I looked right into her eye
"You mean to tell me that all of this was a lie..."
"Well, yes," she responded as she offered up an angry sigh

The door flung open as I hopped outside the window frame
It was a second-story room and I fell onto the ground in pain
I ran down the street so that I wouldn't be the one to blame...
And when I went to the doctor he told me to walk with a cane

So now I wander aimlessly, misguided by the loss of lust
The only love I knew had betrayed me just to steal my trust
And as my cold heart is buried beneath a vast sea of dust...
I remind myself daily that the world is neither fair nor just

Quote from: Longing RoadI'm trapped in a city with a million broken clocks
Everybody stands still and then nobody talks
"We ain't goin' nowhere" the street sign says
I see a sad ghost looking just like Joan Baez
She's dressed in a gown but she can't seem to find
The groom that she wanted because she's gone blind

I sit with the junkies on their yellowed picnic bench
I can't say I like their taste or care for their stench
But still, they can't judge me, and I enjoy that
Their brains pour out from the back of their hat
And then this girl turns to me, "Hey, I'm Leah,
You don't seem like a person, you're just an idea"

I'm gliding on my anger, I'm through with dismay
All the church bells are ringing, it's only Saturday
The night is gray and I'm lost in a sea of gold
The cornstalks brush against me as I'm bundled and sold
I feel no shame, I'm listless like a lamb
I wish I had a purpose, I wish I had a plan

Well, I saw the ghost of Robert Johnson
     on Highway 61
The devil's breath stank on his shoes
     beneath the winter sun
Silence screaming in the wind
     a shrill murder of crows
A guitar note and somber tune
     so the murmur goes

Quote from: Out of the Hands of the GodsI live in the global capitol of hubris
A dilapidated ruin of culture, commerce
Consumerism in lieu of thought
A television set drilling faux-facts
Factoids
instead of teaching Ideas, Ideals
we are broadcast Ideologies
Systems of handling ideas
Bereft of all form and purpose
And left, like the channels we
have not paid for
buzzing
like static
in the minds of children
of all ages.

What causes such malaise?
That boredom enters hearts of men?
What--
ennui--
is this that lurks within
my mind?
The wonders of the world!
Such are prescribed by doctors
as an opiate for the masses
THIS IS HOW WE MUST LIVE
ADVANCE CIVILIZATION
Or else, you live, like
savages, relying on the
Gods
like Fortuna who is known
to be unkind and
whimsical.
Accept not your lot!
Dominate animal
Dominate plant
Dominate the very earth
Bereave her of her essence
Extract her life-blood
Murder her children
And take from her
Her dignity

"But now we conquer fate
and now we conquer nature
and now we conquer all that
preys upon our psyche"

You have taken yourselves- no
We have taken ourselves
Out of the hands of the gods
And, thrust into the arms of men,
found ourselves wanting.
Whom shall we blame
when no one is left
to point to?

be sure to check my other poetry thread in the Crossroads, it's a long free verse poem.

Quote from: Archibald at the TerminusGarbed in a uniform of blue
Dappled with a hint of gold
And, grinning with his asphalt teeth,
(Saliva, a liquid dynamite)
Cyan quivers, shaking rage
Bold and twinned with chaos
The order-general Archibald
Stands, gazing at the gates
Of entropy.

"What madness!" he says,
Enraged and distressed at the
Swirling-grey curtains of light
Soured and knowledged in
The arts of destruction
Archibald, with rhythm-quaver
Syncopated sideways into
Nothingness

Giving form to senselessness
And sprawling forth from chaos,
Became a singularity
Expressed as a wave-length
And burnt through history

Quote from: Islands of AbsolutionIt is the end of time!
We're out of time.
Time has simply run out, I'm afraid.
Everything must be abolished or absolved
or impartially liquidated so that it may
be undone by the appropriate agents of nothingness.

Do you understand?
Not now, not then, iron is gas, time is lava,
the cosmos themselves are ambient liquid being poured
into a half-empty sieve of timelessness,
one giant hourglass funnel of Death and Undeath
and everything before and after the end of all things.

The drum-major of this farcical epilogue
is watching the wraiths of his band slowly evaporate
and vanish into the hungry claws of entropy,
where the open vortex eagerly gobbles everything and then itself,
 reopening sporadically to consume what
Was and what Is and providing for maddening singularity,
one point in space-time that is neither and both simultaneously,
withering and corroding the bonds of morality
and atoms and all such point-less matters of matter

The Hourglass analogy is terrific, and very visual!  It works almost as a fulcrum, catapulting the reader into the third stanza suitably energized.

Quote from: ShadesDaylight licks her tears away
As stars laugh sweetly at her jokes
Clouds swirl and smile to her
And she splashes my days with
shades of white. of life.

Can painters or poets or beauty
Survive in the world of daggers?
Lurking, dismal, sword-toothed,
Shadows seek to paint with
shades of black. of death.

Wind slices my tears away
As gravestones weep at my dirge
Storm clouds march at my heed
And I swipe her sign with
shades of grey remembrance.

Quote from: The Mystery of the GuttersnipeTonight, a poet died
Just above a sewer grate
Smelling of the gutter,
A whiskey bottle in his hand
A bullet in his pocket,
And a piano key hanging
from his neck
Swinging, sharp and flat
A needle in his arm,
His shoes untied and floating free,
His face bloated from rain,
And mottled, worn, and empty,
Washed into the gravel,
A playing card between
his thumb and index finger:
The King of Hearts.

A scarlet notebook, wet and ruined,
Was tucked into his breast pocket,
Tied shut for none to see,
And filled with shorthand stories,
poems,
songs?
and sketches,
Obscure, illegible, and somehow
beautiful,
I was an intruder into
this dead man's mind,
and so, with sorrow,
I closed the book,
And set out with one thought:
Who has killed the poet?

The singer-songwriter was last
to see the poet alive and well,
and so I besieged him with
a myriad of questions:
How did you know him?
"He was my mentor."
Where were you last?
"The coffee shop."
What were you doing?
"Discussing his latest poem."
What was it about?
"His wife, the noblewoman."
And where was she?
"Dead, so very long ago."
I took my broad-brimmed hat,
My amber cane,
And my wired glasses,
And I vanished from the
singer's loft.

The publisher would take no blame,
He had only ever loved the poet
Royalties? That all was settled,
Money would not be a motive
His rounded jowls, raspy laugh,
His fattened pocketbook,
And his poster of the poet
Hanging ideally on the wall, he
Cannot, could not, won't believe
That the poet is truly dead!
But there was a hint of glee;
For now the poet's sales
would triple.

Dredged from the sewers,
Stinking of the refuse
of a city full of personas,
empty masks,
empty lives,
and among this trash and filth,
the poet's mode of death;
a pistol,
gleaming,
fingerprinted,
held only by one man--

Who has killed the poet?
Why, he has killed himself.

Originally going to be part of a longer work called Death of the American Poet, I decided to exclude these poems for the moment as they are not part of the narrative. They'll be preserved here.

Quote from: The Empty ShellBeneath the oak trees 'round my tomb,
Inside the Sacred Mother's womb,
Beside the sordid sister's call,
Hallowed by the will of all,
I see the Empty Shell.

A seed unplanted, stripped and bare,
A child ne'er to breathe the air,
Familiar forlorn horns of hope,
Lost beneath the peddler's dope,
I see the Empty Shell.

A curious magician's trunk,
Filled with all his useless junk,
A top hat pulled from underneath
His cape, with fingers of the thief,
I see the Empty Shell.

 Leaves across my open grave,
 I am the autumn's brilliant slave,
 Aristocrat, née Plato's form,
 Those that keep the dead so warm,
 I am the Empty Shell.

Passing triumph, horns that fade
The armies march,
And march,
And march,
In service to Julius Caesar.

Beloved, rich, great, and kind;
Cruel, beguiling, winsome, wise,
Praised, the heir of Venus pure,
Golden-crowned and blood-assured

Beasts so brazen, Vercingetorix,
Cursed slaves and Gaels to spare,
Triumph now, beloved Caesar,
For tyrants never are eternal

Brutus rising, soldiers paid
The armies march,
And march,
And march,
In absence of Julius Caesar[/quote]   
Hello again, familiar friend,
Worker of the pyramid,
Hebrew slave of Ramses' will,
Lover of a single god

The whip, the lash, the snake, the staff!
What miracles your Moses brings
Your God commands the Angel now
To kill my son, or kill the sun?

Horus, perched upon the sun,
The Nile and parched prisoners,
A sea, once parted, never healed,
A wound between our people

Goodbye for now, my foreign friend,
Who worked upon the pyramid,
Hebrew slave of Yahweh's will,
Lover of the single god.[/quote]

Quote from: Maybe it's not your faultI remember looking out of the window
Beads of sweat were rolling on the glass
Through the open screen, a breeze rolled in
Smelling of the summer days we had

I had learned to hate you, my heart simply froze
My tears became the salt of an ocean of loathing
I forgot about your smile, your gentle touch,
I forgot about the nights that meant so much

I blamed you for my downfall, we both played a part
I won't excuse your lies or say you're not at fault
But I heard a tinkling music box that reminded me of you
And I feel my tides a-changing from red to blue

Quote from: Indentured AttitudeThe grandfather clock is shouting syllogistic headroom warnings
Telling all the ghosts within to hold their head up high
Because he knows that wisdom matters and upon the window splatters
Little bits of joy with every bird that can be fooled

Yes, city-stationed sisters sit in silence as they pray to pockets
Hoping in their highway hemlock to have a happy time
But as they mix their lifeboat lemons with a lingering decision
They soon realize that everything they hold dear is simply dull

Catatonic cosmic cronies crooning chronic cryptic calls
Are crossing Jesus on the Friday at Golgotha
If only adversary wishes and the aspect dinner dishes
Of Martha and of Mary could be harnessed for such good

Yes, believing diamond dagger dreams are destined for epitome
That level-headed leisure languishes those who know to bluff
Never-handled autocrats with orators and deaf mallrats
Even Cesare Borgia knows it is neither papal nor is pure

Corrupted catcalls coming from a copious cavemen crew
Who sit upon the stew of sentenced subway cars
They wait for form and formulas that prove their holy worth
Standing at the birth of both banal bundled bores

Imagine all the nightmares of the daylight crawling through
Your open dead-end tomb that sits beneath the plotted plain
As unknown cards and paper priests provide the happy hymn
A dirge awakened bursting from the flames that never die

Quote from: Les fleursYesterday I saw two flowers
A lily and a daffodil
Entwined and buried deep in loam,
Their blossoms pressed close together

Breathing softly and unfurling
Touched by the glint of morning light,
Dew drops slid from one to other,
The smell of spring crisp in the air

 Yesterday I saw two flowers
A lily and a daffodil
The Gardener pulled them apart
Their roots still pressed close together

I like this one, But the last line isn't ringing.  Maybe switch 'though' for 'still'?  I don't know.  But I am paying attention.

Good catch on that. I was struggling with that line.

Quote from: Locked and TangledMy turtle-faced agendas and my coated man-at-arms
Distorted through the pool of sweat beneath your summer charms
Alarms that ring most readily with headlight smoke and glare
The pair of prayer precision poised upon the morning dare
Like limericks written to a poet, dead beneath the earth
With hymns of praise and magnitude and lively joy and mirth
Those custom-seated quarantines that leave us bound as one
The leather straps of sanity that drain from Joy her fun
Poisoned, as the story goes, by love lost to the beast
Upon which all the memories of yesterday shall feast

That tinsel tongue of travelogues that slides across my spine
Your many-fingered wondrous wishes drawing swirling lines
The crumbling, rumbling catalyst that ruptures my physique
Your sliding smile furling, flashing moments of your teeth
My hands so cupped in reverence to idols made of flesh
Trickle down across your skin as I feel my will refresh
As globes of moisture postulate in transit to your hips
I touch my curling smoke-ring self against your waiting lips
Percussion, pounding in my ears, and telling me to wait:
Breath bereft, breasts beset as biding, both shall bate

Quote from: A Price Upon Our HeadsThe snow and soot are mingled
In a marble meld of passion
Sprinkled in crazy patterns
On the highway of remembrance
You smell a kiss in passing
And manage not to waiver
As a cymbal crashes loudly
Your hands begin to tremble
I hear your daylight rambling
And taste your smokestack languish
Like tears of tawny trappers
Your hands are holding flowers
I peel my weary bootstraps
From the bottom of my sadness
My feet are worn and ruined
And your eyes are filled with madness
Let's preach atop the mountain
To the lepers and the convicts
We'll sever all their spirits
From the coil of moral quandary
Your hands, now quaking proudly
Seize my harp and play it
You speak in tongues of fortune
And fasten strange behavior
I feel your fever climbing
You smoke my fears and anguish
A child is skating past us
Your seismic self is livid
I bleed ink upon this paper
You heal my open wounds
My hands are clasped in prayer
You steal them and remind me
That life, though short and hateful
Can ring like perfect church bells
And hope, though short and helpless
Can fill my life with murmurs
They whisper with affection
That we were meant forever
To be as one united
So that our unsure station
Expels the ancient demon
And as you stand in silence
In awe at my reflection
I feel you laughing, melting
Into the black horizon
The clouds begin to gather
I see upon the mountain
A storm of senseless wonder
With horns of graveyard robbers
That keep your life and rapture
Their angels are like hornets
Who buzz at open elm trees
They sway in utter horror
At what we said was needed
And lastly, as the clouds part
I fear our night has ended
You never once had known me
And couldn't guess the current
A strand of simple lies of night that burst into my heart.

Quote from: mobile update (15 minutes ago)I'm a copy/paste update to your status feed
You can press a button and tell me who I am
With a few keystrokes and a touch of thought
I become your Something or ex-Something
I can't remember which.

Digitized romance should be made freeware
But my cyborg tears exceed bandwidth
The server to your heart is not responding
And I, with point and click precision,
I can't recall your face.

I type "true love" into the search bar
Click the link that holds your name
And breathless, as I feel your pulse
The screen emerges and proclaims:
404 Error: Page not found

Quote from: Dream #1Your words are vines that grow across
The open mausoleum door
Your tongue, a snake that slithers, slides
Across the dusty desert floor
Your eyes are filled with smoke and ash
A penance, pain and perhaps more
Your wrath, the storm that breaks upon
My misbegotten ocean shore

For mobile update... good :)

But I'm not really feeling this "But my cyborg tears exceed bandwidth" Cyborg tears... are you saying that the speaker is robotic. I don't think that's the image you want. You seem to want to say that the girl is detached by electronics; maybe the speaker is too... but I think you make him too human to permit a digital analogy.

Quote from: Light DragonFor mobile update... good :)

But I'm not really feeling this "But my cyborg tears exceed bandwidth" Cyborg tears... are you saying that the speaker is robotic. I don't think that's the image you want. You seem to want to say that the girl is detached by electronics; maybe the speaker is too... but I think you make him too human to permit a digital analogy.

A cyborg is part human and part machine. He has become as immersed, even passive, to the statuses attributed to him via social networking, and he is salient of it; that being said, he retains none of his identity, and feels he is being programmed. I think cyborg tears, mixing human emotion with a dehumanized term, captures the conflict.

Quote from: Dream #2The light that peeks between the shades
That curtain morning's snore
Have settled on my floor in shapes
Diamonds, rings, and more

I place my hand across her back and
Gently touch her lips
There's something here that has been lost
She wakes without a kiss

She draws in circles on the bed
Her fingers trace a heart
I cannot explain what it is she means
So I sent my mind afar

A Christmas tree sits, out of season
In her sparkling gaze
I reflect upon her fearsome nature
Sprawled across my days

I know that she has buried her
Self within my grasp
We had not spoke of things we've done
We know not what passed

Like prisms, splitting strands of hair
And testing out her lies
I don the shirt she bought for me
And close my weary eyes

Her tongue, it traces simple stanzas
Written from my pen
I go to write her a sonnet, sweet
And walk into the den

Her sister stares from a photograph
Upon the fireplace
Suddenly, I feel a pang of woe
As she sizes up my face

We know not what our future is
As I temper lust with fear
My poems dry up and waste away
My muse just disappears

Her family threatens me with guns
She holds a silver knife
I never thought it might end like this
So tangled up in strife

As she starts in to dealing her cards
And lays them on the floor
I see my shadow quickly crawl away
Underneath the door

Madonna holds the newborn Christ
Close upon her breast
There was some anxiety in her face
That an artist could not guess

Her pencils, sight with boundless rage
A seismograph through art
Never would she admit the truth
And so I felt a spark

You looked at me like I was a fool
And he was standing by
Her hatred, silent, in a dream that passed
They held their heads up high

Our lives began to peel apart, she held
Her nascent pose
I knew you heard me and I feared
You offered her a rose

"Something's wrong," I said to her
And I offered her a grin
The demons clawed across my tongue
And latched onto her skin

I left her in the car to think
On Heartbreak Boulevard
As I took a taxi to the hotel
To look upon the stars

They twinkled ancient wisdom thought
By wise men to present
The beginning and the end of all
That past so heaven-sent

He said he met her in the moment
When she needed him most
I remember what you promised her
As I gazed upon her ghost

And as we looked at memory albums
Positioned, pointing true
My moral compass pointed opposite,
Straight away from you

Hm. I don't really get the feeling that he himself realizes he's a "cyborg" from the piece; but perhaps I am just reading him as more sunny and human than you intended. Perhaps my objection is just that I really do not like the timbre of the word "cyborg" when it is set against the flow of the other words. The connotation of the word does not seem to be apposite. Still, other people's views will probably differ. I find that my point of view is often unique.

Quote from: Dream #3I sit in silence, 'twixt the vellum sheets of wisdom, streaks of felons
Sparked by surly certainty and set upon the moonlit door
Beauty glides across the chamber,
Laughing, twinkling, tasting danger,
Savored and entrancing in the brackish, baying ocean shore
Left alone to their devices, settled, sinning in their vices,
Her love, a dagger resting in my bedroom drawer

I tasted wisdom from a chalice that held my wounded merry malice,
A triumph held in irony and sent upon the dreamer's snore
Her glimmer breathes my discontent,
A psalm and lyre heaven-sent,
Sunken like the treasures of the pirates from the tales of yore
Lilies grow in groves of graves and in the homes of kings and knaves,
Their shadows cling and shun me as they dream, deplore

My lover and her silhouette are cast into a role to fret
Unto the playwright's waiting pen that the king does yet ignore
Poison pointing, pistols pouring,
Teeth and bullets still are soaring,
As the revolution sets a frenzied flame to fallow fields and more
The grass of peasants burns unpleasant, killing both the lark and pheasant,
For they were born of peace and are now dead of war

Quote from: Dream #4Crows steal crumbs from the beggar's doorstep
Sorrow peeks through his fingerless gloves
His makeshift jacket yearns for one more breath
And his hands are reaching forth to grasp his love
He can't recall from where he ventured
The night he set upon this path
A rosary shifts between his dirty fingers
As he feels the cold embrace his bones at last

A gun twirled fast in the dim grey moonlight
As prison bars sealed away the lone soldier
A renegade by trade and the son of the sheriff
He fastens twice his gleaming brass shoulder
The sun splashes light onto the horizon
Has it just set or is this the dawn?
As dust begins to whip in all directions
The soldier waits for his death to come

Blood wets the spurs on the boots of the raider
Whose face is like a chimney of ash
His hand is twitching, curled by the gold traitor
He seeks to reclaim his fortune of past
The heartbeat of the sheriff roars out a warning
As bullet holes replace the comfort of glass
The raider knows this is his last morning
But he has come this far and cannot ever look back!

Quote from: Dream #5While riding through my forests of youth
I had ne'er a worry nor care
Then all that changed and I learned the truth
As I found a troubled affair
My father, born a smith, forged his heart
Earning his daily bread share
My mother, dead from my very birth,
Had left him in great despair
His love was mended by a new wife
Her spirit could never declare
That I, reminder of his past life,
Would ne'er escape his cold stare

Quote from: Dream #6I know a princess with a crown
Who sits inside her icy tower
She keeps her lips pressed to the glass
Of her frosted window pane
I yearn to hold her in my arms
Her tundra dreams twinkle true
I light my coals and hide myself
Within the dusty notebook page

Ink, my blood, my life, my love
My world is dizzy, blurred, and warm
I seek, I seep with solemn psalms,
I sleep with peaceful, prayerful palms
My feelings dreamed are confessed then
Lit by truth, the distance dies
My beacon, burning, glowing bright
I pray she sees my sacrifice

I know a princess with a frown
Who sits inside her icy tower
She keeps her heart inside a chest
Wooden, lost, and widowed pain
I learned to hold her in my thoughts
Her tundra dreams fading, blue
I stoke the coals and burn my book
For I would give her all I had

If only I could warm her

Quote from: Essay FeverSymptoms:
-Restlessness
-Lack of self-control
-Loss of attention
-Chronic headaches
-Blurred vision
-Brief amnesia
-Nervousness
-Mild depression
-Irritability
-Recurring hunger
-Drowsiness

Treatment:
-Stimulate nervous system (preferably with caffeine)
-Write for prolonged periods
-Do not mix with alcohol
-Consult a doctorate student if symptoms continue

Quote from: Dream #7You're looking for a man who knows
How to look you in the eye
And tell you with a smile
That he wants to be with you
And only you

He's looking for a girl who wants
To laugh at all his little jokes
He'd tell her with a smile
That he wants to be with her
Throughout the night

The autumn introduces lust
Braying, building innocence
A chime within the wind
Echoes as you pray to him
In silent gasps

But he is trapped inside the spring
Blades of grass beneath his feet
Wet from the morning's dew
As he flies to build a nest
From strands of straw

Quote from: Dream #8You told me what you wanted
When the carpet-bombers rode
I forgot to write it down
And now I'm far too old
What can't be seen is mentioned
What can't be heard is cried
Through tears of crystal daylights
That strangled all my lives
And it would be cute
And maybe trite
If I could hear from you
And know that everything's alright

Your lips were pursed and perched
Upon my anguished curtain call
The prince in rags had borrowed
Everything held in regard
The sleeping giant stumbled
Walking through his dreams
Dancing in the moonlight
And snoring through the screams
And if you could speak
Deep into the night
Just so I can hear from you
And know that everything's alright

The quicksand stands to grasp you
And swallow all your lies
The neon lights of madness
Drag you deep inside
Until you learn the one truth
The horseman has concealed
Speaking tongues all backwards
With his face so unrevealed
As he swings his sword
Thrashing at the light
I just want to hear from you
To know that everything's alright

So the elders of the village
Have hidden all your paths
And threatened to remand you
For some unknown back tax
You can't repeat your verdict
Without the fear of fame
So as you walk in shackles
Your heart bursts into flames
I want you to sing
About your plight
Just so I can hear from you
And know that everything's alright

Quote from: Elven Doritos

Quote from: Dream #8You told me what you wanted
When the carpet-bombers rode
I forgot to write it down
And now I'm far too old
What can't be seen is mentioned
What can't be heard is cried
Through tears of crystal daylights
That strangled all my lives
And it would be cute
And maybe trite
If I could hear from you
And know that everything's alright

Your lips were pursed and perched
Upon my anguished curtain call
The prince in rags had borrowed
Everything held in regard
The sleeping giant stumbled
Walking through his dreams
Dancing in the moonlight
And snoring through the screams
And if you could speak
Deep into the night
Just so I can hear from you
And know that everything's alright

The quicksand stands to grasp you
And swallow all your lies
The neon lights of madness
Drag you deep inside
Until you learn the one truth
The horseman has concealed
Speaking tongues all backwards
With his face so unrevealed
As he swings his sword
Thrashing at the light
I just want to hear from you
To know that everything's alright

So the elders of the village
Have hidden all your paths
And threatened to remand you
For some unknown back tax
You can't repeat your verdict
Without the fear of fame
So as you walk in shackles
Your heart bursts into flames
I want you to sing
About your plight
Just so I can hear from you
And know that everything's alright

This would make an awesome song (my mind was making up a tune to go with it a I read).

Quote from: The Sweetest DreamAt my rusty typewriter
The night is dimmed and dying
I swim through reveries of her
With all my senses flying

Light splashes on her cheek
Her hands could conjure spirits
Her laugh resounds,
Her smile, forgiveness,
Her eyes,
Those eyes!
Serene, so keen,
Sweet summer dreams!

There is short distance between us,
I hold my breath,
I let her know,
Wrapped in the shades of acceptance,
Symmetric joy cascades upon her,
I laugh along,
And set myself,
Bare before her,
Unafraid.

Quote from: Dream #10I see her standing deep within
A forest of old, ancient trees
I know her Wisdom is old but true
Sophia, Venus, Ophelia,
She is my muse
She is a light
The past, its bridges,
Rotted out,
Seem so unimportant now

The drums of war have faded,
Faded
The pipes of thieves are unheard
I have forgotten all I held
Those strands of hate wrapped
In my fingers,
All released and freely thrown
So that my open daydream hand
Can grasp her waiting truths

she's just going to eat your soul...

Quote from: Lord Vreegshe's just going to eat your soul...

Then let it be a feast.

Quote from: Elven Doritos

Quote from: Lord Vreegshe's just going to eat your soul...

Then let it be a feast.

Perhaps this is an attitude of accepting defiance,
and I cannot imagine a better one...'Let them eat cake', indeed.

Quote from: A Letter to the EditorI found out nobody
rhymes these days
Just put a few line breaks

Be edgy
Add a few
swear words

like a bitch
pissing
on
something

and italics
oh, the italics
please, you prissy one,
you cannot
be
this
dense

you
suck

Quote from: Dream #11She's a singer
I'm a poet
The stars are begging
For us to collide

She's a vision
A dream awakened
My heart is yearning
For her gentle touch

History's repose
Studious, simple,
Salvation without percussion
Notes that linger,
Linger,
Linger

Now, My friend, you must tell us,
the difference between lyrics and poetry.
For the Eleventh Dream dust
is one of your works of mixology.

Quote from: Lord VreegNow, My friend, you must tell us,
the difference between lyrics and poetry.
For the Eleventh Dream dust
is one of your works of mixology.

The term "mixology" might inspire some later work.
Expect a haze of poem-prose-play-lyrics some day.

Quote from: The AwakeningHer spirit moves between the bricks
Past the steely hair of businessmen
Her eyes, like glowing coals, but blue
Her scarlet locks of hair tumble
Onto her sideways grin

A glass of wine, Merlot, I think
With poise she sips, slow, slow
An old projector plays a film
Together, laughing, yelping joy
Alone in all the darkness

Hoofbeats, like thunder, hurry past
I'm lost within a haze of love
My heart, with shades of reverence
Rob my pen of all its words
I struggle with expression

My tongue is tangled
My teeth are tattered
My mind is melted
And never have I been happier

Quote from: MixologyThere is a certain science to mixing.

   Take one blue, one red, one yellow, and swirl it all around in your mouth until you're awake and asleep and anti-depressed at the same time. Then to make sure you've got balance you take an anti-anti-depressant and the entire thing is one big cocktail party in your stomach and at last you can take a shit mixed with blood after the diuretics kick in, foaming at the mouth because the whole damn world is making you crazy and HA HA the Xanax isn't working, I can't feel my tongue and I wish you were all dead dead dead dead dead.

   Anyway.

   It's not just how you take them. You have to take them in the right order. Otherwise. Well the mixture is all wrong. It's a recipe, you see. Like, you don't add the frosting to a cake before you put it in the oven. That would ruin the frosting. Some drugs are like frosting. Actually most of them are. Or are they, I don't remember. Let me take a pill and find out.

   I can't concentrate unless I take the right combination. My mind has a chemical padlock that is so damn frustrating, and I just want a pair of bolt-cutters to just get rid of it all. But my doctor and my pharmacist have my best interest at heart as they mix up my order and send me home with anti-psychotics.

   Used to be a caffeine junky. Perfectly mixed espresso, blended with steamed milk, maybe some half-and-half if I'm desperate. Stir. Mix. Drink. Repeat. Two cups in the morning. Three cans of soda to get through the day. Energy drinks when everything starts to get too damn much and the stress is just getting to my nervous system. Pop three pills and grab one of those devilish short-term energy drinks. This is my Tuesday.

   I go home and the dirty and clean clothes are in the same basket. I can't tell if the noise is coming from the radio or TV and I don't care. The images flickering across my living room don't match up with the sound and something is very wrong, everything is getting all muddled and hazy.

   The labels all tell me not to mix alcohol with prescription drugs. The way I see it, my mind is strangled and everyone else is doing it so why the hell not if I want to mix in, since that's the point of mixing. Build up a conversation, take a mixed drink, swirl it all around, until everything mashes together and gets confused and I'm in a bathroom crying my eyes out and then I wake up and the alarm is bleating and there's a woman laying next to me who I've never seen before and she's mixed-race, beautiful even though she's snoring.

   I go to scramble some eggs mixed with cheese and a little bacon but when I get back to the room she's gone. Took everything with her. Even my wallet.

   I throw on some of my favorite remixes and catch the vibe until it's two thirty in the morning and everything I've done is all mixed up. So I begin to write in one long blur.
 
Disease is ugly
Sin is pure
Life is laughter
Love demure

Settle now
My little one
For soon the day
Will not be won

You are so ugly
And so pure
Of this much
I am sure

DAVE:   What do you mean, my card was denied?
ARNOLD:   I can't say for certain, sir. But it appears as though       your account is overdrawn?
DAVE:   That's insane. My wife and I share this account.
ARNOLD:   Well there you have it.
DAVE:   What?
ARNOLD:   Never mix business with pleasure.
 
Look, don't try and tell me that you know what it's like to go through emancipation if you've ever been in an asylum it's the freest form of absolute control you can possibly ever have they sit and observe you as you stare at the walls wondering what it is that made mommy so mad but you can't look her in the eye and tell her you're sorry in part because they took her away and in part because you drove her away and that's the reason why they split up because really if they never had you it would have been a lot happier but then you came along and everything got turned on its head and mixed up and that's why daddy had to hit her and that's why she had to hit him back and that's why when you stepped in the mix and they both had their say everything was just

the doctor says it's okay to cry but he doesn't understand why i laugh you would think that everyone would rather laugh than cry and that's what i'm doing is i'm sitting here and laughing my mind off and nothing i do or say can be good or right because Father isn't happy so i can't be happy and all i want to do is make him happy

this place is cold but they won't give me any blankets because it's all psychosomatic and i can't be seen or heard for miles around and

the doctor comes and goes and decides whether or not i leave this place. therefore he must be God the Father. i hope he dies

   There's something to the notion that sanity and sanitation go hand in hand. I feel that dirtiness is the hallmark of the disturbed mind. If ever you saw such a sight as those unwilling to wash themselves, you would know from their rancid odor and their disgusting way of smiling that nothing about them is right. Dirt and grime are the bedfellows of disease and putrescence.

    There's a daily routine to preserve sanitation and therefore sanity. It follows:
-Wipe the blood from off your face
-Scrape your scalp until free of dandruff
-Clean showerhead with anti-bacterial spray
-Open package of soap
-Carefully wash self without touching any other appliances
-Throw away remainder of soap
-Clean showerhead with anti-bacterial spray
-Clean toilet bowl
-Throw away remainder of anti-bacterial spray
-Trim your nails to prevent collection of dirt
-Brush your teeth until they are wet with blood

Repeat as necessary.

Quote from: It was all a dreamKeyboards washing over
Shores of sandy maybes
A breeze begins to saunter
Trapped inside of Hades
Wonder what you're doing
Can't say if I trust you
Not that you don't like me
But is that enough to
Justify this lockbox
I put my heart inside of
You know what you need now
Let me know tonight if
Only I could touch you
Let our spirits mingle
Silent, seeking something
Simple, never single

Is this how I'm meant to feel?

Quote from: silence in the form of poetrywhat i want you to understand
words
more words
and all enclosed
deep within
my hurt

Quote from: Divinity Rejects the Mortal FleshToday we came untangled
Frayed at all our seams
The earth bereaved in flames
The sky, the sky, it bleeds

The thunderclap, Juno's call,
The dancing demons in my heart,
Satin sheets and Satan speaks
The night, the night, it seeps

Ashen creed and godly greed
The mouth of Chronus chews
Apostles hang on crosses, bare
The priest, the priest, he weeps

Quote from: Thought Stained by MemoryWedding bells ringing on the day of my birth
Heard another soldier is buried in the earth
Death is swift when it's cool and clean
Never did figure what it all means
Thunder licks the boots of the lakeside tree
Spoken too soon is my reverie
Pictures painted perfect in the Monday breeze
Hurdling through chairs like I'm Damocles

I can't stop thinking
No,
I can't stop thinking
No,
I can't stop thinking

Wander into bars where the demons crawl
Couldn't hear your voice and my heart's too small
A melody dies on a woman's lips
Rhythm pours out from her sideways hips
Firstborn children of the godless sons
It hurts more deeply than a thousand guns
Married and buried by the time I'm grown
Too late now because my mind's my own

I can't stop thinking
No,
I can't stop thinking
No,
I can't stop thinking

The savior pulled himself from his broken cast
First comes the thirst and the flask comes last
Skeletons dance on the broken doorstep
I turn in the desert and take one more step
A lifetime ago all I needed was you
But a lifetime has passed and we are through
Watch as the pendulum swings away
Watch me walk out of this life today

I can't stop thinking
No,
I can't stop thinking
No,
I can't stop thinking
About you

double post. oops.

Quote from: Heartbreak BoulevardYou step onto the dew-drenched grass
Your mind is clear, your heart is full
Raindrops sidle on your face
The day begins to kiss you
The dawn, your song, a melody
So sweet, so simple,
Gallops, gallant, through the streets
Of climbing clouds of crystal

I stand alone along the square
Anguish languishes affairs
Anger lingers, strange despair
The taste of blood, a pang, a dare,
Hang to dry your dead desire
Hang to die your loving fire

A dead-end road
Where none can preach
It can't be found
If paths you seek

You never meant to be there
You don't know how to leave
A silhouette walks toward you
It breathes, it reeks, it seeps

Desperation fills the void
Where once was joy and light
Revert to childhood again
Thrash and shout and cry
Alone you stand
As stalking forth
Comes the dark figure
The moon is high
The air is chilled
Death shall yet demure

What detour brought me here
To see this sight grotesque?
What pain begets the breach of self
That leads to leaves upset, of Set?
I know this road,
and I blame her...

But as the luring claws of night
Close around my throat
I know that it was my fault
I ever set foot on this road

Quote from: the truththe worst part of this is
that when i see you
it still feels like
i should be
happy.

Quote from: Elven Doritos

Quote from: Thought Stained by MemoryWedding bells ringing on the day of my birth
Heard another soldier is buried in the earth
Death is swift when it's cool and clean
Never did figure what it all means
Thunder licks the boots of the lakeside tree
Spoken too soon is my reverie
Pictures painted perfect in the Monday breeze
Hurdling through chairs like I'm Damocles

I can't stop thinking
No,
I can't stop thinking
No,
I can't stop thinking

Wander into bars where the demons crawl
Couldn't hear your voice and my heart's too small
A melody dies on a woman's lips
Rhythm pours out from her sideways hips
Firstborn children of the godless sons
It hurts more deeply than a thousand guns
Married and buried by the time I'm grown
Too late now because my mind's my own

I can't stop thinking
No,
I can't stop thinking
No,
I can't stop thinking

The savior pulled himself from his broken cast
First comes the thirst and the flask comes last
Skeletons dance on the broken doorstep
I turn in the desert and take one more step
A lifetime ago all I needed was you
But a lifetime has passed and we are through
Watch as the pendulum swings away
Watch me walk out of this life today

I can't stop thinking
No,
I can't stop thinking
No,
I can't stop thinking
About you

I really dig this one.

Quote from: Everything We Weren'tYou can't understand
The words that I write
My pen is distorted
I can't seem to type
The flowers have wilted
We awoke from the dream
And I wish you were happy
But I can't seem to think
What is the problem?
What is remorse?
Why aren't you ready
For a proper discourse?
I hate what you've done
And I hate myself more
For letting it happen
And holding the door

I've found someone else
But it isn't the same
She doesn't quite know me
And can't spell my name
It's a Tuesday gone missing
A week dead at sea
The tombstone is missing
And yet I can see
As lust ensnares others
With vines and with tongues
You dance in the moonlight
As the poet, he hums
A song of remission
The plain spoken creed
The last of the saviors
The last who shall bleed

Quote from: You Are Hell By Some Other NameThe sky is empty
Full of cold
Doppelgangers
Young and old
Speech and parlance
Poor and broke
Whores and harlots
Wounds that soak

Na-na, na-na,
The heartbeat hum stops and starts
Dum-da, dum-da,
The taste of love is short and tart

Let the line breathe

Let the verse shake

Bleed, silence, bleed

Quickened earthquake

The horror of this landscape
My soul is trapped within
Shall never touch this paper
Nor this blood-inked pen

Quote from: BlasphemyThe desert grasps at my old throat
And squanders peace and Holy Ghosts
The mighty dune erases hope
As Hebrew lives are spurned and stoked
Moses cracks his serpent staff
And issues forth a thunderclap
The skulls of martyrs burn and melt
As soldiers stand beside themselves
The hourglass begins to bend
As time itself forgets to mend
The wounds of warriors lost at sea
The hopeful priests of certainty
The tide is high, so warm and pure
As gallops echo, sweet and sure:
March, go forth, and do proclaim
That you have found the Holy Name

Clouds of dust and gas distraught
Begins the Satan's last onslaught
As archangels storm the halls
Of Lords and Princes born in stalls
In Heaven, as in lands below
A Tyrant cannot hold his throne
Divine Bastille, birthed in hate
The silent human born to sate
The dreams of angels lost and torn
By Gabriel and Jericho's horn
As Michael stands with Azrael
Commanding God to serve in Hell:
The burning lakes of Angel's Mount
Are then declared the ones that count

Hushed, bereft of form and fame
The unclothed beast devoid of name
Seated, hopeless, left in fear
Is straddled by the harlot near
Her tambourine and silent growl
Her demon tongue and scarlet cowl
Persuade the lost and harried beast
To kill the Savior at his feast
But Judas holds his silver close
And bribes the Beast and his host
His task completed, pure and whole
He yet redeems his tainted soul:
Given thus his bravest task
Betrayal, as the Savior asked

Quote from: CouplingFrom the thickets of the night
She reeks of sex and mystery
Floodlights burst from her eyes
Devils dance along her tongue
Her lover, anguished Yesterday
Has left her for a younger girl
The twinkling taste of tyranny
Slips and slides along her teeth
Slipshod, satin, bow and quiver
She is so tangled up

From the cogs and gears of day
He stinks of labor and disdain
Crimson smolders in his eyes
Clockwork ticks and whirrs resound
His lover left him yesterday
He painted promises in gold
A grimace fades onto his face
Sinking, bubbling, bolted, wrenched
Mechanical and bound to time
He is so melted down

Quote from: identificationto confirm your identity you must possess identification.
identification allows others to identify you.
your identity is therefore keyed to certain physical attributes,
as determined and certified by the state:
your height, weight, eye color,
and a picture of yourself are acceptable substitutes
for lengthy certificates and what not.
to acquire some form of identity
it is necessary to possess a certificate of birth.
these certificates are based on observance
from a doctor or some other certified medical professional.
likewise their certificates are conditional to the accreditation
provided to them by a university. or several. which are likewise
confirmed by the government and other institutions.
you must also present proof of address, meaning
some piece of mail that has your name on it and
also your address, or at least your legal address
because you can live somewhere and be legally
living elsewhere, as a matter of courtesy
or for fishing legal benefits from a guardian.
in addition it is important to have your
social security card presented which is
provided by the government after being
mailed, and once you have all of these it is
useful to have another form of identification
in order to identify you for your identification.
all of this is to prove to people that you are you
assuming you don't change your mind on who you are.

Quote from: Sing With Me, Lady LoveYour dog-eared sentimental hopes of singing for a crowd
Are noxious, nauseous, nimble, numb, phony, false, and loud
You wear a jacket made of lies and breathe with winds impure
Dreams made of alimony, window sills to which you lured

Masks of acrimony, punished, praising punctuality
A pistol pointed sideways with intent to puncture me
You are the robber baron of my heart's enduring love
The tamer, maudlin sparrow, vaudeville hair and blackened dove

My pair of trusted diplomats through which you entered spite
Betray your false aristocrats who plumbed the injured plight
Those sundered wonder-wavelength deaths you wished upon my soul
Your telephones of sympathy and hopeless demon role

Your hair of scarlet dyed from blonde, you hide within yourself
My wine sits there upon your desk, my books upon your shelf
You never meant to leave the scholar, sent to foreign lands
You hate my gaping face and maw, deny my waiting hands

Storms begin to swallow you as thieves surround your home
Angels die at your command and sages burn their tomes
The dirt from ancient graves of men you seek to pry and steal
Just so you can claim their fame and blame the pain you feel

Upon the constable who moves to make you for your crime
So you can waste your taste upon the prison walls of lime
Yes, sweet woman, speak to me and let me know your wish
Shall I pay for more disdain or just another dish

Of your contempt and lint-filled stints at Lake Superior
Named because your ego swells, so tell me where you were
Did you think I was naïve, that I'd play it by your rules?
After asking for my heart, declaring me your fool?

Quote from: Composition #7Shadows maul my waiting face, exposing me to sin
Destroying all my innocence and distancing my kin
Cotton sorrow stretched tomorrow, today will only shrink
Wallow, hollow, follow, harrowed, what will let me think?
A brink to sink, a link, a tinkered twinkling tank of truths
Will bate the breaking base of bastards born in drinking booths
Hit the switch that with a situation saves the sands
That teaches Romeo to know what love at last withstands

Quote from: The Death of HeatLove died on a Sunday in the small concrete pad outside her new place, some cheapskate house across from the university gridlocked in the college scene of the town. Something about the off-yellow siding and her violet drapes told me, in their own gypsy fortune-teller way, that the end was near, left wafting like black smoke out the side of a boxcar, but I, like all the great failures in history, treated the omens as child's play and considered myself the hungry superior of the divine. Hubris was my sin. Retribution was soon to follow.

As I placed my two bottles upon her floor, one red, one rosé, I noticed that her eyes, those river-eyes that gleamed and washed so brilliantly along the rocky shores, those crags that she surrounded herself with, twin novas bursting in the black of space into the depths of my soul, where only eyes and hearts could decrypt her longing message, yes, those eyes were signaling a civilization long dead and hoping that my ancient, musty spirit could be conjured with the artifacts she had restored. Nothing about her perverse ritual dance should have excited me, and even the taste of dreariness upon her lips was intoxicating to my hollow soul seeking substance. Breathing, the smell of summer sauntering from her crazed floorboards, I found my own way out as I told her, without words, that I would never leave unless asked.

Two prayerful palms found their way onto the message she sent, leading me to believe that all our encounters were simply mistakes, that her perfect smile and too-crazy laugh were just the antidotes to anecdotes and nothing we were feeling was real. A simple gesture of the hand was enough to convince her, more powerful than a stroke of lightning tangling itself upon the rods of fortune, fairness, and fertility. I stood with my bouquet in the warm summer rain and promised to her, or maybe just to myself, that nothing in all the damn wide galaxy of ghosts and souls would ever compare to a breezy walk through the oaks with her, staring at the men in vests and their besotted others, nor the noisy breaks into civilization and cramped cafes that demanded caffeine to bear, nor a quiet bottle of Merlot shared under the dim orange glow of a beat-up midnight lamp.

Even heat must die. So life goes.

and life goes on.
One of your more thought provoking snippets, with less cleverness and more earnest survival.  I look forward to the cycle's next turning.

Quote from: Station-marking-handbagSomething about the
way the wind
blows the silt into
my lover's hair
on the lush afternoon
meadow of memory
transforms the way
I look at her,
very  Mexican,
kind of a half-Spanish
sort of thing
without the lisp

Quote from: Escaping the noise, pt. 1Jacques Rimbaud, a very French sort of fellow with a double-chin and a drooping cigarette stuck between his cracked, salty lips that pursed whenever he talked in an odd sort of way where he would huff and puff for seconds afterward, left a dime for the dead flowers he put on his lover's doorstep on the counter of the florist he had quietly robbed the previous afternoon. The woman he knew, a Spanish girl with pale skin and a moon-shaped face, long dark hair that was glossy and recalled the undeniable beauties preserved in the white porcelain of antiquity, was leaving for the low rolling marshes outside New Orleans where the property was cheap as hell and Katrina damned the poor to the ghettos of the world outside civilization. Tomorrow was dangerous, for jilted lovers who are at a crossroads naturally demand the absolute moment of romantic inseparation during their final moments together; one or the other seeks a strand to hold the other by, some symbolic sort of sweat and lust that keeps the memory of the other crowned and left upon the shelf to show to others like an emblem or trophy.

So was the tragedy of the commons that left Jacques Rimbaud, known to me and the others in the gang simply as Flat Jack for his hat, about as French as he was, an old pancake thing belonged to his grand-pere who died in the war after being an officer of some kind, pining for the touch of some girl down in New Orleans who probably found another pot of honey to stick her mouth onto the second she reached whatever shack on a bog she set her porcelain ass into. Jack was a habitually somber chain-smoker who had no real problem with attracting women, he had a very gaunt sort of brilliance and his raccoon eyes and the veins on his forehead left women at first feeling maternally protective of him and then endeared to his jaundiced sort of poetry, very froglike in that it hopped around and croaked but still stood on its own legs.

Jack's mother was a hypochondriac, and every time you went up to old Rimbaud's place she would be up there, smiling with her half-smile in between coughing fits that left old Jack rather half-hearted and unconcerned, everyone would walk in with her coughing and wheezing and sneezing and running off and claiming allergies and sinuses and headaches and Jack would sit there playing with a jigsaw puzzle trying to figure out how long it would take. He would talk in halting sort of half-phrases, a very digital thing that left everything abbreviated and gave the impression that nothing he was doing was where he wanted to be, always rushing off into the distance and even the time to speak was too much time wasted because he knew you couldn't keep up and didn't want you to try. 'In't '˜bout time you'n I wen' out'n saw th'world?' he asked me on a Saturday afternoon when the fog was just rolling in off the bay, and I told him that we'd have to split the gas with another person and he suggested a teenage Moroccan gas attendant he knew, everyone called him Ali but his real name was something Jones. Ali Jones was thus drafted into our half-hearted road trip that swiveled in and out of our excitable daily routines, and it was the planning of the voyage, our own Odyssey to return to ourselves after the industries had washed them away, that was probably more important than any actual journey we made.

Hard times fell, as they tend to do when young men make bold plans to ride off into the sunset with a pair of bloody spurs and a cigar stuck between their yellowed teeth, cursing and spitting and swearing and letting the desert shanties give them what belongs to the brave. Nature is cruel to those who seek to captain its provinces. Ali rushed in to tell us his father was no longer working, that he was now the provider for the Joneses with his dark curly ringlets and his sunken eyes and tarp-like skin that told its own stories, every scar and line and wrinkle letting his pains and joys ripple through the air as he flashed his teeth upside-down and let out his horse-like laugh. 'Don't worry,' he'd say, tongue wetting lips every few words so he could keep his mouth free from errors caused by dry and hanging lips, 'we'll still make the trip, my man.' That's how Ali Jones ended every sentence, just a slurred and automatic 'my man' to let you know that he was cool and down with whatever you wanted to do, my man. We shook hands and he went off, unshaven beard into the unshaven night, trapped and shackled by an inverted responsibility chain he was born into. Worse things could happen.

Flat Jack was still lusting after his Spanish girl left like a piece of driftwood in the open wound of Louisiana, and he talked me into asking around for the money we needed to get started, we'd move down there with two hundred dollars and find some old blind blues player he knew that we'd stay with, he wouldn't tell me the name but said his grandfather knew him back when he owned a club and played the sax for someone who, to be honest, I couldn't recall either because when he would drone on like this, the few times he didn't abbreviate with huffs and puffs and gasps for breath, you wish he would, admiring his usual brevity and disdaining the dishonesty of his explanation.

I never found two hundred dollars, settling for seventy five, two credit cards, and no forwarding address. The President talked on about an era of responsibility as Rimbaud and I drove off in a cheap Geo that his mother had given him less than a year ago, filled it up with gas using the card and lit a couple cigarettes to celebrate our headlong break into independence, with or without the puppet strings dangling from behind us and connected to the windfall parachute of the creditors whom we desperately needed to fund our expedition. 'Wan't a smart'idee,' Jack said between drags of his cigarette. 'But th'bess iii-dee-aaas ain't alway th'smartes.' I tried to make sense of what he said as I drove the car into a little gas station where we ate butter sandwiches and talked about what the future would hold.

Quote from: manic word-stormI encourage you to be battered
by the open frequencies we both knew
I'm sitting here, bleeding on this page,
hemorrhaging  Kerouac as we talk
and your appreciation
is all I need to feel alive

the bridge stands up and shivers
looking into the evening gloss
there's a hard rain and it's
too damn loud and too fast
to see through the windshield

motorcycles dancing, magnetic
attraction to the trees and
a slip-and-slide mentality off
the starboard bough but
astronauts and cosmonauts
are cosmopolitan, cosmologists

hit the gas
we're going somewhere
anywhere that's not here
mannnnn, who cares

Quote from: left upside-downFor the young, love comes quickly
rising and falling in
glorious bursts of crimson light
sweat that rolls from
togetherness unearthed and
hold her by the back of head
double untold hopefulness
teaches moisture in omniform
enlightening and elevating as
eyes lock in perfect silence

Quote from: AdmirationMother Earth
A sea of green between
Which the world seems
To dissipate, axis unresolved
Distorted, out of balance
My universe is swiveling

O, loquacious rivers
Between which sense surrenders
A smirk, a heady wisp
Dancer, pure, and healed
Off the medicine
Turned on to knowledge
Yes, I dig it

I dream of a woman
She must be a dreamer
Her slender fingers tracing
The edges of crisp book pages
Pale, with wit and pain to spare
I adore her razor glare

And yet
She is
Taken
By both
Distance
And another.

Quote from: Old Miner's BluesMy lover crawled onto my doorstep
As hornets swarmed around her face
Trumpets scorned my tainted honor
Pianos warned of my disgrace
The ocean parts, the sky is empty
Save for birds and thorns above
The smell of death is what calls them
They smell the death of my true love

Silence thunders in the chamber
As the beggar steals my throne
The taste of summer fills my window
And on my love, the smell of bones
The glades and glaciers cannot hide her
Nor the totems of her home
Laughter leaves her lips in rivers
As she drops her bloody comb

I had hoped to find her lair
With my guitar, my pack of rags
A knife that gleams in harvest moonlight
Where the shadow always sags
I found her lost within my footprint
Stumbling blindly to my door
She pleaded for my own forgiveness
As she died upon my floor

Quote from: SplendorAs I sit before this crackling fire
My thoughts return to her, to her
I know that she will never love me
I know that it will always hurt
Crimson splashes on the mountain
My blood trickles on the tracks
Then the poet shall be martyred
Then the priest shall march for war
My heart aches for her mere presence
Her fingers pressed against my arm
My lips brush angelic wholeness
Her heart, tha-thumping, glowing hot
The stars that hide in her blue eyes
The oracle slides into a dress
Shoes creak against her floorboards
It was the last I'd see of her
And now the plucking of steel strings
Or the caw-caw-cawing of the crow
Or the sight of burning money
Or the drought of thought surrounding
Or the open smell of sewers
Or the drifting clouds and storms
Or the thunder of true wisdom
Or the purse-strings of a lord
Yes, these and all such wonders
Mundane within the Father's eye
Remind me of the Once we had shared
Remind me of the Then that died

Quote from: The World Without YouThe sky was orange, unrelenting
The wake, the waves would swallow hope
In the breeze were vulture's feathers
In the trees, the hangman's noose

With regret, my heart is quaking
With distaste, my friends rebuke me
So the soldier plans his chaos
So the liar joins his court

Love has flushed the cheeks of strangers
Love has washed away from us
Yes, they seek my hastened ending
Yes, they reek from hateful rending

Oh, but naught could e'er effect me
Oh, but naught could burst through stone
Until you broke my inner sanctum
Until you burned my cottage home

I see you dancing with the jester
I see you dancing with your smile
Know that I destroyed your ticket
Know that you are black and vile

Death to all who have disciples!
Death to all who feel no pain!
Can the world go on without you?
Can my life remain the same?

Quote from: DesperationI know a dark gypsy
Who lives a sad life
Cutting holes in tents
With her silver knife

I know a sweet singer
Who lost her tempo true
Tapping out her memory
Melding, melting hues

Brass and percussion
Strings and then the bass
War and repercussion
Jacks and then the ace

I know a euchre player
She just makes up the rules
Humming to her matchbook
Testing iron tools

I know a lost angel
A nova of the night
Bursting in the sky
Tangled up in light

Brimstone and thunder
Smoke enshrined in lye
Serpents and surrender
Reverence must die

Quote from: TrailblazerI'm looking out the window of an old hotel
Something here is rattling, can't see too well
The breeze is rolling in since the heater broke
The wind begins to flutter on my lover's cloak

I recall some ancient melody, a wind-swept song
The words are flooding to me, but they're all wrong
A pen becomes a dagger as ink becomes blood
As sand mixes with water and converts to mud

I closed my eyes in hopes of finding some inner glow
Discerning unreality and unearthing what I know
Distorted highways rolled into my closed eyelids
Mountains can't remember me or what I did

A bandage wraps around my porcelain wrist
Salvation hammers amnesty  in parting mist
The lists of history begin to burn with force
I scream my poems to the wind until I'm hoarse

I wake unto a waiting sky of green and gold
The wanderers and wonderers have bought and sold
The dreams of ancient mariners and railroad flats
Slaves in shackles, daughters to aristocrats

crumpled songs delight the children
hate that you can see my brain
life like limericks dance and tremble
hope you heard my glowing name
look at me you pointless warrior
i can heal your broken pain
let's remind ourselves of anger
let's deceive the clock again

search yourself for truth and taste it
understand we were not one
laugh with all the other liars
escape with me to see the sun
ostentatious lords will preach it
lovers will reject the sum
and as you protect the pavement
i must then protect your son

turn the pages turn them forward
hopeless strings of petty lust
bustle to the bus-stop banners
earn the sailor's only trust
regard what you could have done
learn for what your mother fussed
gouge the temper of the stranger
run away from this you must

query: could not you be me
could not i have then been you
could not yellow be mismanaged
could not squires sing the blues
hardly harrowed is the sparrow
hurried hateful and with clues
hurt the ones you love the most
and then you will also lose

africa has touched my soul
africa calls to my ghost
rhythm mother of my knowledge
love me mother love me most
jungle desert mountain meadow
i must touch her ivory coast
sunder sanction savior sandal
i am evil's only host

rust is lining on my car door
saws and drills burn in my head
ample apples and demeanor
left me with a numbing dread
long for langston and for dylan
leave your thoughts inside your head
boast and blame the bumpkin bangles
bleed from poison and from lead

suspend your hopes from daggers darling
sustain your lyrics from my love
listen to my symphonic movement
release your didactic dove
lasso lines of laurel lombards
put on now a silken glove
put me then on your misfortune
give me then a little shove

hunt your hyphens hate your hangers
hundred hands of huns rejoice
have it happen historic handles
hulls of ships have little choice
guns and ammo green and orange
have naught but a passive voice
leave me with your tongues of fashion
ledgers and a lost invoice

signs are sticking from the highway
hierophants have failed me still
lurking lurches swerve with fervor
i feel like you just want a thrill
stop with all your malcontent
i miss the fields we once would till
underneath the oaken midnight
where the crow would never kill

touch me please and give me patience
kiss me while you walk away
stand as two on ocean shorelines
tell me that you want to stay
monuments of nothing matters
where the gods of yore do lay
live with me and let me move
along the silent gleaming bay

pipers play so rats may live
ants crawl to the building stair
knives are known to scar my psyche
and to steal my curling hair
come with me and tell a tale
of how you never once will care
for affections of another
as i set my flowers there

graves, glimmer, remorse, divorce
all together shout your plea
slaves, sliver, hoarse, discourse
remind me of the great queen bee
knaves, silver, horse, distort
everything you want or need
hey, listen, don't report
and please recall, you called me

Quote from: this hereAlas the world, it comes undone
Alack the thunder heaven sprung
Aback are taken seven sons
Seven systems, seven suns
Seven prisons, seven Huns
Several sentences and puns
Pi times two divided twice
Never shall entwine, entice
Advice to all and none to hear:
Please remove your outer ear
Plus and minus pants and coats
Bras and shirts and oven coals
Hatred envy lust and gloom
Panscendental panic rooms
Pumas maul and make their name
Miasma and must and pain
Words that blurt their layered Danes
Hamlet, omelet, all that jazz
MacBeth and his unholy spazz
Candid armor, harm her, man
Plan to pan her play and hand
Huh, believe it? Yes, I do
Cancel cancer! you can too
Varnish furnish earnest harness
Dead old wives and mist will tarnish
Burn, burn, old Isis, through
Ahab has no use for you
And Abraham and Isaac too
Live alone and read the news:
Hammer, scythe, angels? nice
Number litter lumber lice
Sandwiched in-between your vice
And life that likes a lively price
As slithers in a sudden light:
What the hell did I just write?

Quote from: HyperliterateLook at me when you look away
Mimic a limerick's lie of life
The sky cracks and we waltz
We waltz
We dance and drink to my demise

Look at my gravestone
See the crucifix at Kerouac's
That could be me up on that cross
Jesus, think of all the times
That Kublai Khan and Mr. Darcy
Imagined hypnotism and discourse
And force-fed their respective Eisenhowers

Stutter, shimmer with the oboes
Buddy Holly wants his face back
Melt back in with Anne Boleyn
Guy Fawkes hates your stupid hat
Hunger like a mouthful of
jingoistic banjo bangle players
tigers tearing rajahs new beginnings

Spit atop the Eiffel Tower
With Carl Sandburg, Arthur Rimbaud
David Copperfield, Leonard Cohen,
Mengele, Daisy Buchanan,
Jeff Foxworthy, Northumberland,
Odysseus, Jack London,
and of course, Jean Valjean

Quote from: GloryI'm standing in the window
I see your shadow crawl
I hear the sound of angels
And Lucifer, the fall
Feathers of the seraphim
Halos made of light
Dust and danger rattling
Fields of fallow blight

Quarrel with the quarrymen
Hold the sacred tune
Keep a gold harmonica
Silence will come soon
Purchase some security
From the renegades
The revolution will begin
Upon the barricades

Sweep the streets in irony
Knock on the mayor's door
Slaughter dreams of sailors
Upon the killing floor
Bottles lined on the window
I can hear you cry
The blood, it runs in circles
Humanity shall die

Quote from: Epitaph of Another Beautiful TyrantThe King died just yesterday
The masses huddled at his side
They tormented him to death
They're happy that now that he has died
They lust for blood, they lust for him
They lifted him, they threw him down
They clamored for his end to come
They gave him then his thorny crown

The King died just yesterday
His kingdom halls are empty now
The annals of his court remain
His heirs will not remember how
He held himself in times of pain
His armies marched across the earth
The huddled masses loved him once
But revolution killed his mirth

The princes cried, they held their tongue
The dukes spoke so wearily
The music died, the songs replied
That now we all must drearily
Accept that endings come in time
Purchase hope from rum and gin
Lift a bottle to the sky
And say without a hint of sin:
The King is dead
Long live the king

"Hamlet, omelet, all that jazz
MacBeth and his unholy spazz"

God, I am still laughing at that.  

Re-reading this thread from start to finish is a rather interesting project for me. I seem to cycle through influences and styles at a rapid pace.

Quote from: Elven DoritosRe-reading this thread from start to finish is a rather interesting project for me. I seem to cycle through influences and styles at a rapid pace.

Cycling is the right word for it.  You don't seem to let yourself or a readfer get too commdfortable, let alone become rut-bound.  It works, but sometimes I think that the art of placing your stuff in the right place juxtaposed with the right other works is an art in itself.

Quote from: TonighttheshowisliveSomething is wrong
I don't feel alive
There are strangers around me
They know me they say
I hold my hand steady
Then they steal my knife
The room, it starts spinning
Take three pills then five
Like, look at these stripes
Like tigers and zebras
They're pouring out from
My magazine pages
The guy with the windows
Surrounding his eyes
Is talking of mushrooms
And rainbow-tipped fingers
Like, feel the room glowing
Smothered in warmth
The pulse of miasma
She pukes on my coat
Who is this person
Staring at me
I look at him closely
I can't seem to see
The mirror is cracked
The towels are growling
I walk to the crowd
And everyone's laughing
Their faces are twisted
This guy, he has trackmarks
Where have I landed
Broken bottles surround me
Recycle your anger
This buzzing infects me
I hear a sound, screaming
Is that an owl, man?
The buzzing gets louder
The clock won't stop ticking
The TV is static
But no one has noticed
Look, I can't stay here
I have to be home
Please STOP that buzzing
I can't fucking think
The knife, someone's playing
A game with his hand
He might lose a finger
But he don't understand
Dumb, you ain't sayin'
Like, my tongue is tied up
It's bound by precision
Just open it up
We're kissing, we're screaming
We're knocking, we're broken
We're hoping, we're humping
And there went the padlock
Something is burning
It might be the couch
This guy just keeps popping
His pills and bugs out
Look at him dancing
On the table, no pants
An upper, a downer
Then a few more perchance
Where the hell am I
And how did I get here
Who are these people
And how do I leave?

Quote from: The Cosmic CarnivalNow, the world is unkind
To the children of storms
When demons have haloes
And angels have horns
I know you can't see me
I know you can't hear
The organ is playing
A song of good cheer
A dirge for the daylight
A dream of the night
They scream for my head, dear
They never shall fight
For causes they know of
For children or friends
The means of destruction
Justify their own ends
The carousel's spinning
The devil has come
The carnival is here
A song has begun

The monkeys dance and play with matchsticks
Breathing fire on your coat
They're dressed in clothing meant for business
Strangling every single note
Careening freely on the third ring
You begin to feel disturbed
Their leader turns and builds a grave stone
Beneath which you are interred

Haven't you heard of the danger of miming
The goals of the clowns who are smiling for you
Haven't you heard of the anger and timing
Required for being the fool just for you
A woman is standing as daggers are swimming
Across the thin air and are cutting her blouse
They stand within this, the rings of perdition
And claim not the company of Gabriel's house

Shadows part and mate again
Copulating in their sin
You know you cannot peer within
The spotlight of the conjoined twin
The air begins to reek with dust
You feel as though you always must
Keep your eyes in hopes of lust
Abusing their unholy trust

Elephants come marching in and take the outer-inner-ring
Medicine and innocence is not within their tusks or ears
Ivory and amnesty are all that these majestic beasts
Seek in silence and in trumpets, now they are so very near
Something happened to the future of these mighty animals
As the water fills their trunks you hear a sound so very clear
The killing angel made of blood taken from a lamb and dove
Has arrived to claim their lives as pain begins to climb and sear

Oh, the ringleader comes into center circle
Touching his face to his bony staff
He cares not if you're trapped within
As long as he can steal your laugh
His face is red and his eyes are black
He swears vengeance on God above
He may not be the Devil himself
But surely he can feel no love

The mighty and fearsome
Tamer of beasts
Is whipping the lion
Bleeding his feet
He handles a chair of
Mahogany
Entranced and ensnared in
Misogyny

Acrobats who spring about the wire from the sky
Are staring down into the crowd with utmost disdain
Asking facts and missing tact they shall never die
Their breath is made for all to see and will always sustain
As chalk made from the bones of sinners and of kings
Is clapped into a deadly cloud of fortune and of woe
Their brother falls onto the floor, suspended by a string
They are puppets dangling from the pits that hang below

And as the crowd begins to cheer
You soon realize
You're all alone within your chair
Panic in your eyes
The Carnival shall carry on
Never to desist
Welcome to the gates of Hell!
Please do not resist.

Normally I don't post revisions, but this is the new version of "The Empty Shell," from Ex Animo, my nearly-finalized collection of poetry.

Quote from: The Empty ShellBeneath the oak trees 'round my tomb,
Inside the Sacred Mother's womb,
Beside the sordid sister's call,
Hallowed by the will of all,
I see the Empty Shell.

Holes of earth and muddled mirth,
Shuttered in embrace of church,
Yards of ash and crimson cowl,
Woven in the midnight howl,
I see the Empty Shell.

Artemis with moonlit bow,
Lovers bloodied in the snow,
Gallant grimace, prying ice,
Clumps of clamor, clinging vice,
I see the Empty Shell.

Leaves across my open grave,
I am the autumn's brilliant slave,
Aristocrat, née Plato's form,
Those that keep the dead so warm,
I am the Empty Shell.

Quote from: The WeddingLittle by little, as ants sneak into the premature breeze,
   twenty of my closest friends stand as though
   complete strangers, trading tales of currency
   hapless, helping their abject egos to pretend
   this strange fog does not wound their soul

The wedding, with delicacy and tattered bliss swaying,
   planned with amnesty and in the daylight
   a conspiracy to ratify celestial bonds
   two souls prematurely stitched in union
   convinced of the eternity of love

Charming, as the bride and her cheery golden face
   swim like sand through crashing crystal ocean
   sinkholes of sympathy into which ambience
   and motorized humility are projected, pried
   amplified by smog-induced hysteria varnish

Reality churns in my ears as I am directed forward
   suited in the armaments of formality
   dripping with emaciated mulishness
   anxiety and social anticipation parading
   in neat lines along the open white square

Banners and bouquets, arranged in pleasing fashion
   magnolias and chrysanthemums and roses
   assorted in shape and color with calculation
   a wedding planner must engage in tyranny
   to pull off such propaganda with efficiency

A marriage is a promise made in anxious allocution
   its covenant entered with uniform amiability
   and, whose failure is attested in courtrooms
   in broken highway unhappiness left crying
   children torn into pieces by hate and spite

But with a passing hand and dawning dreariness
   ringlets crooning at my eyelids, bare
   and tinkering with a ballroom morality
   I sit in reflection of open cerulean blood
   the ozone everything breathes sweetly

Caramel honor and the sweet afternoon commences
   much investment is interpolated in harmony
   notes of ecstasy waft upon the grass and trees
   insidious smiles of pure intention curl and flash
   and photograph hunger is sated with rapport

Bride, entourage, and fanfare with gap-toothed absolution
   held close in hushed proclamations of the day
   melting into cyanide facetiousness in piteous
   rebellion to the commands of apparitions
   handiness in the half-mad ferocity of future

The groom, no hint of gloomy predestination or prayer
   stands admirably in dress uniform preparation
   as always expecting rain or war on barricades
   and as the barracudas circle around him
   he merely tips his quarantine hat with humor

Fidgeting with brass and abolitionist languor
   lying lurid in the fields of Elysium
   torpor and tepidity filling viscous souls
   temerity rising in crescendo naivety
   limpid in its own impressionable way

Navigating Phlegethon with pallid sanctimony
   in tears from temporal discharge and
   clutching perdition in telling manner
   establishment swallows these two
   expatriated by orphic prophecy

Appropriated by corruptive nascent hallelujah
   expressed in token jubilation remarking
   collars of acceptance, crowned in alacrity
   supernova swindlers with soaring chaos
   giddiness bursting in my daydream soul

The formatting on this would look nicer if I could indent.

Quote from: obviateYou could fit her world
   into a petri dish
   annotated hubris
   a pair of red boots

I could taste equations
   tranquil heresy
   apocalyptic hunger
   a flooded river delta

Sun-soaked, eradicate the danger
   running grooves in harmony
   skipping pops of record high
   assuaging guilty grave robbers

Dental miscommunication burgeons
   hankering on the quasar
   touching dimes to damsels
   sudden sparks of serenity

I like the new version of the 'Empty Shell'  Pace is fantastic, and very intrinsically understood.

[/size]
The night began with half-note arrangements, dusty boots slamming the accelerator as a cloud of history and corruption blew into the wind behind me. I, Louis Delacroix, was on a wild-eyed journey in the way only the French can be; a canopy above my head and a brown ruddy road quaking beneath my greedy tire. Frenzied, I brushed my hair aside as I held my phone close, shouting in ecstatic acquiescence as the voice, dearest Cameron, friend of the House of West, scurried in his shuttered half-squealed way, his HA-RA-RUMPHING and mad hatter sermons cutting through the dreary rain of an uncommonly cold summer afternoon

I arrived at Cameron West's temporary home, the residence of an ex-girlfriend whose soul ruptured after their sporadic bouts of romance came to a grinding halt. A wide-grinned Cameron returned with surrender in his eyes and a warrant stitched into his soul, but we renegades, raconteurs of the forgotten questions of eternal happiness, climbed into my jalopy and crashed along the open dusty back road, the kind that has a number for a name

Two thousand years of tyranny flooded the veins of Cameron, but he held a cheery form of pandemonium in his pocketbook, whooping out into the uncaring dead day, where the sun refused to be uncontained by its curly blankets of iron admonition. But we persisted, pressing into the mad storm clouds as though they were salvation, as though we could hold them to ourselves and coo to them in the night, the sort of unremarkable infatuation that men and boys are so frequently infected with. But I did not lust for carnal emptiness, I wanted the sky to crack and the wisdom of Sophia to embrace me, as I would melt inside of her with fervor and completion

We stopped into a bookstore, a dingy old place with knowledge stacked in hundreds of rows, happy little books cascading along each other, jutting and demanding a new home. This orphanage was closing soon, screaming babes crying out for help, and Cameron laughed in his half-mad way as he trudged along, picking and slicing three books from ancient-looking shelves. I could not see his wildly shifting collection, jabbing at a shelf as he plucked a book, smirked and mumbled three words from it, then buried it among the other forgotten treasures others had passed along. I pored and searched and believed in Heaven at that moment, needing to feel alive and feeling a sudden shock along my spine as I wondered, could this be my one true love? could this book enlighten my soul, enrapture me to higher callings? And breathless, I stumbled into the poet's corner, snatching with greed Ginsberg, Whitman, Frost, and others, too many to count, too many to care. Enthrallment, encapsulating my soul, eternally bound within a hardback cover

We made a pact to gather the other members of our band, trudging along the black asphalt hopefulness of the city so that we could knock upon the window of Dante Page. We climbed along the sideways half-warped deck behind his house, and when certain that there was no need for privacy or indecency, we rapped along his window, as we were accustomed to doing. Mere moments passed before Dante, with open arms and that look of confirmation that dwells within the hearts of the righteous and courageous, took us into his home, greeting us as though we were soldiers returning from some forgotten, ancient war. He exchanged words with Aurora, the warm-hearted exuberance that filled his steely blue eyes with the conviction that compels his every atom into the assured grasp of knowing salvation, and the plan was set into motion

We climbed into the jalopy again as both Cameron and Dante made calls, simultaneous summons issued to our other companions, to complete our hysterical fraternal rite. Arranging to meet at a sterling bar of ultimate and unconquerable tranquility, we found our respite as we crawled through the swinging-swaying doors, an infectious brilliance in our souls and the trumpets of Dante's thousand choirs of angels thundering behind us, reminding the world of the divinity found in fellowship and piety

The next to arrive, swiveling in a begrudgingly conciliatory way, was Dean Skeller, the goggled two-eyed captain of knowledge who exudes the sense and mindfulness that  encircles us in a ring of indigo, transforming our humble society and elevating us to reach Sophia's waiting hand. Dean was nearly silent, attesting only in glimpses of confession that his soul was, like all mortals, wounded by the clawing demons that condemn us to a life of pain, but all the same he celebrated life with us, embracing Sophia's reminder that to be alive was to be supreme

We began to speak of women, with Dean in his quiet manner reminding us that we should all be thankful for our past, his own conspired and muddled in the tasteless spirals that left him in a humbled and hat-tipping mood. Cameron then spoke in disjointed, many-minded way, grasping at a hundred thoughts and spraying them, a machine gun of a million bits of cosmic fluorescence sparkling along the dim rivets of the somber table we seized and painted in our vibrant way

"Tomorrow never sees me as I saw myself in yesterday's clothes,"  he said with a hoot and a slap on the table, humming three notes of a song that waivered into our conversation like a crow that perches on an open windowsill. "From here on out, my God, we're all together, we're in this place, tonight is our night to seize Life and remind her that we can feel, that we are here, that everything and everyone is just another marker on our unmapped road trip across her open thighs," he laughed again and hooted and hollered as drinks were set before us, smiling slyly at the young waitress, who winked and carried on with her duties, melting into the darkness of the bar again

"I don't believe in love," said I, already feeling the first of several drinks course through my veins, faint as I was in the hours we had journeyed out. "It's a vulgar word," I explained to confused stares, "I can't be a part of it, it makes a pure intention seem like some dirty, normal convenience, an expression or phrase that everyone steals and paints on their door, six billion red doors all the same, I want more than a red door, a simple cage to put myself in, a single dream to pursue"

"Has he been drinking already?" crooned Corey Madden, the cherub-faced angel who won the admiration of all the women he happened by, though he connected with another soul, wrapping his angelic wings around her, the two of them inseparable in that newfound joyous way of lovers. "Give me what he's having," he laughed, and Cameron whooped and clapped him on the back, beaming at the completion of our covenant

"No, no, let me explain," I said, smirking with resignation as my fellows clapped and chortled. "I seek something unexplainable, something beyond words, like... I want to find a woman for whom I could pry the stars like jewels, give them to her, and be unafraid of the wraiths of galaxies or the Keeper of the Stars and all the repercussions for such an act of pure and complete gesture of gratitude... I wish for someone for whom I could sew together a million words of adoration, all in earnest dedication, and still feel unconvinced that I had said enough of her glory and her awesome, soaring notes that resonate within the fabric of my very being, rippling and waving through me as I stood with complete adoration of her temporal, cosmic, and eternal form, leathery and incorruptible, mortal and immortal, as in love with life as all of us, a raison d'être, a refuge for renegades, a home for beggars, a warm wisdom I can enter and erupt with joy and comfort and surrender--"

"Sounds like you're talking about getting laid," Cameron howled, earning the laughter and admiration of us all, for we envied Cameron for his free spirit and his ever-growing grin and especially for his frenzied swath of emotion, that maelstrom, that symphony of enclosure, a complete yet sprawling image of himself that spilled into the lives of others, inviting us to exist in the private world where everyone was damned and yet they wore unpainted smiles

My God, the night, in its half-bound glory, bleeding into the moonlight, with chaos and angels and all the grimace that comes with too much to drink and the brilliant white-hot light of purest joy that infected every soul we came across, even as our numbers began to dwindle; first Dante, who revered the dawn and God's promises and held his oaths to be sacrosanct, walking into his home in a half-drunk state that we comforted, talking him out of further madness and knowing that when he promised to stay home and never drive, he would uphold his word, for his word was law and Dante was incapable of breaking testament or Law, and then when bespectacled Dean Skeller screamed in his silent way into the night, sober as he was known to be and without the dreams of canopies and mad-god star thievery that plagued my aching soul, and then when Corey was driven around the town in hopes of clearing his mind, finally coming to his senses around some neon sign begging for a gambler and a jack of hearts, yes it was then that we took Corey back into his truck, whooping and cavorting in the way that the dwindling armies do when their numbers vanish in the frenetic moments of pitched battle

Cameron and I slid into a gleaming red and black club where women debase themselves, sitting in the back and discussing his mad ways and impossible plans as though recalled from some fallen civilization, a dream that broke into a million pieces after being clawed and mauled by inanimate Siberian tigers, until we were expelled from this Hellish reminder of the lowest needs of mortal flesh for refusing to even buy two drinks, which was required in lieu of paying cover, but I wished to keep my senses and what remained of my wallet so we hurried back to the House where Cameron West now dwelled, and we said our cheery goodbyes

And as I droned through orange construction cones and peered at the nearly full countenance of the lunar avatar of what is surely Sophia's most blessed form, one miraculous thought burned and trembled in my ears and crashed through my veins:

"Yes, life is truly splendid in all its searing glory"

Also, a character list for the tale above
Corey Madden: cherub, the elder angel
Dean Skeller: bespectacled agent of eternal truth
Louis Delacroix: maddened poet and loveless magician
Dante Page: squire of God's holy will
Cameron West: the harbinger of gleeful chaos

[/color][/size]
"Tell me about Delilah."

It was the first time Dean Skeller had dared to utter her name, his two pensive eyes groaning for resolution and the exploration of Truth and all its bounties, and so, recalling the half-smirk absurdity of Cameron and mustering my best mask of unhurt and ambivalence, I cradled the surly glass of rum and pondered

"She was a love," I said, growling each word, punctuating with swigs of cold anxiety and a shot of self-realization, "a vulgar little love that died as all shallow things must do. Flowers on a tomb, a fading comet, a brilliant bursting lightbulb, death and all its splendor, Delilah was life, she was everything, she was nothing, she was the Void, she was not Sophia and for that I both hated her and loved her, for to love is to hate and confine and need and cling and unfulfill and regard, rather than redefine"

He pressed a glass against those spinning grey eyes, steel in the face of stainless obscenity, mindfulness in the mindless humming of asinine guitar, strumming infinity and purchasing rounds of abstinence for all the sane and sober minds seeking completion in a midnight dreary dalliance, and then Dean said, "So you never knew her, and instead of exploring her, sharing your nova madness that you continually huff about, you abandoned her on a city block and left her with a rainy glass of teardrop sadness?"

I sunk in shame, recounting on my mental abacus the crimes committed against Delilah and against myself, and knew that in his goldminer way Dean sought to purge me of my sins, directing me to wisdom and peeling away my pavement self delusion, and so I pondered and slithered and considered the power of the Fates and all the impossibility of romance and the shocking truth of the capitalist notions of investment that plagued the hearts of lovers and the poorly minded, and I knew then what I must say. "I never knew her and never opened my sanctum heartbreak to her because I needed her to feel secure, she was empty and I tried to fill her with my knowledge, I tried to burn necessity into her consciousness and elevate her to a throne, a divine seat of will and thought and prowess fortune coronation regality elegance profession. . ."

He snickered, the way that Lucifer must have snickered, that knowing deception that had led to the Truth, the waiting serpent fangs that promised good and evil, that defined the Paradise that only through ignorance and the blind acceptance of God's word could man retain his immortal spirit and remained saved and unsullied by the flames of sin that burden every waking soul and demand for salvation through the intervention of flesh and immortal christening, he snickered as such and said, "I think you wanted to see yourself within her, turn her and polish her into a mirror, and when she wouldn't taste of your cigarette, when she wouldn't smell of your sweat, when she would not think of your volition and wake at your demand, I think you realized that you are a martinet, you want a puppet, you need formless uncreation rather than a sculpted wonder"

"Perhaps," I lit a dreary half-cigarette and smoldered with anxiety, knowing that I had been branded with unfortunate half-truth and would have to use a sieve to sort knowledge from the grit and sand that stuck to my subconscious like black tar, and I smoked and listened to myself and the rhythms of the night and the sound of glasses clinking against an open bar and wondered if I had not gone completely mad for and from Delilah all those months ago

[/color][/size]
And so it was that Dante Page found himself alone within the blinding light that filtered through the prison bars of ruined romance, crestfallen and trapped in a city after the End of Days and left by God to oversee the ruinous singularity that had catapulted his misery to the point of missing Rapture, and he stood and knew Aurora had left, but not that he had Known her, for she had in her final clandestine days been cruel and unwise and swallowed whole the incapability of mindful expansion or the resuscitated need for individuality and self-expression that can, in all the words of the Divine and in the scripts of the ancients and left humming and rumbling on the tongues of the wisest priests, the children of the stars and the happy prophets who fill the sky with meaning, yes this and this only can be described in a single word that glows and coalesces and burns with fervor in the hearts of those who refuse to be snuffed and allow the soft glow of candlelight not to confuse them from knowing the meaning of the sun, solar wonder and the vast truth of reality and the stations of the cross and all the relevant elevation that takes and wraps the mind into supreme consciousness: magic

 Corruption of the spirit is the most grievous crime to which Aurora had been convicted, but her smoking tongue and lashing bouts of closing, that is the act of emptying the mind of sinfulness and filling it with books and pages and quotes and references to build a paper fortress and claim faith and longevity and embrace of the one real truth to the exclusion of rhythm-truth that rattles in the ears of every soul that is in tune with the frequency of life, screaming and kicking and dancing naked on the streets as it is known to be, brick-layered grime covering the faces of children who Know that infinity is a concept and concepts are limiting and to memorize one's life is to unlive it and kill yourself in ritual suicide more hateful to the well-being of one's spirit than the destruction of one's life-wish, the acolytes and parsons and the abbots all hold a hymn of hallelujahs to the undying and unspoken creed that can only come after their uttered counterparts die in echo, underneath when all vibrations have rendered themselves empty, proven their unworthiness and the need for further expression and attainability and precious visions born from fleeting images that connect the mind to Sophia and her waiting grasp as God's only messenger in the instances when Void and uneternal paradox demons can no longer claw at what you have known and are pierced with searing spears of Knowledge which the Creator so knowingly put into Eden with secret omniscient all-Knowledge that serpents and Dean Skeller could pry the truth from the human condition and necessitate his untimely expulsion

So consider then the sin of man, which is not to be curious but to be led by woman, as Genesis would tell us, to great acts of unwisdom, to scorn the hand of Sophia, but this, as the serpent would have us to believe, is because of woman's own weakness to the call of corruption and that the entire adolescence of the human spirit required morals and guidance, but the tongues and fruits and trees are all inverted and the messages are corrupted by immortal anti-understanding that now prevents Aurora from grasping the Knowledge that Sophia provided her, and thus prevent her from elevating Dante to the quaver of her eternity, as the two souls become cast in gold and feel the calves and idols begin to melt and know and Know and un-Know that if they come untangled, they will succumb to the Biblical narrative and find themselves cast in roles not meant for them or for any who Believe, for their belief is now a venom that is poisoning salvation and demands tribute instead of elevation

I do not Believe, I look into the Void and see Cameron's smirking chaos and I hear madness screaming at the New Orleans floodgates and know that anything that I do and anything that I say cannot unmake the faults and earthquake nightmares that plague the immortal spirit of Dante and I begin to cry, not tears of salt or tongues of flame but for the Holy Spirit, for ghosts and gods and everything that never was and could never be for that is the only iron link that has not rusted in this accumulating belt of madness and Mars and war and death and sadness that will tear life asunder if permitted to grow in its storm cloud way

and a poem to break up the prose series

Quote from: also known as HelloPlagiarist amphetamine
half-spirit inundation
of loneliness in the
form of greeting

Is this thread just for your poetry, ED, or can anyone join in?  (It's quite all right if it's exclusive, mind, I'm just curious.)

Quote from: AcrimoneIs this thread just for your poetry, ED, or can anyone join in?  (It's quite all right if it's exclusive, mind, I'm just curious.)

It started out as a branch from another of my poetry threads but yes, I would prefer to be exclusive. I wholly encourage you to create your own poetry thread, however.

Quote from: BarClack-whirrrr-THACK! Balls rack 'em up
Wonder at the sizzle of cigarettes
DEATH RAT-RAT-RATTLE
Scintillating jukebox angel
Kings and regents yodeling
Broken bar stool grimy trucker breath
Mack by any other name
Ring, ring, answer fatality
Fatlism, instinct
The place stinks of sex

Quote from: Untitled compositionOstentatious ospreys, in sudden harmony
caw for martyrs to cast aside
their broken tombs and barren wombs
trumpets slashing kindness like a wrist

The curfew of petulance, having run its
nightly rounds, demanded that we sailors
returned to dockside sorrow, guardians
of lagoons, buzzing dragonflies in summer

Fisherman sought crumbs of decency, trusting
the sacred vows of saviors and drinking
poison promises as republics collapsed
disunited in the rhythm section

Scandal is known to the halls of chamber
maidens in their dead delights
waddling and making reprimands as 
carnations wilt on stove tops

The blank stares of paddling crusaders
white-washed in golden chains of slavery
promised to striped surrender, silver light
beaming through cracked stain glass window

Swinging madly, two girls, two lovers
reflections curling at their feet
breathe sweet perfume and levitate
conscious nothings lying in the breeze

Tungsten is the taste of morbid resignation
leaves overturned as staring splintered blacktop
exudes the gas of infectious righteousness
drivers bleeding their forgiveness

Benches, broken and mangled in the evening shower
time in its cruel magician manner
carnal in its every-grasping spiderisms
fangs of delight where death is born

Starlight licks the breast of the trespasser
her ear perforated by unlonely sermon
crawling as though remembering survival
panting, gasping its herald banner

Thawing bonds of perennial termination
set in agony against cork-screw type
patters in pi8thy patterns, impressing all
and leaving needles in their socks

Marvel, miracle in war machine irradiating
all the tumbling pedals, petals of lotus
marigold in screaming distant nightmare
spoken, sung by faithful transistor radio

Fidelity, dignity and introspective dalliance
child's gleeful proclamations at aviation
chasing the night into a burrow
laughing as only the innocent can

Scales and worn ruddy shoelace causes
hungering for reflection and conception
sparkle wearily on the waiting page
the pen shovels out their sunken joy

Smell the legacy of mortal wishfulness
equating fame with wintry legitimacy
sensitivity as fortunes unmend the triumph
causal winds of resolution barking

Thoughtful risibility and arisen crucifix
sprinkled with blood and pining for cure
test your apprehension with small bites
tearing in the quiet of creation

Catapult virility as crutches hanker past
touching vulnerable as smiles wander
trusting telepathy for preening perfection
lilacs blooming in the schizoid sprawl

Fighter jet howling in dead grey sky
white blood streaming trickle from tail
bystanders in coal black cheeriness
proceed and play without wince and worry

Quote from: For WilliamI remember as a boy we grabbed our fishing poles
We went to some little lake next to a watering hole
The day was hot, the breeze rolled through
Flies danced above my head
We didn't catch a single fish
I just caught a cold instead
But it was times like that I remember best
And I never shall forget

The black cat you called Joey is standing in your chair
He knows you're never coming back, I don't think he cares
He sits there crying constantly
I fear it wounds his heart
But he will sing his eulogy
Until he's torn apart
And it is times like this I will notice best
And I never shall forget

We sat inside the basement, arranging your old stamps
Beneath the porcelain glow of your many-shaded lamps
The book was nearly filled
With foreign calling cards
When I ceased to collect them
And telling you was hard
And it was times like that I remember best
And try not to regret

The dog, your vigilant guardian, has become so kind
It seems that he has chewed his paws and has gone half-blind
And as I dab his wounds
And soak away the silt
He seeks just my affection
He seeks to wash his guilt
And it is times like this I will notice best
And soothe his old regret

I sit inside your workshop with a madman glowing grin
The sawdust mixed with cobwebs and the triumph then with sin
I left the door half-open
And I knew the world was lost
The window panes are broken
The winter has no frost
And it is times like these I remember best
And I wish that they hurt less

The hill out back for sledding, what a joy that was
Crashing into trees as my sister and I rushed
Down the hill in fashion
On our uncle's sled
And as we hurried inside
I remember you had said:
'Grandson, these times you'll remember best'
And I  try not to forget

Oh, I remember picking up the sticks back beneath the trees
The only reason we had to do it was you couldn't bend your knees
We grimaced and we groaned
As we trudged along the hill
We did a shoddy job
But you paid us even still
And it was times like these I remember best
And I hope you will forgive

I have one more confession that involved your morning run
I'd pass you on the bus and the kids would all make fun
Of what you wore each morning
And I wish I could go back
And tell them all how proud I was
Of the courage you never lacked
And it was times like those I remember best
And thus I must confess

But the fondest recollection that springs into my mind
Is when you grew a moustache and kept it for some time
Just because my sister asked you
When she saw the photograph
I saw the picture yesterday
And I couldn't help but laugh
So I want you to know I remember best
How much we all were blessed

Quote from: Talkin' In't Ain't You Wan't Somethin' Else Blues no. 10Somebody punched a hole in the damn tambourine
Met another matron if you know what I mean
Breaking in the banners for the next world war
Had an aging woman call me a dirty whore
The pink of misogyny is bawling me out
I sink in my pocket where the coins have grout
My name is chanted all across the land
A soldier ran across me with his old wet hand
It's a matter of honor,
It's a matter of pride,
Coming out swinging with the stars and stripes

Good to finally see "For William" up. It's very touching.

Quote from: FREAKIN' AWESOME HORSEGood to finally see "For William" up. It's very touching.

Friggin' yeah.  Raw, emotional Mainling, by the Eldo.
Another hit, please.

Quote from: The Weeping Sun of AbsalomIn Gilead unfolding,
The wood of Ephraim boding,
The fields of David's loathing,
In tattered royal clothing,
Sits Absalom, the general
Besmirched son of Israel

Golden and most handsome,
the kingdom's brightest star

Poor Tamar! Poor Amnon!
Sweet Absalom, I know!
Poor Israel! Poor Judah!
G-d must hate thee so!

In Hebron, all-commencing,
The shadows ever-sensing
That you, now David's oldest son
Should hold the throne, not Solomon
Sweet Absalom, the general
Begrudged son of Israel
 
The kingdom held for ransom,
by the golden son and star

O, Absalom! You sinner!
The tears of rebel wrath!
O, Absalom! You traitor!
The flush of ancient past!

In Gilead unfolding,
The river Jordan soaring,
The Valley of Jehoshaphat
Where Hushai, traitor, knelt and sat,
You spat upon Ahithophel
And thus, you rightly fell

As spears claim your noble heart,
Heaven weeps with golden stars

Quote from: Moss on BirchMustangs are galloping, waterfalls of knees
Pages are ruffling, they dance in the breeze
An old shattered mirror, a symphony of glass
The hum of a bluesman on an old phonograph
A woman in heels with the eyes of a knife
Wearing a dress of dust and starlight
She opens a door that is swirling and cold
As a dozen dead winds breathe in her soul
Hickory is snapping underneath the weight
Of ten carved commandments on uneven slate

Skylarks and madmen are strange company
For rebels and renegades estranged from the sea
Tapestries of freedom and empty black pans
Are sizzling in harmony between the sun's hands
Radios are crackling, and the ancients still sway
Beneath the miasma of death's silver ray
Beads of  longevity drip on the floorboards
Illuminated swordsmen duel on the shores
Thickets of thorns entrap the old hares
Iron vested angels corrupt heaven's stairs

Lovers are twisting inside verdant ponds
Politicians bark as their dogs merely yawn
Vines and swamp gasses burn in the dawn
Ladders are lifted to damsels in bond
Umber-hued children discuss their escape
Autumn sits silent in summer's embrace
Hunters recoil at the early grey dew
Fog veils the poet and gypsy from view
I sit on a tree stump, collecting white frost
In history, antiquity, and Avalon, I'm lost

Quote from: AfghanThe world as you know it is spinning around
They murdered your mother, your father has drowned
Slip under your skin and the splinters shall see
That dead is your love for yourself and for me

Tabletop anguish and the march of the saints
The teachers walk backwards, the dreamer, she faints
Purloined percussion and the throbbing of swords
Sunken surprises for the stations of lords

Clap with both hands, scream with delight
Maybe tomorrow you won't have to fight
Scarlet is bursting in clouds in the air
Rattle and rumble in your silver chair

I knew the boy shepherd, I knew him well
The screaming red missiles took him to hell
Scarred and surrendered, smothered in gold
A flashing of fortune, an old-fashioned coat

Who can you blame for the dangers abroad?
How can you wonder why pirates maraud?
Do mortals have free will or is it just fate?
Must we distrust what is placed on our plate?

Quote from: Transcendental BluesAthena, why do you dress like that
You are no surly nun
The cloth befits a higher call
And you worship the sun
Your feet are sore and blistered
From your tattered tarot deck
You tell me to go home
To keep my tongue in check
The King of Wands reminds you
Of your winsome ways
When damned into the nighttime
And hunted in your days
Please, Athena, hear me
And know that this is true:
I'm lost inside your highway mind
With Transcendental Blues

Oh, Helen, hear the freeway
And all the dainty cries
The children of her Paris
The taxi where love dies
But then, with Charon in stow
And with your rummage thrills
I don't expect salvation
Just some divine will
And as Paris is jaunting
He curls a fist at me
The ocean parts in wonder
My blood, it spots the sea
Helen, won't you listen
Or else I'll have to sue:
I'm lost without your open hand
In Transcendental Blues

The Capricorns are dreaming
Of you, my friend Marie
You must not be so angry
I thought you wanted me
Please don't scorn my trumpet
I thought you wanted more
I didn't know your number
Or your ancient lore
And as you touch my necklace
I see your husband cry
He knows you can't surrender
He knows I cannot lie
The dirt is shoveled sadly
If only I had you
But I'm stranded in Durango
With Transcendental Blues

I saw you, Angelina
With triumph waving high
Your mattress burned with nicotine
As twilight maimed your eye
Blood sits on your canine
Your teeth are filled and numb
I'd speak but when I'm near you
I soon go deaf and dumb
Your rings are circling sadness
Your ears are made for more
A certain flash of insight
Can peek behind your door
I appreciate your candor
You are among a few
Who know that I am strangled
By Transcendental Blues


Your fortress, see it burning now
Daisy, you know that
Your Tom Buchanan shall return
Wearing his new hat
With patience and with confidence
You told me of your dream
Where crows would fly in triangles
And you joined my team
But Tom won't have this dalliance
He knows your secret plan
I saw him kill the diplomat
An old and wiry man
But you I doubt would care much
If he wore another hue
Strapped across his deathbed
With Transcendental Blues

Can't mystery and misery
Befriend you, Miss Divulge?
You sit in judgment of your pawns
Piercing friendship hulls
Your head is crooked on this page
I think you've lost your nerve
You can't escape from yourself
In case you hadn't heard
But then your doctor boyfriend
And his many-colored pills
Would have you take a new cure
For your imagination ills
Creative as you may be
I can see through you
I'm glad for once that I am struck
By Transcendental Blues

Quote from: Haunted Box of Pine and SteelYou punched me in the gullet
Wearing Latin on your sleeve
Dump me in the gutter
Give me my reprieve
You lie and steal from children
You burn the Bill of Rights
A tyrant and a killer
Bereft of form and sight

O, cruel in your fashion
Cuffed in sullen creed
Burn with heaven's anger
The angels will not bleed
Muskets are malnourished
They cry for greedy times
Petticoats in powdered boats
The King and all his crimes

Stuff me in your lockbox
You are my bayonet
Touch me in your hatred
I am your Lafayette
The box of pine resounding
The clamor of your death
I fear this revolution
Charon's fog-worn breath

Pretty schweet.

QuoteI'm looking at the painting on the corner of the wall
The master left it for his student in his winding hall
The strokes are like a melody, perfect in its tune
The paint is dull and arabesque within the dim-lit room
Old and misremembered as his greatest masterpiece
I hear, through mists of parted time, the master speak to me:
 
Shall I be thrust upon a dusty crucifix?
Shall I be cast in iron, nails within my wrists?
Or will I be remembered as a jester of the stars?
Will they say I killed a man just to eat his heart?
Shall they say my name in vain, am I a vagabond?
Will they build a monument, will they carry on?
Or shall I be interred in silence, laid next to my wife?
Will my children cry for me, or celebrate my life?
Will the sun be cut upon the mountains of the east?
Will revolution splash and spill, will tyrants ever cease?
Shall owls be perched upon the crowns of oak, maple, and ash?
Shall groaning yellow branches break with a creak and lash?

I'm looking at the painting which so captivates my soul
The master left it for me to discover my own role
The strokes are like a telegraph commanding me to yield
The paint is like a spear exposing my weak heel
An homage to the master who awaits the answer true:
Through the mists of parted time we shall remember you

Quote from: Hip tipTip-toe tornado with a taste of trepidation
   like a torpid tepid talcum tangerine
   sipping in the garden of eden
   slight and malcontent in ecstasy
   a friday morning freakout from
   too much opium

Danger dangles like angels and amateurs
   the bleak street of beat nations
   the generation antebellum tell 'em
   emancipate the nobles from their
   empty sense of cents

Wrote a book for you and a couple dozen
   poems with a surreal stability
   some kind of acid trip upside
   the slumping sandwich you
   didn't even eat

Skeletons and skulls skipping along harbor bays
   waddling in swim trunks with apathy
   stuck in my car door and bucking bronco
   willfully neglecting the agony and sampling
   scurrying in metronomes

Quote from: Athens-bound portraitLast night I saw a dancing pioneer sitting on a tarot deck
   her coat unbuttoned and clinging to its rack
   she whispers into nothingness her hopes
   and as that void I listen without judging

She, with cryptic tides and jumbled resilience
   to which the unexplained referendum
   and the barely touching strands of chapels
   and their strangled inactivity drive the
   raving oxen of madness

She, with crossword desires and their checkered station
   who tell of Italian liqueur, kittens quite well fed
   surprising with its secrets and its tsetse manner
   twenty-one machine guns in adagio fashion
   precipitate

She, who smirks with waiting chaos at the sight of rain
   when prodded to pay the lords of steel and thunder
   instead will let the air out of their tin skulls
   and purchase new salvation

She, with clay-faced synthoid bebop half-note rhythm,
searching and surging through used car lots
tumbling in maternal manner as she loosens
two jugs of milk from curtained plastic

She, with system-thought-meaning, problem-solution self,
with stuffed monkey necessary for final preparation
whose anger is tempered with keen understanding
overstanding overself equating hopeful listening

She, who finally took in the sweet caramel breath of dawn,
learning in the tin cans that roll toward barrels
that life itself is worthy and untamable
shaking free of sweaty sullen duality

She, to whom modesty is all-unknowing, vagabond and stranger,
knocking quietly on her baroque dressing door
as her confidences command continental armies
touching one another in familial fashion

She, with Mozart between her wings, unitarian tambourines,
unlacing the shoes of courtiers and hiding them
boiling chicken for the sergeant-at-arms
quarantining vacuum thoughtlessness

She, with palms cupped in tenderness, balancing amphibians,
willing to endeavor over fences barbed and bolted
wreathed in shadows but twinkling with laughter
chewing apathy and denouncing all surrender

She, who corresponds with animal totems, spirits old and mighty,
with amnesty and inclusive provisional counsel
responsible and all-supposing of their worthiness
talking into distant towers with sliding words of beauty

She, with cold-death-dying-sickness, the nasal mortal form,
who perseveres to disinfect and seeks remissions
relenting to the storms of Eden-grasping panacea
her treetop and untipped hours smoking quietly

She, who senses heartache pills and their white-washed bottle,
hunting them as needles on a daydrop blacktop,
protecting children and her Heracles from malcontent,
throws them into dustbins and tells the siren deputy

She, with bookstore poet stationed nobly on her desk,
working in due diligence to present her case,
lumbering toward her further vocation, advocacy
lifelong in its luring nimble lashes

She, with Saturn on her tongue, her blazing mind eternally aglow,
with strength and ink stitched onto her skin,
with piercing orbs of absolution and rebellion,
who reaches at the galaxies and claims them all as hers

She, who sits between the oboes and the blurting of saxophonists,
the tantalizing light twinkling through sunroofs,
who mows the dewy blades of impious proportion
tumbling along as spiders slink into slumber

She, with black and white shirt entombed in moral quandary,
   with stuttering temples crumbling beneath her will
   loquacious as they truncate her medallions
   heaps of coins burning through the midnight

She, with safety cornered in her iron-coated sensuous surreality,
   who prefers the panic of rotund companions,
   the happy minds that link in warmth and wonder
   limping toward their wisdom with a glass of wine

She, with quarries where philosophers make war with negligence,
   with amber tasting taxis crashing in the breeze
   the painted locks of moonlight trickling
   transcending the numb preponderance

She, with imported cure-alls for the plantation of tomorrow,
   whose preparation and vivacity is all-convincing
   without which Atlas might divine a mortal surrender
   and none would ever question bifocal creation

She, with curling tassels that bridge the mundane consanguinity
   toppling regimes of idle madmen with candlewax
   remarking even in the face of nightwashed murkiness
   that prisons of the mind are where souls rot

She, with drawers of apostolic creed and many-flavored adventure,
   whose weapon sits and dances in abstention
   primordial in the twilight need of textual interference
   knowing that the floors of dalliance are to be cleaned

She, with syncopation found in the hearts of deceased rumrunners,
   who knows the squires of electronic angelic agony,
   speaking to the tempest and recalling Canadian days
   prancing about fashion shows as queen and comptroller

She, with fiber-optic aptitude and the slushing stream of clamor,
   licking at cones and whipping foam into a form
   tasting jacuzzi strategy and sharing canine laughter
   sheltering the blue-eyed beast with proper dignity

She, who bids for notions deemed insoluble by the mantra of eternals,
   knowing in immortal fashion that cosmic allergy
   and the paws of tremulous subcultural sneezing
   are equivocal and lackadaisical in their primacy

She, with Cadillac defensiveness and a grateful tone of ecstasy,
   who understands the nuance of appreciation and volition,
   with aptitude in all the fields to which she applies,
   excelling in the circle built by quantum elevation

It is she who stands in doorways for the glowing afterthought
   and tells me that the night is good
   it is right that I believe it

Quote from: Positively Cashing OutYou live in a world of phantoms
Populated wholly by your nightmares
Your handshakes seem suspicious
Sliding, sinister, snide, and unrelenting

You have quite some nerve
You think I don't recall?
Your questions buzz like bumblebees
Your pity is distasteful

You spot your reflection in the pool
Of cerulean uncertainty
You cannot stand your twisted grimace
And so you try to mother me

Please, little girl,
With heartbreak in your ears,
With unstable marriage rings,
With child left in others' care,
With stationary creased and folded,
With prodding ignorance in spades,
With fear and stations oh so insecure,
With mountains moved and meadows burnt,
With all your touching needing playing preening. . .

Who do you think you are?

Quote from: Nothing Remains the SameTwo small snow owls fall out of a nest
slugs buried deep in their skulls

Their feathers dance and tremble
in the white winter wind

Quote from: Fortune, TorsionNothing in the world of saints is worthy to be touched
Nothing in my heartfelt horror is without its crutch
Nothing that you say to me will bury its own grave
Nothing ever sprinkled here can spirits ever save

I blame the clay aristocrats for sculpting my retreat
They engineered my Waterloo, my quiet blue defeat
My crimes, they said, were arrogance, corruption of the soul
I know that they are envious of my resurgent role

Hunger is the sin of dukes who tell the world to bow
I wish to cast them into hell, alas I know not how
The scepter handed to me by the people who are free
Has broken all your barricades and halted my own knee

You tell me that you know a pope who hates my subtle groan
I'd respond he is my slave, that I command his humble throne
I had to melt his holy crown, that bold historic golden calf
I see republics slouch and rot as prefects gloat and laugh

Nothing in the riverbed is meant to finance memory
Nothing in the bloody streets can ever garner much pity
Nothing in the smoke of rifles can distort my waiting plans
Nothing you will ever do will separate or clasp my hands

Quote from: Exhibit 225: Holy WeekImagine that there is nothing
Beyond what you can see
There are no spirits hanging
Underneath the willow tree
Confusion and creation
Are the compliments of life
There is no other sensation
Than the coil of mortal strife

My love is swinging wildly
She is naked as a meadowlark
She waves her arms for me to join
But the skyline has gone dark
There is a trumpet blowing
The stone is left unturned
My mind has begun racing
Recollecting all that I've learned

But who is splitting firewood
Preparing for my funeral pyre?
There are platters clinging loudly
And I can hear a distant lyre
My dirty hair has been parted
They are marching up and down
I see them weaving briars there
Into the twisted form of a crown

I call down rain and thunder
I split the sky and turn it black
There is a sense of breathless wonder
And I know there is no turning back
Precious moments are tumbling
Underneath the waterfall
I cry so none can hear me
It was a vision that I saw

I sit inside the museum
Looking out of mirrored glass
There are strangers all around me
I am seated on a gray jackass
Imagine you can see nothing
Except your reflected face
Then you know why I'm demented
I've gone so mad in this place

[blockquote=Eldo]I blame the clay aristocrats for sculpting my retreat
They engineered my Waterloo, my quiet blue defeat[/blockquote]
This works effortlessly.  Nicely done, a deft turn of phase and parse.   It gets more oblique (the nice way of telling the writer his muse went out for lunch) from there, thyough not with the meter or term, just with the clarity of vision.  You certainly find the key more often than not.

Actually, line 4 of the same quartrain is good as well, it's just line three and the marriage of "amplitude" to "The corruption of the soul", which you do infer by the comma, as the same or related "crime".  It does not go, at least here, in my understanding.  I'd even prefer "certitude", though a false certanty seems to be the opposite of what you are going for there.   Maybe Daedalitude?  

I went with arrogance.

beauty.

double post

Quote from: Dawn Song of the Last Living Red-breasted American RobinTweet, tweet tu-twitter tweet
   The waking Illinois breeze
   sinking in the jubilation that
   bursts across the clouded
   shrouded disc where the
   morning comes unbundled
   woven into the golden acres
   swaying, hissing and soothing

Twah-tu-tweet, twit-tu-twah
   The shaking strings of marionettes
   those eagles parting kisses to the
   horizon, their feathers weeping
   in the rolling warmth of daylight
   twinkling and dripping all around
   as pastel mice scurry into the mud
   pressing their feet in tiny circles
   to escape their fear of death

Tw-twu, twe-tu-twee, twah-tu-twah-tu-tweet
   The blossom opens, virginal
   knowing not the touch of God
   though her petals moistly cling
   to the sweetened, humming air
   her emerald stem bends and aches
   she touches her neck to her brother
   calling to the soldier drone to place
   his feet gently on her waiting breast

Twih-tu-twih-tu-twih-tu-tweet
   Two small footprints line the road
   laughing and delighting as night dies
   mingling together as their master
   wanders into the hopeless streams
   of passing time and its cruel glory

Quote from: Enslavementthe

fabric

tumbles

softly

to

the

machinist's

floor

Quote from: TrunkTake me out of
your leaf fortress
I have no use
for paper jewels

Your rhombus heartache
and paperback promise
Are not conducting
proper electricity

Smuggling little bits
of fire in your pants
You had better turn back
and splash into your nest

Quote from: Charlie Was an AstronautCharlie was an astronaut
He sailed across the stars
He'd skate the rings of Jupiter
He loved to visit Mars

His suit was made of rubber
His helmet glowed bright blue
He only breathed pure neon
He loved to play kazoo

The planet that he came from
Was called Jklsipholame
Only one small Earthling
Could even say its name

He landed in a valley
And walked onto the street
His skin was green and orange
He had eleven feet

When Charlie held his hands up
(Though they really were like claws)
He could grab a distant star
(But always with good cause)

And so he met a little boy
His name was Johnny Chip
And told him that he needed help
To fix his broken ship

Well, Johnny was no astronaut
He had never been past Earth
He couldn't fix a hyperdrive
But he knew well his worth

He said big old Charlie
Who stood some nine feet tall,
"Come and stay at my mom's home
Until your planet calls"

Charlie took the boy's hand
Careful not to cut or slice
They sang a song together
From the planet of Quibrice

When Charlie used the television
To call his secret base
His helmet came unclouded
And Johnny saw his face

His seven eyes were teary
His nose was spiked and flat
He had a pair of mouthy grins
He was neither thin nor fat

Just as Johnny saw his face
The helmet went aglow
For Charlie could not bear the boy
To see him in sorrow

The officer he had called
Said in an angry voice
He would not send spare parts
So Charlie had a choice

It was about this time
When Johnny's mother learned
About the hidden astronaut
And soon she was concerned

When Charlie and she talked
He knew he had to go
Johnny tried to argue
But knew it would be so

Charlie was an astronaut
He'd sail into the stars
Upon a NASA shuttle
And then he'd float to Mars

Johnny watched in silence
And knew this was the end
As Charlie waved goodbye
And said to his brave friend:

"Of all the people I have met
On planets far and true
I have but one friend of mine
Of course, that would be you

Now please don't cry, little one
And don't you make a fuss
Don't cause trouble for your mom
And don't you hiss or cuss"

And then he did a miracle
Plucking from the night
A sparkling little handful
That twinkled with starlight

He handed them to Johnny
To put them on his wall
To remind him to act bravely
Always standing tall

As long as Johnny had them
These twinkling little stars
Charlie could still see him
Even from afar

The launch went as expected
And Charlie zoomed and flew
With a NASA rocket
And his helmet glowing blue

Many years would pass
And John was seventeen
He took those stupid stars
And tossed them as he cleaned

When Charlie looked for Johnny
He cried his neon tears
But who could really blame him
After all these years?

Charlie was an astronaut
No longer sailing stars
He lost his only friend to age
Stuck on dusty Mars

^^ My favorite one yet.  Simple and beautiful.

Quote from: Heartfelt Portrait of the Serious ArtistMr. Valentino is a very serious writer
Who writes very serious stories
He considers every word
Touching them gently
With the thumb that has been
Stuck so very far
Up his ass

Mr. Valentino is a generous man
Who gives generous sums
To all the women
Whom he knows
But the problem is that
He only knows
Prostitutes

On his early morning streetwalk route
The grateful sewers straddling dawn
The noble Valentino laughs
And touches his marble cane
Rapping the peasants
Who sleep in the
Dusty street

He takes his lunch to the grey courthouse
Shaking appendages at angry law
Standing next to Roman columns
Breathing fog into the afternoon
White snow crunches under his
Salami and rye and
He cackles

Although he goes to the opera house
He falls asleep in the first act
Don Giovanni cannot hold his eyes
From plunging into misty death
And so he seduces misery
And makes it his companion
In wild lust

Madness seeps from his snoring tongue
He tames relentless death and tombs
Only pomposity and pretense
Survive the sands of all remembrance
Stinking from the pyramids
Embalmed in fine repair
Touching, no?

Quote from: The dwindling spirit of a nightmare arabesque, sung in the key of E and accompanied by acoustic guitarInside the rim of spectacle
underneath the rusted chairs
we traversed through emporiums
I thought I saw you there

But I don't think
that was you

Quote from: Maybe I'm DrinkingMy gypsy girl sits in her shadows
Hounds are growling at the stars
I lift a bottle and remind her
That we both drive borrowed cars

A velvet glove of mortal power
Transient in the face divine
Shoved on top of slender hands
Grappling with uneven minds

Stick my fingers in the face of
All you knew of trinity
Suck my life into the drainpipe
Of complete serenity

This one makes more sense with the proper formatting (which the limitations of this board prohibit), but c'est la vie:

Quote from: tellWe sit and imagine on quiet afternoons
while others bark for festivities
and wonder why the world is fading
and how disconnected the mainline
has become

I want to tell her that I love her
that rushing through the bloody streets
as soldiers march in civil unrest
and barricades are battered on the shore
as the specter of gloom and death itself
comes for Don Juan and demands that
in the Face of Eternity and All That Is
he renounce his sins,
like he,
in sin,
I would refuse

Let me tell you what I know of eternity:
the cosmos come unbundled
stars go black and decay in time
photographs curl and yellow
even gods and goddesses die
tombstones crumble
memory rusts
energy will be splayed upon the
shadows of the spectral
unmaking spirit of entropy
when everything collapses
life, as such, lies uneternal
quivering and quaking in the multitude
temporary and cycling throughout all
the wide wake of waves
collapsing in ripples
as the water draws too high
and as I splash against the canvas
of temperamental temporal claws
I become temporary
bound by time
and made unmade
potential shall lay in all direction
and the cat inside Schrödinger's box
is both alive and dead
but I am a particle
not a wave
for I have been observed

Quote from: The makings of governmentShall we liberate
Or deliberate?

Quote from: What I learned last Mayi can't see through
your frosted glass
that houses your
brew of secrets

this is
somehow
my fault

stuck-up travelers-by-trade tell of a distant land
where all the people are bright orange
and their tongues explode with treacherous
half-truths that are baking in the warm
diseased mind of the salvation army

dunno about all that, but his friends
call him shaggy[/quote]I would
like to
curl and
dangle
across
the sky
and then
the sea[/quote]

Quote from: serendipitytwelve balloons
floating to heaven
unburdened
have more meaning
than a thousand
old books

Quote from: Sister LilyDon't tell me that you're looking for
the mat you leave at the door
the only sign of this,
some form of shelter

I paid for it with my own blood
as rainfall turned the ash to mud
and you stabbed me in the chest
and begged to suffer

There is no word for your life except for torture
You're just some fast enduring form of torture

You wonder why the men you know
treat you with a manner low
as you sit and curl
in their possession

Your face is frozen, lost in time
within your gaze I cannot find
the simplest trace
of some discretion

Those who listen close hear devilish laughter
Your tears are mingled in with devilish laughter

Placing blame is what you do
upon the ones who stole from you
the grave where lay
forgotten lovers

But you have laid upon the grave
serving him as though a slave
defiling holy grounds
just to recover

There is the smell of graveyards from the corner
You're just some foul-mouthed trifle in the corner

Quote from: AdjunctStrangers barking in the ear
of anger and the second year that
only speaks to those who hold
their flowers

You are the one who cannot be
reminded who is lost at sea and
learned the truth is meant for
sanitation

The people we hold to the sky
who let us know the day we die have
left us for the promise we
abandon

The angels of the luncheon room
who sweep their life with broom and pan
lift their skirts and taste the life
worth living

Tomorrow sparkles on the tongue
that latches to the ladder rung and
swings across the clouds and lifts
your mattress

Quote from: seeingI saw her within a sea of fakes & self-indulgent clones,
    carbon copy self-examination with their bug-eyed
   sunglasses & ropy sandals & garnished day wages
   tattered clothing & labors of Hercules pressed into
   massive print by the tyrant who spoke with slithering
   little turns of phrase, his face emblazoned on coins
   &  his health in the care of the aristocracy

I saw her dancing in the mid-afternoon as the rain came down
   crashing across my skull & chest & disembodied legs
   & the legislature demanded that we take our bags
   &  she, with her bright red raincoat & twitter
   a laugh like locomotion where she lost herself
   with no apprehension or sulking

I saw her taking the two men's eyes & cornering them naked
   white beads of numbing flesh needing seeking stripes
   basted &  wam-bam-breaking in the dead gray sky
   washing & welcoming her halo as their beacon
   night light & watchtower & arctic rambunctiousness

I saw her take Rimbaud & Whitman & Ginsberg & Verlaine
   ruffling the books in the dead wet breeze mould &
   spirits spluttering & she looked & stamped feet
   her bright blue heels taking turns kicking & glapping
   gl-gl-glap in the tasseled in-between-class-time
   she stuttered with her feet to light the way

I saw her parting seas, vast oceans & cosmos & vivacity
   her blood running in the cold damp dream air
   with she & me alone in all the swirling chaos of it
   all & she took my tongue painting & said "This is
   good, that the sky is mournful & the spirit is dead
   & you sit here writing this as your pages turn to pulp
   & your heart turns into a diamond & your mind rusts"

I saw her tapping out a melody & humming a rhythm with trash cans
   talking backwards & addressing envelopes & letting me touch
   her mind with strings of half-thought & for that was I grateful
   answer being no, not ever, nor should I expect her rationale
   her philosophy & melting candles dimming in the torrent

I saw her take the clouds & swish with them, tsk-tsking their trouble
   permeating rainbows & umbrellas with her formless wonder
   streaking along the open courtyard & traipsing along the way
   & throughout it all I wept & trembled & knew I would never
   see her again as the tides of formlessness swallowed her whole

Quote from: this is what you thought it wasn'tLook man you knew she loved you took your heart and painted
pictures had a tapestry stitched statues erected what more could
any man need? but you fear being tied down fear goodness fear
women fear true power fear the promises of monogamy want
more more more tired of stale unself meaningless meandering
lost paradise but can't tell your asshole from all the others put
in a line and taken out back shot with voodoo doll strangling
life death black white how could you do that how could you
do that

Quote from: (ex)plosivesThere he was on the street looking like some skeletal
   mangy dog with his gavel mustache his hunger
   eyes his topographical squeamishness & canyons
   in wrinkles on the face

He kicked shoes into the hot sun breeze of the morning
   whooping clapping with his dirty fingers on the
   train last on the line honking as the Beatles
   played on an iPod with only three minutes left
   to go

Police officer chewing bagel on the day off stream of strangers
   sitting next to smells-like-fish coated dingy drawer
   half-boat wrinkled old mess like a trash can alley
   cat in mewing in the dungeons of vapid new moons
   he capped the tip of his cane with only two minutes left
   to go

Stravinsky is the sound of utter implosion madness war Thermidore
   councils revolution Directors guillotine reactionary culled
   from happy dreaming stakes where the numb shall grow
   their gardens grinning truth with one damn minute left
   to go

Spittle squirming trickling tumbling into his body lap
   hot warm gooey and the rats nibble on corpses with ash
   red black every car evaporated screams turning flesh to
   black stumps shadows watching unmaking clouds pouring
   gas flash boom bang mushroom and the half-muted
   stumbling nearly-dead not-yet-eviscerated moaning
   in the god-forsaken grey ash and there is nowhere left
   to go

Quote from: NumbThere were things I should tell you before you accept my invite
   things that I've seen that no man should ever suffer
   places & crumbling edifice & luxury corruption
   terrible weeping sights and strange abuse
   cigarette burns on air pockets of disaster
   thrashed branches & broken limb morals
   turning madly swinging in the afternoon

I saw a generation brain-washed and dumfounded
   broken sunglasses consumer products
   fearing God but losing self-imagination
   standing on the edge brink of civilization
   forgotten buried under roses history a myth
   breathing butterflies and mapping destiny
   gorgeous drenched in the hot solar rays

I saw an old nasty man with two gray mouse ears riding carriage
   down dirty wet new-asphalt road, blown onto trail
   stimulus package builder parking permit brokerage
   stringing broken unhappy Christmas lights in July
   cloggy iron boots ravaging the morning grass
   cementing their illiteracy and slaking trepidation

I saw a young aristocrat blow his brains into heaven dharma
   unquestioning his blushed bright face & screaming
   devil's delight the untruth of trauma packets of lust
   swiveling his feet & remarking on the last steamboat
   sure took the piss out of it

I saw two children dancing quietly in the broken glass yard
   swinging with their fists at the pulpy face of warning
   taking heed pressing doorbells & basking original
   strapping their houses with ammunition skipping
   telling the tallest trees they are not on the level

I saw an ocean commanding the seamen of its bosom
   entreating their survival casting them far aside
   humpback whales giggling moaning mourning
   the damp salty morning greeting way-worn
   nobody with lovers' parting kiss

I saw the sinking mindful beam of daylight breaking
   chastising & surrendering to the green dragoon
   touching caressing needling & superimposing
   triage & travesty & shrill tongues harping

And I saw the last living monarch swell with pride
   capsizing into smirking murky mendacity
   last of a thoughtless moment in thoughtless
   history though really digital half-age is not
   so bad

Quote from: Line them upThere were twelve men kneeling,
their hands above their head,
the smell of sweat and terror
steaming off their necks
in the hissing summer air.

One leather hand, professional,
reassembled its weapon
and slid along the side
of the divine steel
of his only lover.

They were all boys, eighteen,
some had never learned to dance,
many were still virgins,
and all were in terror but
could fake composure.

What can one say?
There are no words appropriate
for those who decompose
in ditches dug by wiry slaves
on grey barbed wire days.

Quote from: LuminateIf you lean in close enough
to see the flame turn wax
to sparkling, dancing liquid

If you watch a single bead
roll and curl along its side
until resting at the base

If you feel the sway of
the flame with every
pressing inhalation

If you hear the tiny
crackle of the air
turning into smoke

If you taste the warmth
and swish it with your
tongue and bask in it

Even then
we could
be lovers

Quote from: Border warsHer tresses sit in exile
I, in standing ovation
We both held ourselves
And pressed on in harder
Times than this.

A streak of lipstick runs
Along the edge of glasses
And she proudly smirks
And gently presses her
Fingertips into mine.

Only in this prison
Could I be free

Quote from: bangHave you ever
kissed the barrel
of a gun?

How did she
react?

Quote from: This is actually a true storyI was a ballet dancer
in the days of my youth
doing strange arrangements
but with clumsy feet

I blame Paul McCartney

Quote from: Foul TasteMy misanthropy blooms eternal
Be it the grating harpy's laugh,
The crowing of the small-minded drunks,
The braying of the dandies,
The loose-jowled smirks of professors,
The nose-ring faux rebellion of the street rat,
The lamppost leaning of the leather baron,
The wagging tongue of the drab eunuch,
The high fashion warbling of the governess,
The stone fists of the ironclad avenger,
The waking numbness of the spinning sycophant,
The all-too-pretty clones who populate modern brothels,
The gold-toothed pimps who dial wrong numbers,
The dripping acid of the indignant lyricist,
The cackling volunteer and her whiny libretto,
Or the pompous poet with his pen...

Quote from: touchA delicate leaf
trembling, autumnal
splashing goldenrod
on asphalt canvas

The lilac wilts
strings unbundled
even castles
shall erode:

I envy her
for the view
outside her frosted
window pane

Quote from: bumpIt was some robotic sound shouting blandly through the atmosphere
a cataclysm, cavalcade muddled in unwholesome formation
here the inflection rise and fall with bleeps and static
overload! the senses break, imperfect pitch-and-tone

Do we remember?
dead men swinging in the Mississippi breeze
wanting freedom rights privilege

Do we remember?
marches trumpets folkies all in Washington
MLK and Malcolm and the civil rights-unrest

Teenage body dumped on sewer grate
young blood trickling into gutter
wailing mother and the clacking
of assault

Do we remember?
backpack dumped stand up for self
strumming anger into the back alley
stripped of life

Do we remember?
unpeeled face double-struck in side
punctured screaming hunted drained
robbed, stolen

and so
we must
press on

Quote from: a night in hellI cannot kiss
the mask
or ghost
or echo
of my true love

Quote from: troubleTwo sexless, dreamless
seamless forms
Curling across the sky
their perfume
lingering
in the moonlight

I stand in awe

Quote from: clip my wingsI wish she'd come unloosened
(from her clothes?)
Well yes, that too

Stripping bare our feelings
Burning draft cards
Manhattan rations and
everything going right

I just want to
make her
happy

Quote from: night watcherTip the scales and you might find that
streaming in your unborn mind is the
nascent calming truth that sages seek
and scholars soothe; digest your pain
and swallow fear before you find your
life is near or coming to its terminus
where angels hang in empty dust

and then I'd tell you,
much estranged,
that both of us still look the same

Quote from: 230I took your cottage into waiting palms
I held your mother high with my hosannas
I lifted you into my raft of psalms
And sang for you, my sweet Shoshanna

Yes, I sing for only you, my sweet Shoshanna

But then the clouds of Calvary came pounding
But then you swung my lyre by its chord
I swear I heard on rocks your laugh resounding
You brandished your forgiveness like a sword

Yes, you brandished your forgiveness like some sword

Quote from: #231The spindles of your mayhem
are taped across my skull
but I suppose it's for the best:
you never learned
to look
up

Quote from: #232not into the whole
preservation of image
have nothing to lose?
then chisel your name
into the side of the road
after they put down
some new blacktop:
someone might
remember you

Quote from: #234You summoned me into your hall
Acting useless as you bawled
But little one, you are no fountain

Preaching in your happy way
I know you tried but failed to save
The mist and smoke atop my mountain

The Occident is squirming at your feet
The rivers run in slivers of deceit

Strangling from the shrinking light
You press me deep inside your flight
I nod my hammer in your direction

You ask me for some other way
To sell your servants' waiting pay
And then you seek my own protection

Disoriented dreamers break their snore
You lost the right to knock upon my door

Quote from: #235Something in the way you crawl
across my lap and tell me that
you want to kiss me
brings me sadness

I whisper in your trembling ear
a secret that must be revealed
regarding your sweet lips
and my refusal

I take a number, stand in line
become the soldier lost in time
for none who treat my love
as though a plaything

The ragdoll you are clinging to
will try now to abandon you
as snow blows in
from out of town

Trust me when I whisper close
that you are better than the ghost
I think you know where
I am standing

Quote from: some of those reasonsbecause you overcame the razor
because you armed yourself for war
because you cannot take misfortune
because next to you, Helen is a toad
because I can't be dipped into the Styx
because my heart is neither steel nor gas
because the crypt does not rattle
because the haze has not faded
because we have not had a drink
because you touched my spirit
because of derby hats
because you are a gem and not a metal
because I believe in genies
because you ask why
because you need the recipe
because your smile gleams through late summer and burns and quakes with such a mighty force that it leaves me in the rhythms of aftershock
because I can't see us in the mirror
because the room is full
because it's somehow empty
because you look so evil but
because I know you're not
because I take things too seriously
because I don't know if you do too
because I want to feel something
because you need more
because I trespassed into the realm of possibility and fantasy and I was ensnared in quicksand as they jabbed spears into my skull and I am trying to nurse my wounds
because of what we are
because of what we aren't

#235 has that certain something, at least in phases.  you get some good images on that.  The meter is off a bit, but it moves some images.

Quote from: Dissonance, revisitedTake my hand,
take my heart,
take me apart

revision of an older poem

Quote from: #753She wasn't my salvation,
she was just another
pound of flesh

You think that I am humble?
I'm just looking for my
martinet

You're aching for a lover
but you haven't learned to
shut him out

I know you are not perfect
but it's raining and I
have my doubts

Quote from: With respects to Josef MengeleThe vault of ancient subways cracks the sky
The twins are sewn together as they die
Light catches on his lonely wire frame
Buried underneath his coat and name
Mein gott, he operated far too long...
And the surgeon's lonely bones rattle on

Beneath the weeping moon and jungle air
He sits and combs his mane of midnight hair
He shall not be the victim of a grudge
Never shall he bow before some judge
He whistles an old German folk song...
And the surgeon's lonely bones rattle on

The kisses of the vales are moist and warm
The fog is wrapped around his sleeping form
As daylight pries apart his waking eyes
The doctor cannot dream and so he cries
Besmirched, he has been done so wrong...
And the surgeon's lonely bones rattle on

Ash is ash and dust is through and true
The devil has been paid his rightful due
Witches brew a curse to steal his soul
The earth will not accept his body whole
No coffin in the dirt would be so strong...
So the surgeon's lonely bones must rattle on

There was a strange man with an orange suit
He's counting his blessings against the waves
The days are circling around the drain
The sun shuddering beneath the afternoon rain
The autumn has come, there's no home for slaves
You wouldn't know it, but I was picking up fruit

Looking at the peasants, it's a wonder they're here
I've got a whole pound of misery underneath my ear

Something is rattling, must be a cage
I can hear the squeals of unbound rage
It's the hollow sound of a dying age

The city's full of papers, hanging to dry
A sapphire is gleaming in the setting red sun
On the corner of the street is a New Orleans rag
I see a gypsy dancing underneath a Confederate flag
I can't even walk, so I doubt I could run
I guess this is as good a place as any to die

There's an acrobat singing with a bottle-nosed clown
It was the sound of my stomach but I was settling down

Something is rattling, must be a cage
I can hear the squeals of unbound rage
It's the hollow sound of a dying age

Quote from: crowsOnce I saw your velvet canvas
and saw the mascara circling your cheeks
and heard the anguish in your voice

Once I took the power from the clocktower
and trapped my mind in static form
looking at a reflection across a glass

I had but this to think and thank you for:
it had been so long and I had forgotten
how to be disillusioned

Quote from: beatest damn thing you ever sawScreaming Lennon schizophrenia and then
Dylan skipping in record player
Saw it from a Saw it
from a Saw
it from
a Saw
it from a
Saw it from a

pick up the needle
and dance

Under the beating heart of the harvest moon
   sit I, with coat and kerchief
   blood-red and in mourning
   slapping together boards
   as the dirt is shoveled on
         on
      on

I used to tremble with fury at her
scream in empty halls
hunger for the touch
demand satisfaction
surrender myself
imply reflection
breathe
weep
bawl
cry out: THIS IS ME

But then
I also
used to
care

Our autumn was a quiet one

When sentinels bowed
in tandem, their leaves
and boroughs
splendid
drenched in the wet noon sky

Spry yet sunk within eye-sockets
her collar bone with
slight
protrusion

I stood as though a monument
as her footprints
bled along

The seething hiss of partisans
had muted in the pale breeze
its numbing pity, a tidal
roar

If I could,
I'd change our hearts to spades
and bury us
in Eden

Last Thoughts on Athena Duchamp

And yet you were happier before you knew me,
Tripping up on rip cords though
Hey, I shouldn't take it personal;
Evening slows its cumbersome pace, but
Never mind all that,
Aren't we still in transit?

During the long winter to come,
Under that darling cloudless grey,
Crawling to the doorbell mystics,
Hungering for our manic release,
Anathema gums our cogs and gears
May God Him/Herself forgive us both and
Please take care

Hier soir,
j'ai fait la connaissance
d'un peintre qui a dessiné
mon froncement

Il pensait que j'ai eu un fleuve
de la vie et la tristesse
et il a demandé:
«J'ai vu ta copine et toi
quand vous dansiez
en Amérique,
et j'ai pensé que tu as ri.
Pourquoi est-ce que tu
fais des gros yeux
aux lapins?»

«Cette femme,»
j'ai répondu,
«m'a posé un lapin.»

Regardez!
Vivre, vivre,
vivre à ma ville!

Ma ville, c'est un oiseau blanc
qui cueille mon esprit

Elle brille dans ma mémoire
où ses cimes goutte comme le miel

Mon dieu,
mon Dieu,
quand je mourrai
allez me tomber
dans son jardin

[spoiler=en anglais]Look!
To live, to live,
to live in my city!

My city, she's a white bird
who plucks my spirit

She shines within my memory
where her treetrops drip like honey

My goodness,
My God,
when I die
bury me
within her garden[/spoiler]

My city has a garden
where wood is sown
and stones are grown

The rain that grows
these flowers are the
tears of mothers,
daughters, and
widowers

dreaming underneath the unpainted sky
with fireflies and crickets and a beautiful
girl singing as she thrashes about because
she doesn't really know how to dance

tarantula nightmares under the grey dawn
where the children trade in their weapons
for cereal bowls and tell me that the fish
have suffocated under the pressure

I need this pharmaceutical need a fix-me-up
need my fix need to get fixed need fixing
need to fix everything that I've done wrong
don't know why she left but she was happy

there was this cigarette just sitting there and
she took it and her bread bowl and told me
we were friends we were always friends made
immutable and token taken took beneath

bridges over rivers smoothing out my madness
shifting as a pocket full of pills and my doctor
tells me it's not an emergency writing prescriptions
screaming in tongues like guitar notes together

harmonies unplucking themselves and fastening
their lilting abstinence into the graveyard
the smell is hungering for my acquiescence
the surrender. of all that makes me exceptional.

my oeuvre, my vibe, my energy, my je ne sais quois,
my spirit, my ambience, my diligence, my wisdom,
my essence, my oneness, my cosmic stratosphere,
my one-and-only-damn-you-if-you-don't-care soul

but I don't know what I did
I don't know what I did
I don't honestly know what I did
wrong

Empty city
full of black holes
half-dreamt
on a sewer grate;

slap my knee
and shout
hey i'm home

Act two, scene 3.
Wherein the childlike BARD erroneously bids for the affections of MS. DUCHAMP, springing forth from behind her brassy throne.

Every word we swim across
between the pages of the past
where memory is melting
and the pills of promise
smother me

Every pen we consecrate
with masses in our history
who told us not to dream or dare
but hold the standard of the cross

Every diamond sprinkled on the meadow of your open mind
while sleeping on the carpet of the warm and acrid murk of night

Every choking thought through which
you swing your shield of minerals
to strike at dogma misaligned
coursing through the Rubicon

Every storm of aphid-nightmare
swarming in miasmic form
strangling sense and decency
blown apart by our glory

Every paper limerick that is parted in its centerfold
reminding me to write a letter meant for only you. . .

Dear Ms. A.C. DuChamp,

I heard the news of my demise
that windows made of empty glass
swirled in dreamy orange strands
and trapped themselves along your eye
where banquets crawled into the lid
and commandeered my waking form

I tasted all the frozen treats you left and waved in front of me
I hope you do not mind but I am free;

The principles upon which love is built are not mercurial
I learned this from a woman who had built a palace made of gold

A King could live within your heart
if only you would summon him
if only I could give to you
the wisdom-eyes of gods of old

Snaking through the dungeon torment
of the smoke they stacked so high
while filling my misfortune to the brim and drink to fame and lore

Grinning in your demon way to tell me that you knew me best
you cannot know the hell through which the days have lingered faithfully...

Willingly yours,
Abraxas

Manumit

The winds have been unkind to me
piercing through my body
I am their puppet, shaking so
and drinking as they fill my cup
with wine that sparkles white

Eroding all sensation as I dangle hopeless in the breeze
you came across my limpid thoughts
I was but pure vernacular
and you, the tongue of olden gods...

(Isn't it sad, the way they run?
Quietly drunk in the afternoon
There they lay, their books unblemished
Where shall they wake?)

You cut my strings and freed me from
oppression of my former self
marionettes applaud that I,
the puppet, now am real at last

But freedom comes with its own cost
and little did I understand
that freed of all my shells
I would need but you

Lyrics swirl and slither and I know that I am still unfit
but I love you and I don't know
what to do about it

Chapter 2
The Quiet Evils

There comes a time in each man's life
   there comes a man in each time's life
      there comes a life in each man's time

when at last he must acknowledge that the Quiet Evils plague his soul:

   1. That when he sits alone he dreams of what he might do because of you
   2. That when he sits alone he ponders what he'd do with you in Athens
   3. That when he sits alone he questions who could break your heart
   4. That when he sits alone he knows he wants you in his life

He keeps them to himself   
he holds the hand of destiny
   he brokers with the Deity
but purring to his restlessness,
he fathoms that uncertainty
   will plague him until death

      which is, of course
      the quietest evil

Hell (n.) - the indistinguishable monotony of a world without your guidance, without the presence of the Divine, without the flashing smile or the riddled evenings of endless joy

I leap for joy
brandishing temerity
streaming in the shrinking sky
and wishing
   wishing
wishing
   you could join me

I want to share a
   million
      bursting
         novas
            just
               with
                  you

But this is a process that requires due diligence
resounding from foundations and not relying
just on lust

This is a broken beacon from which I hope to ambulate
hanging all my hopes and dreaming what we'd be like in those days. . .

Imagine it!
   A vastness! Two universes colliding!
   Countless galaxies, innumerable, untamable!

We are these endless cosmos!

Imagine us!
   As days begin to dwindle and the sunset slides across the plain
   the two of us reclining against the ancient throne of peace!

The dawn is chirping yet!

Imagine then!
   A cane of marble rapping there along the snowy city street
   two monoliths, defiant, standing there against the great white sky

The snow, a sacred ritual!

I want to share with you what I know.

I know the smell of a fading love, the curling danger of a lost affection, the desolation that threatens to claw itself from your heart

I know that tyrants like Robespierre do not deserve your devotion

I know the spirit cannot suffer the endless dictums of a fool

I know that as you sway against the broken pieces of expectation, you find yourself in need of bold composure

I know why you push away

I know that I still wish that I was there

I know that you know

And I know it may not be enough

I want to share with you what I hope.

I hope a carnation springs from my palm so that I may pluck it and give it to you freely, that you may see that you are not alone and that hope shall blossom and wilt only as you command it

I hope that you can find your solace and completion

I hope that the stranger who comes with gifts of song and film whose hat is dipped whose tie is torn whose coat is hanging on the chair. . .

   . . .I hope that he is always welcome.

One last confession before we begin in earnest:
I can be a rotten scoundrel.


there are many admonitions provided to those who abuse the benedictions mantras refrains most holy such as

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

or

Áve María, grátia pléna, Dóminus técum. Benedícta tu in muliéribus, et benedíctus frúctus véntris túi, Iésus. Sáncta María, Máter Déi, óra pro nóbis peccatóribus, nunc et in hóra mórtis nóstrae. Ámen.


Sometimes, though, a goddess must become flesh
   an idea must take form
an intangible must be made whole and transient
and for that I know the weakness of the flesh
   and cracks of foundations
   and stains on altars
   are forgivable;

I wish to embrace both you
   and the idea of you

These visions curl against the smoke, clinging like a noose:

There came a time when Death rode in
upon his hoary steed

We struck our hands against the steel
begging to be freed

The casket swung, the gates, they crashed
As heaven's seven swords a-slashed

The dead and rotted realm of men
burned and burned and burned

The tourniquet against my flesh
turned and turned and turned

The ghastly mountains flickered white
Beheaded like a fallen knight

These visions burn against my throat,
Cut me,
Cut me loose!

Spindling two half-broken
cardigans along the paved
walkways slouching on the
Rubicon: you were humming
hallelujahs

hope marches in my ear drum
and so I do not
despair

Washed my soul within the river
Touched my tongue to nectar, honey
Found myself and walked on by

Tomorrow is the next horizon.

Quote from: Beat heart-drumCrystal amethyst, anarchist
Anti-christ, the picture's nice
Sip skate salivate, hungry? maybe have a plate
trance or dance-halls leaning into Hansel
Gretel looking thin like she doesn't eat
A sunk-looking drunk with apostle's feet

Quote from: loverolling images red and vital thump across my scalp and
then the harbinger comes swinging in to claim the tongue
and axle of the wagon as a sacrament when oxen stand all
about and I with dull-eyed buggery am trapped tripped
made opaque and left without my hornet's nest or my
shell

roiling tongues and smoking livers with their adolescence
still intact the trapeze of mortal quandary bouncing
unimportant to my scrutiny:
must it be so?

saunter and sunder your mind from all surrender, release
your chakra cosmic energy inner self soul eternal being
become a flash of light into the universe and swim
with me

Quote from: Early Autumn BluesA couple with barren hands in the cold October afternoon
with signs that read FREE FRIENDSHIP
protesting unhappiness, the stultifying
suffocation of the imbecilic masses:
Thursday wet afternoon
Thursday sinking, gulping
Thursday with its pants unzipped

Roll it out on the umbrella, tell me to kiss your ass
Pretend you're smoking grass, smoking crass observations
And stick your pamphlet in your own damn face if you'd please

There are no
more words for
what I feel
and so I
say: the end.