Poem: Screenery

 

Screenery

 

action visuals,

globs of crimson and flesh.

bright chunks of glitz that lunge and hover

near the couch where i sit,

hunnched into the strobe,

 

and i wonder why

i am allowed to think at all

in the presence of such beautiful vomit.

 

all day it vomits,

pretending to feel,

as if the tears ‘in there’

could be the same as mine,

except they have no weight,

and they come and go, so quick,

 

and the blotches and jumbles

of pain or giggles

make it impossible to believe

there’s a true princess-kiss

 

somewhere

 

in that sliver of crystal-ball-glassy plastic,

that babble of light-and-shallow-shadow shows.

no one real is really coming out

to see me.

the luminous discharge

slides off my mouth, my eyes, my face.

no one.

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2/1/24    mods ... 

Poem: All the Difference

 

All the Difference

 

if a fork of doubt

cut upward, wall by wall,

through the backbone of my beliefs,

 

a fork that reached the skull,

a fork whose tips i could study in the mirror,

and try to pull higher, obvious as horns,

above my face,

 

if i would suffer for it,

ripped apart

again and again and again

and again and again

 

by the wretched werewolf of freedom,

as it dismembered

the shepard and sheep of obeisant lies,

 

i might not hesitate.

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 7/15 ... added "wretched"

 

Poem: Irrational Trees

 

Irrational Trees

 

the rift between trees and reason,

it’s as simple as a sawtoothed oval,

a century of outlaw trunks

crashing down in seconds of serrated tool.

 

1^st axiom of exploitation: 

when the trees get too cocky

a sharp lesson in geometry is inevitable:

 

hit them

with blueprints that speak in straight lines.

 

wield a blade of simple integers:

a certain number of planed planks

for each unique, unruly limb.

 

as for the splishy-splashy green

on the farthest winding wild creative tips,

shred and press flat

into blank rectangles of pure white.

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2/1/24 ... mods

Dictators and Democracies (Washington Post quote)

 

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Like the dictators, the democracies share tactics and methods with one another. But there is one important difference: Diffusion of democracy appeals to — and relies upon — individuals and free thinking, while autocrats pursue their own survival by suffocating individual voices.

 Washington Post, Editorial Board

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/22/dictators-trade-toolkits-cling-power/

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Attachments

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We are born into this realm of attachments--feelings of beauty and love--and the gods then wield them to manipulate us, as much or even more than our fellow humans.  --  Uuvva Viperbless

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Poem: In an Attic

 

In an Attic

 

spiderlegs for lashes, lush in arched rows,

not all is correct

in this pallor of neglect and dust.

 

did the victim realize too late

those eyes could be pigmented flytraps?

 

cracked now, crazed on canvas,

a vestige of beguilement once agile,

glazed-fish skin, a gelatin now,

 

under cobweb bangs

in a tricky tangled cursive,

messy epitaph for a once-magical grace.

 

the pretty part went away

long before the portrait was through,

corpses of so many lively creatures

amassing in the interstices

for decades.

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2/1/24 ... mods

9/25/23 ... mods

Dorian Grey theme

Poem: Afterward

 

Afterward

 

iris and cumulus

silked with light,

 

haze of peacock feathers

opening to wings

 

on a mist of prisms

bearing mantles of the lovely.

 

yellows on the meadow banks

and the glistening streams

 

reach for such trellised hues 

from sky-shot bows,

 

and those of us who dare

to see such bright wounds

 

gaze high.

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2/1/24

Original title, Clouds After Storm

Poem: Conflicted

Conflicted

 

my emotions had a way

of not being what was edited,

complicit in the overthrow

of the conformist rhymes.

 

there was a captain,

but the vassals had the rigging by the ropes,

and they tugged the sails along

toward what they thought a happy continent.

 

i saw in the mirror

a sphinx-like j’accuse,

straight in the epicenter of the tumult,

troubling calm eyes.

 

it seemed a sort of overthow, 

slaves in revolt in the workings, somehow, 

of the praticed carousel of the daily grind.

 

round and round it went,

and yet also to spiral,

drilling into the mucky earth

below the glossy parade of lies.

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2/1/24 ... mods

6/16 .. "tugged" becomes "tugging" ... so tired of editing, edit edit edit... 

6/14 ... more cosmetic mods for sound flow

6/8 ... various mods for sound and visual flow in the last three stanzas

Poem: Stone

 

A Stone

 

a stone,  

a cosmos of sparkle-speckle quartz-seeds,

fervent within somersaults and whirls,

destined to constellate in the mystery of my breath;

 

a stone,

orbiting what could be gods, 

or maybe simply the eyes of certain humans,

those poets, sages, and lovers 

who seek a moment on that Great Stage

 

where there are no ghosts, 

because we are all ghosts there,

ghosts far too real for answers

beyone what wishes can fathom.

 

wishes, yes,

such desperate wings,

 

we cling to them, 

whether we know or care or say,

borne by their magic of love and beauty

on this stone, 

 

a stone worthy of pain, of inevitable toil, 

of a certain end to days, to years, to consequence,

whether irreligious, profane or divine.

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2/1/24 ... mods

6/14 ... "a moment on" replaces "a hint of"  ... 

6/6 punctuation issue

6/4 ... lots more changes in the evening ... 

6/4  Vast changes today.  This was absolutely horrible poem when I put it up.  I am desperately trying to edit it into anything.  ... Experiencing a lot of grief over my father's death.

thought:  "this poem is probably going to die with me, sadly."  

Poem: Gulch

 

Gulch

 

no water.  stones guzzle

liquid heat.  roots

of shade nuzzle feldspar

on banks of baked soil

tall as epochal ruts.

 

no water.  ghosts of buffalo

drink from long gone lakes.

they graze on husk-crisped hillocks,

wary of giant cats

who are also trapped here forever.

 

to shuffle along this river of sand

is to suffer implacable grudges,

the legacy of a dynasty of floods,

cut upon cut upon cut 

to exposes and taunt 

the tantalized dead.

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6/14 ... mods

6/1 "suffer" replaces "summon"

6/1 .. fixed typo a few hours after posting