Poet's Corner

[chao$]

I wrote a lot about Cyber Love but this is one of my favorites because of the rhyme pattern and the fact that Zada was so much fun. When I first got here I think I recognized a few posters from 10 or 15 years ago on the Thoughts and Poems site. It would be rad to hook up with the old gang.

red rose
she came to thoughts and poems the day tulips was exposed
the leader of the misfits at that romper room schoolgirl joes
five weeks straight we laughed cuz the liars club got caught
sizing up all of us while looking down her stringent nose
new vagina was here to stay, would it be substance or form
her carry on baggage and bitterness quickly became old
yet i could not stop from reading the notorious bellas rose

she even tried to control me and the adventures i composed
things got so crazy that our fights almost came to blows
the board wanted me arrested but the boob stood and fought
i continued to write about reality despite of all my foes
no matter how ugly things got we both road out the storm
once a stubborn woman is made they always break the mold
there is nothing i can say or do that will soothe the wild rose

she is big time into girl talk and my privacy was disclosed
whatever you tell an internet chick onto the board it goes
the price men pay for cyber love and lessons we are taught
will play no games or hold a grudge no matter what she shows
her heart towards me is so icy cold that i could never warm
if only she would quit her yapping and do what she is told
i moved on life is good but still i long for wayward zada rose

~Chaos

 

[Capstone]

Never Forget

Never mind the physics (molten steel
that ran like tears down stories never told)
of demolitions secretly controlled
and falsely waving flags to seal the deal.

Never mind the motives (black and gold)
of greedy hearts of war too sick to feel
the pain of innocents who'll never heal,
of those corrupt enough to be so bold.

Never mind the casualties, reveal
the truth that nine-eleven was foretold,
"A new Pearl Harbor " waiting to unfold
the flag of so-called "patriotic" zeal.

Just never grow so cold as to forget
the lies that fostered national regret.​

 

[Capstone]

A 9/11 Invocation

My God, look down upon this land
where truth has long since turned to dust
amidst the rubble of our trust
and neither can no longer stand.

Remove the concrete from our eyes
and wash away the microspheres
with waves of molten iron tears
that beautifully disclose the lies.

Bring Justice down to bear on those
who planned to frame the innocent
and did so with that false event
I humbly pray You now expose.

Amen.​

 

[theliq]

A simple Love Poem to my Daughter Tenika when aged three.

Thy tiny footsteps on the sands of a remote and lonely shore
The twinkling of thine infant hands,the windswept golden hair you wore
That mingled look of love and glee
When we returned our gaze to thee

 

[Capstone]

Reincarnation

A stranger, true, familiar none the less,
imagine, had we met before our vows,
how powerful the flames we could arouse
within each other's trembling caress.
But HAVE we met and loved somewhere before?
Some distant place in time's eternal past?
Might we have shared a moment meant to last,
entwined in ecstasy, forevermore?
I know these thoughts should not be entertained,
but neither should the thought of missing out
on what this thing called "love" is all about -
transcending space and time to be attained.
Please, search your soul, My Past and Present Love,
before you mock these things I've written of.​

 

[Capstone]

Sadly, "I Analyze".

The stars foretold my destiny
(the sixth sign of the Zodiac)
to knowingly forever be
the butt of these wiseacre cracks:

"efficient little 'worker bee',
self-centered, repressed, (over) clean,
pedantic, ruled by Mercury,
'perfectionist'...and sometimes mean.".

How could that shit not get to me,
when most of it I can't deny,
nor can I change the way I see,
no matter how hard I may try?!

Look, even in my poetry,
I'm prone to (over) analyze;
but, please, don't ever think of me
that I enjoy these Virgo eyes.​

 

[Abishai100]

The Affective Earth

"An autumn leaf falls,
to the ground occupied by children.

An old man walks by and begins giggling,
and the old man is some kind of a witch or warlock.

'Knock, knock!' says Father Earth,
'Why are these leaves too cold or too warm?'
Some child states, 'We messed up ecology.'

Then the summer lemonade stand opens,
and all the kids are wearing sunglasses."





Gaia Hypothesis

 

[Capstone]

Invisible

Can you see your own reflection
in the vanished disaffection
that you're silently abhorring
with this deafening rejection?
Did you feel the strange adoring
was a genuine outpouring,
or'd you see through those advances
to the jester you're ignoring?
Under any circumstances,
without taking any chances,
you may find the answer lying
in the shade of lost romances...

in between what you're denying
and a distant love undying.​

 

[theliq]

Invisible

Can you see your own reflection
in the vanished disaffection
that you're silently abhorring
with this deafening rejection?
Did you feel the strange adoring
was a genuine outpouring,
or'd you see through those advances
to the jester you're ignoring?
Under any circumstances,
without taking any chances,
you may find the answer lying
in the shade of lost romances...

in between what you're denying
and a distant love undying.​

Life

Live for yourself and you will live in vain
Live for others and you will live again

theliq

 

[Capstone]

Invisible

Can you see your own reflection
in the vanished disaffection
that you're silently abhorring
with this deafening rejection?
Did you feel the strange adoring
was a genuine outpouring,
or'd you see through those advances
to the jester you're ignoring?
Under any circumstances,
without taking any chances,
you may find the answer lying
in the shade of lost romances...

in between what you're denying
and a distant love undying.​

Life

Live for yourself and you will live in vain
Live for others and you will live again

theliq

So true. Apart from any notion of reincarnation, selflessness in action is said to be the key to immortality. In a very real sense, it is what 'lives on' in the hearts and minds of "others" long after one's body has returned to ashes and dust.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

Invisible

Can you see your own reflection
in the vanished disaffection
that you're silently abhorring
with this deafening rejection?
Did you feel the strange adoring
was a genuine outpouring,
or'd you see through those advances
to the jester you're ignoring?
Under any circumstances,
without taking any chances,
you may find the answer lying
in the shade of lost romances...

in between what you're denying
and a distant love undying.​

Don't know what any of that means.

But I like it.

Or do I?

 

[Capstone]

Don't know what any of that means.

But I like it.

Or do I?

It was intended to evoke introspection on the human tendency to look the other way when faced with certain uncomfortable realities, especially those with the potential to turn our present lives upside down. Beyond the intended meaning, on a more deeply personal level, I can tell you that a great deal of genuine emotion and spiritual pain went into that piece.

But ascribe to it whatever meaning you'd like. Or, if you'd rather, let it mean nothing to you at all. That's the beauty of poetry. It doesn't have to be a one size fits all proposition in terms of meaning.

Thanks for reading and commenting.

I think.

 

[Capstone]

What is this strange phenomenon of Light
reflected through the cold hexag'nal plates
of icy crystals caught in captive states
above the sunrise, vanquishing the night?

These pillars frozen in the atmosphere,
to illustrate the power of their climb,
destroy the bound'ries of the paradigm
from which they've risen proudly without fear.

I've seen those shining towers once before;
they rose into the skies of days long past
and consummated feelings meant to last,
defying space and time, forevermore.

Too beautiful to selfishly desire
to have and hold again 'til rebirth part.
I'll whisk away that longing from my heart
with glowing dreams of distant ice and fire.​

 

[Capstone]

For some background on the imagery used above, click here.

And with that, I'll move on to another muse. Thanks, to Pills, for being such a good sport.

 

[Capstone]

The Dream

Aesopian the fable and interpretive the dance,
we spin the yarn together on a wave of circumstance,
denying what we can't accept, no matter that the truth
defines the age-old held delusions taught us in our youth.
We only grasp the 'morals' of those fictions we were told
as bedtime stories by our Mothers pushing "streets of gold"
long after life and 'education' shatter all our dreams
and leave us in a pool of tears to drown-out all the screams.
The tortoise never beats the hare, despite the famous tale,
because they're both a part of One, thus neither can prevail.
The same holds true of "you" and "I" within the grander scheme.
"We" never really live nor die; we're figments of The Dream.​

 

[Dhara]

At The Fishhouses - by Elizabeth Bishop

Although it is a cold evening,
down by one of the fishhouses
an old man sits netting,
his net, in the gloaming almost invisible,
a dark purple-brown,
and his shuttle worn and polished.
The air smells so strong of codfish
it makes one's nose run and one's eyes water.
The five fishhouses have steeply peaked roofs
and narrow, cleated gangplanks slant up
to storerooms in the gables
for the wheelbarrows to be pushed up and down on.
All is silver: the heavy surface of the sea,
swelling slowly as if considering spilling over,
is opaque, but the silver of the benches,
the lobster pots, and masts, scattered
among the wild jagged rocks,
is of an apparent translucence
like the small old buildings with an emerald moss
growing on their shoreward walls.
The big fish tubs are completely lined
with layers of beautiful herring scales
and the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered
with creamy iridescent coats of mail,
with small iridescent flies crawling on them.
Up on the little slope behind the houses,
set in the sparse bright sprinkle of grass,
is an ancient wooden capstan,
cracked, with two long bleached handles
and some melancholy stains, like dried blood,
where the ironwork has rusted.
The old man accepts a Lucky Strike.
He was a friend of my grandfather.
We talk of the decline in the population
and of codfish and herring
while he waits for a herring boat to come in.
There are sequins on his vest and on his thumb.
He has scraped the scales, the principal beauty,
from unnumbered fish with that black old knife,
the blade of which is almost worn away.

Down at the water's edge, at the place
where they haul up the boats, up the long ramp
descending into the water, thin silver
tree trunks are laid horizontally
across the gray stones, down and down
at intervals of four or five feet.

Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,
element bearable to no mortal,
to fish and to seals . . . One seal particularly
I have seen here evening after evening.
He was curious about me. He was interested in music;
like me a believer in total immersion,
so I used to sing him Baptist hymns.
I also sang "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."
He stood up in the water and regarded me
steadily, moving his head a little.
Then he would disappear, then suddenly emerge
almost in the same spot, with a sort of shrug
as if it were against his better judgment.
Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,
the clear gray icy water . . . Back, behind us,
the dignified tall firs begin.
Bluish, associating with their shadows,
a million Christmas trees stand
waiting for Christmas. The water seems suspended
above the rounded gray and blue-gray stones.
I have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same,
slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones,
icily free above the stones,
above the stones and then the world.
If you should dip your hand in,
your wrist would ache immediately,
your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn
as if the water were a transmutation of fire
that feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame.
If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,
then briny, then surely burn your tongue.
It is like what we imagine knowledge to be:
dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,
drawn from the cold hard mouth
of the world, derived from the rocky breasts
forever, flowing and drawn, and since
our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.

Elizabeth Bishop

 

[IsaacNewton]

Here dead we lie
Because we did not choose
To live and shame the land
From which we sprung.

Life, to be sure,
Is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is,
And we were young.

A E Housman

 

[Dhara]

December 31st
BY RICHARD HOFFMAN

All my undone actions wander
naked across the calendar,

a band of skinny hunter-gatherers,
blown snow scattered here and there,

stumbling toward a future
folded in the New Year I secure

with a pushpin: January’s picture
a painting from the 17th century,

a still life: Skull and mirror,
spilled coin purse and a flower

 

[Dhara]

She Dreamed of Cows
by Norah Pollard

I knew a woman who washed her hair and bathed
her body and put on the nightgown she'd worn
as a bride and lay down with a .38 in her right hand.
Before she did the thing, she went over her life.
She started at the beginning and recalled everything—
all the shame, sorrow, regret and loss.
This took her a long time into the night
and a long time crying out in rage and grief and disbelief—
until sleep captured her and bore her down.

She dreamed of a green pasture and a green oak tree.
She dreamed of cows. She dreamed she stood
under the tree and the brown and white cows
came slowly up from the pond and stood near her.
Some butted her gently and they licked her bare arms
with their great coarse drooling tongues. Their eyes, wet as
shining water, regarded her. They came closer and began to
press their warm flanks against her, and as they pressed
an almost unendurable joy came over her and
lifted her like a warm wind and she could fly.
She flew over the tree and she flew over the field and
she flew with the cows.

When the woman woke, she rose and went to the mirror.
She looked a long time at her living self.
Then she went down to the kitchen which the sun had made all
yellow, and she made tea. She drank it at the table, slowly,
all the while touching her arms where the cows had licked.

 

[Dhara]

LITTLE DOG’S RHAPSODY IN THE NIGHT

By Mary Oliver

He puts his cheek against mine
and makes small, expressive sounds.
And when I’m awake, or awake enough

he turns upside down, his four paws
in the air
and his eyes dark and fervent.

“Tell me you love me,” he says.

“Tell me again.”

Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over
he gets to ask.
I get to tell.