A Cliched Existence (Bloody but Unbowed)

EPILOGUE

caught lightning in a bottle

a tiger by its tail-

         somehow, someway

this race has run its course; this ship has set it’s sail;

you could smell the rat,

you could hear the dropping pin,

his days are numbered—got him dead to rights,

his fat is in the fire, on this cold, cold, darkened winter’s night

Prologue

sheltered from the sun—

imagination runs riot, off the beaten path, for miles and miles,

improving each shining hour; in full cry—

every inch the king—a dream awoken from and by

ACT I

it’s not all beer and skittles though, but this to you, I need to tell. Still, even so, I do understand, I get the pointed view:

“It’s all wool and a mile wide,” as is with the cost of life, the way it is one must take pleasure from the simple things—yet, please provide me a word edgewise, take it for what it’s worth, but I’ll call it advice, “gather ye rosebuds as ye may, but don’t count your chickens before they’re laid.”

what once was deemed old hat

death has since warmed over; that well’s run dry,

all things weighed in the balance

and found wanting time and again

it costs a pretty penny here and now

the world’s gone astray, off the wall and down the hall,

no longer a bowl of cherries; no longer simply left to chance,

too many ill gains for some—while for many—

the fattest calf’s since grown thin

ACT II

but these memories I’ve since forgotten—the good times, the bad times, and all the mediocre sections in-between, I am who I am at this day in time, no future self to ponder, no past tense to plunder the present me away. I’ve bided time, I’ve waited, I’ve prayed—instead of direction, instead of guidance, I’ve been graced with idle chitchat

composed of weasel words.  It is now, I understand, things must change!

I’ve been the drawer of water; I’ve been the hewer of wood,

yet I’ve also hid my light under many a bushel—both being paths that led me to the same old sight

I’ve stared deep into the face of dismay; I’ve found pearls before swine, been cast into outer darkness, but only once have I ever had the privilege of sitting in the catbird seat, and that time is nigh.

Act III

…and there’s the rub:

snares and delusions often appear, well before the shoe fits the other heel. Hell is paved with good intentions—this I all too greatly understand.  When will that crow come calling? When will that ship set dockside?  When will the answers appear?

I wait and I wait, forever and a day; the hour is upon me now, a decision’s due—and as every schoolboy knows, what’s here today is gone tomorrow. No need to live them drowning in sorrow; no need give pause again.  I’ve done all that’s been asked; I’ve been the good soldier—taking each task to heart—yet the only response I’ve ever received, are those notes passed by the tolling bells, the kind that always played so well.  Tonight, however, in part because, I refute their song, no longer will I play this part, no longer will I be solely made of the dove.

bloody but unbowed

the time is ripe:

to take a tilt at the windmills

to bear the burden and the heat of the day

to run roughshod over all that comes

to ring down the curtain

to rip it to shreds

to greet the rising tide

to bear the brunt of what may be

to find that red letter day

to beard the lion in his staid

to live, for once, a life that’s alive; unafraid

to live a life that’s free

to live the life that was meant for me

Join me over at D’Verse for another installment of Open Link Night, where some amazing poetry will be on display.  While there, share a piece of your own as well.  Doors open at 3:00 PM, See you there.

Heat and Other Fiery Identities

PROLOGUE

She—hot pressed

leather, irons frigid touch upon

perspirations exhumed.  Curdled anxieties,

surrendered to the many fraudulent and ill-warranted charges—

concocted by nervous acumen, a lackluster response spawned by erratic anticipatory rationale.  And

each the coddled fan’s wrinkled breath, a svelte terrain of motion—

side to sidled side, a portent reconfiguration—a reclamation project, in search of buried sliver composites and for the potential verification of fanfares hyped—radiating outwards inwardly, by timeless traditions of steeped origin, nonesuch more important than, being the product of parental haranguing, often sought as a tool for teaching, a method of deterrence aimed at the cessation of undesirable behaviorisms often  prevalent in preadolescent harbingers of gospels so fear-inspiring that parents so easily are threatened by the shallowest of situational respite evinced. 

I

A quickly stirred rush to judgment, in case of perfunctory chagrin, to which a knot may appear—not due to a child’s perceived propensity toward any sleight or deficient exhibition—but rather, in regards to, the salted uneasiness felt, concerning that which dwells inside—face to face the become with their own wretchedness—seeing their repertoire of emotional response, as being unsatisfactory to raise dogs, let alone a pitiful child seeking guidance in an unmapped realm.  A snap evaluation, bred from such stemma; self-prescribed askance forms and lingers in

subcutaneous expression, fossilized—forever kneeling before, a discourse in algorithmic expansiveness; clustered waves seem audible—despite the inconvenient unlikelihood presented by case-traction—cluttered in muted verbs and matted incomprehensibility— presented by the adjectival allurement of presupposed thermostatic rendering. 

II.

In a place, a location, a site unseen-forgotten—of indignation and its every precipice—It is here that the core suppression falters in swoon—switching on, off, on, off, on, endlessly on and off—in vapored chords, sweltering in chambered growth—where corduroy-like crease work is predominantly evidenced by the crinkling glances of a spider’s, snare/snarled/pinned, anatomically misshapen stance.

Paralytics, vapid identity resolution, confusing the brush-stroking—as if the summer can suddenly appear—perhaps an effigy staged in humid perception—but the winter must first outwear its icy sole.

III.

A gopher, steeple palmed, fingers high—unite,

touch to touch—a pressure pointed gesticulated juncture, for resurfacing, the flagrant lore of buttresses neurologically paved—swathing in absolute criticism, until the agonizing fresh-belly detonation, skins clean the glistening expulsion marks—wide first, fist stretched schema, roundly delicate is the tenderly caged beast—affixing key to lock-hole—rusted sudden, turning, turning, breaking free of corrosive webbing, shrapnel and all its conjoined destinies of skipped sudden anesthesia emerge—platen—like the ever-haunting reflective surface of tempered green-hued glass.

Marginal Notes:

Combustible cavities scathe to boil, the torch ignites—surrounded are the vestibules internal, guarding against shilled flames and repository meltdowns. 

We, as a species, press in tiers, lathering the oasis firm to flesh, scrubbing improprieties cleansed deep from inside the incised pore—natures puncture points, tousled yet flawless in artistry—bathing in fiery aphorisms, extinguishing the terse, gathering truth, brandishing the enigma of the skein—griddled, binding authority of fire

IV.

Caressing—she,

Pressed hot, tongs entwine—smokestack offerings, a piston’s path, hearth, amassing temperatures out of control—friction, flesh burn, gyration cycling, emanating signatures within, white, blue, green, red, orange, conformities of heat—she, hot pressed, reddened by subcutaneous release—enflamed, raw—striating voluntarily—consciousness affirmed amidst the flash of flame-flame, desire, induction, conducive dreams lit to flesh-burn—she, hot pressed, on—atop, flushing, alchemical singeing to breath-like confection

EPILOGUE

In the conclusion, the finale, the last snuff of a phoenix’s flame, a ravenous journey to speak the least, a passion-filled apocalypse of shape and form, exerting gasoline atop infernal gaze, posturing, twitching inconceivably…. releasing a spire of combustion and then the only self we’ve ever known—collapses and dies. Eventually we cremate the old—then wait until we are unleashed anew.

   

If Poetry Could Take A Form

I.       Antiphon

There comes a point in time, when man must accept his limitations, and proceed to take one step before the next, over mortal boundaries, unto sacred earth.

Saturn watched

Paradox of one

Ra gazed

Incandescence unto one

Mercury observed

Confection baked for one

Hypnagogic ambience was but a vale away

When a Psychopomp gestured capaciously

Amaurotic visions darkened blur.

Grew typhlotic as distance stirred

Cays of dryads peak to view

As a Simurgh came to me,

Instructing I wake,

Believing what’s felt despite unseen

A merger, spanning time and space,

Unearthed wonder, as an angel

Saw a gateway to Utopia,

Deep beneath the flaws and scars

Every word, every page

The emotions, the tides

Shifting shape and size

Disbelief dragged its chain

But a pinch gently reminded

Of the reality in possibilities

Astonished, stunned

That reciprocation was alive,

That the first words of chapters new,

Had been scribed; are focusing

Yet fear—

Reincarnates failures past,

Doubt—

Reinforces each my lacks

Pessimism—

That words so real

Must have been spoken

Erroneously still

Yet,

This is when

Garuda came

And spoke to me

Of you.

II. Concomitance

Is it possible for the purities of spirit to instinctively demand, those unlikely origins to isochronally clasp each the other apparition by their hand?

Can the synchronal ideations be cast aside, as simply the spawn of chance and eyes?

Or can a case for fate be made, where kismet is positioned as a postulate, therefore enabling dissemination’s spread, promulgating providential bliss?

III.    Elusory of Preallusion

Divinity’s dominion, sovereign’s soul, dictates prescience as the commodities of pagan pageantry.  Yet, as I’ve always pondered, how one can blindly agree to things they cannot know.  How can one discard the possibility of oracles?  I believe in us all, lays dormant, a sense of the mystical, in which the governance is only as limiting as the mind will permit upon its own capacity.  Everyone experiences scenarios, scenes, where definition will not suffice, where explanation is as impossible to describe. 

Leading towards my own awakening,

I began to see, something positive

Should arrive, through the poetical

side of self.  A premonition, prior to 

those initial words, instructed that

circumstance will alter and happiness

shall return, to covet me completely.

And so the creation of the poetical psyche was born

An infinite quester was upon a search, for the elusive grail of verse.  Directionless it wandered, dimensions vast and wide, spreading declarations of imagery, to any and all who would listen, yet still, even after its voice grew heard, emptiness pervaded verb.  Wander more the spirit would, until through thoroughfare its feet would arrive, upon a palace, where the electricity of the flesh, sparked, as if this feeling it had never lost.  Alive it grew, understood the premonition, perhaps was not for inspiring the happiness of others, but for a joy to burgeon back within.

Hours would be spent, in contemplation of each term, the puzzles that the mind creates, the ideology of mystic space.  Soon thereafter the psyche knew, it no longer had to stifle muse, and like its favorite pet, the phoenix of the sky, the psyche fell that night, purged of all it held to know, the form once taken grew ablaze, and quickly each flame was snuffed to grave.  But for a moment, formless-in void, the spirit was reborn; now limitless is the extent of its poetry.

Time would blur the days from day, the hours from hour, the minutes away.  Eventually it knew what must be done, it must thank his muse, his source of inspiration.  And so, this is, exactly what the psyche did.  Yet, little did it know back then, the inspiration would become its friend, and teach together each they would, of the every possibility in life through verse.

Sand would sift, as it does, yet, one must wonder, where the course preplanned, would direct.  Reading pages from each corner the world, the psyche learned much, understood in ways it had since forgot.  Yet in the palace he would see, words distinct, as if each was patterned directly from the breath it breathed.  It wouldn’t walk too far the plank, yet to acknowledge such would be to take, a piece away, from his belief in poetry.  But he’d learn, his imagination, was in tune.

Now everyday the psyche floats on air.  Seeing signs spring from everywhere.  On packages of chocolate bars, atop an old poster for a Jodi Foster film, from a man, calling to his daughter, misbehaving, in the grocery lane, to a scary movie star, it now only sees its muse face.  But strange as it may seem, in play of words, no longer does it see her there, instead it rearranges each word round, and in subtle combinations of space and sound, it now sees itself as within found.

IV.  Every Good Play, Must Have A Song

Ivory keys turn in note; sparkling symphonic tones it wrote, higher than a cloud above, the music stirs emotive flow:

I’d like to wear you like a talisman

To keep me safe from harm

Hold you to my heart

Listen as the words sway

To elocution’s presence found

I’d like to hide you in an amulet

Protect me from myself

Hold you, upon my heart

As the hours sift along

To that lonely spot,

But with you near,

This distortion,

Will never reappear

I want to wear you like agate

And fall asleep within your milky gaze

While your chalcedonic curves

Elicit the colored bands they make

V.  Arousal, In the Land of Hades

Persephonic

Days split

Between

Here,

And the dreams

The poppy instills

Every instance

All fragments of

Traverse the numb

Every, each

Thought here now

Arouses consciousness

Of self.

The poetry of life

Is omnipresent

If only we all choose to look

The poetry of tomorrow

Resides, in part,

With the decisions we make today

The poetry of the long ago

Sure, it will echo,

Yet only if you allow it in

The poetry of the soul

Is always on

Awake or sleep,

It may be quiet

Yet if you listen

You’ll hear it speak.

Seemingly, since this poetry grew, from ghost-like fantasy, to a befriended reality, I’m aroused always and evermore.

If poetry could truly take a form…