My joy surrounds me with character
beauty essence I bow to the on lookers
I dance to the sweetest sound all over town
of lovely joyous Caribbean tunes melody
opens my eyes just one more time mon
for old time sakes erasing 1984 I don't dare
remember buildings burning screams wails
sirens panting being badgered breathing in
this wondrous earth free from identity theft
hatred forgiveness evolving my nature capturing
my senses I'm blessed to be me no one
could ever become this brilliant queen
covered in chiffon and lace torment
dissolved by gods wrath upon all those
willing to bring harm my way above a whisper
I seek solace moving about this world
a new existence a new creature
incorruptible by 1984 wingtip bathe
in my identity criminal groups marvel
through the smell of my perfume I am
comforted by the holy spirit camels
carry my sparkling rose' my presence
devours all manhood I am beautiful
My sleep is disrupted, badgered
by incessant wordplay,
a thesaurus of woolgathering
in semi-conscious dreams.
I keep a voice recorder,
bedside, to record the tidbit morsels
Lest they're forgotten
when I awaken and make bread
from the crumbs dropped
on my passage through the night.
The poet's worst nightmare is that
the crumbs will be eaten by crows
or carried away by ants in the night,
so the way back to recall
the thought trail is lost
and the poem will never
see the light of day,
and will never be crafted.
Any loss of these dream-let gems
is so frustrating and intolerable
to a poet, forever on the hunt
for magical meaningful words
beyond the hocus-pocus
of abracadabra in dreamscape thoughts,
and images, that pop into my head when dreaming.
I was born in a landlocked getaway town
Where all the colors were black, gray, or brown.
Jobs at the steel mill were ratcheting down.
It was not in my future to stay.
So, I took a long walk off a very short pier,
An unschooled, untraveled recruit buccaneer
On a quest to cross Neptune’s vast salty frontier.
Hopped a slow boat to China one day.
Underway on the Crescent City, it seemed
The ocean was wider than I’d ever dreamed.
A ship load of sinners, our souls unredeemed
Steaming west toward whatever there was.
Keelung told Hong Kong to call Singapore.
Subic Bay badgered Mombasa for more.
Sea legs, as always unsteady ashore,
Even more so with liquor and drugs.
Bilge water sloshed in the depths of the hold.
The mizzen mast learned what the typhoon foretold.
I was sea duty tempered and Shell Back enrolled;
Wasn’t nothing but maritime norm.
I was born in a hard luck blue collar town.
Half the way broken and half the way down.
But time gifts its renaissance scepter and crown
To a jack tar who’s weathered the storm.
Those who love the badgered Greek,
His eternal comfort seek,
Had to him killers' plans leak
That they'd take him to some peak
And there his flesh pierce - A Beak,
The Torture to last a week
And leave him mortally weak...
Foes who claim he calls one "freak,"
Never saw in him The Meek,
Wonder why he's in their creek,
Think his voice a bad door's creak
And his breaths of spirits reek...
"They'll beat you too with a stick
Until your life stops to tick!"
When the program isn’t working like it should,
No rabbit’s foot, nor horseshoe’s gonna bring you any luck.
When the techie’s not around to make things good
Ya gotta figure out a way to get yourself unstuck.
All it takes is just three fingers, and you’re sweet:
Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
When the system won’t cooperate, oh dear,
You don’t like what you’re looking at and need to move along.
If your monitor is frozen, have no fear.
I’ve got a way to break the ice. It really can’t go wrong.
It’s a clever way of turning up the heat:
Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
If it fixes my computer when it’s jammed,
Then maybe it can help with other problems in my life.
Since it’s useful when I’m really getting spammed,
It might be good to try it when I'm badgered by my wife,
Then her nagging might be something I can beat:
Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
We all know 'America' is classed as the land of the free
But any country can only be so, if it includes you and thee
Just like life is, irrespective of your circumstances, they be
For no one should be oppressed, in stone scribed, decreed
But sadly this doesn't happen, be it in many walks of life
To being badgered in your workplace, or on the way home
Even amidst relationships, when actions become traction
No wonder minds become stressed in endless lost roam
Sadly amidst life and it's walkways, canals, motorways, mm
It'll always surface crawling to it's cringe-worthy extreme
Then there's suppression, be we you, us, she or them, him
For whence anger commits, thence throws, becomes, bedlam!
Sirens!
It's hard, stationary,
transfixed in place
weather-worn,
badgered by reactive innuendo
a sculpted image of someone's admiration
some hardened forgotten
deluded memory
recorded in a complicated untruthful history
focused on one failure or one accomplishment
with purpose, intent
long-forgotten unforgivable
now unfavorable,
a remnant of time passed
graffiti stained and bludgeoned change
for what we reactively assume
it once or still represents
distasteful to some
a triggered interpretation
honored by the presence of others
seeing it differently today,
the monuments of our unworthy ancestors
the indignation of our self-righteous predecessors
and the enlightened indulgent imagery
of who we are becoming today
in the future
hope is yet be written
how will our children,
and our children's children
see us?
Take a seat,
reflect,
plan,
imagine seeing who you are
see where you're going
acknowledge where you have been
and how you got here
where
will you be
today
and tomorrow?
Brassy Barry’s boastful bumbling Brana Bull
Badgered Billy’s bashful buffoonish Baboon
Into baking a boisterous Blackberry Bisque
Beyond bunking, Barry’s brave babysitter
boldly bellowed brashly.
Bonafide bamboozlement boasted Brana Bull’s bed buddies.
Beyond bothersome boneheads, Billy Baboon’s buzzards bawled
Baboon’s beautiful baked bonne bouch betwixed buddies and beasts
beautifully, bumping boastful Brassy Barry’s beliefs, which bumbled
on beyond the brink of believability boulder.
How can it be he is no longer here?
How can it be I do not hear that voice
His presence haunts me from his battered chair
Though I have money and no needs to bare
I feel the grief, the affect of his choice.
How can it be that he has vanished here?
What is the world when loss turns to despair.
When every sheet by weeping is made moist?
His presence haunts from his beloved chair
Now we learn the symbol of the hare
Unpeaceful, hunted, jugged or humdrum roast
How can it be when love should counter fear?
Into the real, we stand and longtime stare
We’re begging, blaming, badgered, shamed and gassed
Some presence feints with ours in death’s own lairs
Now the world of man has long surpassed
The time we could blame God for what we ‘ve missed
How can it be that He is never here?
His absence haunts: symbolic, suffered, real.
How can it be he is no longer here?
How can it be I do not hear that voice
His presence haunts me from his battered chair
Though I have money and no needs to bare
I feel the grief, the affect of his choice.
How can it be that he has vanished here?
What is the world when loss turns to despair.
When every sheet by weeping is made moist?
His presence haunts from his beloved chair
Now we learn the symbol of the hare
Unpeaceful, hunted, jugged or humdrum roast
How can it be when love should counter fear?
Into the real, we stand and longtime stare
We’re begging, blaming, badgered, shamed and gassed
Some presence feints with ours in death’s own lairs
Now the world of man has long surpassed
The time we could blame God for what we ‘ve missed
How can it be that He is never here?
His absence haunts: symbolic, suffered, real.
I used to be a poet-on-demand.
Their curious faces looked at none but me.
When I did write, the poems turned to sand.
I would imagine stories swift and grand
and points of view, me, you, them, he, and she.
I used to be a poet-on-demand.
They badgered me with sharp and shrill commands;
My time was short, the hours dark and wee.
When I did write, the poems turned to sand.
With no more life, my verse became so bland
that no one knew I'd been a prodigy.
I used to be a poet-on-demand.
My face was slapped by angry, burning hands;
like firemen, they ordered me to flee.
When I did write, the poems turned to sand.
I'm now a waiter at Salut on Grand.
I now cost money - I'm no longer free.
I used to be a poet-on-demand.
When I did write, the poems turned to sand.
Ignorant living in monochrome world
defenceless just surviving in their way
safe during the day in their set curled,
they must be culled! kill them some humans say,
creatures of the night don't deserve this fate,
tarred with a brush of guilt, already knackered
eliminate this cause of our poor financial state
exterminate them before our lives are shattered,
cries from our gentleman farmers high in stature
creating wealth is the answer to everything
so killing that dangerous black and grey Badger
will solve all their problems, prosperity will bring
happiness, plenty of money for their future
extinction of this lovely creature doesn't matter
put financial greed before our lovely Badger.
There is a big question mark as to whether Badgers
transmit bovine TB to cattle even so they are culled regardless.
17th April 2017.
Contest:- be Didactic.
so someone badgered you
threw their words at you
they splintered like sticks
they broke the skin like stones
you swallowed your heart
you lost the movement of your watch
i'm sorry they attacked you
unprovoked
later i'll remind you bruises heal
but for now
show me where it hurts
think of my sincere concern
as that kiss your mom use to place there
later i'll remind you some people are unfair
because they are and that's that
block them out
there are others who are kind
who have words that penetrate the thickest of skulls
who inject love like a vaccine
who prevent the black plague hate from spreading
but for now it’s about you
you feel alone
you feel no one understands
you feel abandoned
and you feel just plain bad
really bad
i understand the puncture
a rhinos horn leaves
unaware of the harm they left
because their hide is thick
there are those of us
who are like you
sensitive
we've read your tears
we've watched you all these years
and we are pleased to be in your company
so take the time you need to heal
and don't forget
we are here
Slowly,
The air fills with blue, and the greens catch fire
The hammerlight of Summer
With little mouse-steps,
Steals off into apricity.
I divide my days
Between wine and responsibilities
As a child divides his
Between play and obedience.
The time itself, at its best,
Is wine to me,
Full of light and flavors
Vying for my attention.
The aptly named Sept/ember
Ignites itself against the skies;
Sets my soul asmolder
The inspiration I have begged and badgered
To arrive, does so at last
By its own rule, on its own clock
In the deep of the night
While I should be asleep.
I awake,
Dreams close behind my shoulder,
And find myself at this crossroads,
Inexorably older.
On the ocean waves lies trickery
A vast emptiness of seething trails
Silently it forms destructive forces
Desperately trimming ideals away
Shores teams with ugly sighs
Badgered by waters great strength
Singing the song of malevolent
Digesting years worth of rock
Creating distrust from seas core
Which dissolves, crumbles itself down
Seemingly ocean water shines
Warmth gleaning from above
However depths carry frigid waters
Keeps oceans from becoming pleasant
Allowing waters tearful deploy
Of its hollow worlds demise
The trickery wallows within its flow
An ocean’s despised occurrence
Russell Sivey
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