Best Butchered Poems
Not to be taken lightly, I burnt all my clothes
Cut the tattoos off my back, tore pins from my nose
Foraged for food particles, where wild beasts reposed
Lapped water vapour off thorns, when the thirst arose
My identity gone, I herded mountain goats
Built a makeshift altar, one by one, slit their throats
Looking to the heavens, chanting primeval quotes
Tell me what to do, this sacrifice I devote
But silence returned, I knew nothing else mattered
The goats now all dead, my hands blooded and spattered
A local tribe watched on, their souls not so shattered
Idolised me, then to the four winds they scattered
After two score and ten, they returned unforetold
Carrying symbols, textbooks, diamonds, and gold
Smiling in joy, I asked what stories they behold
All wrote versions of my life in books, but mistold
Some had butchered nations, said it was in my name
Others brainwashed little children, feeling no shame
The rest knocked on doors, telling lies they heal the lame
Scamming billions of sesterces, their one true aim
I condemned the lies, but was a very bad call
They burst into laughter, and pointed to their haul
Just then everything made sense, as I do recall
Killing goats made me, the biggest scapegoat of all
When tons of doom filled nights fall on your head,
hot embers glow and fires burn unabated,
you recall her last breath and wish you were dead.
In a poem's sad lines you've been castrated.
From the heavens a voice thunders dire threats
about losses and breakfasts consumed without eggs.
Fumbling about, looking to hedge your bets,
you drink your cold coffee, down to burnt dregs.
On waking you find dawn's hard hammer fell
last night's burns are reminders of strife.
You stumble and look up from the pits of Hell,
recounting the reasons why you lost your wife.
Your clock chimes out vulgar curses at you
and your house bids you leave by peals at noon.
You think of the ancient, wicked dreams, too,
as night falls with its wretched lucent moon.
You dream of hungry tigers eating your boots.
Your house is perched atop two adjoining trees.
A hunter fires; but it's not a tiger he shoots.
Your second wife cuts off your legs at the knees.
With life's blood flowing from your severed veins
your heart bemoans that you married once more.
By morning you were free from nightmare's pains
but horrid memories linger behind closed doors.
What vast burdens you bear in fear of sleep
and hollows in your mind fill quickly with dread.
When your clock strikes twelve, I hear you weep,
" Odious anguish! I wish I were dead."
Shadows dance on your walls in candle light.
Dark images of her body pressed close to you,
waltzing in your arms on a moonlit night
but she vanishes when dawn's rays break through.
Which sort of dream scars your mind with more grief?
The ones in which you're butchered; burned by fire,
or when daylight steals her away like a furtive thief?
Will your penance release you from the leeching mire...
the terror you encounter each night as you lie abed?
Foolishly, you once thought love claimed your heart.
Therein lies the angst of what you most dread...
the vexing memories in dreams that tear you apart.
Co-Written with Robert Lindley based on the original
verses he offered in the open challenge on his blog.
Do you ever write….just to write
Just to let your heart explode
Into a kaleidoscope of word colors
Embellishing the page of someone's life?
Does everything have to be a contest?
Guided by a theme
You forget the dream
Of your own magnificent thoughts?
Do you ever write…just to write
To release that fantasy
That prowls around in that gilded cage
Not sage
Not tamed
But that wildness that you keep
hidden inside
oh so unbridled
savage!!
Let it go free
unleash it for me
Write!
Write and break the bars of norms and forms
Of expected rules and lines
Rhymes and syllable straight jacket crimes
Oh…do you ever write
to let that madness free?
Do you ever write…just so you can breathe
To let go of pain so deep
the scream that tears across the page
Primal rage
At all who did you wrong
Killed and butchered your song
Eating you alive
Demon cries
clothed in sheep words by others
Not you
Let it be heard
That rebel yell
From internal hell
"cleanse me!"
Let your tears drop on the page
spent of rage
Knowing I will feel
empathy symphony of kindred souls
Write
For YOU
Write
For ME
Write
For what will be
No contest consternation
Just…
an disrobing of "spirit's clad in veils"
a naked camaraderie
we are both the same
What a shame
To twist and turn
And dress to please
Someone whose
taste may be stale
Who knows not how to tease
PLEASE
Just
Write
For you
Write
For me
And that contest
for NOW
Just
LET IT BE!
I want to see
Your naked soul!
Eileen Manassian
The quotation is from Christopher Cranch's poem, Gnosis...I will share an
excerpt of this amazing poem...
Gnosis
THOUGHT is deeper than all speech,
Feeling deeper than all thought:
Souls to souls never can teach
What unto themselves was taught.
We are spirits clad in veils;
Man by man was never seen;
All our deep communing fails
To remove the shadowy screen.
Heart to heart was never known;
Mind with mind did never meet;
We are columns left alone
Of a temple once complete.
Like the stars that gem the sky,
Far apart though seeming near,
In our light we scattered lie;
All is thus but starlight here.
Christopher Cranch
So...let's disrobe and undress...without rules...Let's confess. Let our light
shine...not scattered but whole...body and soul.
I have no spirit.
I have no soul.
I am nothing more than a terrible troll.
I’ll never see Heaven,
And this is my Hell,
To be shunned by all men and the fair mademoiselle.
I was made by a madman,
Assembled from parts
Of decaying cadavers, and life from a spark.
My twisted existence
Of needles and thread,
Malodorous materials from realms of the dead.
I entered this world
One dark stormy night,
My creator’s repugnance foretelling my plight.
I opened my eyelids
As lightning bolts zapped,
With howling of winds and thunderous claps.
I was thrust into light.
I knew darkness and cold.
I was thirsty and hungry, a sight to behold.
A blind man took pity.
I did not offend.
He was my one unconditional friend.
And then he was gone,
But I needed someone,
A partner to witness what I had become.
I wanted affection,
But all that I fetched
Was fear and revulsion for this awful wretch.
All I desired
Was someone to share
Ups and downs of a life filled with sorrow and care.
Alas! My creator
Reneged on our deal.
In spite of my honest and urgent appeal,
He butchered my bride.
I butchered his, too.
But first I killed Henry. That day he will rue.
The way I’d been treated
Only heightened my rage.
Yet my maker perished before the last page.
Soon I discovered
That I could not die.
I’ve lasted for decades. Death I defy.
And my punishment still,
As a tragic outcast,
Is to walk among gravestones of people who’ve passed.
( This poem is about the ' Killing Fields' of Cambodia, 1975-79, where as many as 2 million people were murdered by the communist Khmer Rouge. I taught in Phnom-Penh from '73-74, and never met a people I liked more.)
They haunt me still,
the brown children laughing, always laughing,
the women voluptuous, languid,
their movement almost an invitation....
Even the traffic policeman:
crisp, clean, proud in uniform,
moving with ballerina grace
as hordes of cyclos and mopeds
and the occasional automobile
pirouette endlessly about him,
impatient bees made quiescent
by surreal beauty of white-gloved arms
cutting through thick tropical air....
Everywhere was grace, gentleness:
temples incandescent at dawn,
with ant trails of orange-robed monks
cradling their pot-belly begging bowls,
the patient women standing by the road
to lump rice into the begging bowls,
the monks always staring blankly ahead
as the women bowed low in reverence,
grateful their gift of life was taken....
And oh, how wondrous it was:
an accident in the street, yet no anger,
no bile--forgiveness, felt before thought,
thought before uttered....
How could such a people murder?
No, not murder-- slaughter!
Their mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles,
teachers, priests, friends and children too.
Change temples of peace into charnel-houses?
Schools of knowledge into abattoirs?
They photographed every butchered lamb,
like the devil's children on holiday,
and decorated the classroom walls,
a show-and-tell of horror and despair.
Why? Why?--
Why such pain on
such a gentle people?
Why did God hide His face
while the world turned its back?
Fifty,
fifty,
fifty
years
and still...
still they haunt me.
Before the blast in April's darkened sky. . .
before the electrifying surge of insurgency -
when trucks and tanks were used to block the roads, and
when men and even boys were sought to aid in one malicious purpose. . .
before the rampant slaughter -
the raining of machetes down on flesh and bones
and the cornucopia of corpses left like butchered carcasses
on highways, nearby houses and in churches. . .
before the plundering, the rapes and mutilations
and the exodus of thousands to death-infested camps,
there were whisperings -
insidious and portentous to the ears of the wisely suspicious -
and a voice on the airwaves spewing hate.
Before it all,
there was a brewing of resentment
of a people with a history of poverty and
of transitory freedom and capricious politics.
And through it all, with such grave consternation,
governments debated. . . waited. . . . . . . and waited,
playing with semantics
while thousands dead became the hundred thousand,
and three long months - unrivaled for its number of atrocities -
came to its completion.
Seemingly, peace has been restored
and punishment stingily doled out.
Time moves on . . .
except for half a million
for whom compassion by the world
was spared.
James Hinkshaw
There once was a man named James Hinkshaw.
Who planned to go to town for a jigsaw.
He had hick-saws and jinx-saws
He even had a wink-saw.
But no penny-whinny jigsaw—
He loved riding to town in his rickshaw.
Once he drove there to buy his new jigsaw.
His new rickshaw broke down.
He was not yet in town.
So, he walked there with hacksaw and jinx-saw.
It was a long day for James Hinkshaw.
He walked into town with no rickshaw.
As he went on his way,
A bear started a fray.
So he killed the old bear with his hacksaw.
There, alone on the road was James Hinkshaw.
And the bear butchered there with his hacksaw.
Oh, what could he do?
He felt sure no one knew.
He was there with dead bear but no rickshaw.
Poor old James had not made it to town.
And the sun was about to go down.
When he knelt there to pray,
A peddler came his way.
And sold poor old James Hinkshaw a jigsaw.
James Hinkshaw then had a new jigsaw.
To add to his hick-saws, and winks-saw…
He needed to go home.
In the dark, he could not roam.
What would happen to weary James Hinkshaw?
The peddler who sold James the jigsaw,
Gladly drove him back to the rickshaw.
In exchange for bear meat,
He let James rest his feet.
Toeing home, James Hinkshaw and his rickshaw.
DEDICATED to my grandfather, who would never say, “Pudding &
Taine…ask me again and I'll tell you the same” He, instead would laugh and rapidly say,
“James-John-Hinksaw-Winksaw-Penny-Winny-Jinksaw!” (Of course, this was Not his name)
LOL His imagination and mine are now joined…again. SMILES. I love you, Granddad!
© © Dane Smith-Johnsen
February 21, 2010
Poetic form: Limerick: a story series
For years the witches have gathered
Practicing their satanic rites of insanity
How many people have they butchered
Secluded, in this forested den of iniquity
Open fields surrounding the plateau
Making it hard to approach undetected
The going will be arduous, and slow
Foolishly believing they are protected
The moon always seems to be full
A shadow my only friend this night
I step over the warning ring of skulls
Easing toward the campfires light
I see four hags have selected a child
They begin branding his pale white skin
Odor of burning flesh, senses defiled
As the boy screams, my legs weaken
Pulling my broadsword free of its sheath
Slipping quietly behind the four witches
Barely feeling the sharp bite of its teeth
A just reward for practicing their fetishes
Standing beside the child I view the brands
The number 666, adorns his petite frame
Could this be the boy spoken of in legends
Born of Jackal's, heir to Satan’s domain
Gazing into his eyes, lost in the darkness
Aware I’ve saved the stealer of souls
I will not be a part of this evil madness
Raising my sword, one more head must roll
They slipped their chains and spread their brains
On walls of bricks and mortar,
Bared their teeth in their belief,
Prepared themselves for slaughter.
Howled aloud in the smoke and cloud
That prowled the streets and alleys,
The sounds they made in their parade
Echoed down the valleys.
They shed their blood in crimson flood,
It stained the roads and gutters,
And people hid and crossed themselves
Behind their doors and shutters.
The gunfire cracked and bodies stacked
As one fell on the other,
When it was done and lived there none,
Each sister mourned each brother.
The sun it rose, diseased and froze
Out on a wracked horizon,
The jackboot bastards drank their fill
And cried out: “What’s our poison!”
Black as soot on a winter night,
Thin with eyes red to the core,
The tourists armed with skulls and guns
Beheld the Dogs of Warsaw.
Torn like rags in a threshing mill,
Shapeless sprawl on a killing floor
Yet history will not forget
The butchered Dogs of Warsaw.
Three-hundred bodies shrouded in the snow -
stiff symbols of man's evil painted red.
Did horror freeze on the faces also
of women, men and kids who simply fled?
They ran from men outnumbering each one
of them and who with mountain guns shot dead
the half of them who had no chance to run!
Imagine fleeing, filled with so much dread.
Two miles some women ran to get away.
Unarmed and innocent, they must have pled
when found, but troopers shot them anyway.
At one dead woman's breast, a child still fed!
Some boys who hid were told they would be spared
if they'd come forth, but they were circled by
a number of cruel soldiers when they dared
to show themselves. Those beasts wished them to die.
The boys were butchered; then they lay in mud
along with their good fathers once so strong,
Ravines and hills were running with their blood,
and vanished now would be their Ghost Dance song.
This happened in my homeland of the free
but not so brave, yet twenty medals went
to men who took part in that killing spree
(said honor given by the government).
That cold bleak morning, few of them survived.
For white folks, though, a great new century
was just ahead, but all the dreams had died
for those Lacotas killed at Wounded Knee.
For Anthony Biaanco's Guns Contest
"Invisible World"
seen but not heard
behind our masks
the mind hides
from our reflection
caught in each other’s eyes
the light being borne
from butchered past
leaves us confused and blind
we are the lonely people
seen but not heard
behind our masks
we shine our stories
paint our rhymes
over hearts still singing
there remains love
still moving
in our invisible world
it is marking time
(LadyLabyrinth/2021)
gvlm
"Invisible World" / Tony Steele & The Massacre
https://youtu.be/d0Kvme-NvRY
An armed deputy who is waiting outside
while a madman slays our joy and pride,
tell me again how it is good sense
to trust life and limb to the government?
Police are good people, without a doubt,
but they’re minutes away when seconds count,
and few enough know this hard truth:
Legally, they do not have to protect you.
And I think we’ll rarely ever find
a cop around when we’re struck by crime,
criminals are evil, but they are not fools,
they do not strike when cops are near you.
Be they a madman or a common thief,
what will happen when they come calling?
What good is help that comes too late,
when you’ve been butchered, murdered, raped?
So if they’re not crazy, or criminal scum,
I believe that an adult should own a gun.
This duty goes beyond mere self-defense,
though that’s its most common element,
as citizens and free souls it is our cause
to act as a check on those who make laws.
Not a pleasant thought, and a weaker mind
might proclaim,”But we’re beyond those times.”
But such thinking is a great fallacy,
power still attracts those who lust greedily
for your money, your family, you very thoughts,
they want control over the whole lot,
playing along with laws when they have to
while designing schemes, already ready to move
when a weakness in our will is found...
and come that day, when they knock us down
the Second Amendment takes up the fight,
the only means left to defend our rights.
Though we hate the thought of such a fate,
the threat of tyranny never will abate,
so if you’re not crazy, or criminal scum,
as an adult you should own a gun...
CONCLUDES IN PART II.
Love as a priority
Has become a minority.
Gratification makes promises unreal
In love and life learning to deal.
Mentality of a flower child
Freedom is key,
Butchered by Bin Laden,
And even politics before he.
Sixties and Seventies past,
Is the philosophy forgotten?
Is it possible to fit in?
This new age may be rotten.
Peace, love and harmony,
Preach it to all;
Move souls into the sublime,
Let your ignorance fall.
With inhibitions and hate,
Greed, anger and fear;
We are all Gods creations,
Give children less reason for a tear.
Hostility is created,
Not born into babies;
Purity is the beginnings of life,
Ill-will infects us like rabies.
The realization of reality,
Love as a dream yet to come;
Proving with acts and not words
Is something not done.
Life's paths hoped to be fairytales,
Opportunity floats in the air;
Built up dreams let down,
Missing my breath and catching one rare.
Spread this education,
Enlighten new minds.
Search for yourself,
It's good what you find.
Mohamed and Khaled
The best butcher shop in town
In the deception of silence
they butcher those with sound
Voices against their Kingdom
they fear and do not like
Raping their women with modern views
while butchering a protesting man
Both Prince, King and pork herder
Vehement denials throughout the land
Yes the color of red, proof of blood in their sand
In the shoes of Aysha, these cowards cant even stand
Intoxicated Salman, butchered an innocent man
as Trump applauds, the free press in a grave
situation... Tyrants kissing and holding hands
A thousand lashes, to the butchers of Riyadh
Prince Mohamed be damned
I slash with my sword and I push with my shoulder. Every muscle and every tendon is screaming in agony. I can feel every pressure when my blade makes contact. I’m grunting with passion as I push every extremity to the very breaking point. I let my mind wonder to the past, where my family was butchered and mutilated when I was 10 years old. I lost everything I loved and anything that mattered to me, but my passion. Revenge echoes in my mind over and over, like the rumbling of thunder in the summer storms when they pass. Revenge against those who could do the things I’ve seen, beasts that slaughtered my whole family. I have spent years here, learning the warrior’s way, feeling the grunge and toils from everyday training.
My sword is now a part of my body, so swift and true. I can draw it sharply and silent to bring it up my enemy. I spin my body and crouch down low, dodging my enemy and thrusting my sword into his chest. My body has become one single weapon for me to use. My mind is sharp and ready for the challenges of all those who oppose me. I will fight for honor and what is right and damnation to those who are evil and selfish. In the distance a voice echoes in my ears, “Piiid!” “Pid!” This sound grows louder as I strain my muscles and sharpen my skills. “PIIIDDD!!!” “HAULT!” and then I realize that master Baracus has been calling me. Turning around, I see Baracus standing there with a puzzled look on his face. He is a tall elder man with a chiseled chin and scars across both cheeks. His skin tone is deep red from the Sun’s scorching heat of the day. His balding head has traces of white hair around each side and the tunic of a trainer is all black with gold trim. His deep blue eyes gaze upon me in frustration, “You must focus on all things around you Pid, you will leave yourself open to attack without it”.
Baracus turns to walk towards the shelter as he mumbles various curses at me. “You young bucks have no attention and focus” as he slowly walks to sit down. “I was focused on my training you old goat” I persist. As we both sit down, he makes his brittle response, “Damn young blood makes poor fertilizer for our fields” as we both bellow with laughter. He is my mentor and trainer, but most of all he took me in and called me his son. He has trained me in the way of the warrior and what it means to be honorable and noble.