Best Cortex Poems
Caustic memories dissolve on my tongue
Lingering tastes of battery acid and nicotine
Cause me to choke on putrid saliva.
Staring at melting walls, clocks tick in unison.
Distorted birdsong hums outside of jagged windows
Under the warped sun, an unrepentant landscape blurs.
Freshly budding peonies liquefy;
Veils thin, evaporating the delusion of reality.
Why must I mould to the edges at your bidding,
Contort to the point of my own dysfunction?
For such fleeting worship, this devastation lingers -
Devours and disconnects my inner workings.
I lie highlighted in shadow, a beacon of quiet distress;
A dislodged scapula desperate to be labelled angelic.
Grounded, wingless, and forever out of time -
Wearing the last face you cared for as a comforter.
Neon venom warming twisted arteries,
Sinister patches stitched upon a breaking back.
A narcissist's crown digging into my head
Like rusted nails plunged into worm-infested wood—
Permanent disconnection, frayed cerebral cortex.
Blurred vision obscures insidious figures hiding in hushed corners,
Whispering in Babylonian tongue. Hallucinatory illusions haunt
What was a once-pristine sanctuary,
Now morphing into a surrealistic asylum.
Revelation exists above shadow in temporal machination,
I'm consciousness not yet swept up with sand;
Closed eyes cleanse my corneas - I rest in a balm of clarity.
Your power superficial, a cankerous cataract peeled clean off.
It is you who is bereft, washed up with the shell you created.
All the walls of your empty room fallen flat,
As I unfurl in the mirror beyond the shoreline,
I realise - it was never me you couldn't stomach.
Categories:
cortex, art, deep, imagery, poetry,
Form:
Ekphrasis
I stared into the mirror, wincing at my own reflection,
through eyes fogged by cataract.
Saw a black tint spreading around my eyes
and face like a wrinkled piece of linen
Where is the bubbly girl of seventeen?
I asked myself.
How flamboyant and flaunting I was,
now enveloped in silence.
Do anyone remember my younger version-
the little birdie that tweeted endless?
Beneath the shell of this withering cortex,
I still have a heart young as ever,
not yet shriveled, but succulent
full of love and warmth;
a sleeping guitar, capable of music,
if trained hands move over my taut strings.
So please don't take me as a wretched hag,
and push me into a state of silent non-being
or throw me like the chip of a broken mirror,
making me feel so inconsequential!
Categories:
cortex, age, angst, change,
Form:
Free verse
Introspection
suspends in dark blue amnion
as rainwater blooms a reflection pool
an oasis of energy for contemplative embryo;
in stillness I grow.. my pulse a flowing stream of raindrops
my body the rhythm maker
my mind the artiste
in a cocoon a rhythmic womb —
a primal nest gestates my om
b r e a t h i n g i n
b r e a t h i n g o u t
saturation of breath
soaks and stretches my cortex canvas;
within the indigo sphere
I paint a mural
upon my sacred temple walls
a self-portrait
with a benevolent brush dipped in starlight –
I surrender staying and portraying within the lines
uncaged colors roam
beyond my human extremities and Earth’s edge
a gouache-plash of teal and fuchsia
fraternize with fibers of flesh and marrow
conceiving abstracts as airy as sparrow dreams
as I - a mindful explorer flies an inner cosmos
beyond the confines of the canvas white
outside the frames of physicality and reality
to throw open window panes to the unlimited
to banish pains of the limited — free
my meditative spirit making art with the universe
Susan Ashley
September 7, 2022
~ Fifth Place ~
Premiere Contest: 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 18
Sponsor: Mark Toney
~ First Place ~
Premiere Contest: Brian Strand Premiere Choice
Sponsor: Brian Strand
Photo: The Seer; Laurie Bain Hamilton - owner of primalpainter
Categories:
cortex, growth, introspection, love, self,
Form:
Free verse
Drained of opaque innocence
Perfected by your toxicity,
I was laid bare beneath the narcissistic sun,
Searing deep within dehydrated pupils,
Stripping my soul of all humanity,
until your sinister tongue was all I could hear.
Your empty promises clothed these bones;
running was no longer an option,
as hiding became nearly impossible within your shadows.
Voices, eating through my cerebral cortex,
tainted even the demons that resided within my mind.
Minuscule reminders of my life before became particles of dust,
floating through suffocating air,
choking the little oxygen you let me breathe,
until the poison became too much to take.
Falling to my knees, vomiting your vile lies,
my life flashed like motion pictures before my eyes.
A choice was given:
either purge—rip the cursed, stinging nettle from my veins,
or die under your cruelty.
I will not rot for an insignificant monster;
a cleansing is long overdue.
Categories:
cortex, dark, gothic, imagery, night,
Form:
Free verse
Far as my eyes can see, 'till lake touches sky,
Earth beats as one; Poplar, Jack Pine & Birch all
Sing with the White Throated Sparrow, our Planet's
Love songs.
Sloping (5'canopy) an ancient Deer trail along the
Baptism River (flowing into Lake Superior) I startle a
Buck during his midday Nap. Soundlessly lifting up,
He elegantly bounces away.
From above, a dark object swoops in, Brother
Raven is curious, (always a sentinel for Hawks
And Bald Eagles). I stand motionless, willing my
Neo-Cortex to flood my aura with peace; as I
Extend my arm and gently imitate the Raven's
Welcome call, a double-beat "Caw caw"...I am
Here Raven, I am me". My heart quickens as
He alights on my arm, talons gripping my
Forearm gently, but firmly. Cocking my head,
I look deeply into his obsidian eyes to his
Soul...he imitates me, tilting his head in unison,
letting my gaze enter. Images from high race
Thru my mind...the rushing river...undulating
Tree tops...in an instant, we have become
Brothers of the wild, as I softly shake my arm
To set him free.
"I am me, Brother Raven, I am me"
05/30/15
© All Rights Reserved
Categories:
cortex, nature,
Form:
Prose
The era of catatonic self-destruction has risen yet again from boulder-blocked caves,
Whose cavernous stalactite incisors drip with the blood of thorny crowns,
Worn in punitive irony for the subversion of fertile inferiority,
Which, like rabbits, duplicates and hops about in trouncing contentment.
Yet despite the grin stretched beneath empty eyes,
Which are eclipsed by dilation of cimmerian shades poured from tipped inkwells,
Darkness ripened by age has inflated its penumbral grasp upon the solar plexus.
Hearts beat now to the false circadian rhythm of telemetry.
Screens fueled by waves polluting the air scramble for attention;
Screaming as if the spotlight has slithered away from their thespian heads.
But even so we watch as if waiting for a nothingness we know.
Petulant performances pretending to perfect the perception of reality persevere,
Despite their lack of empirical validity.
Our bodies and the space around they occupy have become irrelevant.
Experience and physical stimulation have been replaced by mirror neurons,
Firing incessantly at the sight of electromagnetic facsimiles,
Which are vomited in projected disproportion into our unwitting faces,
From nauseating mouths of those whose disease has spread to lower echelons.
And so we sit and stare upon the square on walls and in our hands,
As the prefrontal cortex and its dehydrated lobes succumb to the reptilians.
Another era of lack of mind borne from the fruitlessness of parasitic seeds,
Planted by the pretenders who swim in the wealth of our applause.
Clap away, we will, until we collapse in the arthritic solidification of redundant repetition.
Welcome to the show; a televised apocalypse of thought.
Where worlds were once created in cognition,
They're now created in the lenses of cameras.
When worlds were once refracted light coruscating from the eye,
They're now flickered in slides reflected from the television.
Categories:
cortex, addiction, social, society,
Form:
Free verse
There’s rain in my brain,
A pitter patter on the old grey matter,
Cats and dogs in the cerebral cogs,
A shower dampening my mental power.
There’s precipitation in my imagination,
A cloud collision in my vision,
A deluge in my centrifuge,
A tidal surge has overwhelmed my optimistic urge,
A tsunami is rampaging through my spiritual harmony,
A lighting strobe just struck my frontal lobe.
There’s a vortex in my cortex,
An eddy in my heady,
A blizzard in my gizzard,
Hail in my vapour trail,
Sleet on my feet,
Snow on my big toe
Making me feel low.
I’ll pop a pill and rest my head
Upon a bed of feather
And when I wake I’m hoping
For bright eyes and better weather.
Categories:
cortex, health, humor, humorous, weather,
Form:
Free verse
I invented something quite peculiar
Last night
In my lucid dream
My neo commanded my allo-cortex
To prepare allusions to be downloaded
Upon returning to my physical presence
Caught in middle-sleep, guardians of satan
Were mocking the death and resurrection
Of Jesus Christ, shouting and laughingly
Pronouncing God The Father and Jesus
The Son as "the two lunatics"
Every direction I faced, the 'alien race'
Of towering blondes blocked my escape
Knowing I had lucidly dreamt a downloadable
File to be recovered once awake, I summarily
Accomplished this by attaching a small device
To the frontal-lobe side of my skull and
Activated the sensory-absorbing module
Instantly slipping back into my lucid dream
Allowing edits to be re-programmed
I was able to disrupt the satanic bonds
Holding me captive and cast out the
Demons that possessed me
Declaring the Lord Jesus Christ as my
Savior and Ruler of the Light that shall
Set man free!
Once again returning to my physical realm
I was even more determined to
Spread
His
Love
Upon
The World!
04.16.22
Categories:
cortex, dream,
Form:
Narrative
Emerging from sleep dream temerity,
his remote aurora spectral prisms
from which his wakefulness gives legerity,
from which surfaces new burgeoning aphorisms.
Truth’s contours arrayed in fluid fluency,
his morning ataraxia in the still water lake
from where his senses lose their truancy,
from where ideation sheds the opaque.
He finds repose in a moment's seclusion,
his lucid cortex in reflective possibility,
but he learns his real confirmation in inclusion,
and learns our fellowship best protects our fragility.
So quickly we imbrute each other with walls,
he knows how militarization is summoned by anxiety,
he weeps at the endless requiem protocols,
he grieves at history’s long cruel impropriety.
But he detects his promise in human need,
our struggle against forces of dehumanization,
our commission in communitarian creed,
our hope in human family realization.
Awarded second place in Poetrysoup "Grace and Solitude" rhyming poetry contest sponsored by John Hamilton.
Categories:
cortex, grief, hope, humanity, military,
Form:
Rhyme
I hold myself a prisoner
A captive taciturn
Unspeakable enticement still yearning
Since coming of age to discern
Yet never knowing
Except in part
The fullness to overflowing
In the cerebral cortex of my heart
The heart knows reason
Which reason does not know
Inoculated by truth a lie will weaken
Like the dawn of a child in an embryo
For this the battle to bring heart to speech
In mind, for one to live oft' another thing dies
It's the delicate balance when determined to please
Suspended between fulfillment's death and the giving of life
The beauty of a fractured symmetry
Where thinking heart meets mind
To know this elusive camaraderie
Perhaps in a world in eternities time
So I see myself in another life
Where sorrows hold no interest
A wistful smile proves transparent
While intensity conveys my signet
Warmth and wrath bear equal zeal
But I, an antithesis in perfect balance
A lonely vagrant thronged by faces
Embraced by insipid attachments
As honey brines by way of nectar
In homes fashioned with wax
Void of every ignoble stinger
Known to propitiate the diffident task
Thus so masked I travel still
The duplicitous road yet shackled
Until my tongue finds clemency
From the demons my mind embattles
Categories:
cortex, caregiving, conflict, deep, emotions,
Form:
Quatrain
Entering the cave of a wide open mouth
Pulling on the slippery uvula
Reaching for the nasal cavity
Taking a breath before leaping for the eye socket
Where I view the world that plows the field of future
Then taking dirt road veins to a house on 123 east Sycamore
Where Under the bed in my room is a cranial box of treasure
Opening the box exposes the parietal cortex
A single mother loving four children
A family of five on welfare
A mother in and out of the hospital
A ten year old boy visits mom on Sunday
A confused orphan on Monday
A mother enters holy sleep at thirty-five years of age
I love you mom
My son KJ often asks of you
As I close this box and return to the dirt road of veins, now paved
My moist cave will echo, only the love of a mother
=======================================
I miss my mother on special occasions in my life, and often wonder what things would be
like if she still lived? However I have been blessed to have known her and I live a
prosperous life for which I'm thankful for.....
Categories:
cortex, family, mothermother, mom, love,
Form:
Free verse
Love is the blueness of the star sapphire sky
Where the moon bathes upon the indigo oceans
The tenderness of your voice and charismatic cry
Echoing ecstasy's of your ethereal emotions
Love is the strumming of a celestial symphony
Where our hearts pulsate within the violet vortex
Your embellishing embrace an eternal epiphany
The climatic creations of the cerebrum cortex
Love is the exchange of enamored energies
Minds that merge and mount the multi-verses
A sacramental succumbing of salacious synergies
Amidst the nebulous clouds where love immerses
Love is the continuous continuum of you and I
Holding hands beneath the deep sapphire sky.
March.03.2019
What is Love
Sponsored by: Silent One
Placed 1'st...Thank You
Categories:
cortex, blue, love, sunshine,
Form:
Sonnet
11/29/2015
Idioma
There is a man with a gun.
His finger taut,
tensed and still,
the intention obvious,
no reason instilled.
Because guns kill people.
Or do people kill people?
I can never remember.
Let's take a look at entropy.
A molecule hits a molecule
hits a molecule and
BOOM - a bomb.
Thousands dead.
More on the way.
But of course that's a bit clumsy,
seeing that entropy's remorse
only marginally taps the
frayed edges of something,
Atomic.
So what stops it?
Science might tell us
Energy.
That’s a bit broad though.
Come back to the man with the gun.
Naturally he's drunk,
and not a man,
an adolescent.
Waving the gun -
the weapon in your face.
He points it at you.
So what do you do?
What can you do?
One might pray
and hope his hand is stayed,
for in the land of entropy learned helplessness breeds
Power.
And the masses will pray and cower.
Some might fight,
or fly,
in instinctual flurry.
But these options are
few and far
too crude for more, sophisticated tastes.
So this sophistication leads us...
Ah, but sophistication sounds so posh.
Let's instead call this
Order.
And so you order,
Yell,
or speak,
rather;
yelling is so harsh.
You speak,
maybe even
whisper.
You don't want to antagonize this
kid
willing to put a hole in you
- you in a hole -
covered by the thoughtlessly certain curtain of
uneasy infinity.
So you,
oh so subdued,
whisper,
Please.
But a simple please
has never gotten
anyone anywhere
worth being,
so you follow up with
a more firm
Stop.
And in his inebriation,
the most powerful
being in your world stumbles
upon a moment
of lucidity.
His finger slips,
sending a .45 caliber
bullet - lead some might call it,
but this is grossly anachronistic -
into your frontal lobe
and out your cerebral cortex.
Enter.
Exit.
An open system.
Because in an entropic world,
Language languishes in its ephemeral rags
and is wasted away by greater things.
Categories:
cortex, fear, language, power, science,
Form:
Free verse
The way
words fit together
is kind of a ritualistic measure,
where word
and verse
flow rythmicly
to the cerebral cortex
stimulating
endorphins,
and hormones
to cause a response of choice.
You can't think about
how they go,
it's all in
the way that they roll
out if the mind
and on to paper.
You see
it's kind of like
a mathematical equation,
this blissful creation,
but they're not all about
beautiful things,
I write with destructive potency.
I can create
a morbid dreamscape
that can flow into the mind
and reek havoc,
when its strong enough
I'll make your brain spastic,
turning in it's own juices,
squirming to end the atrocities
that your not reading,
but feeling.
Categories:
cortex, on writing and words,
Form:
Bio
Written: March 28, 2024 For Edward Ibeh Contest
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It is a myth that time cures any wound,
It is merely what people say and sound.
When the wound was simply skin-wide,
No reply may occur due to decay sighed.
Oh, suffering of not being able to die or live.
Such a wounded sigh to endure and strive.
Feeling numb and wounded, sighs escape.
My heart churns—overwhelmed by a scrape.
Pebbles embed in my brain cortex.
Amorphous swirls provide a raw vortex.
Oh, suffering of not being able to die or live.
Such a wounded sigh to endure and strive.
Assessing a child's stomach on baking day,
Those smitten by love share anguish and decay.
Fail to express love or even heart grief.
Charmed in a state of anguish and relief.
Oh, suffering of not being able to die or live.
Such a wounded sigh to endure and strive.
I perceive kismet as a formidable antagonist,
One could not despise his rival or protagonist.
That amazes everyone—upon slaughtering me,
Who slain me, or who carried out such butchery?
Oh, suffering of not being able to die or live,
Such a wounded sigh to endure and strive.
Let's devote the night to the wounded.
Their bodies are battered—rise to be subtruded.
Whispered to no one, cleanse of their scars.
Wounded sigh in killer room as dusk dew parse.
Oh, suffering of not being able to die or live.
Such a wounded sigh to endure and strive.
Those who have been wounded by his arrow,
Those who were scathe sob in love, thrill shadow.
Wriggle on the rug with love and reverence.
Heal wounds themselves, hurting its severance.
Oh, suffering of not being able to die or live.
Such a wounded sigh to endure and strive.
Head over to celebrate with them tonight.
Love may seem corrupted—they cry fake sight.
If they shed fake tears—their love isn't divine.
Believers never act wildly or display mood signs.
Categories:
cortex, appreciation, bereavement, voice,
Form:
Rhyme