Best Exorcised Poems
"The Theory of Positivism"
It’s criminal
all theories tie that life
in neat tight black bows
the presents under
that tree of life
wide spread
arms once wide open
now closed
are presence of mind
essence embedded
in a heart shut tight
pumping blood cold steel
silver bullets
tutorial delivers the student
an exercise exorcised
in a class room
all glass barriers
broken
revealed in sharp shards
by observer
with scientific mind
articulated
strings
unravel irrationally
Love is the Key
that opens
and locks all doors
Irrevocably
no tears shed at weddings
future turns it back
on past tensed
were there
weddings
question mark
in time
sealed
official
red wax
stopped
Survival
reflex
temporal
hushed
yet
revealed
Pull the Trigger
(LadyLabyrinth / 2021)
“Remember Us” / Aqualung feat. Sara Bareilles
https://youtu.be/J5Ecrt96ojo
Assessment, 2.
How can we “cure” deviance when psychological positivism has many
distinct and conflicting theories?
https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/ccj230/chapter/4-6-positivist-criminology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positivist_school_(criminology)
https://www.bartleby.com/essay/The-Psychological-Positivism-Theory-On-All-Of-F3EBSL9CPLL5
trigger.
https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/trigger
LYRICS/ "Remember Us", Aqualung feat. Sarah Bareilles
https://genius.com/Aqualung-remember-us-lyrics
A dead man’s boat
rowed itself from isle to isle,
dragging its dead man in its wake,
partially submerged, their tether tenuous,
yet somehow never broken.
Past The Isle Of Reeds,
where the slaves had been freed
from the crack of their master’s whip,
and their master, with great resentment,
would be exorcised of the malice
that he had so slavishly curated.
To The Isle Of Defeat
where it was fortunate to escape
the ruthless jagged rocks,
its dead man did not escape,
but in death was spared the agony
of the broken bones and lacerations.
Painfully close to The Isle Of Cleansing,
adorned by sands and rocks made new,
freshly crafted for their arrival
just moments before their arrival,
but the dead man’s boat
would not surrender its dead man.
To The Isle Of The Precipice
where gulls and albatross
sullied the ancient cliffs,
the boat stared up at them
but gave no thought to climbing them,
its dead man may have fallen from them,
perhaps in a better life.
The dead man’s boat
left the isles
and returned to open waters,
it’s dead man dragged in its wake,
together to sink in time.
27th March 2019
icy daggers serrated his chilly mind
memories sharp as polar bear’s claws
wielded reminiscent evocation in pain
how he longed for selective amnesia
heart and reason at war with the enemy
a battle only to be won if he surrendered
to inevitability that conflicts were useless
unless of course they concluded in cease fire
his father had fought at the Russian Front
which left his own upbringing out in the cold
no Potemkin façade could melt the chagrin of
twelve years of Germanic menace and madness
both of them prisoner to emotional deprivation
trans-generational transmission of trauma in action
it was bitterly cold in the heat of many a moment
and icicles festered in the young brain to be formed
shape up they said – fight flight or freeze
food for thought no doubt but what about feelings
many winters have passed and the old man is dead now
took many secrets and memories into his grave
the boy now in his sixties decided he needed a snow man
carrot charcoal eyes and Che Guevara’s bandana
collected drift wood from a beach of forgiveness
and danced around the bonfire of exorcised hurt
until permafrost yielded to fire and passion in time
he had been his own antagonist for far too long
Drip
Drop
Water drop cascades under sapphire afterglow
Undoing 4 month deprivations
Muffled moans surround crimson fireplace
Crackling of fire
Thrusts of skin
Retinal vibrations shutter her pilot light deep within
She ascended to blue moon heights
As embers of his inferno
Bow in collective unison
Maddening grips
His fingertips draw triangular markings
Hugging curvature’s hip
Gentle bites on lower lip
He tackles her wanton hands against waterbed foundations
Her strengthened pupils reach out for 3rd eye clarity.
She asks for his dance under aggressive whisper
As he dips
Inside
Slow motion Salsa bends of her will
She crosses legs marking “X” against his spot
His relinquished hands
Slalom her vocal chords toward accentuated heavens
He exorcised her trembling inner thighs
From collapsing octaves
With eloquent, muted exhales
His hand reaches her cheek
His mouth descending towards her breast
“My lady, put that lighter down,
Let me be your cigarette.”
Drip
Drop
©11/19/2013
A Scorcher for Charlotte's contest. (Update: Tied for 2nd place. Nice!)
You’re not good for me
You’ve just got to go
You’ve brought me nothing....
Nothing but sorrow!
You’ve sapped all my strength
You’ve tortured my heart
You’ve crushed my spirit
You MUST now depart!
You’ve splintered my wings
You’ve wrung my soul dry
You’ve fed my mind’s beasts
You’ve made your girl cry
I’ve tried those potions
I’ve tried the fake priests
I’ve followed the rules
I’ve had sacred feasts
What else can I do?
What chant can I pray?
To exorcise you
There just seems no way!
You’ve made your own home
So deep in my head
I’m obsessed by you
Tormented in bed
Get out! Please, Get Out!
For I must go on!
Be exorcised NOW!
For my sake...be gone!
When I am all clean
With no demon trace
Then....
Posses me once more
With your angel face!
Eileen Manassian Ghali
Scared of a shadow
Scared of the phone
Scared of the dark
And being alone.
Will you come and get me
Break down my door
Lying in the dark
Footsteps on the floor.
Twenty years of haunting
A voice inside my head
Hiding
Remembering
A life-time of dread.
Contentment and happiness
A life that you don’t know
I’ve exorcised your ghost
It’s time for you to go.
Rationality exorcised,
Culturally terrorized,
Freedom lost in the blink of an eye,
Federal coercion,
Statewide indignation,
Selling flag nooses for resuscitation,
Christianity stifling,
ISIS plea-bargaining,
Embracing flawed ideology without even reading,
"Societal oppression",
Active aggression,
Against the bystanding citizen and the egalitarian opposition,
Educational revisionism,
Internal terrorism,
All in the name of matriarchal Marxism,
Gender criminalized,
Youth institutionalized,
Submitting future generations to intellectual genocide,
With a porcelain mask of pseudo-benevolence,
You spew lies and propaganda demanding executive orders of masculinity's temperance,
So with societal lynchings,
Your dogma is breaching,
The foundations of animosity,
Into the world of pure insanity.
Famed gold crepuscular rays angling down
Knifing in between, through volcanic haze
Hualalai and Mauna Loa’s crowns
Fire Goddess Pele greets fresh island day
Fuchsia blooms explode, steal attention
Pollens mingle on zephyr coastal breeze
Hallowed entry, this tropic dimension
Surf thunder backdrop, soundtrack of the sea
Running shoes crunching the roadside lava
Kaleidoscopic blooms, soon to transmute
Mango, papaya, lilikoi, guava
Untended harvest of paradise fruit
Slow tempo set to the island perfume
Soul dances in the fragrant sensation
Unbridled speed would be this journey’s doom
Not to give in to the exultation
Entering town, the cast of characters
Pungent whiffs of spoiled fish atop stale rice
Green Shangri-La’s dingy inheritors
Tropical Bukowski's frayed paradise
Amphetamine native, drawn skin and bones
Wincing eyes, loose grasp, cigarette homespun
Tribal markings long burnt, faded blue tones
Completed journey, dark side of the sun
Manicured denizens clutter the way
Fair guests at the Royal Lik’a’Heini
Young surf seekers grimace to greet the day
Pakalolo Hostel, skunk-and-briny
Volta at the pier, Triathlon’s temple
Hallowed asphalt, footfalls of history
World’s smartest man living life so simple
Broom pushing, tune whistling, smiling at me
I should run faster; it's Ali’i Drive
Temple of Ironman’s Marathon pride
Vainglorious dreams have boiled alive
Burgeoning pace, a seaside suicide
Fair breeze has halted, sharp rays now reigning
Blanket of torpor fights progress forward
Through fragrant pillow, all fight is draining
A ballistic migraine arcing southward
Demons exorcised, sultry purgation,
Epic journey ends in clear sacred brine
Feet dive in wet sand, a bless’t sensation
Gaia’s ocean of sweat swallowing mine
4/28/16
© Thomas W. Quigley
Quaint bells of symphony,
swelling over
vast corridors of the mind
filming scenes from remote past
in kaleidoscopes of living colour
strumming..
with virtuosic intensity
on mind's tormented strings
reincarnating
exorcised demons
undressing
raw putrefying wounds
rusty hinges creaking noisily as
grating shovels on ice
skelenton closet swings eerily open
creatures baring hideous teeth
lay siege on my sanity
and haunt my sleep.
Punk is not dead. It was never alive.
We stitched it together from mangled parts
with contents we poured from inconstant hearts
in our basements during bleak nights.
Finding in art the best ways to survive
a world beyond our vague comprehension.
Some wounds will never taste restoration,
some demons may never be exorcised.
We crafted this monster with filthy surmise,
with minds obsessing on rebellion.
Eyes that deny beauty in convention,
and hands craving vengeance and patricide.
With all of our collective contentions,
this lifeless cadaver is galvanized.
To know how it ends is a curse.
To know this curse is my life.
It's when I heard you say "life is hard", you spoke with such anguish, I could not relate.
For I too have discovered this truth, in all fairness I say "So what?", "Carry On", for although your accusation of
self-pity and tragedy is all consuming at the time, mine is forever or at least until the end.
To know each day that this condition exists.
To know this condition is eternal unto my end, is also to know that your anguish, to me...
Is nothing more than a momentary inconvenience designed to interfere with our time together, your pain has a
duality, it spreads from you and is exorcised only when it's debris has exploded from your anger and it's remnants rest on those around you, to me, your anguish shall always pale in comparison...
To my condition.
To know this truth is to be sad.
To know this sadness is my curse.
To destroy this sadness is my mission.
To accept this mission is my madness.
To live with this mission, this madness, this curse and this sadness...
Is my condition.
So I say this, with conviction.
Please.
Try to remember, your anguish is brief, a moment of pain, but for me...
It is my eternal condition.
Death's dark shadow
lurks callously near.
My precious love,
a mere shadow herself.
We shall treasure
these cherished,
coveted, idolized,
fleeting moments
that are left to us tonight.
Last few weeks,
a blur of pain
and desperation,
denial and anguish.
Tears crashing down...
a raging torrent
of hopelessness,
an ocean of agony.
Our love, forever exorcised
from this earthly existence.
Minutes, moments, memories,
ticking clocks, sunrise, dusk
Dragging my kicking,
screaming psyche, nearer,
and ever closer
to the exact milisecond,
when my beloveds breath,
life force, smile, twinkling eyes,
warmth, humanity, loveliness,
soft spoken words of comfort,
will cease, stop and end,
with the despicably cruel,
cold, heartless horror, and
excruciating finality of death.
With my Angels exorcised-
I Exercise my Devils
Daren't you guess what this implies?
In Evil doth I revel!
Shout and swear; curse and cuss
In the Bowels of Tartarus!
Sweet Lucifer! I do concur-
Heaven- it's just not for us!
Freedom is an alter ego like a mask
Behind which censor has no eyes, and balm its blood applies.
Poetry is my freedom when wings cannot fly
The pain of the arrow in my solitary eye ...
You wrote me as a poem, I write you back so I
Can write a poem that invite your poem to tea.
I sometimes see me in the mirror of words
And cannot recognize who I am
How many points of light forms my face alone
Making a fable on the faulty foundation of sense
Are these suppose to be revelations
For I have longings carved like a Grecian Urn
The stillness of that eternity frightens me
Like is a simily ... a wave of action towards a full intent
So many symbols, and everyone alienating
Why can't we tell truth in Images
Like eggs. A cycle from essence to existence
And through all the purposes of each motion
Phases of a common solution?
Mirrors are not reservoirs, you know, they preserve nothing
Let culture preserve what it will
My art shall do the selecting of what the will must be
For I must preserve truly if only preserve me
And do not fear now, some conflict between you and I
That my preservation can be your destruction is such a lie
Broken mirrors make distinctions
A thousand shards point their image at a single eye
But feel, when you cannot see
Feel the universal solution ... for we are only solutes
In the solvents of our meaning
You and I the tangents of a simple circle converging
I love the breaking of isolation
The conversation dissolving us again
Into a common brotherhood, beyond the blundering pain
Our life is fragment of everything now
Politics, economics, physics, dreams and faith
Word is but a mirror before us, the senses little gates
The mirrored shadow has only one moral imperative here
To haunts us till we make it right
I exorcised the ghost that bind us up with fear
And long to break the mirror too
And feel my wings flying in the perfect nothingness.
Wait for me, brother. I am coming too
Swinging on a beam of star, sipping on love's dew.
Measured in unmeasured meter
Defying our partition into syllables of spoon
Rhyming to mate a synonym exactly to the moon
Everything in this solution is never abstraction
Never more a ritual of dump imperial traditions
I shall break the mirror then, the first act of our liberation
And the water shall turn to wine.
Ramblings On A Winter's Day
© Ben Burton
Of all the words that have been written
And all the words yet to be writ
Few will count, most will be canceled
When time records the final answer
Without paean, rhyme, or wit
Before Old Sol makes his transition
Displays the sign, "Closed for expansion"
The final breath will be approached
From a bird, reptile, more likely, a roach
Primeval forests won't make a sound
Since consciousness will not abound
Or exist at all
To hear that tree fall
The good, the bad, and in between
Quiet laughter, tortured screams
What's it all about, Alfie, anyway
Who's on first and where's the corn flakes
We decide, no they decide
Whose safari gets the guide
Hope and change as advertised
Hope for mankind exorcised
What of the spirit, yea, the soul?
The twentieth century knocked them cold
Man is but the smartest mammal
Education through the Learning Channel
Discovery, Science, Nat Geo, too
Where ancient beliefs were never true
Celluloid shape-shifting mores
To the left of Sodom's fearless forays
God and Christ a running joke
Knaves out punking guileless folk
Too cowed by PC to revolt
Elites created their own lord
Skint the flock they didn't abort
And raised a toast to global warming
In aeons, it should be alarming
Shed no tears for mass extinction
Utter chaos knows no reason
Yet, somehow, formed a grand design
Without an author, no mastermind?
In truth, a black hole has more purpose
Than a rabbit-hole world forlorn and rudderless
Where Chicken Little has the final word
Because the righteous lost their nerve