Best Garbled Poems
PS - IT’S POETRY
Not merely words laid on a line
by blotting pens, by pencils fine
nor forms in perpetuity
teased with ambiguity.
It’s more, or less, depending on
the time of day, sunset or dawn
forever of the present mind
seeking what it cannot find.
For beauty is an “ugly” thing
a constant poets rarely bring
to broken lines of unfreed verse
to garbled words both sweet and terse
and yet it finds a way to bloom
across a page, throughout a room
crisp roses that will never wilt
petaled words - poetic quilt.
So write, erase, delete, reform
the present now become the norm
and you, the poet, must be free
‘cuz after all…. IT’S POETRY!
John G. Lawless
©12/8/2021
Her smile was lopsided, crooked
And her eyes had lost their shine
In a wheelchair bound and broken
Sat this mother dear of mine
Once the one that they called “Sunshine”
Now was bowed with grief and care
Garbled speech and eyes unfocused
Made the people stop and stare
Yet in this woman there was hidden
Beauty of the rarest kind
Love for God and for her family
Love for words all graced her mind
She was brave and she was noble
Took the falls and burns and smiled
Knowing that her child, a daughter
Lived with fear so justified
People did not see the beauty
Hidden in her crumpled form
All that they could show was pity
Perhaps that is just the norm
But in her dear withered body
MS had so brutalized
Was a mother’s lasting beauty
That her daughter eulogized
Once a flower brightly blooming
In the garden of my home
She remains my flower ever
In the memories where I roam
Eileen Manassian
I grew up knowing my mother was ill and that she would eventually die due to MS. I lost my Mama on March 19, 2000. I still miss her...Her name? Angel. That was my Mama's name. When she was younger, they used to call her Sunshine because of her dazzling smile....
More poems I've written about my Mama:
http://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/may_17_429673
http://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/my_mothers_daughter_480741
http://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/march_19__464436
http://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/i_remember_you_443028
http://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/the_hypochondriac_429384
To be blocked, it’s black and white or grey as a rock.
You can exist and be present, like floating particles in the air,
no mudslinging expressed but someone will make it their nosy affair.
Then a block, no valid reason for them to act like an angry cock!
A childish act of them trying to grasp a little control,
But they’ll end up acting like the biggest troll.
Past behavior often predicts their present one,
it’s only a matter of time before they’ll run.
I will never use my control to cowardly block,
instead, I'll enjoy reading real poetry around the clock.
Not AI generated with flowery alliterated words,
Or full of garbled rhymes that are just plain absurd.
For months I’ve partitioned – sectored my strife
Trying to determine – wrong from the right
Clinging to bits – healing the bytes
Moving and changing – formatting new life
My career crashed – with it my dreams
Memory erased – circuits burned clean
Connection to love – garbled and crossed
Power was fading – all color lost
A new system needed – more power and thrill
New creativity – speed and the skill
Designing new backup – restoring my line
Application of will – turn tables on time
Tap my known current – discarding old woes
Erase obsolete system – vanquish all foes
Move to the center – empower self trust
Stun all the comers – lightning fast thrust
No longer lie down – and wait for the call
Stand up and fight – pin them to the wall
Knowing I’m better – than any machine
Time to arise – from a protracted dream
And so I forgo – all advice of claimed best
Listen inside – put myself to the test
It’s hard but I’m winning – getting better by day
Pain is less troubling – I’ll continue this way
I learnt a lesson well today on how good hygiene works,
and how sometimes it doesn’t pay, to gain professional perks.
It was Mick the barber’s little lurk that put up this dreadful case …
I’ll never trust another soul when shaving whiskers off me face.
The local footy club had organized a social ‘do’,
on this Friday night that I had bought some tickets too,
where me wife and I will manage, to get half full and skite,
but I had to get a haircut to look half decent for the night.
So I knocked off picking apples at around a half past four,
and drove off to Mick the barber where I sat and waited for,
my turn to sit down in his chair and that could be a while,
as there are two ahead of me, and the first has little style.
His hair was long and rank and by his whiskers it appeared,
he hadn’t shaved for quite a while, so had a stubble beard.
Mick clipped his scissors through the hair; saying as it gently fell,
“Once I’ve finished with your hair would you like a shave as well?”
This fella gave his face a gentle rub and then he quietly speaks,
“My razor can’t get close enough and leaves a shadow on me cheeks,
Would I be wasting all me money here?” Mick gave a cheeky grin,
“No, not at all, for I’ll fix that” then reached inside a bin.
Mick picked up this wooden ball and fingers rolled it with his thumb,
“Just place this in your mouth between your left cheek and your gum,
I’ll pass the razor ‘round the contours and when yer feel yer cheek,
yer won’t even feel the stubble if yer don’t shave fer a week”.
I watched Mick do his business and by gee you know he’s right,
the skin is looking more like silk and not a shadow is in sight,
then I saw a frown come on the face of the fella in the chair,
and in a garbled voice he sort of spoke with some despair.
“This bloody ball keeps rolling ‘round, and I can’t follow it,
what happen’s Mick if just by chance that I swallow it?”
Mick wiped his razor on a towel, then filled the bloke with ‘horrer’,
“Just do what all the others do - and bring it back tomorrer!”
A friend is like a radio receiver:
fine-tuned to your heart's frequency.
And who is uniquely able to decipher garbled broadcasts
redacted by embracement: and encrypted by fear.
Ignoring the ubiquitous white noise:
a friend, instinctively blocks out the interference
that prevents others from receiving
subtle messages, your heart is sending.
Communication is the key to understanding:
understanding is the key to friendship.
A friend doesn't wait to be asked:
they volunteer their time and always go that extra mile.
That is why a dog is hailed as Man's best friend,
they don't judge or criticize: they wag their tails,
and show you how happy they are to be with you.
We decided to take a walk.
If the moon and stars still existed,
they were hidden behind clouds.
Then a fog hit us like a wave, a cloud
that had run out of gas and crashed on us,
to further shrink the perceptible world.
Ordinary, walking people became vague
phantoms that could loom, in film noir
black and white out of the fog,
suddenly sharpen and colorize,
only to disappear again in moments.
Sounds, out of sync, or garbled, came sharply
from odd angles, turning that fifth sense unreliable.
Noises, at first muted, were abruptly amplified as
if the hand of that ghostly vapor ran a soundboard.
A man, moving in stalker-like silence, clops,
like a clydesdale on cobblestone as he passes close.
I half expected a distant fog horn to announce
the passing of a ghost ship where all be welcome.
There’s magic on the tungsten sea
That brings forth spittle in waves
Like giant sheets of paper uncurling
On a table.
There’s magic in the carrot sunlight
That makes pale skin warm and silky
Like a peach that softly meet’s the
Lips of a beauty.
Impossible is commonplace when mind
And world collide and magic conjures
Idle musings .
There’s magic in the breeze that carries
Distant garbled voices muffled by the
Whooshing waves I hear in the giant
Sea shell.
The year I became seasick
I lived in a bungalow on the edge
of a wilderness moor.
The sky and land
grappled together
for supremacy of my soul,
Inner dogs whined,
my eyes were portholes
where cats watched
the turbulent dance
of garbled mind waves.
I had to leave a wife,
but knew I could not swim,
couldn't drown, nor float.
I stumbled across high wind-woven gorse,
ghosts crying through my hair.
in the end,
the crashing sound of breakers
smashing against cliffs
made me vomit, I staggered
choking still
into a pathless night.
A cloud garden had to
wither and bloom,
toes had to learn to grip
ever shifting sands.
Time whittles,
it sharpens the bones of your throat
until you can consume
the stale and the fresh,
while riding a moon crazed
rocking-horse.
From sounds heard on eardrums
and hair cells in the inner ears,
we refract and warp their tones
into sound shadow puppet-plays,
in the mind’s disc-jockey's booth,
picking and choosing what to keep or lose,
softening hard edges, to time-warp what we can bear,
bending the ear away from dissent,
replaying covers of old favorites
when we refuse the unfamiliar.
The unwanted drifts into static noise,
we switch off midway,
we look away, hands over ears—
we laugh to force a chorus line.
We get up and dance
to shake away the doubt now stirred,
quick-stepping away sideways
to avoid toes being crushed,
when what’s heard moves up too close—
too close to the bone.
“That can’t be true.”
“Can’t apply to me, surely.”
“Where did you hear such nonsense?”
“It doesn’t really matter anyway.”
“Enough already—OK.”
Midway, the call we're on
strangely is made to fade,
it seems to breaks up—
"Sorry you've dropped out"
"It's garbled"
"Say again, Speak up"
Or the soundproof door
quietly, gently swings shuts
before the message is complete.
Interrupting:
"Yeah, that's Right"
"I Know what you mean"
"That's so True"
"Everyone Agrees, Sure!"
We know what we like
the home disk jockey to spin:
old favorites,
covers and tributes
echoing into sound shadows
along narrow self-worn and self-torn
protected shadow lit pathways.
What creeps in space beneath the Elder trees
where time exists unfettered misting shore
that haunts and howls yet never says what for
as unborn twins that rot in garbled seas?
Whose breath turns stale an autumn mystic breeze
then speaks of life remembered ripe with gore,
of lust and death all stemming from a whore
who swiped a card to pay her selfish fees?
When rolling fog turned damp the summer air
while moon-lit skies exposed a mother’s tomb
then infants torn in half made heartfelt pleas
that fell on deafened ears which didn’t care;
The slain that rest now freed from Satan’s womb -
What creeps in space beneath the Elder trees.
he rubbed his eyes
and said you just think that way
so you always have an answer ready
which may well constitute
a state of pure entertainment
with multiple jaw grinding orgasms
in a dog lick dog kind of world
at Cathode Ray's tanning salon
so what would it really take
for the union to lay down with the banker
I'm not sure high above the clouds
is the place to find anything
certainly not a mirror to be had
much less a cinema projector
with scenes of domestication
good god Reginald where
do you plan to put that thing
Reginald sneezed his false teeth
into his dinner plate as an augury
probed prodded palpated
looking for the intelligentsia
in the yellow pages
but they were yellow and didn’t stand out
their attempts to overthrow evolution
led to a cornucopia of calamity
at the crossroads of conundrum
traded their thumbs for a reliable statistic
the atmospherics garbled the transmission
and made anyone look like a prophet
left my friends hanging from lamp posts
adulterers heretics and infidels
cataleptics ablaze with legend
trained by biblical harlots
tending their hornet infested gardens
avoiding the irredeemably antique
and inexact to a criminal degree
in the war between belief and certainty
my script supervisor just pulled the plug
he's not from Sesame Street
he's from Bastille Boulevard
the artist is bait and accident prone
opaque as an 8 ball at high velocity
caroming through every nave and vestibule
bladder control found again
in the midst of bourgeoisie panic
a meditation of involvement
I'm going where
the disorder of discovery is tolerated
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
Artist Portfolio: http://walteralter.byethost32.com/
I thought to give his description
and tell why I want him alive.
He often causes adventure,
my life took a certain nosedive.
Standing, he’s five to six inches,
a bent toothpick he calls his bow.
He shoots tiny pins like arrows
and he chants garbled words for show.
His claims make love everlasting,
‘specially on Valentine’s day,
‘twas last year I called on his name
so right now... it’s better he pay.
No man came my way as promised.
His pin shot some pig in the ass.
Chanting with alcohol bubbles
started fireworks across the grass.
So please, help me find this Cupid.
The smoked ham and bacon is gone.
Insurance covered fire losses.
I’m ready for love to come on…
The debate between free will and fate has taken a hard right
turn to neuroscience, Brodmann area 4 the primary motor
cortex of the brain located in the posterior frontal lobe
(the one cut out of the one who once flew over the cuckoo's nest).
This area of the cortex has the pattern of an homunculus!
a little man, a troll, the all-wise, mandragon, the golem of Jewish folklore.
This little man has a that, when fully engorged, is
equal in size to his entire body. However, diseases
such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Huntington's, Lou Gehrig's and
Creutzfeldt-Jakob
are gunning for him. His basal ganglia are garbled
and he ends up giving poor advice and making bad decisions.
Who can say what happens to his soul or cells or if all will be given or
well?
I was listening to the famous astronomer on public radio
who expressed the certainty there is no death, your soul
is immortal, it exists outside of time (but not space?). That's because
time exists only in the human mind (as does the universe
including the professional baseball season which is canceled when
you're dead).
By Spring, my problems will be solved or ignored, either way is good.
Groundhog holds the knowledge of death without dying
for man needs help from every creature born.
Will the holocaust wipe the smile off the face of our romantic comedy
or will laughter outlast the outburst?
About the dark times will there be singing?
Yes, there will be singing and some of the songs will be sidesplitting.
Solving the murder reveals the city. Nature of kinships and economic
sustenance,
who loves whom and why, when things happened and how they lost
and found themselves
in what happened. Because a meter-making argument cannot appear
from nothingness, purposelessness, just cold.
He does not go where he was supposed to go. He is in the desert,
Sonoran desert, counting cactus buds and ocotillo blooms.
This is the afterlife for which he has always longed.
Memories of a love I’m losing
arrested thoughts on sculpture paper-
an altered photograph, adorned
by hand cut leaves, evergreen shades, and lace
From the page emits, cricket songs
drifting to gloaming, and on and on
into my own mandarin twilight.
I adjust a pair of glittered wings
to your thorax, twiddle them
these symbols of your intending flight
Next, I place a crumpled love letter.
its text, garbled by smeared on gesso
Covered so no one will guess the message-
except, perhaps where a small spy glass
magnifies, I LoVe YoU- I LoVe YoU-
High on the page a bluebird brightly sings
10/28/2013 10:17 AM