Best Indeterminate Poems
A view of the ragged woodland from
The window:-
Slender branched trees that shed
From high above to low below;
The faint, mauven peaks
Smattered with barely visible
Scatterings of drifted snow;
Across the matted undergrowth
A bronzed carpet of copper coloured
Leaves
Whose rusting hue,
Momentarily ignited by stray
Sunbeams weakly smouldering,
Briefly refurbished -
Deceives with all the colours of a
Rainbow...
From vibrant red through to shy
Hints of indigo;
Those vague outlines indicating
Receding hills;
Here, arising, long ago, every waking
Dawning,
The creaking structures
Of groaning and imposing mills;
Soon a slow thawing that quickly
Spills
Into the trickling replenishments
Of many gushing and silvery little
Rills.
Enchantment gripped me!
And I found myself wistfully
Thinking...
Maybe, perhaps, maybe, somewhere,
Just behind where the great
Flattening Orb
Is now rapidly shrinking,
That I might, by perchance, find,
If I did so hope to bravely dare,
To happen upon a hidden and
Sedentary way of life up there?
That, forgotten, has turned its
Back on the social conflicts
Plagued by the curses of ingrained
Vice;
Encumbering a soul with its petty
Squabblings,
Imposing upon with demands and
Avarice...
When placing unnecessary burdens
On a honest bodies daily call
Of grinding toil and wearisome
Strife!
And still stood,
With hands outstretched upon the
Painted sill,
At the waist half-bent,
Now troubled by quiet mutterings
In an inexplicable sorts
Of self-imposed discontent,
My staid consciousness almost
Unawares,
As, momentarily distracted,
I hesitated, and, unseeing,
Inattentively stared...
Until...
A ragged chapter of cawing Daws,
Loudly jabbering overhead,
Suddenly wheeled -
And upwardly soared!
Whereupon, in murderous haste,
Awkwardly fled
When laboriously stealing away
Back inside the stubbled fields...
Thus causing me to slowly straighten;
Whilst, with a singular heartfelt pang,
Liken a moorland mist slowly rolling
Over
That indivisibly conceals...
Drew shut the sullen curtains, which,
Heavily embroidered with indeterminate
finality,
Dejectedly hang...
Each draped aside of the cold
Reveals.
A quiver
a nod
the slightest toss
of her hair
A purse of her lips
a shy crease
playing at the edges of
her sealed mouth
A gesture
imperceptible
a moment's tilting
of a finger
The most
indeterminate
of steps
forward now
Stop
heart
await
Fun time and flight
A clock from Salvador Dali warped and draped in place
surreally oozing the minutes from birth to demise in a
landscape of our own making of how we narrate life and
the story filled with passion love disappointment transition…
Paintings of words and brushed colours danced song
oiled voices splash meaning fly along our journey for
when bells toll time-pieces chime ‘Chronos’ floats in
remembrance anticipation flights of fancy and escape…
Strange and humorous those days past realigned by
the present one blink and the moment is gone while
the river flows around us never the same as time stands
still and ticks just the same cascades the rapids of life…
Sequential on one hand of the clock times counts and
alludes to one thing leading to other like a winged relic
of reasoned emotion with intuition significance left behind
intervals measured and quantified like delusions of science…
Can ‘Kairos’ the indeterminate yet permanent quality
of en-lived stories and en-storied lives of narration and
lined context fly just the same when epiphanies last forever
when what matters most positions the other hand firmly…
Time journeys meanders along the path both forward and
backward remembering the future and changing the past
that is how both ‘Chronos’ and ‘Kairos’ move neck-breaking
speed’s painful arrest when Dali’s meaning melts us together…
It seems funny how and when times fly or when we placidly reason that
our perspective is moving and not the clock after all
05th October 2016 flying past or is it?
When I was a child,
horses raced across my consciousness
like storm chased clouds.
They sprung from my crayons
onto a blank pages,
horse words filled reams of paper
in my exercise books.
Every book written about them was worn,
read and re-read,
stained with dirt from my grubby hands.
I schemed,
prayed to gods-indeterminate,
to have one of my own.
On screens of black and white,
their images smudged, movement’s jerky,
manes and tails flying,
hero’s rode into myth.
They were magical
in an un-magical world.
A world of loneliness,
an earthquake world,
where each step
might lead to nothingness,
a gray concrete world
of uncertainty and pain.
The dreams of a little girl
who would seek them
at fairs and carnivals,
where poor ponies stood patiently,
look for them along the road
during our many moves.
Would find them in any town
we stayed in, however bleak.
Would work all day at a barn
just to smell or touch them,
joy of joy to be able to ride one.
I knew that each one was a safe place to be,
to hold all the love I could give,
with my arms around their neck
my head on their shoulder,
not once rejected.
Impermanent and fleeting as it was,
I knew that they were a safe haven.
...for Hart Crane
From dark to light transfusing in a flash,
your silver-sequined mystery
that breathes new electricity,
it shines where none has shone before,
this trembling luminescence,
through waves refracted with your sheen
yet show no movement readily,
no broken sea reveals your rippled hand.
Layer upon layer endlessly,
the waves preclude all semblance of your face,
and roll, so indeterminate their swell,
that light cannot quite penetrate the gloom;
and sun and stars no energy can gather
to clarify your loveliness for me.
Yet in the dusk your light still lingers,
bright and undeniable, the mystery
still haunts my dreams and will for evermore.
Written July 05, 2025
*************
I am anchored when I am a garnet,
The mineral topaz when I shine.
A midnight fantasy of moonstone,
This precious gem's spirit is mine.
Emerald ideas are proliferating,
Within the gardens of my brain.
As opalescent moods still fluctuate,
With indeterminate strain.
I illuminate, akin to a glass prism,
When elation continues to rise.
A Sapphire flame symbolizes justice,
Increasingly irritates my eyes.
When shadows start to thicken,
I don the obsidian stones' grace.
And allow the illumination of jasper,
Restore equilibrium in my living space.
Each diamond carries a whisper,
A truth that I have been able to flow—
This even caused fractures in the facets.
Still catching the dawn glow.
I evolved from stardust,
With spiral galaxies to approve.
Should you perceive that sparkle—
You are stardust, companion, and groove.
one night i dreamt i was surfing in cyberspace &
many images flickered in Adobe Flash
with every movement made, every keystroke &
slide of the mouse to & fro,
i hadn’t a clue (in real time), but i knew
that there were centillions of digital footsteps
being made with every moment
leaving their print upon the world within the screen
(still outside my own physical self)---
while my own history could partially be brought up
manually on my PC, i knew that
every phone call, every movie watched & every second
spent on the web,
had been recorded somewhere,
being held for an indeterminate amount of time &
unlike those nutjobs who say they had a
“near death experience” &
their lives flashed before their eyes,
i myself was fairly certain that
i would never come in complete contact with
this shadow of online presence.
this, however, did not bother me,
because whether my life was dragging down deep in
the gutter or
flying up in the air by the seat of its pants,
i was grounded in the cooling light of backlit LED pixels,
which would be with me until my dying day
(or until i became one with them in the future).
and there was no conversation with my PC,
because it was not a capable artificial intelligence
(as of yet) & therefore it had to abide my own human
error
(alas, PC, i pity thee) &
unlike the fictional “lord” of those religious idiots out there
walking in the sand,
it did not “speak to me” when i was down on my knees
squinting to myself with hands clasped
(um, for i wasn’t),
conversating inside my own head
hoping for answers to questions
to magically arise from my own fragmented,
severely delusional &
quite obviously
bat*****
mad
psyche.
no, there was no made up excuse
for which this human had to look to
in order to alleviate responsibility for those things
that are the most absolutely horrible
which all of us humans have done to each other,
the world around us &
to ourselves,
but rather
only quality time spent
between myself & my computer,
which had evolved from a less impressive model to its
current state,
but which would be outdated in a few years &
get scrapped for a better one,
until its own superiority
surpassed my own &
i needed to become one with it---
then, there would be no
digital footprints at all,
for they’d all be
within.
for George
"You always said you had little invisible friends,"
He wrote in a Christmas card one year, and Yes,
funny he would remember that. I called them Shovel,
Hoe, and BicaBacaBoca, all of indeterminate gender,
like Arial in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," beautiful
like that, and mysterious. Like the Bard, I now
consign them to the page. Reborn again.
My Navy hero, he sent us letters in brown V-
Mail folders, wartime paper and postage efficient,
and in one for our pianist stepmom, the lyrics
and music to "Lili Marlene." As for pin-ups,
he never owned up to Betty Grable's fabled legs,
her teasing over-the-shoulder glance, aimed toward
GI's everywhere, though there was the obligatory
tattoo he could never erase after sailor days, bluing
like Popeye's down the inside of his right arm.
Pacific time brought reward, some misfortune:
a bout with tuberculosis in Bizarte, Tunisia:
a year of recovery in a Naval hospital at home,
painting by the numbers, waiting out the time.
But, there was a hero's commendation from his
commanding officer for "aid in evacuation
of the wounded, and bringing the vessel into
port after torpedoing."
The ship, LST-3, earned two battle stars
for World War II service. Decommissioned
and struck from the Naval Register, it was sold
for scrapping, 10 September, 1947 - the year
I graduated from high school.
He was not sold for scrap metal, nor sustained
any. He came home to his sweetheart, and his kid
sister -- you know the one. That's her in a middle
row of the Ritz movie house, the one crying
while "Anchors Aweigh" plays after the War Bonds
trailer to the image of a warship, plunging
valiantly on a faraway sea
The bus station is empty,
three hours to wait.
The girl behind the counter,
long black hair hanging in ringlets,
stares lazily as we approach.
"May I help you?"
The homeless man wanders in slowly,
takes a seat on the opposite
side of the room, facing the wall-
escapes through sleep.
Hours pass; would be travelers trickle in.
An addicted people-watcher,
I observe, intrigued.
A young couple; hands joined,
hug, touch, smile. The girl
constantly moves, poses,
her curves displayed
by form-fitting fashion.
A tall man; work roughened hands,
weathered cowboy boots, one tote bag,
and a look of determined purpose.
A tiny black woman holds herself erect,
steps briskly. Hand-knitted hat
covers gray hair. Spike heels
augment her height and full-length red coat.
A young white man;
two silver rings in his eyebrow,
wearing a black leather jacket,
faded [slightly dirty]jeans and flip-flops
asks, Who won? and laments
that he is too young to vote.
A woman of indeterminate age;
orange bleached hair,
clothes bedecked with glitter,
talks in a loud, rough voice.
Does her manner mask
a vulnerable heart?
As departure time approaches;
the ticket line grows long,
the empty metal benches fill,
groups stand near the door-
luggage piled at their feet.
I watch, knowing that I will not
pass this way again, and muse:
There's a life story for each one,
a book which may never be written.
Hard Rock Candy bandit,
Desperado of the Country Club
Fever pitch daydreams wait in line
For heathen sacifice to your hunger.
Foolish mortals - all of them - to beg...
You are a star triumphant - singer of the latest,
Greatest song...
You are the heart blood of acceptance
On the trigger of your gun...
A natural phenomenon glittering in shards;
A veritable weapon
Pointing towards the Sun.
Glossy 8x10's line the room in which you sleep
And dream of paranormal men..
Await the future dining on erotic violence...
And oh...the dreams...
Hypnotic, languid hours of indeterminate meaning
Where reality has no prescence
But one compelling voice
Raised in anger...
And chivalry is not a word for children
Whom the World would lull to ignorance
While the World caters to the negligent....and the cruel.
Someday this World will know you.
Someday this World will know how real you are to become...
And past the void beyond the last dark dream
Your script awaits completion
....In the bottom drawer of a cherry red spaceship
Shaped like your favorite car.
And the dreaming...
And the dreams of sheltered sweetness...
They still abide in patience.
Don't you know, sweet silly child
Hard Rock candy bandits
Always win......
I usually trust easily
In consonance with my faith
I believe what I do not know
Listening for you to tell me go
Over the fence of ignorance
She was one country
I should not enter blind
Yet waiting indeterminate
Must also be a proof of faith
From dark to light transfusing in a flash,
your silver-sequined mystery
that breathes new electricity,
it shines where none has shone before,
this trembling luminescence,
through waves refracted with your sheen
yet show no movement readily,
no broken sea reveals your rippled hand.
Layer upon layer endlessly,
the waves preclude all semblance of your face,
and roll, so indeterminate their swell,
that light cannot quite penetrate the gloom;
and sun and stars no energy can gather
to clarify your loveliness for me.
Yet in the dusk your light still lingers,
bright and undeniable, the mystery
still haunts my dreams and will for evermore.
Going Somewhere
Somewhere is another bizarre place to be,
especially if didn’t know how you got there.
Somewhere qualifies as another special
metaphysical indeterminate like nowhere.
Generally, we’re all going somewhere as
part of the greater space-time continuum.
In our earthly mortal world, daily points of
destination are readily known to each of us.
This is part of that tangible-known world
that each of us as human beings conform to.
One’s inner psyche, on the metaphysical plane,
may experience something entirely different.
What was once a “tangible-known” on this Earth,
may be that “intangible-unknown” of somewhere.
Space and time define us all in our human world,
whilst the terra firma of Earth is our palpable surety.
After dreaming deeply one night, who knows, maybe
your soul might become resident in that somewhere!
Perhaps your new presence in this realm of somewhere,
like being in nowhere, is your preordained karmic strife.
If this isn’t the case, then by cosmic fate, you’ve now
unknowingly found yourself in another dimension.
If this be so, then praying to God might be of help, since
He knows that somewhere is out there in the Great Beyond!
Gary Bateman, Copyright © All Rights Reserved
September 7, 2018 (Couplet)
BLUE EYES AND BLACK FLESH MESH TO COP DOPE
The smoggy air was thick atop a Harlem high rise
The only thing out of place was a boy with blue eyes
He was a youth in search of peace not found at home
And so the boy with blue eyes was begotten to roam
He ventured forth into a world of darkness to search
Having long ago been abandoned by school and his church
Neither religion nor education could comfort him so he took to the road
Headed afar from the comfort of his family’s hearth and abode
So there stared blazing blue eyes on a rooftop’s domain
As he talked to a man with a way to ease his pain
Thirty dollars and a smile would send him on his way
And so he returned to Harlem day after damnable day
Long Island had raised him but that island wasn’t long enough
And middle class madness left him with sadness to rebuff
Day after day he’d climb the stairs to where they would meet
A tall black man and a boy with blue eyes trying to be discreet
The black man sold his wares by dollars and a bag
The boy with blue eyes fearing his toes with a tag
Because in Harlem death was an indeterminate threat
And a boy with blue eyes had better pay every debt
Sometimes the air was thinner during winter’s cold weather
Yet and still the two faced fear while huddling close together
Harlem was his teacher and a rooftop was this junkie’s incubator
And writing this poem is blue eyes still with a habit forty-three years later
© 2012….copyright PHREEPOETREE.....~free cee!~
To begin with
Solidity is a mental illusion
The world always had its holes in it
We have no end, only confusion
Change always is indeterminate
O, but where did we begin again
Don't you see
The beginning was just the effect
Of the preceding cause
So now you agree we met before
That was tomorrow
But I cannot remember what you will be
Memory has a hole in it
And the pass is falling out
Like stars, one by one.