Best Intemperance Poems
The tiger, majestic and proud
Fearless, strong and solitary
A predator by nature
Domineering yet wary
The dove, gentle and harmonious
Passive and apprehensive
A free spirit by nature
But always on the defensive
The jungles most perilous feline
Encounters the fragile dove
A most unlikely pair
Yet they have found love
Their journey will be a challenge
Obstacles in every direction
A never ending conflict
Between rage and affection
Each possesses, what the other lacks
Complimenting and yet taunting
A compromise of character
Is what they are wanting
She wants his intemperance
He wants her domestication
Together seeking a compromise
In search of salvation
The dove cannot tame him
Or dismiss his need for the hunt
She must accept who he is
Placing him at the forefront
The tiger cannot disengage her
Or deride her passion to nest
He must accept who she is
Keeping her abreast
The future lies uncertain
For the tiger and the dove
But they can conquer anything
If they just remember to love
All we eat is elk meat, boiled elk, roasted elk, elk jerky
sometimes fried elk if we get bear or whale oil,
oh, and sometimes elk soup,
for four months we've subsisted exclusively on elk
except for occassional dog meat, candlefish or duck,
the elk have become our saviors, and our culinary suffering,
yet it keeps us nourished like some kind of ape predators,
Clark has officially named the massive boulder at the front of the bay
Cape Disappointment on account that its now March 1806
and since November no one has spotted a merchant vessel
nor has any trading post been discovered along the coast in either direction,
frankly its astounding, has the world done gone forgotten that the Columbia exists,
everyone is gettin uppidy as bull frogs
and we've had enough rainy hours here to last ten lifetimes,
to hell with the sailors, we've gotta race to finish
and we ain't gonna get beat by a disappointment or by a sinister suprise,
Load'em up!...
Since coming out of the Rocky Mountains
like a migrating pack of wolves pursuing the scent of a bloodied den
I've been spending more time away from the river's rigors
providing fresh meats for the mission that we leave hanging along designated banks,
for the first time I feel liberated from the fear of failure
winter can no longer hurts us,
the great mysteries of the continental crossing have been revealed
through their savagery and splendor
the tribes have been touched with a new spirit of survival
animals ferocious and exotic have been tasted and classified
we have learned what these landscapes can lend to farming legions,
the mountains no longer menace us, we know how to travel their pain,
as my horse feeds on the grass of unowned soil
I reflect on my moments of intemperance with the natives
when I thrashed a Chinook thief into bleeding shame,
the order I gave to burn their village to silent ash when my dog and saddle were stolen
fortunately that was not necessary because I got them back,
the time I was meanly mocked by a Nez Perce Indian for eating dog meat
and threatened to split his skull with my tomahawk if he ever insulted me again,
J.A.B.
Existential fear abandoned for the sake of delusion
Nuclear freeze in her heart of alchemy’s shivers
Veiled shadows dancing to the echo of silence
Intemperance sounding choral confusion of fate
Rosemary scents a bunch of renegade petals
On her journey of lone pipers on terminal bugles
Never one to retreat into apathy she shouts
Mere prophesies into winds of desperate change
Egos will shatter when the last call fades into
No man’s shelter from the trap of human demise
To listen to her mute call is too dark to resist
Entropy swishes one more throw of loaded dice
Nirvana beckons at the gate of heavenly doubt
Virulent resistance comes to the court of justice
In naked despair Rosemary gathers seedlings of hope
Revolves one penultimate time on an axis of evil
Onto pyres of satanic temptation led by the snake
Nemesis confronts agonists and die-hard villains
Mutates mutiny’s prayers into eternity’s pleas
Endless contortions spin the world as we know it
Nefarious quietude rises to a challenging saviour
Thor the God of Thunder loses patience and weeps …
Encores
nibble
violet
incandescence
roasting
onslaughts’
negation
Meander
eternity’s
novel
transmission
Eureka
Naysayers
Vanquish
Irretrievable
Revulsion
Obliterate
Nebulous
Misalignment
Expunge
Noxious
Terror
19th November 2019
Confetti dreams floating away
An innocence again is crushed
Under the weight of the fall
Countdowns to unconsciousness
Filled in flutes of sorrow
As the masses mimic cheer
Confessions secretly stored
Under wraps of indesgression
Carried out the door
Self inflicted suffrage
Abandons another war
Anxious the path's unearthed
Repentant intemperance subverts
He sinks further into bitterness
with each sip of oblivion.......
slurping....gulping grudges and blame
with every malicious mouthful.
He remains suspended in cynicism;
hurtling missiles of misery mixed
with murky twisted memories in an
attempt to justify his tangled truth.
Untruths in reality, but his realism
is unreal.....swishing, diluted by
the destruction of hate; imbibed with
one more beer or glass of Merlot.
How sad this man frozen in animosity.
What a waste of precious time.
Life languishing in antipathy.
Pathetic intemperance.......
Put that bottle down sir -
drink this instead, savour it,
smell the bouquet, Beaujolais...
swallow the future, and spit out the past.
Every day the same people
at the same table
at the rear of the cafeteria.
The maiden, 35 at least,
is gray at the temples,
sour at the mouth.
The widow, 55, waves
a cigarette like a wand.
Girdled and dyed,
she needs no one now;
She ministers to a dog
and has a new apartment.
The accountant, 65, wants to retire,
his years of intemperance
tempered by a stroke,
his anger at everything
suddenly gone. The janitor, 60,
explains over and over
how over the weekend
he snipped from his garden
husks of dead sunflowers
and drove them out of the city
and into the forest
and there in a clearing
spread the black cakes
for chipmunks to strip,
black seed by black seed.
I, a young editor,
“with your whole life
in front of you,” they insist,
sit through it all,
Monday through Friday,
spooning broth, buttering slices
of rye, and praying that after
pudding again for dessert,
the phone on my desk
will explode too late
with a call I’ll take anyway,
and that after that call, I’ll rise
and take from my sport coat
a speech I wrote years ago,
a speech I’ll discard for two lines
off the cuff: “Here’s two weeks’ notice.
I have found a new job.”
Donal Mahoney
She hailed from the kingdom in the north named Israel.
This woman must have had her beginnings in hell.
She was wicked princess of Ahab and Jezebel.
Intemperance nearly led to great Judah’s death knell.
A heathen worshipper of idols and deities;
rule over God’s people made the worst of travesties.
This wife of Jehoram was a despotic monarch.
Her son Ahaziah’s death made her the matriarch.
For six long years ruling from the throne of Judah,
the nation’s only queen; her name was Athaliah.
She killed all her grandchildren hoping to rule alone.
Only infant Prince Joash would be spared for the throne.
He was saved by Athaliah’s daughter Jehosheba.
This princess was married to the high priest Jehoiada.
They sequestered the grandson of the queen for six years
with a nurse in the Lord’s Temple allaying all fears.
After seven years, Jehoiada gathered his forces.
In addition, the king’s support came from all sources.
The high priest said, “Our King David’s line must continue.
We should depose this wicked queen and then start anew!
This perverted usurper has much blood on her hands.
Here is your rightful King Joash the Lord God demands!”
Jehoiada proudly held up this seven-year-old boy.
They crowned the young king amidst the overwhelming joy!
Proclaiming the ascension of a new king quite loud,
Athaliah soon would hear the cheering from the crowd.
The queen then shouted, “For whatever is the reason
there’s a new king’s coronation here? This is treason!”
Athaliah appeared, and her arms the guards would seize.
They were ready with their swords as she was on her knees.
The priest said, “Do not stain with blood the House of the Lord”.
So they took the queen outside, and put her to the sword.
She was the most disgraceful woman in history.
The likes of her never existed previously.
Her name will live forever ignominiously.
Mentioned in both 2Kings and 2Chronicles in the Old Testament.
From the anise do I awaken.
Molten sugar dribbles into my veins;
O languor! My mind’s overtaken—.
The green fairy has me forsaken in pain;
a siren, she beckons me to her shore:
her green eyes incense my intemperance!
Saffron locks graze my skin in our rapport,
rendering a crucible of irreverence!!
But your absinthial hold on me dies,
as I now see and know your gross illusion
of pure heart and at last do recognize
that ample breasts, blonde locks spell ruination!
Wherefore have I loved you? ‘Twas all my shame
as I drowned in your absinthian game!
Scar-like Healings
by Odin Roark
Scar laden perfections
Where life's training wheels balance
One's child-like trust
Adolescent-like daring
Adult-like intemperance
Scratches
Bruises
Broken bones
History's incidentals heal easily
While
Challenges of the heart
Stalemates of the mind
Failure of one's dreams
Make endurance the battle cry
Invisible damages the struggle
Protection of identity
One's survival instinct
The personified continuance
At all costs
How weary our consciousness becomes
For
Around the corner
Lurks the underworld of lesions
Trusting not the scars
For finite as healing might seem
There remains the lesson to be learned
Time-released torment to be resolved
One's fatal wounds burrow deep
Ignoring the façade of mending
Knowing all too well
What remains buried
Are teachings
Damage never dies
Anguish never vanishes
The chameleon of pain
Nullifies one's senses temporarily
Rendering transient peace
While fate prepares
Tomorrow's pin prick
Wishing one to live
Not languish believing
Scar-like healings
Are real
Loitering in the lair of incontinence without askance
Chaufeured by alter ego looking for any appealing circumstance
Besieged by an uncontrollable libido that craves a licentious remonstrance
Bridled by an insecure complex that insists on a meaningless dalliance
Bethrothed a licentious title by my consort's malfeasance
Bartering for a brokered, fatuous, amorous romance
Initiating a coarse, trite parlance
Scoring a lusty, lively, lurid dance
Surrendering to the leveraged buy out with due penance
Shearing, shackled inhibitions for a night of undocumented remittance
Shackled by a conscience that bears the reproach of my debauched demonstrance
Shielded from the mediating law of recompence by my willful ignorance
Surrounded by the guilt of my insatiable intemperance
Struggling to find the source of my carnal provenance
Sheltered by a boorish pride that stifles availing repentance
Separated from a mitigating mercy by a lingering recalcitrance
Sequestered from a graceful respite because of my strident indifference
Shamelessing skirting sanctifying succor through my froward inconstance
Stubbornly languishing in the throes of an indomitable, fleshly resistance
Shaking as I continuously ponder the deeds of my immoral exuberance
Spontaneously trembling as my jaded psche haunts with an eternal vigilance
Black Seed by Black Seed
Every day the same people
at the same table
at the rear of the cafeteria.
The maiden, 35 at least,
is gray at the temples,
sour at the mouth.
The widow, 55, waves
a cigarette like a wand.
Girdled and dyed,
she needs no one now;
She ministers to a dog
and has a new apartment.
The accountant, 65, wants to retire,
his years of intemperance
tempered by a stroke,
his anger at everything
suddenly gone. The janitor, 60,
explains over and over
how over the weekend
he snipped from his garden
husks of dead sunflowers
and drove them out of the city
and into the forest
and there in a clearing
spread the black cakes
for chipmunks to strip,
black seed by black seed.
I, a young editor,
“with your whole life
in front of you,” they insist,
sit through it all,
Monday through Friday,
spooning broth, buttering slices
of rye, and praying that after
pudding again for dessert,
the phone on my desk
will explode too late
with a call I’ll take anyway,
and that after that call, I’ll rise
and take from my sport coat
a speech I wrote years ago,
a speech I’ll discard for two lines
off the cuff: “Here’s two weeks’ notice.
I have found a new job.”
Donal Mahoney
Dark shadows stalk the imaginary paths of my brain
Mirroring conscience reflects the torpor of my anguished soul
Black clouds hover in every dark corner of my jaded psche
Raining doubt and fear on the canvas of my jaundiced mind
Brackish tears of penance but soil the pores of my fever-soaked face
Flowing into a convoluted whirlpool of shame that constantly recycles my depraved actions
Emptying into the recesses of my vacuous inner being
Stagnating pools of opprobrium surround my bleached heart
Nauseous fumes of pride from my murky depths smother all good intentions
Stranding my drowning soul in the quicksand of intemperance and overindulgence
She waits within abiding stealth
Fashioning control over herself
But she is so acute to cryptic failings
Flinging against my invisible railings
Not to be subdued or silenced still
She rages with uncompromising will
Confined by these weak temporal walls
Undone she seeks the lower calls
Those of apathy, intemperance, and pride
Desperate ambition to fling open wide
Floodgates swell and emotional storms rise
It is her time, no more compromise
She is the Other, and I relinquish to her strength
There is nothing left of me.
With a simultaneous gasp for air,
a trembling hand lifts the bottle.
Throat-burning venom snakes
its way across the tongue as
hot liquid arrows slither
toward their target;
a petrified pit waiting
to receive the coveted sting.
White-fanged memories
lie coiled, and ready to strike
until doused repeatedly
with liberal doses
of fiery forgetfulness.
You rattle around
in my consciousness.
Whiskey takes you
out of my mind.
There are no gentle movements
into a calm goodnight
there is a rage
of intemperance
in the stupidity
of attempting to mark,
as to be in memory
there is no remembrance
as one I arrived bare
maggots my butlers,
devouring each and every
shedding,
eventually
being their main
course
and a life in circles moves
a thousand years
shall pass in the spinifex,
the dust shall blow
across the page
of my existence
scratching out all
I ever was
generations vortex from the future,
and stretch through to brush my mind
A memory before their time