Best Irritant Poems
For PD's Collaboration Contest
August 28, 2015
By: Eileen Manassian
Thank you for this string of pearls
What a beautiful sight!
Right?
Yes.....a sheer delight.
You look surprised!
You gifted them to me
Can't you see?
This beautiful pearl tapestry
Exquisite jewelry!!!
One by one....
They came to be
A word, a look, a gesture....
Each one...an irritant
You slipped into the softness of me
So....unobtrusively
You forgot to set them free
As for me?
I had to survive
Had to stay alive
Forged from what pained
My nacre tears rained
With each silky one
I spun and I spun
Now...I'm all done!
This necklace you see
YOU gifted to me
****** ******* *****
The pearl you wear,
Can't be compared
The inner beauty
Your shell gives
A surprise you gave
Upon my face
Blind by beauty upon your grace
A jewel not easy to trace
Perfect in every way, you trend
Hidden deep
Beneath the sea
Grains of sand lost peacefully
Your strength came in a form,
While being intruded on
So precious, breathless
I needed more
Layers of nacre
touch my greedy hands
A pearly tapestry
I gave my loved one
You shun away, giving shine
The Mother of Pearls
I rest my case!
~A Poet Destroyer Collaboration~
There is always
a dull longing
that goes unlabelled
and hangs a layer or two
below a joy, a pang
somewhere in the soul
that can't be coughed up
or cut out, just endured.
A nonsense to the skeptic,
no more than perhaps
a twitch of an evolutionary
relic left unemployed within
the brain, now ossified
into an irritant jumping
across the boundaries
of our troubled sleep.
Whatever its origin,
it's always there
be it a hollow left in our psyche
from an umbilical when severed
by God or a buffering problem
in our brain,
the longing never leaves.
We try and quench it
with beauty, love, art
and myth but it remains
unfulfilled, as if a speck
of the infinite resides within
us all, that can absorb
everything we have
and then ask for more.
It is not all about us
It is all about me.
My feelings, my hopes, my dreams.
Get out of my thoughts; you take too much time
You are begging for attention
Annoying me
So I run toward the hills
To be alone, with my best friend, me.
Your ads come on TV
Begging for this and that.
Begging to live. Always begging.
You are an irritant. I flip off the TV
If I cannot see you, you become unreal
Everyone is unreal now as I hoard and sit
By myself with a boat-load of toilet paper
Not caring in the least about you or your needs
I am not totally happy with myself
But at least we agree among ourselves
Most of the time and this is more than enough
Keep your poverty and your illnesses to yourself
I will not open the door
I will not open my heart.
It is all about me.
Saving and preserving myself. Get it?
Sambhavami yugé, yugé, says the Gita:
God will come back again and again.
What for?
Of course to protect the virtuous
And destroy the evil doers.
Déjà vu!
The Jews seem to wait for the same end.
That’s what 'The Second Coming’ means, too.
Thus, a belief system, whether born in a Desert
Or a River Valley, seems to point to the same end—
The Coming.
Now, what do we do in the meantime—
Now that the end seems to be infinitely distant,
Elusive, mirage-like?
Do we just wait and suffer?
Or wait and drift?
Or dismiss it as illusory?
Or explore alternatives?
The gap, anyway, seems
To be a period of entropy,
Which, according to scientists, is on the rise.
We may call it Postmodern era
Or Kali Yuga or whatever.
The gap is to be filled
As Nature abhors vacuum:
We have to live in the meantime
And life demands solutions.
Absurdity, for instance, has got to be dealt with.
So, little narratives
And interventions arise by necessity.
There arise, for instance, Irrational Philosophies:
A Nietzsche or a Marx or a Freud
Appears to be our Messiah.
But these Messiahs can offer only palliatives,
Like a counter-irritant in times of pain.
We are – most of us – materialists in a sense,
Inasmuch as we bank
On the Grand narrative of matter
Or on the Grand narrative of the material presence—
Of the Divine in the future;
Maybe as Darsan or Epiphany.
To most of us, seeing is believing;
And hence our incredulity.
Now, to speculate:
The Divine presence may be abstract—
Rather than concrete;
Maybe something like software
Rather than hardware;
May be within
Rather than without.
And, as such, is likely
To be always already there—
If and only if one is willing to see!
***
Scurrying across the ocean floor
leaving faint tracks in the sand
moving sideways to go forward
nothing mapped or even planned.
The sand is always shifting
ever changing the terrain
all creatures are in hiding
misdirected or insane.
Go on and on forever
waving claws in wild defense
abandoned ocean creatures know
that none of this makes sense.
Seaweed waving, beckoning
hypnotic dance of death
trust not the grinning clown fish
blowing bubbles with their breath.
The ancient crusty oyster shell
protects the tender meat
a grain of sand the irritant
spits pearls in mock defeat.
The current is relentless
overwhelming constant motion
and serenity's unheard of
at the bottom of the ocean.
For people enduring inescapable pain, especially for my husband
"Pearls are formed inside the shell of certain mollusks as a defense mechanism against a potentially threatening irritant such as a parasite inside the shell, or an attack from outside that injures the mantle tissue." (Wiki..)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl
A shell endures pain for a long time, and produce a beautiful peal.
Peals are very precious in the Bible. The merchant of the Bible sells everything to buy a pearl.
You are so precious and so beautiful because I know you have been suffering and enduring for a long time. You still have much pain which you cannot escape from. I can't stop crying, because I can't do anything for you.
You are physically weaker but more kind and understanding than before. You can feel for people's weakness more than before. You know how to comfort me and others. That is the real strength not everyone can obtain.
I know one day your pain will go.This is the hope we are waiting for.
let's get one thing clear
stimulant
or irritant
I'm here
and I'm not going anywhere
It will take more than a few hash words
laced with lemon
and dipped in piss
to deter me
from saying my piece
An
itchy
speck begets-
a mother of
pearl.
Nightly they give thanks
With uncanny stealth they close in
By the scent of carbon dioxide
Drawn to a table
well prepared in the presence
And, of their enemy!
Endlessly raped and pillaged
In my sleepless sleep I wonder...
These gluttonous suckers
Fattened by my blood
Part of his creation
The Lord called “good”?
In pain I wince
Each fine syringe pierces
My tender flesh, deep
Irritant music in the air
On every drop they feast
Yet, thirsts unassuaged.
Once beautiful,
Smooth and hairy skin
Now badly diseased
So bitten, almost leprous
Slumberland nightly denied
By nocturnal roommates.
Tonight is of reckoning!
Doors and windows; open
In droves, welcome.
Dainty meat in abundance
In this open feast.
And with my insecticide
Vengeance will be mine!
Mom told me once that
Her cat's eye necklace
Was a favorite.
There was something about it
That filled it with glamour.
Years later I learned it appealed
To her because it was chatoyant.
A few decades ago,
Every ingenue was taught
That pearls were the ultimate.
Pearls are formed by
Layer upon layer of
Soft nacre.
Nacre is excreted
To protect the mollusk
From an irritant.
The process is truely
Ineffable.
Minors of tanzanite
Dance with glee
When they discover
A large one.
To watch them is to
See a sight,
They are clearly
Lissome.
Emerging from the mine
See another glorious sight,
Mount Kilimanjaro.
If minors for tanzanite dance,
Then those that search for
Chrome Diopside
Let out a mellifluous sound.
Because of the intense
Cold and snow in Sibera,
The mine can only be reached
For a few months out of
Each year.
To choose one of these gems
And wear it well
Might be considered demure.
To wear them all would
Certainly be cynosure.
But we haven't yet talked
About the pinnacle.
The diamond
is formed when
Coal is exposed
To extreme pressure.
But that's ok,
It's the pressure
That makes it
Sempiternal.
Does anyone know the
Lore of stones?
Are any considered
To be panacea?
Written for Silent Ones vocabulary challenge.
Where the Grass Don't Grow
The historical record bared to see
In worn-torn pages, undecipherable.
And I’m to believe that this sum total
Will explain everything you say to me.
Mixed with phlegm spewed from the esophagus,
Spitting in my face like a rhinoceros,
That means nothing more than that goat in the field,
Whose skull is thicker than the ape’s you entail.
Beat your gums and wave your arms frequent
And act the fool on steroids to impress the simple;
Regurgitating words and acting stupid,
Like an awoken irritant that won’t exit.
Where the grass doesn’t grow, but the “you know” will.
And the rooster struts, and the hens cluck,
And the dogs bark, and the pigs are smart,
And the sun shines on my behind, in kind.
On the last evening of a wonderful weathered
summer, flitting between the branches
of our rowan tree and the Chinese wind chime
that some like me hear a sound almost divine
while others hear as an irritant in an English
garden, a young male blackbird with yellow
beak chirping - four, three, two, but rarely one
note and as the Prima Don in the opera of the
evening waves its head and wags its tail so
belligerently at rivals thereabout, whether
birds, cats or me, weathering our courage.
I Search For Equilibrium
O I have given more to thee
Than thee hath given back to me
But rattle on thy prattle proud
For I be soft where thee be loud
And those with holes that burrow deep
Can hear thy ***** pitched voice so steep;
An irritant to mine own ear
But new to those who choose to hear.
And I begrudge thee not your choice
To listen to her ***** pitched voice
But gather not her blather bold
Her words are crystalized and cold.
She catapults her weighted steam
Across the sparkle and the gleam
Of yonder pond filled full with trout
That dive and dart with every shout.
I search for equlibrium
In this and that consortium
Once shared with my adoring spouse
Till rumbled mumbles filled our house
And madness forced my own retreat
Away from all that was so sweet
When youthful truth was easy found
By two whose love was lifetime bound.
THE RELUCTANT
by Mark Miller © 09/19/2014
We are the living seeming stillness willful we endure
Through vows of contempt to never surrender
Vacate questions fly by trees terse unknown
Retreat or follow the terminus term less
Momentary pains unheard retort by shallow useless
Redound prismatic dreams latter stray trust
Natures vacant way redresses selves pose in us
Pernicious waves enter ancestors unearthly graves
Today's rays show muses midriffs ghastly craves
Stealthy mending blindly tenuous mendacity
Humorous make believe entertains cryptic insanity
Friendless unbound plays acts shameful indelible
Mindless conceit surveys noiseless hostile handily
Downward deadlock hours wither over certain irritant
Moonlit nights stare down reprisal in winnower's other
Fury's insight fortify fearless worry nowhere
Repress paths repugnant reptiles past broken paths we honor
Reconcile wrath's subterfuge insults spites the confessor
Splitting subverts imaged illusions rouges gallery succession
Accosted conditions denied serfs exalt failures procession
Recover the recreant disloyal sequestrate authority
Lucifer's sepsis addressed banished brotherhood of man restarts again
The irritant is caressed in the soft folds of a cloak
Layering it lovingly so smooth to stroke
The irritant becomes fit for King, Prince or Earl
To spend their money on a brand new lustrous pearl.
The spherical pearl of astounding beauty and form
Not man made or designed but from nature is born
From the mollusc a lowly bivalve, barely a good meal
This precious pearl is so beauteous that grown men will steal
To keep a pearl looking well it must be worn next to the skin
To keep the lustre shining bright or the pearl will grow dim
A pearl is a gem of much value, and a gem of much worth
Also a metaphor for a person, known as the salt of the earth.
© 10/03/2013 ~GG~