Best Partitioned Poems
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
Left alone, the abyss of failure
closes in,
for days it seems like weeks,
though months are now reduced to counted minutes
Coffin’d stances form the stoic barricade
which surrounds my hope
in picket lines of untrained defectors
I claw at its lid,
thrashing mightily to my sides
as collections of miseries
flood this chamber of my coerced sleep
“I am here!” I shout,
hearing my words
echo in distance dance halls
two stepping on my memory,
spitting above where I lie
Here - a relevant term
as columns of disbelief carve themselves
from my mind.
Forgotten, left for dead,
erased from the blackboard
by the firm swishing hand of fate…
reduced to dust (I don’t feel like dust)
Blisters climb my arms in search of answers,
none can be found here,
where ever the hell here is… yet, I am here
My brain circles the skyline in desperation,
the gutters below cry, trash strewn as if it were me
sleeping off my drunk
in that Frigidaire box
“I am me!” I cry to the empty corridors of someone else’s life
One I’d rather be
Or one who would rather not?
...............................................
Someday my file may lie open,
atop a desk,
a partitioned sanctuary of hidden ethics,
beneath the crumpled Cheeto’s bag,
now layered with orange crumbs and fingerprints
maybe someone will see
maybe still forgotten
The inventor of the number system and chess;
the originator of algebra, trigonometry and calculus;
with the globe’s largest railway and postal network
and second to none in the height of a bridge.
We speak of the largest government of, for and from the people.
Beats Israel, Egypt, Mecca, Rome and Greece
in the number of religious visitors attracted to its shrines.
The circumference of its seasonal experience
is well partitioned into six segments.
It is the major contributor in giving the world some spicing,
its currency and sharing are very big antonyms
while Meghalaya is confirmed to be the globe’s tongue.
Even with these medals and accolades,
it still struggles to give women enough warmth and comfort
Wrangled truths consistently warn
wrinkled ideals persistently withdrawn
blatant bargaining the hopes of the new-born
banned are the muscle and the fighting brawn
Attained and sustained consciousness abide
ardent and absolute realities adorn
slowly creeping down an unforgivable slide
slated by an over souring scorn
Red and black bandanna's revered
riled and vile of a rebel royalty
land of lakes and volcanoes leer
lost in furore of a forgotten loyalty
Partitioned by purity of parity
pride of blood begins to pour
cloaked in the simplicity of clarity
correlated and formulated by the core
Democracy left hanging and dangled
demonstration of a presidential dud
messy, madness forged and mangled,
mired, muddy and muddled in mud.
(Sandinista realpolitik)
We were one people, neighbours and kin
Before independence and the politician’s whim
In August’47, the brotherhood ended
The country was partitioned and we were independent
Democracy worked in India, floundered in neighbouring Pakistan
Victim to army rule and the power of the gun
And many a times since ’47, the two nations went to war
As defender of sovereign territory or blatant aggressor
A tenuous existence was Pakistan’s, to our east and west
Their land and race divide put this bond to test
The East staked its claim to governance on the people’s mandate
But unwilling to yield power, the West unleashed a campaign of hate
Aspirations muzzled after twenty four years, bypassing legislation
Saw the birth of a defiant East yearning for liberation
A hotbed of political activity, Dhaka University was targeted
It was spring that night in ’71, the campus was surrounded
Troops loyal to the West sealed roads under night’s cover
And shells were fired in haloed ground from battle tank and mortar
Shrieking death, it is said, arced through the sky that night
Exploding amid the campus buildings, in blinding flashes of light
Besieged and battered was the East’s cradle of intellect
A grim warning for the masses, March 25 was the date
Then ground troops with weapons of death silently moved in
To slaughter at close quarters, academics and their kin
As flames licked the sky from adjacent slums
Fleeing residents were mowed down by soldiers with machine guns
The stench of burning flesh filled the night air
As bodies piled on streets were set on fire
The sky glowed red that night, as Dhaka burned
The orgy in the campus ended after all found were gunned
The handful, who escaped death, shed silent tears
As ghastly fires burned to ashes, family and peers
for Alan Painter
I have put into many ports
labelled:
handle with care
stood on the wharfs, bare-shouldered
up to the knee, unloading
cashew and coconuts
and then set sail again
finding no substance to trade
with
I have seen the waters rising
and the walls submerge
the roofs converge
the children washed on
the battlements
I have heard the chasm cries
Stifled under jackboots
the whimpering against walls
lost somewhere
in the hoarse
Gött mit Uns !
Come home, she cried,
strappadoed
in the lap of jettisoning tribes
Come home, my weary ones
home to toil and die
labour and sigh
curse and cry
Did he not withdraw to that
holy backwater by Milan
and with the cup of his Confessions
bathe his horrent sins away
I listened to a story
that our first quarter
remembered to tell
but the waters of the Himavant
had long curdled
in the breast
of the suttee wife
I listened long
in the myopic light
disfigured in the white heat
of our Enlightenment
to the trapped voices of inquiry
before all the mania of demigods
trumped through the weaning years
in
the delirious lust of revenge
And then, and then I
did not care what happened
what could happen
there was life
it was worth having
So I went
labelled: handle with care
Who are those people
skimming past the mortal coast
torch untouched by hand
in the drowning mists
have they no work to do
And that rope of smoke
A troubling dizziness
rising out of the funnel
of the Black Forest
where professors they say
guide the race
in the aftermath
of charred marrow
tissue
brain
Yet
I see no mists, no ghosts
No coasts, only torches
and parades and blocks and blocks
of beering beef and munition mounds
and in the not too open days
froth in the lolling oceans
and bowelling brain-splattered skies
even like unmapped sunset glories
now the Krakatua lies spent
fished out of some Japanese isle
the false auroras of enchanting horizons
when soughing metallic dust
courses through skulls
lava in an epileptic fit
(...continued in Part Two)
Time And Space
In the class rooms from the very first grade,
we played with trucks and toys in the sand box
We learned side by side to read, write, and do math
At recess, we took to the swings and merry go rounds
We were just boys, so far removed from becoming men
For a long while, it was simply about friendships and sports
At seventeen, separation began as I set sail in search of my new world
Years passed and opportunities knocked; the space between us stretched
No one told me how time and space would separate our lives
Some of us went North, searching for a better life in The Windy City
There were a few who stayed close to home, in their familiar South.
Dreaming of sweet fruits, some went East toward The Big Apple.
And me? I went every direction until settling West, where eagles nest.
No one told me how time and space would separate our lives.
From 2000 miles away, I have sadly gone to too many funerals.
Does knowing the ‘pain of distance’ make a difference? Only God knows.
From a distance, I have gladly returned for far too few family reunions.
For nearly forty years, from The Golden State, I have visited family and friends.
But I have been partitioned from friends, unseen since early childhood.
No one told me how time and space would separate our lives.
06092016 PS Contest, Distant Things, by John Lawless
as things speed up
at an ever faster clip
they're ready to interrupt
my mind's day nondescript
to mark my thoughts - every tiny blip
and keep them cross-indexed
in a clouded database
kept in the current context
never to be erased
their potential to be raised
and analyze my standard deviation
modeled with statistical certainty
from the belled median population
with a quartered sense of urgency
of sole life's complete transparency
what part of me is mine alone?
can I keep my dreams to myself?
I don't want my soul to be cloned,
duplicated on the data shelf
to increase capitalism's wealth
now every helix of my being
every nuance of my movement
everything's stored just in case
there's a need to erase and replicate
start me all over, guaranteeing
that, like heaven, I'll always exist
on Earthly stored mirror reflection
transcending my own transcendentalist
to be sliced into conic sections
and see if both parts can coexist
partitioned into their own zones
mirror, mirror on the net, let us make a little bet
they'll make me better with a clone
to never give worry or fear or threat
how good can become better an' better an' yet
the supplications for more and more given
ever increasing the prophets standard
inside the chip a much livelier livin'
hooking me to be pimped and pandered
leaving me left in today just hammered
my soul duplicated - my mind and body too
click to agree to fine print, installation is free
downloading too many selves to look through
to know if there ever even was, a real me
turning high aspirations to the lowest degree - money
© Goode Guy 2012-07-17
the following sloop of words rowed and towed together as they
came into my periscoptic poop deck with slight emendation
from thee oar ridge in hull.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
along the atlantic, bruitted by cavalier indiscriminate jerry rigged
salient seaboard; adequately buffered, coccooned domicile, eman
cipated from gobstopping hectors, insulated joyfully, kept lodged
within this singular one bedroom apartment (courtesy sans subsi
dized housing facility named highland manor apartments); acqui
escence concerning everyday generalities harbors illustrious kick
starting mindfulness; oasis offering outlier pad; partitioned pathe
tic quintessential respite spans the vast webbed wild world; yoyoing
between deathly diabolical forces gripping heinous heavyhandedness,
imperiling, jettisoning kindled linkedin lumpenproletariat, malfeasance
masquerading mockery monger muckrakers - namely narcissistically,
nee nefariously, odious, pernicious quotidian rapacious treasonous
ugly viciously xenophobic yikyaking zealots; augments bittnerness,
cravenness, depravity, encourages fragmented government, highjin
xing investment; joint kindness kombats lambasting liberal minded
nattering netizens, obliging ogres poisoning, pollutanting; putrification
quality qualm queasy; quintessential rampant, re: reckless reigning
rogue ruination, sanity sapped, senselessness sic smiling spoiliation
stance swindled; tabloid tacitly tendered thru timbered torqued tutelage;
unfettered usurpation violates voices, vultures willingly wring xing
yawping zest axed; before catastrophe dedicated earthlings forced
gallantly; harmonizing heft, holstering, hoping, humanizing instant
aneous juice kegs liquidate manicical Messerschmitt motoring mow
ing natural nemesis; nickleback nincompoops, nodding nonstop op
pressing peoples pinterest, quashing rift righteousness relinguished,
sacred sangfroid sapped slowly, totalitarianism trotted tubby universal
vested worsted xfrayed yarn.
Part Two
one by one numbered they falter
stricken parted
mother from unborn still-born
ravaged lover from brother
now huddled they go
up the altar
now a grey veil
to bind the blush of brides
wan and bent
voyaging through no-man’s water
to weak to feel even pain
O for a job, a job
to keep me going
to fatten my woman
to draw a pension
And while we are waiting
Give me leave, my Captain
Give me leave
to go upon the shore
for the sails do droop and flop
in the shrouded past and I
may no longer see the breast
of my tarnished home-born door
Kritik der Urteilskraft
Are we all agreed on this point
Then clear the court for the Queen Mother
Yesterday's sister science
Throw out the precedents, no, not that one
Dust those three long buried in Königsberg
And remember, always remember
Here are no laws, make your own
If the wind will not favour you
Then tear down the sails
If physics will hamper you
Then paddle your way through
For
Here are no laws, only, you
You must go on and on
That's all that's left for you
Give no quarter
Discount not your enemies
Always on and on
For
Here are no laws
only
YOU
© T. Wignesan, 1957 (from the collection: tell them i'm gone, 1983)
They copied but we xerox
Our forefathers wrote letters,
Youngsters e-mail
Women were disheveled, disarmed,
Girls model, parlour, potter
Females rinsed,
Eves today mix, swish, swash,
Sagacious scholars counted on fingers,
eggheads now compute them
Birthdays were forgotten,
Today grand celebrations, cheer, spank
Dhotis, kurtas, sarees, blouses prevailed
Now Jeans and Tops , Mobiles and Masterminds
Distance conquered, world has been so piffling
a place to exist in
Gulfs within minds have been abominable
Dismembered, mangled, Crushed souls
Divided, partitioned, psyche; no unity of Being.
Born a Christian in the fertile womb of a blessed land,
A paradisiacal genesis for a continent chained to imperialism.
Genocides cascading beneath the crumbling altar of human rights.
They crucified my humanity
With demonic chimeras.
I have dragged my zinc coffin since birth
Across the minefields of these greedy philanthropists.
I carry the age-old weight of curses
Of my zombified people since the slave trades.
They do not want me to sanctify my traumatized Africanness
With the blessings of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
I am guilty like Jesus Christ
And innocent like the soiled hands of a child soldier.
I have never enjoyed the riches of my partitioned continent.
These scavengers have spread hatred in my people’s hearts for centuries.
My tormented mind is the vault of horrors
That the West has perpetrated in the cradle of my ancestors.
These criminals want me to curse Lucifer
As if he were responsible for centuries of dehumanization
Of my forebears in the Americas.
The devil will never be my enemy,
I have never met him.
Human savagery has nothing metaphysical about it.
My indelible scars are not fictitious remnants.
He called me a filthy *****,
He discovered the face of my love.
He will no longer have the courage to insult my genetic code.
I scourged him with the laws of the Code Noir
Of the Republic of slaveholding Enlightenment.
I share the same skin color as Osiris,
The same beauty as those colored pharaohs.
The journey is scarred,
The traumas, too silent.
I fight in the death row corridor
To remain a man of integrity.
To write the darkness of my feelings,
A liberating outlet for my demons.
I chose integrity in the meanders of precarity.
In another life, I would wield guitars
To escape the whims of misery.
Serenity, my only solution in this dimension.
I think of the reaper every day,
Like a man condemned to death.
The word was imperfect
and broken half way,
before it took it's shapes.
Sentences were incomplete,
and some fragmented.
The paragraph was not whole,
Many words were squeezed out
of gaps between the two.
Pages became mutilated
Chapters were partitioned
and unable to close down
The book covered nothing,
nothing at all
words flew away out of
my own mind
recklessly, abandoned
in the heavy wind
I stopped seeking
the lost meanings of
words........
sentences......
By
Williamsji Maveli
WHEN ALL WAS DARK
Sewing machine, long idle, gathered dust
In the antique I kept it for years to remind
How my mother used it in our times at their worst,
Stitched with love the family’s dress of all kind
To save money whose source had almost dried.
Beneath dust lingered the touch of her tired fingers
She left, to wipe that out I never wished nor tried.
Toiling hard to remake the displaced home, to her
The war years seemed like only yesterday
When the country was partitioned on dubious pretext.
Uprooted and unwanted we were made to stray,
Mother gave a safe mooring to the generation next.
When she fell sick one winter in her twilight years
I prayed, lighted a candle at deity’s altar for her sake,
Time didn’t wait for her, I saw with eyes full of tears
The candle sputtered, spent, and all was dark.
April 22, 2018.
Though devoid of life; its scales still shine, shimmer,
that one could still imagine the fish, swimming,
Freely, with others, in the deep blue ocean.
Partitioned from the octopus, crabs, mussels
by rows of garish bright green plastic parsley
one bright eye stares up at me from crushed ice bed.
A jolly fisherman in lilting Irish
lauds the virtue of his last remaining catch;
almighty value, at just eight bucks a pound!
"Or six" I hear a distant person holler
In hope of taking home a late-day bargain
A spiky smile breaks the salt-cracked fisher's face.
Early bed, he wants; to dream of land, not sea
one month, he's been away from wife and mother.
"Ten I'll give," I say to his and my surprise.
One bright eye stares up at me from shiny plate.
Though devoid of life; it questions my wisdom
me too, as I google "how to cook a fish."