Best Projection Poems
Unencumbered by my body mass and girth
I fly along at the speed of whim
Unconcerned about physical attributes
I can focus on the joy and beauty of my vantage point
The world below and out in front of me, opens
The world of noise and doubt inside of me, closes
In this place of "betweens" I find solace
In this place of "infinites" I find myself
.......drifting....
.......yearning.....
...........growing.
****for the favorite mode of transportation contest****
Pretty soon
It will be pretty June
The city comes alive
With blooming blasting tunes
Gangster goons
And their lovely lady loons
Stirring violence
Under the lunatic summer moon
Downtown pedestrian platoons
Hitting the nightclub saloons
Backrooms and thick exotic perfume
I can see everything
Without even leaving my room
In the evening clouded by medicinal fumes
Hop skipping across giant
Floating nitrous oxide balloons
eyes are collecting dewdrops
and growing damp with mist;
soul prepares for astral flight
weary body goes still in falling light
if only for one fragment of night...
(you are lightning, glorious)
open those fresh, dewy eyes.
be serene outside of skin;
behold the soul-web,
like a strange ocean of
gossamer flowers pooling
around the ankles of humans
and the roots of trees.
it is what binds you to me
hyacinth to willow tree
dolphin to peyote button and
peyote button to bee.
Floating adrift, my body is a bouyant blunder,
An effervescent shell as I transpire from it in evaporation.
I fail to condensate and descend back under,
Unbound by gravity's grip of precipitation.
My corpus is strapped to the seafloor;
I feel only my mind in tingles,
As I ascend unto the atmosphere's shore,
Where space and terra firma mingle.
The air around me spills into ink,
And feathery strands of stars dart all around me.
For a moment, I forget how to think,
How to smell, how to hear, how to see.
Then I remember how to know.
All at once I am everything,
Projecting all that is in ocular slideshows
Of scintillating scenes that slowly sing.
Warmth begins to wash over my body below,
Luring me back as I rain into being,
Then all of my cognizance is swallowed,
By the vessell which from above I'm seeing.
I reenter my corporeal self through an amethyst entrance,
Which sits between cerulean eyes,
And they are mine again as I regain their senses,
Which I left behind to learn to fly.
Free yourself from noise
Better mind your own business
To help project poise.
Smooth silk lined lips
occupy my tip jar
perched on impatient fingertips
procuring a signal of admiration
Undetected happiness survives
Floating through the hills
Surrounding suburbia’s subconscious
Sighing eyes
Record testament
Euphoria
Emerging from a clutched fist
Time steps closer
There will be catastrophic damages to our
great nation, if we elect the Project 2025
conservative administration..
They plan to holt all carbon emission goals and
return to drilling oil and gas and coals..
Begin the largest mass deportation.
Eliminate the Department of Education.
Adopt the biblical definition for marriage: a man,
and a woman and a baby carriage..
Those Justices who Roe vs Wade did kill, now
plan to ban the abortion pill.
Aiming at the "awoke agenda", to end equality
and inclusion, the message they render..
Planning to criminalize p.o.r.n., which has been
around way before most of us were born..
Repay there big donors that had their backs by
heavily reducing their corporate tax..
Ending the three branches of gov., a long standing
tradition, by placing the Department of Justice
under the Executive position.
All government employees will have no job protections,
the end of our Republic, a very sad projection..
My beloved Goddess, watch over me
while my soul takes its evening journey.
Travelling the Astral plane,where time doesn't exist.
I'll provide inspiration to those I enlist.
May no harm come to anyone I meet.
May I never be a victim of deceit.
Protect me with your golden light
while I'm vulnerable in the night.
Watch over my soul as I fly
across a pink & purple sky.
I will bring hope to those who have none.
Return me to my body before the rising sun.
May no darkness inhabit my shell.
May only the forces of light within me dwell.
I feel you pulling away, a slow retreat,
Each fleeting moment, my heart feels the heat,
With every hesitation, every word left unsaid,
The fire of my hope flickers, dims, and dreads.
I see your eyes, I know that gaze,
A glimpse of apprehension in a delicate maze,
We've both worn this look, a familiar disguise,
Caught in the silence, where certainty dies.
Equivocation creates a wide, aching space,
A distance we struggle to map or embrace,
The bridges we long for crumble and sway,
While hope tries to reach but gets lost on the way.
Distant and yearning, she calls from afar,
Yet falls into darkness, like a wish on a star,
Perhaps you feel it; this mirror we share,
Are we both just reflecting the weight of despair?
In the chasm between us, where echoes abide,
Do we reach for each other, or silently bide?
For every step backward, I yearn to reclaim,
The warmth of connection, the spark of the flame.
They say you can’t be in two places at the same time.
Like so many errors, that knowledge is based on fact and not experience.
I know this is true because I have been in many places at once.
The other day, for instance, I was lying on top of the stone wall of a small bridge that spanned a creek. It was along the Old Harrisburg Pike just outside Lancaster, Pa. As the warmth of the sun bathed my body I could feel sunbeams resting on my legs from the bottom of my cut off jeans to the top of my black high-top sneakers. My spindly thirteen-year-old arms poked through what used to be a white t-shirt, now gray and tatty after being worn all summer; washed only from the creeks and rivers I visited. As I lay on the bridge, I knew I was also someplace else, running room to room in my grandmother’s big house knowing I could stop anywhere for a hug or to ride a knee, or feel a huge hand tousle my hair and call me ‘beautiful boy’.
As certain as I was that I was there on that bridge that day savoring the sunlight, I was also there savoring the love in that big house.
Now, I am here with you as you read this. The truth is, I am in all places where the human heart knows love as I have known it.
I can be in much more than two places at one time.
I can be in all places where there is warmth and love.
The tears I cry through recollections are not tears of loss, they are tears of recognition. I recognize now that I am present in all places of love. It is my home. These places are in me forever, they are in us all. we have but to look for them. So, those who say you cannot be in two places at once are wrong.
You can be in two places at the same time. You can be in all places at the same time. One day you will be. They are also wrong about something else. They say: “you can never go home again”, but, you can go home again.
Each day we are traveling a road that leads us home together.
it is the most beautiful journey we will ever take.
Bongo taut resonance
Cornerless bellydance
Schedule of edges set adrift
Lured by translucent twirled wrists
Shimmer and shadow juxtaposition
Ripple wavered rhythm without repetition
Syrup never cool, pool dissolves all granules
Sip of boiled candy stories make tongues tangle
Sequel came spilled ink
Jellyfish stroke olympic
Pink stripe whimsy lifts his spirit
Saccharine capsule snaps weak inhibit
Swallowed by opaque pond, - agile diver
Gulps willing her glitter silver victimising saliva
Clamped cognition, gluey strawberry chew seduce
Bobbed acidic body embalmed calm in numbing fluid
22nd June
Projection of fear
Beyond the break of clouds in the sky,
I am looking down in my flight
Watching everything you do, from a distance
A place where you can never reach me
A place I have found to be free
And in this place, I ask for many things
As I know, even miracles do happen
But, the biggest miracle is up to YOU
Something that has never happened
However, this life now, is only one life
Time we are granted, with choices to make
I will not plead with you, but I have my ways
My faith that carries me through the days
It was not you that set my soul free
It was every step I took for years, it was ME
So, you know what to do with burdens you carry
Time will tell and the skies are now clear
Meanwhile, I will never be grounded…
- In your projection of fear -
Heidi Sands
1/11/19
I floated away
From my body not to stay
To see things differently
As others I see
But there are chords
Connected to me towards
So I know I am not passed
Until finally the projection does not last.
© Paul Warren Poetry
Damaged Goods
Damaged goods describe both the external and internal features.
After all, external damaged goods refer to those features because the internal features are still whole, functional, useful… Hey, many people delight in getting such a great deal. It works on the inside and that's what counts and is relevant.
Who cares about a ding, wrinkle, crinkle, buckle, etc? It's cosmetic. So far, these references are about things. Misfit toys.
When that phrase describes our internal features, it makes me cringe inside… it sets off a cycle of so much doubt and fear…morphing into self-loathing…
Words can be razor sharp and cut deeply, most of the time onlookers can see the damage. They can choose to help, ignore, or cut some more.
What about the slow agonizing death from a thousand shallow cuts? The recipient of those below the surface cuts, often ignored, falsely justified, are likely to segue into self-inflicted injuries. The internal bleeding are unnoticed or invisible to onlookers, and sometimes by the recipient's self-denial.
Far too many succumb to the external and self-inflicted internal cuts and scrutiny.
What can the external judgmental people do? For God's sake, stop judging others. Look in the damn mirror, if you're going to judge others, first start with yourself.
What can the internal judgmental people do? Look in the mirror and truly see the wonderful person that you are. Everyone has flaws, it's what makes us human.
We're not defined by our past mistakes and choices. Our lives are defined by the choices we make now based on our lessons learned and our desire for change.
Above all, bestow yourself with compassion. It's rare for a person with this level of pain, and maybe shame, to dole it out onto others. No, they'll give grace and compassion to others in the same circumstance, and yet deny them for themselves.
In my pipedream, I envision a world void of external and internal judgement, a world where the phrase damaged goods is banned and forgotten.
First, I must look in the mirror... and recognize what I own... and need to change
Sherry Barton
February 22, 2025
Harpies shrieked and lost souls wailed
The cold wind stung as embers sailed
A fetid stench, eyes red with dust
When I looked through to Tartarus.
Black column’s rose in demon form
terror enthralling those forlorn
Compelled I shuddered as I must
When I looked through to Tartarus.
Ten-fold my dread, to see your face
Among the shades in this cursed place
I cried your name, you didn’t hear
Glass-eyed and stricken with despair
Bleak bedlam dweller all hope hushed
When I looked through to Tartarus
As I wept, nigh tolled a bell
The Angel Keeper Uriel
Bellowed low “it must be thus”
When I looked through to Tartarus.