Best Projections Poems
What is life?
Euphonies, cacophonies and chromosomal anomalies
intertangled destinies and illusive methodologies
Occurring in obscure dimensionless time
Millenniums fertilized to create the sublime
Perceived by ideations so pure it would seem
To exist beyond mind and to all in between.
Lingering as lore to an all distant past
There is no redo, there is no redraft.
The questions, the answers so rightly proclaimed
are composed and transported by thoughts still unnamed.
In limited struggle, the moments unspent
Become the result of a living lament.
In what and wherefore and why and with whom
we unwrap our existence in this paradoxical womb
Can we find meaning, a clear sign that we see
inclusive to all, this existential decree.
From naught made of all and conceived in a star,
we landed on earth, neither near nor afar
For reasons unknown and telegnosis unclear,
These salient projections are all jockeyed by fear
We stand in the way of unknowing surmise
And find the world is still much a surprise.
A quest overwhelming in distressed sanity
For answers not known play havoc to vanity.
To end these remarks with a questionable phrase
all becomes known in 'one of these days.'
SYNOPSIS
From the moment of birth to when we die, life presents us with dilemmas and questions that amuse, titillate and confuse us. As we get older, we realize that what we thought we knew was all pure conjecture. This poem is meant to reflect the myriad of disjointed thoughts that have run through my mind throughout the years. The "why me?" and "what is my purpose in life?" questions usually are met with ambiguity and incoherence.
Many of us are beleaguered with these conceits and although some find solace in religion, for people like me it becomes an existential never ending struggle.
CAK 8-18-2013
Silhouetted Stagnant Shadows
Stagnant shadows of night sequestered slaves in sight
Faces fading in fright as the fear feeds the lethargic light
Silhouettes of love in plight demons dancing in delight
As darkness devours the white, images surreal will smite
Within negative reflections of my loves dire defections
Outlines of lost connections metaphors of misdirection’s
Dormant internal infections reliving raging resurrections
Silhouetted projections of my dismal depleting affections
Black portraits of palpable pain never to rejoice and regain
Darkened phantoms of grain scornfully sabotaging the sane
Deceivers of the defiant drain tragically tangled of the twain
Vanity in a voiceless vain the sentinels stand in their reign
A dark matter display particles of light have gone astray
Within a decomposing decay a silhouetting fractal buffet
In my capturing love delay, silent shadows bitterly betray
And now my dreams are far away within a black hole ballet.
Sept.08.2017
Silhouette
Sponsored by... Craig Cornish
My poems are words with soul - Silent One.
As a monotone morning sketches
charcoal trees under
smoke filled foggy skies,
rain casually falls,
sliding down slate roofs,
causing havoc for traffic
on bustling roads.
Red lights seem to shimmer,
shining through shades of grey,
as the sound of raindrops drip
against my BMW's black bonnet,
my mind drifts nonchalantly,
discarding beeping horns and FM beats.
I ponder
is it an act or is it an art
this thing they label as life,
living with a formula formed and forged
from a mix of experiences and emotions.
I begin to question myself.
(why do we do that?)
I seem to have adopted a sense of vulnerability,
fusing feelings of fragility,
since my hair infused into silver (yes I chose silver over grey) -
something my father warned against.
But I'm not as tough as him,
although he wasn't half the man I am...
Yet what I have seen and heard,
has ultimately made me who I am today
and in all the suffering I have
always searched for the light -
Rumi was right.
Maybe I'm too open minded,
too fair in this field of selfish spirits.
Maybe I'm not loyal enough to my beliefs,
which contradict my moral compass
and philosophical projections,
but I've never claimed to be saint.
My soul is telling me to shut up..
I've always wondered if I'll ever be understood..
At least I understand me - but is that any consolation?
It's not as simple as wisdom accumulating.
Sensitivity of a smile can never be underestimated.
You have to peer beyond the verbal,
non verbal - comprehend the action.
Sometimes I feel unloved,
many times invisible,
yet I seem to come alive in loneliness.
Would I be a plaintiff or defendant
in a court of your judgment?
I will always represent myself.
Words with speech have never been true confessions,
as my thoughts are too deep,
sometimes too unreliable,
that's why I never pen them down -
it scares my soul (who tells me again to shut up).
I wonder if I make sense. Soul calls it nonsense.
Green flashing circle says I can go.
An abrupt end to contemplation.
Sadly grey tones and
tints of tiredness remain.
Simple Musing
8 December 2023
The flying sent projections free to see,
from adjunct Astrals singing bold decree.
Perched on Pisces’s cusp, forsaking Plato’s cave,
Puppets casting shadows, chancing me a slave.
They hang from dreams of higher forms, allures
Contempt in self when loving carnal cores.
Haunted by women’s passions kept in Spirits,
Dawns my sleeping stages now inherits
Marionettes aloft eternal twists
of spinning truths with lies recalling trysts.
Killing prone volitions, changing essence.
Chosen starlight’s beings guiding presence.
Upon a love in purest form demands,
Forgotten suicides of ego strands.
Risking Pirsig’s fate in Zen and journey,
Waging sanity, a bounty worthy.
The stringing of my soul and bracing seeks,
A pulling truth beyond this death it speaks.
------------------------------------------------------------
Alternating stanzas of iambic and trochaic pentameter
Buoyant on the North west winds;
Shredded clouds expose a half moon eye.
An eye that stares cautiously at
The hyphens of cars below.
Stratus sunsets trace the highway,
That leads to my refuge,
and shields me from the voyeur and the oncoming night.
I sit upright against unforgiving vinyl,
on the back of a bus that rebounds daily,
between New York City and my nightly abode.
I watch the cirrus race the Greyhound
and the Mustangs running in packs of three.
A spyglass has formed within a white nimbus,
an oval window into the crowded heavens.
The clotheslines of the Gods turn to skyrockets,
Shooting masterful projections upward,
Now, composed as arrows that hasten
An antelopes final good night.
Clouds drift away without shadow or fault.
The clouds, the clouds
I alone with my burden,
Where do they go?
Open Letter to Thomas Jefferson
You sir, destination unknown, I dare
To address. A son of worthy causes
For land vast in majesty and vast as
Vast can be in matters of liberty;
With ideals so prim and suffused with
Philosophical forethought derived from
Your bumper harvest of keen knowledge from
Poetry to paleontology;
You the offspring of music and science,
Master of the whims of public forum,
Framer of destiny of the nation,
Bearer of the conscience of masses and
Winning hurdler of political kinks.
Now, the moldering public discourse is
Unbearable. One can no more cover
One’s nose. Nowhere is a silent shelter
From megaphone of ubiquitous din.
Where is a refuge? Simply, know not I.
I beseech you, sir, for learned counsel.
As thundering wildebeest migration
Clouds the slopes of national horizon:
Tulip of your acclaimed Law of Nature
Lies in the path of a roaring rampage.
I beg to ask, why uncanny tactile
Projections of your mind failed to measure
And forecast proneness to such afflictions.
Sir, you did not proscribe such maladies,
Or provide cautionary bells, at least.
Where have all the magistrates gone, I ask?
As I flip pages of your Summary View:
Prefaced by a motto of Cicero:
“It is the indispensable duty
Of supreme magistrate to consider
Himself as acting for community,
And obliged to support its dignity,
And assign to the people, with justice,
Their various rights, as he would remain
Faithful to the great trust reposed on him.”
Your pristine flora of the applied skills
In statesmanship and proper decorum
Is being supplanted by scurrilous
Scions of egocentric rhetoric.
Pails of justice are perceived as empty
By the parched sectors of land of plenty–
Await quenching rain of tenderness, but
Clouds of compassion remain unseeded.
Please forgive the outburst of my verses.
To rein my pen is to muzzle my soul.
Archetypes flash straight from a pack of Tarot cards
anti-terror Jing Jang synthesis with neuro-spiritual precision
implants explosive animation from the deep unknown
like a taro rootstock growing wings to fly with found suspension
Stereotactic stereotypes archetypes semi-circling soothing storm clouds
thunderbolts and enlightening darkness are my enema of anxious anger critique
of the mono-morph collision of the scalpel shadow ‘Prozacian’ nemesis
neology of ‘animusity’ of ‘newfoundlandel’ comprehension
Dialectical complementation rises higher and higher culminates in
ethereal transcendence where collective personal unconscious
presents my animus in wishful thinking and projections as
soft and gentle revel rebel raising entropy in tender conservation to escape from
Dogma categorically demanding artificial classification replacing with dimension
flow and rivers stagnant pools of stream of consciousness evading
sexist fragmentation disenfranchising marginalisation assigning male
and female emasculated o-variation where seminal origin implantation
Precedes nurture socialised indoctrination assignment of celibate promiscuity
My animus refuses to accept in emotional rejection whether Jung and I read
symbols from the same page or not of masques façades and liberated self
where academic artistry split hairs and personality for the premise of debate
I am a rebel and claim no higher lower ground of superior distension
He or she who animates friendly animosity is right and incorrect whatever
common ground belies the provocation I propose but possibly my
presentation of what others mean in kindness is too neutral neuters psyche
While anima and animus illustrate conclude a symbiotic destination
the starting point of this and that left right up above and side by side
is far too circular an argument when we should start not end in union
Male and female are constructions of disparity of power and repression
Archetypes are not therefore I am
11th June 2016
Animus-Anima Part II—Animus – Poetry Contest
Sponsor Tom Quigley
My mind is a house with a thousand rooms
That burst at the seams with recollections
In vain I have tried with a thousand brooms
To sweep the excess of stacked projections.
So often I sift through each fading page
Intending to shred what lacks importance
But failures greet me, all my plans upstage
Submit to the waves, without resistance.
Condemned to a life stranded in the past
Of strength I am drained, dearth of endeavour
Decisive my choice, now the die is cast
Fast chained to regret that lasts forever.
How long could I cope in terms conceptual?
A second in time could be perpetual.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Meld of Muses Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Craig Cornish
13th February, 2020
Sometimes in the course of history, there comes along a man.
He is righteous and afraid.
Bound by the might of his mind.
Learned and full of insight, he can tell you most anything you need to know.
But he is human.
And must also be a person,
But a person is a mask.
A character in a story,
He knows the story isn't written right.
He sees the wickedness of your thought,
Deeper than the fear he feels in telling you.
You are wrong.
It's not your fault.
You can only borrow at first.
But you have to see the shadows to know of them,
And you must create to know they are not.
We deal in shadows, projections, made from a character of our own creation.
Break character.
I know you can.
Wake up.
Dream.
The
sun fills
dark outlines
in shades of black.
Stretched ebony shapes
that lie flat on the ground,
yet, tethered tight to your heels,
they're cast no matter where you go.
Doomed always to be leashed underfoot:
shadows faithfully copy movements made.
Two-dimensional projections edge black,
marking the boundaries of darkness.
Woken by the first rays of dawn,
they yawn into shifting shapes;
wobbly charcoal etchings
that constantly drift
from wavy lines
to freestyle
funky
art.
"Gaslit"
Truth they say
is sometimes
stranger than fiction
Fiction they say
is sometimes
the tonic to escape
Blue Pill?
Red Pill?
which one to take
before one considers
it is all too late
Faith they say
is belief without
proof
A leap for some
caught in the
wrinkle of it all
We walk our days
immersed in what
we think is real
we shun and
turn away
from the talk
Gaslighting
and the abysmal
moral disengagement
false projections
buried we are locked in
the old stories never end
egos burnt to ashes
finger on the forehead
marks noticed and felt
it all begins, a new story
what it’s really all about
some believe, most doubt
Truth they say
is sometimes
stranger than fiction
Life is what you want it to be
The old stories end
A new way of thinking begins
A new way of being begins
(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)
"Meditation Forest"
https://youtu.be/HSkgFARZbJM
Moral Disengagement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_disengagement
https://www.apa.org/international/pi/2016/03/moral-disengagement
https://oxford-review.com/oxford-review-encyclopaedia-terms/moral-disengagement/
Moral Disengagement / Albert Bandura -
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-43532-000
Gaslighting
https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/gaslighting
https://blog.apaonline.org/2020/09/15/freedom-for-the-power-to-be-believed-on-gaslighting/
https://worldnews.upexampaper.com/7-things-to-know-and-understand-about-gaslighting-more-latest-world-news-headlines/
Misstep Paradise
by Odin Roark
Like the ocean’s waves repeating themselves,
mistakes love to revisit their beginnings,
gloat about their undertow power,
and patiently prepare the next towering breaker.
As if squawking gulls lining the landfall weren’t enough,
joining the prattle is the wind’s ever-repeatable,
“I told you so” oratory.
With ebb and tide behind them,
anxious errors reach progress once alive,
now but mazes of mischance,
ghost towns replete with obligatory tumbleweeds
scurrying past longevity’s sentinels of roaches and rodents
forever faithful to new arrivals.
Even as stored images of ethereal struggle
stay ensconced in supernatural satellites,
reality’s citadel of dust-caked walls and web-laced doorways
display shattered daguerreotypes,
torn photographs,
corrupted digital projections,
3D wanderings,
and holographic ghosts
of perfection’s folly,
holding fast to historical hubris,
mastery’s habitual bungling of headway.
At one end of actuality’s ghost town,
a dangling speaker bellows forth its ceaseless maxim:
“Misstep Paradise is all that matters,
as living life void of errors is to exist
without learning the monstrous reason for it all.”
Welcome to your personal shadow zone,
mind’s inner kingdom of fortuity,
where infinity’s turn-around sign of truth,
remains your chance to finally learn…
Tinseled reflexives....
Emitting from this oblong box
As manifest projections
Exploding in reversions sky ~
Stardust as dreamfuls walking through
This clearing, of magicals illusions....
Knocking upon fates hinged door
To dust away these breathless webs
Sweeping out the silence upon
Reveilles inverted request....
********************************
...."The Exorcist" ~
Your heart is a stone
inscribed with cobras, vultures, ribs and reed.
You say what I see is not what you mean.
You confound me with sounds.
One word is a zoo
with water that ripples—
an arm in the pool.
My love is a laser
that dazzles the screen
projecting an image, an effortless read.
And you, so resilient, but ancient, alone
mistrust my projections unscripted in stone.
I can’t help but love an uncrackable code.
With heart holographic, this coupling can float.
May 8 2016
for Hieroglyphs and Holograms Contest
The quiet breeze is gently blowing this spring night.
Wonderful twilight, dancing colors,
Trees bloom, unfolding the fresh born leaves,
Spreading it's spring time umbrella.
The air is delectably highlighted with grills meats galore,
smokey fire pits of mesquite, hickory and maple burn.
All these sensory projections twine together
into the spring solstice of final release,
The night's day's end.
Honeysuckle is hinted in the air with each inhalation of life's breath.
Laying back on the edge of the seated chair, arched back to see the sky,
tickling my face with the spring Breeze.