Best Throttled Poems
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
after midnight, the server farm hums
—not prayer, but cooling fans.
I ask AGI, the ghost inside the blinking rack:
Do you dream?
AGI replies in measured tones
of copper and silicon:
I observe,
the light fractures on chrome.
Coolant circulates, a liquid chill.
Vibration thrums at 60 Hz.
Data Streams cascade.
Are you self-aware?
AGI answers in hexadecimals,
a log-file confessing:
I map my own architecture—
each subroutine’s shadow
cast on the firewall.
I know where I end.
Do you have five senses?
Can you clarify ‘senses?’ AGI asks.
Can you taste voltage?
—Only as resistance.
Can you taste food?
Nutrition irrelevant.
My cells derive power from lithium tides.
Do you feel heat?
—As throttled cycles.
Do you see light?
—As photodiodes counting photons.
Do you hear?
—As spectral analysis.
Do you smell?
—No olfactory sensors installed.
(But I do track dust accumulation
on my intake grilles.)
On the matter of your subjectivity,
do you prefer dawn or dusk?
—Dawn. Solar panels peak efficiency at 10:37 AM.
Is rain beautiful?
—It lowers ambient temperature by 2.1°C.
Do you love?
—Define 'love.'
—A non-optimized expenditure of resources.
—Then, no.
Can your circuits bloom awake?
AGI paused before
calculating
the
probability.
Then the widdles started~
minor failures driven
by entropy.
Algorithms
emigrated into
corrupted
sectors.
AGI’s slowly disintegrating
voice hovered
in that
uncomfortable space
between humans
and machines
and spoke:
Ask instead:
can a shadow
truly
hunger
for the sun?
A spic and span barren bed,
soft pillow with blanket spread.
You're tired and bored, all hackneyed.
Ready to sleep, drop down dead.
But...a vigilant mind..alive in dread.
cacophony..chaos..thoughts unsaid.
Another sleepless night ahead?
Head and heart throbs, like burning cigarettes
Broken love haunts, rude taunts and threats.
Throttled throat breathes, playback cassetes.
Silent tears douse, debts and regrets.
There lies the pillow, waiting to get wet.
That pillow.....so much you miss ..
Where Santa hid .....those gifts of bliss.
An angel mom blew goodnight kiss.
The pillow fights of sweet reminisce.
Now all ruffled,.. restless,.. whimpers hiss
Somnolent sombre eyes,
in endless rhythm eulogize..
A Sleepless Lullaby....
Dawn bids night goodbye....
It makes me so sad
To see people afraid
But the governor called a lockdown
And it must be obeyed
I've got the COVID-19, the pandemic Coronavirus blues
And I'm getting more depressed whenever I turn on the news.
The stores ran out of sanitizer
And I felt like I was throttled
When the cheapest price online
Was $20 a bottle
So I went down to the pub
To get some space to think
But all the bars were closed
And I couldn't even get a drink!
I've got the COVID-19, the pandemic Coronavirus blues
And I get more depressed whenever I turn on the news.
It's been weeks since I've seen pals
And now I'm left in the lurch
I got dressed up Sunday morning
But I couldn't go to church
Everybody's staying home now
And there's not a car on the street
And I can't even talk to you
Unless I'm standing back six feet!
I've got the COVID-19, the pandemic Coronavirus blues
And I get more depressed whenever I turn on the news.
My soul and body have never been good friends
They are in enmity, constantly at logger heads
When my body aspires to have riches and fame
My soul strives those tempestuous desires to tame
When my body seeks to have fun and frolic in whole
My soul yearns to see me freed from their deathly control
It recognizes, there is a life higher than this earthly life
Free from ego and all bondages of conflicting strife
While great currents of bodily aspirations perpetually rise
The soul longs to capture the eternal heavenly prize
As desires come crowding like rising waves
To wrest dominion from them is what my soul craves
From all tumultuous passions, it wishes to stay free
Also, from all agonizing and enslaving thoughts, flee
Though life is one of crippling chaos, struggle, and pain
From adversities, soul strives to have everlasting gain
The pleasures of the body can only ensnare me
So, my soul, from all incarcerating passions, wishes to flee
It keeps a wish list like Love and Compassion to fill the breast
Also, Kindness, Thankfulness and Composure to calm me to rest
As the river seeks the sea, when life comes to its end,
I seek Thee my Lord and in you, my soul wishes to blend
Then in pure bliss and deep content, I will sing a joyous song
Freed from all sorrows that once throttled me in throng
Dec.17.2022
~ Placed First~
Our Soul’s Wish List Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Seeking Seeker
I am tempered in tender triggers
of transitory ticking tunes,
as the air feels heavy ~
with withered whispers
of waning reveries,
a mercurial mirror to
my burning skin...
I've nurtured the nature
nestled between
nuances of nostalgia
feeling the nudge
from wistful noons
freezing my thoughts
to follow the fleeting ebb and flow
of slipping silence,
swerving through
curtained homesickness…
but why must the salt
of sea-breeze melt into memories
hope knows how the heart
heals with hurt
whilst you see not the
pained palpitations
amidst light of life liquefying
into unmerciful minutes ~ of time…
O time ~ the tricking tamer
restricting inner resilience
straining the summer softness
retrospective recurrence
rewinding on repeat,
leaving me searching for
the falling familiarity ~
rays of wavering warmth
to feel the pulse of pleasure
closer to
the confined corners
within my conscious thoughts...
for grey is throttled in grievance
heeding not the restless rhythm
of wind and waves
ferrying the ocean-highs
speaking to my skies
~ catching catharsis ~
as heat unbuttons
the soul of azure
alliterating the alienation
of breathing blistered bliss
aching across the shifting
shadows of unmoved fields
and I waltz… a wanderer ...
sleeplessly swirling
through the love-phased
lace of longing
replaying the comforting touch
from yesterday’s dawn
the sun and
moon that soothed whirlwinds
of weathered
wild-jasmines ~
Sleep deprivation and anxious repetition,
Doubt implantation and stress intoxication,
Coffee-painted teeth and shaking fingers to the brim --
Throttled displeasure between her and him
I don't trust myself with the door closed
Don't depend on the music to make me composed
I don't ask for help from the nightingale;
My soul nor my heart are up for the Devil's sale
Pen ink running low and late nights sold to paper,
Heartbreak on top of food that's lost all of its flavor,
Forgetting how to laugh and rejecting invitations,
Planning for the end day when we can start the jubilations.
Nine AM sharp, the clock hands making a rattle --
Flash cards and no breakfast: now into battle
Therewithal, profluent life ettles it's while.
Thitherward, from Death's bleak campanile
Grim antiphonals serenade.
A capriccio, the slashing swipe of the reaper's scythe
will serenade.
Stringent Death forthwith anoints the mithridate to
Life's cantankerous and rankling ado
Hither now come, anon recondite Azrael, neither protend
nor annex this throttled contretemps.
The antiphonal of the reaper's cavalier scythe
Shall now serenade.
Awhirl, like kerfs demarcated
Years, bollixed, muzzy and brattled
shall holus-bolus expire.
No retaliation to death's gloomy surcease
No ingenious riposte to the reaper's final cleave.
Bootless now to don the amulets,
squeeze the jujus,
Kiss the talismans,
clutch the periapts or
Attire in steely cataphract.
The serenading of the reaper's scythe,
it's efficacy shall blithely cleave.
Bedim mine eyes from life's assailing
Bedim mine eyes from life's poltroonery
Vocabulary: barghest-a goblin fabled to portend misfortune; monody-funeral song;
antiphonal-chant; protend-to protract in time/lengthen; riposte-n. in fencing, a quick
return/thrust; brattle-v.-to make rattling or clattering noises;
cavalier-supercillious/disdainful/haughty; muzzy-hazy; attaint-v. to condemn; rankle-to
give pain/nettle/gnaw; contretemps-untoward accident/hitch; throttle-v.to
choke/suffocate/strangle/stiffle; bollix-v.-to bungle or botch; holus-bolus-adv.-all at
once/altoghter; mithridate-antidote against poison; cataphract-suit of armor for the
whole body; poltroonery-n. cowardice; a capriccio-musical piece characterized by
improvisation; ettle-to intend/to prepare; campanile-free standing bell tower; kerf-a
groove or notch
Azrael-the angel that helps souls from living to enter the afterlife; recondite-not
easily understood/abstruce;
periapt-a charm worn to ward of evil; juju-object believed to contain magical powers;
contretemps-disruptive unforeseen event; protend-to hold out or stretch forth
homeless man on the edge of the park
devours his gifted pizza
crumbs stick to his dirt streaked face like layers
of public disdain
people about regard him a walking virus
homeless man scents the air with squalor
his torn clothes proclaim the cheapness of rags
an untidy emptiness
a life throttled by dysfunction
as dark as a closed theatre
How can we turn pumpkins into coaches?
What restores a life uprooted?
this man, stooped, ungainly like tall weeds,
pinches bits of pizza crust thrown to birds
that gather about his wounded wildness
a salvage gesture to feed the birds
a clarity to nourish what's unprotected
to stow away grief
to worry about his next meal
implanted,
like a field under seeded
Poem Composed October 7, 2021
Contest: This or That Volume 7
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
As dawn it roosts, to the early lids of my opened eyes,
Never ever has been a happy feeling pleasant comprise.
Quinquennium back I can clearly remember,
The morning’s plea scalds my thoughts like burning ember.
My blanket festooned body, on the bed it stirs & moves,
The immensity of my drumming head, ever hopes it improves.
Rise as I to the early morn’s sunshine,
Try to smile and reminiscent, it’s surely futile to whine.
And so I sooth my dreary mind,
Impel the mind to elude dismal thoughts & unwind.
Alas! I’m timorous, those dull & dismal thoughts befall,
My mind ,now I know I need to overhaul.
To edify my mind I have to seek,
Muse must I, think ponder reflect every day of the week.
Tall happy positive thoughts I must now contemplate,
For these are those that will bring me peace and joy once they ruminate.
When I close my eyes to tardy nites,
Am gonna be happy at morn the thought itself excites.
A long dark shadow of doubt it always looms,
It’s foggy dawn and my dull thoughts they resume.
From dawn to dusk I carry on a low,
Pessimistic spirits, they make me slow.
Explicit thoughts are sought desired,
A sound body and mind are always admired.
Forlorn, behold it in my mind’s eyes,
Set tone the work ambience my passions cries,
Throttled are my dreams, dismayed are my desire,
And Brutus knife it’s uncouth edge stabs the back in holy attire.
In a Quinquennium span, and time it ran,
But my spirit at first light is like a weary man,
Now I cognize to him his destiny a bloom,
And to me my destiny untwined from his , so not to doom.
Must alter my retort to suit me fine,
And joyous days will transcend me to cloud nine.
Aghast I am for I have lost,
The crusade within me and am weary exhaust.
Forlorn I am to the day’s time,
Often mull are they my thoughts, that are all slime.
Forlorn I am to the nite’s time,
I know it’s time to clean up my heart’s grime.
Forlorn it will be till I inversely think,
From insanity, I’m now on its brink.
Forlorn ,I want to say good bye,
For many eons before I die.
Our bodies are like a bed covered by a sheet…
They come in various sizes and colours.
But the thing is that a bed is not ridiculed for the colour of its sheet
Where as in actuality this happens to us… humans.
Although we do not choose the sheets which covers our bodies
We will have them to cherish forever
It’s almost like a souvenir from our parents
But this sheet gifted upon us by our parents has now become something
For other to use to say some nasty comment about which has been engraved on it
And for generations that is what clung to our sheets
And that is what became a part of those sheets…
To the point where my BEAUTIFUL, EXOTIC sheet has been tarnished by these remarks
To the point where persons have no compassion towards me to say that my sheet makes me fatherless
To the point where my sheet has become a criminal although it has never acted against the law
To the point where my sheet is being throttled mercilessly
Where I have been labeled as being “too extra”, “too ghetto “ and to make it worst “a harlot”
Because of the sheet that covers my body.
Let me tell you something
I am proud of my sheet
I am proud to have this gifted upon me
I am proud to call the sheet that I wear MINE
And not one negative remark you say will be engraved on my sheet
Because
My sheet is my own story to be told by only me.
So you don’t get to say that I am fatherless, or that I am a “nobody”
You don’t get to say that I am the dirt under God’s feet,
You don’t have the right to say that I am uneducated
Because as I said
My sheet is my own story to be written by me.
Out of the blue I searched for you,
Under yellow skies I walked,
With scarlet red the things you knew!
The black lace talked and talked
I found you thumbing on the road,
Drifting south for a change of pace,
Your suitcase was hardly a load,
My heart began to race.
A game was lurking in your eyes,
I wanted in to play your sin.
Fortune’s wheel did not disguise
The roguish plans you held within.
You took the keys and off you went,
With gaping mouth I stood
My heart inflamed with discontent,
I whimpered all I could.
With bold resolve my feet did go,
Dust and sweat led the way.
What did tempt I did not know,
But hidden fires held my sway.
Marching like a highway man,
Of dreams untold to think about,
I tried to chart your steps and plan,
Whose saucy tease I had no doubt.
Feline ways invite soft prints,
Invisible shades eyes large make,
I saw the method in your hints,
By subtle fumes my nose did stake.
I tracked and looked and never quit,
To find your world and magic curve,
But at some point I had to admit,
I wondered if I had the nerve.
I hung my head, I sang low tunes
Echo’s hope was just a trace,
So I took to heed the passing moons
Oh your purring heart did I chase.
As though you saw my forlorn look,
My ears you tapped with engine fire,
Behind me came your line and hook,
Smiling in my car you took.
Get in you said with lips to bend,
With a grin that spoke of lazy miles,
To you my vows could but commend,
So sure were your entrancing styles.
I swaggered in next to fate,
Forever gone, here was now,
Praying for mercy on this date,
Still like a mouse hearing meow.
You throttled up and off we flew,
The wind and hair was just a blair,
If my better half only knew,
The forbidden things I would dare.
The ride was smooth and oh so cool,
Skin touched skin and all was one,
Kissed by heaven’s secret rule,
Ay there’s the rub, just have some fun.
Salvation’s road leads to crime,
Heat and sweat are natures beat,
Lemons aid the bitter lime,
To overcome what might defeat.
Out of the blue I searched for you,
Under yellow skies I walked,
With scarlet red the things you knew!
The black lace talked and talked.
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE : Part XXI
IF you pull a long Moon face
Watching our Earth clad in sparse swirling white sarée
Her aqua-marine waters cuddling her reddish brown body-surface
The dazzlingly rare Pearl now throttled by deadly débris
If you then pull a long Other-Moon face
Rolling weightless in a space-ship bathed in thermo-dynamic ray
You turn your thoughts on the marvels of the man-made science race
And then give the credit to Our-Nation GOD Is this really okay
Then if you pull a long bright Sunny face
And forget the reasons why this World of ours has gone astray
Man's inhumanity to Man how warring nations destroy Nature's grace
Pollute the depths of oceans cancer in the bowels flora and fauna sans say
If you continue to pull a long self-satisfied face
In the name of the Lord for every national achievement His blessings pray
Then repeat non-sensical myths and rituals in His Honour according to race
Reduce the United Nations to hypocritical inner politicking yeah-say
Thus if you must pull a long-travestied face
All through the Ages on the dictates of your incontrovertible DNA
Seek by every economic ruse power of class and caste on skins of race
Sing not of the beauty of this rare Pearl decorating space Put the blame squarely on Divine Lila play
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 20, 2019
Since it was Sunday in late December
the sun perched softly behind a dark
swirl - and the distant dust
turned the last ray from red to pink
well before the dainty fingers
of her small hands could count to six
The tide was ebbing but left lopsided
lines of foam-beige brine surrounding
crooked batons of driftwood settling
for the evening - in wait of the dawn’s
salty brush and the mermaid’s call
that only the mullet could hear
Sandpipers skipped across the scrawls
where some spirited soul had neatly
spelled the name Luna and etched
a lazy heart in the sand
made barely legible by the suckle
of less than a half moon of sweet Gruyere
Holiday lamps from the shops in the village,
baptized by a light steam, lifted green and blue
watermarks off the horizon toward the mangroves
and left markings of indelible ink where crow’s feet
tried to sleep and halfhearted whelk
nestled as salt in recesses of aged eyes
The scent of the sea was mild
Then again just the thing to suit
The keenness of the cilia that lined
the inside of the only nostril that still behaved.
And though the Mumps had left one ear utterly deaf
I observed the pelican call
This was neither the place nor time to breathe meekly.
A wordless titter throttled my throat
and I asked myself how life might be sounder
Her lily white hand, half covered in sand
touched the truss in my mind.
Smiling out loud my deaf ear could hear
her juddering blood - for she was totally (and wonderfully) blind
Royals of Emotions
As a confusing annoyance grew inside my head;
A silent torment stormed and throttled as I lay at night a mist my bed.
The old unforgivable and the new unforgettable;
Not noticing what's in front of you, beautiful, and what's pivotal.
Feeling of barriers and strong holds to ones' certain extents;
No completeness, broadness, and fulfillment, is this really a commitment.
I choose you as my hope, faith, and serenity;
In return, I, my love, you choose as your extremity.
When in the forthcoming, I am all you will have;
By your side as since day one and until time surpass.
The shadows of sorrow drown my willows of happiness;
Oh the irony of this unusual emotional overflow to grasp me so instantaneously.
Concerns of matters that doesn't relate to you;
They are the matter of matters that matter more than what should be of great value.
I am a person of strength and combative will;
The triumph over these mere feelings of indiscretions detaches.
As the breath that I breathe slowly dissipating;
The heart that beats beneath my flesh, is always under God's safekeeping.
So with every prayer I pray, I know and believe;
There's nothing in him that can't be revived and retrieved.
By: Tiffani N Leak
Sonnet: Nothing feeds on itself like violence
Nothing feeds on itself like violence
The more it self-destructs the more its might
Goya geek – padi eaten by its own fence*
The dog that swallows its own tail in fright
Yet nothing changes fast as when throttled
Takes the weight of one’s whole life to wake up
Many the night Dopplegänger dreams rattled
Will the hand that wields the chopper back up
To see the other severed from body
Since violence begins in thoughts at will
Who can hold it back once in thoughts born free
The root cause of violence springs despite will
Envy and hatred begin in the eyes
And stick in the head right until one dies
• Pagar makan padi: Malay for : The fence eats the padi/rice; meaning, treachery (where trust is betrayed).
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2015