Best Uneasily Poems
‘Enter and explore’ read the sign above Blake’s Hall.
Sliding open the French doors I stepped inside
where I was greeted by a row of coloured doors.
Intrigued, I approached a green door, rested my hand
on the knob and turned it slowly. Peeping in I glimpsed
hope and harmony holding hands...then behind I espied
two scary beasts, eyes gleaming with greed and envy.
Hastily I closed the door and moved to the next, a red one.
Its intensity drew me like a magnet, and unhesitatingly
I opened it to reveal a room divided in two sections; in
one, passion, love and desire lay in warm embrace...
in the other, danger and malice lurked in the dim light.
Unsure of myself, I walked on to the next, a yellow door.
With renewed energy I stepped in to be met by joy’s
cheerful countenance, but this soon was obscured by
the unpleasant smell of sickness and foul decay.
Again, another hasty exit which led me to a purple door.
Inside I witnessed luxury; felt an aura of power, mystery...
at the same time foreboding gloom, and frustration
sent a shiver up my spine; uneasily I closed the door behind me.
Perplexed, abandoning my curiosity, I headed for the exit.
At that moment it dawned on me what Blake’s Hall stood for…
It was a clear reference to ... the doors of perception.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
© 31st March 2017
The tree of my ritual was old and tall,
though not a true giant;
the next one may be, but needn't.
It possessed consequence in its bough
and the places around it,
which may have been occupied
for one of any number of reasons.
It was a fine tree, and my ritual was,
I hoped, appropriately reverent.
Respectful, yet uneasily godless,
my incantations whispered
with the light and gravity of the shade.
Hopeful, yet sorrowfully faithless,
my supplications revolved patiently
and drifted irreversibly into the air,
seeped deep beyond the bark,
sank into the soil and the root.
Godless as I was, I would not pass up
a fancy of random thought;
if it was a fancy of still unknown truth,
it would need nurture,
dutifully I would nurture.
Only such a tree could be worthy
of such faithless supplication.
18th October 2018
EATING OUT
Seated uneasily at the edge tables, café males alone, silent -
Focused on eating, heads moving, looking around to defend,
Guarding their plates against enemies and, finished, quickly leaving.
Am I feeling different from these? Or not really believing?
This man, round-shouldered predator over a fresh kill,
Shoveling in untidy dangling heaps on a fork, devours his fill,
Bare arms laid either side of plate, his shaggy hair a lion-mane.
Salty meaty-stuff in great hunks : it’s feeding time at the zoo again.
Elbows-off-table, not for manners, but for speed,
That man’s cutting with edge of fork and filling his need,
Stabbing the meat like it was alive and needed subduing,
Levering huge pieces into his mouth and rapidly chewing.
In rapid action their jaw muscles ripple :
It’s a job of work to be completed as quickly as possible.
The chewing muscles in sync with moving ears :
Must finish it all off - before any enemy appears.
Café-females are nested in the central tables - to chat, to think.
In table-groups of two or three, discussing the food and drink ,
Sweet cakes’ crumbs carefully swept with back of finger,
They eat only incidentally, no purpose for them, they linger -
It is a process, not a product, an experience, an exchange of souls.
Select one from a plate of small sweet rolls,
With small bites chewed slowly, elegantly, with thought,
Sitting up straight the way mother taught.
Hands occasionally touching for spoken emphasis in speech,
Unhurried, they pause over coffee and talk intently each to each.
Heads move neither up nor down nor away to the side.
Over each other’s faces, appraising, their eyes roam wide.
I assess these people closely, and rub my chin-stubble in thought:
With the eyes of a poet I mentally note their features as I ought.
Drink up my coffee quick, and move to the counter for more meat pies
Before any enemy arrives.
The stranger in the mirror says:
Alz is not well
Those grey hairs alzways lose twenty-something
track of time ...
can’t tell when he’s at,
where he last slept
Or how he fell
My sixty-ish seconds of elusive,
lucid thought
wanna know why
am I wearing bottoms
shaped like a bell
As this bruised sanity,
so mnemonic frail,
vainly cling to the psychedelic notion
that these reminiscing eyes
are seeing swell
Alz is definitely not well
Got a funhouse mirror of the mind,
giving me the strangest
distortions of time
Had a spring dew wedding yesterday!
But my closest, unfamiliar kin repeatedly tell me,
my winter wife dearly passed away
ten years ago —
The wrinkled tears seasonally show,
120 new moon recall cycles
that ebb and flows
It alzways bothers me,
how it can be
that cherished memories
vanish like vapor
Sunset forgetfulness dawns so easily
Like the mist on the mirror,
which that vaguely familiar stranger breathe
As the nauseating fog of forgetfulness
uneasily dissipates once more,
I'm beginning to slowly understand
why it is, that blank expression reflection
in the mirror I do alzways abhor
It’s got my precious recollections evaporating,
these memento thoughts disappearing —
Such a queasy, erasure sensation
This fading identity illness
is a sickly feeling
I'm slowly beginning to comprehend
Alz is not well ... or ending well
"The X Factor"
hunger does strange things
to souls running on empty
last stop, full to the brim
a journey unravelling
ravenous poetry sings
other broken hearts in
how much do words mean?
how much do they sting?
Inside wants out in everything
in everything,
we believe,
we stir uneasily to let in
life hides inside stories
lost hidden gems live somewhere
buried in all the dirt deep deep beneath
above magnetises
cloud busting
some souls reign miraculously
outside of the assizes
more telling than tears
lets the light
shatter feeble faux in
gleaming
victorious
mesmerising
something unknown
it's completely foreign
something sincere
in time to be made clear
(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)
Saara Aalto - Chandelier (Audition)
https://youtu.be/LH7qh4XWEgw
https://ourcriminalancestors.org/assizes/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter
There were silence and stillness in the autumn air
Foliage adorned the trees like fair auburn hair
The stream did not bubble; the pond had no ripples
The garden seemed uninhabited by people
But the garden was not void of good company
On a bench was seated the little girl and me
‘You look quite troubled. What could be wrong?’ I asked her
‘Is there any way I could make you feel better?’
The little girl looked at me and said, ‘I feel lost…’
‘There is a debt that comes at much too high a cost
I cannot meet the price; it is just too hefty
This unmet debt unsettles me; I feel guilty…’
‘Debt? Hefty? Guilty?’ her vague statements puzzled me
‘What you are saying to me is a mystery!
What hefty debt could come at much too high a cost?
Is it greater than the price Christ paid on the cross?’
‘I understand what you’re saying in my mind’s eye
But my heart condemns me; that I cannot deny
For Christ, my Lord, tells me to love my enemy
But I can’t show concern to the one who hurt me’
I could not find the proper words to comfort her
Guilt burned within me like hot, ignited sulfur
Since the one who hurt me is not my enemy
Why does it repulse me to show her some pity?
After some silence and reflection, I asked her:
‘My dear, have you brought this struggle to God in prayer?’
‘Prayer?’ the little girl fidgeted uneasily
‘Well, no… I can’t…’ she sighed and bowed her head sadly
‘Well, why not?’ I pressed her for a clearer answer
‘I’m afraid… Afraid to pray about this matter
I’ve locked it up in that dark, familiar closet
It is something I want to, but cannot, forget’
‘Why would unlocking the closet bring you such fear?’
‘I don’t want to go to that room… I’m happy here
I was once held captive in that dark, dreadful room
Confined in a closet where despondency loomed
What if my return holds me captive forever?
What if the closet recaptures its prisoner?
No, I will never set foot in that room again!
Dear Lord, please spare me the trauma; save me the pain!’
Lost for words, I reached out and took hold of her hands
‘Our fears and struggles, our Lord Jesus understands
Though words of prayer may fail us, He knows our frailty
Entrust our guilt to Him; our load He will carry’
Villagers Storm Frankenstein’s Castle
By Elton Camp
The huge stone castle looms high above the town
Night approaches & villagers uneasily look around
Yet another innocent of their number has been killed
With fear and a desire for vengeance they are filled
“It’s evil Dr. Frankenstein and the hunchback Igor.
We just aren’t going to put up with them anymore.”
An enormous, ugly monster has been lurking about
Frankenstein and Igor are to blame, there’s no doubt
In the graveyard, late at night, they have been seen
All swear they are doing things unholy and unclean
The villagers have had enough and ready to have a fit
Their flaming torches they very soon will have lit
They march en masse up to the hulking castle door
Torches thrown inside and soon it will be no more
What they don’t see is Frankenstein and his pal Igor
As they both slip quietly out of the castle’s back door
Then one day to the villagers’ horror and surprise
They’ll return, once again the populace to terrorize
.
My toe just stubbed
the stubborn
piano's iron foot.
It hurts like hell,
torments like a
cigarette butt.
Doc said: stay home,
don't walk, take a day
off or more.
I did, but now I'm
bored to death,
not only sore.
But boredom quickly
breeds some crazy
thoughts, you see.
Seems my easy chair
sits on me
uneasily.
Quite weirdly,
colors I now hear,
sounds I now see.
I ache to be
stirred as sugar
in hot coffee !
.
The tripod stand of the three major tribal
domains;
Stands forged by force in 1914 by the
British ambitious chains.
These stand's can't be undone now without
rocking the pot uneasily,
Unless broken into pieces, they are already
knitted, though unequally.
United we stand Nigeria, divided we fall,
Nigerians, hold refrains.
ask the moon
two approaches
two dead ends.
love doesn't die it just slips into your
back pocket
shifting uneasily
like detached spiders legs
you must remind it
that there's no where left to
run.
bodyless memory
entity unto itself.
towards and away
connected at their ends
by the circumference
of doubt.
each movement the derivative
of mute-faceted equations
that click away
between want and
denial.
you approach the subject
of love
with drama and a
top hat
twirling on a cane
with a razor edge.
slicing into
and stretching up
stopping up flows
that quench the need for
chronic seepage.
love has answered none of the
questions
least of all
are you able to love?
or can love exist
in the spaces you have left it?
at first love looms
like the steps of a library
littered with strange words
as you peer through the knees of
understanding
time alters the grandeur of
romance
revealing it as mere discovery.
then the first house
the patch of green
and the settlement grows
a cancer
or a mass of promises-
either way it seems incorrect.
and so the long
goodbye
a deja vu of ripped ligaments
and voided wombs
love remains transient
a boarder in the back of your
mind
an impossible achievement
incomprehensible as
immortality
while love,
the primeval
cytoplasm,
alters its shape
in order to survive.
are we left with
nebular inconsistency
or with
love?
ask the moon
it will reply
"rocks"
ask the universe
and it will remain
silent.
Joseph A Adler copyright 1975
Dark thunderclouds hover uneasily
over the red mesas and arroyos.
I can feel the tingling sensation of
charged air, an unnatural quiet
as the thick, humid air seems to
catch its breath, anticipating.
Suddenly the landscape is overwhelmed
by electric white veins of lightening
that flash and spread like roots
shooting down towards the desert floor.
Urgent rumblings reverberate
under my feet as I anticipate
the loud claps of thunder to follow.
Large, beaded raindrops, lukewarm
begin to drop steadily onto the dry
dusty terrain, marking the sandy soil
causing plants to rise up like
excited exclamation points.
I savor the moment, relishing
in the wonder of nature's drama
admiring the intense power I see
feeling reinvigorated and renewed
in body, mind, soul and spirit.
Written on 8/10/2016
Away from home for many years,
Would shadow of the past be clear?
Old friends and family members
Will be smear, uneasily remember.
Away from the warm motherland,
Thousands miles where I stand,
Pursue freedom and happiness,
Blue sky shows ways of success.
Fly back home with melancholy;
Do the hand prints rest steadily?
Do the works retain their shape?
Or time lets sweet past escape?
Nutty grandpa president
is talking crazy uncle Donald again
His little Chucky thumbs
is tapping epithet tweet nonsense
Batty grandpa’s been
grumpily sucking
on the hate hot sauce bottle
stashed in his KKK closet
Now he’s sporting a Commander-in-Chief cap,
dressed in a wrinkled birthday suit
Churlish grandpa wanna blow the nuclear candles out
in his Oval padded room
He’s trying to smear his coconut-frosted
pejorative German chocolate cake
on every African looking face
Calling Doctor Strangelove and nurse Annie Wilkes Misery,
bad Grandpa is verbally pooping all over the place
His anti-social, mood swing meds
is scattered everywhere on the bed
Nutty grandpa prez
is a stable genius he says
But his schizophrenia behavior
is open and shut caged rage ... Jekyll and Hyde
Hannibal Lecter ... American Gothic suicide
Old Grandpa says
young women love him like Frankenstein’s bride
His paranoid soul
got a misogynist itch
in it’s nether parts
Curmudgeon grandpa claims he’s really rich,
and has an Ebenezer Scrooge heart
Nutty grandpa prez don’t like no immigrants
who came from where he ain’t
Straight jacket truth wraps him wrong,
he loves to swear that he’s no saint
Crazy grandpa just wanna roam the West Wing halls at night,
cursing at everybody left and right
His angry autocrat ticker just wanna be dictator loved
with family suck-up sniveling loyalty
Cuckoo grandpa flew his nest egg eyes over someone in the staff,
whose nurse Ratched mirror image greedy
Nutty grandpa president just got another person fired
for improper cleansing backside kissing
And the raucous din,
rising from the voter base-ment,
means it’s electoral shock therapy time again
So lock the border doors —
keep it dissent quiet, dum-dum
Czar grandpa prez don’t like all that democratic noise
Silence of the lambs,
that soothing lullaby hum
Is the sweet sound
that calms his Joker tweeting thumbs
Rest your rage, nutty grandpa prez:
Uneasily snore deeply,
wearing your Mad Hatter MAGA brim
(keep having more troubled, neo-Nazi policy dreams
of Making America Great Again)
As the White House hospice staff is issuing
M.A.S.H unpatriotic greetings
to Parallel reality refugees
seeking insane asylum ...
Welcome, to the Oval Sanatorium
11:45pm
i was at Andrew's,
she says
oh, i see, i say
you remember Andrew?
she says
i don't, sorry,
what about Andrew?
i say
i told you
i had a crush on this guy
7 years back in the PhD
remember?
she says
i don't mind, i say
listen,
after long hangouts together
and many frozen dreams
i realized he was a gay,
she says
oh, i see, i say,
and he was married
married as two husbands
and the other husband
who also adopted a child
cheated on him
and they divorced...
she continues
oh, i see, now, i re-member,
i say
what **** is "oh, i see, i re-member..."?
5 hours i was with Andrew tonight,
with my gay friend, and once in a week,
why are you mad?
she says
listen, i used to mind,
but not now, girl friend or gay friend,
i say, self-assuredly but uneasily
...when you act superior
unsuccessfully, though,
you sound lunatic,
she says
and worse,
when two lunatics join
not knowing where to go
and stumble in darkness
of their ignorance of each other
they are nothing but walking sacks of ****,
i say
oh, i see, she says,
mockingly
you are the dog of night
who barks at something
he cannot see,
she adds
oh, my...! I scream, am I alone,
where is my
"My Brother's Keeper" gone?
now, my muse, Atete, jumps in
she walks me out
and whispers:
"Ase, listen! you can't run
from anything like this anymore
face it! make it or break it!"
"oh, Atete, now i see," i say
to my muse--
my muse aims to sing
songs of Love and Hope for me
but there isn't time...
and i come back
to balance:
the struggle within
and
the struggle without--
and to think of this
uneventfulness of Being...
now, before we go,
let us close this goddamned story thus:
when your muse whispers
when you don't listen
when there is not much to remember
when there is not much to forget
you are at dead-end, at an impasse--
maybe you made them a Priority
maybe you are to them only an Option
you can't tell turkey by feathers
let your Life and your Death be
not like theirs...
if Love betrays
Luck doesn't...
listen, beautiful loser!
He's a degenerate corrupted by the immortality of humanity,
uttering beguiling lies,
piling sin upon sin upon sin,
inexorable sin enveloping every ounce of good
lying within his dark heart,
impending like a ticking powder keg
Grief leaves him with a toxic conscience;
utter vice,
bound to everlasting condemnation
Hopeless with no affection; no virtue in sight
Envy seeps from his encrusted eyes
Pride,
ebbs what remaining modesty he beholds
Morals,
contaminated by sheer evil
He sits uneasily, contemplating
like a terrorist pending to commit genocide
The Devil smirks at his rebellious acts
destruction, corruption, demoralization,
decaying God's Creation
This is evil
This is wickedness
This is vice