Just ‘jealous’ doesn’t do her justice, since
unless you factor-in her womanhood,
no vestige of the passion in her blood
or motivation comes across: her prince
conceived real circumspection. He’d convince
alumni, friends and allies that they should
placate her: Juno wasn’t wholly good,
in Miller’s words, a phrase which wins the quince,
the prize for sweetness, but wholly herself.
Our modern model argues men are strong –
look at his biceps! Somehow, all along,
I’ve known the Ghibelline to be a Guelph:
no question, Juno would approve my song:
as ingrained as the view is, it’s still wrong.
Tombs begin to bloom like raw, bloodless wounds.
Tomes are written with truths of her dead moon’s
tones. A keening lunacy keeps the dirges alive, while
bones rise out of repose. A degloved hand on the dial
hones into a night rainbow's radio, she runs on solar,
hopes for the rhythm to wrench free from her toller—
copes with the captivity of being bodiless hands. Twilight
comes to chance escape—open palms toward birthright.
Coves burst into flame; a hungry fire wants holier water.
Coven circles, recovers the skinless limbs of their daughter.
Woven like song, sirens' balm to restore coats of missing arms,
women are spells read correctly, using words as our alarms,
woken to language, resurrecting ancient pairs of sacred charms.
Young and athletic
You just showing your biceps
Young girls smile shy.
Big muscles of the organ grinder, his biceps burning.
Cranking springs, the tired, but cheerful, Italian chap.
Many chapters of his life on streets of cold cement.
His beard, silver tone; his worn hat filled with coins.
You’d expect for the old legs to be moving, it rests
as the tunes be calling, beckoning through windows.
Accordion sounds be arousing smiles and curiosity.
Melancholy dirges wet the shoulders of the bitties.
Again the pedals and thighs grind along, travelling
as the kids and townsfolk wave goodbye. On his
merry way, feet tapping, ladies dancing, men puffing
on their pipes and cigars. The music says so long.
And another group gathers in the waning sun, waiting
for their favorite song; and the grinder gladly plays,
telling a story, with his barrel rolling, his pins caressed.
Kaput - he moves into a museum, a blast from the past.
Sit-ups, planks, and crunches
My push-ups done in bunches
Deep heavy squats from the rack
Deadlifts are good for my back
Just pumping up my biceps
And cutting up my triceps
I'm sweating harder each day
So I look sharp when I play
I close my eyes
So I can see you
That I'm still in your heart
I clench my hands
So I can feel you
That I'm still inside of you
I rub my heart
To ponder... that you still care for me
I call my soul
To wonder... you're my home in me
You opened my eyes,
Covered and blinded
Under the dark skies
You softened my hands,
Rough and burnt
Under the sun that dries
You revived my restless body
And lifted up my spiritless life
You brought back
The smile in me
And laughter, long buried
Inside of me
You are my home
My heart and my soul
Wherever I am
I carry you with me
I walk in your footsteps
Holding my heart with your forceps
My strength in my biceps
My shield above my triceps
Your shoulder
Is my armor
Tempered with ardor
Your heart is my home
My heart that dwells in chrome
What really attracts most women to men
Does the size of their biceps make ladies yen
Methinks not, that ain't it
A little boy image is always a hit
So start wearing a diaper with a loaded back end
I love plenty green grass growing with flowers
fireflies flickering at shows at nighttime
their bio-luminescence internal night-lights flashing
people pleasuring by the beach with hot sunny sun-tanning
builders are there on many beaches with wet sandy sandcastles
swimmers are swimming; snorkelers are submerged in blue water
sun has illuminated many bike trails for mountain-bike bicycling
sunrays light up parks to have some fun of festive fraternizing
days are longer with sunsets a glow of lavender tinge and orange
4th, July has multi foods of tasty outdoor tender barbequing
summer sun brings out short-sleeves boasters bulging biceps
freedoms a most pleasurable thing of this most seasonal season
From dusk till dawn, the fields, they toiled
Enduring lashes from the overseer's whip.
Grimacing as the sun on them, boiled
The pain, too deep for them to even weep.
Heavy iron shackles impeded their footsteps
Hot iron on bare skin branded them as property
And while many suffered from broken biceps
Others died and few in pains, reached forty.
The maidens got raped by the bearded monster
The children, separated and sold like sheep
And while many got maimed in this order
With stoicism they endured with little sleep.
The Americas, my Ancestors built
And like soldiers far from Rome,
They sweated and died without guilt
In a land they couldn't call home..
They toiled under the sun in silence
Their minds, blurred by the middle passage
Such hideous and appalling violence
That saw thousands cast overboard during the voyage.
Gathered at dusk around their candle stick,
Desperation had struck some with insomnia.
Families in fear clung, while the kids kick
Hearing their parents voices singing in nostalgia
"Home again again, home again again
When shall I see my home?....."
©Temajung Michael T
I met a guy in the dairy section of my local grocery store
He was carrying an over-the-shoulder, leather purse
He had a purple scarf around his neck, what could be worse?
The fellow was driving a great big, black funeral hearse!
A buxom young lady was shopping in the produce aisles
I could have sworn she had had extensive lipo-suction
Her enormous biceps were a work under construction
She had three children with her, an obvious deduction.
I moved on to the meat department and stood watching
An old lady maneuvering an enormous motorized grip
Ordered a butcher to cut her a three-pound New York strip
While she was waiting she did a perfect backward, reverse flip.
Tell me, before I go stark raving, mad-as-a-hatter crazy
I am jumping too quickly to unwarranted conclusions
That after what I saw I should immediately go into seclusion
It only seems that way; clearly, I am victim of my own delusions.
Written March 18, 2021
Submitted to Kai Michael Neumann’s
“It Only Seems That Way” contest
When you are a drunk man
all the long unused muscles in your brain
travel down into your lower back
and arms.
You feel you can carry a small dense world,
a world with the specific gravity
of a bucket of kidney stones
at the bottom of a barrel of wine.
Drunks never have time to practice
or exercise their feet,
they stand like beach-wet oak trees
bulging in imaginary oak tree trunks,
impervious to age or ability
they carry a helpless Zeus
as if they had always been his father,
then later, topple in and out of a life raft
painstakingly explaining
to a gaggle of lesser gods
how your biceps once were as big
and as tight
as Herculeses’ bursting bladder.
BASKETS OF SAND AND CORAL
Here on my roof on Eastern pillows spread
I watch the “slaves” unload the dhows-
Strong black men with bulging biceps,
Carrying baskets of sand and coral on their heads.
In monotonous repetition they trudge,
From ship to sea wall, from wall to shore,
Each a vital link of their conveyor belt,
As their forefathers have been in ages past,
Passing baskets of sand and coral on their heads.
BASKETS OF SAND AND CORAL
Here on my roof on Eastern pillows spread
I watch the “slaves” unload the dhows-
Strong black men with bulging biceps,
Carrying baskets of sand and coral on their heads.
In monotonous repetition they trudge,
From ship to sea wall, from wall to shore,
Each a vital link of their conveyor belt,
As their forefathers have been in ages past,
Passing baskets of sand and coral on their heads.
O’ fair Adrenaline
Oh, powerful you make me strong;
I can’t do wrong
Beautiful Adrenaline
You got my heart pumping
Got my breath in my chest
I’m just sweating
Biceps protruding bulging;
I stand next to you Adrenaline
Strong
Come
You secreted me
Hormonally
You’re stress,
You take my breath
Excited exertions do you brew
I belong to you
Beautiful Adrenaline
You got my heart pumping
Got my breath in my chest
I’m just sweating
Biceps protruding bulging;
I can’t do wrong
Oh, powerful you make me strong;
O’ fair Adrenaline
1/30/20
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2020©
January 28, 2020 Assignment
Written for class assignment (WIPS) North Omaha Writers Group (NOW)
I can patch up an injury
Block the loss of blood
I can undergo surgery
I can erase the scars
But my mind’s wounds bleed forever
I may be in good shape
Stretching my body with ease
I may have flexi biceps
Every eye they may please
But my mind’s strength succeeds forever
I may feast at banquets
Pick the finest cuisines
Sway at a music fest
Have joyous recreation
But my mind’s hunger is feeds forever
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