Cankered Poems | Examples

Same Old Song

The torn remain
of what was plain
waves now ore frozen ground,
in winds that blow
cold ice and snow
and other feelings down.

There isn’t much
left in a touch
to calm the trembling hand.
For winter’s chill
falls colder still
in cloak across the land.

The settled dust
and cankered rust
guard safe against the grain,
while fading dim
from deep within
gives root to growing pain.

How did it go
from there to here?
How could it end so wrong?
A love once whole,
two lives once full…
yet still the same old song.

Death of a Flower

Down on row and pit and mortal flower
  the undertaker’s men stood grave and bier,
and brave stoic death fills the living hour
  forevermore a day, a week, a year.
Where bathed in shafts of exalted light toll
  the bells of Mass and vigil in Greenhithe,
when in bound clay an immovable dole
  grimly hung the shadows in hood and scythe.
Yet I upon this ploughed earth sullen gaze
  and hearken in the blooms the winds of death!
What sting its blow to a full end of days
  that dares to breathe on me its cankered breath.
Withered is the bud and brief flower shed
yet for a time its beauty shone outspread.


                Written: July 1995

Blame

On a fact finding mission, I traveled one day
Observing obstructions that got in the way.
I found, when I wandered too close to the hole,
I kicked loose the gravel and cankered my soul.
And, sometimes, I wounded some helpless one
Who hollered and scolded until I was gone.
"Forgive me," I offered. "I really am sad.
I hope to see good and put stop to the bad.
I know I've offended. I fell when I tripped.
No injury was intended, I'm sorry I slipped!"
"You really are careless! You ought to be flayed!
Get out of here mister!" But, somehow, I stayed.
The ranting and raving had gone to my heart.
I truly was sorry, but I still couldn't part.
I want to mend fences. I want to fix things.
I want to relate to all positive dreams.
I even am grateful for hurting and woe.
I accept of life's sorrows. But,
The Blame's got to go!

Not Beholden

I’m not beholden to you,
certainly not because of your riches
I’m not compelled to do
any of your narcissistic, selfish wishes
Your vain thoughts 
of having me under your control,
it ain’t happening ... oh, no
What? 
Become beholden to you
and lose my soul — 
You better hold your breath some more
I’m not beholden to you,
therefore I will not comply
Don’t attempt to legally enslave me,
but a rich fool always gon try
Nevertheless, if you persist:
May you get a cankered sweet gold tooth,
may you get a devil cake gout belly
Let gourmet delicacies become worms inside of you,
let your hardened mind turn into soft, infirm jelly
My soul is not indebted to you,
I’m not beholden to your power in the least
Like lightning striking out of the blue,
the judgment of God arises always from the east

Ersatz Ecstasy

Substitute happiness
modeled on material things
Buy new iterations of the same 
every seasonal change
Improved, your life will be
from promises of acquisition guarantee
Ersatz ecstasy ... 
cankered desires rotting the spirit from within
Manufactured joy
bought with paper and plastic 
Non-biodegradable debris
tossed away in a cobweb attic
If every item sold be advertised as perfection, 
why don’t the products last forever?
Ersatz ecstasy ... 
weak imitations trying to pass as the real thing
Man-made idols 
coined as possessions of replicated paradise
Substitute garden of Eden
in need of repair by machines without a soul
Ersatz ecstasy
loses its potency when the expiration date gets old
Leaving you with empty happiness that can’t be sold

Matters of Dawn

Poison onion rings
                                                Bunion on a sling
                                              Rustic carriage bolts
                                        Shoe string eating antelopes
                                         Cankered bison crying wolf
                                   While dancing under the heated son
                                      No one comes this is the dawn

Matters of Dawn

Poison onion rings;
Bunion on a sling;
Rustic carriage bolts;
Shoe string eating, antelopes;
what's the matter
what's the matter
whose ya mad at, son;
what's the matter;
what's the matter;
whose ya mad at, son;
when it all settles, when the feet hit the dust;(this ole earth)
and the horizon falls from the skies. . .
it's on, it's on it's all a matter of
it's all a matter of dawn;
 the Matters of dawn
Cankered bison crying;
While dancing under the heated son;
My cousin from Missouri says he's only seen black squirrels in Nebraska;
No one comes this town in the dawn;
Catch phrase of the 1970's was, What's going on, going on;
and the horizon falls from the skies...
it's on, it's on it's all the matter of
it's on, it's on it's all a matter of 
it's all the matter of dawn;
the Matters of dawn
what's the matter;
whose the matter;
what's the matter;
whose ya mad at son;
what's the matter;
don't be a hater;
lift up your arms, your hands, your head up to the skies;
rejoice in the creator, for He made ya;
and for this ya need to be grateful;'
it's all
yes! YA
it's all matters of the dawn

At Rainbow's End

My love is pink in cheek and red in heat,
Her colors color life with vibrant glows;
Her orange hue has cankered citrus beat,
Her yellow hair foils jaundiced flowers’ shows.
My love is green in proof, a jade in purse,
Her blues are ranged between two naval skies;
Inspiring purple prose and violet verse,
Her boons are sparkling rainbow spectrummed eyes.
But visible light can only brown my bright,
Her excellence transcends all colors known;
She's white in night and shaded black when light,
She colorblinds all prior beauties blown.
		My love is ultraviolet, infrared,
		Her looks and thoughts lie ‘bove, beyond my head.

The Dog, the Bear, and the Maggot

The Dog is structured,
Always working to preserve,
Familial ties.
Diligent service,
Loyal to love and country,
Strong yet still servile.

The Bear is nurtured,
A hunter in fair weather,
Useless in winter.
Promises plenty,
But bleeds his own forest dry,
Water, trees and all.

The Maggot is cankered,
A hollow soul and stomach,
Skulking forest floors.
Can only scavenge,
ON the corpses of others,
And their fellow man.

Burnt Verse: Carrion Kings

Carrion kings crow callous things in settled twilight cracks;
Their cankered queens quote noxious reams down croaking fabric tracks.

A patterned noose attentive sits atop a patient peak,
Whilst zephyrs drone from Zaire to home to wheeze unto the week.

Preachers pine an impassioned whine beneath their teething tongues;
'Twixt caustic lips their worm-breath sits to drain their sunken lungs.

Twin servile suns send sullen songs to sleep beneath a cross,
Which frays away it's stiff arms held aloft with burning moss.

Child Dispersal

Child Dispersal


Polygamy we openly denounce or loath
while promiscuity we commit at will.
Should Retribution be borne in both
why the last we spurn with inflated zeal?

Scattered children teem universal
while we all agree that a few is better.
Are we to subscribe to this dispersal
and not agree to observe the later?

                    *

Public truth is cankered with overt risk;
an honest preacher is easily blamed.
Yet, an Impostor who is stiff and brisk
"Greatest One," is vaunted or named.

Man Folks who look straight to observe
in both, Fidelity they cannot detect
Wherefore if both Honour fail to deserve
condemn both with utter disrespect.

                    *

Children are bound to suffer the most
Where we "say" this and then "act" that
Humanity pays Life's unbearable cost
where mankind asks not why or what.

Misfortune in Babies of Snake's eggs
is being abandoned 'fore being hatched
Worst, they are then born with no legs
on the patched Earth to be stretched!


28th Sept' 2013

Birth Pranks

Birth Pranks!


labour....a baby cries
then popcorn of exploding smiles
yet, he's wary of lies

will he quickly talk
before he can do anything or walk
to tell if he is his folk?

"why not like his brother
nor at least the face of his mother
or me his ugly father!?"

common labour pranks,
aftermath of protracted labour pangs
is wagging of tongues!

          *

let's wallow in mirth
not by small but by a large girth
for the infantile birth.

recalling the pot
burned on fire to simmer hot
and cook this lot.

womb is not defied
cankered or be it of lineage wild
that yielded the child.

no sooner is he out
than there is the malignant doubt;
"this is not dad's snout!"

law of the bush:
baby survives overturned in a rush;
in atavism check by Cush!


**Conceived when a friend's wife gave birth at home. The poem casts a slur to rural births that took place those years when a child had to really resemble his father.......! Infant mortality and divorces then were pretty.


13th September 2013

Fidelity's Duplicitous Door

Fealty's door was satin stained
Durable wood pulped from reliable strain
With blithe trim and decadent frills overlain
Lofty mantle Love's precedence to ordain
Interior with taut, strong fibers ingrain
Golden chain to seal our matrimonial domain

O'er time, your jaundiced mind did abstain
The frilly vows from the lacquered surface drain
The bonding fibers your incontinence could not restrain
Crown molding shrouding romance cankered with disdain
Titular mantle with self-serving goals rent in twain
In unrepentant rage, severed Oath's melding chain

Mother Taught Me

Mother taught me
When pride cankered me to climb
Trees upside down before the crowd
She scolded me
The higher the monkey climbs, son
The more he will
Expose. Her lessons truth has won
Feel now the thrill

For when took gold
And tongue, and people from the land
Nothing was left but tears and dying
Of human soul
All that gold was cankered with our blood
Things fall apart
Everywhere, the old systems melt to mud
Mother was smart

Blood money gone
Misery shakes the clouds of coming dawn
Confusion fold the banks that genius brimmed
A naked fawn
Alone and vulnerable, shivers in the sight
The trigger pressed
And Europe gropes through thickening night
Greed is careless.

Suicide haunts fear
Of the coming apocalyptic readjustments now
The wounded fawn rushes to the cliff, but blind
Nor can it hear
It is not the hunter but the wind in its chase
It's climb too far
I made impotent cannot rescue or its debt erase
Time healed my scar.

Protest

My soul bleeds where once before the altar 
Of my manhood I found worship
I cannot condone another prayer to falter
Where a woman's memory may slip
On the bruising stones of childhood, not good
The abuse of totem power, the cold
Plunder of children's will, what heart so wood
Defiled the fragile bodies like gold
Cankered now, my faith denigrated
For every woman by lust desecrated.

She was my temple, and I worshipped there
Since a child, loving what was pure
In my belief, kneeling to beauty as not mere
Form and figure, but some more
Meaning of her as a gift the mirthless scream
Of man. And I would for the shame
Blight your house and blight the horrid dream
That brought this slur against the name
Else how can I lead, how can love be
Trusted when it masks such cruelty?

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