Circumscribed Poems

Yesterday

An oppressive still
has settled the morning.
The gray water of the bay
is as motionless as concrete.
I would like to float from here
but cannot find lift
even on the breath 
of these words, 
they remain stuck on a page
weighted with consequence.

Yesterday, there were places 
where I could go,
the wild and overgrown
far corners of a backyard
or high up in the branches 
of a tall tree in the unfenced 
freedom of a park at the end 
of the street. 

There I was unobserved
beneath a sky that was endless 
and not bent into the lens
of a microscope. Birds
and newly minted dragonflies 
flew through the sunlit air
lifted by psalms rising
ballooned with meaning
towards a “somewhere”
not circumscribed 
by a name.

Seijaku

Stop,
Take your time
Contemplate the snail
Its circumscribed life
Happily  it lives within
Its  surrealist shell
Leaving silvery streams 
In its wake
Having both shelter 
And protection 
On its back
Although its time
May be short 
It is content
Learn from
Its fleeting life
Carpe diem

Ambition

stairs
oppportunism
invisible
flight
ingrained
sculpture
of
mental
monolith
clandestine
&
past
existential
root
&
extant
present
manipulative
momentum
&
intent
futuristic
circumscribed
eternal
sanguinity
in
time
continuum
lure
of
nowhere
infinity

Advice To Circumscribe

"Margaret's activities must be circumscribed," said the doctor.
Her husband was horrified.
He did not know women could be circumscribed.

Twin Sisters

Damning two lies
with only one truth
Deception remixes 
like gin and vermouth

Jumping from one
as the other got hot
Port in the storm
where perdition is fraught     

Grace in short order
 with blessings denied 
Thomas redoubting
 all faith circumscribed  

Prevarication
twin sister of pain
The Word caught between them
—trapped to remain

(The New Room: July, 2023)

Bringing You Back

The night shift…
working in anonymity
semi-detached
Finding a hidden
emptiness
blinding daylight always hides
Tying up the
looser ends
of conscious dislocation
Bringing you back
inside yourself
through darkness circumscribed

(Dreamsleep: January, 2023)

Cycles

Life,
the cycle...
The world,
the circus...

The man,
circumscribed...
The universe,
conspicuous...

The light
lights up,
the repeated time
suddenly...
The spirit
ascends,
life
surprises
ever...
everything comes and
departs,

returns to
  start... and has
no edge...
Successfully,
no recess all
moves on,
always... motorcycle
perpetual, ad infinite,
continuous, and
never ceases...!

Bounded

Bounded

Circumscribed

Bordered

Are stories

Imagined

Appearing

Passed down

From past

Ages..

Stories which

Are freedom

Already...

Sunrise Glow of Tulips

Don’t try to straighten tulips, dear - they spread.
They lean and bend…they bump and crowd…infuse
Their sunrise glow - the perfect rainbow-red.

The priceless, Holland-choice, symphonic hues,
Impress a smile from lovers’ lips, a test.
They lean and bend. They bump and crowd. Infuse.

In comely youth, great happiness expressed -
Relinquished to the bulbous fate of time.
Impress a smile from lovers’ lips, a test.

The glass panel aflame - half-dozen rhyme   
In partial sun.  Such glory circumscribed,
Relinquished to the bulbous fate of time.

Across the morning sky, their light imbibed.
Each vibrant cup with verdant leaves adored.
In partial sun - such glory circumscribed.

When glimpsing life through glass, don’t bind with cord.
Don’t try to straighten tulips, dear - they spread.
Each vibrant cup with verdant leaves adored.
Their sunrise glow - the perfect rainbow-red.

4/20/2022
AN ORIGINAL TERZANELLE
Sponsor: Milton Hankins
HMS and Rhymezone

Life Cycles

Of the ancestral crystals,
            the spirit is outlined in
            shapes and contours ...
            Asleep ore,
            so it begins.
            Circumscribed to vegetable
             dreams of the future ...
            Almost dreams then
             plant ... yearns
             animal ...
             Animal wakes up ... retarded
             but rational ...
             So we arrived
             for debugging ...
             So living, passing,
             coming and going ...
             For one day to conquer,
             to continue conquering ...
             To be finally sublimated
             in angels .. on the way
             forth the light...!





       Suggested song
    the light - Donovan

     https://youtu.be/wa5u2KuYN_k

Incels Cult

Pardon me if I disbelieve
that bumping ugly is still a thing
even though the evidence
states quite the opposite
the fair practices once pursued
enjoyment of the lovely views
are now lost to distant days
spawned from acts that cured malaise

purity is circumscribed
by a god in holy writ
even as adherents longed
for the same as lust implores
indulgence taken in the flesh
look to the testament that came before
there the needs were clearly met
taunting me as consequence

to consider religion’s rules
this slows few with dire decrees
company found without clothes
for the sake of coitus’ charm
a convent would be the home
suited for my dearth of joy
there the belief would support
the nothingness of incel’s cult.

A Convoluted Premise

A CONVOLUTED PREMISE

Do what you can is what you can do
But some seek more it's all up to you 
Then it might be said "well then, just do more"
Defining more brings you back to before as an encore
Because to do more you
have to know the before
Defining exactly how much you actually did
Allows possibly going forward beyond that grid
But it must be remembered brains are circumscribed by size
Which limits the acquisition of what you can know or surmise
So the barrier for doing more may have already been presented
And doing what you can cannot be augmented

Thought In Thought

Thought, in its most bizarre sense
Is a loop looped over looped loops
Circumscribed and inscribed within scripts
That have conquered our soul.

When we think, do we think
What we are to?
Or what we think we are to?
Or we think what we are...

If someone has sinned
"Has she sinned?
Or is her being sinned a sin?"
If the sin had not sinned.

We don't show what we think;
Indifference in happiness
With the happiness in sorrow
Entangled with hope.

And changing emotions affect
Whether one would love others
But why they would love
If they would love love, not others.

And then while acquainting
Whether the face depicts honesty
Whether the person inside is 'white'
Whether that 'white' is a hypocrite.

Well,this was something
Thought, when thought of affects our thought
Thoughts get subdued under that thought
And we forget what we thought of
Thoughts before giving it a little thought!

Evanescent Splendour

Circumscribed as her life was
By the inescapable miasma of stifling destitution,
Lovely but not luscious,
She delighted in wading through
A valley strewn with thorns 
But  hers  was  never a  stroll  through  a  grove  of  roses
Her petals laden with perfume
As the proverbial fair flower of the same name.
All arms and legs, a bundle of bones
Her frail, lissome frame merrily bore
All travails of her short, terrestrial sojourn.
Unlike her double in nature,
She had no thorns; Rose is deemed the queen of flowers,
But she carried a thorny crown.
 Hers was no misnomer as she excelled
The life of her namesake to the core.
Slim as her stem was, the agonies of her bosom knew no bounds.
A taper, she burned   bright to dispel the pall of gloom
That bound her withered plain 
Even as the vicissitudes of life consumed her.
Tender-aged as she was, she mothered many a sibling.
Self-oblivious and alien to all earthly comforts,
Her resolve   never skin-deep, her renunciation no ornament,
She was condemned to be a host, a victim of parasitoidism

Jailbirds

here
are those
whose bones inhabit clothes
and muscles feed on flesh
except for mine —

here in concrete and florescent light
between closing walls and slamming locks
where the doors bear names
and all things soft and sensuous
are excluded
and nourishment so circumscribed
it’s turned to medicine
and even sleep is rationed
and even the sun shines just
one hour per day

men here
some with hearts of porphyry
but more with hearts all made of bruises
and men whose hearts beat scherzo time
to mock the waltzing world
men more varied
than all the work-day men
who stumbled into power’s ken
and there must bide
sharing time to kill their numbers
where solo time is hard —

here
in jail
serving to remind the rest
that freedom’s theirs who use it less

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