Tongue Tied in Clichés: A Blessing in Disguise
A blessing in disguise,
a double-edged sword—
a far cry from peace,
yet all in all,
at the drop of a hat
we reach for a ballpark figure,
beat around the bush,
break new ground,
burn the midnight oil.
By the book we cut to the chase,
play devil’s advocate,
fill the void with food for thought,
start from scratch,
then get cold feet.
Give the green light,
go down in flames,
hit the nail on the head,
find ourselves in over our head,
jump on the bandwagon,
keep something at bay,
leave no stone unturned.
Out of our depth,
past the point of no return,
we read between the lines,
take it with a grain of salt,
see only the tip of the iceberg—
until at last we throw in the towel.
Seems plagiarism, isn’t a crime
Let’s copy lines we deem sublime
Perhaps from Shakespeare
Or wit Edward Lear
And poet’s deceased a long time
It's pointless alerting admin
Cos stealing work’s not deemed a sin
It’s really not fair
To steal works out there
It happened much to our chagrin
Known clichés which are now passé
Just copy them and post away
Then act with denial
Sit tight, even smile
And perhaps, get Poem of the Day!
When ideas are locked in a cage,
The bot frees poetry of its rage,
Like analgesics on a fresh wound—
A turbulent sea where pains are drowned.
The goal’s not to write, but to refine,
To make rhythms, forms, and each word align;
Quick to shape poems to perfection,
Bringing finesse to art’s reflection.
But its pen drips with glib emotions,
It revels in stale, putrid notions,
It loots old clichés in broad daylight,
With its informants on every site.
It pours in all ears its tone-deafness,
For its inkwell is void of freshness;
From the poems of the past it steals,
And copyright claims trail its cold heels.
Far better—a creative ally,
With clear, firm bounds to which all comply—
Than crowned as a human replacement,
Or seeking the poet’s mind displacement.
A night in fragments—
Breath reeked mildewed regrets,
and static collided behind my eyes.
I tasted shattered neon,
sipping cheap club gin.
Even alcohol can’t silence the poet—
I mock her perfumed clichés,
but still draft her eulogy
in thrifted elegance.
“I hate writing blind,” I muttered
as gin bled through crooked verses—
March 14th,
a drunk poet sighed—
Her pen staged the week’s second tragedy.
At least yesterday’s wasn’t on paper.
.
No Way Out
A genie in the bottle to grant my wishes—
I’m drifting,
looking for the red exit sign.
My desire for freedom waning
like the moon reflected in hues of blue
on the glass
of a Klein bottle:
A line begins,
yet never ends,
curling inward,
outward.
The terrarium of my life
shelved between the dust motes of indifference—
dancing ill-conceived clichés in soporific sunbeams—
it’s a mere curiosity …
Words chocked back,
thoughts lost
in the
labyrinth …
as the rosemary rain
soaks
pensive petals,
leaving an aroma
of lovers’ betrayal
the succulent scent
of
his
petrichor skin
caresses the midnight
crevices of this
meticulous mind,
urging my soul to purge
tears and ink
long mimicked
by April’s sunlit rays
synchronizing
a symphony of robins
a rhapsody
of wild blooms
a chorus of dragonflies
a sprinkle
of swirling sakura
painting a panorama
of spring meadows
dancing to
the diamond glows
of stellar streaks...
and without the moon
I am an echo
of rhymeless clichés,
an abandoned prose
breathing amidst
porcelain pages
of mourning metaphors
aching to savor
confessions
of clemency....
for heart feels numb
to the
b u r n
of being forgotten
as storms taste
softer than sunrise~
and in
s i l e n c e,
I rise....
Fog unravels its gray threads to smother the sky
and numb the mind,
words slip away to find other mouths
to fall from.
Wallowing in a low funk,
enveloped by a dull dislike
of these sprawling hours,
and this gun-metal sky
shuffling along
as a ghost in carpet slippers.
Into a deep glass of wine
shrinking spirits sink,
listless lips sip mechanically.
Words wriggle away as if escaping a fire.
Idiom and phrase morph into clichés.
Too few words arrive
to pin down or hammer onto a page.
The wine has no taste
it was poured too early, drank too late.
A mist lingers in that headspace
where creativity slumbers listlessly.
Daylight grows old, the mist turns red
it's not the sunset painting these thoughts -
it's a sullen anger.
That anger began to grow around 3pm
with the realization that I really have been
unplugged from myself,
and that today no eyes will see
those lost or found words which appear
when I allow a white electronic page
to turn me on
and not off.
In three hundred, I pulled without fear,
From my dentition, a grin quite sincere
Clichés serve as my balm,
In the chaos, my psalms
Yet to some; I might seem quite unclear,
With words throbbing back in my head,
I ponder the things that I've said
Did commentation run dry,
As I reached for the sky?
Or am I just tangled in dread?
The gallery, it holds all my grace,
While some think I'm lost in the space
But in laughter and rhyme,
I still bide my time,
In this curious, chaotic embrace!
it's autumn where have,
all the butterflies have flown;
fall is here crisp cool-
~
is the air where have
all the butterflies flown, gone
in falls crisp cool aire
10/23/24
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2024©
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Poem Syllable Counter Results
Syllables Per Line: 5 7 5 0 5 7 5
Total # Syllables: 34
Total # Lines: 7 (Including empty lines)
Words with (syllables) counted programmatically: N/A
Total # Words: 30
Results
Grammar Mistakes
No embarrassing grammar mistakes found. Congrats!
Spelling Errors
No spelling mistakes found.
Clichés
No clichés found.
Word Choice
No Poor Word Choices Found.
*
The truth is not always beautiful
or beautiful words from sugared lips, the truth.
The Trojan Horse delivered to the door, comes in disguise.
Sturdy in design of wood, but empty as a trickster
who plies her trade amongst unwary
and the inevitable susceptible naïveté akin to the Greeks’ quaint
love for the common old garden grasshopper of all colours —
a Greek tragedy in the making, rivalling that of Sophocles.
My truths are more complicated than the above:
an exposé wrapped in the variable
old clichés of devotion and eternal love of the other.
Keeping the secrets of others is a burden to be
suffered in silence until a beautiful
death do us part – then rendezvous in eternity.
The old poets haunt me
they taunt me from the shadows
following every keystroke I type -
they’re critical of phrases,
they demand narrower themes
and mock the very clichés they invented.
I remind these frightful spirits of how tenuous
life was, how I’m blindly living these experiences,
how prevalent desire is, how human it is to chase
the things we’re told will fulfill us, like goals and love.
I try and explain this Internet thing, how the more copious
my writings, the more people it says are following me.
How I really don’t want to sound paranoid
but as hard as I try - I don’t see anyone.
.
.
Song for this:
Too Much Time On My Hands by Styx
Reelin' In The Years by Steely Dan
If you’re looking for a fight,
If you feel like running on horseback,
To saw bars of prisons,
if you want to play poker
Or drink a whiskey in a saloon,
Perhaps there is a reason?
An unhappy childhood,
The betrayal of a beautiful ideal or
The desire to enjoy life, then
Ask yourself the right question,
Maybe you had an uncle in Dallas
Or have you seen too many westerns,
Maybe a woman lied to you?
Yet women smell good,
So is it Texas syndrome, :
"Too many manly guys around you?"
PS, this is full of french clichés i guess, when i wrote that in 2009
I do not speak their words.
They're full of clichés and ideas that will never truly form.
I have tried to bend my tongue that way,
But it twists and turns and limbos.
I know too little of their songs,
And I am a worshiper of familiar music that plays over and over and over.
The talker on the radio speaks for whatever—
I will never hear him again.
I am afraid of their prayers.
I cannot worship mine with foreign words.
Their cries carry nothing; there goes my empathy.
I am not from here.
I know something of my own,
And it is the language of people,
A people that walk and talk and cry and die.
My language does not break my lip.
Mine does not glimmer,
No million expressions; but has enough to convey a scream.
It bears with it an understanding of danger and desire.
It is easy because it knows something of difficulty.
caught in a dark space of the in-between
drowned in emotions to others unseen
too proud to walk backward, can't step ahead
once starving fears are now constantly fed
moments when hands seem to comfortably touch
change to discomfort, an unwanted crutch
clichés of bright sides or things meant to be
sincere intentions, help to small degree
soul search seems endless and to no avail
but needs not come down to succeed or fail
mindset has no shelf life..no hourglass sand
what time you take is the time that's at hand
you needn't feel dirty now to come clean
find your comfort in a warm in-between
Does poetry have a god?
I wonder as I write,
Re-write, delete, delete,
Save….no wait….
I sense a presence
Hovering over my fingers
As they search
Each keystroke
Hesitating, conspiring
With …. With…something?
Some one?
Sorting through the ether
Of individuality
Shunning the mantra
Of clichés.
Sticky fingered demons?
Celestial conspirators?
Battling for a loose “word”
In the corner
Eying a fast break
A buzzer beater
PRINT!! PRINT!!!
Raise your hands
Shout….
High fives
Shared
With a mystical muse.
John G. Lawless
©12/8/2022
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