obsessive mind is wit seeping in need
fills gaps with missing pieces external
desperation not love, pleading to seed
gardens to harvest fruits' tasty kernel
fragments illusive prideful love or work
person paints rigours as necessity
grips grey matter, unrealistic cork
attraction clutch mind, a complexity
balanced stability rests hovering
realism swallowed by clawing shadow
higher self cringing waits uncovering
delusions or compulsions dance backflow
urges or repeated thoughts lead to naught
heartfelt spirit will not rest till peace sought
Wounded by its lack
Distrustful of it
Inured to its absence
In thrall to its allure
Fooled by its simulacrum
Estranged from it
Paralysed by fear of losing it
Inexorably exposed to it
Resolved against it
Consumed by longing for it
A scholar to its foreign texts
A slave to its compulsions
Compelled to search for it
Forever
Hopeful
It was a wonder,
How could people live so short sighted?
Until a walk outside among them revealed,
That their compulsions had chased away the stars.
When you're surrounded by lights within arm's reach -
And every urge is reciprocated ten-fold,
Then how could you ever, in your wildest desires -
Possibly expect to shoot for the sky?
Compulsions to create governed by fear and perpetual query,
Where affirmations are fossil fuels, scarce and costly.
Approval? Qualified? I Dangle upside-down, tethered to a rope questions.
Hovering over a pit of acceptance with a bloated cranium.
A pause in their scroll…
The press of a gesture nibbles away the rejuvenating thread.
How can a dozen feel worse than none?
These little thumbs, those filled-in hearts, these perverted numbers.
The lack of something accumulates, forming a dam even beavers would envy.
Obstructing a river of creative juices that quench the thirst of unfulfillment.
To overcome, to not care. These two rarely coexist.
Perhaps shifting the care could break the levy.
Not what they think, but I, and what laser could separate the two?
The strategy brings hope to a mind battered by rejection.
That’s right, Destroyer of Motives! Disguiser of Truths!
I will get up and press that power button, double-click that software, and create.
Not for whoever they are, but for me.
So, blast the damns and let it flow!
Who knows, maybe they like it..
No Longer Legion
By Mark D. Stucky
Demons departed
via possessed pigs,
down the dusty slope,
drowning under waves,
descending into the Abyss
from which they came.
Purged of evil spirits,
my new emptiness
echoes with His peace.
I now have so much room
to grow and go and flourish.
I want to praise that Man,
who asked me for my name,
expelled the monstrous hordes,
and calmed my anguished soul.
I’m named Legion no longer.
Now my name is solitary.
My fragmented name,
my forgotten name,
my original name,
my true name,
is one again,
now cleansed,
and healed,
and whole.
(First published in Agape Review, 3 April 2022. This poem is written from the perspective of the previously possessed man in the story of Mark 5:1-20. The accompanying image represents a man pondering the waves--under which the tormenting voices and compulsions disappeared forever--and enjoying his new peaceful solitude and possibilities. See also my poems “Jericho Roads” and “Life Labyrinths.”)
(Image by MariaD42530 on Pixabay.com.)
What a wonder! Nothing was written! Absolutely free!
Bee, sea, tree - I can create whatever I want to see.
Receptively blank as the almighty designed it well,
It can in each sketch His miraculous mysteries spell...!
Tabula rasa, John Locke calls it - no readymade concepts,
Like nectar in a flower, facts fill in all its contents;
The environment like my mother nurses my actions,
My caring and rearing enable all my attractions...!
I am like a natural child, devoid of compulsions,
My growing intelligence expulses all convulsions;
The Blank Slate - nature's hardware - analyzes all awareness,
My contemplations - software - set them rightly in fairness...!!!
06 February 2023
Going back for just one more…
A drink, a pill, a thrill
Going back to discover the arousal
Flowing through arteries
Veins with a crimson flood
Of stirring compulsions
Complicating the silent thoughts
Of one who is hooked
On the drink, pill, thrill
The artificial joy that leads
A heart toward self-destruction
Going back for just one more…
Idea that fills the spirit
With a sort of feigned joy
Inspiring feelings of fake
Happiness that colors moments
In hues of ebony sorrow
Wicked pretenses brought to life
Amid lonely silence and fright
That lives within the one who
Listens to the synthetic ritual
Learned when the craving consumes
Going back for just one more..
Phony feeling of hope
Lingering on the haunted mind
Of one who heeds the impulse
Leading to using again and again
Taking all that the feeling gives
With a lingering ache for a chance
To loose the pain and sorrow
Within the false stimulation
Of a drink, a pill – a thrill
That leaves you yearning for
Just one more!
Fire from tears
The alluring energies in temper clearly not seen,
a stream that keeps the impulse of action keen.
Gifted to our souls inheritance in magic delight,
ocean of love and its fiery desires in all might.
Blinded by the same by leaping into that feisty gesture,
wonderment in force by natures survivor instinct for sure.
Love’s mate senses that heart to touch by compassion,
daring to that bountiful store even beyond the ashes.
Beyond mere infatuation with deeper dreams of fears,
blessed spirits in need of sweetest relief by tears.
The harvested belief with pulsing energy of wonderland perception,
overflowing the fountain of love by direction.
Lusty flames fanned in awe to know love’s mysteries,
silky threads as safety net in self-righteous hysterias.
The worth of our love as ambrosial taste to know,
transcendent capture with love’s wisdom by a blow.
Intimate compulsions weaving actions into relativity,
observations from the spirit fire of eternity.
Your avant-garde home fills a crucial niche
ensures the perpetuation of outrageous kitsch
The painting on the wall entitled 'Insemination'
keeps this admirer on the brink of regurgitation
That chlorophyll-fish oil drink your butler foisted on me
helps me every fifteen minutes or so to pee
As for your 'petrified out-of-water deep sea plants'
Don't look now; they're on fire with carpenter ants
Then there's your 'mahvelous' retro pet rock collection
pinched, no doubt, from the local House of Corrections
I must confess that your house is, indeed, quite impressive
~ considering that your compulsions are beyond obsessive
Wag, gaw, art, rat, tar, tea, eat, ate
An avid scrabble player, I can see two or three words
Simultaneously now.
I see mthabta and think bathmat.
I have received best game of the week
For three years worth of weeks.
I do not say this as a brag.
My point is that I like word games.
WoKn TWha I mean?
If I could quit competing I would, but there is this
competition maniac inside me that will not let me stop.
Mmtyxad excites me because it has big-point letters.
Q and J are both worth ten points as is Z
But if it is toward the end of a game you will
probably be stuck with them.
Although ZA and JO and QI are scrabble words.
I am excited by the strategies I can use too.
I have not played hundreds of word games.
I have not played thousands of word games.
I have played tens of thousands of word games.
Online within the last four years. Bbtedqs.
Just one of my little compulsions.
She was half asleep in the auditorium
Finding this new year’s curriculum
Dreadfully burdensome and cumbersome
So altogether utterly drearisome
When all of a sudden she heard beating of a drum
And started feeling audaciously adventuresome
With an incredible urge to visit an aquarium
Or race a shopping cart through an emporium
Or follow Hansel and Gretel’s every crumb
Either way her head was filled with wild delirium
With compulsions not meant to overcome
And hankerings to live life to the maximum
Elude deplorable feelings grum or glum
By keeping cheerful and upbeat consortium
Dance through gardens of chrysanthemum
Or plant fields brimful of sublime red geranium
My heart and soul seeking invigorating equilibrium
Embrace passion in its premium platinum sensorium
AP: Honorable Mention 2020
Sin
Oh, my ...
Desire, divine
What I would give
To nibble your saucy bits
You are a wine-taster's banquet
Each exquisite inch of your integument
Hides a sweet savor all its very delectable own
Poured to pique the primal compulsions
And treat the tongue, its tang
What a journey it could be
Inch-to-sublime-inch
A fiery feast
Of you ...
Skin.
* FIRST PLACE in the "Contest 425 Any Form" Poetry Contest, Brian Strand, Sponsor. *
From my lips to Santa, Ive been naughty
Naughty by exploring the touch of erotic compulsions
Despite my naughtiness, I’ve been good, all year
To possibly be visited by this girl that haunts me everyday
Santa if you only knew what her love does to me,
You would become naughty too
Forgetting your innocence if you saw her,
And the magical things she can do
You would began to understand why, it has been hard,
For me to be good all year
I ask you to whisper in her ear, to
Have her show up at my door step,
On Christmas Day
Wearing sweet negligee
This is all I want for Christmas
From my lips to Santa, Ive been naughty
But, I need your help Santa,
So i can be showered by her love on this Holiday
Santa can you help me,
Whisper in her ear,
So she would be waiting for me on my door step,
On Christmas Day?
I have been saved halleluiah
From the darkness of my aurora
An extraterrestrial exhortation
From the grips of an evil temptation
Mindless compulsions overtake reality
Engulfed in the deadly sin of propensity
Each day deeper into the pit of duality
Floundering on the cusp of insanity
What is real and what is nothing
Into the black hole of wondering
The answer is written as I scour
Desperation life is dour
Out of the darkness comes the light
If only you can survive the night
Breeze of freedom
And fragrance of your
Glory of your beauty
What need more?
Echo of rise
Melody of singing birds
Ready to leave home
To make free fly
I am not a bird
I have many compulsions
But willing for freedom
Make me strong to free fly
I want to touch your soul
My destination is your heart
I want to be your shadow
Till my last breathe
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