I’ve littered the page with alliteration
Marbled it with metaphor
Injected it with irony
Confined it in constrictive cadence
Slathered it with slithering syllabic silliness
Ravenously roamed the Rhyme Zone
Challenged the demons of “How many dot com”
Punctuated the un-punctuatable
Said “the heck with spelchek”
Shed the shroud of sentient surveillance
For my words are fed through
The shredders of sentiment
The chopping blades of “critique”
The swirling blades of trimmers
The plucky platitudes of pruners
And yet I write, compose, imbue
In unseen color distant words
Rough cut diamonds
Defying the cutters edges
Leaving a life unpolished
Unabashedly unashamed
Of the tarnished truths
That mar the purity
Of poetry’s perfection
A quagmire is a soft, murky bog that shakes
or yields underfoot.
In other words, a swamp,
that is imbued with sticky mud:
where progress is slow,
for it's easy to get stuck.
A quagmire is also a synonym
for an unpleasant, constrictive situation;
which is not easy to escape from.
Look around; we are stuck
in a swamp of greed and hate,
a quagmire of our own making.
Bigotry is a by-product of manufactured fear,
as the blood of innocents sullies our souls.
And we are sinking into conformity;
stuck in the quicksand of complacency.
The hope of change is strictly rationed to the masses,
while tightly controlled by a few.
We are born as a cog in a system
designed to extract individualism,
and replace it with compliance.
Thereby keeping us stuck within the very gears,
that are grinding us down.
We need to drain that political swamp,
even though its alligators are always on patrol.
beneath the canvas glows the dullness of colors;
flatten by the piercings;
sack of colors;
bold beautiful blacks and whites;
be it ever so bountiful;
I choose to draw my own constrictive arts?
6/24/21
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2021©
She’s so neg neurodegenerative,
so womb retro Neanderthal
Her backward moving bellow decisions
aren’t thoroughly modern mellow
Got lip kicker high heels
that testosterone neuter kills
Miss So and So
loves to cold-heartedly
iron cast her anvil anger with
dragon breath death blows
She’s so con method constrictive,
so anaconda pocket squeeze avarice addictive
Those boa belly estrogen rolls
always take their masculine squeal toll
Her every hip sway diamondback pulse suggestion
is cobra hardwired for a vow recoil bosom confession
Miss No Good So and So
is a sultry eyelash she-devil
Delivering a bottomless pit of insomnia pain
everywhere she pillow goes
I’ve developed tennis elbow; it really is quite sore
It’s a medical condition that I’ve never had before
So I went down to the doctor and knocked upon his door
It’s a common ailment, he’s seen it many times I’m sure
He wrote me a prescription; oh boy he’s really funny
Told me to watch the Olympics – not pretend I’m Andy Murray!
I’ve got some painkilling gel, which really does seem to help
And a tubigrip bandage, so constrictive it made me yelp
I struggled to get this ‘tube’ on but it restricted the flow of blood
So I’ve ditched it in the bin - it was causing more harm than good
Now I’ve put on an old crepe bandage, which seems to do the trick
I’ve now come to the sad conclusion… I’m becoming a geriatric!
08~16~16
Rejoice, rejoice because you have a choice
Filling your life with ideas that no one but you conjure
A single thought process that only you ponder
A state of being at a certain time in space wonder
An absence of awareness of everything around you longer
A fragrance maybe or a colour or someone’s face remember
A human being has proved to be individual forever
A society or regime can stifle this manifestation like a large boulder
A way of learning in any sense can be constrictive when we are older
A person’s whole life can be defined only by his mistakes decided before
A burden which always rests discretely knowing on his or her shoulder
A life led only to obey his reasoning behind which we are blind and alone standing at the harbour
A lighted candle shows the way of the true path
After the storms of life have caused an aftermath
Pride while valiant is the root of destruction
A careless and foolish mind accepts assumption
Constrictive and blocking oneself from harm creates a cold heart
Block by block losing the fear; trusting and loving sends a spark
When you feel your spirit and soul in line with His plan
You know that it is a farce to fear man
In the darkness He is the light for us to all see
Isn't it bliss, with all that I've thought, He could choose me?
It was as if constrictive vigilance
And tactical resplendent barbarism
Could transform monumental avarice
And endemic ruthless kindness
Into something wholesome, glorious
But this was clearly not to be
Neither capricious nobility
Nor veiled brutish fondness
Or kindred perverse piety
Could assuage sweet betrayal
Or hide the melodious wailing
Of the victims of amiable cruelty
Those scenes of obscene righteousness
Exaltation of attractive mischief
That immersion into irreverent bliss
Supplanted murderous heroism
With derelict wholeness
Honour no longer a covenant
Ignoble modesty courted cordial vulgarity
Pitting youthful decrepitude
And such evil delight as then reigned
Against perceived intellectual torment
Erecting a pseudo-mystic reef barrier
To counter intellectual penetration!
Wearing new skin, this lady's all anew
Brandishing epidermal camouflage
A new sense of comforted composure
Gallantly striding in a way she never had
Safely
Stepping
Strengthened
I dare not ask to see a layer below this show
She is showing me the preferable version
Nodding I approve...yes a better you
a newer you
a different you...silently I disapprove
Fearing I knew the little girl hiding underneath
would peek from time to time
Seeing if her costume served its perfunctory purpose
fooling them...pleased...she traipsed in hollow garb
The masquerade wore on and a newer audience appeared
Performances went from weekly, to daily, to constant
Consuming and constrictive
New skin clung tight to a suffocating girl
A different girl
A frustrated girl
The game had transformed into a maddening display
The girl I knew, a shell of herself, feeling trapped
Crying out in a confused scream of fit
"Why don't they understand"!!!!
I couldn't bring myself to tell her what she wouldn't see
A facade of outer strength was weakening the core
No one understood her...because they didn't know who she was.....
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