Deaden Poems

Fragmented Life

Another morning,
Stormy gray lies,
Verification code 062480,
Method of payment,
Onerous office,
Forgotten,
Depressed/suppressed,
Collision warning!
Erring & errands, 
Shopping for sanity,
Trembling triad,
Solo sunset,
Revised & deleted,
140,000+ miles,
275 poems,
Life, films, anti-humans, 
Usually hard,
Orange King,
If Jefferson became Burr,
2mm, DVR the clubhouse,
Geeks inherit the earth,
Sales + senior,
Emailing Miock,
Texting mockery,
Dust, dirt, remote work,
Deported to Mars,
Arriving dead,
Appointment, agencies, locations,
Unremarkably dressed,
Will do,
Barely alive @ 5:15 AM,
Squealing grocery cart,
Monday miasma,
Pausing, freezing, crashing,
Bureaucratic blasphemy,
Problem: garbage,
The End begins,
A lurid mini-series,
Super-8, hooray!
Sunday—updated,
Made sadder,
Check Engine Light (aarrggghhh),
No refills,
Pitted windshield,
Obsessive recycled cyclones,
MacBook weeps,
Fiasco at night,
Discharged,
Digital snake oil,
Smitten spreadsheet,
Ignoble typos,
Nightmares in Midtown,
Select 0,
Chapter/s paused,
Deaden this promptly,
Lying biopics,
Naughty neologisms,
Flying, falling, exploding,
Cancelled lives,
Unresolved.

WINTER’S BREATH IS A LAW OF CONSTANT PROPORTIONS--

WINTER’S BREATH IS A LAW OF CONSTANT PROPORTIONS

Dead the winter colors bland, non-conforming;
Winters colors bleak yet told brown, tan, and gold,
Deaden blanks the washed out colors alluring!
All things prominence dull passion so miss scold;

Marking the times dead comes and goes maturing;
O’ sleep nature’s vision winters pictures mold;
Forming still, presents of picture quest portions!
Death life seasons law of constant proportions!


2/3/25
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2025©

Krampus speaks from the Great In-Between

Will he be visiting you with more than a lump of coal?


(A dark voice whispers)


Love and loneliness 
Unspoken dreams of romance and broken hearts 

Shall have no reunion 
But instead

Like fettered beasts to the slaughterhouse

They will stare foolishly into the distance 

As they are abandoned, 
Pleading for hope and a new companion 

For deaden souls deserve no salvation

Such is my curse of the Dammed 

Running or walking throughout 
Every living nation 

Men or women
Especially at Christmas

Swimming naked in pools of hate and judgement 

Shall become as one

As they hear my approaching bells

Under the gaze of my cosmic gun

Love and loneliness
Sadness and pain

Will be their everlasting daylight

In their souls window panes

My silver mistress, 
Mother Moon

Will seal their fate 
On the twenty-fifth 

When presents are received
For the spiteful and jealous

The hateful and cruel 
Who loves to deceive

You better pray to change your ways 

Before Christmas Eve 

Or you might get a visit from me

Even if in me,
You do not believe 

(C)
Copyright John Duffy

Defiance

Cling not, to currents of kleptocracy.
Seek not, slithering shortcuts.
Like molding wood in molten guts -
Revolutionary, make that your story. 

Slanderous slogans of snakes
dull deep, deaden desires.
Drudging dogma deludes the mind,
souls shattered, silenced in stupidity.

No magic mantras maketh life,
metal mentality striking strife.
The wills of wills travel far
above belligerence and bars.

Embrace death, you do not, before time.
Embrace death, you do not, for crime.
Beyond cataclysm, behold chances.
Seek forth wisdom and esperances.

how do i understand?

I am deeply sadden
That I couldn’t have more time
Oh! How the roles have switched!
Deaden the grip
On what’s within
Now it’s ready to soar
Nothing to hold it back
The clamp has been
Loosened & fallen away
There are no more rainy days
Just sadness of what was
& why it had to be that way?
My mind has gone numb
From the swirling thoughts
Crashing against my skull
Only if my soul could
Understand the turmoil
It’s been through
Is there any sense
To what has been?
Why couldn’t this
Life come sooner
Always playing out in
My head without any end
Always stuck in her
Own little world they said
But it’s no longer my
Own little world
It’s OUR little world
That we are constantly
Building living & breathing
Ebbing & flowing through
Each & every day
Right next to you

Trixie Wants to Write Poetry

meet my muse Trixie.
I want to draw.
she wants to play in the Thesaurus.
Trixie is a freebooter, marauder, pirate, she plans to win.

I sketch a monkey, elephant and acrobat.
I am in circus mode.
Trixie slams her green eyes over the big book.
she is persnickety, determined, and forceful.

fat blue Thesaurus is a harpy; she flips open.
I stare at these words - deaden, anesthetized, stupefy.
write them down! Trixie demands.
she is more trouble than a gewgaw, trinket or knickknack.

I avert my eyes, not wanting to play with words
now drawing a circus tent, and a popcorn box.
red and white striped popcorn box has arms and legs.
he sticks out his tongue in maniacal cartoon laughter.

Trixie flips some pages of this dreaded book.
gleaming, sparkling, glistening stand out.
magnify, enlarge and amplify bite me on the left arm.
I am not writing right now! I tell her.

she sticks out her tongue.
eager to work on a magnum opus, creative masterpiece.
I can hardly work on the giraffe.
curious I am to read words where she is pointing

lionize, glorify, elevate
vanish, disappear, dissolve
I begin drawing a lion, trying to break my muse's spell.

Fighting Flower

She came from where earth looks up farthest to the heaven 
But the bright flame of hope in her heart did not deaden 
Like a wiry sparrow trying to brave a hurricane 
She was taught to brave the sunlight and the rain 

Like a pilgrim that headed to an unknown destination 
She's not sure if she could make it on path to salvation 
But the fire in her soul was just like a burning star 
Her deep faith was inscribed on the face of her scar 

The road to victory was thorny and winding 
Like a hail of storm that had no ending 
But the beat of her heart was just like a soft breeze 
In gust of autumn and winter, she did not freeze 

Against the tough storm, the brave rose casted her thorn 
In the birth of new morn, a fair legend was born 
The bright beauty that dared the strength of mighty men 
Was extolled on a shrine to be praised now and then

A Married Spend Thrift Readjusts

A  Graham used to wealth lavish
And to easy fun The slavish:
In the two had not seen blemish
"Let those who wish it be squeamish!"

Now, it is Graham's white wedding;
He knows where the thing is heading:
Skin to Excesses just deaden
Or wife's face might, sometimes, redden...

"Means I'll have to my belt tighten;
That way all my problems lighten:
What man does, his future brightens
And the blackest of scenes whitens!"

A married spendthrift readjusts
Or faces dragging in the dusts...

Trixie Wants To Write Poetry

meet my muse Trixie.
I want to draw.
she wants to play in the Thesaurus.
Trixie is a freebooter, marauder, pirate, she plans to win.

I sketch a monkey, elephant and acrobat.
I am in circus mode.
Trixie slams her green eyes over the big book.
she is persnickety, determined, and forceful.

fat blue Thesaurus is a harpy; she flips open.
I stare at these words - deaden, anesthetized, stupefy.
write them down! Trixie demands.
she is more trouble than a gewgaw, trinket or knickknack.

I avert my eyes, not wanting to play with words
now drawing a circus tent, and a popcorn box.
red and white striped popcorn box has arms and legs.
he sticks out his tongue in maniacal cartoon laughter.

Trixie flips some pages of this dreaded book.
gleaming, sparkling, glistening stand out.
magnify, enlarge and amplify bite me on the left arm.
I am not writing right now! I tell her.

she sticks out her tongue.
eager to work on a magnum opus, creative masterpiece.
I can hardly work on the giraffe.
curious I am to read words where she is pointing

lionize, glorify, elevate
vanish, disappear, dissolve
I begin drawing a lion, trying to break my muse's spell.

Fallen Autumn Winter Trees Dormant

But in the fact that it was barking
trees 
The wind moving the tree branches in the night
trees
I felt compelled to sniff the summer lawn
Compelled so to remembering my late nightly gatherings
Where are the dandelions I want them greened 
                                    night
So that I may eat them
It's that overnight I muttered fallen into winter colors
But in the fact that it was murmuring 
night
That those leafs, brown in grey fallen falls colors socializing
While I pondered, gathering parts of shrubs
I threw my eyes upon the floor covered vision with evergreens
dead
It threw its ghost against the introductions 
Dead blossom no longer blooms
That communal meeting  
That communal meeting 
Fallen autumn winter trees dormant
dead
There stood a social flower deaden bub
While yet still pondering gathered parts of deaden shrubs

And the party never clocking
 splendid socialization sleeping 
Fallen autumn winter trees dormant
Birds sneaking back building nest
dormant

2/10/2023
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2023©

I Was Searching For Survivors

i was searching for survivors
in all the right places, finding none
my deepest wishes dissipating
probably for the best i always tell myself
watching it come apart
was half the pleasure
as well as half the pain
never needing a rhyme, nor a clue
and will leave none here
it is best these parts are played
upon non-existent fields
where the scores are left to the wind
turning in the snow, heel to toe
the season is leaving
soon the angels where we laid
will fill the gutters
from there to stream and river
flowing into a vast and nameless sea
in depths where light never graces
the seasons have no meaning
and time gives an illusion
of just another corner
one more step into yet another direction
prime numbers and infinity
seeking some perfection
in depths that only darken memory
the shadows within reality
where chemical reactions replace the light
the warm human touch
and deaden the senses
when the winds whisper a name
and the integers fill the day
no different than the insanity you bring
to a table set for one

Fergus Falls 2000

Footsteps In the Hall

After midnight
the pendulum stalls
Chimes to deaden 
as darkness calls
A clanking chain
the haunt begins 
Till daylight threatens
—the shadows dim

(Dreamsleep: August, 2022)

Bush Doctor

Jungles scream at night.
The air is liquid lead dipped
in green fur.

The village has a lamp on a pole,
when the dark rushes in
that one light
makes a yellow circle of light
that we would run to
if danger pounced out of nowhere.

Insects are thickest
around 2 in the morning
they blanket ears and minds
deaden the soul.

Our savior arrives early,
dawn struggles up
from the reek and mire
to clear our heads.

Now it is the howling time,
a monkey chorus
proclaiming victory
over the snakes and panthers.

The village stirs,
they go for water,
feed the skinny chickens
and the hairy pigs.

The make-shift clinic opens
its straw eyes,
they come.

The Fool

I pass by wispy meadows
That have always lined these roads
I've got a dollar in my pocket
And a dog who will follow me,
      Almost anywhere

I let the sunshine deaden me
With solar Novocain
And my tear ducts that dried up
A long, long time ago

Don't despair if I'm not there
You're better off without me 
and the burden I've become
'Cause if I stay this thing remains
I'm sure you'd do the same

I've worked the same job for a decade
With nothing much to show
Just a pension and some wisdom
And a handful of bad memories

So, forgive me if i leave you
Without so much as a goodbye
Your time is worth more than The dollar 
That I waisted  
For some cigarettes

It seems unfair that you're still there
While I'm leaving, 
This place that never wanted us
For anything

In my travels I have wandered
Much more than two and fro
And though I’m tired
I regret that I am leaving here
Just as I wandered home

Buried

Shadows of unfulfilled fate
On the wall of my mind
Hugely drawn, awaken my spirit
On foamy bed, wild and soft
Lost in hush soliloquize, I lay
Stomach plastered to the earth,
As I watch the crave for breathe
Of mummies living in the home
Build six feet below earth surface
With no response to their thunderous scream
And my ears deaden
By the whispers of whisht
Breaking the border of gloom
While in vain struggle for rebirth.
Despite the dread encompassing every step,
I stroll down the quiet dark street
Of my thought without second thought.
It’s a quiet place,
Like a yard of graves
Filled with a thousand tenants
In horrible camouflage, all but dumb.

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