there’s a man in a suit clutching his sanity
there’s a man wearing sandals and gripping the clay
there’s a wild, brewing, undying calamity
there’s a part of him that knows that this isn’t the way
as he’s dipping his fingers into the basin
the sensual shaping of a vase or a plate
something miraculous about his creation
something that tells us this man will be great
flaunting his hands to all of the peasants
he makes them beg for a dime of his time
they’re shaking with rage while they wait for his presence
how can it enrage you if it is divine?
there’s a girl at the easel with soot on her face
she’s stood still like a madman, just scribbling away
i hate her for being and taking up space
but there’s nothing that could make my hatred okay
and yet it persists, yet it’s still there
i dream of her failing and failing again
i look at her art, i compare and compare
and then i’m too scared to pick up my pen
i’d like to crack open her skull and just take a bite
let me worry about the tossing and turning
it won’t matter that i can’t sleep in the night
if i’m busy creating, if i’m too busy working
Subtle tee preferred the company of those in sweet repose
His presence needless to say, an easiness would impose
We tried to engage him but this seemed to enrage him
So we settled for making him the subject of this prose.
I've never, ever seen my dog,
'Cause he does not exist.
I try to explain this fact to him,
But the truth he does resist.
He says to me, "I have no bowl."
I say, "You do not eat."
He says, "We never go for walks."
I say, "You have no feet."
But he insists, "I bark all day."
I say, "No one can hear."
And he persists, "I chase the cats."
I say, "They do not fear."
These awful truths enrage him so,
He says that he will fight me!
I say to him, "You have no teeth,
How are you going to bite me?"
He sadly runs away from me,
In a hurry to depart.
I fear I may have wounded him,
Though I know he has no heart.
He sits alone in his doghouse,
Like him it is not there,
Howling at the lonely Moon,
And only I'm aware.
What to do about this phantom dog?
Only one thing, I feel.
Tomorrow, I'll go to the pound,
And try to make him real.
In the agora or out on the street
Wherever public figures I did meet
In conversation I loved to engage
Only to find my questions would enrage
I chipped and chipped at their exterior
Their words hollow with no interior
My young disciples would heartily laugh
At my victims' unease and ev'ry gaffe
My deft manner of the question quizzical
Drove them to plot a bitter reprisal
My daemon urged me to expose deceit
My mission became to puncture conceit
Fake news my furious foes spread about
And brought me to court my campaign to rout
Charged with corrupting Athenian youth
In defence I spoke nothing but the truth
They turned a deaf ear and they paid no heed
So inflamed were they by this irksome deed
The verdict of guilty came as no shock
My sentence-to die by drinking hemlock
They hoped I would flee this condemnation
I chose to keep the laws of my nation
To the shame of Athens, I preferred death
Affirming my content with my last breath
In my drinking of the draught down, they saw
How much I honoured the virtue of law.
A shallow thinker of little integrity
A sycophant stinker and less empathy
A wanting to return to a golden age
which never existed,
with ludicrous rants that serve to enrage
Catty remarks weird and twisted...
Selflessly she married into a family,
it only makes her more inspiring
She won't hear the sounds of pitter patter,
Kamala, her husband and stepchildren matter!
Where the heart is full
Chest sob, tears fall, mouth cry give
Sudden stern look.
Money Comes! All is Mad!
People Derranged! World is Sad!
Jumps a' hole! Deep and Sore,
Rid all Money! No pain No more!
Rise up O' People! See behind,
Away with money! Lift the Blind!
Remove all resists! Revolt enrage!
Baptism by Blood! Cleans sins of this age!
Laziness ascribe my tryouts to stream;
I keep struggling to swim, through poverty.
Take me out of waiting on ghetto's dream!
Waiting on turns, enrage hope's light agleam...
Shinning possibly of luck's entirety:
Laziness ascribe my tryouts to stream.
Yet hustling nonstop makes me unrest beam,
That shoulders bills of daily liberty.
Take me out of waiting on ghetto's dream!
Promote me to classical lifestyle's scheme,
Which would simply interpret repartee:
Laziness ascribed my tryouts to stream.
I am dying for a rest: hoo-ha's scream...
Both day and night, to secure property.
Take me out of waiting on ghetto's dream!
And make G.R.A my abode as deem,
To rest troubles went through at puberty.
Laziness ascribe my tryouts to stream,
Take me out of waiting on ghetto's dream!
Waiting enrage some,
While others gladly pray on...
That favour hooks grace
Unto fortune's bait and sink¡
Hopeless sinker to lift boon.
Towards thy very best
I project a saving nest
To save the wordy test
From the earthly pest
And to luck, leave the rest
As pure as a blank page
That gets poets' hearts into cage
The worries and bubbles of age
Get some disengage
And others enrage
Don't mind them-- every open tongue
Measuring the troubles of failed lung
Restrains those awesome lines unsung
Drown those swimmers so young
Without a practical provisional aqualung
You, be sure thy laboring sight
Travels horizon beyond their plight
And relinquish to ignite souls' lights
Poked amidst truth and lie to benight
Before thy ever gracious sprite, alights
Thanks for the nomination
I enjoyed all expressed intentions
Though there are some to mention
Dragging my contentious attention
Projecting a consequential convention
You’re the epiphany I strive for right now,
The answer to the loss I must now enrage.
That dragging disease I try to not allow,
Tearing it’s way out of my soulless cage.
Though my past may still cast down on me,
You shall uplift my spirit to greater heights.
A sweet escape that has called upon thee.
Where are we going on these foreign nights?
Seeping out of my cage in the dead of night,
You carry me out to a better planet I can see.
Though my sanity has the best of me,
The ongoing risks that are embraced, feel right.
If I could have just one desire
maybe multiples of sevens
I would swallow my pride
place it inside
Up Chuck spew out the spoonful of defoul
on a tablespoon
sprinkle it with honey no sugar
swallow the bitter filler of disdained
all those monarchies enrage hierarchies
Throw up spew out a spoon full of defoul
O, what's wrong wit me
In my part of this sinful heresy
repelling me I throw up my jealousies
all of this inside of me
Upchuck spew a spoonful of defile
swallowing like a spoonful of antacid
I would take more molasses
I spit on my shame
I throw up in vain
but it's not what goes in my mouth
but yet what comes out
Raw species upchucking
crawfishes filthy and hurt
rather eat dirt
but those things that come forth
from the mouth go out from the heart
come out of the heart
and these things defoul the man
Please! Don't don't say this all over again!!
Help us all LORD
1/6/22
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr © 2022
St Matthews 15:18
The phone number of death we dial,
When we near a poisoned phial
To rashly swallow its content,
And actualize a suicidal intent:
Our breathing soon in wheezes,
What the cemetery richly pleases,
A gripping of our tummies in feeble resistance
Every offered revival, vain assistance
Others to start rehearsing their goodbye
To us on a wished hearse lie
And the same phone number we try,
As we enrage folks that skin fry
Before advancing cops of pity dry
And into claims of being surrounded not pry
To pick their life sentence with smiles wry…
Now that I’ve said so I shan’t cry.
Circumstances controlling the cauldron
stirred through with malicious content
and yet that is the path that was forced upon you.
That was the path you never chosen,
but there you are.
Its filled with pits that make you simply cry
but no one is there to wipe your tears.
Its filled with traps that enrage the core of your soul,
but yet there is no hammer for you to throw at your rage.
In your mind you hear the voice telling you to press your way through
and you just keep going and going.
Time passes and seasons change
and as you look back you see
your muscles are bigger,
your strength has grown.
Yes, you still cry its just now you can
now your tears seem to help.
You are stronger than you knew,
because you went through hell,
then you grew.
Strangely stronger.
~Substance
am I dirt and clay
surrounding My soul and My Spirit
within water and blood
shaping surrounded by mud
confession my tarnished silver cord
professing the wrongs that I've done
surrounded covered in the blood
the blood of Jesus
seemingly I am free
as I let God's mercy surround me
profited I not
I rise above my faults forgiven as I forgave I am no longer not
A sinning slave
I have misbehaved
Now I'm forgiven
Mercy's enrage~
6/12/21
For All Yours (June) Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
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