i took the litany of your diagnosis
on the groove of my tongue
down on my knees, I welcomed your terminological dominion
over my awfully sullied canvas
i closed my eyes, submitting myself to your word’s sterilization
frosting over my elasticity until I’m exactly what you want
am I what you want me to be yet?
will I ever be enough for the words on your page?
my wrists tear against the bloody shackles
your covenant exacts its price against my emotional crimes
the miscommunicated ex-communication of my mercurial being
leaves my mind high and dry, higher and dryer
i’m a zombie to your cure
infected by your frame of thought
FIX ME
TO THE FLOORS OF YOUR BUREAUCRATIC APATHY
AS I SLOWLY BUT SURELY
DIE
IN YOUR ARMS
NOT COMFORTABLY
BUT NONETHELESS
in your arms.
…
So, what would YOU do for a Klondike Bar?
Let’s cut right through
the bombast ...
your camouflage of words
And redefine
the essence ...
of what you’ve never learned
Your double-talk
pontificates ...
to lure and to distract
Whose lies deride
wherein you hide ...
from what the truth exacts
(The New Room: February, 2025)
Ah yes,
Freedom, liberty,
Individualism
Melded into a nation.
Flags will be waved
By those denied a flag
Chants will be shouted
By those who forget
Patrick Henry’s
“give me liberty
or give me death”
forgetting the price
freedom and liberty
exacts from those
who seek it, cherish it,
fight and die for it
those who would condemn
our flag may raise flags
that denied them the right
and freedom and liberty
to do so in the country’s
they fled
save for the indigenous peoples
we are all intruders of a sort
immigrants
in search of
freedom
liberty
and the individual’s right
to respect one flag
while waving
another
Follow the winds of the Harpies.
Follow to the sigh of last breath.
Horrid hounds of Zeus beckoning
for you to embrace your dark death.
Follow the heights of Icarus
Follow till the blazes burn out.
Sol, a dragon's igneous mouth
gaping, awaiting chance to spout.
Follow to the depths of Phorcys
Follow till you whiff your last gasp.
Dangers of the depth await you.
Life quickly slipping from your grasp.
Follow clamant drums of Ares.
Follow till your ears hear no more.
War exacts an egregious toll.
Life ends in a sorrowful roar.
The teal peels as it submits to gloaming,
and a round lucidity exposed abroad.
As the alien brilliance shines far away,
the maneuvered view is being cast.
'Tis dormancy that exacts dark period of tenure,
countdown from the zero hour.
Distant silhouettes grow versus fawning growth,
dipped in Luna's balm.
The etching of profiled naturalness acquiesces,
constant figurines masquerading the expanse.
Subtle contours architecturally restructured,
split seconds surrender serene scenes.
The solid realm maintained lifeless postures,
as the teeming formations made idle trims.
Mimicry traces the bestilled in passing,
perfect copies render mockeries silence.
Heights claim their surroundings,
as the tight-lipped verdant statuesque frames.
Depths summon intimate intrigue,
whilst burgeoning burrowed bedrock bound.
Exchanging brightness extremely bold,
lilt ventures its routine as the subject of Sol.
More or less defining shadows...
there's no difference that a day would make.
I hate the priest who holds my soul hostage
I hate the politician who exacts a heavy wage,
I hate God when He is silent in face of atrocity
when man kills man with atrocious monstrosity.
Oh, I love the sun, rising afresh in the east
tearing asunder the dark belly of the beast,
I love the innocent smile on the face of a child
and when the flowers bloom free in the wild.
Oh, how I love to hate a pompous ass
and yes, I hate to love a dumb lass!
~05/06/23
~Contest: Couplet Poetry
~Sponsor: Sotto Poet.
Remembering Indiscretions
Miracle Man
2/16/2023
Our minds are complicated things;
many things we wish to forget, it remembers,
and things we wish to remember are oft forgotten.
It is like a computer where all thoughts are stored;
those things we can’t remember are not missing,
just misfiled, and while God Forgives,
The price He exacts for our indiscretions,
could perhaps be our memory of the same.
I live in rooms
housed in the interior,
some just small
cells cut into bone,
spaces barely big enough
to fit a soul.
Others offer more
with sweeping views
of oceans, mountains, waterfalls
spilling endlessly over
sun drenched escarpments
and long corridors leading
to nowhere and everywhere
with mirrors splitting the mind
into light.
There are rooms groaning
under the weight of books,
learnings spun like sticky webs
that hold me trussed up
like prey. Heavens caught
in words and given wings
to float across time,
monuments brushed
by immortality and symphonies
so moving as to be
a breath away from pain.
Then there are
dark places with no windows
or doors, musty chambers
for the fallen and racks
stretched across nights where
a Grand Inquisitor exacts
confessions and sentences
the condemned to hell.
A lifetime has been spent inside
these rooms of my own making,
looking out onto a world set
by seasons which have
slowly seeped through
and worn away the walls
of my home.
Hearts torn asunder
the altar of love weeps
into mankind's service
Venom slinking, seeps
O, calm, reign supreme
peace, into the home stream
voices raised, rising, all is lost
Rancor's chorus exacts its cost
In shiny armor knights of old,
Only quests for the brave and bold,
Famed Holy Grail chalice to hold.
But my heavy chalice isn’t gold,
Mine is night black and filled with cold,
About death is my story told,
A memory covered in mold.
Not expected plain death, you see,
When older age exacts a fee,
Known illness, not surprisingly.
That night was never planned, by me.
Unexpected, this was to be
Black night, black car, walking was she,
Killing her, instantaneously.
Still awake with thoughts of the dead,
My black cup overfilled with dread,
Remembering every word she said
Since shining day when we were wed.
Quest for peace now my daily bread,
Weariness drops my heavy head,
My chalice of the night, from A to Zed.
January 24, 2022
Contest: The Chalice of Night
Sponsor: Chantelle Anne Cooke
.
*Image of Clock Time Dove by Pixabay.
Keola: Sonnet
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact, they do," ... Bertrand Russell (Quote hidden within the Sonnet in Italics
Most of the time when I'm under the sun,
ought not to watch nor pass by on people,
befuddled about clock-glued eyes outrun,
a zenith star would climb o'er the steeple.
Sooner all will suspect that life's too brief,
plus, die surrounds confidence merits life.
I've improved rather than grasp my belief,
and think I got the choice result fehl strife.
Confuse not in the consequence head-on,
direct my route, let that star point beyond,
a scale that exacts stealthily who's drawn,
bargain heightened the fact I did respond.
I discovered they who do take time, plans
to firmly coil, so to turn the clock's hands.
*fehl: fault; flaw; failure
2021 December 06
Vaasokht
Values warp love intrigue
Vexed liaison unfair
Vetted assails exacts
Volatile edged divorce
Vaasokht has six rhymed lines
Very old forms have eight
Views last two as unrhymed
*Syllabics checked via howmanysyllables
2020 October 28
*1st Place*
Pleiades 3
~~Joseph May
This lockdown has me locked out of your heart
Though closer than a thought, we're miles apart
The shroud of silence settles tightly in
My words die on my lips before they start
Outside a monster howls in constant rage
Inside we beat our hands on walled-in cage
Our dreams illusive, bleed now on the floor
The truth exacts from us an awful wage
The days and nights are dressed in apathy
Deranged, we long to find some normalcy
Yet time looks on and jeers our fearful state
For well it knows we crave some company
Our words, our dreams, our love has all but died
The masks we wore, this quarantine let slide
I look at you and don't know who you are
The loveless look you give can't be denied
And so we bide our time in house arrest
The bygone times remembered as the best
One day we'll leave and face the world outside
With knowledge that our love has failed the test
Eileen Manassian
Old souls know about money,
and run from it more than the rest
They’ve witnessed the toll it exacts,
they’ve witnessed the joy it rejects
An old soul lives on a shoestring,
tied to something that money can’t buy
An old soul is not bought so cheaply
—as that new soul that’s never flown high
(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2020)
Close your eyes, don’t search, don’t blink,
Hold your soul open wide,
Feel the warmth of love that I give,
When I kiss from deep inside,
As I explore every edge of your tender,
Tend to each sensual curve,
While your skin, your mind and all that you are,
Grows with an unconscious urge,
Then allow yourself to be taken by me,
Give your body away,
Allow me to kiss every inch of your neck,
Forfeit yourself and obey,
Every demand my kissing exacts,
I want you to be my disease,
I want to kiss every part of your life,
To fulfil every one of my needs.
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